History BrokenBase / WorldOfTanks

* Gold Ammunition, especially since being made credit bought, with many players arguing they allow tanks to get out of situations where credit bought ammo simply isn't enough and many others considering it a scumbag move that lets those who use it 'buy skill' rather then bother to try and aim for weak points. This is especially frustrating to the drivers of super heavy tanks such as the Maus and T95 when a player sees them coming towards them and simply load in a HEAT round and blow straight through their armor. This has only worsened as time has gone on, and hit a a notable fever pitch when Wargaming allowed premium ammo to be bought with credits instead of just Gold. This resulted in out-the-nose gold spam that has permanently affected the game's landscape, to the point where videos on YouTube were dedicated to pointing out that a clear majority of shots fired at ''any tank'', not just armored ones, were gold. Wargaming's response was to '''[[WhatAnIdiot BUFF ARMOR INSTEAD OF NERFING GOLD SHELLS, making several tanks a pain in the ass to penetrate without the latter, add several broken-armored heavy tanks (that often played hulldown, making them virtually impossible to pen), then nerfing high-explosive shells into practical uselessness due to the players of these tanks whining about being damaged by HE spam.]]''' This, in combination with WG adding several new maps and rebalancing old ones to basically create "corridors" where combat take place (with these corridors often favoring hulldown tanks), results in the modern-day state of the game where gold is practically the first option players use against ''any vehicle'' and the meta being decided by hulldown heavy tanks, which has been decried by many players, including famous World of Tanks content creator QuickyBaby, as the single worst and most boring meta the game has ever had.

* Gold Ammunition, especially since being made credit bought, with many players arguing they allow tanks to get out of situations where credit bought ammo simply isn't enough and many others considering it a scumbag move that lets those who use it 'buy skill' rather then bother to try and aim for weak points. This is especially frustrating to the drivers of super heavy tanks such as the Maus and T95 when a player sees them coming towards them and simply load in a HEAT round and blow straight through their armor. This has only worsened as time has gone on, and hit a a notable fever pitch when Wargaming allowed premium ammo to be bought with credits instead of just Gold. This resulted in out-the-nose gold spam that has permanently affected the game's landscape, to the point where videos on YouTube were dedicated to pointing out that a clear majority of shots fired at ''any tank'', not just armored ones, were gold. Wargaming's response was to '''[[WhatAnIdiot BUFFING ARMOR INSTEAD OF NERFING GOLD SHELLS, adding several broken-armored heavy tanks (that often played hulldown, making them virtually impossible to pen), then nerfing high-explosive shells into practical uselessness due to the players of these tanks whining about being damaged by HE spam.]]''' This, in combination with WG adding several new maps and rebalancing old ones to basically create "corridors" where combat take place (with these corridors often favoring hulldown tanks), results in the modern-day state of the game where gold is practically the first option players use against ''any vehicle'' and the meta being decided by hulldown heavy tanks, which has been decried by many players, including famous World of Tanks content creator QuickyBaby, as the single worst and most boring meta the game has ever had.

* Gold Ammunition, especially since being made credit bought, with many players arguing they allow tanks to get out of situations where credit bought ammo simply isn't enough and many others considering it a scumbag move that lets those who use it 'buy skill' rather then bother to try and aim for weak points. This is especially frustrating to the drivers of super heavy tanks such as the Maus and T95 when a player sees them coming towards them and simply load in a HEAT round and blow straight through their armor.

* Nothing splits the base like the test server. A new test server is guaranteed to split the base into two camps: the RU server vs everyone else. This is because RU players have a reputation — deserved — for [[TeamKiller team-killing]] everything which has the sheer effrontery to be on the test server without an RU server tag. Explanations for this phenomenon range from nationalism, to a younger Russian playerbase, to a larger Russian playerbase (which leads to proportionately more {{GIFT}} among them), and finally, to a perception on the RU server that non-RU players are TheLoad and should be dealt with immediately. Whatever the reason behind the Russian team-killing phenomenon, it tends to lead to very ugly inter-server wars of words every time a new test is up. Thankfully, as of patch 9.0, team killing on the test server will get you banned on the live server too, which seems to have cut this down a little.

