World in Conflict Open Beta

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

AAV7?

Yeah, that's the one. Thanks.

[SylasGaunt]

Okay so I braved the internetz and tried out the multi since the only single player option is the demo (I'm fine with multi-player demos I just wish I had more room to get a feel for everything and see what everything does BEFORE I subject my team-mates to my growing pains.

That said man the guy in the interview wasn't kidding about it being intense. Most of the games I was on within the first 60 seconds of units touching down there were bullets flying. I managed to adapt to the flow of the game pretty quick though and managed to score in the top 3 for several games and in the top branch position several times to.

Of course then I about shit my pants when during a heavy engagement on top of the bridge I hear this pulse noise, swing my camera around and watch the mushroom cloud that's taking up the entire center of the map.. still no idea which side dropped it but damn that cloud was pretty.

[Ritterin Sophia]

There's a whole NATO side I can't play as until I preorder, so I'm not seeing everything.

You mean I can't play NATO? Fuck that, cancel download. My favorite maps were NATO/Soviet.

[Vympel]

I can only speak for the demo - but closer inspection suggests BTRs might be the M2-equivalent, and BMP/BMDs are airdropped. :S

I hope you mean that BMPs are the M2-equivalent, and that BMDs are airdropped.

(BTRs and BMPs can't be airdropped.)

M2 Bradleys, BMP(-3?)s, and Warriors are the standard APCs.

BTR-80s are the Soviet amphibious APCs (also cheaper and have incendiary rounds for AP work), I forget the NATO one, and the US one is that lame amphibious vehicle whose name escapes me at the moment (dunno why they didn't just use M113s...)

I've seen BMP-3s in the videos, but I don't know if they're in addition to the BMP-2, which given the period, should be much more numerous.

Do you mean AP as in anti-personnel?

The BMP-3 by all rights should be the most bad-assed anti-personnel unit of all the APCs in the game.

[Stark]

You mean I can't play NATO? Fuck that, cancel download. My favorite maps were NATO/Soviet.

As far as I know you can't play the NATO map unless you've preordered.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I hope you mean that BMPs are the M2-equivalent, and that BMDs are airdropped.

(BTRs and BMPs can't be airdropped.)

Everything is air-dropped (Artillery, MBT's, Attack Helicopters), that's how they get to the battlefield so quickly... well except for the dock map.

[Stark]

To be fair the choppers hover down from outer space, they don't come in a box like everything else.

[Ace Pace]

Can I say that I preferred the alpha opening menu? With actual..in game footage?

[Stark]

In alpha they couldn't afford real presentation.

[Ritterin Sophia]

To be fair the choppers hover down from outer space, they don't come in a box like everything else.

They did in Closed... you see the box drop down and dissapear and suddenly above where they were helicopters magically appear.

[Ace Pace]

In alpha they couldn't afford real presentation.

P.S the WiC music I've heard so far(2 tracks?) is an interesting merge of the musical work in ground control 1.

[Chris OFarrell]

Downloading the beta now.

2.2 Megs / sec.
Sometimes I love being on the Optus backbone which is connected directly to the Telstra Backbone...

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Do you mean AP as in anti-personnel?

Yes.

Since there's some confusion on the matter, I'll spell it all out here:

The standard APCs (BMP-2/3, Warrior, Bradley) cost 1000p to an Infantry player. I think they still need some balancing work, as they're not significantly more impressive than the amphibious APCs (BTR-80, AAV7), which cost 850p to an Infantry player.

Standard APCs all have pretty weak armor and can't stand up to real armor, have a pretty mediocre cannon that does light damage to infantry, armor, and aircraft. They have an AT missile special (in addition to the smoke dischargers common to almost every AFV), but it's pretty ineffective to all but light armor.

Amphibious APCs have even weaker armor, but it's a pretty negligible difference when you're stacked up against three MBTs anyway. Their weapons are useless against armor, but tend to be more effective against infantry. The BTR-80's special is to load incendiary rounds, and gives it impressive damage against infantry for about 10 seconds. The AAV7 has a pretty useful grenade launcher volley, again very effective against infantry.

As for TA airdropping, I haven't checked if they made any changes in open beta but in closed you only had the options of paratroopers (Rangers, Spetsnaz, SAS?), jeeps (HMMWV, UAZ, Land Rover), and light tanks (Sheridan, PT-76, Scorpion).

