3001

Upgraded my T20 with the 90mm gun. Wow! It went from being a decent if not spectacular brawler to a vicious killing machine. It used to barely break even (on premium) now it routinely makes 25,000 to 30,000 credits a match and one match I even broke 50,000.

I do miss the 76mm amazing 22 rounds per minute of fire. But it’s awfully nice not to bounce rounds off of T29s and KV3s anymore. If the damage was just a smidge higher I could one-shot stuff but unfortunately 240 damage is often enough to get a lower-tier tank down to 10-20% left but not to kill it. So it’s still not up to the KV 300-damage-per-shot guns, but it is much more accurate.

3002

I love my T20 right now. I had one in the beta, but gave up in frustration before getting it fully upgraded (it was too painful playing in the broken beta matchmaker with a 128mm penetration peashooter). This time I stuck it out, though, and man what a difference that makes!

And the reason it’s such a good earner is apparently the T20 and T23 have very high “earning coefficients” (0.9) … for example the tier 9 medium tanks have an earning coefficient around 0.67. Unless this changed in 0.6.4, that is, and now the files are no longer available locally so no one can tell (this also applies to a lot of other hidden values, like stealth, etc). But the T20 still seems to earn abnormally well.

3003

Matchmaking in this game is borked beyond comprehension.

It’s disheartening that there are so many matches that I am solely a KDR statistic for some other tank. My tier 5 can be so ineffectual in so many matwches(I play SU-5, A20 - trying to get to T34, StugIII, and i’m going back up the Russian Heavy line, currently playing a T-28 in Tier4).

Many people will “guestimate” the number of matches. Over the course of the past two days, I divided up the 15 slots into 5 groups and logged where I landed in the match when it first started. Here are the results:

Top : 2
4-6 : 15
Middle : 17
9-12 : 28
Bottom: 41
----
Total 103 Matches

As the vast majority of matches have vehicles 3-4 tiers above me, I can realistically expect to damage tanks a very small % of the time.

The other thing that is very frustrating is what others have mentioned and that is the lower levels, you are still saving for the extra equipment - 500,000 to add a rammer for example, or 10% increased viewing distance. Vehicles at higher tiers don’t have that problem. Their crews are already at 100% and they have trained 2-3 extra skills. The biggest flaw or drawback as a lower tier vehicle is viewing distance. I’ve lost count on how many times I die without lighting up a single vehicle.

This is playing at the back of a field (with arty & TD), playing more support. I have camo-nets on both my TD and arty, but the exposure of shooting means you get one shot and then you are dead (this is especially true with the Stug and Hetzer TD’s)

I’m playing with Premium, and I just get so damn frustrated being nothing more than a statistic. Even with my SU-5, which I am loving BTW after my initial suckfest with it - can only damage in the single digits. I had an IS-3 the other day that was down to 6% and I hit it direct and it still had 2% left. When I only have 14 shells, 1/2 of which are going to miss, it just makes me feel like I have zero role in some of these larger battles.

Now, the other part I find frustrating is that I had this same experience when playing T3’s…because you’re matched against KV’s at T5, so I thought…hey I’ll just grind to T5 , but holy shit, T5 is so much worse than T3 because I’ll be grinding for weeks to get to T7 because of the research costs.

So, IMO - it’s not that the matchmaking sucks - it does suck hard, but if only I had the same % of time landing at the top of a match instead of the bottom, it would be palatable. But as you can see with my statistics - it’s not even close to being even.

3004

Interesting. I knew it felt like this, but I figured it was just selective memory.

3005

Well I certainly agree that it is not much fun being on the bottom of the list. I think the spread of tiers is too large. I think the max difference between bottom and top tier in the battle should be three, so T4 with T6 highest in the battle. And no more T5 fighting T9s.

I’m honestly not sure why it doesn’t work this way, I guess they are worried about queue times at highertiers? I’m also not sure how things will look in a few months when most people have at least a T8. If there are enough of them to ensure low queue times for higher tiers, maybe the mid tiers will be matched more against themselves.

Tman, it sounds like you are still on T4 stuff, like the T-28. If you don’t have the KV yet, at least work up to that and see how you like it. I have had many matches in my KV at the top of the list (I want to say the majority of my games, but I don’t know any numbers), and you can really decide how a battle goes. If you play well, your team will almost always win. Plus, the KV can damage T7 and T8 stuff, so as long as you are not at the front of the column, you can contribute in those battles.

And, if you decide you love the game despite the flaws, and are feeling spendy, get a Löwe. You are instantly a force to be reckoned with in any battle. You can penetrate everything except a few tanks from the front. The lowest you will be on the list is in the middle. And it really does make great credits.

3006

I too find it odd that they would think about the tiers like this- stricter queuing might make it gasp- ten times as hard to find a game! So instead of queuing and in half a second finding a game, you might need to wait six or seven seconds.

