Hell no. Good luck being on the defending side if your team has mostly medium tanks at the top. Currently you can get by if you flank fast, get lucky not to be on their top heavy flank and cap before they do. Even a tiny lvl 5 tank can win a match simply by capping, if lucky/smart enough. With A&D mode, there will be no such thing, the match will (most of the time) go on until one side is completely destroyed.
Of course, player skill matters. When I see a particularly dumb player at the top of our team, I often check his record. I’ve seen countless people with like 32% win ratio (both total and on that particular Tiger 2, for example). Of course he is a major liability to his team. He is, actually, working for the enemy team to win. BTW why would one continue playing if he is losing 70% of the time, heh.
However, player skill matters less (or let me re-phrase it, it’s much much harder for good players to win) when the enemy has 2 E-75 at the top, while your team has 2 E-50s. Compensated by having 2 IS’s on your team against their 2 T20s. Matches like this are pre-determined in 90% of the cases. Unless their E-75s have 32% win ratio, i.e. are actually on your side. :)
It all depends on a lot of things, like team composition, of course but here are the options I usually consider on that match in a med tank.
Starting from Base 1, I consider 3 routes:
-
Big hill in J3. It’s a vital position, if your team has a med there, you are much more likely to win (other things equal of course). Play defensively, keep on your side of the hill, light up incoming enemies, let your team kill them, shoot when opportunity presents. Arty can’t get you there (unless it moves to somewhere like A6, which is extremely rare and dangerous for them in random), enemy tanks can’t get you (including from the village, just move a bit downhill, if there are enemies in the village). Even if they charge the hill and kill you, they will lose a lot of tanks in the process.
-
Deep raid from D8 to A4 and then to their base. Works if I am in a fast tank and they don’t have good fast meds. If it works, it’s pretty much a win for your team, as the enemy loses their arty and TD’s at their base, etc. They also lose momentum, cause some of them will turn back to defend. Chaos and disarray!
-
Worst case scenario, if nothing else is worth doing, go to the hill in D7. Again, keep on your side of the hill. Generally very similar to option 1 but less productive, since the enemy can hide from your arty very effectively here.
When playing from Base 2, I, first of all swear, since I hate that base. :) Then I go to the position described in step 3 above. IMO it’s the only position, where a med tank can be useful. Light up the enemy for your arty, flank them from the A8 position, war of attrition basically. At some point, you will hopefully be able to overrun them, and get to their base. Be wary of the TDs camping on the hill at their base.
If you are in a US tank, this will be one of your most favorite maps - your gun’s awesome depreciation angle will allow you to shoot very effectively over the hills without exposing your tank.
Danm that’s one long post. Gotta work a bit. :)
Re: game mode with a single shared cap circle
I don’t think this will be the case. Imagine the map Abbey with a single cap circle in the middle somewhere. The majority of players will rush towards there, yes, but your lights should still go for one of the side paths to get at their arti/TDs from the side. This in turn forces some people to defend rather than rush the cap.
I’d say it would be a welcome breath of fresh air into many maps. Imagine Campinovka if the shared cap circle was in the village near the hill.
ShivaX
5184
It would strongly favor teams with more heavies and TDs though. If theres nowhere to flank meds becomes a lot less useful. Every match would effectively be a slugging match, which the heavies and TDs are likely to win.
Maybe if they had some amazing maps for it, it could work, but since Wargaming still struggles to make a good map, that seems unlikely.
Edit:
Using this example: My team has 2 Batchats, a T-50-2 and lets say a 13 75. You have a bunch of IS4s and whatever. You lose. We will be in the circle capping before you can leave your base. It would in many ways make every map Komarin - the worst map ever made. Only worse cause you can’t go on the defense against a faster team like you can on Komarin. Well you say, make people spawn closer. Now its the opposite issue. Now only heavies and TDs really matter. The guy with the most/best heavies wins because they can push into the circle and win the ensuing slugfest.
Well lets remove the cover so arty will prevent that tactic. Ok now its the old Komarin, everyone drives near the circle and camps until the timer runs out.
Dejin
5185
Thanks Stridergg. I’ll have to check out this J3 hill. I guess I just haven’t really noticed it before. What makes it so vital?
A med tank situated on the slope of that hill (and peeking at the top and sides from time to time) can light up a lot of enemies for his arty and other tanks behind him. That includes the enemies approaching the said hill, as well as the ones in the village. Not only your arty can hit all of them now but also everyone behind you - including the base hill campers (btw I have nothing against them, it’s a great position for TD’s) and people in K9 - can see something to shoot at.
If you get to that spot first, you can light up the enemies approaching it. They get hit from multiple directions (and there is no cover against arty for them there), so by the time they charge (or get charged) they are severely weakened. If they stall there (and they often do in Random), arty will eventually kill them all. If they charge, well, depends on how organized their charge is and how many of your tanks are ready to shoot at that hill.
Additionally, since it’s pretty much the only place where their arty can’t hit you, it becomes a nice staging area for your team to gather before pushing that flank.
That hill is the key to winning the southwest flank.
