World of Warplanes is an online multiplayer video game developed by Persha Studia and published by Wargaming.net that follows pretty much the same premise as Wargaming's earlier World of Tanks, but with warplanes. Just like in World of Tanks, you start with a crappy early-30s prop-driven biplane, and grind your way up to the second generation jets of the Korean War-era, with the cutoff apparently being the introduction of radar sights and guided missile armament just after that war. Currently available in the game are Soviet, German, American, Japanese and British planes, although probably not on all servers simultaneously, some French and Chinese planes have been added as well.
These are broken into three distinct classes — fighters, which shoot down enemy planes in hopes of achieving air superiority, ground attack planes that strafe targets on the ground, earning superiority points and easing AA pressure, and heavy fighters, which bridge the gap between them. The game features a somewhat complicated scoring model, awarding the team points for the destruction of enemy targets (both in the air and on the ground), with an additional superiority meter that slowly fills up when one of the teams is in the lead, which is reset when the enemy team scores. A team wins when this meter is full or all enemy planes are shot down, the latter being the notably more frequent occurrence.
It was released worldwide on the 13th of November, 2013, after more than two years of development and testing, and is currently in the deployment phase, so to speak. In October 2017, a new update (so-called "World of Warplanes 2.0
") was released, with improvements to overall graphics, game mechanics and the new addition of a Conquest game mode.
World of Warplanes provides examples of the following tropes:
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality:
- In real life, light fighters are both faster and more maneuverable than heavy fighters. But in this game, heavy fighters are faster than light fighters for the sake of gameplay balance or else the purpose of heavy fighters would have been self-defeating.
- If an aircraft's offensive guns overheat, they'll eventually jam and force an immediate return to base to get them fixed. Overheating only reduces rate of fire in this game.
- Any fire on the aircraft is potentially fatal as it results in the aircraft being heavily damaged or even losing an engine or wing completely. In this game, fire only causes gradual damage-over-time.
- An aircraft can be defined as shot down if it fulfills several of these criteria for critical damage: wing cut, tail cut, aileron(s) broken, rudder broken, elevator broken, engine(s) destroyed, and pilot killed. None of that is possible.
- Airbases can repair aircraft overhead without requiring the airplane to land.
- The Alleged Car: Starter biplanes are slow, frail, weak in firepower, and earn very little XP and cash. Fortunately, they're dirt-cheap to upgrade and repaired for free after battle.
- Anti-Air: Basically, the game's NPCs in form of AI-controlled anti-air guns that can be pretty annoying, especially to the fighters, while ground attack planes may largely ignore them. When the enemy HQ is destroyed, their efficiency is greatly diminished.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Wargaming implemented a respawn mechanic to mitigate the severity of ramming and ground crashing. However, to discourage players from flying recklessly, a squall line will roll in at 7:00 to prevent reinforcements from arriving which means that losing your aircraft after the squall line appears will permanently remove you for the remainder of the battle.
- Artificial Stupidity:
- Like its relative in World of Tanks, the World of Warplanes matchmaker is mostly cruel and rarely merciful.
- Computer-controlled player aircraft aren't very bright- while they can be deadly if they catch a human player unaware, for the most part they're essentially flying bullseyes for the humans.
- Artistic License – Physics: The gravity in this game, if it even exists at all, is exceedingly weak and specific enough to only affect planes.
- Bullets will fly perfectly straight when they leave the gun.
- Your plane will not lose altitude and speed no matter how long it goes into a turn.
- During closed beta testing, players could actually fly through the ground which made them invulnerable to bullets.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Averted. Accidental and deliberate rammings will credit both planes as having killed each other while a suicide crash will credit the last plane that shot you.
- BFG: Some planes, such as the Yak line and some heavy fighters, carry extremely heavy autocannons. While they fire slower and are tougher to aim, getting hit by one can take a good chunk out of your HP.
- Bottomless Magazines: Your planes don't have to worry about running out of ammo, bombs, or rockets, just be mindful of overheating and reload times.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: The game follows the same Free-to-Play model as World of Tanks, with a single integrated account shared across both games, should you play both. Though, just as in WoT, it isn't that restrictive, as premium planes cannot be upgraded, and premium ammo, while giving something of an edge, isn't really required for a skilled player to excel.
- Cannon Fodder:
- The lowest-tier planes are usually the first to die in battle.
- Air Defense Aircraft are AI-controlled planes that circle around most capture points- they're usually weaker than player aircraft and serve as a way for air-to-air fighters to capture a point.
- Color-Coded Armies: Like in World of Tanks, allies are green and enemies are red. But each nation has a default paint scheme for their planes. US: Blue, Russia: Brown, UK: Tan, Japan: Beige early, then Green, Germany: Grey.
- Critical Existence Failure: Like the other Wargaming titles, planes can remain combat effective as long as they have one hitpoint, not counting Subsystem Damage.
- Elite Tweak: Specializing an aircraft by researching all of its modules and completing Specialization missions unlocks additional equipment and consumable slots on it, allowing you to make your aircraft even more powerful.
- Enormous Engine: The Soviet I-16 and I-17 sport some very prominent engines, especially given how small the planes are themselves (even for single-seat fighters). This is part of what gives the little guys their insane speed and tight maneuverability.
- Every Bullet is a Tracer: Being able to see every bullet helps players to know if they're landing hits and getting shot at.
- Experience Points: Experience points are the main way to advance in the game. They are awarded after each battle according to the player's performance.
- Foregone Conclusion: If one side controls every point on the map, then Air Superiority is established and they collect Influence at an accelerated rate. On rare occasions this can result in a comeback but it usually ends the battle immediately with no chance of recovery for the opposition.
