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I'm gonna read through this discussion a bit later, it's very interesting. One thing caught my eye though, the TD vs LT discussion, so a quick response. These articles are meant mostly for non-high-end players for kinda obvious reasons. First, players who can truly see the consequences of some choices are very rare. Second, most players who read these articles are average (by the very definition of the word). Hm that sounded a bit weird, but you know what I mean. My point is, for most players, you gotta define expectations first, because that's the starting point where the opinions will come from. Most players do not think in shades of grey, they think black and white, or, more specifically, black or dark grey (black with some leeway) and white or light grey (white with some leeway). So, in this specific case, defining TDs as snipers is an important aspect because it ensures that players will try to first play them as snipers and then move towards the grey zone when they find out this isn't working all THAT well. Likewise, defining LTs as flankers is important because while the same players will start that way and then gradually move towards the TD role. The reality is that both classes basically occupy more or less the same niche of "second line fighters". TDs (excluding some weird shit like BMPTs) are better at longer distances, LTs at shorter ones, but the truth is that the role of a "flanker" is a fictional one, at least for LTs. LT flankers are a myth - they don't work because the maps are too small. So what you have instead is something like faster "marksmen" and less agile and more fragile "snipers". But, if you describe it like this to wider audience, we're getting to what I described above - players don't think in scales of grey, they think in absultes. In other words, they will understand "kinda the same" as "totally the same", which it is not, there will always be nuances, either in different characteristics or indirect ones (for example, TDs don't typically carry ERA, which is pretty significant given the upcoming changes). Getting really deep into these statistics and rebalance, you'll start discovering some really weird shit, such as the Type 16 is effectively a wheeled Light Tank and a better LT than some other LTs to boot, yet it must retain its old class because it would completely mess the basic narrative of the game - when all vehicles are the same, it will become incredibly difficult for new players to orientate (and yes, we are getting new players, every day). There were thoughts about merging LTs and TDs into one class (FSV), but this would be REALLY complex. Right now, every single TD and LT has its seprate table in developer files where its battlefield role and intended gameplay is described. In other words, we're not cutting legs to fit the shoe, we're changing the shoe size to fit the leg - or, we're assigning classes to fit the vehicles based on how we want them played, not vice versa. I guess the TLDR of it all is, you'll see what happens. We all will (that's why I am specifically avoiding giving any numbers because when everything changes, listing specific changes makes no sense).

Thanks for being brave enough to post the first replay. The commentary here has been very helpful on my end - I suspect the challenges you face are actually common problems. Yep, we don't get respawns in RL... you have already noted that AW tactics are different from RL armor tactics, so perhaps that distinction will help you here psychologically. Death in PVE is not as tragic as death in PVP thanks to the respawns... the limit of 2 respawns in PVE helps control the credit losses. Thanks to free ammo and not using consumables, I have yet to have a negative credit balance at the end of over 1000 PVE matches (even playing badly, using 2 respawns, and no prem time or boosts), so I doubt there is actually a situation where you would lose credits under these conditions. YMMV if you are using consumables, as noted by Haswell in his F2P-from-scratch experiment, or if you totally go afk. Because there are no real deductions for XP (aside from afk penalties) that would make you negative, you are protected there. So now the question is when to go for the respawn. #1, it depends on your economic objectives... if you are trying to farm XP (to progress a vehicle), the respawn can only help you, as there is no risk to the XP you have already accumulated. If you are trying to optimize your credits-to-XP ratio (saving up for an expensive upgrade), you are still OK if you have a higher tier tank you can play in a later match (which could earn you enough credits to make up for the respawn even if you didn't play well.) If you are just trying to grind credits, then you have to factor in the opportunity cost (vide infra.) There is also optimization of credits/hour or XP/hour, but if you are willing to play the game over the long haul, maybe that's not so important. IMHO, there's no economic problem here that can't be remedied by playing a few more matches :-) So the opportunity cost works like this - how much more damage can I inflict/repel in the remainder of the match? If everyone else is about to cap, or there's not much time on the game clock left, then there's not enough opportunity to get another hit and create XP / earn credits. You also have to figure in the potential distance from whatever spawn point you might get, and the mobility of your vehicle. (Rather than memorize respawn points and probabilities, just estimate the time it takes to drive halfway across the map.) If you're in a zippy TD/AFV/LT, there's a better chance of getting back into the fight than if you're in a T3 Chieftain. The other opportunity cost is if you burn up all your respawns, you are permanently dead, and miss out on XP/credits for the portion of the match you view from Valhalla. In scuba diving we have the rule of thirds - use a third of your air supply to descend, a third of your air supply to surface, and keep a third of your air supply in reserve for unexpected problems. With 2 respawns you have essentially 3 vehicles for the PVE match, so I usually think about taking a first respawn without too much guilt as long as there is good opportunity. On the second vehicle once I am down to less than 50% HP I might consider playing more conservatively if I think it will prolong survival, realizing that if I get ambushed, I still have another respawn left. Looking at the even bigger picture, if a respawn allows you to experiment a little bit or discover something new, then the credit cost is simply a tuition expense. If you learn something from each time you get blown up, then the respawn will pay for itself in the long run. I am in southeastern US with Spectrum cable internet and have 110-140 ping, depending on time of day, which is fine. At peak times (~1700 Eastern) I have had lags going out to 300, which is not playable (time for a coffee break). I think 120-130 ping is decent unless you are shooting at rapidly moving targets (drones, helicopters, UAVs).. then you have to lead more (like shooting skeet or sporting clays). The other time I notice is when multiple players are shooting at the same tank, and their shots land a bit ahead of mine. If this happens frequently in a match, I'll select targets that have lots of HP left, and let others finish them off. Thanks to @Baron and respondents for this thread. Learning a lot! DVC, QR

