Developer Diary, Part 114 - Discussion

[216th_Peterla]

Fellas...let's wait and see. Later we will judge. Maybe we are making a mountain of a grain of dust.

Anyway just remind that is an option that can be edited serverside, being for god or for bad.

 

Quite interesting update by the way.

Edited November 22, 2015 by peterla

[[CPT]milopugdog]

I assumed the system would be the same as in RoF, so I went to try it out.

 

The head movement (from what I tried) cannot be moved around the cockpit, and also cannot be zoomed in or out. This leaves the pilot to having to move their head whenever they want to see their gauges. When looking around in a dogfight, I found that where you put your mouse will reset after you return from looking around.

 

Regarding the handling, the plane would input a little too much, and in a dogfight, this would make me re-adjust, and that would make the plane even more clunky. It was indeed affected by wind and turbulence, and would make keeping the nose straight in level flight hard (as it should).

I couldn't get the plane to roll over, it would seem to get confused when I entered a stall and wouldn't let me nose over until the actual stall.

 

When shooting, I of course had the "sniper aim" people worry about, but I had fire of equal accuracy when I was using my stick.

 

So I'm not exactly sure what you guys are worried about. These people are defiantly not going to be gods, but they won't be trampled by us if they know how to use it.

 

As for the progression you guys are saying won't happen, maybe I'm weird, but the role reason I wanted a joystick was because I heard someone say I would have more control over my aircraft in WT. So maybe we could possibly have a thread pinned somewhere that is talking about sticks, throttles, and pedals? Because most of us are likely to be using HOTAS, and a newby may not be aware of cheaper options just because we don't mention them.

[Marq_Tex]

Utter nonsense.

 

Mouse control in War Thunder Simulator Battles mode gives no advantage whatsoever. Mouse control is better in Arcade and Realistic Modes, but those modes are not comparable to IL2.

 

In War Thunder Simulator Battles, any player of even average skill with the right equipment (Stick, Headtracking etc) can run rings around any player with Mouse Control.

 

When spotting another player with Mouse Control (you can tell by the way they fly), you smile with glee at the free prey on the table.

 

From the video it looks like the IL2 mouse control system will be similar to War Thunders. 

 

This is a good thing, it removes a huge barrier of entry to the game and will attract more players. IL2 needs all the players it can get.

 

Hopefully these new players enjoy the experience and move on to their first joystick purchase.

 

And like War Thunder, Mouse Control players will be a stepping stone into the game, but not ever a real competitor vs someone with stick + head tracking.

You are right

i'm completely agree

[BraveSirRobin]

I think the DDs are a sort of massive entombology experiment. Each week poke the ants nest in different ways and see what sort of frenzied shapes simmers can work themselves up into.

 

Here's yet another DD with undiluted fun and good news, and yet...

It's a plot by psychology grad students to create easy material for masters thesis.

[johncage]

Haha, I think you are right, I wonder if the devs have bets on how many of X, Y or Z response they ge each week. Or how wound-up 'so-and-so-regular-poster' will be about the new information. I know I would, you'd have to, to ease some of the 'rage'

 

 

In fairness to all of us users who may get so emotional about things, I think this is only natural considering the narrow market for flight sims and how much some people may rely on this sole game/sim and it's developers for what could be their main hobby.

 

I mean I love IL2 BoS/BoM, the very thought that it could change into something like Warthunder (IT IS NOT GOING TO, that is just a demonstration of a nightmare scenario) fills me with dread and cold sweats. Why this extreme panic, simply because it is so good; it is essentially a representaiton of how well the developers have done so far. I've tried other sims and none of them give me what IL2 does. (I tried Warthunder and it offers something different, good on it, it is just not my thing).

 

Plus this is the internet, you write something and it most likely comes over completely different to how it was intended. Yes, I put ' I'd rather fly on a non-mouse server' and this probably just comes across as some ungrateful spoilt brat and has the devs scratching their head thinking 'why do we bother' But imagine if they released a DD and there was nothing but a stoney silence or a single clap echoing around a dusty forum

 

 

Onwards pilots

 

or maybe they just value feedback and would like to see input from their customers, as opposed to an endless torrent of blind obedience and loyalty.

