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 Post subject: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: June 28th, 2014, 2:57 pm 
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On April 1st, I wasn't made a fool. However, I did let my friends talk me into trying out a new game. Sometimes, this can be a foolish thing to do. But as of yet, I'm not disappointed with the game World of Tanks thus far. It's fresh, it's new, and (my personal favourite) it's historical. World of Tanks brings players back to the past to relive tank warfare of the 20th century.

Background

World of Tanks, or WoT, is a free online multiplayer tank combat game. Players fight each other in tanks from the pre-World War II to post-Korean War eras. There are seven countries to choose from all with different designs, strengths, and weaknesses: the United States, Britain, Germany, France, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan. Lastly, there are five classes to specialize in: Light Tanks, Medium Tanks, Heavy Tanks, Tank Destroyers, and SPGs (self-propelled guns). With so many tanks to choose from, every player can find the tank that fits their play style.

Gameplay

Most games are random battles with 15 players to a side. These battles focus on capturing the enemy flag, a neutral flag, or eliminating all the enemy team's tanks. More often than not, teams opt to destroy the other team's tanks. Matches are played on pre-made battlefields that either resemble or are exactly designed on historical locations. As such, battlefields have varying geographical features, towns, roads, forests, and other details.

Tanks have both armor and health points. The more armor, the less likely a tank's weapon can penetrate and potentially cause damage. The more health points, more penetrative shots it takes to blow up a tank. Low tier tanks have low armor and hit points, making them susceptible to most guns and potential damage. High tier tanks are not often hit and if they are, they can survive more damage.

Also, the type of tank used determines your vulnerability. Light tanks have weak armor and low hit points, but are fast, stealthy, and can scout enemy positions best. Heavy tanks are greatly armored and have high firepower, but lack mobility, speed, and stealth. Medium tanks incorporate the speed and mobility of light tanks with more armor and firepower like a heavy tank. Tank destroyers specialize in dealing damage to tanks, but lack armor in return. SPGs also specialize in dealing damage to tanks from a long distance, but are incredibly weak and inaccurate when encountered up close.

Strategy and luck play a big part in successfully winning. When it comes to strategy, it's important to know the likely gaps in an enemy's formations on the battlefield and how to exploit them quickly and effectively. In most cases, charging the enemy guns blazing does not result in a win, but rather a crushing loss. Instead, methodically planning out an attack or defense could be all the difference. At the same time, winning also involves luck...shots causing damage against the enemy and shots not damaging you in return. Accuracy and damage, while player-controlled, also require luck sometimes.

What I like about WoT

There are not a lot of tank combat games in the market today. World of Tanks fills this void. Not only that, but WoT does so from the standpoint of past tank warfare, not modern. The biggest difference between past and modern tank warfare is that in the past, there was a great deal of variety, development, and originality whereas today, the designs, materials, and weaponry are similar and static. In this regard, World of Tanks offers a dynamic experience,

The developers have spent a lot of time working on tank models and battlefields. This pays off nicely in terms of realism and historical feel, two things I'm always keenly interested in. The sights and sounds of tank warfare of the past provide the biggest fun and excitement factor for this game. Sure, you can experience this in a documentary or old war movie, but being able to play as a tank from a different time is a cool experience.

What I don't like

WoT lacks consistent balance. Part of this balance problem lies in WoT's matchmaking system. Matchmaking is based on a few factors. The game has a tier system, ranging from 1-10 (10 being the strongest). Tanks can play against other tanks two tiers above them or below them. Tier 3 tanks (pre-World War II) typically find themselves matched against Tier 5 tanks (World War II tanks). What kind of issue does this cause? Well, not only are tier 3 tanks out-gunned by further developed tier 5 weaponry, they are also out-armored meaning their weaponry becomes ineffective. This makes it virtually impossible for tier 3 tanks to contribute in a tier 5 battle.

Matchmaking should only allow tier matching of + or - 1 level (e.g. a tier 3 could only face tier 4 tanks at most, but nothing less than tier 2). This would allow for much more fair and consistent match play. It may not be perfectly balanced, but it would be much better than the current system. Games that involve tiers or levels need to have a fair matchmaking system. Otherwise, the game becomes less enjoyable and turns players away.

Conclusion

WoT is everything a gamer could want from a historically based tank combat game. It has the modeling, the sounds, the battlefields, the realism, and it's free. Well... free with a pay-to-win element, but that's to be expected from most free online multiplayer games these days. Although the matchmaking system isn't balanced as often as I'd like and the game play can be VERY unbalanced at times, it's not impossible to find enjoyment in it most the time. My recommendation is to at least give it a try like I did. You don't have to go in loving it from day 1. Just try it out and see what you think. The beauty of free games is that you don't have to spend money before playing. World of Tanks is definitely worth checking out, especially if you like vehicular combat.

This was originally posted as an Informer Gaming article.

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 Post subject: Register and login to get these in-post ads to disappear
PostPosted: June 28th, 2014, 2:57 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: June 29th, 2014, 2:33 pm 
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I play this a ton. I have five six tier 10 tanks and over fifty tanks total, I think even tried to get you to play it and it took another friend of yours to get you to play :P

There are a lot of problems with tank balance and the infamous matchmaker, but at the end of the day, you can do stuff like what you see in my avatar.

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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: June 30th, 2014, 11:51 am 
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Hey man, I take quite a bit of convincing to get into games, even free ones.

