4901

So I’m about to take my new Jagdpanther for a spin. The problem is, it’s stock. And I’ll need some XP to even upgrade to the short 88. Any suggestions? Maybe use other tanks until I can upgrade?

4902

It will come down to personal preference, and how much you mind grinding. If you’re in no hurry, it might be worth winning some Battle of the Bulge 3x XP games with the stock model, but I wouldn’t suggest trying to grind through a large number of games in an under-gunned TD. It’s a recipe for frustration.

One of the worst aspects of this game is how the free-to-play model can force players to be “bad teammates” by playing with under-gunned tanks. I try not to get too annoyed by it, since it’s not the fault of the players, but it’s never a happy moment when you look to your top tank and realize that it’s stock.

4903

Well, I’d at least try to get the 3x first win of the day while that still runs. IIRC mm now takes modules into account so your team should be compensated (theoretically) for the liability a tier 7 td with the short 88 is.

4904

I finally got my T92, though of course by now our clan has plenty of heavy arty. But I like arty, so it’s ok, though this thing eats money pretty badly. Makes big booms, I’ll give it that. I have too many “almost there” tanks though…a T34, an IS-4 (luckily it’s a great tank), a Panther II, a T-44, a Pershing, a T28. Weirdly, I really like my Object 704 but we rarely take TDs in CW and when we do we tend to be in static situations and go with someone’s T95. But that BL-10 is fun.

4905

Oh, that’s good to hear, and fixes one of my major annoyances with the game. It will also make me more willing to play stock tanks if I don’t feel that I’m hurting my team. (That said, some of the stock tanks are really terrible, favorable matchmaker or no…)

4906

Oh surely not. It would be really stupid of them to make modules count towards MM. You should be rewarded for playing with a maxed-out tank, rather than forced to game the system by taking worse radio etc to get easier games

4907

It seems I am mistaken, all I can find is an advantageous tier spread for the first [unknown variable] number of battles you fight with your new tank.

I guess I can go back to being pissed whenever I see a stock tank near the top of our list.

4908

One of the worst aspects of this game is how the free-to-play model can force players to be “bad teammates” by playing with under-gunned tanks. I try not to get too annoyed by it, since it’s not the fault of the players, but it’s never a happy moment when you look to your top tank and realize that it’s stock.

It’s not really a fault of free-to-play model. Any game that requires any grinding (which is all MMOs :)) suffers from it. It’s like getting a group for heroic instance in WoW and seeing your tank in all greens, for example. :)

4909

I believe the free-to-play model is the reason some high-tier stock tanks are so much worse than their predecessor tanks. It’s hard to come up with an MMO situation that is anything like going from an upgraded T-29 to a stock T-32: you “level up” in the matchmaker’s eyes while simultaneously sacrificing most of your in-game usefulness.

It’s like the “Cursed Shield” in Final Fantasy 3: You suck for a bunch of battles, “break the curse” of the stock gear, and become awesome. Except instead of fighting computer-controlled trash mobs, each of those “cursed” battles is part of a competitive team-based PvP match.

4910

I devoted one day of my game diary to this very topic, and I agree that it’s unique/strange/frustrating.

4911

It’s definitely an odd feature. I agree that it wouldn’t be there if the game wasn’t freemium. It definitely causes people to use gold to convert free xp to get past the painful early games in new tanks.

4912

The entire French I-IV tree is based on the “make playing these tanks so horrible the players will have to spend gold to convert experience” model. Until Tier V the French are like a continuous root canal.

4913

Oh I see your point and you are totally right. I don’t even play stock tanks anymore, they are so horrible most of the time. Except for AMX50-100, which was pretty decent from the start. But I did skip all tier 1-7 French heavies. :)

4914

After thinking about this a bit more, I go back to my original “it’s not a freemium model” opinion. :)

Again, consider WoW. Every time you level up, without changing your gear, your crit rating, hit rating, etc. go down. Gear that was sufficient for lvl 72 instance will suck for the lvl 78 one.

Or take battlegrounds. If you were a god in the 20-30 tier, you level up and at lvl 31 you are nothing in the 30-40 tier. Continue leveling up and by lvl 39 all your twinked gear that was so awesome back then is now crap and you are less effective than a lvl 38 dude with up-to-date gear. And a twinked out lvl 39 will destroy you. And IIRC the balancer didn’t care about all that and could put you at the top of your team against that twink in a PvP match.

