[Mobius]

There are many posts about WT here and there but we don't have a specific thread for it. This game just attracted my attention mostly because of its graphics, whose quality is very high. How is it compared to other games such as CFS and IL-2?

The game is free, but do I have to pay anything later on?

[Grizzly]

War Thunder is built upon the engine which powered IL2: Wings of Prey (or Birds of Prey depending on your platform of choice). In simulator mode, it's actually decently realistic.

However, the meat of the action seems to be based around the arcade mode, at which point it really doesn't compare to CFS or IL-2.

[NGTM-1R]

The War Thunder devs are pretty much cretinous vermin unable to balance a game for arcade mode, and it's main saving grace was that World of Warplanes was an unplayable mess when War Thunder dropped.

Ground forces has not impressed me so far, especially in the fact you can have KV-1 in the same match as starter tanks in arcade. The simulator mode is where the game ought to be played, but only with certain vehicles unless you want to be hugely frustrated, because again, balance. (Though in simulator mode it's at least forgivable.)

[Unknown Target]

Never got into the game myself. Their lack of proper joystick support, and ****ty setup for the simulator servers, drove me away.

Unlike IL-2, you could not have realistic flight modes and unlimited respawns; either you went with unlimited respawns and arcade flying, or you went for a counter-strike esque single death with realistic physics gameplay mode with the simulator type. The lack of a middle ground left me feeling unfulfilled.

[StarSlayer]

[Hades]

NG forgot to mention the wonderfully broken damage model (both planes and tanks), ****y repair mechanics (mostly tanks, you can have an entire crew and it take severa minutes to repair one thing), and tanks driving as if they're on an icerink or something (totally talking about planes here). This, on top of VERY questionable balance decisions (such as the IS-4 and T-54 versus the Panther 2 and King Tiger, lol), their awful crew skills system, and the weird upgrades system.

[General Battuta]

My Hattori Hanzo wings

[Dragon]

You know, if that plane was an IL-2, that would actually be realistic. There were planes in WWII that could do just that, cut an enemy's wing off with their own wings. Still, I'm pretty sure that one couldn't.

[Spoon]

Clearly you are oblivious to the power of japanese folded steel. You disgusting gaijin baka.

[Scotty]

A6M were made of wood.

[Spoon]

Japanese folded wood trumps all

[crizza]

THeir support is the worst.
I bought a starter kit several month ago, had the money, liked the game, so hey, here we go.
From that point on, the game crashed after logging in, over and over again.
I asked in the Gaijin boards support area for clues, no one had an idea what could cause the crash.
Recently, I deactivated the starter kit et voila...the game runs smoothly...
But I guess, my money is long gone...

[StarSlayer]

A6M were made of wood.

Every source I've seen indicates they were predominantly made out of extremely light weight 7075 aluminium alloy, except for the control surfaces which were fabric covered.

[Sandwich]

I'd like to resurrect this thread since I've been bitten by the War Thunder bug really, really bad in the last month...

I don't fly much planes, but I've had a blast with the tanks. I'm not that familiar with the historical accuracy (or lack thereof) of the various tanks' effectiveness vs each other, but I love the modeled armor & hit angle damage system they have going on. It reminds me of when I first played Far Cry (yes, the first one) - the ability to lay prone and snipe, hide among bushes, etc, all gave me a sense that I was able to implement the kind of infantry combat tactics I learned as a soldier.

War Thunder's kind of the same, except instead of calling on my military experience (I wasn't a tank guy so everything I know about tanks is incidental), it calls on your basic knowledge of physics with regards to orientation vs the enemy, hull angling, ballistic trajectories, and of course, shooting at the location of vulnerable internals - ammo racks & fuel tanks. That thin 38mm side armor is effectively over 100mm if you're angled just so, after all.

I've progressed to the point in the tech tree where my main tank is a Sherman M4A2 (76) W. This tank is fun - nice and powerful - but it can't reliably penetrate the front or side armor of a PzKpfw VI worth a damn. In a recent match, while protecting a cap point, I found myself staring down the barrel of a VI. Knowing I was unlikely to penetrate my opponent's armor, I did the next best thing - shot him in the barrel. This hobbled his main gun enough for me to get in a few more shots at possible weak spots. Nothing penetrated, and in the end, he destroyed my tank, but the point is that those FreeSpace-esque "Disable subsystem XYZ" tactics actually WORK in War Thunder, and that makes it super-fun for me.

So.... anyone else play? Wanna form a team? 

[NGTM-1R]

The War Thunder devs are pretty much cretinous vermin

I'd like to reiterate this point with the notation that Gaijin is bat**** insane and was banning people for quoting Girls und Panzer ingame, and their forums are by far the worst cesspool I've ever seen despite the fact they're also hilariously overmoderated; the moderators are all running personal grudges against various types of content (there's one guy who's apparently terrified of Kantai Collection for example, to the point people will terroristically post KanColle stuff in a thread and then use an alt to report it so they can get the thread closed; another guy who's on a campaign against a particular clan ever posting...) rather than attempting to accomplish anything good for the forum as a whole.

Hell, War Thunder's CEO got up in front of the Duma and complained about World of Tanks as "encouraging people to play fascist tanks and aircraft by giving them historical stats" a few months back, or words to that effect. Ever wanted to know why your LaG-3 is broke? It's historical revisionism by the developers to "correct" World War 2 away from a world where Germany had competent aircraft. The devs have also been openly hostile to Italian planes and vehicles a few times.

These are terrible people. These are worse people than the MechWarrior Online devs ever were. Do not play their game. I cannot stress this enough.

[Sandwich]

Whatever. If such things prevent you from enjoying the game as it is, nobody's forcing you to play it (and if somebody is forcing you to play it, do you want us to call the cops for you??). Personally, I enjoy the game, historical accuracy be damned - after all, tanks were typically supposed to fill infantry support rules in the early years of WW2, but I don't see anybody complaining about the lack of infantry anywhere...

[Scotty]

That was rather rude, Sandwich.  It's fine if you don't share his concerns but you don't need to grind them into the dirt with your boot.

[NGTM-1R]

Whatever.

Hey, if you really want to support people who are eager to whitewash history, go ahead. However, given your heritage I would have thought an accurate accounting of the history of World War 2 would be something you'd care about.

Obviously, I was wrong.

It's not even so much that they're not historical; it's that they are made deliberately unbalanced in an online competitive multiplayer environment over the personal issues of the development team. Gaijin doesn't merely not give certain vehicles historical stats, but instead measures them against each other and makes sure that the ones on the "right" side are better than those on the "wrong" side, deliberately penalizing hundreds or thousands of players.

To say nothing of the personal issues of the development team being terrified of anything Japanese younger than 1950 despite their decision to call themselves...well, Gaijin. The personal issues of the fanbase are rather amazing as well; the reason flags were made pay-only was that they had severe issues with nationalistic trolling between Russian and Ukrainian/Balkan players.

[Aesaar]

I'm personally more amused by the idea that World of Tanks gives tanks historical stats.

How many hitpoints did a Panther ausf. G have, historically?

[AtomicClucker]

I'm personally more amused by the idea that World of Tanks gives tanks historical stats.

How many hitpoints did a Panther ausf. G have, historically?

The Germans lucked out when 42 was an insufficient number.