Armored Warfare

Armored Warfare Website Link Here

TL;DR? It's basically World of Tanks, but faster-paced, less random, a tad bit more balanced, and has a near-future setting instead of early-to-late WWII era tech. Nothing game-changing, though.

But the details, you ask...? You have two teams of 15 tanks of various classes fighting over a randomly chosen map, with the goal of either destroying all enemy tanks or capturing their base. You cannot re-spawn once destroyed. Your tanks have an HP bar, modules, and crew, which can be knocked out, crippling the tank. You grind through the tech trees by using experience to research upgrades and purchasing them with credits, eventually purchasing new tanks. You have premium tanks, premium account time, gold, garage slots and convertible exp to purchase with said gold. Premium ammo is officially out, due to the hatred the Wo T community has for "gold rounds".

So as you can see, it's essentially World of Tanks: Modern Warfare edition. Rather, it's the details and mechanics behind the tanks where the difference becomes noticeable, especially in the roles and abilities each tank has.

Wo T had Light, medium, and heavy tanks, tank destroyers, and self-propelled guns, but all of them had to use tracks, nor could they use anything else but their main cannons. AW has Armored Fighting Vehicles, Light Tanks, Tank Destroyers, Main Battle Tanks, and Self-Propelled Artillery, and there is no limitation on the method of propulsion or weapons and equipment used.

For some clarification on the specialties of each class:

• Armored Fighting Vehicles: Scouts, essentially. This is arguably the most ambiguous of the classes in AW since this class includes infantry transports, scout cars, IF Vs, or anything that doesn't fit the other roles. The one thing they all do share in common though is the ability to "Mark" a target for attack. When this is achieved, the marked target will not only stay visible for an extended time, but they will take additional damage from any attacks. In general they suck at slugfests and are designed to support and spot, not engage directly. An example of this class would be the American LAV-150 Armored car or the Bradley IFV.
• Light Tanks: Tanks with speed and punch, but little armor. Much of this class and it's particular perks are still up in the air: originally they were supposed to have the ability to capture bases faster, shoot accurately even when driving near top speeds and deploy a wall of smoke, but much of that has been swapped around. Only thing that's been consistent so far is that you're supposed to drive these things like a maniac if you want to stay alive during a fight. The M551 Sheridan or the Soviet PT-76 falls under this class.
• Main Battle Tanks: The tank of tanks. Can take as much punishment as it can dish out, and the class most likely to bounce shots. Many have additional defenses such as reactive armor or missile jamming tech. Tends to have poor camo and view ranges, and are usually the least maneuverable... doesn't mean they lack a good top speed, though. The American M1 Abrams and Soviet T-62 are this.
• Tank Destroyers: The campers of AW. They lack armor, but make up for it with big, accurate guns, good camo ratings, and the ability to zero in on targets and do additional damage to targets if stationary. The American Stryker MGS and Russian Sprut - SD are good examples.
• Self-Propelled Artillery: A lot of this class is in the air due to how controversial it is in World of Tanks - they may not even make it into the final product. They're not restricted to being cannons, either: mortars, rockets and missiles can be used by the SPA units. The SP As can use a wide variety of munitions: smoke screen shells, ECM rounds which screw with the target's electronics, illumination rounds which reveal the area they're shot over, air burst shells mean to cover a large area, or plain old high-yield explosives in hopes of blasting clusters of tanks. The alpha damage is much lower than in Wo T, but in exchange the rate of fire is sometimes better; this is done in order to avoid the incredibly annoying one-shot kills or massively crippling shots the higher tier arty pieces are capable of. The British Abbot and American M109 serve as examples.

What's interesting though is that the devs have mentioned that they are floating the idea of making certain WWII-era tanks that at least saw limited use into the future (at least as far the early 1960s) into heavily modified premium tanks. One example cited was the later models of the Soviet IS line, such as the IS-10 (also known as the T-10). Kinda has me wishing the Hellcat or ISU-152 make an appearance. :)

Oh, and if you're interested you can buy your way into the Early Access testing. You'll have to pay to get access, though, and the cheapest pack is around $20 USD, with the most expensive one being almost $70 USD. An open beta will be announced in the future, but no date has been given so far.

edited 7th Jul '15 6:33:39 AM by SgtRicko

I've heard about this off of Wo T Labs months ago. I know WWII tanks are cool and all, but if only stick to the past, you'll only have so much to work with plus. But with this, it like an solid plan if the community doesn't tear each other limb from limb at the mere mention of artillery in a tank sim.