[LukeFF]

 

 

or maybe they just value feedback and would like to see input from their customers, as opposed to an endless torrent of blind obedience and loyalty.

 

Right, so show us some of these examples of "blind obedience and loyalty," since you obviously think it's in abundance here. 

[Bearcat]

Those complaining about mouse control... you do realize that:

 

A)Mouse control and mouse aim are two entirely different things..

B)According to the developer diary mouse control as implemented in BoS will simply make it easier to fly basic manuevers in BoSA without a joy stick.

C)It will only control basic pitch roll and yaw... flaps, trim and all flight physics are the same so you will be limited with what you can accomplish with this when facing someone with a full HOTAS, and rudder pedals and TIR.

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Those complaining about mouse control... you do realize that:

 

A)Mouse control and mouse aim are two entirely different things..

How so? 

[BMA_West]

Folks, please, before making totally unfunded comments on how mouse-handling is gone present itself why not just trying it out in ROF first?

 

 

However judging from some the ppl going against it does strike me they their comments on about everything here shows the kind of same mind-set ...

So it may be  more revealing about them than whatever topic they hurry to show up in.

 

Of course now this may be just me jumping to unfunded conclusions now ...

[II./JG77_Manu*]

We recruted a good bunch of mouse players back in our WT days and most of them wanted to learn to fly with joysticks in sim battles. They bought one, practised, flown a few sorties with us and nerver came back again. Infact they returned to arcade mouse flying because they missed killing 10+ aircraft per flight with little effort like they used to.

Possible, that you encountered those people, but that doesn't mean at all, that this applies for everybody. Quite the opposite. I think nowadays a flight combat game like War Thunder is the best and most likely source to bring in new virtual pilots. I even think it's pretty much the only asset of recruitement. Nowadays noone (maybe apart from real life pilots) just decides out of the blue to buy expensive flight simulator gear for several hundert euros and just get's started with a high fidelity sim. Speaking of myself, while i am a lifelong WW2 birds fan, i didn't even know that there is something like a combat flight simulator. To be honest, until a few years ago, i wasn't much into gaming on a PC. Then a friend told me about this "WW2 plane game with awesome graphics and a lot of different models". I figured i give it a try with my laptop on real bad graphic settings (didn't have a PC that time). So i jumped in into the arcade mode with him, and was instantly amazed, just to see those planes in 3D, fighting against each other. Became more or less addicted to this game, and after a while i figured, that i want to play it with best graphics possible, so i bought myself a PC. We figured that to give the "realistic" mode a try, because of the bigger maps, and the realistic scenarios. We never came back for arcade. During this time i "met" a lot of nice people, one of them bought a cheap Joystick, and persuaded me to do the same, and try the simulator mode. So i went for the TM Hotas X, and went to simulator. I needed about 100 hours, only to safely take off, land, and getting my first kills in this mode. I never came back to the former (AB and RB). I then persuaded two other people, i was flying in RB, to buy cheap stuff and join me in SB. In Summary - Now 3 years later, all 3 of us own the Warthog with extension, combat pedals, TrackIR, and from RoF till DCS every flight sim that is out there.

While my initial target was only to go into dogfights, and get a lot of kills in Sims, right now i love to fly SeoWs with my squad, doing CAP for 2 hours, not once engaged in a close dogfight, but just keeping the area safe. Or doing transport missions with the 111 in BoS. Etc Etc

There for sure are those people you described "missed killing 10+ aircraft per flight with little effort", but there are a lot of others, just like me, that have a totally different attitude. So i would be careful with a broad generalization. For a long time now, i try to persuade a real life friend of mine, to give flight sims, especially BoS a go (he is a pure WT player so far). This new mouse control might just be the decisive drop to bring in him! I am all for it.

No idea what some people in here are fearing. As if they have to be bothered about those mouse controlers in anyway.

