Posted on March 4, 2012, in Episodes and tagged world of tanks. Bookmark the permalink. 32 Comments.
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Posted on March 4, 2012, in Episodes and tagged world of tanks. Bookmark the permalink. 32 Comments.
MMO Grinder 
Well the game received some updates lately…
My uncle is more of a flight sim guy, but I’m going to send your WoT reviews to him.
Hey another game i have played before ahm ( maplestory,luna,la tale) but this is probably my favorite to play when WoW gets dull.While i dont pay for anything making the lvling slow i dont mind as grinding out lvls is somethig i was always good at slow going or not. and i really do hope fix that tier problem as my tier 3 arty can do nothing but bounce shells off tier 5-6 heavy tanks. hope to see u on some time and see more reviews.
It might seem like in the beginning that 400 credits for 1 gold is good deal, but if you play the game bit longer, you’ll realize that it’s a ripoff.
General concensus seems to be that never trade for credits, but I would argue that in the beginning it might be worth it, like in tiers 1-4, but once you get a solid moneymaker tank, like KV, SU-85, Pz IV, then a good game can net you even 20k+ credits profit,
If you really need to get more credits with gold, I suggest to buy a premium tank, preferably a T8. It will pay itself back in the long run. Just grind first to atleast T7 so that you know a bit how to play in higher tiers.
Indeed. After you need that around 6 million credits to get that 10th tier tank, you do not want to use this credit conversion at all.
It might seem like a good enough of a deal in low tiers though, but in the end a premium tank expecially tier 8 premium tank is a lot more useful for this…. It means that you do need to play to get that money, but it is a new tanks and way easier way of getting credits. I would definitly recommend to rather bye a premium tank than to use credit conversion if you think at all that you will be interested in playing this game for a longer time. It does cost some money though….. Those who are still able to do so of course should try and research T34 american 9th tier tank and buy it as quickly as possibly, as it will be changed to 8 tier premium tank soon enough. After that it will cost almost the same amount of gold as Löwe, so if you can get it while you still can.
also the howitzer on an light tank can one shot from behind
thank for letting me know STO is free MMOgrinder. i’ve been having alot of fun with it this past 2 weeks.
i’ve played WoT for awhile now and am happy with my tier 4 shermin, but still this video showed me a few things i didn’t know
WoT is good as an arcade style game as you can jump in and out with no obligation to progress as the game stays the same throught.
one thing should also be pointed out to perspective WoT players is not only can you play another tank while waiting for the match to eend you can also exit the game and when you log back in days later you will get the xp from the match in progress… so no waiting neadlessly :)
I really like this particular review my good sir. I’ve been playing WoT for a while now and most people that I tell about it look at me like I’m dumb for even wanting to play it. You have done this game justice and I do agree with the balance issues in the highest degree. If you see a German TD with the name Strybjorn….. Run. :D
Ohh, and just wanted to add, that I can see you have vechile vibration in your tank while you are in sniper mode, this is an option you can either enable or take it off from the settings menu. I played a long time with it, and it is a nice touch, but it will make the game a lot harder for you to hit anything if you are shot at. Kind of impossibly in sniper mode actually, and also a little bit unfair when you can also play without it. Whtich I am sure almost all do after they realize there is an option to take it out, even if it would be a nice touch, but as it causes you to be able to do less than your possibly opponent……
Just thought I would mention if you want to try the game without that. =)
Nice review. =) Just wanted to add some things. Wrote kind of a title to all the things I am goign to write, so you know what I am about to explein about in the certan areas.
You can get high tier tanks with no money:
First of all it is quite possibly to get the tier 8 arty or tier 10 tank with no use of gold or real money what so ever. But…. It will take a lot of time and patience. Artillery line is easier to grind through though in my opinion, if you like to play with artillery, the only thing originally that I spend money to was to get some more tanks slots, and got my T92 into the garage. Pretty mutch all the arties before tier 8 are still pretty well doable money wise, as they can mostly at least earn enough money to pay for their shells etc. and in best scenerio make money without a premium as well. If you know how to play them at all. Tier 8 arties however are a different story, as for example T92’s shells cost 2500 eatch and if you are killed the repair cost will be around 19 000. Though the best use for them for example are then in the clan wars.
