Yeah I was wondering what the point of creating 3 seperate accounts would achieve and took that into consideration for his "opinion".
Daffid011,
It sounds like you're implying that there is something fishy about creating three separate accounts.
Well, I've created two, and am considering a third. Why? Because there is limited garage space in *free* accounts, and a person rapidly runs out of room for new vehicles. If a person wants to avoid spending actual money, it seems logical to me to create extra accounts. I have one for the German vehicles, and one for Soviet vehicles. I am thinking about opening a third to explore American vehicles.
Just wanted to clarify that for readers who aren't familiar with the game.
Yeah I do get that as a reason why someone would vreate three accounts, but I just don't understand how it would make someone more educated about how the tanks play nation versus nation.
[in general]
The Tiger certainly isn't the scourge of the battlefield it was historically in WWII, but this is a game where balance is more important to gameplay than being completely historically accurate, but the Tiger is a good tank. Perhaps more difficult to play than other tanks, but still a good tank.
In my Tiger I have killed more enemies than I have played by a lot. Almost a 3:1 kill to death ratio. I earn some form of medal or citation on average every 2 games.
I have the tiger as well still about 30k away from researching the next level. You can take a pounding if you don't know how to play it. I have the best gun on it and a set of binoculars and camo.
What I like to do on some maps is find that sweet spot and get still let the camo work for me and sit there and snipe the enemy with that gun. The only tank I cant snipe is the lowe, you got to get behind that 390 armor. You just have to be careful how you play your tiger.
I know I gotten the steel wall award several times.
The problem is if you get spotted by arty it don't take much to take you out.
It sounds like you're implying that there is something fishy about creating three separate accounts.
Well, I've created two, and am considering a third. Why? Because there is limited garage space in *free* accounts, and a person rapidly runs out of room for new vehicles. If a person wants to avoid spending actual money, it seems logical to me to create extra accounts. I have one for the German vehicles, and one for Soviet vehicles. I am thinking about opening a third to explore American vehicles.
Just wanted to clarify that for readers who aren't familiar with the game.
Keeping all tanks in the garage is a huge time investment. Getting crews to 100% with perks for each tank you come across in the game?
The Tiger was designed to kill T-34s and KV-1s. If I was in my Tiger against them in WOT I would Dominate every MAP unless I got derped twice by 152's. The problem people have is that it is a tier 7 tank designed to kill tier 5 tanks. It is a Time period problem. The germans used this Tank at the beginning of the war it was not designed to take on the heavies it is put against in the game. The Tiger 2 was and it is a great tank for its lvl. To have a Historically accurate game would be boring. There would be like 3 Tigers facing off against 10 T-34s and 10 shermans and a KV or 2.
The Tiger was designed to kill T-34s and KV-1s. If I was in my Tiger against them in WOT I would Dominate every MAP unless I got derped twice by 152's. The problem people have is that it is a tier 7 tank designed to kill tier 5 tanks. It is a Time period problem. The germans used this Tank at the beginning of the war it was not designed to take on the heavies it is put against in the game. The Tiger 2 was and it is a great tank for its lvl. To have a Historically accurate game would be boring. There would be like 3 Tigers facing off against 10 T-34s and 10 shermans and a KV or 2.
I think there's a lot of truth to what you say. I have wondered why the first US and Soviet heavies are tier 5, whereas on the German tech tree, a person has to work up to tier 7 for the first heavy (Tiger I). It sounds like you came to the same conclusion that I did: that if the developers simply pitted heavy versus heavy (i.e. the Tiger I vs. KVs and T1s), the Tiger would be FAR too dominant. Thus, the developers decided to create varying tier levels as a method to handicap tanks to achieve some sort of "balanced", competitive playing field.
However, I'm irked that they went so far -- too far, in my opinion. What we end up with in WoT is a Tiger that is anything BUT dominant on the field when facing tanks of its own tier. The tank truly was legendary in real life; but in tier 7 I think WoT has made it a bit of a turkey. I can understand the developers desire to introduce handicaps to create more interesting game play, but in a nod to the Tiger's real-life stature, I would have preferred to see it remain dominant (just not *too* dominant) at its tier.
I'm not sure that three Tigers facing off against 22 enemy tanks would be "boring", though. In fact, unequal numbers of tanks on each side might be an interesting, *alternative* method to create competitive battles.
