I can't play tanks, they kill me all the time. Tankers are fleeing ship: why is World of Tanks losing fans? Not a nasty afterword

An ammunition rack is a device for placing ammunition or shells in a tank. It provides not only their fastening in established places, but also the ability to quickly remove them for shooting.

In order to inflict significant and maximum possible damage to the enemy in the World of Tanks game, first you should become familiar with the weakest and most vulnerable points that most tanks have. So, the greatest damage to enemy combat vehicles can be caused in two ways: ignition and explosion.

Set fire

In this case, in addition to the damage received from the projectile, enemy vehicles will also receive constant damage from fire. And you can set the enemy on fire if you shoot him in the stern - where the engine and tanks are located. This rule applies to all cars. So, for example, the Germans are excellent at setting fire when you pierce their lower armor plate.

Blow up the ammunition rack

It has one drawback - in this case it can be quite difficult to inflict damage in one shot, and even more so it is impossible to completely destroy the enemy. And not all tanks will do this trick.

Important: As a rule, the ammunition rack explodes only from a second hit, that is, after it has been able to receive critical damage.

Remember - ammo rack explosions most often occur in light and medium tanks, but sometimes this also happens with heavy Tier 10 vehicles, such as the IS-7.

In addition, it is advisable to fire land mines at vehicles that are poorly armored, for example, at the top tank destroyer Waffentrager E-100.

About five years ago, a game was released that in a short time managed to glorify Belarusian developers, the Wargaming company, throughout the world and become truly cult - this game, as you might guess, is World of Tanks. Immediately after the release of WoT, a real “tank mania” began, which captured the minds of all schoolchildren, teenagers and adult gamers, and today it has become simply indecent not to know about “tanks”. Time passed, the developers came up with more and more new features for the fans, e-sports competitions began to be held, and everything went smoothly and evenly. But today in the gaming community they have begun to whisper that there are fewer and fewer WoT fans, and the reasons for such a decline in interest, and sometimes a complete abandonment of the game, are given completely different. So what happened to the “tanks”?

Perhaps we should start with the fact that the founder and CEO of Wargaming, Viktor Kisly, spoke about some problems regarding the decline in interest in WoT in one of his interviews. He said that “... last year we released a new version of World of Tanks, in which we made several technical errors: the storyboard in the game became slower due to the fact that something there was poorly drawn. The speed dropped by an average of 10%. And we released vague historical battles: what we did did not fully meet user expectations. And these two factors immediately affected our results, as the number of concurrent users fell by 20% in two months.”

It turns out that rumors about the outflow of fans are not unfounded. But are the reasons identified by Viktor Kisly the only ones? We asked the manager of the Arcade eSports team in the World of Tanks discipline, Evgeniy Makarov aka Oberst_Fuchs, about this: “There really is an outflow of players, and it is approximately 20-30%. What is this connected with? The answer is simple: the game just gets boring. After all, in fact, there are no fundamental changes that will force the guard to stay. Yes, there were clan battles, there were tournaments, now they are fortified, there were even attempts to create new regimes. But everything revolves around randomness, and after five years I’ve already become fed up with it. Although during this time there were a lot of new branches of tanks, for the most part all tanks were of the same type. For example, all level 10 STs can be divided into three types, but in fact there are almost two dozen of them. The drum tanks created a real sensation - it was a cool innovation! Judging by the fact that even now some tanks are being taken out of the game, and “reels” are being introduced instead, it suggests that the new product was successful, but it started quite a long time ago, since 2011/12. Then there were binary tanks, but it was not so global.

Another big reason for losing fans is that the game is becoming more and more demanding. The transition to an HD client is, of course, cool, but the average gamer plays on bad hardware. Take, for example, even me: until 2013, I comfortably played on budget hardware from 2009, and then some patch came out, and that’s it - FPS dropped significantly. Now, of course, I have new hardware, but you need to understand that the average WoT player is by no means an avid gamer who does nothing but upgrade. He is an ordinary person who plays after work or school, and perhaps does not play anything else.

As for the crisis, which affects the audience... Yes, it affects WG’s revenue, but you can play the “tanks” themselves without any investment. And another very interesting point is the cheats that are in WoT. Maybe they, of course, are not as terrible as in CS, but they still exist. Previously, the game was without cheats, but now the situation has changed: the notorious warpacks, smart sights, and so on. There are also problems with maps: they are remade all the time, and this is very good, but when the same map is remade many times, this indicates that they are poorly remade. There are, for example, maps from the very first pool, and some of them, even Ensk and Himmelsdorf, practically did not change (there were, of course, changes, but not global ones). Perhaps these are the main reasons for the decline in player interest.”

