Q & A on learning how to play and gameplay mechanics.

Private_Miros, on 06 February 2014 - 02:16 PM, said: Hello community,   Lately I've seen the content of the forums and the atmosphere in the threads turning slightly sour at times. In particular it seems that there is increasing hate from the bad and average player towards the good player, while in fact, they should simply ask the good player for advice on how to easily improve themselves; or at least on how to understand the very basics of the game to diminish their frustration while playing.   Now, my main idea, that I was toying with, was to have a thread in which players with questions about learning how to play and the game mechanics to certain, "certified" trusted good posters, so spam and blatant misinformation can easily be avoided. For each trusted good poster there'd be a small player-bio available.   This idea would require a certain amount of moderation rights within the thread, however, so for the time, being, and as a test (somewhere I just foresee a spiraling down into rage, spam and blatant misinformation fairly quickly) I'll post this thread.     Feel invite to pose any serious question regarding how to learn to play or on how the game mechanics work or even just on how I play(ed). I'll do my best to answer any serious question and I invite those that are good-reputation good players to answer along side with me.     As for a small bio about myself:       I'm Private_Miros, a Belgian player that played quite a bit when he was a student with lots of free time, and is now self-employed with only the ability to play at prime time hours (weekends and 22-24 on weekday evenings).   I started out playing on an old laptop with 6-10 fps (I now play with 15-35 fps), and had no idea what to do. I was one of those players that in 1,5k games never went to the hill-side of abbey, but always went hill, because he won a game doing that once. I managed around 38-42% win rate on most of my tanks (my stats on T40, M10, M6, M7 are silent witnesses of that stage in my career).   I learned to play mainly in M2LT and M5 Stuart, the latter zooming around, lobbing 30 damage shells at IS-4s and E-75s. I preformed well in both, bringing my WR to   around 46% after 2k games.   This was needed, as I was quickly losing all fun in playing the game by just being cannon fodder.   My next step was to set certain goals for myself when playing tanks. I remember setting the goal to play tanks at least until I had 1kill/game ratio. Since I was at that point still a bad player, I could not work with stock tanks, so my kill ratio with them was horrible (as in, 1kill/3games horrible). The totally unintended consequence of this was that I suddenly started to play tanks longer than needed to pass to the next tank. This meant I could learn to play with an elite tank and train my crew. I slowly crept up to my first tier 7 tank, the T20, and to 48,5% global win rate @3k battles. And then I discovered the forums.   My first thread/post ever was a replay in the typical fashion of "ha, look at those noobs, why can't they all be as great as I am?" to which I got mixed response. I didn't play exactly bad, but made a lot of mistakes, which were commented upon and which I learned from. A bit. Right until..   I posted my first thread (or post, I forget) about how stats don't matter and how I played for fun. It was a PTS guy that put me in my place. Time has made me forget his name, but he was responsible for making me realize how much effect one player could have. He explained me how all statistics are linked to each other, and from that moment on I started tracking my own progress, with the help of planetwot (which sadly stopped updating 80 days ago). You can see my win rate graph over that period at the bottom of this post.   One a player learns that everything he does is his own fault (you cannot change the bobs on your team, you can only change how you deal with them), progress goes fairly naturally. Self-reflection and pulling your head out of the sand is the main step to becoming a better player and enjoying the game.   Apart from that platooning with better players is also recommended to learn.   I have many players to thank who taught me and who I enjoy playing with/talking to, but I wish to thank 3 in particular, who grew as players along with - even if slightly above - me: Tyutyu, the first one I regularly platooned with; Dan_Abnormal, then still Dushan_79, who was the first person I spontaneously platooned with after randomly meeting in a random battle; HubertGruber, who I've always seen as a mentor in sarcasm, trolling and gameplay.   I've come to love random battles. I hate TC, I hate CW, I've never played a Team Battle. I prefer solo random battles, but I like the social aspect of platoons. Unfortunately, my playing solo too much, means I now have trouble adapting to platoon play, causing me to perform much worse in platoon than solo, which frustrates me. If I could change anything it's that I could once again carelessly platoon without frustrating myself and potato'ing constantly.     If I forgot to address points in this bio, feel free to ask.               Well, with somewhere a certain due sense of dread, here I press post. May at least someone learn something from whatever spouts forth of this thread that causes him to enjoy the game more.             Main Questions and Answers so far (regularly updated, but not that regularly):     Technical: Q. My computer cannot handle high settings, which settings should I avoid putting on bare minimum to not negatively influence my gameplay. A. Draw range and terrain quality, see in particular here and here.   Spotting Mechanics: Q. Does increasing my view range above 450m matter? A. Yes, it does, it increases your chance of spotting enemies within the spotting range, see here and here.   Q. What is the difference between Draw Distance, View Range and Spotting Range? A. In a great post by SlySpy, here.