It just opened up this morning!
http://warthunder.com/en/news/587-Update-141-en
QuoteWe are pleased to announce the release of the War Thunder Update 1.41 that makes Ground Forces available for everyone to play! In order to add tanks to your hangar just go to the "Army" tab in the "Research" menu and purchase them the same way as you would do with the aircraft.
Major features of the 1.41 Update:
- Ground forces are now available for all players in open beta test (Ground Forces progress achieved by players in the CBT will be wiped);
Closed beta progress has been wiped so this is the real start.
Edit: I originally played one Arcade mode match and then moved up to Realistic battles after getting a feel for the drop of the rounds. They're different for each type of gun, of course, but that Arcade match helped me gauge distances with it's impact cross 'cheat' on (which Realistic and Simluation modes don't have).
After 20000+ battles I cant desert WoT just yet.
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Quote from: eyebiter on May 15, 2014, 11:51:22 AM
If your driving a light tank, after you level up to better main gun ammo, upgrade artillery strikes. Great way to prevent a group of enemy tanks from securing a capture point.
I suggest upgrading it on the Medium tanks too. ;)
Even if you don't get a hit, you can distract them with it.
This is the way to implement arty.
So I can play with Tanks on the Steam version now (instead of planes)?
Wow! Great news! Updating now. This is going to take awhile though because I haven't played WT in many months. Must be a stack of updates waiting to be applied to my client. ;D
Okay, seems you can only earn experience/money/research when killing other players.
So no real SP in this game.
Still, could be a lot of fun, since I see it has bots and non-tanks in the tank battles, and so far it seems teams must compose of the same factions (unlike in WoT).
Quote from: Tpek on May 15, 2014, 04:52:48 PM
...and so far it seems teams must compose of the same factions (unlike in WoT).
Another bonus! I always hated the mixed teams in WoT.
Seems like Gaijin took careful note of all the complaints surrounding WoT and have acted accordingly.
We also had both tanks and aircraft in the same battles in closed beta. But I think they still need to implement matchmaker limits on the number of player aircraft in each match because I would occasionally get in a game where there were only two or three of us in tanks and twice as many in aircraft on our team. Which meant that we would be severely hampered in taking the ground objectives compared to the other team. So they're still adjusting that AFAIK. The base gameplay has been integrated though.
I heard they're also supposed to add playable infantry at some point in the future.. maybe after they get done adding the Navies(?).
Took me awhile to figure out why I couldn't start researching my Tier III StuG F. There are only 2 or 3 Tier II tanks in the German line and I think we need to unlock 2 or 3 of the previous tier before the next opens up. I had been repeatedly spending my xp on unlocking Tier I stuff. DOAH!
Yes, it is separated by nationality. I'm fine with that, notably because we only have the two nationalities to choose from right now. Makes for a more historical feel, for sure. However, the obvious player preference for playing ze German side means that you may wait in queue a bit longer depending on what Tier tank you're currently in. I would also like to play the Russian side but I think they need some of their Tiering/Battle Ratings reviewed because the difference in gun capabilities are a bit skewed. Despite that, I still see regular complaints about the Russkies being OP, but such accusations are probably due to their greater use of angled armor. Get some bounces off that. I played a KV-1 a few matches and it was a mixed bag. One match I took a lot of hits in a 1v2 duel, from the front. Other matches I instantly brewed up when struck in the turret from the side (I assume ammo hits, of course). They all seem to have some critical spots.
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I'm having trouble registering an account. The necessary page will not load from within the game or from the web. Not a very auspicious start.
Just had my first PvP battle, a random tank battle.
It seems my earlier impression the teams were divided by the nations was wrong. I ended up with several German tanks on my team.
More over, maybe it's just because my tank is completely crappy, but every I hit an enemy tank and penetrate, nothing really happens, even if a message pops up saying "Surface Unit Destroyed".
Yet when a few players on the opposing team shoot me they immediately either destroy my tank with a single shot to the front, or kill the gunner.
They are separated by nationality in realistic and sim mode but not arcade.
Definitely a change in the number of players on the air side right now. I guess everyone is checking out tanks as the RB sessions are about 40% bots and the wait times for SB and full real events are pushing 15-20 minutes.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on May 16, 2014, 10:02:28 AM
They are separated by nationality in realistic and sim mode but not arcade.
Definitely a change in the number of players on the air side right now. I guess everyone is checking out tanks as the RB sessions are about 40% bots and the wait times for SB and full real events are pushing 15-20 minutes.
There are some AI bots in all games. They are quite harmless unless you're right next to them. They usually just head towards the objective points to cap them. So if you don't kill the enemy ones, they will eventually cap. The trade-off is that you must be careful about when you decide to start shooting because you can be spotted quite easily once you start doing so. I usually don't start blasting them when I first see them, in case an enemy player is close behind. I also occasionally follow a short distance behind the friendly bots and use them as bait for locating enemy players who open fire on them. ;)
The "Simulation Mode" battles always take awhile to get into. There just aren't as many people playing that mode so it takes awhile. The cost of having such options, I suppose. I've played a handful and they're definitely fun. However, I tend to get into "Realistic" battles (the middle level) much faster, especially playing the German side. When I do Simulation battles, it will probably be on the Soviet side.
