But maps used to be much better suited for light tanks, didn’t they?
The only positive is spawn camping isn’t as easy anymore.
I really don’t like the map tunneling itself. It’s really not hard to pay attention for possible flankers and it really would make gameplay more divers.
Even though all the new mechanics, War Thunder gameplay has never been as monotonous as it is today.
I think it’s incredible annoying and shouldn’t be a thing in Ground RB, at least not the way it currently is. You can’t avoid some enemy seeing you for a quick moment. If you are unlucky it’s a light tank, it will scout you and depending on the situation that means the end of you. And you won’t even know if you are scouted. The most effective way to counter possibly being scouted is playing with paranoia. Back when scouting wasn’t a thing you could move much more freely and a 1v1 against light tanks didn’t turn into 1 vs enemy team.
In my opinion in a mode that is a lot about being unrecognized scouting in its current form is too strong.
+1
I have suggested adding a warning and people went mad by it because of it being “too unrealistic”.
On the other hand we now have a scouting mechanic that goes on even after the scouting tank can’t see the enemy he scouts or is dead…
These are the counterarguments I’ve received from pro-scouting people so far and here is why I don’t agree with them:
1. “Light tanks have so little armor, that’s why they need scouting”
Many medium tanks don’t have much more armor than light ones. The best example of this is the comparison between a TAM and a Leopard a1a1. The Leopard has an advantage against autocannons, but the TAM has an advantage against guns thanks to its front-mounted engine and overpen. mechanics. So I don’t understand why, for example, the TAM, which is essentially as good as a Leopard a1a1, needs this mechanic. The similarity to medium tanks applies to many light tanks, especially between 9.0 and 10.0.
Especially in mid- and low-tier, light tanks are far faster than all other tanks, and that’s often not the only thing they are good in. In principle, less armor can be well compensated for by other aspects, such as mobility but I do believe that maps should offer more opportunities for mobile vehicles again. On many maps today you simply cannot make great enough use of good mobility.
Tanks like the Waffenträger don’t have scouting either, they have other qualities that make up for he lack of armor (such as a good cannon). Here, that’s accepted, so why not for light tanks?
2. “Light tanks have such low firepower”
I understand this point a little, especially for tanks with autocannons as their main armament. But:
This doesn’t apply to most light tanks; most have at least average firepower.
Tanks with autocannons are often called rat tanks for a reason. They may not be able to reliably destroy everyone from the front, but they are extremely deadly against light armor, so it’s a trade-off. A ZSU-75 or Falcon is also often used to hunt tanks without being able to penetrate any tank from anywhere, and all without scouting.
3. “Scouting serves as a tactical compensation for the disadvantage you have compared to squadron players”
This is probably the strongest point in favor of scouting. However, it has a few drawbacks:
Squadrons are limited to 4 players. So, scouting is much more powerful, as it reaches not just 3 other players but the entire team with about the same kind of information squadron players can exchange.
Why do only light tanks have the privilege of having this “balancing” mechanic? As I’ve already described, light tanks are by no means unplayable. In some cases they literally play just like medium tanks.
With scouting, you can, for example, track the movement of enemy vehicles through cover. This is a major advantage that doesn’t exist in squadrons.
Overall, the advantage that squadrons have, although limited to four players, will always exist. The only way to change this would be to abolish squadrons, which I think is beyond debate. If you wanted to balanced squadrons’ advantages, the way to wouldn’t be to give that advantage on steroids to a selected group of tanks.
4. “Scouting makes gameplay easier”
The main difference between Ground RB and Arcade is not less horsepower or no indicators for weak spots, it has always been the absence of markers that show you where the enemy is. If you don’t like that, that is literally what Arcade is made for. What even is the point of Ground RB when some matches look like this:
Scouting is the attempt of turning Ground RB a bit more into Arcade and that in a very bad way on top of that;
Since scouting is given to a handful of tanks, enemies will only get scouted if the right tank sees them and that is a very inconsistent and luck based way to make gameplay easier. It’s just like when ammo exploding was based on RNG because people found it annoying to die from it. At the end of the day, it just makes the game more random and unfair.
