World of Tanks

[phatzo]

no one I know is using a joystick, mouse and keyboard work well

[trax1]

no one I know is using a joystick, mouse and keyboard work well

Yeah but like I said that isn't an option for me, I just hope if they don't support joysticks right now that they do get them supported soon because from what I've seen and been reading about the game play it sound pretty good.

[Shuffler]

I find it archaic for a game to use only a KB and mouse.

[Ghosth]

I guess you could say I'm in the mid tiers and struggling.
The higher I climb the more and the bigger tanks I see that are 2, 3, 4 or more tiers above me in battle.

Back in the AT-1 I could figure that half the time I'd be up against tanks of my own tier or less.

With each tier I climb I see the match making getting worse.
Its bad enough trying to face KV's with a SU-76.
But trying to face IS-3's in a SU-85b is even worse.

Any single hit from any tank in the top 2/3rds of the list will kill me.
But it takes 4, 6, 8 or more shots on target for me to do significant damage to them.
Not that I'm complaining, because even a bad battle still puts more credits and XP into my account.

But I would love to see them manage a better job of matchmaking.
Given a choice between waiting 20, 30 minutes for a match against tanks of my tier, or taking my chances  on a random match I'd probably go for it. But not having that choice, that makes it harder.

Meantime I'm just one tier from a KV, I only need 15k in XP and 360,000 credits.
I'm having doubts if its worth the grind. I suspect if I actually reach that point I'll see nothing but hummels, ferds and tanks having more armor and bigger guns than I have.

3 times in 3 weeks I've been the top tank on the list, all 3 have happened in the AT-1.
All 3 battles I came out with multiple kills.

The rest of the time, well its 50/50 odds. I'll either be lower middle, or at the very bottom of the list.
If its the latter, then the first enemy that see's me usually kills me with a single shot.
Either way my likelyhood of getting kills is slim, I may do some damage, but that is about as much as I can hope for.

Don't get me wrong, there is much about WoT that is good.
And for the most part I've enjoyed the time spent there.
But how long would you have stayed in AH if 9 battles out of 10 you were in an A6m and the enemy had Tempests and 190d9s?

[trax1]

Well I've been managing with just using the KB & mouse, just sucks having to use them one at a time with the only using 1 arm and all, but it's a fun game, I just hope that they get the support for joysticks in the game & soon, I can't believe that it wasn't something that was built into the game from day one, I mean in this day & age of PC gaming could it really be all that difficult for them to put in the programing to get it done, but once they do I'm sure I'll enjoy the game even more.

[humble]

I'm 100% with you ghost. Here's my 2 cents based on my experience and what I gleaned earlier from some of the other AH guys.

Arty is clearly the queen of the battlefield. Biggest "points" for lowest risk and damage. Even my Hummel only takes 1800 or so to repair. Still on the short gun tube so its a frustrating experience.
Also the tricked out pzIII works very well as a scout vs "the big boys" and obviously finds time at the top of the heap occasionally. Building crew experience is important. My pzIII is 98% I think and
it certainly helps  bit. I use a lot of "circling attacks" with the aimbot (highlight and right click) vs arty and heavier tanks with a lot of success. Again 1500-1800 to repair vs 9,000-15,000 pts.
My bread and butter is my pzIV, its at 98% also with camo and the periscope thingy. I use it as a stand off sniper early in support of the big guns. Not many kills but a lot of "assists". I've pinged JS-7/4 kng tiger etc
while they were engaged to the point they lost focus and started looking around....giving the other good guys an extra couple of shots. I've gotten 900/20,000 more then a few times in defeat that way.

The two biggest "issues" for me so far are the absolute lack of skill involved (beyond learning the map contours vs arty) and the stupidity of some of the progressions. The class V tank under the Tiger is a good example. It's a POS with far less overall value then the PZIV it replaces. It's 75/L58 is less effective overall then the 75/L70? on the IV and the 88mm is ineffective above medium range from an accuracy perspective. So your less effective "sniping" then in the IV but to use the 88 you need to close with the big boys and can't take the return fire. It's frustrating to have a 12 yr old in a tier 9/10 ride totally ignore you while your parked literally on his tail and then casually rotate his turret around after you've nailed him point blank 4-5 times to inflict 4% total damage. Then when you get the tiger it's got the 75/L70 but is so slow its painful and has a baseline of 8,000 damage and a baseline point total of 4,000 or so till you pop on the 88. Then you need the tracks and turret before you can get the "real" 88mm you need...

On german side pzIII/pzIV and wespe are your "money makers" that allow you to slog up time and frustration permitting.

[B4Buster]

I started playing it but gave up on it last weekend. I got into artillery and was having a blast 1 shotting people in the lower tier brackets. Eventually I made my way up to a SU-26 and got all the upgrades. Even with the credit-costing ammo I'd be lucky to do 5% damage on an enemy tank.

I feel like I must be missing something...

Also tried the tank bracket but kept getting demolished by heavies. I agree that they should work out some balancing issues...impossible to compete in some brackets.

[humble]

One aspect I don't entirely understand is the crew experience level. I saved my "H" crew which was at 91% and swapped them into my tiger. Seems to be a big difference. Got 457/15,796 in a defeat 1st time out with "new" crew. The crew experience is showing as red not white but they seemed to perform up to the higher rating. Certainly a lot more "critical hits" then I'd been getting....anyone know the in's and out's of the crew ratings?

