Zinn

You and your fucking zero key.

There's a pretty significant difference between rigging the MM and being fucking dumb with balancing vehicles and maps. 
WG are not so much rigging towards your WR as they are changing the game to milk money from customers. Whereas the previously huge and growing playerbase could sustain a pretty fair game, the rapidly dwindling playerbase cannot, and thus WG must prioritize their actions: Should they make sure the low level grind is fun and balanced (and let's be honest, that's been garbage since Day 1) or should they push everyone and their mother into tier 8-10, aka the end-game, where people have to spend money?
They chose the latter and I was just fortunate enough to have had enough of RNG before it went to complete shit. There's still no reason for them to engage in some pubbie conspiracy about WR consistency, simply because consistency is only interesting to people who give a shit about the game, which the average player doesn't. WG aims squarely at people who do not give a shit and are just there for fun and games, which is also why their playerbase has been so remarkably shit and conspiracy-prone since Beta.
It's just slowly getting to a point where WG has to do gacha-tier shenanigans to milk the last dollars before entering maintenance mode. I'm too far out of the loop to know if maintenance mode is 1, 2 or 3 years away but it'll surely be coming. There's a reason why WG has gone from pretty much only WoT to having 10 games running, they knew what was coming in due time. Sure, some are mobile or other versions of existing games but they do hold a potentially powerful IP in MoO if they manage to make a good version of it.
Basically, WoT is 10 years old and it's time to move on. Whether you can hold out until the servers shut down or leave due to gacha mechanics and the balance consequences of those (such as removal of weakspots to enforce gold spam), is up to you. However, it's highly unlikely WG will revert to anything resembling the good old days if they don't get a massive spike in players.

I've been thinking about this, and theres no one real reason that I've been playing this game a lot less. Its a whole pile of different reasons that have added up to make the game as a whole much less fun, and I thought Id share my own thoughts and opinions on what these problems are. Spoiler alert: Artillery isn't one of them, yeah its annoying but Its been in the game since launch and I still found the game plenty fun despite it over the last 8 years I've been playing.
NOTE: EVERYTHING HERE IS MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION, YOUR OPINION MAY DIFFER
WARNING: MEGA GIANT WALL OF TEXT
Vehicle Balance: 
Im going to start off with The biggest elephant in the room, and my biggest reason. Overall vehicle balance. IMO, balance between vehicles was at its peak around late 2015-mid 2016ish. Its been downhill from there really. Yeah back then the overbuffed E5 existed and the WTE100 was cancer. but those were two outliers, these days the whole game is out of whack. Each new patch consists of new tanks that seem more stupid than the last. (this section may not be in correct chronological order)
The Type 5 Heavy with the derp gun was, in my eyes, one of the beginnings of this. Along with the mass removal of weakspots from everything. 
They Nerfed the E5 and then released the Super conq which was, and still is, as good or better in every single way to the overbuffed E5. the overbuffed E5 would still be considered pretty bad in the current meta. Now then, what could possibly be better than the Super conq? I know! A tank that is literally better than the super conq at everything, except It also does all the things the E5 could of possibly hoped to do better than the super conq even better than that! (like mobility) Enter the Chieftain. It being a CW reward is both good and bad. good because every mouthbreather can't get one and thus theres less of them. bad because it instantly became the meta in CW, pushed the SC out, and you have to have one in a top clan now. 
They then released the 268v4, which single handedly completely destroyed my desire to play this game. It has never returned to the levels it was before the V4 was released. Im sure everyone remembers, but clan wars became "whoever has the most 268v4s wins, regardless of strategy" it was the most cancer period I've ever seen in this game in my life. And then they nerfed it. barely. they gave it a slap on the wrist. Thankfully it stopped that retarded clan wars meta, however the tank is still grossly Overpowered and needs far more extensive nerfs. Fuck that thing.
Meanwhile, I have a special hate for the entire swedish line. the entire fucking line is the most cancer, horrible to play against, gimmick tree they have ever released, and honestly IMO the game would be better if they just flat out deleted the entire nations tree. The Kranvagn is the least cancer, but is still more cancer than most other autoloaders. the STRVs are all absolute cancer tanks that can't do anything except camp and punish people for daring to be aggressive and try and push with their fuck you DPM, fuck you camo, and fuck anyone with a sub 120mm gun armour. They are still my most despised tank in the game. And now the new medium line is out. all of which are completely fucking flat, you can't hit them to save your live, and regardless of how objectively good or bad they are to play, they are just, so far in my experience, completely unfun to play AGAINST. 
The Wheeled vehicles. I knew, before any stats had even been released, just from WGs first ever description of what they were planned to be, they would be cancer. And they are. they flat out destroy the game IMO. they're disgusting. they're double disgusting for me, who has to try and hit the fucking things with 200 ping. destroying a wheel doesn't even slow them down.  They may be fun to play but they're absolutely destructive for gameplay. They never should of been added. They're too fast, they get their own Autoaim+ (a banned mod lol) I've seen them regularly pull off shots doing 70kph that even in a 140/62A would never been possible, from ranges you'd almost never even bother taking on the move shots at. They're a pain in the ass.
Lets add to this other honourable mentions, like the 430U/430 which both are stupid with heavy tank armour and medium mobility. The 257 which is unpennable from the side for no reason, the IS-3A and Progettos which are just annoying as fuck to fight. Its a running thing now, regardless of how objectively good or bad the tank is, none of these things are fun to actually play against. 
Premiums! Now, WG seems to have one or two stances on prems these days. Either its an extremely boring, meh tank, or its fucking OP as shit. its disgusting. the T26E5 was the start, the defender was the turning point. and nowadays, If you see a prem or any tank that has had supertest stats released, theres a 95% chance that tank is coming to live, with little to no changes. Its like the super testers aren't even testing these things. This doesn't even apply only to prems, its applying to everything, which is made even more ridiculous because any person can take one look at the prelimentary stats and immediately deduce that said tank will be OP as shit without even playing it.
Which leads me on to my next topic... Rebalancing. Yeah, Im extra salty about this part for reasons Im sure you guess.
WG can't just slightly buff or nerf a tank (but mainly buff it seems) they have to try and completely redesign how the tank plays. pointlessly. yes, you know what im talking about. the STB-1. Its already been said, but all it needed was some small buffs to make it more comfortable to play. a turret buff, a gun handling buff. boom done. but instead they had to completely redesign it. Right now, regardless of whether it is actually objectively more capable as a tank, what it is now is just more complicated, and less fun to play. This alone has killed off a large portion of my remaining desire to play the game, the STB was always my fun tank. Playing it for me was always just an enjoyable experience. (which is why I didnt bother 3 marking it for ages because 3 marking is for me, extremely frustrating and completely unfun, in a tank that I normally used to destress) The Currrent STB doesn't do that now. its slower and more complicated. Way less fun. 
Anyway, back to rebalancing. the STB isn't the only tank they've done this to. They keep revisiting older tanks that just need a small amount of love (although in reality is all the new OP tanks need nerfs) and instead try to needlessly redesign how they play completely. Which makes the game less fun because everything keeps getting changed.
 