Yeah I do get that as a reason why someone would vreate three accounts, but I just don't understand how it would make someone more educated about how the tanks play nation versus nation.
Your comment makes more sense to me now. Yeah, having three separate accounts isn't going to make a person some sort of expert by definition. I think all the OP meant was that he had worked his way up the tech trees of the three different nations represented in the game, and thus had direct experience by which to compare the performance of the different tanks.
I'm interested in the fact that you're able to play the Tiger I so well. I'm going to try some of the tactics that others here have described, and maybe I'll have better luck. Also, I'm still working on unlocking the long 88. I'm sure that will make a big difference in game play, as well.
Just wait for the King Tiger - the best heavy of level 8. After that VK 4502, which is again kind of difficult to play tank. And finally Maus - hugely popular in clan wars.
That's good news about the Tiger II -- I'll look forward to getting that one! Thanks for the post.
Biggest F**k you from the wot devs was, imo, when they said that they can't give the new T9 medium 150mm armor on 60t and gave it 120mm, while the russian T9 medium has 120mm at 39tons.
Biggest F**k you from the wot devs was, imo, when they said that they can't give the new T9 medium 150mm armor on 60t and gave it 120mm, while the russian T9 medium has 120mm at 39tons.
Looking at Patton I guess E-50 will be on par with the current PII. Maybe slight variations here and there. It's perfectly fine then. PII is very competitive at its level.
Here is something easy for people to check and see just how bad the Tiger is in this game. Find players that drive the KV or SU-85 (Both are tier 5 tanks) and take the total damage they have done and divide by total number of games to get the avrg damage a game they do.
Next find Tiger (Tier 7 tank) drivers and do the same.
You will see that many KV and SU-85 drivers do as much or more damage per battle than the Tigers.
I found that I am doing almost 2x more damage than most Tiger drivers in my SU-85.
Here is something easy for people to check and see just how bad the Tiger is in this game. Find players that drive the KV or SU-85 (Both are tier 5 tanks) and take the total damage they have done and divide by total number of games to get the avrg damage a game they do.
Next find Tiger (Tier 7 tank) drivers and do the same.
You will see that many KV and SU-85 drivers do as much or more damage per battle than the Tigers.
I found that I am doing almost 2x more damage than most Tiger drivers in my SU-85.
Huge russian bias. But fun in a russian tank
Do you mind giving a few player names, whose stats could back up your story? I assume all they have, at very least, a hundred battles in the respective tanks.
I've been doing some research, and ran three accounts each using one of the three nations represented per account. In other words... One account had all Russian tanks, another US tanks, and the third German tanks. What I found is that the Russian tanks are hard to kill, insanely accurate, are cheaper to research and buy than the other two nations. The developers claim that their tanks (bear in mind, these guys are Russians, so it should be self explanatory) are "known" for their sloped armor, despite the well known fact that their armor is paper thin, all their tanks are lightly armored, their tanks shouldn't be able to hit the broad side of the barn 100% of the time, and look like cigarette cartons on tracks.
Apparently, they forgot that the German's Tiger series tanks were nearly the reason we all were almost speaking German. If it wasn't for the allies cutting off the supply lines, those things would have rolled right over us. Hence the well known fact that German tanks were heavilly armored, and had an insane amount of accuracy. Which the Russian developers refuse to admit to.
If you want my opinion, just forget about this game. They will never fix the balance despite the claim that they have that there are over 10k people on their servers at any given time. (Which, as we all know, is a flat out lie. If there were, the matches would be better balanced.) If you insist on sticking around, then go for it. Other than that, have fun with the 12 year old punks that infest the game and the forums.
Lay off the history channel. The tiger was a failed design overall. It broke down a lot. It was too heavy/wide for many of the bridges in Europe. It had flat armor (only slightly sloped) and it was "only" 100mm, which was impressive in 1941 and early 42, it was't that impressive in '43 and later when the 17lber came out for the Brits (And the 76.2mm M1 and the Russian 122mm).
It had a good gun and optics. But over much of europe (not the steppes of russia), it wasn't that useful to be able to shoot at 2km. Allied air power in 1944 and 1945 meant that sitting out in the open was suicide, so having a gun that could penetrate the enemy at 2km wasn't very useful. There were 2K tiger's built. There were over 50K shermans built. About as many T-34's and its variants. Even if the tiger had a 10:1 K/D ratio, they were facing 50:1 odds just against the "mediums", no mention of all the TD's and russian Heavy tanks (KV/IS). And of course, many of them were "lost" because their crews had to abandon them as they broke down and the enemy was coming. The Panther was similarly fated (overly complex, prone to break down, especially the transmission, which is fatal to a tank, unless you want to die in a metal coffin).
