I am not only talking about 9.0+
Just read the vehicles list, I’ve been waiting for the Swedish BMP for forever and it’s finally coming to the game!
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Yes, they are modifications you have to research. Not everyone has them and putting large maps in rotation means that people without will have to play against people with putting them at a extreme disadvantage making the stock to spaded experience even worse
I think he’s mostly talking about WW2, and he’s right on that count. Many long range specialist vehicles don’t have a place in this game if you play to win.
Well, the point is to play those vehicles, not just do 10-20 matches and go to the next. There is more to play in WT than exclusively top tier. Especially in a tree like the UK that has great tanks throughout the tree but poor top tiers
Well
A) APDS gets constantly nerfed so you have a huge disadvantage over everyone else at most BRs
B) I hate ground anyway, its the worst gamemode in the game by far. But if I’m going to slog through it, then I at least want to bring in something fun like the Apache or Tornado Gr1
Because two rows of tanks sitting hull down behind a ridge line at opposite ends of a 3km long map is awful gameplay. Wanna push and do the objective? Whole team firing at you because you’re the only exposed tank, go sit in your spawn instead. Wanna kill that guy peeking the ridge line? oh you only got his gun, he’ll just repair it an then come back again.
Not to mention open maps make the CAS problem even worse, since you wouldn’t even be able to hide. Or you have like 2-3 houses to hide behind, but then the whole enemy team knows you’re there.
I mean, look at the open maps we have so far, usually there’s a deadlock in the first 15 mins preventing you from going anywhere and wanting to leave spawn or to dare to play the objectives in a light tank gets you killed. The open maps that work well are the ones that have partial urban areas that allow for save flanking routes, if uncontested.
Urban combat isn’t all CoD either as long as there are enough streets to flank. You don’t have to just point your tank towards the nearest enemy and hold W. Just outmaneuver them, outplay them with a teammate (squadmate for better results), etc., you don’t have to make it a “who reacts quicker and shoots first” situation.
Besides, I don’t really see what’s so big brain about sitting behind cover looking over a big open field. Especially in top tier where tanks are “designed for engagements at ranges of several kilometers” so you’re just pointing and clicking at white spots on your thermals with your LRF (which you dont even really need bc shell velocities in top tier make shots ridiculously easy to begin with)
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A) that feels like mostly a skill issue, and “constantly” is a big overstatement. I don’t have trouble with APDS on most guns as long as I aim carefully, and on the few guns where it stinks, there is a good AP round available that does the job well already (like the 17 pounder). Only gun I avoid is the 20pdr on anything that’s higher than the Charioteer. Not to forget that all ammo gets spaghetti code, so an occasional shatter or no damage isn’t just the APDS’ fault.
B) and I hate Air because it’s the worst gamemode by far. Because in Ground you can still easily kill vehicles that are +1.0 BR or even higher quite easily, in Air a plane vastly outperforming you that’s not a bad player gives you a massive disadvantage. Especially since its so much easier for an aware player not to get ambushed bc all enemies get marked from stupidly far away, and there’s an upper ceiling to flying high for ambushing before you get marked by contrails.
Also funny that “something fun” for you is getting free kills by pointing a targeting laser at something and pressing your ATGM/LGB button once. Maybe you’d rather play Ace Combat?
Its fun because I play War Thunder for Air. NOT tanks. I have no interest in tanks. I’ve been playing War Thunder before there is even tanks in the game.
And no, its only a free kill when the tankers do stupid things like sit out in the open. Which 9/10s is a skill issue on the side of the tanker. If you dont like planes in your War Thunder matches, maybe you’d rather play World of Tanks
True.
But if you’re minmaxing, a Waffenträger or a Su 100 P will never be your first spawn of choice on Sun City.
That’s okay. What’s not okay is the dearth of maps where spawning with one of those vehicles is the competitively sensible choice. It’s a balance problem.
I’m all for the mixed maps as you suggest, but the fact of the matter is that all recent changes to the maps so far have pretty much universally gone towards eliminating either sniping spots, flanking routes, or both.
Nothing in particular. I don’t put too much stock into the rather dramatic arguments people make sometimes as if WT is this supreme art form to master. Being able to accurately land shots at long distances or win sniper duels is just one of many skills you develop and put in your toolbox as a player. However, it is tested far less often than others, mostly because map rotation is not a fair and equal mix of scenarios where different types of vehicle can be competitive.