* The introduction of wheeled vehicles in early 2019. Some are glad that new vehicles with an actual new playstyle are being introduced rather than just a minor variation on what other tanks can already do (arguably the last time this happened was the Swedish "siege mode" tank destroyers in late 2016). Others are afraid that the extreme speed of the armored cars will make them overpowered and render conventional light tanks completely obsolete. And then some artillery players said that the ability to cross the map in 30 seconds will allow the armored cars to simply wipe out arty in the early minutes of battles. This resulted in some players suddenly dropping their objections to armored cars, on the premise that anything that's bad for arty must be good for the game.

** Since the early days of the Closed Beta, artillery accuracy, penetration, splash damage, shell travel times, and accuracy penalties for moving have all been nerfed, and some people still think they're overpowered.

** The reason for this is because of something referred to as Unicum Sniping. Basically, run XVM, then target the statistically best player relentlessly. Results in either the target dying early, or the rest of the team running wild.

** Artillery can be infuriating for those who do not understand that their purpose is to introduce a new threat to being spotted - getting killed in one hit for taking inadequate cover. Artillery vehicles are also (supposed to be) worthless as anything but extremely long-ranged glass cannons adding firepower to a forward team - and their existence as such gives worth to Mediums and Lights as both scouts and as artillery-killers.
** Artillery is also a serious point of contention on the forums (at the very least, on the North American ones). A large sect of the American Server Cluster outright wants Artillery removed from the game, and shows no intention of ceasing until it's been deleted outright. A vast majority of the American players who complain are the upper echelons of the game's statistics. The fact that they complain means artillery is doing its job.

* Most "blueprint" tanks, i.e. tanks that never existed as anything other than a drawing or wood mockup, in general serve as base-breakers. This is mainly because they tend to be far more powerful (and were thus never produced because they were either impractical or simply impossible to make) than historically mass-produced tanks. These can range from white elephants that were never produced because they were ludicrously expensive (like the American T-29 and the British Tortoise), to the out-and-out [[FanWank doodles]] of a bored tank designer which had no possibility of ever seeing the light of day (most of the [[SuperPrototype Japanese heavy tank line]])[[note]]The BigNameFan that Wargaming was getting info from for this line, Daigensui, was later exposed for passing off fictional and completely fabricated information as "sekrit documents" to Wargaming, meaning that the ''ENTIRE'' Japanese heavy tank line is built on nothing but lies and FanWank. If you need an example of this bullshittery, this is the very reason why the cancerous 15cm cannon is mounted on the Type 4 and Type 5 heavies. The only ones with even a semblance of reality are the Tier 3 Type 91 Heavy (1 prototype built), the Tier 4 Type 95 Heavy (4 prototypes) the Tier 6 O-I (1 prototype) and the Tier 10 Type 5 Heavy with 14cm gun (a turret was built and ended up on top of a pillbox because the rest of the tank never got past the drawing board). The Tier 5 O-I Experimental, Tier 7 O-Ni, Tier 8 O-Ho and Tier 9 Type 4 Heavy are all 100% fake (the former 3 are fictional O-I variations and the latter is just a nerfed Type 5).[[/note]]. The last of those are derided as "napkin tanks", the implication being that the only "design" work done was a sketch on a napkin during a tank designer's lunch break. One can get the impression that if a 1930-50 tank designer ever went off his head and drew a tank with impenetrable armor, a battleship cannon, and a helicopter rotor for flight, that tank would make an appearance as a premium tier 8 at some point.

* Tier X Tank Destroyers (particularly the Waffentrager "Waffletractor" auf E-100 and [=Fv215b=] "Death Star" 183) are this among the older community, which view these tanks as having far too much of a combination of view range, camo rating, penetration, and damage. The general opinion is that they can do far too much up front (alpha) damage with no drawbacks.