I have a Tier 8(IS-3 with the stock gun), and every battle is enjoyable for me. I can hurt everything on the field, and it is usually T9->T6 battles. Queue still only takes a second or two, people still can break or make games with their terrible tactics.

I think the horrid tier matching is really bad at the border tiers: tier 4 is the bottom of the mid tier games, tier 6 is the bottom of the high tier games(although guns usually have good pen at this level). I get great matchups 90% of the time with my two T5’s, pretty poor matchups with my T6’s. My tier 5’s are routinely in the top 2 tiers of the battle, and my tier 6’s usually hit mid-low tier.

Some tanks just seem to be bad for these matches, although the A-20 is my least favorite tank in the game, and the T-28 I think is awsome(with the 120 pen gun, use it as a sniper tank and it works well)

3007

If anyone’s interested in trying/joining a world of tanks clan, on the NA server, I’ve created one: {pdx}clan.

{pdX} is the clan i’ve played with for about 7 years now and we’re all older guys. Probably a dozen of us still play games now(various kinds), and a handful are playing this. We generally play in the evenings, about 8pm-2am pst, and have a teamspeak server and all that stuff. We’re currently pretty nub in WoT, with tanks up to about t6. Not sure how/if we’re going to do this clan wars thing, but if that time of day works for your playstyle, and you want to try things in a WoT clan, send me a pm with your WoT in-game name or apply (somehow) on the website.

3008

Thanks for the offer. Sadly, PST is too late for this EST tanker. I’m in bed before you start!

3009

Hm- I am in a clan, but something tells me you are doomed in WoT clan wars right now.

  1. If your force is not entirely- ENTIRELY Tier 7 or above- you have no chance.

Our clan is mostly Tier 8 and 9- this picture(left) is our clan in a match to land on a province. http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576672371036126783/EE17911EA840DAF8A4051BA24FAC50A34A0A4803/

We used to own one of the better provinces, but we got steamrolled by a team of 7 or 8 maus and 5 IS-7’s. As it stands in current clanwars, if you grind more you win more. Tier 6 and below are worthless on the battlefield(except T5 and up arty are fine). If my clan continues to be boring I will join up with you guys, but dont expect to get very far on the global map. They really need to implement some sort of tier-limiting scheme like company battles- to at least give some sort of fairness to the game.

3010

At this point, we’re not really planning on ‘clan wars’ or winning, but rather playing together and having fun.

3011

Anyone have any thoughts or recommendations on KV-3 guns?

3012

The 122mm is a great gun and definitely worth it. It’s not required to get into the IS, but the grind is much easier if you get the 122 first.

3013

IMO the matchmaker has two main issues to deal with right now: number of players and fucking premium tanks.

There are 150K people playing on the RU server at any given time (in the prime time) and only 12K on the US server. Obviously the matchmaker has a much smaller pool of players to work with and yet I think it’s been designed with the Russian numbers in mind. The 4 tier spread is a loophole that, on the Russian server, allows them to sneak in an occasional lowbie into a higher tier match if it takes “too long” to make the teams. On the US server it’s pretty much the most common scenario.

And then they introduced Lowes and KV-5’s. Not a big deal on the Russian server, the population is bigger, more mature and more spread out. But what a stupid move on the already underpopulated and unbalanced US server. (It was already unbalanced because “beta people” leveled up much faster, creating basically two major groups - beta folks in tier 8 and up and non-beta guys are in 6 or less). Now people who were supposed to be in their tier 4-6, they decided to skip the grind, bought the tier 8 premium tanks and made the problem even worse. The matchmaker builds the teams top to bottom, i.e. around the available top tier tanks. The most populated tier right now is 8, there is always overabundance of tier 8 tanks that are ready to play. Naturally, the matchmaker has no choice but fill ANY tier 4-8 tanks into the teams so that those owners of the premium tanks don’t wait longer than a couple of seconds.

I have no problem with all this on my fully upgraded Ferdi but getting back to the tier 5 KV (I want to check out the new KV-13 and then switch over to the MT line) is nothing like it used to be only about a month ago when I first had it on the way to the IS. It’s not “OMG it’s so fucked up, I can’t play it” but still the tank is less enjoyable now.

And if the tier 3-6 are not fun, there will be no new players and no growth for the game.

It kind of reminds me the last months of the beta right now, when everyone had tier 8-10 tanks and you could see the numbers dwindling every day.

Sorry, guys, for this incoherent rant, I am just venting. It just frustrates me to see how a pretty fun game gets screwed up long term by the developer’s (publisher’s?) desire to make a quick short term buck.

3014

Well, if the US market is really less than a tenth of their Russian user base, it makes sense I guess to pay little to no attention to the US players. Sadly enough.

3015

I’d be totally for waiting even TEN seconds before rounds start to get better matchups :P

3016

fuckin A brah. .ru is more fun to play.

