World of Warships / World of Tanks - General discussion

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

[sub][sub]If anyone is looking for a World of Warplanes thread, keep walking...[/sub][/sub]​

So, about those Wargaming games that matter, got any funny stories about what you've done in them? How'd you pick up the game in the first place? NA? EU? RU? SEA?

I will admit I have a bit of an ulterior motive for starting this thread. My best friend, the one who got me into WoT and then warships down the road, has stopped playing. I'm looking for a platoon mate as the grind is real and playing co-cooperatively with a friend is when these games are at their best. Clans aren't my speed and they are often full of wannabe officers so I've been relying on random divisions with little success... Anyone want a spare casual gun?

[small]I'm NA btw... <.<[/small]

Let's see if this will sink faster than a Pensacola.

Spoiler: Secondaries

Anyway, my contribution to get the ball rolling. A few months ago (I should have recorded it before the update) I was in my Nagato in warships on Hotspot in a domination match.

I ended up going into C, because Banzai.

Killed a destroyer with my secondaries, nuked two IJN cruisers with full critical citadels. Then I ended up trading with two battleships. I was top tier, so the remaining ships were a New York and a Colorado. No surprise to anyone who knows the game, I was in a 3v1 scenario at the end but we had more cap points because the DDs managed to do their jobs before sinking.

Somewhere out there is a Omaha class but he buggers off rather than fighting me. I trade blow for blow with the Colorado before he broadsides me, misses and I knock him out for 20k damage. Now I'm fighting a New York but I notice for the first time how screwed he is.

This guy has all but one of his rear turrets knocked out by me and, presumably my other teammates earlier on. He's at high health due to repair, but I'm in a Nagato. I slap him around with some broadsides as he begins to run. He angles effectively so I can't really stack damage on but I'm too tough for him to poke holes in. So we just kinda lumber North together trying to do something effective.

Now that he starts fleeing, he's only able to hit me with two 14' guns in the rear. I can't really do much to him with the bad dispersion at the time (before the buff). So, I close as close as I can and my secondaries open. For 2 minutes we do this, basically racing each other.

I end up doing over 15k in secondary damage, sinking him. The Omaha never shows up and the match ends. I just couldn't believe how bad the dispersion was sometimes...

Spoiler: Teamkills in WoT

Ever had one of THOSE battles?

Course you did. Well, mine started bad, got funny, then was more depressing until I was alone. And I was playing artillery, like a sucker.

So, it was on El Halluf (pre-map balancing) and I was in the M12 at the time. I'm a sucker for trying everything (except carriers in WoWs). Anyway, match starts predictably terribly when a third of the team gets nuked moving West on the Northern corner of Heavy Tank failure.

I'm doing my best but I'm in an artillery. So whatever. That's when things took a turn for the surreal. A platoon consisting of a ISU-152, a T-150 (because that's appropriate) and an IS-3 at the hill begin pushing other tanks forward. Not in the helpful, here's a boost friend, kind of push but in the way that noses your allies into enemy fire.

That turned out to spark a heated argument. The Tiger II getting pushed forward got nuked and his platoon mate, a T32, leveled his barrel at the IS-3 and starts blasting him swearing obscenities. Keep in mind, I'm watching this from the overhead view.

The S-51 on the enemy team fires as an IS and a T28 push forward to take advantage of the situation. Our moronic friends pull back in a hurry and the IS turns the corner. BLAT. S-51 does almost all the health of the IS, killing him and tracks the T28 horribly exposed. I hit the T28 to retrack him and then the ISU-152 kills the T32.

A T-43 who came up to the hill begins firing on the ISU. The IS-3 deletes him. He pushes forward and is killed by the enemy Hummel.

All the other tanks on the team have, at this point, died. So I'm left with the ISU at low health, a T-150 and another artillery piece I can't really remember.

Long story short, I'm alone at the end killed by a Luchs. But hey, at least that chokepoint is less stupid now. You still see crazy teamkillings everywhere though so they can't fix that...

There was also the time I had three fail platoons in the same battle. Two were on my team, the other was on the enemy. Every one of those platoons had brought a tier 1 or 2 into a tier 7 battle.