* Most "blueprint" tanks, i.e. tanks that never existed as anything other than a drawing or wood mockup, in general serve as base-breakers. This is mainly because they tend to be far more powerful (and were thus never produced because they were either impractical or simply impossible to make) than historically mass-produced tanks. These can range from white elephants that were never produced because they were ludicrously expensive (like the American T-29 and the British Tortoise), to the out-and-out [[FanWank doodles]] of a bored tank designer which had no possibility of ever seeing the light of day (most of the [[SuperPrototype Japanese heavy tank line]])[[note]]The BigNameFan that Wargaming was getting info from for this line, Daigensui, was later exposed for passing off fictional and completely fabricated information as "sekrit documents" to Wargaming, meaning that the ''ENTIRE'' Japanese heavy tank line is built on nothing but lies and FanWank. If you need an example of this bullshittery, this is the very reason why the cancerous 15cm cannon is mounted on the Type 4 and Type 5 heavies. The only ones with even a semblance of reality are the Tier 3 Type 91 Heavy (1 prototype built), the Tier 4 Type 95 Heavy (4 prototypes) the Tier 6 O-I (1 prototype) and the Tier 10 Type 5 Heavy with 14cm gun (a turret was built and ended up on top of a pillbox because the rest of the tank never got past the drawing board). The Tier 5 O-I Experimental, Tier 7 O-Ni, Tier 8 O-Ho and Tier 9 Type 4 Heavy are all 100% fake (the former 3 are fictional O-I variations and the latter is just a nerfed Type 5).[[/note]]. The last of those are derided as "napkin tanks", the implication being that the only "design" work done was a sketch on a napkin during a tank designer's lunch break. One can get the impression that if a 1930-50 tank designer ever went off his head and drew a tank with impenetrable armor, a battleship cannon, and a helicopter rotor for flight, that tank would make an appearance as a premium tier 7 at some point.

* The use of the XVM Mod, which shows players win rates during the matches. Its either a useful tool to adjust your play style to team performance, or something used by trolls and griefers to harass lower skill players over their stats (and of course for Team Killers to target the highest-skill players on their own team to eliminate).

* People who think artillery is a Game-Breaker versus those who think it's Acceptable Breaks from Reality due to its unique top-down view when in sniper mode, immense firepower combined with a high chance of hitting the top armor, the weakest point of any tank, and decent accuracy even from across the map, often hitting tanks which are slowly moving or not moving at all.

** Artillery can be infuriating for those who do not understand that their purpose is to introduce a new threat to being spotted - getting OHK'd for taking inadequate cover. **Artillery vehicles are (supposed to be) worthless as anything but extremely long-ranged glass cannons adding firepower to a forward team - and their existence as such gives worth to Mediums and Lights as both scouts and as artillery-killers.

** The reason for this is because of something referred to as Unicum Sniping. Basically, run XVM, target the statistically best player relentlessly. Results in either the target dying early, or the rest of the team running wild.

** Not to mention the influx of complaints against the Soviet T-54, the medium tank that borders on being a player-controlled Demonic Spider.
** Add to that the developers' not so hidden anti-German bias — SerB has been on the record with his (semi-joking) quip that "Germanophiles must suffer" — and you get Flame Bait so ripe that it's best touched with at least a ten-foot pole if you absolutely have to touch it at all.
The above is typically most exemplified with the way the Tiger I is represented in the game, as the developers have made many historical changes to 'balance' it (among which, weakening the lower front glacis, making the transmission a fire hazard, making the gun mantlet not-spaced armor, etc.) which players (especially new players) feel make the tank very underwhelming as it struggles to fill any role outside of a second line sniping tank.
* Tier X Tank Destroyers (particularly the Waffentrager "Waffletractor" auf E-100 and Fv215b "Death Star" 183) are this among the older community, which view these tanks as having far too much of a combination of view range, camo rating, penetration, and damage. The general opinion is that they can do far too much up front (alpha) damage with no drawbacks.
* Autoloader tanks. In real life, very few of these designs ever saw mass production because of impracticality and maintenance-intensive nature.note Not so in World of Tanks, where they are all over the place in higher tiers. Instead of firing one shell at a time, they possess a 'clip' of 4-6 shells that can be fired rapidly, at the cost of very long clip reloads.note Since these tanks are usually so fast, they are often detested for being able to deal a high amount of damage in a short amount of time and rapidly retreat before they can be counterattacked. It doesn't help that Wargaming has introduced tanks like the Wt. auf E-100 that are basically fictional ala Secret Weapons Over Normandy.
* Beyond even all of that, the "RNG" (Random Number Generator/God, in reference to the game's dispersion) puts several factors outside the player's control. Constant arguing ensues over if this is good for the game or not.
It even got a Fan Nickname (on Russian servers at least) of GBR, or Great Belorussian Random.
* Nothing splits the base like the test server. A new test server is guaranteed to split the base into two camps: the RU server vs everyone else. This is because RU players have a reputation — deserved — for team-killing everything which has the sheer effrontery to be on the test server without an RU server tag. Explanations for this phenomenon range from nationalism, to a younger Russian playerbase, to a larger Russian playerbase (which leads to proportionately more G.I.F.T.), and finally, to a perception on the RU server that non-RU players are The Load. Whatever the reason behind the Russian team-killing phenomenon, it tends to lead to very ugly inter-server wars of words every time a new test is up. Thankfully, as of patch 9.0, TKing on the test server will get you banned on the live server too, which seems to have cut this down a little.

