War Thunder

Or, the other game that's "Like World Of Tanks, but with airplanes."

I just discovered this game recently, and I personally prefer it to WoWP. I'm not very far down the progression tree yet, I have most of my nations at rank 4 or 5 (out of 20) and that's with judicious use of the "Convert XP" menu. Nonetheless, I'm enjoying the game so far and can usually bag myself a few kills before a lucky AA or bomber turret shot tears my plane to shreds on Arcade difficulty, and on Historical difficulty, well... I survived once...

I've got enough issues with Lag on both Battlefield 3 and World of Tanks. Trying to start getting involved in a game that's all about quick reflexes and split-second decisions with my internet connection will only end in tragedy...

Dogfights aren't always about split second decisions, especially if you're like me and do more 'boom and zoom'-ing than traditional dogfighting. I love me my American planes, and that's not just because of patriotism.

Still trying to get proficient with an gamepad though, it's a lot more difficult than mouse aim when it comes to trying to line up your sights, but to me it feels so much more natural to be using control sticks to control the plane.

Pardon my necro, but—

In my (low-tier) experience, dogfights are almost never about nothing bit split-second decisions. Since this isn't an FPS where you can turn and face a new enemy in a tenth of a second, the set-up is much more important; a lot more is decided by your approach than by your maneuvers once you're on-target.

Also; what're you lot's feelings about the ground combat? Now me, I just want my Stug, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that'll be so easily satisfied.

Is ground combat in at the moment? More interested in tanks than dogfighting. I just installed World of Warplanes and am so far unimpressed . Heard this game does it better.

Not yet; that's in closed beta at the moment, far as I know. As for the dogfighting, very different from what I've seen of Wo WP. First off, no health bars; an enemy plane isn't defeated when you deplete its HP, it's defeated when you do enough structural damage to disable it. Common ways of killing enemy planes include sawing off a wing/tail, damaging control surfaces to the point where they crash, and managing to kill the pilot. Note that I didn't mention destroying the engine; having your engine shot out will leave you gliding, but if you can glide back to/land at a friendly airfield, you are perfectly able to repair, rearm and rejoin the battle. Also unlike Wo WP, you'll be taking more than one vehicle into a fight, so if you get your pilot shot out on your first pass, you won't instantly be forced to sit out the rest of the game; you'll just be down a Spitfire or whatever.

Any idea how research works in the game? Trying not to repeat my early days of Tanks when I wasted thousands of XP on a tank that had nothing to research.

I want this game so fucking much but I'm a Mac user, so no game for me.

Ground forces are out today. Yay, tanks! Soviet are in so I've got most of what I want.

The interface outside of the game still baffles me. I have no idea what's being researched at any given time. And I'm annoyed that it looks like half of your match rewards are behind a paywall.

I just started playing this and am having fun with it so far.

Gralien, there IS a mac client according to http://warthunder.com/en/news/543-Mac-client-launch-en.

edited 30th May '14 3:20:10 PM by Morven

There's nothing quite like hitting a T1 biplane head on with 20mm cannon.

OK, I got the Mac client on Steam, I purchased the Pacific War Pack 'cause the XP-38G is awesome, found that the stuff not on the Steam page for Mac isn't Mac compatible, so I downloaded a Wine App in a stupid attempt to install it anyway.

Anyone know where the folder this stuff goes into is located? I gave up looking and had it install directly into downloads, but I doubt the game will find it there.

You should just be able to enter the codes for the extra content; you don't need to install anything.

Has anyone else been playing the ground combat mode? How are you finding it, if so?

It's alright, very different from the other game, which makes for a nice change of pace. I'm finding that War Thunder tanks is less game and more simulation, even in arcade mode. My biggest gripe at the moment is just lack of variety. With just two nations and only 4-ish maps, it gets monotonous pretty fast.

edited 5th Jun '14 7:42:50 AM by zzzdragon

I'm liking it quite a lot — in fact, I spent most of last night grinding up the German tanks to tier 2 (I'd gone to tier 3 on the Russian side). I'd agree that arcade mode is a lot more simulator-like than arcade mode in planes.

I'm not a huge fan of the "park in a circle and defend it from all comers" goals in every single match, though; they need more variety. I suspect they know that, though.

And I want a Sherman Firefly SO bad, because I wanna eat Tigers for lunch.

So apparently this showed up on the PS 4 online store the other day, anyone try it yet?

I'm still on the fence about this game. I love everything I see and hear but on the other hand, it's an MMO

Well, what is it about MM Os that you don't like?

It's not exactly like other MM Os, I find.

Can't put my finger on it but every one of them has rubbed me the wrong way.

Whatever the case is, the game itself is free. Even if there are a few dozen DLC things that cost a good $50 each. I'll give it a try.

Right, after some 4 hours of waiting it's been downloaded. I chose England for the air and the USSR for the ground.

Beat the tutorial, not a fan of the controls but I'll play with those later and now I'm trying to figure what exactly you're supposed to do.

I went German for air and Soviet for ground. I want the Stuka and I want my T-34. And my KV-1. And my IS-2...

Not playing at the moment because the first patch was giving me critical "reinstall now" errors and I didn't feel like reinstalling.

edited 8th Jun '14 2:33:35 PM by Rotpar

Right, been playing it for a bit and I can't say I'm having any fun. Almost entirely because it doesn't feel like I'm playing a PS 4 port, it feels like I'm trying to play the game through the internet browser on the PS 4.

The menus are almost unusable and the controls aren't nice to my controller. It's also done a poor job of telling what exactly I'm supposed to do and what all the buttons in the menu are. Let alone that I can't access half the options menu with a PS 4 controller. It also seems to think I'm actually playing it on my PC

But all of that aside, it's not that bad. Might try and run this on my PC instead, see if it runs better there.

I've only played it on PC, so I can't speak as to the PS 4 version. I don't find the controls bad on PC, anyway.

I do think they have managed to make it not 'play to win', which is always the problem with free-to-play games with premium content. It is, rather, 'pay to advance at other than a snail's pace'. The for-money planes and tanks aren't better than those available through the grind, but if you don't at least pay for the premium account status you won't get far in a hurry. There are definitely people who've progressed to the end having spent no money at all, though.

I chose the UK to put most of my effort in, in the air, and I'm kinda grinding both Russian and German tanks, because I like both.

Fortunately, the game is fun even on the lower levels of progression.

The PC is infinitely better. I've got my Spitfire for England and I've almost got my hands on the T-34, then the fun can properly start.

Doing maths though, at some point I'll have to shift my air focus to the Russians. No way the Meteor can keep with the Sabre or the Mi G-15

Pro-tip: the P38 does not make for a good dogfighting plane. Ow.