For Varnish - War Thunder - first-gameplay-videos-of-ground-forces

[CA$H]

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[Diragi]

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I will not be surprised if Gaijin makes a better engine than world of tanks. These screenshots are very pretty.

I have tried to get in to both war thunder and star conflict. I am forced to the conclusion that they give very little thought to game balance, or the way matchmaking can make things extremely un-fun to play.

There is a whole host of lessons wargaming has been smart enough to learn from experience, and if gaijin wants to come eat their lunch the should be cribbing notes.

I am talking things about upgrades, economy, game balance and matchmaking spread along with premades.

Gaijin just doesn't seem to care. Maybe they are just too early in their dev cycle to worry about it much, but they really need to do it at some point.

Personal complaints:

MM spread is very, very wide. This is usually multiplied by EXTREMELY large disparity between the top end level brackets and the lowest. In star conflict there are complaints of tier 3 ships being able to tank 7+ enemies at once for long durations.

For tanks, Id expect the equivalent of throwing Shermans into tier 8 matches as the usual more than the exception.

Team sizes are dynamic, pre-made groups are larger than WOT. The MM will backfill with bots if it has to. This means a pre-made group can be half the enemy team, while you get stuck with bots and a pure pug.

Upgrades are gated by xp, but "credit" costs are trivial and their effect is relatively minimal. They are also always pure-upgrade, so there is no side-grade or options, its strictly linear.

They are also poorly paced. A fully upgraded plane/spaceship is almost always more powerful than the next vehicle is stock.

This can be extremely frustrating when the new vehicle becomes a downgrade and you have to grind with it for quite some time before you get any improvement over what you were just flying.

This goes along with the way they stretch the level brackets out, so every variant is 3+ "different" vehicles you have go grind through. So you frequently don't even get a different looking vehicle when you upgrade, it just performs worse than the one you were flying despite being very, very similar.

tldr: their engine development is better than wargaming, no argument. There are a lot of rough spots gameplay and balance wise that they haven't ironed out in either of their current lobby games. In my opinion they have a ways to go before they can expect to beat war gaming.

[Matt Varnish]

That may be all fine and good, but War THunder's tank battles, just form that video alone, LOOK and SOUND way cooler.  That alone is enough for me usually.  Toss in the fact that there are no 'made up' vehicles and that makes it a no brainer for me.    If you think I dont like fake tanks, or tanks that were only on the drawing board, having looked at the WoWP trees, its even WORSE for planes.  Planes just flat-out MADE UP by Wargaming.net, while leaving out icons.

I like the fact there is PVE stuff to kill in War THunder (I dont have the extensive beta access you seem to have for their tank engine, so I'll have to judge from the plane beta only), IE the players are trying to kill each other, but also: to win, you have to complete the objective.  There is one map, Pelilau, where there is an island with 2 bases.  However, there are also 2 navies, one for each team, that is AI controlled, and are sailing towards each other, and will eventually shoot one another.  If the players do NOTHING but shoot each other in the air, it will be very close for who wins.. but even just taking a light cruiser out of the equation, your side will win.  Plus taking out a small ship is wirth 5 times what PVE ground targets are worth, or 3 x what air kills are worth, while putting two torps into a battleship (some planes can carry two, so one run in a H6K will do it) will net you 10 times what a PVE AAA nest is worth.  Yes right now base-bombing got nerfed, but thats because if you got two good bomber pilots, you can end the match in 4 minutes flat... so game balance, they kinda had to.

But back to the tanks.   Just looking at some screenshots of the tank trees... Scout cars, like the BA-10 or the M20 Greyhound (the 'reserve' aka tier 1 vehicles) for capping objectives,  how cool is that?  Instead of making up a tonne of french tanks for a whole french tank line, and STILL not having the Somua S35 as a regualr tank for the french, they threw them into the Brit line.  Just like they did with the Italian planes, they are ONE line in the German plane tree.  It just makes so much sense.

