knutliott

Except that then you find out that most of them are pretty fun to play, too, and so you end up buying a bunch of them so that you have the right vehicle for every map/situation. I mean, sure, I started out slowly with just the VFM and then the RCR, but I kept buying more and more as interesting alternatives popped up. Now I have like 10+ each at Tier 6 (for max Tier PvE) and Tier 8 (for Spec Ops), and like 4-5 at Tier 10. All told I think I have around 50, but a lot of those are low tier that were pretty close to free (and often actually were free). There's basically no reason to play a progression vehicle once you've progressed past it, unless it is OPAF. At least Premiums give you extra credits and so are an occasional enticement (at least for me) to play lower tiers. Note: that's all "the theory" of how they were supposed to work. Due to OPAF Premiums like the BMPT Model 2017, and the added credit bonus on the Object 640, there's little reason to play anything else in PvE other than grinding for progression. Any time I'm "caught up" in the current environment, I default to those two until something new comes out.

Seconded. Merkavas don't really get good until the Merk 3.Baz, so take the Magach line to get there.

As Lenticulas said, the pitch for Premium vehicles back in the day was that they were slightly less powerful than a fully-kitted progression vehicle of the same tier, but provided significant extra credits. You laid out cash for a Premium vehicle for the extra credits it helped you earn. You might (read: probably would) want several of them so that you could a) get the daily 2x more than once, and b) have different Premiums for different maps. My first 2 Premium vehicle purchases (at least as far as I remember) were a Tier 6 VFM Mk 5 and a Tier 8 AMX-10RCR. Neither one of them was ever OP, and in fact they were both pretty meh. But those sweet, sweet credits kept me playing them. The AMX is still to this day my most played vehicle, because I used it constantly to earn credits to buy all of the Tier 9s and 10s as I was grinding. Even the VFM was in my top 5 for the longest time, though I think it's finally been pushed out due to the extra-long grinds of some of the more recent progression vehicles. I still prefer to play Premium vehicles whenever possible even though I have 800M credits saved up. For a PvE player, the credit grind is crazy in this game if you're just playing along and not perfectly stacking boosts and insignias. So even with a fat back account, I still feel the need to earn as much as I can at all times. Ergo, premiums.

For me, the sounds of the reloading are my primary key. I don't listen to the voices, just the mechanical noises of the reloading process. As far as bots firing HEAT goes... to be completely honest I don't really know. I use the "incoming damage" panel religiously, both to figure out what's shooting me AND what they're shooting me with, and then respond accordingly. Though since ATGMs are mostly HEAT, those do count too. The Leos are surprisingly resistant to ATGMs (provided you don't just sit there) especially since they're such paper tigers against AP. Speaking of which... re: don't just sit there... there are two tricks that MBTs can use to great effect while reloading. One is often referred to as wiggling or dancing, and it means to make small movements back and forth left and right. You're not turning, really, you're just wiggling the nose of the vehicle back and forth. This is apparently a common tactic in WOT, and at least in my experience is not nearly as effective as the second trick: bouncing or rocking. It's the same thing, but instead of left and right, you make subtle movements forward and backward. This causes the vehicle's suspension to rock (ergo: rocking) and makes it really hard to hit your turret ring or any of the viewports that are common weak spots. Note that rocking takes some practice. You can't just spam w-s-w-s-w-s-w-s as fast as you can because that doesn't give the chassis time to react. There's a rhythm you have to develop, and it's different for different vehicles. But it's easy to practice because you can see the effect from 3rd person, and once you've got it down it's massively effective even against bots. It's so effective that you don't even have to always do it - it's often sufficient to see the incoming ATGM, and then start rocking, and that can cause that ATGM to fail to penetrate. There isn't line-of-sight from there, or at least not a good one. The map is cleverly designed, because to get LOS from that flank you have to expose your own flank to fire from the bots that spawn in the north part of F4/south part of E4, and as you said you're also the closest/first target for basically all of the bots that appear in that phase. That first phase is really a shooting gallery for the players if they just use minimal cooperation. At least 3 players can set up hull down where the AFV, LT, and MBT players are in this screenshot, and then 2 more can set up where the selected player is (the orange arrow on the "hull down road"). From those positions, all of the players can see the entire runway and just obliterate the bots as they rush forward. The Hunter AFV in this screenshot looks too far forward to me - all he's done is put himself at risk with no advantage gained. There's basically no reason to be on the surface level of the runway this early in the match.