With 185 battles in my Tiger I, I've dealt 301 damage points per battle, on average.
With the KV (86 battles), I've dealt an average of 380 damage points per battle. I would expect this average to climb with more games, since that tank is now fully upgraded, etc..
So, I don't have double the damage or anything like that, but I do have more.
The difference that strikes me most when playing these two different vehicles is their presence on the field. When I'm the top player in a KV, I dominate the field. I can go on a rampage and destroy five or more tanks. Most enemy tanks can't do much damage to me. I'm a true heavyweight. It's fun!
When I'm the top player in a Tiger I, the experience is NOWHERE the same. I need to play in more of a sniper role if I expect to survive. If I'm too aggressive, I'm easily taken out.
The most telling statistics to me are in the win ratios. Now, I know that the wins are mostly a function of team cooperation and team skill. For that reason, it doesn't surprise me that in most of my vehicles (the ones in which I've played 100+ games), I have a 50% to 55% win ratio. However, in the Tiger I, my win ratio is only 39%. This is the ONLY vehicle I have with such a low win ratio.
Despite the random nature of team wins, I cannot help but notice this statistic and conclude it is due to the gimp factor they've placed on the Tiger.
With 185 battles in my Tiger I, I've dealt 301 damage points per battle, on average.
With the KV (86 battles), I've dealt an average of 380 damage points per battle. I would expect this average to climb with more games, since that tank is now fully upgraded, etc..
So, I don't have double the damage or anything like that, but I do have more.
The difference that strikes me most when playing these two different vehicles is their presence on the field. When I'm the top player in a KV, I dominate the field. I can go on a rampage and destroy five or more tanks. Most enemy tanks can't do much damage to me. I'm a true heavyweight. It's fun!
When I'm the top player in a Tiger I, the experience is NOWHERE the same. I need to play in more of a sniper role if I expect to survive. If I'm too aggressive, I'm easily taken out.
The most telling statistics to me are in the win ratios. Now, I know that the wins are mostly a function of team cooperation and team skill. For that reason, it doesn't surprise me that in most of my vehicles (the ones in which I've played 100+ games), I have a 50% to 55% win ratio. However, in the Tiger I, my win ratio is only 39%. This is the ONLY vehicle I have with such a low win ratio.
Despite the random nature of team wins, I cannot help but notice this statistic and conclude it is due to the gimp factor they've placed on the Tiger.
It's true that Tiger is not a brawl tank, I actually said that few pages ago. But I am not sure where you got your numbers from. My stats with Tiger I ~ 960 damage per battle (200 matches), and I am really bad with this tank. Speaking about lvl 5 heavies, I did not play KV, but for T1, which is way worse, it's 430 (89 matches).
They might gimped Tiger for overall playability. Level 7 is dominated by T29, level 8 - King Tiger is the best, level 9 - IS-4 is the winner, level 10 - there is no clear leader. So this way they force players to spread accross different branches. This is just my guess, I don't have any proof for that.
Eyewitness accounts and topnotch historians are not good enough for you? I guess people should believe some random persons post on the Internet over them eh?
Actually, I screwed up when I posted my numbers. The KV damage average is accurate (380 per battle), but my Tiger I average is about 700. Still embarassingly low, but higher than what I posted.
I think your guess is also right about *why* the developers seem to alternate "good tank / bad tank" on the various trees.
In general, it seems the developers have made *many* fudges to real-life performance in order to "equalize" game play. Personally, I'd like to see more historical accuracy with performance. To "equalize" game play, perhaps they could have made the Tiger much more expensive than, say, the T34. And that, of course, would be completely historically accurate.
I guess I just don't like the way they seem to have gimped some tanks and invented others just to deliver what they feel is a fun gaming experience. If that was the single most important factor to them, then I think I would have preferred to just fight in generic vehicles without any reference to historic vehicles at all.
They could make the Tiger (or any tank) be a dominant force as it was in history and make it cost more to achieve, but eventually everyone would gravitate towards it and it would dominate the play field.
