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The reason I chose this title is that several friends of mine who downloaded War Thunder to play Naval have uninstalled it in these two months.
After yesterday’s update, I told them about the changes in naval, and their opinion aligns with mine: Gaijin simply doesn’t understand how to make a fun naval combat game.
Let me list the terrible updates that I think Gaijin has made in naval.
1.Separating the coastal from the bluewater tech trees.
Gaijin separates them, forcing players to spend double the money to purchase primium vehicles.
Moreover, since RP gain is largely dependent on the survival duration of vehicles, and coastal engagements often result in victory or defeat within seconds, this leads to earning only 3-5k RP in most games. Compared to the millions of RP required for the coastal tech tree, this is a very long and painful process.
- Elevating the highest rank from V to VI
Gaijin hasn’t increased the maximum BR, but they have increased the maximum rank.
I think this is because Gaijin wants to generate more revenue from players.
In the past, players could research all vehicles of a nation using Rank IV cruisers like Helena, Prinz Eugen, and Zheleznyakov.
But now, players either have to spend GE to purchase a talisman or spend $69.9 to buy a weak battleship bundle.
3.Repeatedly modifying game mechanics means that the gaming experience from the previous version requires significant changes in the next version.
Like the updates in this version, there has been a significant increase in shell damage. This has made vehicles like the Skr-7 and Atlanta, which have high rates of fire, excessively strong.
There are many other foolish updates, but I won’t address that issue now. What I want to talk about is the inherent problems within naval itself.
1.Map design
Many people have raised this issue: in many maps, there are no cover or obstacles between spawn points.
If you’re a cruiser player, you’ve probably experienced being killed by enemy battleships within the first minute of entering the game.
You can’t dodge shells by maneuvering because spawn points are crowded with ships.You also can’t take cover behind obstacles because the nearest ones are several kilometers away.
2.Extremely unfair matchmaking mechanics.
BB can be matched with CA、CL and even DD in the same game.
Battleship players only need a little skill to easily kill several experienced cruiser players and cruiser players have almost no means of counterattack.
Some might argue: That’s how it is in reality; heavy battleships can easily overpower cruisers.
But this is a game, and games must have balance.
Several years have passed, and the development team has not made any updates to address this issue.
There are many more issues, but I don’t want to discuss them here.
Clearly, naval is now stuck in a vicious cycle: poor balance leads to fewer players, and fewer players worsen the matchmaking balance.
The low number of naval players leads to low revenue, which in turn leads Gaijin to not prioritize naval.
I believe the entire naval warfare mode needs to be rebuilt from scratch, but Gaijin lacks both the capability and the willingness to make updates here.
Why would I say that?
Everyone can see that France still doesn’t have its coastal tech tree, nor do they have 7.0 battleships.
The naval warfare game mode simply applies the gameplay model from land warfare ten years ago.
There are only these two modes of play: two teams fighting over three or one battlefield, trying to get as many kills as possible.
WoWS is very fun, with high gameplay and balance, at the cost of almost losing realism. I really hope WT’s naval can get better, which is an experience not available in other games