THE MAUS THAT ROARED
World of Tanks is now six years old, and Wargaming intends to keep the hit free-to-play game fresh and relevant for years to come. But not everyone is happy with the latest changes being rolled out. We talk to KIEREN ‘SKELL’ MOORE and CHRISTIAN ‘SAFFE’ SA
We recently had the chance to chat with two of the best World of Tanks players in Australia, Kieren Moore (Skell) and Christian Safko (Saffe), at the Wargaming League APAC Season II Finals held in Taipei. We spoke hours before their climactic battle with the seemingly unstoppable favourites from Red China, EL Gaming, and our conversation touched on such topics as the need for rigorous discipline in training when everyone in your team has day jobs.
But the topic that concerned Skell and Saffe the most was the major re-balance applied to the Tier X meta in mid-January that gave a huge buff to the Maus. This in turn reduced the relative effectiveness of the traditional Tier X tournament favourite, the Batignolles-Châtillon 25t (AKA the Batchat – some call it the Batmobile), a high-speed, high-skill ceiling tank infamous for its devastating burst damage.
Skell is convinced that these buffs to the Maus have been a disaster for tournament play. “I think instead of more possibilities, there’s a lot less possibilities now. In almost every city map, and half of the open maps, the Maus just is too strong. Its gun is good now. It’s just too hard to fight directly, without your own Maus.”
Saffe elaborated. “The other problem is because it’s so slow, previously you could have the initial fight breaking out within the first minute. The first 90 seconds. Now it takes two to three minutes half the time to even get the Maus to the front line. And that doesn’t give you a lot of room to actually use the whole width of the map. Because you just don’t have time to move back and forward. It actually does limit the way you can play. And that’s what you see. If you look at the screen now, most teams pretty much play the same, with small tiny variables here and there, where they decide to make their big push.
“That’s mainly in city maps. Open maps are still played pretty much the same. The only difference is, once again, the Maus is there instead of maybe another heavy tank. You would never have seen a Maus on Steppes, previously. You wouldn’t have seen a Maus on Prokhorovka previously. You probably wouldn’t have seen it on Murovanka either. Now you see it purely because it is not just a defensive block. It has a lot of attack possibilities. Like Skell said, the gun is great.”
Skell concurred. “It’s great. And it’s an amazing anchor, for any team. Because it is so hard to take it down. Even with two or three Batchats focussing on it completely. That would be enough to take it down, but then you’ve spent three autoloaders’ clips to take one tank. That’s just how difficult it is to play against directly.”
Rapidly, clearly, and concisely, the pair relayed their concerns; a hint at how a superior e-sports team communicates under pressure. When asked point blank if they believed the recent changes to the meta were a mistake, their response was succinct, and instant: “Yes.”
The folly of buffing the lumbering German mega-tank was a point that Saffe could not stress enough. “I think once again, we keep mentioning this, the Maus is supposed to be a defensive tank, that you can use as an anchor. I have no problems with how they buffed the armour on it. But buffing its HP pool and increasing its HP was... There was no need for it. And they’re giving it a gun that’s pretty much better than every other tank... Where’s the logic behind it? Why would you play another tank, when you can play something that has the best armour, and pretty much one of the most accurate guns in the game.
“Keep the armour, that’s fine. But the gun needs to be nerfed, so you only use it for defensive purposes. That’s my thoughts behind it at least.” Saffe’s opinion definitely reflected the state of play at the tournament that weekend. In just about every battle each team fielded at least three Mauses – sometimes four. In one battle Saffe, an ardent Batchat fan, even drove a Maus himself, and managed to pull off a daring flanking attack. At the tournament level at least, World of Tanks has become World of Mauses.
At the time of our conversation, Wargaming was on the cusp of launching the long-awaited 9.18 patch, with its promised streamlined match-maker, and complete rework of artillery.
An ardent light tank player, Skell chose to reserve judgement on how the addition of Tier X light tanks will pan out. “It’s hard to say exactly how much the light tanks will change both the pub games and what we do in WGL. It’s really hard to say. We really don’t know until you get the tanks in their final form and you get to see exactly what effect that will have. Especially when you compare them to the existing medium tanks. And whether their speed and agility can really offset the DPM of the existing medium tanks.
“As for artillery, it’s really hard to say. For pub games, it’s going to have a huge impact. It’ll definitely bring players back. But once again, until the final form, it’s really
now, most teams pretty much play the same, with small tiny variables here and there
hard to say exactly what effect it will have, especially in WGL. Where at the moment there is some artillery being played, but not a great deal.”
Saffe ventured the opinion that Wargaming’s efforts might be better focussed elsewhere. “For me, personally, I don’t see a need for Tier X light tanks right now. I think there needs to be more work towards making WGL more suitable for the casual gamer. Which it’s not at the moment. The e-sports format is very different. They need to figure out a way to work around that rather than introducing new tanks. That’s my opinion. But like Skell said, it needs to be reworked, and I’m glad they’re trying.
“We don’t know what the end result is going to be. If it’s going to be positive or negative. I guess we’re just going to have to wait and see.”
At a press conference two days prior, Wargaming’s head of global competitive gaming Mohamed ‘Mo’ Fadl spoke at length about the need to make e-sports more of a viable career path for players, and floated the possibility of giving the best players base salaries so they needn’t work day jobs on the side.
When I asked Skell and Saffe whether they thought this could be a worthwhile initiative, their response was grounded – Saffe asserted that the best way to grow World of Tanks as an e-sport is to make the tournament format more accessible within the client.
“They need to, once again, make some kind of in-game system where the average player can just jump in to a battle, which is the same format as the WGL format. Right now it’s not that easy. You can’t just go click Battle, get thrown into a random team, and then go and learn the ways of how WGL is played. That’s probably the biggest thing they need to work on right now.
“The player base in certain regions are smaller. That’s fair enough. But the player base that plays WGL, is, I’m not even sure if they have 5%. 5-10% are maybe aware of it. Maybe a bit higher. But 2-3% are playing it. Fix that, and you will grow e-sports. Simple as that. You need players to play. It’s all well and good talking about salaries. Sure. I would love to get some kind of salary from it. But it’s not realistic until you actually have the player base, and that’s what they need to work on. That’s my opinion, though.”
There are other aspects of the game with room for improvement – Saffe was critical of several of the maps currently in rotation in pub games. “There’s a few maps that just needs to be reworked. Like El Halluf, which is mainly just three squares where you battle it out. Windstorm is a horrible map. Basically, most of the new maps they’ve introduced are actually pretty bad. Because they’re just corridor maps. There’s nowhere for me to flank, and you just have to fight engagements head on, which in a Batchat is terrifying. Because you need some kind of manoeuvrability where you can actually go out wide and find openings. Which you don’t on a city map. You don’t know what’s around the corner.” An RU-251 aficionado, Skell held the same opinion.
As our audience drew to a close, Skell used his parting words to thank Team Efficiency’s fans for their support. “We’re always reading back a lot of the chats, and seeing people support us. And that’s amazing. For us who aren’t actual professionals, it’s incredible. It’s weird.”