World of Tanks Blitz

Hi folks!

Today, I'll take a quick look at the other mobile game by wargaming, the mobile version of World of Tanks. I've enjoyed World of Warships for quite a while, so I figured I'd bite the bullet, free up 5GB of space (yep, that happened) and give it a try.

First impressions

The game does a good job of getting you started on the controls, with tutorial missions, and then throws you in for what I can only describe as "guaranteed wins" for a couple of battles, before sending you off into the terrifying world of multiplayer tactical battles.

That was the point I almost dropped the game again. You're a noob in a tier 1 tank, you have really no idea what to do or how to do it, and you're thrown in with players who have hundreds or thousands of battles under their belt. I had a basic idea of what I was supposed to do - stay in cover, concentrate fire, try not to die - but the first, I don't know, ten or twenty battles I got killed pretty much immediately, and felt like I had zero impact on the battle (or probably a negative one for my team).

Controls

My biggest issue at first was with the controls - in World of Warships, you've got your speed setting, and port / starboard rudder, and that's pretty much it. Try not to crash into islands. In World of Tanks, thinks are three-dimensional for a start: hills, slopes etc do exist that you can drive up on, valleys to go down into. 

There are eight directions: forward, forward left, forward right, reverse, reverse left, reverse right, rotate on spot left, rotate on spot right. All these are controlled with a virtual analogue stick with no haptic feedback, the size of my thumb. Effectively that meant for the most part of my first battles I was just derping around, getting stuck on rocks or buildings, and inevitably getting killed very quickly.

Matchmaking

I feel that one of the main problems in the matchmaking is that it's by vehicle tier, not by player experience. That wasn't so much a problem in World of Warships, because I started in the open beta, and we all pretty much had to figure things out as we went. World of Tanks has been out for a while, so the experienced players get frustrated with scrubs like me dragging their team down, and new players are quickly frustrated by getting shot up rapidly (and potentially shouted at).

But I decided to stick with it, for a couple of reasons:

• I wanted to see how long it would take to not completely suck
• I quite enjoy tanks, and the tech trees are huge
• battles are rather quick, and the game gives you a generous helping of vehicle slots, so I always have something to battle with

Currencies

The currency system works pretty much like World of Warships - there's "silver", which is gained from battle income, and used to buy tanks, upgrades, repairs, ammo etc. Then there's "gold", the premium currency you usually have to pay real money for to get.

The one big difference I've seen so far is that you can buy premium ammo with gold, and do more damage than with regular ammo. That feels like a stupid pay-to-win system at first, but it really isn't - yes, it might cost you the occasional battle, but on the whole, if you don't know what you're doing, no amount of premium ammo is going to turn the game for you.

You'll start with a respectable amount of gold for free (1000+ in my case), probably to get you used to spending it. Honestly, I haven't really seen a need for it yet, having sufficient fun without putting any real money into it. I will, eventually, come up with a fair price of what the game is worth to me, and spend that once, but it's really quite good in free mode.

It took me about a week to get up to tier 4, get some upgrades, and actually make a meaningful contribution to battles every now and then.

Map layout

I'd say, from my limited experience, the single most important thing to learn, besides the fiddly controls, is the map layout. Players are very, very good at exploiting your mistakes - you sit next to a rock, thinking you're in cover, but you're actually in an open vector from the rear - you're dead. Drive too far ahead, get spotted and overrun, you're dead. Get flanked in a tank destroyer - you're dead.

So for the beginning, I'd recommend sticking with the other players, observing the spots they take, and learning the map layout.

Keep practising, upgrade your tank, train your crew, and after a while, you'll get the satisfaction of doing damage, occasionally carrying a battle and getting some medals.

Ranked battle killers - Königsberg light cruiser

Hi folks!

The "ranked battle" feature has been in the game for a while now, and it's an interesting and fun addition. The basic idea is that, during currently two windows of server time a day, you play against other players, gaining (or losing) points, and thus moving up or down the ladder. Each rank class (bronze, silver etc.) gets you resources at the end of the season, and you gain currency to spend in the rank shop.

