World of Tanks (Vol 2)

World of Tanks (Vol 2)

Author
Discussion

Jayfish

6,795 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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What is the camo rating of your tank?

What is it's gun depression?

Oh look the UI doesn't tell you... but some ferreting around can get you the information.

Is that cheating?

Or having some clever UI guru display it for you?

Wait up surely that's just clever game design, encouraging players to find out more and the use that information to be better than the noobs?

Let's give those clever enough to display this information a way to show those interested enough to know.

Developers are not stupid, they allow the committed to gain an advantage, it's a reward for buying into the concept.

Sure you can argue you should learn all 200 tanks weak-spots but that's utterly unrealistic to the casual player and it's never going to foster loyalty to a brand with competitors all too eager to seize market share.

MMO's live and die on their communities, these communities orbit around the elite players/clans/guilds/mod devolopers

Edited by Jayfish on Tuesday 16th September 00:09

Dr Banjo

655 posts

148 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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Im not sure how a weak spot skin is "buying into the concept"

Dont get me wrong I think WOT is a good game. I just think given its run on a select number of servers, the devs would have been more careful over what information they expose to the client.

I cant fire up my own WOT server that allows the mods that only I approve eg. (ARMA) hence I feel they should give me the option of deciding if I want to play against people who may choose to use a mods versus a standard client. Aint going to happen but hey..



Edited by Dr Banjo on Tuesday 16th September 00:20

Beati Dogu

8,861 posts

138 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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Modding is a big part of some games. Skyrim for instance.

Some of the 3rd party mods for WoT have been adopted by Wargaming. The reload timer & crew swap button for example.

I never really saw the need for the damage panel or any other tank skin. Some of them are hideous.

Martin_Hx

3,951 posts

197 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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I for one wont use these skins or premium ammo (Ive never shot any!!) but i recently started to load premium onto my tanks but always forget about it!

As for the hit skins thing, i suppose its good to learn the weak spots, i look around the web after a game where i cannot pen a particular tank, most tanks you can pen in the same place anyway and if you look for ports and guns etc you can pen + your sights go green smile

This game trolls me enough as it is lol

TX1

2,348 posts

182 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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Was not aware of the skins mod and now that I am still would not install it simply because the tanks look dreadful.
As far as I am concerned you can go on and check the weak spots of every tank out there on numerous sites so cannot realy see the difference between the mod and memorizing.
Some people cannot be bothered to memorize where the weak spots of every tank are, nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

Martin_Hx

3,951 posts

197 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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Its in your hands to hide your weakspots so people cant shoot them!

MoleVision

996 posts

210 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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lol I opened a right can of worms...

Tbh if people want to use weakspot skins they can, its just that imo it ruins the look of the game and makes it "click here to disable/kill me" rather than it being a nice surprise when you do critical hit/ammorack someone (assuming you have the time to carefully aim at the painted on weakspot). To me it woudl make the game far to clinical.

For the record I use XVM, and I have the following displayed:

Damage dealt counter
Damage received counter (though only hp info, no player /ammo type)
Wn8 and win% for players (tbh.. mainly to identify bots/afkers) - I know anyone driving an Type 61 or STB is going to be a unicum.
Map data - view range and enemy last known position


Mastodon2

13,818 posts

164 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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Just 5000xp left to go on he JPII and I'll have the top gun, I can't wait. I remember retiring this tank in frustration because I was failing so badly with the 105mm gun. Now, it feels quite potent even with the 105, and I've put 50,000xp on the tank over the last few weeks, with the last 20,000 in the last few days. Still, it definitely needs selective shots, as the 105mm pen isn't good enough to hit hard points on the enemy even on other tier 8s. Hopefully by the end of Thursday night, I'll have the 128mm gun ready to go. biggrin

I have been thinking about what has made me a better player, and I think that a combination of not leaving matches as soon as I was dead, and watching Quickybaby videos. Previously, as soon as I died, I'd leave the match, jump in another tank and get right back into the action. After watching QB play, I started to adopt his approach of looking back at what I could have done better, rather than putting it behind me and moving onto the next match. I've probably played about 2200 matches since I gave up on the JPII, and all that time of learning maps, weakspots, tactics etc has paid off. I think particularly at higher tiers, the game has to be played less like a shooter and more like chess, where every choice must be considered and the possible outcomes of each action must be weighed up, and being able to do that quicker and make the right choice more often is now the goal. This is where it all becomes a bit meta, where playing thousands of games gives you a feel for what could happen, what will happen and how the particular tank you're playing can affect the outcomes.

