War Thunder: A First Impression

[Harlequin565]

TL;DR Version; FtP WWII planes battle it out in (mostly) PvP content. Graphics great, gameplay great. Well worth a free shot for the 7Gb download.

OK, so I downloaded this a couple of days ago and am still thoroughly enjoying it. I'm about 6 hours in, so I'm still a "noob".My main attraction: It has flight!

This is basically a WWII aerial combat game (with plans to add sea/ground in the future). There are three modes, "Arcade" and two I haven't tried yet (for more "hardcore" flight sim fans). Arcade mode is extremely easy to operate and yet exceedingly difficult to pilot, so the tutorials are handy. I did the first one then jumped straight in to a PvP battle. They are 16 vs 16 matches, so it's not so critical you play your part in the beginning. I'm rubbish and I haven't been shouted at once! There is no smacktalk in Chat either. After a couple of battles with the low entry planes, you begin to get a feel for how to fly/dogfight and then it truly becomes a lot of fun! Your first kill is quite the adrenaline rush and as someone who hated PvP in CoX I was really surprised how easy it is to be a killer. It's more about positioning than firepower, although it is quite twitchy. I got my 1st kill in my second Battle and am currently running at a 3-1 ratio of defeats to kills. The thirty kills though were well worth the 100 defeats.

Getting Started
1. Pick a country. I started with the UK (blind) and within an evening had unlocked the other countries so it's not critical that you pick the best to start with.
2. The game works thus:
- Each country has a "slot" for a plane. Each plane has a crew. Unlock more slots with currency. If your plane gets destroyed, it's "greyed out" until its repaired.
- Repairs are either free (starter planes are all free), cost currency, or take time. So you can basically wait, or pay. Low level planes are locked out for about 10 minutes which is no real penalty.
- The "Research" button allows you to add a new plane to a slot providing it's unlocked.
- Every slot that has a plane is available in an Arcade Battle. So if you have six planes unlocked, you can fly #1 until it gets shot down/crashes, then just pick plane #2 all the way to #6
3. On the battle map.
- Blue is your side. Red are the baddies.
- If you land at your landing strip, you can get your plane repaired.
- If you land your plane anywhere, it is not "damaged" and therefore doesn't need repairing. You get bumped back to the plane selection screen to pick another plane.
4. Progression.
- Every fight earns XP & Currency depending on what you do/contribute. (Premium accounts earn bonus xp). Completing objectives (such as destroying land targets) can be worth just as much as shooting down other players!
- XP goes towards your "level" in that country so you actually get several "level "measures. You can be a level 10 gamer (for example) with level 6 UK, Level 2 Germany & Level 2 USA.
- Your Country level determines which planes you can choose from.
- Battles are grouped into level ranges to keep things fair (though there are many discrepancies!)
5. Currency.
- There are 2 currencies. Silver Lions and Golden Eagles. Lions are like inf, Eagles are like Paragon Points.
- Lions unlock planes, pay for repairs, unlock some plane slots, train crews.
- Eagles pay for "premium" planes, Premium accounts, early access to Decals for your plane (you can earn all the decals through play though), and also unlock plane slots.
- The general consensus seems to be that it's a better plan to pay for premium account level rather than trade Eagles for Lions.
- Pricing (real money) for Eagles seems very reasonable for what you get (£15 buys me 3 months premium) and obviously the more you buy, the better the discount.

Shooting Stuff
The tutorials are great for getting you started and controlling your plane is basically quit easy. Plane-go-where-mouse-points. When target is in your sights, blast him with LMB. Reload with "y". However the physics makes things very tricky and the damage you can sustain makes controlling it quite difficult at times. Climb aboard a bomber and you not only have to drop bombs on your target but you have to watch out for fighters picking on the slow behemoth that you are. Being able to control your turrets (switch views with "v") makes this a lot of fun. Rockets (unguided!) are just Lol for me. Damage is spectacular as you'd expect with wings being shot off, engines blowing, propellors breaking etc. I do enjoy the challenge of landing a plane with only one engine!

Community
Seems ok... Not really delved into the forums yet. In-game, everyone seems fairly friendly and as said before, there's no smack talking. Lots of various guides and opinions out there on the best techniques and the wiki is pretty comprehensive for getting you started. Make sure you go to the wiki signed from their home page though as there are a few...