Gear (which is modules in WoT’s case) is everything in this kind of games and you have to grind for it. Of course, because gear in WoT affects every single stat, including the moving speed, its effects (both positive and negatives) are more visible. But still the point is in many games (WoW, WAR, etc.) many people stop PVPing right after they level out of a tier until they grind out more levels/stats/gear. Of course, in WoT it’s also more painful because there is nothing else but competitive PvP. But so was WAR for people that didn’t want to play its very boring and uninspired PvE.

So games based on both fremium and subscription models have these moments when you “outlevel your gear” and are, for the time being, not really competitive in PvP. The only difference is that freemium model allows you to speed up or, sometimes, completely bypass the grind by paying RL money. You don’t have to though.

[edit] And due to its nature, of course, a stock next lvl tank is going to feel worse. Take speed, for example, if every next tier was faster even in stock, tier 10s would be flying at 100 kmh.

4915

I now understand your points about the WoW battlegrounds. They are a good example of a scenario where leveling up can put you at a relative disadvantage. But there are two huge differences between that and World of Tanks:

First, WoW has much more than just battlegrounds. When you leave one tier behind you can go out into the wider World of Warcraft and gain experience and gear until you’re at the top of your new tier. You can also choose to play battlegrounds anyway, and drag down your team, but it’s a choice. There is no way to avoid dragging down your team in World of Tanks without spending gold.

Second, the worst that happens when you level in WoW is a loss of relative advantage compared to foes of your same level / tier. A stock Tier VIII T-32 has the gun and turret armor of a Tier VI tank, and lacks the suspension to mount anything better. Opponents who were an easy mark in your T-29 suddenly dominate you. I am not aware of any scenario in WoW where leveling up actually makes you worse relative to your old opponents.

4916

heh i really enjoyed my low tier frenchies. you think i’d enjoy root canals as well? are they like amsterdam canals? they are great (though a little smelly)

anyway i finally got the tier 5 light one (amx 12). and i was like RAAARRR now imma pew pew the FRACK outta y’all! and then i met an is4, and he was like BOOM lolwut? anyway, if it works the french six shooter tanks are pwnsome.

matchmaking on it sucks. its armed like a tier 5. pretty mediocre for a tier 5 in fact. it is not armored at all. its not particularly fast. still it gets matchmaking like a chaffee or a king-leo

4917

I don’t know about the light/medium side, but the french heavy line up to tier 5 is just agonizingly bad. The tier 5 (BDR G1B) is tolerable once you get the 2nd gun on it, and is actually good once you get the 3rd gun.

The only worse tank I have experienced is the M7 Priest (US tier 4 artillery).

4918

dude. is you playin the same game as me? M7 is one of the few tanks where i have a remarkable win percentage on a larger number of battles (66% of 70 battles) meaning it was good enough to allow me to make a significant contribution to my teams’ efforts.

In fact, even compared to tanks that are generally considered to be OP or just pwn, that 66% stands out. My IS (tier 7 russian heavy) for example won 57% of 101 battles. so yea, dont bash on the priest. it rocks. you suck. suck it up.

speakin of suck. that french tier 4 heavy. wtf. its smaller than the russian T-28. it has less of a gun and is about two thirds its size. yet it gets classed as a heavy while the T-28 with its glorious long 85mm gets classed as a medium. wtf is up with that?

4919

If you’re referring to the M7 Medium tank, then I loved that tank, despite it having paper-thin armor, I think my win % on it was something like 60 or higher, like you.

The dog I’m talking about is the M7 Priest, which is the terrible US Tier 4 ary, as I stated in my original post. Its stock gun is patheticly bad, it can’t even shoot across most maps, and its upgraded gun is better, but still terrible. It just does so little damage, it’s like throwing spitballs.

4920

I am with trey: my M7 priest got more action as a TD when it had its stock gun, and when I got the regular gun, I was amazed at how poor its accuracy was. Had much better times in pretty much every other arty.

With french tanks I am up to tier 4 so far for light/heavy line: the heavies aren’t too bad, but the AMX 40[tier 4 light that has a max speed of around 19km/h]gets completely screwed by the matchmaking half the time, while being an unstoppable juggernaut maybe 20% of the time. So mixed bag on the French line so far for me.