[InnocentBystander]

I'm liking the game. So far I've found armor to be the easiest to play as. The mobility is simlpy invaluable. You can avoid most artillary fire, you can easily flank enemy support, and you generally don't have to rely on the somewhat annoying special abilities as much. It can be vulernable to air; but if you bring 1 or 2 medium AAs with you, your smoke can generally keep them safe. Though I'm wondering if maybe an infantry squad plus an amphib might be better suited for AA duty (doubtful, since AA vehicle does damage faster I think...).

I'm not a big fan of support; not because commanding artillary isn't fun. But I'd rather be in the thick of it than off to the side shooting missiles.

I don't fully understand the fixation with air that everyone has. The mobility is nice, and I think that air has its place in a support role; but thats not how people use it. They charge in with lots of helicopters to try and murder units. But its expensive and the choppers are *easily* destroyed for (far) less cost.

Infantry is tricky. They're good on the defensive; but basically have to rely on transport vehicles to get them places. I think this reliance on transport makes them a little less cost efficient than regular vehicles - unless you know what you are doing (I do not). I think my problem with infantry is that they're just really easy to murder. Support murders them, armor murders them, air does well against them, tactical strikes murder them... life is tough as infantry.


All that being said, nukes are very impressive and I love A-10s

[ray245]

Can your Infantry get into a allied transports like APCs?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Can your Infantry get into a allied transports like APCs?

Oh yes. But people are too stupid to do combined arms things like that. If you have a friend you can coordinate with, you can get about 7-8 infantry squads loaded into as many transport helicopters and launch some seriously unstoppable assaults. Infantry are easily the most underrated units in the game, even after the nerfs, and in the hands of a skilled player you're really only weak against support and to some extent the stupid medium chopper whoring they still haven't fixed.

(In closed beta they nerfed medium choppers to try to reduce the spam, but they nerfed infantry AA at the same time for very little net gain )

[Ritterin Sophia]

The deal with Artillery is that if you're Heavy Arty, you basically gave up top 3 position for a shit load of fun just directing fire, though if you're on the European Town (The one on the side of a large hill) you can almost certainly get top damage.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

There's so much wanking over Support it's ridiculous. Air too, to some extent. I cannot count the number of games I've been in where we have a complete lack of... anything except barrage after barrage of useless fire on points I need to move in on before it's too late... since I am the only ground element doing anything.

[InnocentBystander]

There's so much wanking over Support it's ridiculous. Air too, to some extent. I cannot count the number of games I've been in where we have a complete lack of... anything except barrage after barrage of useless fire on points I need to move in on before it's too late... since I am the only ground element doing anything.

I played a handful of games yesterday where I charged in with my tanks, out flanked the enemy, fought hard battles to take one of the 'out in the open' points on the enemy side of the river only to look up and find that the whole rest of the map is dominated by the enemy because all my allies do is build helicopters and missile trucks.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Been watching the matches on Xleague.tv and it looks fun. I would download it, but I feel my SUPAR RADEON 9200SE would implode if I ran it with WIC, so I await my first new job paycheque and a decent new PC.

[Stark]

There's so much wanking over Support it's ridiculous. Air too, to some extent. I cannot count the number of games I've been in where we have a complete lack of... anything except barrage after barrage of useless fire on points I need to move in on before it's too late... since I am the only ground element doing anything.

What I love is the way people choose all different roles (I guess because the menu says 'zomg need inf'). Then as soon as the game starts half (or more) of your team will turn into air. They'll build almost exclusively medium choppers - useless for anything but air-to-air - and there will be constant seesawing air battles of worthlessness.

AIR UNITS CAN'T CAPTURE SHIT, IDIOTS.

Also, Support guys seldom buy AA and *never* bother following the advance. As armour I've got sick of it and buy my own damn AA. Nor do they move their guns: TA later and they're all gone. Don't worry, just spawn more! Due to range, flattening someone's arty buys you maybe 20s before they're firing again.

[MKSheppard]

Crap. Combat Mission Shock Force will do it all better

[ray245]

I think we should form a proper clan...due to a strong lack of teamwork. I think this game can really show those 'solo' players how much teamwork is needed when they get thrash until it is not funny at all.

[Stark]

Crap. Combat Mission Shock Force will do it all better

I guess you missed the part where they're different games for different markets, huh?

[White Haven]

Shep, trolling in a thread connected with the military? Y'don't say.

On the subject of support, is anyone else really underwhelmed by medium arty? I was toying with it earlier, and...uh...it didn't seem to do a whole lot of anything, I dunno.