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Posted: 9/20/2023 7:30:24 PM EDT
Been watching a couple YT channels where they use War Thunder to make the "B roll" for the background of the video.
It has lots of historic aircraft which is kind of my jam. I tend towards more "simmy" stuff than arcade, looks like they have some options that are more realistic. Anyone have experiences or recommendations? |
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Quoted: Been watching a couple YT channels where they use War Thunder to make the "B roll" for the background of the video. It has lots of historic aircraft which is kind of my jam. I tend towards more "simmy" stuff than arcade, looks like they have some options that are more realistic. Anyone have experiences or recommendations? View Quote Personally I hate it. Lots of people like it though. It's grindy and arcady, and is full of kids that will make you hate life. If you want full sim check out DCS, if you want a happy medium I'd highly recommend IL2. |
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Quoted: Personally I hate it. Lots of people like it though. It's grindy and arcady, and is full of kids that will make you hate life. If you want full sim check out DCS, if you want a happy medium I'd highly recommend IL2. View Quote I've always heard good things about IL2. There's quite a few variants on Steam, I'll have to peruse them, any suggestions where to start? Or just pick a period I am interested in? DCS I don't know much about, I don't have the horsepower to run it though, it has some serious system requirements according to Steam. |
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They have been releasing updates to the in-game currency and research points this year to make it less grindy after an uprising from the player base. The research update just came out I think. I've been taking a break until that to help with the jet unlock grind.
There are three modes for gameplay style-- arcade, realistic, and sim. Arcade is dumb and gives you basically no xp. Realistic is the happy middle. But sim is there if you want it, and gives a lot of xp if you accomplish anything. I like the gameplay, but you'll have to try it for yourself. It can be played completely free, but obviously they push premium account upgrade(double xp and money) and premium vehicles(even more money and xp while using that vehicle) to make things go faster. There are planes, tanks(and helicopters in ground battle), coastal boats, and bluewater boats. All separate games. |
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Just bite the bullet, get a new PC, VR, full HOTAS and go DCS. I mean, only talking about ~$5K
I fly the apache with my group. Last week we did a mission where four apaches took off at night to take out early warning radar sites so that the F18s, F16s, and A10s could go in and do their work. Had about 35 people in the strike including live awacs from real airforce controllers. Flying 10 feet over the desert at night for 20 minutes in loose formation dodging power lines and trees was awesome. We managed to get to the target without anyone crashing, took out the EWRs and played hide and seek with smaller tactical sams guarding the site. Wasn't difficult with the radar hellfires that don't need guided by the front seater. Still lost one to ground fire, the remaining three of us marked his location and secured the site until CSAR flew a huey in. Was a great tue night. |
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Quoted: I've always heard good things about IL2. There's quite a few variants on Steam, I'll have to peruse them, any suggestions where to start? Or just pick a period I am interested in? DCS I don't know much about, I don't have the horsepower to run it though, it has some serious system requirements according to Steam. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Personally I hate it. Lots of people like it though. It's grindy and arcady, and is full of kids that will make you hate life. If you want full sim check out DCS, if you want a happy medium I'd highly recommend IL2. I've always heard good things about IL2. There's quite a few variants on Steam, I'll have to peruse them, any suggestions where to start? Or just pick a period I am interested in? DCS I don't know much about, I don't have the horsepower to run it though, it has some serious system requirements according to Steam. I have the Normandy one and the base one (I don't recall tbh) but yeah, basically get whatever you want just make you whatever you get is playable as standalone. For example if you just buy a plane you still have to get the game itself. |
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If you're a casual gamer like I am, WT is a good option. Relatively straightforward to operate everything, don't need to be a borderline qualified pilot (though I'm mainly a tank guy). The arcade version is good for gaining experience in and having general fun, once you go to realistic or sim, you're generally up against more experienced players with higher level crews who can see you much farther away than you can see them at first. Once you have experience, things get much better.
