War Thunder vs World of Tanks

[Huntn]

What say you?
I played World of Tanks for about 5 years before transistioning over to Word of War Ships which I'm currently playing. Those two games have an interesting contrast. WoW is more tactical, and WoWS is more strategic.

Every so often I get an urge to return to World of Tanks, I look at War Thunder and think what a huge gaggle that must be with ships and planes, and boats... I don't imagine much organized effort. Any truth to this?

Having looked over reviews, it seems like WoT is designed more for efficient battles, you don't have to drive long distances, and the tanks are responsive. I've read that the WT tanks are cumbersome, true? And you have to in some cases drive a long way to find a fight and it's easy to get one shot, true?

Anyway I'd like to hear from anyone who has played both games, what you think.
Thanks!

[Canadian Guitar]

I played WoT for years, played competitively, and clanwars and all that. It just got old eventually, and its super arcady, and they just keep ruining the playing experience every patch in various ways. For a while I played both, and about 3 years ago i switched to exclusively War Thunder.

My wife also played both, but much prefers this as well

[Silent]

What got me to play WT over WoT is mainly just the damage model. The HP model for vehicles just doesn't feel right to me and that's not just in WoT either. In WT, there are 3 game modes, which are, arcade battles, realistic battles, and simulator battles. Tanks move much faster in arcade battles and you'll get into combat very quickly. There are name tags above your enemy in this game mode and a reticle that tells you where you can pierce. Realistic and simulator play much slower, but their are no nametags and no reticle to help with aiming.

[DevilDaRebel]

" it seems like WoT is designed more for efficient battles, you don't have to drive long distances, and the tanks are responsive. I've read that the WT tanks are cumbersome, true? And you have to in some cases drive a long way to find a fight and it's easy to get one shot, true?"

It's designed to be more "arcady" so in a sense, yeah it's more efficient in getting you into the action and experiencing it.

In War Thunder, the game is designed to be as realistic as possible. So, yes tanks will feel "cumbersome" because it's a tank. They're 30+ tons of steel. Yes, you will drive long distances due to how the game is designed ( as realistic as possible, for this the maps must be large to get the most out of every vehicle) and you will get one shotted easily. Again, due to realism nature of the game.

To conclude, WoT is a lot more forgiving and designed for a casual audience. In contrast, WT is designed for a hardcore audience who enjoys the complex details of physics and whatnot..

[Huntn]

Thanks for the input.

WoT has monetization big time, however you can get by with just buying vehicle slots, camo, and captain slots. One of the jokes I fell for once was build a ship for free, ha ha. There is a ship build going on right now and they are kind enough to let you buy this so-so ship for $140 over a period of 20 phases, that is if you are not working your butt off earning it. As a casual player, this a non-starter for me. I totally ignored this one.
The tier levels especially in World of Warships is especially annoying, yet I prefer that to one shot kills. As a tier 7 in a 9 or tier 8 in a 10, you are at a distinct disadvantage, but you can navigate this by staying on the fringes of the battles. When they see a low tier ship, everyone wants to kill it. Now yes, this is a tank thread, but War Gaming uses the same tier philosophy for both it's ship and tank games.

WoT does not feel arcady to me, but I've not played WT. I'm sure one shots makes a huge difference in game play. War Gaming has gone out of their way to introduce very unrealistic mechanisms for the purpose of game balancing that makes me curse every time I am hit with it.

[Huntn]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Electric Wizard:

I absolutely hate WT's monetization and a large percentage of its playerbase, but its ballistics/penetration modeling is the best in the world. WoT's health bars make the game feel childish, slow and stupid to me.

To answer your questions, though...
"I don't imagine much organized effort". I'm not really sure what you mean here. Every vehicle has a Battle Rating or BR, and BRs are matched against each other within a certain margin. I'm not sure what that margin is, but you won't see an Apache helicopter strafing WW2 panzers outside of custom battles. If you mean organized TEAMWORK, then in your average game no, you won't, unless you brought your own squad with you.

