World of Warplanes: Oddly, it's almost fun now.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > World of Warplanes: Oddly, it's almost fun now.

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Something that might also be worth mentioning/clarifying in the OP: Destroying ground targets isn't the only way to directly contribute to capturing a base. Shooting down the AI-controlled base defence aircraft (these are clearly labelled as such and have a distinct icon) also builds up capture points. So if you're flying a fighter with no ground attack capability, just go after these.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2017 17:32

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:08

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Also I'm starting to buy into Burt's Beaufighter hype, because I'm having a great time with the tier 4 Blenheim F and this thing is basically a ghetto Beaufighter.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2017 18:18

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

buckets of buckets posted:

I know this is arcadey but what's the flight model like?

It is, as you apparently have surmised, very very arcadey. There is some energy management to do and you can stall for a bit. Also altitude performance is a thing. Like, if there's a bomber flying around waaaay up high, you're not gonna get to them in some dinky biplane. Different planes do handle very differently and feel varied, which I guess is the most important thing to have.

Anyways here's me punking on some Blenheims (plus some other stuff) in a different Blenheim. Dunno why I had my GeForce Experience set to only save the last 5 minutes, but oh well. It does start pretty much around the time when I decided "Man, gently caress these bombers" so hey it worked out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Op8duW4NV8

# ¿ Oct 22, 2017 12:23

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

RandomPauI posted:

The bomber missions provided loot crates netted me two hangers and enough gold to buy one hanger. That was cool.

The mission to destroy five neutral ground targets was an absolute bitch, but otherwise these missions have been really nice. Or would have been, if the one for 75 gold wasn't bugged and impossible to progress.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2017 13:50

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

RandomPauI posted:

Is there a term for the players who think the game was perfect at 1.9 and complain about 2.0 loudly?

"Luddite"

# ¿ Oct 23, 2017 14:04

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Yeah, bombers are a little bit bullshit right now. One climbs up to like 3k or more, and your team doesn't happen to have any heavy fighters with good altitude performance? Welp congrats, he's literally untouchable. I tried to catch an A26 with my Beaufighter and was literally unable to climb high enough to reach him properly. Sure, the Beau has a really bad altitude score compared to other heavies of the tier, but I think it's a bit poo poo that bombers can just go full skygod with zero repercussion, just on the whim of the MM.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 16:09

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

In other news, the premium Me 210 makes pretty good bank.

EDIT: Granted, that's with the Ground Verification consumable that boosts credit income by 50%.

Nordick fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Oct 24, 2017

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 16:42

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this cap point distribution?

space pope posted:

What are good skills to pick for heavy fighters and fighters? What about equipment for same? I have two us t5 premium fighters, the me210 and the se100 that i to want to trick out.

For heavy fighter equipment I went for an Engine Tuning and some of the added toughness stuff. The latter probably isn't a good idea for regular fighters, they'll still be eggshells anyway.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 19:07

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Lord Koth posted:

I mean, there is some thought behind the design. One side gets two cap points that don't do anything special, the other gets only one, but it's the one that calls in bomber raids. Now whether it works or not could be debated, but there is a reason to that.

Yeah, I get that that is the idea behind it. It's a sound idea in principle, but the point is, it does not bloody well work. Firstly, the bombers are so slow they do not make up for the south team's head start at all, and secondly the attackers need to fly all the way across the map when they die whereas the defenders can just spawn right back into action. We actually managed to cap the airbase briefly, but the enemy just instantly furballed all over it and capped it right back. It was a complete shitshow.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 19:25

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

loving HELL I had an absolutely beautiful game with the Blenheim F but for some reason GeForce Experience's instant replay thing wasn't working, so I couldn't capture it.

Died a couple times, but the game was just full of :black101:

as hell moments where I just tore poo poo up like an angry god, quickly finishing off near-dead enemies in turret view mid-maneuver, and just general awesome arcade action nonsense. I wish this game had replays.

The Beaufighter is great and all but somehow the Blenheim F is just clicking with me way better. It's definitely a keeper for me.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 21:38

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Greggorian posted:

Question about using T to switch to rear turret gunner: how does the plane fly? Does it just keep going in whatever direction, or does it auto pilot?

