New Panther tree is good, although dissapointed the VK(DB) is now non-compulsary to get there through the medium tree. I wonder what will happen with the VK(P) and (H) though; currently i'm researching from the PzIII/IV to the (P). Will I then have both the (H) and (P) researched, or just the (P), or will it swap? And if I have one of these tanks, how will they react after the change. I don't want to go from working my way to a Panther to suddenly be working to a Tiger. Not to mention the fact that i'd probably end up having to go back to the PzIII/IV to get sufficient exp to unlock the (H). Complicated.
On a slightly more legible note, good work on the OP, Synthesis.
Thank you!
On topic....captured Panther? Awe yeah! On the other hand, I could have had a T-34M! I have no idea what a T-34M is like, but I have a suspicion that it's going to be superior to the T-34-85.
Especially pissed about dealing with the M3 Lee. Apparently the tracks are made of glass; just had a battle where the first shot from an enemy M3 blew off the tracks on that side, then the next shot blew the tracks off the other side. And since I don't have a turret, that's game over without firing a single shot. The last half-dozen games before that are all either one-shot deaths or getting tracks knocked off in the first shot.
You need to play the M3 Lee like a tank destroyer. It's pretty solid defensively but not good on offense. It should be used to ambush, defend, or support other tanks that are advancing. It shouldn't push out on its own unless you are desperate because as with turretless tank destroyers if it gets tracked, it's toast.
Unfortunately it is very tall, and its gun is placed low, so it's not that good at hiding and can't really go hull down. As compensation as someone else pointed out earlier, it actually has a very good gun for its tier and can do some real damage.
I actually ended up with a very decent win-loss record with the Lee (54%/43%) so I don't think it's particularly underpowered for its tier as long as it's played to its strengths. But I'm happy to have moved on to the next tier. The Sherman which comes next is a very solid all around tank for its tier.
So anyone have opinions on the top ends of the US and Russian medium lines? I have the xp for my T20 now, but I'm not sure if I should pull the trigger on it. I've been relatively unimpressed with the E8's ability to brawl, though it's awesome at long range side shot sniping. I have a T-34-85 that pleases me more with it's ability to take a hit or two, but I'm far from the T43 on that one.
Which is a better idea? I like the idea of a fast decent skirmishing medium, I just feel like if I peek my head out of cover and try to move around, I'll get tracked and murdered.
I don't know about the areas in the medium--right now, I have a T-34-85, which is decent enough--but at the end, I think the T-54 has a signifcant upper hand on the M26. For starters, it has a much smaller target profile, and is more slopped. At the higher tiers, T-54s can be pains to deal with, but the M26 never really is. An M47 Patton would probably be a more fitting counterpart to the T-54.
So anyone have opinions on the top ends of the US and Russian medium lines? I have the xp for my T20 now, but I'm not sure if I should pull the trigger on it. I've been relatively unimpressed with the E8's ability to brawl, though it's awesome at long range side shot sniping. I have a T-34-85 that pleases me more with it's ability to take a hit or two, but I'm far from the T43 on that one.
Which is a better idea? I like the idea of a fast decent skirmishing medium, I just feel like if I peek my head out of cover and try to move around, I'll get tracked and murdered.
I haven't gotten passed the M4A3E8 on the American side, but the T-44 was a heck-of-a-lot of fun during Beta. Have not tried the T-54, but from all accounts it's a bit overpowered, which I'm sure is fun when you're playing with it and bad when you're playing against it.
As far as getting tracked, bob and weave, and as soon as you can start leveling your crew on the repair bonus skill. You could also try buying a repair toolkit for the tank, which should further increase your repair speed. With 100% repair bonus, you can get back and running fairly quickly, probably faster than the artillery can reload (although you'll still be in trouble if you've got multiple artillery on you). Also with the upcoming 0.6.4 changes, tracking should be less frequent.
When's that patch coming out? Cause I'm tired of my tracks flying off the instant an enemy tank shows up.
Seriously, shit happens every fucking time and it's always the first shot that hits. It's BANG! TRACK HIT! or WE LOST A TRACK! and then I fucking die. No matter the goddamn distance or how much I bob and weave.
It's first shot because bobbing and weaving doesn't really do much. A large number of the tanks are 50-80% track from the side, and currently any hit to that counts as track damage. And most guns can insta track anything that isn't heavy due to damage values and track HP.
I can pretty reliably hit/track any of the T5 lights with a T6 medium. It's silly easy to track people right now, which makes scouting a game of "does this side have anyone on it who doesn't use auto aim"
This was the problem I was having with the PzIII. I'm sure its a great tank 'n' all, but it liked to throw a track every time you saw a tank, regardless of who's side it was on. Which, considering there is hardly anything there on the side because the road wheels are so small, is ridiculous. It should be virtually impossible to track some of those German tanks.
My new PzIII/IV is a little better, but not by much.
