Is sim worth playing?

[PilotBoris 9]

On 15/12/2022 at 16:20, Lieutenant_Camel said:

do the developers even know that EC has potential?

or what people here want?

 

They Prob know what we want.

 

But they don't care about us, as seen with the recent updates to the Economy and repair cost's.

 

If they did Care, they would buff the Rewards for Sim, Instead of punishing all Sim players for the actions of A few, which again they caused in the first place by constantly Nerfing the Economy.

 

A Dev that actually cares for its players and not their money Would Buff The Economy of sim and buff the AI so that Cheese methods wouldnt work.

 

Like the AFK bombing.

[__Tigerwolf__ 100]

if you value your time do not play sim right now on war thunder. go play any other simulator even the old pentium 2 processor game FALCON4 is better than what we have currently. If you wont take my word for it look at this realistic battle screenshot.

 

Premium aircraft, premium time.....in a game mode giajin actually supports.....and it pains me to say that because FULL REAL BATTLES in world of warplanes was my first intro to simulators.

 

I'm willing to bet you could play for 2 hours in sim and not get similar results. The RP might be right on the money comparing 6 minutes ARB to 2 hours ASB......but in the SL department per minute of time invested....play 1 life arcade (ARB)

[QuaQ 29]

The Heck no!

ECONOMY IS LIKE UNFUNNY JOKE. THE ONLY WAY TO EARN ANYTHING, FROM SL TO RP IS TO BOMB OR STRAFE GROUND TARGETS OR AIRBASES. IF YOU WILL EVER CONSIDER TO FIGHT OTHER PLAYERS, ILL GIVE YOU AN ADVICE, ITS A WASTE OF YOUR GOD DAMN TIME. NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF PREMIUM PLANE YOU'LL TAKE, OR GREAT BOOSTER YOU GONNA TURN ON, YOU'LL LOOSE SL AND GRIND ABSURDLY LOW AMOUNT OF RP. ONLY THING THAT IS LEFT PROFITABLE IS SIM GROUND BATTLES. ONLY THAT!.

[ethantokes 73]

I legit have lost 1 mil lions today alone playing sim.

[TriATK 27]

The current patch already give you the answer: it's not worth playing SIM anymore, just  go buy RP using your GE.

[Bismarck852 46]

I will put it this way.. 

If you are passionate about military vehicles and aircraft, and you want to experience them in different gameplay style than arcade like what realistic battles offer... please dont think that air sim or ground sim has what you are looking for.

It doesnt bring anything, and i mean litteraly anything different from realistic apart from the fact that its more unbalanced and frustrating.. same maps, same scenarios, 

At this point i think it is 100x better option to find a job at mcdonalds to earn some money for flight sim setup and start playing dcs and il2.. yes they dont offer the huge variety of vehicles and aircraft but.. basically those are games that devs care about and try to improve them for the players not for their big and deep pockets.

We have been ( the sim community) screaming for change for few years now and see where it got us... few steps back.. 

Long story short, no its absolutely not worth playing a single minute, in fact i honestly see a point where they just remove it all together.

[[email protected] 17]

On 19/12/2022 at 00:51, Schindibee said:

What I noticed in @SirWellingt0n post, is the extreme cost of respawns: You must have spawned 8-10 or more times in this one match - quite a lot.

I find that's one of the most important aspects in this game mode, trying to not die too often!

 

I believe 6-9 is a better estimate. I'd guess 7 based on the mod research. While not dying is definitely the way to make sim work for SLs, nine deaths in a 3 hour game would be on par with air RB with 20 minute matches. If actively engaging in combat, a death every 10 minutes doesn't seem unreasonable to me from a fun gameplay perspective.

 

On 23/12/2022 at 00:55, Schindibee said:

 Still, before getting the Intruder this patch, it was mainly the A-7 I've flown a lot in Sim for US, and that one is expensive to get killed in. 