Edited November 23, 2015 by II./JG77_Manu*Celestiale*

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

Possible, that you encountered those people, but that doesn't mean at all, that this applies for everybody.

 

-snip-

 

 

And on the inverse, your (and my) experience of migrating from WT is not indicative of the majority of players who are playing that game - the reality is that Stuka's is a lot closer to how that normally pans out.

 

How do I know? Been there, done that.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Space_Ghost

[II./JG77_Manu*]

And on the inverse, your (and my) experience of migrating from WT is not indicative of the majority of players who are playing that game - the reality is that Stuka's is a lot closer to how that normally pans out.

 

How do I know? Been there, done that.

 

So what? If only a small percentage from the WT players comes over here for serious simulation flying, it's still a huge boost in terms of numbers for the "real" flight sim niche (which is way lower on absolute numbers then the WT followers). It's urgently needed to keep flight simming alive.

Edited November 23, 2015 by II./JG77_Manu*Celestiale*

[SharpeXB]

So what? If only a small percentage from the WT players comes over here for serious simulation flying, it's still a huge boost in terms of numbers for the "real" flight sim niche (which is way lower on absolute numbers). It's urgently needed to keep flight simming alive.

Right! I'm sure the majority of players in sims today got their start in an easier game and then migrated over to a more hardcore product. I'm glad to see a game like WT out there to recruit players, some of which will end up in IL-2. Most players don't jump right into a hardcore flight sim, and go out and purchase a flightstick before even deciding they like the game. That's why this mouse control is so important. It lets the casual player who might consider buying this game on sale make that decision without buying and extra controller.

Since the controller scheme is a server setting, there's no harm done online although I don't think that will be an issue.

Edited November 23, 2015 by SharpeXB

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

So what? If only a small percentage from the WT players comes over here for serious simulation flying, it's still a huge boost in terms of numbers for the "real" flight sim niche (which is way lower on absolute numbers then the WT followers). It's urgently needed to keep flight simming alive.

 

So what? Don't pretend that our experiences are commonplace.

 

WT and its players are not keeping simming alive - quite the opposite, really.

-snip-

 

Most players don't jump right into a hardcore flight sim, and go out and purchase a flightstick before even deciding they like the game.

 

That's why this mouse control is so important.

 

-snip-

 

You're right, most players don't... And most players never will. Most. Most. MOST.

 

Mouse control is a moot point when it still doesn't cater to the immediate gratification crowd that that other free-to-play one does.

 

To clarify, I have no problem with the finite number of people who will make the transition... The problem I have is this disillusionment that having mouse-joy is somehow going to save a dying breed. It's not. It's two different communities, a massively different playstyle, a different (lower) level of appreciation for these aircraft, the history, the battles. 

 

The simplification or addition of alternate control methods doesn't change any of those things. It's never going to. It hasn't in the past and it won't in the future.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Space_Ghost

[Sokol1]

 

 

No idea what some people in here are fearing. As if they have to be bothered about those mouse controlers in anyway.

 

I don't care if people like/use "mouse fly/aim" mode. I will never go fly in this kind of server (as I never fly in il-2'46 "Wonder Woman"/F6/F4All servers).

 

But what worry is the path this moves indicates (like the failed "Unlocks" ): a more "game" approach.

To "win" WT is need more game than this one have, not better FM/DM, etc.

 

 

 

WT and its players are not keeping simming alive - quite the opposite, really.

 

Agree.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Sokol1

[Fliegel]

So what? Don't pretend that our experiences are commonplace.

 

WT and its players are not keeping simming alive - quite the opposite, really.

 

 

You're right, most players don't... And most players never will. Most. Most. MOST.

 

Mouse control is a moot point when it still doesn't cater to the immediate gratification crowd that that other free-to-play one does.

 

To clarify, I have no problem with the finite number of people who will make the transition... The problem I have is this disillusionment that having mouse-joy is somehow going to save a dying breed. It's not. It's two different communities, a massively different playstyle, a different (lower) level of appreciation for these aircraft, the history, the battles. 

