FAME News #Issue 7



Playstyle and an Analysis of Various Styles

Being a high-ranking member of a tank academy has many perks, such as endless garage slots, free premium tanks and being able to tell things happening before it happens (such as when my enemies will spontaneously explode in a hail of ammo rack fury, or how the future matchmaking system works). But the one perk that cannot be underestimated, and for practical purposes of this Mindset Question dialogue, is that I get unfettered attention from newcomers in SGTA (that’s the tank academy I founded) when I want to see their skills. This perk has some great advantages, it allows me to see how inexperienced players play, thus allowing me to stomp future inexperienced enemies with impunity, but it also allows me to seriously examine what common mistakes players make when they are confronted with different situations. Few in the game will have the consistent and real-time experimental guinea pigs (all students please use normal complaint procedures!) that I have when out on these testing trips, especially when I am hosting one of my infamous ‘Experimental Tank Companies’ (cue Roninrage exploding in the background under a hail of fire and death).

The topic I wish to discuss in this article will be specifically focused on what happens in a solo or ‘one-versus-one’ encounter in a battle. I recently hosted a special session with students in the academy on solo combat, which involved each student facing me in a solo encounter. The results were varied, with some achieving more success than others. But a few common traits were clearly visible for those who, like me, were specifically looking for it. I wish to engage on a rather important playstyle finding I’ve discovered in this article.

In my last article (‘Mindset Question: To Order or Not to Order, That is the Question’) I talked in highly sarcastic tones about, in essence, which choice to make in a complete list of 3 choices. The logic in this current article will remain roughly the same. The player, when in a battle engagement, has only 3 choices if I may generalize the choices greatly, the player can: play aggressively, play defensively or play with a mixed set of aggressiveness and defensiveness. Truth be told, it seems obvious that the third mixed option is the most realistic. However, in my various testing with students in SGTA and sample platoons and Tank Companies, I have reached a curious finding, which I will explain below.

 

The Aggressive Method

In my definition, a purely aggressive player is the type that seeks to attack the enemy regardless of the circumstances. The aggressive player will constantly be on the lookout for a weakspot in the enemy lines to exploit, or in the case in which there is no certain weakspot, the aggressive tanker will charge in through the most familiar path he/she knows on the map, making plans and improvising as he/she goes along. There is a common default consensus amongst people, but especially newcomers to this game, that aggressiveness equates to suicide. Aggressive playing tends to be viewed by many with frowns and head-shaking. The mindset to understanding this is quite simple, people who charge out of cover to engage a defensive player will take more hits and die even before reaching the enemy lines. This conception may be influenced by historical Japanese kamikaze charges or too much FPS charges by AIs such as Call of Duty in which the player kills the charging enemies with ease.

The perhaps unexpected reality is that aggressive playing has an almost undeniable link with a high victory rate, as observed by me in countless profiles and in-game experiences. With certain but few exceptions, purely aggressive players outshine defensive players in almost every sector except survival rate, average survival time, which aggressive players tend to fall behind on. A mixed result in an area of interest is that purely aggressive players achieve roughly the same amount of kills as defensive players. Despite all these, perhaps the most crucial piece of analysis I’ve gained is that aggressive players tends to define the chances of success for the entire team. A highly skilled aggressive player tends to either spot enough enemies in the initial stages of the game to bring almost certain victory to his/her team (through allied tanks taking out a large number of enemies in the initial stages), a poor aggressive player tends to do what is usually expected, a useless kamikaze driver who dies with no net contribution to the team. This concept of confirming the victory by aggressive players I will go into more detail later in this article.

 

The Defensive Method

The purely defensive player in my definition is a player who seeks to hold his position in an advantageous location, usually a spot he/she knows well. A resolutely defensive player will never take the initiative to go to the front lines but instead chooses to be amongst the second wave of allied tanks or simply become a ‘camper’ in the rear. More skilled defensive players may decide to relocate to a further back location if the enemy is pushing too far into allied front lines or push further in if allies has broken very far inwards enemy territory, however, usually defensive players tends to hold their initial position even when the enemy has pushed through the front line or the enemy lines has collapsed. As stated earlier, there seems to be a mostly common mindset that playing defensively equates to safety. That in the heat of a chaotic battle, staying behind the very front line will grant a longer survival time. Purely defensive players seem to have a common mentality that yearns for the greatest amount of effect on the battlefield with the least amount of effort, whether consciously or subconsciously.