"WT tanks are cumbersome, drive a long way, easy to get one-shot". Short answer is yes. The tanks have a good feeling of weight to them, and the devs have done a genuinely good job of making light tanks feel small and peppy, while huge heavy Konigtigers feel like you're driving a two-story house with a gun on it. The maps are quite large so there is often a lot of driving, but once you learn which maps you don't like, you can customize your matchmaking system in order to rule out the maps you don't like/are too big for your tastes. So if you end up gravitating towards sniping with a Tank Destroyer, you might choose big open maps, or if (like me) you are a man of culture and like Initial D deja-vu'ing through crowded city streets in a Puma you might choose small, urban maps. Being one-shot is absolutely a thing, and is in my opinion what sets it apart - you will learn, over time, where certain tanks are weakest and where they are strongest so you can angle your tank to maximize armour efficiency and aim for where you know they store their ammo/fuel/gunner.

It's hard enough to get a team of tanks or ships acting in coordinated effort. Keep in mind, I exclusively play Random Battles. I'm in a clan for the monetary advantage, but as far as I know, we don't do clan battles. I'm just imagining if the teams are split between tanks, ships, and aircraft. My guess it's like having a bunch of free agents doing their own things. In that kind of a battle, how many players are there per team?

[DevilDaRebel]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Huntn:

Thanks for the input.

WoT has monetization big time, however you can get by with just buying vehicle slots, camo, and captain slots. One of the jokes I fell for once was build a ship for free, ha ha. There is a ship build going on right now and they are kind enough to let you buy this so-so ship for $140 over a period of 20 phases, that is if you are not working your butt off earning it. As a casual player, this a non-starter for me. I totally ignored this one.
The tier levels especially in World of Warships is especially annoying, yet I prefer that to one shot kills. As a tier 7 in a 9 or tier 8 in a 10, you are at a distinct disadvantage, but you can navigate this by staying on the fringes of the battles. When they see a low tier ship, everyone wants to kill it. Now yes, this is a tank thread, but War Gaming uses the same tier philosophy for both it's ship and tank games.

WoT does not feel arcady to me, but I've not played WT. I'm sure one shots makes a huge difference in game play. War Gaming has gone out of their way to introduce very unrealistic mechanisms for the purpose of game balancing that makes me curse every time I am hit with it.

Judging by your last paragraph, I believe you will fit right in this community. Just remember the steep learning curve which you seem to be cautious of already. One shotting does make a big difference in gameplay and can be highly infuriating when you're on a losing streak. Just remember to either play smarter, or go to the hangar and take your time examining both your tank and the enemy tank that killed you. Then, you'll be able to one shot them once you memorize their weak spots.

[CaptainSpacetime]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Huntn:

It's hard enough to get a team of tanks or ships acting in coordinated effort. Keep in mind, I exclusively play Random Battles. I'm in a clan for the monetary advantage, but as far as I know, we don't do clan battles. I'm just imagining if the teams are split between tanks, ships, and aircraft. My guess it's like having a bunch of free agents doing their own things. In that kind of a battle, how many players are there per team?

It's not split quite how (i think) you're imagining.

There's quite a few different modes.

Ground Realistic is what I play the most so going to use that as a reference point. You have a "lineup" of usually around 3 tanks (including anti air vehicles, self propelled guns etc..) and a plane of some kind.

You spawn in a tank of your choice. If you cap a point or kill some enemies you get spawn points so when you die you can bring in another tank or a plane or whatever.

So it's not like there's purely plane players just flying around, everyone has a mix of stuff (usually far more ground vehicles).

The maps aren't that huge or anything (except fulda and kursk i guess but those are exceptions) and people mostly go for the cap points so everyone gets kinda funneled into each other anyway.


Then for the ship mode you spawn mostly ships but can bring planes in.

Plane mode just planes though, in a map with just planes.

