Another important topic of note is the fact that SPAA are included in the lineups. While Gaijin presumably intends for the random added vehicles to not be powerful (given that the vehicles in the new mechanic are stock and have base crews), they have made a large oversight in their implementation of this mechanic. Most SPAA at the BRs specified, 9.3 and above, have no significant differences between their stock and fully unlocked versions. They have the same radar capabilities, the same missiles, or the same shells.
Therefore, this is an incredibly unjustified mechanic, especially given that players can even receive vehicles above their maximum BR!
I can’t see many people spawning a stock spaa with crew level 1 in order to combat CAS.
All this does is give if CAS an easy target to remove enemy team tickets.
Well, the idea behind them is awesome but the implementation of this idea is horrible. You get stock vehicles with a stock crew that are basically just free kills for the enemies. While i somewhat get it that the crews are stock, i don’t understand how gaijin thought its a good idea to not even give them darts or just the bare minimum, parts and fpe. They are a useless addition and outside of using this feature once or twice to get a lucky kill on a light vehicle/spaa, i always preferred to just leave after i died in the rest of my deck
The better choice would have been for Gaijin to not add this mechanic at all. It further increases the divide between P2W and free players, discourages genuine play of the game, and spits in the faces of those who grinded for countless hours to legitimately get their vehicles.
Maybe, maybe not, but you do realize, some tech tree’s have a huge gap, lets take britain as an example, you jump from 9.0 straight to 10.3, you see the BR gap here right, it isnt optimal to bring a 9.0 tank to 10.3 or 11.3 when uptiered, it just doesnt make sense, and same thing for sweden, 9.3 to 10.7, doesnt work well.
In the current state of the feature, yes, you are correct. Thus I would perfectly support having the default units get some useful level of crew skill (like lvl50 I see a lot of people here proposing), as well as some amount of the upgraded ammunition, and lastly for the ones lacking radar a short-range lead indicator.
This feature, if further-developed, could remove the “helpless tanker victim mentality” that keeps much of the CAS debate going. Especially if paired with copying Naval’s default aircraft slots into the mix.
As a 1DL player it doesn’t effect me at all. I only play about 25% - 33% of the games offered to start with, and those that I am in this doesn’t change the fact that I’ll only be around for one death.
That said, I have no problem with the addition. It addressed none of the reasons why I 1DL (or just Return to Hanger at the match start). But that doesn’t mean others don’t make use of it, which is fine.
Welp… This at least answers that them being stock is now 100% intentional…
Glad to know this was changed last moment to make the randomly spawnable tanks 100% useless (lmao at using HEAT-FS with no laser rangefinder at BR’s 9.3+ what a joke just remove the feature at this point lol).
Overall a major dissapointment but not surprising at all for Gaijoob, they fumble even the most basic implementation of what should be amazing features.
I asked Smin about this (the randomly spawnable vehicles were 100% spaded on the dev server which made them actually useable) and recieved nothing but crickets while he skipped past my question and answered everyone else.
There is still plenty of point researching SPAAG - first of all you can get better rounds or missiles than the default one. The default one serves as a backup to your other one.
This looks like a half assed try to fix ODLs by people who own nothing else than a premium vehicle, without even taking into consideration why people ODL in the first place.
You aren’t getting AAs of your own max BR, so you’ll end with half assed option either way.
Ye I have been around gaming since '94 and seen a good few things. Ranked would be cool but does not feel suited to the game itself.
WT used to be the bridge between Wargaming titles and DCS.
Over the years, mainly since 2022, have watched it change it a cluster of decisions that has very much given the feeling of loosing the essence of what it was meant to be. Especially with decisions like this where 1. You as a new player is enabled to buy your way into top tier and 2. You get given extra things to stay in match that does not really add to the battle. Personally I have gone from a sweat that played daily to maybe touching the game once or twice a week and more casual. The entire in-game sensation feels that of holding hands to get a participation trophy.
I doubt Gaijin wants to have a high skill floor barrier for entry in WT, as they make a lot of money on newcomers. At this point I highly doubt we’ll see something really being done about match quality.