Historical realism and War Thunder tanks with Jingles

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Hello everyone,

I probably don’t have to introduce Jingles, videomaker extraordinaire and Wargaming EU’s finest, along with Quickybaby. Given my attitude towards Wargamine EU, I am sure why you understand while I haven’t written about him earlier, but he made an interesting War Thunder video, that everyone, who wants “more realism” in the game should watch. First the video (the first few minutes are touching another matter, but I will get to that also).

 

 

So, watched it? I did, because I think it was very interesting. In my eyes, the entire video said something that a lot of people seem not to understand.

Realism doesn’t equal fun.

I am glad World of Tanks is an unrealistic arcade game, because that allows the developers to balance it much more than if they only “went for maximum balance”. The video touched two important elements I think.

First one is the airplanes and tanks on the same map. You heard Jingles, it was just frustrating. You might say, yea, it was historical, but the thing is, the entire concept is flaw from game point of view. Whenever you have an enemy that can kill you with a huge advantage, it’s always frustrating, no matter that your fighter cover will kill him a minute afterwards. That won’t matter to you, because you are dead and frustrated. A partial solution is to introduce the AA tanks (flakpanzers), but guess what: that’s unhistorical. You see, in real life, the effectivity of AA tanks was not very high. When the Allies had complete air superiority later in the war, the recommended tactic was to load as many tracer AA rounds as possible and starting blasting away in the general direction of the enemy. You won’t hit anything, but the fighters and bombers will stay away, because despite quite low chance of being hit, noone wants to fly into what they percieve as a firestorm of tracer rounds. Obviously the abovementioned real life tactic is not exactly fun for the flakpanzer player, so once again, it’s realism vs fun.

Second is the obvious – camping and oneshots” Jingles mentioned – yes, this is exactly why World of Tanks doesn’t have a “hardcore mode”. In real life, the “campers” usually won – only it wasn’t called “camping”, it was called “an ambush” and turretless tanks such as the StuG were really very, very effective in it. Firing first gives you a tremendous advantage, especially, when you are firing into places you have ranged (as in, you know that bend in the road the enemy tank appeared on is exactly 300 meters away, because you measured it when you prepared the ambush). Needless to say, this was not fun for the guys in the tanks that got ambushed and it’s not going to be fun in any game.

I don’t know. This is not bashing War Thunder per se, more like the concept of hardcore battle mode. Being killed by 1 round drastically reduces the time you actually spend fighting and increases the time you spend travelling to your destination, loading etc. (unproductive time). I really hope they get to balance this properly, because if Wargaming did this, it would be a complete, utter disaster.

170 thoughts on “Historical realism and War Thunder tanks with Jingles”

    • agreed. I always wanted this level of realism… :)
      just because there will be no fucked up tactics that only work because of huge red markers over tanks

        • Every single person that awaits for War Thunder Ground Forces eagerly has to be 45%er in your opinion? Please…

          • Most of the WT milleniarians *do* come across as Bad & Bitters unshakably convinced their suckage is the fault of the game and not PEBKAC, you know. Like now Max up there.

            And from what I’ve seen this is an universal characteristic of whiners eternally pining after the next Messiah Game irrespective of the context, because I see this exact same bullshit in a different wrapping eg. in the Neverwinter hub chat (the fervently awaited Redeemer there apparently being ESO, occasionally Wildstar).

            • Check me out: SzalonyChemik on EU if you want. I’m not 45%er, not an unicum either, but an pretty average player (that haven’t been playing WoT for the last half of a year, true that), and I really await the War Tunder Ground Forces, because it seems not to be afraid of doing something differently. And I believe that there are many players like me out there, bored with WoT, expecting something different, maybe more demanding and campy but campy is sadly realistic when it comes to tanks.
              But for the people shouting “WT will eat WoT for breakfast!” – yeah, they are probably 45%ers that expect miracles from changing the game.
              I believe that these games have quite similar potential, and WT GF will find itself a niche and a faithful playerbase.

              • Your name rings enough bells that I never counted you among the “45′ers” to begin with, the point being rather that those have for a long time now been the most conspicious and vocal advocates of WT. Unsurprisingly this has had a less than positive effect on peoples’ perceptions, mine included.

                Personally I’m all for “wait and see” regarding WT GF (don’t care about the planes), the blinkered fanbois just annoy me on multiple levels.

                • I feel the same really.

                  The fact that WT fanbois are literally everywhere on the Internet posting garbage about WoT and WoWP whenever they get the chance just gives me the impression that the WT community, in general, is full of people that couldn’t cut it in WoT and blame their failure on the game.

                  Me, I’m mediocre@tanks and bad@planes and I know it :-)

      • I agree as well.

        There are many many videos of War Thunder ground forces out there and they are all positive. I find it disappointing the use of this particular video to draw “bad press” to War Thunders’ efforts.

        1st Jingles Rants about WT fanboys – Both WG & WT have the same idiots about.

        2nd. Having Hit Points on your tanks only makes it cater more to drunk players, who want to be forgiven for their Tactical mistakes – Why else the TD gun alpha damage nerf? To cater to whiners and drunks in WoT who get upset that someone shot up their tank, and they haven the ability to, nor care to learn why or how it happen – and just MAYBE become a better player.

        3rd. WT tanks in NO WAY implies that your tank gets one shooted all the time, many many times there are near misses, and damaging hits, that slowly degrade your tanks fighting ability. Turret traverse – gun damage – gun elevation – gun traverse – crew members – ammo damage – track damage – engine damage – transmission damage ETC ETC. all this the game makes you aware of, and as you continue to take hits and they damage you your tank is harder and harder to use effectively. NOT oh my tank has been hit several times by 170mm shells and is still 100% operational because i have 5 hp left thing.

        All due respects to Jingles – he dropped the ball on this review, and shame on SS for using its errors and quite superficial review as fodder for WT bashing, when really WT being a real competitor to WoT is the best thing that could happen to the players of WoT… WG will no longer feel as if they have a monopoly on the game type, and thus will WORK HARDER to keep players to their game.

        Jingles if you are reading this you should reflect upon how this video has been used. WT is not a camp fest, the winning teams always win because they have teamwork of mobile tanks moving and flanking and taking positions, as well as TD’s holding areas locked down in fire support, plus there is many a camping tank that gets easily killed by flanking, arty getting called down on there position and they refuse to move, or a bi-plane comes by and drops a 50kg HE bomb on the top armor, because again they refuse to move.

        WT game play is complex, the damage model is MUCH more complex than WoT and it works well…. module and crit damage determine the state of your tank, NOT hit points! its everyone soooo used to WoT Hit Point system that believe there is no better way, well it different, its VERY fun to play, and not at all worse in any way.

        No one seems to remember all the hate before the big physics patch, everyone wanted to have their tanks drive full speed to a cliff edge and hang off and shoot, etc etc… then the patch came out and everyone loved it! it was soo much fun! it was more realistic ;)

        so more realistic does not always = more fun, but I think you have to try it out and feel the combat model from shooting and hitting or missing, or only damaging, to getting hit BEFORE you rage away.

        and remember, there is NOTHING better than for WG and Gaigen to compete for our $, for WE will be the winners!

        • Oh side note…. the team that camps about in WT always loses the match, not so in WoT, its either a draw, or the campers have to be painfully rooted out. WoT is struggling with camping issues since day 1…. Arty didn’t solve it, scouts have not the teammates to take advantage of thier spotting because the spotting system is so enigmatic to almost all players most players are afraid to move, nor know how to advance on positions. Good snipers leverage the detection distance and the “square” yes its a Fraken “Square” draw box. WoT has invisi tanks because most don’t know why those tanks can’t be seen, so they call them invisi tanks, or hacks…. etc etc. Lets not be so quick to judge badly WT and throw praise at WoT.