The A-7 (especially the A-7D) is one of the least expensive US tech tree jets to fly based on rewards vs spawn cost. US tech tree jets generally take 15-20 minutes of 100% activity play to break even on SL. The A-7 comes in at the low end around 13-14 minutes, while the B-57A tops the chart at a full 30 minutes.

 

That said, I really enjoy flying in sim. I really enjoy planes with detailed cockpits. I enjoy flying in the terrain. I play on console and felt at a disadvantage in air RB, which is less noticable in sim. I'm terrible at air combat especially with guns, so I generally avoid it until the end of a match or if I am very confident in a particular match up.

 

The economics are frustrating to grind using tech tree jets (no premium) and limit my ability to take on air combat fights because of the high risk of dying. FWIW, I have been playing about 6 months predominantly in sim and I'm about 60k RP and 1M SL from unlocking rank 7.

 

Since I am grinding, I often only have enough money for a few spawns, so I have to quit lobbies where I am outmatched. In a good game I can make 100k profit in 90 minutes. A bad game can lose 80k in 20 minutes. Learning a new plane is generally expensive as accidental deaths are likely due to different flight model performance, lack of ordinance, too much ordinance for performance, game bugs, new control mappings, new BR, etc.

 

I am finally at a place where I have several planes to choose from that I enjoy flying and that will earn me TT progress. This definitely makes the BR rotation more fun as it adds variety and options as at some BR matches are hard to find. All in all it's worth it for me, but sometimes I have to walk away for a bit.

 

 

[Schindibee 2,856]

On 09/01/2023 at 16:44, Bismarck852 said:

I will put it this way.. 

If you are passionate about military vehicles and aircraft, and you want to experience them in different gameplay style than arcade like what realistic battles offer... please dont think that air sim or ground sim has what you are looking for.

It doesnt bring anything, and i mean litteraly anything different from realistic apart from the fact that its more unbalanced and frustrating.. same maps, same scenarios, 

At this point i think it is 100x better option to find a job at mcdonalds to earn some money for flight sim setup and start playing dcs and il2.. yes they dont offer the huge variety of vehicles and aircraft but.. basically those are games that devs care about and try to improve them for the players not for their big and deep pockets.

We have been ( the sim community) screaming for change for few years now and see where it got us... few steps back.. 

Long story short, no its absolutely not worth playing a single minute, in fact i honestly see a point where they just remove it all together.

 

I have to say that I very much disagree with almost everything you mentioned here - but that's of course just an opinion.

 

My take:

 

I like to play attackers/bombers a lot, and Sim EC is the only game mode where I can do that without being forced to operate directly under a big, crazy unrealistic dogfight furball with a diameter of 5, 10 kilometers. In Sim; i can chose a "safe" route to the target, attack it, and if getting found by the enemy defenders, try to defend myself and get back.

Admittedly, I have not played aircraft a lot in the last 2,3,4 years, and only started again 3,4 months ago when I got a stronger PC and VR goggles, which really has been a complete gamechanger for me. I've always more liked the sim aspect most, as I am one of those passionate about the vehicles and technology, and not at all the "arcadey style gamer". Sure for more realism other products like DCS would be better, but nowhere you will get this mix and variety of vehciles as we have in WT, even if it obviously means that the way the game is set up, it's in some regards quite far off form a deeply immersive sim like the DCS series.

 

As to gains, both in SL and RP, I keep repeating myself: It is really especially with Sim EC that I have gained way more SL and RP tahn in the same time played in RB (never touch AB, admittedly). Currently I'm for example researching the F-5E in the US Tree. I started the research the day before yesterday, and if the next days will be any similar like yesterday, I'll have the F-5E researched in 3, 4 days. And I just started with the F-104 before it a week ago. With RB I struggle muuuch more to get ahead in RP. Again however, I need to mention that I'm a dedicated mud mover, and the RB meta isn't favourable for that.

