Is WarThunder Air coming to an end?

Game Discussion General Discussion
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I think we are heading for a big stagnation right BEFORE Gen.5 Aircraft are added.

These latest 4.5 and Gen.5 are like the carrots many keep dangling on their own minds and are in for the ride to see them getting introduced here eventually.

Gaijin is fully aware that the predatory grind system that keeps the game lucrative and hooks people emotionally, is coming to an end, and we are watching them being even more greedy than ever (auctions?), to milk this game before the player base starts leaving.

Because of this, we probably won’t get the full closure we’re expecting from this game, but instead see gaijin divert their resources to something different.

The game is too repetitive to keep people without new stuff to grind, I find myself playing much less when I don’t intend to grind anything, just to scratch the itch every now and then.

How do you think this game can survive after that? Fixing the gameplay doesn’t make people grind new stuff, adding game modes doesn’t sell premium vehicles. What else? Add paper planes?

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World War One.

I personally don’t think WT will stagnate with planes before it does with tanks.

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That would only work for a new game. WarThunder Two Electric Bogaloo, something like that.

The current system is to grind more modern stuff and without paying (premium time at minimum), the grind is very painful. It doesn’t work backward in tech.

No sales means no money to support maintenance devs and servers, even without any new content.

Furthermore the audience hype mostly focuses on peak WWII and modern stuff

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Considering the slop of Leopard 2, and more to come, tanks is already stagnated, people wants WW1 vehicles just to get worse equipment, super fun playing a vehicle limited to 20 km/h or less with barely armor to sustain high caliber machine guns.

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You seem to have forgotten about modern naval warfare. After the depletion of tanks and planes, gaijin still has a way to add interesting new things to WT.

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If it wasn’t for air events, I wouldn’t touch ARB at all. It has nothing to do with a lack of aircraft to add - still plenty to come, it’s all about the gameplay for me. But I’ve always been a ground player at heart, even when War Thunder was air only prior to 2014. Only jet I really enjoy is the Ayit. Ingame, anyway. I’ll be seeing the F-35 and all the other (Western) goodies at the Avalon Airshow in March. Yanks are bringing the F-22 again, which is nice.

(It’s a shame - Because I have much better stats in jets that I use exclusively in ARB, compared to those that I bring to GRB where I’m lucky to see a jet or helicopter before getting swatted by SPAA, lol).

Forget modern - give me my beloved Iowa and Yamato.

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Don’t they have a seperate game on that?

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well there are still late variants of the 4.5 jets that are already in game that can be added but for the most part some nations are gonna face the same issue they already have in ground rb where theirs just nothing that exists irl that can be added at the top end and the tree effectively stagnates until a subtree is added (like top tier france) thats why i think instead of f15Es and Eurofighters we should have had an f18 update and kept things 4th gen.

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If you have this title and talks about gameplay/ meta/ teams etc. it is the end.
But vehicles? Nah there are still so many cold war and ww1 crafts, even some ww2 planes are missing…

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This is about air. But no I didn’t forgot naval, but like most I don’t have any interest in it. Personally, I don’t have a single minute of naval gameplay.

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I grinded every plane in the game last year and i find myself just not interested at all in most of the new planes. They all play the same to me.

My biggest issue is the extremely limiting Game Modes. War Thunder’s air game modes are aweful. Sim is a good general setup but it hasn’t been updated much in 7ish years.

Air arcade is fun at low tier but completely falls apart beyond 9.0ish.

Air RB is boring at low tier and is now basically just a replacement for air Arcade at the upper tiers. Matches last 5 to 10 minutes and you’re either encouraged to bomb bases or you must play PVP.

Ultimately the air game modes either need to be reworked or they need to introduce a long form mode thats actually been updated.

EC is a good concept but as said above, its had VERY little work over the last 7 years. I mean modern jets are in a match with Mig-15 AI planes. It’s a mode thats just completely out of date.

Ultimately id love to see a new game mode that at least combines aircraft and helicopters that includes PVE and PVP gameplay in a longer form match.

This mode could have maps that utilize ground or air based AI radars in strategic locations to create sections of the map that have different forms of spotting. Id imagine 3 locations of each map:

  • an area covered by friendly radar where enemies are auto-spotted.
  • a neutral area where enemies are not spotted and neither are you - Ground RB spotting mechanics
  • an area covered by enemy radar where you are auto-spotted but enemies are not.

Depending on what area you’re in, rewards for kills could vary. Objectives would be updated versions of EC objectives but more of them - AI ships, AI convoys, AI aircraft, etc.

Id also imagine mechanics that could mitigate the team wipe, such as reduced repair cost and auto-10% boosters if the losing teams tickets fall below 50% or 25% - just to encourage the losing team to stay and fight.

Maybe even having AI wingman aircraft or SPAA to help the losing team if theyre losing by a certain amount.

Even if rewards are slightly nerfed when compared to regular Air RB, i feel like this would be a really nice update for the air and heli community.

War Thunder Air just desperately needs something new. It’s probably the most dated gameplay in War Thunder.

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Arena Flattened jpeg
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Made this Suggestion last year.

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Wasnt that suggestion accepted some time ago? I hope we get it soon

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With Aces of Thunder releasing with WW1 planes it would be incredibly easy for Gaijin to add the WW1 aircraft to the game since both games are/will be running on the same game engine.

Also for WW1

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That’s what I’ve said, I don’t think they will add that here because that will somewhat compete with their new product.

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It was accepted yea. Its like one scroll down in the Suggestions section. I forget how to link it here.

RB EC was passed to the devs last month but so far the devs just seem like they dont want to discuss new game modes for some reason. They tend to just ignore the topic.

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I don’t have high hopes on it. The most we’re probably see again is another half-baked afterthought with new ground targets like they did with the new maps, like mysterious valley. But that hardly changed anything.

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Yeah it’s really unfortunate. I dont quite understand why and i wish Gaijin would just address the issue head-on. Just something simple like

“Somethings being worked on. Stay tuned.”

Or

“We’re not doing new modes because of the matchmaker or the time and investment it would take to get right”.

Just throw us a bone Gaijin. Game modes being outdated for Air (and Ground) have been an issue that’s dominated the forums for years.

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This.

The current cookie-cutter formula is working and is profitable, why bother to change things that don’t directly relate to sales? Its risky and costly.

The reason why they don’t change it is, because us players, keep playing and paying. Also because the game is reaching its end sooner or later

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Id agree that this is probably the most likely reason Gaijin doesn’t expand the air modes but i’d love for them to just say this then.

Playing devils advocate, now is the time to actually invest in the mode, rather then when the game mode is losing players, like naval - which they seem willing to invest time into.

There’s a huge opening for another game to come in and fill this void in the semi-sim market. That alone is a big risk for War Thunder’s future.

There’s only so much excitement that can be generated by new vehicles that play nearly the same as the current ones.