USSR: Inflict 150,000 Damage and Destroy 150 Tanks in Tier 6-10 Vehicles.
Germany: Inflict 150,000 Damage and Destroy 150 Tanks in Tier 6-10 Vehicles.
UK: Inflict 150,000 Damage and Destroy 150 Tanks in Tier 6-10 Vehicles.
Japan: Inflict 150,000 Damage and Destroy 150 Tanks in Tier 6-10 Vehicles.
China: Inflict 150,000 Damage and Destroy 150 Tanks in Tier 6-10 Vehicles.
France: Inflict 150,000 Damage and Destroy 150 Tanks in Tier 6-10 Vehicles.
USA: Inflict 150,000 Damage and Destroy 150 Tanks in Tier 6-10 Vehicles.
Reward: Marathon WZ-111 with Garage Slot.

* The introduction of the Edelweiss and the Nameless Tank onto the SEA server (the latter had previously made its WoT debut in all servers of Blitz) fractured the fanbase when the EU and NA servers found out about it. The Nameless itself is also a base breaker for being overpowered due to its absurdly strong armor that makes it effectively invincible from the front and still quite tough from the sides. And the debut of both tanks was controversial on SEA because despite being considered Japanese premiums, their crews are permanently attached to the tanks and thus they can't be used in the normal crew-training role of a premium.

* Most "blueprint" tanks, i.e. tanks that never existed as anything other than a drawing or wood mockup, in general serve as base-breakers. This is mainly because they tend to be far more powerful (and were thus never produced because they were either impractical or simply impossible to make) than historically mass-produced tanks. These can range from white elephants that were never produced because they were ludicrously expensive (like the American T-29 and the British Tortoise), to the out-and-out [[FanWank doodles]] of a bored tank designer which had no possibility of ever seeing the light of day (most of the [[SuperPrototype Japanese heavy tank line]])[[note]]The BigNameFan that Wargaming was getting info from for this line, Daigensui, was later exposed for passing off fictional and completely fabricated information as "sekrit documents" to Wargaming, meaning that the ''ENTIRE'' Japanese heavy tank line is built on nothing but lies and FanWank. If you need an example of this bullshittery, this is the very reason why the cancerous 15cm cannon is mounted on the Type 4 and Type 5 heavies.[[/note]]. The last of those are derided as "napkin tanks", the implication being that the only "design" work done was a sketch on a napkin during a tank designer's lunch break. One can get the impression that if a 1930-50 tank designer ever went off his head and drew a tank with impenetrable armor, a battleship cannon, and a helicopter rotor for flight, that tank would make an appearance as a premium tier 7 at some point.

* The introduction of the Edelweiss and the Nameless Tank onto the SEA server (the latter had previously made its WoT debut in all servers of Blitz) fractured the fanbase when the EU and NA servers found out about it. The Nameless itself is also a base breaker for being overpowered due to its absurdly strong armor that makes it effectively invincible from the front and still quite tough from the sides. And the debut of both tanks was controversial on SEA because despite being considered Japanese premiums, their crews are permanently attached to the tanks and thus they can't be used in the normal crew-training role of a premium.

