I’ve been playing this game for a very long time, even before tanks were introduced and before that, I played WoT that i quit in favor of WT because, at the time, it was clearly much better in terms of historical accuracy and gameplay.
I enjoyed the game for years, but since maybe a year or two i have had the feeling that the game was on a very bad slope. Now it’s at the bottom of that slope and i really am considering quitting
In this post i’ll go on a rant about what i feel is killing the game and why after so many years i don’t have fun anymore, feel free to complete or explain why what i say is wrong.
1 : THE BR SYSTEM
I think that’s probably my number one reason to alt+f4 or one death leave. A long time before this post i started doing stats for a multitude of ranks and nations to see which brackets had the highest chances of having a “top tier” match. The answer is one. There is only ONE br bracket where you can hope of having a good game and it’s in 8.7. That’s it.
Now, i know that all my games can’t be top tier and honnestly i didn’t mind but it’s becoming freaking ridiculous.
In 5.7, the most WWII br you can have, on 90 games for Germany, only 4 have been top tier, all the others are againt 6.3 and 6.7. If anyone wants to see the stats, just ask me.
That goes on for every br except 9.7, the odds of being top tier never exceed 10% while bottom tier is always above 50% … that’s ridiculous …
Add the fact that a br difference of +/-1 is enormous (Tiger 1 vs T-29 for example), how can you motivate me to play ? Let alone a new player … You literally spend 80% of your games facing tanks that are better than you in every way.
2 : The RNG, or randomness
I quit WoT because of that exact thing, randomness in a game is by essence bad because it contradicts skill. WT used to be a game about skill and tanks, where one good shot would grant you a kill. Now, the RNG has plagued every single match and there is no game where i don’t say “WTF ??” at least once.
It all started with the addition of volumetric armour and shells, and i can’t undertsand why they kept that terrible system that ruins the game, immersion and realism.
Every game, my shell will bounce, not pen or simply disappear when clearly in a logical world the ennemy would’ve been detroyed.
It doesn’t sound too bad, but add the fact that you’re facing bigger tanks 80% of the time, you’re not allowed to make a mistake …
There are some tanks that are known to eat shots, such as the Panther, Tiger I, all variants of the T-34 and the avenger / comet family. I really can’t stand getting killed just because the game can’t calculate what happens when a shell hits the junction between two armour plates …
And i’d says that it’s not the worst part. Top tier is an unfinished bullshit fest where side shots don’t pen, shells don’t spall and guns keep sending shells in the void without taking damage. I have the feeling that they are too busy adding new vehicles with imaginary stats to fix the core gameplay…
3 : Vehicles
Speaking of which; WT used to be based on history and realism, i mean the official website even calls the game “realistic” when it’s not literally “simulator”. Then came the modern vehicles, and oh boy was it a terrible move …
Even though i would like it, i see why we can’t have historical based matchmaking. However, having an M-51 facing Tigers and Shermans or a PZH 2000 facing Tigers II is purely ridiculous. Heavy tanks have become purely useless now that everyone fires modern rounds at them, and that’s how the game entered the light tank meta.
Light tanks used to be balanced and quite easy to kill (which they should be) with the hull break mechanic. Now, anything that don’t have enough armour to trigger a fuse or cause too much spalling will simply eat shots again and again. Anything above 8.0 is just a mix of Hot Wheels and Call of Duty where AAs and light tanks rush around the battlefield just spraying anything they see with APFSDS while themselves are absorbing shots cuz they’re just empty masses.
In my mind, autocannons ruined the game because what used to require skill (destroying a tank) now just becomes the same old barrel, track, flank process, and that’s when you can’t simply shred it from the front (XM 246)…
i can’t recall how many nukes i scored simply by shredding the ennemy team with an AA (completely ignoring planes in the process)
4 : Planes and CAS in general
I used to hate CAS and thought it had no reason to be i ground battles other than to satisfy the no skill tankers. Then i figured that it could be fun and even necessary when an ennemy is camping in an OP spot.
However, there’s a new problem now; CAS has become way more powerful and it has been justified by the introduction of much more powerful AAs. It all seems fine until you realise that there are two major issues :
The first issue is that playing CAS require little to no skill, while playing AA is much harder so you’re really dependent on wether you’re having good teammates or not.
The second is that the huge majority of AAs are always going to the USSR and the rest is going to the USA. Not paired with either of these nations ? Welp good luck …
Generally speaking, playing against russia means that you’ll get wrecked by CAS as not many people will actually bother playing AAs since it’s not rewarding at all. Enjoy getting spawncamped by Yak-9 K or KA 50 while trying to enjoy a ground battle. They may not have the best CAS of the game (debatable) but they cleraly have the best AA and can dominate the entire sky with a single ZSU somewhere on the map.
5 : Maps
I don’t know why, but every single new map is utter garbage … it’s always the same three corridor style maps that usually leads to spawncamp roughly 5 minutes after the game started.
On a vast majority of maps, if you lose the first engagement, you’re done for as the ennemy will control the routes leading to the objective if not directly spawncamping your team.
And then there’s Sinai, where the North team always lose since they can’t reach the left part of the map in games above 5.0
Also, i don’t get why they insist of putting some weird variations of already bad maps like putting only one capture point or increasing the size of maps like eastern Europe so now you have to drive 5 real minutes in order to get shot at by someone 3 km away …
6 : Grinding modifications
Honnestly, i don’t understand why in the world this mechanic is still a thing. “It’s because they need to earn money by playing on the frustration of the players” well yes it really is frustrating as hell. Not only am i fighting tanks from the future but now i’m also doing it with a wreck that can’t even repair itself or shoot an effective shell…
The difference of effectiveness bewteen a stock and spaded tank is just absurd, and spading it is just so looooooong, especially in top tier.
If money really is the driving factor here, just add more premium tanksn increase the RP needed to get to the next tank. Hell, even reconsider being a free to play but i’m not going to spend 10 hours in a crappy tank just to get an ammo that i could finally get kills with. In fact, not many people will …
I’d be happy to spend money on the game, but not simply to make my tank usable in battle …
I think that’s about it. All in all, i hate that the game has become a weird hybrid between old and new tech, trying to make them cohabitate and that, in a game where there was close to none, RNG has become such an important issue thanks to spaghetti code or lazyness, idk …
Every match is a painful uptier where the game can suddenly decide that your shot will not do any damage on a modern IFV, while you were simply trying to enjoy a WWII tank game …