[Ghosth]

Well other than watching the crew gain experience over time, as I grind away I really havn't played with crew options much. Mostly looked like a way to separate you from your gold or credits. I have yet to try moving a crew, probably should have figured out how to do that. When I sold my su-76 to buy the su-85b I probably could have saved my crew and gained 12% experience or more on them.

[whiteman]

One aspect I don't entirely understand is the crew experience level. I saved my "H" crew which was at 91% and swapped them into my tiger. Seems to be a big difference. Got 457/15,796 in a defeat 1st time out with "new" crew. The crew experience is showing as red not white but they seemed to perform up to the higher rating. Certainly a lot more "critical hits" then I'd been getting....anyone know the in's and out's of the crew ratings?

only thing i know on crew training is if you left or right click on the crew member his profile box will appear. it has a section for training and i believe it is there where you select a tank for them. then you can retrain him for free, train him to 75% for 20k or to 100k for 200 gold. When they hit 100% there is a section with specialties, you can pick one of those for your crew member. Should be camo, repair and fire fighting. an icon will appear next to the guys name when you choose it.

sure the other guys can explain it better.

[GtoRA2]

I'm 100% with you ghost. Here's my 2 cents based on my experience and what I gleaned earlier from some of the other AH guys.

Arty is clearly the queen of the battlefield. Biggest "points" for lowest risk and damage. Even my Hummel only takes 1800 or so to repair. Still on the short gun tube so its a frustrating experience.
Also the tricked out pzIII works very well as a scout vs "the big boys" and obviously finds time at the top of the heap occasionally. Building crew experience is important. My pzIII is 98% I think and
it certainly helps  bit. I use a lot of "circling attacks" with the aimbot (highlight and right click) vs arty and heavier tanks with a lot of success. Again 1500-1800 to repair vs 9,000-15,000 pts.
My bread and butter is my pzIV, its at 98% also with camo and the periscope thingy. I use it as a stand off sniper early in support of the big guns. Not many kills but a lot of "assists". I've pinged JS-7/4 kng tiger etc
while they were engaged to the point they lost focus and started looking around....giving the other good guys an extra couple of shots. I've gotten 900/20,000 more then a few times in defeat that way.

The two biggest "issues" for me so far are the absolute lack of skill involved (beyond learning the map contours vs arty) and the stupidity of some of the progressions. The class V tank under the Tiger is a good example. It's a POS with far less overall value then the PZIV it replaces. It's 75/L58 is less effective overall then the 75/L70? on the IV and the 88mm is ineffective above medium range from an accuracy perspective. So your less effective "sniping" then in the IV but to use the 88 you need to close with the big boys and can't take the return fire. It's frustrating to have a 12 yr old in a tier 9/10 ride totally ignore you while your parked literally on his tail and then casually rotate his turret around after you've nailed him point blank 4-5 times to inflict 4% total damage. Then when you get the tiger it's got the 75/L70 but is so slow its painful and has a baseline of 8,000 damage and a baseline point total of 4,000 or so till you pop on the 88. Then you need the tracks and turret before you can get the "real" 88mm you need...

On german side pzIII/pzIV and wespe are your "money makers" that allow you to slog up time and frustration permitting.

All your problems sound like they come from both lack of skill and lack of a firm handle on what the game is about.

The tank right below the tiger is widely considered one of the best tanks in the game. That tank the 3601 is huge improvement over the nearly hopeless panzer IV..

It's funny you’re so bad at a "skill less" game.

[whiteman]

Pz IV isn't that bad, hang out with the Heavies and help them pick off the other teams big guys and us HE rounds on them. no point in charging ahead if your one of the smaller tanks in the match unless your a Leopard or one of the other small fast tanks. take what you can because your not going to win a match by yourself if your in with heavies. keep the heavies clean of the smaller fast tanks and help them knock out the big guys when you come across them.

[Masherbrum]

The key to World of Tanks and progressing fast is to simply "hit larger tanks".   With the 105mm on the PIV and 3601 you only load HE.   As long as you are hitting, you're gaining more XP.

[Steve]

One aspect I don't entirely understand is the crew experience level. I saved my "H" crew which was at 91% and swapped them into my tiger. Seems to be a big difference. Got 457/15,796 in a defeat 1st time out with "new" crew. The crew experience is showing as red not white but they seemed to perform up to the higher rating. Certainly a lot more "critical hits" then I'd been getting....anyone know the in's and out's of the crew ratings?
Tiger... It's a POS with far less overall value then the PZIV it replaces  

Unless you train your crew for the vehicle they are in, they wont perform well... or advance.  All tanks suck at their base level, including the VK3601.. A fully upgraded VK3601 is a very good medium.....  the thrid best German medium.

As for what you said about big tanks, you have to learn how to fight them. If you were in a pzIV vs an is7 1v1.  There's no reason why the IS7 should be able to hit you.. ever.  Use HE, track him, and circle him, he'll never be able to get his gun on you.  That said, if you're fighting an IS7 as I described you somehow are at the endgame with just the two of you left... tough odds.

Also, you need to learn where tanks are vulnerable. Circling a tank while using your auto aim is noob play and will not give you the best chance of hitting and it certainly wont hit any soft spots.  Often, auto aim will aim directly at the front of the turret, typically the toughest spot on a tank.

[trax1]

Well I sent a message to the support team asking if they had plans on adding support to the game for joysticks, and their response was that they have no plans to add support for joysticks in the near future, well that really sucks, that was gonna be the only way I would be able to play the game any better then the way I can now which is hard to do with having to let go of the mouse to move the tank.