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Baron_Georg

question for good players

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Good players,   

    why don't you actually help players in game as opposed to on the forums.  I have been playing here or in WOT since 2012 or so (I think).  In that time I've had lots of help from the forums but 0 people from the forum actually meet up with me in game and actually SHOW what they are talking about.  some people learn better with direct instruction.  this is both a curiosity question and a what obsticals need to be overcome in order for this to happen question.   are the impediments time, not feeling qualified to instruct, it's the role of your battalion, no incentive to help, poorer players will drag down my numbers, don't want to burn out, can't pay me enough to do this, lack of thank you or personal gratification, language issues ?    what   just want to be clear I'm not asking or demanding that anyone do something they are uncomfortable with.   nor am I calling out good players for not helping.  I'm one of those people who always ask why about stuff.

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I'm just speaking for myself here. But let me place my opinion about this topic as a fairly decent AW player.

Just fyi I'm running AWtactics, a german website dedicated to help players become better/understand the game mechanics better. Therefore I'm writing lots of guides and recording/commenting my gameplay videos.

Nobody starts as a master in any game:

I started with WOT back in 2012 and in the beginning did not really care about game mechanics, tactics and whatnot. So I was what you would call an average/sub average player for some time. When getting to know the game more and more I wanted to get better.:tomatotardk:

I tested various stuff from reading forum guides to joining Clans/Platooning. The forum guides are great in explaining the various game-mechanics and how they work (which is a crucial thing to understand if you want to improve) but they can't really show you how to actually play. For this purpose I joined Clans and teamed up in Platoons. While this certainly helps to improve some of your skillset it did not really had a very strong effect on myself as a player. 

So what helped me the most back then, you may ask?
Videos and Livestreams of very good players (Clanwars of top clans, Tournaments, ...) this way I could actually "see through the eyes" of someone who is good at the game. I could observe how they react to certain situations, which spots they use, how they make armor work. Simply put: How they play the game.
So what I did is observe carefully and then try to apply this to my tactics. With time and exercise there was a significant improvement and I went from average to a good player fairly quick.

Now what is the difference between videos and platooning up with decent players?

In my opinion there is one big difference and that's why I personally think videos are better. While you're in a platoon you can certainly get a better winrate and see where the player goes and how he reacts to certain situations. However, keep in mind that you're distracted while in battle so you can't just sit there and observe the nice plays of your platoon-mate. In videos you have a first-person view and can see the very same the player sees at the moment. In my opinion this is a big and meaningful difference. You just can't learn the small details of wiggling your armor, hiding your weakspots... by playing in a platoon. You need to see when a player uses such tactics and then understand why he did that at this particular time. This is something that's very hard to achieve while in battle in my opinion. (Humans simply can't multitask that good)

Why are there little to no players who want to platoon for this purpose?

There certainly are people who would do this. But I think noone wants to actually explain you every little detail about what you should do in this moment to be successful. Those people are playing as well so their brain is already being used. So in this situation it is very hard to play and then additionally give meaningful advice. At least I would struggle doing so.

Secondly there is lots of stuff nobody can explain to you/show you while in a Platoon/Battle:
Stuff like where to aim, what ammo you should use right now, if you should use smoke or just retreat, if you should go for the blindshot, ... There are lots of things we clearly can't tell when in battle without seeing what you see. Yes you could just stick together the whole game, which is possible while driving MBTs, but otherwise not always the best option in a battle.

Other than that it as well requires patience. Not everyone wants to put so much effort into that. But I believe if you're able to join a Battalion ther are definitely players you can learn from while platooning. I just don't think that it's the best way because it lacks some "insights".

What makes a good player "good":

For me there is only one answer: Situational awareness

If you master this one you're set to dominate :snrk: 

What do I mean by "situational awareness":

  • You know exactly what the enemy does. Same goes for your team. And use it to your advantage
  • You know your surroundings (you know the maps, you know where to take cover, you know where the nearest cover is at all time)
  • You use the minimap to your advantage (If you happen to get rushed you've done something wrong, if you get wrecked within seconds you usually failed too reading the minimap)
  • You know the game-mechanics and how to use them to your advantage
  • You react fast to any changes during the battle and adapt accordingly to gain maximum advantage
  • You take your chances if the enemy happens to provide them

I think I forgot half of it but in the end it's all about knowing in advance what the enemy and your team is going to do and adapt accordingly. You don't need those "aiming skills". All you need in this game is to use the actions of your enemies and team to your advantage. This is something you can't learn by platooning. Yes your platoonmate could tell you what you should do now but in the end you need to realize this yourself and draw your own conclusion in order to be successful as a solo player aswell. While watching videos you see the very same situation as the player and can thus start to analyze the battle yourself and see if you're right with your predictions and observations. This can be very valuable.

In my opinion you learn this best if you watch videos/livestreams and then try to adapt such details for your own gameplay. Secondly learn out of your failures and carefully observe how enemies/friendlies react to certain situations to use it to your advantage in the future games. So in the end experience as well helps a great deal if you just keep trying out new stuff and learning out of your failures.

