Dunno what to tell you, but scouting has been around for a very long time. Matches looking like that isn’t something new.
If there are light tanks or certain SPAAs (or a ATGM Wiesel) doing its part by scouting that just is what tends to happen. At a certain point you also have UAVs, meaning that is even more likely to happen.
Not to mention that not bring able to move around freely is actually more realistic.
As a sidenote: The main reason for a situation in which half the team is scouted is the map design. Flat maps allow for easier scouting.
If you’ve played sim for any length of time you’d know that you cannot move around freely even in a mode without any Kind of markers
Not true. Scouting has been around for a long time, indeed. But it has never been used as much as today, probably because players weren’t as used to it, the removal of hullbreak made light tanks more popular and scouting went through a couple of buffs.
Just watch random YouTube videos from 2019 for example, you will see that scouting was used more rarely.
I am anti UAV drones as well for obvious reasons.
You can’t really talk about realism in that context. War Thunder maps are not the settings tank battles happen(ed) irl.
I play sims regularly, and you can move around much more freely.
Of course, you have more freedom of movement when you’re not visibly marked for everyone to see, what are we even talking about here?
Obviously the risk of getting noticed or shot by an enemy increases when you are being scouted.
This video clip shows how scouting ruins tactical gameplay.
What happened:
A T-34 pushed my position. In a 1v1 he is superior due to my lack of armor.
So I decided to use the main advantage of my tank, which is speed, to get into cover and ambush him.
What would have happened without scouting:
Either he would have made the mistake of pushing the position where I he saw me last and so he would have fallen into my trap. Or
If he realised I wasn’t there anymore and was smart, he would have driven down the slope to avoid being too exposed. Then, with as much cover as possible, he would have been able to search me and potentially force me into a 1v1, which would have been advantageous for his T-34.
But instead:
Thanks to scouting, my attempt to use the advantages of my tank to my favor and set up a trap failed.
I could have just stayed where I was at before because he knew where I was anyways.
There was a bush between him and me, so he MG’ed into my direction, got a hit cam and killed me.
I was forced into a brawl through the reconnaissance and didn’t even know it since I had no idea I was scouted.
By the way, I know I could have avoided death in this particular case. But that has nothing to do with the problem I’m describing here. This is about how a potential battle between two different tanks, each with their own strengths and disadvantages, turned into a braindead brawl thanks only to scouting.
Scouting shouldn’t be accurate. I believe Gaijin should leave the marker where the tank was last seen instead of following us like if we had a GPS tracker. Its a nice feature, but its way too accurate.
2019 was 6 years ago.
Hullbreaks removal was in 2021, 4 years ago.
I started playing after that point and for as long as I can remember, I’ve always had two kinds of matches, ones where half the enemy team was constantly scouted and ones where seemingly nobody ever scouted.
Again, this isn’t something new, it’s been like that for at least 4 years.
In Ground Battles right now, it’s not possible to scout enemy targets through the Scout UAV. However, many players still take advantage by switching to a Scout UAV, put a mark, return to their tank and try to scout targets using this mark. We want to make this method a normal and balanced game mechanic by making it part of the core gameplay, so we are making some changes to how it works.
We will make it so that you can now scout enemy players directly from the Scout UAV. There will also be some changes to the cooldown — when you have a Scout UAV in the air, the cooldown after a successful scout is three times as big, and the spawn point reduction for aircraft will be decreased by two times as well. However, the rewards in RP, SL and mission points have not changed.
With this change, players will be able to scout from the Scout UAV instead of needing to switch back to their tank after placing a mark in order to try and get a scout (however, this method will still be here for those who want to do it). At the same time, the scout cooldown when you have a Scout UAV in the air will be longer to balance it out, and the spawn point cost reduction of planes has decreased, but the rewards will remain the same.
So, I believe that there will be a bigger issue that will have to be dealt with first, before changes to scouting as a whole can happen.
It hasn’t been around with that intensity for more than 2 - 3 years. Again, if you don’t believe me, just watch random YouTube videos from 2019 - ~2021, you will see how much cleaner battles were.
Also, look at the battles around 9.0. In most matches the most played type of tank are light tanks, a light tank meta clearly exists, since you can get extra free scouting with them.
Light tanks hold all the cards in GRB. They’re the kings of ground rb. Fast movement, good positioning, capture points first, flat profiles and surprise shots as well as fast gun handling beat medium and heavy tanks. There are exceptions ofc, but in general fast movers are more rewarding to play.
I always woundered why light tanks got so much candy on top. Like artilly strikes, air unit spawn boni, scouting… It should be all removed off these.
Yes, and that’s why I said they should get a high risk high reward role again. They should have to rely on their own abilities and not on mechanics like scouting, just like every other tank.
That would make it harder for unexperienced players who just go center map to play them, but if used correctly, they can have a massive impact.
Gaijin wants to get rid of the “high risk” but what still stands is the “high reward” part.
They have all that stuff because before Gaijin started this trend of spamming autocannon light vehicles and rat tanks light vehicles needed something to be more appealing, especially after the ability to repair allies was given to all vehicles instead of just light tanks and the two engineering vehicles at the time (AVRE and CEV).
The spawn cost reduction for planes isn’t unique to light vehicles, as all vehicles that have scouting also have that trait (the majority of high tier SPAA vehicles and the Wiesel 1A2 (the ATGM one) get scouting and therefore the Airstrike modification as well).
Personally I don’t have a problem with the idea behind the Airstrike modification, but it should probably be nerfed to a certain degree.
The only vehicles to not have artillery are heavy tanks and tank destroyers and I honestly don’t think that the ability to call artillery should be removed from light tanks.
What should happen is that the “Light Tank” class gets further divided, so not all light vehicles get scouting and access to UAVs. UAVs should be reserved for actual IFVs in my opinion and scouting should be reserved for actual light AFVs (and SPAA that lacks the capability to properly deal with other tanks).
Actual recon vehicles can keep both (if there even are any purpose-built recon vehicles at the ranks that get UAVs).
Examples
BMPs and Bradleys would lose scouting, but keep UAVs
Centauros and Type 16s would lose UAVs, but keep scouting
So I’m pro removing scouting in general. But even if you wanted to keep it, why these vehicles? Keep in mind the Type 16 has similar frontal protection against autocannons as the Type 74.
Another point we should discuss is the scouting marker which automatically appears when a player just shots you with any weapon. In the past it wasn’t as toxic. Nowadays even fighter planes might carry up to 3x 1000lb bombs. it is too op. If ppl want to communicate with their air players, they should set a manual map marker and write something into game chat. This MG spraying + auto marker makes you too vulnerable to air attacks. its too simplified and too low efford.
Not even talking about top tier jets or choppers. Air RB has alot to do with positioning, hiding, spotting. A simple MG burst shouldn’t be death sentence.
Very true. Gaijin have changed that. Now you don’t even have to hit the enemy anymore in order for him to be marked. It’s enough just shoot past someone. So if you want to know if there is a players behind a ridgeline you will just have to spray your MG at it and the game will mark the enemy.
As I’ve said, Gaijin tries to turn RB into a more attractive version of AB.
Might as well rename Ground RB into Ground Arcade after that.
This means, a huge part of the players are permanently scouted, you can do nothing against it with a normal tank. It will most likely be the norm to be scouted.
Please, can somebody explain to me how playing while constantly being scouted is much different from playing Ground Arcade?
This is just not true. So much so that crew visibility skills and vehicle visibility stats are very important to actually spot things, it’s so much easier to sneak and flank with low visibility vehicles than something with 100%+ visibility stat.
Sometimes you can stare at an t-64 and it will just not show up with the red name tag, or even not render at all for a few seconds.
Arcade scouting makes the scouted player temporarily visible like you have an ESP hack for all the team. And if you manage to have a drone in the air you can essentially have half the enemy team constantly spotted just by yourself.
Also you can keep “renewing” the spotted targets while they are already spotted by you or someone else. You can have someone spotted the entire match even if you are on the other side of the map with no LOS.
The scouting mechanic in arcade is so OP that if you don’t play light tanks you are actively nerfing yourself and your team. It’s just that many people don’t realise how useful it is to spam the spot button all match.
Holding a corner? Scout the guy, pop smoke, wait a few seconds, and just drive in and shoot him in the face.
Ok, I didn’t know all that. I am a total noob in Arcade. I didn’t know Scouting was a problem in Arcade, too.
But, I would guess you have the same problem as in the RB Community which is that less experienced players want to keep this mechanic because it helps them a lot, disregarding the tactical elements that get kind of destroyed.
Maybe after they intruduce the UAV chances which will make this problem even worse, people will start to realise how much scouting can ruin gameplay.
I think less experienced players don’t know how to fully abuse the scouting mechanic to the level of someone like me.
Still, sometimes spotting half the enemy team backfires on me because my teammates get fixated on specific targets that aren’t in their LOS and still get killed by someone that is flanking or isn’t spotted.
Other times I help my team steamroll the enemy.
I just don’t like the mechanic because it is plain ridiculous.
I think, and that is the case for AB and RB, that you should be able to influence how much attention you draw to yourself, it should be one of many key parts of the gameplay.
Scouting completely neglects this principle.
For arcade, a simple fix would be for the scouting “ESP” to go away within a second and lock that vehicle from being scouted again for some time. And maybe remove that feature from drones and make it similar to the RB one.
Sometimes I hear the argument that scouting was good because it was the historical role light tanks had.
I think this argument if flawd because:
Not all light tanks had reconnisence as their historical role.
In War Thunder, vehicles should be represented only by their historical attributes, and the player should then be tasked with using the pros and cons that result from them correctly. The role of a tank must be performed by the player; no “historical roles” should be introduced as mechanics that are intended to reward the player without requiring any effort.
It’s not that light tanks generally had any technical advantages that would be too bad if they weren’t represented in the game. While some, depending on their year, had better radio equipment, many tanks simply weren’t used for reconnaissance because they were too expensive for the task. The only physical advantages scout tanks have over many tanks are that they are often smaller and more mobile. But these two qualities don’t need to be represented in the game through scouting, as they already exist in the game.
You wouldn’t give a Tiger a mechanic as a buff just because it has good armor. So why give tanks scouting as a buff because they are fast?
Why don’t other tanks have the privilege of receiving a buff for their real-life role?
Howitzers, for example, have to engage in close combat in War Thunder, and I’m glad they don’t have the same role as in reallife because then it would be like in WoT.
Also, die role of an IS-3 was definitely not to get one-shot by a HEAT-FS. Why can’t it smash WW2 tanks all day as its role was intended to?
I know I’m exaggerating here, but this point in particular shows that in War Thunder, it shouldn’t matter what role a tank had in real life. All a tank needs is to fit well into the in-game climate with its own role, which is determined by its physical characteristics. Most of the time, their in-game role is very close to their real-life role anyway.
Scouting is not implemented accurately at all in War Thunder.If you spot an enemy in War Thunder and they take cover, they will still be tracked by a marker. In reality, it’s impossible for a tank crew to know the movement of an enemy without visual contact.
I also doubt that in real life, the position of many individual enemies can be continuously transmitted simultaneously.
