World of Warplanes ITP

[RCgothic]

So World of Warplanes hit general release a couple of weeks ago, and I've been playing a lot on the British tree, and I've just maxed out my T5 Spitfire 1. I was wondering if anyone else in the playgroud plays, given the large WoT following?

I've been enjoying the arcady feel with mouse and keyboard. I tried to break out my joystick, but the yaw axis sensors were completely jiggered, so that was no good. Occasionally I find the camera-spin to be a bit disorienting (particularly when fighting in clouds), but for the most part I think I've got the hang of this.

My stats are currently standing at:
297 battles fought. (53% win, 1% draw, 46% loss).
313 foes destroyed, 102 assists, 216 deaths. (Kill ratio 1.44:1)

I even double-aced one T1/T2 game! I have no idea how that happened...

[mistformsquirrl]

Nice! I mostly play War Thunder myself (though sadly neither game is particularly joystick friendly) - but I dabble in WoWP now and again, mostly flying American fighters.

Now that it's released I should probably give it another go really, since my progress would actually matter; see if I can get my old P-40 Warhawk back <._.> That thing was fun.

[SanguisAevum]

Just started playing. On EU.

Coming from war thunder historical battles, its taking Some getting used to. Mainly playing USA and brits. Still on t1 and 2 at the mo, but i want a mustang and spitfire :)

[RCgothic]

You can get to T3 in an evening I found. I'm on EU.

I've been playing as British, and I've worked my way up to a maxed Spitfire 1, though I still go back to T1/2/3 if I need something to fill time after my Spitfire got massacred again. It does wonders for my kill ratio!

[GloatingSwine]

I've piddled around with it, but I'm nowhere near as good at it as I am at tonks, I don't have the survivability and I never feel like I'm in charge of the battle like I frequently feel in Tanks.

[RCgothic]

The key is to stay high and not get sucked down to the level of your target. Point your guns at him for a snap-shot and then ascend again. He'll stall out trying to reach you and you can get the killshot.

In furballs, don't fixate on one target. If you instead shoot anything that crosses your guns you may take out a few key enemies and turn the tide.

I feel most at home at T1/2 and T2/3 games in my T2 bulldog. I don't feel scared of anything at that level.

Whereas I know I have a pretty decent T5 Spitfire, but if I put a foot wrong it's game over.

[Renegade Paladin]

I got into the beta and was thoroughly unimpressed. The joystick interface was completely unusable, forcing me to sideline my joystick and throttle in favor of the mouse. I did not buy the damn thing to then use the mouse in flight sims. :smallannoyed:

[RCgothic]

My understanding is that the joystick interface has got a lot better since the beta. I'd be using mine if the yaw axis wasn't broken.

[Brother Oni]

Have they finally fixed the speed issue, in that the game actually has a sensation of speed?

As I mentioned on the last thread, I played about 20 or so games and just got bored with it. The fact that I'm supposed to screaming across treetops at 200mph but the game makes it appear to be a pedestrian 50mph was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[Todasmile]

Have they finally fixed the speed issue, in that the game actually has a sensation of speed?

As I mentioned on the last thread, I played about 20 or so games and just got bored with it. The fact that I'm supposed to screaming across treetops at 200mph but the game makes it appear to be a pedestrian 50mph was the straw that broke the camel's back.

This is actually something that I find War Thunder does really well. The closer you get to the ground, the more the wind whirrs. It actually feels so good that I find myself screaming along some of the more scenic maps at 600 kph, tactics be darned.

[Brother Oni]

This is actually something that I find War Thunder does really well. The closer you get to the ground, the more the wind whirrs. It actually feels so good that I find myself screaming along some of the more scenic maps at 600 kph, tactics be darned.

I've tried War Thunder and while better, it still feels too slow (I've been on a Nozomi class Shinkansen, so I know what 200mph at ground level feels like).

The fact that I don't have a joystick probably accentuates any issues I have and while I understand the thrill and excitement in dogfighting, I just can't get my head around the mechanics, especially when in a massive furball.

Like GloatingSwine, I'm much happier with my feet (or tracks) firmly on the ground with terrain to work with.

[RCgothic]

My view with regard to dogfights is: Don't if you can possibly avoid it. A lot of times you can't. If an enemy is coming in fast and high, the best you can do is turn towards them, barrel roll to throw off their aim, and hope to come out on top in the ensuing turn-fight. If the fight isn't decisive at that point you get pinned and basically have to wait for rescue, which isn't a good place to be if the rest of your team isn't doing so well.

Better to gain height at the start and pounce for one decisive firing run on a foe who committed to his target too early. Only stay down if you're one vs one, sure it will stay that way, and the enemy has let you set up perfectly on his six. In all other cases you should be climbing back to your initial height.

Don't fly directly towards a target before engaging it either. If your foe is scrolling through his next target list (which everyone should do), someone flying right towards you out of the target profile is a dead give away. Point your nose high so as to maintain advantage and dive on him at the last moment.