EDIT: "We're immobilized! Get Out!". I think I'm going to have that engraved on my headstone at this rate. Getting sick of being tracked and then immediately killed by a hidden KV at the start of every match.
Can anyone give me any suggestions about how to improve performance for WoT? I'm running a Windows 7 i7 notebook with 4 gigs of RAM and a GTS 360m and a 1920x1080 monitor - I should be blowing this thing into dust but if I use the auto-detect graphics settings I get 30fps max and it just gets worse in combat. To compare, I can run Mass Effect 2 or Starcraft 2 smooth as butter at 1920x1080 on high. Alternatively, STALKER and Metro 2033 run like crap. Are all Russian games just optimized poorly?
EDIT: I can turn settings down to low and get 45-60 FPS, so it is playable, but meh. The auto-detect is giving me 1920x1080, no antialiasing because of advanced post processing, 8x anisotropic, vsync off, triple buffering on, object LOD and draw depth high, high foliage quality & medium foliage density, texture compression on. There also dosen't seem to be a way to run it at any other 16:9 natural resolutions; it's got 1600x1024 and 1400x1050, and separate options for "widescreen" - guessing it's for FOV?
Can anyone give me any suggestions about how to improve performance for WoT? I'm running a Windows 7 i7 notebook with 4 gigs of RAM and a GTS 360m and a 1920x1080 monitor - I should be blowing this thing into dust but if I use the auto-detect graphics settings I get 30fps max and it just gets worse in combat. To compare, I can run Mass Effect 2 or Starcraft 2 smooth as butter at 1920x1080 on high. Alternatively, STALKER and Metro 2033 run like crap. Are all Russian games just optimized poorly?
EDIT: I can turn settings down to low and get 45-60 FPS, so it is playable, but meh. The auto-detect is giving me 1920x1080, no antialiasing because of advanced post processing, 8x anisotropic, vsync off, triple buffering on, object LOD and draw depth high, high foliage quality & medium foliage density, texture compression on. There also dosen't seem to be a way to run it at any other 16:9 natural resolutions; it's got 1600x1024 and 1400x1050, and separate options for "widescreen" - guessing it's for FOV?
The auto-detect feature is kind of wonky at the moment.
The single biggest FPS boost you can get with this game is done by editing the Preferences.xml file. To access the file, open up an Explorer window, then type in "%appdata% in the address bar. Then go to \roaming\wargaming.net\WorldOfTanks\ . Once you locate the file, open it in a text editor and look for a line that says Terrain_Mesh_Resolution. This setting affects the number of polygons used to draw the terrain. Change the number to either 1 or 2 depending on how high you want to increase your FPS. The file will need to be re-edited anytime you update your graphics drivers.
Doing this allows the game to run tolerably even on laptops with crappy integrated graphics...like mine.
I'm playing this afternoon and I've got a Grille using the second gun, 90% crew and a Gun Rammer. The map is winding down and I've gotten 5 kills, the last of which is a direct fire kill against the Panzer IV. We have a single Panzer III on our team left, and me, versus the two M7 Priests (one of which has 5 kills) and that Sturmpanzer II. I'm asking the PzIII in team chat to please just scout and NOT play hero and try to engage, lest he get tracked and buy it. Sure enough, he engages the Sturmpanzer II, gets tracked, and one of the priests finishes him. He is FURIOUS in teamchat after I bitch at him for not taking the smart move.
I wind up going across the southern bridge and find the first of the Priests in the castle. He's facing towards me, I'm traveling at a good traverse to him, he overshoots me and I get right up to him and pull the trigger.
I head back towards the two capture points / center bridge and find the Sturmpanzer II still where he was when he killed our PzIII. Same deal, good traverse, he overshoots and I can pause for 2-3 seconds to aim and shoot. "That's how you fucking do it!" Teammate pipes up. "You're not done yet noob, you're prolly going to lose it for us, smartass general."
At this point, the last remaining enemy, one of the Priests, starts capping. I haul ass back to the center bridge, get there with cap timer at about 50/100. I cross the bridge and we detect each other, but he's behind a building. I run between two buildings, he fires and overshoots me. Cap at 65/100. I back up, aim, fire, and MISS. Cap at 75/100. He fires again, tracks me! Cap at 80/100. I repair kit, turn, aim, two, three, four, and fire. Cap is at 90/100. WIN.
Back in garage. Open contact list, find contact, open channel. "NOW I'm done."
tl;dr - 15 shots, 8 kills, stopped cap at 90/100. Playing a Grille like a tank destroyer is entirely possible due to good matchmaking for it's class, really good mobility for an arty, and a damn powerful gun. Just get up to point-blank and make it count.
