One-Death Leavers: The Problem That’s Been Killing Matches for Years

One-Death Leavers Are Ruining War Thunder – And Gaijin Still Won’t Fix It

Gaijin still refuses to address the one-death leaver problem — and I honestly don’t understand why.

This issue has been plaguing War Thunder for years. One-death leavers have become an everyday occurrence, and every player who’s spent any time in Ground RB knows exactly what I’m talking about. You queue up for a match, ready for some tactical, team-based gameplay, and before the first few minutes are even over, you see half your team quit out the moment they lose their first vehicle. Suddenly, what was supposed to be a competitive and engaging match turns into a desperate, unwinnable grind.

And it’s not just experienced players rage-quitting. A huge part of this problem comes from new players who buy their way straight into top-tier vehicles. They skip the learning curve, jump into a 10.0+ lineup with no real experience, get destroyed almost instantly… and then quit the match. It’s hard to blame them entirely — top-tier is unforgiving even for seasoned players — but this behavior drags the entire team down. They don’t contribute, they don’t try to recover, and they leave the rest of us to clean up the mess.


Gaijin Favors New Players Over Veterans

And here’s the ugly truth: Gaijin actively favors these new players.

Why? Because they’re spending money. They buy premium time, they buy expensive top-tier packs, they buy their way into content that should take hundreds of hours to grind. From a business standpoint, Gaijin wants to make this process as frictionless as possible — so instead of encouraging these players to actually learn the game, they let them throw cash at the problem.

But what does that mean for the rest of us?

It means veteran players — the ones who’ve spent years grinding, learning mechanics, and improving — are constantly stuck with teammates who have no idea what they’re doing. Matches that should feel competitive end up feeling like babysitting. And worst of all, Gaijin does nothing to balance this out. In fact, they make it worse by ensuring that new paying players are shielded from real consequences, while veteran players are left to suffer through broken team compositions, demoralizing matches, and little to no reward for their actual effort.

This favoritism kills the experience. It alienates the player base that actually keeps the game alive. Veterans don’t want to keep grinding if every match feels like carrying players who are only there because they swiped their credit card.


Take this match, for example (see image). I stayed. I played my part. I fought hard. And what was my reward? Practically nothing. I’m punished with the same low rewards as if I was AFK, simply because the team collapsed around me. How is that fair? Why should players who try to salvage the match get the same treatment as those who just give up?

If you want players to keep playing and contributing, reward them for it. Give them extra RP and SL for staying in tough matches. Recognize individual effort. Because right now, there’s zero incentive to fight it out when half your team bails. In fact, it feels like I’m being punished for even trying.


This isn’t just about one bad match. It’s about a pattern. A problem that has been ignored for far too long. Gaijin, you need to address this. If you want War Thunder to keep growing, then you need to fix the systems that make players quit, or at least make it worthwhile for those of us who stay.

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Unironically, adding top tier bundles so premium players actually have lineups wouldn’t be a bad option in my opinion. The biggest issue would be pricing.

Let’s not kid ourselves, Gaijin is going to continue to add top tier premiums as they have for YEARS now. At the very least if they give top tier TT-equivalent premium lineups, it could reduce the 1-death leaver issue.

In my opinion, they should either do a high tier MBT, LT/IFV, and SPAA, or two MBTs and a SPAA. Either could work depending on how strong the LT/IFV would be.

We already have many top tier premium lineups available, they just don’t come in a bundle.

For example:

  • M1A1 HC “Clickbait”
  • RDF/LT
  • Throw in the ADATS on top of this for the SPAA

Another example:

  • T-80UE-1
  • 2S38 or BMD-4M
  • Throw in either the 2S6 or a Russian Tor M1 for the SPAA

Gaijin could also throw in CAS as well for this, but I would personally prefer it if they went with an SPAA instead. One of the major reasons people don’t keep spawning in is because they died too early to get into their precious CAS aircraft, which is a problem Gaijin should avoid.

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More vehicles doesn’t automatically fix the core issue.

Sure, premium bundles might give people a full lineup, but that doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly have the skill, game sense, or experience to use them effectively. In reality, it could just mean more easy kills for the enemy team, which snowballs matches even harder.

And let’s be honest — Gaijin isn’t going to add these out of generosity. If anything, they’ll just increase RP/SL requirements even more to keep the grind “balanced,” which defeats the whole purpose. The real problem isn’t the lack of vehicles — it’s player behavior and how the game incentivizes (or fails to incentivize) people to keep playing after their first death.

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