I Spent 24 HOURS as a FREE-TO-PLAY Player in War Thunder! 

As a free to play player, I have real experience of how it feels to play without using money

I am a 2000 hour ftp player and I don’t try to grind anymore, I just play the tanks I want to play and accidentally unlock vehicles. I think it’s the best way to go through this game as a ftp as it’s way less rage inducing, and because I only play the vehicles I want to play I often have ridicules stats on some tanks, like 700 kills on the sturm tiger. Edit: it is possible to fully do a tech tree as free to play as I got nearly all German tanks/planes.

Keep in mind you are preforming significantly better than a new player would

The M4A1 being infront of the M4 in the tech tree isn't necessarily chronologically inaccurate as the 'A1' part doesn't denote an upgrade to the tank. The designations are more to do with where that tank was made and which engine it used/was it a cast or welded hull. Most of the variants of the Sherman started production at similar times and were all produced (by different people) all the way through to the end of the war :)

22:45 - The reason you can move with a knocked out engine is because with the new update even if you don't have parts, you can restore things to operation just severely damaged, that's the the difference between the stock parts and improved parts.

im a free to play player🗿

I once had my driver get killed from hitting a rock.

Grind doesn't really start hitting until you're at around 5.0

You still can knock your crew out but you have to go fast to do it 11:32 take me to tank school

The free low-tier premium vehicle is not a new addition, it's been a feature for a while now, at least 4 years. Still, it's definitely needed. Who knows where you'd be in your 24hrs without it. You were able to research tier I and almost all of II in 24 hrs, which is impressive. That would seem promising for new players, but you have to consider that vehicles get exponentially more expensive by tier, both in terms of SL and RP. There are also more vehicles to research per tier. How long would you need to research all of tier III, let alone tiers IV, V, VI, VII? I know you're limited in time, but to truly evaluate the grind (and if it has improved) one would need to spend much more than that, as it slows down massively past tier II. Still, 24hrs is a substantial dedication for a video, and much appreciated! Another factor is experience. You may have had a fresh start in material terms, meaning no SL, RP, Vehicles, Crew skills, etc., but one thing you can't wipe is your knowledge of the game. War Thunder is all about knowledge: vehicles and their weakspots, ammunition types, ballistics, maps and points of interest, how to spend your money and time, and much more. I'm not sure how "seriously" you played during this time, but with all of these advantages I'm sure you did very well, and much better than a beginner. All of this is meant in the kindest way possible, and I thank you for taking the time to make this video. Still, I'm sure there's people out there interested in seeing how a truly new player would do in the same time, with guidance or without. Possible idea for a video, if you have the time or candidates for it? Cheers!

My account is from a time were the game wasn't even released, and I registered for the closed Beta when it was called "World of Planes". Tutorials gave way more Eagles and you could indeed knock out your crew by smashing into walls or rocks. 11:32 - Take me to tank school ^^

As a f2p player, my suffering is immesurable

The problem is once you get up to like rank IV vehicles, the repair cost can sometimes be higher than the SL reward for the match. Usually you'll have to play above average at that rank just to earn SL.

I miss your old avatar 😢

The A number on shermans is engine/drive train designation, not a chronological one

Despite all the issues and how much they ruined the economy recently (though they promised to fix it) the game is still a lot of fun, it's like one of those love/hate relationships that people keep coming back to lol.

depends on your armor thickness i remember doing it a couple of times ramming a giant oak full speed in a BT5 or Stuart damn near redding the whole crew knocking out the transmsion an taking of tracks depending on what part hits first

as a f2p player i can tell you its rough ....you will see lots of wtf moments lol.

As a f2p player with 3000 hours....... This is painful

As far as I know it is still technically possible to knock your crew out by crashing into stuff, you just have to hit it VERY hard

There's a few reasons why the M4A1 comes before the M4 in the tech tree and one of it was pretty shocking. The M4A1 used a cast hull and turret technique whereas the M4 Sherman uses a welded technique with different plates. During combat situations, crews and observers be it friend or foe soon found out that the welded tanks were better as when getting shot at, it just punches a hole thru the tank mostly with AP shells whereas with the M4A1 with it's casted shell would often just disintegrate upon getting hit and it doesn't cause just simple spalling but just straight up massive hull breaks if the molded process was fucked. Not only that, with casted tanks, if they wanna add more armour, it's way harder with the shape the tank look like whereas with the "normal" welded tanks, it's easier to slap extra bolt-on armour on the tank as the tanks are mostly slab-sided which makes bolting additionals on it way easier.

The M4A1 is a modification of the M4 that has a cast hull becuase it was easier and cheaper to produce, but the cast armor has 2 big weak spots that make it worse than the M4, so that’s why

Back in the day you used to take fall/impact damage to your tank crew, also shooting the transmissions of tanks caused you tank to burn down and this was back when it was an instant burn down ammo rack style.