Can anyone give me any suggestions about how to improve performance for WoT? I'm running a Windows 7 i7 notebook with 4 gigs of RAM and a GTS 360m and a 1920x1080 monitor - I should be blowing this thing into dust but if I use the auto-detect graphics settings I get 30fps max and it just gets worse in combat. To compare, I can run Mass Effect 2 or Starcraft 2 smooth as butter at 1920x1080 on high. Alternatively, STALKER and Metro 2033 run like crap. Are all Russian games just optimized poorly?
EDIT: I can turn settings down to low and get 45-60 FPS, so it is playable, but meh. The auto-detect is giving me 1920x1080, no antialiasing because of advanced post processing, 8x anisotropic, vsync off, triple buffering on, object LOD and draw depth high, high foliage quality & medium foliage density, texture compression on. There also dosen't seem to be a way to run it at any other 16:9 natural resolutions; it's got 1600x1024 and 1400x1050, and separate options for "widescreen" - guessing it's for FOV?
The auto-detect feature is kind of wonky at the moment.
The single biggest FPS boost you can get with this game is done by editing the Preferences.xml file. To access the file, open up an Explorer window, then type in "%appdata% in the address bar. Then go to \roaming\wargaming.net\WorldOfTanks\ . Once you locate the file, open it in a text editor and look for a line that says Terrain_Mesh_Resolution. This setting affects the number of polygons used to draw the terrain. Change the number to either 1 or 2 depending on how high you want to increase your FPS. The file will need to be re-edited anytime you update your graphics drivers.
Doing this allows the game to run tolerably even on laptops with crappy integrated graphics...like mine.
I tried this on my HP dv2500 (set to "2"), and while it did seem to improve performance, I don't think I could actually play the game....guess we'll find out during my vacation.
Fuck the T-28 and T-46. Fuck these thinly armored moving piles of shit. Absolutely worthless in every goddamn situation. The god awful grind is bad but having to do it with these shitboxes to get the KV is torture. Why the fuck is the T-28 classified as a MEDIUM tank anyway?! Better question. Why is the damn thing in the game!?
"Hey I'm a medium tank the size of a bus and just like the T-46, I have no armor and my treads fly off at the drop of a hat! But that won't be a problem cause you're facing things that will one-shot you!"
This is indeed the problem with many of the mid-tier mediums; they get tracked so easily that their one advantage, mobility, is instantly negated and then they can do little more than sit and prey someone else bigger comes and intervenes. Otherwise its toast.
Hopefully the next patch should greatly improve their life-expectancy, what with supposedly harder tracking.
Also, got into the VK(P) last night, and goddamn is it a bad tank stock. Should I bother upgrading it, or just head straight for the VK(DB)?
If you want to be driving the VK(DB), you'd better get to it as soon as possible. The German tech tree is being remodeled first, with the VK(P) being shifted over to the heavy tech line instead of the medium one. The VK(H) will be taking its place there.
I know. That is the plan, but its pretty slow going with this thing. I'm wondering if outfitting it some will make the rest of it a little easier, or if I should really just forget it.
Fuck the T-28 and T-46. Fuck these thinly armored moving piles of shit. Absolutely worthless in every goddamn situation. The god awful grind is bad but having to do it with these shitboxes to get the KV is torture. Why the fuck is the T-28 classified as a MEDIUM tank anyway?! Better question. Why is the damn thing in the game!?
"Hey I'm a medium tank the size of a bus and just like the T-46, I have no armor and my treads fly off at the drop of a hat! But that won't be a problem cause you're facing things that will one-shot you!"
They suck so very very much.
A handy reminder: some Soviet tanks suck. Like with all the countries.
They're like the M3 Lee. But longer and not as tall.
The VK(P) is a dog of a tank even fully upgraded. Most of its upgrades carry over to the Ausf B and the Ferdinand instead of the other mediums. Don't bother eliting it unless you're interested in those.
THere are a few tanks like that. The A-20, with the best engine, best turret, and best gun, will still be torn to shreds in 9 out of 10 matches its in (because you will almost always matched with an enemy team with the lightest tank being able to kill you in two shots, if that).
The Jagdpanzer is close to a technological waste of time--once you get the 8.8, it's not that big an improvement over the other gun choices (the 10.5 Howitzer and the 7.5 Panther gun), and you still have its poor handling characteristics and the like.
Don't know what you mean about it being a dog of a tank. Its hilariously good fun when moments after finally making it up the goddamn hill-which-never-seemed-to-be-a-problem before you get tracked and killed. :x
As I suspected though, so I'll just ignore the upgrades and try to get out of it as quickly as possible. So glad I was able to skip it after the softwipe in beta.
As a corollary, here's an image of what the matchmaker thought would be a good idea because half of both teams were in platoons. I made is as far as the hill in the middle of the map before that SU-14 thought it would be damned funny to one-shot me.
The T-28 is a tank destroyer with a turret and worse armor. Play it like one and you'll do fine.
