So, I don’t disagree with your argument, and perhaps the grind could still be reduced. Especially for the mid/lower ranks. But, I don’t feel it is totally out of line with the game being over 10 years old now. Effectively 10+ “expansions” worth of content. And they are obviously trying to get more people to purchase a high/top tier premium to supercharge the grind.
This system is pretty much a given with a freemium game. Using a high/top tier premium coupled with premium time makes grinding a new tech tree a breeze. Not only do you get RP boosts from both the prem time and the prem vehicle itself, but that high tier premium’s base RP % is incredibly high compared to the required RP’s needed for the low/mid vehicles. I can unlock a new tech tree vehicle in 5 to 10 matches. Can get to the high/top vehicles in a couple weeks or a month. Only really slows down once you get to the top top vehicles.
Again, I am not disagreeing with your sentiment, but there really isn’t another way for a company to effectively make money with a freemium game. The alternative would be to make the game subscription based for everyone, something like $10 a month. But this would very likely drastically reduce the player count, and thus drastically increase queue times.
So, overall, to keep the player count high, and keep the game profitable, the freemium system is probably the better/best system to use. We have 3 main types of modes, land, sea, and air, and each with its own game type. Arcade, Realistic, and Sim. Then you have to factor in the BR “brackets”. 9 types of matches, each with something like 10+ BR brackets.
Effectively ~100 different groups of queues. Lowering the player count even slightly would make queue times skyrocket.
Premium vehicles, premium time, and all the other paid items pay for the players who play for free. And those free players pay with their time, spending 2x-4x longer grinding new vehicles, keeping the matches populated and queue times reasonable.