World of Tanks, 60 million players

[Thuleman]

I got a better idea, I played WoT and my "initial response" to the premium tanks that owned me is that it is P2W.

Which premium are you referring to? All the low tier stuff is meh whether it's premium or not. It's far more likely that premium tanks owned you because they were played by players who have thousands of battles under their belt and thus have more experience.

Before the Marder II nerf a while back I was totally destroying games in my kitted our Marder II (not a premium tank). That's because in lower tier battles many players are new to the game and I as vet who knows the game mechanics, the maps, where to hide, where to advance, etc., have the absolute upper hand. Can't check right now, but I am pretty sure that my high count is 12 enemies destroyed in one game and it was with a Marder II.

Lots of folks play lower tier premium tanks to grind experience to convert to free experience, so there is a good chance that you were up against seasoned players even in lower tiers.

 

[theNoid]

Which premium are you referring to? All the low tier stuff is meh whether it's premium or not. It's far more likely that premium tanks owned you because they were played by players who have thousands of battles under their belt and thus have more experience.

Before the Marder II nerf a while back I was totally destroying games in my kitted our Marder II (not a premium tank). That's because in lower tier battles many players are new to the game and I as vet who knows the game mechanics, the maps, where to hide, where to advance, etc., have the absolute upper hand. Can't check right now, but I am pretty sure that my high count is 12 enemies destroyed in one game and it was with a Marder II.

Lots of folks play lower tier premium tanks to grind experience to convert to free experience, so there is a good chance that you were up against seasoned players even in lower tiers.

Agreed 100%.

I dont knock people who complain about P2W.. because I'm sure they feel outright that it is P2W, when in fact they just got smacked around by someone who understands the complexities of this game and has them outclassed. I would imagine that with the right gun, a vet could out everything a newer player in a much higher tank. You are rewarded for spending time learning this game, and you get out of it what you put into it. If you're a new player who has played 5-10 matches playing against a guy with over 5,000 matches? Guess what?

You're screwed.

The game is not forgiving and does not ever explain to you that underneath a thin veil of a tank brawler lies a very complex system of rules, hit boxes, sloping armor and damage mitigation that most gamers have simply never experienced. A new WoT player will never fully grasp this so they probably feel justified in saying the game is P2W.

They are wrong however, and they got smacked around. Losing hurts.

 

[weebling1]

I just watched a short gameplay video... do you really not have to lob your shots? Looked like everything was auto targeted in 0 gravity.

I don't think the other poster mentioned the amount of variation in the guns of different tanks. If you were watching tier 6+ then they're mostly high velocity guns with little drop. There's some guns in the lower tiers that really float like softballs. Next to impossible to hit a distant moving target.

I got a better idea, I played WoT and my "initial response" to the premium tanks that owned me is that it is P2W.

And when I have been smoking for "7" years I will get back to you.

You have a serious double standard. And there were literally tons of articles about it, don't tell me you don't know about it if you play enough to like and defend the game.

I will disagree because the Win is not guaranteed after Paying in WoT. There's still a good number of players in Prem tanks that are oblivous to anything other than their target and don't know their strengths and the targets weaknesses,

The tank is only as good as the player.

(but i do have a Type 59 )

 

[rudy]

The win is not guaranteed in any game but rather your odds of winning are higher with better equipment. I don't know why that's so hard to understand. If I give an RV with popped tires to Jeff Gordon and a Ferrari to a 5 year old we all know who is going to win a race. But really you think that's not pay 2 win just because it is remotely possible to overcome the advantage with skill? Well I don't want to be in any of your F2P titles if that's what you think constitutes a fair game.

 

[Yippee38]

The win is not guaranteed in any game but rather your odds of winning are higher with better equipment. I don't know why that's so hard to understand. If I give an RV with popped tires to Jeff Gordon and a Ferrari to a 5 year old we all know who is going to win a race. But really you think that's not pay 2 win just because it is remotely possible to overcome the advantage with skill? Well I don't want to be in any of your F2P titles if that's what you think constitutes a fair game.

You have missed the essence of the game here rudy. The equipment is generally much, MUCH less important that the skill of the player. For the most part, the tanks are balanced. There are certainly OP tanks, but I would be happy to take on a poor player in an OP tank with me in a non-OP tank, one-on-one. I'll kick his ass 8 out of 10 times, and the 2 times he does beat me will be because I made a mistake or did something stupid.

This is a team game, and as such, no one player, nor the tank they drive, is going to sway the battle one way or another. A whole team of stupid players in the best tanks in the match will usually get beaten by a team with a handful of good players in less OP tanks. It happens all the time.

