Just my honest feedback after roughly 500 games on PS4. To be fair: I truely see hugh potential in this game and would love to delve into it. But I also feel like WoT is stuck in a f2p-concept of the past. The industry has moved on, this game definitely has not… I'm certainly not a game designer, but from my point of view as a consumer there are 3 major flaws. Although I'm sure all of this has been said 1.000 times… Otherwise feel free to prove me wrong!
- Learning curve: There is none, it's more of a 90° angle. I really like the deep tactical core gameplay, if only I had any chance to grow as a player. The tutorial is a joke in comparison to all the decisions one has to make on the battlefield. The lower tiers are just a hugh carnival of seal clubbing & likewise horrible new players. It took me weeks just to get a grasp of all the aspects regarding crew, equipment, tank roles and – most of all – even the most tiny fraction of map knowledge. As often recommended I stopped on tier IV/V to take a breather and just watch, observe and hopefully learn. But well no… Suddenly there is a whole new map pool and I'm thrown against tier VI/VII opponents, who mostly know what they are doing. You can imagine the results as well as the level of frustration for just being easy prey: Most of the time, I have absolutely no idea where to go or which strategy is correct and feel heavily disadvantaged in almost every enemy encouter. With so many maps, 5 totally different tank roles and so many unique scenarios in every battle, it seems just impossible. I like a tough challenge, but only under circumstances, that actually allow me to learn from my mistakes…
- Tank progression: Collecting and learning / optimizing new tanks is a central part of this game. But to me it feels all wrong. After some tiers, I suddenly realized that getting a new tank is actually not a moment of joy for having access to a new vehicel. It's just another milestone of frustrating grind. The loadout is stock (aka crap), the poor crew level doesn't help at all and the first few dozen games are just a wreckfest. Overwhelmed by so many tank options and no idea about any "good" tanks, everything feels more or less arbitrary in the end…
- Game communication: Having said all that, what does the game try to communicate to me? It feels absolutely bizarre: I'm just being confronted by "special offers", whether I don't want to buy this or that premium tank. But what for? It's like buying a sportscar for a toddler. Why on earth should I support this game and spend money on new vehicles, as I still didn't have any proper chance to master even the most basic gameplay after so many hours?
The most common advice I've read, is to play a couple of thousand games and be patient. Well, I don't know… To me, this game seems to be way beyond its prime days. No wonder, how do you aquire new players for a stable population with the current state of the game's new player's experience and way better f2p-competitors on the market? Looking at the patch history, WoT seems to try to appease the established player base as long as possible and nothing more. I sincerely hope, WG does a better job with Caliber…
TLDR: I'm simply baffled by the hugh potential of this game being obstructed by the weirdest game design choices. I don't think you have to be a prophet to foresee its future. I guess, I'm just one of many, many deterred potential fresh players…