Tank Envy

One of my gaming friends is still playing World of Tanks pretty seriously.  Last night before our little group started its weekly session of Lord of the Rings: War in the North (which after a couple of weeks of play I'd still highly recommend as a really fun action-RPG romp if you can play it with friends and avoid the bugs) he was talking about his progress in WoT, and that he was just 8,000 xp away from the IS-7, currently the tank at the top of the Russian heavy tank line.  As in a tier 10 tank, as high as you can get in the game.

Hello, I'm the IS-7.  I'll be your bruiser for the evening.

He then started talking about his IS-4, and what a fun tank it is and how it really makes all the other heavy tanks he's played feel pretty feeble in comparison.  My heavy tank experiences have generally felt pretty feeble, so I couldn't argue with him there.  It got me to thinking though -- one of the reasons I started losing interest in WoT was that even though tanks would look like upgrades on paper, when you actually unlocked them and started playing they just weren't much fun, or somehow managed to perform more poorly than the tank before them thanks to being in a higher tier and fighting harder opposition.  That happened to me numerous times and left me feeling like I'd wasted all my time building up to the tank in question.  It happened with the German tank destroyer line, I got up to tier 5 and went "meh".  It happened with the US tank destroyer line, I got up to tier 5 and went "meh".  I'd say maybe I have a problem with tank destroyers, but I actually like the Russian tank destroyers.  Well, so far.  I got up to tier 7 in the US heavy tank tree and was really disappointed by the T29.  I have the biggest gun it can mount and still can't seem to kill much.  To date I still have superior stats with the T1 Heavy, a tank I thought sucked pretty bad.  Apparently not as much as I thought.

So hearing about my friend's experiences with the IS line of tanks shortly had me drifting into the realm of tank envy.  Why did I waste my time with the US heavy tank tree when the Russian one is apparently so much better?!  Not that I could do much about it even if I wanted to, my highest Russian tank is only tier 4, a long haul from tier 7 IS.  If only I could respec . . .

Yeah, why can't I respec?  One could (quite reasonably) argue that the research tree you progress down is no different than choosing a class in a real MMORPG.  If you get halfway to the level cap with a class and decide you don't like it, you're out of luck, you get to start over.  Why should WoT be any different?  Maybe it shouldn't, maybe the way they're doing it is just fine, though one can't help but think that it also serves to drive sales of premium time and xp transfers, something that likely generates more revenue over time than a respec token would.

On the other hand, it's not as if we have characters in WoT, it's just a technology tree.  There's also the issue that Wargaming.net keeps shifting things around in the trees but doesn't reset where you've spent your xp, which can lead to some odd and/or annoying shifts to your progression.  The other thing to consider is that a normal MMORPG offers the possibility of different content if you start a new character.  Maybe a new starting zone, new class quests, new abilities, etc.  That's not the case in WoT.  If you start over to unlock a new tank you'll be doing exactly the same deathmatch maps as you were before, and all tanks have the same "abilities", they just have different stats.  You might switch from a slow tank with heavy armor and a big gun to a faster tank with thinner armor and a smaller gun, and doing so will result in a change in your tactics, but it's not as if that T20 can deploy mines while the IS can call in an orbital strike.  They all have a single gun of varying capability and drive around on the map shooting at things.

So should WoT have a way to unspend your xp in order to shift it into new research areas?  I don't know, such a system would certainly be controversial (to say the least!) and run the risk of flavor-of-the-month tanks.  Nevertheless, if such a system did exist I would almost certainly take advantage of it, even if it cost real money to do so.  My time is far more limited than my funds.

The Burden of 50/50

As I’ve mentioned previously, some friends and I have been playing World of Tanks as a platoon of 3 and tearing it up in the lower tiers.  Although we’ve had some abysmal matches, for the most part we’ve been doing pretty well.  Having three people coordinate over Skype can make a big difference, even if we’re not especially good and running around in flimsy, crappy tanks.  We almost always manage to get at least one or two kills apiece, which in my experience is pretty damn good.  We currently have a 60/40 win-loss ratio when grouped, but that will probably degrade over time as we run into more experienced players in the higher tiers, normalizing eventually to the expected 50/50.

Which, to one of my friends, simply isn’t good enough.  He plays games to relax and have fun after a long day of work, not be a punching bag for other players.  He made the apt observation that in a PvP game like WoT, his fun is no more important than that of his opponents.  The game is balanced to hand you as many losses as victories, as many deaths as kills.  It’s perfectly fair.  But he doesn’t play games to be fair, he plays games to have fun.  He works at work, he wants to play when he plays.  He likes the game, he likes the tanks, the progression, the combat, the battling as a group.  He just doesn’t like the PvP combat model.  If WoT had a PvE mode, we’d be golden.

I couldn’t disagree with him, his point was perfectly valid and sensible.  World of Tanks involves a lot of suffering.  A lot.  It hooks you, though, with the occasional shining moment of awesome, where you have a fantastic match and sweep your enemies before you like chaff before the wind.  That’s not exactly a common occurrence though, and you’re not likely to get there until you’ve had a lot of experience with the game.  Playing just one day a week though, that’s a lot of frustration to learn through, and a pretty sporadic reward structure if you might go weeks at a time without that really rewarding match to keep you hooked.

So I have to wonder, is there an “ideal” amount of time to devote to WoT to keep your blood charged with victories without grinding your bones to dust with defeats?  What category of player expresses the most satisfaction with the game?  The ones who play 10 hours a day?  The ones who play 10 hours a week?  Is it a simple case of more is always better, or does enjoyment to time spent map out to a bell curve?  It’s easy to say someone playing 10 hours a day must be highly satisfied, else they wouldn’t play so much, but it could just as easily be someone addicted to the game and/or obsessed with being the best rather than someone that just really enjoys the game.

PvE games are quite simple – the more you play, the more you’re rewarded.  More level ups, more loot, more money, more achievements, etc.  A game like World of Tanks though, you get those things, but you also get more losses, more frustration, more screaming at your monitor that there’s no-way-that-punk-medium-tank-was-able-to-destroy-your-heavy-while-sitting-behind-that-rock-you-cheating-bastard.

