Tier 10 LT rebalance - WG missing the point again

[BlackAdder 1,390]

1 minute ago, Assassin7 said:

I know, but the front isn't. if its facing you you're fucked. 

Let's not forget shooting from the security of camo. I mean I get that TDs are super armed, but insane camo is so wrong towards support class like LT. Since the beginning they were spotting part of the game, and if you gimp VR and CAMO what else is left. 

 

It should be rewarding to play smart/aggressive in a paper thin tank and contribute as much as you can to your team victory (besides 22 penning HTs and MTs). 

[Ickus 208]

7 hours ago, MagicalFlyingFox said:

Bulldog has no autoloader anymore. 

F

3 hours ago, CarbonWard said:

Theres really no balancing LTs that would be satisfying to everyone.

Lights shouldn't be considered its own class, but a niche type of medium. Lights should have better camo, maneuverability, and DPM than any med (looking at you BatChat), but lower alpha and no armor (Fucking T-100). Honestly, I think WoT should consider giving tanks abilities like in AW, but I doubt that'll happen.

Of course, none of that matters when most maps are city-oriented slug-fests. If they're serious about giving every class a purpose, they need to pump out some open maps.

6 minutes ago, BlackAdder said:

It should be rewarding to play smart/aggressive in a paper thin tank and contribute as much as you can to your team victory (besides 22 penning HTs and MTs)

 

That doesn't have anything to do with Lights themselves, but how XP is given out to them. Lights are a hard class to master, but the current system doesn't reward people for it. XP rewards for scouting and other support statistics should be increased for lights, since damage is difficult in (or outright impossible in some) lights.

[Assassin7 4,353]

17 minutes ago, woe2you said:

I know I was stating the obvious a bit from your perspective, but folks reading a discussion tend to outnumber the folks who speak up 10:1, so it's always worth dropping a bit of extra knowledge in there.

ah ok

[Archaic_One 1,853]

Is that a new prem variant of the T-71 or are they replacing the only decent US LT* with that POS?  Because that thing is trash unless the gun handling and camo are godlike.

 

(*derp gun models not included)

[Assassin7 4,353]

24 minutes ago, Archaic_One said:

Is that a new prem variant of the T-71 or are they replacing the only decent US LT* with that POS?  Because that thing is trash unless the gun handling and camo are godlike.

 

(*derp gun models not included)

looks to me like the old Pre HE T71 hull with a different turret? 

[Gryphon_ 541]

Another thing they need to fix on the Sheridan is the pen dropoff at 500m - its 20% ffs. Compare with an US medium like the Fatton = 5% dropoff. So all that VR and camo means you get to shoot at long range, but not pen. No, thats too much to ask.

Was puzzling the heck out of me until I looked at that stat.

[cavman276 289]

8 hours ago, Archaic_One said:

Scouting is dead, trying to build an entire tank class around a mechanic that is no longer relevant is just pointless.  We already know where all of the Maus/Type 5/113 are, we don't really need to scout them.  What would be nice is a high speed mobile sniping platform that can do area denial until the heavy tanks arrive or that can prey on out of position or isolated tanks.  

....so a leopard 1

[rindorbrot 9]

Great, with these buffs the AMX 13 105 will have more potential damage than the BatChat. 33x390 compared to 30x390...

They should buff the Bat Chat ammo capacity as well!

[Tanager 150]

15 hours ago, Archaic_One said:

Scouting is dead, trying to build an entire tank class around a mechanic that is no longer relevant is just pointless.  We already know where all of the Maus/Type 5/113 are, we don't really need to scout them.  What would be nice is a high speed mobile sniping platform that can do area denial until the heavy tanks arrive or that can prey on out of position or isolated tanks.  

There just too many Karkovs, Abbys, Mines, etc. to try and build a tank class around spotting.  Even when you do get Mali or Prok - you get sniped by bush-wookie swedes or yolo'd by some shitter in a T49.  Give me a LT that can take the hill first, snipe, then run away and repeat somewhere else.  LTs need to be more like armored cavalry and less like musket firing spy satellites.

This is the best summation for me.  Having said that, I'm pretty sure WG has said "somewhere" that they see cavalryesque area denial as the role of MTs (I know I read this on some page somewhere, and my aging memory thinks it was in one of the WG News updates).  If that's true, it kinda leaves us right where we are, with high tier LTs as crappier MTs.

11 hours ago, Ickus said:

Of course, none of that matters when most maps are city-oriented slug-fests. If they're serious about giving every class a the game a purpose and long-term viability, they need to pump out some open maps.

Fixed.  This, but we're restating the obvious at this point.  I am looking forward to 30v30 if for no other reason that it gets me a new map to explore.  When there's nothing left to discover, you're left with nothing more than "CoD in tanks."  (And the move towards in-your-face-firefight maps like Nuketown clones was part of the reason I gave up on CoD years ago.  I'm not a caffeine-addled 13 year-old.)

