45 replies to this topic

[EricOtown]

I apologize in advance for the long post. Tried to shorten it, but I’m an admittedly long winded writer and I wanted give some good background to this situation. First of all, I am not a hard core gamer. I’m a 46 year professional who enjoys playing videos games when I have time.  I had no clue WOTB or WOT even existed until just a couple months ago. When I first started playing WOTB, I didn’t do any research online, read any articles or forums, or watch any YouTube videos. I just downloaded the app and started playing. At that time I had no clue how serious many players take this game nor did I understand that new inexperienced players should start out and stay in the lower tiers until you learn to play the game and can contribute and hold your own in the higher tiers. 

 

So I think it was probably my first or second time playing, I noticed that the more powerful tanks were in the higher tiers. I had no clue of the protocol and I figured why would I want to drive a weak crappy tier 1 or 2 tank, when I can buy and drive a much more powerful high tier premium tank. So of course, I bought the IS-6 and the JagTiger premium tanks and proceeding to start playing the game. And of course, I had no clue what I was doing and I yolo’d pretty much every match. At that time I wasn’t even aware of the chat function in the garage, so I wasn’t reading all of the nasty gram chat messages that I was receiving from my teammates after I yolo’d and we lost the match. 

 

So I proceeded to play hundreds of matches in my tier 8 premium tanks, totally ignorant and oblivious, while racking up a sub-40% win rate. Eventually I discovered the chat feature in the garage and found all of the hate mail and at that point I figured I better start reading some articles and forums and watching YouTube videos to learn strategy, tactics, and overall how to play the game. I also went down to the lower tiers 1-5 to learn and avoided the higher tiers like the plague.

 

Slowly but surely I’ve improved. I now have 2,200 games under my belt and I’ve scratched and clawed to improve my win rate and other stats. I am by no means a great or even very good player, but I feel like I can hold my own. In my last 50 games my win rate over 55% at tiers 5 & 6 and at tiers 7-9, I’m just over 50% WR. My overall win rates aren’t there yet. These percentages are for my last 50 or so matches. At tiers 5 & 6, I’m now pretty consistently scoring top damage and kills and almost always in the top 3 on my team.  My overall win rate is now up to 45% and climbing little by little every day, but I really dug myself a big hole early on by posting so many games with a really low sub-40% win rate that it’s taking me a long time to get my overall WR over 50%, but my overall win rate is definitely trending up. 

 

Last night was my first time playing at tier 9 and I was driving the Conway. My team won 7 matches in a row and we lost the 8th. Overall last night playing in tiers 7-9 tanks, my team won 17 out of 20 matches (85%). Including today, I now have 12 matches at tier 9 with a 67% win rate. Granted this isn’t a huge sample size and I know that I won’t sustain WR’s this high over time, but I definitely feel like my game play is moving in the right direction most recently. Per my profile on the Blitz website, my win rate for my last 100 games is exactly 50% and all of those games were at tiers 5-9 and the majority at tiers 7-9. 

 

So last night after winning 7 matches in a row in the tier 9 Conway, I lost my 8th match.  I was low tier, but it was a really close match and it came down to 2 tanks left on my team ( I was one of them) and 2 tanks left on the enemy team. The enemy tanks were very close to completing the cap and my teammate and I were trying to reset the cap and kill them. I had low HP and I knew if I took just one hit I would be dead. There was a tier 10 TD with insane frontal armor sitting in cap with his sides and rear protected fully by cover.  So I made a stupid move while trying to get a shot on him to reset the cap, and I exposed too much of my tank and I got taken out and we ended up losing the match. 

 

So then my wonderful teammate looks at my profile and sees my 45% overall win rate and he sends me a hate message calling me a “useless 40% er noob” who should only play in tier 1, and I should go jump in front of a bus and die. He blamed our loss entirely on me, even though I was the 2nd to last tank alive on our team, contributed the entire match, didn’t camp, didn’t yolo, and racked up respectable stats, finishing 3rd on our team with 2K in damage and 1 kill. Meanwhile there were 3 guys on our team with less than 600 damage and no kills and this wonderful teammate who nasty grammed me, only had slightly better stats in the match. 