BlueDestiny on
0
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
When talking about crap tanks, people need to keep in mind that the devs are trying to make money off of this game. Yeah, there's people like me who would rather just walk away from the game than buy gold, but there are also people who buy gold so they can skip crap vehicles and get premium stuff.
Every time you hit one of these seemingly-stupid tanks, remember that WoT is a free game, not something you paid for and is properly balanced with that in mind. They aren't unbalanced, they're just incentives to encourage people to buy gold.
Or in my case, not buy gold and continually punch myself in the dick until I can buy a KV... which I can now but I need to research it...
The T-28 wouldn't be as mind-numbingly godawful if it wasn't for the fact that the game insists that I go up against tanks like the IS, Tiger, JagdPanther, T29, IS3s and various other monsters of the battlefield. Damn thing rarely survives an encounter with a tank in its weight class and the game wants me to mix it up with tanks that have guns that weigh as much as my tank!
But anyway all of this is almost behind me and I can move on to something better.... maybe.
Edit: It's hard being the big fat decoy in that situation! Which is pretty much how I play in the T-28. No one can resist the big fat easy kill.
122mm on the T-34-85 is the Greatest Thing Ever. I'm grinding up to the 100mm I used on it in the closed beta or the 85mm tier VII guns, but I'm having enough fun with the 122mm that I might not even switch. I never tried using it on the KV, but with the speed and low profile of the T-34-85 it's hilarious to dogfight with it - slow reload matters less in city maps especially. Someone took an artillery piece and bolted it to a 50kph tank...
EDIT: Also not really understanding the hate for the tier IV T-28 - it can mount the same 57mm that the T-34 uses (tier V cannon and tank), and the 57mm is effective even at that tier. Not withstanding that, the t-28 gets access to the tier VI (!) 85mm gun F-30 cannon. It's literally less than 3k experience to get the 57mm gun, which you could reliably use to grind the 13k to the KV and be done with the tank; or you could detour 4k XP and get the 85mm for a true glass cannon.
DO NOT spend your free xp on anything but weapon upgrades, once you get a new tank use it to help defray the cost of a new cannon. A lot of people say to only upgrade tracks or engine first, but really, unless you need new tracks to take the weight, you should be spending free xp on cannons or on turrets needed to slot them.
Double-Edit: Seriously, the tier IV t-28 mounts the OVERPOWERED Tier V 57mm gun the t-34 uses (Russian devs, iconic gun and tank - they were showing some affection for it) or the Tier VI 85mm. To compare and contract, German Tier IV medium tank (Panzer III) are limited to tier III guns, and the American Tier 4 medium (M3 Lee) uses the underpowered Tier IV M1A1 cannon and has no turret.
So I played this a bit during beta, and I'm reinstalling it now. During beta I played German mediums and soviet SPG- now I think I want to play a heavy tank, because the game really seems to revolve around them. Any advice on which nation I should play to get into a fun heavy tank as fast as possible? I notice that USSR and US have heavies available at T5, but for Germans it's not until tier 6, so I'm thinking USSSR (KV) or US (T1) right now.
To keep things simple: which tank is better, the KV or the T1?
Had this discussion ingame today after I was knocked out. We came to the conclusion that it all depends on how far up the tree you want to go. The KV is immediately superior, and leads to the better IS series, but the T1 gets you to the T29 on the American side, which is an absolute monster, really. So ultimately, how far up the tree do you intend to go? No higher than tier 7? Go American. Higher? Go Russian.
That said, with the redesigned trees the Americans get two new tanks after the T32, which could be really good. Or not. If you go Russian, you'll also probably want to get into the KV-1S rather than the KV-3, as that line leads to the IS-3 and IS-7, while the KV-3 will instead lead to futher KVs, and eventually, the IS-4.
In short, go whichever way you damn well please, it'll make no difference in a few months.
Having played both, I think the dichotomy between the two is more of one of speed vs power - the T1 is MUCH more mobile than the KV, but has huge sides with weak hull armor, and it has a weaker gun with a higher rate of fire. The KV has better armor, but damn is that thing slow.
Something to consider, too, is what those tanks lead into. The Soviet heavy line once you get into Tier VII and above is generally regarded as being more well-rounded than the American line - the American line is kind of based off a weird gimmick of having this little square of invulnerable armor on the front of the turret, and moving your tank into a position to only expose that bit of armor and fighting from there.
Ironically, the Soviet heavies become the more mobile ones (the IS-7 does something like 50kph+) while the American heavies are positionally immobile, and the German heavies are just HUGE and slow. The Russian IS-4 / IS-7 are widely regarded as being the best tanks in the game, both for good stats and the intangible help of having REALLY good armor sloping (deflects shots + improves relative thickness of armor) and a relatively small profile.
Thanks. I doubt I'll go any farther than tier 7. I just don't have the time or patience to grind all the way to the end. I guess I'll go american then- the only thing that makes me hesitate is a lot of posts on the WoT foums saying things like "OMG the T1 tank is so bad! KV completely owns it!" But I'm not sure I trust those forums at all.