And then they bring out new tanks like that ST-II on supertest. that thing is gonna be disgusting, at least it will be to play against. I hope to god it doesn't come out remotely close to that, if at all, but with WGs track record over the last few years Im not optimistic.
 
Maps
Maps have gotten less fun as well. Each time they redesign a map It feels worse IMO. for example pilsen, which needed some work but wasn't bad, got redesigned and its current design is absolutely terrible. the entire field is a complete shitshow and is utterly pathetic, while it used to be a pretty fun place to fight. so more than a third of the map is now worthless ground. the middle area was already worthless and still is, so thats another third of the map useless ground. and now we have the 1-2 line in the factories, which isn't useless but they've made it way harder to push or be effective in it. So now its not a remotely fun place to fight. the entire map is a shit show. its one of my banned maps (along with paris)
Along with this, Highway, a map I always liked, is now worse. the redesign in the NW corner with the field is worse and now massively favours the north, with souths defensive positions all being way more exposed to fire and getting lit than before, with norths not being changed. the buildings around the north aren't exactly fun places to fight, terrain based fighting is more interesting than building peekaboom wars. 
New Maps all suck as well. Studzikani needs no introduction, Minsk is like 80% unusable ground with only a few areas being pushable. Neither of them are very fun to play. 
Ghost town worked in CW, but doesn't work in pubs. Its not a very fun map to play in pubs IMO, mainly because of the coordination required to win it that just doesn't exist in pubs. 
along with this, the 1.0 redesign of a lot of maps just made them worse or less fun to play on. TD camping bushes or ridges added where they can easily punish anyone trying to actually push or do anything other than camp. Routes that used to be possible are now impossible. (things like dropping off hills and such which now just kill you) - I always hated boosts that allowed you into areas meant to be inaccessible. but going from one accessible area to another is okay IMO, It removed a lot of escape routes and made risk taking far more punishing. thus no one wants to take risks anymore. 
 
Clan Wars
I can give you the tank comp for 90% of the maps we play in the next campaign right here: 260, Chieftain,  907, EBR, CGC. Sprinkle on the occasional STRV or T100, maybe an IS-7 or a 268v4. 
Theres little variation, or creativity any more. I mean of course there isn't those tanks are all the best and using any other will just cause you to lose. But its not very fun. This isn't the fault of the clans, its the fault of WG for making tanks so much better than the others. I can't even use my 140 in CW unless there are literally no more unlocked 907s because the 907 is just that much better than the 140 (needlessly I might add) WG was talking about changing CW. This is, IMO, the biggest change it needs. make creative tank comps great again. Even the batchat has been out metad, a tank at one point I never thought would be outmetad. 
 
Personal
There is the next problem, because I don't play as often any more, I get rusty. so Im playing worse, which frustrates me, which makes me want to play less because Im getting annoyed that I can't play at a level I know I am capable of. Which makes me play even worse on tilt. I need to get over this just by playing more and un rusting but its a vicious cycle, and all the other aforementioned issues are also making me frustrated. so bleh. 
 
Thats about it for now. All of these things are, individually, fairly small. but together they just create a pile of compounding issues that generally make the game much less fun than it was. And the problem is, Even if WG started fixing them all right now. and fixed them how (for simplicity sake) I personally would like to see them fixed, It would take them years to get the game back into a good position. New Patches these days don't bring me excitement. they bring me dread as to what they've fucked up this time. 
 
So yeah. wall of text. This took me like 45 mins to write, I have an exam tomorrow, and I should be studying. go me. 
 

That's a nice theory but there's also the classic saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", aka "why bother if it isn't absolutely necessary?"
WG could have done something about this kind of player ages ago and set a precedent for such behavior but when it comes to any popular online place/activity, you gotta do it early. You can't make an AI do this shit for you, so it's thousands upon thousands of man-hours checking through all the shitters behaving this way, not to mention untold amounts of false report by salty tomatoes.
WG may have a theoretical incentive to do this but not a practical one. Not until the game hits a low-end critical mass on the RU server and they decide to try to keep it going.

Basically, the game has been in the cash cow stage of the Product Life Cycle for about 2 years now. Granted, you can't quite fit an MMO into the classic marketing models since content production functions on an entirely different business model (eg. you only make the tank once, whereas you have to produce millions of cans of tomato soup or whatever as the market demands it) but the functional aspects are pretty similar: Go harder on marketing and sales incentives (OP premiums, armor changes to encourage gold spam etc.), lower your efforts on the production side of things as further development sees lower returns (eg. reskin existing tanks to new prems or buff old prems) and prepare for entering the Decline stage of the PLC model.
If WG doesn't make any significant changes over the next 6 months or so, it's a pretty solid sign that they see WoT as dying on EU and it'll enter into what's essentially maintenance mode. You get leftover RU products and events but as far as they're concerned they'll only really keep the basics of operations alive. If you take a look at the marketing PLC/PLM model, you'll recognise that NA quickly entered the maturity/cash cow stage as the game failed to gain the kind of traction it did in RU and EU - hence their many unique events to earn in-game gold and such - followed by hitting the Decline phase with server mergers and so on.
There's also just the fact that WoT is plain and simply old by now, being released in 2010 in Russia. The game has always had problems that WG were too lazy to fix but now that they've more or less cycled through the interested part of the global population, they're slowly but surely dismantling it. It's just that different regions get hit with different stages at different times. RU will probably be alive and well for years to come but EU could hit maintenance mode within a year if it keeps declining.