 

Generally, I can also say that atm at least the community is also quite friendly, even between teams. I guess this is because the players are quite dedicated to the game mode, there's fewer of them, and one keeps running into the same people again and again, and one starts to exhange form time to time a few words, even with the enemy.

FInally, of course one can claim that devs put less effort into Sim, but in my observation it's not very fair. Yes, there are shortcomings, yes, some things could be changed - but telling people to stay away from Sim is exactly the wrong message. On the contrary: Invite people in! Help grow a strong Sim playerbase, which may have a bigger impact on development, than scare them away! Encourage them to try it out and see for themselves if the playstyle suits them or not.

[Bismarck852 46]

I forgot to mention that i was specificaly talking about ground sim battles.

in fact in different post i wrote that, we wish that ground sim would be based on the same BR principle like air sim.. and i also mention in this post that yes downside to other sim games is the lack of variety of vehicles and aircraft.

i cant talk about issues that players have with air sim as i dont play them at all.. but the ground sim needs serious rework.

I will quote myself here " it doesnt bring anything different from realistic" .. well it doesnt. You get to play the same maps (sun city, advance to rhine, alaska etc) even at top tier... 

And how do you invite people in??? What do you lure them with into sim? Different matchups? ( t72A against leo 2a6??) or with some different scenarios?? Or different objectives for helicopters and planes?? Its excatly the same as realistic but without the hud.. lets say i want to play a hind... i get to play it every 4 days just to get spawn sniped by adats or flakrad.. does that sound fun??? If i want to play abrams.. i spawn in and get sniped by ka50 or spawn rushing t80bvm in first two minutes... does that sound fun??? Does that sound like a simulator?? 
and those are just few of many many reasons why ground sim is just not worth the time..

a guy who wants to try sim battles and is looking forward to it without knowing what is he going into, will find out the issues in matter of just few games..

Ans you are talking about inviting players to create a bigger player base that can reflect the issues and get them solved.. 

how excatly will more players in games solve this? It would just me more players with ka50s, AAs and spawnrushers in single game.

Like whe have not been screaming for ground sim change for years now.. and nothing has been done. In fact i think that if you bring arcade mode players into sim and they start tlaking about problems from their point of view, it would just make sim even worse than it is

So what is the point to play sim battles? 
if someone wants to start screaming on me that i am another realistic battles funboy, i am not... i try to play sim battles whenever i have time.. but i always leave frustrated.. i hate fast paced small cqb maps with tons of players in realistic... but in the current state of sim i just cannot have fun anywhere else than realistic... 

i dont care about grind, i have grinded what i wanted years ago and now i just enjoy playing it over and over again.. but it gets repetetive 

and that where sim should come into.. offering different gameplay

[Toastfrenzy 20]

I've dabbled with sim in the past both ground and air, air I find challenging because of unable to comfortably look around so get caught out a lot, which sort of is frustrating for me. Ground is a lot better but, what do I get out of sim.

 

I haven't simmed for over a year, possibly more but I ground simmed yesterday(br 1.0 -3.0) and it felt good to be back, took a couple of matches to get back into the swing of things but ended the day on a 7-1 streak (a win too) but got TK'd right at the end. I was in the Italian M3A3 so I'm sort of expecting it tbh, even though I heard the approaching tanker and announced my position on the radio/ map but the outcome was the same.

 

My view on sim is I only do it for the buzz, getting all bushed up and going hunting, the challenge for me is worth it. Definitely don't do for rewards, progression etc, that's what RB AB is for. Not saying getting SL & RP or more of the same wouldn't be beneficial but, for me, it's not the be all an end all. The matches can't be rushed, takes a lot of patience to do well and keep the momentum going, definitely not able to pot shot at everything red or at vehicles without a marker.

 

In my opinion sim is worth playing as I play/use it for what it is, I don't expect greatness or rewards as I enjoy it. As with other modes I want to do well and I take time to learn and move on and not dwell on those seemingly impossible (ULQ haha) shots or the ghost shells that get me returned back to the hanger.