In fact, when I launch into a game and I see players in KV-5s (a tank with, by far, more hit points and armor than any tank in it's tier) on the other team, I actually am happy. I usually means that they are lousy players, and even though it will take my team a while to kill them, they will die and probably do very little damage. The same can be said of many of the premium tanks in game.

Your experience with other games doesn't necessarily transfer over to WoT. Nor does your limited experience in WoT. For any player who has played WoT for a significant amount of time, they recognize that the tank doesn't make the game, but the person driving the tank does. I've seen top players dominate games in tanks that are generally considered "lousy tanks". However, I've seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of lousy players be absolutely useless, or even detrimental, in "premium tanks".

In fact, one of the most popular mods in WoT is a mod that shows you stats on the players in game. While the stats aren't a perfect indicator, it does give you an idea of which players are decent/good and which are lousy. I use that mod, and I can tell you that I never look at the tanks on both sides. I ALWAYS look at the player stats, because that makes the difference.

Don't take offense. I'm just trying to inform you that WoT has the premium content down pretty well. As somebody else said, you really wouldn't see it until you got up to around tier 6 or 7.

 

[weebling1]

good post Yippee38,

Skill, intelligence, and reaction are everything in WoT. It's counter intuitive but until you understand how to play in the tank your driving your overall win rate will be less than a flip of the coin.

(EDIT)
forgot to mention, In before someone rails on you that "those stats are meaningless!"

 

[Yippee38]

Skill, intelligence, and reaction are everything in WoT. It's counter intuitive but until you understand how to play in the tank your driving your overall win rate will be less than a flip of the coin.

Although, premium ammo still does make the game P2W to some extent. The tanks don't though.

 

[Thuleman]

Although, premium ammo still does make the game P2W to some extent. The tanks don't though.

Premium ammo is in some (many?) cases superior to plain ammo, though angling still helps quite a bit. But premium ammo can now be bought with silver, so if one works up a good supply of silver by running low tier matches and winning them, then premium ammo is pretty accessible even to folks who don't pay.

 

[Thuleman]

WG just trolled E100 owners hard with the 8.6 patch: Armor penetration of high Tier HE shells was decreased

I feel sorry for the E100/Maus drivers.

 

[rudy]

You have missed the essence of the game here rudy. The equipment is generally much, MUCH less important that the skill of the player. For the most part, the tanks are balanced. There are certainly OP tanks, but I would be happy to take on a poor player in an OP tank with me in a non-OP tank, one-on-one. I'll kick his ass 8 out of 10 times, and the 2 times he does beat me will be because I made a mistake or did something stupid.

This is a team game, and as such, no one player, nor the tank they drive, is going to sway the battle one way or another. A whole team of stupid players in the best tanks in the match will usually get beaten by a team with a handful of good players in less OP tanks. It happens all the time.

In fact, when I launch into a game and I see players in KV-5s (a tank with, by far, more hit points and armor than any tank in it's tier) on the other team, I actually am happy. I usually means that they are lousy players, and even though it will take my team a while to kill them, they will die and probably do very little damage. The same can be said of many of the premium tanks in game.

Your experience with other games doesn't necessarily transfer over to WoT. Nor does your limited experience in WoT. For any player who has played WoT for a significant amount of time, they recognize that the tank doesn't make the game, but the person driving the tank does. I've seen top players dominate games in tanks that are generally considered "lousy tanks". However, I've seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of lousy players be absolutely useless, or even detrimental, in "premium tanks".

In fact, one of the most popular mods in WoT is a mod that shows you stats on the players in game. While the stats aren't a perfect indicator, it does give you an idea of which players are decent/good and which are lousy. I use that mod, and I can tell you that I never look at the tanks on both sides. I ALWAYS look at the player stats, because that makes the difference.

Don't take offense. I'm just trying to inform you that WoT has the premium content down pretty well. As somebody else said, you really wouldn't see it until you got up to around tier 6 or 7.

MUCH less is not nothing. In ANY game I play the equipment is MUCH less important than the skill of the player see my post above about race car drivers.

So no I am not missing the point I get it entirely, you get duped into thinking that its fine because its not as obvious but clearly the devs are doing just that making it P2W. Do I give a rip if I can beat some scrub who is terrible with inferior equipment? No but I do care if someone is a little under me and can edge me out with P2W equipment or unlocks. That's why I said so far its clear the only games that are not P2W are ones where ONLY (ONLY) cosmetic items are purchasable.

Not one of you can deny that equipment effects this game. Every F2P game says they got the equipement down pretty well and the fans are always saying over and over its getting better, way better then when it started. But its still there.

