I played a few hours in the game and I find the historical battles to be quite enjoyable- especially for those who fly with the joystick. Not to mention you can win more XP and in game money faster in historical battles. Don't let the game mode fool you, though... the historical battles are hardly close to the real historical battles of WW2. I use a Hotas T-Flight Thrustmaster with detachable throttle and stick control.
A few observations about the game play in historical battle:
1. I've unlocked the P36C and it seems to be a real beast against level 1 planes you go up against (as it should be). The rudder authority for all of the planes I've flown so far seem to be a little awkward. Small adjustments to rudder tends to throw your nose around a lot, making precision shooting difficult (compared to that in Aces High). This could be because of my joystick settings, which I'm still playing around with as I go.
2. The view system needs improvement in my opinion... particularly the cockpit views. You don't have true 360 degree head movement as the game simulates your head being strapped to the head rest. Users with TrackIR do have a leg up on situational awareness in cockpit view but if you're stuck with the hat switch, you will be at a slight disadvantage unless using the external mode view.
3. Stall characteristics are very plain vanilla. Most of all planes in the game stall in the same manner, only difference being the speed and attitude in which the plane stalls at. I'm curious to know if the stall characteristics will better fleshed out with certain planes behaving differently at low speeds. I will also point out that engine torque effects are nearly non existent at this point. Flying at 2,000 feet doesn't feel too much different than flying at 18,000 feet (with exception to top speed for planes at ideal altitude).
4. The immersion is spectacular. AAA fire shakes your cockpit, flying through clouds leave condensation on your canopy, bare metal finishes reflect the surroundings. Graphics are very nice. You are also at risk from friendly fire. It is very possible to fly your plane using your aircraft's instrument panel just like you would in Aces High.
5. Good use of ACM will pay dividends in the historical battles. In arcade mode, ACM is less relevant simply because you have many mouse-flyers using the auto-lead marker to their advantage. Arcade mode is more or less an "all guns shootout" rather than the patient and careful dogfights presented in historical battles.
6. Taxiing around on the pavement is odd. I will taxi around at 25mph and watch my plane slide and skid around as if I'm on a wet, oily ice skating rink.
Overall, I think the game has promise. Hopefully the historical battles and full real battles get more fleshed out. If the developers stop expanding on the historical/full real battle side of things, the game would be a real big disappointment for me. I would also like to see more customizable settings for the joystick as well.
1. Try setting your nonlinearity settings for rudder between 2 and 3. Update your rudder sensitivity to a few bars less than full to reduce bounce. Keep playing with it until it works for your hardware. Don't get me wrong though, gunnery is much tougher in WT than Aces High.
2. Update your view to relative hat control with a button for center view and utilize the 'stepping'. It is more than adequate for HB but within FRB it would take more practice. There are also buttons to configure to move your head around the cockpit. TrackIR is an absolute dream. If that's not possible, I've read about some great success using glovepie to simulate TrackIR snap views (directional view and physical location in the cockpit with a single directional hat press, but will require configuring). A few people have posted their configurations on the forums.
3. All Flight models are not finished, keep leveling up and you'll see the differences in the more commonly used aircraft.
4. Yes, and runs spectacular on my 3 year old video card, and even older cpu.
5. HB is still pretty trashy. There are still mouse aimers with 'Instructor'. To really experience all this game has to offer you Need to fly FRB... Everyone there is playing by the same rules; however, as 80hd said above, the learning curve is steep. I would guess it would take the average player around 2 weeks to get comfortable spotting and tracking enemies. Once you get it, you'll never fly HB again.
6. Update Rudder sensitivity and nonlinearity, and ease into your throttle. Never go full throttle from idle, as you wouldn't in a real aircraft. I highly recommend rudder pedals for full immersion. The relative movement on a twistie just can't cut the mustard.
All the joystick customizations are there, just not in the format you are used to seeing in AH.
Hope this helps!
Good Luck and good Hunting (if you play FRB you know what I mean)!