 

The simplification or addition of alternate control methods doesn't change any of those things. It's never going to. It hasn't in the past and it won't in the future.

How its "quite the opposite? And what was the case of "hasn't in the past"?

[NachtJaeger110]

If you're still not sure how to think of mouse control, watch this video.

watch from min 4, there it gets interesting, then again at min 12. Some shooting at min 19. 

It is a great example of what to expect from a mouse controller in MP 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RABoEAlHUu0

 

Seriously, this is just not worth such a debate

Edited November 23, 2015 by NachtJaeger110

[SvAF/F19_Klunk]

looks horrible.. I will try it out later this evening

[Gump]

i recall when ROF was discussing implementing this - same concerns. they/777 did it. now the question REALLY is, "what effect did it have on ROF play?"

.

did it bring in more players?

did it degrade the MP sim experience quality? how?

.

i do not know the answers to these questions. i suppose the server admins can chose to implement it if they want, and maybe there will be servers that will do this just to get the noobies/mousers a good starting experience, or an experience that suits them. however, honestly, if i was a noob with a mouse, it would be hard to choose a limited, realistic, eastern front sim over WT with all the players, planes and easy-esque play.

.

i suspect that 777 had good/decent results with the ROF implementation, which is why 1C is talking about it...

.

.... BOS is a product for a company, which exists because of making a profit. ppl cant work for free, since we cant get our food/housing/etc for free. methinks the mouse control is a way to get more customers - maybe not a lot, but more. and there is probably no 'magic bullet' in the marketing regime for these sims - its a mulipronged approach.

.

i got into the sims through ROF because it had FREE PLAY (2 planes). went through most of the SP offline stuff 1st. BUT, i don't think i would have sprung for the money to buy the game (or any other necessary hardware) before kicking the tires. Truth be told, i always wanted a WWII game more than a WWI experience, and i really wanted to fly more of the american planes, but ROF hooked me with the free play.

..PLUS, i learned as time went along the differences in these sims and WT from all the chatter.

.

SO, i guess my opinion is that the mouse control is 1C's way of attracting more business, and they want to do it in a way that wont wreck the sim experience. i think it will happen. but i also think they should implement a limited free play like ROF does (and here i go poking the ant hill again).

.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Gump

[Bearcat]

 

 

Those complaining about mouse control... you do realize that:

 

A)Mouse control and mouse aim are two entirely different things..

B)According to the developer diary mouse control as implemented in BoS will simply make it easier to fly basic manuevers in BoSA without a joy stick.

C)It will only control basic pitch roll and yaw... flaps, trim and all flight physics are the same so you will be limited with what you can accomplish with this when facing someone with a full HOTAS, and rudder pedals and TIR.

How so? 

 

 

 

Mouse controls. There was a long time dilemma in simulation genre caused by the fact that realistic flight physics mean that a newcomer should have a certain level of initial knowledge and skills (understanding basic principles like 'flight is speed', 'don't turn the flight stick to its limit', 'be more attentive at lower altitudes', etc.) and have controller equipment of a certain level (namely a joystick that is much less widespread gaming device today than it was ten years ago). This sets a pretty high entry barrier for newcomers who want to try the sim genre.

 

On the other hand, adding simplified flight physics (where a plane can be flown using just cursor keys on the keyboard and where it can't enter uncontrollable spin caused by rough handling for example) to accommodate new players leads to unsolvable problem - this won't give a player the feeling of realistic flight at all, robbing him or her of the very reason of simulation. Is there any point in playing a simplified physics flight in a sim which is all about realistic flight? In addition, this divides the community between those who fly using simplified and full physics modeling since they can't fly the same multiplayer mission.

 

This means that the physics will not be compromised by this.. so there is no degradation of the FMs to a more arcade level to accomodate this feature.