          • Arty? Solving Camping problems? With it’s current nerfed state? Let me quote what the American commander in Bastogne said to it’s numerically superior German counterpart before beating the crap outa him in WW2.

            “Nuts”.

        • 2nd note … yes brain (something)

          On retrospect my previous “2nd point from my first post” may have been a bit too harsh. A bit-o counter bashing, wasn’t called for. my bad.

          Also remember that in Arcade Mode in WT its a garage battle, you died? bring out another tank to the battle and get the guy who got you! game play continues and you get several tanks to drive out.

          In Realistic mode its one tank only, and the spotting system high favors sneaking about, its easy to get kills at 50 paces an a tank destroyer who has tunnel vision, spotting is mostly, “mostly” what you see is what you get.

          • Attritional materiel warfare plus any amount of time spent driving your “extra lives” tenks from spawn to the fight? Can’t *imagine* what might go wrong with that…

    • @Politx_killer: I think SEA(Red) players will like this, they do love to camp and not move an inch from where they are camping.

    • As someone who has played WWII Online, a game far more realistic than WT will ever be, and had true combined arms gameplay, I look forward to WT Ground Forces. Jingles is a whiney little man sometimes, but he genuinely seems to enjoy WT as well, both aspects of it.

      Either way the whole realism=/=fun argument is old and flawed as the poster above pointed out, it’s just different demographics and the simulator/milsim fans love realism. A lot of people don’t and CoD/WoT/Battlefield are the testament to the success of pandering to that larger demographic.

      • At the end of the day, the simulator crowd are not where the money is. Gaijiin and WG are not charities.

        It’s cute that Gaijin are trying to throw the simnuts a bone but personally, as a software developer, I wouldn’t bother.

        Simnuts generally conform to the following to observations:
        1: They’re a minority
        2: They’re extremely vocal

        As with all vocal minorities, they’re good at making a lot of noise and seeming more numerous than they are.

        WG, luckily, realise this and basically ignore them because if simnuts had their way most games would be as tedious and boring as Aces of the Pacific in real-time.

        Gaijin, on the other hand, do not seem to have yet realised that balancing your game around the desires of simnuts is basically unhealthy for a large developer. If you’re a small dev team (Read, IL2 Sturmovik) then it’s fine but for a big development house, paying attention to simnuts is financially retarded.

        • I, for one, am happy that Gaijin has the balls to do something outside the box. If every game developer would bow to the general rules you wrote above, new games would only become more similar to one another and more casualised. Maybe it is where the money is, but is it really the way players want games to progress?
          Besides – War Thunder has three modes, three “realism levels” if you will – so what forbids Gaijin to have both more casual and hardcore gameplay style in one package? This way they may appeal both to simnuts like you call them in Simulation Battle mode, and general audience in Arcade Battle mode, while having one more mode, Realistic Battle sitting in between? For me win-win situation.

            • Yeah I agree. I also believe that it will prove to be true. But we should “keep our shit together” and wait for full release of WT to form any definitive opinions. Right now we are kind of limited to impressions only. And for me they are positive. Well, silly me :)

              • *shrug* The concept Gaijin is trying strikes me as very ambitious, quite possibly excessively so. Setting your sights too high is a notoriously excellent way to overreach your means, and what I know if it thus far sounds suspiciously like there’s a LOT of potential for shit to go wrong BAD.

                Figured I’d give the thing a spin once it eventually comes out, but I’m not holding my breath on it being “game I find fun to play”.

                • Right now I have great fun flying in War Thunder air forces. When ground forces come, I most certainly give them a go, but, honestly, not counting the aviation that I ended surprisingly liking, the navy is the thing I’m waiting for most – both in WG and Gaijin editions.

  3. ”Realism doesn’t equal fun.”

    Game. Set. Match. Our favourite blogging tanker from the Czech Republic wins.

    • Reminds me of how my blue team was wiped out in the first mission in terrorist hunt mode in R6 Rogue Spear, all because I was unlucky and there was a tango already aiming where my operatives were standing just as the mission loaded and there was another “continue” window.

      And since my plan didn’t account on that a single tango would wipe out one of my teams in less than 5 seconds right after start of the game, it turned into a complete clusterfuck after red team passed a few waypoints…

      Yeah, that was so much fun… :P

    • ”Realism doesn’t equal fun.”
      This sentence is subjective oppinion presented as an objective fact. In other words generalisation, which overally is a rather bad thing, that should be avoided in reasonable discussion. Let me correct it:
      ”Realism doesn’t equal fun for everyone.”
      I can guarantee you that there are many people out there keen to at least trying to play game that approaches the topic of armoured warfare in more “hardcore” manner. I count myself amongst them. Everything I saw about WT seems to appeal to my idea of tank game that I’d like to try. I know that I can die to a single hit. I accept that. But at the same time I have much more realistic spotting system (aka my own eyes), more balanced types of ammo that often have both pros and cons and something that is, as I believe, more realistic physics and tank behavior. I know that first experiences will be bad, sad, dirty and annoying, but I firmly believe that, if I manage to preservere (and I’m ready for some learning and acclimatisation to entirely different playstyle) I might end up with came that works for me better than WoT ever has, is or ever will be. And there is certainly plent of players that want even more realistic approach to this topic than I.

      • “Plenty” does not equal “enough”, however. “Hardcore” simulator type games, be they about planes or groundpounders or grand strategy or whatever, are kinda niche for a reason.

        • I still believe they can have both in one game. WoT-like arcade and hardcore-ish realistic and simulation. Similar to air forces where it seems to work out that way pretty good.

          • That one definitely files under “proof of the pudding being in eating”, especially in terms of long-term viablity. Mind you I bear Gaijin no ill will (I actually have one or two of their older games and found those fine enough) so good for them if it works out.

            I’d just rather not merely *assume* it will.

  4. It’s still a beta test. And about diving bombers. It was so ONLY because it was beta. Everyone wanted to check how effective planes will be against tanks. When the game goes live, it will be nothing like this. There will be a whole range of aircraft. Fighters, Bombers and so on. Most of the fighting will not even take place in the arena that is restricted for tanks.
    Remember, that you need to take everything you see on the test server with a BIG pinch of salt. It’s not like in WoT, where most stuff you see on TS is pretty much final. Here everything might and will change.
    Compare WoT close beta to what we have now. Quite different, right?

    • All of that still amounts to meaning unless you yourself are flying the fighter or driving the flakpanzer, you will as a tank have to rely on…*shudder* teammates. And we all know exactly how disastrous that can be.

    • remember they want to put planes anyway.
      So when you drive King Tiger, IS 2 , or T-80 , 250 kg bomb will still kill you instantly.
      So lower tier tanks will have some to worry only for little planes , on higher tiers 250 and 500 kg bombs will obliterate any tank from higher tiers.

    • Funny how WT fans bashed WOWP while it while it was still in alpha and didnt mind it was ALPHA but when someone points out flaws in WT GF their usual arguement is that its still beta :D

  5. Point of order – Jingles did NOT say that planes and tanks fighting in the same game mode was frustrating. He has talked about this before, and thinks it’s actually pretty interesting.

    What Jingles said was that TIER THREE planes and RESERVE tanks fighting on the same game mode was frustrating. Note that the tiering system works differently in War Thunder; in World of Tanks terms, this would be like letting a pack of KV-1′s loose in a Tier 1 match.

    Planes fighting tanks was not the problem. The problem was that for a couple of hours, the test server was BUGGED, so that much higher tier planes were available than tanks.