The longer the grind the more people that would quit as the uber tank becomes seen as manditory to be competitive.
In general, it seems the developers have made *many* fudges to real-life performance in order to "equalize" game play. Personally, I'd like to see more historical accuracy with performance. To "equalize" game play, perhaps they could have made the Tiger much more expensive than, say, the T34. And that, of course, would be completely historically accurate.
As someone said before, they would need to let swarms of T-34s against each Tiger in every match to make it completely historically accurate.
The Tiger is gimped but not so much because of its armor, or even by the way that the devs calculate armor penetration. The real problem with the Tiger in game is twofold.
First, in real life, Tigers fought T34s and Shermans. But in the game, T34 and Sherman are Tier 5 tanks while the Tiger is a Tier 7. So instead of its historical enemies, the poor Tiger ends up fighting mythical tanks from its future.
Second, you have engagement range. In this game you don't see Tigers vaporizing targets from outside the effective engagement range of its enemies. Tank battles in this game are fought mostly at what would have been considered crazy close quarters, thus nullifying one of the Tiger's edges.
I also question whether the comparitively low damage of the 88 is at all accurate. It's famous for a reason which doesn't seem to exist in this game. Still, the accuracy and rate of fire make it serviceable.
Now, on those rare occasions when the matchmaker actually gives you a Tier 7 match, you'll find that you are pretty badass if you play to the strengths of the tank as modeled in the game. You can still hit very accurately from what passes for long range in this game, and you can take a punch. That's a pretty decent combo.
Most of the time however, you'll be a second-class citizen in Tier 8 (read: mythical Tier 8 premium tanks that are better than real Tier 8s) fights, with a smattering of Tier 9 and Tier 10 fights.
The Tiger is gimped but not so much because of its armor, or even by the way that the devs calculate armor penetration. The real problem with the Tiger in game is twofold.
First, in real life, Tigers fought T34s and Shermans. But in the game, T34 and Sherman are Tier 5 tanks while the Tiger is a Tier 7. So instead of its historical enemies, the poor Tiger ends up fighting mythical tanks from its future.
I heard rumors (devs info?) about introduction of historical battle game mode in future, so you would be able to fight tanks of the respective age only.
"- Historical battle. Faction-based battles with restrictions on vehicles and modules available.
Status: in development and gameplay testing, planned for release this year."
Originally posted by StealthBomb
Second, you have engagement range. In this game you don't see Tigers vaporizing targets from outside the effective engagement range of its enemies. Tank battles in this game are fought mostly at what would have been considered crazy close quarters, thus nullifying one of the Tiger's edges.
I also question whether the comparitively low damage of the 88 is at all accurate. It's famous for a reason which doesn't seem to exist in this game. Still, the accuracy and rate of fire make it serviceable.
Now, on those rare occasions when the matchmaker actually gives you a Tier 7 match, you'll find that you are pretty badass if you play to the strengths of the tank as modeled in the game. You can still hit very accurately from what passes for long range in this game, and you can take a punch. That's a pretty decent combo.
Most of the time however, you'll be a second-class citizen in Tier 8 (read: mythical Tier 8 premium tanks that are better than real Tier 8s) fights, with a smattering of Tier 9 and Tier 10 fights.
It really looks like you should find and play a tank simulator, not an mmofps/rpg hybrid game.
Eyewitness accounts and topnotch historians are not good enough for you? I guess people should believe some random persons post on the Internet over them eh?
Most allied tankers in europe would call every tank they saw a "Tiger". Even the PZ4's. History channel likes dramatic stories, and they tell them. They are not always very factual however. If you really want grognard views of things, try the ww2 online forums where the whining over the Tiger makes this seem trivial. They whine about the paint job, they whine about the fact it doesn't have the later commander's cupola, they whine about how shattergap isn't modeled (Does any WoT player even know what that is?).
Those grognards will be more than happy to provide the real ww2 research to prove their points of view. Lets just say if you were to mention "History Channel" as your source, you'd be laughed off the forum.
The armor is what is, or what is was but the 88 was the one of the most fearsome weapon for all allied tankers, which is not modelled correctly in WoT. Tiger = steel coffin. (In WoT)
Yeah the game only has a very casual relationship with WWII history.