I’m still an average World of Tanks player at best, and my own interest has fallen off in recent weeks in favor of single player games or PvE MMOs.  I would gladly pay full box price for a PvE campaign in World of Tanks, something where you fight through battles on the side of a particular nationality against AI opponents, with varying goals besides just “kill all enemies or cap the flag”, perhaps with scripted events even.  I’m sure I could sell my friends on it too.  The PvP matches in WoT are fun, but there are only so many deathmatches you can participate in before it gets stale.  I know for me, my satisfaction index would go up along with my time played if I could switch to some PvE gameplay when the PvP gets too frustrating.  

World of Warplanes - WoT Integration?

Wargaming.net has yet to reveal much information about World of Warplanes (WoW . . sigh) beyond the fact that it's in development, will feature three classes of aircraft, and will share gold and free experience with World of Tanks.

The three classes of aircraft seem to fall into the categories of air superiority, multi-role, and ground attack.  What I'm curious about though, is what will be the use of a ground attack aircraft in what sounds like a dogfighting game?  They won't be very useful unless there's something on the ground to attack  One possibility is that there will be objectives on the ground that need to be protected by the air forces, airfields or factories or whatever, and destroying the enemies building/buildings/base will result in victory.  Maybe.  That would provide a clear role for each type of aircraft -- ground attack go for the bases, air superiority escort ground attack, and multi-role provide escort or supplemental ground attack capability as needed.

However, that sort of role was traditionally filled by bombers more than ground attack aircraft.  The ground attack role was more often used to support ground forces, such as tanks and infantry, by destroying enemy tanks and artillery.  Wargaming.net just happens to have a game that stars tanks and artillery, and the games will even be sharing some resources (and presumably the same game engine).  I wonder if they could possibly be hoping to integrate the two games, such that ground attack aircraft are able to have some sort of impact on WoT battles.  It would be interesting, but I'm not really sure how they'd do it.

Presumably the area of battle will be much greater in World of Warplanes than WoT.  It will be pretty silly if it's not.  One thing they could do is create an area on the WoW map that represents the WoT battlefield that's being interacted with, and entering that "square" on the map zones the WoW player into the air above the WoT battlefield and gives them just enough time to attempt one strafing run.  Teams would be randomly assigned, with WoW team 1 allied to WoT team 1, and WoW team 2 with WoT team 2.  Victory in one battle gives rewards to players of both games on that side, and it's possible for the air battle to be won by one side and the ground battle won by the other.

I think the biggest issue with this would be for the poor WoT players.  They'd have no way to influence the air battle, and no real way to defend against attacking aircraft, making them fairly passive punching bags as far as the air forces are concerned.  That may be fairly historically accurate (in the absence of anti-aircraft weapons) but won't make for fun gameplay.  I suppose my first theory is much more likely, but the second one could make for some interesting options if Wargaming.net can figure out how to do it right.

I wish they'd release some more definitive information about the game than "we have planes, and they'll fight!" but I know that will come in time.  Anyone heard any concrete news, crazy rumors, or have their own wild speculation?

World of Tanks - The realm of five

I'm still plodding away at World of Tanks most nights.  I say plodding not because the game isn't fun, but rather because I'm simply not very good at it.  Yes, still.  Some nights are better than others, but I'm not one of those people with racks of Top Gun medals (I only have one) and a nice average kill ratio.  I do have a big pile of Steel Wall awards though--people like to shoot me (a lot) and sometimes I get lucky and they don't manage to kill me.  That's worth something, right?

Overall I'm finding I enjoy the tier 5 and 6 battles the most, and prefer to drive the tier 5 and six tanks when I can.  I currently have a Panzer IV, Ram-II, and M10 Wolverine for tier 5, plus a VK3601 and M4A3E8 for tier 6.  They're all fun tanks to play, but if I had to rank them it would probably go M4A3E8 > Panzer IV > Ram-II > M10 Wolverine > VK3601.  The VK is a solid tank, but sloooow.  The Panzer IV is probably my most deadly tank to date, as I think it's biggest gun is probably a little overpowered for a tier 5.  Shh, don't tell!

Unsurprisingly, I have much more fun driving my tier 5s when most of the enemies are tier 5s, and less fun driving my tier 5s when the enemy has tier 7s and 8s.  I like being able to go into a battle thinking "ok, I have a fair chance against anyone in this match, if I blow up uselessly it's because I screwed up or they're more skilled than me."  I don't like going into battle thinking "aww crap, 12 tanks I can't even scratch, I'm going to go sit in that bush for a while."

Which is why I hope Wargaming.net really does add a new queue system that gives you a choice between fast matchmaking and a wide spread, or longer matchmaking and a tighter spread.  I would gladly wait several minutes to have a fun balanced match that lasts 10 minutes than spend 10 seconds in the queue for a match where I can do nothing and get one-shot after a minute or so.

Out of curiosity, anyone have any tier 5 (or even 6) tanks that they think are really fun?  I wouldn't mind adding another one or two to my collection . . .

World of Tanks CAN be more fun with friends!

To date my experiences with grouping (platoons) in World of Tanks have been . . . less than stellar.  My first attempts were made without voice chat, and my friend and I discovered we had absolutely no way to communicate during battle short of the chat everyone on your side can hear.  That really wouldn't work.  Not to mention typing while trying to drive and aim a turret wasn't likely to work too well, even if that was an option, which it isn't.  After a few nights of that we got Skype set up and started using voice chat.  That went much better, at least as far as communication went.  The match up themselves, well . . . not so much.  As Tobold explained in a comment a while back, being in a platoon increases the matchmaking "weight" given to your tanks, thus increasing the likelihood of you being in matches with higher tier enemies.  My luck being what it is (if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all) we got lots of matches with enemies 4 tiers above us.  There's very little you can do in a tier 6 tank against predominately tier 8, 9, and 10 opponents, voice chat or no.

Of course, we've kept playing that way, because having someone to talk to makes it more fun, even if you do spend a lot of time blowing up.  We both had lots of tanks, so once we were both destroyed we'd just jump to a new match.  It wasn't ALL bad, of course, but overall the matchmaking made it pretty painful.  My friend made the comment that he'd never seen such a strong disincentive for grouping in a multiplayer game before.  I have to agree.