    • As you seem to know: how does it work normally? I never played WT (and thus of course am not in the GF Closed Beta), but I’d like to know. What would be the main (gameplay) difference of, for example, an Pe-2 dive-bombing a “historically accurate” Panzer IV or Panther vs dive-bombing a Panzer II? Shouldn’t both tank types be equally dead? Or is it much harder for some reason or other? I’d really like to know!

      Disclaimer: This is explicitly not trolling or bashing but an honest question!

      On the oneshot issue: For me that just shows, that such gameplay is best reserved for CoD style small maps with, relatvivly, fast moving opponents who have similar chances of killing each other in quick encounters…
      More in depth I believe it’s a question of tactics and motivations, and I strongly believe that in a “tank game” realistic battles can’t be allowed to be fair. That means, that I think, that equally balanced teams with a “capture that point” gamemode will always benefit the stay back and hide gameplay for both sides, after having created a points “stalemate”. Contrary to “real battles” there isn’t really a higher objective that promotes offensive action. “Real Battles” always focus on being unfair for the other side from the start, and the planners do everything to achieve that goal. Thus gameplay based on ‘these 30 Tanks MUST break through this defensive “weak link” of 10 enemy tanks” (for a strategic objective) might actually be more fun. It ‘stimulates’ teamplay (something that we can’t really expect in ‘Randoms’ anyways…), the attacking side knows there’s just one way to win, they also know that apart from positioning they have all advantages: if they manouvre together they can break through a well organized defense. Something like WoT’s “historical battles” (if they’ll look like I imagine ;)) might actually work with WT’s system, I think.

      • Let me preface this by saying I’m not a WT tester. I just pay close attention to what Jingles said :P

        But, the difference is that when a reserve aircraft (biplanes) is flying against reserve tanks, it either doesn’t have any bombs at all, or it has a couple of 50 lb firecrackers which will probably kill a tank, but only with a direct hit. When a rank three bomber (like the german Stuka, or the British Typhoon) is flying around, they’re usually carrying anywhere between 100kg to 500kg bombs. This is the kind of ordnance that can ‘soft kill’ weak tanks; you don’t have to hit them, just catch them in the (very large) blast radius.

        Bigger, medium or heavy tanks like Panthers and Tigers are tougher beasts though. From my experience as a bomber in War Thunder, even with 500lb bombs you still need either a direct hit or a very nearby hit to kill tanks like that. That means either getting absurdly lucky as a high-altitude bomber, or making an attack run below 1,000 meters altitude and concentrating on lining up your pass.

        We in the dogfighting business have a word for low-flying bombers concentrating on what’s below them instead of their surroundings. That word is “dead meat”, usually as we grin and lick our chops :3

        Granted, with REALLY heavy ordnance like 1,000+kg bombs, you can probably soft-kill all but the heaviest tanks… But the addition of carpet bombing targets mean that the heavy bombers who carry that kind of ordnance have better things to do with it than drop it on one players head.

        • Imrix got the point pretty well.

          Another VERY important thing is that the whole map on which planes fly and fight is MANY MANY times bigger than the small part of the terrain reserved for tanks. Only a small part of both teams’ aircrafts will be involved in fighting above the tanks, and those diving and low altitude bombers will be easily handled by enemy fighters. I actually think that air to ground combat will be very limited.

          For oneshot issue – the tank maps for WT are actually a lot bigger than WoT maps. I’m not sure how big exactly, but couple of square kilometers at least.

          And because you have several tanks/planes to choose from, one death isn’t as frustrating as it can be in WoT, cause you can come back to the battlefield and influence the match.

          As far as historical battles in WT are considered, you do get one tank or plane only, but there is no hit/penetration marker – you have to aim at your target to see the distance (AWESOME thing – all-the-time-active rangefinder <3), than you have to use the sights to set it on certain distance, and then fire. It's awesome, and make shooting at long distances at moving targets pretty tricky.

          All in all, I'm very looking forward to introducing ground forces to War Thunder (which I am playing currently), and I'm almost sure I will keep playing WoT as I do now. These two games are totally different and they will be good for different moods of mine :D

        • The Ju-87 pilots were very very good pilots and trained a lot. They then practiced their craft through Poland, Belgium and France before going into Russia where they ended up flying almost nonstop just like they did through Poland, Belgium and France. By then the Germans had to restart the production line as there was a lack of a better replacement aircraft.

          Plus when you are trained to lead the target in the air… are attacking it groups of 2-5 and using 50kg to 250kg bombs that target is toast…

          With the “High Altitude” bomber… well even Jingles fly’s his at absurdly low altitudes when making his “run”.

          • …didn’t even medium level bombers usually do their attack runs rather low IRL, anyway? I was under the impression high-altitude carpeting was mainly a heavy-bomber thing, understandably enough give the pregnant-whale agility of those things.

  6. I watched some other players’ gameplay about the ground forces, and the gameplay actually seemed fun. Jingles said that you can’t play WT like you play WoT, that’s why he kept on being one-shot. but maybe if you play it the right way, taking the high ground, relocating, not advancing in the open without making sure that no one can have a clear shot on you.. and so on.

    also you said realism doesn’t equal fun, but who said WoT is fun? so if you get destroyed by a plane or oneshotted by a tank is frustrating, but getting oneshot by deathstar FV 183 or KV-1S or any hidden camper is a bush is not?

    I’m not trying to defend a game and bash the other, but the two games are different and I can’t see why people can’t enjoy them (or get frustrated from) both!

    • “but getting oneshot by deathstar FV 183 or KV-1S or any hidden camper is a bush is not?”

      - WoT sessions are shorter and you can start new game right away
      - you can see outlines even when enemy is behind a bush
      - due to that you can shoot at huge ranges
      - the tanks you mentioned are exceptions and usually they have certain drawbacks to them (well ‘cept KV-1S but let’s not go there, SerB is watching). It’s not that anything can one shot anything, which is a totally different gameplay concept.

      I never got frustrated from one-shots, mostly because it doesn’t happen “every game” and in half of the cases it’s my fault anyway (treading in open grounds carelessly, betting on the fact that I can make it when I can’t, etc).

      Honestly, it all boils down to terms of time to me – if I have 10-15 minutes free, I can play a session of WoT. But for WT I’d need how much? Half an hour at least (because I’d absolutely hate leaving a garage battle knowing I leave my team weakened), most of it spent looking around? That’s interesting concept of a gameplay and I might play a few games one day – but it’s not something I’d want to play every day.

      • It’s all about time, yeah. This is why I prefer the War Thunder mode of doing it. Yes, a full session of WoT probably is shorter, but if you get killed halfway through, that’s it, you’re done. You’ve got to exit, pick a new tank, go through matchmaking, loading and pre-match countdown even before you can actually drive to the fight.

        In War Thunder, you can just hop in a new tank and get back to shooting things before the World of Tanks player is finished watching the countdown. Death has much less of a sting.

        • Really?
          Matchmaking and countdown in WoT takes about a minute, another minute takes time from starting the game to see your first enemies.

          So how long it will take for a tank in WT to get to the battle after a respawn? Carefully driving, looking for possible ambush and so on and so on?

          What is an average time you spend in a firefight before you die in WoT (before you will get your 4-5 shots that will finish your HP) and WT?

          How many shots on average you are able to make during an hour of playing (including all map loading and stuff) in WoT and WT? Assuming you are playing to win?

          Somehow judging from the gameplay videos of WT and my experience in WoT I find your opinion Imrix completely unreasonable.

          Of course it’s beta, I’m not saying WT will fail – but I have a feeling that WT in it’s current form will be much more frustrating and time consuming then what WT fanboys think.