Well, Evgeny Makarov’s opinion is quite fair and justified. But in order to get even closer to the truth, we decided to find out from the old-time World of Tanks gamers themselves what is the reason for their cooling towards the game. Here, for example, is the opinion of Sergei Zmushko, who previously could not live without WoT: “I see the loss of popularity for three reasons. And the first of them: people have grown up. The game came out five years ago, and those who started playing it from the very beginning have already really matured. But the reason is not even age, but that I’m simply tired. At first there was just a boyish interest: to drive a tank, burst into the enemy crowd, and “distribute” it to everyone left and right! And then I became interested in driving historical tanks: our T-34, the German Tiger II, the American Rudy... I even bought one premium tank for 3 thousand rubles (Russian - author) in order to accumulate silver faster. I drove it, checked the box, and now I’m interested in learning how to play tanks correctly, making the most of each one’s advantages: armor, maneuverability, rate of fire, etc. And that’s all, I think – I have nothing else to do there. And now I’m already tired of the same thing.

But the most important problem, which has become a sore spot for every player, is artillery! Absolutely everyone hates her! Just imagine: you are dueling with an enemy or two, you stand behind cover, carefully move sideways, shoot at each other, and if you positioned yourself correctly, the enemy’s projectile will ricochet off you. And then the battle goes perfectly, you take advantage of all the advantages of the tank, you realize how handsome you are... And then... Bang! You were killed! Arta! These emotions need to be felt! Yes, it’s the same thing when you’ve almost assembled a house of cards, and someone pushes you from behind. I think that the art will finish me off before I do everything I wanted in the game! By the way, this video can best explain my emotions - I react in exactly the same way.

Probably, Sergei’s thoughts are shared by more than one WoT player who has put effort, money and nerves into his favorite game. But be that as it may, we wish World of Tanks to restore the fan balance and develop further.

World of Tanks- one of the most popular games in the CIS countries. The game really breaks all records both for registered players and for simultaneously playing users. It's because WOT a really cool game, no matter what the competitors say. Wonderful physics, excellent sounds, advanced leveling systems, minimal donation. Although donation costs money, and without it it is difficult to collect experience and silver, it costs relatively little, unlike other games. Literally everyone can afford a premium account.

But let's return to the question of why I abandoned the tanks. I would like to immediately make a reservation that this is purely my opinion, I do not pretend to be the ultimate truth, or that blog readers will also stop playing tanks or any other game. I talked quite often with other players, and when I broached this topic, I was met with furious misunderstanding and deliberately incorrect arguments, which I will give below. I also want to say right away that I will not argue in the comments or prove anything to anyone. Any action is your choice, and you can continue to live with this choice. Some people follow the path of self-development, while others follow the path of degradation.

How I played World of Tanks or background

I started playing Tanik back in 2011. I don’t remember exactly anymore. As usually happens, I started playing on the recommendation of a good friend who praised the physics and the very cheap donation. I didn't play much, mostly on weekends or a couple of hours in the evening. In total, over this long period, I have accumulated only 8,000 fights. Which, in principle, is not so much. It got to the point that all the conversations with the friend who recommended this game to me revolved around the topic of tanks, updates, or interesting incidents in battle, which even not strong players accumulate in abundance. Did I have a gaming addiction? I think no. But it was quite difficult for me to take my mind off the game. It even got to the point that for one of my birthdays I was given a premium tank LOWE, which at that time, in principle as now, brings a good amount of silver both with and without premium.

Most often the girl I live with tried to pull me away from the game. Therefore, when she is not there and my “stuck in the monitor” world does not bother her, I played tanks. Also played when she was at home but cleaning or cooking. One spring day, a girl went to her parents in another city to help with something, but I stayed on my own for the entire Sunday and another 5 working days. As the reader probably realized, the first thing I did after putting her in a taxi was open the laptop and start the tanks. I played until the evening, until 20:00, after which I turned off the game and decided to watch some videos on CarambaTV, simultaneously planning the upcoming work day. At that moment, I was 12 hours away from removing the tanks.

How much time is spent on World of Tanks

So that we speak the same language, let's count how much time we spent on WOT? After all, the lyrics are lyrics, and the numbers can no longer be disputed, no matter how much one would like to.

Let's take the average player like this as an example: me with 8000 fights. Feel free to take your data and let's count together. If we type in “how long a battle lasts in wot”, we will find out that the average battle lasts 6 minutes. Depends on many parameters, from the speed of the vehicle you are riding on, to the map and the team. If you ride a Mouse and a Turtle, then naturally the battle will last a long time, but if you ride a T50 or a Christmas tree, then a couple of minutes will be enough for you. But on average, each player's battle lasts 6 minutes. Let's take my number of fights and multiply by 6 minutes.

8000*6=48000 minutes spent in battle. But don’t forget that before each battle there is a delay of 30 seconds for loading the map and planning the battle. We count.

8000 battles * 0.5 minutes of waiting = 4000 minutes. Plus, we must not forget that for some time we sit in the hangar, read forums, watch guides on equipment or technical equipment, funny moments in WOT, etc. This also takes a lot of time. But we won’t count it, because... Now we focus only on bare numbers, what is provable and cannot be disputed.

