4Game

Before I start, I just want to say that I think World of Tanks is a great concept and overall a decent game. I know a lot of work went into it and it's very well polished. The UI isn't too clunky (few exceptions), the style is great, well optimized, not terribly buggy, and fun at times. I'm primarily making this post as a player who does enjoy game, in hopes that it will attract some positive attention (and undoubtedly negative too) to get some ideas implemented.

In your responses, please attempt to be civil.

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Primary Issues:

• Git Gud and CC Standards- TLDR: CCs are playing with a lot more advantages and do not reflect the average player.
  • I appreciate the CCs and the work they do, but their advice doesn't stick due to some aspects that they don't seem to take into account. Almost all of them are playing with their press account that has a bottomless cache of gold, credits, free exp, and premium account. This is not how many other players have the luxury of playing. A majority of them will be giving gameplay advice like how to aim, scout, or do lots of damage while rocking a maxed skill crew, bond equipment, premium consumables, and several metric tons of gold ammo. All of these aspects combined could really put off some viewers, it really highlights a disconnect between the classes of players. The newest, the moderate, and the top tier players are essentially all playing different versions of the same game. I've yet to see a CC (or a top tier clan player) willingly grind a stock tank with no gold ammo, a 50/75% crew with no skills, no equipment, and standard consumables.
• New Player Experience- TLDR: New players are not properly introduced into the game and are expected to do lots of external research to learn about the game
  • The new player experience in WoT is lousy, the tutorial is extremely generic and provides little to no use beyond understanding some basic things. The keyboard moves the tank, the mouse aims, etc… The tutorial takes about 15 minutes w/ loading times and cutscenes and sets high expectations. If you remember the first battle, you play as a Sherman Jumbo with 75mm HE against a group of tier 3-4 tanks that can't do any significant damage. Your bot teammates die fairly quick and you get to mop up the low tier tanks with juicy HE pens. This is not how the real game works. You will rarely get the chance to hardcore carry your team against easy pickings, mainly because humans are infinitely smarter than the AI opponents in the tutorial. It is a tutorial, but there's no challenge at all. You have to willingly throw the games, and it takes some effort (I know because I've done it). Let's go over some things that aren't even mentioned in the tutorial
    • Different Vehicle Types: No mention at all of TDs, HTs, MTs, or SPGs. These different classes have very different playstyles.
    • All Nations' Strengths/Weaknesses: This would help pique more interest in different tank nations, instead of selling new premiums for that nation.
    • Armour Penetration & RNG
    • Different Ammo Types: Only the tier 3 Russian tank unlocked with the tutorial actually has different ammo types while in the last battle of the tutorial.
    • Armour Effectiveness: Overmatch, Sidescraping, Sloped Armour…
    • Matchmaking
    • Communicating w/ Allies: Using the command menu or pinging the map.
    • Scouting/Concealment Mechanics: Incredibly important mechanics that can literally decide life or death.
  • The yearly well deserved reward seems to really favour those who've been around much longer. I understand the point in rewarding veteran players for being with the game, but the reward levels are borderline unfair. I've only been with the game 3 years, but have racked up 20K battles but it won't be until later this year I actually get a free tank with the well deserved reward. The 1-3 year rewards are pointless, yeah it's a few thousand credits, some boosters, and a single training manual but compare that to the other rewards and it's disheartening. I'd honestly settle for a Xmas tank that was given out a few years ago that I missed rather than no tank at all.
• Tech Tree vs. Premiums- TLDR: Premium tanks are leaning toward the OP side, outclassing tech tree tanks more frequently.
  • There are several groups of tanks, the good, the terrible, the ugly, and the OP. More often than not, the premiums tend to land in the OP section. There are a few exceptions, the SU-100M1 is a tech tree tank that one could argue is fairly OP. However, most of the OP tanks are Clan Wars or reward vehicles. While people do deserve a reward that is worthwhile, after all nobody would grind the missions for the M3 Lee, but it shouldn't be an overtly incredible tank. It should a have a balance of characteristics, outstanding alpha for average pen, thicc armour for average mobility, etc.. There's also a few premiums that have been made that have a spirit of balance in them, but have been outclassed by recent tanks. I was awarded the VK 75.01K from WoT Weekly, and the tank was a perfect balance of characteristics. The alpha was high, but the pen wasn't obscene, the armour was decent and the mobility suffered a bit, and the reload was acceptable. When it was unveiled in August, it had the highest alpha for a heavy tank in tier 8. However, later that year the Object 703 II came out and put 490 alpha to shame with a salvo damage of 780. The Obj. 703 II has almost everything the VK doesn't, from camo to mobility. Within the span of 3 months, the VK 75.01K went from a good balanced tank to meh.