Been curious about this game since hey I love tanks BUT I have two big issues with it that keep me from trying it out.
1. Your tank sucks, that unless you pay your going to be stuck getting your ass kicked pretty bad at times, especially starting off.
2. If you don't pay then it's grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind why aren't you paying for this instead of chasing that carrot in the next town.
So I played this a bit during beta, and I'm reinstalling it now. During beta I played German mediums and soviet SPG- now I think I want to play a heavy tank, because the game really seems to revolve around them. Any advice on which nation I should play to get into a fun heavy tank as fast as possible? I notice that USSR and US have heavies available at T5, but for Germans it's not until tier 6, so I'm thinking USSSR (KV) or US (T1) right now.
To keep things simple: which tank is better, the KV or the T1?
I'd say the KV, as a matter of armor and armarment. It's also got the handling characteristics of a boat by comparison, so keep that in mind. That being said, the T1 isn't horrible, I think.
Double-Edit: Seriously, the tier IV t-28 mounts the OVERPOWERED Tier V 57mm gun the t-34 uses (Russian devs, iconic gun and tank - they were showing some affection for it) or the Tier VI 85mm. To compare and contract, German Tier IV medium tank (Panzer III) are limited to tier III guns, and the American Tier 4 medium (M3 Lee) uses the underpowered Tier IV M1A1 cannon and has no turret.
Belarusian. Not Russian. Like Canadians and Americans. Does no one read the OP? *look of despair*
I'm debating which way to go on the T-34-85 after the 85 mm myself, though--isn't the 122 mm on the '85 a howitzer?
So I played this a bit during beta, and I'm reinstalling it now. During beta I played German mediums and soviet SPG- now I think I want to play a heavy tank, because the game really seems to revolve around them. Any advice on which nation I should play to get into a fun heavy tank as fast as possible? I notice that USSR and US have heavies available at T5, but for Germans it's not until tier 6, so I'm thinking USSSR (KV) or US (T1) right now.
To keep things simple: which tank is better, the KV or the T1?
I'd say the KV, as a matter of armor and armarment. It's also got the handling characteristics of a boat by comparison, so keep that in mind. That being said, the T1 isn't horrible, I think.
Hmm... maybe I should go soviet then. I'd rather have the armor and firepower, instead of speed. My experience in beta was that speed wasn't too useful, since most battles focused on hiding in cover.
So I played this a bit during beta, and I'm reinstalling it now. During beta I played German mediums and soviet SPG- now I think I want to play a heavy tank, because the game really seems to revolve around them. Any advice on which nation I should play to get into a fun heavy tank as fast as possible? I notice that USSR and US have heavies available at T5, but for Germans it's not until tier 6, so I'm thinking USSSR (KV) or US (T1) right now.
To keep things simple: which tank is better, the KV or the T1?
I'd say the KV, as a matter of armor and armarment. It's also got the handling characteristics of a boat by comparison, so keep that in mind. That being said, the T1 isn't horrible, I think.
Hmm... maybe I should go soviet then. I'd rather have the armor and firepower, instead of speed. My experience in beta was that speed wasn't too useful, since most battles focused on hiding in cover.
I'm almost positive the T-1 handles much better--but it has some serious things going for it. Its turret is small compared to the rest of the tank, which means a faster rotation (a much faster rotation), that means you have to rely on the body armor instead of thicker turret armor. Likewise, it's on the tall side. I don't think the T-1 has anything to compare to the infamous 152 mm "derp" gun on the KV.
But another way, I'm much less afraid of T-1's than KVs. On the other hand, I've never driven a T-1.
I actually missed using the 122mm on the KV, which is why I'm so enamored with it right now on the T-34-85. The KV is really good with the final upgrade, the 107mm gun. Punching way ahead of it's class. Although it does have the 152mm, the True Derpcannon, which is hilarious. 3 rounds per minute, 1,000 HE damage.
Synthesis, the 122mm (derpcannon minor) is a howitzer, yes. It's suprisingly useful though. With a rammer and 100% crew I manage maybe one round every 8 seconds; definately slow but not nearly as bad as an arty or the KV's 152mm. It's so nice to hit something, anything, and damage it. You don't ever have to worry about pen - if you can hit it, you can kill it, and you'll very likely crit it every time. 0.5 accuracy means you need to be close(ish), though.
Edit: That being said, this is not a gun for stand-up fights, but you really shouldn't be playing a T-34-85 like that, anyways.
I'm not a howitzer guy--most I've used is the 10.5 cm on the Jagdpanzer (that vehicle's pretty much a lost cause regardless of what's on on it).
I've gotten way too used to using both the T-34 and T-34-85 as mobile sharpshooting tanks (with the S-54 on the T-34, I'm basically as accurate as a German TD, and far more mobile), so it's hard to adjust--even though I travel in groups, whenever I get up close in either tank, it usually ends really poorly.
