f13.net

http://worldoftanks.ru/gallery/video/1  can't find an English page but according to the guy who posted it on another board it's due to be released in 2010.

I wish they'd make a mechwarrior MMO

That video confused me up until the tank rolled in. Then I was all :awesome_for_real:

You mean besides the fact that they already did?

One which makes it to release.

This.

The pictures look sexy.  I'll keep an eye on this one.

Heh, love the trailer!  Yes, I will keep an eye out for this as well.  Looks like just German vs. Russian and you can fight other tanks of your nationality.

This will only be good if you can crew the tank as a group.  If that's possible, I'm in.

Necro!

New teaser is up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u5mUHIt4IE&feature=player_embedded), and it heavily winks at the EVE crowd.

By the way, I am following the development quite a bit and the new interview (part 1 (http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=22651&storypage=1) - part 2 (http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=22663)) says a few interesting things: it'll be f2p with microtransactions, it will have about 40 differrent tanks from different countries each with a bunch of historically accurate modification and customization options, environment will be mostrly destructable and it will have persistent clanwars.


(http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/169563.jpg)

Some cool videos:

Actual gameplay video from closed beta Final Tourney (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OvPvbuLLCo)

Tweaking tanks the Russian way (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmyiW_3eqi4&feature=related).

Official gameplay trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJd9iCbpwuI)

Teaser #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxSBU9UsVQI)   :awesome_for_real:

Teaser #2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4Kuumslq4M)

I've been following this one for a bit and it's looking way better than I anticipated. Getting a hard on for it. And those teasers poking fun at other games? THAT is how you tweak another MMO company, not a fucking retarded interview saying steak and hamburgers durrrrr or hiring a bald midget to burn out his vocal chords screaming about something something everywhere. Those videos are hilarious.


When is this shit coming out, dammit

Which would be better, a tank mmo or a mech mmo?

Both + Grunt play as well.

Мир Танков! Отлично! Я буду играть эту игру.

"The World of Tanks Global map will represent the entire world divided into hundreds and thousands of provinces, so we believe that it is simply impossible for one clan to establish control over all of those territories"

50 bucks that statement comes back to bite them in the ass.  Never underestimate the gaming public lol

free2play? I'm in.

I was actually thinking something similar, some massive guild will probably devote themselves to it just to fuck with them now.

Unofficial massive alliances weeeeeeeeeee

It bugs me that all the tanks in the game play footage all seem to have stabilizers equal to modern day tanks.  I'm pretty sure that WW2 tank battles weren't characterized by massive groups of tanks circle strafing to victory.

Heh cool teasers.

The actual gameplay is totally different than what's implied by the trailers, though.

Yeah. Mobile artillery I like, I gotta question the accuracy of a moving tank firing its main cannon. Of course, that said, I loved the Vanny in Planetside. Fagriders never stood a chance.

Accuracy while moving should be shit.  I'd bet it doesn't play that way. 

It should be shit unless they're going for an arcade feel which seems to be exactly what they're doing. I don't see an issue with that.

Arcade type tank battles are nothing more than your standard FPS with a new player skin on it.  How is that possibly interesting?  I guess you get a few new maps, different sound effects, and new buttons to mash?

You're missing the point. You're bitching that something doesn't look like a hyper realistic tank simulator when it's not trying to be that. If it's not interesting to you that's fine. EQ wasn't interesting to me but I didn't post in every EQ thread asking why it wasn't like Tribes.

I suggest you join me in World War 2 Online if you are looking for a realistic tank simulation.

I don't think I'm missing the point.  Apparently disagreeing with you means that I'm doing it wrong?  I didn't bitch about the game, say it sucks, or whine about how it wasn't Robot Jesus.  I just wondered what was so exciting about a reskinned FPS.  


Point taken.  

For the record, my point wasn't about what I'm looking for.  I'm just trying to understand what's exciting about taking a standard FPS, reskinning it, and slowing the action down a tad.  If this game offers something novel from a tactical standpoint, that might make it interesting.  What is this game bringing to the table that isn't already available?  

It's not out yet or I'd give a yea or nay. As it is, it may be a reskinned shooter with tanks. Maybe some firing arc issues and turret movement independent of forward movement. Given how many shooters people buy in a given year I'm okay with that as it's bound to be greater than the difference between Unreal Tournament and Quake.

If I was looking for a hyper realistic simulator I'd get this http://www.steelbeasts.com/  I'd just like a game that had a different feel than standard MMO PVP, maybe it will play totally different than the tournament video but my experience with MMOs doesn't lead me to think so.   

Because it's TANKS dammit!

Here is a tautology that I think will explain why you are having trouble understanding this:

• Nebu  :heart:  the Scientific Method
• Scientific Method  h8 Fun

ergo

• Nebu  h8 Fun

"tautology", the heart symbol, "h8" and Scientific Method... that's like a triple word score right there, I rule!

Hello, its WORLD of TANKS.

Fake edit: See, Typhon gets it.

the gameplay looks a bit shallow considering the "scale".

That's awesome.  I laughed for a while about that one.

If it's fun, I'll play it.  I just have a bad feeling about it being the same kind of lame tactics that drive me away from most FPS games.  Ok, that and my lack of FPS twitch skill drives me away. 

:why_so_serious: I can't wait to bunny-hop in my tank to dodge your shells!

I think its because your not a real man.

I could have sworn the US has some crazy fire control system on the M4 Sherman (maybe the Sheridan too, but that was a true light tank).  I know the modern tanks have a great shoot on the move ability, but hell if I know about the history of it. 

The Sherman had a very rudimentary stabilization system, it was hated by most of the crews and was rarely used.  WW2 tanks shot mostly while stationary, at least when firing the main gun at point targets.  In defense this wasn't too hard to arrange, during offense you either kept part of your tanks stationary to cover the moving ones or learned how to shoot from the short halt, which is where the Sherman's stabilizer was supposed to be the most useful since it would in theory keep the gun approximately on target while you moved.

Press release.

They're giving out free keys to the closed beta right now. I got one, and I've downloaded the client. You'll be able to play starting on the 8th.

http://www.massively.com/2010/07/01/score-yourself-a-world-of-tanks-closed-beta-key-here/ (http://www.massively.com/2010/07/01/score-yourself-a-world-of-tanks-closed-beta-key-here/)

http://www.worldoftanks.ru/video-4.html

Lovely trailer, makes fun of EVE to boot.

http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/196/World-of-Tanks-Beta-Key-Giveaway.html

More keys.

Played this some, beta is on.  Its...alright, but the gameplay is a little slower than I'd like.  Not particularly compelling, but I haven't really played enough to give it a chance.  I also worry about the idea of buying better tanks through the cash shop.

No, I like this. I like this bunches. It doesn't feel like a reskinned fps. Not really, anyway, though it's definitely not grognard HARDCORE.

http://www.freemmogamer.com/2010/07/world-of-tanks-beta-key-giveaway.html

More keys. 550 left.

Gave it a shot today.

Good - destructible environments, tanks have to be stopped in order to shoot accurately.

Bad - zero coordination, initial tank blows, I'm garbage at this game.

Anyone else giving it a go?

sounds like the typical mmo clown shoes, i'll play this with low expectations at the wee hours of 9pm eastern

The initial tank is terrible thing is probably the worst part.  It start off with the "this is awesome" bang that makes me want to keep playing a lot.  Of course it doesn't help that no one has anything besides the starter tank yet because the beta just started, so there are 30 pea shooters firing at each other, which doesn't make for high drama.

My only real complaint is that the menu options to research new tanks and stuff is a little clunky. It seems smooth but there's not as much info as I'd like and I feel like there's always one extra window I'm going through than I should have to.

The new tank thing doesn't bug me too much. I have a headache right now or I'd play more but it doesn't seem like it'll take that long to get some new tanks going. Plus I figure that you can buy a new tank with RMT at launch right off the bat if you want to (although that's not implemented) so whatever; five bucks for a PzIII isn't too bad.

Note to the mods: I'm pretty damned certain there was no NDA on this but if I found out otherwise I'll gladly redact this sort of talk.

I hope this is not one of those "you play this for the sim elements you wow tard!" games :awesome_for_real:

Its not.

Lord no. The tanks play like tanks in the BF series.

 :heart: :drill: :heart: :drill: :heart: :drill:

I love tanks and all things tank related.

Oh hey. Shift zooms in your sight.  :grin:

I actually hit something.

So does the mouse wheel?

No, mouse wheel zooms in and out behind you. I mean shift puts you in a tank scope on telescopic zoom.

So the patcher uses .torrents within its program.

The game/servers go down. Nobody can patch anymore.

Nothing on the forums from anyone about this. People trying to play the game are sharing the partial torrent files and are using utorrent to connect to the server (WHICH ISN'T HOSTING THE PATCH FILE)

Everyone is at 8.1% of a 9meg patch file until a player finally jumps on the utorrent with the full file and everyone gets to 100%

Repeat.

And still no word from the company.

The beta testers are having to troubleshoot patching the fucking game by opening their .torrent files in utorrent and sharing information.

Clownshoes.

so waiting to play this at 9pm eastern was a good idea huh  :oh_i_see:

starting up the good old exe (well the short cut to it anyway) and getting
connecting to update server
receiving patches
connecting to update server
receiving patches
connecting to update server
receiving patches
connecting to update server
receiving patches
 
hasn't changed in 3 minutes, checking, nope haven't changed. I think i'm used to open beta being "troubleshoot our buggy servers for us, your gamers you'll figure it out".  :awesome_for_real:

Really? I'm tearing it up and there's like 1000 people in right now. Hrm.

Apparently, there is an issue with their download servers for some folks.  Some people have zipped their updates folder, installing it over your updates folder is supposed to be working for those not able to d/l it normally.

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/923-problems-with-patch-official/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/923-problems-with-patch-official/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/918-people-who-cant-patch-please-read/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/918-people-who-cant-patch-please-read/)

Edit:  Just tried the zipped patch, and it worked like a charm.

I've been playing for a about two hours now and I really like this. It's incredibly smooth playing for a not quite early beta. There are some balance issues, for sure; artillery is currently grotesque when it starts raining down. There's plenty of time to hammer that stuff out though.

This might be one of the worst game I've ever played.

What is the NDA status on this game?

There isn't one that I've can locate.

Been having a hell of a time. :heart: This game is pretty awesome. I lost 4 hours of my evening in a blink. It needs a few things ironed out for sure. But over all alot of fun. Also matchmaking needs a bit of a tune up.

Be sure to upgrade your engine right away make such a huge difference.

This game is immensly frustrating.  :heartbreak:

Matchmaking fixes are an ongoing tweak, with group join eventually making it in. So premades, death of all that is pure, blah blah. I'll repeat: this is a fairly early beta. For it to be in the state it's in, where we're complaining about balance and matchmaking instead of it melting down your machine or deleting your progress, is pretty nifty. To me, anyway. It's not traditional MMO by any means but it's better than other comparable shooters like, oh, APB at a corresponding point in development.

It is, at first.  It doesn't help that there's no documentation, or help of any kind, really.  Once you figure out what you're doing, though, it becomes a lot of fun.

I was up til 3 am playing, and where it not for having to go to work, I'd probably be playing it still. Some other MMO devs would do well to take some lessons from these guys.

Yeah, it took me like four games to even score a hit on someone. Then I figured out Shift = telescope gun sight. Then it took me another three before I killed anything. That game I cleaned house. Then I sucked again. Then I got good again.

I think the shitty starter tank is the main frustration.

I grabbed a key from MMOSITE.  I'll download and try this game tonight.

I think I haven't been so biased (as I superlove tanks) in a while, but I am in and I am very impressed so far. It seems like a work of love, not just a product. So sweet.

Closed Beta discussion rules posted here:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19496.0

tl;dr Closed Beta is under NDA but they apparently aren't enforcing it so I'm not going to either unless I hear otherwise.

They are not only not enforcing it, they are also not telling beta testers there is one when they sign up.

It's part of the License Agreement you agreed to when you registered:

http://game.worldoftanks.com/registration/

I have two goddamn beta keys, but I can't get a new user registered. I tried yesterday, never got an email saying I am registered, it never registered the account and I can't login. Made a forum account, now trying to create a new user it tells me there's already a user. User creation is like MMOG 101. What the fuck?

I just did it, you can PM me the details and I'll do it for you if you want.

I have to take back my comments about the combat that I made after watching some of the trailers.  It's fun to play without being super arcadish, I especially like that you can fight your tank like a tank, firing and backing into cover to change firing positions works really well.  They even have a shortcut to fire from the short halt (space bar) which stops the tank until you fire.  After you shoot the tank starts moving again, about the only really annoying thing is that the correct way to capture an objective is to drive in circles around the flag pole so that you are hard to hit.

The BT-2's circling around you faster than your turret turns, while still shooting you is annoying as fuck.  The only thing missing is the bunny hopping, and I just know the little bastard driving it is trying with all his might to get the damn tank to jump.

Upgrade your turret. Also, and I hate the "it's beta" remarks more than anyone.... it's beta. If it were late beta I'd be irritated by the mostly okay but some glaring holes balance. But it's not late beta.

To be fair, the game has been in beta in Russia for a while already.

Fair enough. Any idea how long? And release is what? Five, six months away or have I got this all wrong and it's coming out in a month?

Also, one thing to remember: right click will align your turret to auto follow an enemy. If you do not clear it by right clicking a second time and the enemy is still in view, even remotely, your turret acts dumb.

This game is crazy fun.  Just the right mix of arcade and sim.  Teamwork is very well rewarded too.  I'm failing miserably at limiting my play time so I don't get all burnt out by the time it goes live.

I can't put this down. Once you get the basics down you're moving to a decent tank or artillery and it's a whole different game.

yeah realized that 50 miles per how is fun. though its crap for fast tight turns.

I drive an AT-1 these days, so no turret, unfortunately.  Fortunately, they can't hit worth a damn when they're moving, and the AT-1 seems to be fairly well armored, so I can usually tough it out if I have allies around to take out the BT-2.

Still fun as all hell, either way.

The BT-2's "thing" seems to be ohmygodfast.

It was fast in real life too.

BT is an abbreviation for the Russian words for Fast Tank.

I played a few games and it was kind of annoying.  First game I didn't see a single enemy.  Second game I got to a point and I was 2-3 shotted and then I sit there for 10 minutes waiting for the game to end.

:(

Protip: exit the battle when you die and go play with your other tank.  You still get the XP and credits from your dead tank when the battle ends.

Also anyone having a real hard time try out artillery(SPG), it's a good deal less twitchy and more strategic.

Also, seems to me that upgrading a tank improves things dramatically. Even on the baby ones.

And yeah, it's a slow game. But it's a tank game, dammit. And for that, it is less slow than I was expecting.

Fake edit: great tip, Sparky.

I officially love this game.

The problem I have with arty is that too many people upgrade to tank destroyers and spotting all but stops, so you sit half a match with zero targets exposed on the map, also people in light tanks do not seem to understand the need to upgrade their radios. All these issues will fix themselves up right quick when there are clans working together and creating matches and stuff.

Only thing that is bothering me so far is that it really seems you only need to go up in the tank tiers as fast as possible, and eventually no one will use beginner tanks anymore. Maybe it makes sense, but I always loved that in EVE every stupid small ship is potentially useful.

With a some prexisting tank knowledge though, you can see clearly that there are some really nice light tanks which are t3 versions of light tanks. Those ones have alot more mobility and alot more effective weapons systems.

All of a sudden I understand! Right click, turret follows tank and can eventually shoot behind their cover as long as the target is spotted. And magically I start to kill stuff even with the starting pea-shooter! Oh, goodness!

made a channel called... f13

I got into the game a bit more with a bunch of upgrades... they make a huge difference.  But I still can't hit anyone.  Now I just a ton of cash to buy a new tank.  I almost fully fitted out with research the newbie german tank.

Finally got my first attempt to register done, but never got an email for either the forum confirmation or the account registration. Thanks for the help, Draegen. Logged in, died right quick in two battles then had to take my brother-in-law to work. Going to hop in now.

It takes time. Like I said, it was four or five games before I so much as scratched anyone. It was another four or five before I actually got a kill. There's a lot of subtlety to this game that's not apparent from the videos or just the thought of WORLD OF TANKS NEAT.

Having maxed out both the German, and the Russian newb tanks, I vastly prefer the Russian one.  Maybe it's all in my head, but it seems to perform way better.  I might get 1 kill in the German one, but I'll rack up 4 or 5 in the Russian MS-1.

As far as hitting things, it's right click to auto-aim, hit the space bar to stop if you're moving, and then wait a second or three for the reticle to shrink down.  I've fired at tanks from like 10 meters, and missed, or at least done no damage, because I didn't wait for the reticle to focus enough.

The matchmaking is amazing, I've yet to be ROFL-stomped in a match.

If they allow you to group up with friends it will really destroy the fun of this game.

Nah just match up grouped with other groups and keep the randoms playing themselves.  The game is crying out for some group play considering how much proper tactics matter.

Yeah, I love how it works. And I love the voice of your gunner informing you of what happened with your shot, missed, hit, did no damage and stuff like that since you can't really visually tell when you are that far away. It gives me that "tank" feeling.

whats the password?

I used batcountry, and it seemed to work, unless I'm in a different f13 (Draegan) channel.

Also, playing as Noitek, in the event that one of you kills me, or I happen to kill one of you.

Actually, you're wrong. High level tank repair cost often becomes larger than profit from battle, especially if you got your tank destroyed and your team has lost.

I am glad I am wrong, Stefman. I was hoping for someone with a better understanding of the game to provide exactly that kind of information. Cool.

Yeah, starting off with the beginner tank is kind of a pain. I've managed to pop 4 people, but mostly out of me getting one good shot in when they're being pummeled by other people. Otherwise most of my deaths come from 1 arty shot or being face raped by a faster tank.

I'm saving up to buy an arty, but I'm seeing that they're expensive to run.

Expensive but hilariously overpowered.  Use heat (the 160 a pop one) ammo and destroy people hilariously.

What do you think is the point of having a better driver? I mean, they grow up in experience and you can even pay to make them grow faster. But seriously, what difference does it make? I can see engine and tracks improving your speed and turning speed, but the driver? Any ideas.

I assume the guys cause your tank to be more effective or some such, or maybe they die less easily.

Oh man I just watched a Tiger take out like 6 people.

Having a lot of fun - only thing I worry about at the moment is the effect of the cash ammo. Seems head and shoulders better than the normal stuff, rather than a sidegrade.

Look at hitpoints of level 10 tanks. 160 damage against thousands of hp! And if you will try to shoot only light tanks then your profits will not cover your expenses.

Driver's skill limits maximum speed of your vehicle. Actually, even with best engine and suspension your tank will be slow as a turtle if your driver is unskilled. So, training for driver is a must-have if you're riding scout tank.

There are rumors that some people already acquired up to 15 frags in a single battle...

When I was talking about ridiculously overpowered I meant in the tier 1/2 tank matches where you don't have anything other than light tanks.  And hitting light tanks more than covered my expenses at lower levels.  Also for those wondering I think there are 2 tiers of games.  The newbie games which are tier 1/2 tanks only and the other games which are every tier, to get to the second tier you have to buy a tank of tier 3 or higher, or at least that's when I got in them.

Actually, you could use your lvl 1-2 tank in normal game, just open dropdown list under the button 'Battle'.

Wrong, there are several tiers.

The way matchmaking in the Normal battles is that 60% of vehicles are taken from your own tier. 40% are taken from tiers one above and one below. Since Tigers are tier 7 I sincerely doubt you saw a Tiger do anything unless you've been catassing hard.

So got a few matches in this. A lot of fun, but I suck bad. Have played 3 matches and have no idea if I have hit anyone yet. Even using the auto target right click thing pretty sure I am still missing. Also in chat someone said if you don't bale out your crew they die, anyone know if this is true? If so how the heck do you bale them out?

It doesn't help that the servers in whothehecknowsistan are giving us all 200+ ping. Those BTs skip all over the danged battlefield.

Crew don't die as far as I know. I concur that some more feedback about your hits would be appreciated. I thought crew voices were useful, but actually not so much.

I dunno, I kinda appreciate that you don't get perfect feedback. Adds to the realism. You do know if you got the kill blow, and that's all I really care that much about.

This game reminds me of navyfield. In a good and bad way. The game was great, everything aside from game play was clownshoes or border line clownshoes, a western pvp game that loves grind? nothing more i can say. World of tanks is fun AND addictive but it will make many people quite in the short and long term so the game will suffer an agonizing death spiral weeding out everyone but the farmers and cash shoppers (like every other grindy pvp game).  15 minute and no longer ww2 tank battles? Yes please. Starting tanks from ww1. No please. Hours of grind for a better radio (anyone owning a bt-7 or something along those lines can attest to this). no please. The game probably being unbearable once they've taking out daily gold? No please. Learning new things from the tip of the day instead of actual documentation? No please. Somehow i don't see this keeping my interest when they wipe accounts. All the no please moments i mentioned, navy field had them too and history just can't help butt repeat itself. Its been the story of most korean PVP games like survival project and rumble fighters. At first fun, the gameplay alone gets you hooked for hours but than the grindy bits settle in and the cash shop people, you know the people serious about playing, start becoming more and more common as the none cash shop people can only hope to compete by either being HAXOR PRO or take full advantage of ever cheesy farming technique you have available. In World of Tanks you can afk you lowbie tanks to get at least 500 gold. now keep doing that over and over, start game, afk, start game afk.

this has been my only video game for 4 days and i am just now 1/4th of the way to being able to purchase an a-20 in cash though assuming that i don't spend the research points for the bloody radio.

You are totally doing it wrong, with approximately 7 to 10 hours of gameplay, I have 3 t2 tanks all elite with the best quipment, a tank destroyer elite with best gear and a t3 arty all elite with the best gear. Each of my crews has 60 percent or better experience and with non afking tank rotation after death I make 35 to 65k an hour. Without any tedious grind.

Are you just that good, or is there a specific 'cash cow' tank that you've used? I make ~1.2k a match.

Turn your daily gold allotment into credits. This game is so much less grindy than, say, BF:BC2 it's not funny. The matches take five minutes. Chrissake, you can play SIX GAMES AT ONCE potentially.

I average 2 kills per round, lots more when i play arty. It's that during a match I shoot at everything, you aren't awarded credits based on kills you are awarded credits based on damage, I spread the rounds and roll with groups of people, I use HE all the time. As soon as I die, I drop battle and load up another battle on another tank. I stay pretty much constantly in the action with 5 vehicles. My average credit take home on bad match is at least 2300 minimum. With the TD and the Arty I frequently rack up 4 to 6k in credits.

Also I converted gold to credits and bought better training for my crews. The 50 percent training is fucking amazing compared to the starter crews.

Edit: The only thing that jacks with my earnings rotation is when I do not die and run a match out to the end. However if I haven't died that normally leads to a nice 6 to 10k fatty, most I've made in a match is in my arty right at 11k, with 10 kills and then a capture hehe.

err why have an army of t2 tanks unless your sole purpose in life is to smack around tier 1 tanks? Your t3 arty sounds impressive, i have a maxed out BT-2, near maxed BT-7 tier 3, and a tier 2 german for the lolz.


you seem to be under the impression that i haven't figured out what gold does? They gimped me out of 2-3 days including today by my calculations. The game IS grindy, don't know why you insist on proving yourself wrong. Does using items exclusive to the cash shop make it less grindy? Honestly if you haven't even hit tier 4 with DAILY "WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE UNLESS PURCHASED" gold than how do you think this game will play out come launch.