          • … You finish matchmaking in less than a minute? Really? Jeeze. The whole process takes about two or three minutes for me :\

            • Two or three minutes? At which server do you play? I do not remember last time when I was waiting for more than 50 seconds in random battles queue, usually it is less than 30s. Sometimes I spend more time waiting during pre-battle countdown than in MM queue. Maybe because EU server is quite big (not in comparison to RU, one but to others) – during evenings there is usually moment, when more than 200 000 players are logged in simultaneously.

      • “- WoT sessions are shorter and you can start new game right away”

        In WT you get a couple of another vehicles, so you can play right away, and even more – you can still influence the same battle you died in.

        “- you can see outlines even when enemy is behind a bush”

        That encourages camping and long-distance sniping, so I’d call it a drawback of WoT.

        “- due to that you can shoot at huge ranges”

        See above.

        • So, what, “press Start to continue” and then spend N minutes reaching the actual combat (doubtless great fun with slow tanks) to perish alarmingly easily AGAIN?
          Sounds pretty attritional and likely to result in the “reinforcements” ending up in a dribs-and-draps chain from the spawnzone to the battlefront with predictable results if the line breaks…

      • “But for WT I’d need how much? Half an hour at least (…)”
        If you are refering to AB (which would be the most reasonable to assume as you clearly refer to the instance when you load up the game having very limited time to play), it is half an hour at most, because games are capped at 25 minutes. and Ground Strike maps thend to end rather quickly, they last for 15-20 minutes rutinely.
        That being said, WoT games are still noticeably shorter – mean battle time is something between 6 or 7 minutes iirc.

    • You make no sense. You use something that happens very rare in WoT to defend something typical for Ground forces – how is that supposed to work?
      Yes, one shots in WoT happen. But mentioning this only points out, that in Ground forces one-shots are the rule, not the exemption.

      you write “maybe if you play it the right way, taking the high ground, relocating, not advancing in the open without making sure that no one can have a clear shot on you.. and so on.”

      I am always amazed how people can whine about campers in a bush in WoT and then in the same sentence say they wait for Ground Forces,

      The problem with playing so cautiously is – it’s difficult. It takes time. It requires patience. You may as well sit in a bush waiting for others to move.
      Then the others will finally realise, that since you are not moving, they cannot win by advancing, so they will not move either.
      You ever complained about Murovanka forrest or Campinovka houses? This will be a blitz compared to what Ground Forces is going to be.

      Even more. You have bigger maps? Half of enemy team is flying?
      This means, there is much less tanks per area, you need to drive much longer distance to encounter enemy.
      And you cannot just press ‘r’ two times and cruise towards enemy lines, you need to ” taking the high ground, relocating, not advancing in the open without making sure that no one can have a clear shot on you”. What means you will spend most pof your times driving around without any enemy seen and only small fraction of it seeing any enemy.

    • > but getting oneshot by deathstar FV 183 or KV-1S or any hidden camper is a bush is not?

      None of those are typical one shot outcomes in 95% of world of tanks battles. You’d either have to be entirely outclassed, be an underpar scout, or be unlucky enough to be a weak tier 9 facing a 183 between its 26 second reload of an insanely inaccurate, 20 round gun.

      In comparison, I just saw Jingles repeatedly 1-2 shot vehicles with a Pz III J, which seems indicative of the majority of WT’s damage model.

      It’s like Arguing that Battlefield 3 gets in the same oneshot scenarios as Red Orchestra 2 because everyone can cart an RPG-7 around. This is not common, it’s not even a proper relationship.

  7. It’s only beta, before that it was impossible for IS/Tiger to kill T-34 with less than 3 shots, they are testing all possible models and figuring out what to do…

    And about planes+tanks – it exists in BF1942/Forgotten Hope/FHSW and works great (metric shittins of fun when planes look for your rampaging StuG and can’t see you because you’re under camo net xD), also there’s infantry and a lot of decent maps (that’s why FHSW > RO > WT > menstrual blood > WoT)

    • What you neglected to mention WWIIOnline? The only WWII sim without 3rd person, that has infantry, arty, tanks, aircraft and ships. On a half scale map of Europe…

      • is that game still alive?.
        i remember being VERY excited back when it was announced years ago(but my comp was shit, zero money and there was NO WAY my family would pay for a “subscription game”, i even had dialup) and i checked back some years in but that’s it…

  8. There is no divider stating that you cannot like both approaches, they are merely different in style. If you look at other videos it is possible to survive several hits in WT, just don’t rely on hp like WoT.

    WT is going to need combined arms, TD’s to provide overwatch with scouts scouting while heavies and mediums provide combat strength and flanking maneuvers. Should be great to see real teamwork in action, in the same manner that real teamwork is great in WoT too. Pity there are so many bots and trolls, but it’s the internetz…

    WT provides more reality in the style of play, WoT provides arcade goodness. I like both, I will play both depending on how I feel that day.

  9. Hey, slow down man. These maps are Arcade maps. That’s why it’s not the same as the finished RBs. Ever got to play RBs with planes before the actual RB maps? It was ridiculous. Let them make the big anti-camp maps. Once tanks will play on the same huge map as the planes, things will change.

    I do think, it’ll be way more fun than WoT. Playing Warthunder with no-hp planes but module damage feels so much better than flying some stupid bird with HP bar in WoWp. I do think it’ll be the same in WT. But hey, the arcade thingy will stay full of kids that enjoy the unrealistic type and that’s a good thing for those who really want realism.

    I hate the things that have been said here(video and your post) because they do not really reflect a complete opinion. It’s like talking without even knowing what’s and how’s gonna be. Imo, they shouldn’t have raised the NDA just because of this.

  10. Also note; regarding camping and oneshots. Yes, getting one-shotted isn’t fun, but this is why War Thunder and World of Tanks handle death very differently. In World of Tanks, getting one-shotted sucks, because that means you’re done for the game. You’ve gotta jump out, pick a new tank and start a new match, going through matchmaking, loading times, the whole nine yards.

    In War Thunder, much of the sting is taken out of death because you have a whole garage full of tanks to bring to the field. Yeah, you got one-shotted, boo-hoo – you can jump in another tank and be back in the action in the time it takes a World of Tanks player to find a new game and start watching the countdown clock. This is not a flaw, only a different approach to playing the game.

    • It’s still to see if you can go through much bigger WT map looking for those few players who are not flying the plane, cautiosuly checking for every bush and every road bend not to be ambushed in shorter time then WoT player can start and load a new game and charge toward the enemy.

      And even if you can do that, WoT player will spend next 2-3 minutes peekabooing out of cover, sdealing and taking damage before he will die, while WT player will one shot and then get one shotted.

      For me at the moment it seems WT offers shorter fun and bigger waiting time between action (I don’t count sitting in a bush and scanning t he road ahead of me as an action).
      I amy be wrong, gameplay videos are not good enough to judge.

      You need to play yourself for 1-2 hours straight to judge.

  11. Gamers want it until they play it and realize how bad it sucks when their entire team is “ambushing” and no one is willing to move.

    Done the real thing already and arcade is so much more enjoyable.

    Great article.

  12. Off topic but…. Mean while at Battlefield, “NERF THE MAA(mobile anti air)!!!!!!!1″ you can farm your your K/D like a faggot in that thing.

  13. Actually, this does sound like my cup of tea. And for the record, using your brains and avoid rushing in like a goddamn fool gives you MUCH better results in WOT as well. I am not convinced as to the combined arms thing – in real life fighters did have a bit of trouble actually spotting and engaging ground targets, but for the first time, I am actually getting interested in ground forces. This seems like a game that is going to reward real life tactics.

    • “in real life fighters did have a bit of trouble actually spotting and engaging ground targets”

      You know, the tanks are not visible for planes as spotted, bombers have to use their eyes alone to see the small tank itself.

      • @ Haren: That is good, but it still does nothing to change the fact the map is limited. Knowing where to look to begin with, is a pretty serious advantage: finding your target was historically, and still is, 99% of the work. The actual kill is easy. Which is why I am wondering whether this combined arms thing is not rigged in favour of planes from the start.

  14. SS You should really start to play Warthunder and make your own picture of it. The greatest advantage of this “hardcore mode” that’s already implemented in the aerial part of the game is that unskilled players who don’t understand how to place their tank in the right angel, steer away from an following enemy plane and shoot at hitboxes to do onehots fail hard and as you said they have no fun in playing this game, BUT:
    This means they have to learn how to do damage and survive OR they stop playing, so the playerbase has quite a good level of “basicskill” and your game doesn’t get ruined by noobs.

    It’s a “All or Nothing” type of gameplay, and you won’t get satisfaction as easy as in WoT, where a tier 8 noob reads “You have done 800 DMG” and thinks “Wow, that’s more than 0, i must be great!” and continues to ruin the games of skilled players…

    • you do realise that’s exactly why WoT is succesful?
      Because even biggest noob will win something from time to time and will progress, so the playerbase is huge and there is enough players for matchmaking to work?

      If bad players start to drop from the game, you end up with game that normal/new players are only a cannon fodder and they start to drop. Good luck with playing the game like that.

      It sounds great, to eliminate noobs from your favourite game. Until you see that happen.

      • Wot is not that bad for an arcade shooter its the hordes of red muppet’s who fail there way to tier 10 and infest the game what make random game’s broke.
        For a team game its so not like a team game, its do your own thing and go to the same spot has always and camp or attack and die in under 1 min.
        I have never know a game wind so may players up its like it really gets in to there heads and turns them in to haters.

    • > This means they have to learn how to do damage and survive OR they stop playing, so the playerbase has quite a good level of “basicskill” and your game doesn’t get ruined by noobs.

      Be careful what you wish for, games that make it to hard for bad players to stick around tend to quickly run out of players.

  15. I’m pretty sure Jingles isn’t directly affiliated with wargaming eu…? He’s just a high profile member of that community afaik.

    • He is not on their payroll, if that’s what you mean.

      But for example recently, there was a Czech promo part for WoT and WoWp in the most popular computer game magazine (Score) and he (along with Quickybaby) was promoted in it (despite not having anything to do with Czech), that doesn’t happen just so.

      • They are being helped and used, in equal amounts, as “Community Contributors”.

        WG gain PR from Youtube, twitch etc.

        Jingles and others gain “approval” by the nametag…
        (…even tho QB is a jumped up whiney little s….)

      • Regardless, his comments in the video are fair and hit the spot. I can imagine this type of gameplay won’t appeal to much of the WOT community. It doesn’t make it bad, just different, and not for everyone.

      • Oh come on SS. Jingles, Circon and QuickyBaby are the most visible WoT youtubers/streamers around. And they are DAMN visible. I am not suprised that they were in the magazine.

        Besides, both Jingles and QB are great fun to watch, and can actually teach you quite a few useful tactics and tips.

        • I have lots of fun watching Jingles’ videos (even though I disagree with him quite often) – especially the new Man Cave series. Those MONEY SHOTS! *fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap*

          :D

          • I tend to agree with him often myself. Love his ramblings. But I think that he dropped the ball with this video. I mean – I understand what he wanted to say, and for the most part I agree, but the Interntet as a whole is generally not so much understanding and reasonable. So it is hardly surprising that many arguments have spurred as a result of that video. In my opinion this video was completely unbiased (despite so many people interpreting ti as War Thunder bashing) kind of warning that some people might actually got more that they bargained for when they evoked “more realism”. For me – from what I saw, heard and feel – I think I know exactly what I’m stepping into by going for War Thunder Ground forces, and I accept the possible consequences.

        • QuickyBaby, yes because he’s a good player. Jingles, not so much. He’s average to above average. But he’s still miles better than the other infamous Brit gaming personality, TotalBiscuit. That guy is a twat and extremely annoying.

  16. What happens when (or if) a few tanks decide to stay together to “wolfpack” or work together against the enemy..

    …then the big fook off bombers come over and annihilate the entire 1/4 square mile you are all in…

    That sounds like fun!

    • That’s if the bombers get through the fighters.

      I’ll wait the final content of WT, maybe it will bring an interesting view of the game, the WoT.

    • Doesn’t work. Explosion radius can be large, but it’s not THAT large. A wolf pack might make a jucy target for a bomber, but if you watch your spacing they almost certainly won’t be able to get more than one of you, if that. Remember, high-altitude bombing is wildly inaccurate, fit only to bomb out large, static targets like bases. Low-altitude bombing is a suicide run.

      • pretty much this, you can hit stationary targetsfrom 3-4km hight, but even the bot tanks are hard to hit from that altitude.

        and going lower will attrackt tons of fighters when you are in a bomber, even more when you are in an attack plane.

        Not to mention there will be AA vehicles, flak panzer 1 is already in game and when something like the flakpanzer 4 comes it will hurt low altitude planes, and when we talk low altitude we talk around 1km.

        • I seem to recall that historically only the Germans, for obvious practical reasons, invested heavily in SPAA while the Democracies were lackluster at best and the Soviets barely bothered, though. (Largely owning the air renders dedicated air-defence stuff relatively low priority.) Seems to make the whole “flakpanzer” argument a wee bit dubious.

          And THEN there’s the minor detail most AA armament will barely scratch the paint of anything worth being called a tank…
          Yeah, not really sold on the concept of planes and tonks in same, even remotely realistic, game being a good idea given all the spin-off.

  17. I have the same issue with WoWp. You can die so easily and there is no cover. Which leads to the “don’t help those under attack” behavior.

  18. SS, i come from a IL-2 background, we would do missions where we had to just navigate the map for 30 minutes before reaching the objective and you could be shot down well before you could fire.
    We had to manage the fuel rate consumption, establish a climbing profile to optimal height to minimize burn, set the prop pitch for cruising, set the turbo stages, then when reaching target jettison extra fuel tanks(if needed), avoid FLAK and enemy fighters (all from inside the cockpit).

    and it was FUN!, this is the same stuff that makes world of warplanes SHIT, planes DO NOT belong in an arcade game,. because it was always ONE PERSON manning them usually doing everything so it can be simulated succesfully. Also the medium itself is very sensitive to arcade bullshit(like when you realize planes are not behaving as they should in real life due to “balancing concerns”).
    We used to do dogfights on 64-player servers and it was an absolute and incredible joy YEARS AGO(with nothing of the fancy tech we have now) compare to the shit that is warplanes.

    On the subject of tanks, we hadn’t had a decent tank simulator in ages, but since a tank is manned by several people, it’s very hard to simulate correctly unless you have each tank manned by X ammount of real human players.

    I can see the allure of the “camping wins” approach, it’s tiresome how the hordes of headless chickens can rush you in WOT, it will be mighty fun when someone attempts that in WT and when they see the schmuck at their sids get oneshotted they’ll stop and panic.

    I will be giving WTGF a try when it goes open beta (more polished)

    • well if each real man control 1 crews, it’ll impossible to play a tank game , cause nobody want become loader or radio operator. And you can’t do nothing when your driver or gunner don’t listen to commander’s order

      • Well you could put an AI into those “non interactive” spots y’know.. like radio operator and loader..

        but driver?, nope, that needs to be a player, he has to manage engine power, gear, everything with the specifics of each tank

        • but you still do nothing of that in WT either…IL-2 was fun precisely because it wasnt built with arcade mode in mind…i mean sure you could turn off realistic gunnery and kill planes at 1500ms easily but they didnt bother with anything like proper balance….it was all done for the sake of realism…i just love DCS or the old IL-2 but…..WT on full real isnt good enough and when it comes to arcade…..fuck that shit….even WOWP is better than that….so imho if youre from the sim crowd youre better of playing some real sims….