[Depression_pills]

both games are a b*tch to grind if you dont invest your money into it, both are addictive, both uses tanks, and both can be played in potato pc. the difference are WT leans more to realism and WoT more on arcade gameplay

[Pozieres]

WoTs has that visual range mechanic that makes everyone rush for a bush and then sit there. It is in WT but on rare occasions with a large map and a low profile tank; thus, you get more action. You might think TDs are then at a disadvantage but you would be wrong. On non city maps I rip teams apart with my waffentractor, it is my second favorite tank after strumpanzer

[higuita]

IMHO, coming from WoT to war thunder is hard, as players arrive to war thunder thinking they know how to play and get killed fast and annoyed with slower tanks and one shot kills. So be ready to forget how to play WoT and be ready to learn again how to play.
There is no energy/live bar, you have the crew, if they die, you have no tank. Tank parts are also important, a hit in the tank barrel will stop you from shooting, a destroyed radiator will make you slower and even get the engine on fire. If you lost one track, you can still turn if the engine is powerful enough. Arty is outside the game range, you just call for the support. Plants and hill work the same both ways, you are hidden, but also can cover your view, you need to learn what the bullets do to the tank, a hit in the churchill side can do zero damage if it fails to hit any tank part or crew, a machine gun can kill or damage light tanks. Higher armor penetration is not always the best ammo ( think a small high velocity bullet hole vs a bigger hole with some post penetration explosion) Angles are even more important, if the machine gunner died already, exposing that side is less letal than turning the driver side to the danger, You need to learn about parts and crew placement and again, one good shot can kill all your crew or simply enter and exit without any damage. In WoT, you cared only about shoot the enemy, almost everything did some damage. in war thunder, you can shoot 30 times the command cupola and in many tanks it will only kill the commander and not destroy the tank

in War thunder, you have 3 modes,
Arcade: where tanks are faster, all tanks have markers (that both help, but also destroy some tanks, a fast light flanker like a puma have a hard time to survive to even machine guns). Arcade is good to start learning. In arcade, you cam play some planes for 1 or 2 minutes and return to the tank.You get target markers that tell you if the show will do damage or not (most of the time, some times have fake weak spots, multiple layers of ammo and trick you by giving you the wrong penetration info). Scout in arcade is mostly useless (you get some points, nothing else)

Realistic:tanks get closed to the real thing, they are slower, ammo do more real damage, slower to repair, no enemies markers, but do have friendly markers. This is in my opinion the best mode, as it is fun and you can really use tactics, a weak puma can clean up half of the enemy team. In realistic. Planes can show up and stay there until they are dead or go repair/reload (no unlimited ammo anymore). Ammo and extra crew can only be get in cap points, You aim is important, you need to use range finding to better aim (bind the keys to control gun elevation and pre-range find places where you expect tanks to show up) you need to learn weak spots already and try to aim with the distance and placement to destroy the tanks. Scout a target will show it to everyone in your communication range, a very important feature. Hiting a target may also flag it in the map for other team members, even with machine gun... amd by the way, many tanks have machine guns aligned with the gun, so shooting a few times with the machine gun can help aiming before shooting

Simulator: you play in the place of the tank commander, not third party view. (well, you can also switch to gunner with shift and drivers with ctrl+shift IIRC). Tanks get even more close to the real specs, so you learn that some tanks are really slow or take ages to turn. Tactics are even more important and team communication is very important, you get no markers, and you can team kill... you need to learn the look of your team tanks and decide if you should shot or not. Asking first is important and voice chats and organized teams can help a lot. Be aware for captured tanks, they can spread heavy damage. Aim is important, flank is critical, scout and looking and even listening around is very important (turn off the engine to listen),,, but remember that everything is usually slow. Long distance shots are important, Planes can be very letal, as they can scout from the aim, but also lot harder to use.