I'm 100% sure that's a bug.

edit i stand corrected, i thought i was locked to games, wow this is exploited able. suciide light tank, exit.

You're babbling and I think you may be delirious. I didn't say that there was zero grind. I said it was decidedly LESS GRINDY than games like Bad Company. It's less grindy than APB. It's less grindy than any number of games where people do not discuss the grind. It's five minute games and the tanks you go through aren't useless. A Panther isn't useless in the face of a Tiger. A PzII isn't useless in the face of a T-34. It would be one thing if there were Magnum Rounds at the end of the grind but there's not.

I just play it like what it is: a quick team shooter with a variety of equipment. If you're getting upset because you don't have your t10 tank yet you're playing the game wrong.

I've hung on to my army of t2 tanks as an experiment. Ive been looking to see how much of a difference crew experience makes, and according to the forums when you get a crew to 100 percent experience they can choose natural skills, like firefighting, camouflage, and other things. Sticking with elite tanks and training my crews up has made a massive difference in my efficiency, in credits earned and fun value.



Not a bug, It is encouraged by the developers on the beta forums. It's even part of a stickied faq post.

I think he really wanted this game to be something that it is not. That's okay though, not every game can be what we were hoping for or envisioned. I am having a ton of fun, and am very attached to my well trained crews in my t2 tanks. Shit I even know their names. One thing i would remind him of on the grind, I am sure he has spent more than a few hours on an item in a game that gives him .5 percent more efficiency hehe complaining about an hour to snag a major scouting upgrade in this game seems kind of silly in comparison.

For DLRiley, if you really like this game and want it to be more like how you envision, why not post constructively in the beta forums? The devs really seem like they love their project and they have many posts discussing ideas and design decisions. Maybe you can give them some nice ideas.

yes it is pretty grindy, though comparing it to other examples...


Well I wouldn't want a game with such great gameplay circle the drain because they just don't want to allow players to get in the action so to speak. this will always be a 15 minute game session game that just happens take 3 hours before i'm close to ready to log off

When I logged out, I assume it disappeared, but I did have the password box unchecked.  Odd someone else might of made it.

Someone explain elite tanks please?  I still have the noob starter tanks.  Are elite tanks tanks that you can buy without different training?  I need to get into this game a bit more tonight I think.

Also, the experience you earn is only for the tank you play in correct? 

Elite is when you have every upgrade researched for that tank (including new tanks) and you can either give your crew 50% faster training or convert exp gained in that tank to the free experience to be able to use on other tanks.

Also AT-1 plus 75mm cannon =  :heart:

tier 1 is going to suck big time when people who played the game for 3 months still farming the tier 1-2 zone with their max upgraded tanks and personal  :grin:. Man got the final light tank for the soviets and it doesn't go faster than a BT-7 ( i think it turns slightly less god awfully slow). Man so my next decent tank will probably be german, bloody hell. That or I need to learn to aim  :awesome_for_real:. All this grinding, i could just get 5 tier 2 tanks and farm tier 1 tanks all day.

It's great to bang around in an older elite tank while your main tank is still in combat after dying. You actually gain some useful experience for playing an older tier.

So what is it that keeps killing me with one goddamn shot? Is that the arty or the tank destroyers?

I've gotten my two starter tanks to elite status, and bout a T-26. Make sure you keep your crew in the tank they buy. Otherwise, they don't offer much improvement even if their experience rate is higher.

Here are some useful links to read up on dealing with game mechanics.

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1169-how-line-of-sight-and-radar-range-works/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1169-how-line-of-sight-and-radar-range-works/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/869-faq-crew/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/869-faq-crew/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/871-faq-equipment/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/871-faq-equipment/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1445-faqhow-to-become-hero-of-the-battle-and-receive-medals/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1445-faqhow-to-become-hero-of-the-battle-and-receive-medals/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/823-game-settings-in-preferencesxml/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/823-game-settings-in-preferencesxml/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1056-faqwhat-will-get-you-experience-and-what-will-not/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1056-faqwhat-will-get-you-experience-and-what-will-not/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/674-high-resolution-maps/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/674-high-resolution-maps/)

Discussions for the various classes.

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1168-official-tank-destroyers-discussion/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1168-official-tank-destroyers-discussion/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1026-official-light-tank-scout-discussion/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1026-official-light-tank-scout-discussion/)

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1139-official-spg-artillery-discussion/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/1139-official-spg-artillery-discussion/)

So far I haven't found an official medium tank and larger discussion.

3 things i've learned.

light tanks only purpose is to die
TD's suck.
I'll learn to play spg sometime in the far far future.

Generally if you don't see it its arty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_cm_sIG_33_(Sf)_auf_Panzerkampfwagen_I_Ausf_B), and a well placed shot will kill you. If your incombat or spotted you can be sure an arty is trying to line you up. Keep moving if your in combat and if you have the chance rush the arty piece and circle it, they will be unable to kill you.

The counter-argument is that your griping is based in not knowing what you're doing.

Let's get this out of the way: artillery is overpowered in the noob battles. It is. It needs to be tweaked downward. The reason it's so overpowered is that people don't know the best ways to play yet (DO NOT STAND IN ONE SPOT IN YOUR LIGHT TANK FOR THREE MINUTES PEOPLE) and light tanks are one shot on a solid artillery hit. Since everyone is in a light tank, artillery is pounding everyone and it's skewed.

Light tanks only purpose is to die: Wrong. Shoot, then move. When you switch tiers, light tanks are for scouting (you get xp for spotting enemies! DO IT!) and flanking. You flank to kill SPGs. If you are in a light tank and get killed in close quarters by a SPG? You are bad.

TDs suck: They're snipers with guns quite a bit more powerful than their tank counterparts. Hide in the bushes, one shot your enemy and then move. Anything else is doing it wrong.

SPGs: You're going to be amazed at how much you actually miss with SPGs once you actually play them for awhile. You're also not going to be one shotting medium and heavy tanks. You're also also going to be impressed with how much the ammo costs.

Errr lolz. TD suck because medium tanks can do the same thing but with 3 times the functionality (hell medium tanks carry the same fucking guns as the tds do..). Light tanks purpose is to die because medium and heavy tanks are going to blow you to kindgom come before you finish circling them around, i've spotted their entire team, but die shortly after usually before getting off a single shot(usually win when this happens). Also if you haven't noticed most tier 3 and above games usually have no spg's, i guess people get tired of getting rofl stomped by blitzing medium tanks. the only reason people still use td's is because of the uber rotation speed. I simply said i like to learn it but not anytime soon. Really hard to hit something that isn't dumb enough to stand still, i have to hope the light tanks are spotting and not attempting to get their kdr positive. when i get more people to play this or join a clan i'll learn it.

For the most part TDs can be upgunned past what medium tanks can. Higher muzzle velocity. Compare stats throughout.

where do you find this data in game?

I dunno, man. You seem to be having a pretty good time getting worked up about stuff you haven't bothered to find out about.  :drill:

But, no, you can find it in the tech tree. If you right click an upgrade you can view statistics. The stats window for that upgrade will stay open while you bop around opening other pieces of gear so you can compare. If you didn't see the characteristics window I'm wondering if you've actually upgraded your vehicles since it's the same dropdown.

Also, on TDs... I forgot to add that they're tougher to spot after firing than tanks. They're meant to be used, as mentioned, like a sniper.


To be clear here, I'm not saying the game is perfect or trying to deflect all criticism. Artillery needs to be toned down in the noob game, more map modes would be nice, credit income could probably be tweaked upward a bit and a few other things. What I am saying is that there's a whole lot of subtle touches to the game and even (dare I say it) realism in the physics models that aren't readily apparent off the bat. That's leading people who haven't, say, compared guns (hi2u DLRiley and your stream of consciousness posts) to one another to freak out about how lame the game is when there actually is a legitimate L2P angle.

hey i'm not a complete noob, TD's are slightly more accurate and they bullets move faster. also they have a camo bonus. BUT a medium tank can carry the same caliber, blitz to the backline of the enemy flank, and can take more hits when flanked. the saving grace for the td is the turning radius which keeps it competitive (which is why people still play them past the tier1-2 zone) verse say the spg which dies in the first 60 seconds due suicidal light tanks and l33t medium tanks. i never have a problem with spg, but the medium tank seems to be a light tank and a td having an unholy baby. i can't really count that as credit against the game historic accuracy ftlolz but i think its safe to warn people from the frustration.

I think it's going to be a different story with late game TDs. Armor sloping and high velocity 150mm direct fire AP guns are going to even the playing field, I wager.

that would make light tanks near unplayable lolz.

edit 3 kills on A-20.

Played this a bunch last night and the gold helps getting some of the other tanks up to speed :D.  Otherwise things would be slow going.

I have the two noob tanks all tricked out.  I have an SPG and a Tier 2 light tank.  Not sure what I'm doing but I'm getting a little better at the game.

What I'd like to know is what are those tanks that are moving twice the speed as my tank?  I need one of those.

Probably a BT-2. They're obscenely fast.

Wait until you see the Leopard in action later on.

It is  a nice casual  little game ,pretty fun and pretty easy .Dunno wtf is with retards complaining about the grind I already got 3 tier5 tanks   playing casually  -free gold helped pay. Only thing I dont get what it is doing in MMO section , it is not by any stretch of imagination a MMO. Its more like arcade multiplayer shooter with tanks . I mean we dont call BF series an MMO, why this one is different? Or it is new trend - everything multiplayer is called MMO! heck combat arms is called MMO somehow :/  

I dont see myself playing for very long though -limited amount of maps , pretty dated graphics and engine (no destructible environments ). There was nice ww2 3d person tactical shooter game from Russia while ago (8 years?)  and it had  destructible everything  - you shoot a house the wall is take out, you shoot more and it starts collapsing. Very detailed and very fun. We had it back then why cant we have now :( -guess I will be back at bf2

This is the classic game where I just care about playing, and growing up and gathering XP and improving stuff is just icing on the cake. Here I care more about playing than getting a better tank, which is what never happens in other MMOGs.

I know what and how many feel about the grind, but that only kicks in to me in PvE circumstances, when you are repeating the same actions over and over with no chance of failing. I never felt I was "grinding" in two years playing Counterstrike. I was just playing, and every round was a new fun thrilling one. If on the other hand you care more about growing than playing, I'm afraid you will always feel the grind at some point. It seems to be ingrained in the concept of "reward".

EDIT: Dark_MadMax, the game is supposed to have a persistent, on a signle server, map of Europe with an ongoing PvP clan war going on. That's the MMO part. And more maps are coming, night and foggy ones included.

I have four T2 tanks and just spamming recruit games back to back awesome fun, name is Blindside.

The environments actually are destructible. Mostly. You can tear down trees and some buildings will collapse if you shoot them enough. Most games are so short you never see it though.

And yes, the persistent MMO part isn't in quite yet.

Is it worth playing the newbie tanks over and over to train the crew?

I can't actually tell. When I switch a crew between tanks the name of the tank they just came from is still by their names only in red. If I click retrain and then select the vehicle they end up going down to 25ish percent. Crew training and levels are completely opaque to me.

I actually tried converting exp on one of my elite tanks last night to free exp. Unfortunately it costs 1 gold per 50 exp to convert it. Also no free gold once game goes live, read a dev post on the forums that stated that.

As for training the newbie crews up, I doubt I'd worry about it, the t2 tanks are quite a bit better and if all your playing with is t2 tanks money won't really be an issue in my opinion.

A good start to get some money is to get either of the TDs and just follow behind groups of light tanks on your side and snipe the tanks that attack them. Hide in the bushes with those things too, you can be really hard to see sometimes.

No. You get more credits and xp for battle higher tier your tank is.  Its not worth staying at tier 3 even. You start raking in  really great credits at tier4- 5. I am not sure if its scales well all way to the top as repairs are getting more expensive. But I heard russian tanks are great farmers as they really cheap to repair - going to try t34-85 for that purpose this weekend if I level   xp by then

My best credit earner right now iz pz3 scout as I get 9k credits per battle on average . My pziv gets more base credits but its more expensive to repair and I dont get as much contribution as I do in pz3

I've been leveling German tanks.  Looks like I need to switch.  My baseline Russian one is one skill short of elite.  Oh and this game without daily gold is terrible. I wonder how much gold is going to cost at release.

Well, a one day premium subscription (50% more gold and xp) costs 250 gold. I'll need to double check what a month's sub is but assuming a 10 to 15 buck range for a monthly (I'd have to think 10 bucks) then you might be able to extrapolate somewhat.

You have 2 choices, you can get 5 tier 2 tanks and farm cash and get 100% on their henchmen. Or you could rush to tier 4 and hope your leet enough to get 9k per battle (i don't think its possible with russian tanks lolz).

glad someone else agree with about the gold.

No, I have option 3: Play the game for the sake of playing the game like I would any other action shooter and don't worry about spreadsheeting the fun to get to the top tank.

Incidentally, top tanks are balanced with all the others and by the matchmaking. You're really not going to be any better in your Maus.

Option 3 never exist, because unlike other action shooters you don't get better guns the longer they play. Most people will probably farm the starter ranks in hopes of affording a medium or heavy tank.

I can tell you that it absolutely exists because I and about 20 other people I brought along by hyping this up are playing exactly that way. Christ, endgame eyes on the prize MMOs like WoW have ruined gamers for a generation.

I see most people not liking the intro tank or their first tier 2 tank they play. Its about finding your play style, and if you don't find it you simply get disinterested and leave. Also people like to experiment, which is ill afforded. I don't see why you think people won't go "i wanna play a heavy tank so i can fill the roll of a heavy tank...HOLY FGUK 3million cash WTF!!!...........shit going to need to faaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrmm". Its bone headed, if all is equal than the price shouldn't be stratified. Guys like you who accommodate this design is why we still have this shit.

This game is a niche game for so many reasons, the dev clearly stated that in a few interviews. The people DLRiley is talking about exist and they will go fuck themselves somewhere else soon enough. On the other hand, plenty of tank maniacs and just people who like their shooters more tactical and less twitchy while still being quick and entertaining will keep on playing for a long time. This game is good and surprisingly refreshing. All the points about carroting the stick have been made, and they make sense from a certain perspective. Now what about accepting that not everyone is into progression, and sometimes just playing, and not gaining, is the fun part?

Falc you said that about every game circling the drain(and still are). "Its niche leave it alone" doesn't cut it anymore.

And guys like you who can't take the time to make a cogent argument in English is why it won't change. I literally have no fucking clue what you type three quarters of the time.

What? Thats exactly what you get - longer you play , better guns you get  and more tanks . I play it exactly as action shooter. you could get unlock more guns/perks  longer you play in FPS for quite a while - I dont see how its different.

I been reading the forums at work apparently higher tier tanks are net loss in battles after repairs and ammo.  Imho that is quite clever balancing  - so you dont have games where everyone is tier10 all the time and have to drop back to lower tiers ever so often.  - I like variety  .  WoT has more MMOish flavor ( the progression curve is more expressed and more pronounced) but its still action shooter.  Every tank is viable , every tank has its role. You wouldnt whine in TF2 that heavy can rape your medic , or that heavy cant heal. So why whine that scout tanks have trouble killing heavy tanks or that heavy tanks are slow?

Game has quite a bit a range of tactical possibilities and interesting tactical decisions which will come apparent when clan wars starts (as pubs are ... welll pubs) - thats why I like it.

the mmo generation takes the anal raping of their time in stride I see.

You know, its just nice that a multiplayer game has come out that doesn't require grind to get to the fun. I have myself a few bought tanks, including an SPG and the PzII, but I still like to take out the newb tanks from time to time when I don't want to think too much about tactics and just be scout/fodder for a few minutes before I'm shelled into the ground.

Maybe I'll get sick of it sooner rather than later, but the cool thing is, I'm having fun NOW. Not 3 months from now when I finally get my SSOY and can be part of a l33t guild or someshit.

You're the one obsessing about the miniscule grind and not having fun, not everyone else. The idea of grinding it out, of working out precisely the best way to maximize my pixel rewards per hour, has literally never crossed my mind once.

You ARE the MMO generation. You are what you hate.

I've pretty much settled on the suicidal light tank don't bother hitting anything play style. I like it though will probably need a change of pace eventually. bt-2, bt-7, and a-20, going to try german tanking. i can actually afford a medium tank now, 50 caliber rounds sounds fun. bt-7 flaw is that its highest caliber is 45, honestly not going to kill anyone with that or even land the finishing shot, unless your fighting another light tank. in which case i suspect the bt-7 has a secondary goal of anti-light tank light tank but i'm sure i haven't seen a good bt-7 take out a german light tank... Oh and HE rounds don't seem to matter too much with light tanks verse just taking AP rounds, it seems i do less damage, though that is probably due to not having the time to aim the shot in critical areas.

and no modern i am not what i hate, i hate the "its not that bad" type people who would gladly grind their anus against the wall as long as there is a slight chance of re-playability, your type keeps this mmo industry humming, my type made war and aoc flops.

a-20 surviving with 7 health  :drill:

This game is actually fun to play.  I'm enjoying it more with every game.  Got into a level 3 German light tank.  It's going to take some getting used to now that I'm starting to roll with some of the bigger boys.

don't you love how your so pro you run into a rock halfway scouting  :awesome_for_real:

But please, get a shift key. No grind needed for that.

Seriously.  You suck at communicating.

Seriously. What do you do in a t3 light tank when you are matched against medium and heavies ?

You scout, and try to survive. Scout, as a glassy, fast, vulnerable thing. You try to keep your stealth up, you use terrain as much as you can, you upgrade your radio so you signal and get XP for it (for spotting) and try to survive while providing infos and eventually sneaking a few shots on the back of heavier, slower tanks. It's kind of fun if you ask me. But then again, there is always going to be lots of light tanks in the other team due to how matchmaking works, so go after them!

You die. The faster the better, in fact you can measure a good scout by where exactly he died, if he died before the enemy line he sucked, at the enemy line he did well, behind the enemy team you did very well, and if you made a complete circle you've earned a 7k cash.

I don't know.  The one game I got in before bed last night was that I ran to the front lines, did donuts around one tank, killed it, then got blown up.  I got a ton of xp and credits.

Good times.  And it only took 50 seconds.  Then I went back to my tier 2 rigs.

Had a german light tank ram into my a-20(75mm gun), boy didn't even get a second shot off. You have a leo correct?

I forget the name.  It's the first one you can unlock I guess via the Light Tank line.

I'm noob leo is tier 4, you either have auch or luch.

Ya you do pretty much what Falc said. In my Marder II (t3 German TD) I actively avoid anything with stripes in its diamond and stalk the light tanks unless I get a tough match. A lot of it depends on the matchmaking though. If there are a lot of mediums and heavies I instead just pick a group of the bigger guys and stay behind them and fire at anything they do. If there are lots of light tanks then I stalk them. Best round I had was 5 kills in my t3 TD.

Also with scouts you can try and hunt SPG's. If you find one just run into it from behind and it can't turn and shoot you back. Slow down before you hit it or you'll blow yourself up in the collision. Which btw, that BT-2 that drives in circles, just run into em, preferably hit their track. That stops em pretty good.

A light tank that isn't german going after another light tank guarantees lose for team. Your snipers need you to scout, chasing a light tank doing its job only gets you a td 75mm round to the back.

I had no idea there were differences in the diamonds and the squares etc.

Oh wow.

I'm really trying to avoid the forums so I don't dive deep into another forum community.  It'll kick in my min/max into overdrive and I'll stop enjoying the game.

Ya, diamonds with one clear stripe in them are medium tanks, with two are heavy tanks (or something like that anyway). I haven't seen any difference with the TD triangles and the SPG squares though.


I more meant that BT-2 doing circles spotting your side for their SPGs. Just ram him. Even if you die it's very satisfying.

Ok in the t1-t2 zone a light tank hunting other light tanks isn't bad just not great. You want to circle strafe td's and suicide ram spg's. In the all tier matches your primary goal is to scout scout scout and die trying. Besides if you ram my a-20 with 75mm gun your going to die in one shot(assuming you do this stupidity on a light tank).

This is a lot of fun, if grindy and the gold->ammo conversion seems.. bullshit at least at lower tiers. I can buy okay ammo, or I can microtransaction something that appears to treat all low tier armor like it's paper!

Just bought my tier german 4 light tank! So my current collection is BT-2, BT-7, A-20, Luch, Leo. The most fun i have is in my a-20, has the biggest gun on a light tank, goes at 71mph can mix it up with anyone, hell i just drove by a bt-7 and blasted his tracks for the lolz. The leo and luch seem like crappy versions of medium tanks, they'll probably be sold for a real medium tanks on the german assembling. German light tanking seems to revolve around hugging mediums and hoping td's are behind you ready to take aim at the guys you spotted. Focus on hitting light tanks, avoid anything else, take pot shots at mediums but not for the kdr, if your lucky you get to flank a td and spg. I don't seem well equipped to launch myself across the field and meet the enemy line like a russian light tank. I'll see if my opinion changes about the leo after my crew gets to 60%. Also every other enemy shot seems to cause engine failure  :awesome_for_real:

My newest light tank can only get up to 40mph.  I have no idea how you go that fast.  My engine must suck.

An engine upgrade is the first thing you should do with every tank you get. You won't go much faster. but the better acceleration is so much worth it. Especially with light tanks in the second tier, where your only real advantage is your maneuverability and your ability to flee as fast as you can after the initial kamikazescouting.
Having a trained crew >50% also helps, there seem to be a rather big jump from 49% to 50% in terms of max. speed and acceleration so maybe you should consider retraining the crew of your old tank for the new one. Without investing credits or gold you'll lose ~18% skill.

New video, Power of the light tank (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpDrzmzIUaE&feature=player_embedded).

Some of my light tanks maxed out doesn't get me up to 75 mph.  I guess there is a tank I haven't gotten yet.

A-20 does 75 afaik. Leopard looks pretty awesome.

a-20 fastest light tank with the biggest gun  :drill:. Speed depends on engine, track, max mph, and crew level it seems.

Anyone know of a source for more beta keys? I was raving about the game to a friend, and well, heh, he wants in too.

http://www.massively.com/2010/07/14/world-of-tanks-reloads-with-more-beta-keys/

Many thanks!

how big is the client download?

gig and a half or so. Not big. Fast pipes to boot.

It's 1.1 GB, to be precise.

So day 2 of medium tanks. Boy after not actually having to "fight" for so long its almost depressing having to actually care about the results of every battle to insure you get a decent amount of cash and experience. Though the first german medium tank is simply a light tank with better armor and a better gun, its hard to scout when your not going 68+ mph. It actually pains me to see light tanks attempting to get kills instead of scouting for their team, noob light tank drivers constantly attempting to circle strafe the first light tank they see. arg. With the light tank my involvement in the battle starts and ends within the first 60 seconds. With mediums you try to take advantage of your extra staying power for as long as you can, which increases the chances of me getting really pissed at your team sucking balls. Another funny example of stupid ftl, is 2 td's behind me rapidly advancing forward, after i made a u-turn because i noticed 5 medium tanks blips advancing forward... :awesome_for_real:

Don't get too discouraged by the PzIII. My effectiveness with it ramped up pretty well with crew experience. It's not an awful tank, like the IIIA, but it's definitely no IV.

