You and I both know that I’m the last person here to disagree with you about artillery. Especially seeing since my dislike of it led to my permaban haha.
Lol, yeah. Sorry that happened to you, Smuf. We share a distaste for the mods and the current arty implementation.
ShivaX
1603
I’ve been having fairly good luck sneaking up on arty with my JgPz4 lately, but it really depends on the map. Some maps just favor arty, while on others its practically worthless. It really isn’t a bad balance overall.
The real issue is the highest end arty just hits for astronomical amounts of damage sometimes. Then again, without arty when an AusB or Maus is in the match you might as well just go make a sandwich, so its not like you can completely ditch the stuff.
I’ve never had that feeling. I’ve put the hurt on AusB’s and Maus’s (and the far more dangerous IS-4’s and IS-7’s) with a wide variety of medium tanks, heavy tanks, and TD’s. Arty is not required to beat them at all.
But that’s the rock/paper/scissors reason for arty to be in the game, really. And honestly, while tactics and a swarming can hurt the big heavies, most of the time what happens is they swat everyone away like flies, and if they die, it’s at the end and they have killed four or five or more–unless a mooncannon is there to soften them up.
Though I really do like plinking away at stuff up to like T-29 and regular Tigers with a medium.
But there isn’t rock/paper/scissors.
I mean, artillery is good against lights, heavies, mediums. It is shotgun, not rock, not paper, not scissors.
Everything else is just rock. Heavies counter heavies - they focus on each other when available. Otherwise they demolish mediums (at range). No chance for a light to do any damage to them.
But mediums counter heavies (in proper numbers).
Tank destroyers are kind of a hard counter for anything at range.
Lights don’t counter or damage much, but they can be disruptive and it’s very easy getting spotting XP with them.
Actually as long as there are tier 7-9 tank destroyers in the game, you have a very powerful counter to tier 8-10 heavies. Now that is, after the warp fix.
There’s really no reason for artillery to be in the game aside from an alternative gameplay style. They aren’t necessary to counter heavies because, after the patch, no heavy will just mow through things uncontested if there’s even a couple JagdTigers or ISU-152s on the opposing team.
The only exception to this are the city maps. But artillery is even less useful there than tank destroyers.
I just had an arty driver, CAL50, call me a hacker because I, from an elevated location, took a shot at the origin point of an artillery shell with my KV-3, destroying his SU-26 sight unseen.
After I explained how I counter-artied him, he called me a f----t.
MrCoffee
1609
I have been playing a few matches trying to see the 4 new maps (the 2 more from the patch before) and i always get the same old same old maps.
Aki
1610
You can see your stats at the WoT website now, along with your current ranking for each category. It’s kind of neat:
Just type your username into the search field
Hehe I’ve got Mironovka 5 times in a row yesterday. And I hate that map only a bit less than Campinovka.
BTW the Ferdi is awesome, thanks, Dave, for talking me into it. Yes, I die quickly if I am not supported by friendlies but it’s so much fun to just stand there, ignore the incoming shots like they are just flies and kill stuff. Lots of fun.
I just wish this game would release for real in the US/EU. They said “November” for months, and we’re running out of November. I want to play it again, but only if my progress won’t be wiped. Having hit T8 in three separate trees is enough beta grinding for me.
Actually, I was just thinking that yeah, arty may not have a real role now. The only one I can really think of is that without it, camping would be endemic. Yes, fully upgraded TDs with periscopes can see to 500m, but if no one moves on Mironovka for instance, I think without arty no one ever would.
It’s interesting, but I see things in exactly the opposite way. Whenever I’ve played in one of the rare arty-free battles, it’s been a war of maneuver, not camping. Pre-battle chat is always “Yay, no arty!” and a majority of both sides charges into battle.
Arty leads to more camping in my experience. The two exceptions I can think of are Prokhorovka and Murovanka, and even then… artillery just isn’t going to spot a TD behind 6 bushes.
Depends on the map; Campinovka no one moves, but that may be map design. But consider also that arty gives you a mission–defend your arty, attack the enemy arty. Mediums get a mission to stop scouts, scouts get a mission to, well, scout, etc. Take away arty and all you have is a race to high-tier tanks and TDs, and the T1-T7 area, where you spend most of your time, becomes pretty sterile I think.
No, they don’t need to get rid of arty. They need to figure out how to contextualize the combat better overall.
If arty didn’t exist, then we’d Defend the Heavy, or Defend the Big TD.
The only reason the mission is Defend the Arty is because artillery is overpowered.
Exactly, the friendly medium defends your ungainly TD from enemy mediums, against which the TD is nearly helpless (up close or when hit from a flank). In turn the TD will take out the heavy tank against which the medium is at a huge disadvantage.
And look, no artillery!
I’ve got over 500 games in various artillery pieces (400 of which in a Hummel) and I would be the first in line to vote it out of the game. That’s how not fun it has become. I don’t even play it myself anymore, because it’s too damn easy - and boring.
Well, I think arty does add a good dimension to the game, at least, on paper. The game is waaaay too thin as it is, with none of the stuff that give armor a reason to exist in reality. No artillery, no real objectives to take or defend, no infantry to fear in woods or towns or to crush in the open. It already just “simulates,” and I use the word loosely, a type of combat that was fairly rare–the pure armored clash. Even the great armored battles of the war took place on battlefields with a lot of other stuff going on, but here, it’s all tanks, and mostly oddball experimental tanks at that.
I’m not complaining really–it’s fun, and it’s not intended to be realistic. But I think there’s so much potential here that it’s a shame they’re really not doing much with it. The game screams for a bit more sophistication, more variety, and more clearly defined roles. It’s possible to find roles for light, medium, and heavy tanks, but only if people really decide to play that way. Armored warfare has always been determined by the compromise between firepower, mobility, and protection. In WoT, you really don’t make that trade off much because ultimately the only thing that’s rewarded is firepower–there’s no specific roles really that require this tank or that tank. The bridges all hold every tank, there is no infantry to worry about, no aircraft, no objectives that have to be gotten to right now, no real urgency. Speed is fine, but you can’t make a living on detection points. Armor is great, but there are so many mooncannons and uberguns and no real ways to keep armor out of built up areas that protection doesn’t work the way it would in reality. So the game is fun, and it has tanks, but it could be so much better I think. Just my $.02. I enjoy it for what it is, but I think taking arty out just would make it even blander.
I’m with you, Bob. Given a choice between the arty we have now and no arty, I’d vote no arty, but that doesn’t mean I want it out of the game. I’d prefer it to be thoroughly reworked instead, but I don’t expect it to happen since the game’s already commercial in Russia and the sort of overhaul I’d like would infuriate many thousands of paying players.
As for the other stuff, who knows? Somewhere down the road they might release the World of Infantry expansion, or add air strikes and SPAAA, etc.
