Entry 2 of 7

Modes, realism levels and control schemes

A reader who tries one of these games for an hour, dislikes it and leaves has often only met one third of it. The realism level is not a difficulty slider in the usual sense. It does not make opponents tougher; it removes assistance, removes information, and lengthens the match, and each of those changes what the game is about. This entry explains what each level does, what control hardware each rewards, and how to decide without spending weeks finding out.

Why one client contains three games

The design problem these games face is that their audience wants incompatible things. Some players want a twenty-minute match with an aircraft that behaves predictably. Others want to fly by instruments with nothing on screen but the sky. Building three games is expensive; building one set of vehicles and three sets of rules around them is not. So the vehicles, the tech tree and usually your account progress are shared, while the rules layer changes.

The practical consequence: your vehicle collection carries across levels, so trying another level costs you nothing but the time to learn it. Many players keep a main level and use another for a specific purpose — the assisted level to test a newly researched vehicle, the strict level when they want a long session.

The assisted level

At this level the game actively helps. In the air, an instructor corrects your inputs to keep the aircraft inside its safe envelope, so it resists stalling even when you ask it to. On the ground, aiming is stabilised and the sight tends to show where the round will actually land. Enemy vehicles carry markers, so identification is solved for you, and matches are short.

What it is genuinely good for is learning the vehicles. You can research a tech tree here, find out which vehicles you enjoy, and get a feel for armour and ballistics without also fighting the controls. What it is poor at is teaching the skills the other levels need, because the instructor is doing the part you would otherwise be learning. Players who spend months here and then move up often describe it as starting again, and they are not wrong.

The middle level

The middle level is where assistance is reduced rather than removed. Handling models behave as modelled — an aircraft will stall if flown badly, a tank's gun needs time to settle after moving — but the interface still helps you exist in the world. Markers are limited, often to short range or to teammates only, so identifying a vehicle at distance becomes a real skill. Matches run longer, and losing a vehicle matters more because there are fewer of them to lose.

This level rewards the modelling that the category is built on, which is why it tends to be the centre of gravity for these communities. It is also the level where the interaction between armour, angle and shell type becomes something you can feel rather than read about.

The least assisted level

At the strictest level the game stops helping. Control is by axis: you fly with a stick or equivalent, with the aircraft doing exactly what the model says and nothing more. The external camera is usually restricted or removed, so you are looking out of a cockpit and reading instruments. There are no markers. Maps are larger and there is real travel time before contact.

This level is a different hobby rather than a harder version of the same one. The satisfactions are navigation, identification and the management of a machine, and a session can involve long stretches with nothing happening. A minority of players play here, and many of them play almost nowhere else.

Control schemes and what each level rewards

Hardware follows the level, not the other way round, and nothing here requires a purchase.

Mouse and keyboard

Entirely adequate for the assisted and middle levels, and used by a large share of competitive players in both. Mouse aiming for aircraft is not a compromise at those levels; it is the intended scheme.

Joystick or HOTAS

A stick, and optionally a separate throttle, becomes genuinely useful at the strictest level, where analogue control over several axes at once is what the mode is asking for. It offers little at the assisted level, where the instructor is smoothing your inputs anyway.

Gamepad

Workable for ground vehicles and ships, awkward for fixed-wing aircraft at strict settings, because two analogue sticks have to cover more axes than they comfortably can.

Head tracking

Moving the in-game view by moving your head. It matters only where you are looking out of a cockpit, so it belongs to the strictest level and is of no use below it.

Buying hardware before choosing a level is the common sequence error. Play at the level you think you want for a few weeks on what you already own, and the hardware question answers itself.

Crews, instruments and the things that are not controls

Two further systems change behaviour between levels and confuse newcomers because they are not mentioned on any settings screen.

The first is the crew. Vehicles are operated by modelled crew members with roles — loader, gunner, driver, pilot — and in most titles their proficiency can be developed over time. Losing crew to a hit degrades the vehicle in a specific way rather than reducing a health bar: lose a loader and the reload slows; lose a driver and the vehicle stops. This is visible at every level and decisive at the middle one.

The second is the instrument panel. As assistance is removed, the cockpit gauges stop being decoration. Airspeed, altitude and heading move from the interface into the instruments, and reading them becomes part of flying. Neither system is difficult, but both are usually discovered by accident, which is a poor way to meet them.

Choosing a level in four steps

1. Complete the tutorial first. It is normally where the control scheme and the default level are set, and changing them later means unlearning habits.
2. Play three matches at the middle level in a low-rated vehicle, where mistakes are cheap and matches are slow.
3. Then play three at the assisted level. The contrast is the point: you are testing whether assistance or information is what you actually want removed.
4. Only then consider the strictest level, and treat it as a separate activity with its own learning period rather than as a promotion.

The cost of switching, and why it is lower than it looks

Because progression is shared, moving between levels costs no vehicles and no research. What it costs is a short period of playing badly, and the honest figure is a few evenings rather than a few weeks, provided you drop back to low-rated vehicles while you adjust. Low-rated vehicles are slower, cheaper to repair and far more forgiving of the mistakes you are about to make.

The one thing worth doing before switching is checking how your title pays out at the new level, since a level that pays more per match usually also costs more per loss.

Related terms

• Battle rating
• Flight model
• Line-up
• Repair cost
• Tech tree

Where the title we link to sits

War Thunder, published by Gaijin Entertainment, offers battles with planes, helicopters, tanks and ships on Windows, macOS and Linux. Its tutorial, which the sign-up flow leads into after account registration and email confirmation, is the point at which control and mode questions first come up. We describe no specific mode names, reward rates or settings for it: those are set by the publisher and documented on the publisher's own pages.

Visit the War Thunder website

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