So it was with some trepidation that last night I grouped up with not one, but two friends in a full platoon and a conference call through Skype.  The newest member of our team only had tier 1 tanks (our last miserable outing netting him plenty of xp but very little cash to buy new tanks) so we all equipped ourselves in some tier 1 vehicular goodness (the Russian MS-1) and queued up.  The rosters popped up and . . . we got a 50% tier 1, 50% tier 2 battle.  That was really quite balanced.  All three of us had the 45mm gun on the MS-1 which is more than capable of taking out tier 2 tanks, so we did just fine.  We got that same draw, over and over all evening, and quickly started racking up more wins than losses.  It was not unusual for the three of us to account for a third or more of all kills scored by our team, despite being in tier 1 tanks.  Typically the bulk of the remaining kills would be claimed by Hotchkiss drivers.

Ah, the wretched Hotchkiss.  That overpowered tier 2 premium tank was often the bane of our existence, and if ever you saw someone with 4 or more kills on the scoreboard they were invariably driving a Hotchkiss.  Our worst moment of the evening came when the three of us were trundling up an alley in our little MS-1s and my tank suddenly exploded.  There were no enemies in sight, but clearly somebody had just shot me.  My friends continued on, looking to avenge my untimely demise, and shortly uncovered a Hotchkis (otherwise known as a Panzer 38H 735(f)) hiding out behind a shed.  My friends had no cover and nowhere to run, so were certainly in a bad position to start, but the enemy's gun never seemed to miss, while our shots went all over, or hardly hurt him.  Once the smoke cleared he'd destroyed all three of us.  A few moments later he was taken out -- by an allied Hotchkiss (who went on to get 7 kills for the match).

Despite a few setbacks like that, we did really well, and soon my friend was able to buy a shiny new T2 Medium tank.  My other friend and I opted for the speedy BT-2.  We queued for one final match, and I was sure it was going to get bad now, three tier 2's platooned together?  Prepare for the splat!  Instead, we got yet another 50/50 T1/T2 matchup.  It ended up being a pretty terrible game, with the three of us in unfamiliar tanks, but it was a balanced match and that really surprised me.

So at the low levels at least, World of Tanks can actually be quite balanced and fun even when you're grouped.  Who knew?

Easy 8, I think I love you

In World of Tanks, I suffered through the M5 Stuart.  Scout tanks just aren't for me, I don't think I have the right mentality.  They go really fast, and can have fun taking out artillery, but if you actually play an active scout role you're almost guaranteed to die.  Maybe better drivers than I can do ok, but I suppose I lack the skill.  On the plus side, it was only a tier 4 tank and didn't take that long to earn the xp needed for the next tank up.  On the down side, it was a tier 4 tank and so often found itself in matches with tier 6 and 7 medium and heavy tanks that could destroy it with a sneeze.  I got into the M7 medium tank as soon as I could.

Then, sadly, I suffered through the M7.  The text calls it a medium tank, but really it's just a light tank with a bit more armor and hit points, but also larger and easier to hit.  It was certainly no match for other tier 5 medium tanks, and it didn't take long for me to realize why the M7 is relatively rare compared to the M4 Sherman. By tier 5 you rarely see more than one or two poor light tanks on a team, which is the main thing the M7 would be good at dealing with.  The thing is as fast as most good light tanks, so should make a decent scout, except of course I suck at the scout role and the M7 is fairly large and easy to spot.  It certainly had its moments (and was more enjoyable than the M5 Stuart) but overall it was fairly miserable to play.  Once I had my double xp win for the day I wouldn't touch it again until the next day.

You're fun to play!  Thank you! *hugs*

Then, finally, I unlocked the M4A3E8, a late war variant of the famous M4 Sherman used so widely in WWII.  It's a true medium tank, slower than the scouts, faster than the heavies, more armor than a scout, less than a heavy, and so on.  It's good at almost everything, excellent at very little, and bad at virtually nothing.  And it's FUN.  I don't get lots of kills, it just doesn't have the firepower for that.  But I get lots of assists, and it's an excellent flanking tank.  The gun reloads and aims so quickly that it's excellent at popping out from behind cover, making a shot, and ducking back before the enemy can even respond.  I can consistently beat the German VK3601 in duels despite it having much thicker armor and a more powerful gun thanks to the M4A3E8's maneuverability and fast firing.

I've heard the M4A3E8 referred to in game on multiple occasions as the "Easy 8".  I assumed that was an in-game slang that evolved from it being an easy kill or something like that.  I was surprised to learn that it's actually a WWII era nickname, that it earned thanks to an advanced suspension that gave it a very smooth (or easy) ride (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman).  One of the fun things (for me anyway) are all the historical references in the game, and the way so much of the tank modeling and balancing reflects the reality of the time.  Reading through the wikipedia entry I referenced above, it's interesting to see how many of the tanks they reference are both in the game and meet the performance expectations described.

So, it's only taken dozens of tanks and ranking up to tier 6 in a research tree I was often not quite sure I should be spending time in, but I've finally found a tank I just enjoy playing, win or lose, whether I do something useful or get one-shot within the first 3 minutes of the match.  For the first time I'm not at all concerned about advancing to the next tank (the tier 7 T20) and am just happy to play with the tank and not worry about the numbers.

World of Tanks - It's a tough time to be new

So last night I spent most of my free gaming time in World of Tanks with a friend that I'd convinced to try the game.  He used to play Battlefield 1942 way back in the day, so I assured him it would be a fun romp and that he should give World of Warcraft a break to try it out.  After he worked out some technical issues (in his first test runs all tanks were invisible, both ally and enemy) we got set up on Skype and got into the game.

It . . . didn't go so well.  The lowest tier tank I had was one of the new T82 tank destroyers (tier 3) so I initially tried grouping with him in that.  Our first two matches had has near the bottom of the roster against primarily tier 4 opponents.  I did ok, but his poor T1 Cunningham was nothing but cannon fodder.  I ended up selling my T82 and buying a Panzer II (a tier 2 tank) in hopes of getting us into more appropriate matches.  Nevertheless, we spent the entire night at or near the bottom of the roster (we had 3 matches in a row where he was at the very bottom and I was right above him) and although we got wins and he maxed out the xp on his tier 1, he wasn't a premium player and he wasn't being able to damage the enemy so he wasn't really making any money.  He could have upgraded to a tier 2, but didn't have the credits needed.  I'd have gladly given him the money, but there doesn't seem to be any way to do that.