So, I spent 52,000 minutes in battle and waiting for battle. Or 867 hours. Taking into account the fact that the average person’s working day is 8 hours, we divide 867/8 = 108 working days, or 3.5 months. That is, we can say that we took a vacation for 3.5 months... and just lost these three and a half months in tanks! Yes, yes, I know, we usually play tanks on weekends and in the evenings when we physically cannot work. But more on that below and a little later.

Why did I quit playing WOT?

Lying on the couch and watching some distracting video, I thought that I didn’t have enough time to finish watching the training course on EMPO, which is designed for 2 months of online training, I didn’t have enough time to watch Torvald’s videos on the correct worldview, etc. d. And then I realized that the time I spent playing tanks could easily be converted into the time that was so necessary to achieve a particular goal. But the reader, like me, quickly begins to prove it to himself. You can't work all the time! You need to rest sometimes! I relax while playing tanks, so everything is fine. Some people are relaxing watching TV, but I’m in the tanks. You can’t always work, you’ll burn out and that’s it. We must act gradually. But if you really want to understand yourself and look deeply, very deeply at the root, then for every argument we find an answer that we tried to hide from ourselves, or simply did not think about...

Argument: I get tired at work and cannot do tasks that require mental stress in the evening or on weekends. I also can’t study, because at the end of the working day my brain can’t perceive anything, and instead of delving into the information, I just listen to it superficially, without drawing any conclusions.

Answer: Yes, it is true, after a hard day or a hard work week the body does not perceive anything. But if we want to work, then we can do intellectual work during the day and leave mechanical work for the evening. For example, for me it’s sorting out keywords in AdWords, putting items up for auction, editing prices, responding to comments on a blog, cleaning houses, and a lot of other things can be done in the evening.

Argument: You need to rest, you can’t always work.

Answer: Yes, sure. You need to rest. Good rest is the first point if I want to work well and productively. Without rest, you often burn out. But are tanks resting? No. Tanks won't help you rest. It happened that I played all weekend, with breaks of course for normal, full sleep, food, and watching a couple of films. Having lost the weekend, I woke up on Monday not feeling refreshed. Well, not at all. For myself, I concluded that the whole point is that the brain does not rest during the game, it continues to work hard, processing momentary information that is constantly changing.

I have a sedentary job, so, as was established many decades ago, the best form of rest is a change of activity. But as far as tanks are concerned, everything is quite the opposite. After sitting at the computer at work, I continue to do the same at home. It is natural that I cannot rest properly. Better instead of playing, I’ll go for a walk, walk the dog, do yoga, wrestling, learn to play the guitar. I will get much more pleasure and relaxation from this. If you don’t want to go anywhere, then you can, for example, learn how to repair a bicycle. I always wanted to, because it is very difficult to find a worthwhile service that will do repairs at a high level.

Argument: Tanks relieve stress. I came after work, shot, and after relieving stress, I went to bed.

Answer: No, that's not true at all. Just look at the player’s posture: it is extremely tense. And it’s not uncommon for a player to start terribly swearing at VBR, his team, which consists of only schoolchildren and noobs, which undoubtedly does not relieve stress, but on the contrary adds it. There are several ways to relieve stress, both active and sedentary/at home. For example, yoga, martial arts, a hot bath, meditation, a walk.

Argument: From a developmental point of view, reading an entertaining book is the same as playing.

Answer: The fact is that playing tanks is the same repetitive action. And the book is new every time. If tanks do not bring anything new, then the book brings something new every time. New plot, new characters, new character, new events.

So why did I quit playing tanks?

Playing tanks, I spend the most important thing: what I have and what no one will ever return. Time. If you can earn money, you can see the world, go on vacation, then no matter what I do, time spent on unimportant and not useful things cannot be returned.

I understood it for myself. The path to inner harmony is...

Do the best you can at every moment!

No, not to work, as many of you thought, but just to do the best from what I can. Just ask a question: I'm doing the best I can now or I can do something different? What is more important/better? Asking yourself the question: Is it really possible that at this moment in time the best thing I can do is play World of Tanks?? Not spending time with your family, not spending time with your girlfriend, mom or dad, not going to the country or just taking a walk? Or finally read a book? Are tanks really the best I can do?

If the answer to this question is: “Yes, tanks are the best I can do,” then I have nothing against it, moreover, no one can have anything against it. This is your choice. Your actions, and responsibility for them also lies with you. And I’d rather spend time on what’s important to me. Family, girlfriend, walks, active recreation.

Many girls and wives complain that their man is holed up in tanks and doesn’t want to get out. There are a lot of such threads on the forum. If this is your case, then I want to draw your attention to the fact that sooner or later you will get tired of the game. And you will live with your family for the rest of your life. Spend time on the most important thing you have - your family, and not on your soulless computer.