I kinda wanna be excited because fuck yeah PVE and fuck yeah modern tank fights but on the other hand I didn't like World of Tanks that much.

I don't like health bars, I like War Thunder's way of doing things.

I dunno, I'll follow it for a bit.

Armored Warfare is even more arcade-ish than Wo T due to the increased speeds and accuracy many of the vehicles have, meaning performing an accurate drive-by is quite possible, at least with the AF Vs and Light tanks. The maps are also far more larger and less restrictive, making it easier for even an MBT to out-flank a target via maneuvering. From what I've played so far in the Early Alpha a lot of the early tanks, especially the V-150 and British Scorpion AF Vs encourage that sort of behavior, since they have no armor but good damage and the ability to mark targets.

Might also be worth noting that the Scorpion is hella-fun to play. It's basically a small speedy derp gun that shoots HE and HESH rounds up the rear of heavy tanks like nobody's business.

edited 2nd Jun '15 11:56:57 PM by SgtRicko

I've signed up for early access, but that's all I've gotten regarding the game. Oddly enough the Gmail Web preview of the confirmation email I received claimed that I had bought the Soldier of Fortune Founder's Pack, even when I had given them nothing more than my email address.

Well considering the current progress of the game, it's safe to say that it'll be nearly a year before it hits open beta.

Finds the game's wiki.

Yeah, we'll have to wait quite an while.

edited 2nd Jun '15 11:28:44 PM by RabidTanker

Yeah, My.com is in no hurry to release any of its upcoming free-to-play games. Hopefully the wait will be worth it... if it doesn't blow up in their face^* Namely World of Speed, which has a fairly large part of the Need for Speed World fanbase interested, and they are neither smart nor patient.

Disregard that email you received Krieger: it was sent out by accident. And if you haven't got anything in the mail yet, you're probably gonna have to wait until Early Access Alpha #2 comes out, cause #1 is coming to an end tomorrow.

They finally added in the PvE mode... and I'm not very impressed.

It's very bare-bones: it takes place on maps already within the game, but with slight alterations, such as a different time of day, different weather, more or less objects on the map, etc. The objectives are really simple, often with a primary objective of capturing and holding a point on the map for a certain time. Secondary objectives such as destroying 5 random targets around the map do appear, but they're not very creative on that either.

There are also secondary challenge objectives that are given randomly and happen to be much more difficult, but you kinda need to luck out if you're gonna complete those. One objective I received required me to kill 10 enemy tanks within 3 minutes. That's not too hard in itself, given that the enemy tanks have much poorer damage and HP than human players and aren't the greatest in choosing cover, but where the difficulty comes into play is regarding your own team. Twice I got a team that had absolutely zero communication, even if you tried signaling or directly referring to them by name, plus an AFK dude at one point. Thus, trying to get that challenge is a pain in the ass since they kept taking up the kills, even when I asked. Hopefully the other random challenge objectives are more reasonable or have better rules in the future.

Another, more deeper issue is that while the core game is indeed fun, it doesn't really change much from the formula World of Tanks uses. As I stated in the OP, it's practically identical in so many ways that you could easily make the jump from Wo T to this game with almost no preparation, other than the knowledge that a couple of the classes have unique abilities, and you'll be fine. Obsidian really needs to find a way to spice up the gameplay or add something to make it truly stand out, because right now it's just a modern-day clone.

Oh, and the official forums are quickly turning into a n00b whine-fest. Lost of terrible grammar too, despite the fact that the forums have a built in spellchecker and are easier to use and format than ours. It's making me think that we might be seeing a lot more foreigners playing the game on the US servers than we thought, even despite the existence of the EU and foreign language forums. Might be a good sign of the game having potential to expand to different regions though, if true.

edited 2nd Jul '15 1:46:07 AM by SgtRicko

I understand if the butchered english came from the language barrier or Google Translate; if not, I'm kinda concerned about America's future.

And isn't it a bit early for the community to be trying to strangle each other to death?◊

edited 2nd Jul '15 1:40:01 PM by RabidTanker

Tell me about it. A couple of the players from Wo T Labs have a theory that it's because a good deal of the players are migrating from Wo T itself, including the crappy ones who buy into the "Matchmaker is rigged" or "anybody who beats me is a hacker" types. A lot of them also seem to have overly high expectations for the game and are now becoming extremely disillusioned at the realization it too has its flaws, or that it's not some revolutionary game-changer.