The reality is that the Tiger which first saw action in '42 was a monster of a tank.....and 1and 1 dominated pretty much all of it's potential oposition. Though it was NOT impregnable (in it's first combat action in the West, 3 Tigers were knocked out by British 6 pounder AT guns).
At the start of it's career it's main opponents in the West would have been Lee/Grants, Crusader II's and Valentines (the latter 2 might well even have still been equiped with 2 pounders). Even by '44 most of the Allied tanks were still completely outclassed by the Tiger. By D-Day, most Shermans were still only equiped with short-barreled 75's (which couldn't penetrate the frontal armor at ANY range and could only penetrate the side with a well placed shot at 100m) . Only 1 in 5 US tanks were equiped were equiped with 76mm's at the time.
What did the German armour in was logistics. Tanks like the Tiger and Panther, no matter how well they performed individualy were very complicated machines to build, run & maintain. They were tough to manufacture in quantity and and even tougher to keep running in the field as they were prone to frequent breakdowns. That meant that the Germans never had enough of them in the field to counter the Allies...and those they had operating were in constant danger of air attack.
I think the Allied Command estimated that it took at least 5 Shermans to counter a single Tiger. Thing is, the Allies usualy showed up with something like 10, supported by tank hunter infantry teams with bazookas, FO's to call in artillery support and a couple P-47's on standby just in case.
Not sure how you'd really go about representing something like that in a game like WoT.
Comments
I have the tiger as well still about 30k away from researching the next level. You can take a pounding if you don't know how to play it. I have the best gun on it and a set of binoculars and camo.
What I like to do on some maps is find that sweet spot and get still let the camo work for me and sit there and snipe the enemy with that gun. The only tank I cant snipe is the lowe, you got to get behind that 390 armor. You just have to be careful how you play your tiger.
I know I gotten the steel wall award several times.
The problem is if you get spotted by arty it don't take much to take you out.
Keeping all tanks in the garage is a huge time investment. Getting crews to 100% with perks for each tank you come across in the game?
[Mod Edit]
The Tiger was designed to kill T-34s and KV-1s. If I was in my Tiger against them in WOT I would Dominate every MAP unless I got derped twice by 152's. The problem people have is that it is a tier 7 tank designed to kill tier 5 tanks. It is a Time period problem. The germans used this Tank at the beginning of the war it was not designed to take on the heavies it is put against in the game. The Tiger 2 was and it is a great tank for its lvl. To have a Historically accurate game would be boring. There would be like 3 Tigers facing off against 10 T-34s and 10 shermans and a KV or 2.
I think there's a lot of truth to what you say. I have wondered why the first US and Soviet heavies are tier 5, whereas on the German tech tree, a person has to work up to tier 7 for the first heavy (Tiger I). It sounds like you came to the same conclusion that I did: that if the developers simply pitted heavy versus heavy (i.e. the Tiger I vs. KVs and T1s), the Tiger would be FAR too dominant. Thus, the developers decided to create varying tier levels as a method to handicap tanks to achieve some sort of "balanced", competitive playing field.
However, I'm irked that they went so far -- too far, in my opinion. What we end up with in WoT is a Tiger that is anything BUT dominant on the field when facing tanks of its own tier. The tank truly was legendary in real life; but in tier 7 I think WoT has made it a bit of a turkey. I can understand the developers desire to introduce handicaps to create more interesting game play, but in a nod to the Tiger's real-life stature, I would have preferred to see it remain dominant (just not *too* dominant) at its tier.
I'm not sure that three Tigers facing off against 22 enemy tanks would be "boring", though.
In fact, unequal numbers of tanks on each side might be an interesting, *alternative* method to create competitive battles.
Your comment makes more sense to me now. Yeah, having three separate accounts isn't going to make a person some sort of expert by definition. I think all the OP meant was that he had worked his way up the tech trees of the three different nations represented in the game, and thus had direct experience by which to compare the performance of the different tanks.
I'm interested in the fact that you're able to play the Tiger I so well. I'm going to try some of the tactics that others here have described, and maybe I'll have better luck. Also, I'm still working on unlocking the long 88. I'm sure that will make a big difference in game play, as well.
That's good news about the Tiger II -- I'll look forward to getting that one! Thanks for the post.
Company battles already in the game
Biggest F**k you from the wot devs was, imo, when they said that they can't give the new T9 medium 150mm armor on 60t and gave it 120mm, while the russian T9 medium has 120mm at 39tons.
