Katsumoto

If someone comes across a clan whos name I'll withhold, and happens to see a player by the name of Samu, please shoot him. Repeatedly. We were in a match on Phalanx and he was in arty. He continued to drop smoke on the enemy. 0 damage output from him by the way. This resulted in most of us taking damage from a tank we could not see to get it off the field. We were at a point where he screwed it up so bad that we couldn't get to the last secondary.

...and in this round of "What Did They Break?" - The damage indication you get when you hit a target and shows the amount of damage that was caused by you has changed. Its now the same color as the rest of your team mates. This creates confusion.

SS, In my opinion, something needs to be done. I hate to say it, they need to be nerfed because there isn't any other way around it. The problem comes from this premise: imagine you being a new player to this game, and in a match you have a York or DCA in the match and they clean up. How would that make you feel? I will tell you that beside certain aspect that are obvious, it makes the whole new player experience very very painful. The DCA isn't anywhere near as bad as the York, but it is up there. While you say that the team is aware of the issue and will balance accordingly, in the environment we are in its kind of hard to see how this could be balanced as a premium where autocannons rule PvE at the lower tiers. Even with the missiles, someone will figure out how to abuse it.

Correct me if I'm wrong please, but hasn't the CryEngine been kept up to date over the years and still kept in play? There really hasn't been a full engine update. To me it looks the same as it did the first night during the open beta random battles. My hardware has gotten better but I was running pretty far up there as far as the graphics settings. It did take them years to get it fixed so the fan on my graphics card didn't sound like a jet engine during take off in the garage.

I have a problem with this. With the York being what it is right nowturdthatneedstobeflushed, do we really need anymore low tier "AAA" style guns/tanks at the lower tiers?

For more details, come and visit this thread that was started to discuss it even further:

I wouldn't mind taking a stab at this as a potential.

This goes into what I started to talk about with "thinking ahead". While you're reloading, take a breath and look at what your next target is. Too often there is an impulse to be >>>right there<<< at that instant the round comes up, this results in forcing a shot that if you were to take a step back and look at a replay might not have been one you want to take, either from a raw damage stand point or dropping a specific target that once gone causes a cluster to become easier to get rid of. There are things that come with time once you have the right habit set and practiced it enough. Most of the seasoned players understand that you have to be quick sometimes, not for the sake of damage, but on maps like Watchdog where at the bridge you could have huge cluster of bots that are hard to get rid of so you take a crack at them as they come into view because once the first couple of tanks die there is a small window to get a shot off due to the wrecks, then you get bogged down trying to get to the next cap. I'm looking at how to get out of that cap and to the next one before the timer even starts, and sometimes once you get bogged down on the bridge you have to force yourself into the next cap to get the reset resulting in a downward spiral of the match overall.

I could see in one part of this balancing pass to be a change in the damage per shot being made to help improve the TTK. That would be one of the things that would make sense given how quickly tanks are dying in a match.

What is TTK? That is something I haven't heard the acronym for yet. Never mind, figured it out. It stands for time-to-kill. Unless it means something else.

This should be interesting. I was hoping that they would keep that overlapping like they have on the lower tiers all the way through up to tier 10 but lets see where this goes. Hopefully some of the junk like anything related to the Abrams at lower tiers will get fixed.

One of the things I'm picking up on in this experiment is that if you want the version 2 varients of certain retrofits, you have to grind down that line. My question for you is that are you trying to improve your overall damage per match? Or are you just looking for that split second difference to maximize damage to a target before some else gets their shot off on the same target? If it's the former, there are some highly frowned upon ways of doing it. If it is the latter, then its all retrofits and skills.

Some observations: No, they are not. Really? Then why am I taking full damage shots to unmanned turrets? Yes and no. First off, we complain about how certain players in MBT's use ATGM's, but there are cases where it is acceptable in rare cases. But why do I get spammed ATGM's from a Merkava 4M?