Well its not really depressing in the sense that the tank sucks, I get about 2 kills a game average now (spent cash on crew upgrades :grin: when I bought it) and gone a few games without biting the dust. Its just that my team is now an important factor when playing a medium tank, its back to the basics of combat being aim + maneuvering, when I'm used to simply finding the fastest way to enemy artillery which 9 times out of 10 meant simply going down the middle at 70 mphs. I actually ran out of ammo one game (30 rounds has been my standard for a while). I do hate that my shots go bing and bonk against anything beyond tier 5. I simply ran away from some medium tanks after firing 4-6 "about as well aimed as my circle strafing allowed" shots before i decided to just give up and ran to the other side of the map. I've been using AP rounds for a while, HE means shit if you can't even penetrate the armor. Right now the 50 caliber is the best gun you can get for pzIII.

My attempts at scouting in normal matches (with a bt-7 as I get the cash for an A-20) usually wind up with lucky hits from random tanks taking me out, or an SPG kill here and there.

Yesterday I had a low tier medium apparently trying to scout with me, so as I weave past the side heavies, I see two TDs lining up on me, something damages my treads minorly from behind, and I decide to bust a hard right into some houses to avoid the obviously easy TD shots incoming.

Get rammed hard in the side by said friendly medium who was following my route WAY too close at high speed :(

Tier III is the worst in the game. Even the newbie tanks are better, mainly because you get cheap upgrades quickly and go from a 10mph tin coffin to a 30mph...tin coffin but with teeth. Get past the "first medium tank" stage ASAP.

I created a channel called 'Bat Country', password is 'robots' if people want to hang out. We're doin countdowns so we (3 of us atm) usually all get in the same game.

How does this work?

Hop in the chat channel Bat Country, it's important to use a capital B and capital C and my handle is BlindSide. Then I just countdown from 5 and we all click at the same time, usually gets everybody in. Works better over voice comms.

I'm leveling up my Luchs right now with a single engine upgrade.  It's very slow going.  The tank takes forever to get up to 60mph.  I'm also leveling up the tank in the normal line also.

So little experience per battle.  I can't get out into the field to scout because I move so slow.

Its grindy when you start the med tanks. Took me lots of playtime in the pII Aug, then a bunch more in the PIII. Now I finally have a PIV, but its got mostly PIII newb parts, so its just hellish to turn and my firepower still blows chunks. Gonna be a LONG slog before I can get the big guns.

Can I ask a question, assuming your engine and tracks are maxed; How do you scout, do you flank, follow another light tank, etc?

Ok my leet scouting is simply this; charge through the middle. What noob you gotta flank you fucking scrub. The problem with flanking is multi facet.

1. You out run the td's and mediums/heavies with the guns capable of sniping out the guys you spot in the first place when you flank. Especially on maps that aren't straight forward, what I mean is that there is a mountain dividing the map or something similar.

2.TD"s, mediums and heavies always see you before you see them, their site range is better than your own. This alone doesn't mean flanking is bad but consider this, most of the time if you notice your team doesn't evenly spread out. Usually there are strong sides (areas where most of your team is heading) and weak sides (maybe a td/heavy tank or 2 with a medium or light tank is heading up that side). Now on  some maps you can kinda guess which side is the strong side, for example lakeville (or something like that) has a town on one side, a narrow mountain hilly path on the other side and a super narrow mountain-and-cliff middle. Needless to say most sane people choose to go through the town. This map is notoriously bad for light tanks for 2 reasons. One you the only other choices you have are 2 narrow/hilly paths that greatly reduce your speed and the second reason is that your always funneled to the enemies strong side.

Why the strong side is bad? Your a scout remember the more red dots the better? Right in goal, wrong in practice. Consider this, they can you see before you see them, before your radio can send back their positions, if they see you that means everyone sees you. that means you have as many as 10 guns aiming at you way before you even spotted one of them. You can count on 2 people missing 70mph, you can count on 3-4 people not getting any significant shots in when they first see you at a distance. But 10 people shooting at you from 10 different angles? Tracks down, engine failure, we're on fire, explosion. All this before you see even one dot. Hell if their team is smart they would stop advancing for a second to let your radio stop transmitting. So you just died, your team didn't see shit, and now you've gained exactly 200 cash for your effort bravo.

3. 1 out of 3 times you can manage significantly scouting the 10 tanks coming from the right. But that's luck on your part, you don't have the armor or the health to take that much damage from that number of light tanks hitting you at once, let alone that number in mediums, heavies, and td's spamming 50-100 caliber shots (and won't you see the people doing it and hence die in vain). The middle is perfect for the scout;

•  No guessing which side is the strong side, I can count of at most 5 people still holding the middle ground, since the number of angels the shells are coming from is drastically reduced the chance of track failure is also reduced (however since your armor is still shit, you can easily be taken out by a big ass td gun, be sure to maneuver after you spot it, reason being you can make him miss, and even if he hits you before you see him the shot is going to hit the front plate most likely and not the side or a track where there is less armor and more importantly increase chance of track failure.).
• My spg's rarely flank or move very far from the middle.
• Since you can actually make it the end of the map alive sometimes, it allows you to either A. flank the tanks still fighting your friendly tanks or start capping and force the bigger guns off the frontline. Don't be mistaken most of the time you do die, but you its usually after scouting 1/3 of their team and/or pulling people away from the active fronts. You would be surprised how many mediums would tear away from the pack to deal with only and end up losing the game because they made their strong side significantly weaker.

the luch gets better but...it plays like a medium tank without the guns, armor, or even the pzIII speed...overall your only real chance is to hug a small contingent of medium tanks and td's and use your speed to help draw some fire while the td's do all the work. you can do some effective light tank hunting but stay away from a-20 and leo. Eventually the luch gets enough speed to actually scout as you level the crew but he is a poor one due to speed. I got pretty good with it but sold it for a medium tank pronto.

Medium tanks seem to get more experience per battle, i think that is due to staying in the fight longer than anything.


You guys use vent?

I just want to buy armored plates for my tracks. Seriously, missed arty is the leading cause of dead BTs.

The point of scouting from the flank is pretty much that if I don't outrun my support too badly (sit and wait a bit if you are), you wind up with a lot of TDs turned to face you, and taking a TD round to the side/back. Basically, people spend more time trying to hit the crazy scout than the dangerous targets just out of sight range.

I would to but the cost would be ridiculous, can you imagine how much they would charge to give tracks 75mm round protection? My number one cause of death as a bt-7 is a td round entering one side of my tank and exiting the other side.
 
The only problem is, that at best your going to see 2-3 targets, at worse your dead by the 4th target. At that point you no longer gain points for scouting because the mediums behind you have better site range. Also constantly reducing your speed just nets you a td round. After playing several rounds as a medium tank, i'm much better suited for flanking, flanking doesn't mean you walk to the far side of the map encountering no resistance than magically behind td's and artillery. Some maps encourage large parts of your army hitting large parts of their army, in which case your little armor little health is going to net you a death without gaining any points for it. I reckon I die more from people missing/spamming than people actually aiming for me when i'm part of the big flank party. Mostly because i'm upfront and random 100mm round will instant gib me. As a medium more armor means more resistance to spam, bigger gun means i can fight back. Fighting back is the epic flaw of the light tank, especially the bt-7, a light tank can't fight back in a big fight dominated by mediums and heavies in front with very little chance of being just fast enough to hit their sides or back. Historically light tanks stopped being made a long time ago for that reason lolz.

Is there any reliable way to hit a moving target ? I can't for the live of me figure out how you "lead" in this game. Those pesky light tanks are damm hard to hit and don't even get me started about engaging medium tanks.

Which reminds me...

I also think that the first medium tanks are really hard to play with. Everything seems to have better armor than me. With 1 russian and 1 german tank, I barley scrape together 1k credits per game (after deducting costs for repairs/rebuilding my tank from scratch).

So I got the Hummel and I have to say its great except for the fact that every light tank and fast med tank feels like it's hunting me.  Also $1000 a shell kind of stings.

The first german med tank is interesting to play, I generally use it like something between a scout and anti scout/artillery.  Nothing quite like taking out those small tanks that annoy me so much oh my spg.

I've also come to hate the leopard with burning passion.  They're fast, accurate and do great damage and even give my med tank problems with bounces and are a nightmare on my spgs.

Next question... ( :awesome_for_real: )

Which weapon should one pick ? Always the biggest caliber ? Best penetration ? Reload time ?

Depending on your current role on the battlefield I would say. If you play tier 5+ and try to mess with the heavies I would recommend getting the gun with the highest penetration and damage possible to even have a chance to damage behemoths like Tiger II or Ferdinand.

If you plan on hunting down SPG with a lighter tank, like BT-7 or LeopardLuchs, you maybe want a gun that hits often and reliable for these fast strafingruns through the opposite startingzone.

You can see the stats of the tanks by doubleklicking on then when in the techtree, just take a look how much penetration you need to go for your designated target and choose the appropriate weapon for the job.  And if you encounter a target your gun can't penetrate, use HE ammunition and aim for the tracks. The splash of the HE can do severe damage to internal systems even though the ammo can't go through the armor.

Oh so that what HE rounds are for lolz.

Sound advice. A shame that I am at work right now. (Damm nightshifts)

They are pretty good versus squishy targets like the russian SPGs with their open gunner areas on top too. Just pump a few rounds of HE with a flakcannon into these and they go down fast and easy. No need for a big cannon.
HE also causes all sorts of "debuffs" like crewdamage and broken internal systems. If something hits you and you get multiple systemfailures it was most likely HE, if a hit just chews away a big portion of your health it's AP.

Currently playing in a fully upgraded KV, working towards raising the (insane) cash for a KV-3. What is slightly irksome at the moment is that some higher tier tanks are just flat out worse than their predecessor.

My KV is worse than my T-28. Their crew training is about the same (low 80s), both have full grades, and though the KV has the edge on penetration and damage, and slightly better armour, its reduced speed, agility and turret turn speed is too much of a penalty. Still just treading water financially with the KV (repair and ammo costs are huge), whilst I make good returns on the T28. Hoping for something special with the KV-3.

Addictive game though - I hope premades and random pugs are kept seperate come live.

Playing a Augf A and a Luch and this game become terrible.  I can't penetrate any armor and I often get 1-2 shotted. 

Get out of tier 3 asap. They're all terrible. Keep playing alternatively with your recruit tank for fun, and extra cash - as soon as you can make the jump to tier 4, things become fun again. Yes, I know, that's a bad design.

The BT-7 and Luchs have slightly better mobility than the A-20 and Leopard, but the Leopard and A-20 have guns that can do damage and a bit of armour. I just used Gold to exchange XP to skip to the Leopard.

I think it was Hoth that was saying that a mid-tier grouping is in the works, which makes sense. The path from tier 3 to tier 5 is a road of humiliation and tears, mixed in with a 'omg, I manage to survive' moments.

I just converted all of my gold to get a Leopard.  Gonna play that tank with my Ausf A.  It'll be a few days until I can get the first medium tank.

Just bought my tier 6 medium tank PIV  :drill:. I forgot it wasn't a light tank so at 40mph i was the first thing the enemy saw  :awesome_for_real:. Spent 100,000 on crew training.

This game has consumed me....I love it.

Just picked-up an A-20 late last night, but I have been mostly slugging through with my TD Hertzer.

A lot of the charm from this game for me is the quick turn-around to get into a battle, and back in a battle.  No more than a minute to login and join a battle, and after dying...exit battle, choose tank and fighting in a another minute.  Obviously a critical mass of users needed for this to continue.  I think the entire weekend there was always about 1,500 to 2,000 users online.

How long does this beta last?

The Su-26 wins the arty vote for me, in most games I can own the field once I get some form of protection or get some good shots on the fast scouts and take em out early.

Few reasons why you should use it over the other arty, also why I haven't bother training up the next tech -

Better profit margins. The best gun has ammo which costs only 150 credits a shot and does 270 damage every 7.5 seconds so DPS is 36. By comparison the SU-14 and Hummel DPS works out as 55-56 (admittedly with better penetration), but the ammo costs a fortune.

Higher ROF, this means you have a better chance of tracking that Leopard tearing up the flank.

It's small so easier to hide. If you get the camo upgrade & 100% crew, with camo bonus, you will basically be a tank-ninja.

360° turret, you can track and kill scouts while running away from them. Also you can zone in targets across the map while moving towards cover & waiting for the gun to reload.

If possible wait for them to turn so they are moving straight away from you (or close to it at least). Least protected area and nice easy shot then. Or if they are doing circles in your back line spotting you for their arty, ram em. You'll probably die but it is very satisfying. Also I never try to aim for tracks, I just use the right click auto follow and it hits where it hits. When I try to aim manually I typically miss very badly.

If you can right click and auto target it, shoot at it. No matter how far away, specially if they are not moving. I get a lot of kills like that in my TDs. People sometimes freeze up when they can't figure out where the shot came from which lets you get another shot or two in. You can hit from very far away too.

Tier3 tanks , like others mentioned  are " get out of there ASAP" tier.  Its best to level it fast by suicide rushing enemy spawn  (you  at least will get scout XP).
Tier4  are ok as scouts , (pz3 and a20), nothing else. t28 with upgraded gun is capable  of damage but way too squishy and way too big of a target. Tier5 is where you legitimately start posing a threat. t34 is imho insane tank
you can damage most of the tanks you can see on the field with great dps and is very fast and nimble. Ultimate medium scout tank imho.  
Pz4 with upgraded turret/gun while very squishy and poorly maneuverable is still capable due to awesome gun (very precise, great penetration)

Tier6 is probably last tier you can actually make more than you lose without premium account t34-85 ,vk3601h and vk 3001p are all very capable tanks with guns good enough to hit biggest enemies in game,

I personally stopped at that tier (at least till I save fo  a month of premium) as while I had enough money to buy tier7 I figured repair costs are not worth it . I spent money on equipment instead (anti he armor and faster aiming).
Plus I have 100/110 crew on my Vk3001P and I routinely rack 3+ kills.  and  can damage any opponent so I dont really have that need to upgrade

Can't comment on the heavy tanks but from what I seen IS3 and up are extremely hard to kill and are very dangerous.

Interestingly, the tactic of the week appears to be "back your tank up against the battle edge so you can't be flanked/circled by light units" with TDs and SPGs right now. Basically, you can wedge yourself into a spot where scouts are just sitting ducks because they can't avoid your fire arcs due to the zone boundary.

A little leeway on that solid line would be nice.

Last night I actually charged down the flank in my Pz III Ausf, burst through some bushes at the top of the hill and found half the opposing team right in front of me. I flew through a cats cradle of shots and made it past them to the SPGs, and would have got one of them if it wasn't for the um...  T34 that followed me, and a Tiger, Jagdpanther and god knows what else lurking nearby. I made a nice 5200 creds in the short time I was alive though, my best yet.

It's a shame you can't buy GP yet.  I can't think of any game that's made me want to part with real money for an in-game item. I actually searched to see if was available yet. It's the best compliment I can give it I think.

I didn't say it doesn't happen, just that it happens rarely. most light tanks go from red to grey the moment one dot appears during a flanking maneuver. too easy to blow up a track when everyone uses heat rounds.

I am finding Tier 4 a bit of a challenge now.  The majority of battles are filling up with Tier 7-10 vehicles and my Hertzer shells are just bouncing off their armour for the most part.  I am still getting the occasional kill, but breaking up tiers would be an improvement for the game.   I am still playing as much as possible but it is tough to keep up with some of the hardcores and the gap is only helping them.

It seems tough to get any real sense of development plans, but I am eager to see how clans and territories play out. 

Tier 3 and 4 are hard, but they don't last that long. Just keep at it and  you'll be in a Tier 5 TD in now time, and let me tell you, those fuckers can take out Tier 7 tanks from across the map. I fookin' hate them.

I was actually getting very close to the German Tier 5 Stug III TD last night, but then on a whim spent the points on a crazy radio (700 m) and a more powerful gun.  I am in the same boat with my A-20, but in no rush to upgrade that as I enjoy my light tank zooming around at 70+.

So many possibilities for game modes - capture the flag, king of the hill, historical battles,  class battles ((all MS-1s would be cool), actual nation vs. nation.

Saw a funny on their forums - Someone asked if there would be french tanks, and another replied that french tanks have one gear forward and 5 gears in reverse  :awesome_for_real:

An old German tanker told me a similar joke about Italian tanks.  He said they were harder to drive than German tanks because they had 1 forward and 6 reverse gears.

This is the first online action game that's really grabbed me in years.  Think it's the underlying tactical layer that keeps games interesting; you have to out think your opponent as much as out shoot them.  Been clicking the next turn button harder than a Civ 4 session.  Once they add the promised clan war stuff I may have to install a commode.

Last night I saw what a good player can do with a Tiger. He pwnt 10 tanks and won the game for us, last man standing. The last 5 tanks he took out on his own, everyone else in the team dead. He had to be very cautious and dextrous, positioning the other Heavy tank between him and the 2 TDs trying to shoot him.

Most heavy tank players aren't all that, this guy was the bomb.

Oh, and the 1 forward gear 6 reverse gears joke I heard as a kid and it was always the italians, not the french.

That's pretty much what I was thinking - "Just one more battle" has turned into some late nights with early rising for work.  Vicious.

Same here, Italians.  Also,

Q: Why did the Italians install rearview mirriors in their tanks?
A: To watch the War

I'm having a blast with this game and I can even see that I might actually break down and spend a few bucks on it from time to time.  As a semi dedicated AT gun guy I really want them to think about putting this guy in http://media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/3/2074/T-28-3.1.jpg if they do the Americans.  105mm main gun and a foot of armor.

The T28 is intended (tier 8 american TD, the american TD line is not going to be avail on release)

And I fully agree that the tiers need more breaking up. And I don't buy the "but waah, no lights in high tier!" bullshit, because the lower tier mediums scout nearly as well, and if you want high tier lights you either need the tiers to be less rock paper scissors (you can make a fight of a 1-2 tier difference, but not much of a fight around a 5 tier difference..), or make some damned higher tier lights that can compete.

Because nothing spells suck like a match coming down to tier 3 lights vs a heavy camping the cap point.

The other thing that would make lights a bit better would be less instant track loss on ramming. I've seen a lot of first tier mediums running ramming duty on scouts lately, since they're pretty much just as fast and will take nearly no damage from it.

Basically: game is a TON of fun. Tier 3/4 can completely suck. Historical campaigns MAY also fix this (they sound fun as hell)

There's actually been some serious noise about them adding a third tier in the middle to help out a little bit.

That would help a lot.  My Tier 3 and 4 tanks feel like fodder at this point.

They might have to rethink some other things, tho. A tier 3 TD or a SPG are monumentally lethal to a Tier 3 tank. They seem to be designed to do at least marginal damage to Tier IV and above.

Man, I completely outplayed a ferdinand (three HE to the tracks, two AP to the rear) and did 4% damage with a T-34.

The tiers are kinda messed up power differential wise.

Nice I like taking out TD's, they are sneaky bastards, just got a T-34 myself.

Just a note that I had no interest in this game, but all the kool kids in goonfleet were playing it so during the x hours we sat on an op doing nothing I downloaded it.

I've only played a few games, but it seems like a lot of fun. I don't play FPS very much because I am just not into the bunny hop circle strafe twitch thing. The slower pace is for me the best part of the game. Since I view it as an FPS, not an MMO, I don't really see that there is any grind.

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet but the tanks you can buy with gold are crap.  Save your money for premium and you'll be flying up their tiers anyway.

I have to say there is something deeply satisfying about killing a KV3 with a HEAT round to the side from my Hetzer. 

Got my KV-3 - that's a nice improvement on the KV. I make money on pretty much all matches now, thankfully.

One oddity is the ammo costs. My 107mm gun (that I carried over from the KV) ammo costs 270 per shell. I tried upgrading to the 122mm gun, and the ammo costs jumped to over 1k each. Became seriously not worth using, as the 122mm has only a slight improvement on damage and penetration, but fires at half the rate (ie is a net DPS loss). I have to basically ace the match by myself to make a profit using the 122mm gun (which with such a low fire rate is harder to do than with the slightly weaker gun).

The 107mm is such an ownage cannon you don't really need to upgrade.  It turns the KV from a credit pinata into one shot death on wheels so suits a higher tier just fine too.  But the turret upgrade is well worth investing in.

Yeh that one shot cannon on the KV is insane I got hit by one the other day in my T-34, luckily it tracks like shit.

The team determination system is.. broken.

One team: 3 arty, rest medium tanks.

Other team: 8 TDs, 4 Heavies, 2 Arty, and a light.

Yeah, this will end.. well.

B 0.5 patch notes are up and the team system balance is one of them items.

Joining a battle as a small team is on a possible list.

I haven't been playing this game as intensely since unlocking my pz5. My pz3 seems to outperform it....i think its an issue with my play style any suggestions? I can't even hit anything from a range that isn't right next to them because my rounds feel awfully slow compared to my other guns.

I have the same issues wrapping my head around my T-34. Perfect shot against a stationary target, 5 misses and I can't fathom where the rounds went. The I take a shot a good 2 seconds before a friendly will enter my firing lane, and 2 seconds later, TK at medium range. And a 150ms ping :(

It feels less like the cannon and more like the game, unless medium tank rounds travel at sub heavy tank speeds.

Use autoaim at distance.  Its really warpy and only autoaim deals with it semi reliably. At close I switch to manual (because strangely enough autoaim sucks at close)

I use it at a distance, i hate to though, i mean i feel i'm a pretty reliable shot at a distance if i can gauge the travel time of my shell, bullet drop and velocity of target. Which is something that bugs me since the shell speed is always off unless i'm using the highest tier gun available it seems. yeah auto aim at close range is not only incredible bad but down right retarded since it always picks the areas where shell bounce off is most likely to occur. Its a  :ye_gods: moment when you see a light tank tank a 75mm round from your medium tier 5 tank when my a-20 with manual aiming can put a shell halfway through the same light tank in one shot....

Well, the higher end medium tanks are a compromise. Heavier armor, higher penetration at the sacrifice of speed and mobility combined with slower loading times for ammo. Its perfectly acceptable to me to go back and just specialize in light tank warfare. A player in a Leopard that knows what he's doing can be a complete nightmare for the enemy's rearguard.

I play my Panzer V as a support vehicle. I do not rush the front. I stay midway, try to pick off scouts, but in general, I'm playing a cat and mouse game with TDs and other slower tanks. They are ideal at whiddling away at the heavy tanks, since they are comparatively faster.

Another mistake is assuming that the higher penetration guns are better. The turret speeds go down, and although sure, now you can probably penetrate that JagdPanzer from the front, you still ain't gonna win that battle head on.

Its an interesting game that way. I've gone back to the first type of turret and equipped the top gun for that turret rather than taking the heavier slower turret and giving myself the biggest gun, simply because that particular turn I wanted to play scout killer rather than TD hunter.

I hate the trade off currently, i mean i wanted a change of pace but jesus sniping off the 1-2 light tanks(and having to use auto-aim to even do that) that are brave enough to do their jobs verses being instant gibbed the minute a td lines his gun to the front of your armor? I traded speed and maneuverability for a tiny bit more armor, health and a crappier gun...i'm looking forward to the vk but unless i find some niche i'm happy with the pz5 is getting sold as scrap and i'm going back to gold farming with my 3 light tanks and pz3.

My issue with the Mediums isn't the reload speed (though it IS slow), it's that the projectile speed seems.. wrong for a high velocity tank shell. It feels like I'm shooting with a 900ms ping, or just flat out shooting something that isn't there at long enough ranges (the HE round doesn't land, no explosion behind the target to say it missed and hit HERE, it just feels like the shot... didn't ever register to the server)

This is only recent for me. Prior weeks of the beta, shooting has seemed fine to me. But the minute I got my T-34, it feels like projectiles aren't behaving right at all.

As for TDs: I'm fine with them being lethal (with a little more bracketing in the future, please!), but the Ferd is just ... silly. Medium tanks can't even penetrate their armor from behind. That's a little overboard, even if it WAS a mean tank in reality.