Why buy a premium tank:
And just thought I would add something more about the possibly premium tanks that you can bye with real money. They usually earn more credits and have lower repair and shell cost’s than other tanks, and this is ecpesially true with tire 8 premium tanks. Like Löwe or type 59 (whitch you can’t purchace anymore). In best case if you play with this kind of premium vechile and do well with premium account you can gain around 100 000 or more credits from one battle. So in a way I think the best use for gold would be to buy this kind of premium tank as it will make life a lot easier for everyone to get money to get the higher tier tanks, and it will be there no matter if you decide to take time off from game etc and come back to it later. Though Löwe is still way too expensive, and I would sucest to possibly wait for the IS-6 (I think that was the upcoming new 8 tier premium in the future) as it will probably cost that 7500 gold when it comes around. Though it is still costly as well of course.
Clan wars:
I have played activly in clan wars in the european server now for several months, and it is great to be in these clan wars battles, where you will develope a tactic that you will use in different matches etc, and the team work aspect will be even more highlighted in them. And there are gains for the victory, like the above poster said. If you can hold a specific area with your clan you will earn daily gold from it. Whitch depend from the area, the best areas you can gain about 4000 gold daily etc. Clan wars are a lot more rewarding andinterestning part of a game, and in my opinion are done pretty nicely, though of course there is always room for improvment. =)
Community and scouting:
About the community. I know there are all kind of people in it, and it certanly is a mixed bag. I sometimes get irritated by some random battle players as well, though I never sort to name calling. Still I do mention about it if I think someone is not being helpful to the team, but a proper way you should play in maps is something you learn after you play for a long time. For example you can do amazing jobs as a small light scout in a high tier match if you know where you can spot the enemy tanks well and then again get into cover so they arenät able to easily shoot at you. The best scouts are the ones who are doing their job as scouts but are also able to stay alive. So usually “suicide” scouts who just rush to enemy lines arenät very knowledgable on how to play that specific tank. =) But yes, I certanly know about the people who arenät good members of the community…. One exampel was an annoyed KV driver who unfortunatly ended up in a higher tier match, and then tried to block Löwe from moving quickly to the fiel, and then this KV wrote: “At least I can block this premium löwe” or something of alike….Even if you are the smallest tanks you can still be more useful to the team than a hinder if you want to, it just sometimes seems, everyone does not want to learn things that would improve everyone’s gaming experience.
Artillery:
One thing you could have mentioned about artilleries are also that if you are in the artillery shot mode/ god mode, if you look into a certan area where you could expect to be for example enemy artielleries or tanks you can see their tracers if they shoot. And in this way you should always move after your shot as an artillery, as you might otherwise be countered by the enemy artillery, so you can’t only hide in a bush and stay still if there are good players on the other side. So if you go to the higher artilleries do remember to move after eatch shot even a little bit. =)
Still remembered something I could mention. As you say there is a possibility to end up in high tier matches with tanks above level 3, like for example the M5 Stuart that you can probably get next. This is because the game mechanism thinks of these light vehciles as scouts, whitch in the case of some work better than with others. For example AMX 40 has the same style light tank match making and itäs crazy, because it ain’t even remotly fast. Though for example the only 4th tier heavy whitch is B1 from france will never get into this high matches, the highest I think was with 5th tier vehciles. Never ending up with tier 7 or above. So this problem is with all the light tanks of the 4th tier.
M5 Stuart is not the best scout tank either, as it is a lot more clumsy than other 4 tier light tanks. I felt it painful to grind with it all the way to the Chaffee light tank myself, only playing douples with it per day. In a higher tier match I would recommend it to try and scout quickly on top of some hill in some matches and then getting down and removing the spot from yourself. I used the “derp” gun with it, whitch only has HE ammo, to small targets it does great damage, and it can sometimes at least cause critical damage to bigger tanks.
But there definitly is rewards for the scouts as well who do well, as if you are the tank that spotted an enemy vehcile and keep it in spot, and some other tanks or arties harm it you will gain some of the experience from that as well, whitch is part of the reason why artilleries even when doing a lot of damage, will gain less experience, as they usually are never in close combat. So this is the way to try and gain experience for these smaller and quicker light tanks in bigger tier matches, waiting for others do make the damage to the tanks that you spot.
The game certanly has a lot of hidden factors like these, and it is great you mention some of these in your rewiev, and just thought I would tell a bit more about the scouting as well, as many donät understand why these 4 tier light tanks end up in such high tier matches. =)
Yes, over 700 DC-3s were sold to Russia under the Lend-lease plan. Before that however the Soviet grenoemvnt signed a contract with Douglas Aircraft to build the DC-3 in Russia in the late 1930s. Pavel Lisunov was the engineer in charge of setting up production and he worked at Douglas for several years to become familiar with the aircraft. It was intended to put the aircraft in service with Aeroflot but most were used as military transports during the war. Some models had a defensive armament. The aircraft were officially designated Li-2 after Lisunov but they were usually referred to as a Douglas . After the war they served in Aeroflot and several eastern European airlines. Some were still in service in 1970.
