The In-Game Complaint System

Wargaming.net has provided an explanation of the in-game reporting system.

The 4 choices have been a bit vague (see link above), well, at least one was truly vague: "Unfair play."  Tf zactly does that mean?

After reading the blurb, my thots:

The game masters will arbitrarily act on player reports, unless there's tons accumulated on a specific player.

A player receives an informant ranking. The ranking decreases for false complaints, increases for justified complaints, and remains unchanged if complaint reports are unprocessed. Low ranking informants will be penalised. The number of complaints per player a day (a battle) is limited and depends on the ranking.

And/or, otherwise, if I report enough players that others do not, it can go bad for my "ranking" in the report system.  Lemme get this straight ... this reporting system has blowback?  Even Mario Van Peebles would have a problem with this....

I have been reporting players afk as "unfair play," as I thought that was the only choice for being afk (I am boggled that there is not an afk choice). But I will no longer.

Questions:

1. Will wg request replays? Do they keep them now? Can they make their own?
2. Do gms observe battles? Spot check? Do any sort of "foot patrol?" They should -- they do in the forums....
3. Are there any plans to hire more game masters? Warm, human bodies simply do a better job than any automated reporting system.

tl;dr: Why bother reporting someone when doing so runs the risk of harming my rank in the reporting sytem?

tl;dr2: It all just feels like placation.

tl;dr3: Hire more game masters....

tl:dr4: If I wanted to grief, having read about the reporting system, I would feel that I could get away with a lot....

What players look for instead when wanting to report (my additions are in underline):

Insult or provocation
A complaint referring to chat logs: bypassing swear-filters, personal insults, etc. Multiple complaints will lead to examination of player’s chat longs.

AFK:
A player never left spawn point since map started, and remained immobile, not even turning the turret, for the first 5 minutes of the game [the duration is subjective; I just picked 5 minutes]

Griefing:
A player has intentionally blocked or shot you, etc., whether doing damage or not. Their actions directly impacted your game play. Or, they told the other team your location via chat.

Unfair play
A complaint referring to intentional blockings of team vehicles. Passing onto enemy information about team location and damage conditions is considered to be a violation. [Scratching this one since it is too obscure]

Team damage
Intentional infliction of damage is tracked automatically. A report would be considered as credible if it points at an obvious team-killer or team-damager in terms of the automated system (if there is no way to check a specific battle).

Bot (Please be aware player may be lagging)
A player must be checked in terms of her/his presence in a bot-master search system. With a significant number of complaints against a player it makes sense to check her/his battle performance (average experience, number of tanks destroyed, damaged, etc.). [This one needs the parenthetical I added]


In the end, the reporting feels, pretty much, like this:

Wolf Packs Don't Stop....

That is, they don't stop attacking.  They should swarm, circle strafe, focus on one...

I'm using a case example here to discuss how I think wolf packs should behave. If you know this, good. If not, read on.

tl;dr: gather-up, pick-terrains-with-most-cover, move-together, never-stop, focus-on-one, do-not-give-them-time, do-not-give-them-range-of-field.

Map: Steppes
Tank: T59

Us:

5 - Type 59
2 - Panther II
1 - Panther I
2 - Pershing
1 - Patton
1 - T32
1 - T95
1 - IS-4
1 - Lowe

VS

Them:

2 - T34
1 - VK4502PB
2 - IS-3
1 - Lowe
1 - ISU-152
1 - Type 59
2 - Tiger I
1 - Tiger I P
3 - KV-3
1 - T-50-2

I thought everyone saw what I did: massive, super-massive, medium rush left, to rocks: provides cover, swarm victims, neutral heavy advantage, it gives cover from fire, meds easier to maneuver around hills and rocks than heavies, heavies needing range of field instead of maneuver, etc.... Plus, their heavies will have a hard time getting back to defend if they went to a predictable, opposite-side of map, valley push, and we can rush cap and win!

At countdown I yell, "Medium rush left!!!" And ping over there.

Map starts, I hit RSG and ... by myself, head left. I see the vast majority of all the rest of our mediums head right. I give, and go with them, thinking, "well, 99% of random bats have majority push left, their heavies will want to push left (their left) into the valley, if we run into a bunch of their heavies, it'll be tough, but if we swarm, and/or, if they pushed mostly right instead, could do, as long as we don't stop."

Our few heavies went left into rocks.

To recap:
1st: The worst place to go with medium swarm IMVHO on Steppes, is valley/opposite rock-hills, giving range of field to enemy. Mediums do best in a pack, swarming, circle strafing, etc.
2nd: The worst thing to do in a medium pack is not to swarm, but get into a duck-&-shoot, peek-a-boo fight with them. Key is for all of us to focus on the biggest tier we encounter, take it out, move on to next -- so many of us they will not focus on just one, and we're shufflin', etc.

As we get to their side of the map, coming up from valley, red lights begin rising -- it ... is ... their ... entire heavy battery. Still, we need to swarm. I lead, having taken the higher plateau and with RSG, I'm near even with our leaders if not ahead. I see the VK4502PB separated from the pack. There's a minute or so before the other can clear the slight hill to level fire if on him, and I move in. I begin circle-strafing. I look, and what is the massive pack of mediums doing I brought with me? They have full, tilt, halted in the valley, waiting for peek-a-boo and duck-&-shoot.

So, having gone to the wrong part of the map, they now do the thing they shouldn't, and do not swarm and take out the VK4502PB.

I stayed in the thick too long: engine gone, gunner gone, 2 hp. I join them in their duck-&-shoot/peek-a-boo.

Needless to say, the enemy heavies prevailed, and decimated our medium division with not enough of them taken out. Our vaunted wolf pack died ... like melting snow on hot pavement.

Amazingly, we won, but it got down to the T95 and one last camping Pershing, who did nothing to help the T95 vs the 2 last heavies.

T95 finished Top Gun. He had gone right, then came back middle and pulled it off some how.

Panther Ausf. G

Or, specifically:

Germany 1/72 German Pz.Kpfw. Panther Ausf.G (Sd.Kfz. 171)

I've not touched it in months, and longer, as my "shop" is currently in transition.  To do: decals, clear-coat, finish diorama, etc.  I have left spare tracks off and made other decisions along the way, such as _not_ gluing mantlet, instead, designing a mechanism to make it movable, _not_ gluing crew hatches (as you can see in pics).

The paint design is based on the Bovington, England Panther:

This model was done 99% by hand -- and that means mostly paint.  Only the base white trim was sprayed.  I spent waaay too much time hand painting, touching-up, sanding.  I have since gotten an Aztec spray gun which should make the next one much easier: