Random: World Of Tanks Dev Would "Love" To Do An Advance Wars Collab

Great, can’t wait for them to take one of my childhood favorites and shove it into a free-to-play mode with a steep paywall!

Anything that would shine a light on this series is good in my book. Even if it’s World of Tanks.

I would just like the Advance Wars team to collaborate with themselves at this point.

You trolls! I saw the picture and got my hopes up! I'd kill to get a new Advance Wars, or just collection on Switch!

In all seriousness, I would love a return of Advance Wars... just I wouldn’t trust this company to handle it. The last thing I want to see is AW return with a game that charges real money to unlock stronger units.

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I checked out blitz a few years ago on mobile, and I don't remember it being too agregious in the free to play sense. It was cosmetic only as far as I remember. Although I think I saw some premium service you can get now in the game some time back. I just wished they didn't cheap out and just gave us the console version rather than blitz. In fact why didn't they do that? playing the definitive version on the go could have been a great selling point.

Getting off topic, would love to see a new advance wars on the switch, seems like the perfect system for it.

@ShadJV Came here to see how long it'd take for someone to criticize the monetization structure. Was not disappointed.

Can we just get an ACTUAL Advance Wars, first..?

@Wilforce do you think massive paywalls are good models for games then?

@ShadJV If you look at the statistics for W/L's the free players and premium players are generally balanced. It's possible to get top tier in Blitz without dropping any money. Compared to the PC version, Blitz isn't pay-to-win, which if you enjoy the game then a paywall shouldn't be a barrier to entry because you're giving back to the developers for producing a game you enjoy. At that point it's like asking if you would rather drop $30 every few months on a free to play game you enjoy or pay a subscription fee.

For me it’s really sad that Fire Emblem pushed aside Advance Wars .... Fire Emblem’s combat triangle is pretty basic compared to Advance Wars units and strategy tbh.

I guess people preferred waifus instead of a more complex strategy game.

@fafonio Lol, yup. We can't date a tank or a group of Mechs, otherwise we would have had a new game by now haha

@ShadJV I agree with you. I really dislike the free-2-play model of game design. It's warping the industry. And I'm sick of the "bUt its totaRY fee to ply if ur gud at deh game!" defense that so many people make. Sure it's free to play, if you're willing to grind for dozens, sometimes hundreds of hours to unlock content that they're letting other players simply buy.

Many of these "free" games end up making hundreds to even thousands of dollars off of individual players. And those players still end up only having a fraction of the content unlocked. And "free" players always have things or content they can never unlock no matter how much they play because some items are forever premium, or are limited time and based around RNG for getting them.

@Heavyarms55 I don’t even dislike free to play depending on how it’s handled. But World of Tanks has a steep paywall that you hit sooner or later, and to even have a decent tier tank you’re shelling out $30+. God forbid you don’t do enough research and waste that money on a tank that doesn’t even hold up in the meta.

There’s games like Dragalia Lost that are generous enough to its free to play players that you never really need to pay. You never hit a wall. They constantly give everyone free pulls in the gacha. That I’m fine with - if a company is going free to play and has a wall that you essentially need to pay to get past, they may as well have made it paid... and when there’s one wall, you know you’ll hit more, so you never know how much money you’re expected to shell out. It’s dishonest because it’s a sinkhole of money. When free to play games don’t have a wall, they generally are fairly successful anyways because a majority of these games make their profit from whales (who will pay the money regardless, even just for minor things). If I play a good free to play game and it never forces me to buy anything, I usually end up spending some money on it because I’m enjoying my experience. If I play one that I hit a wall, I generally just quit because it’s just a dishonest model. I don’t know how much they’re expecting me to pay.

I just really miss Advance Wars games. I think this franchise has been the victim of Fire Emblem's success.

@fafonio I’m not a fan of comparing the two because they’re just so different. FIre Emblem indeed has strategy, but it’s strategy is more long term than Advance Wars. AW’s strategy is fully within the map you’re playing as resources don’t carry over. It’s knowing what to deploy and how to use it effectively. Meanwhile, FE’s strategy stretches over the entire game. It’s about knowing how to read a unit’s usefulness, investing in its growth and equipment, and focusing on the right units to build a balanced team. Not to mention adapting to bad level ups and learning when to give up on a unit.

