help me understand

[ravioli]

why everyone can one shot me but it takes me 40 rounds into the rear of a tank to even get hit markers. doesnt matter where i shoot, what round, TD or medium, nothing. I cant one shot a turtle but everyone else can one shot me from hitting my barrel

[Morthe1st]

It is also good to know what your armor is and what kind of guns and penetration values your enemies at your battle rating have so you know what kind of tanks have trouble penetrating it. Try to 'angle' your armor so that the enemy cant hit your armor in a 90 degree (flat) angle to maximize your protection. This gives your armor more effective thickness and makes it so some of the shots will bounce and ricochet off your armor with high enough angle

[OldCannonFodder]

Guys what you are all saying is true BUT the following WT statistics prove that the game has a VERY steep learning curve:
1) Cadet ( 10 hours): only 9.1% of players achieve this, 90%+ abandon the game
2) Graduate ( 100 hours ): 3.5%
3) Warrior ( 250 hours ): 1.7%
4) Veteran ( 500 hours ): 0.7% get this far, I have yet to achieve this.
I still have a lot of issues with the game, for example I have more than twice as many aircraft kills than ground vehicle kills despite having only one spaa in my lineup. I have started getting more tank kills recently ( as high as 7 kills by the same vehicle ) but I still prefer shooting down planes despite getting really poor rewards compared to destroying vehicles.
Compared to veterans new players will get nervous and make mistakes ( I know I still do ) and depending on the player they will abandon the game. I know I did approximately a year or so ago after only playing a few hours. Since returning I deleted the game from my computer 3 times only to make yet another full install it yet another time.

[Toblm]

Originally posted by OldCannonFodder:

Guys what you are all saying is true BUT the following WT statistics prove that the game has a VERY steep learning curve:
1) Cadet ( 10 hours): only 9.1% of players achieve this, 90%+ abandon the game
2) Graduate ( 100 hours ): 3.5%
3) Warrior ( 250 hours ): 1.7%
4) Veteran ( 500 hours ): 0.7% get this far, I have yet to achieve this.
I still have a lot of issues with the game, for example I have more than twice as many aircraft kills than ground vehicle kills despite having only one spaa in my lineup. I have started getting more tank kills recently ( as high as 7 kills by the same vehicle ) but I still prefer shooting down planes despite getting really poor rewards compared to destroying vehicles.
Compared to veterans new players will get nervous and make mistakes ( I know I still do ) and depending on the player they will abandon the game. I know I did approximately a year or so ago after only playing a few hours. Since returning I deleted the game from my computer 3 times only to make yet another full install it yet another time.

Its a F2P game that started on its own launcher. Steam achievements prove nothing and indicate very little.

[Wandering Flare]

Originally posted by Toblm:

Originally posted by OldCannonFodder:

Guys what you are all saying is true BUT the following WT statistics prove that the game has a VERY steep learning curve:
1) Cadet ( 10 hours): only 9.1% of players achieve this, 90%+ abandon the game
2) Graduate ( 100 hours ): 3.5%
3) Warrior ( 250 hours ): 1.7%
4) Veteran ( 500 hours ): 0.7% get this far, I have yet to achieve this.
I still have a lot of issues with the game, for example I have more than twice as many aircraft kills than ground vehicle kills despite having only one spaa in my lineup. I have started getting more tank kills recently ( as high as 7 kills by the same vehicle ) but I still prefer shooting down planes despite getting really poor rewards compared to destroying vehicles.
Compared to veterans new players will get nervous and make mistakes ( I know I still do ) and depending on the player they will abandon the game. I know I did approximately a year or so ago after only playing a few hours. Since returning I deleted the game from my computer 3 times only to make yet another full install it yet another time.

Its a F2P game that started on its own launcher. Steam achievements prove nothing and indicate very little.

Those achievements have also only been added last August so people with thousands of hours taking a break could have 0 hours in-battle according to Steam.

[Ansaraina]

Wandering Flare his this on its head. 3k+ hours but achievement shows something like 400h.


on the subject of angling. I primarily play flanking to brawling. So angling is not all that important until i feel like whatever is intending to shoot me wants to pull the trigger.
veer off course a bit, ride the slope of a hill, or feather a break and turn hard. just depends how much they were leading by. sometimes dodging a shell is just a matter of breaking at the right time. being angled all the time on a advance eventually leads to a point in transit where you cant angle and have to expose something. better to expose something at the start and have an expectation of where they want to shoot, to then predict and respond on.


but then. why angle when you could drive in a way that makes you hard target and gives the player bail points where if their being shot at, they can drive into to avoid the shell. medium distance and far.

medium to up close,
Their also little ques' you could pick up to the status of player vision, sniper mode, zoomed in, or third person by how barrels are reacting to the closest point of contact. which opens of an entire new way to bounce, mislead shells, or dodge them all together. not something someone new should focus on.

