Jarulek said:
I don't see why this is a surprise to anyone. Wargaming has proven before that they don't give a shit about historical accuracy in regards to Tech-Tree Composition in any way.
Just look at the WaffenTrager E-100 to see my point. That was made up by Wargaming to take the place of the T10 German TD. There was a prototype that could have taken that place, the WaffenTrager Panther, but Wargaming decided that they'd rather create their own tank instead.
This has been a problem for some time in Wargamings stuff, and it will probably continue. I don't have so much of a problem with prototypes being put in but when a large chunk of the tanks in the game are either Paper or Prototype tanks, it does cause some problems, especially balancing. I think its something like nearly 60% of the tanks in game are Paper/Prototype tanks.
This is true. It's like the E50. The E50 was a paper project, and originally appearened in game as that paper project. Then WG decided they needed a T10 med and created a fantasy version of the E50, and then made the paper project version the 'E50m'.
The thing that sort of set this apart though was previously, WG took the time to try and justify what they were doing or just ignore complaints.
This time they flat out said that real ships were not worth the effort. They'd have to go through all that work of rebalancing. Mind you the game is in Alpha still. They're probably going to have to do that anyway unless they're trying to hustle the game out the door as fast as possible. I'm told they're already getting ready for Beta. Which is not reassuring, as it means the alpha went on for less than a month. Apparently they're still trying to get carriers mechanic to work right.
Further, and this is just my point of view: a ship is a hell of a lot different than the faceless masses of tanks and planes. Ask someone in the US (and probably Japan) about their Grandfather/Great Grandfather in WW2 and if they were army or army airforce, you might hear 'They drove a Sherman' or 'They flew a Thunderbolt'. If they were in the Navy they didn't serve on 'a Mahan Class' They served on the 'USS Reid'. It's a very different thing, and I don't think that WG realizes that their audience for this game is to going not to be the 'arcade' style players, as the matches for this take about a half an hour, and require an even higher degree of teamwork than any other WG game. The target audiance are supposedly the more 'RTS' players, but those same players are the one's most likely to take them to task over inaccuracies in the ships, let alone paper projects.
The complaints about refusing to include certain weapons on certain ship classes regardless of what they carried in real life are already coming in. Battleships are not allowed torpedoes, as an example, even though some classes carried them.
Sleekit said:
its maybe worth remembering that one of the genuinely great things about the tiering, spreading and win ratio balancing in WoT is that, if you want, you can quite happily just play any vehicle (or garage of vehicles) you want (that is there) and consoling yourself a little with that.
bound to be something you like

(if you're into this kind of thing)
to me that's always been one of the major attractions of the whole game.
now where's my Iowa and Graf Spee...
Iowa is a T9. Graf Spee is not in the game. The German Tech Tree will be post launch. and so far the Panzershiff (like Graff Spee) appear to be T4 prems in the battleship line, though this may change. by the time it comes out.