1621

The only thing it really needs are clearly written rules. I want to know exactly how and when I can see an enemy and exactly how far away. I want to know exactly what my crew training means. I’m also leaning towards the arty as an area of effect weapon instead of a laser-guided missile system. I don’t mind being hit by arty. I do mind being one-shot by an arty that is three tiers lower than myself. Isn’t there a reason for tiers?

It also needs serious matchmaking reworking. I so highly enjoy spotting an IS-4 or worse in my Stug.

And please, the maps need to be redone if arty is going to remain the way it is. On the wide open-no cover maps, you may as well just go make a sandwich and give the arty players their credits.

People say constantly that playing arty is not easy. I went and bought the first Russian one, the SU whatever. Hit shift, scroll out, look around where your scouts are and clean house. Yes, it’s so terribly difficult. Anyone that can judge movement at all will kill you almost every time.

But still, the most concerning thing I’ve read is that the higher tier your tank, the better your spotting range. Sooooo that really makes me want to work on my tier 6 VK, which is constantly in matches against tier 9 and 10 tanks. There were three Maus drivers in one of my matches today. I’m just supposed to accept that they will -always- see me first? Nice thinking there. Not only am I going to get one-hit by them, I won’t ever see them unless someone else spots them and has a decent radio.

In a spurt of rage I trained my VK crew to 100% and gave them all camo skill and stuck my net on the tank. I still can’t hide anywhere from anything. Probably half my matches I am one shot killed by something in front of me that I never see. Looking at the team lists, it is most often a type of IS. I wouldn’t mind a TD seeing me first, that is actually the point of a TD.

It’s just incredibly frustrating sometimes to have to grind your way up to a decent tank using one that has no chance in the vast majority of your matches. Yes, I’ve had a few matches where I’ve somehow managed to get around everyone and kill all the arty, and occasionally have an excellent close combat fight with a tank a few tiers higher and actually pull off a kill, but that is exceedingly rare.

It’s alright now, it’s beta, I’m not paying for the gold. If I was, I’d be thinking really hard about this in the state it’s in. Sometimes it can be great if you get the right matches, where teams are equally matched, or even near the same tiers. But after tier 4 you might as well forget all about balance. There’s an IS around every corner and he isn’t afraid of you.

1622

Keep in mind that the detection/sight system is currently badly messed up. Apparently as a consequence of the warp fix. The developers are supposed to be working on a solution.

Meanwhile, I feel your frustration. Getting quite annoying to be shot at, repeatedly, and the attackers not reveal themselves despite you having binoculars and coated optics and standing perfectly still.

By the way, with regards to lower tier tanks not being useful against the current heavy tank environment, there are actually quite a few workarounds that one can use. In tier 4 you have the Hetzer with the HE gun, that can damage anything in the game. In tier 5 you have the KV with its two HE guns and the 107mm, the Sherman with its HE gun and the Pz IV with the German version of the same HE gun. In the TD department you have the StuG with the HE gun and the SU-85 with the 107mm gun. Etc.

The pattern becomes pretty clear. You (ab)use HE to work around the disparity between your firepower and the enemy’s slabs of armor.

In tier 6 it gets better, at least for the Russians and US, since you get guns with 160mm, 175 and 198mm penetration. Enough to deal damage even to tier 9 heavies from the sides and back.
Of course, having chosen the German medium line, one is quite screwed in tiers 6 and 7, what with being stuck with max 132mm penetration guns. Thus the only viable option to damage tier 8-10 heavies is to use that same HE gun you did back on the Pz IV …

And I would say the same about the tier 6 Sherman E8 (which is currently worthless), but it’s supposedly getting the HE gun in a future patch.

So, there are workarounds. But it would be nice to not need to use them …

1623

I want to know exactly how and when I can see an enemy and exactly how far away.

Noone can tell you EXACTLY how far away, even when it works properly. It depends on too many things. My friend and I did some tests (in 1v1 training battles) some weeks ago (before the latest patch). He was in his Jagdpz IV and I was in Jagdpanther. Both had 100% crew and camo net on. The results varied A LOT depending on what kind of vehicle we used, what kind of bush we used and the angle.

I don’t remember the exact numbers now but there was a range where I couldn’t see him even when he fired (about 200m), at that same range he could see me firing - I would pop out for about 5 sec. If he didn’t fire I would spot him at about 70m, he spots me at 130 or so. Behind some bushes (and at certain angles) he could spin in place while remaining hidden, change any of that and him turning 5 degree would unveil them. Not sitting properly behind the bush (leaving a tiny bit of the front plate out) would greatly increase the detection range.

Someone approaching you head on would spot you at let’s say 100m, someone approaching from, for example, 10 degree angle could spot you from 400m depending on situation.

You didn’t mention which VK you were using but all of them are significantly bigger than the Jagdpz IV, so you won’t get great results from hiding even under ideal circumstances.

Their detection system is probably the worst feature of the game, even worse than the arty, which is hard. :) It’s too arbitrary, uncertain and at the same time too “black and white” for the lack of a better word. You are either 100% hidden and noone can see you even from 100m away or all of a sudden, you are visible and every freaking enemy can see you, even if they are a mile away.

Also the detection system is probably the main reason why we don’t have smoke in the game.