Balance really gets on my nerves sometimes. Although at higher levels, I'm sure it's not as much a problem since tanks are much stronger the higher the tier. Really it's a major issue for tier 4 and below. Tier 5 can hold it's own against higher tiers with some strategy and careful play.

And yes, your avatar is ridiculous. I haven't quite had the opportunity to do something like that.

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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: June 30th, 2014, 11:53 am 
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Tier 4 has always been notoriously bad. There is such a huge power gap between tier 4 and 5. Fortunately, the matchmaker at the bottom tiers are somewhat better.

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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: June 30th, 2014, 3:53 pm 
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Favourite tank line cliffy?

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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: June 30th, 2014, 7:42 pm 
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I think I had the most fun going Tiger to E-100, but the Soviet IS line was a lot of fun all the way through.

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 Post subject: Register and login to get these in-post ads to disappear
PostPosted: June 30th, 2014, 7:42 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: July 6th, 2014, 7:11 am 
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I've known about this game quite some time, but not much about it. I enjoyed the article, I may have to actually go give it a shot now!

And yes, the avatar is awesome, hah.

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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: July 6th, 2014, 10:19 pm 
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Shane wrote:
First of all I had no idea that's what your avatar was for all these years. Anyways I had a couple questions for you since you seem to be very involved in the game with numerous tier 10 tanks. My highest right now is a tier 8. They're the Tiger II and Borsig. One thing I am increasingly becoming aware of is that I really enjoy the playstyle of the Tiger I (high DPM with armour that is somewhat workable against lower tiers). Do you have any ideas as to which tanks in game share a similar playstyle? I'm pretty sure the other heavies don't so this puts me looking at mediums I'd guess?

Also as a personal question which class is your favourite playstyle?


Cliff Dude wrote:
High DPM without significant armor is a feature of most medium tanks. The Batchat 25t and Leopard 1 feature great DPM with little armor. The rest of the mediums are similar with some exceptions such as the M48 with the superior view range, and the E50M serving as a "pocket heavy" with the amount of armor. A unique feature of the E50 series tanks is how well they can ram. At ~60 tons going at 60km/h, anything you hit that is lighter than you will take massive damage. To the likes of ramming T-62A's for around 700 going full speed. The Soviet mediums are very popular due to their quick speed and turret armor. Soviet medium guns do less damage per shot, but they have a much faster reload. However, the DPM balances out with the other nations, and they do lack some gun depression. The German mediums might be a better fit for you, especially the E50 line. The entire branch features extremely accurate guns with good DPM and penetration, the Panther II is basically a Tiger I upgraded, and the two E50s themselves feature Tiger II amounts of armor with better angles and twice the speed.

The WT E100 TD and most of the other tanks in that line are also flavors of high DPM but with little armor, as you probably noticed with your Borsig. Other tank destroyers would also be good candidates. The mid tier German TDs on the other branch would be a match for you, if you don't mind the lack of turret.

My personal favorite style of play is probably flanking/sniping. Depends on how I feel that day, I'll either be driving my E50M and going in hot with the armor, or driving my Leopard 1 and taking a huge arc around the map to get behind and snipe. My favorite thing to do with the Leo is just to get everywhere and have a shot on everybody on the other team. Both tanks have an equally accurate gun. I still like my heavy tanks, but since going down three medium tanks lines after that, playing medium is a lot more engaging, but more risky.

You also should've asked in the thread, I'm sure others would enjoy my opinion :wink:

I'm also kind of on a break from WoT, waiting for 9.2 to drop because I'm too lazy to update my mods while I'm busy playing other games.


On track to the E 50 M starts tomorrow, I'll probably see how far I can get down that. I liked the feeling of driving the Tiger so I went and got the KV-1S and T-150. The T-150 felt nice but didn't really make sense to continue on because of the glaring weakspots on the KV-3 and KV-4 as well as their alpha damage is no better than the Tiger II. This lead to the KV-1S which I've got now. I was quite surprised at the long reloads and that lead me on the quest for the faster reload times as listed above. Here we are, back to the beginning.

And yes, also a fan of the non-turreted German TD line, got the JPanther now.

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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: July 6th, 2014, 10:29 pm 
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Keep in mind that one of the biggest strengths of the Tiger is the accuracy, so I mainly mentioned tanks that retain that kind of accuracy. If you have the JPanther, you will love the JPanther 2, I heard it has a fast reload on that 128mm gun.

The KV-1S is a very popular tank not only because it brings a powerful gun to tier 6, but the IS line it leads to is also super popular. I still have my IS, IS-3, IS-8 in my garage after getting an IS-7. They're all a lot of fun to drive.

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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: September 8th, 2014, 9:38 pm 
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Once I got to tier 4 all the fun turned into a grind :(

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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Gaming Review: World of Tanks
PostPosted: September 8th, 2014, 10:52 pm 
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Yep, tier 4 is the awkward uncomfortable tier. Nothing will ever change that, but many tier 5 tanks are great and are also good money makers too. Except for some heavy tanks, tiers 4 and 7 will always be uncomfortable. Tiers 5 and 8 (and 10) are very popular tiers.

Shaney (or anyone else that wants to) add me on Steam or in-game if you wanna play with me, my username is Erazai. I'll platoon any tier but if any of you have a tier 7, I'm grinding one at the moment. Tier 8 get

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