Edit, seems you're still in control for moving left/right, but I guess it just stays at the same level you left off as.

You can control your elevator in turret view too, it's just they're bound to the drat arrow keys by default. I rebound it to W and S and the throttle controls to Shift and Ctrl. Leaning on the pitch up key lets you sometimes turn tighter than you would with just the mouse, which comes in handy.

Burt posted:

Russian ground attack - Slow as anything but oh boy, do you tear poo poo up. If you can get one of you actual human persons in a fighter to assist you, you can take caps points very fast.

Yeah I've been having fun with the Tsh-3., just leisurely meandering above a base and hosing poo poo down with the 10 ShKAS death beam. Haven't bought the next plane yet, been spending my credits on other poo poo like the Blenheim and Beaufighter.

Also, climbing up the US fighter tree. I don't care how weak they are in the meta, in any game like this I WILL make a beeline for the P-40, because then I can fly that while listening to the soundtrack from 1941 and pretend I'm Wild Bill Kelso.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJZ5x-zUx28

# ¿ Oct 25, 2017 12:15

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Well, to my great delight, the P-40 is actually a joy to fly and the .50cals don't really feel anemic at all to me. Sure, I can't just gank someone out of the sky like with a good burst from quad Hispanos, but on the other hand they feel a lot more consistent to me. It's so easy to keep the stream of bullets on target and chainsaw a motherfucker down, whereas with cannons I tend to whiff the occasional shell which immediately puts a big dent on the damage output.

Plus the P-40 also leads to the P-38, so hey I get to have fun in a cool plane while making progress towards other cool planes!

# ¿ Oct 25, 2017 20:40

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Darkrenown posted:

If you haven't already noticed yet, you can buy silver/credit "Universial" ammo which I assume is better than the free "Standard" ammo. I first thought the Silver ammo was the default, like in WoT, but it's actually not. Sadly I don't see any stats for the Standard ammo shown, so I don't know how different Universal ammo is.

The increased chance of fire on the Universal .50cal ammo is very noticeable, at least.

And speaking of .50cals, this was a pretty drat nice P-40 match.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAwiCB5K8NM

Don't mind the music, I like to throw all kinds of weird stuff into Foobar while I fly. :v:

JuffoWup posted:

Well, keep going and fly the pancake while at it then.

All in due time!

JuffoWup posted:

Oh, and still shout out love for the I-17. Quite maneuverable while packing one heck of a gun. There is a yak further up the tree with a 45mm cannon on it .

Phontomen started one of his "Grindfest" video series, going up the Soviet multirole fighter tree towards the I-215. That thing has dual 57mm cannons. :shepface:

Of course, it's a tier 10 so it's gonna take a long while for him to get there, but his antics are entertaining, so hey. It's good watching for when you're kinda in a Planes mood but too lazy to play yourself. :v:

Darkrenown posted:

It's pretty lovely when you move up, the next plane drops from 10 guns to 4 stock, no bombs. You basically can't hurt poo poo without multiple passes

Getting cannons when you unlock them might be cool, although even then you only have 2 MGs and 2 cannons, but stock this thing is awful.

That's what Free XP is for!

# ¿ Oct 26, 2017 00:12

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Stanley Pain posted:

I have a couple of questions. Do you use M+KB for your controls, and if so how do you turn so fast?

Yes, I do. I just don't only rely on the mouse, I use the keyboard elevator controls a lot. They're bound to the arrow keys by default which is silly, so you'll want to rebind them to something more accessible. So when you need to turn fast, just slam on that pitch up key.

Also I have the Reinforced Control Surfaces consumable that gives you a hefty manouverability boost for 10 seconds with a 90 sec cooldown, which I pop when I REALLY need to turn quick. Plus equipment and the pilot skill.

Nordick fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Oct 26, 2017

# ¿ Oct 26, 2017 17:02

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

So I got the P-38F and, sadly, it's not quite living up to its coolness yet.