I use a PS4 and its controller, which places me at a disadvantage vs players on PCs, but also makes for great training. I average probably five kills per session with my best armor combo on PS5, but the few times I played on a laptop, I was yeeting mfers right and left, seldom had fewer than 10 kills, because the PS5 had trained me to be so strategically and tactically sound due to its limitations on speed of engagement and shot placement. I also like that there is at least an attempt at a physics model of the armor, vs just a hitpoint-based kill system. That rewards the better armor designs with bouncy turrets and sloped hulls. |
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I reinstalled the game, played the tutorials again (I started playing back in 2012, haven't played in >5 years) to refresh myself.
It took 1 multiplayer game to remember why I quit playing. ![]() |
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Quoted: I reinstalled the game, played the tutorials again (I started playing back in 2012, haven't played in >5 years) to refresh myself. It took 1 multiplayer game to remember why I quit playing. ![]() View Quote get good, noob. ![]() ![]() It's definitely not the easiest game. The guys who are good memorize the weak spots of every tank. The WWII era vehicles are pretty fun. It's the modern stuff that gets wild. But I downloaded DCS once and didn't know how to turn the jet on, so I prefer WT. ![]() |
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Quoted: Just bite the bullet, get a new PC, VR, full HOTAS and go DCS. I mean, only talking about ~$5K I fly the apache with my group. Last week we did a mission where four apaches took off at night to take out early warning radar sites so that the F18s, F16s, and A10s could go in and do their work. Had about 35 people in the strike including live awacs from real airforce controllers. Flying 10 feet over the desert at night for 20 minutes in loose formation dodging power lines and trees was awesome. We managed to get to the target without anyone crashing, took out the EWRs and played hide and seek with smaller tactical sams guarding the site. Wasn't difficult with the radar hellfires that don't need guided by the front seater. Still lost one to ground fire, the remaining three of us marked his location and secured the site until CSAR flew a huey in. Was a great tue night. View Quote I was about $2k into sim racing and about to go VR when I figured out I am not a good race car driver in the sim or IRL, was at both for a couple years. I still have the PC and the monitor, and an ancient but decent MS force feedback joystick. |
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Quoted: I was about $2k into sim racing and about to go VR when I figured out I am not a good race car driver in the sim or IRL, was at both for a couple years. I still have the PC and the monitor, and an ancient but decent MS force feedback joystick. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Just bite the bullet, get a new PC, VR, full HOTAS and go DCS. I mean, only talking about ~$5K I fly the apache with my group. Last week we did a mission where four apaches took off at night to take out early warning radar sites so that the F18s, F16s, and A10s could go in and do their work. Had about 35 people in the strike including live awacs from real airforce controllers. Flying 10 feet over the desert at night for 20 minutes in loose formation dodging power lines and trees was awesome. We managed to get to the target without anyone crashing, took out the EWRs and played hide and seek with smaller tactical sams guarding the site. Wasn't difficult with the radar hellfires that don't need guided by the front seater. Still lost one to ground fire, the remaining three of us marked his location and secured the site until CSAR flew a huey in. Was a great tue night. I was about $2k into sim racing and about to go VR when I figured out I am not a good race car driver in the sim or IRL, was at both for a couple years. I still have the PC and the monitor, and an ancient but decent MS force feedback joystick. I'm terrible at DCS but it's still fun ![]() |
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I play WT quite a bit in Air RB. Probably an hour or so every other day. It certainly isn't a sim like DCS but the physics are set up in a way that is fairly realistic and you don't need to spend weeks learning controls just to take off.