Despite general stereotype, many purely defensive players do not have a lack of skills. I have seen more than a definitive amount of defensive players who possess substantial skills that, if their playstyle changes, can make a tremendous impact on the battlefield. What I tend to find many times is that, defensive players waste a lot of their skills waiting in the rear hoping for the enemy to pop into their line of fire, this puts greater strain on the rest of the team as a waiting player is a player who is contributing nothing to the team during the time he/she is waiting. Hence, defensive players tends to complain quite a lot about useless teams who die in less than 5 minutes. There are usually around 5-7 defensive players in a team, which means almost half of the team is at best not moving and at worst already disengaged from the team from the outset. What tends to happen is that the aggressive and mixed playstyle members of the team will be put under too much strain, who then dies. Leaving only the defensive players to fend for themselves. Defensive players, who rarely think about how to cover other defensive players, struggle against multiple enemies as they are essentially playing a one versus many situation, and ends up dying too in an unsatisfying slaughter.

Purely defensive players relies heavily on the skill level of friendly team members. Their performance increases dramatically as the level of skill on allied tanks increase. Thus for example, if the aggressive and mixed playstyle members of a team has very high levels of skill, then the defensive players will perform significantly better than if the former does not have sufficient skill. Because of this reliance on the rest of the team, defensive players’ performance varies; however, a consistent statistic that appears is that they have a high survival rate and a very low ‘distance travelled’ count.

 

Mixed Playstyle Method

Mixing the aggressive and defensive playstyle is a very hard thing to do and indeed a very rare occurrence in World of Tanks. The vast majority of player in this game who achieves beyond a 56% win rate uses the mixed playstyle method. The distinction between an aggressive and defensive player to a mixed playstyle player is that the mixed player can switch between the aggressive and defensive styles, whether consciously or subconsciously, and perhaps more importantly, the mixed playstyle player knows when to switch between the playstyles under different circumstances.

Ask people which playstyle in the 3 given is the best and they will undoubtedly tell you the mixed style is better. But then ask them why they think this is so, and many will struggle to give you a good and robust reason. Sure, knowing how to attack and defend is better than only knowing how to either attack or defend, but why is that so?

I have attempted to answer this since I began my World of Tanks experience. After a long search, I am finally confident enough to bring an assessment to the table. This is my personal opinion and obviously people are free to object to it, but thus far I have seen this theory put to the test and passed with flying colours.

The reason why mixed playstyle players are rather successful is that they feed off the failings of the other playstyles. This assertion may be so subtle on the battlefield many will not believe it, but it is in fact quite real. The aggressive player will usually end up scouting the enemy tanks, but will not have enough time stay still to gain many hits or due to their tank choice, be simply incapable to deal a great amount of damage. A mixed style player capitalizes on this and follows the aggressive player, however, when the enemy tanks have their sights trained on the first or nearest tank they see (the aggressive player), the mixed style player stops or slows down to shoot at distracted targets. One common trait about mixed players relative to aggressive players is that they are usually the last people getting shot at, or seemingly always the player who gets the ‘easiest time’ as nobody on the enemy team seems to care where they are or what they do. This is not due to luck, but rather to the skill of the mixed player to place themselves in a situation, both psychologically (in relation to the enemy tanker’s mind) and physically (in relation to their location on the map), as seemingly the smallest threat, when in reality they are the largest threat to the enemy tank.

Comparing with defensive players, mixed playstyle player compensates on the lack of spotting abilities of the defensive player and temporarily switches to an aggressive mode. However, most mixed style players do not care for the circumstances of the defensive players and tends to spot and kill the enemies according to their own situation. Any kills gained by defensive players in this instance is usually by chance that their location offers them the shot. In short, the mixed style player gains the damage which the aggressive player fails to deal, but also gains the damage the defensive player is unable to deal. Combining these two factors, it makes the mixed player a deadly adversary which always ends up getting the most damage and kills, thus their excellent statistics in their profiles. However, the most important aspect of the mixed player is that he/she is still dependent on the aggressive player, but not the defensive player.

 

Detailed Analysis

The consequences of the mixed player’s dependency on aggressive players are quite substantial. In short, this makes the aggressive player the most tactically important part of the team, as the performances of both the mixed and defensive players depends on how well they play aggressively. However, unlike the defensive player, the mixed player can still compensate for the lack of an aggressive player by temporarily becoming aggressive themselves, but this reduces the overall efficiency of the team as then there is no primary damage dealer, as the mixed player has turned temporarily into an aggressive player, a vacuum where the mixed player was, now exists.