This'll probably be the last thread I make regarding improvement, the game is about as milked out in content it can be. I decided to do it now because EU tier 10 is 3 arties every game so I don't really feel like I'm missing out by writing this up instead of playing. I'll also start off by saying that any question you might have (to me specifically) about anything game related when it comes to improvement, preventing tilt, getting out of a rut and so on all the way to tank/map specific things (opening positions, counters, timings, you name it) are things I will do my best to answer in this thread, if it isn't then ask it here and I'll answer to the best of my ability. It's also very little concrete advice here as the meta game gets trickier the higher you go, if you have any concrete questions to give the bones some meat then please do so.
I play this game with absolutely no regard for the outside economy as the account I'm using has 450million credits with almost as much in consumables and there is nothing to grind on the account, it's simply missing some premiums and rewards. I also have acceptable crews for almost everything, and if I don't I switch them out. I don't take outside factors into consideration in the game. I won't keep firing AP instead of APCR for some extra credits at the cost of performance. I give myself the best chance of having as good of a game possible before loading into battle, and if you care about performance then you should too. I am not in the normal position of a WoT player here, as these things really matter early on. A playstyle like this is sustained either through spending money on the game, or a heavy amount of skrims before hitting random battles to keep your economy positive throughout. 
This has very little to do with direct game performance but the economy in WoT is a foundation you should build solid as it'll help prevent the most basic problems for a tryhard mentality. Running out of credits has happened to many, many players before strongholds were a thing. Stronghold skirmishes also solves some of the issues for a good service record, if you want a good overall service record on a tank the crew needs to be good, all modules researched and the best ones mounted before loading into randoms altogether. Radios are debatable but to me it's a matter of principle, if it's better I will run it even if the cost/benefit of researching is incredibly low. 
Making purchases on sale, stocking up on rations and big kits and so on to the point where it will last you until the next opportunity to do the same is where you'll want to be at or further in your economy. If you can sustain buying all your consumables up front for the entire period when it's on sale and holding off on tanks if they'll be discounted in the foreseeable future, your monetary problems in the game go down by so much. It is a long road to set your economy up that way, as it requires a lot of grinding. You're going from being a customer of consumables and equipment to owning your own depot. If it didn't require a lot of work then everyone would be doing this in the real world too, but it really is the most sensible way of not running into monetary problems as it is one of the biggest issues regarding performance. Not in the performance today, but in your ability to perform in the future. 
I'm lucky enough to not have to play skirmishes or spend money on the game now. Premium time, clan boosts and personal reserves make for break even or better with discounted consumables in even the most credit hungry tanks (50B, SConq, E 50 etc) with acceptable performance on them. This is probably where the real thread starts but I felt like making note of how much your outside economy matters and how setting it up to supplement you in the future really makes a difference. I am at the end with no problems at all, all tanks bought, equipped and credits are in overflow to the point where I have my next 15k games already paid in advance. Not having problem with credits ever again is a really big thing. For most players seeking to improve however this'd translate to playing a lot of skirmishes, or buying it with real money. Regardless of what you choose, taking steps towards a more sound economic structure along the way is something I really recommend. Eliminating one of the core problems of having an outside economy (unsustainable costs) while still being able to reap the benefits (other people also have unsustainable costs, and as a result they will ultimately perform worse because of it). 
I think about my game in two ways. The battle I just loaded in to play on its own, and then all the battles I played and will play for the session. For the first, economy doesn't matter. For the second one it does. I'll go more into separating your gameplay into these two later, but it's important to remember through out. 
Time to start the topic for real:
I'll be answering the most commonly asked questions I get regarding improvement, consistency and on keeping an emotional distance and a professional mindset towards the game. I cannot stress this enough: Having a worker-attitude towards the game fixes a lot of anger management issues the game presents you with, but in doing so you'll start sucking out the fun as well. I enjoy the game enough (although in periods) that I still get enjoyment out of playing with a pro-active mindset to improve. This is where a lot of people fall short and it's totally understandable. An improving mindset is a really boring one. You are playing with an improving purpose, and not an enjoyment purpose. I'd say that I enjoy myself the most in a game where I just play and zone out until the game is over. Back in reality, basically a small escape from the real world for a while until you're forced to do whatever the real world requires of you. Thinking of your game in a similar way takes a lot of fun out of it, as being emotionally invested is an obstacle to overcome to reliable results. Luckily I am a competitive person, so I get my enjoyment out of good results, and many people are similar.
This means that you treat the game as you would an assignment from a school, employer or whatever. It already sounds a lot less fun. You are playing to improve. This means that every rambo-like feeling you get out of casually playing goes out the window just as fast as the aggressive emotions that many people already struggle with fighting off. You can't be emotionally invested either way, as your emotions will influence your decision making that you want to be as pure in logic and reason as they can.
Because of this, you'll want to distance yourself emotionally from the game just like a bad habit in real life. The boss forcing you on overtime means you suck it up even though you're pissed. You are mad because things aren't going the way you wanted and there's no easy fix for that. A worker mindset of adapting to it to the best of your ability and getting better at accepting whatever comes your way to get over it as soon as possible is the best way of dealing with it. This means that everything in the game that is out of your control is something not worth investing into emotionally. This includes everything from being XVM-yoloed, arty-whored or RNG putting a consecutive 4 shots at the edge of reticle. What exactly does an emotional investment get you here? Only fuel to a fire you already want to put out, your emotions are counterproductive right from the get go. This means that you have to let things like these go. They do nothing for improving your current game and only raise the tension for the games to come. 
Bad experiences from your current game should be left there, with anything positive to take from it should be at least considered. When sporting a working mindset you'll simply structure your gameplay in a way that you keep refining and re-evaluating your decisions and replace your bad tendencies with good ones. This is how I do it:
Step 1. This is almost always initial deployment. Make up and decide where to go on the map on the spot after you've read the line-up and estimated the general deployment. Step 1 should at least have some benefits of going there, if it doesn't your step 1 is not good enough. This is everything from favourable terrain, free crossing shots, vision, tank advantage on flank and so on. How much damage is there going to be at step 1? - Try to answer. If you were right, focus on step 2. If you were wrong, think about why. Sometimes this is not taking slow mobility into account, or trading poorly too early etc. Personal misplay is an answer you are going to have to admit a lot of times here,  Step 2. What to do after the initial deployment period and the damage it gave. Step 2 and onward is more difficult to give advice on, as they differ much more from step 1 which will remain fairly similar until you decide on a different opening position. Something to consider here however is how aggressive it should be. I base my aggression on urgency. If there is plenty of damage to farm, there's no need to throw your own HP into the mix until you will start losing out on better situations without it or a better position. I think about step 2 as I'm doing step 1. Unlike step 1 it will vary a lot more depending on what is happening on the map, information is scarce early on so step 2 changes often. Having step 2 in place however makes for a pretermined decision to fall back on without any time loss. If step 1 yielded much then step 2 doesn't have to be as aggressive as I'm ahead of pace in my target damage zone. If step 1 yielded little then it'll have to be more aggressive as I now have to compensate. Overcompensating is easy however, and when doing so you need to recognise it as just that, and not teammates being bad. You don't get anything to learn out of your mistake if you blame it on somebody else. Step 3. Step 2 becomes the new step 1, and you think about step 3 the same way you did step 2. The only real difference is that more time has passed in game between them, so the urgency gets higher to hit your target game the longer you go. As you go further into the game the gameplay either ramps up in tempo or massively slows down depending on how the engagements went. A close game slows down, and recognising it as so will let you put the brakes and conserve your HP for enemy mistakes until the game is decided. A steamroll only ramps up in speed, so if you recognise it your need of staying ahead gets higher and higher with time so you adjust your aggression accordingly.  Step 4. Use your remaining HP to get as good of a game as possible. I wait with step 4 until the game is noticeably won or lost. Good micromanagement skills net you better games during steamrolls against you with an extra shot or two. When the game is decided, you don't spare any expenses. Survival rate is arbitrary, and I can't recall the last time I saw a good player wish he had a 10% higher survival rate instead of a full shot extra in DPG. If you have a lot of HP to use at this stage then using it to outdamage your teammates is a good idea. When the game is decided, your own HP isn't more valuable than the damage anymore. If the game is won/lost in a seemingly decisive manner, the damage is all that you can get out of it. So squeeze the last drops of it instead of throwing a Hail Mary for the win that virtually never happens anyway. From personal experience I've found that the risky play to win the game is less beneficial to actually winning than playing for the damage. The amount of times you're able to farm your way back into an even HP pool safely are more frequent than winning a lost game off of a Rambo mission. A spot on the map generally takes 10-15 games for me to gauge if they're worthwhile or not, so this is quite a bit more of testing the waters than what people assume. The meta changes, so you can't have a fixed handbook for what to do on every map even if the initial deployment is similar. With it you find many solutions to the situation you're in right now, one you will be in later and eventually you come up with a solid enough answer to everything on that area of the map that you'll start consistently having good games throughout. The more the better honestly, but I generally play tanks with little to no armour, so my focus has is around having a good damage dealt/taken ratio. For people more seasoned in slower and armoured tanks this focus would be more on micromanagement and perfecting your initial deployment. Lower mobility means less ability to rotate, so getting better at prediction and foresight hold more value the lower mobility you have. 