It is pretty hard on noobs though. The stock vehicles are gimped until you put in the play time to research the upgrades and your crew will be terrible at first. For instance if you do the air game your pilot will suck and black out in any high-g maneuver until you have trained them up. Their situational awareness is also terrible so you will often die before you even see the enemy or lose sight of them in the background clutter when you are making a pass. On top of that you will get thrown right in with people who do nothing but sit in the basement and play while eating hot pockets and peeing in a gatorade jug. So you will get shot down a lot for a while. That being said it can be fun if you have the patience to grind a bit at first. |
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Quoted: get good, noob. ![]() ![]() It's definitely not the easiest game. The guys who are good memorize the weak spots of every tank. The WWII era vehicles are pretty fun. It's the modern stuff that gets wild. But I downloaded DCS once and didn't know how to turn the jet on, so I prefer WT. ![]() View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: I reinstalled the game, played the tutorials again (I started playing back in 2012, haven't played in >5 years) to refresh myself. It took 1 multiplayer game to remember why I quit playing. ![]() get good, noob. ![]() ![]() It's definitely not the easiest game. The guys who are good memorize the weak spots of every tank. The WWII era vehicles are pretty fun. It's the modern stuff that gets wild. But I downloaded DCS once and didn't know how to turn the jet on, so I prefer WT. ![]() I flew the planes, didn't drive tanks. WoT is a better tank game. |
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I downloaded WT from Steam yesterday so I will give it a shot.
I've always liked how some of our country's ancient planes looked like the P-26 or the F3-F "Flying Barrel", so if for no other reason it will be fun to monkey around with those. My local airplane museum actually has an airworthy F3-F, so that one I've seen close up. It's kind of shocking to realize we went from a dog like that to the F4-U Corsair in barely 7 years, and only 25 years later the F-4B was screaming off carrier decks... I'm not too into grind, did enough of that in iRacing and ACC, so we'll see how it goes. If I don't like it, I think I'll grab IL2 CLoD and give that a shot. I'm kind of in a Battle of Britain phase right now, with a RC Hurricane and a 1/72 Hurricane on my bench. DCS is out unless I seriously upgrade hardware. |
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It's free right? Give it a whirl and see what you think
Just be aware its grindy as fuck as mentioned above. Couple hours to start unlocking proper WW2 planes. Been playing off and on for years and still haven't unlocked jets ![]() |
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Fuck no.
They throughly jerk themseleves off over the pay to win microtransaction and season pass model. |
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Quoted: It's free right? Give it a whirl and see what you think Just be aware its grindy as fuck as mentioned above. Couple hours to start unlocking proper WW2 planes. Been playing off and on for years and still haven't unlocked jets ![]() View Quote If you want to play jets you are better off just springing for a premium like the A6 and using it to unlock everything above and below it. The A6 can't pull high G without ripping the wings off so a basic level pilot can still function in one. The all aspect Aim-9L is also deadly to anyone with their head up their ass who doesn't use flares. People will spam you with the "pay to win" but fuck them, this is ARF.com where everyone has money to burn. I didn't do it that way for a long time and got up into the jets the hard way but broke down and bought the premium A6 to unlock the F-16s and the F14s. I seldom actually fly any of the higher tier jets now though. Missiles flying everywhere make the games pretty boring and really short. I like the early 50's pre-missile jet game the best where you get into contact pretty quickly but still have to think a bit about strategy and managing your energy. |
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I'm not too much of a jet guy even in civil flight sims, I don't think that fast yet
![]() In my MS CFS days as a teenager I did ok in a ground attack role: I crushed dive-bombing, mediocre at strafing; my aircraft of choice was either the P38 or P47. I shot down some Ju-88s but my record against fighters wasn't too great IIRC. |
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I've been playing it off and on forever. It can be grindy, but not nearly as much as World of Tanks.
It has 3 separate modes for all branches of vehicles - arcade, realistic (basically arcade hard mode) and straight up sim. The mid tier vehicles are all around my favorites to play. Once you get to jets and tanks with long range missiles, it becomes less fun. All the WW2 stuff is great. |
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I play ground rb almost exclusively. It's a good balance of realism and fun. I used arcade to learn where I can pen other tanks and where I can't. It is grindy but the recent economy changes have improved that.
The biggest problems for me is that I don't have the time to play the game as much as most so I don't have the map knowledge a lot of players do. Map knowledge is important since generally, the tank that fires first wins and you need to know where to be to protect yourself while having shots on the enemy team. As for planes, I really struggle with keyboard flying which is a necessary skill for maneuvering while looking at your target and surroundings. For both ground and air, top tiers are basically just a click fest to get as many kills as possible before you die. I don't play ships at all. |
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Got my first session of WT in this evening.