Fair enough. Something we learned too while operating the Leos But please break this habit it really hinders you from improving your results. Just look at the leo as a tank with a very good accuracy. Therefore you can snipe with it when necessary. However, in this particular match every other teammember was better off in terms of damage. Which forces you to accumulate as much assist damage as possible to get a good result and therefore try to stay at the front. Additionally a hulldown Leo is quite immune to damage so there's not really an excuse to hide behind other vehicles and let them farm the assist damage. It depends on personal playstyle but I'm quite agressive in PVE when it comes to playing MBT. It has become a habit for me because I'm often competing with T15 players and therefore need to farm assist damage to get a good result. I don't know in particular as credits are not a problem for me. I hope someone else is able to answer this. Certainly depends on the point of view. I have a normal ping of 20-30ms so for me 120ms already sounds quite horrbile. There's the Hype CSB to test commander builds, good to experiment with certain builds. It works well enough armor wise as long as you stay hulldown. The problem is that he can do whatever he wants damage wise without reaching a good result. I doubt that even a very good player could outdamage at least the 640 and Hunters in this situation. For a good result in this match he needs to rely on assist damage I don't see any other solution. Of course not always the best idea to play agressive, especially in a Leo.

I'll partially disagree with your first point. The Leo 2A6 isn't a well-armored vehicle in a Tier 10 match, so he needed to be at least somewhat conservative. My play style is very similar and I do just fine, so I don't think he needs to dramatically change his style. That said, I got the feeling that you weren't using your mini-map to keep track of targets. There were several occasions where you took fire and retreated, but then warily crept forward looking for the tank that shot you even though it had already been destroyed by a teammate. The battle record and mini-map help a great deal in this regard. Something that I noticed when he was firing at the Anders is that his reaction times were slow. There were numerous occasions where he had a green shot that should have done full damage, but didn't pull the trigger and then the Anders turned giving him an orange shot as he fired. Ammo is free... if the reticle is green pull the trigger! In addition to what TeyKey said, I would add that you're too close to the rock on your left. If you were farther up the road to your right, this position is a nearly perfect hull-down position for MBTs. You can sit on the road with only your turret showing and shoot at the incoming enemies. However, in this particular situation caused by the power of your teammates, getting that hull down position is a bit of a waste of time because you just don't need it with that much firepower on your team. ASSUMING your teammates stay close and are ready to nuke the enemies as they rush your position at the end of the runway! If your teammates run off, then you very well may need the hull down position even on a powerful team. I'd say that the others were being too aggressive, and if they want to play that way more power to 'em. I tend to use either the same spot as Baron Georg, or the spot behind the bush that's behind the friendly Anders. That second position gives a small amount of lower hull cover, but doesn't have as good of an angle into the target area so it's a trade-off. That said, you do want to start moving as each area "ends" sooner than you do. You're the slowest vehicle on your team, so you need to anticipate movement from point to point and get started before everyone else. That's about all I can see that TeyKey didn't already cover. The recommendation to shoot drive wheels when presented with the side of an enemy is particularly good. I don't think you did poorly, really, you were just out-classed damage-wise on that particular team. It happens. I can only imagine! That kind of intense training never really leaves you. It varies. That's more-or-less correct in that the Leo's armor isn't top-notch, but MBTs also generally have the most health on the team and that also serves as an "armor" of sorts. You can be a little more aggressive in a Leo especially when facing bots that fire HEAT, because the Leo's armor is generally very good against HEAT rounds. It's hard to say for sure, but it seems to me that they've set it up so that you can easily respawn once and still get a benefit from the match. I carry (and regularly use) Field Rebuild Kits, and those are more expensive than the 1st respawn yet I still almost always earn positive credits. It generally requires the use of a Field Rebuild Kit in a loss to not make any credits. I would love to have your ping, mine is usually 160-180 from the West Coast of the US. 120 is plenty good enough for PvE.

havent watch the replay. But your teams vehicles are better than your Leo as Teykey mentions. Last picture : Dont use autoaim, use auto aim only if if you are useing fast vehicles with autocannons and you are circling them. And remember dead bots are nice cover, use those to push forward so you get all that juicy spotting scores. If you use autoaim alot it will really affect your scores in a negative way. So stop rightclikcing tanks and start to manually aim yourself.

Allright, let me try to provide you some Feedback @Baron_Georg I don't have a shit ping as you do (I don't know how it feels to play at such a high ping), so some stuff I'm pointing out might be ping related and therefore hard to fix. Feel free to ignore my advice in this case. First of all, as this is a PVE match, we have to look at the team composition before the battle starts. It's already evident, that you're quite handicapped with a Leo compared your teammates. The Obj 640 is a very capable MBT with high dpm. You're no match to this guy damage wise no matter how hard you try (as long as the player playing it is equal or better than you). The same goes for the Hunters. Those should've basically dominated this battle damage wise but they didn't really, all the better for you. Then there's the Anders which has higher damage output than your Leo aswell. Based on this at the start of the battle you should already be aware that (as long as your teammates are at least OK players) you can't excel in damage in this game no matter how hard you try. Which means on the other hand to perform good you need to farm as much assist damage as possible, all while doing as much damage as possible too. To farm as much assist damage as possible in an MBT in PVE you should do the following (You should in general try to do this, no matter the team composition): Get close to the bots, keep them spotted as long as possible, try to give your teammates a reason to stay behind and sniping the bots spotted by you. This means you should try to stay at the speartip of your team to reach such positions before your teammates. If your teammates are constantly in front of you or besides you you won't farm any spotting damage at all. Try to track the bots with your shots as often as possible. Important: Don't trade damage for this. Damage is always better, but if you face bots showing your sidearmor shoot the drivewheel or tension idler wheel to track them and deal damage. Damage to bots tracked by you always count towards you assist damage no matter who spots the vehicle (exception is if the target is marked). As a rule of thumb if the bots keep targeting your MBT instead of everyone else you're doing it right. Ok. Let's get to the battle. In general You did OK in my opinion. As described above you were quite handicapped with this team composition. There's still some stuff I'd like to point out: Some points I've noticed: You're playing too cautiously in your MBT. It hinders you from farming assist damage. You bounced quite often on the Anders with HEAT. Try to have a look at its weakspots in the LFP. You're turning your turret in unnecessary directions (especially on the last cap) when looking around. Lock the turret with the right mouse key while looking around, it can save you some time while shooting at a target without the need to turn the turret halfway around your vehicle. In the last cap you were driving into cover while reloading. This is fine but you returned to your firing position too late which always made you loose some seconds. The bots were not trageting you at all in this situation. Return to your firing position when you have roughly 3s reload left. It gives you enough time to select your target and fully aim in so you can shoot right on time when the gun is loaded. Here you use the terrain as a cover, which would be very good if there were much bots rushing this position. However here you're facing only a handful of bots and you've got the support of the whole team to finish them off. In this situation you're rather hindering yourself with this position (tough it's a good position to bounce stuff, just not practicable in this situation) you're struggling to properly target the enemies due to the terrain. In this situation I'd push up to the marked bradley wreck and use it as a cover for your LFP. Here you can see aswell that there's no way you could farm any assist damage in this position due to the team basically staying on the same spot of the map. Here you're playing way too passive. Use your MBT's armor, play agressive. You should be at the position of the hunter with your MBT. In this case the anders and Hunter probably would've stayed in the back to farm the damage while you spot and deflect the damage. It seems like you're always in the last row of your team which you want to avoid. Keep moving and try to not get overtaken by the other players. In the last cap You were aiming for rather bizarre spots. In both cases you get to shoot the blank sides of those bots. Why do you aim at the center mass of the vehicle when there are a lot safer spots to deal damage (purple marked area) without risking a bounce or miss? Additionally to farm the maximum of assist damage, it would be best to shoot the drivewheels (marked green) of those targets to track them while dealing damage. The targets are basically screaming for you to do this when you get to shoot them this nicely from the sides. That's what I observed while watching the replay. Hope this helps. Regarding Freja as a commander: You can use her on MBTs but I'd recommend you to skill her to something like this. Her accuracy skills are in most cases useless for MBTs.

best rename it to "baron_georg.awr" or something like this. Then paste it into the folder where your own replays are stored. somewhere in users/savedgames/armoredwarfare/... Then open up the game and in the Dossier tab go to history. Now important: On the top right switch from "Match Results" to "Replays". There you should find his replay and be able to run it.