Hmmm… Your hint at the end of the video isn’t too telling. If it’s similar to City of Heroes (which I thoroughly enjoy but could easily understand your grievances with), I’d guess it’s either Champions Online or DC Universe Online. Out of those two I’m hoping it’s DCUO primarily because I actually really enjoy the gameplay, especially on a 360 controller, and would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Otherwise, I’m at a loss. =P
Thank you for reviewing WoT, and a quite thorough review it was, to be honest. It’s great that you mentioned things like the fact that shooting angle affects the possibility of ricochet, since that’s something new players often don’t understand. You didn’t talk too much about SPGs, that different shells have different blast radius and armor penetration qualities etc. Another critical thing to understand about the game is that every single tank in the game has it’s own areas of weaknesses – yea, you mentioned the possibility to cause critical damage to modules, but every tank also has a specific area from which you can, for instance, target the tank’s ammo rack to cause instant death or to make the tank unable to fire shots for a period of time. There are a lot of sites dedicated specially for defining these “weak spots” and it’s immensely useful to know where they are and how to exploit them. I mentioned this to highlight the fact that WoT is really a skill based game, where – as you mentioned – teamwork plays a huge role.
I understand that you didn’t have time to delve deep into the clan war aspect of the game, but maybe it’s worthy to mention that clans gain actually in-game gold from holding territories on the clan war world map. So if you are playing in a good clan, you can earn gold and don’t have to spent any actual money to get all the advantages of the in-game market. Hypothetically. :) Clan wars can be stressful and the clans that actually can hold their ground on the clan war maps have spent a TON of time and gold getting the best possible equipment and developed strategies for each map. Expect to play 10000+ games before really being able to play as a part of a successful clan.
Another thing worthy of mention about clan wars is the fact that there’s fog of war during clan matches. This adds a completely new layer of depth to clan wars since you can’t know which tanks the enemy team has until your tanks have spotted them. This makes it possible to apply various surprise strategies that would be impossible if enemy team could see the tanks that their opponents have before the match even starts.
I’d say that the game is slightly biased toward Russian tanks, but there are a number of factors that people don’t take into account when defining which tanks can be played effectively. Usually people point their fingers to Russian heavy tanks and French heavies and mediums – and yea, they’re both somewhat overpowered – but what people don’t understand is that there are other factors to take into account than just armor, speed and damage/penetration. For instance the American T-32 is actually one of the most effective close quarter combat tanks in the game, despite not having the best armor or cannon of it’s tier. It’s effectiveness derives from the fact that it’s turret does not have any clear weak spots, which most heavily armored turrets have. Therefore it’s really hard to destroy a T-32 in a 1 on 1 close quarter combat. Also, American heavies turrets have the best vertical mobility, making them ideal for sniping targets from behind hills, without exposing their weak lower front armor. So there are a number of “invisible” factors that have to be taken into account when determining how to play effectively with a specific tank.
Thanks again for reviewing this game, it was a thrill to watch. Peace.
I was afraid I’d be bored with this review because it’s not my type of game, but I was entertained. I guess you’re a little more skilled at advertising the merits of a game than MMOhut. A few times a month I’m bored out of my skull, I can see this being the perfect kind of laid-back monotonous time spender for those days. Anything with collecting, upgrading, customizing, decorating, skill setting, & leveling.
I kinda like the idea of a slow paced shooter, where you can take your sweet time sneaking up on an enemy. I have slow reflexes anyway.
You’re going to play Champions Online next, aren’t you?
Hey, tanks for this review! (Who says you get to make all the tank puns?)
On a more serious note, would you actually recommend playing this game as strictly free to play? It sounds like gold is kind of necessary, and the XP for gold exchange rate is kind of heavy, so I’m not sure if it would be worth it if I didn’t want to shell out the dough.
As long as you’re not insistent on getting up into the higher tiers, you can get by just fine without paying for it. Right now, my Tier 3 tank is my favorite one to play as, and it only took me a good day or two of play to reach it. As I said in the review, you really hit the wall once you reach Tier 4.
As some above me have mentioned, the game starts to become a money sink at Tiers above 7, but the game almost encourages you to be playing at mid-tier tanks. When you get right down to it, the combat is the same no matter what tank tier you’re in, it’s just the strategy, power and tactics required to win that make it different. That and the repair bills.