* Most "blueprint" tanks, i.e. tanks that never existed as anything other than a drawing or wood mockup, in general serve as base-breakers. This is mainly because they tend to be far more powerful (and were thus never produced because they were either impractical or simply impossible to make) than historically mass-produced tanks. These can range from white elephants that were never produced because they were ludicrously expensive (like the American T-29 and the British Tortoise), to the out-and-out [[FanWank doodles]] of a bored tank designer which had no possibility of ever seeing the light of day (most of the [[SuperPrototype Japanese heavy tank line]])[[note]]The BigNameFan that Wargaming was getting info from for this line, Daigensui, was later caught trying to pass exposed for passing off fictional and completely fabricated information as "sekrit documents" to Wargaming, meaning that the ''ENTIRE'' Japanese heavy tank line is built on nothing but lies and FanWank. If you need an example of this bullshittery, this is the very reason why the cancerous 15cm cannon is mounted on the Type 4 and Type 5 heavies.[[/note]]. The last of those are derided as "napkin tanks", the implication being that the only "design" work done was a sketch on a napkin during a tank designer's lunch break. One can get the impression that if a 1930-50 tank designer ever went off his head and drew a tank with impenetrable armor, a battleship cannon, and a helicopter rotor for flight, that tank would make an appearance as a premium tier 7 at some point.

* Most "blueprint" tanks, i.e. tanks that never existed as anything other than a drawing or wood mockup, in general serve as base-breakers. This is mainly because they tend to be far more powerful (and were thus never produced because they were either impractical or simply impossible to make) than historically mass-produced tanks. These can range from white elephants that were never produced because they were ludicrously expensive (like the American T-29 and the British Tortoise), to the out-and-out doodles of a bored tank designer which had no possibility of ever seeing the light of day (most of the Japanese heavy tank line)note . The last of those are derided as "napkin tanks", the implication being that the only "design" work done was a sketch on a napkin during a tank designer's lunch break. One can get the impression that if a 1930-50 tank designer ever went off his head and drew a tank with impenetrable armor, a battleship cannon, and a helicopter rotor for flight, that tank would make an appearance as a premium tier 7 at some point.

People who think artillery is a Game-Breaker versus those who think it's Acceptable Breaks from Reality due to its unique top-down view when in sniper mode, immense firepower combined with a high chance of hitting the top armor, the weakest point of any tank, and decent accuracy even from across the map, often hitting tanks which are slowly moving or not moving at all.
Since the early days of the Closed Beta, artillery accuracy, penetration, splash damage, shell travel times, and accuracy penalties for moving have all been nerfed, and some people still think they're overpowered.
Artillery can be infuriating for those who do not understand that their purpose is to introduce a new threat to being spotted - getting OHK'd for taking inadequate cover. Artillery vehicles are (supposed to be) worthless as anything but extremely long-ranged glass cannons adding firepower to a forward team - and their existence as such gives worth to Mediums and Lights as both scouts and as artillery-killers.
Artillery is also a serious point of contention on the forums (at the very least, on the North American ones). A large sect of the American Server Cluster outright wants Artillery removed from the game, and shows no intention of ceasing until it's been deleted outright. A vast majority of the American players who complain are the upper echelons of the game's statistics. The fact that they complain means artillery is doing its job.
The reason for this is because of something referred to as Unicum Sniping. Basically, run XVM, target the statistically best player relentlessly. Results in either the target dying early, or the rest of the team running wild.
And not only that, the NA server seems to simply be the most Anti-Artillery server. The EU server is overall neutral, and the RU server loves artillery.
Also divided between people who think Soviet tanks are overpowered and people who think German tanks are overpowered.
The Americans seem to have their own base-breaking done. They are either balanced or underpowered.
Not to mention the influx of complaints against the Soviet T-54, the medium tank that borders on being a player-controlled Demonic Spider.
Add to that the developers' not so hidden anti-German bias — SerB has been on the record with his (semi-joking) quip that "Germanophiles must suffer" — and you get Flame Bait so ripe that it's best touched with at least a ten-foot pole if you absolutely have to touch it at all.