The game really picks up once you have the actual M4... It is a beast... Front angles and armor bounce like a heavy tank

22:47 if a module is destroyed and you dont have parts, it will autorepair to a barely functional state after a while

You're doing a million dollar job. Keep it up. This is the way

"I will play 24h without buying anything with real money, and that's something unusual." Meanwhile me my whole life in wartunder:

As for a challenge in any game in general. Here is my challenge to you. Enter the DCS A10C with the aircraft parked in a cold and dark state.... and get it airborne (without using the auto start feature) Good luck!

4:45 Yes its still a feature its just that u need to hit something that cant break like a wall or enemy tank its pretty easy to lose the driver and trans misson on the m22 if u ran a tank.

I would say the actual grind in this game starts at rank 3-4. Before that you unlock so much it's pretty consistent.

Welcome to the grind

You can damage your tank and injure your crew if you hit things at a high enough speed. It's not a feature that used to exist, it's a feature that still exists. You can also destroy enemy vehicles by crushing them or hitting them at high speed and even planes can destroy lightly armored vehicles by hitting them directly.

Back in 2016 you used to be able to knock a crew out completely with hard impacts. Like ramming someone’s tank or visa versa

F2P War Thunder videos are probably the most relatable videos on RU-vid

I dont play a lot of other NP games but I do just fine in my F2P vehicles in this game. I've since made a few lineups including paid tanks and got absolutely rekt. Paying for tanks is more of a style thing as you can get some unique vehicles not available in main unlock tree, but they're not OP. You can die just as easy in them and you can absolutely dominate using a free tank. All premes really do is give a reasonable bonus to in game currencey earnings and save you a few matches worth of grinding modules. Hope you enjoyed your time with the game

11:32 take me to tank school (also you're a really great youtuber keep up the good work) 👍

1:36 There was tutorials for planes, and they had tutorials for tanks when they were added. 4:48 Correct. Don't know why they removed that feature lol 11:32 TAKE ME TO TANK SCHOOL!

About the crew vs wall portion, yes you could knockout your crew if you hit walls! I remember going downhill full speed in a tetra and upon impact with a chest high stone wall my tank exploded lol.

You remember correctly, hitting obstacles used to knock out crew. it still can happen, but it's much more rare. I love flinging my tank off cliffs and not dealing with the falling damage from 50 feet of freefall in my armored coffin.

As a france main i can confirm free to play is actual hell

Use your left and right brakes to turn. The m10 death toward the end might have been avoided using your brakes :) and remember to ace all ypur tanks, it reduces how much rp you need to grind out.

F in the chat for this brave soul

Free to play can be painful. Best $$ value I found was getting Prem time. Only really started playing Ground Battles myself about Feb this year. In March/April, they had a special in Prem time. I got 180 days for half price. Made life easier. Just found your channel. Enjoyed this video. So I've subbed.

Bro’s living my life

4:48 This is absolutely true. My first ever battle in ground forces, i drove my panzer 2 into a brick wall and knocked my driver out

So I could be wrong but I think completing the other tutorials gets you more golden eagles Also take me to tank school

As a F2P person, It's taken a bit over a year, but I now have 2 techtree's at rank IV (1 is almost rank V), and basically the rest at Rank III.

I seem to remember crew being knocked out back in the day. everytime a huge shell would hit and bounce your crew would be stunned/unconcious.

I've been playing free for years. It's not a problem. Do not try to run too many crews, just makes it longer to spade any. I ran 3 and didn't add another until I got those full. Use the crap out of boosters. Log in near the end of a "day", get a booster. Tank and plane assault, two more boosters, log out and back in when the day resets...for me it's around 6-630 pm. 4 boosters for an evening of playing...or 6 if you do the assaults again. Do the same thing a couple of days later.

You still can damage things by crashing into the wall but it's wayy less than it is in real life and mostly works with very light vehicles like the BT-5

I can’t lie you should have at least 1 million subs or 500k you deserve it

4:50 - I remember that! First match I had with the M22 Locust I hit a large container near I think A point on abandoned factory (the point on the hill top). Knocked out instantly when I barely tapped the darn thing

the crew can get knoked out still

Near the end of tier III is when you really smash into that paywall.

as an old school pre tank player, you could accidentally knock out your loader by backing into a building. They just removed that aspect for balance since it was "unfun" compared to watching your lone tank driver try and drive whilst reloading a giant cannon shell and operating a turret.

M4a1 has less armour (more weakspots). i believe it also has a different engine but im not sure

When you begin you should turn auto repair off and grind all nations and save a lot of SL. Rank I usually does not take longer than 30 min to repair and you have 9+ nations.

