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Good afternoon/evening fellow forumites, you like me have probably seen the claims like "if only I had premium account, if only I shot premium rounds, if only I had good crews, if only I didn't play stock tanks, if only I skipped tanks, if only I played OP tanks, if only I used mods, if only I platooned ... I'd be unicum too" or perhaps you've even posted something like it.
Now most of us will only laugh and shake our head while clicking the little red neg rep button for this kind of stupidity...
However, inspired by the F2P experiment made by another forumite not long ago as well as my extreme boredom and suitable circumstances I decided to do something similar, yet different.
I've played this game for quite a while now and I'm pretty much a "low-end" unicum on my first and main account AngelofAwe. I'm far from the greatest player in the server but my recent performance is not bad at all, usually hovering around 3,6-3,8k.
Now, what I decided to do in my experiment was make a fresh account (RetardedLion) and play it in as difficult a way as possible.
- Completely free to play. No premium time or gold bought (Got 1 day premium from the Christmas event thing)
- Not a single shell of premium ammo or any premium consumables used
- All tanks played stock
- No mods
- 50-75% crews (retrained to 75% for credits at tier 4+)
- 100% solo
- No equipment until tier 5+ (had no credits)
I decided to go down the Russian medium line towards the Obj 140 which will be my goal.
The reasons for this are:
1) I like mediums the most
2) It increases the difficulty. TDs or heavies would have been easier in this F2P mode since they have better pen and can rely on range/armor.
While this may be enough to answer to most arguments these muppets make I decided to further increase the difficulty by adding bad hardware to the equation.
That is why I'm playing now during the Christmas/ New year holidays.
In my apartment I have a good gaming PC and great internet, however right now I'm visiting my family and parents for 2-3 weeks which means I'm playing on my 4 year old laptop with a 15,6" screen and absolutely horrific wireless internet that I also share with my siblings and parents.
My laptop has overheating issues which drives my fps into the ground, my ping varies between 100 and 250 and the packet loss is extreme. It's honestly absolutely awful to play on, even my main account loses 1k WN8 compared to my recents.
T-34 loadout:
First mark of excellence after 34 battles.
Some of the highlights in the T-34 come from being underestimated as a "fail reroll" by stat padding platoons.
Met a triple tier 6 EFE platoon last night of which I killed 2 and the third died yoloing me.
Similarly I met a triple tier 6 EXEED platoon of which their KV-2 tried to yolo me and got killed 1v1 dealing no damage after also having failed to ram me. (30k games, 60%+ overall WR player) Though their last remaining player eventually won the game...
Tank reviews on the road from F2P view:
Tier II - T-26
Pretty decent for it's tier with good pen. Can deal with anything it encounters.
Tier III T-46
Amazing light tank for the tier. Extremely high pen and good mobility makes it one of the stronger tanks in the tier.
Tier IV - T-50
Same gun as the T-46 but now meets enemy heavy tanks almost every game. It can beat any other light 1v1 and even bounces their shells quite a bit, however without premium ammo this tank is just bad for carrying. Even medium tanks need to be flanked in order to pen them while heavies will bounce your shells even with their rear reliably.
This tank hurt my rating A LOT, both WN8 and WR. I think it would be a very strong tank with premium ammo loaded though.
TIer V - T-34
Awful stock, amazing with the 57mm zis. 112mm pen is enough to deal with heavies of your tier frontally if you know how to aim and mediums are good targets at any range. Almost any tank you meet can be dealt with and the DPM is great.
Best tank so far and carries games easily despite no premium ammo and a bad crew.
So... I've tried my best to stack everything against me as much as possible, what are the results?
Wotlabs is lagging behind a lot so I'll give you up to date numbers instead.
Here are my overalls 5 minutes ago after 111 battles played:
Just below unicum and rapidly increasing.
Here's the record of my T-34 session last night:
2814 WN8, just below super unicum.
And here's my service record, 64% WR.
So what does this show? Basically only what we've already known, that if you have bad stats it's because you're a bad player.
There is no factor inside or outside this game that will cause you to be a bad player, it's all you.
That's it for the midpoint report, I will return again later once I've played more and get to higher tiers.
Personally I only expect my stats to increase from this point on as I get my medium tanks, better crews, equipment and get back to my own PC/internet.
I'm expecting this account will land around 2800 WN8 and 62% WR once I reach tier X. Still completely free to play and following all the terms I've set up.
Happy new year forumites!
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200 games played update post can be found HERE
300 games played update HERE
400 games played update HERE
500 games played update HERE
600 games played update HERE
700 games played update HERE
800 games played update HERE
900 games played and final update HERE
Edited by LordAxalon, 08 December 2015 - 06:09 PM.
This post has been edited by a member of the Moderation Team, due to inappropriate content.