I recently tried World of gaming before this review came out and while it had answer some questions I had about the game, I don’t know if I will be going back to it anytime soon. See with my experience with the game is this. “Hey let me test out my controls and keep with the group so i won’t be a target” *game starts and 5 seconds in* Ummm what’s hitting me, *died in 6 seconds*
this happen like my first three games, I go in and easily taken out before I can even take a shot, and I wasn’t driving in the open. However I might give this game one more try if someone can suggest how I can live longer than 5 seconds.
For your first matches when you’re not upgraded. Stay at your base. Hide in a bush, or behind a wall and wait for the enemy to come to you. Learn how to use sniper mode, and know when to flee from your target. (In a Tier 1, that’s any time you see the enemy tank’s turret starts turning toward you.)
First of all, Let me say thank you for proving my suspicion right, I have now earned myself 5 pounds in a bet I had with my room-mate.
Aaaaanyway,
As a very new viewer of your reviews (since EP15) I was very pleased to find out that you were indeed going to do World of Tanks, I had fears for some parts but you have shown quite allot of mercy for the game and its community but there are a few things I feel I should rectify or heck even add to your review just to get it off my consciousness.
I’ve been part of the World of Tanks community for a long while, Joining the game quite a while ago during its beta, playing over 6000 battles before release and even now after release I’ve reached over 4000 battles and pumped a few hundred pounds into the game for Gold.
It is thus safe to say I got a bit of an idea what I’m talking about, but there will most likely still be people that disagree or know things better then I do.
I personally had little interest in Tanks, they were just that; Tanks cool looking machines but nothing more, but when a friend introduced me to the game I was instantly hooked and now you can find me looking at tank schematics and warfare books.
During the first few battles I was wondering WHY my unstoppable machine of steel was exploding so much, Sure I was trying to ‘Tank’ damage out in the open and it was clearly not working.
Over time tactics grew on me, I started to learn the ways of angling armour and aiming for weak spots.
So my point would be; You can only learn this game by trial and error…lots and lots of error and even with many hours spent and the biggest tanks achieved…you will still get blown up…allot.
Another thing that needs mentioning about this game is its Forum Community.
In game one can find that the community in game is…rotten to say the least. I personally think you have been lucky but the amount of times in my battles that certain derogatory terms were used for so little as to go into someone else’s favourite bush then you know there’s something terribly wrong.
The forums however a full of kind people, sharing pictures and blue-prints of tanks, sharing stories of their amazing victories against all odds…but also the many MANY complaints that are shared between tankers.
Many of the main complaints you have covered in your review, but one of the biggest ones that was missed out was the complaint about the Bias of the Developers towards one faction.
You will find that the forums are full of people complaining that the Russian developers of the game Favour the balancing of the nations in the Russian Tanks favour. And there are plenty of topics on the forums concerning said balance issues so if you interest yourself in this game, its worth a read.
Aside from the complaints about Russian Bias, The game has issues with feedback. from forum and in-game tickets. Many of the older bugs are still somewhat present and every patch takes longer then the other.
Wargaming has major troubles keeping their release promises (Being dubbed as WG-Time now) and many of their specials as mentioned in your review are only 50% off off gold items and purchases and 3x experience boosts for your first battle.
Speaking of the experience boosts its another little (But important) thing that seemed absent from the review is that there’s an automatic 2x experience boost for your first win of the day in every tank…which resets at exactly 00:00 UK time on the European server.
In many battles there are people that complain to others that they ‘ruined’ his daily double and there are people out there purposely trolling people so that their daily doubles are useless.
A thing I really have to stress out is that the review covers the game for the lower tiers quite well, but unfortunately (And this is something Wargaming doesn’t mention but is well known to long time players) to be able to afford to run tanks beyond Tier VII require a premium account.
Yes you CAN run them without a premium account, you’re not bound to Tier I to VI but the profits from wins will not be enough to cover the repair bill and ammo restock of Tier VIII and above tanks (Only so if you had a REALLY good battle)
People are thus forced into buying premium accounts to keep playing to get to those magical Tier X tanks or suffer through having to run smaller tanks to make up for the losses you make on your bigger ones.
Game play wise there is ALLOT of difference between the nations and not just the tank types itself.
American tanks are mostly all about manoeuvrability and strong guns, but paper armour.
German tanks are mostly all about accuracy (And in higher tiers INSANE armour)
Russian tanks are mostly all about everything really, many of their tanks combine at least two of the above or even more…bringing back the point of ‘supposed’ bias.
