Armored Warfare general chat

We have a few AW threads, but not a general one, so I'll start one.

So the public stress test just started and anyone can play. Those who play at least one match get the object 155 tier 3 premium tank.

http://aw.my.com/us/news/general/stress-test-reward-object-155


So I put in a bunch of matches last night, and have some rambling impressions so far.

In general it's unmistakably a WoT clone, but it was always meant to be. That's what My.com wanted when they contracted Obsidian to make it, so there's no attempt at a fundamentally different approach unlike WT for example.

Tank upgrades have a larger number of small upgrades, which include ammo. Some of the upgrades are very small items like a commanders viewport or shock absorbers, as well as the obvious stuff like engines and guns. There is also the option to unlock user slogans from specific tanks, e.g. Waterproof from the ambhibious PT-76 which I like.

The overall tech tree system seems illogical to me. I get that they're reflecting the private military/mercenary setting with the salesman system. But it doesn't provide much in the way of consistent theming, and it doesn't reflect the evolution of designs and technology that the national trees in WoT do. Why would the Russian salesman be selling M41 Walker Bulldogs next to T54s?

The maps are larger, but the tanks move faster given their more modern designs, so the scale isn't really much different from WoT. Many also have some fairly artificial bottlenecks in the same way as WoT, so not much change overall here.

It does cause a little cognitive dissonance seeing capable tanks such as a T54 or T62 being regarded as low tier tanks in this though. But in turn that makes the tier 1 choices a little odd. The jump from tier 1 PT-76 to tier 2 T-54 is massive in capability terms.

The controls are pretty much a straight copy from WoT, including C to reload ammo, right mouse to lock view etc.

In graphics terms I expected more from the CryEngine. The tanks models not as good as the WoT HD ones or the WT ones. The environments are better than WoT, but not as good as WT. Some of that may be fairly subjective though.

The sounds seems a bit weak too, but equally as weak as WoTs ultimately. Both need an overhaul.

Currently it seems an alternative and complementary option to play alongside WoT. But it doesn't seem to yet offer anything it does markedly different or better, and certainly nothing to warrant abandoning the time I've invested in WoT.