The impact of this finding on defensive players may seem quite damning. This effectively means that defensive players are the only players that is not necessary within a team to make it effective. However, in reality, this argument does not hold. All too common is the occasional mistake made by the aggressive and mixed players that a few enemies slip past the front lines (especially when later on in the battle, a front line cannot be defined clearly). Those enemies who slip past the aggressive and mixed players have huge potential in their hands. We all know the horrific consequences if an enemy tank somehow managed to get behind your tank, stops and starts shooting. Those infiltrated tanks (which are effectively the enemy team’s mixed playstyle players… as enemy aggressive players will usually just scout, but not shoot) will deal massive amounts of damage. In situations like these, the defensive player’s time to shine has come. Whether those infiltrated tanks decide to turn around and shoot at allied advancing tanks or simply try to capture the base, the defensive tank will prove the most useful, as it is they who will either track that infiltrated tank or simply ambush it and then destroy it. Defensive tanks struggle against enemy aggressive tanks merely because usually the element of surprise is on the enemy aggressive tanks at the start of the game, when defensive tanks has not yet got into their positions. But the defensive tanks are the bane of the mixed playstyle tanker. Why do you hear highly skilled players complaining about ‘campers’? Well… because it is usually that they got ambushed by the defensive players and died as they didn’t suspect them to be there, which seems to most people like a cowardly way to kill an enemy, especially to the killed person, but in the end the defensive players has just performing their role well, nothing else.

Overall, and with as little confusion made here as possible, it can be said that the aggressive players are the most tactically important part of the team, as they are the people who the mixed and defensive players depend on to improve their own performances, as mixed and defensive players’ performance increases proportionally to the aggressive player’s performance. The mixed players are the main damage dealers, hence usually the players who wins the match as the team must kill the enemy tanks (no point spotting them all if nobody is going to kill them). Defensive players are tactically the least important, but in reality their role is usually misunderstood but not unimportant. Defensive players are effectively the counter to the enemy team’s mixed players, and in cases in which enough time is given, defensive players can also counter enemy aggressive players. The role of the defensive player is to, in effect, protect the allied aggressive and mixed players and prevent the enemy team from capturing the base. It can also be added that part of the roles of the combination of aggressive and mixed players is to search and destroy enemy defensive players, but rarely will you see only an aggressive player or only a mixed player challenging and defeating a defensive player, at least not with some sort of help by other players.

 

Conclusion

Theoretically, the argument I’ve put forward holds rather well. However, practically, the reality is somewhat different, as hardly anybody, if any at all, knows what their roles are on the battlefield. Even fewer put their roles into practice. Obviously, the roles you can perform depend on your skill level and another important factor is your tank choice. However, all too often you can see a slow heavy tank playing aggressively or a fast light tank playing defensively. This shows that those players do not know their roles, which can seem quite obvious to most people. But let’s say… what do you expect the driver of a Pershing to do? Or perhaps a balanced tank like the Type 59, which combines good armor with respectable speed, manoeuvrability and firepower. Players of balanced tanks such as the Type 59 and the Pershing has the most potential on their hands, they can play one of any of the three playstyles mentioned earlier. How well they do is then only dependent on their skill and knowledge of their roles.

When it comes down to who is a better player in World of Tanks, I do not judge by looking at statistics that often, as they are a construct of how good or bad your team ultimately is. A highly capable player within a collection of players who performs the wrong role with the wrong playstyle in the wrong tank will get steamrolled by a group of players who presses all the right buttons. Rather, to truly judge a player, it is in my opinion necessary to platoon with the player and see if he can perform his role suited to his playstyle well, thus my constant pestering of the students in SGTA to platoon and participate in team battles. There is nothing wrong with being a defensive ‘camper’ as long as he/she knows where to position him or herself, that he/she can shoot the tank that needs shooting and that he/she knows what needs higher priority (such as stopping the enemy capturing the base in most circumstances). To judge based on statistics is short-sighted and simply not giving the person the credit he/she deserves if he/she knows his/her roles. In fact, to judge based on statistics usually tells me that the judge him or herself do not understand what is important, but just pretends that he/she does by passing judgment and hoping nobody questions the supports under their ill-based reasoning.

By Ding760

FAME News #Issue 6