The slight differences in genre make it like comparing apples to oranges in that they’re both fruit but very different. AW is more purely a turn based strategy game while FE is a turn based strategy RPG. On the surface they look similar, and the weapon and magic triangles are definitely simpler than AW’s unit interaction, but there’s a lot more stats to take into account.

That being said, Fire Emblem is just as much as victim of itself as Advance Wars is. The past three titles have focused more and more on social aspects to the point that yeah, there’s a waifu focus. Complex strategy has been shoved to the side for the sake of accessibility (the game only has challenge on the highest difficulty now and at that point the strategy is shallow in a different way). All the entries before Awakening have been much more complex and strategic. But the people have spoken and they want waifus over strategy...

Sure, rub in the salt ... 🤨 I would much prefer we talk about AW in terms of an AW game, not about some cosmetics in a game totally unrelated to AW except for the existence of tanks.

@ShadJV If I may chime in here for just a sec. I think an important differentiation between FE and AW is the distinction between strategy and tactic:

Clausewitz - and I am shortening and paraphrasing here of course - argued in "Vom Kriege" that tactics is essentially the science of deploying units on the field of battle, whereas strategy is in essence the art of the utilization of such battles for the purpose of warfare.

I think this is useful in the sense that AW is almost entirely concerend with tactics. FE is also very much concerned with tactics, but the longer you go, the more your strategic decisions, (read: who you deployed and you did with the gains from individual battles) matter and becoming a deciding factor.

Sadly, that strategic aspect has been entirely undone in recent FE games by making ressources, be it XP, gold, items or support levels (the spoils of battles), basically infinite. Any mistake you may have made along the journey, any less than optimal decision, can be overcome by grinding. Thus I think the moniker of "s"RPG has unfortunately become meaningless.

All that really matters now is tactics and your endurance to repeat battles over and over again ... ☹ As much as I like Awakening, and how it saved the franchise, it also paved the way for killing the games unique appeal.

I would just like another Advance Wars. Loved this series

I also can't believe they removed the AW Assist trophy in Ultimate. The only representation now is just 3 Spirits (plus 1 FAMICOM spirit). And Max and Sami aren't even the spirits...

@Ralek85 you hit the nail on the head. The essentially infinite resources has made strategy less meaningful in the series, which is the point I was getting at. The games weren’t always this way - earlier games were brutal enough that you could back yourself into a corner and find the game nearly unwinnable, if you don’t have some long term planning. Fates and Echoes had it worst with the unbreakable weapons, IMO. 3 Houses has a great story, don’t get me wrong... but I’m nearing the end of my second playthrough (I took a long break after the first) and at this point I don’t even attempt to employ strategy in the slightest. I have a huge abundance in weapons and money, my characters are somehow overleveled despite me not doing any extra battles, and death is meaningless with over a dozen “rewinds”... Sacred Stones was probably my favorite game in the series, and sure, that had extra maps for grinding, but like... grinding had to be done CAREFULLY due to other resources. Extra maps only gave a small amount of gold and you could burn through weapons on those maps if you try to go too crazy with grinding. That’s a good balance for me. Now the only way to squeeze out challenge is the highest difficulty in each game and... well, the challenge isn’t even managing resources and planning ahead at that point and it loses most of the fun.

Awakening was such a double edged sword. I mean, the series was pretty niche before then and, at the rate it was going, would’ve likely ended up like Advance Wars - not profitable enough for Nintendo to keep it going. Awakening gave it the much needed popularity... but simultaneously, the fans it drew in were less concerned with strategy and more concerned with the “anime story and characters”, solidifying the future of the series. And maybe, just maybe, there was a chance both could coexist. Casual mode, after all, meant the game could be both accessible for those in it for the story, while classic mode meant the game could be challenging for those in it for the strategy. Sadly, Nintendo saw the bigger audience at that point was the newer fans and decided to focus more on them (and financially it was probably smarter, given how successful 3 Houses was, but man I will always miss the style of the older games).

