World of Tanks - Free to play Panzer MMO

[Husar]

I have a Ferdinand and like it, but it's really not as well armoured as the 200mm front may suggest. On one hand the lower glacis is weaker, on the other hand at tier 8 many tanks have more than 200mm average penetration anyway. The gun is nice though, TD version of the one the Maus gets, can penetrate IS-4 and E-75 as well as Tier 10s relatively well.

Haven't gotten the JagdTiger yet, it gets the longer 128mm with 276mm penetration and more damage which should be very nice, only german tank that gets this much after all.
The armour is similar though, 250mm on the front casemate but the lower part is a Tiger II hull so there's only 150 and 120mm armour or so, too low for tier 9. As such it probably helps both to keep a distance like any other tank. I need to remind myself of this as I tend to go up front with my Ferdi and get penetrated by Tier 8 heavies...

In general it makes a lot of sense to go up at least two trees though, when you die early in a battle you don't have to sit it out, you can leave and hop into another tank, your destroyed tank will show up in your garage once the battle it was in is over and you get no negative effects for leaving early.

[rajpoot]

In my very limited experience I've had with TDs I've found out that playing TDs, isn't much fun on the lower tiers with all the lights and meds running about. IMO the best way to play a TD is to plonk down in a good place, behind the main front of heavies, and snipe from there. That is not really possible in lower tiers. Above tier five though, things get a lot more fun, as the slower heavies start coming in.
Same is the case with arty.

I haven't played the Jagdtiger, but I've seen more than one match where the last remaining player in a JT, with very little health saved the day by sniping the tanks who come to cap.

Also in my experience TDs perform remarkably better after mounting equipment like rammers and cammo nets...more so than the heavies.

[PanzerJaeger]

Nein! The Stugg is great fun. Im on the jagdpnzIV and its a very good tank, and Iv heard great things about Jagdpanther. If you were goin to switch, I would go to the Soviet TD line. Very good mobility wise with a great guns also. Just bad armour but that is the price you pay!

Man, I read the Jagdpanzer IV was the worst of the lot! If it's not so bad, I might go ahead and grind through it to get to the Jagdpanther. Right now, the Stug has been incredibly frustrating. I'm so tired of finding great positions, nailing tanks in the sides and rear multiple times, only to have them turn around at their leisure and destroy me in a shot. Earlier I played a game where I shot 27 rounds, 22 of which hit their targets, and registered no damage at all. I'm new so maybe I'm not playing the class right, but I'm not sure where to shoot other than the sides and rear. In the Marder II, I didn't even have to worry about that so I might be spoiled. It just seems like in the higher tiered games, it's a heavy tank match with a few ancillary classes running around to give them some extra kills.

[scottishranger]

The Stugg really needs its top gun (the long one, i forget its name) to be a killer. Thats how all the tanks from now on will be. Its a frustrating grind at first but you just gotta stick with it. Ill admit, the jagdpanzer iv really offers nothing new from the stugg, just a decent 88 gun. It gets a decent amount of credits though and I really want the jagdpanther so im grinding it.

[Sigurd]

Useful site if you want to know where to hit those pesky enemies.

[rajpoot]

Useful site if you want to know where to hit those pesky enemies.

Thank you!!
I keep reading about command ports and ammo caches, but I can never really find them.

[Sigurd]

Remember the Valentine day 1 day premium. Last chance to use it today (11:59 pm GMT )
code: FREEHUGS

Also a 24 hour 5x experience bonus starting tomorrow at 6:30 Central European Time (05:30 GMT)
I think I will be calling in sick

[rajpoot]

The 5x XP ended on NA server yesterday. And that's also when I used the prem code.....regrettably, none of my first victories went well...

I managed to get the IS3 yesterday night. Finally. It's stock, and I'm bankrupt, so as yet I've played just a single game on it. A spectacular defeat where for the first time I saw tier 8 artillery in action. Predictably I was kind of wary about leaving my cover and ended up camping there for the entire match, trying to snipe. Not much good since I bounced of everything and finally a GW Type E ended my misery in one shot.
Still, the tank seems tougher than the IS despite the lesser hull armour.

My aim now is the IS4.....long way to go, but I hope to get it before they release 7.3.