 

[seanclayton]

Played it and uninstalled it immediately. F2P games' quality hasn't improved much.

 

[Michaelius]

MUCH less is not nothing. In ANY game I play the equipment is MUCH less important than the skill of the player see my post above about race car drivers.

So no I am not missing the point I get it entirely, you get duped into thinking that its fine because its not as obvious but clearly the devs are doing just that making it P2W. Do I give a rip if I can beat some scrub who is terrible with inferior equipment? No but I do care if someone is a little under me and can edge me out with P2W equipment or unlocks. That's why I said so far its clear the only games that are not P2W are ones where ONLY (ONLY) cosmetic items are purchasable.

Not one of you can deny that equipment effects this game. Every F2P game says they got the equipement down pretty well and the fans are always saying over and over its getting better, way better then when it started. But its still there.

That's just bullshit - you are getting owned by people with 5-10k games (sometimes more) of experience - typically in tier 2 battle you can count number of people with clan tags in both teams and the one which has more will usually win.

 

[Draxanoth]

MUCH less is not nothing. In ANY game I play the equipment is MUCH less important than the skill of the player see my post above about race car drivers.

So no I am not missing the point I get it entirely, you get duped into thinking that its fine because its not as obvious but clearly the devs are doing just that making it P2W. Do I give a rip if I can beat some scrub who is terrible with inferior equipment? No but I do care if someone is a little under me and can edge me out with P2W equipment or unlocks. That's why I said so far its clear the only games that are not P2W are ones where ONLY (ONLY) cosmetic items are purchasable.

Not one of you can deny that equipment effects this game. Every F2P game says they got the equipement down pretty well and the fans are always saying over and over its getting better, way better then when it started. But its still there.

The only thing you must use real money for is premium tanks, and none of them are superior to unlocked tanks. And you won't fight any premium tanks unless you have an unlocked tank in the same weight class... I know it's hard, but read this next part very slowly and maybe you'll understand.

EVERYTHING ELSE CAN BE BOUGHT WITH IN GAME CURRENCY.

Even if you believe in the "gold ammunition makes you invulnerable" nonsense, it's over. You can buy gold ammo with silver. Grow up and let it go. I've only spent real money on garage slots and tank painting, ever, and my record makes the vast majority of wallet warriors look like they can't tie their own shoes.

Either learn to tie your shoes, or stop playing. Just because you're god awful doesn't mean everyone else is paying to win, or cheating, or whatever else you use to convince yourself that your COD tactics aren't the problem.

 

[rudy]

dude almost every F2P game works that way and says that. Except most actually don't have premium weapons that can only be bought with real money. Most only have cosmetic items that are limited to real money. But the devil is in the details, how long will it take you to accumulate enough in game currency to buy, then full upgrade an item? That's where P2W really takes off.

I can't believe how many people buy into the excuse that just because its possible to buy with in game currency you earn by grinding its not P2W. Plus to me there is no difference between P2W and god aweful long grind 2 win. Its obvious the grind is there to push people over to pay for anyone who cant spend all day and night playing.

 

[weebling1]

dude almost every F2P game works that way and says that. Except most actually don't have premium weapons that can only be bought with real money. Most only have cosmetic items that are limited to real money. But the devil is in the details, how long will it take you to accumulate enough in game currency to buy, then full upgrade an item? That's where P2W really takes off.

I can't believe how many people buy into the excuse that just because its possible to buy with in game currency you earn by grinding its not P2W. Plus to me there is no difference between P2W and god aweful long grind 2 win. Its obvious the grind is there to push people over to pay for anyone who cant spend all day and night playing.

Sooo...
playing long hours free = paying real life money + less time = Pay to Win

Just trying to understand what your rant means.

I believe your vastly over estimating the time shortened upgrading equipment by using Premium account. It only makes the grind time 2/3rds of non-premium and when you get to higher tiers, it's still a god awful long time.

Maybe its because I don't "grind". I have enough tanks in my stable that I'll run the ones in the line I'm advancing for thier 'daily double', then just play the ones I enjoy like the T-29, IS-3, IS, KV-1S, Pz II, or derpy Hetz.

 

[rudy]

Yes if playing long hours is done so at a disadvantage before you can upgrade / unlock what you want / need.

1/3rd of my free time spent with less enjoyment is pretty significant to me.

 

[theNoid]

Played it and uninstalled it immediately. F2P games' quality hasn't improved much.

How would you know anything about this game, let alone make that kind of statement if you uninstalled it immediately?

 

[Thuleman]

Yes if playing long hours is done so at a disadvantage before you can upgrade / unlock what you want / need.

1/3rd of my free time spent with less enjoyment is pretty significant to me.

We have been going round and round for some time now, so let me just ask you this;

Is your only complaint that you feel at a disadvantage over paying players, or is there anything else you didn't like about the game?

 

[Yippee38]

<insert rant>

BTW, how the hell do you delete messages? Can't see anything to allow you to do so. Weird.

 

[DarthV]

dude almost every F2P game works that way and says that. Except most actually don't have premium weapons that can only be bought with real money. Most only have cosmetic items that are limited to real money. But the devil is in the details, how long will it take you to accumulate enough in game currency to buy, then full upgrade an item? That's where P2W really takes off.

I can't believe how many people buy into the excuse that just because its possible to buy with in game currency you earn by grinding its not P2W. Plus to me there is no difference between P2W and god aweful long grind 2 win. Its obvious the grind is there to push people over to pay for anyone who cant spend all day and night playing.

Uhhh if you find the game play an awful grind, why are you playing it in the first place? The game is designed so you can have fun no matter what tank/tier/unlocks you have. Sure it sucks moving from a fully researched tank (and just as important, 100% trained crew) to a higher tier that is stock. But with the match making, you could be top tier often and have no problems raking in the XP. Or maybe you are playing certain tanks wrong. Or picked a really horrible tech tree, like the French lights. Still no sure how I made it to the ELC AMX. The AMX 40 was just horrible, but still managed to get Top Gun on a 5X bonus weekend that shortened the grind

Now that you can buy premium ammo with in game currency, I'm not sure how you can call the game P2W. With extra credit events, you should be able to buy some premium shells without breaking the bank. I usually only have a few loaded on any tanks, just in case I get into a bind For the July 4th weekend event, I was raking in 80-100k credits per match on my KV1, KV-1S and Pz IV.

As for Premium tanks, they aren't OP at all. Most have glaring faults that can be exploited by good players. I'd rather have none on my side and a bunch on the other, greater chance that a Premium driver has no idea how to play

 

[Draxanoth]

dude almost every F2P game works that way and says that. Except most actually don't have premium weapons that can only be bought with real money. Most only have cosmetic items that are limited to real money. But the devil is in the details, how long will it take you to accumulate enough in game currency to buy, then full upgrade an item? That's where P2W really takes off.

I can't believe how many people buy into the excuse that just because its possible to buy with in game currency you earn by grinding its not P2W. Plus to me there is no difference between P2W and god aweful long grind 2 win. Its obvious the grind is there to push people over to pay for anyone who cant spend all day and night playing.

You mean I might have to play a game I like playing for awhile longer to get new toys!? THE HORROR! How could I have been so blind to the obvious torture going on!?

I can't believe you're still whining about a game that you repeatedly demonstrate a lack of knowledge about. If you knew what you were talking about you'd realize most people use their free XP to skip playing a tank stock... you can earn that with any tank you want, and most of us have many favorites.

Why is ragging on WoT so important to you? You seriously need something better to do.

For the July 4th weekend event, I was raking in 80-100k credits per match on my KV1, KV-1S and Pz IV.

It was a good weekend Darth. I made 5+ million silver with that delicious Tier V & VI bonus.

 

[arentol]

good post Yippee38,

Skill, intelligence, and reaction are everything in WoT. It's counter intuitive but until you understand how to play in the tank your driving your overall win rate will be less than a flip of the coin.

(EDIT)
forgot to mention, In before someone rails on you that "those stats are meaningless!"

Actually it was a horrible post because it proved exactly the opposite of what he intended. He was trying to say it wasn't P2W, but then he said that a Premium tank was better than non-premium ones and that the "balance" to that was that the Premium tank would be drive by a bad player.

Ummm.... What if it is driven by a good player? Doesn't that make it P2W since that good player will likely be equal to two or three good players in non-premium tanks?

Sorry, bad post, defeats himself.

I am not saying it is or isn't P2W, I don't know since I know almost nothing about the game, just saying that his argument was self-defeating and it was therefore a bad post. To defeat arguments that it is P2W it MUST be shown that when player skill is precisely equal the Premium owning player will win about 50% of the time. If he is winning 53% or more, consistently, then it is P2W in my opinion.

 

[Angelus897]

Actually it was a horrible post because it proved exactly the opposite of what he intended. He was trying to say it wasn't P2W, but then he said that a Premium tank was better than non-premium ones and that the "balance" to that was that the Premium tank would be drive by a bad player.

People who think premium tanks are better than non-premiums are delusional. They make more money, and are cheaper to run, yes. But in battle, they are inferior machines. T34 might be the only exception, but I think a lot of that has to do with it starting out as a tier IX standard.