A nice twist is that ranked battles can only be played at tier five, no matter what your personal top tier is. This, of course, limits the choice of ships available. In the battleship line, there's the excellent Japanese Kongo class, which really is a fast, uparmoured battlecruiser, and you'll usually find a large number of destroyer players.

Since I'm a bit of a fan of the German cruiser line, I found that the tier five Königsberg class is really almost as good as the tier six Nürnberg.

She's got very similar guns - nine 150mm in three turrets - and torpedoes - four triple launchers, two on each side.

Armour and health are comparable, she's a light cruiser, so two good broadsides from a battleship will probably sink her. But the fast-firing main batteries (can be brought down to about 7s reload time with the reload speed equipment upgrade), using armour piercing, are an absolute destroyer-killer.

She doesn't have the Nürnberg's sonar, but does have the precise aim. Staying away from cruiser and battleship guns is a given, and she can do great with dodging distance shots while responding with rapid high-explosive fire from her two rear turrets. Alternatively, you can use her torpedoes to flank or ambush bigger ships.

As with the Nürnberg, I'd recommend using the two steering equipment upgrades, playing to her strength as a light cruiser.

Visibility

Hi folks!

Today, I'll leave some thoughts about visibility, and how it can be used in your playstyle. Visibility in World of Warships is affected by several factors:

• ship class - smaller ships like destroyers have much lower visibility than large ships.
• modifications - in higher tiers, ships can be outfitted with superstructure mods that reduce visibility (usually by 10%)
• camouflage paint - besides giving other perks, they usually reduce the visibility by a couple more %

In the game, visibility is marked by the dotted circle around your ship, with the full line being the range of your currently selected weapon. 

Firing guns

Once you fire any of your main or secondary batteries, your visibility will bloom, and it will take a while of you not firing them for it to go down again. The impact this has on your strategy depends on the ship type you're sailing, and what kind of build you're going for.

Battleships

Being the largest ships out there, battleships usually get spotted first, easily halfway across the map. Stealth isn't really something required for battleship strategies, since you'll be mostly firing from behind your destroyer / cruiser screen at range. That said, if you build for lower detection range, and manage to show up in a place where you're not expected early in the game, you can get a slight advantage out of it - but I probably would use the modification slots for more important things.

Cruisers

Smaller than battleships, they're still relying mostly on their main guns to deal damage, and once the firefight is up, they're easily spotted. That said, if your main gun range is larger than your visibility, you can get the first salvo off against an unsuspecting target, provided they're spotted and you aren't.

Destroyers

Here, visibility really comes into play. Especially Japanese destroyers with their relatively weak guns and long-range torpedoes can benefit hugely from low visibility. A common attack pattern is to sneak up just outside spotting range, fire a salvo of torpedoes at an unsuspecting target, and get out again unspotted. American and Russian / Soviet destroyers have much shorter torpedo ranges, so it's harder for them to pull of these "stealth strikes". Still, getting out of spotting range means you won't be shot at by long-range, fast-firing cruisers. Dropping smoke screens also helps quite a bit.

So after you've dropped your torpedoes, and you haven't yet been spotted, hold off on the gunfire - it might be a better choice to turn, get some distance and stay out of sight. Of course, once you're spotted, you might as well open up with the main guns. Again, US and Russian destroyers have the advantage here, they're close-range fighters.

Carriers

Having a low visibility on a carrier can help hiding it from enemy eyes, but there are two factors to consider - first, there's a good chance of an enemy carrier in the game, and planes are very good at spotting. Second, it's easy to see where you should be just by following the planes, since they're visible across the whole map.

In general, camouflage helps in the game (how I hate the games where I got hit by two loads of torpedoes in my "Admiral Hipper" without even ever seeing the enemy Kagero class once). But, as always, it depends on your ship class and playstyle.