That being said, I am not looking for to the T-43, so I'm spending a longer time with the T-34-85 anyway.
My next choice is deciding between the 100mm and the 85mm guns at the end of the upgrade path for the T-34-85. Thinking of just getting the 85mm for cross-compatibility with the T-44 (or is it 43? Can't remember which one also uses it). I used the 100mm in closed beta but slow reloads...
Is there something that explains how the scoring system works? How does the game determine how much experience and credits it is going to give you after a match?
I've never seen explicit point values, but the basic system is:
Scouting will yield you 50% of the XP value of any damage done to the target you spotted.
Damage against a tank of the same tier is normal, bonus damage for tanks above your tier.
Critical hits are worth xp.
Hitting a target and not penetrating or bouncing gives no xp.
Credits are tied to damage done, with flat bonus rate credits for kills.
The wiki has a page that explains a bit more how experience works.
Adding on to what Che said, you get experience for winning by base capture, equal to the amount you would have gotten for killing the remaining enemies. Capping xp is split up among the team members according to how much xp they earned before capping. The players doing the capping get an additional bonus on top of that.
Winning gives a +50% bonus to xp. Killing teammates causes a -50% penalty to both xp and credits.
Because of complaints about people going off on suicide runs during the beta, there's also a certain minimum amount of damage you have to do. If you don't, your xp and credits for that battle are gimped.
Posts
Thank you!
On topic....captured Panther? Awe yeah! On the other hand, I could have had a T-34M! I have no idea what a T-34M is like, but I have a suspicion that it's going to be superior to the T-34-85.
You need to play the M3 Lee like a tank destroyer. It's pretty solid defensively but not good on offense. It should be used to ambush, defend, or support other tanks that are advancing. It shouldn't push out on its own unless you are desperate because as with turretless tank destroyers if it gets tracked, it's toast.
Unfortunately it is very tall, and its gun is placed low, so it's not that good at hiding and can't really go hull down. As compensation as someone else pointed out earlier, it actually has a very good gun for its tier and can do some real damage.
I actually ended up with a very decent win-loss record with the Lee (54%/43%) so I don't think it's particularly underpowered for its tier as long as it's played to its strengths. But I'm happy to have moved on to the next tier. The Sherman which comes next is a very solid all around tank for its tier.
Which is a better idea? I like the idea of a fast decent skirmishing medium, I just feel like if I peek my head out of cover and try to move around, I'll get tracked and murdered.
I haven't gotten passed the M4A3E8 on the American side, but the T-44 was a heck-of-a-lot of fun during Beta. Have not tried the T-54, but from all accounts it's a bit overpowered, which I'm sure is fun when you're playing with it and bad when you're playing against it.
As far as getting tracked, bob and weave, and as soon as you can start leveling your crew on the repair bonus skill. You could also try buying a repair toolkit for the tank, which should further increase your repair speed. With 100% repair bonus, you can get back and running fairly quickly, probably faster than the artillery can reload (although you'll still be in trouble if you've got multiple artillery on you). Also with the upcoming 0.6.4 changes, tracking should be less frequent.
Seriously, shit happens every fucking time and it's always the first shot that hits. It's BANG! TRACK HIT! or WE LOST A TRACK! and then I fucking die. No matter the goddamn distance or how much I bob and weave.
I can pretty reliably hit/track any of the T5 lights with a T6 medium. It's silly easy to track people right now, which makes scouting a game of "does this side have anyone on it who doesn't use auto aim"
My new PzIII/IV is a little better, but not by much.
EDIT: "We're immobilized! Get Out!". I think I'm going to have that engraved on my headstone at this rate. Getting sick of being tracked and then immediately killed by a hidden KV at the start of every match.
EDIT: I can turn settings down to low and get 45-60 FPS, so it is playable, but meh. The auto-detect is giving me 1920x1080, no antialiasing because of advanced post processing, 8x anisotropic, vsync off, triple buffering on, object LOD and draw depth high, high foliage quality & medium foliage density, texture compression on. There also dosen't seem to be a way to run it at any other 16:9 natural resolutions; it's got 1600x1024 and 1400x1050, and separate options for "widescreen" - guessing it's for FOV?
The auto-detect feature is kind of wonky at the moment.
The single biggest FPS boost you can get with this game is done by editing the Preferences.xml file. To access the file, open up an Explorer window, then type in "%appdata% in the address bar. Then go to \roaming\wargaming.net\WorldOfTanks\ . Once you locate the file, open it in a text editor and look for a line that says Terrain_Mesh_Resolution. This setting affects the number of polygons used to draw the terrain. Change the number to either 1 or 2 depending on how high you want to increase your FPS. The file will need to be re-edited anytime you update your graphics drivers.