Not sure what gun you are using on the T-34 but you should use the 57mm ZiS, not the bigger 76mm that gun is terrible. Not sure what you saying about the Ferdinand it only has 80mm armour from behind & the majority of medium tanks have a gun that can handle that, sounds like you are setting your tanks up wrong. Also note the 100% crew really affects how your tank performs, SPGs go from impossible to play to awesome when the crew reach 100%.

I've had some wierd aiming issues latetly too. Shots I could have sworn were a hit are a miss, and then a shot that looks like would be entirely off the mark 2  reports that I've obliterated the target.

80mm at anything other than a direct 90% hit pretty much means "anything under tier 7 go home" due to attack angles and penetration. You're going to bounce, bounce, bounce the day away. Plus, they all seem to throw the +15% armor on the ferds.

Anywho, terrible gun or no, me stationary, enemy stationary, "miss" radius icon completely within the tank... miss. That's my issue lately. I can handle "my aim is bad on moving targets", but I think something's amiss when what was a trivial shot in recruit tier becomes "where did that shell even LAND?" on my t-34.

I have similar armor on my VK3601 as a Ferdinand and TIV/V tanks penetrate that what feels about 80% of the time. In fact I got one shotted by a PZIV yesterday with HE ammo, my tank went on fire and just crumbled. T-34 can penetrate 112armor with the 57mm gun.

I wonder how many team kills happen because people don't know they can change the round loaded in their gun by hitting the ammo button twice? I've been hit a couple times by guys who fired to change their loaded round just as I rolled in front of them at the start of the game.  The game would definitely benefit from a short tutorial on how to handle your tank. 

Just played a game in my little backup T-28, and I decided to watch after I died to see how the Ferdinand on our team did - he was taken apart pretty easily by a Leopard, and Pz III/IV with HE running circles.

Without support, big vehicles always lose to a pair of smaller agile vehicles given similar skill, close range (with room to maneuver), and HE shells. Catch fire, and it's all over but the singing.

Fakeedit: Is THAT what they're doing Tmon? Sheesh yeah, I've seen that a few times - I'd always assumed people were messing around, playing 'kill the Leichttraktor'.

That or HE rounds are overpowered currently.

Well, yeah. I'd argue that they are, somewhat. I wouldn't want them to be completely toned down, but I think they could use a little adjustment. Make the smaller tanks work a little more for their big kill.

So I got me a Hetzer. Upgraded tracks and engine. Which gun should I go for ? Stuk for "massive" damage or Puk for Penetration ?

I've been running around with the big gun and buying 10 or so HEAT rounds with my daily gold.  I haven't tried the other gun at all so have no idea how it compares.  The HEAT rounds do a number on just about anything you hit from the side and will take out most of the lower tier mediums from the front but, reloading is slow so you don't want to spend a lot of time sitting still while you are waiting for your loader.

Got my panther yesterday.  It does feel kinda like grinding when you work for certain tier tank instead of just playing it as  a regular FPS. It doesnt help that stock panther is the worst stock tank  I played to date. Slow as hell, insane repair costs and worst of all I have to get 60k more xp to get it to the place it supposed to be.  I play  2-3 battles in panther then 1 battle with 3001p in order to keep cash flow positive, on top of that  you get lots less xp as you would do in lower tier so that 60k is effectively 120k .

My advice - if you play casually stick with tier 6 and save for month of premium. Tier7+  are painful to play at times. and repair costs will drive you nuts at  tier 8+

Just picked up Tier 6 TD Jagdpanzer IV but had to sell my StugIII to afford it.  Haven't done much upgrading yet, but I think I prefer the StugIII.  The mobility is far superior in the Stug and makes for more interesting gameplay.  I played more of a mid-row interceptor to pick off tanks with the Stug III and could move positions rather quickly.  In addition, the Stug could rotate much more quickly to avoid complete flanking that most TDs suffer from. 

Should be getting a Tier 6 Russian Medium T-34-85 this weekend, but I think I will take the advice above and not be too concerned about getting past tier 6 at this point.  Too much time investment for a beta.

How far can you upgrade it, tho? Because with the default equipment, nearly all tanks are sluggish. I just got a leopard and it is super horrible compared to an outfitted luchs.

From the perspective of a heavy (KV3), Stug IIIs are pretty much ignorable when they're in front of me - and I can put them out with 1 or 2 shots, straight through their front armour. Jagdpanzer IVs aren't much better for firepower, but at least they can take a hit or two more, giving them time to approach me from a flank.

Now JagdPanthers on the other hand are scary. I have to be very careful how I engage them, as they can tear me up pretty handily.

that fixes it up after you max engine and track. also helps to have 60% crew because for some reason you go faster as your crew levels up...

Move faster,turn faster, reload faster, aim faster etc. Crew levels affect pretty much everything - On the higher tiers its worth taking a good crew along with you to the next tank - you lose experience on them as you retrain, but still nowhere near as painful as starting a new crew from scratch. The difference between a 30% crew and a 100/110% crew is enormous.

I got to play around a bit more with the Jgpz IV lastnight.  My crew was already at 70+ as they were transfers from my StugIII and I have all the upgrades except one of my guns now.  The mobility isn't as bad as first thought, but it is still far less mobile than the stug.  However, as Jherad pointed out, the armor difference is substantial.  I took out two T-34s and a light tank on my own while they were trying to wail on me.  I just have to utilize a bit different strategy then I was using with the stug as getting flanked is more of a concern now...especially from better medium tank drivers ramming my tracks then circling around me.

I'm loving my 60 mph leopard now. I got the top engine, now all I need is the higher turn tracks and I am gonna be a nightmare. Last night I just ran right into enemy camp at the start of the battle. Got so many enemies distracted trying to nail me (the 14th shot finally knocked me out) that the rest of the team knocked out at least 5 tanks from that alone.

I finally butt-rammed an SPG, just to finish off my kamikaze run. Tank, totaled. XP? 680, mostly on discoveries and occasional pot shots that landed. Worth it, imho.

I had an odd thought that given the limitations of the engine and all that, this is what warhammer should have been. Just the instances, make a lot more of them, and develop the player not just the character.

God I hate the PzIII.  :heartbreak:

I actually love my PZIII and got rid of my fully upgraded Leopard for a fully upgraded PZIII, just personal preference though. . Play it as a scout. It's a little slower then the Leopard but it has better armor, better traverse speed and faster turret traverse speed. Also cheaper to repair. Leopard is heavier though so much better for ramming SPG's.

Leopard has superior acceleration, it doesn't slow down as much while cornering.

Leopards are great little scouts - I'd definitely include a couple of them in a dream team. Sure, I can one-shot them - but I can one-shot pzIIIs too, and leopards seem much harder to hit, at least when they're not traveling directly towards me.

I'm having way too much fun with this game for a beta. Unless they completely screw things up before launch (heh), this is quickly becoming a no-brainer purchase.

Are they testing the territorial control part of the game? If it's got some actual depth to it (/laugh Global Agenda) it could really add to the game and make it a good challenge to Eve.

Yeah, it's coming from what I understand.

Ya the leopard does accelerate faster but I found that if I need to accelerate to get away chances are I'm dead anyway. I found the PZIII to turn better but I could be wrong. It's tracks have better traverse speed and it's lighter so it should turn better too. The biggest thing though is the turret traverse speed of the PZIII. I feel I can actually get shots off in my PZIII while cruising past people. Load up with HE shot and you may not kill people but you sure can be annoying. I actually have starting using the manual aim a lot more, gotten decent at hitting people while going full speed.

I've found that they hybrid III/IV is a great little tank. I do not run it, but I have been impressed by its versatility as both a scout and a light fighter against the other mediums out there. It is an ideal tank for home defense against the incoming scouts trying to take out SPGs.

I love the top gun in the Pz IV for its insane range, but the turret speeds and the slowness do not let it be an agile opponent against an incoming leopard or tricked out luchs.

Bobblehead panzers are an atrocity against nature.  :angryfist:

Once you put the upgraded suspension on you can install the top end engine and long barreled high penetration 75 you researched in the Stug III. I didn't sell the StugIII (as it's great) so didn't have upgrades spare but I think you can transfer them between tanks. You still need to find the 4k xp from somewhere though.  I was um'ing and ah'ing over putting the 88 in due to it's lower penetration than the 75 and wanting to save the 10k xp for the Jagpanther,  but went for it and haven't regretted it since. It certainly packs a punch.

I'm about to get myself a VK3001H so that I can eventually get in a Panzer V. I don't think I'd enjoy the heavy tanks.

I currently cannot afford the VK3001H, however. Its 1 million dollars!

Just moved into a shiny new IS. Nice tank...

MUCH more agile than the KV-3, though uses the same guns (I still use the 100mm, due to the insane 1k cost of 122mm shells). Also has slightly less armour on the turret, but deflects quite a bit, presumably because of the curved surfaces. The lower profile doesn't hurt either.

How are you guys affording these top tier tanks? I see at least three more days of gameplay before I can afford my next medium tank.

I saved up for a week of premium starting today.

Yes, as per Amarr - use and abuse the free gold for premium play. 50% extra XP and credits goes a long way.

Edit: Also, there are some tanks which are just really good for making money. Some people swear by premium tanks like the Churchill - they're not awesome, but are apparently incredibly cheap to repair and rearm.

Can we get the title amened  : Finally, I can be a TANK!

The lack of more beta key giveaways makes me sad. I want to try this.  :heartbreak:

Nevermind. Found one.  :awesome_for_real:

http://www.shatteredcrystal.com/index.php/world_of_tanks

You have to add it to the cart and check out, but no payment info is requested at any point.

Is there any information on armor thickness / weak spots out there I could access while in a battle ? I keep getting better at positioning myself, but still struggle with hitting enemy tanks where it counts.

This spreadsheet might help. (https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tDB4StQc95B9otKPXRctCqA&authkey=CJm4jYgN#gid=1)

Flank shots and back of the turret shots are what I live for with my SU76 and its 57mm gun.  The game seems to take armor slope into consideration so tanks with angled armor will have more effective thickness than the raw numbers would suggest.  Aiming for the tracks is good for an immobilization but easier to talk about than to do in the heat of the moment. 

Have they said officially what features actually exist in terms of aiming points other than treads and directions and turret being separate?

I want to believe!  :awesome_for_real:

On the other hand, if you could actually AIM for the ammo rack, things could get "interesting"...

I am pretty sure there are critical spots on tanks that you can aim for, besides the tracks. I've had very good luck so far aiming for the viewport when facing an enemy's front - can result in some pretty major damage, though you have to be close to aim for such a small spot.

I can't guarantee that I'm not just getting lucky when I aim for areas like that, but it certainly feels like it is a weak spot.

Hey Bandit, what's your in-game name again? Forgot by the time it came around to adding you to my friends list.  :awesome_for_real:

My username is Bravado.  I saw you a couple times after the fact rocking the IS.

I am playing this game more than I would like to admit.  I have a JagPanther (halfway to the Ferdinand xp wise), T-34-85 and a leopard.  Most of my effort now is working towards a T-44 which appear to be beasts on the battlefield.  

As much as I am playing I still am reluctant to play without a premium account as it makes the world of difference for higher tier tanks money-wise.

The tanks all have different hit zones front/side/rear/turret/tracks and apparently you can aim for an ammo rack.  In addition, most of those hit boxes account for slope in armour.  The tanks do not have a hit zone for the underbelly - as apparently this is difficult with the big world engine at this time.

The T-44 is probably the most dangerous all around tank out there. Tough as nails and quite agile. If I run into one, I count myself lucky if I dent him a few percent before I assplode.

I'm currently running a VK3001H, a PIV, a Grille and a StugIII. Going to be working towards a PV on the medium line. Not that interested in the large tanks.

The T-44 is a beast I got one a few days ago. It's highly versatile it can be used to take out small groups of tanks, it can solo the bigger tanks with long range support by out maneuvering their gun, it can also duck and cover quite well. It's also the most fun tank to play so far.

Is 'spotting', as credited at the end of the battle, something that you do automatically or is there some key to push or something?  I tried that 't' when hovering over someone but it said "proudft is Attacking a Whatever" and I was all HEY IM JUST PEEKING.   The forums are a big mess, but I did wade through them for a bit to try and figure out spotting with no success.

Other impressions after, like, an hour:  The fleets of loser starter tanks looks like WWI in there.  I really like the turret indicator, I find that a clever solution, even though it is just like a flight-sim lagging gunsight, I suppose.  It runs surprisingly well on my aged computer.

You don't have to hit any key as a scout, just never ever stop moving (unless you have a juicy arty kill lined up)


In addition, I believe you get different xp for scouting based on tank type - SPG I believe give the most.

Cool, thanks.  I actually killed someone in my little tin-cup.  It's a miracle.

Would really like to know where the ammo rack is located on various tanks - My IS got one-shot from 100% by a VK tonight due to the ammo rack instaploding, and I want to (deliberately) try and do that to others.

There's a thread dedicated to this. (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/3688-tank-blueprints-and-schematics/)

Thanks! I guess it's just a case of aiming for the center of a side, and hoping - which explains why ammo racks get taken out so much given that's where I'd imagine most people aim. I might try going for the turret ring and main gun on heavies - that messes me up enough.

I generally auto aim cause I'm either sniping or whizzing around the place in a T-44. I switch to manual when it gets up close.

Right. I manually aim quite a bit, as there are frequently occasions when I have to stalk a heavy on the opposite team. Because the larger heavies don't usually die in one bang and I'm not particularly mobile, shot placement can be critical to success as things turn into a tit-for-tat slug-fest. Ideally the first one should be disabling in some way - although hitting the tracks does minimal hp damage. Also a good number of times where I'm manually aiming at a small piece of a tiger that is trying to hide just around a corner on an urban map.

For me at least, auto aim is absolutely useless if there is lateral movement relative to the target at any serious speed. Always misses, without fail, even though it tries to lead the target. I have to wait until the target turns (and momentarily stops lateral movement), or manually aim, and lead slightly more. Works well for sniping stationary targets though.

I'm definitely enjoying the hell out of this game. The current focus of my enjoyment is piloting an arty. And there aren't many more fun things in this game than dropping into normal aiming mode in an arty and one-shotting a tank that happened to cross in front of you.  :awesome_for_real:

Had two amazing games with the T-44 last night, first one in Prohoravka were I was left last man standing against a VK3601, 2 Tiger Is and an SU-100, worst part was I had less than half my HP left 350 or so. I managed to take the first three out as they were nicely split into pairs, but it nearly went pear shaped when I went to final showdown with the last Tiger who had 100% health. After a minute of circling and shooting his side armour he changed his turret direction and caught me off guard managed to land a dying hit, but when the dust settled I was somehow still alive & barely had 5 hp to my name, luckily my next shot put his lights out. With heart in mouth I looked up my new record 9 kills & a not so paltry 2700 XP. :drill:

I didn't think could be bettered until I took on an AusfB on Himmelsdorf while the rest of my team were desperately trying to cap, that was just nuts, he was a fairly terrible AusFB driver but still really fun whizzing around him. I learned the trick is to not worry about maintaining a hi speed but corner really tight and watch his turret for any change in direction & then try not to run into the corners of the giant tank, thats the hard part due to the third person perspective. Interesting thing about the match was I was the highest ranked tank on our team and they had the AusfB with similar support.

What I really love about this game is it mixes a decent enough driving game with FPS style outlay and then the sticky content advancement of RPG/MMO. Basically driving a vehicle seems a lot more fun and challenging than bunny hopping to victory eg. Mario Kart. Also some of the maneuvers you can pull off feel genuinely satisfying, like using dead tanks as cover or timing a tight drive by when you get acquainted with the enemy reload time. Rushing enemy arty with a Leopard is also fun even if you don't make it back to base.

T-44 is OP, that simple. It has everything ; speed, deadly gun, decent armor, fast turret....those fuckers make my blood boil. Sadly i took the german side, or as it's also called, "Hlep, my ammo-rack is on Fire....AGAIN!"
Really wish they took out some of the randomness of module-failure. As it stands now i get frequent engine failures from frontal hits. Kinda takes some of the point out of keeping your rear end safe  :oh_i_see:

That's bollox it ain't op at all, for starter the gun isn't that deadly, in fact it has the worst gun of all tanks in it's class. I've seen Tiger IIs rack up 12 kills and 3k XP without a huge amount of effort (camping a hill or something), T-44 is really hard to drive well, it took me quite a while to figure out how to work it, target selection, approach angles, timing a drive by. Believe me I spent a lot of time really frustrated with the T-44 but once you get it sussed, it's a fun and rewarding tank to drive.

You're comparing the gun on a Tiger II to a T-44? I think the comparable german tank would be the Panzer V medium.

I've seen a guy with moderate skill zoom into the back of an enemy base like a leopard, take out 6 tanks, including a few VK3001(H)s without batting an eyelash. Its OP dude. Don't get me wrong, I would be playing that T-44 right along with ya, but lets not think we're all that.

Ignorant much? The Panther uses the same gun as a Tiger II, oh and I wasn't comparing the guns I was comparing the abilities to own the field. Tiger II is actually a lot more powerful than a T-44, T-44 is somewhere between a Tiger I and a Tiger II in it's level of capability.  It can't go up against Tiger IIs or IS-3s without getting owned and it has a tough time against Panthers. T-44s are not an iWin button by any means, I have driven German tanks (I own a Tiger II) and T-44s suffer from ammo rack hits just as much. Though I do think the subsystem damage is a little worse on German tanks, there is definitely some fixing to be done next patch.

I know it probably came across as gloating I'm not an uber player by any means, a little better than average maybe. I was more trying to convey the fun I just had driving a T-44, after 300 games you would expect the early frustration to be rewarded at some stage. I mean only a few games later a T-43 wanders into our base on Lakeville takes me out solo and leaves me gritting my teeth. Players who say T-44 is overpowered are generally people who have not driven the thing. Get one you'll soon realise what I mean, they DEFINITELY aren't overpowered.

http://www.curse.com/keys/world-of-tanks/default.aspx

More keys, until the 19th.

Ya, ok, I shouldn't speak before I've actually driven one, but I just struggle to think that its as hard to drive and use a T-44 as most of the other medium tanks out there. Maybe I've just had the august experience of seeing only excellent drivers in the t-44s I've run across. Maybe everyone else in every other tank is a ham fisted spaz who can't control his turret for beans.

But it sure looks to me like the T-44 has very smooth controls, an omgwtf gun, and angled 'bounce off' armor that seems to a Tiger II.

I'm wondering how it stacks up to the Panzer V. I've only seen a few people playing a P V, and they seem quite agile too, but not quite as zippy as the T-44.

Speaking of excellent drivers... I think I might have seen you the other day Engels, and accidentally put a 122mm shell into your side whilst aiming at someone the other side of you.  :awesome_for_real:

Sorry about that! I'm pretty sure you survived the match.

No sweat, in this game it doesn't matter much. You die you just pick another tank and go. In a way the game is -too- forgiving, since sometimes I just do stupid things cuz I'm bored. Like on that one map with the lake, you spend 5 munutes peering over the edge of your camp hoping some fool scout goes and reveals the enemy tanks behind a tree.

If you hit me with a 122 shell I musta been in my VK3001P, cuz I don't think any of my other tanks would have withstood it.

I am not too concerned with balancing of tanks, impossible task if you as me.  I love the variety of the tanks and their individual weaknesses/strengths.  I have been going back in the tech trees just to try out a few different models (luchs and leopard are FUN).  I am currently sitting with a KV (just picked it up at the end of the night), a JagPanther, and a T-43.  I had to sell some tanks I enjoyed just to get enough to afford the KV and T-43. 

My main issue right now is available cash. I have almost enough XP for Ferdinand, but I am sitting at about a 1,500 credits right now. 

Well I concede its definitely the best medium tank in that it's really mobile, but this for me is what a high Tier medium tank should be able to do. It's gun isn't really a great sniping gun so it forces you to find small groups of targets and rush them or do a drive by. Most of the time you get creamed doing this, but every so often you do everything right and it's fucking awesome. The Panther is a different playstyle in that it can snipe really well and penetrate most front armour, so it works better at cornering/sniping to soften up opponents before rushing and taking them on head on.

The AT1 is such greatness. My crew is now approaching 100% in it and I just played a game where I scored 9 kills. I'm just going to use this thing to bankroll my other upgrades for a while. Good times.  :grin:

I played a match last night with my bt2 against a pzII at close range. About two minutes of him missing (and hitting me ONCE to ammo rack me ><), and me bouncing shells off his rear armor constantly.

Recruit battles are hilariously fun diversions, I keep a pzII and a bt2 stabled just for them when I'm bored.

I've gotten a few steps up in the tech tree, but it seems like the moment you start getting thrown in with the heavy tanks, the entire game is different. No longer does 'Tank Destroyer' mean killing tanks. It means killing light tanks and some medium tanks and running from the heavies. I'm curious if that changes with the higher level tank destroyers. I'm assuming so, but if I'm going to be running from heavies from this point forward, I'm not sure I want to invest money in that particular line. You sacrifice quite a bit going that direction.

Higher tier TDs hunt heavies from a distance (or close in if said heavy is kinda silly about where they wind up)

The tier issue is that there's a break in tier 3/4/5 or so where pretty much all the higher tier players will simply murder you with a look while you can at most do 1-2% to them with HE rounds. My SU-85 can dent anything but an IS3, though.

Heck, my t-34 vs a PzV was hilariously "I can out play you to no end, put 30 rounds into your rear, and you can still twoshot me in the end with 70% health left"

Damn, nice!

Also you should probably consider the German TD line, the Jagpanther and Ferdinand are pretty fierce.

I'm currently saving up for the SU-85. The SU-85B is almost useless though. I guess the SU-85 is when the Russian line of TDs become TDs again.

I've been basically all Russian to this point. Not real sure why. I guess the coin landed that way when I chose my first tank. Dunno. Either way, I definitely do need to check out some of the German tanks. They're definitely cooler looking. That's for damn sure.

I actually like the russian tank designs for the most part. The upper tier turrets on the Pz line are hilarious looking.

But the Su-85 is still a paper TD, but it at least has a good enough gun to put holes in things. The SU-85 is just tissue paper with an okay gun and a high profile. Just from working with other TDs, I don't see a huge leap between the 85 and the su-100 though. Every time I've gone hunting with one, we seem to be identical performance.

Currently my BT-2 is an xp siphon when I'm bored, my SU-85 generates cash really well (not being anywhere near the fight in a winning match means no repairs for a lot of kills!), and my new T-34-85 just sucks, because unupgraded tanks suck.

Not only look cooler they seem superior to the Russian counterpart, the Jagpanther seems to be able to bounce a ridiculous amount of frontal shots when compared to the SU-152. The selling point for me would be the ammo costs (https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tDB4StQc95B9otKPXRctCqA&authkey=CJm4jYgN#gid=4), the ammo for the best guns  on the SU-100/SU-152/ISU-152 are really steep when compared to the best guns on the same tier German tanks. SU-152 has got the best DPS of any tank in the game though.

I skipped the SU-85b entirely and instead got my SU-76 crew up to 100% and used converted XP to get to the SU-85.  The 57mm could at least damage most of the tanks from the flanks and rear and occasionally even finish off the odd pzIV and occasional heavily wounded KV.  I like my SU-85 and with the 107 it does fairly well although it doesn't have the automotive performance of the su-76.  I just wish I could learn to consistently hit crossing targets, the lack of tracers to show where your shots went makes it really hard to adjust or learn the proper lead.  I manage to hit crossing leopards just often enough to keep me trying.