Edit:
Just had a couple of interesting games! Aced my Spitfire and Bristol 146. In one game they made it easy for me - three fighters fixated on a heavy that was dodging well. I got two of them on a single pass and splashed the third on the way back. That heavy owed me some thanks!

I've started picking out the weakest targets in a furball. Taking one or two enemies out quickly can really dent the enemy firepower and make the resulting combat much easier.

[Jonzac]

What you are describing is called "Boom and Zoom" and certain aircraft should be better at it than others. The Spitfire is NOT a boom and zoom, it was a turning dogfighter. Me109, could dive faster than the Spit or Hurricane. P47 the ultimate boom and zoomer, especially when it got the four bladed prop on it.

I'm not sure any game shows that (outside dedicated flight sims). On the other hand if you want to actually fly a dedicated WW2 sim, look for Battle of Britian 2, Wings of Victory. AWESOME dynamic campaign and flight models about the battle of Britian. 1000+ aircraft in the sky....single player only.

[RCgothic]

I'm now up to T6, Spitfire V. A lot of people say not to put the 20mm cannons on the spitfires, but without them I don't have the reach or punch to take out a target quickly as it crosses my sights in a furball, which I've been doing better in. The spitfire turns fast enough to keep me out of danger, and the cannons help me thin enemy numbers by obliterating weaker targets that cross my sights. I'm still averaging 1.2-1.5 kills per game.

[Erloas]

So I tried to download this the other day and nothing at all happened. As in after I got the installation .exe downloaded from the website I tried to run it and nothing at all happened. No error messages, no boxes, it simply never did anything at all. Is this a "known problem?" I'll probably try to re-download the installer tonight I just didn't take much time to try to do anything with it the other day.

[Maxymiuk]

I played it for a couple of weeks, but quit it after my pilot got knocked out with what felt like the first bullet from the enemy for the nth time in a row and I realized the game was more frustrating than fun.

And yes, before anyone asks, I was increasing pilot Vitality through crew training.

[RCgothic]

Sorry, I don't know any reason why it wouldn't launch. Once the initial download is over, it takes half a day or so to download the main application, but after that it should run fine.

A couple of weeks ago I felt i was having the worst run of battles in my life. My kill ratio is still about 1.5:1, but I just was not winning battles at T6. My spitfire V win rate is just 40%. It took me 4 hours to rack up the three victories I needed to get through the three triple XP battles they were offering. Sometimes you seem to have days where everyone picks on you, your team deserts you or gets themselves blown away, and for a run of twenty battles in a row you just can't get anywhere. That can be pretty depressing. But then you go and ace three games in a row and you feel on top of the world! So yeah.

But the first patch has knocked me out temporarily. I only have an 80GB hard drive, so after windows and office applications I only have room for one or two games. When WoWp tries to take up 30GB for its update, it doesn't work. So I had to delete the whole lot and I'll maybe download it again sometime.

[Grif]

I am told War Thunder is still the superior product, even after all the (marginal?) improvement WarGaming has made.

[Erloas]

I re-downloaded the installer and it worked fine.
Although I have it installed I haven't actually had a chance to play at all.
And yes, I've heard War Thunder is better too but at the moment I'm giving this a try because I already play World of Tanks a lot and it is easier to only have 1 premium/gold system to worry about and I haven't been playing games enough to think I'll actually stick with even 2 different games and get much play time in either.

[Erloas]

So I finally got some games in, about a dozen in all. I think half of my kills came from running into someone else, but whatever.
There seems to be a lot going on at any given time and it is sometimes a bit hard to keep it all clear. I got a couple t2 planes already, a bomber and another fighter (German and British, don't remember any of the names yet).

I find the feedback on the game, especially the post game results, aren't very clear in what is happening.
I also find the research/upgrade and service menu screens to be annoying, I don't know why they didn't just replicate what already worked from WOT. You can get to a normal research screen if you go to the next plane and then go back to the previous one but there should be an easier way to get there in the first place.

Do all of the guns have the same range?
How does the rear gunner work? Does he just shoot at everything on his own or do you have to switch to it somehow?
I have a plane with flaps now, though I'm not sure what they do (more control at lower speed? I think that is what they do in real life). I didn't see any way to retract them, just extend them?

[darksolitaire]

So I finally got some games in, about a dozen in all. I think half of my kills came from running into someone else, but whatever.


Ramming in WoWP is pretty much the deal breaker for me, both unintentional and intentional. I'm supposed to dodge those agile Russian fighters with my German flying brick. :smallsigh:

[Jonzac]

So I finally got some games in, about a dozen in all. I think half of my kills came from running into someone else, but whatever.
There seems to be a lot going on at any given time and it is sometimes a bit hard to keep it all clear. I got a couple t2 planes already, a bomber and another fighter (German and British, don't remember any of the names yet).

I find the feedback on the game, especially the post game results, aren't very clear in what is happening.
I also find the research/upgrade and service menu screens to be annoying, I don't know why they didn't just replicate what already worked from WOT. You can get to a normal research screen if you go to the next plane and then go back to the previous one but there should be an easier way to get there in the first place.