That being said, I do still miss Advance Wars, just for different reasons. Being able to start each map with a clean slate, building your army with no regard for the next battle... it was its own beast, and also very fun. I don’t know much about Clausewitz, but what I’m understanding is that was more about tactics than strategy, and either way I love both for different reasons. The closest I’ve felt to that AW feel is Wargroove, and while it is incredibly fun, its take on commanders feels so subtle. I really loved how each CO in AW had a passive that affected their whole army and a power that affected the whole field. I still hope someday Nintendo might revive this series. After all, they do sometimes give old IPs another go. I just hope it ends up being more popular... but without giving up its deep tactics.

No. Don't. World of Tanks is nothing like advance wars, and it's super pay to win. I'd rather they just re release the originals with only a handful of quality of life changes on the Eshop. Or y'know, make a new game.

@HarryHyruleHero @ShadJV @Wilforce With almost 4,500 battles under my belt across PC, XBox, and Blitz, my win rate is currently over 50% (54.9% for Blitz, 54% on XBox, and 50% on PC. EDIT: I had to look up my PC stats on a 3rd party efficiency calculator site, I did better than I thought). I'm not even the best at it, but I still have a good time. I've never felt the need to pay for...what, exactly?

Premium ammo? Yes, it penetrates better, but deals less damage and is still worthless if someone doesn't understand the armor penetration mechanics (a.k.a. math). Sure, I still pay for a handful of premium ammo (with in-game credits) for instances where situations won't allow me to get around an enemy, but usually only enough to deal enough damage to cover an average amount of HP for 1 tank in the same tier.

Premium tanks? Most of the time you gain more HP, or slightly better penetration, or better armor in places, etc. Notice it's "or" not "and". Actually, every Premium has something made weaker to balance out its benefits. Premiums are usually just good for marginally faster crew training (not available in Blitz, in the same manner), and good in-game credit (silver currency) earning. Premium tanks are also "locked" in a way. They have no tech tree branches to research up to, so you can't technically "progress" to higher tiers with a paid tank.

You can't pay for better teammates. You share a battlefield with 6 other team members (14 in the full game) that you have no direct control over. You can't pay for your teammates to perform better. You can't pay for a win after you got blown up in the first 90 seconds, or even before that. You also can not expect to waltz into every battle knocking out everyone by yourself, either, even in a paid tank. (I've only done that once, in Blitz, because there's only 7 tanks).

Literally, the only things I use gold currency for is adding garage slots (because I like to have one or two of my favorite tank classes per country), and in Blitz it's also for skipping low tier research (Tiers I-III). All my gold came from in-game gifts and mission completions (missions are just daily and weekly achievements for doing things like, kill X tanks, do X amount of cumulative damage, etc.).

The only thing you can do is just go in there and do your best...and avoid weekends, holidays, and after-school hours if you can..too many Y.O.L.O.'ers

@ShadJV Every game's got a learning curve. World of Tanks' curve is actually pretty steep. If you feel you have to buy a tank just to play normally, then you might be expecting the game to handing you wins just because it's a f2p game. I hate to say it but researching the game mechanics, tanks, maps, and building up game experience is the only way to turn that around. A lot of people start out with something like a 30% win rate until things start 'clicking' with them. That's normal. It sucks to lose, but you shouldn't stress yourself out over things you can't control.

@Heavyarms55 Just applying a blanket statement for a genre without understanding the game you're talking about doesn't make it true. The only "content" you're progressing in WoT is tanks, with tiers up to 10, which branch out to specific tank classes (light, med., heavy, tank destroyers, plus artillery in the full game) and a certain number of country lines. There's no way to buy your way up the tech tree from scratch. You need to play and earn combat XP to unlock the tanks. Also, there's no story, no game modes locked behind pay walls (well, grind wall for Tier V to add a domination mode to the random battle rotation), and no end game. People stick with the game because they find it fun. Yes, people can pay thousands of dollars to unlock certain tanks. But more likely they are collectors, or fans that heavily support their represented countries' tank line.