I'm currently leveling up my StuGIII and its a fun little vehicle. Its agile enough to track the motion of a circling high end medium or heavy, and can penetrate nearly all tanks cept the really high end ones, like a frontal hit on a JagD or a AusfB. Compared to my luck with the VK3001P, its a dream. My goal is to get in a Panzer V, but man, those VK3001/2 series are just a serious slog.

Oh, and another thing; I'm getting a bit sick and tired of these fuckers in the heavy tanks just lounging about till the end of the match to then come in and clean up. Meanwhile, the rest of the medium tanks have done all sorts of heroics to whittle down the enemy, but died in the attempt. Mind you, not all heavies do this, but enough of them do it that its annoying. Of course, they then rack up the kill shot points on the half damaged tanks that are left.

I know, I know, they're expensive to maintain in all that, but if you actually went into the heat of the battle and damaged a lot of tanks right out the gate, chances of your side winning would be far greater. I don't know how many times I've seen some 100% Tiger II trundle into the field when everyone else is dead, just to be chopped down by the 4 remaining tanks.

Ok, I'll stop complaining now.

Ya that annoys me too. Heck I even follow the attack force in my SU-85, I feel like I help out a lot more being out there fighting instead of camping. It's a lot more fun too.

Too many idiots rush off like maniacs expecting heavies to follow. When I'm in my Tiger II, I take a minute or two to survey the enemy positions and snipe stuff, if I move off too early it takes too long to readjust later. If my team gains an early upper hand I'll head straight for a manageable area of tanks where I have decent support or I'll plug a hole left behind by rushing maniacs. If I'm on the north part of Murovanka I always camp the hill behind the houses with my Tiger II, our whole team rushed off earlier even though I asked to defend cause the other team had a Ferdi and an AusfB (total imbalance). So anyway everyone died leaving myself and a JagPanther, who also stayed behind, against the AusfB, the Ferdinand and a KV, we camped the hill til they came out of the woods and we won. If we had gained upper hand I would have moved off my spot and helped to sweep up.

My Medium will go forth and slug it out after figuring out where our force is going (not going to lone wolf it in a t-34. That's suicide)

My TD will follow an attack force or a flanking force depending on the map. That horrible stupid map with the giant no man's land in the middle and the giant hill on the northeastern slope? Fuck that map. I'm sniping for the first two minutes then flanking with my TD and sniping down from the side. That map sucks, even if I do wind up with 8 kills on my SU-85 from it.

Amarr, you're doing it rite. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about active maps where there just isn't a whole chance of sniping. The city map, the railroad tracks/buildings map, and the lake/town map. I forget the names. After the initial scout rush, we all have a general gist of where the main force is going. If you're a scout that just got killed by a serious heavy (Tiger Is and KVs need not apply), then for god's sake, tell the team where it is. After that, yep, I do expect the heavies to engage wherever the top tank clusters are.

What ticks me off more is scouts who loiter in the base and don't do their thing. There are some excuses for it, like when everyone's rushed off and left a naked Hummel to be pinged to death by a couple of PIIIs or Leopards. Then a scout tank is decent defense, but I still prefer a PIV or a russian low medium for the job.

Kildorn, I loathe and detest that map too. Its like WWI in the trenches. Every move you make is a completely stupid crapshoot.

I actually had a run on that map where it wound up my t-34 vs an IS3 on the hill next to my base. And nobody in the freaking base even lobbed shells in our direction.

Got him down 30% before finally croaking, but dear god people: if he's within easy TD range and getting tracked left and right, put some shells in the heavy!

Phew :) I didn't really think you meant me specifically but I think sometimes people misjudge heavies. You also should remember heavies need the kills/damage much more than others to pay for their repairs and ammo.

Yeh sometimes watching other players is quite frustrating when you know they are just being a liability. One game a scout type tank was using my Tiger II as a moveable wall, he was also preventing me from rocking back & forward and I was getting eaten by snipers. I went to escape up over the gap in the trains and I saw him about to drive across my path which would have stopped my tank right on the crest getting me killed, so I popped him and drove off.

In an IS3 now - It feels fantastic.  :drill:

Much more of an armour upgrade than I thought it would be, and I can still make reasonable profit if I do well, with premium, though the pressure is definitely on to get multiple kills - the repair costs are becoming insane (ammo costs already are - 8-18k per match). I'm *really* looking forward to the IS-4, those things are beasts.

I too get annoyed when heavies camp for most of the match (apart from that one map with the massive no-man's-land zone), however I can understand it to a certain extent with the slower ones like the Ausf B. What *really* annoys me, and I see it MUCH more in the IS-3 now, is when all the mediums and lights hide behind the biggest heavy, and follow it in one slow-ass train. Way to negate your advantages. Makes me want to turn around and shell the closest, until they get the idea.

A heavy works best with good battlefield awareness (scouts!). If I turn a corner in my IS/IS3 to unexpectedly find myself in the middle of the enemy zerg, I'm going to a die a pitiful ineffective death.

Ya, I hear ya both about using the heavies as cover. At the same time, its sorta in the job description to take the hits while the mediums whittle down the opposition around you. Its an unspoken rule, I think. Now, purposefully hiding behind a heavy to avoid a hit is pretty yellow, tho. What you should do, since chances are the enemy is focusing on the heavy, is to circle around and shoot the enemy in the rear. This is worth it, even if it means having to go around a building or city block.

The grind from a BT-7 to a T-34 is kinda getting me down.  I'm about 2/3 of the way there on the experience after several days.  I figure I have about 6-8 hours left to go.  For some reason that seems like a lot in this game and I'm wondering if skipping the A20 was a bad idea.

I've been converting experience from my elite little tanks as available, but the BT-7 seems to bring in more overall.

If your using "gold" to transfer experience between tanks, than it is definitely not worth it - the same goes for converting gold to credits.  Save all gold for premium accounts whether it be daily or a weekly.  Even if you play a couple of hours with the premium 50% bonus on credits and XP, then you are much further ahead than straight xp transfer or credit conversion.

Oh, it's not much gold to transfer the xp.  I have like 800-something gold saved up, I guess I should do a few bonus days!  I sort of forgot that existed.   :grin:

I bought the German heavy tank for 1250 gold....  :awesome_for_real:

Is it any good?  I'm leery of tanks I've never heard of.  Pz B2 740(f), wtf is that gibberish!

Edit:  Ah, wikipedia tells me it is a captured French Char.  Those were kinda, uh, outdated.   

The other day I got an engine hit, and discovered that I could travel faster backwards faster than forwards. In other words, I upgraded to the Italian model!  :grin:

Shitty gun, shitty penetration, no damage to speak of, but repair costs are low (~2k) and I got 6k credits just for participating and dinging a tiger a few times.

Could be decent against very light tanks with HE ammunition, I am going to upgrade the crew to 50%, it seemed rather mobile as well...

Biggest problem is that you can't upgrade the premium tanks. At all.

The repair costs are supposed to be the value of the premium tanks.  Apparently they are decent tanks for their respective tiers, but quickly get outclassed as there are no higher tier premiums.

American tanks incoming:


http://game.worldoftanks.com/news/general_news/american_tank_screens

Saw an in game announcement that the servers would be down from August 26th to Sept 1st.

It appears that American Tech tree won't be available till full release.  I think I read somewhere that the JagTiger TD will be added in this patch.

It would be nice to see if we can get a few "squad" nights in.  Even three tanks working in unison is better than some of the clusterfucking I see going on now (although it is entertaining to join a good ole' clusterfuck or misguided rush every once in a while).

I had a misguided rush win a while back. Some random idiot in a medium goes "let's all rush down the middle, follow me!", and he was shocked when we actually decided to go along with it.

The enemy crumbled pretty much in shock when our entire team, SPGs and all, rolled right over the middle hill and started firing.

I'm sad to not see new battle tiers in the patch list though.

Man, I finally got my T-34, too.  Oh well, it'll be down only like a week I guess.

Ya, the downtime blows, but actually, its probably good for me to take a break. I haven't been this glued to a game since EQ raiding.

I've been doing the german path for TDs, SPGS, Heavies and Mediums, so this will actually be good because with the combined XP and money that I've spent getting a JagdPanzer IV, the VK3002BD, the Hummel, etc, now I'll be able to immediately get into a Panzer V, which is what I wanted to do in the first place, but got distracted (the 3001P is a SNOOZE fest).

Oh, and playing with lower ping might be nice too, although I can't complain too loudly.

The 57mm gun for this tank makes it awesome. One of the best on the move tanks I have driven. I'm not sure what it is about this tank since everything about the T-34 is just average but with that 57mm and everything else upgraded I do better in this tank then anything else I have driven. For the way I drive it's the best tank in its tier by far.

Aye, the rush does work if everyone is in.  I was on a team matched against 2 ferds, and everyone was "lolbalance", so we just decided to rush in before they could set up.  We took them out with ease.


I haven't played a game this much in quite a while.  I am anxiously awaiting release.

Yeh I enjoyed the T-34 the ROF on the 57mm is great, it's kind of a taste for the T-44. I found the T-34-85 less fun to drive and not as good a tank as the VK3601.

Same here, my only fear is that they are going to double the cost of everything and triple the XP requirements on launch day.

I was afraid of that. I have the exp and cash for the T-34-85 but haven't pulled the trigger on it yet. I may just keep my T-34 until he wipe.

I went from doing okay in a T34 (and knowing my boundaries of what I could do and what I would die to) to sucking horribly in a T-34-85 and racking up 60-90xp/match because I just couldn't hurt anything before being wasted.

Still no mention of the MMO part with the strategic map and clan wars. I have pretty high confidence in the team but I wouldn't mind seeing that come down the pipe sooner rather than later.

I think most people have pretty much the same experience, the 85 is heavier and less mobile.

I have my doubts, as it appears they are fine tuning some of the xp/credits in the upcoming patch.  I believe I read that Tier 6 vehicles are getting a reduction in credit costs.

Also, a premium account will be $10/month and $10 for 2500 gold (although in the post it was mentioned in Euros, not sure how that will change in NA).

So the premium account means you get xp and cash at double the rate, like right now in beta?

Also, will one get a gold stipend like in beta, or is that a cash only thing?

Not sure about a stipend and premium is 50% increase.  I didn't really use gold for anything but the premium account option.  I will most likely purchase some gold to get a couple of the upcoming premium tanks (Canadian RAMII) maybe some more garage space.

Gold is good for quickly (re)training up a crew also. I have 2600 gold at the mo, which apparently will carry over the reset - I'll be spending a lot of that on new crews for an IS and IS-3 or 4, depending on what I have the cash for.

Apparently there will be consumables when live hits (eg. single use repair kits, purchasable for gold). I hope they don't unbalance the game too much. I'm assuming they are for quickly regaining partial use of a damaged module, not resetting them to full, or HP repairs...

Apparently they are contemplating changing the crew to 200 gold for 100% crew instead of the 300 gold for 75% training.  Not completely sure on that one, couldn't find the thread again.

That wouldn't surprise me - I'm not sure if 300 gold for one crewman to 75% would be worth it, outside of beta. 50% was 20k credits, and the time it takes to go from 50% to 75% isn't much (90-100 is a much bigger grind). You could train your entire crew to 50% for less than the equivalent credit value of 300 gold.

Ya in the next patch the notes said 200 gold for 100% per crew member.

I went ahead and tried out some modules instead of buying the T-34-85, and the 15% armor on the T2 premium Pz38(f) is a lot of fun. That tank is already 34/34/34 hull and 45/40/40 turret, it's like being in a heavy in recruit battles.

Modules on recruit tanks are.. hilariously unbalanced.

*checks watch* Are we there yet? How ever am i gonna make it til sept. 1  :cry2:

Not sure where i wanna spend my xp on after reset though. I really, really loved my JagdPanther. Decisions, decisions.
Not gonna roll a T-44 though. Games gonna be flooded with them next week. I'm not spastic enough to go T-line anyway.
Would like to try the King Tiger also.

Russian "heavy"
T-26 - 190 exp
T-46 - 1.020 exp
T-28 - 5.040 exp
KV - 19.725 exp
KV-3 - 48.775 exp
IS - 102.045 exp
IS-3 - 209.120 exp
IS-4 - 396.785 exp
IS-7 - 708.200 exp

German "heavy"
PzKpfw II - 175 exp
PzKpfw III Ausf A - 1.320 exp
PzKpfw III - 5.555 exp
PzKpfw IV - 21.010 exp
VK3601(H) - 50.965 exp
PzKpfw VI Tiger - 105.030 exp
PzKpfw VIB Tiger II - 225.525 exp
VK4502 (P) Ausf B - 411.275 exp
Maus - 691.145 exp

Russian "medium"
BT-2 - 190 exp
BT-7 - 1.520 exp
A-20 - 6.310 exp
T-34 - 21.000 exp
T-34-85 - 54.860 exp
T-43 - 116.945 exp
T-44 - 217.703 exp

German "medium"
PzKpfw II - 175 exp
PzKpfw III Ausf A - 1.320 exp
PzKpfw III - 5.555 exp
PzIII/IV - 21.010 exp
VK3001P - 50.645 exp
VK3002(DB) - 91.825 exp
PzKpfw V Panther - 186.960 exp

But its only to unlock the tanks, no other upgrades counted.  (stolen from WoT-forums)

Thanks for that Snow, keep in mind you don't need to upgrade the T10 tanks, they come fully upgraded. So a fully upgraded AusfB/IS-4 won't be far off the XP purchase of a Maus/IS-7.

I finished with 1.5M XP and about 8 million credits worth of gear. I definitely would like to buy the T-44 cause it was fun to play, I will probably invest in either an IS-4/IS-7 depending on what the JagdTiger looks like. IS-7 looks like a superpowered T-44 so I might not need to buy one and with the 5000 gold not having premium won't be an issue.

I need to look at the HE penetration ratings on a few higher end TDs and see if I can make something to counter the flood of T-44s I expect when this comes back up.

Bad-ass is what it looks like...

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v464/barney1969/WoT_hybrid2010-08-2712-57-22-16.jpg)

Yes it does. Does that turret rotate?

That thing does look badass yes.


I'm not sure what you are currently driving but they are pretty easy for me in my Tiger II, the only time I die to them is if they have support. If a T-44 is circling me I can track them 90% of the time, use reverse & rotate the tank as well as the turret this will spin your gun right around twice as fast, then manually aim a few metres ahead of him on the same plane, his speed can be quite slow once he is that close. Once they are tracked park right in front of them and pop them, they really aren't that powerful. The initial tracking might not do any damage if you don't land a clean hit but as long as you can park on his front this will stop them speeding off again. Other tricks would be to back into a wall so he can't circle you that pisses T-44s off and don't wander off alone if there are T-44 around.

t-34s usually. Which means from any old angle, a t-44 can eat me for breakfast, and I can't do much about it.

Right before things shut down, I saw a lovely game where there was a 6 t-44 flanking group that pretty much just ate Everything. Mostly due to the horrible netcode at long range causing warping (and auto aim sucking when you try and use it to avoid warping), so there was nothing the TD line could do about preventing them from closing.

Yes well a T-34 really has no chance against a T-44 and rightly so. T-34 is a fairly weak tank but I found it like the other Mediums in it's line worked best near the end of the match against light and heavies. I would avoid other medium tanks especially the higher tier ones. T-34-85 can actually go up against a T-44 and sometimes win if they're lucky.

No, that's a fixed turret. It's a TD.

I realize it's a TD but some American TDs had rotating turrets, like the M10 and M18. Wasn't sure if that one did too, since it looks like it could. Going by the final tech tree for the American line they are eventually including the M18 so they may have some TDs with rotating turrets eventually. 

Right. Yeah, it's just not particularly clear from that pic, but the turret and body are one and the same. Other pics highlight it better, but I'm posting from my cell phone so can't show you.

If you look up the Wiki on the JagdTiger, you can see from the images provided that its not a moveable turret:

Playing the russian release version as we speak. Got bored waiting  :awesome_for_real:
A few things :
 - prices on a lot of tanks have decreased. As an example, the VK36 now cost 730 000'ish, 200k down from last beta build.
 - the tiered battles are actually quite good. Driving a KV atm, and will sometimes get a match where i am the top vehicle. Other times it's back to normal and i am flooded with IS-3 and -4's.
 - 3 equipment slots and 3 consumable slots. I don't speak a word russian, so no idea what the consumables actually do. Seems to be two tiers of them, cheap ones cost from 3-5k creds, and there are some that cost 100 gold.
 - beginner tier battles are heaven now, no arty  :awesome_for_real:  ....and then you get into the next tier and you get 5-7 arty pr side. I kid you not. Most i had was 8 arty pr side.....move/shoot= instant death  :ye_gods:
 - I like the two new maps. One small intensive map, and one bigger map with bridges as chokepoints. Actually quite good map imo.
 - prices on crew-training is  :grin:  you start up with 50% crews, 20k for 75% and 200 gold a piece for 100% training
 - been pretty lag-free except for one or two matches which was just god awful
 - Tigers seem pretty good now. After following a few on death-cam, i haven't seen any sign of ammo-rack, engine blowouts etc out of the ordinary, nothing like they used to be anyway. I may however be wrong as usual.

All in all, it looks pretty damn good. Only thing that still makes me shout to the monitor is the arty onslaught.  Back to grinding xp, need new gun

How are you playing the russian release? You bought it or something?

Worldoftanks.ru
To lazy to link  :grin:
Google Translate and I managed to sign up

edit: F me sideways.  Arty is pissing me off much the same way rogues used to do in WoW. Losing ones track every 5 sec is no different from being stunlocked. Yes, you can shoot......on what? They are pummeling you from over the horizon Bloodpressure.....rising.......

I heard you can copy some file from the EU beta to your RU folder and it puts most everything in English.

edit: downloading RU version now, will try it and see if can find the English file.

2nd edit: Its under the res folder. Just replace the text and audio folders in the RU version with EU version.

Some new info on the forums (updated today):

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/2016-beta-05x-patch-coming-soon/

8k gold woop  :awesome_for_real:

So a bunch of folks are playing with Churchills. What's up with that? THey say they are good credit earners?

Servers are back up already.

Since soft wipe is in a few days and we got 5000 gold already I went ahead and bought a churchill and matilda to try them out. Ya churchill is a money maker and it's not really a bad tank. I took on an IS3 with it and took 20% of his health before I died. Also made like 15k credits for very little time and work. Matilda is ok, decent for money but if I had to pick I'd take the churchill.

Edit: first match was more $ then usual. After playing a few more matches with each, make more money with the matilda but the churchill is more fun. Out of 5 matches with each tank averaged probably about 6-10k with churchill and 8-12k with matilda. matilda is worthless though and the churchill while not great can actually contribute and is fun to drive. Churchill is worthless. Seriously. Matilda after playing for the evening is not a bad tank. A bigger engine and it would be pretty good.

Yeh they make everyone a lot of credits when they blow up a piece of crap heavy tank, so the more Churchills on the field the better I say.

My Ping went from 150-200 to 40-50 with the switch to NA servers.

I bought a week premium, and transferred a bunch of gold to finally afford the Ferdinand.  Ferd is comme ci, comme ca so far and to get the big gun is a bit of a grind.  I would have like to try out some premium tanks, but wanted to get the ferd.

I am just glad the beta is up and running again.

"server busy, please try again later"

That's new!

Saw that a couple of times before the servers went down - they're really ramping up the beta numbers now, and had major problems with game performance as they were stress testing (weird glitches like tanks able to pass through scenery and climb buildings/mountains). They 'fixed' that, and the queues appeared, albeit rarely.

New patch is up, however the download is *incredibly* slow. There is an alternative torrent here:

http://download.worldoftanks.com/patches/auto/WoT_beta_0.4.5-0.5.4.1_eng_patch.exe.torrent


Edit: Weeee IS-7! Funfunfun. However, loaded my first match to find myself playing in a team with 3 other IS7s, an IS4, an IS3, and assorted other tanks, vs a similar side heheh. Still, made 60k from the match (2 kills - an ausf B and a jgpanther, plus a heap of damage vs assorted IS-7s), with premium, with 17k repair costs and 17k ammo.

Thanks for the torrent link, patch is definitely very very slow. Now what to do with my exp...

Lots of very nifty little improvements...

Things like a little antiquated buzzer that sounds when score a hit instead of relying on a voice indicator, a translucent foliage effect when zoomed in while in bush cover, and improved (customisable) targeting reticules all making my life easier.

I've got both an IS-7 and an upgraded IS in my garage, and when playing the IS, the balancing tweaks are apparent - was again matched with similar tiered vehicles.

I can't help but feel that we've lost a little something with the balancing, particularly as some of the lower tiered lights were fantastic scouts, but we'll see how it plays.

Is the JagTiger available now in this patch?

Yes.

I've not played with one, but I have played against them. They pack a fairly big punch, however they turn slowly and are very vulnerable to being flanked - they can hurt my IS-7, but if they try to play like heavies (which many people seem to be doing at the moment), then up close it's like shooting fish in a barrel. They seem best used sniping at medium to long range.

Squee!

So, I was thinking of training up a Panzer V. Do you guys think those are competitive tanks in a sea of IS-7s and AusfBs?

A lot of panther/t-44 tank drivers at the moment are complaining, as they are no longer the big guns, and the weaker fast tanks that mediums preyed upon have all but vanished from high-end games.

I think it could use a little bit more balancing, the matches seem *very* top heavy (heavy heavy!) at the moment, but I'm hoping it will even out soon. High tier arty is *very* dangerous to an IS-7 or Maus (I've been 1-2 shot a few times by the biggest now), and lights/mediums are still the best at taking them out.

I suspect if/when clan matches start up, lights and mediums are going to make a big resurgence.

I really like what they have done here. The new maps are nice and I haven't been ammo racked or set on fire a ridiculous amount of times in my IS-7. This is probably due to the changes and the lack of low-mid tier tanks running around with HE. First game was strange new map, new tank and I ended up getting pwned by two S-51s when I took up a bad position in the center by the cap points. Finding it hard to make money in the IS-7 but I am trying out the consumables a lot. I did manage to make 80k credits one game which is by far the best I've ever made & I quite like that there's a lot of high tier tanks running around.

Thanks for the torrent. Took 4 minutes.

I trained up to a Panzer V and its not so bad. Sure, there are a lot of heavies. Heavies that can't track a Panzer V circling about them. So, essentially now the PV is the new light tank.

God hummel is a money maker now.  Second fight I was in (first one was a new map and I sucked) I got 57k with premium on.  Averaging 25kish before repairs/ammo right now.

Now that we can do platoons, we really should get back in channel. I made one called Bat Country, no password.

Most excellent. I'll have to play some when I get home from work.  :grin:

So, ya, playing my new Panzer V medium tank is a bit of a crapshoot. If the game doesn't have 2 IS-7s, a smattering of JagdTigers, and a few Tiger IIs then I stand a chance of earning some money. However, recently, I feel like an A-20 on a scout run, and guess what? You don't break even, not by a long shot. On some occasions I manage to get in a few good hits or even kill a high tier tank, and my team isn't replete with dolts, and then the cash flows in. But its not often enough that those factors coincide.

I'm currently playing more with my new JagdPanzer which only costs 7 k to repair and seems to have a similar ability to hit things.

I know, crymoarnewb and all that.

Had fun doing platoons with Vaiti last night, we won nearly all the games we played together which now means I have something like a 60% victory rating in the IS-7.  Last couple of games things started to go pearshaped when I one shot his S-51 trying to defend him from a Leapord and T-34  :facepalm:  

I agree Engels, though it's now tough for everyone except arty to make money in the high tier matches. I have 50 games in the IS-7 and I've managed to make about 350k profit which is a little low. Possibly due to the fact I use consumables quite a bit, they really are worth it in the high tier tank.