- Friendly Fireproof: Averted. You can damage friendly planes, and the game penalizes you for silver and Experience Points, awarding them to the plane damaged by you.
- Gimmick Level: Sometimes there are special events that give other modes of gameplay. Bomber Escort has you either defending or intercepting bombers, while the Attrition mode turns the game into a standard Team Deathmatch- whoever tuns out of points first loses.
- Glass Cannon: Fighters can be pretty heavily armed, especially when fully upgraded, and are exceptionally fast and agile, but they don't have much HP.
- Guy in Back: Many ground attack planes and heavy fighters sport a computer-controlled gunner that generally isn't very efficient, but can sometimes decide whose plane is being shot now — yours or the enemy's.
- Ineffectual Loner: Flying solo isn't the most efficient of the game tactics to say the least, in any role, as even the least skilled players have the nasty tendency to naturally team up on the lone enemies.
- Kill It with Fire:
- You can use incendiary ammo to increase the chance of setting an enemy on fire which will cause their plane to burn itself out or at least come out of the fight much worse.
- There's also armor-piercing incendiary ammo, which combines the set-them-on-fire bonus with extra "normal" damage. It's also expensive as hell.
- Lead the Target: Bullets have travel time, so you'll have to get good at this in order to land your shots on maneuvering enemies. The 1.0 version had previously provided a lead indicator, which is absent in the 2.0 version.
- Level Grinding: A staple of Wargaming titles- grind out experience points to upgrade your aircraft and advance to the next tier.
- Lightning Bruiser: Many heavy fighters can be this, as they're generally very fast, mount a large number of forward-facing guns, and pretty tough. Actually getting those guns to bear is another manner entirely.
- Mighty Glacier: Ground-attack planes are flying arsenals that deal ridiculous amount of damage to their dirtside targets and can easily one-shot fighters... if only they could bring their guns to bear, as these lumbering behemoths are usually so ponderous that they are in constant danger of crashing into the ground due to ill-conceived maneuvers.
- More Dakka: The best guns are those that have a fast firing rate and a heavy caliber.
- Mutual Kill: A somewhat frequent outcome, either in the case of a deliberate ramming or a head-on attack, or as an unintentional result of too tight a dogfight.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: XFL-1 Airabonita, F4U-4 Corsair, P-51D Mustang, Supermarine Spitfire, Bristol Beaufighter, De Havilland Mosquito, Il-2 Shturmovik, Lavochkin La-5, Me 262 Schwalbe, Mitsubishi A6M Zero, Kyushu J7W Shinden.
- Never Split the Party: If you separate from your teammates, you will be teamed-up on, and quickly shot down.
- No Swastikas: German planes feature the Balkenkreuzes, but no swastikas.
- Not-Actually-Cosmetic Award: Special medals awarded to you for achievements in battle also give you Tokens- gather enough of these and you can demount complex equipment, purchase hangar slots, and skip mission requirements.
- Overdrive: Planes have a limited boost that will allow them to temporarily go faster. Depending on the aircraft, it can last anywhere from five to thirty seconds.
- Overheating: Fire your plane's guns too long and they'll overheat, limiting their fire rate. Bigger guns overheat faster, so aim carefully.
- Play Every Day: The main incentive for players is a XP multiplier bonus for the first victory which is 2x for normal days and 3-5x for special occasions. Playing every day for a week also gives you a "Unique Supply Crate" that can contain gold, free XP, or even a free premium plane.
- Point of No Continues: Planes can respawn until the Squall Line, the final phase of a battle- once the Squall Line appears, players can no longer respawn and all planes shot down remain shot down.
- Power-Up: Some consumables can increase plane characteristics- whether it's increasing your maneuverability or giving extra time for your plane's overdrive.
- Ramming Always Works: If you ram your plane into another plane, there's a chance for it to take out the enemy, but in 99% of the cases, it also brings you down as well. The only exception is when you're ramming a notably softened fighter (preferably a couple of tiers below you) with an undamaged ground-attack plane, with their insane HP. And even then you may expect to lose as much as a half of your health.
- Real-Place Background: Many of the game maps are based on the real places. "Port", for example, is a pretty faithful recreation of a Novorossiysk harbor, while "National Park" represents the Yosemite Valley (with the easily recognizable El Capitan rock), "Bay" is loosely based on the San Francisco Bay Area, and "Eastern Front" is Stalingrad.
- Regenerating Health: Damaged planes are able to recover a pittance of HP when not in active combat- you won't be able to heal yourself completely without an Airbase, and the amount of HP able to be healed can be reduced by taking more damage.
- Scratch Damage: One of the serious problems in World of Warplanes is when planes fire upon enemies that are two tiers above them: Their guns are exceedingly weak to the point of only causing 0-1 HP of damage against them. This essentially means that the top tier aircraft in a match are almost always the deciding factor while the bottom tier aircraft are hopelessly outgunned and can do very little to affect the outcome of the battle.
- Starter Equipment: The Tier 1 airplanes, most of them being fabric-and-wood biplanes.
- Stuka Scream: Happens when a destroyed plane approaches the ground, just to rub in how badly you've messed up. Also if you take your plane past its speed rating in a dive - which also makes it hard to pull out of that dive.
- Subsystem Damage: The engine, wings, and tail of planes can get damaged, hampering mobility and maneuverability. Also, the pilot or gunner can get injured, causing a loss of accuracy (for the pilot) or being unable to shoot (for the gunner).
- Taking You with Me: Averted. Deliberate ramming is considered unsportsmanlike and the game is programmed to discourage this.
