3421

Call me odd, but I like TDs. I am focusing on the Soviet line this time, currently at the SU-152, though in beta I got to the JagdPanther at least. I’ve found the StuG and the SU-100 to be fun as well. They do take some care in play, though, and they’ve only gotten harder to use with the patches. But I’ve always like them.

OTOH, I don’t much like the KVs. Solid tanks, sure, but not much fun to play for me.

3422

I love my TD’s. I was one shotting all types of tanks last night in my Hetzer. I also love one shotting high tier tanks in my Jagdtiger and being accused of “hacking”. HAHA! You know you have really made an impression when people are raging at you behind their keyboards. :)

3423

I don’t like how at least early the top guns on a model cost 30-50% as much as the next tank. I’d like to try them but without premium, money is so tight and I don’t want to set back going into the next tier by that much.

3424

Ya, it was funny - was playing my fully upgraded KV the other day, #1 on the ladder. Was on mines, and decided to go up the hill and fire with impunity on all the poor fodder below me. On the approach to the top of the hill - from that jut of rock in the middle, until you pass the gate, I got hit, tracked, de-gunned, lost my loader, then driver, tracked again, and then destroyed. Shots fired: 1. Hits 0. Kills 0. Hits received 13.

On average, each of those hits did about 8% damage. Individually, they were inconsequential. Collectively, they destroyed me in seconds.

And I laughed, cause that’s what happens when you play stupid.

Is the matchmaker broken? Yes. Somewhat.

I actually am impressed it does as good a job as it actually does - grabbing 30 players, from a pool of 50 or 60, in seconds, and throwing them together with a generally even spread. That’s not saying that every tank can destroy any other tank, but that each team is roughly comparable.

Should tier 4’s be in the same match as 9’s? No, that’s wrong. Are all tanks in a tier equal? No way. A KV and a T-34 are not equal tier 5s. The KV can scale and damage T9s, where the T-34 starts getting useless against even heavy tier 6s. But, in general, I think it does a pretty good job considering the circumstances. It’d be nice if it took a little longer to compile the matches. It would also be nice if the algorithm treated ‘less-scalable’ tanks differently.

What the game does horribly is explain itself and its mechanics. Ie, 50% crew isnt really 50%, and 100% is actually 92%. And TD’s aren’t tanks, nor are they intended to be, nor should you play them the same.

3425

My problem with the matchmaker is that it fills games every 1 second. Games take ~10 minutes to play out. I would GLADLY wait up to 30 seconds for a fairer 10 minute game with much tighter tier bands.

3426

On average I’d say that I curse my teammates and myself for being stupid a whole lot more than I do the matchmaker and there’s little Wargaming can do about that.

3427

Yeah, I just wanted to say that I would gladly wait 5 minutes for the matchmaker to place me on a team that wins. :)

Some matches I am puzzled at how my team managed to lose - a couple of days ago, in Himmelsdorf, I (on my IS-3, 2nd on the list after the IS-4) was defending the road under the castle (alone, after a fellow Jagdpanther got killed quickly in the begining!), I killed their IS-4, then killed 5 more various tanks (including a Ferdi and a couple of Lowes), none of the enemies got past me (I was still fighting the remainder when the match ended) and the rest of the team got killed by the lower tier enemies somewhere else. All of a sudden, I am the only one alive and they have taken our flag. I got Top Gun, Sniper, Steel War, Sharshooter and about 1300 exp and we still lost. Unbelievable.

Like my friend says, sometimes, it’s not about which teams plays smarter, it’s about which one is more stupid.

3428

I haven’t played since before I last posted. I’ve played LT, PzII, Pz Jg I, Marder II, PzIII Ausf. A, PzIII, and PzIV including with the upgraded Panther turret and gun.

The most fun I had was with the Marder, the fully-upgraded PzII, and a bit of fun with the non-upgunned PzIV right after I got it, which seemed to be before the matchmaker really went to hell (and perhaps not coincidentally the Lowe patch.) The PzIII was effective but I really didn’t like the full-speed close-range playstyle that seemed to work best.

I can keep making progress with the PzIV with no problem, but it isn’t fun. Purely on the basis of the matchmaking. It’s reasonable to expect one’s position in the ranking to “average out” over time. Given that it’s FTP I could get over this not being the case, but I can’t get over the average actually works out to.

I’ll leave the game installed in case they patch this.

3429

To elaborate a little, what I think frustrates people is not matches where they are at the bottom, it’s matches when they are at the bottom and lose.

When I am at the bottom and my team wins, I think “Fuck, yeah! I played smart and helped my team and we won!”. When my team loses I think “Fuck it, I can’t even scratch thise high tier tanks, of course we are going to lose”.

The reality is that, on average, it all depends on the collective effort of the entire team, actually both of the teams. Sometimes you get the Top Gun and your team loses. Sometimes you don’t even move from the spawn point and your team steamrolls the enemy. The latter one especially hurts when you are the top tank in the match. :)

On Monday, when the 5x exp was still going on, I lost like 6 matches in a row on my IS-3, took me over an hour, I just couldn’t get the 5x exp. That was FRUSTRATING. Before that, on Sunday, I played each of my 5 tanks once, won them all and was done with the 5x exp for the day.