Doing this allows the game to run tolerably even on laptops with crappy integrated graphics...like mine.
Awesome story time, shameless self-promotion, and why I'm willing to pay $15 a month for this not-quite MMORPG. Scoreboard behind spoiler (1920x1080):
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I'm playing this afternoon and I've got a Grille using the second gun, 90% crew and a Gun Rammer. The map is winding down and I've gotten 5 kills, the last of which is a direct fire kill against the Panzer IV. We have a single Panzer III on our team left, and me, versus the two M7 Priests (one of which has 5 kills) and that Sturmpanzer II. I'm asking the PzIII in team chat to please just scout and NOT play hero and try to engage, lest he get tracked and buy it. Sure enough, he engages the Sturmpanzer II, gets tracked, and one of the priests finishes him. He is FURIOUS in teamchat after I bitch at him for not taking the smart move.
I wind up going across the southern bridge and find the first of the Priests in the castle. He's facing towards me, I'm traveling at a good traverse to him, he overshoots me and I get right up to him and pull the trigger.
I head back towards the two capture points / center bridge and find the Sturmpanzer II still where he was when he killed our PzIII. Same deal, good traverse, he overshoots and I can pause for 2-3 seconds to aim and shoot. "That's how you fucking do it!" Teammate pipes up. "You're not done yet noob, you're prolly going to lose it for us, smartass general."
At this point, the last remaining enemy, one of the Priests, starts capping. I haul ass back to the center bridge, get there with cap timer at about 50/100. I cross the bridge and we detect each other, but he's behind a building. I run between two buildings, he fires and overshoots me. Cap at 65/100. I back up, aim, fire, and MISS. Cap at 75/100. He fires again, tracks me! Cap at 80/100. I repair kit, turn, aim, two, three, four, and fire. Cap is at 90/100. WIN.
Back in garage. Open contact list, find contact, open channel. "NOW I'm done."
tl;dr - 15 shots, 8 kills, stopped cap at 90/100. Playing a Grille like a tank destroyer is entirely possible due to good matchmaking for it's class, really good mobility for an arty, and a damn powerful gun. Just get up to point-blank and make it count.
I tried this on my HP dv2500 (set to "2"), and while it did seem to improve performance, I don't think I could actually play the game....guess we'll find out during my vacation.
Fuck the T-28 and T-46. Fuck these thinly armored moving piles of shit. Absolutely worthless in every goddamn situation. The god awful grind is bad but having to do it with these shitboxes to get the KV is torture. Why the fuck is the T-28 classified as a MEDIUM tank anyway?! Better question. Why is the damn thing in the game!?
"Hey I'm a medium tank the size of a bus and just like the T-46, I have no armor and my treads fly off at the drop of a hat! But that won't be a problem cause you're facing things that will one-shot you!"
They suck so very very much.
Hopefully the next patch should greatly improve their life-expectancy, what with supposedly harder tracking.
Also, got into the VK(P) last night, and goddamn is it a bad tank stock. Should I bother upgrading it, or just head straight for the VK(DB)?
A handy reminder: some Soviet tanks suck. Like with all the countries.
They're like the M3 Lee. But longer and not as tall.
The Jagdpanzer is close to a technological waste of time--once you get the 8.8, it's not that big an improvement over the other gun choices (the 10.5 Howitzer and the 7.5 Panther gun), and you still have its poor handling characteristics and the like.
As I suspected though, so I'll just ignore the upgrades and try to get out of it as quickly as possible. So glad I was able to skip it after the softwipe in beta.
As a corollary, here's an image of what the matchmaker thought would be a good idea because half of both teams were in platoons. I made is as far as the hill in the middle of the map before that SU-14 thought it would be damned funny to one-shot me.
Every time you hit one of these seemingly-stupid tanks, remember that WoT is a free game, not something you paid for and is properly balanced with that in mind. They aren't unbalanced, they're just incentives to encourage people to buy gold.
The T-28 wouldn't be as mind-numbingly godawful if it wasn't for the fact that the game insists that I go up against tanks like the IS, Tiger, JagdPanther, T29, IS3s and various other monsters of the battlefield. Damn thing rarely survives an encounter with a tank in its weight class and the game wants me to mix it up with tanks that have guns that weigh as much as my tank!
But anyway all of this is almost behind me and I can move on to something better.... maybe.
Edit: It's hard being the big fat decoy in that situation! Which is pretty much how I play in the T-28. No one can resist the big fat easy kill.
EDIT: Also not really understanding the hate for the tier IV T-28 - it can mount the same 57mm that the T-34 uses (tier V cannon and tank), and the 57mm is effective even at that tier. Not withstanding that, the t-28 gets access to the tier VI (!) 85mm gun F-30 cannon. It's literally less than 3k experience to get the 57mm gun, which you could reliably use to grind the 13k to the KV and be done with the tank; or you could detour 4k XP and get the 85mm for a true glass cannon.
