Due to this frugal lifestyle I have been forced to be a bit of a cheapskate when its comes to, well... everything.
So, when I see a free to play game on Steam with really damn good reviews I jump up and down. Literally. In my chair. Might explain the noise complaints.
So, y'know, when I saw War Thunder on steam I believe my exact thoughts were along the lines of "emahgerd tank game! its free to play! no pay to win bullshit! nerdgasm!". And yeah, I've had a ton of fucking fun with it.
Now, I play quite a variety of games. I've played enough of the first person genre to know it isn't my strong suit. Like, I severely suck at them. As a result, when I play War Thunder I avoid heavy or medium tanks as that usually entails the team expecting you to be right in the mess getting one-shotted by things. Instead, I use tanks of the Tank Hunter/Tank Destroyer class, namely my favorites; the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer, and the Stug III/IV models, mainly due to their very small posture and formidable range.
Now, recently, you may or may not know Gaijin, the developers of War Thunder, released an update that adds cosmetic camouflage items such as branches and leaves, and extra armour plating.
The armour plating was released for particular tanks. And, surprise surprise, MOST OF THOSE FUCKING TANKS WERE T34 MODELS.
I play realism mode and simulator battles, so I find myself fighting T34s about as often as I piss.
German tanks get access to a specific type of shell, called PZGR40. The idea behind it is it is a composite armour-piercing shells made the counter the heavy soviet tanks developed in the late war, such as the T34s.
With that said, CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN WHY THE PZGR40 SHELLS BOUNCE OFF THE FUCKING T34s AT EVERY ANGLE. Like, I swear to god, it can't even go through the bloody rear armour.
And so, before I know it, my cute little Hetzer is one-shotted by a T34 with an 85mm main gun, going right through its best armour plating zone.
None of you know why, no? Lemmie tell you! That fucking armour plating upgrade that was mostly given to soviet tanks. Yep, that's right. That.
I mean, that's fine, I can sort of deal with it, just gotta aim more carefully and hopefully hit them through the tracks. Hopeless as that is when they move so goddamn fast and its a realism server.
But here's where it gets real bad. Remember that camo I mentioned? Unlike the armour plating, you can't unlock it. Not even through some "kill 1000 enemy players" challenge crap. It costs 2000 of the ingame currency you get by purchasing with real money. 2000 of that currency costs roughly £10, give or take. Which is about $15. Yeah, its some paid for bullshit. Now, the issue with it is it can be really bloody effective. On realism servers no outline or markers appear over enemy tanks.
So, people who play with small tank hunters that can best most tanks are well... near unbeatable. Stick a few twigs and shit on a Hetzer and set up like 2 kilometers from the objective zones and you're 100% sorted. They will have a really hard time spotting you. By the time they do spot you, you'll have shot a shell right through their hull and detonated their shell rack. The picture below is my Hetzer, and the camera is only like 5 meters, at most, from the tank. Imagine trying to see that at 2000 meters. Actually, don't try because its not even possible unless you've modded the textures of the camouflage to make it transparent.
As a result of this, I feel like a total asshole.
Moral of the story: pretty much every Free to Play game is actually Free to Pay, and lacks balance. I have today lost yet another hobby to the abyss of poverty.