Edit:
Suppose I don't manage to get the IS4 before 7.3 and the IS3 is moved to the 'light' heavy branch, will I have to start moving up from the KV3 again?

[Sigurd]

Suppose I don't manage to get the IS4 before 7.3 and the IS3 is moved to the 'light' heavy branch, will I have to start moving up from the KV3 again?

The good thing is that KV-3 moves up to Tier 7 which gives you the chance to get the new Tier 8 in that tree (KV-4). Since IS-4 is moved up to tier 10, I think you will have to grind through KV-4 (which you should be able to get immediately since you have an elite KV-3 already) and then ST-I which is the new Tier 9 tank in that tree.
If you manage to unlock and buy the IS-4 before 0.7.3, you will be getting the IS-8, which is the replacement tank for IS-4 in that tree.

Remember to keep these tanks in your garage at the 0.7.3 release:
KV (with the 2nd turret researched/Installed )
KV-3
IS-4

The KV will split into two tanks KV-1 and KV-2 (free slot)
The KV-3 will be moved to tier 7 (you get its replacement tier 6 - T-150 and a free slot)
The IS-4 will be moved to tier 10 (you get its replacement tier 9 - IS-8 and a free slot)

The KV-1S, IS (IS1/IS2) and IS-3 will stay as is.

[Graphic]

Star Trek Online has made me forget about this game. I don't think I can come back until they add different game modes. I didn't realize how tedious it had become doing almost 3,000 games of team deathmatch on the same handful of maps until I started playing STO, where I get the same excitement of customizing my vehicle (except with infinitely more variety in STO because 90% of it is up to preference, not just grinding to the top gear and then using that for all time) but with 1,000x more things to do in it.

Now that I'm a few steps back its easy for me to see how stagnant the game has become. Some new tanks, some new maps, every couple months...to play endless games of TDM on.

[rajpoot]

I got two of those three. KV and KV3.

Grinding the stock IS3 is hard. I seem to remember you caved in and got the premium account while doing it!

I haven't won a single match in it yet. Losing over 12 k creds everytime. Putting a strain on my already over strained cred situation.

[Sigurd]

Grinding the stock IS3 is hard. I seem to remember you caved in and got the premium account while doing it!
I haven't won a single match in it yet. Losing over 12 k creds everytime. Putting a strain on my already over strained cred situation.

Yeah, I ground that Is-3 to near Elite before I realized that I wasn't going to earn that 3.5mill for the IS-4 anytime soon. That tank is barely making money and the reality is more a zero balance tank. You win and lose money on equal terms. And you need money to maintain the IS-3. The ammo for the BL-9 is expensive and you benefit from the equipment you mount.

[Sigurd]

For those waiting on the 0.7.3 and the Russian tech-tree change.
Here are some images of the new tanks.

IS-6 (new Premium Tier 8 Heavy)
KV-4 (new Tier 8 in the IS-4 Heavy line)
ST-I (new Tier 9 in the IS-4 Heavy line)
IS-8 (Tier 9 replacement for IS-4 in the IS-7 Heavy line)

I am mostly looking forward to the IS-8 myself.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Just getting back into the game. It's amazingly grindy without the beta gold, but at least there are enough players so that you can fight enemies mostly in your own tier. I like the french tanks; the AMX-38 wipes the floor with non-French tanks around its tier, as long as you get in a situation where they face you head on. Kind of a metaphor for French strategy at the beginning of WW2...

[Ja'chyra]

So I traded up from the KV to the KV-3 after I got elite status, it's definately better than the IS if you liked the KV but all my matched seen to be filled with T10's with me at the bottom of the pile.

Anyone reckon it's worth splashing out and buying a Lowe? Seems like a lot of money for an imaginary tank.

Maybe we should create an Org company?

[rajpoot]

Anyone reckon it's worth splashing out and buying a Lowe? Seems like a lot of money for an imaginary tank.

Maybe we should create an Org company?

I plan to get the Lowe eventually, once I convince myself that it's worth spending money on an MMO. It's supposed to be very good, and if you play as a cautious sniper you might even take out tier 10s. The people I know who play it say that they can make upto 70 k for a good match and near 100 k for excellent games. So it's helpful as it saves you some grinding time when you want to maintain you high tier tanks, which are all cred-drains.

I actually wanted to start an org company/clan once, but for one half the people here are on the EU server and secondly only prem users can start a clan.