DO NOT spend your free xp on anything but weapon upgrades, once you get a new tank use it to help defray the cost of a new cannon. A lot of people say to only upgrade tracks or engine first, but really, unless you need new tracks to take the weight, you should be spending free xp on cannons or on turrets needed to slot them.
Double-Edit: Seriously, the tier IV t-28 mounts the OVERPOWERED Tier V 57mm gun the t-34 uses (Russian devs, iconic gun and tank - they were showing some affection for it) or the Tier VI 85mm. To compare and contract, German Tier IV medium tank (Panzer III) are limited to tier III guns, and the American Tier 4 medium (M3 Lee) uses the underpowered Tier IV M1A1 cannon and has no turret.
Current matchmaking graph is there; I'm too inept to get it to hotlink.
To keep things simple: which tank is better, the KV or the T1?
That said, with the redesigned trees the Americans get two new tanks after the T32, which could be really good. Or not. If you go Russian, you'll also probably want to get into the KV-1S rather than the KV-3, as that line leads to the IS-3 and IS-7, while the KV-3 will instead lead to futher KVs, and eventually, the IS-4.
In short, go whichever way you damn well please, it'll make no difference in a few months.
Something to consider, too, is what those tanks lead into. The Soviet heavy line once you get into Tier VII and above is generally regarded as being more well-rounded than the American line - the American line is kind of based off a weird gimmick of having this little square of invulnerable armor on the front of the turret, and moving your tank into a position to only expose that bit of armor and fighting from there.
Ironically, the Soviet heavies become the more mobile ones (the IS-7 does something like 50kph+) while the American heavies are positionally immobile, and the German heavies are just HUGE and slow. The Russian IS-4 / IS-7 are widely regarded as being the best tanks in the game, both for good stats and the intangible help of having REALLY good armor sloping (deflects shots + improves relative thickness of armor) and a relatively small profile.
1. Your tank sucks, that unless you pay your going to be stuck getting your ass kicked pretty bad at times, especially starting off.
2. If you don't pay then it's grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind why aren't you paying for this instead of chasing that carrot in the next town.
I'd say the KV, as a matter of armor and armarment. It's also got the handling characteristics of a boat by comparison, so keep that in mind. That being said, the T1 isn't horrible, I think.
Belarusian. Not Russian. Like Canadians and Americans. Does no one read the OP? *look of despair*
I'm debating which way to go on the T-34-85 after the 85 mm myself, though--isn't the 122 mm on the '85 a howitzer?
Hmm... maybe I should go soviet then. I'd rather have the armor and firepower, instead of speed. My experience in beta was that speed wasn't too useful, since most battles focused on hiding in cover.
I'm almost positive the T-1 handles much better--but it has some serious things going for it. Its turret is small compared to the rest of the tank, which means a faster rotation (a much faster rotation), that means you have to rely on the body armor instead of thicker turret armor. Likewise, it's on the tall side. I don't think the T-1 has anything to compare to the infamous 152 mm "derp" gun on the KV.
But another way, I'm much less afraid of T-1's than KVs. On the other hand, I've never driven a T-1.
Synthesis, the 122mm (derpcannon minor) is a howitzer, yes. It's suprisingly useful though. With a rammer and 100% crew I manage maybe one round every 8 seconds; definately slow but not nearly as bad as an arty or the KV's 152mm. It's so nice to hit something, anything, and damage it. You don't ever have to worry about pen - if you can hit it, you can kill it, and you'll very likely crit it every time. 0.5 accuracy means you need to be close(ish), though.
Edit: That being said, this is not a gun for stand-up fights, but you really shouldn't be playing a T-34-85 like that, anyways.
I've gotten way too used to using both the T-34 and T-34-85 as mobile sharpshooting tanks (with the S-54 on the T-34, I'm basically as accurate as a German TD, and far more mobile), so it's hard to adjust--even though I travel in groups, whenever I get up close in either tank, it usually ends really poorly.
That being said, I am not looking for to the T-43, so I'm spending a longer time with the T-34-85 anyway.
Scouting will yield you 50% of the XP value of any damage done to the target you spotted.
Damage against a tank of the same tier is normal, bonus damage for tanks above your tier.
Critical hits are worth xp.
Hitting a target and not penetrating or bouncing gives no xp.
Credits are tied to damage done, with flat bonus rate credits for kills.
Adding on to what Che said, you get experience for winning by base capture, equal to the amount you would have gotten for killing the remaining enemies. Capping xp is split up among the team members according to how much xp they earned before capping. The players doing the capping get an additional bonus on top of that.
Winning gives a +50% bonus to xp. Killing teammates causes a -50% penalty to both xp and credits.
Because of complaints about people going off on suicide runs during the beta, there's also a certain minimum amount of damage you have to do. If you don't, your xp and credits for that battle are gimped.