World of Warplanes

[Staggerwing]

Too bad that WT doesn't have those Boeing Golden Age Biplane fighters and those classic Grummans (F2F,F3F). IIRC Robert Scott mentions in his book 'God is my Copilot' that he was leader of a pursuit squadron flying P-12s in Panama.

[Nefaro]

Too bad that WT doesn't have those Boeing Golden Age Biplane fighters and those classic Grummans (F2F,F3F). IIRC Robert Scott mentions in his book 'God is my Copilot' that he was leader of a pursuit squadron flying P-12s in Panama.

WoWP doesn't even have Fw-190s.  Nor even a British line yet.  The sheer variety of aircraft available is in WT's favor, although both can always use more.

I'm quite happy with just the freebie starter planes being bi-planes in WT.  Being able to quickly get into single-wing aircraft relatively quickly may be a plus for some of the more late WW2 focused players.  I wouldn't mind having a separate WWI setting, however, and maybe we'll eventually see that sometime.   

I'm still curious whether WT's two other client-integrated games will have matches featuring all three 'arms' (Air force, Tanks, Navy).  It would be pretty awesome if they have integrated matches with more than one in them but the flyers would likely hold a noticeable advantage over the other two so it may be best to keep them separate.  I've not heard how such things will be handled yet.

[Staggerwing]

WT is adding tanks and ships? When is that supposed to kick off?

[ArizonaTank]

I'm still curious whether WT's two other client-integrated games will have matches featuring all three 'arms' (Air force, Tanks, Navy).  It would be pretty awesome if they have integrated matches with more than one in them but the flyers would likely hold a noticeable advantage over the other two so it may be best to keep them separate.  I've not heard how such things will be handled yet.

That might be the death of WWII online.  Oh well...

[jejo68]

War Thunder is geared for the hard core flight sim enthusiast.  More planes available, greater degree of customization, larger tech tree.  However with increased complexity there is a much larger learning curve.  You must play the tutorials to learn to fly the aircraft properly.

ooh no I have to train before I can fly. my my

[Nefaro]

War Thunder is geared for the hard core flight sim enthusiast.  More planes available, greater degree of customization, larger tech tree.  However with increased complexity there is a much larger learning curve.  You must play the tutorials to learn to fly the aircraft properly.

ooh no I have to train before I can fly. my my

No worries.. there is 4 different difficulty settings regarding the control, and most people play in the "Arcade Mode" too.  While I've always enjoyed some deep sims, for some reason I've gravitated to the Arcade Mode in WT and it's quite easy once you get acquainted with the controls.  There is no hardcore sim stuff unless you want it.  Quite flexible.

Some people enjoy playing "Historical Mode" which (IIRC) requires one of the two highest control scheme difficulty settings to play, since it requires proper stalling & such modelled along with forcing you to land & rearm every time you run out of ammo (etc etc).  The Arcade Mode is more about the action.  For example, you can hit the 'Y' key to reload your guns in the air, although it takes awhile to do so, and you spawn in the air instead of being forced to take off.  Sure.. you still have to land if you want your damaged aircraft fixed but Arcade still feels a bit more like a thinking man's shooter to me, since many of the dogfighting tactics still work well here.

[Nefaro]

Didn't realize, but evidentally World of Warplanes just had it's official release recently.

Despite War Thunder having many advantages over WoWP (my opinion), it does have some semblance of balance.  I think WoWP can be fun in short doses, so hopefully they make some big improvements in the future.  WT still has some issues and the Wargaming people could capitalize.

I just wish the graphics in WoWP didn't look so damn terrible.  The nearly non-existant Anti-aliasing and terrible post-processing effects that they added to the engine last year (or thereabouts) just makes it look BAD.  :-\

[Nefaro]

Gotta admit..  WoWP has improved since it went into Beta. 

Some of the Pros in comparison to War Thunder:

1)  Mouse & Keyboard controls are great.  Not only do they have more customization options, shooting someone down also isn't a cakewalk.  War Thunder's M&K controls are ridiculously easy to keep the pipper on-target (a Con) and it's flight control 'assistant' just plain can't do inverted maneuvers worth a damn.  WoWP's handles rolling & inverted maneuver far better.  I'd say it's just about perfect on the default, too.