I talked a bit about emotion and how it's an obstacle for improvement, but there's still more to it to add. Shifting blame. I do this myself and almost every streamer I watch do it too, because accepting blame is difficult. You won't get anything out of a mistake if you blame it on anyone but yourself. It really is a lot of excusing misplay with platitudes in WoT. Arty, XVM and so on screwed your game over for taking an aggressive position. A lot of people write these things off as arty just being arty when in reality they were overreaching. I had this problem a lot when translating from the 3k to 4k barrier. You need to take a breath, get some perspective and look at the situation again. Did you really die because of some BS or were you actually misplaying? If it's BS you can let go of it as those things really are out of your control sometimes, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you let a mistake to learn from go by unnoticed. It's important to hold yourself accountable for your gameplay and if you really do want to improve this is a barrier that is a must to get over or it'll hinder all learning past this point in a fairly cerebral game that requires an understanding of the game that is too complex to put into proper words. There's a fairly good reason most people plateau at some point, and while that plateau is lower in general I can say with certainty that close to every (already) unicum hit a wall because of this. You are fairly confident in considering yourself decent at the game at this point, and your ego is in your way of improvement more than anything else.
Tilting's also very common and I envy the very few who seem to be totally unaffected by it. A good mindset really helps here, as you'll see some of the few people who can live off of WoT content that have to keep playing for their income learnt this too. Most people do have the ability to quit whenever their anger gets the better of them, but when you are literally doing your job while playing you don't. Tilting ruins the rest of the session unless you untilt which is easier said than done, so you do whatever you can from preventing tilt from happening from the start. As I said earlier you really have to give up your emotional investment in both performance and outcome. It just doesn't yield anything positive from a performance perspective. Finding a way to un-tilt is good though if you insist on keeping the session going. For me the session ends whenever I notice myself being emotionally invested, both good and bad. If I load up, have a killer game and felt like I really enjoyed that game then that game is it. I had fun, although for a very short time, and then this session won't be a pro-active one forward if I decide to keep on playing anyway. It's important to separate the two, especially when they're so closely linked together for elitists (performance and fun go very hand in hand for me). If you want to learn then emotions can't get the better of you. If you are having fun while playing that's great, but you're also zoning in and going autopilot which is the biggest single detriment to improvement there is. Unlearning auto-pilot is something that would do every online PC gamer a favour in their gameplay by forcing them to re-learn actively (and onward) instead of only learning periodically and then sticking to what they know. You can obviously enjoy yourself while being a productive learner, but it's much, much harder than it looks. If you want to become better at the game you have to learn, and "having to do" something generally makes it a lot less fun even if it's with your goal in mind.
My ways of keeping my head straight when I had a bad game, am dead and waiting for my tank that are pretty simple and easy to do. They do the trick for me most of the time, and when they don't I simply quit the session and come back at it with fresh eyes later. I generally only play 1 tank at a time, so this works well for me since I have a game to wait out before my next one. I generally try and watch all my games until they are completed because there's more to take from them after dying.
Timestamping - Track rotations and how long they take for other players. If you know how long a rotation takes you can estimate how much will happen in that timespan and how a situation will look when you get there. Just look at the timer at the start and then again when you have what you're looking for. If a rotation is 40-ish seconds, it is for example a perfect rotation for a BC25t after a clip. It matters more on autoloaders since you have a longer string of dead time without being able to deal damage. Knowing this in autoloaders make for much better predictability and an increase in effeciency. If your BC just went on reload and you see a rotation to make that could be good, you have the information on hand that you will be reloaded when getting there. You can deal damage right away. The time spent reloading was spent being useful because you rotated in a situation where you wouldn't deal any damage anyway. Track trading patterns too if you can. Some tanks are tricky to trade against because of their reload timers are off-sync compared to yours. Russian mediums for example can shoot 3 times at a Type 5 on reload before he's reloaded again. If you know this you know how hard you can pressure without risking taking HP back. If you are against a 5A in a russian medium however the reload is off-sync, as you'll be halfway through your third shell when he reloads his second. If he fires and pulls back there, you end up losing the trade at 980 to 640. This means that you don't really have a way to use your RoF as a means of engaging that 5A when there's cover involved. Find a different way or take the bad trade if there's no other way. This is where playing a single tank at a time starts benefitting as these things are much easier to keep track of comparing against the 1 gun (yours) than all tanks. You can do this for pretty much everything, but when playing tanks with higher alpha it matters as single shot trades get more beneficial. A JGPZ wins almost every 1 for 1 trade, so for it to take them makes more sense than a russian medium that will get outtraded. Backseat gaming. I do this to both streamers I watch and to team mates when I'm post mortem. It probably goes without saying that I don't actually tell them what I think, I just try to backseat them in my head to keep my thought process going to learn. You start noticing how big the gap is and how much skill expression there is in the game by doing this, as methodical decision making is so much easier to spot than someone auto-piloting. It's tricky because things don't play out like you want them to to check if you were right, but you can easily mess with ideas and try to emulate a reasonable outcome out of it. I've gotten everything from good openings (mostly from streamers though), to good counters and responses from random pubbies this way that I didn't think of. They probably didn't think of it either, but I saw it work out so I can make use of it. The biggest use of it is probably that I've identified a lot of bad choices and having been attentive during it you will end up avoiding a lot of mistakes you haven't made yet.   WoT is a PvP game but I found that treating it as PvE makes more sense. One player and 14 bots against 15 bots make for a more sensible way of looking at performance which shifts the focus from a team effort to win, to a player effort in a numbers game. You are alone and your teammates are no good, now do your best anyway. 
Consistency needs a solid foundation to build on. and for me this is the general thought process of how I did it. It takes long, but eventually it adds up to being important. The step from 4k to 5k and above was the biggest leap in gameplay for me, and easily the most difficult to approach. The difference between it and the previous level of gameplay was mostly consistency. I'd say that an easy way to put it was that now my median and average game are similar. This wasn't true before, were my median game was almost always higher than my average because of a game here and there going pretty bad. What working through this did for me was raising my average game up to my median, simply having less bad games while the ratio of acceptable to great games stayed the same. 
This change isn't much more than 500 damage in tier 10s, but it still matters. For me it was the last bit to focus on in the game, and having experience with it - the improvement never ends. I see so many mistakes in my own play in hindsight that I'll keep working on to remove. To me the game isn't at its most competitive state right now, as a constant 3 arties make for much worse experiences in tier 10 where I generally reside so right now I can't say that my improvement has yielded very much recently, but it did lay the ground work for a better time to come. Consistency for example is the only reason I was able to 3mark the ISU-130. The tank on the EU server has 20 or so owners, with none of them playing actively. In attempting the mark over a year ago I just couldn't break past the 90 mark reliably. The damage requirement of a 3500 combined average was simply too high for me to keep with tank tank. I was the only one playing it until skill4ltu got his as well, so the EMA of the ISU-130 mark was set almost entirely by myself until then. We both wound up just waiting it out. The issue I had was with consistency yet again, as I was struggling with finding a way to get reliable damage out when your penetration is worst in tier. (It's a high DPM/alpha TD with okay gun handling and mobility, while having a non-existent gun arc and very low penetration for those of you who don't know of it). I eventually wound up getting it done, but after taking a very long break from it. Just like all of the challenging gun marks this game has to offer with their reward tanks the consistency is what breaks most players. Having to pressure the game for so much damage so reliably makes single mistakes ruin several hours of work, so you can't make mistakes at this level. A lot of players have been bashing their wall against the Chieftain mark lately, and it's because of the same thing. Consistency matters so much when you are basically forced to either have a good game or re-play your last 10 games getting back to where you were. That's what it did for me in the ISU at least, being more aware, having learned more and approaching the game from a PoV based in logic and reason rather than using your gut and autopilot made the push. 
There's plenty of small pointers here and there to improve your game, but IMO this is the big one that sets you up well. If you have the work ethic to keep learning, you'll become more consistent. Eventually more consistent starts meaning better.
 