          • IL-2 has extensive realism settings, you could turn everything off and it turned into an arcade with superreal damage model (no cockpit, “fantasy” digital HUD, infinite ammo, infinite fuel, no blackout or redout, etc)

            If they make ground orces real, then there should exist NO BALANCE whatsoever.

            letsee wha tthe finished product is

    • You seem to be discussing a flight sim, or at least something in that ballpark.

      I fail to see the relevance. Sim peeps are like hardcore Strategosaurus Rex afficiandos, so far off the mainstream most people barely remember they exist.

        • The POINT is the sim crowd is niche enough that the whole genre has been almost dead since the fukken Nineties. Personally I have no problem with them having fun in their particular little corner, but it’s not my cup of tea nor most others’ either and presuming it will somehow suddenly magically develop mainstream appeal strikes me as downright hubristic.
          Hyper-realistic sim stuff is all fine and dandy but very much an aquired taste demanding considerably more commitment than the mass market is willing to invest.

          Case in point, unless I’ve entirely misunderstood something Red Orchestra (plus some others probably) has been offering an extremely realistic integrated battlefield for years and, well, I’m quite positive the populations involved are orders of magnitude less than just the average daily EU players in WoT…

  19. Gaijin: Proving once again that good graphics don’t make for good gameplay.

    Why do they even bother with an Arcade mode?

  20. IMO WT’s tank battles will be like a “clash of titans” event, where only the smartest and strongest will dominate the battle and feel the sweet victory. But… When you add airplanes into this fight, it gets even better. Imagine Hs 129B-3′s strafing at T-34′s, KV’s from above, like demons flying in the air, and turning tanks into pile of scrap. Or, there could be Ju 88P-1′s, which can slam 7.5 cm shells into tanks with its modified PaK40 AT cannon. Bloody hell, it’s not over yet. Add the “Pulkzerstörer” conversion of Me 262 with 50mm MK214 semi-auto cannon and this game will surely turn into a “clash of titans” fight.

  22. Wait till 0.9.something, when announced change of drawing shape from 1km square with player at the center to 700m radius circle will happen, and you will see something very similar.

    The only difference will be that a tank can withstand more hits.

    Weren’t there a game called Thief that was about sneaking?

  23. I don’t think this article puts things into context. War Thunder has different game modes, with differing levels of simulations. World of Tanks has 1 level of realism (or lack thereof) over different game modes. They’re different games but only 1 of them tries to cater for different demographics.

    War Thunder is going after the instant gratification crowd and trying to get numbers from the simulation crowd – if you’ve ever play IL2 online during its glory days in the mid 2000′s, War Thunder offers something very similar to that. As a previous poster points out, when you fly in a sim, you end up flying for 30 minutes plus – playing Il2 on FR servers back in the day you might end up flying for 2 hours straight in the same aircraft, if it had fuel capacity.

    What the average sperging pubbie doesn’t understand is simulation games take ages to play, they’re not instant gratification, death comes very quickly from someone you’ve not seen. Its not unproductive time either, its part of the experience: getting to where you need to be with your squad, positioning, timing an attack, getting out.

    But fuck War Thunder and World of Tanks. IL2:Battle of Stalingrad is right round the corner, as is DCS:1944. Time to do things properly again.

    • agree with all you say, in fact the simulation in warthunder is ages behind il2-1946 with hsfx, ultrapack and latest patches, warthunder even in simulator sucks, fm sucks, tooo arcadish for me (as a true hardcore plane sim), il2: bos and dcs are the products we need for this dead market, I enjoy playing tanks in wot, but more realism in a ww2 game online would be awesome, in fact warthunder is not for popatos (ground forces), but the planes are not the best modeled, it need ages of work, but its better than wowp, it is good for the guys who want to start the hardcore sim in planes.

      and the satisfaction in sim is tooons much better than any other game, its hard, but when you dominate it can be fucking awesome.

  24. I agree with the notion that this kind of brutal ambush combat is not for everyone, I even noted that in my first impression post in the closed beta forums. I am not sure if WT Ground Forces can get anywhere near the playerbase of WoT, because it demands you to be much more resistant to frustration than WoT, which, with its rather balanced, ‘arcade’ battlefields is already getting people to rage hard.

    I still very much enjoy the ground forces part, which suprises me, cause I was one of the few peoples who actually were not sure if Gaijin could pull off a enjoyable ground combat game. Though it’s not as detailed as Men of War, it’s certainly closer to the more gritty, brutal (and frustrating) kind of engagements that I enjoy. But it’s certainly not for everyone

  25. Something I think is worth keeping in mind when comparing World of Tanks and War Thunder is the divide between people who want “combat as sport” and people who want “combat as war”, laid out in this old essay about D&D. It’s long, but I think it’s worth reading up on, because it describes a fundamental divide between two very different styles of play.

    http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?317715-Very-Long-Combat-as-Sport-vs-Combat-as-War-a-Key-Difference-in-D-amp-D-Play-Styles

    The point is that for some players, it’s the engagement between two tanks that’s fun; the manueovre warfare as drivers struggle to get an edge over each other, using terrain and the relative characteristics of their vehicles to decide the battle.

    For some players though, that’s almost irrelevent. The enjoyment is in laying an ambush, in stacking the deck so far in their favour that the actual fight is short and very one-sided – because it’s an afterthought. It’s not the point. The FUN part of play, for them, is in the preparation, in laying out the groundwork for the battle. The actual battle is only enjoyable insofar as it provides the opportunity to watch their preparation unfold.

    • Well yeah, that’s pretty much how waging wars works – “never give a sucker an even chance”, as IIRC one of the US admirals commented before Surigao Strait. (And D&D has always been all about stacking buff on buff on bonus to steamroll the opposition.)

      Not really convinced that’s a good paradigm to build a “mainstream” PvP game around however.

  26. Different demographics, different players, different tastes.
    Comparing War Thunder to WoT is like Quake to Call of Duty or Unreal to Battlefield…
    Or STALKER to Half-Life…
    IT. DOES. NOT. WORK.
    Game quality is subjective as SHIT. War Thunder is NOT better then WoT. WoT won’t be better then WT.
    HELL, even WT being better then WoWP is not a completely true sentence.

  27. War Thunder Ground Camp Forces

    Now i dont know whats worst “World of Camp” or “War Thunder Ground Camp Forces”

  28. BTW,

    -I am glad World of Tanks is an unrealistic arcade game, because that allows the developers to balance it much more than if they only “went for maximum balance”. The video touched two important elements I think.

    Did you mean “went for maximum realism”?

  29. I still look forward to WT public release since it has respawn system, which means you can learn more easily about the mistakes you do.

  30. SS you nailed it! +1

    i’m a GF test and that’s exactly how i feel, i don’t like that “realism” it’s really not fun, i totally changed my mind about WT GF. patch after patch i was thinking, yea maybe the tanks will be more controllable, maybe more faster (e.g snail speed) maybe snipe mode will improve, turret movement, reverse is non existent, it’s horrible to drive those tanks there… (in the vids maybe it’s look better, but actually play feels horrible, tanks are totally uncontrollable and slow) this week we got teir IV (like tier 8/9 wot) and thats it, i finally understood that this is a simulation/realistic game and i would not play this game, it’s a nich market for those campers and slow acting players… not for me.

    never though to say this but WG have won, their game mechanics and design won and you my friend are totally correct.

    mind you i was WT fanboy in my responses but i change my mind completely.
    yea 50$ wested for CBT (a sucker is born every day).