Tier X Tank Destroyers (particularly the Waffentrager "Waffletractor" auf E-100 and Fv215b "Death Star" 183) are this among the older community, which view these tanks as having far too much of a combination of view range, camo rating, penetration, and damage. The general opinion is that they can do far too much up front (alpha) damage with no drawbacks.
Autoloader tanks. In real life, very few of these designs ever saw mass production because of impracticality and maintenance-intensive nature.note Not so in World of Tanks, where they are all over the place in higher tiers. Instead of firing one shell at a time, they possess a 'clip' of 4-6 shells that can be fired rapidly, at the cost of very long clip reloads.note Since these tanks are usually so fast, they are often detested for being able to deal a high amount of damage in a short amount of time and rapidly retreat before they can be counterattacked. It doesn't help that Wargaming has introduced tanks like the Wt. auf E-100 that are basically fictional ala Secret Weapons Over Normandy.
Beyond even all of that, the "RNG" (Random Number Generator/God, in reference to the game's dispersion) puts several factors outside the player's control. Constant arguing ensues over if this is good for the game or not.

Nothing splits the base like the test server. A new test server is guaranteed to split the base into two camps: the RU server vs everyone else. This is because RU players have a reputation — deserved — for team-killing everything which has the sheer effrontery to be on the test server without an RU server tag. Explanations for this phenomenon range from nationalism, to a younger Russian playerbase, to a larger Russian playerbase (which leads to proportionately more G.I.F.T.), and finally, to a perception on the RU server that non-RU players are The Load. Whatever the reason behind the Russian team-killing phenomenon, it tends to lead to very ugly inter-server wars of words every time a new test is up. Thankfully, as of patch 9.0, TKing on the test server will get you banned on the live server too, which seems to have cut this down a little.
The "Monthly Challenge" in which you can get a free tank plus garage slot upon completion is so horribly biased in favor of elitist gamers who have no life and plenty of disposable income (Gold for real-life money) that casual gamers will never, ever come close to reaching even the 25% mark. Just to show you how cheap WarGaming is about giving away free tanks with a garage slot:

Gold Ammunition, especially since being made credit bought, with many players arguing they allow tanks to get out of situations where credit bought ammo simply isn't enough and many others considering it a scumbag move that lets those who use it 'buy skill' rather then bother to try and aim for weak points. This is especially frustrating to the drivers of super heavy tanks such as the Maus and T95 when a player sees them coming towards them and simply load in a HEAT round and blow straight through their armor.
Most "blueprint" tanks, i.e. tanks that never existed as anything other than a drawing or wood mockup, in general serve as base-breakers. This is mainly because they tend to be far more powerful (and were thus never produced because they were either impractical or simply impossible to make) than historically mass-produced tanks. These can range from white elephants that were never produced because they were ludicrously expensive (like the American T-29 and the British Tortoise), to the out-and-out doodles of a bored tank designer which had no possibility of ever seeing the light of day (most of the Japanese heavy tank line)note . The last of those are derided as "napkin tanks", the implication being that the only "design" work done was a sketch on a napkin during a tank designer's lunch break. One can get the impression that if a 1930-50 tank designer ever went off his head and drew a tank with impenetrable armor, a battleship cannon, and a helicopter rotor for flight, that tank would make an appearance as a premium tier 7 at some point.
The 9.14 sound effects changes were split between people who wanted Hollywood-style booms and the people who enjoyed the actual recordings of real tank guns. It's probable the former were suffering from The Coconut Effect.
The use of the XVM Mod, which shows players win rates during the matches. Its either a useful tool to adjust your play style to team performance, or something used by trolls and griefers to harass lower skill players over their stats (and of course for Team Killers to target the highest-skill players on their own team to eliminate).
The introduction of the Edelweiss and the Nameless Tank onto the SEA server (the latter had previously made its WoT debut in all servers of Blitz) fractured the fanbase when the EU and NA servers found out about it. The Nameless itself is also a base breaker for being overpowered due to its absurdly strong armor that makes it effectively invincible from the front and still quite tough from the sides. And the debut of both tanks was controversial on SEA because despite being considered Japanese premiums, their crews are permanently attached to the tanks and thus they can't be used in the normal crew-training role of a premium.