[hall0 1,095]

Rheinmetal seems to lose its 105mm. Less alpha and a different gun model. Hmm don`t really know what to think about this. Sure the gun handling buffs are nice, but where is the advantage over the RU? 

[ZXrage 1,318]

17 hours ago, Archaic_One said:

LTs need to be more like armored cavalry and less like musket firing spy satellites.

I believe IRL the LT's role was not just reconnaissance, but to also meet the enemy first before the main forces arrived.

These buffs are welcome, but .4 accuracy is still .4 accuracy. Might as well be derp-Sheridan.

[MagicalFlyingFox 1,022]

13 hours ago, Archaic_One said:

Is that a new prem variant of the T-71 or are they replacing the only decent US LT* with that POS?  Because that thing is trash unless the gun handling and camo are godlike.

 

(*derp gun models not included)

The T71 is getting split into 2 tanks like how the old T71 was a mish-mash of both T71 projects. 

The one that goes the the T69 is the current version essentially. The one that goes to the M41 Bulldog has a single shot 76mm gun and the M41 Bulldog loses the autoloader. 

 

 

Also what is wrong with light tanks having the ability be a medium tank at times? It will ALWAYS be worse when trying to play as a medium compared to an actual medium because you aren't going to bounce shit (or shouldn't), your gun should have worse DPM and you don't have the hitpoints. Your advantages over a medium tank are not going to be put to use if you play it as a medium tank. All they needed to do with the tier 8s before was buff the HP a bit, buff the pen a bit and put them up a tier. Bam, you have balanced tanks. Then you can extrapolate statistics based on that for the tier 10s. You can decide where to put in a new tank and change stats accordingly. 

That doesn't require as much effort and also makes sense so fuck that shit. Lets make massive changes instead and ruin the entire class. 

[Gryphon_ 541]

20 hours ago, Archaic_One said:

Scouting is dead, trying to build an entire tank class around a mechanic that is no longer relevant is just pointless.  We already know where all of the Maus/Type 5/113 are, we don't really need to scout them.  What would be nice is a high speed mobile sniping platform that can do area denial until the heavy tanks arrive or that can prey on out of position or isolated tanks.  

There just too many Karkovs, Abbys, Mines, etc. to try and build a tank class around spotting.  Even when you do get Mali or Prok - you get sniped by bush-wookie swedes or yolo'd by some shitter in a T49.  Give me a LT that can take the hill first, snipe, then run away and repeat somewhere else.  LTs need to be more like armored cavalry and less like musket firing spy satellites.

Your points about the superheavy/corridor meta are mostly valid, but early damage, even in that meta, is important. In almost all maps, a light that is pimped for vision (vents/optics/rammer/recon/SA/BIA) has usually at least one place to go to spot the heavy train moving so that competent TD and arty players can take a big piece out of them. I almost always go spot for first few minutes, then, once both flanks are engaged, go wiggle my way in somewhere and start doing damage. Its the doing damage part where the tier ten lights suck at the moment. 

The easiest way for WG to fix the 'relevance of lights' problem would be to raise the cap on spots from 445m out to the 564m draw limit. Then, when tier ten lights are spotting big fat heavies at 510m or so, opinions would change. That cap is limiting the value of lights spotting heavies by close to 70m at tier ten.

[hazzgar 730]

49 minutes ago, Gryphon_ said:

Your points about the superheavy/corridor meta are mostly valid, but early damage, even in that meta, is important. In almost all maps, a light that is pimped for vision (vents/optics/rammer/recon/SA/BIA) has usually at least one place to go to spot the heavy train moving so that competent TD and arty players can take a big piece out of them. I almost always go spot for first few minutes, then, once both flanks are engaged, go wiggle my way in somewhere and start doing damage. Its the doing damage part where the tier ten lights suck at the moment. 

The easiest way for WG to fix the 'relevance of lights' problem would be to raise the cap on spots from 445m out to the 564m draw limit. Then, when tier ten lights are spotting big fat heavies at 510m or so, opinions would change. That cap is limiting the value of lights spotting heavies by close to 70m at tier ten.

This is a great idea. It would not cripple heavies because of how accuracy works but it might increase the usefulness of maxing out vision. The only problem is heavy ruskie player will complain

[hiipanda 299]

Wg says they balance tanks based on average player and not the outliers.

 

They decide to make light tanks only usable by unicum outliers. BRAVO

[karl0ssus1 325]

8 hours ago, Gryphon_ said:

The easiest way for WG to fix the 'relevance of lights' problem would be to raise the cap on spots from 445m out to the 564m draw limit. Then, when tier ten lights are spotting big fat heavies at 510m or so, opinions would change. That cap is limiting the value of lights spotting heavies by close to 70m at tier ten.