Oh World of Tanks... -.-

Anyway, that's what I got. Let's see how many other history/arcade warfare junkies are lurking.

[sub][sub]Have fun playing the most accurate map in the game![/sub][/sub]​

 

[Barbas]

Tanks with health bars?

Spoiler: D:

Then there's the "pay-to-win" complaints. I see no need to begin playing. It's too much like little plastic tanks. Not "punchy" enough.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Tanks with health bars?

You can try War Thunder, no health bars in that, but personally I find that to be horribly designed. You hit a tank, any tank, at the right angle with a penetrating shot and the entire crew just dies.

(I'm not sure where you're getting 'pay to win' from though. Pretty much every premium tank is directly inferior to other tanks of the same tier; any tank that comes close to being as good as a regular one is considered a very good premium tank indeed. And everything else that has an in-game impact is buyable with in-game currency.

Except for the E25. That thing is ridiculous. >_> )


Anyway I've played WoT on and off for a while. Its not great but its alright. Got accounts on several of the servers. I played WoWS for a while too but lately I've just been flat out unable to launch it for some strange reason. And I've not had the patience to try to sort out the problem or reinstall.


Story? Well one time I got chased down by a Destroyer whilst I was in an Aircraft Carrier. Somehow my entire team had missed the fact this Destroyer had sneaked through the lines and I missed my first attempt to hit it with aircraft. So I'm trying to change my heading, I think it'd already hit me with a torpedo at that point so any more I'd be dead and I'd only just got bombers into the air so I'm frantically trying to vector them onto the destroyer when it just disappeared from the map.

Secondary gun hit to the magazine on the Destroyer causing the detonation of his entire ship. Both of us just sat there going "Wait, what?"

 

[Barbas]

You can try War Thunder, no health bars in that, but personally I find that to be horribly designed. You hit a tank, any tank, at the right angle with a penetrating shot and the entire crew just dies.

Er...yes. That's what tends to happen, unless the shot just punches in one side and out the other. I think tank shells were designed to kill upon successful penetration. The good ones, anyway.

You can also blow up tanks with one hit if you know where to shoot for the ammo and fuel tanks, though a good hit into the turret usually disables them temporarily by killing the loader, gunner, commander and modules like the horizontal turret drive and gun breech, which all takes time to repair/replace. Tanks are all mobile to some degree or another, so the best defense is ultimately not to be where you're expected.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I was a Beta tester for World of Warships. I did like the game, but I found it a bit... nebulous? I always felt like I was too far removed from what was happening in the game.

World of Tanks... I used to play a lot (And spent an embarrassing amount of money, I'm sure), but I hit it to hard and got burned out. It's been a while, though, so maybe I'll get back into it. If you don't mind playing with someone who's a bit rusty, I can probably platoon with you a bit.

As for stories... oh, there are a ton. Ever driven a T32? I remember one match where I was able to engage 10 enemy tanks for 5 minutes without taking a single bit of damage due to the troll turret. Of a M4 (Base) match where I somehow took 3000 damage to the mantle (Which means I didn't take 3000 damage at all). Or the 105mm M4 derp rampages I would go on.

It's just hard to pick out specifics when there's so many stories to tell.

Then there's the "pay-to-win" complaints.

They've largely addressed most of the pay-to-win issues they've had. With a handful of exceptions (The E-25, Type 59, and arguably, sometimes, maybe, if you don't think about it too hard the T-34), all the real money tanks are subpar (And two of those are no longer available for that very reason), and 'Gold' rounds are better balanced and available for in game credits. It's more 'Pay to Advance Faster,' but since the game normalizes tiers and doesn't throw low end stuff up against high end stuff, that's not a huge issue, especially since, really, top tier matches are not the funniest part of the game. It's fun, but Tier 5-6 is the sweet spot I think, and that's easy to reach.