Thanks for your clarity. It's hard to get to know someone through posts, so here are some observations thus far: You seem to be a detail-oriented person, and tend to focus on the particular rather than the general. It's a preference, like an affection for chocolate or berry versus vanilla. It's just how your brain works, and I respect that. You are trying to provide more useful details, I get it. I think you might have difficulty making the inferences behind each of the situational statements, so I'll try to be more explicit. With regard to tactics, I agree the game doesn't demand actual knowledge of armor tactics. The spirit of the observation is that you have an understanding of how to use cover and concealment, how to use terrain, how to slice a corner, how to take a T-intersection with and without a partner, how to move through a choke point... it's the same tactical principles you would use in other disciplines/games. So whether it's with real tanks or WOT tanks, I was offering the assumption that you know these principles, and that's not the problem. The 9 isn't fully upgraded (suggesting that it's a progression vehicle), so you should have a fully upgraded Tier 8. It's a noticeable degradation in capability to move to a stock vehicle when tiering up, but the upgrades were really the issue, the solution would be simple (keep grinding.) If you are not satisfied with your performance in a fully upgraded vehicle of whatever tier, then we should explore what happens when you have a fully upgraded vehicle. Sorry your previous replay posts weren't constructive. Maybe you could set up your file share, then PM a link to a one or two people ( maybe @Haswell or @dfnce ) so their remarks are more private. If you did learn something from their comments, you could share whatever you choose to make public. Yes, I was at the bottom of the ladder until I started reading the forums and participating in the community. When I started AW last April, I hadn't played a MMP game, ever. And single player shooter experience was limited to the MFS Sopwith Camel when graphics were wireframe (I mostly played RTS in my sheltered youth). I didn't even figure out the "teams" tab in the match stats until I got to T5. Yikes! Even Arty was doing better than I was. I don't really care about personal stats, but once I got to T5 the grinds were getting really long making only 1500 xp / 25k credits per match. And I knew the tanks and upgrades were only going to get exponentially more expensive. Bumbling around in my stock T5 Starshi* was so frustrating, I was (almost) ready to quit. The only thing that kept me going was my son loves the RL Abrams, and I wanted to unlock the T6 M1 so he could drive it around Albino all day. I reasoned that the grind could be easier (and I might have more fun) if I was able to play better... that's when I started looking for help. ... I have found the global chat and forums to be generally helpful. There are some noob-haters out there, but there are also quite a few folks willing to tier down to play with you. After all, those of us at the bottom of the damage latter actually do have a niche in the AW ecosystem - it lets someone else get their destroyer medal, if that's what they are after. So if someone in global chat brags "I have over 100 prem tanks", that's the right guy to ask "So what's the best way to get free prem tanks?" And yes, the forum has been helpful - a lot of the calculations and map values and stats weren't obvious to me, and that's been helpful. For example, I never realized how big a contributor spotting and spotted damage was until my thread turned to a discussion about retrofits, and how vision retrofits help. I took the idea (does better vision help me do something different) and experimented with it (the 1-day rental Hunter AFV has excellent vision, so I tried spotting more with it). Hm. Go back to the T3 M113 ACAV... spotting helps. Light bulb moment - can I do better if I just keep peeking at the swarm as new bots appear, even if I can't shoot/pen/kill them? Yep. Adding spotting damage almost doubled my scores. Now generalize - if spotting is worth that much, maybe I should drop off infantry to spot near the bot runs (where bots drive by, but don't necessarily shoot much in their hurry to get to their destination)... they don't have to kill the bot, just see it. Wow. It's actually worth it sometimes to be the grunts' Uber driver as the front advances. So now I am grinding to get better optics as a retrofit, because I now realize how much vision helps. And I have a renewed interest in AFVs, so I'm inspired to grow in a different direction when I get tired of grinding MBTs. Cool... and fun... and that's what this is about, right? ... The take-away lesson is that the forum provides an idea, or a concept. It still takes effort and experimentation to see if the idea works, for you, apply it, and expand on it. DVC, QR