 

You could even broaden this view on why do you play WT, what do you get out of it? As this will help with why do I even sim at all.

 

But my main source of WT play is in the RB theatre both ground and air. Oh yes, I do rage quit matches, as we all do, so I'm also part of the problem.

[Schindibee 2,856]

1 hour ago, Bismarck852 said:

I forgot to mention that i was specificaly talking about ground sim battles.

...

My bad actually, I kinda was in the whole conversation exclusively thinking about Air, not Ground.

 

In general, I believe the Sim game modes could also benefit if achievements there would also count toward daily tasks for the Battlepass.

[[email protected] 27]

I just started playing sim air yesterday and I love it. I will never go back to realistic air, which is what I was playing.  The game is much more immersive. I only play WW2 era planes and I actually was able to make money even though I’m new to sim. I got a couple of kills and tried not to die. The feeling of getting a kill in sim will make you rock hard. I think more console players would give it a try if the default controls were not so terrible. It took me awhile to set them up properly, but once I did it’s amazing. I wish I could put my settings out there for console players to download, but I don’t believe that’s possible. Anyways, sim is the only way to play in my book.

[Defbond 534]

Sim in its current state is not worth playing if you are new to this game. The Dev making the comments on this thread is representative to Gaijin's knowledge of sim as a whole, aka completely disconnected. He spends the majority of his battles in tank sim and his comments about this game mode should not be considered representative.  

Sim used to be a good mode about 1-2 years ago but Gaijin decided to completely destroy it, here's how they did it:

• They removed individual rewards and introduced an incomprehensible  system based on "useful actions". This means that as long as you do SOMETHING every 15 minutes you will be paid a capped amount, a pathetic amount which won't earn you any money unless you are playing premium.
• They did this to prevent Chinese farmers from exploiting SIM by killing each others alt accounts, it was a complete failure as the farmers now form entire lobbies to kill each other over and over. Even though they are reported on a daily basis, Gaijin still does nothing. When literally the entire sim community wrote and signed an open letter to Gaijin to fix the economy, they completely ignored us. They simply don't care.
• They recently nerfed RP to the point where even with a premium plane you would need to play about 10-20 hours to unlock a top tier aircraft. This is if you are able to hit your "useful actions" cap each 15 minutes, otherwise forget about it.
• Spotting is terrible, in a game mode where you don't have tags spotting should be working. Targets at a distance appear as a big dot if they are over the horizon, when you zoom in on them they disappear. Eventually a target will stop rendering once it gets close enough and then render again. It's just one of the hundred game breaking bugs that have been reported years ago but never addressed.
• Ground pounding is out of the question unless you have guided missiles, Gaijin introduced very OP AAA on all of the ground battles, no one asked for this, after months of complaining they toned down the AAA but its still extremely deadly. It's not worth attacking ground targets, the amount of points you get is very little and the effort and danger is very high, most people just mindlessly bomb bases all day, because that pays more.
• Gaijin recently admitted that they will not be investing anything in sim mode, because it's simply not worth it. After chasing away 3/4 of the playerbase from their game they decided that the remaining people shouldn't be invested in even though these people all have premiums and sink tons of money into this game. It's quite simple, if you can afford a sim setup, joystick, pedals, VR, etc...you can afford to buy GE and premium planes. Gaijin doesn't understand this because they simply view sim as a thorn in their side that isn't dying quickly enough.
• This used to be the best optimized game for VR, now it's one of the worst, aside from the abysmal spotting system, the game stutters especially at high tier. This has been reported on since Red Skies but they chose to completely ignore the playerbase yet again.
• Literally all of the objectives in EC, except capping points, are broken. The convoys are defended by AAA so OP that you frequently die just by dogfighting near them, the AI aircraft that spawn are going so fast that in some cases its almost impossible to catch them, this was fixed at one point but now it has reappeared in the Rocky Canyon map. 
• Sim players love to exploit and will do use any dirty little trick because they are starved for profits. This includes flying with an open cockpit so they can hear missiles and other players, J'ing out, out of spite when losing a dogfight, and using Christmas smoke to blind you. Sim is extremely toxic, and you can't blame these people, Gaijin drove them to this.
• Most sim players are resorting to playing other modes that they hate just to earn some SL, because they can't earn enough in SIM.