 

This happens maybe once a night or every other night when I’m playing Blitz at tiers 7-8, and most recently tier 9.  I’ll have a really good win rate for the night, finish top 3 for damage and kills on my team in most my matches, but sometimes when my team loses a match in the higher tiers, I’ll get a nasty gram because of my 45% overall win rate, even though I was a solid contributor during the match and in the final stats. Don’t get me wrong. I have more far praises on my Military Honors page than I do complaints. Overall I have 227 praises and only 3 complaints for unsporting conduct and all those came in my first few weeks playing when I was ignorant and started out at tier 8.

 

I admit I’m still not a great Blitz player and I’ll probably never be one, but at this point I have a pretty good understanding of how to play the game. I’ve invested a ton of time reading this forum and watching YouTube videos to learn strategy, tactics, and  how to play the game, and playing over 2K games. I definitely still have a lot to learn and I’m still a very average player at the higher tiers, but I feel like I’ve definitely started to turn a corner with win rates for my last 50 and 100 games and I can at least hold my own now. Of course I still make mistakes and do some inexplicable stupid things in matches on occasion, but I’ve seen plenty of 60% WR players make stupid mistakes as well. No one is perfect in this game. 

 

Honestly I feel like the best way to improve at this point is by playing against good competition in tiers 7-9 because the lower tiers are a frantic mess. Even in tiers 4-6, there is very little teamwork and very little strategy. You basically have 14 tanks frantically rushing out at the enemy as fast as they can and most of them yoloing. Teammates won’t listen to any plan and most matches are just an absolute free for all with half the tanks sitting in the open without any cover and bum rushing each other. I still play tiers 5 and 6 to earn credits, but the style of play is very different from the higher tiers. The style of play that works well in tiers 5 & 6 will get you killed quickly in the higher tiers and if you use the tier 7-9 style of play in tiers 5 & 6, half your team will dead while your still maneuvering to get into a good strategic position. 

 

So at what point are players “allowed” to play in tiers 7-9 and not get attacked, noob bashed, vilified, and cursed at?  Are only 60%+ overall WR players with 10,000+ games “allowed to play” tiers 7-9?

 

What about the fact that the overall win rate on a player’s profile doesn’t accurately reflect their recent level of play, especially for someone who sucked for a lot of games, but has improved their more recent win rate pretty significantly?  It can take a long time to get that overall win rate up. 

 

I definitely think that new players should start at the lower tiers, but at some point you have to start playing the higher tiers. 

 

Am I out of line playing tiers 7-9 at this point? Should I wait until my overall win rate is over 50% or even 55% or until I have 5K or 10K games played? 

 

I really feel like the noob bashing and hate messaging is out of hand. Any time a team loses a match, some players place all the blame on teammates simply because their overall win rate is below 50% overall win rate. Granted sometimes it’s well deserved when a teammate is an absolute train wreck and they should be reported for inactivity or unsporting behavior, but there’s no place for the personal attacks in nasty gram chat messages. 

 

I really would like to get some opinions other than those of a few of my irate teammates who occasionally send me nasty grams via chat. Thanks. 

 

 

[Zuke76]

I wish I was a long winded writer...maybe not

Edited by Zuke76, 11 July 2019 - 11:07 PM.

[Zuke76]

It is out of hand, and even the top players get noob bashed, it will never stop, the best thing to do is ignore it, replying will get nowhere because stupid is stupid

[EL_Din_46]

I have similar stats to yours but am mostly staying in tiers 4, 5, and 6. If you are doing your share of the fighting and winning, don’t worry.  While I don’t get the hate mail you get, I do see plenty of players with 10-60 k experience showing up in my levels. Apparently lots of more experienced players see nothing wrong with playing “out of level.”  

 

Less skilled players frustrate me, but overly experienced players aren’t fun either. (I live for the games where I blow the turret off a 30k’er). What is worse is playing with quitters and jerks*. May we both see less of them.

 

*insert obscenity

 

 

 

 

[Rance]

Frankly, you talk a lot about win rate win rate win rate. It's the measure most of the people here live by but I think there is a more important question: Are you having fun? Are any of these 10k gamers still having a good time or are they throwing things against the wall when they have a 'noob' team? If your gums are bleeding from teeth gnashing after a loss maybe you should rethink your priorities. I game to have fun (ok, after 8 losses in a row I might have a little trouble remembering how to grin) but I just try to do the best I can each match without yoloing...support the team as best I can depending on what tank I'm in and ignore those whose first response is to denigrate others. 

