World of Tanks

[Nebu]

I've been doing both the 30 kill mission and the 50k xp mission every day.  The thing I love most is the mission that gives bonus credits when you're in the top 3 in damage.  Been making bank.

[Sir T]

I broke down and got the FCM premium tank as a training vehicle for my french tank heavy crews. Its actually pretty fun even though I don't know what the hell I'm doing with it. Good health (same as an IS3,) o.k. armour and sloping to the front, a really great gun (with somewhat low damage but welcome to France) and fast as all hell. Won 10 out of 30 odd games so far with it.   But that's ok I suppose when you are learning a new tank.

But I'm telling you, you have not seen French Hatred till you are driving this thing. People LOATH this tank. For example, on Himmelsdorf one game I drove around the front of the Cathedral on the hill... and suddenly I start taking a LOT of fire from the side. I suddenly realize that people are turning around and sniping at it from the rest of the map   I've never had that happen before ever. I've been insulted and yelled at, something that's never happened when I'm on a Lowe. People shoot at it in preference to anything. Granted its a nice big target with laughable side armour, but fuck sake. I feel like I'm dancing trough a rainstorm when I'm driving it. It means I haven't made a huge amount of money with it as I'm took busy dodging the wall of lead to shoot much, but yeah, 40,000 a game so far is not bad. And if you get into a position where you can keep firing away you will ruin someones day. It has the great pen and Laser accuracy we have come to expect from our French tanks, with good reload and aim time. You could play it as a fast redeploying sniper if you wanted.

Amazingly I now have a 50% win rate with the AMX M4 45 after 130 odd games. I like it. The armour is crap, but everything else is ok to good, so I'm having a good time with it. As long as I remember to keep my ass behind other heavies and not charge forward I do pretty well with it. I actually prefer it to the ARL 44.

[Sir T]

They have put out a sneak peek of 8.8

Even though Version 8.7 has just been released, our development team does not rest on the laurels and is working hard on delivering even more improvements and top-notch content to World of Tanks! Here’s a short preview of what is planned for the upcoming patch:

New Branch of Soviet Medium Tanks:

    A-43 (Tier VI)
    A-44 (Tier VII)
    Object 416 (Tier VIII)
    Object 140 (Tier X)

New Additions to the German Tech Tree:

    Durchbruchswagen 2 (Tier IV heavy tank)
    VK 30.02 (M) (Tier VI medium tank)
 

Changes in the German Tech Tree:

    VK 30.01 H will be rebalanced and moved to Tier V as a heavy tank
    VK 36.01 H will be rebalanced and reclassified as a heavy tank

2 new Chinese Premium Tanks:

    T-34-3, Tier VIII Medium Tank
    112, Tier VIII Heavy Tank

New Map: Tundra

This Autumn-style map will introduce open spaces as well as some rocky and forest terrains. 

[Strazos]

I'm 100% OK with the 3601 changes - I always called it a mini-Tiger anyway, and it pretty much plays as an agile heavy already.

Just happy that I am finally getting decent with the Tiger...sometimes. I have to really control myself to not be out in the mix, like I'm inclined to do with fat tanks - playing like a pansy from the rear gets me better results at times, when I can just unload shots with my 88.

[Nebu]

I'm 100% OK with the 3601 changes - I always called it a mini-Tiger anyway, and it pretty much plays as an agile heavy already.

Just happy that I am finally getting decent with the Tiger...sometimes. I have to really control myself to not be out in the mix, like I'm inclined to do with fat tanks - playing like a pansy from the rear gets me better results at times, when I can just unload shots with my 88.

Playing from the second line is the best way to play the tiger unless you are top tier and have an opportunity to bully.  You'll love the Tiger II.  With the top gun it's better in almost every way and really helps you get solid at angling.

[Strazos]

Shitty gun depression doesn't make it all that easy on maps with actual terrain.

[Nebu]

Shitty gun depression doesn't make it all that easy on maps with actual terrain.

Have you played the Chinese tanks yet.  Talk about shit gun depression.

[Sir T]

Playing from the second line is the best way to play the tiger unless you are top tier and have an opportunity to bully.  You'll love the Tiger II.  With the top gun it's better in almost every way and really helps you get solid at angling.

Yeah, the Tiger II is a beast when angled. Just remember to protect that lower hull plate as pretty much anything at your tier and a tier or 2 below will go through it on a direct hit. Wiggle your tank a bit while moving to force them to adjust their aim. Not a bad Idea on the Tiger either. When I'm up against a tiger or Tiger II that's where I'm aiming.