 

I have been playing WT for 9 years and was playing SIM before EC even came out, the game has its charm, but if you are looking to profit in SB its not worth it. If you are looking for a more realistic experience with a joystick then please do yourself a favor and check out IL-2 or DCS, these games may have their problems as well but they pale in comparison to what WT Sim has become, a complete travesty ruined not only by dishonest devs but also Gaijins extremely greedy management. They have destroyed this mode and should be ashamed of themselves, especially since WT started as a SIM game.

[Schindibee 2,856]

2 hours ago, Defbond said:

Sim in its current state is not worth playing if you are new to this game. The Dev making the comments on this thread is representative to Gaijin's knowledge of sim as a whole, aka completely disconnected. He spends the majority of his battles in tank sim and his comments about this game mode should not be considered representative.  

 

There is no dev in participating in this thread. I can only assume you mean me, and yes, while I'm staff, I'm just a game master, so not even a paid employee of Gaijin, and certainly noone who has any influnece on development. Claiming that my knowledge of this game mode is representative of Gaijins knowledge of this mode is completely wrong: It's only representative of me and myself only. Note how I really try to express this by using formulations like "my take", I believe", "for me", exactly to disconnect my personal statements form any "offical character" my input could be interpreted in.

 

I played tank battles mainly for the last few years, true, but now switched to Air Sim EC almost exclusively since a few months ( since I got  VR goggles), and have gained a lot of experience there, at least about the current state. But admittedly, I can't say how it was a year or three back, so can't (and wont) claim it's still the same - or that it doesn't have it's issues. T

 

Only thing I keep repeating is that for ME and how I play it this game mode is not only fun, but also profitable. Simple as that.

[Exozet 15]

In my opinion, EC SB is currently only worth playing if you play low BRs, or mainly bomb bases in High Tier BRs (10+).

 

It is True, that you can make profits in this game mode. But only if you play extremely well and don't get shot down more than 3 times.

If you are average, let's say <1,0 KD, you will not gain SL or RP.

 

On 17/01/2023 at 09:06, Schindibee said:

There is no dev in participating in this thread. I can only assume you mean me, and yes, while I'm staff, I'm just a game master, so not even a paid employee of Gaijin, and certainly noone who has any influnece on development. Claiming that my knowledge of this game mode is representative of Gaijins knowledge of this mode is completely wrong: It's only representative of me and myself only. Note how I really try to express this by using formulations like "my take", I believe", "for me", exactly to disconnect my personal statements form any "offical character" my input could be interpreted in.

 

I played tank battles mainly for the last few years, true, but now switched to Air Sim EC almost exclusively since a few months ( since I got  VR goggles), and have gained a lot of experience there, at least about the current state. But admittedly, I can't say how it was a year or three back, so can't (and wont) claim it's still the same - or that it doesn't have it's issues. T

 

Only thing I keep repeating is that for ME and how I play it this game mode is not only fun, but also profitable. Simple as that.

 

@Schindibee I know that some players can make profits in this game mode. But that is the exception. I've been playing SB since 2016 if I am not mistaken and the gains have decreased drastically over time. Most of my friends have lft WT behind because it simply ain't fun anymore. I'd say that No-One wants to be thinking about the SL loss while flying. It is not fun anymore.

 

Only reason why I got dragged back to WT is because I have an unhealthy attachment to the F-16 and want it. Otherwise I would not have returned. And it has not gotten any better since last I played it (like a year ago).