French tanks (Rather new to the game) are all about heavy armour in the lower tiers to multi shell ‘clip’ tanks in the higher ones.
There is a tank in each nation which’ll will differ from the above but the general gist is there.
Each nation plays differently, and while its possible to play tanks from several nations at once, I find that playing one nation and sticking with it has served me well, so give it a try.
Now as a final parting way I want to assure people that the game is very much alive, recently the French Tanks have been added, planned changes for crew skills and changes to the American Tank Tree are just outside the door and soon there’ll be more Russian and German tanks…and in the future British and Japanese tanks are planned.
There will also be experience tradable between World of Tanks and the two other World of games Wargaming is currently working on (World of Warplanes and World of Battleships) so if you do not like Tanks but like WWII aerial combat it might be worth keeping an eye on Wargaming and their efforts.
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Just my 4 pounds and 5 pence.
StompyChar aka DrakeZiggo
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I appreciate all the extra info for those wanting to know more from someone who’s really in the game.
I didn’t know the game seemed to have a bias toward Russian Tanks, but if they are Russian Developers, it makes sense to me. I honestly would expect the same from the American Tanks if the U.S. had made this game. It’s kind of a “write what you know” deal. Still balance does need to be considered among all tanks, but this game still seems so early in its development.
A question about my apparent “luck” in the community… are you playing on the American servers or the European ones? I played the entire time on the North American servers, and I think MegaGWolf and I were among the trolliest people there. Half those “tank puns” in the stinger were things we actually said in chat. I know this game is more popular in Europe than the U.S., and I know that popularity brings out the jerks in a lot of games (Maple Story, World of Warcraft, League of Legends…)
Of course if you DID play on the U.S. server… maybe I was just lucky.
No problem,
The Russian bias comes mostly from people driving more German/American/French tanks then Russian.
I myself drive ONLY German tanks and sometimes I feel that my German steel is massively inferior then its same tier Russian equivalent.
Wargaming’s responses on the Russian Forums and their patches (Read Patches as: Buffs for Russian tanks, Nerfs for German/American) often match peoples suspicions.
Its however that there are plenty of people that drive these Russian tanks that feel that there is nothing wrong with them.
I think the way Wargaming balances things is where the problem lies, they look overall at the number of victories to losses, if for instance a Tier X Maus is overall at 56% win rate and the Tier X IS-7 is at 49%. They’ll conclude that the Maus needs a nerf and act accordingly.
As for the luck, Now that I think about it in the broad sense, I think it has nothing to do with which server you’re at.
Before the game went live all players were connected to each other (Save for the Russians who had their own server)
It was later split up into two sides (USA and Europe) functioning next to the Russian server.
Before or after the split made no difference, Sure in the European server you get people speaking nothing but Polish from time to time…but I’m pretty sure you got people speaking nothing but Mexican on your side; There were the same amount of rotten apples.
I think it has more to do with which tier of vehicle and which group you’re functioning in. Generally the Lower tier battles are more helpful since there are more newer players. Get to the higher tiers e.g.: VIII, IX and X you get to face and work with people that have spend months playing the game, that think they know everything better then you and will not be afraid to call your mother anything under the sun if you do not perform in the way they demand.
So yeah, I think its more of a God complex amongst long time players and those with a short temper then anything else…but you never know.
The developers don’t really have a bias for the soviet tanks. While some tanks are superior to their counterparts, ie. T-54, KV-3, IS-4, arguably IS-7. There are a vast amount of tanks that are visibly inferior to the American and German Lines; especially tier 4-5 spgs, tier 4-8 light/medium tanks, and the IS-1/IS-2. The soviet tanks that ARE overpowered such as the KV-3 and IS-4 are known to the developers and are being bumped up in tier when 7.3 releases.
As for the community on different servers, I have some experience with all of them as the test servers for new releases are all lumped into one. Most European players I’ve encountered there are fine, but most Russian ones are dicks. Not being from the Russian server is a good enough reason for them to TK you in the test server and will often do things to purposely hurt a team if there are a large number of non-Russian players in a match. I’m sure it’s not as bad on its respective server, but the test servers bring out the worst in them.
Ugh, 1 of the FPS like games that you have to unlock/pay for a million things before you can even begin to play it on a “somewhat even level”..
What’s next, Infantry Online? A god awful browser based one like Evony? A online MUD…?
I know I’m biased, but once you start treading down the weirder ones, heh…
Wooow you didn’t even watch the video did you.
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