[Ja'chyra]

And Hus thinks the Slug is useless

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Husar]

It is, in an EZ 8 you would've gotten 2000 XP!

[Graphic]

Jumbo > Easy 8

[Sigurd]

People stopped playing this?

I have been grinding a little during my winter holyday and finally fully upgraded my new Lorraine. Such a sweet tank, yet prone to die early.
I have installed the mod called XWM which lists players performance ingame. Useful? Maybe not, but I can see who would be easy targets and who you should keep an eye out for.
This new mod also gives me an inclination to improve my own stats. Players who are grinding, are not getting high scores towards the efficiency rating.

I am dreading getting the Panther II, because I know it will be much chagrin before getting that tank upgraded/profitable -> bad scores.

[Ja'chyra]

I still play as does Hus and Fiz on the EU servers.

Just got to the IS as I am levelling up most of the trees at the same time rather than concentrating on any particular one.

My stats aren't that good with a 48% win rate and 50% lose, I blame that on one particularly drunken night that I can't seem to claw back.

[rajpoot]

Oh I'm playing this. Like crazy. Grinding my IS3 for the BL9. 10 k to go.

I got the mod on my HDD, but haven't tried it out yet. As yet I've seen it being used for -
1. Intense discussions during a match about which enemy to hit first based on their stats. The 'pro' players got so busy discussing it, that they got swarmed and we lost.
2. To goad other players and call them names based on their stats. I for instance was called a pub, (which I think can mean a lot of things), because I had a 47 % win rate.
Once I install it intend to use it mainly to taunt players who blindside me and kill me.

On the upside 7.2 has been delayed to April. Which means 7.3 has been delayed to god knows when, which means I have even more time to get to that IS4.

I've had several very aggravating experiences with Lorraine players and their six shooters (and one of them who kept on quoting Clint Eastwood from Dirty Harry).
Most French tanks are good, as long as they keep moving and don't get into a prolonged face to face fight.

[Sigurd]

Your win rate is not that interesting. In random games... you will near always be around +-50%, which tells us the random algorithms (loaded dice)and MM works.
What is more interesting is your efficiency rating. The indicator that tells us how well you perform. If you are able to kill opponents, damage them, spot them and capture/save. It also considers your garage (low tiers will give you better EfR).

This is what I am talking about
Put you name or someone you know into the player field, load data and calculate efficiency.
The Mod will rate your win rate and number of games played as well, but when I play it is the EfR that colour the names.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Color code:
dark red : <600
red: 600 - 900
yellow : 900 - 1200
light green : 1200 -1500
dark green : 1500 - 1800
purple : >1800

The first one I killed was the T50-2 and the last one was the Tiger II (5 kills total)

[Graphic]

Your win rate is not that interesting. In random games... you will near always be around +-50%, which tells us the random algorithms (loaded dice)and MM works.

I wouldn't say that. The more games you play, the more your win rate reflects your ability to help your team win or lose.

If win rate was completely random, if someone has several thousands of games played, each percent above or below 50% is more and more unlikely to be random, and that likelihood of pure randomness quickly becomes astronomical (i.e. impossible).

So if someone has 10,000 rounds and a win rate of 55%, it's because they're instrumental in helping their team win 5% of the time, and the reverse for 45%.

An efficiency rating based on average destroyed in battle, spotted, caps, etc and the like doesn't really reflect how much a help you are to your team, because it could involve a million things that aren't reflected in the points system.

[Sigurd]

I disagree...

You can perform well in a game and still lose.
How many games have you played where you do 4-5 kills, die and then your team proceed to lose that game? You did extremely well taking out 33% of the enemy on your own, but are awarded with a loss.
And you even took care of the strong tanks... leaving the pickings for your team. Even if you lose, you gain 5 kills which will heighten your rating etc...

Take me as an example... I have 49% win ratio, but my stats shows that I have won 6 more games than I have lost. This should at least be a 50% win, but the drawn games are not factored in.. so I have a 49/49 win/lose which leaves a 2% ghost (draws).
I am nearing the 1200 border, but I would still prefer to be the yellow guy. The one nobody pays attention to. (Watch out green player - lets kill him first... Hey a red player... pawn bait).