The plane hauls rear end really well, but the armament feels really piddly. A single Hispano isn't that great on a tier 5 plane, and I'm having trouble connecting with it consistently for some reason. It feels like the .50cals have way different ballistics so it's hard to have both them and the cannon on target at once. It's odd. Hopefully the thing will click better when I get the 37mm mounted. I mean I expect that gun to be even more inconsistent, but at least it oughta be funny when it hits.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 01:38

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Oookay yeah the 37 mm makes a pretty huge difference. BLAT BLAT BLAT.

space pope posted:

At what point is it worth paying 200k for a pilot?

No point, credit training is 100k per dude. You can just train the pilot and leave the tail gunner a scrub.

Nordick fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Oct 28, 2017

# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 02:37

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Burt posted:

Although if you run the P40 in anything other than green with a shark's mouth you are a monster.

I admit I stuck with all the environment-appropriate camos for it, but I'm 100% with you on the shark mouth, even if the one in the game looks a bit doofy.

I really wish this game had War Thunder's freely placeable decals though.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2017 09:41

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Burt posted:

Now I ran about 6 games in the A26 and 5 in the Blenheim without a win, so I hop into the Kittyhawk and Spit and just faceroll victory after victory. Now although I made over a million credits in the bombers I am coming to the conclusion that a decent player in a fighter has massively more impact on a match overall than any player in a bomber even though I can be in the top 3 players every game flying the things.

I think this is a potential problem that is going to happen with the game moving on, it's going to become all fighters as that's what everyone is going to view as the "win button". I'm not sure how you can address this without ruining the game for either fighter players or any other role.

A large part of that problem is that fighters can contribute both on the attack and on the defense. You go in, do your stuff, cap some bases, but when it comes to actually holding those bases to secure the win, bombers and GA planes are kinda dead weight. Fighters can just keep doing their thing and be useful, but once your team has 2 out of 3 bases, all GA can do is either twiddle their thumbs waiting for the score to tick, or barge into the last enemy base and hope some fighter support follows, eventhough said support doesn't really have much incentive to. Simply put, there will always be something for fighters to do while for GA there might not be.

One way to help with this issue could be some sort of AI ground forces that attack opposing bases and could potentially cap them back, and GA could deal with those while fighters focus on keeping up the air supremacy.

As much as I love dogfighting in the P-40 and tearing poo poo up with heavy fighters, I'd love to do some lawnmowing once in a while too. As of now it just feels a bit frustrating and kinda futile too often.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2017 17:17

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Also for heavy fighters, grab Improved Aircraft Polish, the piece of equipment that increases your acceleration in a dive. Someone gets on your tail? Just point your nose down and slam on that boost, you'll leave them coughing in your dust in a few seconds. Sometimes the chaser is too fast, but this has saved my rear end plenty of times.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2017 15:53

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

NTRabbit posted:

Collision mechanics are completely hosed in the head

As long as I can keep plowing right through hotshot fighter pilots and barely scratch my Beaufighter they can do whatever else they want with collision mechanics.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2017 19:41

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Meanwhile I'm over here tearing poo poo up and raising unholy hell in my Beaufighter and Me 210, so either I'm some sort of idiot heavy fighter savant or you're doing something wrong :shrug:

Well, I suppose the Fw 57 sucking rear end is a possibility too.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2017 22:45

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Stanley Pain posted:

I'm starting to think that the German Heavy Fighter line is garbage. Need to check out the P38 Lightning and the Beaufighter when I get a chance to play this weekend.

A word of warning, the P-38F's armament is pretty piddly until you get the 37mm cannon. Pretty fun from then on though, as long as you can actually connect with the spud gun.

Then with the P-38J you're back to a piddly single 20 mm and have to research the better guns again, because obviously that model uses totally different cannons. :WG: :suicide:

# ¿ Nov 3, 2017 14:50

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

biglads posted:

Yeah, I'm just not really enjoying the Lightning. I think Tier V is as far as I go with this line.

Well, Burt and I happened to be on opposite teams in our Lightnings the other day, and I shot him down and my team won, so :smuggo:

(Just kidding, though I do maintain that the 37mm does make quite a difference.)

However Burt has a good point about that gun costing more XP than the next plane. That, combined with the gun not carrying over, does mean that whether bothering with it is worthwhile or not is a matter of preference. I think the Lightning is a drat cool plane and was planning on getting both and keeping them anyway, but I can totally understand someone else not wanting to bother with that line.