 

The answer to this dilemma is a special 'advanced helper' that receives 'I want to do this but I don't know how to' commands from a player and translates them to real plane controls input, not touching physics level at all. This comes with a price however, as everything in life - the helper chooses optimal 'right' trajectories, which simultaneously prevents a player from critical errors and limits the extreme maneuvers the plane can perform like Barrel roll, Snap roll, Hummerhead, Sideslip and others. This enables players who use a mouse and players who use a joystick to fly together and don't have a clear advantage caused by their control device. Winning a fight requires tactical positioning and understanding the composition of air fight, what, we feel, is the goal in this situation.

 

Again... there is no advantage to a mouse flyer.. other than being able to enjoy the sim to a degree without a joystick..

 

It is important to note that mouse control helper governs only pitch, roll and yaw. Controlling engine, flaps, brakes, armament and everything else is the same as on joystick. This allows mouse controls to be used in Normal and Expert modes just like joystick - differences (and difficulties) are the same.

 

Furthermore, in case a part of the community feels they want to play only with players who use a joystick, we added a special option to dedicated server configuration that allows a server owner to restrict the control scheme to joystick. However we hope that thanks to the approach described above such restrictions will be enforced by hosters only in limited cases.

 

To finalize our announce, we need to explain why we introduced this feature in the first place and what hopes we have for it. We hope that adding this basic control method that is available to anyone regardless of special equipment or skills will allow to taste the aviation sim for all these people who stopped at the doorstep before, realizing that they need to buy a special equipment just to take off and fly around the airfield. With this barrier gone, they can try the flight, the feel of the sim and play single player modes like scenarios, quick missions and campaign. When they learn a bit, these new players will try multiplayer. And finally, a part of them (hopefully a major one) will decide that 'it's worth it' and will buy a joystick to feel the joy of flight as close to real life as possible. Like you already do.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Argh, those damn developers trying to make people learn proper fighter tactics! Fighting well and working hard for a kill is so arcade.

[SharpeXB]

i also think they should implement a limited free play like ROF does

.

RoF has not always been F2P. When it was new like BoS is now it was I think $49 with four planes and all the rest were DLC. It's packaging and pricing have varied over the years. Perhaps that will happen for IL-2 as well.

[Gump]

i didnt see the invisble planes issue addressed?

.

and there are some things that seem small but may have a large overall effect:

...like the 'cant put your head out of the cockpit at 500kph' - that means escaping from high 109's in a yak by diving is gonna mean your tail is blind for a while. 

... messages are correct for team color - at last!

... 'destroy' chat only visible to responsible team - this means that opposing team can no longer know where activity is by watching chat. this will certainly affect response traffic and make it a bit more of a blind map for fighter patrols. of course the server admin can add those "our xxx is under attack" messages. and, after all, those msg's in chat really cluttered the chat logs... does anyone know how to review chat history?

Edited November 23, 2015 by Gump

[ST_ami7b5]

Argh, those damn developers trying to make people learn proper fighter tactics! Fighting well and working hard for a kill is so arcade.

 

Anyone should first learn to 'fly' which mouse-fly/aim/whatever skips.

Took me 2 YEARS (offline) in RoF

 

since I dared to go online.

Today's kids (devs aim?) go straight to online and then asking how to start the engine.

Go, figure...

Edited November 23, 2015 by ST_ami7b5

[LukeFF]

Today's kids (devs aim?) go straight to online and then asking how to start the engine.

Go, figure...

So, be a good example and answer their questions, no matter how irritating you may find them to be. It isn't like there's some sort of rule that says all noobs have to fly offline for X number of hours before venturing online. The nicer a reception they receive, the more likely they'll hang around.

[ST_ami7b5]

Thanks for an advice.
Do you fly online? Where? 
How about YOU to be that good example?
I am a bad guy, you know...

Edited November 23, 2015 by ST_ami7b5

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

 

This means that the physics will not be compromised by this.. so there is no degradation of the FMs to a more arcade level to accomodate this feature.

 

Yea again this is just how mouseaim works. But I get there's nothing we can do about it so I will sit back and wait.

 

Looking forward to the Bf110 and the other goodies.