Yeah... no. "a history of prior infractions on both the official Discord and within the game." Sounds like that "one sentence" was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

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.

Aha! This was the key piece of information, thanks!

One problem with these roles is that - realistically - there's very little difference between a TD and an LT. They're both relatively squishy with MBT-class guns. Sure, TDs are usually wheeled and LTs are usually tracked, but is that really a sufficient distinguishing characteristic? I suppose an argument can be made that LTs have sufficient armor to be immune to autocannons while TDs to not, but again I'm not sure that provides sufficient variety for them to have separate roles. (And no, the existence of Terminators is not a counter-argument. They're clearly an exception.)

From what Haswell said, I don't think that penetration damage is relevant. The FAQ that SS mentioned is actually quite clear on this term (I just hadn't noticed that the FAQ existed). I suspect that the line for "shots that dealt damage" is meant to be divided by "shots fired" from the stats screen to get "performance." Which in my above example would have only been 719 / 1197 = 60.07%.

The trick to knowing which ones you can double up on and which ones you can't is to look at the icon/image of the retrofit. If the icon/image is the same, you can't double up. If they're different, you can use both. This is why you can use an accuracy refit, an aim time refit, and the level 2 refit that gives you both level 1 accuracy and level 1 aim time. That 3rd retro has a different image than either of the others, so even though it duplicates both of their level 1 versions you can use it with them.

I did also try that (assuming you mean the Recordings folder of the installation heirarchy), and then tried to find it in Dossier -> History but it wasn't there. Is that not the correct place to look for it in-game?

It's also possible that they don't have a mic. I know it seems strange, but I was kind of shocked at the number of people in my company who needed to have Tech Services order them a microphone in order to participate in Zoom meetings once we switched to working-from-home. I didn't have a mic when I had a speaker setup. But when my speakers died I got a headset (lots cheaper), and the headset has a built-in mic, so now I have one.

No, because there's no arrogance in my response. For whatever crazy reason, I'm still trying to help you despite the fact that you're going to great lengths to reject any help. I've said nothing about what level anyone needs to operate at. What I'm trying to point out to you is that if you want help from people, you may need to help them understand your question(s). How is it arrogant to ask you to ask a specific question? How is it arrogant to tell you that snide comments and sarcasm are hurting your chances of getting a response?

Silly question... how do I view someone else's replay? Windows doesn't recognize it if I just double-click on it to open it.

You don't see the problem with this statement? The snide comments and sarcasm aren't improving your chances of getting any help. And yes, that is intended to help you. It wasn't easy. It took months - if not years - of play. Do you have a specific question? If you can set up a specific scenario in your question, that will go a long way toward helping me (or others) remember the answer.

The game's balance is pretty off kilter when it comes to spotting and rewards for spotting. Realistically the entire mechanism needs to be re-done so that the more "traditional" roles can be filled correctly. Scouts (read: AFVs) should be the best spotters, and should fill the role as you've described it. They should be the ones pointing out targets for the rest of the team and making sure tha the team doesn't get flanked. MBTs shouldn't be spotting everything, but they should have a special mechanic that allows them to spot vehicles that fire at them. I.e. MBTs should be good at returning fire, but not at spotting everything for the entire team. MBTs should also get credit for taking fire - if enemies are concentrating on our team's MBT(s), that allows the rest of the team to do their jobs better. Currently MBTs receive no credit for this function despite it being arguably the 2nd most important function on the team. (Spotting first, tanking second, damage third. At least IMO.)

I wasn't going to do the mission chains, but since I just got the Hunter today earlier than I'd expected to, and the Hunter makes doing those mission chains a lot easier, I thought I'd give 'em a try. I got to Lions 4/10 which requires that I do 20,000 damage (in PvE) while maintaining 80% performance. But what does "performance" mean? It's clearly not the same thing as accuracy, because I was over 83% accurate in this mission. I easily surpassed the damage requirement with 37,000, so I had to have failed at "performance" whatever that means.