 

All you really gotta do is look at this image and take a gamble on which end scenario WoT will follow

All you really gotta do is look at this image and take a gamble on which end scenario WoT will follow

There's a greater chance of me winning the Eurojackpot than WG getting shit done, not to mention done before we die of old age. I think WG started mentioning giving everyone 6th sense for free around 2014 but I sure as shit don't see it in-game yet. WG also works on a schedule that rivals poorly imported Korean MMOs, given to some Western publisher that releases a translation patch and then doesn't do anything to the game for well over 6 months despite the native game getting content every few weeks.
Frankly, WG has had many ideas over the years that could have turned WoT into an absolute powerhouse of an MMO but they tend to scrap 95% of the good ones and keep most of the bad ones. But whatever, it only took them over half a decade to change arty and end up making them even worse

WoWP was DoA, I remember trying it for a few hours in beta and shortly after release. I think I quit it after 2 days and never looked back. It's been so long I can't remember any details, just that it was pretty ass in general and seemed like something they hardly bothered supporting to begin with. It also didn't help that WT was doing all of it better with way prettier graphics while being able to run at 60 FPS on a TI-86.
Frankly, if you look at how they treated tanks and boats compared to planes, it's kinda baffling. I'm almost certain that WG did it to stick it to Gaijin and nothing else, since WoWP came out 6 months before WT tanks. Maybe they marketed it harder in NA, I don't know, but as an EU player I didn't see shit about WoWP outside them pushing it cross-client for a bit.

Echoing the above, it is very clear that changing gold ammo and consumables to have an optional credit cost wasn't "only" to appease the anti-pay2win crowd, there are financial benefits to it as well.
Before credits for prem stuff:
-in order to get prem ammo and consumables, you have to pay with gold directly
-gold (mainly) costs real world money, hence pay2win
-anti-pay2win crowd (ie. EU and NA) are unwilling to support this practice, so they are less likely to open their wallets
After credits for prem stuff:
-prem ammo and consumables can be bought with credits at a steep price, but this makes it less pay2win
-using gold ammo and consumables will likely put a significant dent in your credit earnings
-you can offset your credit deficit with prem time, playing prem tanks, or just git gud.
-prem time and tanks costs gold (not counting tourneys/CW/whatever), ergo real money
-prem time however gives more benefits than simply pay2win, it is a pay2grindless option
-prem tanks can sometimes be fun
-anti-pay2win crowd are now more likely to spend money, because the game isn't blatantly pay2win now
 
 
In short, almost all the problems regarding OP tanks and powercreep are due to (very likely) deliberate financial reasons. Until WG starts losing money I don't see any of the problems getting fixed.