Getting really close and throwing the barrel to cross into their intended spot to shoot will throw the barrel upward if their in third person. if the player does add additional input to drag the barrel downward, the shot will go high, and too much compensation throws the shot too far down. :- cool way to throw a shot off its intended course.
Clicking to shoot doesn't mean the shell is already out of the barrel. its still in the barrel, you you have a few extra milliseconds to adjust the shot after clicking. prefiring makes a big difference on corner firing. especially if a glass cannon is hugging the wall on a corner.

prefiring into the corner of a building thats being camped creates a small little debrie field that can hide UI for a moment, which is great for speeding out ahead of those corner without being immediately shot at. turning into them or driving past them for a juicer group of targets. not like their going to catch up if your going something like 40kms compare to their 0.

[DinkyDoink]

Originally posted by Eftwyrd:

Originally posted by DutchFurnace:

As someone who just started playing, and only just realized this himself; you're probably getting screwed by the matchmaking.

And by that I mean, you probably got one tank that's like 2.3 BR while still having to rely on mostly 1 BR sucky starting tanks, and you're getting put up against people using BR 3+ tanks.

Yeah it's 100% unfun game mechanics, but when starting out it seems you can't actually play the tanks you unlock when you unlock them, because it'll screw with your BR rating and match you against cheesy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who've been playing this game for years and are "underplaying". So you'll be stuck with the starting tanks till you unlock a whole set of tanks to use.

this isnt exlusive to newbies, throughout your time playing you are going to need to make a choice when you unlock a vehicle, whether it be 2.0 or 12.0

option 1 is to be impatient and play it immediately opening yourself up to what you are describing where none of your other vehicles will cope when you lose that one 'good' vehicle, and you will lose it because it wont have its modules unlocked at the start either so your one good vehicle isnt even performing at its best. this is not the smart choice

option 2 would be to leave the new vehicles out of your lineups until you have more vehicles of a similar BR, this is generally the smart choice because depending on the tree you are playing the gap between vehicles can be substantial

tentatively i would say there is also an option 3, it however requires knowledge and skill to identify and use well outside of their normal BR so you always have something useful even if you suddenly increase your BR. This generally comes in the form of light tanks and SPAA. a good example of this would be the US's m22 'locust' and m16 spaa which see use even into mid tiers long after their successors are unlocked

i wouldnt call this unfun in the slightest, if you are not having fun playing your current vehicles then a new one is not going to fix that. those of us that actually last in the game tend to be the ones that dont rest all our hopes on it getting better later and took our time to enjoy the journey.

This doesn't make sense tho, if you just sit back and play constantly low tier it's ridded with maxed out crew tanks, fastest reload, everyone spending a fortune on it when 80% of people don't want spend money. It's a clear unbalanced game, no matter how you look at it. Every nation is drastically different, every BR game is drastically no where near similar. Even playing the game starting out with the 1.0BR and having the modules maxed it's still near impossible to play higher lvl players, no matter the experience. Needing to know "Where" to shoot should be the same as "Research every nations tank" before you even touch a match. The +1.0 leway on BR is a unfair, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ idea. A 3.0 CAN NOT pen a 4.0 tank. I've had shells with 145mm armour pen at 200m not even scratch on them. USSR is a joke to play, every tank is faster, has way more tanks with apcHe shells, they don't care what armour your tank has its game over. The constant, "oh just play" "it's a skill issues" a skill issues only comes when there are highly skilled players in low rank games. Completely ruins the game to a T, not one game besides COD does this, you have a lvl and it should stick you those around you being that lvl. Not lvl100 Marshal with a maxed crew tank and every buyable item in game

[OldCannonFodder]

Just came back to the discussion. I just read the reply from Wandering Flare and he is correct that the percentages are skewed if they came into effect last August BUT then the percentages are skewed in favour of the low hours played since it came into effect which means more veterans were counted as being newbies. IF this is the case the number of new players getting past the initial humps are actually lower than the values given. Myself I am approaching the 500 hour threshold and still have issues of being killed by other vehicles firing from across the map. The veterans know where the sniping points are and where their prey has to pass, a newbie does not. This type of game play is extremely demoralising to many players which causes them to quit early on.

