Homefront: The Final Post

This will almost certainly be my final post about Homefront mode in World of Tanks - at least until they fix it. 

The Good

I like PVE as a concept. Especially when the player pool is relatively thin, having capable bots that can fill in and provide a fun challenge is a good thing. I'm glad they're experimenting with this mode. It has a lot of potential.

The camo styles you can get for reaching level 2 are nice. 

The Bad

The matchmaking is a disaster. The level of the battle is set by the highest tier tank in the battle. So if there's a single tier III player in your game, the entire match is a Tier III battle.

Here's the thing - fighting off 10 waves of Panthers, Tigers, and a dozen Luchs in a Covenator or an SU-76M is a rage-inducing waste of time. You're not earning any credits, it's pretty much a guaranteed loss, so you're going to spend 15-20 minutes of your life to get maybe 5 Homefront points and nothing else.

It's not especially fun to play a tank with mediocre mobility, low alpha, mediocre pen, and no armor on a small map where even bots will spot you pretty easily. If I could do this mode in my T-44-100, or LT-432, or even an AMX 12T it might be fun for a while. But in a Tier III junkbox...it's just frustrating.

This is made even more important by the fact that only direct damage counts. You can spot, and track, all you want but you get zero credit in Homefront for assisted damage. Which means that there is zero reason to play an aggressive forward position (where you're more likely to get quickly killed) in one of the crapboxes. And honestly when it comes to the Tigers, some of the Tier I tanks can barely pen them at all. You can spot them and you can track them, but that gives you zero XP so....

I had a battle where I had more than 7K of assisted damage...but because I barely did 2K of direct damage I was dead last on the team.

If you level up you CAN choose the M4 Sherman, which would be a much better tank. But you either have to get out your wallet and buy your way to that level, or you have to suffer through a bunch of games in the crapwagons to level up. 

The Ugly

If you're an F2P player you're almost certainly NOT going to get both of the top rewards, even if you play all day, every day. Why? Because you can only play if you have "fuel cans" and you only get a max of 4 or 5 fuel cans a day. To get enough points for those rewards you'll have to play the maximum number of fuel cans and...wait for it...you have to win nearly every battle.

The problem is thanks to the matchmaking and the crapwagons it's impossible to win nearly every battle. In fact, in the last couple of days I think I've seen maybe 1 win in a dozen battles. It's almost always a loss unless you can get an all same-tier game.

That means it's probably mathematically impossible for a F2P player to get both rewards. In fact, you might have to have a bit of luck to even finish one, given the constraints.

Here's QuickyBaby's take on it - including some interesting math about how long and unlikely the grind is.

The mode has potential. But this first try at it is frustrating, and the rewards are unlikely and inadequate. I'm playing exactly as long as it takes me to get the camo styles and not a second longer.

What are your thoughts on Homefront? Share them in the comments below.

GLHF.