Just accept the fact that the chance to lose or win, ON AVERAGE, is about 50/50. When you lose a lot, it means someone wins a lot, it’s just bad luck and hopefully you’ll switch places with that guy another day. :)

3430

No, I considered the possibility but I think for me it’s more just where I am on the list period that’s bothered me. Being low on the list is tiresome. I know it isn’t an FPS where I’m supposed to be “brave,” but being low-ranked means being even sneakier than a TD, having a hard time making a contribution, and having excellent chances of being a pointless burning wreck any time I stick my neck out to try to accomplish something.

Also, an ungunned PzIV really doesn`t shine in these situations. Mobility and targeting sacrificed to firepower that - in a badly overmatched context - is just a joke.

3431

This thread makes me want to post my results from my Pz4 where I dominated against all comers. Many of those comers being Tier 8s.

Thing is people just remember when they’re at the bottom. Its like the RNG in Bloodbowl. People swear its broken because they failed 2 dodges in a row, when they ignore the times they rolled 5 Defender Downs on single blocks.

The game is about doing a role. Often that role will shift depending on the match make up. The only truely crappy tanks are really slow mediums, like the Lee. When the Lee gets thrown into a high tier match its pretty much screwed. You’re too slow to scout and too weak to really hurt anything big. But even then you can help the team by loading HE and harassing bigger units or watching a point someplace.

Still, I do get what people say. Somedays you’re in the bottom 4 tanks it feels like every match and it can get frustrating. But those can often be the moments where you really shine or see how good you are.

Edit:

I swore I was going to run out of ammo before I killed that KV-5.

3432

Thing is people just remember when they’re at the bottom.

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=2732647&postcount=3370

That definitely helps my memory.

3433

The Lee actually has quite a good gun for its tier. Starting gun has 90mm penetration and 110 damage. Compare that to a Pz III’s best gun which is 67mm of penetration and 70 damage or an A-20’s best gun which does 75mm of penetration for 49 damage. M3 Lee’s gun also has an excellent Rate-of-Fire at just over 18 rounds per minute.

That 90mm penetration is more than enough to reliably penetrate the frontal armour on a mediums up through Tier VI including T-34s, T-34-85s, VK3001§ and (H), and all the Sherman variants. It will have trouble with the VK3601(H) and many of the heavies – although Wiki claims that it should be able to penetrate the front hull of a T1, KV, and KV-1S. In fact, from a straight mm comparison, it should be able to penetrate VK3002DB, T-20, and T-43, although I won’t be surprised if it bounces unless you can find a flat surface on them.

M3 Lee is still rather frustrating to play because of its lack of a functional turret, but you can do excellent damage if you know what you’re doing. You just have to play it as a large, hard-to-hide tank destroyer.

3434

Those rankings are wonky, too. Sometimes it seems as if you’re low, but really half the tanks above you are no better than you are. Sometimes it’s the reverse; you’re on top, above tanks you know can squash you like a bug.

3435

I’m starting to wonder if the wiki is out-of-date, and if the game now keeps track of your tank’s load out, and figures that into the matchmaking. It would explain the wonkiness of the placement within tiers, as well as the fact that my M6 only started encountering tier 10 tanks after I purchased the 90mm gun.

Of course, it’s probably just an example of the post hoc fallacy.

3436

Overlord posted pretty recently that they are not currently taking tank module upgrades or equipment into account during matchmaking, and he did not anticipate them moving back to that.

3437

Post hoc ergo proctor hoc it is, then!

Just goes to show how strong these mental fallacies are. In my roughly 60 M6 matches I’ve encountered tier 10’s 3 or 4 times. Given the low odds, it’s not at all implausible that it was just luck that none of those matches came when I was using the 76mm, but it sure felt like matchmaking!

3438

Just in case anyone is interested, here is the actual quote on matchmaking:

Q: Will the equipment/crew level/modules return to the matchmaker, as a PzIV with the L24 is quite less powerful than one with the L70, elite, 400% crew and pimped out gear, or stacking all 5 heavies on one side, even though they are not platooned or anything.

A: Not going to return quipment/crew level/modules return to the matchmaker, since they worked out bad last time.

Not sure what “they worked out bad last time means” but clearly they were not happy with the results for some reason. This is from the Player Questions & Developer Answers thread from a 18 June 2011 question.

AIUI they don’t even distinguish between tanks at the same tier within the same class right now – which is to say, a Tiger I is considered the exact same weight as an IS since they are both Tier VII heavies. Matchmaking does distinguish between a heavy and a medium or a medium and a TD. AFAICT they are tweaking with things like hit points to ensure that the average for every tank is a 50%/50% win-loss record.

3439

Just a reminder to all EU server folks to join channel ‘qt3’

3440

So what upgrades do you guys recommend for a Tiger II? I am thinking Rammer and Gun laying drive but I am not sure of the third. Do I still need the Spall Liner if I am going to be a sniper? I could also get the Ventilation, but it’s hard to tell how much that does. I’m not sure I notice it on the tanks I have it on.