Their "wizard" or UI for configuring the controls is pretty difficult to use. I spent easily 30" screwing around with it to make it work right with the joystick. There appears to be no force feedback support either, minor quibble, since I am using my dinosaur MSSFF2. My biggest complaint is there is no single player or mode I could find to setup and test controls, and practice. I suppose that is not part of the "MMO" ethos but holy hell it is impossible to figure anything out easily. Graphics wise my frame rate was always north of 120 fps, I can prob turn some stuff up, it looked pretty nice to me as it set itself up though. Not sure I'm sold on the whole earning currency and researching and things like that, I just wanna fly planes. I guess I'll give IL2 CLoD a shot when I have some more time in a day or two, and see how that goes. |
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Quoted: Got my first session of WT in this evening. Their "wizard" or UI for configuring the controls is pretty difficult to use. I spent easily 30" screwing around with it to make it work right with the joystick. There appears to be no force feedback support either, minor quibble, since I am using my dinosaur MSSFF2. My biggest complaint is there is no single player or mode I could find to setup and test controls, and practice. I suppose that is not part of the "MMO" ethos but holy hell it is impossible to figure anything out easily. Graphics wise my frame rate was always north of 120 fps, I can prob turn some stuff up, it looked pretty nice to me as it set itself up though. Not sure I'm sold on the whole earning currency and researching and things like that, I just wanna fly planes. I guess I'll give IL2 CLoD a shot when I have some more time in a day or two, and see how that goes. View Quote You should watch a few basic videos on flying before just trying to jump into it and then immediately giving up because it is too hard. If you play anything other than the Sim option you do not want to be playing with a joystick. The mouse and keyboard are far more responsive to inputs. A good multi-button gaming mouse can put most of what you need on one hand and let you do things like control the rudder, flaps, airbrakes and gear with the keyboard and your other hand. You also have to fly with the keyboard anytime you need to "look" in any direction other than straight ahead because you have to press a button and pan with your mouse to look left, right, up, etc.. If you can't coordinate continuing to fly with the keyboard controls while doing that you will end up dead a lot because "looking" while only flying straight ahead isn't very conducive to survival. Yes, there is an option to do a test flight in any aircraft you have in your inventory. You can set it up in various ways with different numbers of "enemies" which don't do anything other than fly around so they are more like drone targets. There are lots of options for setting up keybinds, etc. The more complex the aircraft the more difficult and challenging are the various keybinds. A basic WW2 aircraft without different radar modes, weapons types, etc. is fairly simple unless you want it to be complicated. You also build up your own "system" for basic controls and then use that with all your aircraft, only layering in new functions on top of it as you get more complex vehicles. |
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Too bad the F8F never got its day back in the day, or I would give this a whirl just so I could "fly" it.
