World in Conflict Open Beta

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

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.

Yeah, it's worthless. I was expecting to get, you know, actual artillery. Not... mortars. Mortars on wheels. The only thing it can actually do is kill infantry, though IIRC they get WP shells for... more infantry killing.

[Stark]

Yeah, it's just 'long range tanks'. The heavy stuff has blast markers, but the medium is useless unless you hit. It's cheap as ass and good for herding, though.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Belated adendum: I shouldn't say worthless. I've actually used it fairly effectively before, especially on the closed beta tug-of-war map (which turned into brutal infantry forest-fights quite a bit). It's worthless to an Armor or Support player, but since it isn't exclusive it can be fairly useful in specific situations to an Infantry player who knows what he's doing. The WP is excellent for wiping out infantry sheltered in woods, and it's also got some armor and can double as a sort of mobile recon/capture vehicle.

[Admiral Drason]

I just got in the beta, I'm pleased with the game so far, havent put it thorugh its paces yet though.

[defanatic]

I'm just downloading the client now. I'll probably be able to play sometime tomorrow afternoon (well, West Australian time, which is two hours behind East Aust). If I get a key.

[Stark]

I'm just downloading the client now. I'll probably be able to play sometime tomorrow afternoon (well, West Australian time, which is two hours behind East Aust). If I get a key.

PROTIP: get a key before you download the client? Flash had no probs getting a key from Lamearena yesterday.

EDIT - I really hope the full game has options for capture announcements. It's stupid that every time a point changes colour it's instantly updated to everyone - this is a serious part of the arty-noob phenomenon, and totally devalues scouting. If you capture a few points miles from the nearest enemy unit, how the hell should they know and be able to strike you? It's so realtime that you can use the blinking control point update to blind-fire artillery to kill convoys moving through the area!

[GuppyShark]

I'm really enjoying a basic Armour lineup of

3x Heavy Tank
1x Medium Chopper

The tanks enable to me to take and hold points under heavy fire. The chopper gives me awesome intelligence advantage and is able to see off some air threats.

I find that I get tons of TA really quickly with this lineup. More than I did as Support that's for damned sure.

[defanatic]

I'm just downloading the client now. I'll probably be able to play sometime tomorrow afternoon (well, West Australian time, which is two hours behind East Aust). If I get a key.

PROTIP: get a key before you download the client? Flash had no probs getting a key from Lamearena yesterday.

I got a key while downloading the client. That way, the client was downloading for slightly longer.

[Stark]

Of course - you're actually DOING SOMETHING. The arty-noobs often complain that they don't get much TA, because all they're doing is spamming arty and not capping anything. I find I get the most TA with infantry or air/support playing AAA: infantry caps like crazy with trucks and kills piles of units with stealth, and either AA trucks or AA choppers allows to you get virtually limitless TA wiping out the constant swarms of noob-choppers.

[ray245]

Too bad the amount of units available to command for most of the time is pretty small...

[Ace Pace]

Too bad the amount of units available to command for most of the time is pretty small...

Why do we need 'lolz it's supreme commander and we have 150 units of which you use maybe 10'.

[Stark]

Too bad the amount of units available to command for most of the time is pretty small...

Yeah, too bad it's a squad based game where you're a small cog in a big machine, right? IT'D BE BETTER IF THEY DITCHED THE WHOLE PREMISE OF THE GAME LOL.

The game is so fast (and replacements so inconvienient) that I find it hard enough to micro my half-dozen guys broken into two groups, without having to worry about typical 100+ guys. But I hear all games should be the same, individual flavour = fail.

[ray245]

No...too bad I can hardly get twenty tanks...or the strange fact that you could see more tanks and transports than infrantry in the game.

At least with twenty tanks, I can see that the battle is much bigger as shown in the trailers.

[Stark]

You know there are other players, right? There are easily more than 100 units on most maps. You're just responsible for a small portion of them, and like I said the game is so fast and replacements so inconvienient that every loss counts. There's more tanks etc because most people don't play infantry. ZOMG!

Oh wait, you're whinging about something covered by the game concept because you want it to be just like all the other RTSs.

Newsflash - 'ray245' hates everything! Let's ignore his opinion.

[Resinence]

No...too bad I can hardly get twenty tanks...or the strange fact that you could see more tanks and transports than infrantry in the game.

At least with twenty tanks, I can see that the battle is much bigger as shown in the trailers.

Because tank spamming show's what a completely amazing strategist you are *I'm a smarmy asshole*? It's a GOOD thing this game hasn't degenerated like other RTS's into "BUILD MORE TANKZ LOLZ". Don't like it, play another game, would be nice if the arty spammers and helicopter swarmers left with you.

[ray245]

You know there are other players, right? There are easily more than 100 units on most maps. You're just responsible for a small portion of them, and like I said the game is so fast and replacements so inconvienient that every loss counts. There's more tanks etc because most people don't play infantry. ZOMG!

Oh wait, you're whinging about something covered by the game concept because you want it to be just like all the other RTSs.

Newsflash - 'ray245' hates everything! Let's ignore his opinion.

Hey...I LIKED the game, what wrong with wanting it to be something more? Anyway, sure there are tons of other player, but they hardly cooperate with each other while attacking.

