War Thunder: a free to play air combat MMO

[Jub]

Toyla, you also realize that in Wargaming's model doesn't really reward kills. You get far more exp for dealing damage so any worry of being ninja'd seems pretty small minded. If that's part of what bored you about WoT then you left for the wrong reasons.

[Vendetta]

HP based models bore me to death, but they also credit the kill to whoever finished off a tank, so it's a built in ninja kill mechanic, which is just idiotic. Although WoT bored me to death in the beta around 5th tier, maybe they changed it.

Which is only a problem if your scoring mechanic is based primarily on kills, like War Thunder. If it's based primarily on damage then just getting a kill after someone else has done all the work to get you into that position is less rewarding.

Whining that "omg bullets do unreliable damage" is just plain stupid, and wanting a predictable "risk/reward" is perhaps the dumbest thing you can say, because ww2 air combat wassn't resolved using excel spreadsheets, last time I checked.

You may have noticed that War Thunder is a videogame, not air combat (To paraphrase SerB, "If you want realism, join the air force"). WW2 air combat was also based on claiming a kill for every hit (especially against ground targets, where Russian squadrons would frequently claim several times more tank kills than the Germans had tanks). Successful videogames absolutely need to have good player feedback, knowing that you've actually accomplished something by doing whatever it was you did is a key part of making the core loop engaging. (I did this, I recognised that I obtained success by doing it, therefore I enjoyed it and will do it again"). War Thunder just doesn't have that feedback as it stands, you shoot someone and some XP numbers come out of them, but you don't actually know whether you got closer to your goal of killing them.

It's nothing to do with spreadsheets, and everything to do with having that core loop work in a way that engages players.

Also, if you render the tail elevators inoperable, then you usually get the kill credit. Anything else is just cosmetics - you can fly without the rudder or without the ailerons with a bit of luck, since the arcade flight model lets you retain some control and at least crash-land somewhere and get XP and save repair money.

Unless, of course, someone with a cannon firing HE blows up the fuselage before they crash, especially the Yak-9T, which is not only a one shot kill on just about anything it meets, but also has the Russian flight model that doesn't care about taking damage.