 

I sincerely hope they fix this. Otherwíse SB will die.

Edited January 23 by Exozet
forgot to add quote

[NihilVEVO 3]

No, its not worth it. It is fun, but with economy like this it will die soon.

[Flash24rus 0]

3 hours ago, NihilVEVO said:

No, its not worth it. It is fun, but with economy like this it will die soon.

 

Modern warfare is expensive thing. WWII era is the best.

[__Tigerwolf__ 100]

On 16/01/2023 at 23:55, Defbond said:

Sim in its current state is not worth playing if you are new to this game. The Dev making the comments on this thread is representative to Gaijin's knowledge of sim as a whole, aka completely disconnected. He spends the majority of his battles in tank sim and his comments about this game mode should not be considered representative.  

Sim used to be a good mode about 1-2 years ago but Gaijin decided to completely destroy it, here's how they did it:

• They removed individual rewards and introduced an incomprehensible  system based on "useful actions". This means that as long as you do SOMETHING every 15 minutes you will be paid a capped amount, a pathetic amount which won't earn you any money unless you are playing premium.
• They did this to prevent Chinese farmers from exploiting SIM by killing each others alt accounts, it was a complete failure as the farmers now form entire lobbies to kill each other over and over. Even though they are reported on a daily basis, Gaijin still does nothing. When literally the entire sim community wrote and signed an open letter to Gaijin to fix the economy, they completely ignored us. They simply don't care.
• They recently nerfed RP to the point where even with a premium plane you would need to play about 10-20 hours to unlock a top tier aircraft. This is if you are able to hit your "useful actions" cap each 15 minutes, otherwise forget about it.
• Spotting is terrible, in a game mode where you don't have tags spotting should be working. Targets at a distance appear as a big dot if they are over the horizon, when you zoom in on them they disappear. Eventually a target will stop rendering once it gets close enough and then render again. It's just one of the hundred game breaking bugs that have been reported years ago but never addressed.
• Ground pounding is out of the question unless you have guided missiles, Gaijin introduced very OP AAA on all of the ground battles, no one asked for this, after months of complaining they toned down the AAA but its still extremely deadly. It's not worth attacking ground targets, the amount of points you get is very little and the effort and danger is very high, most people just mindlessly bomb bases all day, because that pays more.
• Gaijin recently admitted that they will not be investing anything in sim mode, because it's simply not worth it. After chasing away 3/4 of the playerbase from their game they decided that the remaining people shouldn't be invested in even though these people all have premiums and sink tons of money into this game. It's quite simple, if you can afford a sim setup, joystick, pedals, VR, etc...you can afford to buy GE and premium planes. Gaijin doesn't understand this because they simply view sim as a thorn in their side that isn't dying quickly enough.
• This used to be the best optimized game for VR, now it's one of the worst, aside from the abysmal spotting system, the game stutters especially at high tier. This has been reported on since Red Skies but they chose to completely ignore the playerbase yet again.
• Literally all of the objectives in EC, except capping points, are broken. The convoys are defended by AAA so OP that you frequently die just by dogfighting near them, the AI aircraft that spawn are going so fast that in some cases its almost impossible to catch them, this was fixed at one point but now it has reappeared in the Rocky Canyon map. 
• Sim players love to exploit and will do use any dirty little trick because they are starved for profits. This includes flying with an open cockpit so they can hear missiles and other players, J'ing out, out of spite when losing a dogfight, and using Christmas smoke to blind you. Sim is extremely toxic, and you can't blame these people, Gaijin drove them to this.
• Most sim players are resorting to playing other modes that they hate just to earn some SL, because they can't earn enough in SIM.

 

I have been playing WT for 9 years and was playing SIM before EC even came out, the game has its charm, but if you are looking to profit in SB its not worth it. If you are looking for a more realistic experience with a joystick then please do yourself a favor and check out IL-2 or DCS, these games may have their problems as well but they pale in comparison to what WT Sim has become, a complete travesty ruined not only by dishonest devs but also Gaijins extremely greedy management. They have destroyed this mode and should be ashamed of themselves, especially since WT started as a SIM game.

