War Thunder: Ground Forces

[Skywalkre]

So... who's played it recently? What are you honest thoughts?

 

We have a WT thread but the latest comments regarding Ground Forces are almost 2 years old. You would think in that time-frame they would have addressed the myriad of issues but I still hear horror stories about the game. However, fanboyism is strong in gaming circles so I can't be sure if the complaints against GF are true or not.

 

Anyone have recent experience with the game and care to share?

[Calvinb1nav]

I play it all the time. However, I find myself playing the air side a lot just to earn cash to support my tanks. My only big complaint is both US tanks and planes are way underpowered, especially the US fighters. Overall, I like it a lot better than WoT.

[FlyingCanOpener]

From the WT:GF players I play with in AW...

 

Terrible, horrible, money-milking by Gaijin powered by Russian bias that makes WoT's Soviet oddities seem quaint. My favourite part is how Gaijin said they would never, ever, ever do anything beyond what served in World War 2... which explains why top-tiers are littered with Chieftain Mk 3's, L7-armed Centurions, Leopard 1's, Kanonenjagdpanzers, T-54's, and M60's.

Edited April 20, 2016 by FlyingCanOpener

[Skywalkre]

However, I find myself playing the air side a lot just to earn cash to support my tanks.

This is what worries me the most. I stopped playing WoWs in large part because the economy there is broken. I've heard WT has always had a dysfunctional one and that either the devs just don't care or are so incompetent they can't figure out how to fix it.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Skywalkre

[Skywalkre]

Just watched a couple videos of gameplay and it appears in the most realistic mode there's no outline of enemy tanks (understandable). Unfortunately, given my color blindness, I doubt I'd be able to see anything then. This title looks like it's out as an option before I even download it.

[JW Collins]

So are the air and ground elements separate? Or do you actually have aircraft coming in to bomb your tanks?

[Harold Jones]

Your tanks can be attacked from the air and there are AA vehicles you can research and play.

[Tantalwz88]

Just watched a couple videos of gameplay and it appears in the most realistic mode there's no outline of enemy tanks (understandable). Unfortunately, given my color blindness, I doubt I'd be able to see anything then. This title looks like it's out as an option before I even download it.

Maybe this video will help a little.

 

[JW Collins]

So has anybody else played this recently? Gave it a try and it's rather fun. Don't know if I'll have the patient for the grind however.

[GARGEAN]

So has anybody else played this recently? Gave it a try and it's rather fun. Don't know if I'll have the patient for the grind however.

Playing it for more that year. Mostly ground, but usually have to spend some time in pure air(or air research will be way behind ground). As for me - close to perfect game with not so much exceptions. Hate AW-style healthbars and stuff, thus never played WoT, but WT got me. For me problems are some excessive grind at tier 4 without premium and further and lack of teammate(I'm catching too much butthurt if I'm playing alone and things go wrong).

 

In whole - close to simulator realization, amount of nations, planes and vehicles, ability to play just as you want, graphics - all this is pretty good for me. And game is developing, going further it timeframe and wider in vehicles and game mechanics.

[Calvinb1nav]

I've been playing it for a year too. I like it much, much better than WoT. I really like having both ground vehicles and air vehicles in the same battle. I do notice sometimes I have grind out money with my bombers in order to fund my tanks though. The grind doesn't get too bad until you get into the upper tiers. The matchmaker also seems a little bit better than in WoT (at least in my experience) and I don't find myself killing a whole lot of enemy and still losing game after game like I did in WoT.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Calvinb1nav

[GARGEAN]

Well, anothet "we will never!.." hone in storm of hype. In 1.71 there will be tier 6, ERA, composite armor... And T-64A. Outcry is horrendous. I'm glad.

[Sardaukar]

It's pretty good in Realistic or Simulation mode. Kill camera is pretty nice too.

 

[Skywalkre]

Over five years later...

What are folks' current thoughts on ground combat in WT?  I've been getting that itch for a game that's quick to play and have zero interest in reinstalling the shitshow that is modern WoT.  Various YT vids have crept into my feed lately showcasing WT and I'm kind of tempted.

I'm aware of a few issues.  The grind, from what I've gathered, may even be worse that WoT's.  I'm currently ok with this because from what I've gathered it looks like mid-tier play (mid-late WW2 era vehicles) is actually viable in WT and you can get there with a free account.  If the game is bearable, I don't mind the grind.  I also understand some countries, like Israel, you basically grind and unlock the same vehicle with very minor differences over and over.  Again, I'm ok with that as long as core gameplay is fine (if you were to look at my WoT account you'd see a majority of games are on some rather underwhelming vehicles - T34, Pz IV, Tiger I, etc.).

So, for those that play... what are your honest thoughts?  What does the game do right?  What does it do horribly wrong?  Even some of these content creators don't hold back in highlighting how bad Gaijin is so I'm aware of that going in.

[Calvinb1nav]

I like it a lot and I spend most of my time playing either War Thunder or Escape from Tarkov.  Yes, it's a grind but to be honest the mid-tier stuff is the most fun anyways.  My only problem is I'm not a fan of the city maps and the game tends to put you on the same map repeatedly (despite having a option at the free level to like and dislike certain maps).   I reinstalled WoT about six months ago, played it for about 15 minutes, and uninstalled it.  The whole spotting skill thing is the stupidest thing in that kind of game ever. 

[seahawk]

It is okay. I enjoy the BR 1.0-1.3 Italians.