What I want to add as well and this is very important in my opnion: There is no "right" playstyle. I personally like a very offensive playstyle but there are lots of other players who have way different playstyles and are successful as well - Remember you're not trying to copy someones playstyle but trying to improve your own playstyle by using the tactics you like and tactics that work for you.

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I'll share my experience with this topic, and the first part of this deals with attitude.

I had joined a clan at one point in WoT.  I was okay but needed to learn a few things, youth in a game as far as battle count goes I was young.  As time went on we had more and more people come in.  We had picked up a few people that needed to be brought up to speed, one of them was someone that if we needed 12 people for a battle and he was on, we went into battle with 11.  Me being me, it was a crappy feeling but the task at hand was the task at hand, did what I was told away we went.

On the weekends in the morning a clan mate/friend and I started our weekend follies and had found a particular groove with the tanks and tiers where the battle quality was very high as far as randoms went and we had a blast and didn't care if we won or lost.  This one individual found out about what we were doing and wanted to join in with us and he even said he needed the help, probably didn't realize just how badly.  We decided to take him up under our wing, play some matches with him to find out what was actually wrong, and give it a try at bringing him up from where he was to the next notch up.  With what we were doing and with the battle quality it was a healthy environment to learn in for him and for us to teach in.

His whole attitude to this whole entire thing was poor from the start.  It was very taxing very quickly.  Both of us lost all interest in trying to help to the point we stopped playing in the mornings because of how bad it was.  To this day he is the reason why I refuse to actively teach like you are asking.  If we are in a platoon I might ask what happened, you tell your side, I compare it to what I think I saw and I'll offer advice.  Unless you live in my hip pocket, no I won't go through that again.

 

There are a lot of good players that have tried to help others but in the end the results are a mixed bag.  A lot of it depends on chemistry between the teacher and the student.  A lot of depends on the topic at hand.  There are things that one does naturally and instinctively and not think of it, and they can't explain it.  As @TeyKey1 has said, there are things that just can't be explained during a battle because we can't see what you are seeing.  Sometimes the difference between an "average" player and a "good" player are little details.  Ironically enough the difference between a "good" player and a "great" player are the little details.  Those details are hard to teach, but once you learn them and know what they are for you find that they are really easy to do.

 

The one thing I will tell you that some think isn't a big deal but it is full of little details is to start thinking ahead.  Don't think about the shot you have loaded, think about the one after that.  Don't think about whats around the corner, think about what's around the other corner and how you are going to position yourself from where are currently located.  Sometimes that shot that is just right there isn't the one you want to take.  Sometimes when I'm in an MBT and there's a Bradley to my front firing on me but not causing damage I have a threshold of pain for when it needs to go away because my focus is on something that might be more of a threat in the longer run.  One thing I beat up on my XO about all the time is positioning, not just from an offensive or defensive standpoint but how you can support the team or how they can support you.   @TeyKey1 brings up a valid point about situational awareness which is one of those little details.  Sometimes just the act of backing up breaks up the tunnel vision that a lot of us develop on where the reticle is pointed, and that break helps drive your situational awareness up.

 

I will  offer a word of advice about videos.  Watching some of these game play videos there is context behind it.  There are always other things that a singular video doesn't show going on behind the scenes and is just a snapshot of that particular time.  Some of these videos with the high damage outputs, or these rare awards are ones that circumstances line up to enable that to occur and they just happened to get it recorded.  Most of them couldn't do it again even if they were paid to.  There are those videos that you watch and go "OH WOW!" but to the trained eye you start to see that they were more lucky than good.  A lot of this rolls back into your basic understanding of the game mechanics.  Please note that this isn't a knock about videos in general but the source of them.  There are some great players that do videos because they genuinely want to help others, but it relies on your understanding to catch the little details that make them great.

 

I do wish you luck on your quest to improve.


 

"If you were not birthed with claws or fangs, store bought will do just fine."

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His whole attitude to this whole entire thing was poor from the start.  It was very taxing very quickly.  Both of us lost all interest in trying to help to the point we stopped playing in the mornings because of how bad it was.  To this day he is the reason why I refuse to actively teach like you are asking.  If we are in a platoon I might ask what happened, you tell your side, I compare it to what I think I saw and I'll offer advice.  Unless you live in my hip pocket, no I won't go through that again.

I can relate to this, sooo much it's baffling.

One of the problems i see on people is that they "refuse" to see things on another perspective, they think the way they play is fine, when the <44% on their dossier says otherwise: i used to play with a streamer(that doesn't play AW anymore, kinda ragequitted) and everytime in chat or ingame when we tried heroics i tried and tried to give tips and advice.... and they fell into deaf ears because.... who knows, but my guess it was not his way of "doing things".

Or they hide with the excuse"i'm having fun haha" at the cost of the fun of your teammates.

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I'm happy to help on the forums or on Discord, but when I'm playing the game I'm playing to have fun.  That's my time, and as others have already expressed above most people who say they want to learn really don't.  It's tiring and taxing and it sucks the joy out of playing the game.