EDIT - Oh, and I was in the Rooster's Teeth WoT video. They didn't show the whole match, but I did pretty well (Not as well as I remembered, though) (At T1. I'm a scum bag).

http://wotreplays.eu/site/467491#stats


(fadingtheory, all the way on the bottom of the list on the left)

 

[Michel Henzel]

I still remember my first and only Kolobanov's Medal that I got by standing against 7 enemy tanks without killing a single on of them. Top tier in my Tiger P in encounter battle, I reset the cap just in time and to the point that they could no longer cap it before the time ran out. Then drove my fat german ass off a cliff and into a nice defensible hole and watched as they desperately tried to kill me while the timer ticks on down to my victory.

Or the time I was trolling a big fat E-75 on ruinberg with my ELC, back when it still got into T9 matches. Like how's that gun depression working out for ya when I'm hugging the side of your tank.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

SNIP

I knew you'd be the first post and in the negative. Why can't you just leave me and my enjoyment of healthbar, arcade style tank/warships alone? :c

If I want a punchy game, I play Red Orchestra 2. I didn't want this to descend into a Warthunder versus thread. >.<

 

[Barbas]

SNIP

I knew you'd be the first post and in the negative. Why can't you just leave me and my enjoyment of healthbar, arcade style tank/warships alone? :c

If I want a punchy game, I play Red Orchestra 2. I didn't want this to descend into a Warthunder versus thread. >.<

I dislike tanks with health bars. Ships not as much, though. I didn't realize this would be a problem. Goodbye.

EDIT: A bit too chippy.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Except for the E25. That thing is ridiculous. >_>

When they offered the gold rebate during the great Super Pershing nerf, I bought the E25 with that money. No regrets.

It is partially balanced out by two things though. 1) You will burn through your ammunition if you're dumb about it. 2) The L/70 isn't the highest penetration gun available at tier 7 and armor values have jumped accordingly too.

If you have trigger discipline, can get those sneaky flank spots and delicious tank side booty action...

Well, skilled players are the reason the E25 is no longer available.

 

[Michel Henzel]

snip it

Oh I how remember fondly the days of the derp-sherman before the great HE nerf many years ago.

Only recently got back into WoWS after not playing for a long time. Glad to see my Furutaka got a lot of loving as it's actually fun to play, now that it doesn't suck ass.

 

[DefunctTheory]

snip it

Oh I how remember fondly the days of the derp-sherman before the great HE nerf many years ago.

You know what? The 105mm is still awesome. It may not be the sledgehammer it once was, but it still works fine, and it's as fun as it ever was. It may be even more fun now, as wrecking shit with it is all the more satisfying when you pull it off, and it can scare the crap out of the opposition just because they don't seem to ever expect it. Still one of my favorite tanks.

All hail the derp, no matter where it comes from!

 

[Lightspeaker]

-snip-

If you apply the same argument to every game you end up being pretty much crippled in Skyrim whenever a spell so much as grazes you. Or being unable to walk after being shot in the leg in Call of Duty or Counter Strike. Or having to fill out a ton of paperwork every time you want to launch a rocket in Kerbal Space Program and then spend months carefully testing and constructing your rockets and payloads before it gets anywhere near the pad.

Sometimes realism has to take a back seat to good game design. And honestly I find Warthunder's aircraft gameplay design to be pretty good (though it does have some, fairly big, issues in some places), but the tank gameplay is just incredibly badly designed. Hell, even the maps have balancing issues based entirely on where the sun decides to spawn; sometimes you literally cannot see the enemy because of the position of the sun meaning its an almost guaranteed loss for the side being blinded. Something about which I've found complaints going back quite some time and, apparently, the developers don't give a damn and have done absolutely nothing about it.

(The E-25, Type 59, and arguably, sometimes, maybe, if you don't think about it too hard the T-34)

They gave away a ton of E-25s in an event on NA last year. Kinda annoyed I didn't know so I could jump across to my NA account and missed out on earning one. They very occasionally add them to the store though I think. The Type 59 was last available like four years ago or something like that and is only given away for tournament wins now as far as I know. Both of them can be pretty ridiculous. I dunno whether to say its good that people can't buy them anymore or if it really, really sucks that people can't because those with them can use them to devastating effect since people aren't routinely facing them (so they don't get nerfed).