The thing is that WG does this shit on purpose, people are far too kind to them and presume they're just bumbling around incompetently. That was probably true 5-6 years ago but today they're very keen on the business model they use: Give the people with T10 an easy time while making sure that gold spam is at its highest at that point by giving 8s and 9s just about enough prem pen to do something. Mr 45% gets to see big numbers and feel useful while the 9s still have things to do and the 8s are fodder. It's nothing new, they just moved the concept up in tiers, as I'm sure most of us remember grinding several horrible mid-tier tanks way back. WG frankly doesn't care about any playerbase outside RU and potentially China, as I have no idea how popular the game is there.
It never mattered to them that EU and US spent far more dosh per capita, which is a bad move if you care about making more money but not necessarily if you're lazy and just want to make enough money. Business culture is quite different from place to place, the annoying thing is that WoT is a potentially great game which WG keeps ignoring.
The real solution has always been the same, even back in 2010: Give tanks a half decent stock gun in terms of penetration and you solve most of the problems. Unfortunately, WG quickly went from "gold rounds should be used sparingly" to cackling like a maniac once they saw just how much god damn money people used on said shells. There are probably quite a few lazy whales out there who have pumped several hundred thousand dollaridoos into the game because you can bypass 95% of the game's problems with gold shells, equipment and food. Fixing the game's problems is not really a priority for WG, just as they don't care too much about the dwindling playerbase in the West.

Tier 10 is hard as balls when you first start playing because the entire carry potential is on your back now. There's no longer a top tier to bail you out or someone to hide behind, meaning that any mistake on your part is felt by the entire team. It's probably even worse in this regard with the new MM, where there are fewer 10s and way more shitters in 8s.
I mean, my Ehundo was rolling around with a 45% WR or some shit for the first 100 battles and the fact is that after 466 battles, it still hasn't cracked 60% even though it's close. Your first 10s are going to have trash stats and that's fine because you're learning. If you ask around, you'll find that a lot of people here spent quite a bit of time grinding their old pubbie tanks up to par.
I can't say much about the current T10 meta because I'm still re-learning the game and maps at lower tiers but I'm sure it's still a shitfest. The most important lesson is probably going to be positioning and how to approach engagements, now that you can't afford to throw away your HP. Don't be afraid to pull out of a shitty situation before it becomes totally fucked because you are worth more than most of your team is. Also, don't forget to spam the shit out of prem shells. Tier 10 is the land of enforcing your will on others, which is very expensive.

Tier 10 is hard as balls when you first start playing because the entire carry potential is on your back now. There's no longer a top tier to bail you out or someone to hide behind, meaning that any mistake on your part is felt by the entire team. It's probably even worse in this regard with the new MM, where there are fewer 10s and way more shitters in 8s.
I mean, my Ehundo was rolling around with a 45% WR or some shit for the first 100 battles and the fact is that after 466 battles, it still hasn't cracked 60% even though it's close. Your first 10s are going to have trash stats and that's fine because you're learning. If you ask around, you'll find that a lot of people here spent quite a bit of time grinding their old pubbie tanks up to par.
I can't say much about the current T10 meta because I'm still re-learning the game and maps at lower tiers but I'm sure it's still a shitfest. The most important lesson is probably going to be positioning and how to approach engagements, now that you can't afford to throw away your HP. Don't be afraid to pull out of a shitty situation before it becomes totally fucked because you are worth more than most of your team is. Also, don't forget to spam the shit out of prem shells. Tier 10 is the land of enforcing your will on others, which is very expensive.

Tier 10 is hard as balls when you first start playing because the entire carry potential is on your back now. There's no longer a top tier to bail you out or someone to hide behind, meaning that any mistake on your part is felt by the entire team. It's probably even worse in this regard with the new MM, where there are fewer 10s and way more shitters in 8s.
I mean, my Ehundo was rolling around with a 45% WR or some shit for the first 100 battles and the fact is that after 466 battles, it still hasn't cracked 60% even though it's close. Your first 10s are going to have trash stats and that's fine because you're learning. If you ask around, you'll find that a lot of people here spent quite a bit of time grinding their old pubbie tanks up to par.
I can't say much about the current T10 meta because I'm still re-learning the game and maps at lower tiers but I'm sure it's still a shitfest. The most important lesson is probably going to be positioning and how to approach engagements, now that you can't afford to throw away your HP. Don't be afraid to pull out of a shitty situation before it becomes totally fucked because you are worth more than most of your team is. Also, don't forget to spam the shit out of prem shells. Tier 10 is the land of enforcing your will on others, which is very expensive.

It's Siimcy. The only reason he looks purple on wotlabs is because he's so red that the spectrum bottomed out and tipped slightly into blue again

It probably didn't cost them much to develop WoTG, whereas WoWP is likely one of those investment sizes where even a reasonable fix to their problems could generate enough income to severely reduce their losses. Sort of how a bank is more willing to throw an extra 10 million at a sub-optimal business they've invested 50 million in than throwing said 10 million at a decent business that needs expansion. It's not about the current investment but about securing as much of the initial one's return as possible.
Basically, they'd rather lose 50% of their investment than 100% - even if they have to throw more money at it to do so.

WoT cannot simply be put as good/bad because nothing it does is outrageously wrong, it's just many small piles of shit turning into the Great Mighty Poo. There is a beautiful functional toilet below but it's currently clogged with opera-singing shit, is what I'm saying. The core gameplay with skill-based armor angling and such is fucking amazing and has the potential to be a unique and shining star among PvP games - However, WG decided that there needs to be RNG on penetration, RNG on accuracy, RNG on damage, RNG on modules, RNG on crew damage and a special type of shell that you just happen to be able to buy with gold or a hilarious amount of credits that completely ignore this very special mechanic upon which a great game could be built. Then they also thought that yes, there should be an almost entirely RNG-based class that can use its gigantic splash damage guns to RNG you for zero to full HP, zero to every crew and module fucked and so on while you can do nothing in return. Also, an RNG mechanic that sets fire to your tank and forces you to watch your entire game go down the drain because - of course - they also added permanent death to a PvP game.
Different tiers ain't even a problem IMO, as you can easily balance around it, just as they do with general classes of tanks. WG just sucks even harder at tier balance than class balance.
Cut the retarded RNG, retarded ammo and actually fucking balance your game: Then you could have some serious fun with great mechanics, even in the face of perma-death. Until then, WoT is a bad PvP game but not inherently terrible. It just isn't really worth the time and monetary investment compared to virtually anything else out there. I'm personally on the Rocket League wagon but imagine if you had put this many hours into DotA, LoL, CS, CoD or any other game with a big PvP scene and worthwhile tournaments. If you had done that - or started doing it now - instead of farming useless tomatoes and SH boxes, you'd be good enough to win weekly tournaments and give a good shot at the big ones. Yes, your 20k+ battles does translate into that kind of skill level in other games.
For me, it came down to a simple question: Why waste this much time on a game that doesn't change? 1 year later and I'm between top 2,5% - 1,1% in Rocket League. Gonna hit top 1,1% and better soon as well and I'm older and have less time to play then most of you on here
If only you could do this to tomatoes in WoT:

