Tuesday 12 March 2013

WarThunder - Team Trends


I have noticed a series of trends whilst playing WarThunder, which trend your mission seems to take depends largely on three things:

i) Whether the pilots on the opposing team know what they're doing.
ii) Whether the pilots on your team know what they're doing
iii) How you initially assess the situation at hand.

What I mean by "know what they're doing" I essentially mean they are not the "hair on fire, rush in screaming" type. Which naturally don't last long in a dog fight, and nor are they they "hop into a reserve and ram" type - though I've seen more and more tier 3-4 pilots doing this as they only start to respect repair times as they either run out of cash, run out of free repairs, or usually run out of both.

But how one initially assesses the situation is important, I played the game before I watched any of the YouTube content out there, and I was so-so. After watching it, and learning some, I'm a better player.  One thing that I have learned from videos is to assess the situation, beware of position and situation oneself to take advantage of others lack of attention.

So, often I can make a good two or three passes and get a few kills, or ground hits in, but then the first trend comes into play, if the opposing team have a clue they get me, they'll have someone latch onto me and have me out of there as the biggest threat.  I do, sometimes - rarely, get gifted the blessing of escape because they're not very good but the vast trend is that I get latched onto and hacked from the sky.

Enter trend number 2, the most common way to get a fighter off ones tail is to drag them away from their own forces and towards ones own team, so they - your own team - can shoot them off your tail for you... But, as per point 2, I've seen a huge trend of my own team being as clueless as a bag of cats.  I've dragged enemy fighters kilometres away from their own support, jinking left and right, rolling and rudder turning to keep them from getting a deflection shot on me... And just seen the opponent on my tail act like an opposite pole magnet to my team, who as clueless as they are scatter away from this easy meat who is intent on hacking me out the sky.

My frustration either ends with my turning the tables on my pursuer - but this is rarer than rocking horse shit - or in my plummeting to a fiery death from their spitting hot lead into me during the pursuit.  This isn't to say I don't ever get support, but despite what some commentators say about bringing pursuers to your team to let them scrape them off you, rarely does this seem to happen in the kind of games I'm getting into - I wish it would.

And then the third, self inflicted, trend kicks in... This is usually where one has played well, got a good team, and the opponents are clueless - or seemingly so - and you push them back and back sweeping the skies and land clean of their forces.  Situationally the area is clear - but you forget the golden rule (or arcade battles) this is a computer game and suddenly they rejoin the game, sometimes with vastly better position and aircraft than yourself - this popping up from thin air is a common problem on the Port Attack map, where the inland defenders appear almost directly above the main - usually final - carrier targets the aggressive incoming team have to destroy.  Loose, or forget, that they're going to potentially pop out of thin air above you whilst you torpedo that carrier and you're a sucker punch they'll love to own.

That all said, I have no counter to these trends, I'm trying to be more objective and think about unseen opponents spawning above and/or behind me, but sometimes its hard to remember they might come up - and switching to the team score chart to check is sometimes impossible.  As for the other trends they're not spoiling the game for me, I just wish I were part of an organised crew - squadron - but I can't really dedicate myself to the time, I'm very much a solo casual game player - not least because voice comms are a no-no at the time of night I get to play; with the wife in bed just feet away.

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