War Thunder - F2P Combat Flight MMO

[clamum]

I did a search for this game but didn't find anything, so I apologize if this is a repost.

I've watched a few videos from KrebsCOHO on this game (War Thunder) so I decided to try it out last night. If you've played Wings of Prey it is similar (same maker? the theme music is the same I think), but it's an MMO and has an unlock tree and upgrade feature not unlike World of Tanks. I don't know a ton about the game yet but it seems they will also add in ground and naval warfare at some point.

You can play Arcade mode, Historical Battle, or Realistic mode IIRC. I just played Arcade and used keyboard + mouse for controls (I have a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS I'll have to try though) and it worked very well actually. The graphics are beautiful and the game is a lot of fun. I can definitely see myself wasting a crap-ton of time on this game, haha. :awe:

There's only a EU server at the moment but I didn't have a problem playing at all. The Open Beta is out now. Free-to-play Combat Flight MMO. War Thunder official site.

One of Krebs' intro/gameplay vids

 

[darkewaffle]

Few friends of mine played this for a few weeks. I couldn't get into it, wasn't interested in learning another f2p game they've already moved on from

A lot of depth to the plane controls as far as I can tell and it's fairly well put together though.

 

[Genx87]

I think this has potential once they add in the tanks. Flight games are difficult to master and a niche product. Wargaming's World of Warplanes has about 20-40 people beta testing it at night. I dont joke having seen it myself. And personall,y I dropped it quickly and would never play it.

 

[Possessed Freak]

Wargaming's World of Warplanes has about 20-40 people beta testing it at night.

Because World of Warplanes is HORRIBLE. 3rd person mouse guided "flight simulator"... pish.

 

[mrnotwo]

Did anyone make this game work with MS FFB2 joystick on windows7? It's way too sensitive and I can't find anywhere to adjust it.

I tried the tutorial and graphics looked nice, similar to IL2 but I gave up when I couldn't destroy planes due to sensitivity of the joystick.

 

[uhohs]

gonna give this a try

 

[clamum]

Did anyone make this game work with MS FFB2 joystick on windows7? It's way too sensitive and I can't find anywhere to adjust it.

I tried the tutorial and graphics looked nice, similar to IL2 but I gave up when I couldn't destroy planes due to sensitivity of the joystick.

I didn't with that exact joystick, but I did try out my T-Flight HOTAS today. It too was way too sensitive, so I lowered pitch/roll/yaw sensitivity and that helped but I'll still need to reduce roll some. I dunno, I might just stick with the mouse because for me it is way more precise when aiming and shooting. I also only play Arcade so it's not like I need the joystick and realism.

EDIT: To adjust sensitivity, go to the Hanger. Look in the top left and click (Main) Menu, then Controls. Scroll down and you'll see the sensitivity for Roll, Pitch, and Yaw. I dropped mine in half for each and still need to lower Roll, FWIW. Sorry if I'm off a bit on the description since I'm typing this from memory.

 

[clamum]

Broke down last night after getting continually owned and spent some real money to get in-game XP so I could at least get a Level 2 plane (I'm currently focused on leveling up German aircraft; fighters so far). I didn't do that in World of Tanks because I found fighting using the entry tank wasn't too bad but I have a hell of a time trying to shoot someone down.

Might try the joystick again after I fix the roll sensitivity since having a separate throttle would be nice rather than using mouse wheel for throttle. I'm just concerned about aiming precision. Of course I can adjust any pitch/roll/yaw and x/y axis sensitivity in the game, but my joystick also has a knob to adjust the resistance of the stick itself.

Do any of you guys have a joystick with adjustable resistance? If so, what do you typically set it to?

 

[brandonb]

I loved playing IL2:FB back in the day. I even hosted my own server at times. Can anybody who played the game I just mentioned compare the two for me?

 

[uhohs]

man, i'm pretty terrible at this game. lol
i'll keep trying though, hopefully get better and unlock some better planes.

any recommendations for which country to focus on?

 

[KMFJD]

This looks good, will be downloading

 

[clamum]

man, i'm pretty terrible at this game. lol
i'll keep trying though, hopefully get better and unlock some better planes.

any recommendations for which country to focus on?

I don't have any recommendations; I don't think it really matters though. Part of the reason I picked Germany was their aircraft tree was pretty full (compared to say Japan), but I'm guessing the developer will fill out some of the less full trees. I might start on another country since I just bought a new crew/plane spot and I'm thinking of going Soviet or Japanese.

Had a bit better time last night playing, actually took 4th place once. The level 2 He-112A-0 I bought is definitely better than the crappy default plane you get but its turn radius is surprising much larger and it's less maneuverable.