I ran into him this weekend. He played the game of stupid with me. He crested a hill and started to back up but since he had to be in front of me the ENTIRE match so far, I let him have that position except he tried to back up into me. I came to a full stop. Since I didn't "know" what was going on I stayed right where I was and he got Bradley'ed to death. He thought he would "get even" with me until I side stepped an incoming missile volley after popping smoke and he ate both of them. Its the little things I live for....

Not to hijack a thread, but to add to what Haswell is talking about: A friend and I started a bit of a running joke and it started as a what if you could start all over again like it was when there was the server reset. I hopped onto it and started to wonder how well could I do, and like Haswell what does the whole "starting over" feel like. I have a new character I started to grind. The only thing I've bought into was the battle path and a coin package because I want to have the Type 10 on the second character as well. This whole new player thing is a complete and utter misery, and there are things I am seeing that I can not understand. One character I ran into this weekend had on one tank 6300 battles in it, with a 62% win rate in PvE and a 39% win rate over all in PvP. It was the M113 ACAV. There are others like him. I was sitting in my chair and started to wonder how was that possible. People are trying to do certain things at the lower tiers that sure don't work at the higher tiers. As a tier 3, I can not do the roadblock on Dire Wolf by myself in a Leopard 1. There are a handful of retrofits that in order to be successful further on that you need to get, but there is zero instructions on what they are and the easiest path to get them. MM at lower tiers is horrible. Nothing like having to step up and carry as the only tier 3 in a tier 5 match in PvE. Certain tanks at the lower tiers are absolutely horrible for the "new player" experience. The York just needs to get nerfed into a hole and have the hole back-filled with rebar and concrete then nuked from orbit after being in a tier 3 and having a pair of these things in a match as the only tier 5's. THEN....then because of this, as an old player and knowing all the tricks I step it up a notch and that momentum keeps going into the following matches and pretty much could make others miserable. There are some mechanics that the AI does like the snap shots from Swingfires that would push me away from the game if I didn't know any better. Literally just starting to crest the hill, gun barrel not even visible and theres a missile in your face. Swingfires need to be in the same hole as the York. Without having premium to help, or boosters to help get the XP and reputation, going from tier 3 to 5 can be rough if you don't have any experience or understanding of the basic game mechanics because of match making. I'm barely breaking even overall with credits. Even if you can get out of a tier 3, its not about if you could its more about if you should just on credits alone. It's helping to bring AW back into a perspective that I hope the devs could address, but I know that even if they were going to its down on the lower end of things they might have to address.

Roughneck for me is a map that if I could exclude it from the line up I would. I don't know what it is but before we get to the second round of caps to contest I can tell if we are going to win or lose. If I was to go and calculate a win rate on that map alone I'd be willing to say my win rate on it is in the 20 percent range and I see it all the time. Narrows is one of those maps that just doesn't seem to have enough time because once the battle goes one way its done. The rest of them aren't bad. I like Grindelwald but the map is too big. Ghostfield is a blast and I've seen battles see-saw back and forth and you are left in a state of suspense until the last few points on who is going to win.

The hit point damage fly-away is something that isn't growing on me. I wish they would bring back the old methods and allow us to select which ones we wanted to use. However, but able to see the different types would be more helpful. This section bothers me a hair: Sorry, but with the track record of trying to do certain things being very lacking, I have a feeling that a surprise is in order for us tomorrow when this goes live.