Furthermore, in any PvP game, if one player’s life is made easier, another’s automatically becomes harder. Specifically in this case, this means that scouting can make it easier to spot enemies, but it also makes it easier to be spotted by enemies. Just pay attention to how often you get clapped by half the enemy team at once or bombed by an aircraft after coming into contact with an enemy light tank. Often times a 1v1 against a TAM turn out to be way harder than against a Leopard a1a1, just because of scouting.
Show the vehicle in the enemy team on the score board until destroyed
This informs your team about the existence of the scouted vehicle and shows the position on the map for a short time.
The position should only update when someone has visuals on them.
Scouting shouldn’t last as long as it does.
Scouting should drop off if a vehicle moves a certain distance away from the point where it was spotted.
A marker could be placed on the minimap that a vehicle was recently scouted in that area after the marker drops from the vehicle.
It should be possible to reapply spotting and reset the cooldown.
Scouting shouldn’t infinitely reduce SP cost.
Spotted targets should still be allowed to be scouted and get rewarded, or all tasks need a significant reduction.
Planes should not get scouting information.
Also hitting a target should not mark it on the minimap, shooting it with an MG should not mark it through the smoke and on the minimap, a plane spraying a tank with MGs should not appear on the minimap either.
I think the markings on the minimap is okay, things like that make RB differ from SB. I think in RB you should, by using your minimap and brain, be able to gather some information about your surroundings.
I would agree that they shouldn’t be shown in the field of view and that you actually have to hit an enemy for that because as it is right now you just have to shoot at his direction, if a projectile passes him he is marked already.
I would prefer the marker not tracking anymore after the scouted tank being out of the FOV. Like that you can get rid of the marker even if you don’t have a lot of space to work with.
I would prefer the marker not tracking anymore after the scouted tank being out of the FOV. Like that you can get rid of the marker even if you don’t have a lot of space to work with.
Considering we still have tanks pop into and out of existence during a regular game I don’t believe the game has a solid grasp on what is within FOV, plus I think relocating is a more realistic way than a tank just disappearing because it moved around a corner… if I see you and you hide behind a tree, I still know you’re behind that tree even if I cannot visually see you.
But if you move away from where you were spotted I don’t know where you went if you are not visible, and even in an open field you might be able to get away if the person that spotted you isn’t in a position to spot you again.
It might be more realistic. But what one thing I really dislike about scouting is that in a stalemate between an enemy light tank and you he can alert his teammates, you can’t. Now this probably is exactly what scouting is for but like that a lot gameplay options are not possible anymore.
I want ambushing etc. to be possible again and les reliant on if an enemy light tank knows where you are at or not. Especially when the enemy has the upper hand, being scouted often times is like a death sentence. Really having an impact on enemies like that isn’t possible anymore.
I believe that scouting makes a serious contribution to the fact that battles today are much shorter and more one-sided than in the past.
It’s much harder these days to get your foot in the door and perhaps launch a counterattack when all it takes is a light tank noticing you and the whole enemy team, who has superior numbers, knows where you are.
Light tanks have always been meta, no armor best armor, mobility, agility, getting to cap zones first, scouting, artillery, drones, not triggering fuses, lower spawn cost whilst heavy tanks get nothing, get one shot all the time because their armor actually triggers fuses, get bombed because they’re too slow to get out of the way, cost most to spawn, at least they used to by significant margins and even with absurdly large guns you still get meme hits and a lack of damage giving a total of zero reasons to play a heavy over a light tank.
I think scouting should just be 5-10 seconds at most, with like a 50m range where the marker will drop off but with the ability to reapply the scouting unlike this stupid system we have now where you constantly get screwed out of rewards because they die after 31 seconds and you’re on a cooldown because you tried to scout it at 29 seconds.
Potentially letting the player know they have been scouted so there is a counter play.
Then if tanks also stop being marked by magicall tank rounds, artillery and bullets that have GPS tracking in them or whatever, making it impossible to get out of an encounter undetected, which is already unfair when playing against the US who all have ghost operated MGs, there should be a lot more room to remain undetected on the flanks.
And as they are working on markers, for the love of god stop highlighting enemies that died before showing them as being killed, extremely obnoxious design.
Excluding the scouting: I have always had the same opinion on light tanks. But I think we have to be fair enough and at least recognize that maps have gotten less and less beneficial for very mobile vehicles.
This is how it is today (obv oversimplified and exaggerated, but that doesn’t make my point wrong, I believe):
This map is still in the game, but proportionally these kind of maps have gotten less.
Why am I even talking about this? I think the pro-scouting people have a point, it has actually gotten more difficult to play light tanks the way they used to be played. I believe, though, it should be easier to play light tanks again without scouting mechanics.
Their weapon should be map design again and not some mechanic that breaks the game.
Yes. Especially since the missile dodging notification has ben introduced, the argument that that would be too unrealistic cannot be made anymore.
I think scouting makes flanking much more difficult than the hit indicator. Scouting is the bigger problem in my opinion.
Paradoxically, removing scouting would actually help light tanks the most in this aspect.
People will go to pretty irrational lengths to defend a broken game mechanic they abused and benefited from, even when the change is better for the game and possibly makes it fairer. This behavior can be seen in most anti-CAS topics, anyone challenging the mechanic might feel like an outsider trying to ruin the fun for their group lol
I think many players don’t want scouting to be nerfed or even removed because they fear it would weaken their favorite light tanks.
Even if that were to happen, it wouldn’t automatically mean that such a change would be bad for the game.
But I don’t even think such a change would weaken light tanks; it would simply change the tactical role of light tanks again.
For example, if a heavy tank is spotted, it won’t be as devastating for it as if a light tank is spotted planning an ambush or flanking maneuver. Removing scouting would open up some new tactical possibilities, especially for light tanks.
Removing scouting would deprive light tanks of the opportunity to earn rewards with little skill. But at the same time, it would also lead to them remaining undetected by the enemy much more often and for longer periods of time. This would allow light tanks to operate more offensively in the flanks or even behind the enemy front.
So removing scouting would make light tanks more of a high risk, high reward vehicle again.
Imo light tanks can retain their ability to scout but, IMO there should be ways to clear the marker like when the target uses smoke shells, the marker should disappear should the marked target entered the smoke-affected radius (they can copy-pasta their existing codes from arcade where smoke clears the nametag), the marker remains visible as long as the target is within the line of sight of any teammates, which means they can simply drive into somewhere where nobody can see them then the marker disappears. Ever notice that any time you fail to kill a light tank in one hit, the entire world comes after your ass, planes, helicopters agms, bullet start flying in your direction like the world wanted you dead lol
This is one of the main issues with scouting. It’s too potent. It can turn RB engagements into arcade ones, with the added factor that you have to locate your opponent again every 30 seconds so that the automatic marking continues.
The issue is that light tanks at best can only remain undected by not killing anyone. As soon as you do get a kill, they get your exact location that they can broadcast to their team, and since SP costs are far too low, they get multiple shot at revenge kill, or they just get CAS and then it’s a gamble on wether the guy you killed is as bad in the air as he is on the ground. Scouting was a good way to indirectly kill people to preserve your position.
It wouldn’t be as bad if we had large, better laid out, less dense maps where you can actually move around and leverage the high speed of a light tank, but unfortunately the game is what it is, and removing scouting would up the risk, but not the reward. Flanking already somewhat hinders your teammates by having less bodies in the faceslamming around the points, if you can’t help your team by feeding them info, you have to slaughter reinforcements, and that would disproportionnately impact light tanks that are already on the somewhat poorer end of the spectrum like the Type 89.
You cannot compare getting a kill to getting scouted. It never happens that the whole enemy team instantly knows where I am just because I kill someone.
I highly doubt you know the location of every enemy that killed a mate of yours, too. You simply cannot compare getting scouted to killing somebody, scouting is a way more effective.
Maybe I’m wrong with that interpretation but your text kind of implies that scouting doesn’t really change anything about the situation ingame regarding being spotted. Even if that was the case, which it is not, that would mean the removal of scouting would change anything anyways.
Only because the CAS situation is bad that doesn’t make scouting any better.
The difference between somebody trying to revenge you and scouting is that with scouting the whole enemy team could potentially be after you.
Agreed. I demand a removal/nerf of scouting and a better map design for light tanks (and TDs).
What I meant is: the new tactical possibilities that would arise for light tanks if scouting were removed (among map reworks) would bring with them a playstyle that is inherently riskier, but can also have a significant impact on the battlefield.
Light tanks would have more opportunities than less mobile tanks, but on the other hand they were more risky to play.
As I already described in the text quoted below,
The Type 89 is not representative of all light tanks.
Without having it, I don’t think the Type 89 is bad. Autocannons are less effective against sufficiently thick armor, but are very effective against light armor. Many people -and understandably so- talk about many of the tanks with autocannons and SPAAs being rat tanks but whenever they cannot penetrate something their massive advantages against light armor seem to be forgotten.
My point wasn’t to conflate getting a kill to being scouted, but getting a kill to scouting someone, since the killcams give your exact location to the people you kill, as a light tanks you lose your stealth when you kill someone, but you can retain it by instead scouting. Granted it gives a pseudo BMS to everyone, but with the way that teams function in WT if Gaijin wants a teamplay element, they’ll lay it on thick, current scouting being as close as possible to a wallhack without being one.
If scouting were to be removed, everyone would gain stealthiness by no longer risking being scouted, but light tanks would lose stealthiness since the only way they can help their team now is by killing or capping.
What makes scouting a big issue is the picture in picture mode of the recon drone that allows to scout without any restrictions of LoS. But that is a bug that should be reported as such since when Gaijin introduced the recon drones they specifically denied that they were to work with the scouting mechanic.
I still think that CAS, specifically as a revenge kill tool is a far more annoying thing since you have only one recourse against it.
Considering that the Type 89 is foldered below the Type 87RCV, I shouldn’t have brought it up at all since it’s a more optional vehicle nowadays. I wasn’t aware of that change. It’s still the worst 9.0 vehicle in the Japanese TT, it’s only positive is the LWS.
Also on light tank having low firepower, when you’re around 9.x, there is a proliferation of 105 light tanks that have no issue matching MBTs in firepower, with only the VEXTRA being somewhat left out and that’s just because Gaijin is being weird about it. This is more of a problem with the game being simplistic again, and IFVs being forced into the role of light tanks. Maybe this’ll change in the near future.
Only the one player you killed can see the killcam, it’s not that hard to avoid getting revenge killed by one.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t kill enemies in his light tank in order to maintain stealthiness. Are you for real suggesting that not killing anybody, just scouting, is a thing? I doubt that players refrain from killing tanks that pass them, for example. If anybody does, he should rethink his playstyle.
This video shows a lot of what I really really dislike about the whole reconnaissance stuff.
I don’t even want to know how many times I got shot off impossible angles just because I was scouted.
If you like being killed through 20 house gaps and half a forest or people coming around the corner, instantly knocking you out because they could track you through scouting, then scouting is what offers you that experience.
It’s only ever as easy as the person trying to kill you is bad, and the general pop of GFRB is nothing if not bad at CAS. See the discrepancy between CAS capabilities and AA capabilities for illustration.
Revenge kill is it’s own problem, scouting is the current only preventive measure you have for it as a light tank.
The Type 93 experience, and probably youtube videos.
For me every kill opportunity is case by case, but generally, if taking a kill is likely to result in a trade, then it’s not worth it, so I’ll scout and then attempt to secure my position to no longer be threatened before I resume killing.
Said playstyle’s been serving me alright on my VEXTRA, my light vehicle endeavours started on the abysmal AMX-10RC, but just because I have less limitations on what I currently play I should throw away all that was learned ?
I don’t see though how scouting would prevent you from getting bombed.
In fact, when being scouted it is way easier for CAS to spot you.
Even if it did, why should only light tanks be able to prevent getting revenge-bombed?
So we should keep scouting for all light tanks just because of one SPAA?
You can do all that without scouting as well. You don’t need to scout somebody in order to not get killed by him.
This actually shows how stupid scouting is; if somebody spots you, he can still do nothing against being scouted by you and getting a huge disadvantage for the next 30 seconds.
Honestly, if you are not able to achieve anything without the free assist scouting mechanic, maybe you should think about how you can become more effective.
If you genuinely don’t know how to play without scouting I have to ask myself how you play tanks like the AMX-30 that is very similar to many light tanks but doesn’t have scouting.
I don’t even mean it as a personal attack, this is just very odd in my opinion because actually I don’t believe you wouldn’t be able to perform without scouting.
I know scouting can help you in matches but that’s obviously not the point here. The point I think is odd is that you talk as if your playstyle is fully reliant on scouting and would be impossible without.
But there is a difference between a useful mechanic and a mechanic that is absolutely crucial to play light tanks. Scouting is definitely not absolutely crucial.