Isnt the cap mostly dictated by the server load caused by running spot checks? I dont see them changing that any time soon, unless they revamp their hardware in a big way.

[CardinalMite 21]

8 hours ago, Gryphon_ said:

Your points about the superheavy/corridor meta are mostly valid, but early damage, even in that meta, is important. In almost all maps, a light that is pimped for vision (vents/optics/rammer/recon/SA/BIA) has usually at least one place to go to spot the heavy train moving so that competent TD and arty players can take a big piece out of them. I almost always go spot for first few minutes, then, once both flanks are engaged, go wiggle my way in somewhere and start doing damage. Its the doing damage part where the tier ten lights suck at the moment. 

The easiest way for WG to fix the 'relevance of lights' problem would be to raise the cap on spots from 445m out to the 564m draw limit. Then, when tier ten lights are spotting big fat heavies at 510m or so, opinions would change. That cap is limiting the value of lights spotting heavies by close to 70m at tier ten.

I pretty much agree but I would suggest without all maps being significantly bigger then the times it will significantly help will be limited.

 

Alternatively if maps aren't going to change then I would suggest instead of massively buffing LT view range, they should nerf medium and heavy view ranges. There really isn't a particularly good reason why view range on most tanks should magically get longer just because they are higher tier.. nerf view ranges across the board by roughly 5% for mediums and heavies and suddenly LTs have a view range advantage again without being too much for current map sizes.

[DHP 502]

I mean.. has long as WG keeps releasing T8 with 400m view range and even T10 HT with 400m. While keeping light tank with 390m what can we expect ?

[MagicalFlyingFox 1,022]

RHM soft stat changes

- Turret rotation bloom from 0.115 to 0.096;
- Bloom on the move from 0.173 to 0.134; 
- Bloom on traverse from 0.173 to 0.134; 
 

I'll include them in the OP too

Not sure of validity or accuracy, weird source that was google translated by somebody

[Gryphon_ 541]

4 hours ago, karl0ssus1 said:

Isnt the cap mostly dictated by the server load caused by running spot checks? I dont see them changing that any time soon, unless they revamp their hardware in a big way.

Yes, but nothing has changed since 2011 - I think the hardware has improved a lot since then. Why not give it a try on Supertest / Public Test? What is the downside of trying it out?

Even if there are problems, then there are obvious workarounds: for example, one workaround could be to only check line of sight to one node on the target tank if it's beyond 445m rather than multiple nodes as now. That would save a lot of server load. 

[Tanager 150]

8 hours ago, DHP said:

I mean.. has long as WG keeps releasing T8 with 400m view range and even T10 HT with 400m. While keeping light tank with 390m what can we expect ?

I have 453 in my JT currently.  I'm a scout!

[hazzgar 730]

11 hours ago, hiipanda said:

Wg says they balance tanks based on average player and not the outliers.

 

They decide to make light tanks only usable by unicum outliers. BRAVO

Even most unicums are not very good at scouting but yeah to run french lights you basically have to run food and if you do you can rape pubbies thanks to your camo. Well on a semi open map.

[Saffee 432]

2 hours ago, hazzgar said:

Even most unicums are not very good at scouting but yeah to run french lights you basically have to run food and if you do you can rape pubbies thanks to your camo. Well on a semi open map.

On 8/19/2017 at 6:05 AM, CarbonWard said:

Theres really no balancing LTs that would be satisfying to everyone.

its just not possible to balance camo/VR/firepower with out

A) Turning it into med clones by improving its firepower

B) Completely fucking up the meta by increase its speed/maneuverability further

C) Make open maps miserable for everyone else by buffing its camo/vr even further.

 

 

 

Pretty much this,

I think the biggest frustration I have with these tanks at their current state is just the maps I keep getting.

I dont have that big of an issue with the tanks themselves, 

But when I run my replay analyzer and see that my most played maps day in day out are Kharkov, Stalingrad, Overlord and so on, (note the two maps in the last 2k games ive seen the least is prok/malnivka its kind of disappointing and frustrating. 

[hazzgar 730]

35 minutes ago, Saffee said:

 

Just read the comments about lights on wotlabs and how much people complain about lights despite there being some outliers who do VERY well in them.

[Archaic_One 1,853]

I think in a way its WG trying to cling to the rubicon model of forcing every tank into a rock-paper-scissors which of course has nothing to do with how their game is actually played.  The best T54LT game I ever had (so good I remember it over a year later) was on Himmelsdorf when I had to be a medium and tank a corner.  

Artificially gimping LTs view range so they are forced to use optics and thus gimping them in a gun-fight was one of the single stupidest things to ever come out of Minsk.  This is what happens when all of the developers you hired in 2012 have moved on to playing other games but still work for you.