World of Tanks Blitz

Great game - played it before War Robots and really enjoyed it.

worldoftanks.com/dcont/fb/wot_guide/world_of_tanks_game_manual_en_com_web_8_8.pdf

This guide might be useful if you haven't seen it already.

Slightly clunky tech-tree but gameplay and MM was always good. It's a more "player friendly" game than War Robots in my view.

All controls map v well to a gamepad on iOS making it good fun. Lock and load!

Played mostly about two years ago - then the Hearthstone bug got me for a while followed by War Robots. I havent played it a lot recently so I'm happy to give my feedback on my overall experience but I could be out of date on some of the latest changes.

The game Gets regularly updated and has a lot of different tanks and a diverse tech tree enabling you to build some powerful tanks. You can add in temp upgrades. No real need for a lot of in game spending of real money as it's fairly easy to grind for exp.

The strengths were the matches: They last about the right length of time, the MM was never really a problem as you were not so reliant on your team, and I rarely came across tankers, campers, or faders. If you lost it was more like "meh" and if you won it was more like "yay". Rather than the teeth grinding snarls that one emits when a War Robots battle goes wrong (usually due to some completely ridiculous activity or inactivity of team mates). Graphics, sound, controls, UI and playing satisfaction were all very good.

The weaknesses were very small and unavoidable in my opinion. Because it's a user friendly game and designed to be accessible to all ages, abilities etc it didn't offer the same hardcore challenge that you or I have with War Robots. Ergo: the delicate balance of frustration in a game - some players thrive on it and play more to win others get annoyed and throw their teddy bear out of the pram...

A particular favourite feature of mine was that you get "pinged" by the other team. ie you get alerted when some enemy has spotted you. There is no constant gamertag on your head like in War Robots. If you ping an enemy then your team also gets alerted to his position leading to some strategic play.

In summary: Definitely worth the enormous effort of downloading and playing highly recommend using a game pad if you use iOS iPad or mobile phone. Not a boring frustrating game and it is player friendly. Might get too tame over time as not as hardcore as War Robots. Enjoy!

p.s my last go on WofT was about 2 weeks ago but I'll have to check it out again now that I have been thinking about it...

My advice: Don't. 

Or at the very least, do not spend any money on Blitz. There was recently a big exodus from that game (which landed me here, actually) because of a huge fundamental change applied that nobody wanted. Players got back about 8% of what the devs took away, according to folks who did more math than I did. 

The gameplay itself is good. Each tank subtype (light, medium, heavy, tank destroyer) has a general role. The matches aren't too long, either. You're less reliant on the team to perform than in War Robots, and by using stealth and ambushes you can get a lot done sometimes. The match isn't doomed if someone on your team is AFK for example. The servers are awful compared to the demand, worse than War Robots has ever been for me. Sometimes you'll spend upwards of 30 seconds immobile via lag, and you'll "wake up" to having been destroyed. Regardless of connection or device capabilities, mind you. There's also hit location and and detection, with relative realism. If you have a bad angle on a shot or hit a heavily armored portion of a tank, your round many bounce off to little or no effect. You can aim for tracks to temporarily immobilize an opponent, and shots to sections can damage parts and impair function. Ranking is also not really a thing, you're matched against tanks in a similar tier to the one you embark with. If you're in a tier one, you probably won't see anything above tier two. Even if a skilled player is using a tier two, they have to rely only on skill and can still be destroyed as easily as anyone else, so "seal clubbing" isn't really a thing.

If you're intent on playing, start with the American T1 as your starter tank. All Tier 1 vehicles are totally free to buy and use (or were when I started, I assume they still are) but the T1 is the most balanced and user friendly to learn on. Each nation's vehicles will follow a trend, and I suggest getting familiar with those trends and figuring out which works for you with initial upgrading. It takes a long time and a LOT of play to upgrade anything past Tier 4.