• Crew Training and Skills
  • Crew skills are undoubtedly a vital part of the game, but they require an obscene amount of grinding. Training a 75% crew is one of the most rage inducing parts of the game, because at that point you are playing a very different game from someone who has 6th sense.
    • Sixth Sense should be on vehicles by default, it is a game changer.
    • Adrenaline Rush needs a buff, it's not often you live very long at 10% HP or even get that low. I propose 1.65% decrease in reload for every 10% of HP lost. This would give a slightly less effective reload (14.89% decrease compared to 15%) but the consistency would make the perk much more useful.
    • Eagle Eye: Make the popup instantaneous and have it highlight damaged hitzones (fuel tanks, gunner, etc…) on the enemy vehicle.
• Meta Shift: Certain vehicles are obsolete and likely won't be played or liked much.
  • Over the years WoT's meta has evolved and is now generally leaning toward fast vehicles with good guns and study armour. Things like the EBR series are vastly more capable of active scouting, leaving tracked lights in the dust. While the EBR doesn't have the acceleration of a Koenigsegg Gemera (0-100 kph in 1.9s), it's very close to a Aston-Martin DB11 (0-100 kph in 3.9). I think that the fastest tier X tracked LT is the RhmPz at 75 kph, though I'm not certain. This huge disparity between the speeds leads to the obsolescence of the tracked light tanks that were intended for active or passive scouting. Not to mention if the enemy team gets an EBR but your team doesn't.
• Matchmaking
  • By far one of the most frustrating things that can really impact how well you do in a game. If you're stuck with a stock tank and have a poor gun, you can really get screwed over. According to the Wiki, the matchmaker will make same tier games last. I may not be smart, but would it really be that much harder for the matchmaker to attempt that first? There are some tanks that are very good for their tier, but rapidly lose effectiveness when bottom in a match. Tier 4 is especially awful, with +2 -1 matches. This is exacerbated by tanks like the M3 Lee or T-28 which have very little chance against tier 6s. It's not until about tier 7 where you can actually attempt to damage +2 vehicles and be moderately successful. +1 -1 for all tanks may limit the fun of people who want to break out their Defender and get pitted against scary tier 6s, but it would overall benefit every player to face tanks they can actually engage.
• Fast v. Furious: Slow tanks can't fend off more mobile attackers effectively
  • Fast tanks can almost always win against slower tanks, especially in close quarters combat. If an EBR gets behind almost any tank, that tank has no hope if it's solo. Similar to how in a plane, an enemy on your tail has every possible advantage. No matter what you do, they will see it, and the EBR has the mobility to stay out of your line of fire indefinitely.
• Maps and Time Crunch: Small maps and no time to plan result in short battles that can be unfun.
  • Contrary to many people hating on the map design, I think that the maps are decent. However, they need be much bigger and matches need to last longer. This would allow slower vehicles to stand a chance, instead of being crunched for time to get to the front line. Most of the vehicles in game were not designed for close quarters combat or they were not intended to face vehicles that they are pitted against in their tier. The Jagdtiger was built and deployed from late 1944 to the end of WWII. The T54 wasn't fully functional until 1945 and served many years after. These vehicles are in the same tier, despite that one of them was not intended to be an MBT. One of them was designed solely to defend positions, but the other was a more modern upgrade to the idea of a tank. They can both be good, but one of them is only suited for a certain task that a majority of the maps don't allow effectively.
• Over Punishment: Experience system needs to be reworked to be more rewarding at higher tiers and during losses.
  • WoT's experience payouts on a losing game should be much less punishing. Have players gain additional exp for being higher on their team, and give the same amount of exp as a win to the top player on the losing team. The exp calculation should increase with tier, right now it doesn't seem to matter what tier you're in. Even on some of my best games, I've only gotten 1K or slightly more. Keep in mind that some tier 8s and 9s require tens of thousands of exp for crucial modules, like tracks and better guns.

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• Some suggestions for the game:
  • Permanent PvE mode(s), similar in nature to the Road to Berlin event or Proving Ground for all vehicle tiers. This would allow players to get more comfortable with their tanks and get a feel of what the tank is good at. It would also allow for players to get that "badass with a tank" feeling that can be really fun. Have the mode(s) give out less experience than multiplayer. Make these singleplayer or platoon based to allow people to have more fun by themselves.
  • Add bots to training rooms so a player can test out a vehicle in a training room first before learning about the strengths and weaknesses the hard way.
  • Better tutorial that has separate stages when you unlock different tiers to explore more advanced tactics. Make sure it covers the other material mentioned in it's section.
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