In other news, the Me 210 continues to be pretty nice

(Yeah we're teamed up now and I think that's a lot more fun than shooting him down was)

# ¿ Nov 3, 2017 16:51

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

NTRabbit posted:

e: So there's no such thing as crates anymore, looks like it'll be a while before I get any new free slots

They did unfuck the "Combat Reconnaissance" missions though, so we can actually earn some gold from those now. I might use some of that on a hangar slot or two, but I'm gonna wait a while first, to see if they maybe get discounted over the holidays or something.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2017 17:17

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

I carry bombs in heavies. Being able to quickly pop a ground target before you engage the defense planes can make capping a base a lot quicker, especially if you pop the HQ building. Plus it's just plain satisfying to blow things up.

One of the main reasons I like the Me 210 is that it carries two 500 kg bombs. That's kg, not lb. They are fuckhuge and a good hit from a single one will easily pop pretty much any but the biggest ground targets, drop both and you'll 100% nuke anything.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2017 18:10

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

And afaik the rear gunner is just a single ShKAS so really weak for tier 5. I suppose it might ward off the occasional bot or finish off some poor sod at single-digit health, but I don't think it's really gonna do appreciable damage.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2017 21:32

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Or me, I'm Palantyre in game. Sucks that we can only team up with one other player though. I dunno if WG thinks three player flights would be too imbalanced or whatever?

Anyways, one of the things I like about this game is that it doesn't axe your rewards just because other people suck. Even with a terrible team it's still pretty easy to rack up a bunch of points yourself and walk away with decent amounts of creds and XP.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2017 18:39

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Personally I feel the fire chance on machine gun ammo is noticeable, so I use universal belts on those... but cannons? Lolnope.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2017 11:13

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Burt posted:

The multirole I just gave up on in the end. You'll get it eventually if you are grinding a line I suppose but trying to get all the ground target kills with something that is a fighter with a couple of piddly bombs strapped too it is painful to say the least.

I dunno, I'm making pretty good progress on the ground targets with the Fw 190 A-1. It has piddly bombs yes, but they also reload oddly quickly so I can just swat some AAA once in a while. I have 6/10 after like three battles.

That said, I'm not exactly enjoying this plane otherwise.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2017 23:48

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Burt posted:

BEAUFIGHTER

If the planes in this game could talk, the BEAUFIGHTER would be voiced by BRIAN BLESSED.

JuffoWup posted:

As I had linked this in discord and realized not everyone uses discord, I'd figure I'd link it here. This is a video of the il-40. That thing is hilarious. I looked it up and the fab-500s this thing drops have the largest radius in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd76sGmTQuo

They are tied for first place with a bunch of others, yeah. Including the Me 210's SC 500s, which no other German plane gets for some reason. (One way to make the alpha test reward plane feel special, I guess?)

However, out of all the 90 radius bombs, the Soviet ones deal the most damage (relevant if you catch something tough on the edge of the blast zone I guess?) and that thing gets to combine them with a seriously beefy load of rockets AND some apparently ridiculously powerful cannons. So uh, yeah.

Hell, an IL-2 can capture some bases alone pretty quickly with some good aim and ordnance allocation (source: I have done it myself) but the IL-40 looks like it just makes it hilariously easy.

EDIT:

Lord Koth posted:

The strangest part of the WoWP bots will continue to be why WG felt the need to program them talking to each other into the game.

I wonder whether WG wanted to actually try and create an illusion of a more populated game or were just taking the piss. Whatever the case, I find the bot chatter wholly unreasonably aggravating. Like, shut the gently caress up bot, you're here as cannon fodder and that's it. I don't want my goddamn clay pigeons crying hax when I shoot them.

They should make the chat function into a neural network that learns from actual player chat, that could actually be funny.

Nordick fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Nov 9, 2017

# ¿ Nov 9, 2017 02:32

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Well the premium plane from the fourth anniversary thing is pretty amusing. It's staggering how many pubbies just try and turnfight against a drat biplane. Damage output isn't great but is compensated by how ridiculously easy it is to glue yourself to someone's tail. Makes good money too.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2017 09:48

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Burt posted:

Get a Boomerang. They are rather fun!