[LukeFF]

Thanks for an advice.

Do you fly online? Where? 

How about YOU to be that good example?

 

I don't fly online as much as I'd like to, but yes, when I have the chance I will jump on a server. And yes, I am that good example when playing online. It doesn't cost anything to be polite. 

 

I am a bad guy, you know...

 

Your words, not mine.

Edited November 23, 2015 by LukeFF

[ST_ami7b5]

I don't fly online as much as I'd like to, but yes, when I have the chance I will jump on a server. And yes, I am that good example when playing online. It doesn't cost anything to be polite. 

...

 

Depends...

 

Typing while flying/fighting caused maybe most of my online 'deaths'...

[Cybermat47]

So, be a good example and answer their questions, no matter how irritating you may find them to be. It isn't like there's some sort of rule that says all noobs have to fly offline for X number of hours before venturing online. The nicer a reception they receive, the more likely they'll hang around.

This is exactly what people should be doing!

[Gump]

heh heh....ya know, it DOES get quite annoying when it becomes frequent. i USED to be one that would answer (in ROF) "how do i start my engine" without hesitation and feel like i was be a help, but what you find out is that, not only does it seem to be non-stop, but there are a LOT of elementary questions that follow - things that anyone flying a quick mission just once would know. and, of course, you know such a pilot is gonna get hammered if they can even make it into the air. you do NOT want such inexperience in the servers that limit the amount of planes available.

..after a while, you develop the view that aminor is stating. somehwere, a server or mission statement should redirect absolute noobs to a better place to learn such basics.

.

and, i kinda chuckle when i think of all the forum 'discussions' that might appear when all the REAL 12yr olds appear. 

[Dutch]

Oh my word.

 

A pm, for which I received an email, brought me back to this forum. Maybe a mistake.......

 

Mouse control of anything, brings the whole game to a new audience. Especially when they make the basic game free to play as per RoF, if they haven't already.

 

As soon as any of these experimenting mouse players get a feel of a flight sim, they will buy a stick. They cost next to nothing in the great scheme of things.

 

The more people we can attract to the hobby, the better. The elitists who say this approach is wrong are hammering nails into the coffin of the hobby.

 

Make it available on phones and tablets. Why not? Anyone who gets addicted to the realism and absorption of these games will soon be sitting behind a state of the art pc, with state of  the art hardware, wondering why this hobby almost died.

 

Good move Devs, spread it around a little more....

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

And release an F2P immediately if you want the mouse-stickers to check it out!

 

Two to four of the basic BOS aircraft on a small map/dedicated noob server with joystick and mouse-stick activated. Get em hooked with the gimme rock.

Edited November 24, 2015 by [LBS]HerrMurf

[No601_Swallow]

Holy sweet Mitchell!

 

What a series of walls of text! 

 

Surely the equation is mouse-control (not aiming, bloody obviously, if anyone can actually read the DD) = more (maybe) players = more fun. 

 

I fail to see a down side.

[AbraxasGSD]

Hi Han,

 

First, thank you so much for bringing us this amazing series of games.  

 

As I was reading the latest update about the drivable tanks, I started thinking about something I've been dreaming of for a long time. I've always wished for a fully immersive war sim based around a combat pilot. For example, imagine you're shot down behind enemy lines and you bail out, instead of going to a menu screen, you continue on with a first person shooter type environment where you have to fight your way back to friendly territory by any means. There have been many times where I was able to crash land a damaged airplane near an exit point, the plane was mostly intact and in friendly territory but since it wasn't at the exit point, the mission was a failure. What if it didn't have to end there? To expand on this, what if a home base environment existed where you could actually walk around your airfield, hang out in the hangar or your bunk, run out to your plane for a scramble mission, etc. Basically, I'm suggesting an entire environment as opposed to just starting in the cockpit and flying the mission. 

 

I know that creating something like this would be a pretty massive undertaking, however, if anyone can do it, I think it would be you guys!

 

Thanks!

