I know this will have been discussed many times over, but the size of the maps on this game, (including, bizarrely, on Sim Ground) is simply getting to the point where it’s making me play a lot less often than I would have.
Every map is either a ‘Call of Duty’ urban set up, which is totally historically inaccurate, or wide open fields where most vehicles and certainly all vehicles once we’re in to the Cold War era, can destroy each other from spawn to spawn. Once you’re in modern vehicles it gets even worse.
Maps which do offer some degree of cover invariably end with every player having their own personal ‘rat runs’ where they repeat the same tactic over and over again and the same routes, because well and truly there are genuinely only maybe six or seven paths a player can take.
I have played this game on and off since the very beginning and I held out hope for a long while that the World War Mode would produce some sort of enduring confrontation with huge maps and dynamic campaigns. Obviously I was mistaken. In fact, they appear to be going more in the other direction now with large parts of the map being locked away to force even closer encounters, making flanking impossible and half the vehicles they’ve created for the game virtually pointless.
If I sound jaded, it’s because I am. I just find it incredibly frustrating that a developer has this much of a playerbase and has modelled so many vehicles and weapon systems and yet even “simulator” mode is stuck with heavy tank brawl gameplay. Warthunder could be so much more - even if it was only for the simulator modes, but I guess they know that already.
Maybe in the minority of the player base but I do honestly think that making maps much larger would solve a great deal of the issues people have with gameplay. Spawn camping would be virtually impossible if each side of the map was expanded by 25% with spawns put behind an out of bounds area for enemy, with spawns spread out across a much wider area to make it difficult for CAS to know exactly where SPAA might spawn.
Having much larger maps would mean all those weird and wonderful vehicles that they’ve put in the game would have a purpose. Vehicles that were literally designed to flank, would be able to do so. Vehicles that were literally designed to be ambush guns (Archer for instance) would have a purpose.
5 Likes
Over 80% of small maps are locked for high-BRs.
All the maps are historically accurate cause there’s no such thing as an unhistorical location for battle, battles can be and are fought anywhere.
There are large maps in-game, and the average map size is over double today then when it was in 2016. They’ve already gotten larger.
And yes, more good maps should be added.
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You wouldn’t typically expect a tank battle to take place in a tractor factory with no supporting infantry, come on man. That just wouldn’t happen. Likewise, all tank battles, including those in 1939, would expect everything with the exception of heavy armour to flank around the enemy.
For the record, I’m not expecting everyone to want the same thing, certainly not at Arcade or even ‘Realistic’ battles - but simulator mode should be looked at. Simply removing some views does not make it anything like a simulator. But it could be. That’s what is so frustrating.
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The reason you have supporting infantry is for enemy infantry, not enemy tanks. Without enemy infantry, friendly infantry isn’t necessary.
So it’s not historically accurate then lol. Jesus, what a convoluted way to support something which makes no sense.
2 Likes
@Artefral
How is historical accuracy not historically accurate? Wild.
You know what’s ahistorical? “long-range only”.
There is no only long or only short range, tank battles happened from same-streets to close to their maximum ranges, cause tanks don’t have minimum ranges, only maximums.
Also almost all maps have flanking routes, even the small ones.
Large maps are nice, I love Red Desert and Pradesh more than all else, but only playing long range would be as unrealistic as only playing short range.
Oh, and history isn’t realism, and realism isn’t history.
Because the player base doesn’t like them, so gaijin doesn’t make them. And it’s made by gaijin being awful at making maps.
The player base also doesn’t know what it’s talking about (usually) when it comes to map design, criticism, and size.
I can understand this sentiment on AB and RB, most people just want to shoot something and not think too hard. But on Sim? Surely the player base there wants something a bit more in-depth than a team deathmatch?
I just find it so weird that they have the perfect basis for a proper sim mode that could eat into other sims and yet they don’t do it.
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The playerbase on Ground Simulator Battles are purely bots if not players that only join to play with planes. Yet, you’ll find a lot of larger maps on this mode.
This a good example of a large map that provides varied and fun gameplay.
We need more maps like this one.
only because people only play in this bit. Which is close to medium range combat, the other half is getting crossmap sniped or CAS’d
Last few games I had on that map, we’ve had teams evenly split (rare ASB with comet in lineup).
I had a quite fun duel with tigers at F3-F6 in my comet. Sneaking around behind dunes, taking potshots as teammate is taking the long flank down column 1.
We ended up losing to the german long-range firepower, thus my respawn going to B.
I rush C in a fox (if its over 7.7) and lock that down before joining the scrum in between B&C. I see the occasional russian or german sniper in the lower half but they never actually contribute to the match outcome
Because the entire game is designed for WW1 and WW2 vehicles and they just keep stuffing modern garbage into it without doing anything to actually make it work properly so we were racing around the beaches of Normandy and driving around Sherman wrecks in a Leopard 2 somehow until they just outright deleted all of those.
6 Likes
Small maps are perfect for lower BR battles. They can be problematic at higher BRs, but that’s purely because gaijin rushed adding modern stuff without adjusting the game first. They could make a few larger maps like Fields of Poland you could get only at BRs of 9.7 and above.
(istg increase minimum BR of Fields of Poland and European province to at least 9.7 getting them in my 6.7 - 7.7 lineups gives me PTSD)
Small maps is good. It’s more intense and engaging.
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Now try playing those with vehicles that aren’t designed for that.
works just fine? Just the map being small and closed like Rhine for example doesn’t make it impossible to use lights or TDs on it. It’s a different story if the map is both small and horrible like Attica, but that’s because it’s horrible, not because it’s small.
Problem only arises with modern tanks, these could actually use larger maps specifically designed for them, but again, it doesn’t make small maps bad, they are just not suited for top tier BRs