MM.  Having not played Star conflict, cant say there, but I have not seen anything super unbalanced in War THunder so far.   Certainly nothing as egregious as in World of Tanks, where your gun sometimes literally cant do anything. War THunder a bullet will still do some damage, generating some xp! I think the worst Ive seen was when a guy took a named bi-plane (one of the first rewards you get is a named version of the base bi-plane) and was up against tier 5 stuff.  Thing is, at tier V, almost nothing could out-turn the bi-plane, apart from the Jap Ki-63, so he did alright vs the turn-fighters.  I think he was 'platooned in' too, because your MM ranking goes by the highest aircraft you are using for your Air Force, not each vehicle.  
My only British bomber for example is the Tier 3 Beaufort, and it can outrun just about anything Tier IV or lower.  Even at Tier V or VI, there are very few bombers that can run at that speed, certainly only the A-20 heavy fighter can keep up, so while the max payload sucks (1000lbs total), it SURE lasts way longer than my H6K with 4400lbs total, so I actually get more points in it because it lives longer than 1 minute in enemy airspace. Bombers start at a higher Alt than fighters, so it gives you some time before the dedicated air-defence guys get up to your alt and can catch up to you.

Also, War THunder has the Historical and Real Modes.  Instantly making Aces High obsolete, for those guys who don't want arcade mode, and want one plane, one set of ammo, and you have to land to re-arm-refuel and repair, with only in-cockpit views. WoT has only "arcade mode"

I'm just glad there are eastern european countries who are making games like ArmA and action-sims like WoT and so on so we can even be HAVING this conversation, rather than the US theme of MOAR CALL OF DUTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Basically, TLDR, when the tank patch goes live for War Thunder, I am uninstalling World of tanks.

[Joyous_Oblivion]

Tauren Shamans aren't real Dennis...

Seriously though, WoT never claims or tries to be a perfect tank sim. It's a game. It's there to have fun. Could it be more historically accurate? Of course it could be but I know the game would be far less fun because there would be a fraction of the tanks in it.

I play the game to have fun, not for a historical reenactment.

I guess I just don't understand not liking something because the tanks aren't 'real' when no one ever claimed they were...lol

Ill probably try the warthunder tanks option, but I'm very happy with WoT currently. It's in a really good spot in terms of gameplay, matchmaking tech trees etc.

Ill probably get in to World of Warplanes just to annoy you

[Diragi]

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Here's the same video with Youtube 'celebrity' -- the Mighty Jingles -- providing some commentary and some good thoughts.

That may be all fine and good, but War THunder's tank battles, just form that video alone, LOOK and SOUND way cooler.  That alone is enough for me usually.

At the present time the graphics in WT are way superior no doubt. Not that I could actually run them with my PC (trying to hold on until I have a 'must have' reason to upgrade). There's talk of a new WoT engine but it's probably just appeasement.... more importantly is that their map designers are getting a lot better (although they still have a ton of shit ones).

Certainly nothing as egregious as in World of Tanks, where your gun sometimes literally cant do anything...

Basically, TLDR, when the tank patch goes live for War Thunder, I am uninstalling World of tanks.

Other than the scouts, which are a terrible joke perpetrated on noobs by WG, extremely rare that you can do 'nothing' to an enemy (though I'm obviously more likely to fire prem ammo). I like the fact with the wider MM that it forces you to mix up your tactics; top tank in a heavy = bully tank, bottom tank = support time.

Factor in the WT damage model ; seem like you can make a million hits but one lucky crit and boom death. Versus the WG model where you have HPs + occasional ammo rack model. Getting one shot and running back in another tank seems all very COD-ish (just my snap reaction/judgment). I look forward to the reviews and the comparisons once it goes to open beta.

[Joyous_Oblivion]

It's hard to compare the two side by side be side they cater to different people. I think the WT tank game will be better for the 'Mainstream' call of duty style players as Duane mentioned due to having multiple vehicles per game and no real penalty for coming back in another tank (though that could change).

Ill try it for sure but nothing I've seen or heard makes me want to play it more than WoT.

Edit: I wish I could do quotes easier on this but as to doing nothing with a gun in WoT? I've never had that happen. There is always somewhere you can hurt someone, and worst case is you switch HE and start killing his crew.

[Diragi]

doing nothing with a gun in WoT? I've never had that happen.

Kind of hard to hit anything when you hit R three times, drive down the middle of the map and shoot twice.

[Joyous_Oblivion]

Are you saying I'm doing that, lol?

[Diragi]

lol no...