Oh yeah, definitely. The Panther’s situation isn’t particularly unique, but it stands out more. The T-34 was only dominant at all because during the early part of the war against the USSR the Germans didn’t have much that could match its combination of mobility, protection, and firepower. By 1943 though Tigers and Panthers were more than a match for T-34s, which then leads to the 85mm armed versions, etc.
Of course, the game wouldn’t work too well if they did historical accuracy and had five Germans versus fifteen Soviets, I guess. :) I long ago gave up trying to mesh history with WoT, and am happier for it. But in purely game terms, there is definitely a lot of softness in the mid tiers, and even in the higher tiers (T34 is nowhere near a match for the IS-4 or E75, for instance).
Talorc
5188
Looks like some big economy changes coming up:
http://worldoftanks.com/news/1088-72-preview-game-economics-changes/
I’m reading that as a nerf for the mid teir (6-8) mediums, which are often mentioned here as good credit earners.
Top tier tanks earn a little bit more and low tiers earn a heap more.
It does seem they’re trying to “square the circle” in that the game is built to push you into buying Premium and Premium tanks to make the money you need to support high tier matches, but that dynamic seriously pisses some people off. We’re losing people from our clan because they can’t stand losing money nearly every time they run their IXs and Xs, and not everyone likes to grind a Type or a Lowe every other match. Of course, not everyone is the same. One of our ace TD drivers ground out a T95 without any premium membership or tanks.
I’m guessing they want to hit the sweet spot where they keep the maximum number of occasional gold buyers (I assume they don’t care much for those who never buy gold), while encouraging the maximum number of frequent gold buyers.
RichVR
5190
Reducing the earning power of TDs? That makes no sense.
Edit: Or to put it differently. It sucks. But financially for them it makes sense. I just don’t like it.
Dejin
5191
I’m not sure why they would want to reduce the number of people playing mid-tier mediums. Isn’t that (1) the type of tank that should appear most frequently in terms of historic accuracy and (2) the type of tank that is most fun to have more of in a match? I figure the heavies like having mediums to beat up on, and having mediums in the match leads to a more fluid match, both of which are good things in terms of fun factor.
It sucks, I hate it, and it’s great for their bottom line.
I’m a pretty average player but I push 60-40 w/l with all my TDs. That translates into quite a bit of cash.
…because mid-tier mediums have been the cheapest to run and play, and the best earners outside of premium tanks. Or at least that’s how it seems. They want to encourage you to move up to higher-tier tanks where you need premium and premium tanks to survive, I’d expect. They certainly aren’t interested in historical anything.
ShivaX
5194
Only, they’ve been constantly pushing for the opposite is the thing. They’ve been trying to get people to play Tier 5-6 for quite a while now. Nerfing credit income seems an odd way to do things.
Hmm, I guess you could look at it that way, but I’ve viewed their promotions of lower tier tanks as more of them building a feeder system, as it makes no sense for them to encourage people to play the tanks that you don’t need premium for. Instead, they’ve been giving you incentives to buy and spend gold on garage slots, and to buy premium tanks to make credits to buy modules for more tanks. You notice they don’t ever give 3x or 5x credit weekends, only experience–which you have to use gold to convert in any reasonable amount.
Maybe they want to get you into mediums at mid tier and then show you how easily you get wtfpwnd by higher-tier tanks, thus encouraging you to level up!
Dave47
5196
That’s sort of my reaction, but it’s worth noting that the Panther is the only historic tier VII medium; all the others are based on prototypes or blueprints. And the nerfs to higher-tier tanks income generation will also buff lower-tier tanks, which tend to be more likely to be historic tanks. Plus, I feel that the game is really enjoyable in Tiers IV - VI games, so I’m cautiously optimistic about these changes.
In other news, I attended the “Operation Think Tank” event in Portola this past weekend. I’m not usually a photographer type, but I ended up taking a lot of pictures. (Thanks, iPhone!) It simultaneously resulted in a greater appreciation for the “tread head” side of the game, and a greater frustration that so many “fake” tanks exist in the game. Seeing these things in real life is really neat!
Ugh. I have something like 280,000 credits and am about three or four matches from unlocking the IS-7. And about a dozen matches from a Jagdtiger.
WoT credits, why you hate me?
All these changes make zero sense from the gameplay point of view and make a lot of sense from the moneygrabbing point of view. Ever since the introduction of E-100 with its ridiculous gold-oriented top gun, WoT’s development seems to be oriented towards money-grabbing instead of gameplay-improving.
Hence the endless stream of new tanks (forcing people to spend gold to speed up their grind) instead of new fight modes.
WoT credits hate everyone who doesn’t spend money on premium stuff. I just unlocked two tier 6 tanks and have about 180,000 credits to my name. Any module except camouflage seems like a ridiculous luxury. I’ve decided I can never afford to buy another tank unless it’s half off now.
JoshV
5200
New patch not being counted, then I’ve been doing okay on the credits mostly positive rolling around in Tier 5s, with some occasional Tier 7s who usually break even or so, same with my stupid Tier 6 arty, which the ammo for usually costs the same amount as I win for the match.
My tetrach is my money maker now, which is a bit sad. It earns thousands(4-9k? it’s been a while so that’s an unreliable estimate) per match and costs less than three hundred to repair.