And again, IMO, this detection system was designed to support arty, since they are the only ones who need to be able to see an enemy from a mile away.

If their goal is to create Counterstrike with tanks, these two features (arty and detection system) certainly don’t belong here. And that’s IMO their biggest problem - their feature set doesn’t align with the goal and as a result, people (like TheWombat above) start thinking “This game could have been so much more”, when, in reality, if they don’t want to make it so much more, it should have been so much less - simpler but more cohesive.

1624

That’s what I’m saying. Detection depends on too many things. Why can’t the developers share how shit in the game works? How many threads do you find in the beta forum that ask ‘Why <insert reasonable question>’ and there is never a reply. That’s what I mean by I want to know exactly how things work.

I’m using the VK3601, and it’s strange really. I stuck the 88 on it and it became mostly viable, if not questionably expensive to fire, as if I ever do get the XP for a Tiger, the thing costs 1.1 million credits. But anyway. It seems there are some maps where I troll around completely invisible and invulnerable to the shots of arty and KV’s and IS’s, and there are other maps where I can be seen before I’ve gotten into the match (kidding…mostly).

Yeah the detection/sight system is currently messed up, I did see that. Don’t you think it would be a high priority fix? Well, higher than now? I realize the devs are making money off the Russian release but hellllooo, untapped gold mine over here. Should probably try making us happy.

I could rant about the game all day long but I’ll probably keep logging in trying to get to a decent tank…repeatedly.

1625

Exactly, Stridergg; I can live with CS with tanks, I can live with a pseudo-realistic war sim, but the weird fusion this tends towards is sometimes a bit frustrating.

I’ve wondered sometimes whether it might not be better to just go with a more physics (optics?) based spotting model, with cammo, no outlining/highlighting, and a real modeling of lines of sight and visibility. But that would probably just benefit players with higher-end hardware and better vision I guess!

Actually, all the techno-geek-grog stuff aside, the single thing that they could do that would really make me happy? Customizable tanks. Not just skins only you see, but decals, paint jobs, accessories (fuzzy dice, anyone?) that everyone can see. Hell, if you highlight tanks in red outlines anyhow, why NOT paint them pink if you want to? If I could spend points (cash/exp/gold/whatever) on a wicked cammo job, bird-cage wireless antennae, and sleeping bags/tools to strap on the tank–not to mention that Hello Kitty paint job for my Sherman–I’d do it in a heartbeat.

1626

Fixed it for you.

Rule #34 of MMOs. If you give the players tools, there will be penises.

1627

I actually liked my VK36 a lot, just finished lev3eling it up a few dasys ago.

I stuck the 88 on it and it became mostly viable, if not questionably expensive to fire, as if I ever do get the XP for a Tiger, the thing costs 1.1 million credits.

The thing about shell price is that it forces you to be more careful with your shots as you level up. Each shell will ALWAYS give you more credits that its cost, when it hits (due to higher damage and penetration) but misses/bounces cost more. I was shocked to see 1000+ price tag on the 105mm shells for Jagdpanther but it ended up generating more credits overal than the 88mm shells that cost 252 credits.

1628

Yeah, I hate taking long range shots on my Tiger 2, because if I miss three or four shots in a match, even if I got like 2 or 3 kills I will lose money. And that’s with premium. I’m tempted to just play with the long 88 on it sometimes, but if I’m doing that, I may as well play my Panther.

1629

The thing is the Counterstrike model has already example of how spotting could be implemented without getting into weird visibility rules. Battlefield Bad Company 2, for examlpe. You spot the enemy with your eyes, press a button and everyone on your team can see the marker for a few seconds, after that the marker disappears and you still have to use your eyes to “follow” the enemy.

And everyhting would fall into place - no pink tanks (when customization is allowed, they said they are working on it), camo has real value, arty is not overpowered (the will have to re-work the way arty works with this new detection system), etc.

But this is just wishful thinking - there is no way they would do such drastic changes this late into development cycle.

Rule #34 of MMOs. If you give the players tools, there will be penises.

LoL. :)

1630

Looks like I can stop trying to grind out the Tiger, then. Appears another softwipe is in order.

And separate EU and NA servers. (Yay).

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/17959-wot-newsletter-first-edition/

1631

Enough with the softwipes. Launch the game already…

1632

Downside is, that enables a realm of client-side visibility hacks.

1633

True, true. Doesn’t bother me–gives me more targets. But even if you only allowed a set of graphics (like Warhammer Online’s guild standards, chosen from a mix and match preset bunch) it would be cool. People painted stuff on tanks like on aircraft, though not usually as colorfully it seems.

1634

Hmm, also looks like in-game voice communications are coming. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

1635

It’s a good thing if I can immediately disable it in the settings.

It’s a bad thing in every other case. Every one of them. Unless with this clan addition, someone manages to put together a 100 person clan of all relatively awesome non-12-year-olds. Then I would go for it.

1636

This. The chatbox for this game is usually spiteful, stupid, useless, immature, and/or full of spam. I expect the same from voice chat.

1637

Don’t forget racist, fascist, and homophobic.

1638

Yeah, that too. I’m sure if we pull out ye olde thesaurus we can find some other winning adjectives.

The worst thing about voice chat (IMO) is that it’s much harder to document abuse there, so abuse is more likely.

1639

And that’s just the moderators.

1640

Ba da BING!