Oh, and there's the typical poster who failed to realize that the game is currently in the alpha stage and that they're doing TESTING, and complaining about why they cannot buy or use premium time or currency.

Yeah about what I expected. The competitive gamer environment just seems to generate toxic shitheads like shit attracts flies.

I really think a damage model like War Thunder uses would be a lot cooler but I think it still has potential as it is.

I will give it a shot before I decide fully. I am especially interested in how they made the artillery work unless that has changed.

x2: Confirmation that a noticable percentage of the community is illiterate and/or irrational. Even I know that the game is still under construction and I'm a newfag when it comes to MM Os.

I'm actually looking forward to an free to play AW; but depending on how the game is balanced when it's free to play, I might try WT or just stick to Wo T.

Either way it goes, I have my defenses against the community.◊

I too greatly prefer Warthunder's damage thing. But I am a big sucker for PVE and modern tanks.

We'll see when it comes out. It is gonna be free right?

Yep. Open beta is probably gonna be during this fall. And they've already got the gold prices for premium time set up too: looks like they're following Wo T's payment scheme as well.

Oh, one final thing... I'm gonna upgrade to the Lord of War pack sometime either today or tomorrow. They recently added on a little extra: namely, the ability to give away two free Early Access keys to anyone I choose. Any of you guys interested?

edited 2nd Jul '15 6:37:57 PM by SgtRicko

I'll snipe one, though if any of the more regular posters in the topic want one please hit them up first.

Generous and awfully tempting but I will join in the game after my new graphics card is bought and installed. That should be around open beta.

edited 2nd Jul '15 8:21:48 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Alright Rotpar... you've got the first one. I'll send the code to you via PM.

BTW, the beta is has limited hours from 7pm to 1am EST, except on weekends where it's on 24 hrs. The game is also more graphically demanding than Wo T, so make sure to check out the minimum specs here and see if you meet it. It's nothing terribly demanding, but if your comp struggles to play Wo T then you're probably gonna have issues running this game.

Should be fine running it, thanks.

Can I have a code if possible Ricko?

Ok, I'll give you the second one.

Thanks!

Run a few PVE games so far, get to learn the game without people whining and bitching that I have to be the elite master before ruining their fun. It's a bit tricky with the starting M103 since most of the opposition are actual tanks not AFVs, I feel badly outgunned and can only seem to shred their tracks.

One thing I noticed though, not sure if its "the new thing" but like Heroes of the Storm people like to AFK in PVE games.

edited 6th Jul '15 9:30:17 PM by Rotpar

It's a glitch. For some reason the PvE mode makes a lot of people's comps crash. Happened to mine twice, and yes it seems to happen to somebody almost every match.

And yes, the PvE mode heavily favors MB Ts, Tank Destroyers and heavy-duty Light Tanks like the Sheridan. It's all about the alpha damage and survivability there, not movement. Pure scouts or tanks with poor alpha and penetration issues are pretty much screwed there.

EDIT: I'd actually advise playing in the Pv P battles. You'd be welcomed just by the virtue of you being an additional player in the lower tiers. Reason why is because everybody's desperately trying to grind to the top before the Alpha comes to an end and everything gets erased, and those willing to put up with the lag have migrated to the EU server due to it's bigger server population. This leaves the lower tiers with pitifully few players, if any.

DOUBLE EDIT: Oh, and the PT-76? Yeah, that's gonna be a painful tank to play. Virtually no gun depression, poor armor, poor speed and maneuverability despite it being a "Light Tank". Only redeeming factors are it's penetration and alpha damage, plus max accuracy being really good for it's tier. You might be discouraged because of it's faults, but trust me when I say that the following tank (the British Scorpion AFV) TOTALLY makes up for that poor Tier 1 grind. Because, can you say "speedy, rapid-fire, high-accuracy derp gun?"

edited 7th Jul '15 6:23:06 AM by SgtRicko

I'm reluctant to hop in Pv P. My experience with games over the years has taught me that nobody welcomes new players, they want good players. The playerbase is why I left World of Tanks.

Doing alright with my little AFV so far, don't do much damage but I'm fast and decent at scouting.