I'm assuming you mean the US T34 there (as opposed to the Soviet T-34). Its a very meh tank honestly. Unless you can hull down (in which case that ridiculous mantlet coupled with the general turret design makes it nigh-invulnerable) then you have a weak spot comprising the entire hull of the tank. You don't even need to aim for the lower plate like you do with some other big heavy monsters, just blast through the upper plate with any T8 gun and a lot of T7s.

There's not an awful lot of even decent Premiums really. The IS-6 I guess. SU-100Y perhaps, ridiculously huge gun on it for its tier. The IS-3A can be fun, I took one for a ride on a rental (it just made me want to run up the IS line for the IS-3 though). But the T34 and the Lowe (to take two examples) both have hulls that are just giant weak spots. Then you've got things like the JgTig88 which are 'okay but nothing special'; I got one of them and its a great credit earner with a decent front plate and a reasonable gun but comparable tanks of that level tend to be a bit better and it has a lower glacis made entirely of butter. Though to be fair the non-premium, same-tier Tiger II's lower plate is even WORSE (still a fun tank though).

It is partially balanced out by two things though. 1) You will burn through your ammunition if you're dumb about it. 2) The L/70 isn't the highest penetration gun available at tier 7 and armor values have jumped accordingly too.

If you have trigger discipline, can get those sneaky flank spots and delicious tank side booty action...

Well, skilled players are the reason the E25 is no longer available.

I honestly find it to be one of the most irritating tanks in the entire game. The fire rate is absolutely disgusting for a non-autoloader and the camo capability is utterly absurd meaning even if it can't pen you it can just keep you perma-tracked whilst staying invisible.

There was some discussion a year and a half back (this is a good summary [http://ftr.wot-news.com/2015/02/09/e-25-possible-size-nerf/]) over whether it'd be getting a pretty severe nerf to bring it in line with the real-world version of the tank. Apparently they found that the dimensions currently used for the E25 are far too small and that the tank should be much MUCH bigger. Like around 20% in every dimension.

They've not done anything about it yet though. Apparently the E25 is too popular on the Russia server and they never want to upset the Russia server.


Edit: I should really try to get WoWS going again and see where its at. I haven't been back because it won't load but I actually stopped playing because of how they were just making Carrier gameplay worse and worse and more and more one-dimensional. And utterly ruining any concept of balance in aircraft.

Though to be fair I think Carriers are done absolutely godawfully in WoWS anyway. Navyfield always did a better job by letting you totally freely and flexibly set up your aircraft loadout. By only allowing for a handful of preset loadouts you lose a massive amount of strategic flexibility (like stacking lots of fighters when your fighters are weaker so you can just overwhelm your opponents with numbers, etc etc).

 

[Terminal Blue]

I played world of warships for a bit but never got too deeply in. I still go back and play a round now and again, since it's free. Haven't tried world of tanks as I'm just.. not as interested in tanks, but suspect if I did my experience would be similar.

I play mostly with the Soviet DD line (Kiev, presently), which seem to be a bit divisive in the community with a lot of people insisting they're garbage and.. to be honest I can see why, but hasn't stopped them being the most fun and intuitive for me, at least once I got past the truly, unbelievably terrible early tiers.

 

[pookie101]

my favourite battle was one in which i earned a kolobanovs medal.. in my little su-85 with the 107mm before the nerf. 11 vs me. if they had rushed the cap they would of won but nope they tried to be clever and out flank me, etc and i picked them off one by one

 

[rcs619]

You can try War Thunder, no health bars in that, but personally I find that to be horribly designed. You hit a tank, any tank, at the right angle with a penetrating shot and the entire crew just dies.

Er...yes. That's what tends to happen, unless the shot just punches in one side and out the other. I think tank shells were designed to kill upon successful penetration. The good ones, anyway.

You can also blow up tanks with one hit if you know where to shoot for the ammo and fuel tanks, though a good hit into the turret usually disables them temporarily by killing the loader, gunner, commander and modules like the horizontal turret drive and gun breech, which all takes time to repair/replace. Tanks are all mobile to some degree or another, so the best defense is ultimately not to be where you're expected.

Yeah, that's a misconception that a lot of people seem to have with tanks. They're often billed as unstoppable armored juggernauts, and from the perspective of the average person on the ground they can be, but they aren't quite as tough as you'd expect them to be once they're going up against other armored vehicles and anti-armor weaponry.

If a tank gets penetrated, the crew is probably going to die. You're talking about 3-5 guys crammed into a tiny metal box that just got penetrated by a supersonic (and probably explosive-filled) chunk of metal. If the crew isn't outright killed, than a penetration is probably going to cripple the tank anyway, since most of the important bits are also on the inside.

A tank's greatest survival tools are mobility, and situational awareness. If you aren't shooting, you need to be moving, and if you are shooting, you need to make sure the front end is pointed at the bad guys. You get outflanked and you're probably dead. Your side doesn't have control of the air, you're probably dead. Basically tanks are really scary and powerful, but only in the right circumstances.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

You can try War Thunder, no health bars in that, but personally I find that to be horribly designed. You hit a tank, any tank, at the right angle with a penetrating shot and the entire crew just dies.

Er...yes. That's what tends to happen, unless the shot just punches in one side and out the other. I think tank shells were designed to kill upon successful penetration. The good ones, anyway.

You can also blow up tanks with one hit if you know where to shoot for the ammo and fuel tanks, though a good hit into the turret usually disables them temporarily by killing the loader, gunner, commander and modules like the horizontal turret drive and gun breech, which all takes time to repair/replace. Tanks are all mobile to some degree or another, so the best defense is ultimately not to be where you're expected.

Yeah, that's a misconception that a lot of people seem to have with tanks. They're often billed as unstoppable armored juggernauts, and from the perspective of the average person on the ground they can be, but they aren't quite as tough as you'd expect them to be once they're going up against other armored vehicles and anti-armor weaponry.

If a tank gets penetrated, the crew is probably going to die. You're talking about 3-5 guys crammed into a tiny metal box that just got penetrated by a supersonic (and probably explosive-filled) chunk of metal. If the crew isn't outright killed, than a penetration is probably going to cripple the tank anyway, since most of the important bits are also on the inside.

A tank's greatest survival tools are mobility, and situational awareness. If you aren't shooting, you need to be moving, and if you are shooting, you need to make sure the front end is pointed at the bad guys. You get outflanked and you're probably dead. Your side doesn't have control of the air, you're probably dead. Basically tanks are really scary and powerful, but only in the right circumstances.

The misconception has nothing to do with games though.

Fact is, for the vast majority of people, realistic warfare isn't fun. Realistic tank warfare is, from an entertainment perspective, stupid - It's two or more people playing where's Waldo at the same time, and whoever finds the enemy first without getting blown to smitherns by a towed cannon, or being tracked by a mine, or being driven out of the tank by rifle grenades, or just flat out losing the tank due to faulty engineering or maintenance, wins. It's a vision and luck game. Bringing up 'real' tank warfare in a game tank warfare context, as something to strive for, or something to take into account for gameplay purposes, is just silly.

 

[Raddra]

I used to play world of tanks back when it was pay to win (gold ammo, 100% crew), people used to argue and say it wasn't PtW back then but it really was: gold ammo hardly ever failed to penetrate enemy armour unlike standard ammo which bounced a lot of shots unless you were super lucky and managed to get behind an enemy or whatever.. and you could also buy 100% crew with real money that buffed all the stats of your tank by like, 50% or something. Something that you'd need to play a single tank for a heck of a long time to achieve otherwise.

It was a wonderful game but the thing that killed the game for me back then was the community who were too obsessed with 'win percentage'. A ridiculous concept in a team-based game that let you buy crew and ammo that over doubled your effectiveness, especially one where you could form pre-mades.

I hear they've fixed some of the ptw features of the game and you can earn gold ammo or something, but I just never could get back in to the game. Whenever I think of it I just remember the horribly toxic community and leave it well alone.

 

[rcs619]

Spoiler

You can try War Thunder, no health bars in that, but personally I find that to be horribly designed. You hit a tank, any tank, at the right angle with a penetrating shot and the entire crew just dies.