Beati Dogu

8,861 posts

138 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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I got the Chinese tier 9 Heavy yesterday, the catchily named 'WZ-111 Model 1-4'. It's like the Russian IS-8, but with better armour.

I used free XP for the top turret, but unfortunately the top gun is still 66K XP away. I've a feeling it will be a really, really horrible grind too, as the low alpha damage 100 mm gun from the previous tank just doesn't cut it at tier 9 and 10.
Plus the usual deliberate tomato team matchmaking of un-elited tier 9s. Fun fun fun.


I'm pretty sure once I get that gun it'll be a really nice tank as it's quite mobile already, even without the top engine & tracks.



Edited by Beati Dogu on Wednesday 17th September 00:43

defblade

7,392 posts

212 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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Beati Dogu said:
Plus the usual deliberate tomato team matchmaking
This "tomato team" thing... I'm assuming XVM (or whatever the name is) puts bad players in red on the list?

I saw this comment a couple of days ago in chat at the start, along with "37% chance. Oh well, let's play anyway". We won comfortably.

eatcustard

1,003 posts

126 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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Beati Dogu said:
I got the Chinese tier 9 Heavy yesterday, the catchily named 'WZ-111 Model 1-4'. It's like the Russian IS-8, but with better armour.

I used free XP for the top turret, but unfortunately the top gun is still 66K XP away. I've a feeling it will be a really, really horrible grind too, as the low alpha damage 100 mm gun from the previous tank just doesn't cut it at tier 9 and 10.
Plus the usual deliberate tomato team matchmaking of un-elited tier 9s. Fun fun fun.


I'm pretty sure once I get that gun it'll be a really nice tank as it's quite mobile already, even without the top engine & tracks.



Edited by Beati Dogu on Wednesday 17th September 00:43
What is the Chinese line like?

Alan O'Hagan

441 posts

136 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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defblade said:
This "tomato team" thing... I'm assuming XVM (or whatever the name is) puts bad players in red on the list?

I saw this comment a couple of days ago in chat at the start, along with "37% chance. Oh well, let's play anyway". We won comfortably.
XVM colour codes players based on what it perceives their relative skill level to be based on WN8, efficiency or whatever other metric the user has decided to use.

Various shades of red denote the least skilled and it then progresses up through yellow, to green and finally to purple for the most elite ranked players. Hence red players are commonly referred to as tomatoes.

XVM can also calculate the chance of winning the battle based on crunching the skill numbers for the two teams.

XVM is a useful tool for determining how hard you will need to carry or whether or not you can depend on a team mate to have your back but you really must treat xvms stats with a big grain of salt. The numbers it crunches are the raw numbers. It does not take into account stock tanks, whether or not a tomato has been improving lately or whether or not a greenie is a stat padder who spends most of his time rofl stomping in a T18 and is driving his Lowe for the first time.

It doesn't take into account the distribution of tanks or where the best players are placed on the team list. For example, if XVM predicts a 54% win chance for your team but your best players are placed at the bottom of the matchmaker and their best players are in their top tanks, you can be damned sure your actual win chance is a lot less than 54%.

An example of this happened only yesterday. Myself and my 2 platoon mates were in our tier 7 tanks (I was in my T29 stat padder hehe). It was a tier 9 game and XVM predicted we had a 42% win chance. We ended up winning comfortably.

So XVM is useful but do not get too hung up on what it is telling you.