So he spent most of his evening getting blown up by tanks with bigger guns and better crews and armor he couldn't even penetrate, puttering around in the awful T1 Cunningham while BT-2s and the like zoomed past him at warp speed.  Here I was trying to show him a good time, and instead I was demonstrating World of Tanks at its most frustrating.

I won't even go into how ridiculously bad the UI is for grouping and chatting and supporting useful teamwork. If we weren't using voice chat it would have been essentially impossible to play together in any meaningful way.  I can do voice chat right now because my family is out of town at the moment, but it's not normally a viable option for me as it would be too disruptive.  So if my family hadn't been away, it would have been even WORSE.

The truly amazing thing, though?  He's declared he'll be back for more.  I think it's a testament to the core gameplay of WoT that even while it's abusing the crap out of a poor newbie, that player can still look at the game and go "Wow, this is actually pretty cool.  Please sir, might I have another?"

World of Tanks Experience Calculation

Does anyone out there know the formulas used to calculate XP earned in World of Tanks matches?  Lately the amounts I've earned seem to be wildly erratic with minimal correlation with my actions in the match.

For example, my first ever match in a KV-5 was a win, with 2 enemies destroyed, and earned me a whopping 4000+ xp.  I assumed this was normal for a tier 8 tank, but in match after match since then I've never come close to that kind of xp again.  In fact, I haven't broken 2k, even with 4 enemies destroyed.  Another example would be a recent victory with my M6 in which I destroyed 4 enemies, and even with doubled xp only earned 960 points.  My highest ever with that tank was over 2000, and I certainly didn't have 8 kills or anything absurd like that (4 with the M6 was a personal best).

I had a "win" last night in my T-28 where the doubled xp award was 204 points.  I didn't destroy any enemies, but I did detect a few. That's a pitiful payout for a victory in a tier 4 tank.  I'm used to seeing numbers like that on a loss, not a doubled win.

So, any WoT players out there have any insight?  I'm kind of baffled.

I am Force Nonnac Reddof, and that's OK

Shoot me!

I've been forced to confront a painful truth over the weekend.  A truth about World of Tanks, and my skill therein.  Or perhaps we should say, lack of skill.  It has become apparent that I am no tank ace, no destroyer of foes.  My enemies need not tremble in fear when my name appears on the roster.  I am cannon fodder.  I am almost guaranteed to plow head first into the most powerful tanks on the enemy team about 95% of the time.  It doesn't matter if I'm at the bottom of the roster or the top, I'll drive about 50 yards and be confronted with 2-4 enemies I only "might" be able to hurt, but who can certainly hurt me with every shot they take.  If I play defensively, I get encircled and killed.  If I play offensively, well, you can guess how that goes, outnumbered by superior foes in a game where some tanks can indeed one-shot you.  I take comfort in damaging a foe or two before they obliterate me.

I prefer T8-T9 shells from heavy tanks with real guns.  Yum!

You know what though?  It's ok.  The 20-60 seconds I have those four enemy heavy tanks occupied with encircling and destroying me is 20-60 seconds the rest of my team has an advantage.  I've seen games won and lost over 10 seconds of combat.  I mean, I seem to consistently pick tanks with guns too puny to seriously damage even same-level opponents, so I might as well go out and get myself shot at, right?  I'm taking one for the team, playing the role of cannon fodder for the greater good.  It's a shame then, that all too often I'll look at the roster over the smoking corpse of my tank and see what while I was dancing with the enemy heavies half my team got wiped out despite having a numerical and/or class advantage.  What the heck guys, were you all as bad as me?!

World of Tanks and the Free-to-Play Switcheroo

Oh World of Tanks, you sneaky thing.  You lured me in with the promise of free play and quick, fun, multiplayer matches.  "Psst," you said.  "Come over here and try this thing.  Look, it's shiny, and has tanks!"  I was hesitant at first.  "Just say no!" I thought.  "It's a free to play, how good could it be?"  So I resisted, and played other, non-free games instead.

You were persistent though.  "Look at us," you said, "we're setting concurrent user records (in Russia, but people are people)."  Still I was hesitant . . . but I loved World War II stuff as a kid.  I made model airplanes, I had green plastic soldiers.  I staged massive battles between the Axis and Allied forces to determine the fate of my bedroom.  Eventually I bowed to the inevitable, and took my first taste.

And it was good.  I can still remember the visceral terror of my very first match, lines of MS-1s, Cunninghams, and Leichttraktors (not that I knew what they were at the time) waiting for the timer to count down, engines rumbling all around, exhaust spewing from all the tanks, with an idyllic pasture spread out before us.  Was that a farm?  What was I supposed to do?  Where was I going?  How did my gun work?  After the countdown finished I saw a stream of tanks head up a road to the left and followed them, and got blown up along with all of them as we ran into the guns of the enemy hiding on the far side of the field.  I learned my first lesson of WoT that day - don't follow stupid people.

That was all it took, I was hooked.  I played, and played, and played some more.  My subscription MMO got neglected as I spent time each evening blowing up enemy tanks and getting blown up in return.  I started learning the maps, and recognizing which tanks I could fight and which I needed to avoid.  I moved up the tiers, getting out of the silly tier 1 light "tanks" and into the beefier medium, then heavy tanks.  I was enjoying the game and so bought a little "gold" (the game's real-money currency) to show my support for the title.  I trained up some crews and bought some premium access.  The bonus xp and credits per battle were nice, but hardly necessary.  My premium time eventually ran out, but I continued to have fun, and progress.

Then something changed.  I got into the middle tiers, five and six.  Suddenly I was consistently being matched against tanks up to 3 tiers higher than me (tier 9s in my tier 6, tier 8s in my tier 5s).  Most of the time I was at the bottom of the roster, on occasion I was in the middle.  I almost never appeared near the top any more.  When you're in an M6 (tier 6 heavy tank) and at the very bottom of the roster there's really not much you can do.  You're too slow to scout, your gun is too weak to damage anything, and most opponents can take you out with a couple of shots.  My xp gain slowed to a crawl, and I actually started to LOSE credits on matches where I got destroyed (which was a majority of them) since you don't earn much money if you don't contribute to the match, and you can't contribute when you're slow, fragile, and undergunned.