The same can i said to you.
If you like flying planes, just play World of Warplanes.
There are people who, even if it’s sometimes crappy, like to drive tanks in divers Modes and not drive tanks like they do on a pinball machine from Japan, even then I would play Tokyo Warfare instead of WOT because it’s better.
That’s why some gamers like to play War Thunder.
It wouldn’t bother me if there was a tank-only mode and a lot of players would welcome that.
But Gaijin makes money from the milking cattle from the air when they turn tank battles into air battles, with planes and helicopters!
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almost every spawn in the game is just a big open field with proper cover being far away and that’s also the first thing pilots usually look at.
Objectives are usually surrounded by big open fields on maps that aren’t entirely urban too.
And even with cover it’s not like it’s fun that I have to wait in hiding for several minutes until the heli 6-7km out runs out of their 16 ATGMs so I can finally go and play the game.
I’m okay with planes in War Thunder, it’s guided ordnance that I dislike. Planes and helis with unguided ordnance at least have to come close enough to be in danger of getting killed by roof MGs or light tank autocannons. Point-and-clicking on ground targets from outside anyone’s range with thermal pods with incredible zoom in a game state where most SACLOS SPAA can’t even hit a non-maneuvering plane is just lame though.
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You can also twist that around, there are alot more vehicles that don’t work well on long range maps like Mozdok or Arctic, especially in WW2 tiers, where first spawning them is never a sensible choice, either. The whole point is to have a lineup with varied vehicles anyway, not be a single-tank-video youtuber (they set such terrible examples for the community, it’s awful).
Yes, mixed maps are the best. Though I would argue even maps like Sun City are kinda mixed because they have areas for sniping and areas for flanking, just not long range flanking (which is a niche need anyway, even a Waffenträger can flank at mid range just fine). Very few maps are only close range, like Rhine. Gotta admit though, Rhine is a guilty pleasure for me, since I enjoy brawling and close range flanking the most. Plus, Rhine has enough streets and corners to make something like a Su100P work, with effort.
they mostly removed excessively strong power positions that ruined map balance by being only available for one team. most of them were based on height advantage, too. Like Poland north western spawn having safe access to a ridge line that can make the entire north eastern spawn a death trap, while being hulldown and covered by lots of bushes and trees. And the south eastern spawn could be camped from the elevated forest near C too.
Or the hills for the nothern team on Japan, that could easily make the entire middle of the map unaccessible for the southern team with height advantage and lots of spots to shoot hulldown from. And there’s more examples for one team being massively favoured so much that you might aswell just leave the match after seeing you’re spawning on the wrong side of the map. (Notice how these are all sniper spots ruining the entire balance of a map? no coincidence)
Most maps are mixed, the ones that are close-to-mid-range-only usually have enough paths to flank, and long-ranged-only maps are VERY strongly favouring long range oriented vehicles and static gameplay, so they’re the least balanced ones anyway.
I wouldn’t be suprised if their statistics (map play data, map likes/dislikes, match statistics etc.) favour CQC over sniping maps too.
Different types of vehicles aren’t equally fun to play against, after all.
Problems with that would be
- it’s not fun to be shot at from someone you can’t know the location of and can’t engage or defend against
- SPHs would be too effective with how they can easily one shot tanks if they get to fire accurately
- if you want a “blind” indirect firing solution… you can already do that. easier to do with squad mates telling you where your shots are roughly landing.
- Artillery is shooting from several kilometers away, we simply don’t have these ranges in WT, and at implementing these ranges would a) make any slow vehicle miserable and b) would reinforce point 1 even more since getting to that arty would take even longer and be even harder to do.
- implementing indirect fire or counteracting any of those points above would need very arcadey mechanics that don’t fit WT, like birds eye view (too op since you could just use it to spot for your team), map markers for shooting arty and shot RNG from WoT
Only thing they could do would be some sort of range markings for your scope at very steep barrel angles, a.k.a. you adjust your gun way upwards and get reverse range markers like the ones you’d get with a level barrel. Would still not solve the first problem I pointed out though.
That’s sort of the point. It should “take turns”.
I never get Arctic below 6.7 (don’t know if they changed it) and Mozdok is an extremely rare occurrence as well. I can’t remember the last time I played the domination version of Volokolamsk. But I get Seversk multiple times a day… and to be clear, it’s not that small maps can’t be good. I think Advance To The Rhine is very well designed, which is a good thing because I get it so often that it would have become insufferable otherwise.
But it’s undeniable where the preponderance lies.
Flanking, agreed. Sniping, not really. Especially not if you’re an unarmoured tank destroyer.
Trust me, I’m not against “doing it anyway”. Dicker Max and Jagdtiger are my most played vehicles in game, because I’m stubborn.
But to be truthful, now that I know the game better, I’m incredibly self-conscious when spawning them, knowing that if I went with, say, a LeKPanzer instead, it’d probably be better for the team on most maps.
38th Parallel removed the northern sniping spot, but not the southern sniping spot, which is imho a lot better. I’ve used both enough times to know that the northern spawn was a one hit wonder. You could get a first strike, sure, but at that point unless you engage in sniping duels with someone south (which was cool), you have to relocate very quickly to not camp uselessly. The southern one gives you a lot more options, on account of looking directly into B, and being only 400 metres away.
They have however flattened it in such a way that the eastern and western spawns both now have a much tougher time flanking A.
Giving both sides equally powerful approaches that don’t require you to go into the city at all costs would have been a better solution, and you can say the same for most of the changes, too.
I agreed that those that overlooked the main road were a bit scummy, though the one that sat right atop B was not worth removing, imho. And I never found the southern team’s own elevated positions (which have remained) to be dissatisfactory.
You seem to be implying that all sniping spots are inherently unbalanceable. If I’m understanding you correctly, then I completely disagree.
Second Battle Of El Alamein (the dunes version) is a great example of one of the few maps left in this game, where sniping is still a viable way to contribute to the team, and both sides have access to a lot of good options. I regularly use both, from both sides.
The removed Mozdok version, the elongated one? The northern spawn had a very powerful sniping position in front of A, this is true.
But the first nuke I ever got, was won by playing the Jagdtiger from the southern spawn, hull down behind the leftmost little ridge, and doing counter-sniping, in a 7.3 match, pre decompression. And I’m nothing special, to be brutally honest. So, yes, it was playable.
Yes. Badly mixed.
Most fail to give spawns protective geographical features, fail to make it possible to realistically dodge CAS, and fail in providing long-range sniping spots that are actually meaningful.
For example, Iberian Castle has two hills that overlook A, on each side, yes? That is supposed to be the long range area of that map, if we want to call a maximum engagement range of 900m “long range”.
I never go there, though. Because more often than not, the game is won or lost at C and B, not A. So, close quarters it is.
I’ve always found this wording rather amusing.
If Gaijin didn’t want any sort of ambush/sniping style gameplay, they shouldn’t have added vehicles centered around that role to the game in the first place.
Oh, I’m 100% convinced of that.
So remove them and call it a day. More honest that way. I’d be gone too, of course, but eh.
I wonder what else we should let players choose to exclude from the game because it is not fun to play against.
Gaijin will continue to favor small maps because the Russian tanks are garbage on large maps.
The T-models were designed like condoms, use them once and then throw them in the bin, because they were built for close combat and in real life they aren’t even good at that.
If there were also large maps with a size of, for example, 5Km x 5Km, these tanks would perhaps hit a barn door, while they would simply be knocked out by modern Western tanks.
That’s why there are so many small maps.
I don’t think that’s the case. It’s just in alignment with what most players prefer.
Also, bringing up real life is useless. Trust me, precisely because I’m familiar with the history of the Third Reich’s industry and its armoured vehicles, I can assure you that in-game they are just as flattered as the Soviet tanks.
I mean the modern tanks from BR 9.0
Not the vehicles from WWII
I think that’s heavily dependend on the map rotation (which is awful to begin with), since I have few days where I get alot of Rhine and then don’t see it for a week or two. Mozdok I get exactly once per day I play, which is kinda weird. I played the large version of Volokolamsk alot lately, sadly.
Seversk is probably one of the better mixed maps, so I don’t mind getting that quite alot.
you can hold down the leftmost and rightmost paths, use the bridges, look from the buildings left of B towards the right side or snipe from the green area on the right towards C or B. its more medium range sniping but I’d still call it that.
oh, same here. but I also came to accept that tanks like the Dicker Max or Sturer Emil aren’t really made for tank combat (as ingame) but for holding down a path/area, which isn’t fun to play against if the area they can hold down is too large. Jagdtiger I just use as second row heavy tanks, it’s really fun.
Honestly, a big portion of my fun is making suboptimal vehicles work. I’ve played a bunch of AuF1 at 9.3 lately, laughing at T-series and Abrams I kill with that chonker. it’s hilarious. I probably would’ve quit the game half my game time ago if I’d just play meta vehicles on maps designed around them.
that’s because the northern sniping spot could shoot into the tanks coming out of spawn in the south eastern spawn, while the north western spawn is completely shielded by a wall of rocks. You could kill tanks leaving through the only path available on the left side of the map merely 20s into the match, and from behind cover. South sniping spot oversees less problematic areas. being less far away also makes it easier to spot you and shoot back at you.
In my late experience the hills around A are great to play hull down and are wide enough to play against few people, while for flanking you can either go through B or play the C side. it’s not optimal but before A was pretty much castled in on a hill with an additional ridgeline you could neither flank nor contest frontally. now at least neither side has a height advantage.
They aren’t nearly as high though, most are about a tank and a half high and can barely shoot level into B. They’re also easy to shoot at from all sides, while the very elevated northern position was a bit pot-like with elevations all around the “main plateau” that protected you from different sides.
Though the big problem child here was the mountain between C and B, that was alot more easy to access from the north, had tons of cover and vegetation, and was abusing traction issues.
If they are highly elevated and well protected against most sides, they are problematic. especially if the incline is shallow enough that you only have to expose your gun, which on some later TDs can make them almost unkillable. You get to shoot down into tanks, negating some of their armour, making their reaction time alot worse since alot of tanks have terrible vertical targeting speed, and making them hard to flank without crossing the entire map (and the rest of your team) to pick them out of there.
The dunes of El Alamein are a good example, most dunes are steep enough that you have to expose your entire tank to get the gun down and need a couple seconds to reverse below the ridgeline again. The north eastern rocky area got blocked off entire since you can peek out from between rocks, reversing into cover is alot quicker, you come in at an almost 90° angle from the main battle so it takes a while to react to you, and when people dedicate themselves to holding down, you can just peek from a different rock they can’t get you from.
large Mozdok is problematic because neither A nor C are accessible to any team if the enemy has a good sniper, and B is only accessible from the southern side if your team prevents the northern side from reaching the hill near C, because that’s the only position to shoot into the river. Rivals the Novo version with the open B cap for worst map in the game for me. if I get that Mozdok version I know I’ll be staring down an open field from behind a hill for like, 20 minutes. because pushing out is a certain death against ANY aware enemies.
I mean, sure, you can nuke if you just sit there and enough people come out or keep taking shots at you and exposing themselves, but I wouldn’t call that playable imo. Do you think they had any real chance to flank you there?
Spawns are problematic, yes. CAS is a problem for any tank anywhere, yes. Unless Gaijin starts letting us play through areas covered from above, like empty factories or something, that will never change. (the concrete slabs over the A cap on that one desert map don’t count because they don’t even protect from 250kg bombs).
I think 900m is okay for long range sniping, at ww2 tiers that’s already alot of gun sight correction, and at high tier most people just LRF then shoot anyway. (I would even like the rocks on those two hills overlooking A to go away, so you can get shot in the turret side from the city while shooting towards A instead of being protected towards the city, but eh)
C has a couple of sniping spots though, each covering differnt parts of the map half. I think it’s well playable with tank destroyers.
Most caps are close quarters anyway, or you get Fire Arc where two caps are unaccessible if there is a non-blind enemy on your side of the map, because it’s a roughly 1.5km unprotected drive through open fields to get to an entirely open unprotected cap, such an awful map design
Gaijin adds alot of vehicles that aren’t made for tank on tank combat in general, but here we are because they want all combat vehicles added at some point.
I think ambushing is fine but sniping from a position you can’t realistically get taken out of is awful for the enemy.
well, it’s not excluded because they choose to, but because they’re not fun for the majority of the player base, and Gaijin needs paying customers. If half the matches were sniping fests where noone can move much without dying, I’d guess alot more people would quit the game than they do for not getting enough sniping fests.
As to why they even add sniper tanks? Because people like you and me still make the Dicker Max work on Rhine just because we can, and having access to more than just PzIVs and Tigers for variety makes us stay.