  I'm still fairly new here...I was an old regular WoT player but believe me, the vitriol there was way worse...even if I usually ignore chat (except directions and pleas for help). I just missed playing my tanks and now I can with the added bonus of no Arty, smaller teams and shorter matches...and as personal preference, tiers V-VIII are my favorites (haven't gotten around to getting back my old stable of tanks here). Just try to enjoy yourself....and I recommend Clorox Kitchen Cleaner for getting those stains off the wall.

[dindincf]

At tier 8 you have a 43% winrate in the last 30 days. I don’t care what tier you play at but what that suggests is that you lack some fundamentals and experience. I’m not sure what your goals are possibly because I didn’t read the wall of text but clearly define your goals then set out to achieve them. I usually found that as I progressed up the tiers, I was able to back track and become more successful than my first pass. Take what you learn at higher tiers and perfect it at a tier that challenges you.

[___ez_e___]

Ok.  I’ll try.    

 

1.  This is a game.  Do what you want and ignore the haters.   I especially believe this if you pay any sort of money to play the game. Your $$$ has earned you the right to do whatever you see fit.     

 

2.   If you want to improve your stats, I would say still stay lower tier and work on the fundamentals (ie side scraping, using terrain, etc)  If you continue to play higher tiers, expect your wr to drop significantly.    I don’t mean to be rude, but based on small sample size and review of stats, you avg dmg is not nearly enough to maintain your current wr.

 

3.   The player base dynamics is a major issue, however it is a function of the updates.   The player base is made up of remaining veterans of the old mm that features -2/+2 and new player trying to get into the game.    Many of the veterans are entrenched super unicums who are committed to the game.  So on one hand we have very capable player, but juxtaposed to that is a vast majority of novice players.  This has created the toxic environment.

 

4.   Many of the high wr player started just like you with low wr when they were new.  A reroll can easily get over 50 wr quickly, however new players should temper their expectations on improvements.  For example, I didn’t pass 50 wr until around 10k battles. Obviously everyone progression is different so take what I said about my progression  a little grain of salt.  

 

5. Ignore the noise and just have fun.  

 

I’m still getting better and I am focusing on my top tiers at this point, otherwise I would have quit a long tome ago with all the update drama.  

 

I rarely get hate mail, but it’s usually when I don’t pull my weight and did something stupid.  

 

btw - I’m a little older then you at 49 and there are a lot of mature players.  

 

Have you found discord yet? 

 

Edited by ___ez_e___, 12 July 2019 - 12:12 AM.

[Dementia_Joe]

So essentially what you are saying is the hate mail was the main factor in you browsing the forums and watching video's to get better. That's a good argument for the positivity of hate mail. Seriously though you have put more effort into getting better then the vast majority of players. Keep playing whatever tier you want and have the most fun at. If you want to get better you will it just takes time and you know all the tools to help you....happy tanking.

[_Cletus]

Hey man.  Wassup.

 

I don't really get hate mail because of my looks but I know people who do.  The ones who are happiest use the hate mail as an opportunity to hilariously make fun of people who care too much about the game and too little about human decency.  As an inexperienced gamer you may not realize this, but in every game ever in the history of ever the average player is saltier than the dude's wife in the sodom and Gomorrah story.  

 

So yeah, ignore the meanies, you'll find some positive comments mixed in there, go ahead and make some buddies.

[_spike41]

Your post reminds me a lot of my journey into the game.  I started grinding all lines, playing different tanks before I knew what they all did and constantly found myself being low tiered.  That caused me to push upward and always strive for higher tier tanks.  Oh and those wonderful premium tanks WG offered me with bigger guns, better armor, those were enticing.  

 

I've received so many spiteful salty messages through my career and at the onset, it was shocking to say the very lest.  Finally I got a helpful, yet stern message.  Go back to lower tiers until your WR in that tier is above 50% then advance and watch videos.  I parked the higher tier tanks and moved up the lines until I was playing pretty consistently at 50% in that tier before moving up. Best advise I was given.  You will learn and refine those skills at lower tiers without quite as much penalty as you pay at the higher tiers.  If you make a mistake, accept it and learn from it.  This was all before tiers 1-5 were gutted of many tanks and became "new player friendly".  Sadly I feel this has has moved the problems from the low tiers upward but that's an entirely different subject. 