  31. Playing a lone tank relying on random team mates for air cover is going to suck. Playing with friends who will provide that air cover is going to be great. So long a s you are actually interested in a a more realistic experience to begin with.

  32. judging a book from the cover?
    indeed you did it
    what did you ss said? “i don’t want to attack gaijin or warthinder”? (something like this)
    my only problem is that a wot player CAN NOT like warthunder becouse of its game mechanics
    think about this: why do you judge something without seeing other gameplays or actually play it?

  33. “You might say, yea, it was historical, but the thing is, the entire concept is flaw from game point of view. Whenever you have an enemy that can kill you with a huge advantage, it’s always frustrating, no matter that your fighter cover will kill him a minute afterwards. That won’t matter to you, because you are dead and frustrated.”

    Arty, Td Fvb, WT E100

    If i wait to mm find a battle, load in the battle, wait 30 seconds, move all the way to find something and get blasted in 1 shot or in one burst, I don’t care i my team will kill them afterwards, i’m dead……it is frustrating to the max

    Yes, in WWII there was artillery, but artillery and bombers are almost the same thing, you know they are there but you can’t do anything about it, while it will wreck you from a safe distance
    OBS: Please save yourself from look stupid and don’t say thing like (stay arty safe, don’t stay in the open, arty prevent camping, LTP), most people who hate artys are the ones that understand the game and see that arty makes people camp and punish flanking and agressive maneuver

    • Artillery one-shots are rather rare.
      So are 183 ones, as contrary to common belief it’s actually perfectly possible to survive a direct hit from one – my IS-8 seems to often enough, though not exactly in a good shape.
      And Waffleträgger’s burst won’t kill you if you can reach cover quickly enough, ie. you don’t get caught in the open or irrecoverably immobilised (and such tends to be fatals against conventional shooters too anyway).
      Fuck the WTF anyway, that one you can at least see – the Borsig Death Pizzas start murdering you several tiers earlier and you can’t even locate the little bastards half the time.

      By the sounds of it, in WT GF *anything* that can penetrate you can and will also one-shot you. We’re talking whole orders of magnitude difference here, l2perspective.

  35. an other thing
    wot is about HP
    wt is about demage model
    realism doesnt equal fun-says who dont like simulator and if you dont agree with them stop argueing..

  36. Different games for sure. WT seem to be a much more campy game. Having a maxed out TD in WT will be beneficial because you can just sit and snipe and rely on idiots moving infront of you. While in wot you can more more freely on the battlefields, despite artys. I feel the gameplay in WT is similar to arty gameplay in WOT, patience and sniping targets that dont know a shit.

    What makes these 45% whining noobs in wot, think they will perform better in WT with more realism? The good players will always be able to dominate and fuck weaker ones, just like in wot. Imo wot is balanced as hell because any pussy can take one tank and make enough damage.

  37. Gaijin will have to learn how to use historical realism in a fun way, I’m not saying it’s not already but there are some situations where camping endlessly is no fun. I think better map objectives design may help this. Let’s hope the best I’m really exited as I really like Realism Battles in aircraft of warthunder!

  38. How many people actually watched the video the whole way through and saw that jingles wasn’t complaining about the game, but merely saying that if you expect it to behave exactly like WoT and play it like it’s WoT you’re going to have a bad time because, surprise, they are totally different and are catering to different audiences?

    Maybe he was saying you should stop and take a look around, take it slow, be cautious. You know, be more like an actual tanker not looking to die? A tank in a defensive position with a good field of fire set up ready to repulse an enemy from an expected direction will win almost every time. And you know what? that’s completely fine. That’s how it should be; the defender always has the advantage unless it is grossly mismatched. Charging down a corridor of death because that’s where the enemy is is stupid and should be rightfully punished.

    So what do you do? you attack from an unexpected direction. You suss out the ambush beforehand using a scout that doesn’t just yolo into them, but actually provides eyes and intel. You pepper the position with artillery to dislodge (dislodge, not kill) them. You think before acting and you outmaneuver the enemy. A known enemy position can almost always be bypassed or dealt with indirectly, and an enemy that refuses to move after his position is compromised is a dead enemy.

  39. WT Groundforces will be free to play. So I’ll download it and play it a little. I’ll stick with WoT even though I have major issues with it.

    Ground Forces in the end won’t be all that fun and Gaijin better hope for a small group of hardcore fans to pay for the thing because bombers will be even more hated in WT-GF than Arty is in WoT.

    Plus you can totally stop with the WT “realism” argument. In WoT you get one tank per battle. Then its over. In WT you get as many vehicles and you can play for. If you want to drop $20+ per nation for extra tank slots you can bring a lot more then some guy who doesn’t spend any money on the game. That makes in more P2W by far then WoT. And don’t even get me started about Premium vehicles in WT. At least in WoT you get things like the TOG, StupidPershing, Ram II and other flawed vehicles. In WT you get 100% upgraded vehicles that you don’t have to grind XP for.

    I don’t know if WT GF will be fun, but it won’t be anything special.

    • Tank slots are not a serious Pay2Win problem, you can buy few with credits in WT (currently with aerial part you can have 5 without paying Gold Eagles if I recall correctly – and it is more than enough for causal player like me)

      On the other hand premium vehicles are another cup of tea. They aren’t worse from tech-tree counterparts (sometimes better or (identical in properties but with better MM)). Let’s take Chaikas from Arcade Battles as example.
      Regular I-153 M-62 Chaika is great USSR plane (I would even call it OP in first era). Battle rating – 1.7. There is premium Zhukovsky’s Chaika. It is almost identical to regular in plane properties. Main difference? Battle rating 1.3 So it is like maxed chaika, which additionally meets weaker opponents.

      Pure pay2sealclubb.

      There is another issue – ability to buy crew points with money. In WoT/WoWP you can buy 100% primary skill crew, but you have to train additional perks and skills yourself.
      In WT you can just buy it and max your crew in 10 seconds (which normally takes months). Difference caused by having good crew in quite noticeable in WT. Also with golden eagles you can buy “Ace qualification” for your crew which further boosts crew’s abilities. And there is no way to obtain Ace training without usage of Golden Eagles.

      • Oh, don’t even bring up the Lend Lease and Captured planes. It is entirely possible to have an American lineup of planes that consists of such patriotic and American things as A6M2 Zeros, BF-109 F-4s, and Spitfires and not actually have a single American manufactured plane. And they come fully upgraded by default.

        Also, Backup Planes.

  40. I am quite glad for War Thunder’s game mechanics, as I come from Red Orchestra 1 and 2 tank combat, and from OP Flashpoint and ARMA2/3. I sometimes don’t want fucking health bars on tanks and planes, and I don’t care what anybody else thinks about it. I’M HAVING FUN, so move along.

    I will continue to play WoT, too. But lately, after having alot of bullshit games and lag and all that shit on WoT, I just play more WT Beta.

  41. Realism doesn’t equal fun.

    Depends. For almost 3 years WoT was my fun but in the end I realized that is just a mediocre arcade game with crappy graphics and poor performance so it was time to move on and forget about my 41k battles.

    Now I’m playing Realistic Battles in War Thunder and I like them to the bits. No magic crosshair, no red outline, no automatic bullet drop compensation, no fantasy tanks, no healthbar, no gold ammo, no RNG, no sh!t.
    Just tanks and my own eyes.

    It’s WT perfect? Hell no but for my taste Gaijin’s tanks are on the right track for those who wants to use their brains for a dose of realism and not only point-and-click games.

    • If you want realism, you’re playing the wrong game mode. Historical, or now called Realistic, battles are still very arcade-y, they just don’t have some of the assistance you get in arcade.

      If you want the realistic mode, play Simulator, formerly known as Full Real, battles, and tell me how fun that is.

