World of Tanks' Pay-to-Win Gameplay Produces Eight-Digit Profits Monthly

[Bronze_D]

also calling this game an MMO is not right its just a series of 15 vs 15 deathmatch / capture the base rounds (tho more game modes are coming)

At the pace of WG that is...

ie: if they said next week it means, next month.
if they said next month, they mean next year.

seriously, at this rate... by the time those new gameplay mode comes in, MWO will be at the door step already.

[Wolfstar90]

they really, really need to fix their matchmaking system...

This. More than anything. The only reason I put money into this game was due to the terrible matchmaking as the paid tanks actually end up in what I believe should be correct tiers. I.e tier 7 tanks should never be put against anything higher than tier 9s and even then, there should be no more than 3 or 4 of them, as it was when the Type 59 was released. In standard tanks it was common to be against tier 8s and even 9s as a tier 5 tank, which is utterly pointless.

As for pay-to-win, I only rarely saw the gold shells being fired in many, many hours of play, I did see a large number of paid tanks though, especially the Type 59s which were exceptional little tanks. So I definitely agree with the pay for convenience statements, most people pay to level faster, rather than to 'win'.

[Otto-matic]

I can cope with the matchmaking, even if it is terrible and they won't do anything useful about it despite community concerns and official polls. Their most recent effort is that if your tank is at the bottom 5 games in a row, for the 6th you won't be on the bottom (read: you'll be 2nd from the bottom).

The one thing that is really getting me is the slow development pace. Plenty of things that were due just after release or some time last year still haven't been done. The smaller patches more often thing that they were going to do hasn't eventuated at all. It's just really discouraging to see a game with such potential held back by its developers

[cyclobs]

I've given up playing with the match maker the way it is. the amount of T9 games I've been in with my KV is ridiculous!

[Vencha88]

To those warbling on about Pay-To-Win, World of Tanks isn't pay-to-win and very very few games are. As a game system have no other way to win but to give money is an absolutely horrible idea. Which is why it never really happens. The large majority of free games out at the moment, yes even in "The East", involve being able to access the core game and compete without paying a cent, but having a store to help players do something quicker or gain earlier access to content.

If a game was truly pay-to-win it simply wouldn't do well.

[asmodai]

Because I'm an idiot.

That and considering the ~600 hours I've played 50c an hour ain't too bad

Bingo.

Think about 600 hours at the pub (~$9000). 600 hours at the movies (7500). 600 hours at a restaurant(~$22,500) (note: all figures loosely based around what I would spend per hour)

Personally, I've never been that interested in TF2 stuff, but I've sunk cash on ROM stuff, LOTRO/DDO (turbine points), ME3 (bioware points for MP unlocks).

To those warbling on about Pay-To-Win, World of Tanks isn't pay-to-win and very very few games are. As a game system have no other way to win but to give money is an absolutely horrible idea. Which is why it never really happens. The large majority of free games out at the moment, yes even in "The East", involve being able to access the core game and compete without paying a cent, but having a store to help players do something quicker or gain earlier access to content.

If a game was truly pay-to-win it simply wouldn't do well.

Indeed. Someone said 'pay to shortcut' and that's more accurate. League of Legends comes to mind, you can buy toons using riot points or IP, but runes (the real performance enhancers) are all IP. So instead of grinding IP to unlock a character, you can pay to play it asap. The only things restricted to real money transactions are skins and boosts iirc.

And it's a ridiculously popular model with plenty of people paying. Same with DDO/Lotro etc.

I think part of the popularity is casuals. The can jump in to the action and bypass some grinding for a few bucks, but don't feel like they're wasting a monthly sub fee if they aren't on 6+ hours a day.

[Bronze_D]

WoT is different though,

in WoT technically if you want you CAN P2W in public games with gold rounds, it's neither economical, rational, or even sane... unless you got more money than you can spend and feeling generous to WG (and being a **** to pub players), but nothing stops you from doing it.

You want to load gold rounds into the VK3601 with conical gun and troll everyone in pub matches? go ahead (the damn thing is scary with gold rounds) nothing stops you except ppl will just call you wallet warriors and what not or insane lunatic in chat.

WoT system basically assures that most sane ppl (who are not that rich) will never do this as it's equivalent to burning money effectively, but it also lets you do it if for whatever reason you want to.

[TRB]

WoT is different though,

in WoT technically if you want you CAN P2W in public games with gold rounds, it's neither economical, rational, or even sane... unless you got more money than you can spend and feeling generous to WG (and being a **** to pub players), but nothing stops you from doing it.

You want to load gold rounds into the VK3601 with conical gun and troll everyone in pub matches? go ahead (the damn thing is scary with gold rounds) nothing stops you except ppl will just call you wallet warriors and what not or insane lunatic in chat.

WoT system basically assures that most sane ppl (who are not that rich) will never do this as it's equivalent to burning money effectively, but it also lets you do it if for whatever reason you want to.

but you don't need to spend real money for gold rounds, you can get gold from clan wars to fund your gold ammo.

[Devourer221]

eeveryone whinging about WOT automatching should have played it when it was first being released, tier 3 tanks could get into battles with their 10's lolololol

back then if you made it past tier 3 you were generally going to play well

[cyclobs]

eeveryone whinging about WOT automatching should have played it when it was first being released, tier 3 tanks could get into battles with their 10's lolololol

back then if you made it past tier 3 you were generally going to play well

i played it in beta and none of that happened

[Brunius]

eeveryone whinging about WOT automatching should have played it when it was first being released, tier 3 tanks could get into battles with their 10's lolololol

back then if you made it past tier 3 you were generally going to play well

i played it in beta and none of that happened

I also played it in beta, and the matchmaking seemed better back then...wonder what's changed.

[Ball0fire]

the number of players has changed

that in itself can cause MM to have heart attacks

[Bronze_D]

but you don't need to spend real money for gold rounds, you can get gold from clan wars to fund your gold ammo.

Sure and that works for those who actually own territories with their clan, but does a regular player have the ability to do so? of course not, he has to buy the shell, aside of participating in the events and contest of course.

Alternatively of course he can join a clan that actually have territories and then convince them he's worth the gold, which at the very least mean he needs a T10 heavy tank plus the full complement of gold shells. But i've not heard of a clan that will let their members expend gold shells covered using territories in pub matches.

So you can guess what kind of players would actually use and gain gold shell advantage in pub matches (other than for test purpose).

[Otto-matic]

Really early beta there was no matchmaker, it just grabbed a bunch of tanks and threw you in together with no balance.
Mid beta was good times as lots of new people joined and most didn't have high tiers yet.
Late beta after the 5x all battles for a week was bad for mid-low tiers too.

Currently the MM is a bit screwed on the NA server since many play high tiers alternating with high tier premiums for credits. Means players get the tier 4-7 vs high tier hell. At least they are trying to reduce the number of high tier premiums coming through (only after they made megabucks on them).

[Bronze_D]

Like what? Type59?

Unlike Lowe (which is comparable to KT and clearly have less armor than KT), or KV-5 (which is strong against meds and lower tier but weak against T8 heavies), that thing was rather obviously OP and they clearly didn't know how or didn't bother to rebalance it (at least nothing major).

to this date i am not quite sure how on earth they could possibly think it would be balanced, when the damn thing is rather clearly too strong for a T8 med.

Usually a premium tank would be stronger than equivalent tier tank class in stock, but slightly outmatched by a fully upgraded one.

Type59 on the other hand FLAT OUT outperform the other T8 meds in full configuration. Which is rather obvious since it's essentially a T9 med (it's original design is from T-54 early model) downgraded to T8 with some stat reduction.