 

Map knowledge is huge, especially for the specific tank you're driving, it can make all the difference in a game.  I took that advise and it has paid off.  So what I don't have the status that some people have, I don't obsess over them.  I do however want to improve my game and that's a constant work in progress.  Lastly, find a good platoon mate.  Pay attention to what they do and watch replays of your games.  From their perspective and yours.  If your clan has Discord, that's a great way to connect.  And those videos, there are so many good contributors out there now each with their own perspectives.  

 

Ignore the toxicity and move on from it.  Why just today, I was called camping TD trash for pushing around 3/4 of the map on Normandy, doing 3 times the damage of anyone on my team for a loss.  Said player put himself in a bad spot, 2 of my team mates never moved from spawn, one of them was AFK (I think) and this incredibly friendly and highly skilled player thought it important to throw insults my way.  The salt never ceases to amaze me. Just have fun, it's a game and life is far too short.  

[WipWapJaws]

A good rule of thumb is. If you can comfortably hold a WR over 50% in a tank and average its health in damage then you are ready to move up to the next tier.

[DirtyRabbit]

Play to have fun. Why I downloaded it. A friend told me about the mobile version of wot. And I've enjoyed it ever since. 

[averagebot]

Sound like you are doing well op.

 

Before it used to be do 1k games per tier and you will have a handle on the game.

 

If you are concerned about win rate just drive op tanks.  Boring to me.   You need to drive each class some to see how there strategy is on each map in public games.  So you can come up with a quick counter strategy.  At the count open of games.

 

It took me also a grind to get over 50%...  I do care less now about win rate,  I just want to win certain battles more than others.

But against average playerscor worse. Not so much.  But that may be just conserving energy for the better players and difficult games.because of the many played games.  I thought it was 10k games I was pretty informed on how to play.  But probably 20k.

 

Good luck.

[rosgrim]

As in every universe of human being in the WOTB universe there are many stupids. Also is a war game and competition is inside the game so the rage for a loss.

Saying that a general rule is simply ignore and don't even give importance to chat message, insults etc etc. Very simple ignore and block.

 

Then if you are interested to improve (you are obviously free to play in every tier you want but the logic suggest that the fun in this game, and probably in every war game, is about to win. And in order to win you have to get the skills especially in WOTB that is a difficult game) and if you ask around to all the players over 55WR in high tiers (don't trust simply WR, a good WR in tier 2-7 is easy to get) they will say to you that as general rule you have to go step by step trough the tiers and the tank line.

Play a tier 2 tank and stay till you get at the least 50% WR and more and may be a M ace. Better if you get also 180 (200 would be the ideal) average damage x tier (so for a tier 2  you get 360-400 average damage) that means you are using the tank properly.

Obviously is not only about the WR and the damage but to keep it simple those 2 stats will tell you are ready to go up.

If you already did this wth tier 2 then jump from tier 3 etc.

Every reasonable player will tell you this also because almost all made the mistake (myself included) to jump to higher tiers without the experience/skill. The few that become faster unicom and/or good player had patience and used the brain (I regret I didn't do that).

Premium tier 7-8 if you are not ready will make everything worse. I wouldn't even consider tier 9-10. 

You can buy it, try it, may be play it sometimes, but if you are not ready sooner or later (don't consider lucky win streaks) you will get only frustration.

Last: for this game 2k battle are nothing. Experience starts may be at 7-10k battles.

[tedg5]

Smaller piece of advise: I know you want to play higher tiers. As mentioned, your stats don’t favor you doing well there. What I did early was set a mini goal for myself. Win three in a row at say tier 5, everytime I did that I felt I “earned” the right to run a high tier game, if I won that game I did another. Etc. when I lost a high tier I went back down and tried again until I earned that higher tier battle. This kept me learning at low tiers while experiencing the thrill of high tier action. Go get em! 

[Kiser_Sosei]

A lot of guys like to shoot for an M and 50% WR in tank before moving up the line. I would also recommend dropping down to a tier in which you can achieve a damage ratio of 1.1 or better and then move up a tier and stay their until you can stay above a 1.1 damage ratio.

[Morphman11]

If you learned how to struggle through the lower tiers you wouldn’t get as much hate. Play tier 6-7 learn basic skills then move on.

[nicog45]

If you want to get better at this game fast, the best thing you can do is download discord. You can talk to someone while you platoon with them, so that they can critique your gameplay while you play, and you can learn from 10s of thousands of games of experience, without suffering through it yourself. 