2)  While I was apprehensive about the artificial altitude adjustments, the flight models work far better than WT's arcade mode FMs.  It's more like physics in miniature.  You can actually Boom & Zoom in WoWP and you can actually stall out.  Although the stalling in both are pretty relaxed, I find WoWP's handling of speed more representative of energy management in dogfights.    In WT it's way too easy to keep/get your speed up and there isn't really any notable stalling so planes can go dirt slow and still be somewhat maneuverable.  That has always bugged me about WT.

3)  WoWP's mechanics and controls have actually improved over the course of the past year, while WT has taken a step back in a couple areas.   The latest WT screw-up was the adjustment of the damage model which has resulted in increased rates of one-shotting pilots and insta-crippling control surfaces.  One-shotting sucks, and while it was okay on occasion, it has become very commonplace since the last big WT update.  Looks like WoWP's official release came along at the perfect time!

4)  Cost.  I'm pretty sure WoWP's cash shop can probably get you more bang for the buck regarding a few things, if/when you decide to do so.

5)  Single-death matches.  At first I kinda like being able to respawn up to six times in a battle, in War Thunder, but some of those matches get way too long & drawn out.  Not to mention that downing a single enemy fighter makes almost no difference since the guy will just be back in the fight five seconds later with a new one.  I've found that I much prefer WoWP's one battle=one plane.  I could say that WoWP is just more balanced in most respects.   To be fair, WT's Historical Battle mode only allows you to fly one aircraft per match but you generally take off from the ground (long matches) and it takes forever to get into a match because the WT matchmaker is relatively slow (and most people play Arcade anyway).


Cons:

1)  The graphics blow.  It looks okay in the hangar.  But in-game the aircraft are jaggy and blurry.  I feel like I'm half-blind with all the excessive post-processing.  While you can turn it off, the game uses a terrible anti-aliasing scheme that ensures the jaggies are even more massive.  The textures aren't anywhere near as good.  Even some of the aircraft models look weird; check out the odd looking Spitfire for instance.. something just doesn't look quite right.  I can get past this stuff, to an extent, if I'm having fun.  The customizable skins also seem rather generic.

2)  There aren't many aircraft in WoWP.  This will hopefully be remedied after a time, and there is enough to get started with, but there are some glaring holes in their line-up right now.  There also aren't any big bombers.  I suppose that may be due to balancing issues, in a game focused on dogfighting, because it has certainly been an issue in WT and probably always will be (one way or another).

3) Variety.  In general.  I'll point to map variety as a biggie here.  There isn't very many in WoWP yet.  You could also lump #2 in with this one, but I tend to think of these separately.

Still, I've been enjoying World of Warplanes since release.  Primarily because the flight physics, while miniaturized, give a better representation of a dogfight.  Mostly regarding maneuvering in the vertical and the speed/altitude trade-off that entails.   Also.. no rampant one-shotting.

[ArizonaTank]

Now that it is released, I'll give it another try.

[endfire79]

Just downloaded the client and started playing today.  Add me if you want to try and play (endfire79)

[endfire79]

Just in time for the holidays

[Nefaro]

The artificial climbing/altitude aspect seems to be scaled okay but the big overall reduction just feels really weird when you fly in WoWP. 

I can understand their reasoning for doing so - to keep people from just climbing to 30kft every match and so much time, but I think they overdid it.  It can be fun for short periods but way too arcadish for me to stick with it very long at a stretch. 

They also desperately need more variety in everything.  I'm not sure if that will happen since War Thunder probably stole most of WoWP's thunder (and target customer base).  Wargaming's best bet is to get their World of Warships out before the WT guys finish theirs.

[endfire79]

I'll be playing all of them.  I'm not really into looking for a real simulation (too much like work), more for fun.

[GDS_Starfury]

if I was looking for realism in WoT I would have quit years ago.  its a fun shooter, no more, no less.

[Nefaro]

It's not a question of needing absolutely full realism in these things.  Just a matter of how much arcade you want.  I still find WoWP enjoyable for short stretches, although I like how they did most of the stuff in War Thunder's arcade mode more.