Not every WoT player is a collector. I don't even want or need every single tank in the game. I'm not a fan of light tanks, for example, so I'm not going out of my way to buy premium light tanks for no reason. But I did play enough battles in them to get a grasp on WoT's spotting mechanics. I like tank destroyers, but that doesn't mean I need to have every single one (I'm not a fan of the U.S. TD's even though they have turrets). Everyone's got their own goals and stop points to aim for. And honestly, I don't even have the urge to progress up to and stay in Tier X. It gets way to stressful up there. Most of my enjoyment from the game comes from playing in Tiers IV-VI. And that's it, I'm not "missing" any content because the game itself, and the tanks I choose, and modes I play IS the content. Alternate take, if Splatoon was a f2p but they kept everything except the story mode and alternate gear abilities were the paid DLC, I'd still play it because the gameplay is good. World of Tanks' gameplay is good and I enjoy it. There's nothing more to it than that.

Nintendo should collaborate with Intelligent Systems with Tank Trooper x Advance Wars, along side a new Advance Wars game.

@locky-mavo I'm hoping that they'd say Tank Troopers and Advance Wars shared the same universe. That would be a great collab.

Damn, this just reminded me how much I miss Adance Wars

I don't care if it's 90% waifu simulator, just please make a new one.

Awakening's sales were a surprise to everyone, and if the same amount of effort was put into a new AW I don't see why that couldn't surprise people as well.

Just have Jake appear as he's made for an game like this

@C-Olimar

I agree, and ain't it the 20th anniversary of the franchise next year

A new Advance Wars from Intelligent Systems would be best, but honestly I'd buy just a re release of the original at full price.

I'm part of the problem.

I never even played this series much but I'm still sad at how this series has been pushed aside, the series was really charming. I guess they just never sold well enough for Nintendo. People generally prefer more realistic war like Call of Duty I suppose.

I have a better idea: have Nintendo make an actual Advance Wars iteration for the Switch that includes turn-based multiplayer and a Map Editor. Gathering for a game like this around the living room TV is a lot more engaging than you might think; I know from many, many 10-plus-hour matches at Daisenryaku VII: Modern Military Tactics Exceed for the PS2 with a group of my friends.

Of course, that ball's been in Nintendo's court for years now. All we can do is hope they see an opportunity with the Switch's dual functionality to bring the series to console for the first time.

If Wargaming did an Advanced Wars game... you'll end up paying gold for advanced ammo, and stupid amounts for premium virtual tanks. They have a very unethical pay-to-play model. This company must NOT be allowed to monopolise on the franchise!

How many times have we seen this industry take a beloved but generally ignored franchise that every fan wanted and begged for and twist it into something unrecognizable that nobody wanted or asked for? And the kicker is that after said games go straight to the bargain bins, the publishers use it to claim there's "no interest" in the IPs.

I'd prefer a new Battalion Wars over Advance Wars. There's so much more that can be done with that series.

@Arnold-Kage Is it really? I thought the Wars series dated right back to the Famicom days, unless you're referring solely to the Advance Wars games?

Regardless, it'll be totally ignored by Nintendo, most likely.

@C-Olimar

Yeah it did, but it was called Famicom wars then. The advance wars as we know in the west with the title on the gba was released in 2001

Think you got an point as I only think they focus on Zelda, Kirby and Mario for anniversary

If Nintendo has any brains they will keep Advance Wars far away from this F2P turd...

I'd love a new Advance Wars game (provided it wasn't in the style of the last game, Days of Ruin), but I'd settle for a collection of the games right now that'd take advantage of the greater screen real estate of the Switch.

Would rather the advance wars IP was given to the wargroove developers...

Currently using my Switch online just to play Famicom Wars, lol. Sucks we can't even play the Wii U VC games on Switch.

Keep your dirty mobile hands off my Advance Wars !

@datamonkey Letting Chucklefish develop an AW game would be amazing! They did so many things right with Wargroove and it quickly became one of my all-time favorites. I think I'm at 320 hours now.