And yeah Chinese tanks are worse on gun depression than the Germans by one degree. Don't seem to have as much elevation either.

[Merusk]

I have acquired 3 days of premium and have no idea how. Was this a gift to everyone or did I somehow do a hell of a lot better than I thought in the events?

[Nebu]

I have acquired 3 days of premium and have no idea how. Was this a gift to everyone or did I somehow do a hell of a lot better than I thought in the events?

Part of the event for non-premium players.  Win one game, get 3 days of premium.

[angry.bob]

Part of the event for non-premium players.  Win one game, get 3 days of premium.

Premium players get the 3 day too, it's just added onto the number of days you have.

[WayAbvPar]

Made my (semi) triumphant return today. Wow. Still so many players who just have no fucking clue. It is truly remarkable. Playing top tier heavies is almost easy mode now since almost no one plays arty any more. I played 2 rounds myself and am not in any hurry to go back. It is good and proper fucked.

Anyone know how to get XVM-stats to run if WOT is installed in a non-default path? Haven't been able to figure that out so far.

[snowwy]

I'm really, really starting to hate my Indien-panzer. It has angles and sloping, yet can't bounce a shot . Two frontal shots to the upper glacis ammo-racked me twice in a match just now, as in get ammo-racked, repair, repeat first part...
The 2.9 aiming time doesn't excactly help either when you can't take any hit without breaking something. I actually enjoyed the 30.02D more, and that is a waste of precious metal.
Gotta go lower the blood-pressure in my beloved JagdPanther2.

[Merusk]

You've just had the misfortune of coming across players who know your weakness, snowwy.  I watch Ipz destoy shit regularly, even at mid and lower rank in a match.  As Way said, lots of clueless people. 

Playing top tier heavies is almost easy mode now since almost no one plays arty any more.

I rely on this to make any kills whatsoever in my arty. The aiming time on the GW-Panther is so slow, even with 100% crew, vents and the aiming equip, that a slight movement means I'll never hit them.  Note that Arty also did not receive the accuracy buff tanks did so your shots sill hit stupidly-wide short or long ~50% of the time.   

So now the German arty game is, get in position, set up a lane and that's where you're shooting.  If nobody lights  anything you're not firing because trying to reposition is a waste of shells.  It simply takes too long to reload and re-aim.  (A total of ~1min on the panther)

British or French have it better because they reload so much faster and have great aim timer.  Too bad their pen is so low I hit KV1s with my 105 leF (same-their) dead-on and do 1% damage.  I do jack-shit if I use AP rounds instead of HE 

[Nebu]

If you look at the damage per game stats, SPG's are now in line with tanks.  While I'm sure it feels like a huge nerf to SPG players, it's because they were ridiculously overpowered in the past.  God-view is a broken game element.  I would have preferred that they just removed that and forced players to learn to deal with trajectory physics.

[Sir T]

Frankly "god mode" is not that much of an advantage. Its no more than an advanced minimap and less of an advantage than pressing shift to aim at weakpoints on an average tank. And you don't have to give up half your XP to some nimrod.

Or in other words, Arty can deal with advanced trajectories if everyone gets to have no minimap or no little icons above the enemy tanks heads or the little reticle turning greed like they had in real ww2

[Merusk]

I never got hit with an arty shell that wasn't my own damn fault.

Never.

Just sayin'

[Brolan]

I'm really, really starting to hate my Indien-panzer. It has angles and sloping, yet can't bounce a shot . Two frontal shots to the upper glacis ammo-racked me twice in a match just now, as in get ammo-racked, repair, repeat first part...
The 2.9 aiming time doesn't excactly help either when you can't take any hit without breaking something. I actually enjoyed the 30.02D more, and that is a waste of precious metal.
Gotta go lower the blood-pressure in my beloved JagdPanther2.

If this bothers you, stop the line now. The Leopard PT A is worse.

[Nebu]

I never got hit with an arty shell that wasn't my own damn fault.

Never.

Just sayin'

You either hump rocks/buildings or are very lucky.  I've been hit moving full speed in mediums and lights.  Maps like sand river offer little cover and not being hit can be as much luck as anything.

[angry.bob]

Other than a handful of extremely lucky shots at players dashing from cover to cover, I've never hit a player in three years who didn't hand a shot to me. Even in a completely open field you can be safe from artillery by just moving and the way you move, especially now. Plugins that show the shell travel time to a target help make hitting a moving target much easier, but it's still mostly eyeballing and estimating that slight random zigzagging will throw off enough to cause a miss.

Sand river doesn't have a lot of hard cover in spots but how and where you put your tank on the dunes along with moving can force a miss almost every time.

[Nebu]

Sand river doesn't have a lot of hard cover in spots but how and where you put your tank on the dunes along with moving can force a miss almost every time.

I am aware.  You still have to travel to and/or between these spots on your way toward the enemy cap.  SPG's encouraged camping, particularly when there were 5 of them a side in pre-8.6.  I prefer the gameplay to be more mobile and dynamic.  That's why I despise Redshire and El Haluf as maps.

[Merusk]

Now you're mixing issues.  I'm not saying that 5-6 arty on a side was anywhere near a good idea or a good place for the game to be.  It should have always been a hard Max of 3.  If players whine about queue times, tough, play a different tank type since everyone decided to play arty tonight.However, stacking the nerfs while adding the limitation was over-correcting the error. 

I only hit full-speed meds or lights when they're making a straight-line dash.  Far too easy to predict where they're going to be, may as well paint themselves day-glow orange and not have fog of war they make that much of a target of themselves.   

Hell, full speed lights in a straight line was all about hoping they didn't get splattered by someone else since they were making such an easy target. I can snipe those idiots from halfway across the map in a KV-2 with the long-gun.  That tells you what an error that is on that player's part. (And why I rage when nobody else can do it with more accurate guns.)

[Sir T]

Oh come on. There's more camping now than there ever was before the arty nerf. Saying that it encouraged camping is a load of crap. Also we now have 10 zillion TDs in bushes with Romulan cloaking devices. SPGs were anti-TD devices.

I could give you replay after replay where the gameplay is people hiding in clumps and sending one guy after another over to "spot". SPGs forced people to move. That's the reality. The only way to break people out of their big clumps of death is arty. That's why I die so often and so early because I'm not willing to sit there and play the camping game. Even sacred Valley is 2 villages on the sides of the maps shooting one another. For giggles sometimes I shoot the buildings to watch the tanks scurry under cover again.

All that needed to be done to arty was to limit it to 3 a side. That's it. Making something totally unfun to play was a bad was to stop people playing something.

[Sir T]

Anyway, I think I might sell off my Grille. Ive had a few games of it and it was just painful. I got a couple of kills but it really was just praying the clown didn't move in the next 4 seconds. If I was going to grind arty again it would probably be the french line as at least they don't take half a lifetime to zoom in and they have a decent accuracy. Now if only they actually had some damage when they do hit. :S

Another thing I havent seen a lot of people playing is scouts. I've seem people playing attack lights such as the french and chinese lights, but not true scouts. What scouts I've seen are people that have been suckered into being thrown into high tier matches by the "Scout Matchmaking" crap. I do play my VK 28.01 a lot and its been pretty noticeable to me. You CAN still get good XP by lighting up the enemy for the blobs o camp to destroy, but its pretty much seat of your pants driving. But no-one seems to really play them anymore.

[Nebu]

Oh come on. There's more camping now than there ever was before the arty nerf. Saying that it encouraged camping is a load of crap. Also we now have 10 zillion TDs in bushes with Romulan cloaking devices. SPGs were anti-TD devices.

We're playing a different game.  My experience is that tier 8-10 the games have been much more dynamic than I've seen in months.  I'd also rather deal with TD's than SPG's.  I have rarely been 1-shot by a TD and I can usually retaliate when they do shoot me.  

I think the biggest problem that 8.6 introduced was a reduction in the camo values for lights.  It has decreased the value of passive scouting.  I now see many more people playing lights like fast mediums rather than playing them as true scouts.  That and the increase in mass marketing has lowered the average level of player skill.  Most matches are decided rather early on and inexperienced players err on the side of playing defensively.  

Abagadro has twice the experience that I do and is a much better player.  I'm guessing he has a better perspective on this than I do.

[Sir T]

Yes, because the whole game is tier X.  And you cant blame arty for all the camping and then turn around and blame something else for there being even MORE camping after the arty nerf.

And before you assume that I never played Tier X games, I used to all the time in my VK 2801 as it was classed as a top tier scout at the time. And I'm seeing the blobs o camp on tier X games just as much as anywhere else. And seriously, there are TDs out there now that can blow a Tier 8 tank to pieces in one shot, and yes they can and will meet tier 7 heavy tanks in matchups. And its happened to me several times that I'm being shot up by multiple TDs that I simply cannot see. How am I supposed to retaliate, drive towards them and give them more shots on me? How is that different to Arty other than you just hate arty?