WoT cannot simply be put as good/bad because nothing it does is outrageously wrong, it's just many small piles of shit turning into the Great Mighty Poo. There is a beautiful functional toilet below but it's currently clogged with opera-singing shit, is what I'm saying. The core gameplay with skill-based armor angling and such is fucking amazing and has the potential to be a unique and shining star among PvP games - However, WG decided that there needs to be RNG on penetration, RNG on accuracy, RNG on damage, RNG on modules, RNG on crew damage and a special type of shell that you just happen to be able to buy with gold or a hilarious amount of credits that completely ignore this very special mechanic upon which a great game could be built. Then they also thought that yes, there should be an almost entirely RNG-based class that can use its gigantic splash damage guns to RNG you for zero to full HP, zero to every crew and module fucked and so on while you can do nothing in return. Also, an RNG mechanic that sets fire to your tank and forces you to watch your entire game go down the drain because - of course - they also added permanent death to a PvP game.
Different tiers ain't even a problem IMO, as you can easily balance around it, just as they do with general classes of tanks. WG just sucks even harder at tier balance than class balance.
Cut the retarded RNG, retarded ammo and actually fucking balance your game: Then you could have some serious fun with great mechanics, even in the face of perma-death. Until then, WoT is a bad PvP game but not inherently terrible. It just isn't really worth the time and monetary investment compared to virtually anything else out there. I'm personally on the Rocket League wagon but imagine if you had put this many hours into DotA, LoL, CS, CoD or any other game with a big PvP scene and worthwhile tournaments. If you had done that - or started doing it now - instead of farming useless tomatoes and SH boxes, you'd be good enough to win weekly tournaments and give a good shot at the big ones. Yes, your 20k+ battles does translate into that kind of skill level in other games.
For me, it came down to a simple question: Why waste this much time on a game that doesn't change? 1 year later and I'm between top 2,5% - 1,1% in Rocket League. Gonna hit top 1,1% and better soon as well and I'm older and have less time to play then most of you on here
If only you could do this to tomatoes in WoT:

@GehakteMolen - Everything you listed there as a positive is a serious negative for anyone who cares about PvP. WoT goes from Player versus Player to Player vs RNG, which is absolutely terrible for anyone who wants to be good at anything or test their skill level. You'd realise this if you've ever played a proper PvP game at a decent level yourself, whether you're a competitive person or not. Your example of somone being dead 100% of the time is also ridiculous because that's the entire point of having skill to begin with - That you can outplay someone when you don't have the advantage.
You're basically arguing that it's amazing that luck saves you over and over and that it's great how you missed/bounced/low rolled because the opponent got lucky. Then you argue that if you have low HP, you can't exploit armor, mobility, weakspots, reload advantage, spotting advantage, map positions, general pubbie stupidity or anything. And you use GTA V as a comparison to a game that wants to be taken seriously as an e-sport?
Almost all e-sports games have short rounds as a basis to end it quickly, WoT is nowhere near the short end of this. All popular e-sports games have very basic mechanics as well, some you learn instantly unlike WoT (how far have the pubbies come with that spotting mechanic in the last 6½ years?). For most games it's point and click, headshots doing more damage and arms/legs less damage just like real life in general. Rocket League/other sports games are "put the ball into the opponent's goal more times than it goes into yours". MOBAs are "destroy the objects along the linear path, then kill the thing in their base". RTS games are "output more destructive power than the other guy within X time and Y resources".
More importantly, WoT has something most other PvP games do not - Serious advantages for long time players. No matter how good you are, it's going to take you a damn long time to get a high level crew (which is a another bullshit mechanic from a PvP standpoint) and the more games you spam, the more credits you have for equipment (another bullshit mechanic), premium consumables (fucking seriously?), prem shells (my fucking sides) and so on.
WoT is currently a bad PvP game, there is literally no argument against this because PvP games - and especially e-sports versions - are about providing the most fair conditions for both teams in terms of weapons, equipment options and map design. As a game in general, WoT is okay but not that special since they refuse to let their specialty shine: The armor mechanics. And it's not like WG doesn't know it either, as they have overhauled maps, physics, tank lines and so on many times. The main problem is that they're afraid to touch the real money maker - Prem shells. Those are the reason people buy premium accounts and premium tanks. To reduce the unbearable grind that allows you to fight against things your tank either shouldn't be up against at all with the current weapon balance or to crush the few things that can already withstand your 230+ pen AP rounds at high tiers. Because, you know, fuck tactics and flanking when I can just press 2-2 and make that 230 into 330+ and hit any non-round surface. EZ PZ

@GehakteMolen - Everything you listed there as a positive is a serious negative for anyone who cares about PvP. WoT goes from Player versus Player to Player vs RNG, which is absolutely terrible for anyone who wants to be good at anything or test their skill level. You'd realise this if you've ever played a proper PvP game at a decent level yourself, whether you're a competitive person or not. Your example of somone being dead 100% of the time is also ridiculous because that's the entire point of having skill to begin with - That you can outplay someone when you don't have the advantage.
You're basically arguing that it's amazing that luck saves you over and over and that it's great how you missed/bounced/low rolled because the opponent got lucky. Then you argue that if you have low HP, you can't exploit armor, mobility, weakspots, reload advantage, spotting advantage, map positions, general pubbie stupidity or anything. And you use GTA V as a comparison to a game that wants to be taken seriously as an e-sport?
Almost all e-sports games have short rounds as a basis to end it quickly, WoT is nowhere near the short end of this. All popular e-sports games have very basic mechanics as well, some you learn instantly unlike WoT (how far have the pubbies come with that spotting mechanic in the last 6½ years?). For most games it's point and click, headshots doing more damage and arms/legs less damage just like real life in general. Rocket League/other sports games are "put the ball into the opponent's goal more times than it goes into yours". MOBAs are "destroy the objects along the linear path, then kill the thing in their base". RTS games are "output more destructive power than the other guy within X time and Y resources".
More importantly, WoT has something most other PvP games do not - Serious advantages for long time players. No matter how good you are, it's going to take you a damn long time to get a high level crew (which is a another bullshit mechanic from a PvP standpoint) and the more games you spam, the more credits you have for equipment (another bullshit mechanic), premium consumables (fucking seriously?), prem shells (my fucking sides) and so on.
WoT is currently a bad PvP game, there is literally no argument against this because PvP games - and especially e-sports versions - are about providing the most fair conditions for both teams in terms of weapons, equipment options and map design. As a game in general, WoT is okay but not that special since they refuse to let their specialty shine: The armor mechanics. And it's not like WG doesn't know it either, as they have overhauled maps, physics, tank lines and so on many times. The main problem is that they're afraid to touch the real money maker - Prem shells. Those are the reason people buy premium accounts and premium tanks. To reduce the unbearable grind that allows you to fight against things your tank either shouldn't be up against at all with the current weapon balance or to crush the few things that can already withstand your 230+ pen AP rounds at high tiers. Because, you know, fuck tactics and flanking when I can just press 2-2 and make that 230 into 330+ and hit any non-round surface. EZ PZ