Well worth the download and flying a Spitfire (UK Rank 4 / "a few hours") around machinegunning planes out of the sky never gets old. Those German biplanes too.... Heh...

They do a referral system but its convoluted and painful and doesn't really give anyone anythig so if you fancy it, use your search engine to find War Thunder or grab it on Steam. It's free!

-H

P.S. I'm harlequin565 in-game so if you see me, sing out! Feel free to let me know how chat works too 'cos I haven't said a word so far!

[Sailboat]

Thanks for posting this review...been wondering about this one.

[Harlequin565]

Heh, with the lack of replies I wondered if anyone had read it!

Been playing a lot recently and have been watching some YouTube tutorials. A chap called Krebs has done some really good ones. This is his intro to War Thunder in case you're interested...  (linky) If you do spend a bit more time with the game, there's a lot of info in the forums about how to improve. A few simple tactics work wonders.

A few more weeks in and I'm still enjoying it. I have noticed that moving up the tiers generally means I get shot down more. Each plane has a degree of upgrades (wings, engine, guns etc) and each plane is manned by a crew that has it's own xp. So you can be up against exactly the same plane and yet be outclassed because they have upgraded their plane and crew, and you haven't! (If they have upgraded their plane and crew, they've also probably been in game longer and therefore have more experience as pilots)

Additionally, I think that the higher tiers generally have better players... Also, things like low tier Russian planes have a distinct advantage with 20mm cannons vs the lighter calibre 7mm MGs of most other planes. However this isn't a Russia-fest and other countries get bigger guns with bigger planes. All of this makes moving up a tier quite tough though. **Note - Premium planes come fully upgraded**

Bombing is a bit useless (especially with an ungraded new bomber) because air-air kills definately get the most xp. The problem with this is that most battles are won by destroying ground targets so being on a winning/losing side ends up being 50/50. Maybe I'm just not good enough to make an impact on a team yet!

Lastly, I discovered today that the Steam "Ace" pack is excellent value for money. 2 Premium planes, 10,000 Eagles and 2 months premium membership for £25 is extremely good value! (From Memory, I think 10,000 Eagles is 49 Euros in the cash shop!)

-H

[Adelante]

I played War Thunder quite a bit, it has a lot going for it.  Unfortunately they chose to go a sad route for their F2P model, and that was to limit the number of people you could form into a Squad/Group based on if the leader is a subscriber or not.  That's pretty bogus in my view.

That said, it is a fantastic game and I can't recommend it enough.

[Harlequin565]

Coming up to three months play now....

I'm getting better. Rank 12 in the UK stuff and 6-10 in the others. Russia definitely has the advantage in terms of power, and "Arcade" mode levels the playing field a little bit, lessening the advantage of the turn fighters (UK & Japan). When the big cannons (37mm+) start appearing, it gets into a "one-shot" game and it's more about watching your behind than it is about looking for enemies.

Historic Battles
I've only played a couple of these and it's a step up from Arcade mode. You get a more realistic flight model (you can rip your wings/landing gear off if you dive too fast) and no auto-reload which means running out of ammo results in a return to base. Also there is no aiming crosshair making hitting anything a real challenge. Once you're plane is dead, you're out of the game. My Hurricane managed to get two kills (and survive) in a long match and it was satisfying to achieve something first time out.

I've thrown £15/month at it for premium membership and a couple of premium planes and I can imagine playing purely F2P would be a bit of a slog. In terms of spending Eagles, I would generally:
1. Pay premium for x days
2. Buy a nice premium plane
3. Train up my crews

I don't bother with the ridiculously titled "free xp". I see no point in paying for levels (especially when I can't afford the cash for the planes I get access to).

All in all, I'm still having a lot of fun. Repair times on the planes are either lengthy (many hours) or expensive so I generally run through each country once (or maybe twice if I'm lucky) then let overnight repair them all.

Things I'll never get sick of:

- Rocket kills with the subsequent explosion & fly-through of the debris. Yum.
- The "Aircraft Destroyed" message in gold.
- The satisfaction of capping a runway at high speed.
- The sound of the 20mm cannons on the Beaufighter X. dum-dum-dum-dum-dum...

Things on the horizon...

Patch 1.37 which changes the whole ranking system and Plane levelling system. There's a fair bit of rage on the forums about it.
Tanks... I'm not bothered for tanks and I'm really glad about that looking at the prices of their Tank packs.

-H