 

I wonder what World of Planes thinks about WarThunder 2023. Does it recognize itself?

[Defbond 534]

49 minutes ago, __Tigerwolf__ said:

I wonder what World of Planes thinks about WarThunder 2023. Does it recognize itself?

That's sad bro, I never thought it would come to this

[__Tigerwolf__ 100]

8 minutes ago, Defbond said:

That's sad bro, I never thought it would come to this

 

I still play the game every day. I am so sad that I can't enjoy sim. I can't play sim to complete the battle pass. I can't play sim to grind out my tech tree. I can't play sim because the repair costs are so egregious even with premium account and premium time.

Why is this game mode so neglected.

[Defbond 534]

1 hour ago, __Tigerwolf__ said:

I still play the game every day. I am so sad that I can't enjoy sim. I can't play sim to complete the battle pass. I can't play sim to grind out my tech tree. I can't play sim because the repair costs are so egregious even with premium account and premium time.

Why is this game mode so neglected.

I have resorted to playing the USS Profit in order to grind SL, simply because I can make over 100k in about 15 min and it would take me a good hour to do the same if I only spammed a premium vehicle in EC. 

[LeoNerdo 11]

I made a looong brake of ~6 years and came back now with Hotas and VR goggles. 
At the moment I´m in rank IV of the german tree and it is really fun an still profitable. But the jump in spawn costs from rank III is crazy. (from ~3000 to ~8000-24000! SL) 

You have to care a bit more about your plane, but if you don´t die to often out of stupidity you will go out with a Sl gain. 

Is it a time effective grind? Hell no! But I´m playing 99% for the fun, so as long as I don´t loose SL overalI, I´m fine.  

I think I will unlock my beloved Mig15bis and then stay in rank IV and V.

 

If I want BVR and modern avionics, I play DCS. 

Edited February 20 by LeoNerdo

[Rataz 43]

I find it fun.

[[email protected] 2,175]

I have mainly been playing sim for around the past 2 months and there are a couple of things about it and the question probably needs to be broken down into different parts.
 

1. Is Sim worth playing for the fun factor?
Yes...kind of...maybe. It really depends on the time of day, the plane, and the lobby. It's alright but you really have to find the right game to play in because most lobbies are mainly empty or filled with people just grinding via bombing points. Or one team is just completely outnumbered. There also tends to be a lot of down time where games that are mostly full will eventually trickle down into a mostly empty lobby depending on which team is doing well.

2. Is Sim worth playing because its a more complete game mode?
Not really. It has just as many bugs and very annoying idiosyncrasies as any other game mode. There is a lot of stuff that should be fixed or could be done a lot better. Things like how finnicky the spotting system is or how on some maps the AI targets are too fast to catch, or they are copies of planes that are on your team. Or features that end up just being aggravating like third person gunners or lobbies that are 90% Ju-288s that you really can't safely attack from any direction.

3. Is Sim worth playing for the rewards?
No. The time you spend in SB is going to pay significantly less than time spent in Air RB regardless of how well you play.

 

Spoiler

 

These are the rewards from 2 hours of gameplay for what I would consider an exceptional game. Sure this game was fun...but if you are a player that needs silver lions to progress your time is better spent elsewhere. In the same timeframe in Air RB I can earn basically 10x as much while performing comparatively worse.

Basically with the rewards structure the way that it is you will need to spend time in other game modes in order to allow yourself to play SB. Or you just need to leave games early if it looks like the enemy team will be able to shoot you down on a somewhat consistent basis. 

[MDC5000 52]

For the fun aspect of course its worth ,its the best game mode in WT .Economy is a joke now and anyone saying that he can make more in SIM than in RB in a specified timeframe has no idea what he';s talking about,at all .