I don't even platoon much anymore because most other people don't seem to care about tactics (at least not in PvE).  They just want to rush in, get their damage and kills, and then move on to the next game.  The bots always go to the same place(s) - why not take up advantageous positions and let the bots come to you?  Why rush forward to their spawn points, disrupting everything and causing chaos in the process?

Oh right... MUH KILLZ!!!

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To answer your question properly Baron, we have set up a discord server exactly for this purpose. Although it is called the Armored Labs community server, it is actually open to everyone playing this game. In this server you can ask for advice and platoon up with other players. Although there is a mix of all sorts of experience in the server, most players have got enough experience in all game modes to help you. Just ask when you are tooned up. 

Good luck. 

 

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        Well not all about being evil or lazy. honestly, many of us learned all by ourselves, of course we can sit and teach but then a few remember how hard was to them no one was around to teach so one or two had to learn alone, getting killed,getting bullied,dealing low damage,getting the wrong tanks,looking for some pieces of info here and there and creating for itself enough knowledge of the game.

         A few people do "Sit and help" but others don`t even bother to do because they think that person will learn alone like their did. I will not even talk about the people that sometimes jump on the backs of some experienced players and tend to send private message to them every minute, asking for help, "platoon with me,help me to get some missions done,help with heroics,help me with spec ops" this tend to make some people to keep away from help. 

         On forum and discord you will always find some people that will "Help" and people that will "Show you the way" is up to you if his/her will be added to your knowledge or if you will just look for someone that will grab your hand and teach you how to walk, i describe myself as a Helper instead a Teacher/Coach. i have 15 years of tank gaming exp if i mix AW,WT and WOT. I never say no to help someone that wants to know something. 

         So with all of this that i said, i hope that can give an idea of how to ask for help, it will be tough at the start, but if you keep moving forward the game itself will teach you slowly, in the best way and of course always look to some guides on forum/discord, we are here to "Show you the way" and its you that will going to walk it.

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alright, first a thanks to all who have replied to this thread.  now I'm going to try to ask for some specifics.  I think my dossier is set to public but I'll check to be sure after this posts.  somebody look at my dossier and let me know if I should narrow the line(s) I have ground thus far.  next, although I get shooter medals a lot my damage output is still most of the time bottom of the match.  am I simply too slow on the gun? (ignore all other factors for this question)  if it's a matter of twitch reflexes I'm screwed because I'm an older player.  how can I get quicker on the trigger (suggestions for drills or perhaps how long I am at X magnification needs to be changed)  In essence I am trying to take a step by step approach to identify what is keeping me at the bottom of the damage pool and fix those issues one at a time.

 

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2 hours ago, Baron_Georg said:

am I simply too slow on the gun? (ignore all other factors for this question)

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.


 

"If you were not birthed with claws or fangs, store bought will do just fine."

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On 7/11/2020 at 5:54 PM, Baron_Georg said:

am I simply too slow on the gun? (ignore all other factors for this question)  if it's a matter of twitch reflexes I'm screwed because I'm an older player.  how can I get quicker on the trigger

AW isn't really a twitch game.  It's more important to have the ability to plan your next shot than it is to have fast reflexes that let you take snap shots.

To do well in PvE, learn the maps.  Learn where the bots are going to spawn (which changes depending on where the players are at any given time).  Learn the routes that the bots drive after they've spawned.  Then pick a spot where you can shoot them from the side or from behind, while ducking behind hard cover to break spotting while your gun reloads.  There are very few occasions when it makes sense to "stare down" a bot while your gun is reloading - that's just giving the bot time to return fire, and bots have laser accuracy.

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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.

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This is a personal gripe of mine.

AW doesn't have many experienced/polished content creators, plus the replay system has always been rather lackluster. 

I would love to watch some modern/up-to-date AW videos, but there isn't much out there. 

However, the Russian community has a few streamers which are actually quite good. Despite not understanding a single word, I can tell they are skilled and knowledgeable. Plus, they put out the majority of PvP content (which I prefer).

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I hearing a lot of what is essentially rote memorization(in educational parlance the term is drill and kill) is a key to success.  unfortunately for those of us with a learning disability, memorization is a long and tedious task, frequently complicated by the fact that maps and AI behavior change before I can memorize them.  which brings up at least for me a question that may seem rather odd.  How many of you good players are also good at math?  what has that got to do with this game you may ask.  consider, in higher math you have to know what a derivative is in order to use it;  likewise for symbolic manipulation to get you to a certain point before you plug in the numbers.   when I was in school an attempt was made to get me to understand "double distributive" property.  I never understood it, not until several years later when it was re introduced as the FOIL principle (first,outer, inner, last) which to me made scene finally.  it wasn't memorization that got me to understand that concept it was an explanation. one that people with high functioning math skills take for granted that EVERYBODY thinks this way and therefore needs no explanation, it just IS.   what I keep hearing on the forums is the previous sentence.  this goes hand in hand with the fact that so many will offer help only on the forums and not verbally over TS or Discord or in game via platooning.   just want to be clear I'm not asking or demanding that anyone do something they are uncomfortable with.   nor am I calling out good players for not helping.  I'm searching the minds that offer a reply for something that will click with me before they grow weary of my questions and at the same time get mad at me for my lack of understanding. 

 

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