 

[KMFJD]

Really liking this game so far

 

[wewter]

Amazing game is amazing. Can't wait until they add in ships/tanks. I recommend this to everybody that I know already interested in gaming - they're also revamping historical battles to have a nation-selector similar to that in Arcade (saw them beta this for a few hours yesterday, 2/10/2013, before they pulled it). Was pretty cool at least being able to choose between USA/Britain/Japan for historical battles, usually it's always RUS vs. GER.

see y'all in game! ^_^

 

[Elcs]

Decent but not as good as their other game, Star Conflict (less content, faster paced, no gravity, better definition in their class system)

IMO, War Thunder blurs the line between Bomber and Fighter too much, with many Fighters (and Attackers) being able to pack large enough and plenty enough bombs to destroy most land and many sea based units with ease (250lb bombs take out a lot of land things. 1x500 takes out a Cargo Ship, 2x500 take out a Destroyer). Of course, these typically have much more mobility than the equivalent Bomber and can easily and successfully deliver their payload.

The Wellington Mk I and Mk I /Late and Mk III are simply cannon fodder for any kind of plane. Starting with 10x250lb bombs on such a flimsy crate is most painful. It's so bad that I actually feared a Rank 0 Swordfish with a single MG being on my tail with a full compliment of experienced gunners.

 

[Rinaun]

This game looks MILES better than World of Warplanes. WoWarplanes had the worst controls imaginable. I noticed during the video you linked it's mentioned that there aren't any NA servers currently. I played Heroes & Generals which also uses mostly EU servers; the game was amazing from a gameplay standpoint, but lag ruined the overall experience for me. Rubber banding every minute and registry lag gets incredibly annoying. I noticed also during the video players were cursing the lag.

I'll wait for NA servers I guess

 

[clamum]

This game looks MILES better than World of Warplanes. WoWarplanes had the worst controls imaginable. I noticed during the video you linked it's mentioned that there aren't any NA servers currently. I played Heroes & Generals which also uses mostly EU servers; the game was amazing from a gameplay standpoint, but lag ruined the overall experience for me. Rubber banding every minute and registry lag gets incredibly annoying. I noticed also during the video players were cursing the lag.

I'll wait for NA servers I guess

You might want to give it a try anyway. I was a bit weary at first, but I have had absolutely no lag problems whatsoever playing the EU servers (I'm in Michigan, USA). The servers could be hosted in Chicago for all I know.

 

[ddjkdg]

World of Tanks had an arty special over the weekend and I wasn't interested in playing every game with 5 arty on each team, so I decided to try out War Thunder after hearing a lot of positive things. It's a lot of fun and I am probably going to drop some $ on it. Not sure if I ever get involved beyond dicking around in arcade battles, but I am feeling some burnout in WoT after grinding pretty hard for the last couple of months, and this is a really refreshing change of pace.

The important thing to know is that in arcade battles, this is NOT a flight sim. You can get to that level of sophistication in hardcore/realistic mode, where people are required to have a joystick, or even in the historical battles where you can fly with mouse + keyboard (without mouse aim), but mouse aim dominates in arcade. I made the exact same mistake as you guys and tried to use my joystick. Even with simplified controls and flight assistance, simply maneuvering the plane was a challenge and aiming was nearly impossible. This is because the default joystick settings are steaming dog turd.

After spending several hours tweaking every setting, I finally got to the point where I could control the aircraft fairly smoothly, but aiming was still an issue. If you look at the War Thunder forums, there are tons of similar complaints. The joystick controls are just not implemented very well, and some people are claiming that it was fine until a recent patch, I don't know if that's true or not but it seems like a stupid move by the devs. M+k is far superior right now because you don't have to worry about actually flying the plane at all, only where to aim, and you can't beat a mouse for that kind of precision. When you look at the end of battle report and see the guys at the top with 10 kills and 2 deaths, there is a 99% chance they are using m+k.

Having tried the World of Warplanes beta and giving up after about 1 night because it sucked, I can safely say that this is a much better game. I reached tier 5 on the USSR tree with about 4-5 hours of gameplay after I ditched my joystick and went with m+k. For anyone that wants to try War Thunder out, at a minimum you should get to whatever tier unlocks the first cannon-armed plane. For the Soviets this is tier 3 with the LaGG-3 which has a 20mm. British and US low tier planes all use MGs, I'm not sure about the Japanese, and I think the Germans get one around tier 4 but I'm not at home so I can't check for sure. The cannon is a game changer, since with MGs you need to be putting lead into your target for several seconds or even longer to take them down, but a cannon will score a kill with 3-4 solid hits.

Finally, regarding the servers, I'm in DC and average about 120ms. The game appears to handle latency quite well and I believe the lead indicator factors it in. Someone told me to pick "any available" from the server menu since EU and RU are supposedly hosted in the same place, so the ping should be equal, but you'll get into a game faster.

 

[gammaray]

this game is a gem. the learning curve is steeper than world of tanks for sure. World of warplanes is simply a joke, don't even bother.

That being said, airplanes are not for everyone. You won't find 50,000 online playing it. If you see 3k-4k it's a good day. The difference between great players and poor players is also huge. But the game itself is enjoyable, well done, with great graphics.