WoT began to cackle madly.  "How'd you like that free taste, boyo?  Pretty sweet huh?  But you're invested now.  You liked the way the game used to feel, didn't you?  Well, if you want to feel that again, it's time to pay up."  Melodrama aside, that's really how it's started to feel over the past few weeks.  The message when you reach the middle tiers seems to be "pay up or go back to the minor leagues."

Now, I'm not saying there's anything really wrong with that.  The game has to make money after all.  I want it to make money so they'll make it better and I can keep playing it.  At the same time though, I wish they could have been a little more . . . subtle . . . about it.  When equipment upgrades cost around 100k credits and you're only bringing in a couple thousand after repairs (or none, or negative, depending on how unlucky you are)  it's hard to see how that represents reasonable progression without paying for the 50% bonus.

Hi, I'm here to make money and xp for you!

I think the new Tier 8 premium tanks are a big part of the problem.  They truly represent pay-to-win, and they're everywhere.  Match balance is off because there are so many wretched Lowes and KV-5s running around.  After getting blown to bits by a Lowe for the umpteenth time, I finally decided to screw it, and bought a KV-5 and some premium access.

Holy cow.  Pay-to-win doesn't even begin to cover it.  My first match out I was near the top of the roster.  I only got two kills, but I got kills.  Then the results rolled in, and I made over 4,000 xp and 56,000 credits from a single match.  The KV-5 can't use the xp, but you can convert it to free xp (for a price in gold) and level up your normal tanks.  The KV-5s offense isn't very good, but I was getting the "Iron Wall" achievement in almost every match.  I converted the xp made on the KV-5 and researched gun upgrades on my poor M6. I used the cash earned on the KV-5 to pay for upgrades on the M6.  Now that my M6 has a 90mm gun it can actually hurt higher tier tanks and at least be a nuisance rather than just a free kill.  The KV-5 pushed the M6 over the hump, and now it's actually fun again.

So all I had to do to make my free-to-play fun again, was pay.  Good job on the old switcheroo, WoT.  Well played.  Honestly though, this really feels like one of those situations where "free" players are actually being penalized and paying counteracts the penalty.  I now wish WoT was just a normal subscription game without all the premium tanks, premium ammunition, premium crews, and premium access.

World of Tanks - This Tank Needs Lucky Fuzzy Dice

In a post today Tobold talks about having a 50/50 win/loss ratio.  Looking at my stats that's roughly where I am as well . . . overall.  If I look at the individual tanks in my "stable" though, the win/loss ratio is all over the place.  It balances out over my account to a roughly 50/50 ratio (it's actually 51/49, woo!) but some tanks do well while others just seem to be cursed, and I really don't know why.  Well, ok, I know why my Hetzer seems cursed - the damnable thing is a near useless abomination when you first get it, capable of pelting along at a mighty 12 kph with a gun capable of penetrating wet tissue paper.  It becomes much more fearsome with some upgrades, but you really need to destroy something and win some matches to ever get them.

My worst tank, for no apparent reason, has got to be my Panzer III.  It's really quite a lovely medium tank, fast, agile, decently armed and armored.  Yet I have a 26% win ratio in the poor thing.  I've had some pretty "heroic" moments in that tank, such as when I snuck behind enemy lines by myself, taking out a scout and both enemy artillery units, then started to cap the flag only to discover I was the only person left on my team against 4 enemies.  I had the flag at 50%(ish) when the other four arrived at our base.  With four their cap went faster than mine.  We reached 94% at the same time, and then they passed me, hitting 100% as I hit 97% . . . I thought we'd lost (so close!) but the after-battle screen showed it was declared a draw.  Woo!  No heroic win for me, but at least they didn't win either.

Err, but I digress.  The point is that I don't (totally) suck, the tank itself doesn't suck, yet somehow I always end up on teams where we either don't pull it together, or the other team is just better.  I've fully upgraded the Panzer III (working on unlocking the Panzer IV now) mostly through losses -- so that's a lot of matches.  Yet the win/loss ratio stays stubbornly around Bush-era approval ratings.

This is balanced out by tanks like my T1 Heavy, which for no good reason has over a 60% win ratio.  I don't really like the tank -- it's slow, it's armor is not particularly good, and it's gun is amongst the weakest a heavy tank can get.  It's not unusual for me to get 2-shotted by medium tanks with better guns, better armor, and more mobility.  I often finish a match with 0 kills which is frankly embarrassing in a heavy.  Yet the tank does like to win, and has certainly had it's moments as well.

I just find it very strange that my Panzer III has a high survival rate and a low victory rate, whereas my T1 Heavy hardly ever survives a match but wins more than it loses.  Anyone have some lucky dice for my Panzer?  It's getting ridiculous.

World of Tanks - New Patch

So World of Tanks released a fairly substantial patch yesterday.  I find it interesting that we're not yet at version 1.0 of World of Tanks (just 0.6.4 or something like that).  Does that mean we're technically still playing a pre-release version of the game?  Certainly many of the features listed on the wiki site don't appear to be in game yet.  Anyway, on to the patch.

I saw one of the new maps last night, on which we were winning, winning, winning, massacred, omg game over.  Not really sure what happened, we had a strong lead and then suddenly half our team exploded.  The map seemed interesting (the "hills" map) but I was sniping with a pitiful Marder II and didn't get to see much.  I also saw the "mines" map, which is a retool of a map I've forgotten the name of.  The one with a big hill in the middle that everyone rushes to only to blow up in a massive tank melee.  I liked the changes, the map felt bigger and less constrained by the terrain.  Of course, I lost on that map too.  Since the patch my T1 Heavy seems more vulnerable than ever, but I don't know why it would be.

The new premium tanks seem decent enough, certainly more worth the money than the old ones which just weren't very good.  Yes you could instantly buy your way into a heavy tank, but they were heavy tanks with pitiful un-upgradeable guns.  Thick armor isn't much use when you can't blow anything up.

The other changes were mostly quality of life improvements.  There's now a little star next to each tank in your garage to show that tank hasn't gotten double xp yet (your first victory of a day earns you double xp) which is very helpful for keeping track of which tanks have gotten that useful victory and which haven't.  There's also a small banner at the bottom of the screen when you're destroyed that shows you your options - right click to jump your camera to an ally, ESC to exit the match.  When I first started playing the game I didn't know about either option, and would grab a book or alt-tab after being destroyed.  Silly.