Ya, you know, I shoulda blown my 'free xp' for a Tiger II or an AusF B or something. I just upgraded the gun on my JagdPanzer...1k a shell.   :ye_gods: I think I'll be downgrading back to my 2nd level gun.

I'm impressed by your earnings. Then again, those IS-7s are fookin monsters. When one comes up to me, I basically grab my virtual rear and kiss it.

I've made about 600k since the patch (bought 4 camo nets heh), however I seem to be making significantly less cash today than yesterday - I'm not sure whether I'm just not doing as well, or something has changed. Even some of my really good games, I'm only making 45k or so before repairs+ammo, whereas yesterday I was passing 60k regularly.

Anyway, yeah, my plain old IS is my emergency cash-maker. I'm pretty much guaranteed a profit with that, whereas the IS-7 sometimes wins big, but sometimes loses big.

Play around with the 1k shells Engels - It took me a while to get used to them on my old KV-3, but once you figure out the playstyle (shoot waaay more carefully heh) then they're worth the return. Or at least, they were - I'm not sure now that everything is bigger and you're more prone to dinging off the big tanks.

Hey gang. Nix created a WoT channel on the Team Speak server.

IP: IL2.LeetTS.com:10015
Password: minecraft

I'll be doing my best to hang in there while I play WoT.

Sweet nice one NiX.

Anyone know where to get another Beta key? Got a friend itching to try this out after seeing me play.

http://www.shatteredcrystal.com/index.php/world_of_tanks

Thats where I got mine and I've sent several friends there to get their beta keys too.

Awesome thank you. That worked perfect.

This game actually requires much less twitch skill. It is very much about positioning and group  teamwork (which has its problems -as in random battles no matter how good you are you only go as far as your team does)

I have to agree. I'm not very good at twitch I'm an asset, most of the time. It doesn't hurt to be good at twitch, but its also about having a good visio-spatial sense and the ability to drive. Parking skills also help a bit.

But really, the game hinges on group coordination and the collective intelligence of the entire team. I've seen teams made up of superior tanks be wiped out by an lesser team by virtue of correct group strategy.

Now, that said, the game really needs to have a better way of communicating. Integrated voice chat would do wonders, but I can also see why this may not be feasible. Platoons are good, since that means that people on TS or another voice chat can group together. This isn't definitive, however. Even in games with 3 groups of 3 platoons all communicating within each platoon things can go terribly pear shaped, since there's no inter-platoon communication other than the text based chat, which is mostly ignored.

Doesn't work for me after the most recent update. Autopatched and got the error: Error, patches not installed!

Downloaded the manual patch, installed, and got the same thing.

Anyone else having this issue?

Edit: Quick search of the WoT forums says to skip over the launcher and go straight for the WoT.exe in order to get past this.

It seems that they're gradually working on better team-based visual communication cues - calling for help using the preset button now flashes an icon over your head, and calling out a target does the same over an enemy etc. Better use of the minimap would be helpful, such as the ability to draw lines/arrows - although allowing this without it being abused by muppets would be no mean feat.

Edit: For slepping.

Only allowing it only for platoons would do that.

I just got accepted and am kinda  :uhrr:



Is this the A20?

I see the churchill now.

You want to explain? Honestly, I don't understand why everyone is -not- playing this game. I am curious as to what people aren't liking about it. Just from a psychology point of view. I know I must have some sort of gaming blinders on to think this game's so cool.

That looks awesome.

Reminds me of my old WWII Online days, of course, with much better graphics.  Does it play anything like WWII Online in terms of tank control?  I havent played WWII:O in ages, might have to give this a spin.

It needs more mechs.

Would love to see a Mech MMO, even if they were just a side-show and not the main event.  I loved Mechwarrior and it would be awesome to see that world in a MMO.

Oh I'm playing it, I just knew nothing about it which led to me feeling like that.

For starters I thought it was a real MMO with tank battles, but its really just an FPS with upgrades in tanks.  (Not saying that's bad, just I had the wrong expectations)
I am somewhat confused by why tanks randomly disappear from my view when they're in an open field and are warping around, feels like I'm lagging, but I'm not from what I can tell.

Overall though I am having fun playing it, just had the wrong expectations at the start.

When they're warping, that's actually doing you a favor. You could never actually click on them if they were shown to move at 'real' speeds, so they 'stagger'. Once you have them locked, your auto aim follows them correctly. That said, good luck shooting a transversally zooming scout 500 yards away.

The reason things appear and disappear is based on many factors, including radio ranges of your friends in the field 'spotting' them for you, their own view range, your radio range, your view range. Additionally, if they have ducked into a bush, they can also spontaneously disappear.

Wait there is an auto aim?  I've been manually shooting  :heartbreak:

I just looked and apparently its right mouse button, I shall try it

Wow that made the game a lot better.  :grin:

You can zoom even further in with the mousewheel.

I noticed that just lately.

Btw. When is everyone playing ? I'd like to give this platoon thing a try. :)

I traded up from a 34-85 at the reset and it was a huge mistkae. It's fun to play, I get my share of hits in. And then I go and play 3 low tier matches to pay for the 10k I just lost even though I was on premium. I just can't make this thing work economically. Or even get close to it.

I am loving the tiered battles. 7 kills the other day in my AT1. Even the leichtractor is fun.

I've made a channel called Bat Country. Drop by, don't be a stranger.

Numtini, I am having some troubles that way with the Panzer V. Normally I wait till I know I'm focused and calm, and then I rake in the big bucks. Otherwise, I stick to my JagdPanzer or my KV.

SPG's, any of them pretty much, are the money makers.

They need to be balanced in that way I think.

I can lose a game in my SU-14 and after repair still make 5k without having killed or hit anything in the round.

20-80k a round is my normal winnings. 10k or so from a loss. 5k average Repair bill.

My most consistent money maker is by far my VK3601. It's hard to lose money with that thing and not that hard to come away with 30k+ after repairs and ammo. Probably average about 10k to 20k after repairs etc though. Haven't tried the T-44 but love my Panther, glad I grabbed that instead of the T-44 after the wipe, only tanks I avoid a one on one with are the IS4 and IS7 when in my Panther. It can be hit or miss on credits though. At least overall I do make money with the Panther.

Ya, I'm just not that good at the game! I guess on average I make money with the Panther, but its pretty spotty. I can go 4 horrid games and then have one miracle one where I rake in 50k.

I have the VK3601 trained. Maybe I should buy that instead of the KV3 I just trained up to, just because I've heard good things about that tank, not that I want to pursue the german heavy tank line, which seems a calvary of grind.

Oh I sometimes lose horribly with my Panther but overall it makes money. It's just those times you lose like 10 to 15k can kind of hurt and stick out a lot more then the numerous times you come out +5000 in credits I think.

I would recommend the VK3601, in a bad fight usually break even at least and It can run circles around the KV3. Also I think it's just a plain fun tank to drive. It's basically a faster more agile tiger with less penetration on it's gun. **Disclaimer** I got it after the soft wipe and so never had to unlock modules on mine, so no idea how it is to slog thru from stock to elite. Also I did the same on my Panther so that could be the difference right there.

For making money I'm with Vaiti on this one the S-51 is the best money maker and I would say a Hummel might be better again. The Leopard isn't too bad either I've made 40k in one once and generally make about 15-20k and they can be so much fun to play with.

I like to drive a variety of vehicles, and I would say that your most likely going to average about $10,000 a match (unless your in a tier 1 or 2 tank, slightly lower).  Once in a while your going to pull over a 50k+ match in the higher tiers.  It seems you get a lot more credits for straight up damage dealt than kills now.

I am starting to notice the skill level of drivers rise and become more stategic.

My pet peeve is becoming people that complain about balance EVERY match...almost like the are compensating for the fear of failure.  More often than not, the so-called under-balanced team wins because they play a little more conservatively.

They still giving out beta keys for this?

This. People do like to moan and piss about balance a lot. I've only very rarely seen a really bad mix. One game with one team having 50% arty, for instance.  Even then, stuff like this breaks up the monotony and makes you think out of the box.

Sir T>

The above sounds about right, I rotate through 4 vehicles and after repairs and ammo I make something over 30k a rotation given a normal spread of wins and losses.

My pet peeve is scouts who don't scout, you don't have to charge down the middle and die in a blaze of glory to be an effective scout, but hiding behind a building in the shadow of a tiger2 is not performing your function at all.

...or when scouts take off immediately before any of the arty or anybody for the matter has a chance to setup.  When I had a leopard, I would usually wait at least 30 seconds before racing in.

With my A20 my favorite thing to do was wait for the main column to head out then drive out in front spotting the enemy for them. The longer you live the more that turn away from the column to shoot at you instead.

Another clever thing to do as a scout is to wait a while. Nothing wins a No Mans Land battle (you know the map, the horrid one with the lake) like having a reserve scout when the other team's blown its load, so to speak.

Totally, it also increases your survivability with less tanks to get a lucky or well aimed shot on your tracks.

Just ignore people who yell at you to go scout immediately, in fact ignore 90% of what people tell you.  I've had plenty of "suggestions" to me, especially in my short time as an arty - "Shoot noob! (whille repeatedly highlighting the map)" when your out of range and your slow-moving arty is trying to get in position, or they don't realize you have a 30 second reload.

New arty-record....9 on one side, 8 on mine.....my poor IS-3 got blown to bits the second that first scout spotted me, and nothing to hide behind in sight  :ye_gods:
This was actually on russian servers. Still a shitload of arty around there. Playing way more there than on beta-servers due to better ping, and the fact that i can not understand a single word of the chat  :grin:

Bandit, veredus and I had a whale of a time last night on TS. We saw some arty stacking, but we had fun nonetheless.

I got a little arty retribution lastnight - Took out 5 Grille in one match with an S-51 (which I dont use often).  I didn't use scouts for spotting at all, just trolled the back lines for obvious arty placement and looked for tracers and zeroed in.  Seems almost unfair that a S-51 can shoot all the way across the map and one-shot.

Supposedly they released a bit of a patch today for balancing purposes which is supposed to help with overloads of arty.  In my mind, there should never be more than 2-3 SPGs per team.

Sometimes I can't stand all the arty, especially since I get blown up in one shot.   Course sometimes I do appreciate when I have a IS-7 distracted shooting at me behind a building and our hummel etc  levels him.

Wish you could play games without them - think it would be a lot more epic with just tanks shooting each other.

I don't mind artillery in the game, in fact I think it adds to the strategy component of the game (agreed that it's crazy when there are more than 3-4 on a single side, though).  However, I do think some balancing needs to happen.  Artillery should be, effectively, defenseless if your tank is right beside them.  Maybe a 15-20m radius where artillery cannot fire?  I've seen way too many occurrences where a tank is blasting away at an artillery placement only to get one shotted with a lucky shot by the artillery driver.  If artillery is going to be as powerful as it is, there should be some significant drawbacks to balance the power.  As it stands, I don't see any downside to rolling an arty.

That being said, this game has been pure entertainment gold for my friends and I.

It's not a lucky shot if an arty hits you up close, it's a fairly good shot. Most arty can't hit things under 15m, they just shoot over it. You should play arty for a bit and then say you think they should be completely reliant on the rest of their team for defense.

I agree with Amarr on that. Arty is fine as is but they really just need to cap the amount per team. When there are only 2 or 3 max per team it isn't bad (I prefer a cap of 2), you just have to be aware it's there. It's when there are 4+ and you can't cross an open field with out getting tracked or worse one shotted that it sucks. 

I guess what I'm going for is that arty should be almost 100% guaranteed kill if you are in one-on-one close combat and that isn't the case as-is, at least not based on the anecdotal evidence that I've seen in my games.  In fact, in almost every game that I've been in where one artillery is left vs one tank, the artillery knocks the tank out with a single shot and the match ends.  Given those circumstances, shouldn't the artillery have a very, very small chance of winning the match?  If I had to throw out a number, I'd say that the artillery wins  80% of the time or more when the match is narrowed to tank vs. artillery.  The only exceptions I can recall are times when the last tank is a heavy and can absorb more than a single shot.

Based on their unbelievable power at long range, it seems like they should be gimped far more than they presently are at close range.  But, a smart artillery player will back themselves up against something making it impossible to approach them from any angle but head-on and can then one shot the opposing player with relative ease.

I don't disagree that limiting their numbers will help as well, but I still feel like close range combat should heavily favor the tank.  An added fringe benefit of making artillery far easier to knock out at close range is that it adds importance to protecting your artillery positions.  A winning team would have to devote at least one tank or tank destroyer to fending off would be artillery-hunters.

I think a lot of that stems from the fact that people need to learn how to engage artillery up close. Do things like not drive straight at them, learn how to track vehicles while moving etc. Arty are very easy to kill as is. I love to arty hunt since they are such easy kills when in close. The hardest part about killing arty is getting past the tanks guarding them. Yes they get me sometimes but having tried arty I understand what a hell of shot it is to hit me while moving.

You also get one shot as arty and then it's like 30+ seconds to reload.

Hee, two nights ago I out-maneuvered a leopard in my SU-7 and killed him with two shots. He was so rotten a driver that I had time for a full SPG reload and then shot him once more to finish him off. He must have been stinking mad.

Of course, 40 minutes later I'm boasting about it it to Veredus and Bandit and sure enough, a leopard comes and shoots my ass off.

I must be jinxed. Again with the 9-arty opposition.  This time it was 2 su-8's, 6x Hummel and a su-14
This is solely a problem with how matches are set up though. There's just no way to counter an onslaught like that.
For extra lulz they provided our team with 6x KV's.......yeah, great arty-hunters those are  :uhrr:....to add salt to the wound, it was on Prohkorovka if that is the name. The open grass-field one with the crashed train on one side and a road on the other.
No place to hide               -check
Easy as hell to get spotted -check
Meet only long-range arty   -check

We had 2x su-5 as counter-arty....yeah......change of topic...su-5 is the most shit-tastic wagon of any kind in the game.
It has no range, crap damage and a massiv 14-shell ammorack. I grinded 20k xp on that thing before i just sold it and gave up.
Only way to get through it and unlock the su-8 is to put on the 122mm gun which has 28 shells. Won't get a sigle kill but you may scratch of some paint here and there.
Horrible, horrible thing

Yeh the matchmaking system isn't very good, they actually improved it and it still messes up balance half the time. It's not so much the games where the T10 tanks get misplaced, but the ones where you have too many of one tank type on one team and a nice mix on the other. I see teams of TDs, Tanks, arty and scouts against teams with just tanks and no arty or decent scouts.  Another is a team of 5 KVs against 5 Tigers, KVs are way too highly ranked and if you get a load of them on your team you know you are pretty fucked from the offset.  Ferdinands also mess up the balance being ranked lower than they should be not so noticeable now there's lots of T9 & 10 tanks but I still see them getting paired off with Tigers. I reckon arty shouldn't be able to do full damage to heavies 2-3 tiers higher than them, maybe gradually thicken the top armour on high tier tanks. This could stop arty being the deciding factor in certain matches and maybe you will see less of them due to lower profit margins.

Its odd...with my KV, I kept getting into teams with IS-4s and King Tigers. Now that I have a KV-3, I end up in a lowbie team as the top tank. Without even trying, I racked up 5 kills one game and 7 kills another game. Its like I'm in a low rent IS-7. Raked in 35k each of those games.

The KV3 seems to be a good money maker, too. Low cost of repairs and ammo, plus decent damage, I always at least have 3 k profit, even with a no-kill defeat.

My KV-1S was the same. I got a lot of matches where I was the top tank and sometimes the only heavy.

What's the difference between the KV-3 and KV-1S?  I know they are on the same level in the tree.  Im working on the russian medium line, but thinking about going up the heavy tree when I finally get the T-44.

KV-1s is more a mix between a heavy and a medium tank, without any of the benefits imo. About same max speed as a IS, way less armor than the KV-3, and you get the shit guns....
You get the 122mm the KV-3 gets late in the tree, but why you would even want to miss the 107mm and get a shitty 85mm instead...No, just no!
On any tank above tier III i consider the KV-1s free xp, prove me wrong  :why_so_serious:

That said, the KV-1S is fast for a tank of that caliber. Its -sort of- the difference between the 3601 and the 3001 series of mediums on the German side.

I went the KV-1S route and am now in an IS. The difference is do you want to camp and defend or attack? I loved my KV-1S but you have to treat it like a heavy medium I think to get the most use out of it. I usually went with the medium tanks since you can keep up with Panthers and VK3601's for the most part. It's actually a lot faster then the IS and the 122mm is definitely not shit, expensive to use yes, but not shit. It took some getting used to since it was the first gun I used with a reload that long but once I learned to use it, I did well with it. Honestly KVs and KV3s were great to fight in mine since you could drive circles around them and the 122 tore em apart. Good exp and credits for easy kills.

Best advice for now I would say would be to try em both. It's still beta and it's all gonna be wiped anyway.

Sorry, my lack of training iin writing english is making me look stupid. I meant the 85mm is shit, the 122 is beatiful, but as I said, that's the last thing you'll pick up there. And the 107mm the KV-3 gets is still a superior gun. Slightly less damage than the 122mm(which is the last gun you'll ever equip....til IS-4 that is minus some "small" modifications), 90 on average to be precise, and slightly less penetration. But packs a hell of a punch. And is cheap as dirt to use compared to the 122mm.

p.s. Driving a IS-3 on russian release now, and have loved every second of the 122mm. The 88mm the germans get feel so underwhelming now. Yes, you get some more penetration and faster reloads. I'll still blow you apart :p

Installed a few days ago and was terrible. Scrounged enough to afford the tier 1 TD and arty, but I didn't earn more credits per mission with them than with the rookie tanks, even before factoring in repairs, plus missions took longer since my MS-1 becomes a fiery death ball at unmatched speeds.

Today, I logged in and everything clicked. I still wasn't doing super great, but I was earning way more credits and usually managing at least one kill each round. Then I looked up and realized that for some reason my ping is <100ms today instead of the usual 400-500. Funny what a difference that makes.

The leichttractor and ms-1 are both fun and can be useful in the low tier games.  Fully upgraded the MS-1 is like a baby T-26, it packs quite a punch.  The leichttractor operates like a baby pzII, it has more armor and a weak gun.  However, I've started recommending to friends who get frustrated with the early game, to grab the AT-1 TD and upgrade the gun.  You will get kills with that for sure.

I was far better with the two newbie tanks after the wipe than when I first started playing, and actually took to playing the leichttractor quite a bit for a while.  Now my rookie tank of choice is the pzII.  In a lot of ways I have the most fun playing in the lower tier battles and the pzII fits my playstyle.

As far as ping goes, when we were playing on the EU servers I had that 300-400 ping, and when they opened the NA servers it dropped to below 100 for me, I'm not sure if I really noticed that big of a difference I think auto aim sorta makes up for any latency.  I've just now started using manual aim more, so if I had been using it on the EU servers I would have noticed the difference in ping.  (In case you didn't know, right clicking on an enemy will activate auto-aim.  Then, just point your reticle on the "target" that is leading the tank you have targeted and pull the trigger, the shell should hit where the tank is going to be.)

That's my primary tank since the soft wipe. The T44 is barely break even on premium and financially unviable without it and it's not particularly fun to be shot full of holes as the only medium in a field of heavies. The AT-1 on the other hand, is like some kind of vengeful Goddess on the battlefield. I come away regularly with 5 or 6 kills without even trying.

It seems tier 8 is where it starts to be very hit or miss credit wise. With both my Panther and my Tiger II I can just as easily lose money as make money. Tiger II is awesome though, highly recommend it. Specially with the upgraded turret. Just make sure you face people is all.

I'm enjoying my KV-3, even if it is super slow with the top end gun (more weight). I'm 5 kph up a wheelchair ramp, never mind a steep hill.

Anyone have experience with the IS? I'm tempted to just start training for IS rather than dumping xp into the next KV3 barrel.

My hesitation is that despite the KV-3 being very lumber-some, it gets very good guns and very high profits. I worry that the IS is going to only be marginally more agile while cutting my profits down to nada.

I found that the 2% crew consumable which costs 100 gold, doesn't seem to degrade  :awesome_for_real:

Anyone else notice that?

I never tried the KV-3 but going from KV-1S to the IS was a big upgrade. IS is more maneuverable and faster then my Tiger was. KV-3s are nothing to worry about in the IS either. Obviously KV-3 can hurt but fairly easy to out maneuver them in an IS. It's a great tank and I can make a lot of money with it. After driving both that and the tiger, it's better then the Tiger I. Use the 100mm though for making money. Probably wouldn't hurt to unlock it on the KV-3 either.

Upcoming changes, no ideas on dates yet....or if there will be any soft-wipes.

- Removed dog squeals when driving over dog booth.

:(((

Wonder if they'll fix the fact that camo-net actually makes the JagdTiger easier to spot also. Not like they give out detailed patch-notes  :oh_i_see:

Hurrah, now everyone can see how obsolete US tank strategy was in WW2!
I really hope one of the Sherman upgrades is basically the Sherman Firefly otherwise they're just going to be fodder.

From what I understand, there are various tanks in the USSR and German tree that weren't actually part of WW2. Apparently neither the IS-7 or the IS-4 never saw any action, for instance. This is 4rth hand knowledge so don't go all WW2 History Channel nerd on me if I'm wrong :P

Yeah there are lots of fantasy tanks/configs some of them existed only as prototypes and some were never build at all!. The repeatedly said they its not a  simulator, nor a realistic game . Its action game and the goal is fun and variety

The timeline is also until the end of the Korean war, not WW2. Which is tricky, for the Germans.  :grin:

http://www.shatteredcrystal.com/index.php/world_of_tanks (http://www.shatteredcrystal.com/index.php/world_of_tanks)

They are now giving the Valentine premium tank to NEW beta testers.  New testers will also have this tank at release.  I've never driven the tank, and do not see many of them in the game and most premium tanks I do see are really weak.  But come release this might give you an early edge over other free players.  It should also be a decent money maker.

Soooo, "upgraded" my 3002DB to a Panther, or as it should be named, Kitten. I guess it's a great tank, but i really feel like selling the damn thing.
Fully upgraded with 100% crew, 80% on repairs for 3 guys, 2 guys with 80% fire.....and i swear, it's like i GAINED 80% ability to catch fire.
This thing is a tracked bomb waiting to blow up. And modules.....sweet jeebus. I could have had repair-kits on a 10 second recharge, and it would still not help one damn bit.
Everything breaks, constantly. A stray shot from a A-20? Oh, there goes the turret-controls. Heavy hittters? Haha, you just lost at least 2 components. Ze german engineers must have been on a mighty opium-high building this damn thing.
At least i now know not to go that path comes release

Really, that bad? My fave tank so far is the Panther V. Its expensive to repair, so I don't take it out as much as I'd like, but as for greatest punch combined with agility, it is the best in the German line, no question. Jury's still out on whether its better than the T-44. I took two of those guys out with my Panther the other night. The fuckers are so cocky.

I just sold my Panther since don't play it anymore really and making room for US tank tree. Really liked it though and never had any more module/fire issues with it then any of my other higher tier tanks. It seems to me once in higher tier tanks you get shot a lot more by HE rounds which will cause more module damages. My IS and Tiger II have the same issue really. Also I got my Panther as a fully upgraded killing machine after the soft wipe though so no idea how bad the stock one is. Plus some stock tanks are definitely more painful to upgrade then others and I have heard the Panther can be one of the more painful.