And seriously I have never been one shotted from full health by arty. Ever, even in my Lowe facing tier X arty (the Lowe has no premium matchmating). You talk as though it was just an inevitability. Hell I remember several times driving along happily with arty blasts all around me, great fun. It was amazing how random minor course corrections could just throw arty off.

Like I said a hard cap of 3 per match solved the arty problem. everyone admitted 5 arty per side was ott, but wargaming did the equivalent of screwing in a screw using a mallet.

[Nebu]

Yes, because the whole game is tier X.  And you cant blame arty for all the camping and then turn around and blame something else for there being even MORE camping after the arty nerf.

1. The endgame is where the competitive play occurs.  That's why I mentioned it.  Tier 10-12 matches were largely ruined by pre 8.6 mechanics. 
2. There isn't more camping now.  My statement was that any perceived camping was due more to poor play rather than a lack of SPG's.
3. SPG's still put up competitive numbers (according to WOT labs and noobmeter).  They just require more skill and patience than they did before 8.6.

We're never going to agree.  My perfect WoT would be with no SPG's at all.

[Merusk]

And after that you'd complain about TDs because yeah, they're the same problem. I got fucking bitchslapped by a pair of SU-152s I never ever saw in my Pershing last night.  The only reason I knew there were two is the fact the shots hit me within a second of each other.  As they camped across the valley in Westfield, I stood no chance as I tried to play "the mobile game" at the #3 slot for the match.

[snowwy]

I'm really, really starting to hate my Indien-panzer. It has angles and sloping, yet can't bounce a shot . Two frontal shots to the upper glacis ammo-racked me twice in a match just now, as in get ammo-racked, repair, repeat first part...
The 2.9 aiming time doesn't excactly help either when you can't take any hit without breaking something. I actually enjoyed the 30.02D more, and that is a waste of precious metal.
Gotta go lower the blood-pressure in my beloved JagdPanther2.

If this bothers you, stop the line now. The Leopard PT A is worse.

Yeah, i know it gets worse. It's just that the damn thing seems to warrant a gold-repairkit, cause shit breaks every damn hit. Even my amx 50-100 take it up the bum with more grace than this thing.
I think it's a mix of me not having found out how to drive it correctly yet, and getting thrown into the worst teams ever created. 37% WR in it over 38 matches. I'll see it as a challenge...to my mental health

[Nebu]

And after that you'd complain about TDs because yeah, they're the same problem. I got fucking bitchslapped by a pair of SU-152s I never ever saw in my Pershing last night.  The only reason I knew there were two is the fact the shots hit me within a second of each other.  As they camped across the valley in Westfield, I stood no chance as I tried to play "the mobile game" at the #3 slot for the match.

You should play with me sometime and see what I complain about.  

[Sir T]

And after that you'd complain about TDs because yeah, they're the same problem. I got fucking bitchslapped by a pair of SU-152s I never ever saw in my Pershing last night.  The only reason I knew there were two is the fact the shots hit me within a second of each other.  As they camped across the valley in Westfield, I stood no chance as I tried to play "the mobile game" at the #3 slot for the match.

But you see TDs are ok and balanced because tier X TDs can only one shot a tier X heavy tank from across the map and staying totally undetected if they are using premium ammo. And your expanding cloud of gas can retaliate perfectly easily. [/sarcasm]

Yeah, i know it gets worse. It's just that the damn thing seems to warrant a gold-repairkit, cause shit breaks every damn hit. Even my amx 50-100 take it up the bum with more grace than this thing.
I think it's a mix of me not having found out how to drive it correctly yet, and getting thrown into the worst teams ever created. 37% WR in it over 38 matches. I'll see it as a challenge...to my mental health

Stick with it I would think. Indian Pansers are really impressive little tanks from what I see. I was at 32% wr after 34 games in my AMX M4 45 and now I'm at 50% after 200 odd. I know its easy to say with all the camper crap that's going on these days, but try and stay back from the main battle if you can and lob shots into people. Of course with everyone trying to dive into the same bush its hard to do.

[Nebu]

If you guys decide not to differentiate between TD and SPG mechanics, there's really nothing to discuss.

[Sir T]

{Deleted because its a silly argument}

Anyway, I just got the mastery badge for the AMX 50 100. Having a lot of fun with it :)

http://wotreplays.com/site/292995#live_oaks-suranis1-amx_50_100

[Nebu]

Very nice match!  Well played.

Are you on the EU server?

[Sir T]

Yep. Thanks