[johncage]

And release an F2P immediately if you want the mouse-stickers to check it out!

 

Two to four of the basic BOS aircraft on a small map/dedicated noob server with joystick and mouse-stick activated. Get em hooked with the gimme rock.

they should just turn this into war thunder.

[Mewt]

So what? Don't pretend that our experiences are commonplace.

 

WT and its players are not keeping simming alive - quite the opposite, really.

 

I have personally introduced multiple gaming friends into WW2 air combat through War Thunder. A lot of those friends have gone on to purchase BOS.

 

War Thunder has a HUGELY positive effect of drawing in new players to a genre that they a) might not have thought they would have enjoyed or b) been unable to because of a hardware barrier to entry.

 

Those friends, have gone on to realise that a hardware investment will yield a more fun and competitive experience for them, and gone one to purchase joysticks and head tracking etc.

 

Mouse control for this game is another step towards the idea of removing barriers of entry for new players and allowing more people to experience the game and genre. This forum is full of players talking about their experiences of previously/currently playing War Thunder.

 

However, these kinds of games and control systems can only go so far to 'keep simming alive' by attracting new players. The real challenge is one of community. Unless the sim community is acceptant and encouraging of other games, new players, new control schemes and new ways of thinking we will always have a problem.

 

Frankly, snobbish and elitist attitudes like this do very little to 'keep simming alive'.

 

Embrace, encourage, adapt.

[Bearcat]

I have personally introduced multiple gaming friends into WW2 air combat through War Thunder. A lot of those friends have gone on to purchase BOS.

 

War Thunder has a HUGELY positive effect of drawing in new players to a genre that they a) might not have thought they would have enjoyed or b) been unable to because of a hardware barrier to entry.

 

Those friends, have gone on to realise that a hardware investment will yield a more fun and competitive experience for them, and gone one to purchase joysticks and head tracking etc.

 

Mouse control for this game is another step towards the idea of removing barriers of entry for new players and allowing more people to experience the game and genre. This forum is full of players talking about their experiences of previously/currently playing War Thunder.

 

However, these kinds of games and control systems can only go so far to 'keep simming alive' by attracting new players. The real challenge is one of community. Unless the sim community is acceptant and encouraging of other games, new players, new control schemes and new ways of thinking we will always have a problem.

 

Frankly, snobbish and elitist attitudes like this do very little to 'keep simming alive'.

 

Embrace, encourage, adapt.

 

+1... great post.

[TWC_Ace]

+1... great post.

Yes grat post but I wouldnt be so open in encouraging hardcore sim franchise to melt into warthunder mouse battles....YES if its just as an option for "not so hardcore simmers"....

[novicebutdeadly]

Good evening gents (and ladies of course),

I think that perhaps 2 questions have not been asked in regards to the whole mouse point and shoot, and attracting new/ WT people.


Firstly what type of players are we hoping to attract?


Are we trying to bring in people who have never played a flying game before, because if that is the case it would be better to have either a one month free trial, or a pay by the month system.

No-one is going to buy an $80 USD game unless they have an interest in it.


The type of player that I hope that the developers are trying to attract are ones who have tried WT, they would have already bought a joystick (because they want a more authentic experience, and because they are not that expensive), but want a more of a serious gaming experience.


In regards to those who have never played the genre at all, again they won't spend $80 USD on something that they are not really interested in (which is where WT helps bring people into the genre), but if they do they should realise that they need to spend an extra $20USD for a basic joystick.


The second question being why can't they just use the keyboard like everyone else used to have to before they got a joystick?

What I don't understand is that for a car racing game there is no mouse control (I don't play that genre so I could be wrong??), and people understand that to be able to get a more authentic feel they need to buy the hardware. In the mean time you use the keyboard to control the car.


Perhaps it would have been better for the new player to be able to click on a box that says "keyboard control", which makes the plane more stable, and also have a tutorial that shows them how to control the plane using the keyboard (with "aim help" only within 300 metres of a target).


~S~

Edited November 24, 2015 by novicebutdeadly