Last played almost exactly 2 years ago. What do i need to know about the state of the game? I noticed that NA has been consolidated into just one server, is the population dying? Have there been any major changes that have made the game any worse/better?
Posted Oct 30, 2017, 1:40 PM UTC
Game isn't dying (despite the naysayers that love to come along and proclaim doom and gloom).
Many years ago, NA just had 1 server. It was split because of terrible lag issues (really, issues with Telia) in an attempt to reduce lag problems. The lag returned in force so bad, that WGNA ended up getting hundreds/thousands of test results over several months with the cooperations of many clans (including many reddit clans) to prove to the main WG offices that something was bad wrong. That then allowed WGNA to consolidate the east and west coast servers into 1 central server (in Chicago) in an attempt to reduce lag. So far, it has been very successful.
Okay good to know!
I'm also back (for about a month now) after 2 years or so.
Lag is MUCH better, not just ping time something else feels a little better in the game play but I can't put a finger on it other than to say less freaky weird shit, I don't think I've shot through a tank for no damage since being back.
It appears the servers are hit and miss, and matchmaking was changed dramatically. As a light tank player i'm annoyed to be top tier all the time, and I cant select lower tier tanks when platooning with friends. If my friend selects a preferential matchmaking tank at tier 8, I'm unable to select a tier 7 regular or tier 5-6 light.
How was matchmaking changed exactly? Light tanks were always +1 or +2 pretty much, why would you be top tier? That would be insanely op, no?
apparently they are treated as normal tanks now, but alot of them seem to have jumped a tier since I last played as well. It does seem pretty OP in my limited return to the game, why would I want to play a medium tank in my platoon when the same tier light tank gets us the same MM and is so much more effective.
Lights had MM of a tank tier higher previously. Now lights have the MM of the tier they are and to balance this all (except premiums) of them were either moved up a tier or nerfed.
So lights have either the same MM as before or they were nerfed and are not more effective than mediums of the same tier.
But the premium lights weren't touched?
Huge changes for arty. Pen cut in half, damage cut in half, no more AP or HEAT, but now you get double sized splash, a new stun feature, plus buff to aim time, and buff to reload time.
Plus, we now have tier 10 lights, new matchmaking, rechargeable repair/med kits, and no more fail platoons allowed (must be same tier now).
Plus, not sure exactly when they were introduced, but we also have female crew members and Swedish tanks.
Sounds good actually. Is arty still soul crushing, or is it less bothersome now?
I find arty to be a broken mechanic that attracts trolls. Here is a recent comment from an arty supporter:
Arty pulls people who otherwise aren't capable of faster paced action to the game.
REALLY? Maybe instead of dumbing down the game for the lowest common denominator they should let people compete on a level playing field.
The stun is ridiculous, arty kills crew members and destroys modules ON MISSES and it tracks light tanks going full speed.
An easy way to see if arty is needed in the game would be to create an option to opt out of games that contain arty. If it is needed people would not chooses this after a week or two and we would have the answer.
Depends on who you ask (and full disclosure: arty is pretty much all I play).
Many players prefer the change. There is now a very low chance of same-tier one shots, though the occasional one shot does occur.
Some players, and who are very vocal, think that the stun is WORSE. But these are also the same players who thought (and still think), that arty contribute to global warming, deforestation, a high divorce rate amongst socks, commercial acts of dwarf tossing, devil worship, and the absolute ruination and damnation of the game called WOT. Or, at least you'd think so, based on their comments in this subreddit.
I shall summon three of the arty vocalists for you:
[removed]
Oooh I'm honored. For the sake of informing I will try to be civil and explain why stun is so much worse.
Well, its not actually just about the stun. Artillery is far more accurate, faster firing, and has a bigger splash. It is very rare that an artillery will miss. While the damage is lower, it is far from minimal. Instead of hittng for tier 10 TD alpha, it now hits for tier 10 heavy alpha. (4-600). This in and of itself would be a negative change in my book. Higher rates of fire with more reliable guns are just not a fun thing for artillery to have. Just look at tanks like the FV304 and Lef thingy. Those feature low damage, accurate guns that fire freakishly quickly. They do nothing but promote the most stagnant game-play possible. As soon as one hits you, you simply have to pull in cover and pray that it decides to go after someone else. Higher tier artillery are certainly not this bad, but they are a hell of a lot closer to this model than they once were.
And all of that is before we get to stun... ah stun: the most idiotic idea I have ever seen from wargaming. It used to be that an artillery shot was a queue to do something. Previously, you, or one of your allies would take a hit, and that would mean you were safe for a time. It was the perfect opportunity to meaningfully exit cover and try to win some of the map. It was the signal to go try and kill red tanks. You didnt have long though as it was important to be in cover by the time arty is loaded again. Obviously this is far from the most dynamic game-play, but compared to now it was a dream. The problem now is that stun prevents your tank from doing ANYTHING. You cannot even attempt to aim your gun accurately, or reload it, or even move about efficiently. The stun cripples your crew so badly that you are effectively useless during its duration. This means that (unless you blow your precious medkit) you are stuck doing nothing after artillery fires. And the stun is incredibly long. One artillery can't quite stun lock a player, but it can come damn close to it. Two or more artillery can easily perma stun someone.
All of this leads to an incredibly passive meta. You cant do ANYTHING if artillery wants to stop you from doing it.
