War Thunder has been my most played game for almost 6 years now, as I have just under 5,000 hours when writing this. Seeing this beloved game crumble down into just a slop machine has put a hole in my heart, along with so many others. I feel this game could be fixed in just some simple ways, which yes, might not be an instant effect, but effects that would work over the course of say, a year. And sorry for the yapping ahead :p. For further notice, I am mostly a ground player and most of what is being covered is catered towards ground, but some can still be applied to air gameplay. Also it would be great to hear anyone else’s feedback on my fixes and what can be adjusted especially people who have more experience in air.
THE GRIND/EVENT VEHICLES
The grind is a topic many have covered, and in my opinion isn’t as big of a gripe on my part (still a big issue do not get me wrong). But I propose cutting the grind in half above rank two, bold but it would help a lot in my eyes has someone who has grinded the entirety of USSR & US ground, and top tier of USSR air. 420,000 RP for a T-90M that just gets an APS is absolutely astonishing for something that could either be foldered or a unique vehicle. Along with most Abrams’, upgrades that include something like just an APS, could also be a modification in some cases (though probably slightly more than say just a rank 4 mod). Modifications could also be cut in half, but this is something that would have to come with play testing since, yes, 22,000 RP is a lot, but something like cutting it by say 33% would still be more than enough to significantly decrease the stock grind for higher tier vehicles.
COPY PASTE VEHICLES/NOT UNIQUE EVENT VEHICLES
Why was Israel added when the Merkavas could’ve been a subtree or stay as unique event vehicles. I’ll start off with that statement. Subtrees are a perfect way to implement unique vehicles that say, aren’t able to be a standalone tree. The Merkavas* were already in the US tree as event vehicles and I think that was almost perfect. The US ground tree is definitely lacking as there isn’t as many other MBTs to play other than Abrams’, and the Merkavas could’ve been a great slot to put in after the M1A1 HC. Now since those were still unique event vehicles at the time, now we can head onto straight up copy paste vehicles as premiums. The slop machine has run dry, and now in the next major update, we are getting another PUMA VJTF (Direct copy paste from tech tree) and the M60A1 (Direct copy paste from tech tree). There has also been so many other copy paste vehicles in top tier, I like to call it, Top Slop™. The US, Germany, Britain, Japan, China*, Italy, Sweden (Half and half since I’m not sure if the DI F27 is direct copy), and Israel all use copy paste planes either from a tech tree, or another premium. In low tier, premiums are either experimental or prototype vehicles, which are unique. Which is my exact fix for this. I feel giving unique top tier vehicles that are experimental/prototypes would still give options to grind all the way to top tier, and giving Gaijin money, while it not being direct copy pastes. (Example: F/A-18C Early wouldn’t count under this since just because it’s an earlier variant, doesn’t mean its not unique enough with the fact its not experimental or a prototype). I also stand by also cutting the prices in half for ALL premium vehicles, top tier or not. With premiums being unique and half the price all year round, this would most likely consequently boost sales like never seen before. One last thing, I propose, you should be able to grind one event vehicle, kind of like a squadron vehicle instead of them being in the loot boxes, I’m not 100% sure how this would be implemented, but I feel like this would be a good method to remove FOMO and give players who want exclusive vehicles (except maybe 279 and IS-7, but again I’m not sure how this would be implemented to keep it fair, I would also like to hear everyone’s feed back specially on this), but they might still have to have the regular grind costs, which aren’t cut in half like my statement above. I bold and underline this because FOMO is a very VERY greedy practice in a game about fun.
- Yes, I know the Merkavas in the US tree aren’t exactly in the Israeli tree, but it doesn’t excuse the fact they added Israel, with almost all of the ground vehicles are copy paste, except for a few, with ERA slapped onto them.
- China does get JH-7A prototype, which would fit under my experimental/prototype premium category. But they also do get the SU-30MKK which is almost exactly like the SU-30MK2.