Just a Wars game for the switch please, thanks but no tanks.

Advance Wars died so Fire Emblem could live.

I know it's not the "same", but Tiny Metal was a spiritual successor to Advance Wars. It's plenty of fun if you feel the need.

@iphys Yeah, Famicom Wars is by far my most played game on either of the Switch online game apps. I love it, but it'd be nice to have the gameboy and super famicom games (in English too).

I too badly want a Wars game of some kind on Switch. Any of the DS or GBA games would be great! A new game with all the variety of modes of Advance Wars DS would be awesome. Chucklefish handling things would be great! I just really want to be able to create maps and then play them. I love having crucial factories that one must aquire in order to win. I like Fire Emblem, but factories and the beautiful 60fps pixelwork make all the Wars games some of my top games of all time. Nintendo, please put your awesome games on Switch! (and Konami, let's get a Parodius game on Switch too!)(how about bringing Paro Wars to Switch?!)

@Kanbei agreed! Let’s keep dreaming and maybe one day it’ll happen!

I got 2 brothers who still play this on the 3DS and absolutely love it. Would be great to see a version on the Switch one day.

I would hate it if Advance Wars became some online-multiplayer only tank battle game.

@ShadJV Totally agree on what you're saying about FE. In fact, I stated much the same over the years on each successive FE game after Awakening. I was honestly deeply disappointed with Three Houses. I would have been fine with a "casual" mode, if there had been an optional "hardcore" more that was not just 'tougher enemies' but also no grind, or at least grind but with severely limited ressources and a constant drain of them, forcing you to weigh the value of XP vs Gold (and items, which you could buy, but not the high value ones).

It is odd to me, because this is what I would call "meaningful choice", which is what games are typically all about. The part that makes it even more dreadful, that these were "meaningful strategic choices", because they had longterm effects. You stated absolutely correctly that you could paint yourself into a corner in previous FE purely by making really bad strategic decisions, even without messing up once WITHIN any given mission.

I loved that aspect. It was a take on min/maxing for sure, but a lot more compelling one than purely breeding babies and grinding them for min/max'ed stats. That is what every RPG does in one way or another. Fire Emblem was (almost unique) in terms of having this sRPG perspective on things. I still enjoy the series, but I don't love it anymore, which in a way realy breaks my heart. I also loved Three Stones, but really my heart is all with PoR these days. I want that one on Switch soooo bad.

I think many FE "fans" never played anything before Awakening. They ... they are ignorant due to no fault of their own. They don't know that FE could be an amazing story, with loveable anime characters your root and care for, but also have deep combat mechanics and really compelling longterm strategy implications. I can't really talk about this, as in some ways it really drives me insane.

We could have the most amazing games, instead of just 'very fine' ones ... I just don't take the nearly the same kind of joy from succeeding in Three Houses that I take from succeeding in previous games.

@ShadJV For instance, in previous games, I would often stockpile ranged weapons, that wait for 'static' boss, e.g. one that protected a field you had to capture. Then I would use my tanks and healers to make the boss deplete his ranged weapons. Then my low-level and most vulernable troops I wanted to level, would be equiped with said stockpile of ranged weapons and they got to "grind" the boss for xp. That XP was in exchange for other limited ressources though, and that very process took foresight and planning, you had to come prepared, bring the right units, bring the stockpile etc.

This is just no longer "at thing" in FE games, this whole layer of consideration is entirely gone. Ah well ... nuff said :-/

Anyways, just dito on AW! I loved those small differences between COs as well, esp. since if really exploited to their fullest, they could really turn the tide of battle in your favour. Dual Strike did that pretty well.

Honestly, all in all, I miss these games and I would gladly forgo Doom and such games on Swtich in favour of some classic NDS style games, I'm thinking AW, Contact, Lock's Quest, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, Nights in the Nightmare, Yggdra Union and tons more.

Doom I can play on PS4/XBOX and PC and there are tons of games similar to it. Even with indies, and you rightfully mentioned the brilliant wargroove, there is very little like these games mentioned. Not nothing, but not nearly enough. I mean, Hollow Knight was just pure bliss, I honestly like it more than any Castlevania game I played, it is borderline perfect, but I would still love to get some more of the classics as well, that have their own charm, and its not like they could not evolve as well ...