But ya, T-44s. No tank I like to blow up more then those cocky fuckers. :grin:

When is the next tank tree roughly supposed to be implemented? The US being the first one?

3-4 weeks still probably.

When facing any tank about two tiers ahead of me, I pretty much exclusively use HE rounds.  Otherwise it's tough to consistently penetrate.

I may have driven heavies to much, and i hear the t-44 is as bad. On my IS-3 i lose the gun and the engine every now and then, and i never had an issue with this on the 3002DB either.  So it's just weird. On the off.forum it seems the majority have the same experience as me, and then there's some that claim to never get burnt to dust. And yes, the repair-cost on the thing are "how much?? You kidding?" ,to balance the cheap ammo i reckon.

edit: just caught fire yet AGAIN.... a frontal shot from a Tiger torched me, fire was put out but i lost every single module on that one shot......yay!

Oh ya the repair cost on the Panther is stupid high. It's easier to make money in my Tiger II using the 1k a pop rounds.

So I changed paths yet again...or rather, went back to my old love, the german TD-line. Using the panther for some free-xp transfers, and bought a LOLHetzer with the 105mm. At least i'm laughing while i shoot n'scoot instead of gnashing my teeth

So when facing medium+ tanks in a light tank, is it best to use HE? I'm in a PzKpfw III Ausf A with the 50mm gun.

Typically, yes. But better to just avoid them in general. Scout if you can or hit them from behind when they are busy with someone else.

Some exceptions though would be like a PZIII (hit them anywhere but the turret, specially the front) or T-28. Depending on what gun you have you can fairly reliably penetrate those, specially the T-28. In my experience while HE does dmg pretty much always it doesn't hit for as much as AP does when it penetrates. So I personally prefer AP when appropriate but there are lots of people who use only HE. HE also a lot more likely to do module dmg.

I'm now in a PZIII, but I can't seem to transfer any more xp from my Ausf A to free xp? I have gold, but don't have an option to do it anymore.

Transfer from the tank is only possible after you research/unlock all upgrades for it (get it the "elite" class)

Alternatively, maybe you checked the "speed up crew training" option by accident and your tank is spending all new xp on the crew so you have nothing to transfer?

Nope, I didn't unlock one of the 20mm guns, whoops.


Edit: Do you guys have better luck with the 75mm or the 50mm on the PKIII? The 50mm seems to be able to actually penetrate (unlike the 75), but I have to hit someone 5 or 6 times to kill them.

I prefer the 5cm one -- the damage per shot is less but the reload is faster making the dps on 5cm slightly higher, plus both the penetration and accuracy are better making it easier to actually score hits that sting and play a sniper if you feel like it. 5 cm also weights tiny bit less which may have some impact on speed/acceleration, not sure.

I prefer the 5cm also. Main reason, much easier to shoot and hit things w/o stopping.

K, I had been switching back and forth, and couldn't make up my mind. 5cm rounds are slightly cheaper I think.

Is it just me or does autotarget suck? It always aims at the turret.

Ya it always aims for the turret, which in most cases is the last place you want to hit em. Start practicing manual aiming if you haven't already, it's much more effective once you get decent at it.

I do still use auto aim though. It's great for when you need to either take a really long shot or shooting while worrying more about your driving. Or when I feel lazy, it's kind of nice for that too. It's also good for people who are still learning the basics of how to play.

I loved this game since day one, but I am noticing an interest phenomenon: I am loving it more and more, day after day. I froth at the idea of new tanks and the "War" feature, and I think these Russians really pulled a huge winner here. While I am glad for them, I am even happier for myself as this seems to be the kind of game I've been looking for for a long time. Perfect for 5-10 minutes fix, with enough gameplay to keep me and friends enterrtained for long nights without worrying about any form of grind and eventually training for some casual fun competition.
Funny, while I play it, I keep asking myself how many million times better EVE would be with a combat even remotely similar to WoT's. Conversely, I wonder how many million times better WoT would be if they could paste a real persistent and open world and economy around it. Maybe in a mech universe.

I've had thoughts like that too, but at the same time, I'm a big proponent of the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' philosophy, so I sorta don't want things to be changed too much.

I LIKE that I don't have to worry about an 'economy' or a marketplace or an auction house or the fuckin' East Commons.

That said, I thought it would be cool if there were a country-based campaign going on, where individual battle outcomes represented occupation of a hex on a map. The admins could manage the campaign, and you could see how your particular fight determined the takeover of one of the hex on a map.

Of course, that might bring out some pretty salient balance issues. I think its clear that the devs think Russian tanks were the absolute shit :)

Having driven a jagpanther for a while, the auto aim works very much against you.  You will notice many tanks knocking out your gun consistently as auto-aim from the front is the perfect spot for disabling.

It seems to me that they're not gonna re-balance anything until they put in the missing tanks from the tech-trees. The german E-series looks interesting, but........i really wonder how they are gonna balance a russian tier 9 TD in this mix? The ISU-152 already two-shoots most anything out there....and then they get a better one?  :ye_gods:
Or maybe the american tree is gonna be the counter to the russian onslaught.

fake edit: finally sold my Panther. Premium ran out and i had several rounds where i gained 14k and had 16k repairs, since the damn thing always blow up. Bought back my Hummel instead, it's like a cash-machine. 30k + after repairs and ammo happens frequently

I've only been playing for a few days, but this sums it up for me nicely.

Is there an f13 platoon running that I could be invited to?

Well, we have a channel called Bat Country, formed by yours truly. However, not seen many folks in it of late. Did someone create a new channel out there? Maybe we should redo it anyway, since I think we have odd lurkers that may not be f13ers. Not sure -why- someone would hang out in a channel and never say anything ever, but there you are.

School started so I haven't been in the channel much since I usually have been playing a round or two then work on homework for awhile etc. If you make a new channel let me know though.

Anybody knows how much like 1k Gold cost in the russian release?

I  :heart: this game. Seriously. Play 2-3 Matches and continue with homework. AWESOME!

I dream its sounds. "We just dinged them!". And yesterday I started seeing tanks instead of cars in the street.

"Let's get the show on the road!"

2500 gold is about $10.00 and that gives you a month of premium. So about $4.00 for 1000 gold I think.

Arg!! Just high enough to make me wince and feel utterly foolish for spending money to advance more quickly, just low enough to know its going to be nearly irresistible.

This is the excact price on russian release as of now. And yes Engels, it is quite irresistable when you're a few 100k short of next tank. Cost me 30 bucks so far i reckon. Yay for instant gratification

Pz4+105mm+HE=lol.

Most people use autotargeting, so the 120mm frontal armour in the turret is nice.

Had some platoon fun last night with Engels. As if I weren't enjoying the game enough, it gets 5 times better if you are in a platoon and actually playing with some sense instead of just smelling the enemy and shooting. I can foresee intense "guild" action coming up with release and the war additions. On a sidenote, few other games make you feel the satisfaction of an upgrade as this one. Just mounted a new big slow cannon on my SU-100 and suddenly stuff started going boom.

Finally, gotta love light tanks battle. That was so needed. 16 vs 16 pea shooters speeding past each other and shooting like hell as we always wanted to do in EVE and PotBS but couldn't. I often have more fun in my tier2 T-26 than in the big slow tier 6 maxed out Tank Destroyer.

I gotta say Falc is one heck of a driver. He chased a Panzer V around in his silly T-26 for at least a minute before getting blowed up. He got in about 230 shots in, taking the Panther down about 4 percent. Pretty good heroic comedy.

Russian CEO says, American tanks coming next week (http://www.massively.com/2010/10/12/gdco-2010-interview-with-victor-kislyi-about-world-of-tanks/)

caveat: not sure if he meant the western beta too, or just the russian one at first.

I thought the russian one was live? Isn't snowwy already a paying customer?

I am assuming that this is only for Russian version.  From what I am able to tell, version 0.5.5 is coming to NA servers on the 18th.  There doesn't seem to be much included in 0.5.5 and excludes the BigWorld engine update to correct warping.

v. 0.5.5 main changes:

Yum. Highlights from that interview.


They call their game "Counterstrike with tanks", but they are really aiming to EVE. Isn't that beautiful?

I'm at a loss as to how you are going to mine an asteroid with a tank.

(sorry)

HE rounds

Soooo, it seems the stats that are shown on the right side of your current tank in garage ain't what you are getting with the skills that you have, but the theoretical max with a 100% crew, rammer and ventilation added on top.
Just pasting one of the replys to a topic on the forums in spoilers..

Don't know if this is the way it was supposed to work, but there you have it......really stupid way to show stats then. No biggie, but still  :uhrr:

Ya, really, that way madness lies. The importance is that all the tanks are being rated on the same scale, since its a matter of comparison. Even then, 90% of the time its about player skill rather than some stat variance between a IS-3 and a Tiger II.

Just upgraded my ISU-152 with the Crew Ventilation and the tier 9 engine. Can go over 40km/h on flatland. Pretty bauce.

I played the new map, Cliff, for like 15 seconds. Apparently not a great map for scouts  :awesome_for_real:

I'm 30k XP away from the ISU-152, but I gotta say I am pretty scared by the 18 traverse speed. How bad is it?

For a long time I hated the SU-152 too, and wished to go back to the SU-100. It's when I upgraded the gun and the tracks and the engine that I suddenly fell in love again. I'm afraid to get the ISU-152 and have to wait ages before it becomes a serious tank again.

Once the engine and tracks are upgrade, which doesn't take long, it's fine.

Ever so slightly slower to turn than the SU-152, but can take ALOT more punishment and bounces alot more. Means you can snipe without being harassed by scout fire easier. I was worried when I upgraded from the SU-152 that I'd get annoyed at the grind to the larger guns, as I only have the SU-152's best gun on mine. But really it work out fine. Costs slightly more per game on repairs and ammo, but I also manage to kill alot more and normally survive matches unless my team gets steamrolled.

Patch 0.6something.something is up on RU-servers.
The lag is god awful, and has all but made auto-aim useless. At least i hope it's the lag, 'cause right now auto-aim doesn't lead the target one inch.  :uhrr:
Lots of new sounds to explosions and engines, no warping  :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: .. and US-tanks  :grin:

Took my su-8 for a spin to test the new changes to artillery. If you haven't seen, 20% decrease in shell-speed and -10% accuracy. Didn't seem that different the one round i played, but noticed on other tanks that
people weren't used to longer flight-time on shells just yet. Missed a lot if you moved ever so slightly.

2 new maps....only seen the Monastery so far.....looka very much like Cliff with a town on a small hill in the middle. edit: second one is a desert-map. Had two matches in it, seems decent.

Did i mention warping tanks are gone? Huzzah! :awesome_for_real:

US-tanks seems OK i guess. The tier X heavy, the T-30 gets a 155mm with more or less same stats as the russian 152mm BL10. Slightly less penetration and .1 more accurate.
Loads of fun to be had in tier 1-III now  :grin:  No TD-line as of yet though.

Driving a M2-med at the moment with a 75mm howitzer. Takes some getting used to since flight-time also increased on that. And with auto-aim out the window....... Gotta adjust a bit.

edit: Yet again the research on radios is  :uhrr:  At tier II you can spend 5600xp on a tier IX radio.....which just vanishes at tier IV, or tier VII if you go medium line.
Should be a warning-text for people that never plan ahead  :oh_i_see: So fine, if you go medium you can use it til tier VII, but if you go heavy you lose that radio for a shittier tier VII one. It's just....weird

I think the light tanks get tier 9 radio because the matchmaking puts them in all battle categories (all way to tier 10 battles) since they're expected to act as scouts. The mid-tier medium tanks get put in more narrow band, plus they aren't expected to dash long ahead of their own group, so smaller radio range isn't as crucial.

I read somewhere that Autio-aim now always tries to aim at the center of a tank and not the tower anymore. And yes, that "not leading in Auto-aim" seems to be working as intended. Learn to lead ;)

"Learn to lead" is hardcore. I think I like it, but it's gonna make the game less casual, which, in my opinion, will mean less players. Not necessarily a good thing.
Plus, seriously, if it doesn't lead targets anymore, what's the point of auto aim now?

Yeah if it doesnt auto aim why even have it... Sounds like you are having to aim manually anyway.

I played for a bit last night on the RU server. If autoaim has been changed it's not been changed that much. The server was really laggy so was using autoaim mostly and didn't notice any difference. The early US tanks are rather goofy looking but effective in game at least. I have both Tier 2 US tanks so far, but haven't tried the arty.

If anyone is interested in trying it out you can get English text for most of the UI and garage stuff really easily. Just go into your World_of_Tanks/res folder and grab the /text folder and copy it to your RU version. The only bug I encountered doing this was I could not sell tanks until I put the RU /text folder back, so I just renamed the RU version so I have it when needed. It's kind of cool to be able to read the stats of all of the US tanks etc.


Edit: If you decide to try out the RU servers, when installing RU version make sure you don't overwrite your original install.

I thought autoaim was just about perfect.  Decent at longer ranges, hit & miss leading and crap for close up.  Made made manual aiming a great skill to have without being absolutely essential.  Will be a shame if they dig heels in about nerfing it.

Actually, if they fix the warping issue, I may be ok with it.

Also, I don't know if you guys are talking pre-patch or post patch, but I've found auto-aim lead to be good on some tanks (Panzer V & Ferdinand) and absolutely horrid on the Tiger I & IS, even with the exact same gun equiped in the Panzer V and Tiger I. Turret speed could have something to do with it, I suppose, but a long distance shot from a Ferdy on a moving tank will hit half the time, whereas in the Tiger I, I might as well shoot in the air.

Driving a M3 Lee now. Like driving a TD with a light tank mounted on top. To bad the top turret does nothing as of yet.
Dunno if it's the decrease in randomness on penetration that was patched in, or if the 75mm on this thing has way more penetration than stated. Or if it is as Bungee stated, but i'm hitting and penetratingTigers and IS' most every shot
Not bad for 92mm average pene.  It is a bit of a pain to line up though 'cause traverse ain't all that, and is just a huge cardboardbox in shape.
But a fun tank all in all. Soon at T1 heavy now, the tier V one. Shitty gun on that thing

And to Veredus. Yeah it may have been just the lag that caused it. Today it has been unplayable for me.

I saw 25K online on the RU server today. Seriously unreal. No wonder it's lagging, but ya it was really bad today so gave up and went back to the EU beta servers.

Just to throw it out there again:
WHY hasn't anybody come up with the very concept of WoT but instead of Tanks put in MECHWARRIORS?! It's just a match made in Heaven. It would be awesome. WHY NOT?

I suspect that despite the user simplicity of WoT, the code is actually hard to do.

I just hope the general concept of progression by player/account rather than "toon" and the idea of a lobby with fast game matching keeps getting more popular. I liked it in League of Legends and I love it in WOT. I think in both cases, the cash shop model works well for me as a player. It doesn't feel intrusive or cheaty.

Seriously, if you aren't raiding and play WoW, you probably just keep hitting randon instances and otherwise stand like a zombie in a random spot in the city moving only to mail stuff to your bank alt, buy stuff with your tokens, and repair. Pretty much the same for COX or Anarchy Online.

I like the sandbox model of MMOs that you find in Eve, but for the "game" side of what's currently the MMO experience where it's not a sandbox, I think WOT has a better model.

For the EU server, you'll be able to download the patch for the US tanks on the 11th of this month. Then start playing with them the next day.

From the forums "Projected timeline for v.0.6.1.5 at this moment:

- November 11, the update will be available for downloading prior to server update"

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/11610-beta-0615-update/ (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/11610-beta-0615-update/)

Sweet, I have been looking forward to this patch for a while.  I am still playing at least a couple of matches nightly, but I am hitting the grind wall.  No sense at this point, in beta, to grind out the 90,000 xp for the Tiger II, or even continuing down the IS line.  Sitting with JagTiger, Tiger I, and IS at the moment and have gone down most the other lines in the past with the exception of SPGs.

Yeah, I want release! I played about 700 battles and I feel bad about losing my beloved and hard-earned tanks. I am "forcing" myself to not play beta anymore and wait for the real thing, but when is it gonna be?

Is the EU server what is now hosted in the US? Or did they keep the EU servers running when they switched us 'mercuns over to the US servers?

The EU-server vanished as they moved everything to the US.

edit: the 152mm on the SU-152 is great fun. One shotting KV's makes me all giggity.

Had a funny battle last night. Some dillweed in a Maus starts calling some chattering Portuguese speaking players 'dirty mexicans' in chat. His own team kills him, and the very next line, he boasts,"I have fraps running, you all will be banned!".

There is talk that they will be keeping the NA server and reopening EU servers this month sometime. I just call it EU server still since this is technically the EU beta.

Patch available for predownload with install instructions here: http://game.worldoftanks.com/update (http://game.worldoftanks.com/update)

Looks like should be ready to go tomorrow.

.torrent file? /puke

Why the hate for a torrent d/l? 659mb patch took me like 45 minutes to d/l while running in the background. Worked really well actually. Besides it's either that or wait for the patch to go live and do it through the patcher at the same time as everyone else.

for realz. I think its brilliant. Predownload using torrent and then don't have to fret when it goes live. Wish other companies had that level of planning. Torrenting takes the pressure off of the company's servers, to boot.

What's not to love about it?

TANKS TANKS TANKS

I'm loving the American tanks. But they play to my style.
Speed is your armor. If you aren't being sneaky and staying FAR back and out maneuvering the enemy, you are playing the American tanks wrong.
M3 Lee's are awesome. For their tier they hit extremely hard and RAPIDLY. Tier IV tank that can actually consistently harm an IS-7. YES PLEASE. Yes you die if anything looks at you sideways, but who cares, BOOM BOOM BOOM!
One round, me and 3 other M3's stayed in a wallish type formation well behind the Tiger line and just ripped things apart. We lost 1 M3 and just steamrolled the opposition.

This is true. The Lee is a different beast than any other tank. Its closest correlate would be the StugIII, I think. I'm currently grinding it, and it can be a bit frustrating because the usual roles for tanks don't really apply. Not sure if I'll go down the heavy or medium line. I've seen some impressive action by an M7, and that looks attractive, but I still don't have a good feel for what the lines are like.

I wasn't prepared to like the Americans, but I'm having fun in my Stuart. Speed of 61? What's not to like?

I seem to finally be breaking even on my T44. As long as I buy premium.

I love the M3, that thing is awesome as long as you take it for what it is. The T1 can be a bit rough so far though.

The Sherman is very accurately modelled (read: you will catch on fire a lot then die).

Yuck. So instead of the Panzer IV tank, which was a good low end medium where you could branch off to medium or heavy, we get the US version of the KV? A sitting duck?

Have my T1 hvy most of the way upgraded, It's actually not a bad tank once you remember it's only a tier 5.

From being on the receiving end, the american low tiers don't seem to be any worse (or noticeably better) than the russian and german ones.

You have to play most American tanks (except the Dalek-Tank*) like one of the fast Russians - if you are not moving, you are dead.
*M3 Lee - which you play like a tank-destroyer instead of a tank.

Just got the M4 Sherman. That whole 'moving' part isn't built into the stock build  :geezer:

There was a reason why the only Sherman the Germans were scared of was the Firefly (Sherman with British 17-pounder gun).
Which, unfortunately, isn't in game.

I did have a game on Kampinovka yesterday where someone complained a Tiger outran their Sherman while climbing hill :grin:

edit: on separate note, with ~200 sessions and most people checking out american tanks it's actually possible to get a match without a single arty every now and then.

German Tanks really shine when climbing hills. I didn't check the HP on the US Tanks, but German Tanks have A LOT more HP than the Russians. Russians Tanks just have a higher endspeed though.

The T1 is no KV, it's waaaaayyyyyy suckier. Hate that thing. And the M6 looks excactly the same....fuck that, grinding the rest of the xp needed for t-43

Already have the IS-3 to satisfie my heavy-need. The T1 does however get into some fun battles where it's top vehicle. Those do not suck to much.........

Didn't even bother with the US-med line after looking at it's tech tree. I see no reason what so ever to go that route.

I've got everything but the last engine on my T1 and it's surprisingly pretty decent. It's definitely not a KV, it's much, much faster then a KV. The gun isn't bad either since it shoots so fast but struggles against higher tiers. Really it's a lot closer to the KV-1S and I imagine the M6 with the 90mm will really be like a KV-1S. Which I know most people seem to hate the KV-1S but I liked it a lot more then the KV-3. The T1 is great on even tier tanks and lower but the KV is much better in higher tier matches due to access to the 107mm gun.

My biggest complaint about it though is the M6 and the T1 are the same damn tank. They really should remove the M6, move the 90mm gun down to the T1 and put a different Tier 6 heavy into the tree. Or even better just move the M6 to tier 5 and scrap the T1 altogether.

As for the mediums, stat wise they really do look bad. It's really disappointing. The T-23's best redeeming feature is probably how small it is. 

After upgrading the M4 Sherman's engine and tracks, it isn't a bad tank in terms of manouverability. It has a rapid fire gun that often will poke through even the toughest tier tanks. I'll have to look at the American mediums again before I backtrack and do the heavy line instead.

A press release:


Global Legend!

no wonder I never end up in a game with the same people, like, ever.

Have a leaked (and probably fake) British tech tree:

(http://imgur.com/IVmFz.png)

I'm starting to worry that the tank lines are going to end up like Taco Bell. There's only so many ways you can rearrange lettuce, ground beef and cheese before you catch on that its all pretty much the same.

Lets see, how many factors do we have to play with within a same-tier tank type:

We got slight variations in

Armor
Turret turn rate
Fire rate
Penetration
Damage
Speed
Turn rate


If you compare, say, the top 3 medium tanks, the T-44, the Panzer V and whatever the US one is, you can see the pattern:

German tanks, medium fire power, medium fire rate
USSR tanks, high fire power, low fire rate
US tanks, low fire power, high fire rate

Don't get me wrong, visually, its gonna be awesome sauce, but realistically, in terms of game mechanics, its getting to be a bit much.

I'm just waiting to sign back on when this game launches. I wonder if it will still hold up once the accounts are wiped and no free gold is given.

It seems to be holding up in Russia.  I don't think I'll have a problem ponying up the money for enough gold to play premium fairly consistently.  I'll probably buy a premium tank on day one just to have something to play that will be moderately competitive and can be used to generate cash and free xp to support the upgrades on my standard tanks.

I've heard that the people who got into beta with the free valentine key get to keep it come launch.

"Keep it" as in "if they didn't sell it" or just get another one?
Not a big fan of that though...

Get a new one.

I've started playing again the last few days and got my vk36. Sold my A-20 because I hated it and I suck at scouting. Maybe I'll just play my marderII and bt-2 and transfer the xp over to skip the A-20.  :oh_i_see:

Russian beta-testers got to pick between A-32 and a KV-220 i belive. There's also some pz V/IV's sailing around. Not sure if those were "pre-order" tanks or what...
A-20 should be tons of fun these days with loads of middle-tiers around. Sadly, the match-maker seem to not give a rats ass and stick the poor thing in with IS-7's.
5k to go for t-43  :awesome_for_real:

edit: daily rant. Back to the T1 hvy in the US-tree......there's a engine-upgrade you can get on this tank that costs a whooping 19800xp. What really grinds my gears is that this tier VIII-engine is ONLY useable on the T1 and the next tier heavy, the M6.
        Again, a tier VIII engine that is ONLY useable on a tier V or VI tank, and that costs as much as a tier VIII tank engine upgrade.What?  :uhrr:

I just got my Tiger II right before the patch and I have to say the stock 88 and the long barrel 88 from the Tiger actually finally feel like an 88. I no longer bounce on the lower tier stuff and on alot of tanks its a one shot kill. Then again alot of guns seemed to get an upgrade with some of the changes from the patch but overall the 88 seemed to get the best upgrade. I am REALLY looking forward to playing this at launch and I can see myself easily spending a couple hundred bucks on this one. Hell I will need about $20 or so in garage slots alone(never like to sell a tank and am OCD enough to want em all). I sure hope they do the $100 thing they did for Russia(think it was a year of premium,a premium tank and 2500 gold for 100 euro) if they do I will be all over that.

 This might have been the tank offered with the 100 euro deal I mentioned in my post above.

They reduced the randomness of penetration-values by 25% or so, so less bouncing shots.

Yeah and made it where if you have penetration greater than double the armor thickness you cant bounce at all I think it was. Just saying it made for a more realistic feel to 88mm gun. I am pretty sure if you asked 100 people what the most feared anti tank weapon of WW2 was about 90% would say the German 88mm. Sadly till this most recent patch that was not the case in game.

I ended up getting the last engine for the T1/M6 since I plan on keeping the M6 for messing around in. I really like that tank (liked the T1 too) and with the 90mm equipped it hits pretty damn hard. Although if you don't plan on keeping either the T1 or the M6 I would skip that engine. It's a noticeable upgrade but not worth 19k exp imo for a tank you aren't going to use again. They really should consider dropping the exp requirement to about 9k or so.

I agree with the 20k T1 tank engine being ridiculous. Why bother?

Yup, pretty silly when it takes 20-few k xp to unlock next tier tank instead.

On the subject of upgrades, what gun do people put on their StuGs? Decided to stick with the 105mm lolcannon with HE ammo (same like Hetzer) since that seems to be only thing that can put a decent dent even in the highest tiers, and one-shots the low tiers which is funny enough to justify on its own picking that combo. Mildly curious about the top 75mm upgrade, though.

Why so much hate for the Lee? It aims and reloads really quickly even with 50% crew and I can two-shot all t4s and below with the standard gun+HE, and can damage higher tiers easily. Just play it like a TD, stay back in the bushes and shoot past your teammates.

It's the only T4 that I don't loathe.

THIS IS GREAT NEWS.


What sucks is the Q1 2011 release, but I am pretty sure they don't want to release it in the West without the Global Persistent Campaign (Clan Warfare) thing. And I'd say they are being very wise.

I can't say I'm all excited. Plan assault probably not. Spew offensive drivel and call people names, almost definitely.

If they can make it work only in your tank's radio range, this is pure win.

I'm actually glad about the Q1 2011. Mean moar beta.

Honestly, the chat thing could be funny, offensive drivel or not. I'm cautiously optimistic about its utility, since for the most part, players are heavily invested in winning each match. In fact, I'd have to say that of all the team-based games I've played, WoT players seem by FAR the most histerical about fighting the game right. To the point of nerd rage and offensive behavior often enough, but that's the internet for ya.

Ahem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_QF_17_pounder

Considering that death pops me into another tank, where its death pops me into another tank, I find that I'm way less invested in winning. Shooting and killing yes, winning no. Only when I'm riding in a tier 8 tank do i find myself cursing at everyone to do there job.

I am wondering how it will be implemented.  I would prefer it they kept it to lobby and platoons in random battles.  They can extend to full clan for that type of warfare.  Full team chat in random battles may be just too random for me.  At the very least, please turn off dead people.  More and more I am getting loads of advice (and polar opposite advice) from dead people still watching....very annoying.  I got called a noob and fag for not being able to take out a ferd and IS-3 with my Tiger.  Thanks for the advice dead guy.

World of Tanks, online back seat driving brought to a hard drive near you!

I can't wait to get back playing this so I can listen to all those sperging teenagers shouting don't capture the base you moron straight into my ear. Seriously sometimes I might find that entertaining and I will go out of my normal routine of never capturing bases just to hear them do that.

Does this make me a bad person?  :why_so_serious:

I've seen people decide to not cap the enemy base even when our base was 50% capped and they were 5 feet from the enemy circle.

Why? You get more xp if your side wins.

I hate "the don't cap kill" guys.  I've even been tk'd by one just to stop me from capping.  I figure a fast win beats a slow win every time, plus there's no better way to flush out the defenders than to start capping their circle.

I prefer the quick cap for the win much more as well, but you'll always have some who disagree no matter what. I'm just working my American heavies and Russian TDs until they release the French tanks. Vive la France!  :grin:

Do they autosurrender?

Couple of the german tanks you can buy for gold are technically french. Seen them in game a few times, they seemed pretty bad. Like, Churchill bad :grin:

I'll just leave this here. :awesome_for_real:

Fun with Bisons. Awesome screenshot. Still loving the game, and getting better by the match. I thought I would be best at arty, but turns out I'm a really good player on a T1 heavy and a few different TDs.

Look at dat little Bison  :heart:

I hope that's real. There are some interesting tanks in amongst that lot. In particular;

- The Centurion is one of the finest tanks of its generation.
- The Tortoise is a crazy post war TD, much like the US T28.
- TOG2 is one of the biggest tanks ever, but early war, so should be in with low tiers.
- The Archer TD had a gun pointing backwards. Shoot n scoot.

I'm currently working to max out my IS3.  Particularly enjoy the matches where the auto-matching has even been throwing me in matches full of tier 4s and 5s. I also have a maxed out Panther and Stug III. I enjoy arty, but prefer the Su-26 to the Su-5, so haven't even got near to the next tier.

I've been playing constantly for ages now and didn't even know that Bison hiding place existed :)

Awesome. French tanks incoming.



(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3584773/French_tree_full%28eng%29%20for%20book%20%282%29.jpg)

I will have to get on google for most of those.  I know a few 1939-1940 models, but didn't even realise they had any development 1941-1947.

Post Google edit: The first AMX-50 prototype was delivered in 1949 and post dates even the IS-7. The AMX 50 120 mm was designed in 1950 with a prototype delivered in 1953. It was designed as a counter to the IS-3 and IS-10.  The developers aren't being too smart here, and are putting things that should be in a Cold War expansion pack in to the beta. They should definitely release this sooner rather than later, the longer they leave it, the higher the chance people are burnt out with their cluster of tier 7-10s and can't be bothered with playing KVs and Hetzers again.

I've come to the conclusion that medium tanks just ain't for me. I loathed my Panther, and am now on a ragequit-break thanks to the T-43. It just....stinks. It's agile, i'll give it that, but lack speed/horsepower. It doesn't bounce anything at all,
and i'm really getting tired of the 100mm :-P Medium tanks just doesn't seem to have any role to fill at the moment that an IS-3 can't do better. With a slight exception for the T-44 Speed? Not really any advantage anymore since you'll be tracked the moment you show up anyway. 
Agility? IS-3 has that.  Size? Gotte get the T-44 for that. The T-43 is just to big a target.  meh, sorry for the "I am bored"-rant



Followed a T-30 that paired with a ISU on death-cam in a match today.( Death-cam watching is very normal in a T-43) That was pretty sweet. The two of them cleared most of the opposition. Kinda hard to withstand 1500'ish instant damage. IS4's and 3's were assploding all over the place   :awesome_for_real: Almost made me load up the T1....then i looked at it and said "Sod off"

Medium tanks against the usual barrage of IS-3s and Tiger IIs are a litany of pain unless, and this is a big unless, you have great driving skills. Occasionally I will score an amazing series of kills in my Panzer V, but for the most part, I'm content with my IS or my Tiger I. I'm slowly working towards the IS3 and the T-43, as well as the American medium line.

You can have a lot of fun in the panther or t-44 if you in a full platoon using  team speak, but being solo in a match can truly suck. 

I rather enjoy vk36 as far as the medium go. It's awfully sluggish (just slightly less than a Hetzer) but --unlike pz4 for which i didn't want to use the second turret-- with 8.8 cm gun it can reliably penetrate and hurt anything the match maker throws at it, except for is 4 and maus. But maus at this tier happens once in blue moon and can always switch to HE ammo then. Also unlike pz4 it doesn't die in one hit most of the time, and you also get decent number of matches where you're in upper half of the ladder instead on the rock bottom.

Can see how it'd get much more annoying at higher tiers, though.

If anyone is looking for some comedy ganking in fights while waiting for the soft-wipe: AT-1 + 76mm gun + HE ammo + 100% gunner = Explode almost every tank (in the battles you'll be put in) in one shot.

Softwipe? They said anything about that yet?

Hey, I got a question on this game.  Every screen shot I see is a third-person outside view.   Do you play in this view? Or have an internal gunner/driver view?

You can zoom in to have a 'First Person' view, and its needed for sniping long distance targets or precision hits on a tank. For driving and general shooting I stay in the outside view.

Hit shift for a gunners view, it's useful for hitting tanks in specific places, tracks, soft spots, etc.

T57's are insane. TD with SPG aimming abilities and a HUGE transverse. One shot pretty much anything you'll be put into battle with, take a good amount of punishment yourself, thick front armor, and 40mph topspeed. Wreck house. I bet they get nerfed to hell.

what's this that I hear of a soft wipe? I checked the boards, didn't see anything.

It's scheduled to happen next week or so if i'm not mistaken.

What is a softwipe? Reset all exp?

Not sure; from how people talk about it that seems to be reset of research you've done but getting the xp you've gained back in the research pool. You also get to keep your credits but lose all your tanks and such (except for the starter tanks)

Do you get a refund for your tanks? Cuz lord knows I have some pricy tanks in my line up that I'll need to sell if they aren't doing some form of refund (even resale value would be fine by me).

FYI, the T-34-58 or whatever its called is a paper tank! Something like 40/40/40 armor all around! Even the Panzer IV has heavier frontal armor. The turret's a bit better, but man. It has a very decent gun, but god help you if you are in a high tier match.

I'm still in love with the IS. I'm having such good games with it I'm actually worried that the IS-3 is going to be a major disappointment by comparison. I probably won't get to the IS3 before the softwipe.

I'm unsure what to get for the softwipe. I think I will not be doing TDs. Although the Ferdy can be satisfying for its ability to hit just about anything hard, the inability to get out of harm's way is probably more nerve wracking than being a spotted SPG. Maybe a top tier US heavy or an IS4.

"Soft wipe when the Euro server-cluster goes online in early-mid December" (i.e. any time now).

IS line is supposedly crazy good all way to tier 10. Russian tanks being better than everything else in a russian-made game, who would've thought?

If it's the same as last time you'll get a full purchase price refund for any tanks (so don't sell them) and a refund of all modules. So if you have extra cash, now is a good time to try out some modules to see if you like them/can tell a difference. You'll get a gold refund of things like premium tanks and garage/barracks slots.

Don't agree US tanks are pretty sweet atm, I used to think the IS-4 was overpowered but I never bounce shots off them anymore now I know where to hit, VK4502s are a lot harder to penetrate for me atm

T29 = Tiger
T32 > IS-3
T23 > T-44
Maus = IS-7
VK4502 = IS-4


Each have their strengths and weaknesses.

American heavies tier 7+ have supposedly 20% more armour than stated/intended and that's being "fixed" next patch, IS-4 is getting thicker frontal armour in the same patch. Maus is definitely not on par with IS-7 nor the american tier 10, even one of the devs has acknowledged that.

I have also no idea why you'd have more trouble penetrating VK than IS-4 when IS has 60 mm more armour on the sides and 20 mm more on the back, and it seems quite more sloped on the IS... put it differently, IS-4 is a tank for which i have to break out HE ammo with vk36. vk45 meanwhile eats regular shells like anything else.

T23>T-44? I've seen a lot of complaining that the American mediums are all garbage.

I didn't fully upgrade the IS,  I only added the 122mm before upgrading to the IS-3 as I had a lot of free xp. However, the IS-3 is significantly better than my previous IS. In fact, it was the only tank I've had so far that kicked arse with the default version, it's even quite fast. There's been a few games where Ive been the highest tier in a match, and shells were plinking off me like rain off a verandah roof.  It's great.

^^ This
IS-3 is worlds better than IS, and when you finally get the BL-9 it's just sweet, sweet love.

But Amarr.....seriously. Even mentioning the Maus and IS-7 together is......it's just wrong. One is a giant rolling pillbox, the other is a deadly fast, killing machone of ultimate death and destruction.
And the vk45 is a joke, UNLESS you meet it face on. Which is really easy to avoid since the poor thing has its turret on the back of the hull. Smart move Engies....good call there.  :uhrr:
Yes, it has a decent enough gun for a German tank, but not quite good enough. 20 less damage than IS-4's, .01 more precise and faster aim. RoF about the same. But it doesn't really matter cause you HAVE to expose the whole bloody thing when "peaking" around corners....unless you back out....which isn't quite smart. Not gonna go past Tiger II ever as long as IS' are as good as they are.

Soft wipe, if done same way as last time, will refund your tanks fully. Meaning , you get buy-price back for them, modules included. All XP is reset as free-xp for you to play with  :awesome_for_real:

The t34-85 is indeed made of paper. T-43 doesn't feel much better, i'll tell you that much. Think i've dinged like two incoming shots in 56 matches.

Not sure what to do for soft-wipe myself. Not gonna go russian since i have that covered on RU-account. Finally got the ISU-152, and let me tell you. 18 deg/sec traverse on stock-tracks is a royal pain. Thank god i had top engine researched already from IS-3. Probably gonna go US-tanks. Assuming all xp prior to first soft-wipe is included i should have about 1.2mill xp to toy around with. Might get a JagdTiger just for the hell of it. <- TD-whore

I'm most likely going American heavy tree, but might go Russian, not sure.

I'm basing a lot of this on raw stats, I'm aware all the 7+ US heavies are way OP for their class as it stands I'm bouncing more shots off a T29 than an IS-4 atm, but post patch T29 looks as good as an IS/Tiger. IS-4 getting thicker frontal armour is a farce.

No way man Maus can be devastating if driven well, rarely goes on fire, can't be tracked, a lot of the time chosen as a secondary target if they're careful & they always have support cause other players just flock to them, IS-7 can find itself fighting alone a lot of the time, gets tracked it dies and believe me HE on it's turret can defy the laws of physics & track you. Also 60mm rear armour means you get flanked you're boned.  IS-7 versus Maus 1 v 1 Maus will win most times if players are of equal skill.


Probably cause all mediums are garbage as of right now, the T23 looks at least as good as a T-44  if not better based on raw stats. It's a quicker, zippier T-44 with a slightly better gun. Less traversal which could even things, I'd have to test it to proof my theory. Admittedly it is a theory and stats can be misleading in this game.

Not quite. Maus has one HUGE disadvantage in that matchup. If an IS-7 literally hugs the side of a Maus it is completely fucked. It can only hit the IS-7 turret and bounces most of the time at that angle. IS-7 on the otherhand, has no problem killing the Maus from that spot. At range what you are saying is true. But if the IS-7 knows to just get close, Maus dies without harming the the IS-7. Seen this happen several times.

Don't know about that, from experience hugging the side means you are either shooting his turret or angling shots off his side and literally wasting shells. I would much rather have a few feet to shoot down on his sides so I can penetrate and even track him the odd time (if you know where to hit). Good Maus driver rarely bounces shells off the front of an IS-7 so this isn't really relevant what way you are facing though you can negate damage obviously.

100% HP IS-7 versus 100% HP Maus, Maus will win more often than not, IS-7 has the choice to run away though Maus doesn't if things go bad.

It looks the soft wipe is off for the time being. Also, EU server for X-mas. (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/20462-server-split-up-procedure/)

The ISU-152 kinda changed after i finally researched and mounted the BL-10 gun.  My hit-rate is plummeting. With its 0.36 accuracy it really shouldn't be that bad, but it feels more like the 152mm LOL-cannon.
And tracks..........i hit the track of a A-20 3 shots in a row on that desert map at 400 meters.........the tank ionly fills half the reticule, and i hit the god damn tracks? What? Nothing like tracking someone when it costs you 1600 creds a pop
and you have a 15+sec reload  :ye_gods:   and let's not forget bouncing pzIII's  :oh_i_see:   yeah,yeah....angles........
1-shotting KV's and 2 shotting IS-4's make up for it though.
Adding 4 tons of cannon made me a armored snail also. If i get damaged suspension now, i might as well go make some coffee til it's turned the way i need to be.
Still fun as hell. Nothing quite like seeing some smug IS-4 driver run for his life after the first shot takes 50% of his health    :heart:

That T29 armor needs some serious nerfing. 9 shots with a Ferdy and only one didn't bounce. Fucker got the Steel Wall award that fight.

Getting fixed though. A T-29 with it's hull hidden is bouncaliscious at the moment. Their hull is very weak though.

In that particular fight with my Ferdy, I had to autoaim because I was getting hammered by at least 4 tanks at once.  Danged tank was shaking about like the bang bus at a vegas porn convention and I could not possibly manually aim.

Being a ferdy, I still had lots of time to shoot, but with autoaim on a T29, it was dumb. So, basically you're saying that if I don't shoot the turret, the t29 is pretty weak?

Yeah. The T-29's turret-front is listed at 178mm of steel. Add the 20% armor-bug and it's very, very sturdy at the moment.
It only got 102mm of hull-steel at the front though, so most everything will rough it up IF , and that's a big if, you can get to it. But with 4 tanks firing at you, not gonna happen as you noticed.
I've ditched auto-aim all together, not even using it at extreme distances anymore. Caused me a few deaths though, thanks to the rocking around when hit.
Well, that and my lousy 1010 hp  :why_so_serious:

Holy cow are people are nerd raging on the forums about there being a soft wipe delay! I don't know how you guys feel, if you had done a bunch of purchasing and xp grinding on a premium tank in anticipation of the soft wipe or what, but honestly, regardless of what tank you have to drive in this game, you should be having some fun each battle. There are some exceptions, I guess. Getting stuck in a hetzer in the Tier 10 battle has to blow goats, but you will soon be in a StugIII which can do decent damage to 70% of tanks even in a top tier game.

People that are grinding their rears off hating every moment of it till they can simply get into an IS-4 at softwipe are the same detestable idiots that pharmed the shit out of EQ spawn point for keys to Luclin_dungeon_of_l33tness_32. BLEARGH. Devote that time to your grades or your career plz, keep that attitude out of my fun park thnkxbye.

Agree. Haven't logged into the beta in a couple of weeks. I've kept my fat ass on the russian version. Not understanding a single word of the chat is really, really great at times.

Ya what snowwy said. But also to add the bug is on the hull only. Turrets won't change. Even with the 20% armor bug I have been killed plenty of times by tier 4 to 6 tanks in my T29. It's like any other tier 7 heavy, one on one it can take on anything it's tier or lower but if it gets swarmed it's dead. After driving a T29 quite a bit the only thing that makes it a bit OP is the gun.

wait, so which is it, the hull or the turret that's borked and needs nerfing? 102 hull armor for a Tier 7 tank seems reasonable. Or are you saying that the bug only affects the hull so its a 120 something mm hull rather than a 102 mm hull? That actually would explain the bounces.

Ya the bug only effects the hull. So ya it has roughly 120mm instead of the listed 102mm. The T34 and T30 will be even more screwed then they were considering they share the same hull as the T29.

On another note I drive mostly my T29 and T32 now and while the turret is awesome on them both exposing only the turret is very situational and you don't get that opportunity every battle or for very long.

The turret on those things are huge, it's hard to hit anything else unless you are quite close.

I noticed an inordinate amount of t29s last night  :oh_i_see:

What I'm not so thrilled about is the changes to SPGs since the last big patch. The aim seems a lot more flaky than before. Its sort of annoying, because when you play arty, there's an unspoken assumption that you're going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the game.

Not related to the aim issue, I got chewed out in one game for not taking out a VK on my own while he destroyed half the team from the safety of a protected cliff face. I'm like, dudes, if you know there's a hidden VK there, don't worry about it, don't scout him, he has to come out eventually. The bugger got 7 kills and I got yelled at for not travelling across the map to get an angle on him, which would have been pretty much impossible since by that time any real movement on my part would have exposed me to the enemy. In the end I caved and moved just enough to get a green line to the VK, and I lasted about 3 seconds due to hidden TDs spotting me.

I'd still hit the VK 2 times, but apparently, when there's a Tier 9/10 tank out there, its just assumed that the rest of the team is sorta off the hook and can just fart about with the other tanks.

My bad on the armor-bug. Guess i should read up on shit before commenting  :oh_i_see:
Can't say i ever had any problems with any of the US T-'s. Then again i don't drive much of anything below tier 8 these days besides the t-43, and that thing have problems with anything with a gun attached.
A bit surprised you'd have such problems in a Ferdie though. Stock 88?

edit: more or less parked my SU-8 atm. Glad they fixed the insane precision on arty, but now i'm happy if my shell even lands inside the aim-circle. Still get some good rounds though..

They're increasingly daily income from 150 to 500 gold as a holiday gift. Lasts until January 2nd.

wooters!

I can't help but wonder if all the gold isn't a way to get people used to having it so they can up their sales. As a very casual player, I have a virtually endless supply. That's going to be hard to deal with losing and I'll bet I spend quite a bit.

Eh, I think it'll boil down to 15 bucks a month or so to keep you in premium month-to-month. I may occasionally spend more to be able to jack a tank team up to 100% or power level a boring tank with xp from a fun tank. Like, say, getting an SU51 from the KV without having to actually grind a KV, which is at first a challenge and then comedic and then finally exasperating.

Actually, I could play infinitely long for free with the AT-1. I've yet to find anything as much OP for its level fun.

The T57 used to be better than AT-1, until they made some slight changes to SPG's and now they often miss. Before that they were lolworthy OP for their tier.

Fixed

Heh, yep, did a hetzer too. I think it took longer to go from KV to IS, but the KV isn't quite as silly.

New patch is up on RU-servers. The T-54 seems to be a beast. Panther II looks more like a sniper than anything else, and the new US one which number i completely forgot looks damn sexy as well.
20k xp tp gp to put my greasy fingers on the hood of a brand new Objekt 704  :awesome_for_real:  That thing got the looks, Can't wait!

Besides UI-changes and minor balancing, there's not much exciting. 2 new maps of course.  A bunch of new sounds. Nothing important, new reload-sound and gun on some models, and the sound of the engine changes to "inside vehicle"-mode when you enter snipe-mode.
Never had any trouble with my fps, so no idea if that worked out well.
Back to grinding  :grin:

I'm digging the new company creator. Just played with a random bunch of guys over voice chat. They really put some good thought as to how it works. The VoiP seems to work pretty well, too. One thing; when you check the box in settings to enable it, you may have to restart the game to make it work.

How does it match up companies? Like can one company have 15 IS-4s and be unstoppable?

Different tiers are worth different weights when putting the company together. If I remember correctly it's setup to where you can have 15 tier 6 tanks. So no you couldn't have 15 IS4s but I don't know exactly how it's weighted so no idea how many you could have. Sorry, I only play with a small handful of people so never looked into companies really.

Ah ok so optimum tier value is 90 per company, therefore you could have 10 is4. I've noticed you don't need to fill 15 slots which is great.

It is unfortunately highlighting how much more powerful tier 10s are than anything else.

The game would be better imo if it stopped at tier 8.

Got in a 3 man platoon of T-2s (US gold tanks) the other day, was an absolute blast. 72km/h and terrain barely effects them at all, they also fire this 5 shot low penetration machine gun that just rips through arty and other light tanks. They are so small and fast that they are crap hard to hit if they are going across you. If they could use HE you would induce nightmares in heavy tank players, unfortunately they don't.

Arties got smacked rather extensively in the balancing changes, that can be pretty exciting.