Quantum_Ranger

I agree watching gameplay videos is helpful... not sure how easy this is, but maybe if someone added some annotations about what the player is doing/thinking in the videos, it would be helpful. Otherwise, we just see a good player racking up kills and damage (which is inspiring and entertaining in itself), but it takes a bunch of effort to discern the finer points of what's happening. Plus some of the videos are so old (Jingles) I suspect some of the map details etc have changed.

Duncan said: Crew experience required for level up:Level 1 → Level 2: 3,000Level 2 → Level 3: 17,000Level 3 → Level 4: 70,000Level 4 → Level 5: 110,000 This is very interesting, because the crew xp threshold seems to be uniform regardless of tier, while the cost to buy into level 3 or level 5 scales upwards by tier. The gold is definitely not worth it, but I can see where the credit expenditure to get to level 3 is worthwhile at low tiers (say T2-T3), because the marginal cost isn't that much if you accept the daily bonuses or have a higher tier tank you can use as a credit printer for a couple matches. Plus it seems to take longer to accrue the xp at the low tiers to level up compared to higher tiers. But knowing what the xp thresholds are to level up the crew definitely will make me want to save the credits for leveling up at T6 and above. Thanks!!

I didn't notice this much for the Abrams :-6 I was grinding away at the T6 M1, thinking that the T7 M1A1 would give me more joy with a 120 mm gun. Instead, with stock M1A1, I lost my HEAT, had less mobility, and the 120 mm was still a popgun against the bots that just got better at penning my cardboard armor. Sigh. I understand why a little overlap between tiers is a good thing, but the cyclic backtracking upon tiering up is probably another reason why someone might be tempted to abandon the progression game. [Obviously not a concern for those who buy into premium vehicles that are already fully upgraded, and understandably this may be the chief reason to retain the revenue from premium vehicles after the rebalance.) I don't know... for me, low Tier vehicles are a key to sanity. Yeah, you're not printing credits, but the fun factor provides a good relief from grinding. I like going back to the low Tier stuff, just because there is a certain fun factor there that isn't quite there in the higher tiers. Reload times are shorter, the upgrades are cheap, the vehicle classes are pretty distinct, and there is less spread between vehicles of the same class. Kind of like what the utopian upper tiers should be after the rebalance (haha). I wonder if the graph would more properly reflect the game if the power spread in the lower tiers was narrower than in the upper tiers. Of course, it could be that the power axis is logarithmic, in which case T10 is truly hosed. :-)

I can see where the first aid cabinet is really useful in PvP, where you only have 1 life to live. So I'm wondering about the economics of the first aid cabinet over the medical kit... seems like it only becomes worthwhile at a certain tier in PVE. At T7 the first respawn costs 7500, so if I just go ahead and die once in each of 3 matches, I've spent 22,500 (and reloaded all my ammo and completed all repairs, too.) This is just half the cost of burning a cabinet. I hardly ever need second respawn, because usually that late in the game there's not enough opportunity to mitigate the additional cost. At what point is the cabinet worthwhile? And if you have a cabinet, what's the optimal threshold for breaking it open? One problem is that once you buy the cabinet, you can't set it aside and just use the medical kit if you are going off to play PVE for awhile. So do people just keep 1 vehicle prepped for PVP and a different vehicle prepped for PVE? Thanks for a great tutorial, and for enlightening us noobs.

A low expense, high yield sound improvement would be to make the different commander voices more distinctive. To me, Sabrina, Rachel, and Freya all sound alike. Sometimes I switch commanders just to change the channel on the nagging. DFK

Thanks everyone for their helpful responses and wisdom. Re: Personal stats - you are correct, I don't care. Just out to have fun. And yes, trying to get a bit of an edge so that I can squeak in some damage to a target before the York kills it. Alternatively, when a bot is rushing me, to try to clobber the bot as much as possible before he can get (another) shot off. Re: Frowned upon tactics - Have unfortunately been a victim of some of these, especially when the early BP missions had players seeking early kills and lots of damage. Fortunately, folks have pretty much recognized how impotent the Abams is, and the bullies leave me alone because it's not worth the effort. Looking forward to crew stat tutorial. Always wondered what the accuracy decay function was. May have to rebuild Phil 'cause I had no idea "crew stats" affected anything but health. Glad I am on the right track with Sabrina; will pick up Sanna now that I am working towards the LAV-900.

Thanks to the wise folks that are contributing to the forum... now seeking some sage advice. Trying to minimize RL cash outlay, similar to Haswell's ongoing experiment... so am working the progression vehicles. Currently in the stable I have a T5 Starshi*, a T6 M1 Abrams, and am currently grinding the T7 M1A1 Abrams. Yeah, I suppose in retrospect I should have started out grinding the Russian tanks, but chalk one up to noob ignorance. So now my recurring problem is that I just can't deal out enough damage fast enough. Lots of target rich environments (so I'm in the right spot on the maps), but the stock reload times are getting annoying. Maybe everything seems slower compared to an espresso-fueled York.... Last night I racked up 17k damage in the Starshi* on the Stormy Winter map, but that was because everyone else was dead and didn't respawn, so the last 6 minutes was plinking away solo. And I still lost because I couldn't kill the bots fast enough to cap. So I suppose I could grind a commander like Kramer, or push to get the LAV-900 for the V2 reload retrofit... Any other ideas for how to improve DPM on the cheap? Thanks in advance, QR

I second the motion! He has a lot of wisdom, and is more balanced than a Tier 3 MBT.

The rebalance sounds like a good idea; hopefully it will work out. I would just like to see a little less sawtooth in the progression. Finally did a lot of grinding to get from T6 M1 to T7 M1A1, only to find the stock M1A1 is way squishier than the M1 because the bots are harder to pen, and the stock AP is awful even though it's 120 instead of 105 mm... so now it's more grinding to get the same survivability I had in T6. Had to go back and play my T3 Chieftain to relieve the frustration. At least it had decent armor and a gun that would kill things. Sigh.

Thanks for doing this experiment and posting it here. It provides a lot of insight and info that I wish I had had in the beginning.