From memory... 
American vehicles tend to be balanced, often to a fault.
German vehicles tend to be more accurate.
Russian vehicles tend to have larger, more powerful weapons.
UK vehicles lean toward heavy armor, especially past Tier 4. 
Japanese and French tech trees were pretty barren when I left, not much to them. I never used them.

Funny anecdote for the UK ones, I was using my old AT2, which is horrendously well armored, but lacks in other areas (speed, firepower, turret traverse.) Most of the opposing team rammed me, held me still in a box, and they all opened fire point blank. I survived over thirty seconds, shooting back to some effect, and the match review screen showed that I took a huge number of hits that failed to damage me. It was awesome in its own, just taking that much concentrated effort to kill.

Just reminiscing though. The devs shafted the player base and don't deserve another dime. Ever.

The armor by area and spotting systems are the true crowns on WoT as a whole. They make the gameplay solid as it is. It's entirely possible to have a weapon that can't penetrate a given target's front, which forces one to get a batter angle or shoot out tracks for a buddy to have easier shots. Or try to push them off a cliff. 

American vehicles tend to lack outstanding strengths. It presents a challenge in that they're less suited to the particular role that type of tank may serve, but can cover down on other roles. For example, many American Heavy tanks have less armor and firepower than other nation's heavy counterparts, but will often have higher rates of fire and/or movement, essentially acting like bigger Mediums than true Heavies. Their hull armor is also poorly angled, meaning they're not much more effective at absorbing or bouncing rounds than medium tanks would be without proper cover.

In short, most American tanks in the game suffer from "Master of None" syndrome.  It's totally on the player whether it's a strength or a weakness, but that needs a lot of situational awareness and coordination to make work. 

I played the console version. For me the control in blitz is confusing. Easier to control mech in War Robots than tank in Blitz

But yes the matchmaking and gameplay is better than War Robots. More tactic involved.

I dont know in Blitz, but in the console version its getting harder to use light tank after tier IV regardless any nation.

Oh, is there a console version for Blitz? I thought it's WoT only.

I see... So the tech tree is applied solely to the tank we've chose. So it's more like upgrading the unit, not like upgrading the Age in RTS, right?

More like upgrading path of life hahahaha
So you choose what role you want to play. As arty, tank hunter, scout etc and go with it from tier 1 to 10. Sometimes the tree do have branch so you can change role if you want.

For example if you want to play with Tiger you have to choose path as German heavy tank and look in the tree how to get there. The problem is if midway you want to change to Jagdpanther (a tank hunter) you need to make a branching with the Tiger line. Somecase this back to Tier 1 tank.

The game essentially forces you to push multiple lines anyway. When a tank is in battle, even if you've left that battle, the tank is unavailable to you until it concludes. You can't have more than one of a given tank, either. And your slots are limited unless you spend gold to buy more slots, which is very expensive. It will force you to either branch into other lines in the same nation's tech tree for different tank types, or use your preferred tank type from each country (which is what I did.) Either way, you're never just leveling a single tank. Ever. Aside, some tank lines take huge shifts from previous models, requiring a plausible change anyway. A good example is the UK Tank Destroyer line, which has Tank Alecto and the AT-2 as the tier 4 and 5, respectively. The Alecto is one of the lightest, smallest, lightest, fastest vehicles available; sporting armor like cardboard, it's ultra light weight and high speed make it capable of very silly tactics, like driving up hills that almost nothing else can, and certainly nothing else as well armed. It's successor, the AT-2, is one of the slowest tanks in the game, sporting truly ludicrous armor for its tier. I liked them both, but they require totally opposing styles of play to make work. This is one of the most extreme examples possible, but it's one I know personally.

And premium tanks are a scam. They cost a LOT of gold, and they're generally inferior to non-premium tanks of the same tier. They do come maxed out from the get-go, so you can convert any XP earned on them to free XP... for a fee. They also provide a silver earned bonus, I think,  but it's not worth spending the gold if that's what you're after.

The gameplay is good, but the logistics of maintaining WoT are downright painful. I'm not trying to make your choice for you, but I do strongly recommend staying out of the rabbit hole.