Returning to Game I've Spent 2000 Hours and I Have To Start Over

So there's this theory of 10,000 hours. In order to achieve mastery in a given subject, be it cooking, playing drums, or chess, you just have to spend 10,000 hours practicing (the practicing has to be smart and in-depth, but this is not the place for details) – of course, it's no guarantee of winning the Roland Gaross tournament or becoming an Olympic medalist. Simply put, after about this much time, we get to a professional level (if you're curious about this, you might want to read the book The Talent Code).

During the last 10 years, I spent about 2 thousand hours in World of Tanks – it's hard to estimate it exactly, because there's no clock in the game, which isn't exorbitant by the game's standards, but is quite impressive as sheer number. In theory, I should be a really good player – and I guess I used to be doing quite well. My win/lose ratio is 55%, which is quite good for a competitive online game with big servers, where you play with 14 random players in your team. The average W/L ratio is about 50% or less, and the best players, on the other hand, reach 60% (with the number even higher for team players, who play with clan most of the time). Bottom line: I was a decent player.

The big comeback, the big flop

In 2021, after a few years of hiatus, I decided to return to World of Tanks. At the time, the third wave of coronavirus was underway, so what better thing to do than shoot some tanks? So I downloaded the game, launched it, and spent quite a while trying to figure out all the new features. There was season pass straight from mobile games (quite nicely done, by the way), missions and campaigns, additional modes. The result, however, is that a new or returning player may find the interface difficult to grasp. New currencies, windows, buttons, bonuses – if I hadn't used the support of a friend, also a WoT veteran, who never gave up on the game and who patiently answered all my questions (even the dumber ones), I probably wouldn't have fully rejoined the game. Especially since...

...it was on the battlefield that I actually got hit in the head with a shrapnel. In theory, the gameplay in World of Tanks hasn't changed much over the years – the rules are the same, and the types of tanks and their roles on the battlefield have remained unchanged, but that doesn't mean you can just come back after a few years of break and rock the game again. Above all, the clashes prove faster than they were a few years ago. Flash battles with questionable, not to say hopeless, balance (a 15:1 simulator, as players often say), wheeled light tanks running wild on the battlefield, and a plethora of new vehicles – including such gimmickry as double-barrelled Russian heavy tanks. And of course there many new maps. Unfortunately, you want to go back – you have to feel like a noob who doesn't get anything.

150 hours of painful learning

All this made me play a hopeless case at first – one player even accused me of buying a smurf account because I apparently wasn't doing as well as my stats might have indicated.... I was just learning the new tanks. How fast they shoot, how much damage they do, and of course – where they have their weak spots. I watched videos of pros like skill4ltu or QuickyBaby, to see them play and listen to their advice. By trial and error, many errors, I learned new maps and new strategies. At first, it was a bit of a ploughshare – and more than once I ended a WoT session with a furious rage quit after I stupidly died again.

Over time, I started feeling more confident, but that doesn't mean I'm back to the level I was at years ago. Again, however, I followed the changes in the game, enjoyed the new season pass, read information about upcoming tanks (soon to be released line of Czech heavy vehicles) – in other words, I became a member of the community again, the best proof of which is that – just like before – I started to get pissed off at Wargaming's bad decisions or its hopeless approach to monetizing the game (which is a story for a separate column). Despite spending this year in World of Tanks I've already spent over 150 hours this year, but I still make stupid mistakes, there are maps I still haven't learned, and I'm far below my old scores. To this day, I also don't really touch level 10 (my favorite is level 8) because my skills and knowledge of the game are still too poor to perform satisfactorily at the highest tiers. And so it slowly goes on, this painful learning of a game I once nearly mastered.

Game-service, be simpler!

World of Tanks, as you might guess, is just part of a wider phenomenon – this is my personal one, but I'm sure many of you have had similar problems returning to League of Legends or Warframe. I myself have several such games that – despite trying – I have not been able to return to. I don't know how to re-learn Path of Exile, even though I once spent close to 100 hours in that game. Even more amusing is my adventure with Stellaris – a title I once properly tested, because I... reviewed it. After a couple of years, I tried to go back to it, but subsequent updates and additions changed so much that... I soon gave up.

Of course, I understand where this "problem" comes from – what makes it difficult for me to learn a once well-known game from scratch is also a salvation for its loyal fans. Updates, fresh maps or modes are necessary to keep the hardcore fans with the game, and without them the production will die. Reason says the two interest groups cannot be reconciled. However, one would like to see long-lived games handle the returning players better after years away. Too bad it will probably remain just a pipe dream.