Tobold's Blog
Saturday, April 14, 2012
 
Happy anniversay, World of Tanks!

The EU version of World of Tanks is celebrating its first anniversary. I'm still playing, but I pretty much gave up on the rat race of trying to get ever bigger tanks. Most of the time I'm playing scouts. And apparently I'm not all that bad at it, my T-50-2 just got the "Mastery Badge: I class - earn more experience in a single battle than the highest experience gain of 95% of the players in the same tank within the last seven days."

But as much as I love light tank scouts, I couldn't help but notice that they got somewhat too good over the last year. There are a lot more light tanks in the tank trees now, and also some other tanks like the new American tank destroyers which move at the speed of a light tank. In a game that has a lot of rock - paper - scissors elements, that has consequences: Artillery has become nearly unplayable, and few people use SPGs any more. Which in turn makes heavy tanks more powerful than they are supposed to be, as their major threat was basically removed from the game. I think that makes the game somewhat less interesting now than it was before.

World of Warplanes is in global alpha now, and a "2012" release date was confirmed. But the game I'm really waiting for is World of Battleships. Until then I can still drive around with my light tanks for a while.

Comments:
Maybe on the EU server. On the US server arty is very viable because a decent team (even pubs) can dispatch a suicide scout before he gets to the arty.
 
I'm not sure if you're in a clan or not Tobold but earning a rank 1 badge doesn't really say much about how well you play. If you have a clan I suggest checking the user details on a few and you'll find that anyone who plays a tank frequently will either have rank 1 or ace. All a mastery badge means is that you had a good game. It does not mean you have alot of good games.

Going to have to agree on the arty not being strong enough at high tier fights. In low tier they are still quite strong but as people start moving into tanks with higher armor and health you tend to run out of shots to do a decent amount of destruction. Personally I would either up the number of rounds available or increase the chance of modular damage.

Also a more notable thing about the new American tank destroyers is that their turret is fully rotatable making them pretty annoying in the bush since they don't need to turn if you happen to get out of their gun's outer range.
 
Not sure what you mean by high heir arty. I've run dry in say, a Hummel, but by the time I get down to my last few shells in my GW E, I've dished out a ridiculous amount of damage in a great game.
 
WOT seems to be doing very well Gamebreakr.tv tells the story of a GDC when they had to take one of their two laptops from the "booth" to do the demo. This year they had a real tank on the floor. I think I heard revenue was over $10 million a month and they hit over 420k simul users just in Russia.

Ofc there is no better indicator and predictor of commercial success than being criticized by Gevlon as is happening to WoT now.

Speaking of WoB - did you ever play Avalon Hill's Jutland? Essentially miniatures gaming by/for the board game crowd? I assume WoB will be WWII as well which is sad since that will be more World Of Aircraft Carriers. Although I guess it allows them to do a DUST 514 and combine their 3 franchises.
 
Maybe what you said about arty is true on the EU side but here in the US I didn't notice any changes. I frequently encounter 3 or more arty. Just last week there was a battle with 5 arty on each side.
 
Being arty in WOT is like playing a healer in WoW. If your team helps protect you it's fun; if not its terrible. In a pub match everyone is doing their own thing and few people think to protect the arty. It's why I won't even play an arty, but it seems like most games have one or two at least. I play in the US.

Personally I think the effectiveness of the t-50-2 has gone down. It sure seems like people are better at leading you now and are ready for you. They also seem to be able to cope with me watching them from hiding. Used to be if I did that it was a guaranteed win. Now not so much. I don't even do the same kamikaze rushes I used too because it just doesn't work anymore.
 
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