Do all of the guns have the same range?
How does the rear gunner work? Does he just shoot at everything on his own or do you have to switch to it somehow?
I have a plane with flaps now, though I'm not sure what they do (more control at lower speed? I think that is what they do in real life). I didn't see any way to retract them, just extend them?

Besides landing, flaps are used when you are in a turn and are losing speed. Flaps will lower your stall speed, so you can continue to turn (at a tighter radius, because the slower your airspeed the tighter the turn) instead of stall and fall out of the sky.

[RCgothic]

Ramming:
Attacking head to head is completely suicidal and should always always always be avoided. Even for planes that can expect to win such an exchange, you'll take such a beating that it's rarely worth it, and you expose yourself to being rammed. I don't think it's generally intentional, people just get so focussed on the target they forget they need to break off. If I find I'm in a head to head with someone, I begin barrel rolling immediately to throw off their aim and then try to win the ensuing situation at far less risk to myself.

Flaps:
Use them to turn tighter, not just around stall speed. But you bleed off speed, which is life in an energy fight, so only use them if necessary.

Gun range:
The guns don't all have the same range. High-calibre weapons can hit significantly further targets. The aiming circle appears at the extent of your longest range weapon in the case of mixed weaponry.

Rear gunner:
Fires by himself, no need to switch. The better trained your rear gunner the better his aim.

[darksolitaire]

Ramming:
Attacking head to head is completely suicidal and should always always always be avoided. Even for planes that can expect to win such an exchange, you'll take such a beating that it's rarely worth it, and you expose yourself to being rammed. I don't think it's generally intentional, people just get so focussed on the target they forget they need to break off. If I find I'm in a head to head with someone, I begin barrel rolling immediately to throw off their aim and then try to win the ensuing situation at far less risk to myself.


All it takes is that both planes try to pull out in same direction. There should be some sort of code, "vertical" planes like German will dodge vertically and "horizontal" planes like Russian and Japanese dodge horizontally.

[RCgothic]

Which is why, as I said, attacking head on is suicidal unless the match up is hideously one-sided. Say I have full health and the enemy has 10%. That's a good head to head match up (of course, that's also a good motive for the foe to try and take you with him). Or my Spitfire V has picked on a bristol 146 two tiers below. That's also a reasonably match up. Anything else? Barrel-roll like crazy and evade, evade evade. Unless you can expect to blow the enemy away in a second or less, why are you even contemplating it?

I never intentionally put myself in a position where I need to make a decision at the last minute which way to break off. I'll have been evading long before it gets to that point.

Breaking off horizontally is http://iambrony.steeph.tp-radio.de/mlp/gif/vcmIb.gif
To turn you first need to roll, which both delays your break and makes you harder to evade by a plane breaking vertically. The higher, faster plane should break up, and the slower, lower plane should break down. That's the fastest way to be clear of the other aircraft. A last minute touch of ailerons to align your wings with that of the enemy can make the difference if it's going to be very close.

But seriously. Don't put yourself in that situation to begin with. Attack from a position of superiority. Head to head is not a position of superiority. If someone picks you up as a target at enough of a distance that you can avoid engaging (and betraying your target fixation is why you should never point directly at an enemy - take a slightly indirect route that you can convert into a firing run at last minute), you should convert his target fixation into a kill for a teammate.

[Luka]

I'm playing the game too, it's veeeeeeeery cool, though needs a bit more optimization because it tends to slow down BAD.

I'm playing with russian planes, La-line to be specific, they're pretty decent at everything, more so at low altitude (where I prefer to play most, I don't find the coolness of being so far away up high), and they're agile.
The Ground Attack line needs a buff tho.... They're acting more like bombers than GA.

Also tried War Thunder, I think it has better arcade and controls, besides OST.
Not sure about joystick myself, but the controls seem to respond well, while in war thunder they sometimes make your plane dive straight into the ground.
Also it actually feels like you're flying a plane with guns, not a flying stick with a fan on the front and shiny BBs on the gun hardpoints, it also feels fast, besides how combat is right in your face rather than trying to hit a tiny dot far away.

[RCgothic]

I think I've hit a bit of a wall.

I've got up to T7 on the Brit light fighters, and the competition is sparse enough at those levels that I'm frequently finding myself up against T9 jets. Prop vs jet goes exactly how you'd expect. :smallyuk:

And on the Brit heavy fighter side, I'm in a blenheim. The thing is junk. Impossible to keep on target, and so little firepower that what snapshots you do get don't do anything. Supposedly it gets better when you get the additional machine guns, but they make them so hard to get you might as well skip straight to T5. Finding it really hard to grind either tree right now.

[Renegade Paladin]

I've also hit a bit of a wall. It's in the loading bar. After patching all night, when I try to start the client the loading bar hangs at roughly 99%. The launcher music starts playing, but it doesn't get to the login screen. Anyone know what the deal is?

[RCgothic]

I don't have an answer for that, other than 'try downloading from scratch.'

I don't have the hard drive space to accommodate the update files, it's actually easier to download from scratch after each patch.