On the subject of hit box mods. They aren't illegal on the EU server so I have no issue at all with people using it. Personally I think it ruins the eye candy and I do want the eye candy. Also I personally don't find it especially useful. I do not know all the locations of the modules on all the tanks, but generally I reckon if you hit the side or rear of the turret or the side of the hull of the tank below the turret, you can generally do ammo rack damage. Hit the rear of the hull and you can generally do engine damage. Thats good enough for me and I don't need hit box skins cluttering things up.


Edited by Alan O'Hagan on Wednesday 17th September 10:58

Mastodon2

13,818 posts

164 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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WG have announced the latest content for the 360 game, the Leopard 1 line and the British SPGs. Swee jezu. Ok, it's not the Maus line that I'm waiting on, but it's still good. I'm more interested in the SPGs than the German mediums, I don't play arty much but had been considering turning my Hummel into a GwPanther, with the dream to be owning one of those GwTigers, but the idea of one day playing a Conqueror Gun Carriage is too tempting, and relaxed crew training rules mean that I may be able to use my TOGII as a crew trainer, but I need to look into that.

Martin_Hx

3,951 posts

197 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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I have the SU-14 (the T8 one i think) with the big inaccurate big badda boom gun, its brilliant in the games when the WoT gods are shining on you! It is nice to play arty every now and then, just horrible on town matches or where no one protects you and you get smashed by a light tank in the first minute... this happens more than i would like it to frown

MoleVision

996 posts

210 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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eatcustard said:
What is the Chinese line like?
I found it good fun actually, the early meds are good and the IS2 and 110 are great. 110 is one of my best performing tanks. I have the wz tier9 heavy and it's good fully upgraded but the armour is suspect. Some games it may as well not bother being armoured. The 110 for its tier is much better IMO.

Beati Dogu

8,861 posts

138 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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defblade said:
This "tomato team" thing... I'm assuming XVM (or whatever the name is) puts bad players in red on the list?

I saw this comment a couple of days ago in chat at the start, along with "37% chance. Oh well, let's play anyway". We won comfortably.
Yeah, as already explained the predicted win rate is not reliable. You get a better idea just by glancing at the colour distribution of the teams. At low tiers the predicted win rate is even more meaningless.

Personally I don't have a problem with bad players per se, but I do object to having them mostly on my team. wink

I've seen 45% win rate players have great games, but most of the time they'll contribute nothing and either hide in the back or (to quote Red Dwarf) "attack under cover of daylight" and be wiped out in the first couple of minutes.





eatcustard said:
What is the Chinese line like?
Pretty good overall. The early tanks are either foreign sourced or copies of Soviet designs (T-34, T-34-85, IS-2). Later ones are their own designs after they fell out with the Soviets in the 1960s.

The T-34-1 is arguably the best tier 7 medium in the game, whereas the tier eight T-34-2 is probably the worst.

As a general rule they have worse gun depression than other countries. They also like to put heavy tank guns on mediums and medium tank guns on heavies. The top gun on the tier 9 medium is the same gun as the tier 10 heavy's.

Like the British line, it makes sense to research the heavy tree in parallel with the light/medium line as there is a lot of commonality of guns & engines between them.

Oh and for some reason the radios and especially the engines are very expensive to research.

Asterix

24,438 posts

227 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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I'm having a mare in my newly acquired T-54!

45% Redness - it's very embarrassing.

Maybe I just need to finish the upgrade (turret and decent gun left) and it'll have a bit more of a bite.

Beati Dogu

8,861 posts

138 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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I had a 45% win rate in my T-54 when I sold it after 236 games.

The win rate was higher initially, but then they nerfed artillery and they just disappeared from the battlefield for over 6 months. After that the map was full of OP tank destroyers and heavy tanks, so there just wasn't the room to manoeuvre that there was before. I used to quite like slipping through the lines to go scumbag hunting.

Martin_Hx

3,951 posts

197 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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I have the T-34-1 and -2

The -1 pretty good as a medium, the -2 is very situational but sets on fire every time someone sneezes near it! But it can mount a decent gun if you can flank and you don't see many which is why i use it!

Beati Dogu

8,861 posts

138 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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Yes, it's the only tank I've felt required a wet ammo rack to be fitted.

The T-34-2 is tiny.

That's about the best thing I can say about it.