[Graphic]

Those are an exception though. Every time you perform even remotely well, you increase your team's chances to win. In spite of bad teams and bad luck, that adds up over time.

Battles Participated: 3 110
Victories: 1 680 (54%)
Defeats: 1 367 (44%)

Flip a coin 3,110 times. If it's not 50/50, you deserve a medal for destroying the laws of probability, because the odds of it even being 51/49 are inconceivable. Something has to account for the plus or minus, and it's not randomness. Randomness makes 50% the default win rate. Randomness means that the enemy team is the terrible one as many times as your own team is. The more matches you have, the more your win rate is effect by what you do. Because its the only thing you are in control of, its the only thing that overcome randomness.

If it really is pure randomness, then scientists needs to study the hell out of World of Tanks players, because there are hundreds and hundreds, possibly many thousands of players who completely annihilate the laws of probability by having low and high win rates.

[Sigurd]

That's the thing... this is not a coin toss (not even considering that there is a third option to results which throws off the perfect x+y = 100).

I have seen players with under 900 efficiency, but still have 52% win ratio. Others having 1400 efficiency but have 48% win ratio. They are called random games, because you put 30 random (not really) players together on a random map. The outcome is entirely team dependent.
One team will normally win over the other, but you don't have to be the one making the difference between win or loss.
The unknown factors are many more than a XOR head or tail. If you want to throw probability into this, you need to factor in all the little mistakes these 30 tanks does over the time span of ~10min and if you throw reverse casual chain analysis into this, you "might" find the little causes that tipped the favour of one team over the other. Do the game make adjustments? I have seen several threads talking about loaded dice, that somehow the game compensates the fact that you are good, and will make you miss a obvious shot or give you a 0% critical hit, you know was a 100% hit to a ammo box.

I still think efficiency rating is the best measurement for what players are capable of (good for).

(edit: Just checked the stats and Graphic has the exact same Efficiency rating as I do )

[Husar]

I don't fully believe in either.

They're both somewhat indicative but isn't taking my average tank level and using it to "discount" my average damage quite wrong if I have several Tier 10 tanks but play my tier 2 50% of the time? That way I would have a relatively low average damage due to playing my small tank so much but get a huge hit to my rating for having some big tanks.

If there were an explanation of how they arrive at the rating that might be interesting.

Besides, with the high tier tanks that do 490 and more damage per shot it's not that hard to get your damage per battle way up there. Since I got the IS-3 and IS-4 my average damage per battle has been almost steadily increasing.

Average victories per battle are extremely shady as well, there are battles where I do fine but another flank completely collapses, some tier 9s get trashed by tier 8s or so and then they rush, cap and win. You could say these tier 8s on the enemy team contributed a lot to their victory but didn't I also contribute a lot and still lost because some others faced the enemy driving backwards? Statistically this should/might even out somewhat but there are other factors like tanks deployed on each side, relative strengths of these tanks etc. and I'm not sure they always even out.

More reliable to me would be a rating that weighs up individual battles by looking at whether you won or lost and the amount of kills, damage and cap points you caused.
That way if you lost but got 5 kills and 2000 damage that would be rated as a good performance while winning a game with 0 kills and 250 damage done would not be rated as high. Also consider that doing the first is doing it under more stress/harder circumstances since the team performed badly and thus your backup and team help factor are lower etc.
But even this wouldn't account for things like you being the only one trying to defend a flank where noone else goes and then getting hamburgered by 3 tanks your tier, then losing the game even though you're not that bad but because everybody else didn't think about tactics at all.

There are evenings where I do good in about 50% of battles and die fast in some others but lose 95% of all battles, does that mean I'm a horrible player?
The win rate says a lot about how good the teams are that matchmaking places you in.
And then you have french tier 5 heavies that end up in tier 9 matches and get outflanked by tanks of a much higher tier, it's really hard to be a decisive factor then and that goes for 80% of the battles you are being placed in with these tanks.
If I only played the BDR G1B all my stats would be really horrible, no matter how well I understood the game.

And then Gold Ammo allows financially well off players to do damage and get kills where others can't.

[Graphic]

There's only one way to settle this argument: tank duel. Whoever wins, their view becomes Org WoT canon.

Since I don't have a European account, I get to choose a champion. Who will fight for #TeamWinRate?

[Veho Nex]

I would but like you, Im USA