Whenever I tried to join my tanks with some other players tank, they will just drive away from me...but then...the maps feel too big for all the combined units to look large enough.

[Ace Pace]

You know there are other players, right? There are easily more than 100 units on most maps. You're just responsible for a small portion of them, and like I said the game is so fast and replacements so inconvienient that every loss counts. There's more tanks etc because most people don't play infantry. ZOMG!

Oh wait, you're whinging about something covered by the game concept because you want it to be just like all the other RTSs.

Newsflash - 'ray245' hates everything! Let's ignore his opinion.

Hey...I LIKED the game, what wrong with wanting it to be something more? Anyway, sure there are tons of other player, but they hardly cooperate with each other while attacking.

Whenever I tried to join my tanks with some other players tank, they will just drive away from me...but then...the maps feel too big for all the combined units to look large enough.

Then you play with sucky players.

From experiance, a well put together team, playing 6v6 on farmland, you will not feel the map is too large. Infact, you'll feel cramped as there are usually anything from 4 to 12 heavy tanks at the least on each side, several infantry squadrons, artillary raining around, helicopters dancing around, all on a map a few kilometers square. I fail to see how this is anything other then busy or too little units.

[Stark]

Yeah, anyone thinking the beta maps are big is crazy. They're far too small, hopelessly cramped.

I've started seeing some awesome tactics emerge: AA choppers bouncing in and out of friendly AA range, never sticking around long enough to take losses and drawing enemy choppers into heavy AA range (where they get slaughtered).

[Vympel]

I've started playing, it's good fun. I did pretty well my last game- I'm pretty shit with air though. I'm best with armor.

[SylasGaunt]

Yeah, anyone thinking the beta maps are big is crazy. They're far too small, hopelessly cramped.

I've started seeing some awesome tactics emerge: AA choppers bouncing in and out of friendly AA range, never sticking around long enough to take losses and drawing enemy choppers into heavy AA range (where they get slaughtered).

Heh I've done that a few times, though usually I end up doing it with heavy choppers since when I play air and surprisingly enough use heavy choppers to provide air support (well that's not entirely fair but in roughly half the games I've joined up in the two guys playing air spam medium choppers and spend the whole match shooting each other instead of say blunting the mass armor assault steamrolling their side).

Of course there's nothing like pulling medium choppers like sharks to blood than a formation of heavies... which means they follow right after you as you lead them over your heavy AA and watch them die horribly.

Tonight though I kept having these great rounds playing armor. I found a good mix of vehicles and shockingly enough focused on taking territory instead of trying to root infantry out of the town in hometown. It's amazing how skittish some helicopter players are, the second something AA related opens up and they peel off like 80% of the time, even if it's only one medium AA. Worked out well enough since the last few times I did it on Hometown I kept the air units off me and rolled straight up to the saw mill, seized it and fortifying both points then rolled down right into the enemy team's backyard with a mix of heavies and mediums and one lone medium AA and proceeded to rip their artillery to shreds, curve around and seize the south end of town, hit a small armored column in the rear and spend the last seconds of the match blowing all my TA points on calling in a carpet bombing on the infantry infested north end.

[Stark]

I got a new personal best highscore of 1700ish, as air. I don't even LIKE air, but mobility=cheap kills. Also, an air player was building huge piles of Blackhawks for some reason (four stingers to pop) and that was a pretty constant stream of points.

I've also noticed the AA ph34r. However, the range on heavy AA is so piss-poor that without scouts a decent chopper swarm can pop them for few casualties and mop up - you really need a dedicated brick of AA to defeat long-range missile strikes. The AA-chopper synergy is pretty awesome though, and almost makes up for the inability of the short-range missile AA to actually cover an advance (short range + can't fire moving = fail).

[SylasGaunt]

True.. fortunately a disproportionate number of Air users don't seem to use that kind of micro on their choppers (and end up simply flying in close or trying to use regular rockets vs. SAMs.. and lose) or they're using almost all mediums which don't have long range missiles.

[Chris OFarrell]

So many times on that Hometown map, I get my heavy armor and run into around the 'flat' edge of the map into the rear, blowing the crap out of all the nicely lined up MRLS batteries with HEAT rounds. Generally by the time I've taken out the first player I've got enough TA to call for an air to air strike, so when the inevitable heavy choppers come looking, I pop smoke and send in the fighters.

I find aggressively getting into their rear early on stalls the entire attack more often the not, letting us win the map in 5 mins.

[Stark]

Isn't it hilarious how many chopper players, when faced with tanks popping smoke, just sit there motionless waiting for it to clear? It's like the idea of an a2a strike doesn't occur to them!

I've seen many maps won in a few minutes by getting to the rear and destroying everything: it doesn't even really matter what it is. A single heavy chopper can clean out an arty player and drop a few strikes and retreat before anyone gets around to spawning a pile of AA guys.

Anyone love the 'me first' AA players? I've seen heavy AA drive past my assaulting tanks, and get instantly owned.

[Thunderfire]

I've played a few matches - maybe it's just me but most players are very stupid. I easily win most games with light/medium tanks and hordes of airborne rangers. Most games are a slugfest near the bridge and someone with mobility ist easily able to rack up alot of command and fortification points.