Long-time player and really not enjoying the direction of the game

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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I’m a fairly long-time player of since 2015 at minimum. I used to come home from school as a kid and play the game. I’m 23 now. So I’d like to think my opinion at least means something. I still own vehicles like Maus, KT105, Panther II, Coelian, etc.

I used to be an ARB player but gradually migrated into both that and GRB. Back when I took an extended break from the game, the MiG-17 was an absolute beast and the fighting over which was better, that or the Sabre, was non-stop. Now in the last 6-months ish I’ve returned to find that the Sabre is awful, the MiG-17 essentially the same. Now, both of these planes, Korean-war era aircraft, face all-aspect IR missiles from premium A10 and SU25’s, which leads me on to what has been bothering me the most:

Premium vehicle spam, especially at top tier.

Again, back when I played the game long and often, the only ‘overpowered’ or spammy premium aircraft was the German P-47, which was just ridiculous at the time. Now almost every game of ARB is just the same spam of premium MiG-21s, A10s, Su-25’s, AV-8As… the majority of these vehicles are good at worst, OP at best. Why does the A10/SU25 get all-aspect IR’s? Is it to make them sell? Premium vehicles used to simply be fun, unique vehicles with quirks that shook up the monotony of ‘regular’ playstyles. XP-55, Be-6, Wyvern, Calliope, Panzerwerfer, Katyusha, SMK, etc.

Now it feels like premiums are an absolutely necessity for top tier, especially in GRB. I wasn’t around for the release and initial shitstorm of the 2S38 and I can only be thankful for it. The GRB premium spam has honestly become horrendous, I play at 10.3-11.7 UK(Challenger mk2 & 2) and every single game I could swear the team is almost made entirely of premium vehicles. Either Clickbaits, Fuji’s, or one of the 500 T-80 variants you can open your wallet for. Leo2PzBtl’s, 2S38’s… TURMS-T, BMP-2M, M1A1AIM.

This post is getting a bit too long now as I think you all get the point. I’ve probably struggled to keep my narrative in one specific direction, so here’s a TLDR:

There are too many premiums, especially top tier. Most of them are too good, and top-tier tech trees are becoming too easily accessible. Grinding feels redundant, and the game feels more and more like it’s shelling out to wallet warriors above all else. War Thunder is a free to play game, it should stay that way in practicality, not just in name. I feel as though too many gameplay/balance sacrifices are being made just to cram in these vehicles(seriously, why can Su-25’s and A10s face Sabres??)

It comes across, for me at least, that at some point down the line the snail got a taste of the $$$ they could make by churning out premiums into every crease of the game, and then they got carried away. It’s fair, it makes sense, they’re a business and they want to make money, but I want to believe that they still care just a little bit about how their game feels. I just want to go back to the good old days where things didn’t feel pay 2 win, and every major update didn’t copy-paste a vehicle into a different nation for the price of $70.

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Literally among the best subsonic fighters and you call them awful…?

Chief, i think this was fixed a few years ago.

Most premium aircraft are fairly balanced, with some exceptions being too good or too bad, as expected.

First time i’ve seen this. Usually people are complaining that the grind is too long.

But war thunder ISN’T pay-to-win. You’re paying to simply speed up your progression or to have X vehicle you wanted. If you want to give some examples of the “P2W” premium vehicles, there are plenty more OP free tech tree vehicles to match!

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Well currently there are no OP premium aircraft.
A-10 and Su-25 have all-aspect missiles cause that’s all they got IRL. A-10 would be like 8.7 without them.

Players pick premiums cause they want to. And there’s no solution that’s not anti-consumer.

I’d recommend playing the vehicles you like irrelevant of what their BRs are, and enjoy what you like.

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does not happen

true, top tier premiums were a mistake

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Yes, because the majority of what they face is supersonic. IS-7 is among the best conventionally armoured tank, putting it vs a Leo 2 makes it bad.

You’re right, but there’s still way too many aircraft that face A10s/SU’s that are nowhere near their time period… like the F104(1954) vs an SU-25(1981). Keeping vehicles within relatively similar time periods is important.

I disagree. Some are worse offenders than others, but keep in mind we’re talking in the context of top tier(9.0+). I would argue any premium aircraft at this BR or above is good at the very minimum.

The grind for GRB feels like a snail compared to ARB. Tech tree researching for GRB needs to get some adjustments, ARB is fine. Regardless it feels incredibly cheap to buy your way to the top - both because you either have one-death leavers(which I’ve found to be a very prevalent problem), or people who just skipped the tech-tree entirely and bought a full premium lineup. Buying your way to the top, as an old-timer, just seems wrong to me. Speeding up progression is one thing, but almost skipping the game entirely seems meh.

It’s becoming very P2W and I thought that was becoming increasingly obvious with the sheer amount of new premiums being added every major update. It’s not speeding up your progression, it’s skipping it entirely. There are plenty of OP tech tree vehicles yes, but buying your way through vehicles with GE is far more expensive and inefficient than it is to buy a pack or vehicle for $60. There’s no achievement to getting any vehicles anymore, you can basically buy your way to any battle rating with better vehicles than the tech tree. Remember when getting the Tiger H1 was like you’d just reached the top of a mountain? Yeah, well too bad, someone downloaded the game 5 minutes ago and bought a Tiger Ost pack.