I was taught early on that in a game that involves tanks that a tank with a single hit point and is still combat effective is as much of a threat as a tank that has it's full health. When AW started up, I was ammo racked all the time. Driver was always dead. So on and so forth. I have taken a different approach to retain as much combat effectiveness as possible. If I'm going to fit something, it has to be something that I will benefit from it more times than not. There are too many retrofits and skills that are situational and usually means that you're in trouble anyways. For retrofits: I lead off with Survivability Kit v2. Keeping that crew damage and internal component damage to a minimum was something that keeps me from having to use that med kit or repair pack unless I have to. After the server merge I tried to run without it but for me, not having a dead crew was more important that that trade off for something else that didn't help the survivability of the tank. The second retro is Improved Gun Breach v2. Rate of fire is rate of fire. (Once I can get that Improved Barrel Lining upgrade unlocked, that'll be a game changer for me, but until I can it remains locked.) As for the third retrofit, it depends on the tank. There are certain traits that a gunner skill can offset. Quick Draw and Sharpshooter can only go so far and I'll put either the Ballastic Computer or Advanced MRS to help bring the targeting down to a respectable level. Certain tanks with the high spread and sub-2 second aim time gets the MRS, others with the okay spread and long aim time will get the ballastic computer. For a new MBT when they come out, everyone that has played with me over the years know that I won't put the 3rd one on until I've made peace on how I'll use the tank then put the 3rd one on to bring it in line with how I want it. If a 4th slot is available I use the AI Targeting. There are one or two MBT's that I'll do something so I can get a hair bit better vision control but it's a rare thing again with it being too situational to put it to use all the time. For crew skills: Most of my drivers get Spin-To-Win and Off-Road Driving. Again, depending on the tank and how I play it I'll put Field Repair on. The ones that can take a beating Field Repair isn't even part of the equation. Gunners get Quick Draw and Sharp Shooter. Certain tanks that can actually tank get Preventative Maintenance so I can keep the gun going. Helping turret transverse is one of those things that is situational and isn't something that I'll use all the time, but being able to plant a shot is. Most loaders get Rapid Fire. Usually the second skill is Vehicle Expertise, but then again that depends on the tank.

I want the pre-HUD nerf settings brought back. Having a new monitor and being able to run at 2560 x 1440, I have a new found respect for the higher resolutions. These changes actually ate up a ton of the screen and make it so it feels like I'm back to the 1920 x 1080 screen settings. The battle marker changes while understandable (I guess), the sizing of them again makes me feel like I'm playing on the lower resolutions. it sucks. A lot.

From Discord:

Gee, I wondered what AW would mess up on a patch? Every. Single. Setting. Try to go to full screen after fixing the screen resolution and I get about a quarter of the screen. I had EVERYTHING set up how I needed it. So, when I went through to find where my settings config folder was located, it was in 3 different locations. One of them was in the game folder. One was in the "Saved Games" directory where it was installed by default. Okay. Nested inside that one was another folder. Really? Nuked a bunch of stuff, verified and fixed the client files, and had to do it again. Only this time it was in the "right" location? Sure, I'll play along. Deleted the folder again and went back through and reset everything again.

This would be at tier 8, not an 8 of 10 score. If you sat and made it actually do MBT stuff and MBT stuff only. Remove some of the none MBT hardware, it would be a tier 8, maybe and I could argue for a tier 9. Some of the other MBT's at tier 10, they do a significantly better job as an MBT. For the T-15, you are right. What I'm trying to do is if you gave me all the performance metrics that could be obtained across the entire player base and start to look at it, at some point there is bad data in there. Things that when you look at it you would say there is no way that is right, it has to be fluke. For example take your significantly below average random player every now and then they strike it rich but can't repeat it. Like wise the bestest player ever on the server has a bad days. If you filter out things like that it helps being some normality to the curved that you are using to sort out the data and helps paint a more realistic picture. The T-15 is one that fits that bill to a T. Some can't make it out of the spawn without off'ing themselves, then there are those guys that lay down more damage than the rest of the team combined leaving you to collect your thoughts about what happened at the end of the match because you didn't get a dime. At work we call it statistical process controls,. To my understanding, the devs do something similiar when they have to go through all this data to figure out how to fix something except they have a bit more of a broader brush and a different canvas.