[Matt Varnish]

yeah I've seen how Jingles flies in previous videos.. he's actually pretty terrible. But w/e, for me its great: there is a game much like World of tanks, but has planes (which I like) and has also solved my biggest gripe about World of Tanks and that's the made-up tanks. So I'm naturally going to go that game. No big deal.

[Diragi]

Oh ya Jingles is bad at tanks (and I guess planes); has the advantage of platooning with great players on a regular basis.

Speaking of which of would tank higher:

Quickybaby (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQWHq9e1hN268yjgYq-0hNw ): he has great commentaries and walks through his playthroughs. Biased toward Brit tanks that most people think are crap

SirFoch ( [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] ): he's playing through all of the tanks getting mastery badges so that is different. And I liked his "is it worth the grind" for about a dozen tier 10s.

Circonflexes ( [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] ): hijinks in tier 6 company battles.

[lothlann]

Tauren Shamans aren't real Dennis...

I never understood what that quote ment...

What I don't get about WoT why even use WW2 as a base if they are going to make up tanks anyways. They could have just made up countries and tank names and it would have just been a tank game, and just a good. By putting a setting you should abide by the rules of that setting. Yes it is a game, but when I play a WW2 fps and everyone has a m1 garand and i have a autoloading bazooka and i'm jumping around dodging shots shooting my bazooka mid air the game has lost my interest. If it was quake it is amazing because its sci-fi so being able to jump and shoot a bazooka makes sense. I also like how in historical mode in WT it limits the vehicles you can use to what was actually there.

I play WoT its fun, But I don't like how the tier system works, The kv-1 has hull armour 75/75/70 the kv-1s has 75/60/60 which makes no sense since the kv-1s had much less armour on the front then the kv-1, the point of it was do drop the front armour down to increase speed... and on top of that it has 760 hp vs 450 of the kv-1 just because it has its a higher tier. Yet if the two tanks ever met on a real battle field the kv-1 would almost always win because the kv-1s gun can't do anything to a kv-1 yet a kv-1s armour being thinner the kv-1 will open it up without a problem. The kv-1s is effectively a downgrade but in WOT its an upgrade.

Ontop of that with WoT has the least amount of armour on the rear of a tank which is BS, the rear was usually as thick as the front on most tanks, especially the heavier the front was, it was so the tank wasn't front heavy and get stuck in a ditch, so it would sit level. That taken from FPS that the back should be weaker then the front and has nothing to do with actually how tanks were built.

Tanks are either destroyed or active there is no in between. I've never like the, oh your driver is dead but don't worry his ghost is still driving. The engine broken but keep going its not like your now a sitting duck. When a tank was damaged it usually retreated I like how WT the tank is active or destroyed because that is how it would be. If you turret ring gets damaged and you can't rotate the turret, you either retreat or get out of the tank and spike it.

And you don't get extra tanks unless you play arcade mode, which I don't play if i'm solo playing, I only play arcade when I'm grouped up. And one of my biggest problems with WoT is that it's a mix of tanks, there is no point in having more then one country, you may as have one generic list with 20 tanks per tier because being a specific country does nothing for you when your playing brit, french, german, jap, usa, ussr VS brit, french, german, jap, usa, ussr.

I haven't played WT tanks yet, I'm sure it has its own flaws, all games do, But atleast the maps are 100x bigger then WOT also with npc tanks that continually move forward it means it wont be 15 people hiding in a bush waiting for the other 15 people who are waiting in a bush to move.

Well that's my rant. I'm hoping WT tanks is fun, but the plane game is still a blast so even if it isn't ill still be flying around the planes during the Battle of Britain.

[Joyous_Oblivion]

The quote was meant to signify the game isn't real. Neither is world of tanks. It is loosely based off of WW2, because that is a popular genre right now. I don't think if it was a generic tank game with made up countries and tanks it would be near as popular.

I have no issue with people disliking a game because it isn't historically accurate but what I don't get is hating or disliking a game because it isn't perfectly historically accurate but it never claimed to be. Like I said, to each their own, ill play whatever is fun for me at the time.

[Diragi]

and on top of that it has 760 hp vs 450 of the kv-1 just because it has its a higher tier.

Assuming that their goal of being historically accurate, when possible, is true then they are very limited in how they can actually balance the tanks:

a. use ahistorical / theoretical guns
b. HPs
c. ground 'friction'
d. loss of penetration over distance

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