War Thunder

[Zooggy]

Ahey,

And the quest for a cool F2P continues.

War Thunder is a WW2 + Korea combat flight sim with different levels of realism, from arcade to full real, that has quite cool gameplay and is very light on the machine. It's grindy, but so are all the F2P's...

I was up till almost 4am playing it, yesterday, and I hardly noticed the time go by... I'll be sticking with it, I think.

Cheers,
J.

 

[Zooggy]

Hoy,

Necro, to say, still playing this game, still loving it, still F2P, and now on Steam.

Cheers,
J.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Yeah, I saw a YouTube video done by Robbaz for this. He made it look quite fun. If I had a bit more time between other stuffs and DOTA then I think I'd give it a look.

 

[Ronin Storm]

I had a bit of a play of WT last night when I was too wasted to do anything else. I just played arcade mode, but actually that was perfectly good fun and I can see how their flight model could become more detailed when stepping up into the realism modes. Even in arcade, having a holed wing isn't just "hey, you've taken enough damage, now you explode". I did attempt more than one ill fated escape and/or emergency landing with my plane in desparate shape, often having to hold down the key to keep a roll in a particular direction just to stay level.

It took me three hours to end up with a few neat planes, and they're all perfectly serviceable right out of the gate. I've spent absolutely no real money on it and right now I'm not sure why I would. Not because it's not fun -- it very much is, at least so far as I've played -- but because I just haven't seen any need to buy up. Sure, I've been shot down by fighters that clearly have higher ranks than me, but I've equally been cut up by a biplane from someone's rank zero collection. I've had the experience of having my newest and best Hurricane butchered inside a minute, and then hanging around pwning in my biplane for the next ten minutes...

I feel that there's nuance here that I've not yet got, but played just as an amusing and straight forward air combat game it's pretty engaging.

 

[Zooggy]

Hi,

Awesome, glad you liked it!

Me, I have yet to play a single Arcade mode battle. Historical has that single plane per battle feel of impending doom that just can't be beat. Also, you have to watch your speed, or you will rip your own wings apart, or your elevators will lock up and you will plummet to the ground...

This game makes me wish I had a stick. I would play nothing but Full Real. Alas, I don't, and you can't play Full Real with mouse and keyboard, so...

Anyway, what you can buy with real money:

1) Golden Eagles - That's the game's premium currency and I'll list that later, but it gets cheaper per eagle the more you buy at a time
2) Starter packs - Those come with a premium plane (see below), a few days of premium xp (see below), and a few Golden Eagles as bonus
3) Campaigns - Those come with a premium plane, premium xp and eagles, like a starter pack, but also, single player campaigns

What you can buy with Golden Eagles:

1) Silver Lions - That's the game's normal currency. Again, cheaper per Lion when you buy more at a time.
2) Premium planes - Those come in two flavors, special versions or captured planes. Special versions are exactly like the ones you get normally, but they cost less to repair and give you greater rewards; captured planes are exactly like the ones you get normally, but you fly them under a different nationality. In Arcade, that's mostly irrelevant, but in Historical and Full Real, that actually gives you a bit of a tactical edge.
3) Premium XP - while active, you get douple XP and 50% extra Silver Lions. If it were the other way around, I'd be all over this. Like this, I'd almost pay to not have it...
4) Crew training - Every time you fly with a crew, it gets better. You can buy a truckload of crew XP with this, and again, cheaper when you buy more at a time. Not worth it for regular improvements, but some things, like more trained gunners, cost so much crew XP that you basically have to get this.
5) Backup planes - Irrelevant for Historical and Full Real, extra lives for Arcade
6) Plane talismans - gives you extra X and crew XP (and possibly Lions, don't know) whenever you fly that plane

What you can buy with Silver Lions:

1) New planes
2) Crew training for planes - every time you deploy a plane to a crew for the first time, you have to train that crew on that plane. You can only have each plane in one crew at a time, and you can only have one plane in each crew at a time, but as you get better planes, you can put your old favorites on other crews, for instance...
3) Plane upgrades - better parts, better ammo, stuff like that - this is actually rather well balanced - it's not a game breaker, but it's important enough to notice the difference and you'll want to have them all as soon as possible. Unfortunately, they are also limited by plane XP, so you have to fly a few times without them.
4) Plane repairs - the first ten times you crash or get damaged with each plane, it gets repaired automatically. After that, it either gets repaired over time (a few hours for early planes, but tier 9 planes take almost two days) or you have to pay for the repairs with Lions.
5) Ordnance and special ammo reloads - this is actually pretty cheap and is only here for completeness

What I've bought:

I haven't spent any real money on this yet, either. I have earned some Golden Eagles in events (and you get a few starting Eagles if you do the tutorials), which I've spent on crew training for my bomber crews, so I can have trained gunners. Not particularly worth it, but I didn't like seeing the penalties in red for not having them...

Anyway, I'm bored, so I thought I'd type that up. All in all, the free vs premium currency system is rather well balanced, except for the premium XP thing, but a lot of people like it as is, so... YMMV, I guess.

Enjoy!

Cheers,
J.

 

[BiG D]

Is this primarily PvE or PvP? What kind of co-op options are there?

Any sort of gamepad support?

 

[Ronin Storm]

For the F2P element, it's primarily team-based PvP, with differing levels of flight realism.

It supports the X360 controller for sure, with a short bit of in-game configuration; slightly fiddly, but I had mine in a situation I was happy with it inside 10 minutes, after about four do-overs.

It also supports joysticks, though I couldn't comment as to which.

For arcade mode, though, keyboard and mouse flight are very well done.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Further to that, I believe there is some sort of single player campaign thing, though I think it might be restricted to premium (paying) players. Zooggy might know more.

 

[Zooggy]

Hey,

Keyboard and mouse are good for Historical as well, but they don't work for Full Real, which requires an actual stick (or maybe the controller, no idea...) There's also good 3D glasses support, I hear...

There's two full-fledged single-player campaigns you can buy, but I don't know anything them. I have no idea whether you can play them co-op or not.

As far as free single-player content, there's two types: the single missions and the dynamic campaigns.

The single missions are just cutsie little missions you unlock as you level up each nation. Some are easy, like fly a Catalina along a river, some are hard, like fly a Hurricane through a number of checkpoints upside down... (with mouse aim and no stick, not as easy as it sounds, as the game keeps wanting to straighten your plane out...) and some are combat missions, with varying degrees of difficulty. Some of these, you can play co-op, but some you can't. Those you can, you have good control over. You can play with friends only, or you can create a game for anyone to join, or you can join other people's games.

The dynamic campaigns are weirder. They're a series of single missions, and the outcome of WWII is recalculated as if everything hinged on those missions. They're all straight combat missions, and depending on the mode, they can be easy or they can be hard. Dogfights are stupid hard, as the enemy AI outnumbers you 3 or 4 to one on better planes, and there's only so much you can do with a WWII plane... But the weird part of it is, the dynamic campaigns don't persist across gaming sessions. Once you begin, you either finish it or you don't, but if you leave the dynamic campaign screen, it's over. You can play all dynamic campaign missions co-op, same as single missions.

You get Lions and nation XP (but not airplane XP) for completing single missions and dynamic campaign missions, but nothing for failing them. Furthermore, non-premium accounts only get full XP and Lions for at most three single-player missions a day, and only a fraction of that for additional missions. I have no idea whether you get anything for the full-fledged campaigns.

Cheers,
J.

 

[Zooggy]

Ahoy,

This just in, I get little bit of a perk, if you register through this link:

http://warthunder.com/en/registration?r=userinvite_2697976



Cheers,
J.