WoT cannot simply be put as good/bad because nothing it does is outrageously wrong, it's just many small piles of shit turning into the Great Mighty Poo. There is a beautiful functional toilet below but it's currently clogged with opera-singing shit, is what I'm saying. The core gameplay with skill-based armor angling and such is fucking amazing and has the potential to be a unique and shining star among PvP games - However, WG decided that there needs to be RNG on penetration, RNG on accuracy, RNG on damage, RNG on modules, RNG on crew damage and a special type of shell that you just happen to be able to buy with gold or a hilarious amount of credits that completely ignore this very special mechanic upon which a great game could be built. Then they also thought that yes, there should be an almost entirely RNG-based class that can use its gigantic splash damage guns to RNG you for zero to full HP, zero to every crew and module fucked and so on while you can do nothing in return. Also, an RNG mechanic that sets fire to your tank and forces you to watch your entire game go down the drain because - of course - they also added permanent death to a PvP game.
Different tiers ain't even a problem IMO, as you can easily balance around it, just as they do with general classes of tanks. WG just sucks even harder at tier balance than class balance.
Cut the retarded RNG, retarded ammo and actually fucking balance your game: Then you could have some serious fun with great mechanics, even in the face of perma-death. Until then, WoT is a bad PvP game but not inherently terrible. It just isn't really worth the time and monetary investment compared to virtually anything else out there. I'm personally on the Rocket League wagon but imagine if you had put this many hours into DotA, LoL, CS, CoD or any other game with a big PvP scene and worthwhile tournaments. If you had done that - or started doing it now - instead of farming useless tomatoes and SH boxes, you'd be good enough to win weekly tournaments and give a good shot at the big ones. Yes, your 20k+ battles does translate into that kind of skill level in other games.
For me, it came down to a simple question: Why waste this much time on a game that doesn't change? 1 year later and I'm between top 2,5% - 1,1% in Rocket League. Gonna hit top 1,1% and better soon as well and I'm older and have less time to play then most of you on here
If only you could do this to tomatoes in WoT:

WoT cannot simply be put as good/bad because nothing it does is outrageously wrong, it's just many small piles of shit turning into the Great Mighty Poo. There is a beautiful functional toilet below but it's currently clogged with opera-singing shit, is what I'm saying. The core gameplay with skill-based armor angling and such is fucking amazing and has the potential to be a unique and shining star among PvP games - However, WG decided that there needs to be RNG on penetration, RNG on accuracy, RNG on damage, RNG on modules, RNG on crew damage and a special type of shell that you just happen to be able to buy with gold or a hilarious amount of credits that completely ignore this very special mechanic upon which a great game could be built. Then they also thought that yes, there should be an almost entirely RNG-based class that can use its gigantic splash damage guns to RNG you for zero to full HP, zero to every crew and module fucked and so on while you can do nothing in return. Also, an RNG mechanic that sets fire to your tank and forces you to watch your entire game go down the drain because - of course - they also added permanent death to a PvP game.
Different tiers ain't even a problem IMO, as you can easily balance around it, just as they do with general classes of tanks. WG just sucks even harder at tier balance than class balance.
Cut the retarded RNG, retarded ammo and actually fucking balance your game: Then you could have some serious fun with great mechanics, even in the face of perma-death. Until then, WoT is a bad PvP game but not inherently terrible. It just isn't really worth the time and monetary investment compared to virtually anything else out there. I'm personally on the Rocket League wagon but imagine if you had put this many hours into DotA, LoL, CS, CoD or any other game with a big PvP scene and worthwhile tournaments. If you had done that - or started doing it now - instead of farming useless tomatoes and SH boxes, you'd be good enough to win weekly tournaments and give a good shot at the big ones. Yes, your 20k+ battles does translate into that kind of skill level in other games.
For me, it came down to a simple question: Why waste this much time on a game that doesn't change? 1 year later and I'm between top 2,5% - 1,1% in Rocket League. Gonna hit top 1,1% and better soon as well and I'm older and have less time to play then most of you on here
If only you could do this to tomatoes in WoT:

WoT cannot simply be put as good/bad because nothing it does is outrageously wrong, it's just many small piles of shit turning into the Great Mighty Poo. There is a beautiful functional toilet below but it's currently clogged with opera-singing shit, is what I'm saying. The core gameplay with skill-based armor angling and such is fucking amazing and has the potential to be a unique and shining star among PvP games - However, WG decided that there needs to be RNG on penetration, RNG on accuracy, RNG on damage, RNG on modules, RNG on crew damage and a special type of shell that you just happen to be able to buy with gold or a hilarious amount of credits that completely ignore this very special mechanic upon which a great game could be built. Then they also thought that yes, there should be an almost entirely RNG-based class that can use its gigantic splash damage guns to RNG you for zero to full HP, zero to every crew and module fucked and so on while you can do nothing in return. Also, an RNG mechanic that sets fire to your tank and forces you to watch your entire game go down the drain because - of course - they also added permanent death to a PvP game.
Different tiers ain't even a problem IMO, as you can easily balance around it, just as they do with general classes of tanks. WG just sucks even harder at tier balance than class balance.
Cut the retarded RNG, retarded ammo and actually fucking balance your game: Then you could have some serious fun with great mechanics, even in the face of perma-death. Until then, WoT is a bad PvP game but not inherently terrible. It just isn't really worth the time and monetary investment compared to virtually anything else out there. I'm personally on the Rocket League wagon but imagine if you had put this many hours into DotA, LoL, CS, CoD or any other game with a big PvP scene and worthwhile tournaments. If you had done that - or started doing it now - instead of farming useless tomatoes and SH boxes, you'd be good enough to win weekly tournaments and give a good shot at the big ones. Yes, your 20k+ battles does translate into that kind of skill level in other games.
For me, it came down to a simple question: Why waste this much time on a game that doesn't change? 1 year later and I'm between top 2,5% - 1,1% in Rocket League. Gonna hit top 1,1% and better soon as well and I'm older and have less time to play then most of you on here
If only you could do this to tomatoes in WoT: