We need to talk about scouting

[_Marco]

Realistically, it’s just about one question.

Do you want to make Realistic Battles easier and more beginner-friendly?

Or do you want to keep it more challenging, but also more competitive and exciting?

Personally, I think it’s a shame that Gaijin is taking the first approach. Because I believe that for beginners, Arcade offers exactly what they’re trying to make of Realistic Battles.

In my opinion, Realistic Battles should return to what they originally were. You should be able to move, without being exposed through an artificial ingame mechanic that takes zero effort for the enemy to be used upon you.

Being able to move as unnoticed as possible opens up many possibilities that are no longer available today with the excessive use of scouting.

The loss of the gameplay that existed before the introduction of scouting is also leading to many players finding the game increasingly boring. The game evolves from a tactical war game to one where you simply drive to the center of the map and try to shoot as many enemies as possible in urban combat, not having to use a lot of brain power at all. Much less map knowledge, skill, awareness, etc. are required

And yes, even before scouting, it was possible to keep track the approximate location of enemies. The spotting function was used significantly more frequently, which is an important factor.
With enough experience, you could get an idea of ​​​​the enemy’s location based on allies’ spotting on the minimap, cannon sounds, mapdesign, how the match evolves, teammates’ death positions, kill feeds, etc.
And once you mastered that, it was a lot of fun to do that.

But with matches that look like this thanks to scouting almost all of that is gone:

(at that point just merge Realistic with Arcade.)

[ItsOnyy]

Currently, the current meta surrounding drones is scouting through them, the enemy spotted mechanic allows scouting through terrain across the map.

This has had a negative impact on gameplay as it creates passive teammates that stay in spawn, not doing much if anything. This also makes it impossible to traverse maps without being constantly scouted.

Couple that with anti-drone measures being non-existent and drones themselves having broken damage models and erratic movement that makes it impossible to take out with HE-VT or AHEAD shells, they are even capable of tanking missiles and not taking any damage at all. Their damage model is also extremely inconsistent, this feels like a deliberate effort on Gaijin’s part.

I must say that I actually like this “unintended feature” as it expands the capabilities of light vehicles, but it must be done through a balanced system, perhaps not allowing more than 2 scouted vehicles through drones or something akin to that, in order to prevent passive gameplay or massive scouting of the enemy team.

I would also like the scout drone to be severely nerfed, or even replaced by a quad copter type drone (which already exists in the game, and it’s fully implemented) so that it becomes easier to take out due to being forced to loiter in the air in one place, so that tankers with machine guns can deal with them more easily, this would also help HE-VT and AHEAD to take them out easier. Gaijin is partially aware of the problem as they recently allowed drones to be tracked by AA radars, but it is not enough to counter them.

[shacortes-psn]

Just an honest question: would you remove scouting from SPAAs? I do despise the fact that the enemies are already revealed and it just isn"t as engaging as one could think. I always like to stop, hear an enemy, turn off my engine and shoot the enemy without having them already scouted which makes it no fun at all. And don’t get me we wrong when I say this, but I do use the scouting function when I do see an enemy. What I really despise is the people who stand on the spawn, launch the drone and start scouting the whole enemy team.
Wouldn’t mind if it were to be removed though. I once played a GSB and it was fun, just that my ability to identify enemy/friendly tanks is awful.

[shacortes-psn]

The only times I have been able to take out drones where when they were flying straight (which means that the enemy was actively scouting) or with the 2S38s HE-VT with 7 meters of radius explosion, besides some lucky ahots with the Imp Chaparral.

[ItsOnyy]

The drone is the most annoying aircraft in the game by far…

That’s why it must be replaced by a quad copter that’s forced to loiter in the air, when a scout drone becomes unattended it goes into an erratic snake “S” pattern and gains invincibility for some stupid reason. Gaijin once tested a quad copter drone once, it seems like the more balanced option as it would be easier to take out.

The MAV would be a neat replacement.

[shacortes-psn]

Yeah, that’s the most major issue, I think that the drones should fly straight at all times unless the user is actively piloting the drone.
A quadcopter would indeed be a solution though, as it wouldn’t be able to have the erratic movement (unless it’s made on purpose). I guess it would just hover around.

[busky78]

I like scouting the way it is and it should not change

[Hurlalala]

So essentially scouting vehicles would get the “squad marker” ability but for the whole team :)

[_Marco]

@shacortes-psn

Just an honest question: would you remove scouting from SPAAs?

I actually don’t really care about SPAAs. They usually just sit in spawn because they can’t really fight anyways and are easy kills.

[shacortes-psn]

Just as I thought, SPAAs aren’t a great menace to ground vehicles as they do not move that much, moreover, some of them don’t have any defensive armament so they’re the easiest kill one could find.

[Internationalism]

IMO scouting should be for all tanks since why only light tanks? Like do Heavies and Mediums not have radios to yap out the coords?

[БЕИ]

If they really wanna do it, then it will be arcade 2.0 lol imagine that you mark every enemy by simply range find the target, I mean the Commander can tell the model of the tank, why didn’t he use radio to tell the world that he saw an Abrams right?

[_Marco]

That would literally be Arcade.
But I agree with your point that the selection of vehicles that got scouting is pretty random.

[shacortes-psn]

I started playing in late 2024, so it might have been different before that, but right now, I could guess it was given to light tanks because their firepower is not (usually) as strong as MBTs. Though we have Centauros and everything.

[_Marco]

@shacortes-psn

I could guess it was given to light tanks because their firepower is not (usually) as strong as MBTs

So first of all this is very different from light tank to light tank.
And you could also pick disadvantages other types of tanks have and give it to them as a “balance”.
It doesn’t matter how good light tanks’ firepower is because they are balanced through the BR system already.

[PompousMagnus]

Remove scouting from the game full stop.

If this is to extreme nerf it like this.

1. Remove SP reduction for CAS cost
2. Scouted targets become unspotted if the scouter dies
3. Add sixth sense or someway to tell if you are scouted
4. disallow spotting through solid objects or without LOS.

Because these nerfs are quite severe, light tanks should get back there separate spawn cost to compensate.

[Sternlos]

Ya I despise scouting as a mechanic, its really dumb to have in a realistic game, same with name tags in ARB.I can tell when im scouted, either I just die to CAS or the entire enemy team seems to have wall hacks and im absolutely pinned down.

Spoiler

Just had a match where I got scouted at this red X, and then my first peek at the red circle resulted in 3 different players taking a shot at me, lost my breach, and at that point it was a 3 minute adventure of not being able to do anything but doubling back to my spawn and replaying the start of the match to try and get somewhere, because when you get scouted you don’t just get scouted once, you are scouted usually the entire time because all a light tank has to do is see when it drops and then reapply it. Ended up staying there just being cucked the entire time till I died to CAS. Real fun stuff.

Same thing if I took a more aggressive path, they would have been able to follow my movements into a village there and the same thing would play out. I hate scouting so much its unreal gamers.

Scouting at least needs to break on LOS and for sure not be visible to CAS. I guarantee you like over half the times you die to CAS its because you were scouted.

What light tanks past like 4.0 have trouble at the BR they are at without having access to scouting/airstrike/drones? And drones in the right hands are absolutely OP the new scouting situation aside. Don’t know if its safe to push a cap or a position? Just pop your drone and in 10 seconds know if it is or not and exactly where everyone around you is. The amount of situational awareness you have in lights after 8.0? is just disgusting compared to everything else.

And another game after posting this.

Spoiler

I killed a wolfpack in the alley on my way out of spawn and moved here. Let me repeat “I killed a wolfpack” what does it mean when you kill a light tank 90% of the time? Ya you got scouted. So any aggression for the next 30 seconds is usually suicide. See the guy circled? Most players would probably try to engage him, its early in the match, you moved from where you shot last, but 99.99999% chance sure hes just staring at me behind cover so I don’t even bother moving from behind this building for the next minute or so.

I also got 2 of the most free kills of my life this match because some guy on our team is scouting with a drone. So its not like im just angry im getting killed because im scouted, im benefiting from it too. Its just a very lame mechanic.

[Fisheyyy]

[Hudler]

It’s cool to just scount everybody through walls and mountaints thanks to drone.

[_Marco]

@Sternlos

Just had a match where I got scouted at this red circle, and then my first peek at the X resulted in 3 different players taking a shot at me, lost my breach, and at that point it was a 3 minute adventure of not being able to do anything

The worst thing is you didn’t even do anything wrong. The tank that saw you not being the wrong type of tank (light tank) would have been enough for you to succeed. This is just like gambling.

The problem is that Gaijin just copied the mechanic from World of Tanks but with key differences:

1. In WoT you will get notified when getting spotted. That’s not the case in WT.

2. In WoT you can actually get rid of the scout by moving into cover.

3. In WoT being scouted is not a drastic as in WT since the default in WT RB is not being scouted at all. The playstyle in WT actually relies on not being seen, the one in WoT not as much.

4. In WoT light tanks can actually have difficulties in one on ones, often times being not even able to penetrate the enemy at all. In War Thunder all the types of tanks are way more similar, it doesn’t make sense to pick one specific type of tank and give them such a powerful mechanic.

So not only is scouting more powerful in WT, WT is just too different for scouting to make sense there.