It seemed like I got de-tracked slightly less than before.  Maybe.  It still happened a lot, and is still as irritating as ever.

Sadly Wargaming.net was unable to patch out my suckiness.  In the middle tiers the competition is much fiercer than the lower levels, as generally speaking someone has to have played a fair bit in order to get there (premium tanks excepted of course).  As a result, I count it a victory if I get a single kill in a match, a solid victory if I get a kill and don't die myself, and something worthy of cheers and jubilation if I manage to take down more than one foe before my own clanking jalopy goes up in a shower of flame and debris.

World of Tanks - Upgrades

Although I'm still hesitant to call World of Tanks an MMORPG, it does have one aspect that is clearly borrowed from the genre - multifaceted advancement.  You improve in the game through your personal skills as a player, by purchasing better tanks, by researching upgrades for those tanks, and by increasing the skill levels and special skills of your crew.

My Newest Toy (Historical Reference)

Each aspect of development has a distinct effect on your efficacy on the battlefied, from the obvious (switching to a heavy tank from a medium tank) to the subtle (increasing your gunner's skill from 50% to 60%), but nothing seems to be as game changing as the upgrades you can research for each individual vehicle.  Four times now I have gone from despising a tank to loving it while moving from a stock build to an upgraded one.  The most recent example is my latest acquisition, the M7 Medium Tank.

The stock build of this tank is terrible.  It looks odd and is armed with a pitiful pop-gun that can barely penetrate the rear armor of most other tanks in its tier.  Sitting behind a tier 4 medium tank, shooting it's weakest armor and having the opponent almost completely ignore you is fairly demoralizing.  The fact that the M7 is a tier 5 medium tank just makes it worse.  This was compounded by the fact that I suffered loss after loss and so failed to gain enough xp to upgrade much of anything.  Eventually though, I had a few lucky breaks and made enough xp to upgrade the suspension, put on a new turret, and replace the gun.  I ended up with enough left over to upgrade the engine too.  My first match in the upgraded version and the battle was a win, I had two kills, and didn't even get my paint scratched.  Suddenly I like this tank after all.

That experience is hardly unique either.  I had the same thing happen with the M3 Medium Tank which went from nearly useless as a stock build to the only vehicle I've gotten the Top Gun award with once it had a howitzer on it.  The M5 Stuart had a similar experience.  Same with the Panzer III.  This is not a bad thing overall, as it makes developing many of the tanks very fun (in contrast, a stock T1 Heavy barely seems different from a fully upgraded one) but really takes some getting used to.  When you've spent days earning xp and saving credits to purchase the next tank up from your current choice you kind of expect an upgrade, yet in many cases your new tank will be inferior to the old one (in performance if not raw stats) until you upgrade the darn thing.

It keeps me playing though, as upgrading the tank makes gameplay more enjoyable, which in turn makes upgrading the tank easier, and so on.  I have a couple of tanks I plan to just sit on even though they're elite (fully upgraded) because playing them is fun even when I have nothing left to gain.  That, to me, is the sign of a good design and for all it's flaws World of Tanks is proving itself to be a game designed around fun.

World of Tanks - Some Days You're the Dog, Some Days You're the Bone

World of Tanks is still drawing me in on a daily basis.  I don't play it for very long, typically 30 minutes or so, but the design of the game is such that that works out just fine.  I do sometimes have a little difficulty dragging myself away (just one more match!) but for the most part it's great bite-sized gaming.  The fact that I've always had a certain fondness for WWII tanks and aircraft hasn't hurt either.  I'd love to see them expand the scope of the game, but that's another post.

One of the aspects of WoT that keeps it engaging is how varied the experience is on a daily basis.  I suppose it's no different than any game with PvP, but the variance seems much higher than, for example, warfronts in Rift.  Luck of the draw plays a big part, in that the enemies vehicle types arrayed against you have a huge impact on the outcome of the match.  The skill of your opponents has a big impact, as does how aggressively the two teams play.  Finally, the tier distribution has a huge impact as well.

I've had battles where I was top of the list (T1 heavy tank) with no heavies on the enemy team, no artillery, and only one or two tank destroyers, and pretty much mopped the place up.  I've had battles where I was top of the list (T1 heavy tank) with no heavies on the enemy team, but lots of artillery and tank destroyers and been pinned down within the first 2 minutes of the battle and gutted by concentrated fire.  I've had battles where I was middle of the list yet ended the match still alive with 3 kills and the rest of my team wiped out and our base captured.  I've had battles where my M5 Stuart (light tank) raced up a road just to get one-shotted by a hidden enemy tank destroyer in the first 30 seconds of a match.  I've had battles where my M2 Medium tank rolled around the map popping enemy artillery like grapes (gotta love a 75mm howitzer on a tier 3 tank).

World of Tanks seems to be a roller coaster of highs and lows.  Some battles are really great, some are really terrible.  I hardly ever see anything in the middle, so much so that finishing a battle alive but with no kills is almost exciting.  Despite the fact that WoT's content is really very limited, the highs keep me coming back for one more match, and the lows keep it from getting monotonous.  Although I find the unbalanced design of the matchmaking system frustrating at times, I have to admit it keeps the game interesting.

Now if they could just add some sort of persistent campaign with sides divided up by nationality . . .

World of Tanks - Top Gun and Stealth Tanks

World of Tanks really is a strange beast.  It's both exciting and infuriating in equal measure, sometimes at the same time.  I've been playing in short bursts and alternating between a Tier 3 light tank (the M3 Stuart) and a Tier 3 medium tank (the M2 Medium Tank).  I've escaped my run of bad luck getting nothing but high tier opponents, and have gotten more matches with mixed groups.  I've even gotten a few where my tank was one of the biggest things on the maps.

It was on one of those rare battles that I got the Top Gun acheivement last night.  This requires getting 6 kills in a single battle.  Keep in mind that there are a maximum of 15 enemies in a battle, everyone only gets one life, and you have 14 allies also trying to take out the enemy.  Getting the Top Gun award means taking out nearly half the opposing team by yourself.  I'd like to say it was superior skill that got me there, but really it was luck and the fact that I had the toughest vehicle on the map with the biggest gun.