It also helps get you in faster if you have Premium enabled, IIRC. I purchased a day worth and I usually didn't have to wait long for Realistic battles even on the German side.
Got back to my StuG-F last night. :smitten: May start on some Soviet stuff soon for a little variety.
We desperately need some new maps but they look to take a lot of effort to make judging by the size and amount of terrain variance. I've also seen incoming fire go right through some of the larger boulders I had been taking cover behind, so be wary of sitting behind a "seam" if you notice one.
As for the damage... try to hit his gun or gunner on your first shots, if close enough to aim that precisely. A rear shot into his engine can regularly cause a fire, which can quickly spell doom. You can see what systems/crew you damaged after each shot as variously colored words in a list on the right side of your interface (unless in a Simulation level battle?). You can one-shot people but I usually only achieve that with a larger caliber gun (longer barrelled 75mm or higher) and a rear hit, or occasionally a side hit. Otherwise you usually have to put a few through them.
I was talking about what's happening on the air battles side of things. It's a bit of a ghost town right now.
I've fiddled with tanks a bit. I like it better than WoT but I'd rather be flying. Looking forward to when they implement all nations and reintroduce air elements back to tank maps. I do not envy Japanese tankers, especially on the Japan vs. USSR maps.
I tried setting up my HOTAS to use in the Air Forces side of WT a few days ago. Again.
For the third time, I just can't get the damn joystick sensitivity set properly. I tried all kinds of crap but the flying just felt off. I'm beginning to believe part of the problem is their flight model. Flew a bit on the 'Realistic' difficulty and it felt a bit odd. It was always suspect anyway, but at least it's a half decent attempt. Not like the completely artificial thing in WoWP.
Setting up the HOTAS was a pain but it's doable. I've got mine dialed in now and I find the flight models quite good. You need to isolate each axis and then go in and fiddle with the non-linearity, correction, and multiplier sliders and try out a test flight to see how it performs. Takes a while but it's worth it if you want to fly SB. RB is a mixed bag between mouse and joystick. Mouse aim assist gives mouse pilots a huge advantage in head on passes as they can get their guns on target much more quickly than joystick pilots. Joystick users have an advantage when flying at the edge of the envelope as they can adjust trim, mixture, and prop pitch (and use selective throttle for multi-engine planes) so they can pull manoeuvres that a mouse pilot simply won't be able to. They can also nurse a badly damaged plane back to base whereas mouse pilots will end up crashing as the Instructor assist can't cope with excessive trim imbalance.
This is what I like to see for my first (bonus) victory battle of the day, in Simulation mode with Premium active:
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs12.postimg.org%2Fe2larkxxp%2Fshot_2014_05_17_03_42_01.jpg&hash=3799c16ddbf63be171932470e70e7ba59d5a818c)
If I could only do that every time..
O0
Our team probably would've lost if two of the opposing players hadn't bailed after their first death, but respawned and covered the remained couple teammates as they should have. Even with only two spawns available, some assholes still bail after their first death. ::)
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Note: I think the damage modelling in Simulation mode is also more deadly than the others. I one-shotted the majority of the enemy players I hit in this match (7 out of 9 or 10?) and likewise was one-shotted once from the side.
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Any of you Gentlebeasts gonna be playing some WT tanks this weekend? Look me up (Nefaro) if you have some Tier 2 tanks you want to team with! I've been doing Realistic level battles, but I may do some Simulation ones soon too.
As for the current state of the Ground Forces side, I think it needs a couple things ASAP:
1) More Maps!
There are only four right now, although they're pretty large. Still need a lot more variety. There's at least one on the Dev Server beta right now.. maybe more.
2) Revised 'Battle Ratings'
The BRs (the value for use in matchmaking) for some tanks need to be re-evaluated. I see some models with pretty much the exact same equipment & stats being given higher BRs just because they're next in the research line. Pfeh. There are a few others that are a bit off in the grand scheme of BRs too. It's doable right now, but could use some tightening.
As a late addition, here's #3) I think they should remove the mini-map sighting indicators for spotted enemies from all game modes except Arcade. It wasn't too bad when the little squares were so faint that they were difficult to see but they recently turned them into big bright ones.
I just don't see how it can be fun constantly staring at a mini-map to find enemies when playing such a game. I think this Mini-Map spotting style of gameplay has ruined shooters in general. :(
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There's still an lot of content left to be added, but the gameplay for WT: Ground Forces is still a blast. This is the kind of tank modelling I had hoped it would be. Less Arcade-ish.
^I'm with you on all your points, especially the mini map finding enemies cheesefest. But as a somewhat casual/grognard player I'm really digging War Thunder over World of Tanks.
The game runs beautifully on my PS4 and I noticed that there are a lot of battles featuring cross platform players. I can tell who's on the PC when they smoke me really fast during a dogfight. They must be using calibrated joysticks whilst I'm struggling to do a barrel roll with my console controller.
with the dead pc and 8 month break I can say I'm really happy with where WoT is at now.
Really not enjoying the tank portion of the game. I think I`ll just stick to the flying. Shame that they`re porking full real sim battles....
Sorry to hear about that. What in particular is turning you off to the tank game?