Greedy Goblin

Monday, January 30, 2012

Cap!

Few things puzzles me more than the inability of lot of players in World of Tanks to capture the enemy base.

No, I'm not talking about dying on the way there. I mean making it there, and not capturing but wandering away to find that last few enemies. Or not so few. Usually their bizarre behavior is just annoying waste of time, as it can take several minutes to find that last few tanks hiding somewhere. But in few, but not very rare case (I'd guess 3-5%) they lose the match because of it. The enemy captures while they are wandering around or simply the remaining enemies kill them all. Such loss is very annoying as it is clearly because of human stupidity. Obviously it's two-sided, I also won several matches where the enemy who clearly won did not cap.

I tell the two most memorable events: the first happened in Himmelsdorf. My girlfriend and me, with two randoms went up the hill. Killed three enemies there and lost one of the randoms. The rest of our team died without a single kill and the enemy started capturing. We ran down the enemy base, mostly in the hope to kill an AFK or arty before the inevitable defeat. However the capture indicator started to jump back as more and more people left the zone and went hunting for us. We killed an AFK and started capping, revealing our position, which made them run to us. One by one, fast ones arriving first. We won, after killing two or three scouts. From the capture bar we could tell that only a lone enemy tried to do the right thing: stand in the capture circle. The other happened on Arctic region when 5 vs 4 were alive after both teams zerged clockwise. Our 4 tanks reached the enemy capture zone, and started capturing. 3 enemies arrived to our base. I was defending and took two out before going down. This revealed where one of the enemies is. So the 4 tanks, all in the capture zone left it yelling "kill it, more points!". They were two Tier 7 and a pair of T5 who got in a platoon with someone. The helpless lone target was a Maus...

The funny thing is that the "Killing all enemies give no special rewards" statement is a loading screen wisdom, yet people keep claiming that killing them all is somehow more points. Such logic could be understood from someone who is far from the capture zone, but those who are near could enjoy the sure rewards of capturing and still leave it.

So this is something that I can't figure out, just watch it as a disaster happening.

Hot tip: if you are in a weak tank, don't rush and die, save yourself for later, and go cap. Others will ignore the opportunity.

8 comments:

Alkarasu said...

There are more to this madness, then just leaving, or screaming in chat to stop capturing. I've observed several times, when someone from my own team shoot and destroyed the one capturing the enemy base, who decided to ignore the screams and keep capturing, just to continue the hunt (and, more than once, loosing after that).

Anonymous said...

"Hot tip: if you are in a weak tank, don't rush and die, save yourself for later, and go cap. Others will ignore the opportunity."

Was trying this tactic with my B-20 and all I got back from team was "omg light go scout you noob" and when I refused to be a "hero" I got back "we lost because no scout"...then I changed my tactik.
I advanced half map, to find a sweet spot so arty wont reach me and stay there untill we got some kills in that area, then advance a little more and so on.
Another tactik I used was to wait 1 minute at the start of the battle, then go forward full spead but in zig-zag, spot the arty and nuke it. Two times I mannage to kill 2 arty like this, several times only one and most of times none.
I got my T-34 yesterday and Im glad my days as light tank are finaly over.

chewy said...

I've never played this game so I'm taking what you say at face value.

They've effectively won once they are in that position of being able to take victory. It's like being 20 - 0 up with 15 minutes still to play they can't possibly lose from this position and as you say 95% of the time they don't.

With the odds stacked in their favour from this position they just never imagine that they will be the 1 in 20 who loses. It reminds me of the theft victim who when asked "Did you lock your car ?" replies "no need, it has never been stolen before".

Anonymous said...

This is also a common mistake in Chess. Once a novice player gains advantage he tends to try to strip the opponent of all the other pieces to leave him with a "bare king" instead of devising a more clever and quick winning strategy.

This is due because usually a novice's endgame skills are still lacking and removing all pieces from the opponent is the most straightforward thing to do. Devising a checkmate against a bare king is much easier if you have the pieces to force it. Also it's psychologically rewarding to them to "overpower" the opponent this way.

The clever player learns to play better when the opponent actually manages to draw or even win the game even with huge material inferiority. The problem is, not all players are clever...

shamus said...

I'd say it was obvious. Sitting still doing nothing is boring. Fighting other people is fun.

The flaw here is the game mechanic of the capture bar. It is pure game mechanic. Change this game mechanic - have capture happen by the players actually doing something.

DAOC had this. Keeps had NPC defenders, keep doors that needed breaking down and keep lords that needed killing. Way more fun than just standing there waiting for some bar to complete.

Emmanuel ISSALY said...

If you *think* the team will win without you, it makes goblin sense to go hunting stragglers (the exception being, if you think you can get most of the cap points by yourself). "Killing all enemies give no special rewards" is not totally true. It should just read "Killing all enemies give no special rewards to the team". It certainly does give a hefty xp & credits bonus to *you* :)

Frostys said...

THey want people to kill the last tank because the formulae for XP take into account damage made by your whole team so another kill from anyone on the team is extra XP for you too. The only problem with thier thinking is they forgot how low the multiplier for that XP is so it's worth much elss than capping.

Armond said...

This is a typical novice mistake across many games. People in general prefer to win big over barely winning; this indicates a failure to understand the marginal advantage.