Looking at Patton I guess E-50 will be on par with the current PII. Maybe slight variations here and there. It's perfectly fine then. PII is very competitive at its level.
Here is something easy for people to check and see just how bad the Tiger is in this game. Find players that drive the KV or SU-85 (Both are tier 5 tanks) and take the total damage they have done and divide by total number of games to get the avrg damage a game they do.
Next find Tiger (Tier 7 tank) drivers and do the same.
You will see that many KV and SU-85 drivers do as much or more damage per battle than the Tigers.
I found that I am doing almost 2x more damage than most Tiger drivers in my SU-85.
Huge russian bias. But fun in a russian tank
Do you mind giving a few player names, whose stats could back up your story? I assume all they have, at very least, a hundred battles in the respective tanks.
Lay off the history channel. The tiger was a failed design overall. It broke down a lot. It was too heavy/wide for many of the bridges in Europe. It had flat armor (only slightly sloped) and it was "only" 100mm, which was impressive in 1941 and early 42, it was't that impressive in '43 and later when the 17lber came out for the Brits (And the 76.2mm M1 and the Russian 122mm).
It had a good gun and optics. But over much of europe (not the steppes of russia), it wasn't that useful to be able to shoot at 2km. Allied air power in 1944 and 1945 meant that sitting out in the open was suicide, so having a gun that could penetrate the enemy at 2km wasn't very useful. There were 2K tiger's built. There were over 50K shermans built. About as many T-34's and its variants. Even if the tiger had a 10:1 K/D ratio, they were facing 50:1 odds just against the "mediums", no mention of all the TD's and russian Heavy tanks (KV/IS). And of course, many of them were "lost" because their crews had to abandon them as they broke down and the enemy was coming. The Panther was similarly fated (overly complex, prone to break down, especially the transmission, which is fatal to a tank, unless you want to die in a metal coffin).
Domesto,
With 185 battles in my Tiger I, I've dealt 301 damage points per battle, on average.
With the KV (86 battles), I've dealt an average of 380 damage points per battle. I would expect this average to climb with more games, since that tank is now fully upgraded, etc..
So, I don't have double the damage or anything like that, but I do have more.
The difference that strikes me most when playing these two different vehicles is their presence on the field. When I'm the top player in a KV, I dominate the field. I can go on a rampage and destroy five or more tanks. Most enemy tanks can't do much damage to me. I'm a true heavyweight. It's fun!
When I'm the top player in a Tiger I, the experience is NOWHERE the same. I need to play in more of a sniper role if I expect to survive. If I'm too aggressive, I'm easily taken out.
The most telling statistics to me are in the win ratios. Now, I know that the wins are mostly a function of team cooperation and team skill. For that reason, it doesn't surprise me that in most of my vehicles (the ones in which I've played 100+ games), I have a 50% to 55% win ratio. However, in the Tiger I, my win ratio is only 39%. This is the ONLY vehicle I have with such a low win ratio.
Despite the random nature of team wins, I cannot help but notice this statistic and conclude it is due to the gimp factor they've placed on the Tiger.
It's true that Tiger is not a brawl tank, I actually said that few pages ago. But I am not sure where you got your numbers from. My stats with Tiger I ~ 960 damage per battle (200 matches), and I am really bad with this tank. Speaking about lvl 5 heavies, I did not play KV, but for T1, which is way worse, it's 430 (89 matches).
They might gimped Tiger for overall playability. Level 7 is dominated by T29, level 8 - King Tiger is the best, level 9 - IS-4 is the winner, level 10 - there is no clear leader. So this way they force players to spread accross different branches. This is just my guess, I don't have any proof for that.
Eyewitness accounts and topnotch historians are not good enough for you? I guess people should believe some random persons post on the Internet over them eh?
Actually, I screwed up when I posted my numbers. The KV damage average is accurate (380 per battle), but my Tiger I average is about 700. Still embarassingly low, but higher than what I posted.
I think your guess is also right about *why* the developers seem to alternate "good tank / bad tank" on the various trees.
In general, it seems the developers have made *many* fudges to real-life performance in order to "equalize" game play. Personally, I'd like to see more historical accuracy with performance. To "equalize" game play, perhaps they could have made the Tiger much more expensive than, say, the T34. And that, of course, would be completely historically accurate.