Love your videos

Going from WoWs to War Thunder is such a wild ass ride, trying to understand everything is nuts lol, so thank you for the help

I used to be one of these players and man how tough and rough it was. If you are still free to play and haven’t sold your soul to the snail then keep it up. 😅

I remember it was a thing at one stage where you could knock your crew out if you hit some obstacles with your vehicle. Especially things like the Zis or aa guns.

F2p in war thunder isn't too bad for aviation, as I got to the phantoms for USA and GB for free and then got some premium time and premiums after that for the other nations. But ground battles is really really bad for F2p as the rewards are just so dismal

Finally someone understands the pain we, f2p players have to go trough... (I am one of them and getting a KV-1 (ZiS-5) took me around a month of gameplay so like 1 year...)

Now you feel my pain

thx to you i just watched a whole video about the Mandela Effect ( 4:43 )

27:00 Good shot. take me to tank school

11:32- you better take me to tank school PanzerPaw, or I'll be sad I guess

TMTTA - Take me to tank academy. Haha. I've been watching varies players for a while now. I am almost ready to play. Moving soon so will be busy but when I'm done, I'm in!

Been playing ground battles since the closed beta, took me only a year to get to the is2 once ground forces was public/when the economy was perfect and I've been stuck there ever since once they decided fun was not allowed xD. The pain is real when you stick to f2p, I refuse to spend a dollar to just to speed my way through. If you have friends to play with the game doesn't feel so painful though. I just play alone now since everyone has moved on.

I appreciate the video, and I notice you went to RB as soon as you could. Do you get more research points in RB over arcade? I have been playing arcade for a long time and enjoying it, but almost all if not all of the War Thunder channels pretty much ignore it.

11:32 take me to tank school ! Yeet me to top tier Chaps

The key to the grind is to not care about advancing quickly through the tech tree and to enjoy playing the low tier tanks

11:32 take me to tank school!

11:37 take me to tank school

Thanks for the video! Do you or have you played Crossout? I used to play that and World of Tanks but it has been years! I am gonna give this game a shot. God Bless!!

Your vids are the best

the real grind starts from 6+ and the impossible 1 from 8 +... you didnt even scratch the surface haha. but i still like that cheerfull nature.

11:32 tank scool hell yeah

the best use for your starter golden eagles is probably crew slots, although it seems you get less GE nowadays so it may not be possible

ive played 4500 hours in WT. And although I dislike what it has become there is no "need" to spend money in this game. Everything is possible playing for free. I only ever payed for a couple years of premium time to progress a little faster (bought both times at 1/2 price). Got a couple low tier premiums through events or rewards. Apart from that I never bought a top tier premium.

I love how bad it’s gotten that this is now a challenge

You should play BattleTanx Global Assault on a N64 Emulator, it's one of the underrated underdogs of 3DO, campaign is 90s apocalypse story, but the multi-player is heaven. 11:32 TAKE ME TO TANK SCHOOL

I have played WT since the introduction of tanks free to play. Its slow but its fun throughout the years.

I remember playing the british tree when it came out with a buddy and he went down a hill in the tetrach and hit a rock at full tilt, died in spawn.

11:32 - Take me to tank school

11:32 Take me to tank school panzerPaw

Bro really dodged a bullet by not choosing France

11:32 - Take me to tank school! plz!

i've been playing casually since 2015, my progress is at tier 5 Soviet, tier 2 US, tier 3 German, tier 2 UK, and tier 3 Japan currently

I tried getting a fren to play warthunder with me, It was their first tank game and they unironically used the M2A2 everymatch because the 50. looked more powerful than other US tanks at the same BR, I tried to tell them how US tanks have its main armament as their add-ons but he didnt wanna switch it.

being a free to play is fun especially when playing with friends which i do not have

Your just experiencing a fraction of our suffering

yes it's much slow to grind, but for me being just a ftp player from the beginning till the part that all the things i want to get i have now, it's amazing, and i promise the good thing about it is you will be much pro than the players who buyed there way to the top, paying will just make it more faster but its just the same so dont be so left out just because you dont have the money or dont want to spend for games.

Free players should see War Thunder as a light tank simulator.....they won't be disappointed

Fun fact, grinding on AB mode you have more rewards than in RB and SB mode but AB mode are much harder difficulty compared to RB. That's what the tip you may learning it cuz I've been playing it and didn't even realize it until I watched RU-vid short.

11:32 - take me to tank school

I've tried getting into this game a but every time I do I get overwhelmed and just stop playing it i really want to like it cause i seen the newer vehicles I want to play with but I have no idea how to get them or long it takes to get them or how to go about it

I’m at the point where none of my vehicles will take a day to unlock as free to play

Is there a time limit for how long you can be in the plane?

yes you can knock out your crew with a crash but mainly on Ground RB not arcade, and on a solid object not a destructible wall