World Of Tanks A Noobs Journey Part Two

First allow me to thank you two lost souls that have decided to follow my blog. I was really excited when I saw you two follow, because now I am not just writing because I feel like it. Now I must write so that I dont let you two down and force you both to join a monastery and give up all technology! But really it is just like when you lift, it is good to have a partner to motivate you to go to the gym and get that one more rep. (do you even lift bro?)

Also alow me to thank DIYLOC.com for the picture above, that sight is prety cool give it a look.

Now on to business lets discuss my noob experience. Let me see if this sounds familiar, you download World Of Tanks, do the tutorial, and then get into your first battle. Most likely you trundle along and then see a tank outlined in red. This is it, your chance to be a tank hero! You move your mouse to follow him and just as you are about to fire you hear a clang and a red notice appears on your left. You have been hit you think, so you move your mouse towards the red light and then bang! The red light appears from the original direction you were going to shoot at. At this point you do one of two things you either continue moving the mouse towards the first hit or you turn back towards the other. Either way we all know what happens next……..BOOM! You blow up in a fiery ball and the game ends. Most likely you do not even know how to exit the game or switch views so you sit there as other people drive by until the end of the match. Sound familiar doesn’t it, I bet this is the first match for most people.

For me at least the above was my first three matches. It was not until the fourth game that I killed my first tank when another noob looked across the field and stopped and looked at me as I looked at him. We both traded shots until he blew up and I was victorious! Or at least I was for about three seconds until his team blew me up. But I admit when I did finally  blow up a tank it felt great! I loved it and kept playing and I think i AM getting better. But this process has been long and painful both for me and the teams I have been on. My paltry win percentage of 47.33% can testify to that fact and so can the poor slobs tanking on my side. As the game has gone on I learned all about some key things with this game. Concepts that are not clearly defined by the  tutorial and that most players on a team will not take the time to tell you. These are some of the things I will discuss in this issue of  “A Noobs Journey.” If you are an experienced player please feel free to skip this or better yet read it and laugh at what little I have discovered. If you are a grade “A” badass at this game please feel free to comment or write your own blog. But if you are a Nooblet like myself I hope this helps with a few of those nagging questions.

First lets discuss the basic things that I did not know until probably my 500th game. First why in the heck do I always get shot by invisible tanks? Is it a hack or are my setting wrong or is my computer old and useless for this game? Well the answer to those questions could be yes to all three.  But more then likely you have discovered view range and the lack of it on your tank. Basically it works like this ( I am not going to get into the math, heck I barely understand it) Every tank has a view range, it is listed on the turret in the technology tree section. You are able to see a certain number of meters, this range is affected by your opponents camouflage rating that will subtract from that number.  I use French tanks and let me tell you those early mediums are garbage and their view ranges are right in line with their suckatude. Often times I would get shot over and over again by these invisible tanks. I could not figure it out and I am sure it was covered in the tutorial but I wanted to know how to fix the problem. To fix this problem there are a few solutions, first look at your crew is the percentage of experiance at 100%? If not then they are not working at their full capacity and this affects everything. So if you’re using a 50% crew you are basically operating at 50%. If your crew is at 100% then look at your radio operator, there is a perk (the little plus symbol is next to the name if you have not chosen one)or special power you can give your crew members. The radio operator has one that extends your view range pick it and as you gain experience it will get better and so will your view range. Second thing is you can add coated optics and or binoculars to your tank. These items both increase your view range, the optics always work but only at 10% increase. The binoculars or “binocs” increase your view range but only when you have been sitting still for a while. The down side to them is of course the price but one great thing about the binocs is that they can be removed for free and used on other tanks. SO DONT SELL THEM WITH YOUR TANK!! Read that one again, SO DONT SELL THEM WITH YOUR TANK!! Right there kids I just saved you 250k worth of silver. Feel free to send me real life money in thanks.

Second lets discuss why people can always seem to spot me even when I am hiding. So lets paint another picture, I roll up to a big bush and a tree. I knock down the tree on my left to block my side and park in the bush so they cannot see me in front. Why can they still see me and blow up my shiny scout tank? So first the tree you knocked down, you would think all those nice big leafs would block you but no, the game developers have decided that the fact that you knocked the tree down invalidates any cover it would provide. Those leafs are invisible to the enemy. Who knew right, makes no sense but there you are? Second now that you knocked over that tree, artillery can see what direction the tree was knocked over at. like so: (tree)–>>>> this means that they assume this: {you}—>>>> so that spot becomes: {BOOM}–>>>> a dead tank. Third your bush needs to be big enough to block your whole tank AND make sure your nose is not hanging out of it. I try and park with just my nose touching the bush. Fourth when you shoot, often times your bush disappears for a bit so when you shoot just assume everyone can see you.

Now the third thing that I wished I had known, why do so many of my shots bounce? So many guys (and I suppose a girl or two) go through their first 500 games just blasting away. I know I did that at first and it was really annoying seeing many of my shots bouncing. Now some people are going to talk about armor thickness, penetration, angling and so forth. Lets be honest you you are not going to memorise all the tanks and weapons at first and you really just want to blow up tanks now. Dont get me wrong all of that is important but you will find a ton of YOUTube videos to teach you about that. So here is my suggestion and what I learned through a lot of lost games. Zoom in on any tank and look real closely, all tanks have weak spots and if you know what to look for, it will not matter that you don’t know the difference between a kv-1 and a Chaffee. Things to look for, doors, hatches, gunports, eye slits, and flat spots on angled armor. All these places have thinner armor compared to the rest of the tank. True you still may not be able to penetrate but you are far more likely too if you learn to aim. Also most tanks have weaker armor on the sides or rear, if you can try and maneuver around the hard tanks and see if you can get them in the butt.

The last thing I wanted to speak about is something that I really wished someone had mentioned. Play to your strengths. Once you start to get into the tier five tanks you will probably have played most if not all the different types of tanks in the game. Look in your stats and see if you can see a pattern with your win percentages in tanks. Most likely you will notice that on some types of tanks you do better than others. It may be the fast lite scouts, or slow moving hard armored tanks or perhaps you have a knack for those long range sniping TD’s. What ever the case try and concentrate on those for a bit to learn the game better. Often times you can get frustrated with different tanks and this can take away some of the enjoyment. By concentrating on the tank type you are good at you will learn better since it is easier to learn when you enjoy the subject. Also your stats will be better in the long run.

Well that is all for now, I believe there will be another episode of this (or maybe two) If you have any comments, thoughts, or God forbid questions, feel free to ask. I am not an expert or even a particularly good player. But I do not consider any honest question as dumb and if I know the answer I will give it to you.