I am also vaguely suspicious that it does higher damage per game now on average. I have no data to back this up, but with the more accuracy, faster aim time and bigger splash, it can much more reliably do damage, if not as much.
The 9.18 changes to artillery were one of the dumbest things I have seen WG do. It has done nothing but make the game worse.
Arty is a bad mechanic that promotes stagnant gameplay, toxicity within the playerbase, and rewards inaction with indirect fire by allowing no retaliation.
Arty is not good for the game. Arty has never been good for the game. Arty has ruined the game for countless players, and like cancer, it needs to be removed, just like you.
What happened to the ELC? I loved that tank.
They literally analraped it. It lost a gigantic chunk of its horsepower and its gun stats got totally gimped. It now has 120 mm standard pen.
On other hand, it has tier 5 mm and gets a 75 mm gun with full turret traverse but with that setup its very generic tier 5 LT.
ELC was still luckier than Bulldog and VK 28.01. Former is now just trash and doesnt even have autoloader gun anymore and latter lost the main thing going for, the derp gun.
:( so what is the fastest tank(s) now?
T-100 LT, the russkie tier 10 LT, goes 72 and has like 45 hp/ton, and has a very very low profile
To be fair though, ELC would have been OP if they didn't nerf it.
The DPM nerf wasn't really a that big problem because the play style doesn't rely on it. It still has excellent pen and the power/weight ratio is also the same as on the other tier 5 lights. However, WG should buff the ground resistances to make it more nimble like it used to be.
All in all, it's still a good tank.
They gave artillery Stun. Stun is essentially a bone they threw to artillery players in return for the damage nerf but screw you by penalizing your crew skills. It's not good overall. It's great that the damage was cut but Stun is just awful especially now that artillery is back to a constant 3 per side.
Your crew gets fucked for up to 20 seconds. Driver, Loader, Gunner; you drive like a mule, your load time is doubled, and your reticle bloom doubles in size. You're easier to hit by another artillery and your ability to fight an enemy tank literally in front of you is gone.
That's right, their answer to balance a mechanic that shits on you from above is to now fuck your crew skills. WG, everyone.
This video summarizes the current state and future of WoT pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdJ2_WHdrpk
they introduced lag spikes which have made the game unplayable. and its your responsibility to download 3rd party software and figure it out. think of it like a brand new game mode.
Welcome back!! The following are the changes i can remember
Light tanks have regular MM now but got balanced accordingly
All the armour got massive buffs: medium turrets and heavy fronts.
More gold usage due to armour buffs (not spam since its actually required)
I'm from EU but i know NA has population issues but this resulted in "tankrewards.com" which gives loads of free stuff other servers dont get.
Arty has been changed into more of a support class: the damage was nerfed, they only have HE shells, pen got nerfed massively (60 pen on the T92 i think), stun got added to compensate (temporarily nerfs you crew to a 50% state, timing depends on how close the shell landed and what the tier of the vehicle is)
Medkits heal stun
Consumables are now reusable within the battle with a 90s cooldown. You only pay for 1 even if you use it multiple times during a single battle
Some tanks got changed: foch 155 became the foch B which now has a t57 heavy magazine with 6 shells, amx 30's (french single shooter mediums) got changed into high dpm (the highest actually) tanks with bad pen and accuracy.
OP premiums were introduced to increase sales these include the defender, chrysler, patriot and scorpion G. They are only temporarily for sale apart from the defender , that one wont come back for a while since it was OP even compared to other OP tanks.
MM changed into a 3-5-7 template (with 5-10 and 15-15 as backup if really needed) which means even in the worst MM you will have 7 tanks of your tier. This does have the side effect that only 20% of your battles will be top tier. This made T9 tanks really good since the worst MM would only result in meeting 5 tier 10 tanks. The new MM is causing some issues for platoons tho which are only top tier on a very rare occasion.
Platooning is now only possible with tanks of the same tier
Maximum 1 arty in every platoon
Maximum 3 arties/game, no more occasional games where each team had 4/5 arties. Epic medals got adjusted accordingly.
HD maps are coming soon and look amazing
There is a sandbox server that allows WG to try out stuff (such as HD maps), not always active tho.
Personal missions got reworked, its easier now to get higher tiered reward tanks
New mission UI, it looks better but requires quite a few clicks to know what the clean UI actually wants to say
Specials (such as discounts) are not listed under missions but as a sub category in the depot.
Introduction of swedish tanks (unpennable turrets for the heavys and siege mode for the TD's)
Introduction of Japanese heavys (big box or armour that requires gold to pen and carries high alpha HE gun)
Introduction of Czech tanks
Introduction of single shooter french mediums (bad leopard 1 at the start but recently changed)
maps got added but more maps got removed
Grand battles got added, this is a 30v30 mode that is t10 only on a HUGE map that allows all classes to be effective. (NA has trouble getting into them tho according to reddit)
Probably a lot of other stuff since 2 years is a long time.
Great write-up!
I actually had to edit a few times to add more stuff, cant believe they did all of this in 2 years
Good answer! I have a tier IV Japanese heavy so i remember them just being introduced. Likewise the French mediums.
Awesome writeup, as a recent "also back" I was kind of lost until very recently.
True for standard games, but limited to 2 in Ranked battles, and four in Grand Battles.