[Canadian Guitar]

Originally posted by DinkyDoink:

. The +1.0 leway on BR is a unfair, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ idea. A 3.0 CAN NOT pen a 4.0 tank.

This is just blatantly not true at all

[SpiralRazor]

Originally posted by snee.scampers:

i ignored this game for years and only just started and as someone already said experienced players under playing their BR and slaughtering newcomers seems to be a thing.
it explains a lot of what i have encountered.

experienced players dont have a "BR" rating. They have access to everything they have unlocked.

[torindechoza]

if you hit the back of the tank again you will damage the engine of the tank ,,, again 40 times. It was already damaged the first time you hit it.
Hit the turret of the enemy tank, then a crewmember will "turn unconscious" or the cannon might get damaged.

[ravioli]

I appreciate the useful comments here. Last time I posted something similar and quit, everyone was totally just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on me telling me I'm garbage and that I should feel bad.

[VeeVee]

Originally posted by ravioli:

I use these 3 tanks:
StuH 42 G (fully finished)
PZ IV G (fully finished)
StuG III F (fully finished)

I play pretty conservatively but the problem is no matter what I will always face an enemy tank. 9/10 I face any enemy tank I offload one of my appropriate rounds into what google images says is the best spot for what I can see - and the best I get in 9/10 situations is a "Hit" while the round they send ANYWHERE on ANY* of the three tanks goes right through and instantly kills me. Yes I'm often up against higher BRs than I feel is fair, but it still doesn't make sense when this is 9/10 situations. I REALLY want to enjoy this game - but it just doesn't make sense that my rounds do 1/10 the damage to enemy tanks doing everything google tells me is right and they can hit me glancing blow off an antenna and instantly kill me.

*my stug and stuh do better at not getting instant killed

I'm sure there's something I'm very clearly doing wrong, but I don't understand yet. I'm picking what war thunder wiki tells me is the meta for every tank, shooting enemy tanks where it says I should pen, and I cant do anything but explode the second I see any vehicle.

What shells are you using? APHE will almost always be more useful than APCR/HEAT despite them having higher penetration they have lower post penetration damage.

Panzer IV G should be using PzGr 39, StuG F should be using the same.
StuH should use either F.H.GR or Gr.39 rot Hl/C depending on the target. (Due to being a howitzer based vehicle it's gun is very low velocity making APHE not very useful.)

Also with German "boxy" tanks (Panzer III/IV/VI) you should angle to your targets, try to face the corner of your tank to the enemy, as the angle increases your effective armour. (Though angle slightly less in the Panzer IV since it's hull has "cheeks")

You also want to keep your distance from enemies as well, since German tanks are very much for a sniper playstyle, your guns/optics are extremely good at range, but your armour is only so effective. (Later German tanks like the Tiger II and Panther have extremely good armour with somewhat small weakspots, but are still best played at range.)

[Canadian Guitar]

Originally posted by ravioli:

I appreciate the useful comments here. Last time I posted something similar and quit, everyone was totally just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on me telling me I'm garbage and that I should feel bad.

I dont know what you posted before; but it almost always comes down to the context of the post.

You said you don't understand, and asked why? That's asking for help, and admitting you don't know something and need advice. Most people here understand there is a learning curve, and will help people when they ask for it.

Many posts however, are just anger filled vitriol and touches usually on "stupid game" "Broken mechanics" "Everyone cheats", and blames everything and everyone except themselves for not understanding, or wanting to take the time to learn. Those people, get properly roasted.

[mesitylen]

Originally posted by ravioli:

why everyone can one shot me but it takes me 40 rounds into the rear of a tank to even get hit markers. doesnt matter where i shoot, what round, TD or medium, nothing. I cant one shot a turtle but everyone else can one shot me from hitting my barrel

because its a big scam and you should spend money for it

[Ansaraina]

Ravioli, if you use discord comms. we can group up and I can teach you a bit. its much faster to learn and stomp out bad habits or hone in on your own strengths that match your mentality. Knowing where to shot is great, but its not as awesome as being at the right place at the right time or setting up a oppressive position. and that's much easier to teach than where to shoot for every tank for whatever caliber and shell type your using.