I'll talk about this part for now. As I'm writing this, the discussion on what is its actual role reminds me of the Bugs and Daffy skit where they argue about if its duck season or rabbit season. Bugs switches it up and poor Daffy gets both barrels in the face and his beak falls off. Ah, the memories....but I digress. While classed as an MBT, reality is that this is a light tank with an MBT "power up", or call it an uparmored package. If you look at it from that point of view, then it make more sense if you look at class traits that define what role a tank plays. At tier 10 this thing starts to make you wonder about other tanks and where they are at. As an MBT, its an 8 if you start to look at those class traits on just armor alone. As an LT, its at 10, but how it handles itself currently draws attention to if it needs adjustments to make in line with the MBT role. I've carried PVE matches in a PL01 but never like this. BUT.....the thing that kills me about this tank is that through all the tanks in WoT and AW, the Type 10 is that specific tank that just fits my play style to a T. From some light browsing, there was one russians forum that said that the Type 10 sucks and needs fixing. Service records were set to private for a few players that I've seen with it that finished down at the bottom so its hard to compare across there tank collection to see it is actually them. If you have 100 people and 10 are doing something far above statistical average and the other 90 are struggling, a case can be made to discount those 10 and clear out the 10 on the lower end as well and chalk it up as noise. This noise is what is causing me to take pause in writing a proper review on it.

This is where a problem lays that I'm trying to make sure I understand because of how the armor works. The Type 10 is immune to MOST HEAT warheads would be a more accurate statement. The armor is for the lack of better way of putting it chaotic. Bradley's you can ignore. Terminator 2's are a huge mixed bag. Sometimes they can hit the same spot and it'll pen the second missile. I've shrugged off a CATTB at point blank range. The T-15's are the ones that are really problematic. In theory, yes, you should be able to brawl with the T-15. Reality is that you will eat 2k in damage from them if they get their missiles off. I've bounced a shot from a 2AX using AP and he had me dead to rights but I was able to get away from the second shot. Trying to make sense of the armor is rough right now, but I'm seeing a pattern but you have to know where to look and how to respond to it. The one thing that the PL01 has over the Type 10 in spades is relocation ability. It's more mobile so while you're reloading you can pick a new spot if it gets too hot. It might not seem like a lot or that big of a deal, but when it comes time to bug out, the PL01 with its ability to move and to disappear has the upper hand. The gun....this is a tough one. I wish they changed the model to make the gun the 55 caliber that is a proposed upgrade to the Type 10. This would make the modeling match what this gun is doing. This would bring it more in line with performance of the 2A6 which is where my baseline for comparison of the Type 10's gun is. The HEAT rounds from this are picky as hell. Even with Cortez at pretty much 100% max damage, I can not get back to back to back shots to correlate with the max damage base line even at point blank range on something. I should get about 3500 per clip with HEAT, but reality being it is more about 3000. RNG also plays a lot with them in terms of module damage. On Watch Dog, I set fire to about 5 vehicles without even trying, and those were the first fires I had set all night. Then turn around about 6 matches later and I get another rash of fires caused by HEAT. This past weekend was the first time I was not able to dispose of a Bradley with 4 rounds because of the rolls. The AP rounds are very similar to the DM series with the 2A5 and 2A6. They cut through everything, but combine that with their accuracy it adds to the insanity. I parked 3 out of 4 rounds in the weak spot under the gun on an XM1A3 at 600 meters and it didn't bother me doing it one bit. The HUGE downside is that this thing runs out of ammo all the time. It's not uncommon for me to put down range 90+ rounds in PvE right now. In PvP, that means even if you survive long enough you run out of ammo during the match. In randoms this is going to be a huge issue. In GLOPS not so much because of the repair/rearm points. I'm going through the commanders doing their training. Hell, if I'm going to play might as well train them up. I'm using Erin Gray right now and seems to work out well. Sabrina was a huge surprise on how well she did as an MBT commander in the case of the Type 10. 130+ matches into having this thing and it's taking me to school about all the little surprises it has up it's sleeve. The T4 that charged me this weekend in GLOPS on Narrows found this out too and it surprised the crap out of me I was able to pull it off as easy as I did.

From what I saw this weekend playing the Type 10, it is going to fall to the Terminator Syndrome. It is a power house in PvE, but is average (maybe just a hair below average) in PvP.. I need another weekend with it to make sure.