 

[Rinaun]

I decided to try this since I had nothing to do all night. The whole game is a clear rip-off of World of Warplanes, but it does a ton of things right that WoWarplanes failed horribly at. I did the tutorials, and really enjoyed the controls. The graphics controls are insanely good and I enjoyed the motif overall even if it was almost exactly like WoWarplanes.

The fun really stops there for me.

The first game I joined I noticed I was getting paired against incredibly strong planes. I could hardly kill anything even after firing constantly on enemy planes who were flying in straight lines for several seconds; if it wasn't a beginner plane my plane simply could not take them down unless they were incredibly bad or AFK. I ended up quitting 4 rounds in after getting tired of dying to bombers with cannons flying faster than me. I'm fine with upgraded planes having different guns, higher altitudes/more powerful engines, however I was constantly getting killed by people whom once I started to fire would poop my tier one planes acceleration and speed. One guy I chased around the map for a good 5 minutes, and every time I caught back up to him he would simply flip his plane upwards, bank, and just mow me in two shots. It had NOTHING to do with skill and entirely to do with me being unable to kill him after riddling him twice with several seconds of machine gun fire. Planes were even running into me and coming out undamaged; not sure what the hell that was all about. I know I was landing most of my shots because that annoying white text comes up, and I kept damaging the planes but never actually destroying them.

Developers need to realize that matching beginners against even slightly upgraded planes and cannons compared to what they are starting with is a sure fire way to turn off new users quickly. I'm really tempted to just uninstall it and mark it under "games flawed by matchmaking system". Everything else was fine, I just can't see myself getting picked on for several rounds at a blatant disadvantage to finally be on level with others. That just makes the freemium element shine through even more IMO, which is hardly good for a title. I didn't have issues with lag as far as I could tell so that is a plus.

TLDR; game is better than world of warplanes, but fails in a ton of ways that will cause this to be a under 10k population game. You can't matchmake Tier 2-3 planes with Tier 1. You will turn people off so hardcore and show it's only a grind.

 

[clamum]

Yes I agree their matchmaking system is terrible. I get raped constantly in the game. To contrast ddjkdg's experience, I'm barely tier 3 German after probably double the time he has spent playing the game. My typical end-of-match score is 0 or 1 kill, 3 or 4 deaths. :awe:

They need to fix matchmaking, or better yet, actually enable the fucking checkboxes to play with certain-tier opponents.

 

[ddjkdg]

The low tier matchmaking really is horrid, part of this is due to server pop (it is in beta after all) and part is due to the fact that you are taking 4-5 planes into a battle but maybe only a couple are tier 2 (which is what MM will rate you at), and you have some tier 0's and reserve planes which are just going to be cannon fodder.

Ideally they will implement a "noob island" of strictly reserver and tier 0-1 planes so you don't feel hopelessly outclassed. I've definitely had battles where I go in with all reserve planes and have to dodge Spitfires and Bf109s.

I noticed after changing the server selection from EU to any available, matchmaker got quite a bit better. I get probably 75% of games on the RU server since it has higher pop, and can put together more clustered team comps rather than having to shove players with a broad tier range into one match.

Also I am at tier 5 Soviet, tier 4 British, and tier 3 German, and by far the Germans have the worst low tier planes. Soviet reserve planes are OP with great maneuverability and quad MGs. Both Soviet and Brits get pretty good stuff starting at tier 2, but the German planes (which are actually mostly Italian so far) are slow and woefully underarmed.

 

[clamum]

That makes me feel a bit better. I was wondering if it was my German planes that were not as good as other countries' planes or if I just sucked that hard. I actually had a decent night last night even though I only played for an hour or so. Tried to stick by my teammates a bit more and that seemed to help.

I think I'll start on the American or Commie planes.

 

[Rinaun]

I tried playing for another 2-3 hours. I noticed that when it's prime-time the matchmaking is really good and the game becomes immensely fun. The matchmaking seems to work in some unique way where the longer the wait the less picky it gets with who it groups together. I just tried playing at 8AM before work and well, matchmaking was horrible compared to prime-time. I was the top scoring person on my team in a tier 0.....but we still lost because of 2-3 players with very strong planes being able to mow 4-5 players down and just retreat back to the main pack. I once again ended up landing a good 50 exp in hits on a plane and he would just jump in the back seat after getting annoyed with me and destroy me with two lucky shots while I'm maneuvering.


I really REALLY wish they made it so tier 0-1 played together. Right now it's very hit or miss.

 

[Genx87]

Been messing around with the tutorial. Holy god using a joystick is nearly impossible. I am going to try a mouse and see how if it fairs better. I am annoyed fire buttons cant be assigned to the joystick. At least in the mode I am using. I think it feels much better than World of Warplanes. But I haven't actually got into pvp yet.

Mouse is way easier to use. First game got 3 kills and lead my team in a loss.