Playing with planes is fun, arcade is lot easier, realistic is harder, require lot of training to learn how to aim. Planes simulation is very hard, you are inside the cockpit

Boats, is lot different from WoWS, you get mostly smaller ships, as big ones are very slow to turn and maneuver. They are avoiding then. Real carriers and battleships do fight outside visual range, hard to make a game fun without huge fake speeds increase.
But boats are also fun, small boats and fast and dynamic, the higher the tiers the bigger the boats and strategy slowly shifts. bigger boats should aim for bigger enemies, but a single torpedo boat can destroy a big boat with one torpedo. Planes make the boats even more fun, you have to be careful with water and air and protect bigger boats and even destroy torpedo with depth charges.

There is no tank vs boats, historically boats fire from way longer range as arty, tanks usually do not even see the boats. Gaijin said that some special events may show up, but they should be very rare

I played WoT, while it is fun, i do really like more war thunder, specially the realistic mode. Simulation is also fun, but it is best played with a team/squad

[SteelWolf45]

Another thing is that Arcade battles might be a good medium between WOT and Realistic battles on WT. (There is also Sim battles as well)

[Huntn]

Thanks all for the input!

Does keyboard mouse work for War Thunder?

I'll consider War Thunder. Just how monetized is it? In WarGaming games, you can buy items that help you progress faster more credits, more xp, and premium ships/tanks, and in one case camo, that is something that gives you an advantage in game.

For WoT I'll agree that is definitely more arcady than a real tank, because I've seen how real WW tanks handle, nothing like the hot rods you find yourself in in WoT. I'd say the ships are not as arcady in World of Warships, but there are aids that help you hit the targets easier, my impression much easier than a real WWII ship, so this to might be considered aracade, but then it has to be balanced against playability.

Already mentioned, but my single biggest complaint is destroyers with hugely unrealistic torpedo salvos, and I mean over the top. If you say in real life a single torp could sink a ship, ok I'd agree, but I don't appreciate making a destroyer equal to a battleship by giving in so many torpedos. 10-20 torpedoes?? BS. Oh, and subs, they are coming in WoWS, but I'll have no part of them if I can help it. There is just no way that a sub could be competitive in this kind of an arena as designed by WarGaming without giving them unrealistic movement buffs and the like, they are just too slow, they go out and sit to ambush. I just don't see how that would realistically fit into a fast paced WoWS game.

[Lunovus]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Huntn:

In WarGaming games, you can buy items that help you progress faster more credits, more xp, and premium ships/tanks, and in one case camo, that is something that gives you an advantage in game.

Same in WT.

Camo can also be bought with Warbonds (can be earned for free in game).

No premium ammo.

Best investment is premium time when it's on sale.

Next sale is end of November, and Christmas soon after.

[Lunovus]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Huntn:

Does keyboard mouse work for War Thunder?

KB & mouse is the best input method for anything but planes in Sim mode in WT.

[higuita]

I forgot a huge difference, in War thunder, when you research a tank and train a crew with it, you can play it ANY TIME! this was a huge thing for me, WoT require you to choose only some tanks and waste money everytime you want to play anything different. in WT, you can play any tank you already have without any cost. I play around all tiers, as each tier and tank have different play styles, i don't need to be limited to a few only.

Gaijin tries to create models as close as real as possible, with some minor finetune to help the game (adding HE ammo to some british tanks, radio and optics ranges, as its always a flexible feature, extra tracks protections add-on for more common tanks, where crew added then, etc). They aren't 100% perfect, many people still complain about optics being sometime stronger than the tank itself. Some tanks where removed, like the maus, as it never really produced and with way too unknown specs. They are constantly updating some tank/planes/boats specs when they found more trusty info about then

Finally, you do not have arty in war thunder, but you have AA guns... they are different and in same tiers and games, they will win the game, not only killing the planes, but also the tanks. in tier 1, the best "tank" are usually the AA, they are fast, and fire 3 to 6 faster than tanks... with little armor in that tier, that is enough to kill all crew in with a few shots. Wirbelwind in tier 3 is very deadly both to air and land targets. the same for the ZSU-57-2 in higher tiers