Monotonous Meta is Hurting the War Thunder Experience

In my opinion, the recent patches are increasingly forcing a monotonous playstyle, which is noticeably hurting the overall gameplay experience. More and more matches feel the same, with identical tactics, the same vehicles, and very little variety.

This becomes especially obvious at higher tiers, where many players only rely on whatever is currently the most effective instead of experimenting with different playstyles. As a result, battles become predictable and much less enjoyable.

Another major issue is the lack of nation diversity. Out of 10 nations, it often feels like only 2–3 are actually being played actively, while the rest are neglected. This is largely caused by questionable balancing decisions — for example, anti-air vehicles being added or buffed where they weren’t really needed, while other nations that clearly require better SPAA options receive little to no attention from the developers.

I also think it’s a problem that the same nation keeps receiving multiple “overpowered” vehicles within just a couple of patches. This heavily shifts the meta and further reduces variety. A good example is the BMPT situation: while the initial discussion around it has mostly died down, the vehicle still feels undertiered. At BR 11.3, which has effectively become a “filler BR,” it creates constant imbalance. Players at 10.7 are very frequently matched against 11.3, making battles feel unfair and repetitive.

From what I’ve seen on the War Thunder forums, many players argue that “the game is more balanced than ever” or that “players just follow the meta and that’s not a developer issue.” While that may be partially true, it ignores the root cause: the meta is created by balancing decisions. When certain vehicles or nations are clearly stronger or more rewarding, players will naturally gravitate towards them.

Others claim that “every nation has competitive options,” but in practice, those options are often far less effective or far less accessible compared to the dominant picks. This results in fewer players choosing those nations, which reinforces the lack of diversity.

Overall, the current direction is pushing the game into a very narrow meta, where only a few nations and vehicles dominate. I really hope future updates focus more on proper balance, fair distribution of content, and encouraging a wider range of playstyles. The game has so much potential for variety — it just needs to be supported properly.

4 Likes

only wach gaijin next update or add new mbt for russia or a new helicopter… need to motivate players to play russia…

3 Likes

Don’t forget about BR changes impacting this too, and it’s especially felt in air sim where NATO dominates completely between 12.0 and 13.7, and it’s felt in air RB to a lesser extent (due to F-18s, F-16s, and F-15s being mostly the best or blatantly undertiered).

The mobility meta is harming War Thunder a bit.

The mobility meta loves closer quarters maps.
It doesn’t let tanks like T-90M and Challengers perform to their full potential.
Of course tanks like Leclerc and Type 10 that are close to their real-life performance are dealing with in-game tanks that are over-performing to an extent that matches their performance in-game when they shouldn’t.
The fact there are no OP ground vehicles at top BR makes this somewhat tolerable, but of course you have 6 or 7 tech trees with OP helicopters.
Then you have CAS spammers that’ll lose their teams matches due to spawning CAS instead of more MBTs.
Granted, no country comes close to USA’s ground lineup, the single best in the game.
But Germany still has a 3 - 5 free to play tank lineup that in-practice is identical cause in most matches you’re spawning 3 - 5 times anyway, and we have free daily backups.