 

[Pleb]

Sounds like me with World of Planes. Registered, downloaded it, never played it once.

I played it twice then deleted it from my HDD. Have never tried WoT though.

 

[Commander FAT]

Yeah, exactly.

Anyone play this?

I played up until I realized that there was no respawning. Quit after the second game.

 

[Zorlag]

People who think premium tanks are better than non-premiums are delusional. They make more money, and are cheaper to run, yes. But in battle, they are inferior machines. T34 might be the only exception, but I think a lot of that has to do with it starting out as a tier IX standard.

This is false. There are several premium vehicles that are at least comparable to their normal peers. Sometimes even better.

SU-122-44 (best or among the best of tier 7 TDs)
SU-100Y (second best tier 6 TD with a monstrous 130mm gun)
Type 59 (not sold anymore but more or less equal to other tier 8 medium tanks and has easier matchmaking)
IS-6 (tier 8 heavy tank with superb armor and somewhat inferior gun. Good players shooting gold ammo clean publics with this time and again).
Dicker Max (better than normal german tier 6 TD Jagdpanzer IV)
FMC 36 Pak 40 (best tier 3 TD hands down. Extremely slow though)

There is also a chinese heavy tier 8 tank (112) coming which has better frontal armor than IS-6 and gun with 300 penetration HEAT rounds but it only has normal matchmaking. Remains to be seen how well it will perform.

T34 is mostly just mobile bunker/TD. Great gun, poor mobility, bad hull armor and good turret armor.

 

[Pleb]

Does WoT have more historical servers or is it all ahistorical?

 

[Loading]

This is NOT a pay to win game. I've never ever shot a gold round, and yet I'm still a fairly decent player. The top tier tanks (tier X) you CANNOT BUY. You can only earn with experience that's earned in game (you cannot buy exp points) and in game creds. (You can however buy creds) You still need the experience, and all the tier 1-9 tanks researched in that particular path.

There's a two tier spread in the game (well, except for 'scouts') That means if you have a tier 6 tank, you can play with either tier 4, 5, and 6, or 5, 6 and 7 or 6, 7 and 8. Sometimes you'll be the low tier, and yeh sometimes that sucks. Next round you could be the top tier tank. Or sometimes you'll be in battles with tanks all your tier.

Funny enough, this game seems one of the most balanced to me, compared to games where you can't spend money on anything. In pretty much every online game I play, I can't stop but think to myself "Is that guy really that good/lucky or is he cheating?! I remember the early counterstrike days. You get one awesome player (Or a guy that was good at cheating?) on a team, and they'd always win. Always. They'd constantly have 40 kills and 2 deaths. In WOT, you don't have that one god like player dominating everyone else. Sure a good platoon of great players can help swing a game one way or the other, but mostly it comes to the team as a whole.

 

[Draxanoth]

This is false. There are several premium vehicles that are at least comparable to their normal peers. Sometimes even better.

SU-122-44 (best or among the best of tier 7 TDs)
SU-100Y (second best tier 6 TD with a monstrous 130mm gun)
Type 59 (not sold anymore but more or less equal to other tier 8 medium tanks and has easier matchmaking)
IS-6 (tier 8 heavy tank with superb armor and somewhat inferior gun. Good players shooting gold ammo clean publics with this time and again).
Dicker Max (better than normal german tier 6 TD Jagdpanzer IV)
FMC 36 Pak 40 (best tier 3 TD hands down. Extremely slow though)

There is also a chinese heavy tier 8 tank (112) coming which has better frontal armor than IS-6 and gun with 300 penetration HEAT rounds but it only has normal matchmaking. Remains to be seen how well it will perform.

T34 is mostly just mobile bunker/TD. Great gun, poor mobility, bad hull armor and good turret armor.

Comparable for some, but I've never felt any of them to be better. All those TD's listed have almost 0 survivability. Especially the SU100y. It's the size of a barn and has armor made of recycled pizza boxes. I'd much rather face one of them than a standard SU100.

The Type 59 is a beast, but so are a lot of the T model tanks in the higher tiers. Most of them require knowledge of their armor and good shot placement, both of which most players don't care enough to utilize. It's one of the few premiums I consider to be competitive, which is probably why they don't sell it every day.

The overwhelming theme with premiums tends to be they're outliers in the stat lineup, have one extremely high performance area, and one extremely low. Great gun, bad armor. Great armor, bad gun. Almost every one has a huge disadvantage. If you take the time to learn about them they're extremely easy to eliminate, most people just don't care enough to learn the armor charts and vehicle specs.

None of them are pay to win. Honestly to me most of them are pay to lose, since they have a huge weakness I can exploit that makes them easy to destroy.