I guess I just don't like the way they seem to have gimped some tanks and invented others just to deliver what they feel is a fun gaming experience. If that was the single most important factor to them, then I think I would have preferred to just fight in generic vehicles without any reference to historic vehicles at all.
They could make the Tiger (or any tank) be a dominant force as it was in history and make it cost more to achieve, but eventually everyone would gravitate towards it and it would dominate the play field.
The longer the grind the more people that would quit as the uber tank becomes seen as manditory to be competitive.
As someone said before, they would need to let swarms of T-34s against each Tiger in every match to make it completely historically accurate.
The Tiger is gimped but not so much because of its armor, or even by the way that the devs calculate armor penetration. The real problem with the Tiger in game is twofold.
First, in real life, Tigers fought T34s and Shermans. But in the game, T34 and Sherman are Tier 5 tanks while the Tiger is a Tier 7. So instead of its historical enemies, the poor Tiger ends up fighting mythical tanks from its future.
Second, you have engagement range. In this game you don't see Tigers vaporizing targets from outside the effective engagement range of its enemies. Tank battles in this game are fought mostly at what would have been considered crazy close quarters, thus nullifying one of the Tiger's edges.
I also question whether the comparitively low damage of the 88 is at all accurate. It's famous for a reason which doesn't seem to exist in this game. Still, the accuracy and rate of fire make it serviceable.
Now, on those rare occasions when the matchmaker actually gives you a Tier 7 match, you'll find that you are pretty badass if you play to the strengths of the tank as modeled in the game. You can still hit very accurately from what passes for long range in this game, and you can take a punch. That's a pretty decent combo.
Most of the time however, you'll be a second-class citizen in Tier 8 (read: mythical Tier 8 premium tanks that are better than real Tier 8s) fights, with a smattering of Tier 9 and Tier 10 fights.
I heard rumors (devs info?) about introduction of historical battle game mode in future, so you would be able to fight tanks of the respective age only.
Update: found it
"- Historical battle. Faction-based battles with restrictions on vehicles and modules available.
Status: in development and gameplay testing, planned for release this year."
It really looks like you should find and play a tank simulator, not an mmofps/rpg hybrid game.
Most allied tankers in europe would call every tank they saw a "Tiger". Even the PZ4's. History channel likes dramatic stories, and they tell them. They are not always very factual however. If you really want grognard views of things, try the ww2 online forums where the whining over the Tiger makes this seem trivial. They whine about the paint job, they whine about the fact it doesn't have the later commander's cupola, they whine about how shattergap isn't modeled (Does any WoT player even know what that is?).
Those grognards will be more than happy to provide the real ww2 research to prove their points of view. Lets just say if you were to mention "History Channel" as your source, you'd be laughed off the forum.
The armor is what is, or what is was but the 88 was the one of the most fearsome weapon for all allied tankers, which is not modelled correctly in WoT. Tiger = steel coffin. (In WoT)
Yeah the game only has a very casual relationship with WWII history.
The reality is that the Tiger which first saw action in '42 was a monster of a tank.....and 1and 1 dominated pretty much all of it's potential oposition. Though it was NOT impregnable (in it's first combat action in the West, 3 Tigers were knocked out by British 6 pounder AT guns).
At the start of it's career it's main opponents in the West would have been Lee/Grants, Crusader II's and Valentines (the latter 2 might well even have still been equiped with 2 pounders). Even by '44 most of the Allied tanks were still completely outclassed by the Tiger. By D-Day, most Shermans were still only equiped with short-barreled 75's (which couldn't penetrate the frontal armor at ANY range and could only penetrate the side with a well placed shot at 100m) . Only 1 in 5 US tanks were equiped were equiped with 76mm's at the time.
What did the German armour in was logistics. Tanks like the Tiger and Panther, no matter how well they performed individualy were very complicated machines to build, run & maintain. They were tough to manufacture in quantity and and even tougher to keep running in the field as they were prone to frequent breakdowns. That meant that the Germans never had enough of them in the field to counter the Allies...and those they had operating were in constant danger of air attack.
I think the Allied Command estimated that it took at least 5 Shermans to counter a single Tiger. Thing is, the Allies usualy showed up with something like 10, supported by tank hunter infantry teams with bazookas, FO's to call in artillery support and a couple P-47's on standby just in case.
Not sure how you'd really go about representing something like that in a game like WoT.