Despite its simplicity, the D-Day historical event was one of my favorites. This got me thinking about how something similar could be implemented as a permanent game mode. Here’s how I would like to see a “historical” mode work:
EC spawn point system. One of the biggest issues with the D-Day event was the spawn points of say an American M4 and a Panther were the same.
RB or SB difficulty. I’d like to see sim, but RB would likely be more popular.
Sim maps. The bigger the map the better. This is likely one of the major limitations of an EC mode, since Ground maps are a lot more difficult to make than Naval ones.
Fully historical vehicle selection. This could be easily based on the Pages of History, providing a variety of battles that change every month without adding a whole lot more work for the devs. It would also make the Pages of History more significant, because right now it’s a very minor feature with limited rewards for playing vehicles that often don’t share lineups.
Here’s an example based on the Ardennes Offensive as part of December’s PoH:
Maps
Fields of Normandy, Wallonia, Hurtgen Forest, Maginot Line
Teams
Axis: Germany
Allies: US, Britain, France
Vehicles
0SP
M3 Stuart
M3A1 Stuart
M8 Greyhound
Daimler Mk I
M13 MGMC
Sd.Kfz. 251/10
Panzer II F
Flakpanzer 38 (t)
Sd.Kfz. 222
Panzer 38 (t) F
50SP
M3A3 Stuart
M5 Stuart
M8 Scott
Archer
M16 MGMC
M15 MGMC
M3 GMC
Marder III/IIIH
Sd.Kfz. 234/2
Sd.Kfz. 251/21
100SP
M4A3 (105)
M22
StuH 42 G
Panzer III L
Panzer III N
150SP
M4A1
Sherman II
M24
Cromwell V
Crusader AA Mk II
Panzer III M
Sd.Kfz. 251/22
200SP
M4
M4A4
M10
Achilles
M19A1
Sd.Kfz. 234/4
StuG III G
Panzer IV J
Whirblewind
400SP
M4A1 (76)
Sherman VC
Sherman IC
Churchill VII
Churchill Crocodile
Skink
Panzer IV H
Jagdpanzer IV/70 (A)
Jagdpanzer IV
Jagdpanzer 38 (t)
Brummbar
600SP
M4A3 (76)
M4A3E2
Challenger
Panther D
Panzer IV/70 (V)
Nashorn
800SP
M36
M18
Panther A
Panther G
Ersatz M10
Tiger H1
Tiger E
1000SP
M26
Jagdpanther
1200SP
Tiger II H
Jagdtiger
Aircraft (SP soon maybe)
P-47D-25
P-51D-5
P-38J-15
Spitfire Mk V
Spitfire Mk IX
Typhoon Mk I/L
Mosquito FB Mk VI
Mosquito FB Mk XVIII
A-20
A-26
Wellington Mk III
Meteor F Mk III
Minor nations may be unable to participate as frequently. This is unfortunate, but it is an event, so not as important. Maybe it could be like an actual event where all vehicles are allowed, but every player has the same spawn options? I’d be against that idea because it would mean there’d be no rewards for the mode.
Maps may not be big enough for a true EC like Naval. This isn’t really that big of a problem IMO as Sim maps are large enough.
Choosing battles may be difficult. This is why I’d recommend using one of the Pages of History for that month as the basis for the mode.
What do you think? Is this a good idea? Does something need changed? Is it completely impractical?
Maybe add Studebaker and Hanomag as additional ammo replenish points if you want maps to be big? It van be destroyed by CAS and you must wait before new arrive from edge if the map. Or add fuel tanker vehicles, of course IRL fuel wasn’t spent too fast but necessary to control fuel quantity will will greatly affect gameplay. I can produce more strange ideas if you want.
Any situation where I run into Tigers (or even just Pz IVs) in a Daimler (without me being the one to have chosen to uptier myself) sounds horrendously unfun no matter what the parameters are.
“Ah but they’ll be rarer because of SP cost” Okay so I’ll only 40% of the time die randomly out of my control instead of 100% of the time? Great, so it’s only 40% worse than current modes instead of 100% worse. But still worse… that should never happen at all, not rarely happen, if you want it to be fun. So what’s the point?
(Note that Pages of History does NOT do that, it still properly matches by BR. For good reason)
I’d probably play a mode like this (wt NEEDS new game modes anyway)
But i thought of an “Operations” game mode similar to what’s in the Battlefield games, long battles drawn out over several maps
We could see the Allies begin in Normandy and work their way up to Cologne, passing through Wallonia and the Hürtgen forest, or maybe we can see a Russian counterattack on Eastern europe → Poland → Berlin (larger versions of those maps with more players would be awesome too)
Yes, the BR thing is intended to make it more rare. You’d need quite a few kills to get something like a Tiger, and quite a few deaths to only have enough spawn points for a Daimler.
These vehicles all fought each other historically, which is what this mode is attempting to allow. Without the disadvantage of using a historical vehicle (like a Daimler) against opponents all using ahistorical BR vehicles.
Both teams would theoretically have equal distributions of good and bad tanks, while players might have an advantageous vehicle on an individual basis no player or team will have on average the better vehicles, disregarding skill.
Never played battlefield, but what I understand about what you are saying seems impractical for War Thunder. There’s the World War mode, but otherwise all battles are completely independent of each other and data isn’t saved between battles because the players and BRs and such change.
What I think is similar to your idea that could work for War Thunder is something like in Enlisted, where there is a huge map with 5 or more caps and moving spawn points that advance or retreat depending on the points controlled by each team.
Like each team starts with 3 caps in a rough line and there’s one contested cap at any time, and the game is won when a team captures them all.
Spawn points change depending which point is the contested “active” one.
I understood that, and already responded to it: A horribly unfun thing that is rare, is less fun than a horribly unfun thing that NEVER happens.
“It’s rare” is not an excuse or reason to include a horribly unfun situation in a game, since instead of that, you could just leave it out completely, and have a better game.
By analogy, can I come to your house and poke you in the eye every day? You: “No way!” Me: “Okay how about only once a month?” You: “Oh okay that sounds great” ? No, lol, zero times is the correct number.
And we already have game modes where Daimlers never face Tigers (thus better than this mode here): they’re called Ground AB, RB, SB
Your game mode is just the same as the normal game modes we already have, except you’ve added some % of situations on top of that where one guy has absolutely no chance and gets hopelessly slaughtered.
All the situations where both guys do have a reasonable chance already happen in the game like it is now
All the situations where one guy gets slaughtered hopelessly are not fun
So the only thing you’ve done is take a fun game and add a bunch of NOT-fun stuff on top of it…
Bad analogy. This is WT, you are going to get poked in the eyes.
This is supposed to be simulating a historical event. Little old Daimlers did have to face Tigers. Thing is this is EC not short little random battles and (hopefully) there will be more team work and strategy involved than the individual deathmatch mentality in random battles. A wee Daimler reporting that a bunch of Tigers are trying to flank is just as valuable as the Fireflies that need to flex that way to deal with them. Spawn cost scaling is a way to balance the game so that every one doesn’t just take Tigers all the time.
Expand your mind to the possibilities.
And it doing so to the exclusion of fun makes it a bad idea. This is not a museum. This is a video game. Video games must be fun, or they don’t work, nobody plays them. Things that are historical but not fun → museums and history books.
In real life wars, people HAD to fight whether it was fun or not. In video games, they don’t have to. If it’s not fun, they log off. So it is fundamentally not possible to simulate real life wars in a video game, since you’d have to chain some players to radiators and make them play at gunpoint to finish the simulation.
It’s a fun game. I’m not aware of more fun ones of this type. One of the big reasons it’s fun is precisely due to the balancing algorithms that make matchups reasonably winnable in almost all situations. (unlike Daimlers vs Tigers)
A more convincing argument would probably be like… saying what game you’re talking about. At which point I could probably easily explain why I find WT more fun. But whatevs
Sounds like fun, I think I’d enjoy it more than ground RB.
Of course not everyone agrees, and that’s why this should be an optional game mode. If participation is voluntary, then why complain about it?
I already use light tanks (like Stuart and Puma) in intentional 3 to 4 BR uptiers anyways, and it isn’t as hopeless as you’d think. Mobility carries these vehicles, as well as spotting for your team.
If participation is voluntary, then why complain about it?
Because there’s limited development/design resources, and other modes are much more desperately needed and of interest to a huge swath of people rather than a niche group. Like Ground-only modes being asked for every 2 hours here for years, for example.
I already use light tanks (like Stuart) in intentional 3 to 4 BR uptiers anyways, and it isn’t as hopeless as you’d think. Mobility carries these vehicles, as well as spotting for your team.
But as you just said… you already do it. Notice that you did not require a new mode to do that, you are able to right now just fine. So…? The difference is instead that this one would force you to do it with other vehicles that DON’T uptier well that you never would have opted into normally because you know they won’t be fun. Like, an M3 gun carrier, when a Sherman has the exact same gun and is better in every possible way, etc.
Ok, it’s not for you. Noted. I’m not really looking to see if/why people are against the idea. I’m more looking to see if there are enough people in support of the idea for it to be implemented alongside current modes. And any new input on how to improve the idea.
I for one quite like the extra challenge of using historical vehicles at higher BRs. I’d enjoy a mode where that doesn’t mean leaving the team without backup or putting my lineup at a distinct disadvantage over everyone else. Because assuming about average skill, the amount of times you get killed by a higher tank is equal to the amount of times you kill a lower tank.
So, historical lineups where tanks of all capabilities of the same front and era fight each other. Every player has equal opportunity to get SP through good play and equal access to more capable tanks of the historical battle.