Er...yes. That's what tends to happen, unless the shot just punches in one side and out the other. I think tank shells were designed to kill upon successful penetration. The good ones, anyway.

You can also blow up tanks with one hit if you know where to shoot for the ammo and fuel tanks, though a good hit into the turret usually disables them temporarily by killing the loader, gunner, commander and modules like the horizontal turret drive and gun breech, which all takes time to repair/replace. Tanks are all mobile to some degree or another, so the best defense is ultimately not to be where you're expected.

Yeah, that's a misconception that a lot of people seem to have with tanks. They're often billed as unstoppable armored juggernauts, and from the perspective of the average person on the ground they can be, but they aren't quite as tough as you'd expect them to be once they're going up against other armored vehicles and anti-armor weaponry.

If a tank gets penetrated, the crew is probably going to die. You're talking about 3-5 guys crammed into a tiny metal box that just got penetrated by a supersonic (and probably explosive-filled) chunk of metal. If the crew isn't outright killed, than a penetration is probably going to cripple the tank anyway, since most of the important bits are also on the inside.

A tank's greatest survival tools are mobility, and situational awareness. If you aren't shooting, you need to be moving, and if you are shooting, you need to make sure the front end is pointed at the bad guys. You get outflanked and you're probably dead. Your side doesn't have control of the air, you're probably dead. Basically tanks are really scary and powerful, but only in the right circumstances.

The misconception has nothing to do with games though.

Fact is, for the vast majority of people, realistic warfare isn't fun. Realistic tank warfare is, from an entertainment perspective, stupid - It's two or more people playing where's Waldo at the same time, and whoever finds the enemy first without getting blown to smitherns by a towed cannon, or being tracked by a mine, or being driven out of the tank by rifle grenades, or just flat out losing the tank due to faulty engineering or maintenance, wins. It's a vision and luck game. Bringing up 'real' tank warfare in a game tank warfare context, as something to strive for, or something to take into account for gameplay purposes, is just silly.

Note that I didn't say anything was inherently wrong with World of Tanks anywhere in my post

I prefer War Thunder's take on tanks because I find it much more interesting, but I don't begrudge WOT fans. I just think the whole hide-and-seek, live-or-die based on just a couple of shots sort of tank combat is a lot more tense and engrossing than draining a health bar as you hope the random damage rolls favor you.

As far as a game context, realistic tank combat is just as valid in a videogame as arcade tank combat. Just depends how it's pulled off.

I mostly brought it up because the surprising fragility of tanks is a very common misconception that a lot of people seem to have. Just because you enjoy less realistic depictions of military technology and combat doesn't mean you can't also learn about how it actually works in the real world too

Playing a videogame about something is often a good jumping-off point to learning about the actual thing the game is based on.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The misconception has nothing to do with games though.

Fact is, for the vast majority of people, realistic warfare isn't fun. Realistic tank warfare is, from an entertainment perspective, stupid - It's two or more people playing where's Waldo at the same time, and whoever finds the enemy first without getting blown to smitherns by a towed cannon, or being tracked by a mine, or being driven out of the tank by rifle grenades, or just flat out losing the tank due to faulty engineering or maintenance, wins. It's a vision and luck game. Bringing up 'real' tank warfare in a game tank warfare context, as something to strive for, or something to take into account for gameplay purposes, is just silly.

War Thunder does it pretty well, though. If you go for "realistic" or simulator battles you are going to end up with a lot of tanks creeping about woods, trying to find novel approaches to flank and generally being hesitant about exposing themselves in any way that might allow an enemy to get a shot off. It is unforgiving as hell and I can see why it puts people off, but it also drives home the point that tanks are actually quite fragile to their intended countermeasures and that being a tanker must be just as nerve wracking and PTSD-inducing as any other part of war.

 

[Ygrez]

Tanks with health bars?

To be fair, I started playing the game 2 weeks ago, and I kept getting blown up instantly as I'd leave the friendly base, never even knew where I got shot from. (didn't get 1 shot off 7 games in a row)