For a moment I thought you had this confused with the War Thunder thread somehow, but goddamn, I see WG actually did put the Boomerang in the game! :haw:

This is great, I've been wishing they'd do it. It was one of my favourite planes in War Thunder. (I'm using singular form because while there were two Boomerangs in WT and I had them both, they were basically the same goddamn plane.)

Sadly I don't have enough money to buy it just now, it'll have to wait until December. But I'm definitely grabbing it then.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2017 19:48

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Yeah, having just a bunch of MGs vs. a couple early cannons is a good reminder that there is a big difference between raw paper DPM and actual applicable DPM.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2017 21:48

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Mans posted:

wait warplanes is good again? lmao i played this game so much when it was released i have tier seven planes and poo poo, now i can actually play with humans again?

Well the playerbase is still low enough that you'll still be facing a lot of bots, at least on the off-hours. But the game's a lot better anyways.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2017 18:20

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

If you're boom-n zooming planes that have the energy to chase after you, you're doing BnZ wrong.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2017 17:23

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

NTRabbit posted:

How many planes really don't have the energy to chase you though?

However many there are flying in circles on the deck. I'm not talking about energy as an inherent property of a given type of plane, but as a situation that an individual plane is in. If you dive on a plane that's flailing around after GA planes, and zoom away in a direction where they are not already pointing, I can guarantee you they're not gonna catch up you because you will (or should) be doing way over 600kmph at that point. IF you even have to outrun your target, six .50cals have easily enough raw DPS to wreck a half-health fighter in a single pass if you get your aim right.

NTRabbit posted:

it takes so long to get out, turn around, and come back in again that you're killing one fighter, two if you're lucky, in a grandiose strafe every 70-90 seconds, which really has little impact compared to dogfighting. There's not really a place for boom and zoom in the game the way it currently functions.[/url]

Just because your plane can BnZ, doesn't mean that's all you should ever be doing. There is plenty of poo poo in the game that a P-40 has no trouble outturning.

I mean, I guess it kinda sounds like I'm trying to defend BnZing as something you can totally pull off all the time. This is not the case, I'm just trying to say it's something you absolutely can and should do if an opportunity presents itself. And the bottom line is that the P-40 IS a good plane and if you can't make it work, that's on you.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2017 19:03

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

Clarence posted:

For any EU players just starting (or anyone else on EU who hasn't used them), the codes WARPLANES and HELLOWARPLANES still work to get a couple of low level premiums, slots and various bits and pieces.

Cool, I didn't know about the second one, thanks. Didn't get any new planes, but the credits and hangar slots are always welcome.

Also speaking of good things that one cannot get to work, I seem to be getting worse and worse with cannons. I was flying the Mossie earlier and having a hard time getting the drat Hispanos to properly connect. It's weird because I flewn heavies aplenty and didn't really have this huge trouble before.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2017 21:21

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

I give up.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2017 23:04

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

EvenWorseOpinions posted:

Been vaguely reading this thread and I hate to say it because I hate to ever give WG any credit for possibly making things better but I think I might reinstall WoWP. Anyone walk me through how victory conditions work now? If it makes description easier, I'm familiar already with WoT, WT, and WoWS

A map will have a number of bases. They start off as neutral and the teams fight over control of them. A base is captured by destroying its ground targets or shooting down enemy planes over it. Every controlled base gradually ticks up the controlling team's score, and the first team to either reach the target score, which depends on the number of bases on the map, wins. So basically very much like Domination in WoWS, although a lot more dynamic due to varying types of bases and the speed of the game; The bases will typically flip back and forth between teams a lot more than in WoWS. Getting control of all the bases on a map is an almost guaranteed win, as it greatly accelerates the score tick rate, way beyond what the combined basic rates for the bases would be.

Another win condition is shooting down all enemy planes after respawning gets disabled, but this happens pretty rarely.

Nordick fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Nov 19, 2017

# ¿ Nov 19, 2017 23:48

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:08

Nordick: Sep 3, 2011; Yes.

YellerBill posted:

Hopefully we'll see a Hawker Hurricane/Typhoon/Tempest line at some point, since the current british fighter line is mostly supermarine aircraft

Yeah the UK tree doesn't have a full multirole branch, those three would fit one real nicely.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2017 22:55

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