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Quoted: Too bad the F8F never got its day back in the day, or I would give this a whirl just so I could "fly" it. View Quote The F8 is available in the American air tree in WT. Climbs like a bat out of hell. Guns are a little underwhelming compared to what you will be up against but otherwise a fun aircraft. |
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Quoted: The F8 is available in the American air tree in WT. Climbs like a bat out of hell. Guns are a little underwhelming compared to what you will be up against but otherwise a fun aircraft. View Quote Wow, really!? And I thought it was intended to 1-up the P-51. Didn't know they skimped on the guns at the factory. |
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Quoted: Wow, really!? And I thought it was intended to 1-up the P-51. Didn't know they skimped on the guns at the factory. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: The F8 is available in the American air tree in WT. Climbs like a bat out of hell. Guns are a little underwhelming compared to what you will be up against but otherwise a fun aircraft. Wow, really!? And I thought it was intended to 1-up the P-51. Didn't know they skimped on the guns at the factory. The F8F available in WT is equipped with four 50 cal Brownings so you are two guns short of the p-51 and four guns less than the Jug. According to Wiki the test pilots on the prototype F8 program wanted 6 guns but they couldn't mount the extra 2 due to weight and balance issues. WT usually sticks pretty close to the way vehicles were equipped in real life. You can opt for the F6F-5N as the next upgrade which is the radar equipped night fighter version which gives you 20mm cannons but doing so makes the plane much less agile and really hurts the aircraft's main attributes of the climb rate and maneuverability. Radar in WT is also all but useless except at the very top tier given the VFR focused game mechanics. |
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Quoted: Got my first session of WT in this evening. Their "wizard" or UI for configuring the controls is pretty difficult to use. I spent easily 30" screwing around with it to make it work right with the joystick. There appears to be no force feedback support either, minor quibble, since I am using my dinosaur MSSFF2. My biggest complaint is there is no single player or mode I could find to setup and test controls, and practice. I suppose that is not part of the "MMO" ethos but holy hell it is impossible to figure anything out easily. Graphics wise my frame rate was always north of 120 fps, I can prob turn some stuff up, it looked pretty nice to me as it set itself up though. Not sure I'm sold on the whole earning currency and researching and things like that, I just wanna fly planes. I guess I'll give IL2 CLoD a shot when I have some more time in a day or two, and see how that goes. View Quote That's every game. Except for like DCS and Microsoft where you just buy single airframes, but you can do that in WT too if you want. So I'm not sure what you want. Like BF said, you're better off using mouse and keyboard. Look up a youtube video on controls/keybind setup. That's what i did once I got into jets because it adds a lot more complexity. There is a single player/coop mode when you're selecting game type(arcade, realistic, sim). I've done it once, but it gives much less XP since you're fighting bots. And you can test flight, as BF said. Right click on the plane in your research tree and test flight. |
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Quoted: That's every game. Except for like DCS and Microsoft where you just buy single airframes, but you can do that in WT too if you want. So I'm not sure what you want. Like BF said, you're better off using mouse and keyboard. Look up a youtube video on controls/keybind setup. That's what i did once I got into jets because it adds a lot more complexity. There is a single player/coop mode when you're selecting game type(arcade, realistic, sim). I've done it once, but it gives much less XP since you're fighting bots. And you can test flight, as BF said. Right click on the plane in your research tree and test flight. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Got my first session of WT in this evening. Their "wizard" or UI for configuring the controls is pretty difficult to use. I spent easily 30" screwing around with it to make it work right with the joystick. There appears to be no force feedback support either, minor quibble, since I am using my dinosaur MSSFF2. My biggest complaint is there is no single player or mode I could find to setup and test controls, and practice. I suppose that is not part of the "MMO" ethos but holy hell it is impossible to figure anything out easily. Graphics wise my frame rate was always north of 120 fps, I can prob turn some stuff up, it looked pretty nice to me as it set itself up though. Not sure I'm sold on the whole earning currency and researching and things like that, I just wanna fly planes. I guess I'll give IL2 CLoD a shot when I have some more time in a day or two, and see how that goes. That's every game. Except for like DCS and Microsoft where you just buy single airframes, but you can do that in WT too if you want. So I'm not sure what you want. Like BF said, you're better off using mouse and keyboard. Look up a youtube video on controls/keybind setup. That's what i did once I got into jets because it adds a lot more complexity. There is a single player/coop mode when you're selecting game type(arcade, realistic, sim). I've done it once, but it gives much less XP since you're fighting bots. And you can test flight, as BF said. Right click on the plane in your research tree and test flight. I'll give that a try to do some test flying. I use the hat switch to look around, that part of the game set up easily and worked flawlessly. I am probably not much of a keyboard player, nearly every recent video of WT flying I looked up was someone playing with a keyboard, but for me that kind of ruins the flying experience, even my flying models are controlled with a stick (a pair of them in that case). Edit: searched for WT joystick videos and the first one out of the gate showed how to set up test flight... I guess the algorithm steers the more popular videos, which for a weirdo like me is not what I want |
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Quoted: I'll give that a try to do some test flying. I use the hat switch to look around, that part of the game set up easily and worked flawlessly. I am probably not much of a keyboard player, nearly every recent video of WT flying I looked up was someone playing with a keyboard, but for me that kind of ruins the flying experience, even my flying models are controlled with a stick (a pair of them in that case). Edit: searched for WT joystick videos and the first one out of the gate showed how to set up test flight... I guess the algorithm steers the more popular videos, which for a weirdo like me is not what I want View Quote Yeah I think joystick play is pretty rare in WT. May be more of that in Sim game mode where it's cockpit view only and more realistic, obviously. Sim is a whole nother animal with planes. |
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I'm absolutely trash at DCS but I'll be damned if it isn't fun to throw on VR, cold start a Hornet on the carrier and launch, fuck some things up and come back. Landing on a carrier is easier to me than landing a Viper on land
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If I had the graphics horsepower DCS would be my jam.
