First off, no hate—genuinely appreciate all the hard work you put into the game. I just want to
offer some of my OPINIONS and constructive feedback on how to improve the state of high-tier
Naval gameplay, especially with the upcoming update likely bringing in a larger wave of players.
Naval has long felt neglected, which has pushed many away from the mode—including myself,
at times. With renewed interest on the horizon, now seems like the perfect time to address some
longstanding issues. Below is a prioritized list of suggestions. If anyone in the community wants
to contribute, please reference the number when replying to share where you think your point
fits in the list.
- Fix RP Rewards (Most Critical)
Currently, Naval RP is heavily kill- and capture-based. This can be frustrating to players who
sink a lot of shells into a battleship, which are tanky by nature, because the final blow gets the
largest cut of the reward—regardless of how much effort went into weakening the target. This
creates a large disconnect between effort and reward.
Suggestion: Reward RP based on the percentage of crew lost, with linear scaling as crew
drops (especially between 60% and 40%, where crew loss starts to slow). Fixing this would
address many downstream issues, which I’ll mark with (1) where applicable.
2 (1). Stop Letting Seaplanes Capture Zones
This one’s pretty straightforward. Seaplanes shouldn’t be able to cap zones—doing so breaks
immersion and balance.
3 (1). Revamp Naval Cap Zones at High Tiers
Cap zones work well in Coastal and early Bluewater (reserve to ~6.0 BR), where they
encourage close-quarters combat. However, at top tier, Domination mode often favors small
Coastal boats over battleships. It’s not uncommon for a low-BR Coastal vessel to cap two zones
before a battleship can even get to one—leading to frustrating and unbalanced matches.
Many players exploit this to grind Coastal ships in top-tier battles, since there are often only one
or two other Coastal players in the match. It’s easy XP, and while I don’t blame them, it
undermines the core experience of high-tier Naval.
Suggested changes:
● Rework high-tier Naval maps to better match the balance found in ground and lower-BR
naval battles.
● Each side should have two spawn zones and three cap zones, laid out so that the
middle cap is equidistant from both spawns, and each spawn’s closest cap is the
same distance from their respective spawns.
● Caps should be larger to reflect the scale of Bluewater ships. While close-quarters
action can be fun, it shouldn’t be a requirement for battleship gameplay—especially
since caps drain tickets quickly.
● Put Costal Spawns next to Battleship spawns at top tier Blue water(currently ~6.3+)
These adjustments would make Naval Domination more strategic and fair for all ship types,
especially at high BRs.
-
Address Overpowered Meta Ships
While historical accuracy is important in War Thunder, it’s been bent before for balance—e.g.,
prototype/TDs/Paper vehicles like the Challenger 3, 2S38, or Sovetsky Soyuz, or changes to fire
rates like on the Type 10, Bradley, or slow reload on really all manually loaded MBTs.
Case in point: The Scharnhorst, while not overpowered in terms of post-pen damage, is still a
major outlier due to its extremely thick armor and fast reload. It’s very difficult for most ships to
penetrate, while it can reliably pen others—even if its shells don’t do massive damage after
impact. Combined with its survivability, this makes it feel oppressive and frustrating to fight,
particularly when torpedoes and dive bombing have little effect…
Suggestion: Up-tier or nerf Scharnhorst appropriately. Don’t hesitate to apply this approach to
other outliers as needed, but Scharnhorst feels most urgent. -
Fix Top-Tier Coastal Spawns and BR Compression
As someone who plays both Coastal and Bluewater at high tier, I’ve noticed that the 3.7-4.3 BR
Coastal spawn advantages can break balance and in general are worse than blue water.
Example: Le Orla is incredibly dominant thanks to its Coastal spawn and high firepower; I’ve
personally had matches where I wiped out groups of players or bots in seconds with little risk, it
just steel clubs. The Terra Nova performs very well when it’s down-tiered—its high fire rate
shreds reserve destroyers—but in uptiers, it struggles badly due to lack of pen against 5.0 ships
such as the Moffet. The spawn system and BR placement simply don’t suit its design.
Suggestion:
● Begin with BR decompression.
● Introduce a new hybrid “Bluewater-Coastal” spawn for vessels that sit in the middle
ground and don’t quite belong in either existing category. -
Introduce Shellable Coastal Installations for Battleships
To bring more immersion and strategic depth to Naval, especially for battleships, I’d love to see
a new mechanic: coastal fortifications and installations scattered around the map that can
be shelled and destroyed. These would not respawn, and could work similarly to how artillery,
pillboxes, and howitzers function in Air RB.
This would not only make battleships feel more purposeful and active—especially during
downtime or long-distance travel—but also better reflect their historical role as long-range
bombardment platforms.
Suggestion:
● Add fixed coastal targets (e.g., bunkers, artillery positions, radar stations, fuel depots)
around the map.
● Give rewards for destroying them (small RP/SL), like pillboxes in Air RB.
● Make them visible at range with accurate spotting mechanics.
● Bonus: Could even tie some of them to secondary objectives for additional tactical depth.
This change would help battleships feel more involved throughout the match, without relying
entirely on player ship interactions, and create a stronger sense of purpose aligned with
real-world naval roles.
We really do appreciate the incredible work you put into modeling ships and preserving
historical detail. That said, many of us are hoping for deeper improvements to actual gameplay
balance.
Personally, I’d love to see more experimental/paper designs added if balance is
maintained—like the Montana, Lion or N3-class, H-3, A-150, or Project 24.
Thanks for listening—and please consider adding the King George V, I love this ship!
—Kwabec