[ShootinSabot]

EricOtown, on 11 July 2019 - 03:59 PM, said:

 

 

 

 

So at what point are players “allowed” to play in tiers 7-9 and not get attacked, noob bashed, vilified, and cursed at?  Are only 60%+ overall WR players with 10,000+ games “allowed to play” tiers 7-9?

 

What about the fact that the overall win rate on a player’s profile doesn’t accurately reflect their recent level of play, especially for someone who sucked for a lot of games, but has improved their more recent win rate pretty significantly?  It can take a long time to get that overall win rate up. 

 

I definitely think that new players should start at the lower tiers, but at some point you have to start playing the higher tiers. 

 

Am I out of line playing tiers 7-9 at this point? Should I wait until my overall win rate is over 50% or even 55% or until I have 5K or 10K games played? 

 

I really feel like the noob bashing and hate messaging is out of hand. Any time a team loses a match, some players place all the blame on teammates simply because their overall win rate is below 50% overall win rate. Granted sometimes it’s well deserved when a teammate is an absolute train wreck and they should be reported for inactivity or unsporting behavior, but there’s no place for the personal attacks in nasty gram chat messages. 

 

I really would like to get some opinions other than those of a few of my irate teammates who occasionally send me nasty grams via chat. Thanks. 

 

 

 

Good Post Eric, write as long of a post as you want, it’s your keyboard and finger tips and good on you for finding the forums this early in your Blitz career.

 

Ignore the haters, block and move on. You are allowed to play any tier anytime but you will get bashed even if you have a %60 wr and tons of battles. Should you be at tier 9 is a different question. Do you want to run around and shoot stuff or would you like to get better?

 

Most longer term players recognize that 30-90 day wr is more indicative of a players progress but there are some who don’t get it.

 

At 2228 battles you are a baby in relative terms, there are lots of players with 30,000 plus battles and even that is on the low side. There are some spuds (Spud and SpudX are essentially the same clan) who are 60,000 +. How did I know your exact battle count, https://www.blitzstars.com  is a great resource for really taking a deep dive into your own and other players stats.  You probably do not belong in tier 9 with that battle count. Many long-term players say they did not really start to understand the nuances of the game until they hit 10,000 or more battles. Some will disagree but I think you still need to figure some stuff out at tier 6 and 7. 5 used to be the best learning tier but since the great nerfing I think you will get more out of 6 and 7. That being said don’t be afraid to give the KV-1 a drive. An OP tank as high tier and competitive as low tier.

 

Where else to go to get help other than the forums? BushkaonBlitz, Sk8xtrm, Martin Dogger, Meadsy69 are some of the most active you tubers right now with great content. Anon_____ WOTBlitz is another great channel, he is no longer active so the tank reviews are stale but his game-play and explanations of thinking his way through a battle are second to none. (We miss his videos but he is still active in the game.)

 

The advice about discord is spot on, tooning and being on voice comms with a better player is going to do nothing but help your game. Just about everyone who is on the forums is more than happy to spend some quality time with you.

https://discord.gg/AUF6rJb This is the link of the Triariii server and it is one of the best private servers to be part of with lots of players who are willing to lend a hand. Wouldchip in particular but lots more.

 

 Drive all the different types of tanks, this will help you learn the weaknesses and strengths of each particular type. I can't take credit for this wisdom, it was given to me by a forumer who took me under his wing a long time ago, Writerdude.(you want to talk long posts, his were legendary)

 

Damage ratio and survival rate are the two stats that I believe have the biggest effect on your win rate. Use Blitz stars and have a look at some of the better players and almost universally you will see damage ratios in of 1.5 or more with survival rates of 45% and a win-rate of 60% or higher. How do you get those stats higher? when you figure it out let me know.

[9_V0LT]

The ability of players to play tiers outside their skill set, is a purposely built in component of the game (at least for pub battles). 

 

As as long as you are actively and positively competing in the battle, you have just as much “right” to be there as anyone else, regardless of your win rate or skill level. 

 

The same 65% unicum gamer tweak that will rage at you for playing tier ten, wouldn’t have that WR percentage if it weren’t for less skilled players competing in the same tiers he does. (you know, ‘cause maths) these are basically the same people who’ll kick a dog, just because the world isn’t fair. 

 

All I can say, is play whatever tanks and tiers make the game enjoyable for you. 

(and if you’re tired of being someone’s kicking dog, get better at them)