[bojan]

It has it's own ups and downs, but what really kills fun for me is CAS. Think WoT arty at it's peak annoying level, but even worse, since due the nature of battles it enables revenge kills. Yes, you can play battles w/o CAS, but since almost none does (or did when I tried it, IDK why) your waiting times for a game increase significantly.  On the more serious problems*, going by the words of friend who still plays much more than I did - when matchmaking makes nation vs nation match some matchups are just too screwed to one side.

*There are more minor issues, like all artillery vehicles being super-good (way too good) TDs. Hence ATM, best "tank" in game, superior to M1s, T-90s, Challengers etc is Norwegian version of K9 SP-arty. 

It is fun game if you consider it to be "just relax" game. Which I doubt you will.

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by bojan

[sunday]

Funny.

[Skywalkre]

On 12/25/2023 at 8:15 AM, Calvinb1nav said:

I like it a lot and I spend most of my time playing either War Thunder or Escape from Tarkov.  Yes, it's a grind but to be honest the mid-tier stuff is the most fun anyways.  My only problem is I'm not a fan of the city maps and the game tends to put you on the same map repeatedly (despite having a option at the free level to like and dislike certain maps).   I reinstalled WoT about six months ago, played it for about 15 minutes, and uninstalled it.  The whole spotting skill thing is the stupidest thing in that kind of game ever. 

I was curious if you were still playing it and the fact you are speaks volumes.  From what I've gathered WT seems to be steadily growing while WoT is... slowly dying.

Some general questions (to everyone)... I've been watching vids so I have a clue what to do.  I saw one where someone took up a challenge to see how far they could get playing for 24h straight from scratch.  They went down the US ground tree and they made a point to split research evenly.  Was this done so that the player could have a lineup of vehicles that were basically the same tier?

I've also seen lots of posts from folks stating that when going down a tree to have 4 crews be specced for ground and one for air.  Why does everyone recommend having an air unit in WT ground?  WT has AA vehicles... are they no good?  Would you be hurting yourself if you brought in a lineup to WT ground that was lacking air units?

Also... how the hell does one tell when watching videos if someone is playing AB or RB?  From what I've read I guess there's reasons to play both depending on what resources you're trying to pool?  Or does everyone in WT ground play mostly AB or mostly RB?  (Again, my understanding is AB is still more realistic than RB.)

[Skywalkre]

On 12/26/2023 at 5:20 AM, bojan said:

It has it's own ups and downs, but what really kills fun for me is CAS. Think WoT arty at it's peak annoying level, but even worse, since due the nature of battles it enables revenge kills. Yes, you can play battles w/o CAS, but since almost none does (or did when I tried it, IDK why) your waiting times for a game increase significantly.  On the more serious problems*, going by the words of friend who still plays much more than I did - when matchmaking makes nation vs nation match some matchups are just too screwed to one side.

*There are more minor issues, like all artillery vehicles being super-good (way too good) TDs. Hence ATM, best "tank" in game, superior to M1s, T-90s, Challengers etc is Norwegian version of K9 SP-arty. 

It is fun game if you consider it to be "just relax" game. Which I doubt you will.

So in the post above I asked about this... that all the vids I've seen it seemed most players were taking lineups of 4 ground vehicles and 1 air.  Why do they take the air?  If they don't (and have that 5th slot be AA or a second AA vehicle) the MM takes longer?

The arty bit... I did see one vid about that and it was worrisome.  The footage I saw reminded me of the worst aspects of high tier HE/HESH derp play in WoT.  Thing is... don't most of those vehicles only start showing up at high tiers?  If I'm aiming for just Shermans and Tigers won't I miss out on many of those vehicles?

As for the last bit... truth be told a decade ago when I was ranting about WoT there was some other stuff going on in my life at the time.  I'm much more mellow now when online gaming.  I appreciate the warning, though!  🙂

[Calvinb1nav]

On 12/28/2023 at 8:51 PM, Skywalkre said:

I was curious if you were still playing it and the fact you are speaks volumes.  From what I've gathered WT seems to be steadily growing while WoT is... slowly dying.

Some general questions (to everyone)... I've been watching vids so I have a clue what to do.  I saw one where someone took up a challenge to see how far they could get playing for 24h straight from scratch.  They went down the US ground tree and they made a point to split research evenly.  Was this done so that the player could have a lineup of vehicles that were basically the same tier?

I've also seen lots of posts from folks stating that when going down a tree to have 4 crews be specced for ground and one for air.  Why does everyone recommend having an air unit in WT ground?  WT has AA vehicles... are they no good?  Would you be hurting yourself if you brought in a lineup to WT ground that was lacking air units?

Also... how the hell does one tell when watching videos if someone is playing AB or RB?  From what I've read I guess there's reasons to play both depending on what resources you're trying to pool?  Or does everyone in WT ground play mostly AB or mostly RB?  (Again, my understanding is AB is still more realistic than RB.)

I expanded my crews so I usually have a fighter, an attacker, and 4-5 tanks, including one spaag.  Yes, some of the AA is so good, especially at the upper tiers, it's almost not worth trying to use CAS.  I think a lot of players don't use CAS and I don't think you'd be hurting yourself if you didn't use CAS either.

AB has player name tags and so if you don't see those, then they are playing RB or SB.  Me, I never play arcade battles nor simulator battles (SB), just RB.  

[seahawk]

Is it really a good idea to have planes? So far I only go with tanks and AAA, as I have no desire to grind the planes as well.

[Peasant]

Found a cool WT Youtube channel.

Quote

 

 

[Peasant]

I got banned from the official Warthunder forum! Huzzah! Drinks all around! (virtual drinks, mind you) 

[Ssnake]

Usually, that's not a good sign.