I guess, I just miss "handhelds". I always had high hopes for a hybrid system and it seemed like logical next steep, but I was also always afraid, that a more console like, portable expiernce would negatively impact those more low-budget games ... and with a few exceptions aside, the fear has turned out to be true, sadly.

PS: NL just told me, that my post was "too long" and "not concise enough". I am not loving that to be honest. I know this is the Twitter age and proper conversation and exchanges of ideas and experiences is strongly discouraged (why bother, you could just as well instagram your breakfast, right?), but a comments section should have room for more than banal exchanges.

@Ralek85 wow, didn’t realize NL had limits to comment lengths! I agree about not hating 3H but being disappointed in the continual ease of the games. I played 3H for the story, and admittedly it was one of my favorite stories in the series (I loved nearly every character) but... the battles became a chore (which is why my second playthrough has been so slow) because they’re just so boring. My actions don’t seem impactful since I had to do something pretty dumb to lose a unit. The removal of the level cap adds to the unlimited grinding problem as well, because no unit can become useless through poor RNG level ups... which seems like a positive thing when described, but part of the strategy was knowing when to give up on one unit and train another one. Unlimited XP and a level cap of 99 (I think? I haven’t even hit the cap with anyone) means that you can just keep powering through and any unit remains viable enough.

I do get that in many ways, a fairly long story with ways to back yourself into a corner is... bad. Like, it can be disheartening for many players to realize you messed up so badly that you can no longer progress and must start over. But I felt casual mode was a perfect solution while keeping the classic mode challenging in the old ways. Heck... this conversation helped me realize why I don’t like the challenge from the highest difficulties as much as the old challenge, and that’s the whole “stronger enemies” thing. I don’t find it fun for the challenge to be, “have your early paladin babysitter soften enemies so the rest of the party can soak up XP and maybe be useful by mid game”. I prefer the long term challenge, I prefer the situation where it seems like there’s no repercussions right now but I know wasting my strong weapon’s durability will screw me over later, or investing in this unit will be a waste of XP, or even, in the case of Sacred Stones, “Can I afford the weapon durability to complete this bonus battle for a bit more XP?” I want meaningful choices to the entire campaign, not just the “which unit can withstand an attack to bait the enemy over?” That’s what the games need back. It’s so dumb that Byleth’s ancient legendary weapon can just be fixed by the regular Blacksmith for a couple rare resources, I much prefer having to decide when to actually use my legendary weapon because I know it will break after 20 hits.

And also... love that grinding strat you found, that’s the beauty of the old games, everyone finds their ways to exploit their resources but in the end we all had limited resources and had to decide how to use them.

I do hope we have the reemergence of some of the DS gems. People mock Indie games for using the ideas of older AAA games but maybe they wouldn’t have to if we would get those old franchises back in their glory. Wargroove was at least amazing, and so was Hollow Knight. These indie games have their own flavor though, which is great... but I do want those games back. Give me Final Fantasy Tactics. Give me Dawn of Sorrow. Anyways, I digress... I think you see what I’m getting at, as you worded it just as well.

@ShadJV I did not even think about the lack of a levelcap. That is indeed a removal of another strategic layer, that made choices made previously more meaningful. They really strip the series of all it's mechanical identity step by step

I guess I liked the story fine, but honestly, I like the characters in some of the previous games better, like Awakening actually. And I clear prefer the world of PoR. I just thought the "Berserk"-Golden-Age Feel was amazing and I luved how it used the Laguz to talk about issues of racism and slavey, when that was not exactly a common theme in games, and certainly not Nintendo games ... still isn't.

And yeah, I absolutely agree, these games often pick up on abandoned ideas and sometimes do them better than ever. Still, I'd also love say a Dawn of Sorrow like game that took hints from Hollow Knight and Dead Cells among others. There is a lot of potential there, too bad many of these bigger publishers don't seem to care for their legacy...