Which, sadly, demonstrates one of the things that is both frustrating and exciting in World of Tanks -- the luck of the draw.  If you're in a tier 3 and get put in a battle with mostly tier 2s and just a few opposing tier 3s (like I did last night) you know you're probably in for a fun match.  You're far from invulnerable, but you're dangerous.  The very next match though, might pit you mostly against tier 5s, and suddenly you're almost useless.  If you're in a fast light tank you can still play a role as a spotter (which I did in one fun battle last night) but the M2 Medium tank isn't a very good scout, it's too slow and too easy to see.

Speaking of spotting, World of Tanks has a pretty complex sight/sensor/stealth mechanic.  Every tank has a nominal range at which they can spot the enemy (sight range).  They also have a radio range with which they can report the position of spotted enemies to allies (who can then also see them).   Many tanks also have a modifier to how easily spotted they are (stealth), with Tank Destroyers being the stealthiest and Heavy Tanks being the easiest to spot.  Moving makes you easier to spot, as does opening fire, whereas sitting still and not shooting while hiding behind some bushes can make you hard to spot.  A Tank Destroyer with a camo net, skilled crew, and good cover can be nearly undetectable until they move or open fire.  This results in the rather jarring situation of tanks suddenly popping into view a short distance away when the game determines you can see them after all.  It also means it's not unusual be taking fire without being able to see the enemy at all.  All in all it's realistic enough, and adds some tension to navigating the map.  Unlike a typical MMO PvP match you can't see the enemy from the other side of the map unless someone has spotted them for you.  It also resulted in two tier 4 tanks rolling up behind me while I was in a sniping position and blowing me to bits before I'd even realized they were there.  Good for them though, they ran a gauntlet of allied spotters without ever being detected.

I like this game, though I really wish there was more to it.  The wikipedia entry talks about clan battles and a campaign map, but I don't see any of that when I start up the client.  Not sure if the wiki is wrong, or the U.S. has gotten a different version than Europe.

World of Tanks - The Inequity of the Tiers

World of Tanks is a strange beast when it comes to balance -- essentially there isn't any.  There's no attempt to make things fair for individual players, instead "balance" is acheived by having the teams randomized and roughly balanced against each other by the tier ranking of the vehicles within each team.  One Tier 2 medium tank might be signficantly more powerful than another Tier 2 medium tank, but unless one team gets all of one type and the other team gets all of the other, it doesn't really matter.  Also, generally speaking, there's always someone on the map in a weaker vehicle than you, so if you can't beat anyone else, go find them.

Which leads to some rather unfortunate . . . quirks.  Progression in World of Tank consists of driving a low tier crappy tank until you earn enough xp to research the next level of tank, then switch into one of those and drive it around until you earn enough xp to research the next level, and so on.  There are ten tiers in the game, with a tier 10 heavy tank roughly twenty times as powerful as a tier 1 light tank.  You start out in a tier 1, battling against tier 1 and the occasional tier 2 tank.  Once you get into your own tier 2 tank, you battle mostly tier 2 tanks with the occasional tier 1 tank.  It's a pretty fun time -- most enemies are either roughly equal to your or weaker, giving you good odds of performing well and having a fun time.  So far, so good, right?  Then you upgrade to tier 3 . . . and suddenly most of your battles consist of tier 3-5 vehicles.  Despite spending all this time and money to get into a tier 3 tank you're suddenly cannon fodder, and every enemy tier 4 and 5 tank is going to be gunning for Mr. Easykill.

I think this is World of Tanks' hazing ritual.  You're getting into the real game, the training wheels are off, now prepare to be spanked.  Repeatedly.  It's a bit of a shock.  Sort of like showing up to a frat party blindfolded expecting to party with a bunch of sorority girls, only to have the blindfold whipped off and find a bunch of football players standing around you with paddles and wicked grins on their faces.  (Note: I was never in a frat and never went to frat parties :p)

My experience so far is that most matches have been about 30% tier 5 tanks, 50-60% tier 4 tanks, and the remainder are tier 3 tanks.  To put it in perspective, a tier 5 tank has roughly double the hit points of a tier 3, between half again and twice as much armor, and a gun that's roughly twice as powerful.  They are also  faster and more maneuverable.  A tier 5 medium tank can one-shot my tier 3 medium tank with just a little luck.  The tier 4 tanks aren't so bad, but fighting tier 5s as a tier 3 is insane.  It would be roughly equivalent to battling a level 40 in World of Warcraft as a level 20.  It's not very pleasant, and I haven't really played the game in a few days as a result.

However, logically I know that this can be worked through.  It really is like a hazing ritual, since all those big boys in the tier 5 tanks gleefully one-shotting me were once in a tier 3 getting their metal avatars blown to bits too.  Even if you get destroyed, your team could win and you'll get solid xp and credit rewards.  Even if you lose, you get something.  Clearly I can get through tier 3 eventually and join the more balanced ranks of the tier 4 tanks, but it's going to be something of a chore.  Also, being in a tier 3 doesn't mean never getting kills in these matches.  Taking out a tier 4 is possible, and of course other tier 3s are fair game.  Plus, self-propelled guns don't have much armor even at tier 5, so they can be taken out too (as long as they don't notice you, of course).  Once you're spotted by a tier 5 though, it's all over unless someone on your team takes them out while the enemy has tunnel vision gunning for the easy tier 3 kill.

Second Impressions - World of Tanks

I've given World of Tanks a few more hours now, and it's definitely growing on me.  I'm happy to say that some of my issues from my previous post have turned out to unfounded.  There are more maps, you just don't see them until you start driving higher tier tanks.  I got into a Tier 2 light tank and suddenly had access to several more maps.  Through a combination of improving skills and a more advanced vehicle I'm now averaging 1 kill per battle.  Sometimes I get 2, but those are balanced out by the 0s.

My concern about higher level vehicles getting to farm the heck out of the newbies also seems relatively unfounded.  Multiple times I had seen comments from my team about how we lost because we had no heavies, and assumed from that the enemy had heavies.  Except, they didn't either.  Heavies don't show up on the starter maps, they're almost all light tanks with the occasional medium.  When you move into the higher tiers you start seeing the heavier tanks, but if you're in an advanced light tank yourself you could have one battle on a higher tier map with heavies, and the next battle on a starter map.  So I'm assuming (woohoo, assumptions!) that the players complaining we lost because we had no heavies were used to the higher tier maps and didn't realize the starter maps don't have them for either side.

I think the strangest thing about the game is that "World of Tanks" is all about sniping.  Gun accuracy while moving is terrible, but sitting still in the open gets you blown up, so the game mostly consists of mad dashes between cover followed by hunkering down and sniping until you can't find any more enemies.  I suspect that's actually fairly realistic for tank battles though.  If there were infantry in the game the tanks could presumably run rampant, but there are only other tanks, tank destroyers, and self-propelled guns.  It's a dangerous world, but gratifying when you're successful.

I just wish there were more to the game than endless skirmishes.  How about a campaign mode where players are divided up by sides (Russian, German, US) instead of the current mish-mash, and have extended objectives that can move back and forth across multiple maps.  Heck, I'd even take a single-player campaign mode against AI enemies.  I might even pay for it.

First Impressions - World of Tanks

World of Tanks was released recently, and since it's free to play I of course had to check it out.  For those that don't know, World of Tanks is an online squad-based world war II tank battle game.  It's being billed as an MMORPG, but I'm not really sure why -- you spend your time alternating between a static lobby and mission maps, the game is PvP only, and there aren't more than a dozen or so people per side.  It's much more like Counterstrike with tanks than an MMORPG.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not very MMORPG-like.  I'm going to describe the things I liked and didn't like, and just because I'm feeling kind of cranky I think I'll start with the negatives.

First off, I have to say it's a darn good thing the game is free to play.  If I'd paid $50 for this I'd be pretty annoyed about now.  The game, as I mentioned earlier, is not an MMORPG, it's just an online action game with a lobby and match making.  I played for a couple of hours last night, and in that time I only saw 3, maybe 4 different maps.  I'm hoping (assuming?) that more maps must become available as you unlock more powerful tanks, but I don't know for sure.  Running the same couple of maps over and over is going to get old fast.  It doesn't help that the objectives on each map are exactly the same - eliminate all enemies or capture the base.  Speaking of the maps, at least one of them seems terribly unbalanced.  The northern base has a ridge that defenders can park on and snipe oncoming attackers with little risk of counterfire.  The southern base has nothing like that.  So the northern team almost always wins.  Yay?

Which brings us to the matchmaking, which also seems to be fairly unbalanced.  Rather than pitting players in the same class against each other the teams consist of a mix of light, medium, and heavy tanks.  That might be ok, except that it's entirely possible (and not unusual) for one team to get a heavy tank or two while the other team gets none.  Heavy tanks are the kings of the battlefield, and with nothing to counter them on the opposing side they quickly win the match.  This isn't like a team missing a class in WAR or WoW or Rift, because the game attempts to simulate armor penetration light tanks can't really hurt heavy tanks at all, while medium tanks can take them down but it requires a lot of effort.  The worst part of my evening was coming up on an enemy tank, unloading shell after shell into it to no effect, only to have it turn it's turret around and 1-shot my little light tank.  Realistic?  Sure.  Fun?  Not especially.

That sort of ties into my issue with the game being extremely unfriendly to new players, especially new free players.  Since the matches consist of both veteran and brand new players, and a veteran in a heavy tank is virtually untouchable by a newbie in a light tank, new players seem to serve as little more than kill fodder for the veteran players.  Again, this wouldn't be such a big deal, except that you only get one life per match -- once your tank is destroyed you're done.  If don't get any kills you don't get much xp or cash, and if your side loses you also don't get much xp or cash.  A brand new player, then, is very likely to enter a match, get destroyed in moments, and get very little reward with which to improve their tank and increase their likelihood of performing well, let alone buy a higher tier tank so that they're not just cannon fodder.  Also, once you're destroyed you have to sit there until the match ends.  I'm assuming their must be some way to "ride" along with an ally in camera view but I never found it, so generally after being destroyed I'd alt-tab out and surf the net.

This brings me to the cash shop, which is my final gripe with the game.  This really seems to be a "pay to win" game based on the cash shop, and the design of the game seems to be intended to funnel you into purchases to be competitive.  Remember how I said newbies get crap tanks and are cannon fodder for everyone else?  Well, that's unless you drop some real money for a better one.  Real money can buy better tanks, upgraded ammunition, xp, be used to transfer xp from one tank to another, and more.  Someone who visited the cash shop on their first day and dropped a bunch of money on upgrades would have a phenomenal advantage over a free player.  Maybe that's ok for many people, after all even though a loss with no kills gets you minimal rewards, you still get SOMETHING.  Someday you'll be able to compete as long as you keep playing.  Still, I strongly dislike pay to win, and also dislike the thought that my opponent just smoked me because he bought a cash shop tank, not because he was more skilled.

So, a huge list of gripes.  I must hate the game right?  Already uninstalled it?  Well . . . no.  The game is still fun.  The tank battles are something new and different, and Wargaming.net has gotten the look and feel of the game down very well.  The graphics aren't very high tech, but they're solid.  The tanks feel slow and substantial, and the pace of combat isn't quite so frantic as a typical FPS.  The fact that my starter tank is so pitiful just makes any accomplishment feel that much greater.  The high point of my evening was barreling down a hill at 40kph with an enemy light tank lobbing shells at me (and missing due to my speed) and I turned my turret, fired back, and scored a kill shot all while moving.  That may have been my only kill for the whole evening, but it sure felt good.  The kill boards take some getting used to, by the way.  Since every player only gets one life per battle most players simply won't get any kills at all (especially on the losing side).  That doesn't necessarily mean you suck -- there are only a limited number of kills that can be scored per match, and if one guy gets 2, then no matter what someone has to get 0.  I kind of like that though, respawning tanks would just be stupid.

The game just has a very nice feel to it.  Rolling along with your squadmates up a road (movement is faster on roads but less safe), seeing an enemy tank in the distance and scattering behind trees, bushes, and rocks before trading shots back and forth just feels very visceral and realistic.  You can run over fences, knock down trees, and just generally feel like you really are driving a tank.  It's not a hard core tank sim by any means, and I have no doubt many liberties have been taken with physics in the name of gameplay, but despite my gripes with the mechanics of the game I found the gameplay itself quite enjoyable.  Now if I could just get a tank gun capable of actually penetrating enemy armor I might really start to enjoy myself . . .