I don't know if what I'm seeing now, occasionally, is what you mean by stuttering, but I'm definitely seeing new short video freezes that didn't used to exist. I'll be playing along just fine, and then suddenly - and very briefly! - the game will freeze up and then resume as if nothing happened. I've noticed it on Sapphire. If I start moving immediately and head to the left to the 1st phase sniper perch, the game often hiccups like that about halfway there. https://armoredwarfare.gamepedia.com/Sapphire You start next to the 2 round storage tanks mid-left on the screen, facing east. The sniper perch to which I refer is in the top left as that road crests a hill and then heads off the map. The hiccup always seems to occur right about the time I pass the 3rd round storage tank, which perhaps not coincidentally is about the time that the first bots are spotted, often by me as I'm moving to the sniper perch.

Because of questions and comments like these: "If spawn points are so important to getting better at the game why is so little information available. once again I am inferring that the good players have the information somewhere, somehow (locked away in their brains) and are not willing to part with it, despite my being told they ARE willing to help players that ask get better." You imply that we're hiding the info (and making you do your own work) despite the fact that we've said we're willing to help. You are chastising us for not providing you with the info you want, not seeming to recognize (or care) that the info you want is WEEKS of work to produce. "you are not the first or only one to chastise me for attempting to find out information that eludes me" I'm not chastising you for attempting to find the information, I'm chastising you for expecting others to provide it for you. You're expecting others to provide you with an easy reference to learning the game... well, sorry, but it doesn't exist and the developers removed the one reasonably easy way for people to share information and help each other when they disabled the official forums. "why do so many players have the attitude of if it was hard for me then it should be hard for you too" Reverse that - why do so many new players have the attitude that someone else should do the hard work for them? Documenting the information that you're asking for would take weeks of work. Why do you expect others to do that work for you? Why won't you take the tips that you've been given and use them to learn?

There are... 36 different PvE maps? And each map can have as many as a dozen different spawn points that may or may not be used in any given battle? I doubt anyone has gone to the considerable time and effort to write all of that down. That's weeks of work, or at least it would be for me. So again, I'm perfectly happy to help guide people and give them pointers, but most of what you're looking for just has to be learned. Do as everyone else has suggested and watch replays when you get into a match with someone good. Pay attention to what good players are doing and how the battle is evolving around them. I still do that all the time, and I'm pretty decent at PvE. You never stop learning. Please don't take this the wrong way, but stop expecting someone else to do your learning for you. In this game you pretty much just have to learn it yourself because the developers don't make it easy to create game guides. We used to have them back when there was an actual official forum, but AW took that down and killed off a good chunk of the community in the process. The community is now so far behind that creating guides is just too daunting of a task to start over.

That's convenient. I knew that you could get a full refund by selling off the rental before obtaining the regular vehicle, but didn't realize you could just leave it all installed and it would auto-"upgrade" for you. Very cool. Ok, off to play my rental Hunter some more, then. Having difficulty deciding between AP and PELE... it was a much easier choice on the AS21!

Yeah, and at the same time they seem to have reverted the fix that they put in so that your damage doesn't aggregate as quickly. I really miss seeing the stream of damage caused by an autocannon, both my own and my teammates. And for that matter, the bots' because it warns you that a T-15 or Bradley is around.

Will the crew experience I earn in the rental Hunter carry over to the final assembled Hunter once I get it, or are they considered "separate vehicles" in which case there's little point in playing the rental? That's roughly the expected outcome. The Bell curve seems to be centered between 40 and 60 crates, peaking right around 50, or at least it did for the BroSAT in the last BP. The maximum needed should be 79 crates (plus the 7 "special" crates that you create from those). Each crate gives at least 1 part, and each special gives at least 3.

1. PELE can do over 100 to lightly armored targets. 2. PELE doesn't need to pen to do damage, so its penetration value is misleading. That said, PELE aim points are often very different than AP or HEAT aim points, so you almost have to relearn all of the vehicles to use it most effectively. But once you do, you'll never go back to AP on a vehicle that has PELE. It is god-tier ammo.

Remember that bots don't use the same physics as players. I doubt that they'll skid when they turn, because bots just "get to turn" when they want to. Just like the "get to aim" when they want to, even if their vehicle doesn't have the depression/elevation that it needs. I'm happy to hear it, though. Wheeled vehicles are easy to kill and at least IMO don't have bot-useful abilities that make up for their deficits (no armor, poor acceleration, lack of maneuverability). They're generally more accurate, but bots already have perfect accuracy so that's not really a bonus for a bot. And their top speed isn't that useful, either, because it just means they'll out-run their support and get killed faster which is actually good for the players.