    • you forgot to add

      no fun.

      yea lets see you cross the 50h play time in WT boring stationary warfare, it’s soo exciting…. and soo real, hold on to your keyboard & mouse desktop warrior.

      yea graphics like skyrim, but at least in skyrim i could run faster then WT Ground forces half baked tracktors.

  42. Lol @ all the people saying, “WT will have lots of camping, and you have to rely on teammates”. And you don’t have that in WoT? Please. Say whatever you want about WT Ground Forces, but it will be at least worth trying for free once it goes into open beta/live.

    • The point is WT sounds suspiciously like those problems will be FAR more pronounced. In WoT you can to a degree take calculated risks with your maneuvers as the HP pool usually gives a reasonable margin of error. Good luck with every hit being a potential instakill.

      And the scrubs will still be just as bad, but in the context of a lot less unforgiving system.

      • Precisely because the system is less forgiving, it will make the scrubs lose more, and skill will be rewarded more. WoT allows scrubs to win when they shouldn’t far too often.

        • The scrubs don’t win, except when the other team is an even WORSE tomato garden – they get carried. But at least they’re an occasionally useful distraction, spotting aid and attrition buffer.

          In a more uncompromising system they’ll just die that much faster and hence cease being even potentially useful, while the progamererers then get to play Custer at Little Big Horn under borderline 1-hit KO rules.
          Sounds awesome.

        • In my first match yesterday I capped a point, then killed a T-44 and 2 IS-2 with a Panther G…

          Alone.
          Hitting the right points with default ammo (PzGr39/42).
          Using the terrain.
          Abusing the weak LFP of russian tanks.

          It’s kinda funny, when a WoT kid targets my german tank’s lfp and hit the transmission multiple times without having any chance to destroy my tank.
          When I do it with a soviet tank, it’s 90% ammo hit.

          I also like, that german tanks with overlapped wheels have quiet good accuracy at lower speeds.

          • Failtroll is failtroll.

            I fly bombers/attackers regularly (actually I especially trained myself against tanks in the last months).

            Only few of them is useful against moving targets.
            Like the Peshka.
            2 drops of 250kg bombs.
            Then it must reload.

            Or Hs-129B2 (B3 is garbage).
            It must fly dangerously close to the target (within 200m). If it manoeuvres, it can’t hit it.

            Maybe Me 410B6/R3.
            But it doesn’t have armor, so it can be killed with a puny mg (tank commander have machine gun skill).

            Ironically the greatest treat for tanks is the Italian SM.79 bomber.

            Heavy Bombers?
            Anything with 4 engine is dead meat, nothing more.

  43. tanks were build as support for the infantry, so they should probably introduce infantry into game, if they want realism

    • Wait, wasn’t wt gf about the SECOND world war? You know, blitzkrieg?… Sure there were tanks based on experiences of the WWI (Frenchies, British infantry tanks, etc), but… Weh, whatever. I don’t have time to explain doctrines of armored/combined arms warfare.

  44. I don’t think the game will be campy at all. Yes, the first few days, or maybe a pair of weeks after release, it’ll be. Then people will learn how to play better, manoeuvre, and outsmart the enemy, and the game will gain a much healthier and faster pace.
    And the bads will be there, too. Those will always rush first, like they do in WoT, just so the better players can farm them… Just like they do in WoT.
    I think I will like this. I am a very cautious player and I like having the time to think and manoeuvre, things like that. I belive WT will give me that, while WoT will give me some kind of more frenetic action, that I also like, even though it’s harder for me to play in that way, where there is little time for long thinking and decisions.

  45. There are positive and negative aspects of both games. I play WoT actively, was in alpha test for WoWP and also play War Thunder, because some of my friends from WoT tried it. There as some observations I took about them, I will write them down in no particular order:
    -Randoms in WoT suck and play level is awful
    -Clan part of WoT is good (if you’re that type of a player, that can get into better clans) and offers immense fun
    -WoWP is still getting brushed up, but it’s not really interesting to me anymore. In time, with expanded clan wars, it might be attracitve
    -WoT and WoWP are designed with gaming enjoyment in mind. They catter to average gamers and build on massive player base and faster paced combat
    -WT tries to atract those, that prefer more simulation oriented combat, particularly in realistic and simulator battles. It is not enough for hard core sim crowd though
    -WT has too little player base, despite the talking and assurances. It is out for quite some time, but still there are not enough players to fill teams.
    -WoT compared to WT has healthier MM, where tiers are most of the time full enough
    -higher tiers in WT suffer from 1.high costs, 2. uneven gameplay, 3. harder grind
    -there are same obstacles in EU server for WT as for WoT. Those are LANGUAGE and CULTURE. EU gameplay is pure shit in both games
    -where WoT can be played pretty routinely solo in randoms, WT suffers great deal, because teamplay is required more than in WoT
    -WT wants to attract players from WoT but on one thinks about the fact, that more bad players will come, than good. If you are good, you like WoT and you will probably play/try Gaijin games, just not that much. All those, that whine in WoT are not that good players and they expect instant fun and success. NOT THAT GOOD, since WT might be more demanding than HPbased WoT.
    -when WT has enough bad players, that will bring “15:0″ battles and with it lots of rage and bad temper on servers
    -combine bad players (ramming, failing) with realism and what you get are more battles, more grind, more need for money etc…
    -fanboys from WT are trying to get the playerbase from WoT, but they don’t realise, that they will attract also those with bad stats, making their game less enjoyable in long term
    -WT requires you to buy golden eagles more than WoT requires you to buy gold. Considering that fact, it’s harder to get to high level planes, by that could be argued that it’s pay to win (upgrades with free RP etc…)

    My experience was following: I played on US server, where we could talk during battle and it was really fun, coordinating actions. My win rate is almost 60% in my freqently flown planes, which couldn’t be said for my first 7000 battles in WoT. But there were battles, that were lost in 3 minutes, with no raging or bad temper in chat. The crowd is more calm, I guess. Or my luck. On the other hand, I played some squadrons with my friends and we were on EU server. The chat there was filled with cursing, “noobs!!!” etc…. I forgot to switch back and found that games were shit. There was no coordination, some people tried, but language was unknown etc… Not really fun, so I was relieved, when I found that I forgot to switch server.

    I played 3 realistic battles. Those are more fun, altough I am a noob and my planes are all from level 1. Problem was, we were waiting for between 5-10 minutes, chatting, making jokes and stuff. The queues were empty, even more than in high level arcade battles.

    So, what my conclusions are:
    -I went back to playing WoT mostly, taking part in clan activities
    -I can’t wait for WT GF to come out so I can try playing
    -I’m not hopefull, that long term, WT GF will take many players and be much more better (sanity wise) than WoT
    -both games will improve over time
    -listening to fanboys from either side will turn me off for that game.

    Edit: I corrected some grammar.

  46. I must be the only one that can’t stand Jingles…he is a knob….

    WT GF is what I hoped WoT would become. Instead, WoT is travelling in the direction I would least want it to progress. Discovering exploits, advantages, and OP tanks is not fun any more. The aim of WoT is to adapt to rolling nerfs and buffs in the best way you can. I just want a stable game that ignores whiners that are butthurt because tank x is inferior to tank y.

    • I think we will have a chance to observe, what could happen to WoT. But, as many have said, WT may be heading in a direction, that will not appeal to hardcore sim fans AND casual players. On the other hand, WT GF has forced Wargaming to start making changes, that matter, not just getting out more and more new tank trees.
      Lay back and wait … it will be clear by the end of this year, probably.

  47. Had a funny thought. So, WT GF is all about realism right?

    What’s with this respawning bullshit then?

    Oh, I know they have an excuse for it but let’s be honest: It’s respawning :-)