Maybe if I find myself doing this enough I can justify a new PC. and VR... |
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The new update trailer is out.
![]() 'Air Superiority' Update Trailer / War Thunder |
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Only for ground vehicles. Flight model sucks and is optimized for 3rd person. Plus you waste about 20 minutes flying from your base to the battle area so progression is slow.
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War Thunder is a pay to win game. You won't get anywhere without spending a bunch of money.
It's a fun game and I do play it but only when they have a sale on the gold currency so I can get a premium account for half price for a few months. Without the premium account it will literally take you forever and a day to research and buy new tanks. Just be aware of the business model and enjoy it for what it is. It also has a ton of cheaters like most competitive games these days. |
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I have around 7000 ( alot of that is it just idling in the back ground over night ?)hours and I've spent probably around 1200$ over the last 10 years playing wt.
I'm terrible at it but it's still fun |
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Quoted: I flew the planes, didn't drive tanks. WoT is a better tank game. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I reinstalled the game, played the tutorials again (I started playing back in 2012, haven't played in >5 years) to refresh myself. It took 1 multiplayer game to remember why I quit playing. ![]() get good, noob. ![]() ![]() It's definitely not the easiest game. The guys who are good memorize the weak spots of every tank. The WWII era vehicles are pretty fun. It's the modern stuff that gets wild. But I downloaded DCS once and didn't know how to turn the jet on, so I prefer WT. ![]() I flew the planes, didn't drive tanks. WoT is a better tank game. The spotting system in WoT makes me want to punch myself in the face. |
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Good info. He also does good air reviews and guides:
![]() Efficiently Grinding The Warthunder Tech Trees In 2024 |
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Take some time and watch some Orangefan videos on YT. Entertaining, he is like most folks who play WT a lot. He's also an Arfcommer.
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Quoted: I flew the planes, didn't drive tanks. WoT is a better tank game. View Quote That's a hard no dog. Missing a 400m shot while your tank is stationary shooting at another stationary tank and missing because of RNG is a full ass nope for me. ETA: I have top tier ground for every nation unlocked and top tier air for US/RU/GER/UK and a few k hours under my belt if anyone wants to play sometime shoot me a friend request on there my username is the same as it is here. |
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I played WoT for a bit, my favorite vehicle was the French Marder I in the German tree. I also played WoWS for a while, but World of Warplanes was hot garbage so I started playing War Thunder.
When the WT Ground Forces beta came out I jumped on it and was amazed. The tanks felt like tanks with cannon recoil, squeaking treads, and rust. What I don't like about WoT is the latter's bad spotting mechanics, health bars, and above all the golden ammo. |
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Quoted: I played WoT for a bit, my favorite vehicle was the French Marder I in the German tree. I also played WoWS for a while, but World of Warplanes was hot garbage so I started playing War Thunder. When the WT Ground Forces beta came out I jumped on it and was amazed. The tanks felt like tanks with cannon recoil, squeaking treads, and rust. What I don't like about WoT is the latter's bad spotting mechanics, health bars, and above all the golden ammo. View Quote WoT felt like driving an RC car, while WT feels like I'm in control of an actual tank. I haven't touched WoT since. |
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It's fun. I've been playing since 2013. If you have any specific questions @ me with them.
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