3017

I’ve actually had a lot of fun in these tiers, particularly in 4, 5, and 6. Fun in tier 3 is pretty tank dependent. Lower tier tanks I thought were a lot of fun include Marder, Sherman, M4A3E8, T-28, T-34, T-34-85, Pzkw IV, StuG, JgPzr IV. The VKs are generally pretty decent. I actually didn’t mind the Hetzer this time around, although I hated it in Beta.

IMO the main problem with the matchmaking is their placement of lights tanks. They should just get rid of light tanks (and Pz IIIs placed for scouting) in the higher tiers. As Overlord himself has pointed out a medium can scout just as well as a light can, so there’s really no need for lights in high tier matches.

Otherwise, I feel like people complain way too much about “oh no, why am I in this match.” I’ve seen StuGs in matches complaining because there are Tier 7 tanks in with them. I ask “do you have the top gun upgrade?” They say “yes.” I’m thinking wtf is wrong with you, you can kill anything on the battlefield what are you complaining about. Some people aren’t going to be satisfied unless they have the ability to stomp on everyone else. Same thing with M3 Lees bitching about their matches. That 75mm can reliably penetrate a lot of stuff, they just like complaining.

If I never see another “why am I here” chat post, it will still be too soon. I am so sick of those, particularly coming from tanks that are actually pretty decent. Seriously guys l2p, learn how to use your tanks. I’ve seen people bitch about tanks I think are great. It particularly ticks me off when I see people complaining about StuGs. Seriously the StuG is a great vehicle, if you hate it, maybe you should not be playing TDs.

IMO if you can reliably penetrate (meaning 75-80% chance) half to two-thirds of the enemy tanks, you should stop complaining and just play. Sure sometimes you’ll have to get in a side shot or you’ll have to use swarm tactics to take down the big baddie, but that adds fun and variety to the game.

Pz IIIs and A-20s do have very legitimate complaints, since you have to go through those tanks to get to higher tier mediums. And it can be frustrating for those not wanting to scout having to scout and not being able to beat stuff up. Leopards and M3 and M5 Stuarts less so. Why the heck would you play a Leopard or Stuart unless you liked scouting?

I do wish there was a better balance of Mediums vs. Heavies in the higher tiers. As I’ve mentioned before it does seem rather time-of-day dependent. Sometime after around midnight-1am pacific time the field starts ending up very heavy-tank balanced. I find this pretty dull. Playing during normal USA evening hours and in the afternoons, the balance generally seems to be much better. [Perhaps this is due to the number of players available and thus poorer matchmaking – that never occured to me until I saw StriderG’s post. I’ve just been assuming that late night players like being the big-bad tank.]

It’ll be interesting too see if those Lowe and KV-5 drivers all end up with Heavies or if they switch over to Mediums, TDs, or Artillery when they finish whatever they are doing (I assume they are farming for credits or XP, but perhaps not). Unfortunately I suspect the vast majority of them will play heavies.

3018

One solution to the light problem would be to tie them in more closely with spotting and fire. Instead of the silly “lights are meant to go fast and never stop” stuff that ultimately screws the lights over above about T3, make it so that stationary lights are nearly undetectable and have good spotting bonuses, and give big bonuses to shooters (arty or other) who target tanks spotted by a light. Give the lights a bigger share of the experience from those hits as well. Make lights harder to hit while moving. Right now, “spotting” consists of driving as fast as possible for most folks, and that’s kinda silly. It should reward careful movement from cover to cover, staying put and monitoring, and actually doing recon.

I have no idea if that’s even feasible, though. Right now the whole MMO-esque leveling thing is clashing pretty weirdly with the light/medium/heavy tactical thing, in ways that are not totally successful.

3019

Removing auto-target would help too.

It’s funny, cause there’s times they can be wonderfully useful. I remember a match in Mountain pass where 3 of our t8/9s were facing off against 3 of their t8/9s around that bend in the top left of the map. There I was in a Pzkw III that couldn’t do anything against anyone, so I went right and through the dip in the valley and came up behind them, firing and trying to not stop moving and was gratified to see their 3 lumbering turrets all start spinning towards me. 10 seconds later, i was very much dead, and not too long after they all were too, as that key distraction allowed our heavies to take down all 3 without any additional losses/damage.

Fantastic use of a light tank and I think i got like next to nothing for my effort…so, ya, that kinda bit…

3020

While I agree, I think that the introduction of the Tier 8 premium tanks has really been a downer for these lower tier tanks.

I have a T34 that used to be a lot of fun. The problem now is that the majority of battles feature a large number of Lowes and KV5s. While the T34 is not totally ineffectual against these tanks, it does get rather tiring playing match after match where you die in one shot and can only hope to damage your opponents by hitting them repeatedly from behind.

In my opinion, the game works best when you sometimes are the top tank, sometimes are in the middle and sometimes are at the bottom. These need to be relatively equally distributed. Right now, tanks lower than Tier 8 are getting way too many matches where they are totally outgunned due to the large number of people playing the new premium Tier 8 tanks.