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Mackeh
Member Posts: 164
This game is one of them "Pay to win" games, basically if you have lots of money you can dominate the battlefield:
Buy Special tanks
Buy Magic ammo that hit's harder
Buy special Camo that makes your tank hard to spot (coming in 8.0)
All of these cost real money so as you can see it's clearly a pay to win game.
Once you hit Tier VI you pretty much need either a premium account or Premium tank as the grid becomes impossible, you simply run out of money. So if like me you play free then you should play mainly low tiers, it's fun and free 
Don't pick Germans as the game clearly has anti German mechanics, their tanks have been nerfed into the ground. I was a German tanker in this game but switched to USSR and have seen a clear advantage.
So play France or USSR, play to Tier VI and you can play free and have fun.
Comments
Interesting, I would say the game has anti-american mechanics if anything. Nothing compares to the russian tanks. It's pretty damn sad that they make it so easy to get good russian tanks in the game and make you walk through hell to get a half decent american tank. Seems like the German Tank destroyer line is still popular.
Does seem like a semi pay to win game and it's definately fun at the lower tiers - I don't know about higher tier since I haven't made it that far.
Good info..
Nowadays there are interesting "end game" tanks in several factions, even in the german tech tree (however, they are too few to advice investing time on them) I've been playing here since last year's August, and when I face a new player I suggest the following
- Germans have some interesting tanks, but overall I advice to avoid them. American, Russian and French trees are more rewarding by the moment
- Once you reach tier 8, or near it, you should have a moneymaker tank. There are cheaper tanks with a good income (months ago, the KV was a good tank for making money, nowadays I don't know) Investing in a tier 8 premium tank is a good choice if you really like the game. Avoid the KV5, it doesn't have a good cannon, and everybody knows its weakspot in the front, so the good armor is meaningless. T34 has a good punch, but paper armor (with some lucky bounces), and in terms of making money from it, the damage is everything. Other choices are the Lowe (though today its armor is less than average due to the new cannons and tanks), the Super Pershing (nice armor against its own tier or lower tier tanks, but too slow for a medium, and little HP for a heavy), the Type 59 still runs like a speed maniac, but the armor and the firepower are laughable (good choice if you like being mainly a scout), and the IS6 (I don't know much about it, but it's slightly better than average..... but you have to like the kind of armor that IS7 branch tanks have)
- Around tier 4-5 until tier 8, you'll be cannonfodder. With or without premiun accounts, but with premium you'll level faster and you'll skip faster this torture. Also you should enjoy the tank you are driving and be reallistic with its specs, there are good tanks in those tiers, but they have to stay far away from top tier tanks.
- And in general, this are the aspects in which each faction have advantage over the others.
*American: Heavies (good movility and firepower, like heavy medium tanks), Tank Destroyers (their top tier tanks are harder enough to face the enemy spearhead), Arty (slow and clumsy, but the T92 is the most dangerous weapon in the game)
*French: It doesn't matter what branch you prefer: fast and mobile tanks, with autoloaders (like a revolver more or less), very squishy. The best DPM in the game when they have their magazines loaded, but they need support.
*Russian: A lot of people say they are OP, but not so much in my oppinion. Arty (the weakest (not taking into account french arties, they are different), but the most precise and the fastest reloading, though the trace is almost linear, so the obstacles and the terrain cause problems to it), Heavies (tough and strong with a good punch, not a bad choice, but the IS7 branch is tricky), Tank Destroyers (the most powerful weapons not taking into account the arties, however I don't like them because their armor is not reliable), Meds (the T62A is one of the best scouts in the game alongside the BatChat)
*Germans: Usually they are disadvantaged, they are huge monstrosities, hard armor, huge weakspots, and easy to spot. All of them are II WW tanks or blueprints from that time, so they don't have post-war tanks like any other faction. Arties (good in general, the GW Panther has turret and good firepower), Heavies (the Maus is the hardest tank in the game, although the weakspots are known to everybody, the E100 is horrible despite the stats, don't get it), Meds (the E50 and E50M punch hard, and they are the hardest meds in the game, and not so slow to not to recommend them), the Tank Destroyers have good armor, but huge weak spots due to their size, the Jagdtiger E100 is the most powerful TD in terms of Alpha damage, but it has a huge reloading time, huge weak spots too, and it's too slow, good armor though.
Have fun playing
Man, havent played this in a while, and im sure "its all gotten worse" as cash shop related issues always do as they tighten the clamps on the players who were paying already.
Yeah the cash shop rounds were a decent advantage, and yes you will need a premium account (its p2p at that point i believe with a monthly sub still right?) if you want to do better than break even on matches...yeah you might get a few where you take no damage and use only a few rounds and profit above t5...but youll eventually just start running out of money without it.
Oh and the game isnt anti-german or anti-american...its PRO-USSR, in fact on the games forums i believe the response to asking people to balance the factions (err nations) was met overwhelmingly with stuff like "now you know how we feel playing all those pro american games" ect...which i found strange.
Little stuff like (and i dont recall exacts so forgive me if im off a bit historically) they want the game to be historically accurate, but the will let that slide a bit so they can add superior russian tanks made after the war.
And yes...a simple reroll to russian tanks clearly shows what youve been missing. I made the mistake of going german because they looked cool...and yeah it was fustrating.
So to sum it all up, its not a bad game at all early on and when new...its fun to do a few matches every now and then. If you get into the game the fun is quickly peeled away by cash shop needs (and it gets more expensive than a p2p of course) as well as being fustrated with other players...and the match making system, which sometimes will put a lot of heavy and hard to kill tanks on one team, then some low tier tanks on the other...it was baffling and i hope they fixed the MM system by now.
Im sure the newer french lines will be balanced into competition with german/american tanks soon leaving russia as the obvious choice for anyone who wants to compete.
I've not played as a Premium account for months. But I still play it as a standard account and without paying any money. I've got a good stable of tanks from Tier 2 thru Tier 7, TDs, and SPGs. You can play for free up to tier 4 as non-premium and advancement is fine. But after that it gets to be very grindy to advance unless you're premium account. That's fine though, nothing wrong with that. You can still have plenty of fun.
As for the cash shop issues... I'd say maybe 10% of the games will have something happen that I know is due to players who pay cash. An amazing shot that shouldnt have been a kill shot, a tank that disappears much faster and at closer range than normal, etc. I've been on the receiving end of that, and it can be frustrating. But I just die and start a different match. If it happens again and I'm more frustrated I exit WoT and go on with my life. Some people like to pay alot of money to play the game, and some don't. Those that do have advantages. But by and large I dont think it makes it unenjoyable for those that don't pay money.
Its a great game to kill an hour or 2 though. Assuming the random gods like you and you get a 50% or better win ratio. Those nights where they hate you and you have a 0% win ratio are very irritating. But, there's no sense in bitching about it.