Shooter Strategies & World of Tanks, More Complex Than You Think! -INS4NITY W00F

Most shooter games have an element of strategy. For example: you put a wall between you an someone else so you don’t get shot, you hide behind something to ensure you don’t get seen but you keep eyes on the enemy.

Perhaps albeit basic strategy. BUT STRATEGY NONE THE LESS.

Now to my point of my article, World of Tanks has so much more complexities than most conventional shooters out there.

You have terrain like any other shooter, you have guns like any other shooter, and you can move around to get the best out of your position. This is where it all ends in similarity.

Most conventional games out nowadays use “Hit-boxes” These are basically parts of the player that when hit, do something. For example, more often than not if you hit something in the head, it’s dead straight away. Whereas if you hit it in the body, it wont be.

World of Tanks uses multiple in tens, perhaps twenties and thirties for parts of tanks which react in different ways to shooting them. Different plates have curves and angles, influencing your shot.

In World of Tanks, damage is measured in two ways. One is non critical, where your shell may hit then do some damage if you are lucky and the second is Critical. You could with a critical hit kill a tanks driver and prevent them getting away. Blow off tracks, set fire to the vehicle, kill the gunner, the loader, jam the turret. There is so much you can do to exploit the game in your favor on the battlefield. Its not just a “I hit you in the head, you’re dead” system.

Now we are going to get more complex, as to which I am not referring to the significant lack of raccoons in this post. The fluffy little things don’t know how to drive tanks, and god help us if they did. The firing system takes into account:

• Shell travel time.
• Motion prediction.
• Gravity.
• The angle of the armor you are hitting.
• The thickness of that spot on the tanks armor that you are hitting.
• If you hit a weak spot such as a hatch.
• If you hit a module that can be critical hit.
• The idea that you can kill tank crewmen.
• The caliber of the round.

With all of this in mind, I haven’t told you of all the other mechanics behind the scenes. This is just what happens between that second you left click, and the milliseconds till you hear “We’ve got em’!”

All of that, is taken into consideration for that partial moment between boom, and clang!

One tiny aspect of the game here. In a massive free to play online game with ever growing popularity. Think about that. Now think about…

WHY THE HELL YOU AIN’T PLAYING IT YET?