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Most of your games are full of subsonic aircraft. Yes, being fully uptiered once or twice in 10 games is an issue but you cannot be calling these aircraft bad unless you yourself are a terrible pilot.

Time period doesnt mean capability but yeah AIM-9Ls dont need to be anywhere near aircraft with no countermeasures.

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Vehicles, other than specific stupid ones like Ariete (plane), and their ilk (undertiered premium that does everything better than its peers and is only beaten if the player only knows to pull back on the stick in a flat circle) aren’t really P2W.

What’s P2W is crew skills - 2/2 non-expert crew vs 5/5 expert crew have a good few dozen hours’ difference and unlike aircraft, it affects each and every rank. If you’re down at 3.0-4.0 bracket and starting a new nation, you cannot engage in a diving spiral even if it’s your main way of playing (e.g.: F6F Hellcat) because you pass out after ~20 seconds of 5.5G (and due to low stamina, you need a lot of time between pulling to recover. And even before passing out, your vision tunnels and you lose the ability to track your bandit due to vignetting), whereas with a 5/5 expert you can camp ~6.0 G without a G-suit and not get tired, like ever (or run out of diving room before you pass out.) These affect more than just diving spirals too - high speed scissors are also much less effective in a 2/2 vs 5/5 expert plane. Modifications can be unlocked in a single 1-2 hour match. Getting 5/5 Expert takes some ~50 hours per slot assuming optimal play (half and half again with premium/premium plane at 3.0-4.0 bracket with 2500 RP/15 mins with landing for 136% RP bonus plane as maximum achievable in ASB) and getting ace takes even longer (thankfully ace only brings us to 6.2G from 6.0)

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This is not important, and even if it was, it would be of secondary importance to game balance. To that end, I would like to say the F104 is a much better aircraft in air-to-air than the Su-25.

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It’s very important. Otherwise why don’t we add a .50cal mounted Humvee to 1.0? It wouldn’t be OP in the slightest, but it’d still be ridiculous to have in a match with interwar tanks.

I would rather have an SU-25 on my team than an F104 any day. F104 is only good for running away and flaring, very occasionally getting a bnz takedown.

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Any 104 without CMs shouldn’t even considered in the same thought with All-Aspect Su-25 or A-10, since the missiles dgaf about if it’s faster anyway. You just avoid and shoot the missile or just head-on, the 104 won’t EVER be able to follow you if you know when to avoid.
Missiles will fail anyway because CMs.
Your only hope is if he can’t see you because of the RNG vision mechanics and get a kill in the first pass or 3d party you… any plane can do this, though.

A 104 with CMs though is another story…toss all missiles out of the game because both have enough CMs to deploy, there he can make the game go to dogfight and eventually BnZ the Su-25/A-10 , which still can get it if he messes up his speed and angle of disengagement .

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You need to consider the nature of 16v16 matches. In an 1v1, sure, an Su-25 is overwhelmingly more powerful than any F-104 without CMs. But in Air RB matches, Su-25s and A-10s will undoubtedly be vulnerable at multiple moments in time. F-104s can loiter out of the engagement range of these slow aircraft, and engage when necessary. Even in headons, AIM-9B front-aspect launches reduce the effectiveness of R-60M or AIM-9L launches. You just need the skill.

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Tell that to the post ww2 swedish tanks at 1.0

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It’s why I think the introduction of Sweden/Israel is dumb. They were added for their high-tier loadouts with no consideration of the tiers leading up to it.

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I think sweden was a good implementation but israel rn is like a billion modifications of like 3 tanks

Anyway the reason a humvee with a .50 cal wont be added is because it would be silly to add, not because it would ruin immersion at low bt

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It would absolutely be silly, cause the time periods are so out of whack. My point being that there should be an attempt to keep vehicles relatively within their own time period, with exceptions(like King Tiger)

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I disagree, a humvee with a .50 cal would be silly because it would be bad but also it would probably not be 1.0, assuming it is designated as a light tank and is given modern .50 rounds it would probably be closer to 3.3 to 4.0 or even higher. Which while it could be very funny, would not be good or effective by any means.

Year of introduction has never been a factor in determining BR but generally as things become more recent their effectiveness increases, if you want immersion go play a different game

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ok

I already answered that.

Comparing planes ALWAYS mean equal skill players. Player skill has nothing to do with vehicle specs.
Front aspect AIM-9B has 400m range…and All Aspects don’t really need frontal aspect, he can shoot from anywhere.
The only thing you can do better in a flareless 104 is avoid the fight altogether, doesn’t make it better.
Have you ever played a flareless 104? It’s not bad for 9,3. It’s just we compare the uptier with 10,3 planes… they are better.

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I meant shooting AIM-9B against the opponent’s missile in the head-on. This can be done multiple kilometres out, and is a major force equalizer against opponents with all-aspect missiles.

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Good thing you’re not in charge of the game because it would sink in minutes. People come to WT because they want that immersion that isn’t as sweaty as DCS or another flight sim. Looks like you weren’t around when the Ru 251 was 6.7 and facing Tiger 1’s.

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This never happened, they were on the same team

Also there is a leopard 1 modification from the 90s that is the same BR as the tiger E