SPGs, MAP DESIGN/MAPS AT HIGHER TIERS & BR DECOMPRESION
I have a BIG gripe on SPGs, so get ready for some yapping with my love for rocket artillery (cough cough BM-31). Since I am an avid enjoyer of artillery, having SPGs/Artillery catered vehicles like the BM-31, BM-13, M109s, AuF1, PZH2000, etc. being only used in only direct fire, except only really the BM-31 with it’s slow rockets. Having bigger ground maps could actually fulfil these roles if there was bigger maps. This brings me to my next point of bigger maps in top tier and map design. Having maps that are only 3,850x3,850M maps is really small for top top tier. Fulda, European Province and Red Desert being the biggest maps in the game, and being able to see spawn to spawn is reallyyyy bad map design with laser rangefinders. 9.7-11.0 matches can stay with Fulda, European Province, and Red Desert being the biggest maps (European Province being all the way down at 6.7+ is abysmal may I mind you.) but maps around 5x5km-7x7km for 11.3-12.3, and 12x12km-20x20km for 12.7+ might be able to make the matches more enjoyable without being spawn camped and (This, yet again, would have to be play tested since this still might be too small, or too big) and artillery actually able to be used as indirect fire if you bring it up to top tier, which could open a new door for off-meta gameplay and the ability to work as a team to get a coordinated strike. Onto the bad map design at hand, one of the worst examples being the 9.7+ Fire Arc. For the southern team, you can sit right south of Bravo and be able to directly see into the enemy’s left spawn, and see over all of Alpha, giving the southern team and a complete advantage. Another example is the 7.7+ Maginot Line. Both teams get really good advantage points seeing over almost half the map. Starting with the northern team, at B7 there is a hill with hard cover being able to lock down the entire access to Charlie, and being able to see bunker hill south of Bravo. Onto the southern team, around F7/F8, there is solid hard cover for tanks to hide behind hull down, also covering the entire Charlie side and is able to see people coming out of the left northern spawn. Anyway, I don’t want to keep yapping why map design is bad, but one quick note on air is that I’ve definitely heard, and experienced, is that the maps are way to small for BVR combat, especially if Gaijin are going to eventually add 5th gen aircraft with even longer ranged missiles. (Can’t wait for $100 F-22.) Now onto BR decompression, it’s really really bad, especially in mid tier. IS-4, Maus, M103, Conqueror, and 7.7 heavy tanks alike, are all prime examples of BR decompression issues. In a full down tier, they stomp 6.7 tanks and rise to the top of the leaderboard, but on the other hand, they get absolutely curb stomped from 8.7 tanks with darts, HEAT-FS, laser range finders, and big maps like European Province. I do find this problem a little more difficult to solve, but with the community’s feedback, I think it could be solved, but for now I say 20.0 for at least ground (Air and helis I’m not too sure on, since I’m not as acknowledged). Two Abrams’ will be added in Heavy Cavalry with four in total, all at the same BR, with the original SEP being a clear step behind.
MISCELLANEOUS ADVICE
Listening to the community can, and would be a very big help, but they obviously won’t unless we speak with our wallets, nothing will change if we only review bomb but continue to buy Top Slop™ and feed into Gaijin’s greedy practices. I come here after listening to CodMineMan’s video go watch his video and listen to what he has to say, he explains the why way better than I ever could, ALL RIGHTS GO TO HIM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4beROVe8ucY
I really wanted to speak on how I would fix this game and how it really wouldn’t be as hard as it could be, but Gaijin refuses to, because people still buy the premiums, and Gaijin still makes money.
A few more things I will say is an Eastern Europe/Balkan tech tree, I know there is already people who have spoken about this, which is why I haven’t made it a major plot point in how I would fix it, but I want to state it here. I also say that there should be more unique game modes like nuclear escalation across ground, air, and naval, I didn’t really made it it’s own topic because I don’t have any ideas myself :p. Naval should be prioritized a little more, hopefully with more thought out maps, game modes and half the RP like stated before. (410,000 RP is crazy for a rank 7, and 280,000 RP for a 3.7 boat is irrational decision making by Gaijin). More detailed aircraft models is a small quality of life like Nuclear Option’s models. More modules for tanks, planes, and helis is milked strategy which I think only increases repair time for tanks, and decreases fun when surviving a missile and your RWR not working. As someone who mains Russia, and has Russian decent, I do think Russia is buffed out of pure patriotism and not accepting Russian tanks are worse in almost everyway. The battle pass is pure slop just to gain even more money. CAS should be more SP across the board and scouting should deduct SP from CAS less, but shouldn’t entirely be removed. Give the 2S19M2 a laser rangefinder and move it to 7.7, I genuinely don’t know why It didn’t get one, when there is two of them and every other SPG gets one. Along with SPGs and bigger maps, give them 3 different charges like in MTC. (I really wouldn’t mind this if they end up not making bigger maps.) Make more 3 vehicle premiums, not sure how that would work with only experimental/prototype vehicles, which is why it’s in the miscellaneous category. The BMPT is an interesting vehicle… Jokes from now on: Make the Ajax’s crew slowly lose health, give the Challengers +20 more tons and half the horsepower. Make the KH38MT automatically unlocked. Remove Italy. Add another high tier SPAA for Sweden. Make the YF-23 rank 4. Make the BMPT 3.7. Increase the hell out of the B-29’s repair cost. Give the Wiesel 1a2 20 more missiles. Nerf the TOW-2B. Make the PZH 2000 5.7. Make an Agarthan sub-tree in Germany. And uhmmmm nerf the TOW-2B.
Thank you so much for reading all of this, and if you did, the code word is tunnel. I would genuinely love to hear everyone’s opinions on my takes and how they could be better. Go watch CodMineMan’s video.
Love all <3
