5661

How do you know they did not consider any map statistics before removing these maps?

Although map stats are of limited value. Some maps are meant to be imbalanced - one of the oldest maps, Murovanka (is that the name of the one with magic forest near the top base?), is clearly asymmetrical and that’s ok because it presents unique (although often frustrating due to the game’s spotting “features”) challenges. I don’t think all maps should be played exactly in the same way.

Komarin was just a bad map though. Bottom team had much better positions to defend their flag and had much easier time attacking the enemy’s base. They also had a better position on the island in the middle. The top spawning team was just screwed all around.

5662

I used to like Swamp, especially in a fast medium or french tank. Much flanking rejoicement. I’m guessing the heavy drivers bitched up too much.

Although I’ve enjoyed wheeling out my new Tier 7 KV-3 and stomping around bullying things. its quite good with the top engine.

But province was just stupid. Anything above Tier 7 and it just turned into a giant shooting gallery and a quick fiery death of minutes spent cowering behind a building. its just too small with too many overlooked areas and not enough covered advance routes.

5663

I hate swamp. It seems like a lot of sitting around and a map where generally the best strategy is to get into a defensive position and not move. That’s true of a lot of maps, but I think it’s particularly difficult to advance on swamp.

Personally I didn’t mind Province, I felt like it was kind of a shooting gallery (as Talorc says) or maybe an old fashion Western shootout as in “we’ll all meet at the OK Corral at 5pm, come out shooting.” If nothing else it got people blasting away immediately.

5664

Camping on Swamp only worked for the south side; the north side had to advance, and even then, if you pushed mediums in the middle and took the flanking hills, you could attack fairly well. All in all, not a stellar map but workable. Komarin was a lot more problematic for all the reasons Stridergg notes. And Province, while cool in some respects, was just too small. The South Coast map is a better iteration of a similar theme.

5665

Tier 8 and above tanks never go on sale, do they (including premium tanks)? I wonder if I’ll ever be able to afford one. I guess I’m close if I sell my IS and all its modules.

5666

Komarin is a nightmarish blight of a map that they couldn’t even make work with two attempts.

Swamp was perfectly fine though, I never saw anyone really complain about it. It could’ve used a little tweaking, but it wasn’t terrible like Komarin is and Province could be.

Edit: I actually didn’t mind Province, for the record, but the nature of the map made it often unfair. One side really couldn’t hide their arty and whoever had a Patton usually won.

5667

Anything that increases view range, accuracy or turning. Sixth Sense is pretty awesome on French tanks as well since anything can hurt you easily. Camo is great on the lights and decent on the meds, but I wouldn’t bother on the heavies unless you’re running out of other options (which will take a bit, especially for the commander).

5668

I think my problem with Swamp is there’s very little mobility. There’s no opportunity to really do much moving about, which means that Mediums really serve no role on the map other than possibly to go grab positions early on and then either camp or exchange shots with enemy heavies which always goes badly.

You can sit on either of the two plateau areas which are right next to the two towns and occasionally some sucker will show up in the middle of the map and you can blast them (and hope you don’t get highlighted and quickly blasted in return), but once the positions are set there really is nothing for a medium to do that can’t be done a lot better by a heavy or in some cases by a TD.

5669

Ill echo what other people have said - i liked swamp. But maybe I like it cause i almost always go north where there’s its more playable.

Komarin was horrible design, and I’m glad to see it go.

5670

I wont disagree with that, but if we use that as the measuring stick theres a bunch of maps that should go.

5671

I wish that terrain was more of a factor to determine where some tanks couldn’t go. It would be nice to see bridges or areas that heavies couldn’t go into without getting bogged. At the moment, every time I see a Panther 2 on my team I sigh and wish that it could be a tier 8 heavy.
I tend to be an extremely aggressive player and I won’t miss the loss of any maps which reward sitting back and taking pot shots whilst the other team struggles forward. I’m looking forward to the challenge modes that force teams to work to a role.

5672

Now that the KV is gone, I no longer have a clear favorite tank. Might be between the IS and the Leopard right now, although the latter is only really fun in T4/5 battles.

5673

So is the KV no longer fun without the Derp cannon? How does its top gun do?

5674

KV-2 still has the derp gun and quite frankly shooting things with it will always be fun. Probably of limited tactical utility, but hilariously funny the one time in ten it truly comes off.

KV-2 still also has the far more fearsome zis-6 (as does the T-150), but up in Tier 6 it is arguably more balanced.

I’ve not played the “new” KV-1 but it seems to do about as well as the other Tier 5 heavies.

I’ve also seen people mention the French tier 5 heavy (BDR G1B), presumably with the top 90mm gun, as the “new” terror of Tier 5. I’ve not really run into it in game that much, so cant really verify this.

I think the real problem with KV (as well as being an overpowered tank) was ACTUALLY the S-51. It needed an absolute ass load of experience, and with the KV being a pretty fun tank to play, people had an incentive to play hundreds ++ matches in the KV. So anyone playing in the KV prone level range (say about 4 - 6) kept running into fully upgraded, 100% crew KV’s busy grinding out the S-51…

5675

The KV-1 isn’t as impressively ‘broken’ as the KV was, but it’s still an incredibly strong tank for its tier. I’ve kept mine and still do extremely well with it (got a 10-kill game last week). It still feels like the king of tier V.

The KV-2 I haven’t played as much, but at tier 6 it feels like it gets into far tougher fights than the KV-1, relative to their strength. It’s still fun for the 152mm HE derp cannon but when the choice comes to sell off one of them I’ll be keeping my KV-1.

5676

I agree. But then again, if heavy tanks had their historical drawbacks, they’d be a lot less popular, and a lot less useful. Really, what keeps the whole tier and leveling system working is a fantasy interpretation of armored warfare that ignores basic ballistics and damage modeling derived from reality, and shoehorns combat into something derived from FPS and MMO models. It’s fun but it makes baby realism Jesus cry. It does, though, allow Wargaming to structure a F2P freemium model that works, so there is that I guess.

5677

Really instead of using bridges, we should have the Maus spend 2/3rds of the match setting up their snorkel system to cross rivers and then give them a 50% chance of having their crew die of carbon monoxide poisoning halfway across the river :-)

5678

That’s a gruesome thought, if realistic. I’d settle for bridge weight limits, soft terrain bogging possibilities, and gun barrel/structure interaction. Unfortunately, these would fundamentally change the game into something closer to a simulation, and flat-out would not work with Wargaming’s model I think. It’s just CounterStrike with tanks, after all, and I guess we can’t expect too much :).

5679

Here’s a recent example of this. KV-1 on dragon ridge, NOT as top tank (there was a KV-2 on our team too for example). Ended up with 7 kills and for the latter half of the battle was able to wreck a few people 1 on 1. Replay here

5680

Finally gotten my pantherII kitted out. This is the tank the panther I should have been. wonderful fun. the long 88 is such a sweet gun. having a whale of a time with it on a fairly mobile medium tank. Less than 5 seconds between shots is plenty quick for me. Gonna wreak some havoc with that baby! looks cool as well.