So - after going into the game for quite a bit, various modes and various BRs and various nations -
Marketplace skins keep reseting on some vehicles after going into battle or test flight. Like my F18C Hellcat scheme.
Missiles on release was a mess - it is now less of a mess and even though announced fixed, it is still a mess with a lot of RnG on if it will actually track and do damage even in ideal launch conditions.
The SPAA rework is a few years late but, at least we have it. More nations could have received new systems as well. For example - GB could have received the Umkhonto system. If information on the Umkhonto R and Umkhonto IR is limited it could have fallen back onto the IRIS-T and IRIS-T SLM as the system can run both missile sets.
Old bugs and fixes, some of that has been announced fixed, is still not fixed. From visual and floating trees to TWS, RCS, IR Signature, etc. Not to mention the still current ongoing missile bug.
Response on getting issues fixed and lack of press release on literal game breaking mechanics has been shocking. It feels almost as if the current team comes from EA/Ubisoft/Blizzard/Activision/Kunami/Bethesda/Wargaming/Rockstar - you know, studios that are known to be slow on announcements and disconnected from the playerbase.
Accuracy to models remains an open debate.
DX12 still runs into VRAM leaks.
In conclusion - Major updates should be something that forces major excitement and encourages new players to the game and old players to return and for me, personally, this has been a dissapointing mess with little to no direction.
The new air map is atrocious, face to face airspawn and a completely irrelevant terrain, the map could be open sea and nothing would change. It goes straight into the bin with all the small variants and City.
The AA control screen is actually very nice, finally letting AA that got it performs at their optimal capabilities.
I personally don’t care for the new ships, but they were highly requested so it’s good that they made it to the game. Moreso maybe the naval discussion might finally move away from “Ship no big” into something more productive.
The new AA are unsurprisingly incapable of dealing with top tier CAS outside of the SLM, and they are very poorly adapted to the current nature of WT due to their nature, again unsurprisingly.
The new premium bundles are generally better than the german one, offering more varied vehicles.
As for the general additions, some highly anticipated stuff, some puzzling stuff, the usual.
It didn’t add my highly anticipated stuff however, 0/10 literally worst update ever, Gaijin has a personnal vendetta against me.
absolute terrible update as always, is just adding new useless things while ignoring completely the extreme big flaws of the game, top tier is unplayable if you are not with sweden/germany/russia, those 3 completely steamroll everything because are the only tanks with armor at top tier, a ton of unfixed problems for minor nations they added another t72 with aps but didn’t fix trophy for 8 months, merkava still misses 60% of armor, spike missiles not working and hitting random spots on the tank that wont even disable it, a disaster as always and a pathetic try to balance things out by adding more leopard 2 to minor nations that obvivisuly didn’t work because germany and sweden simply can spam more of them
Also still top tier maps of 500 meters of effective combat ground at top tier…
said it before and ill say it again, the moment gaijin decided only 5 nations are getting new SPAA this was gonna be a terrible update, 2 of the nations that were left out have the worst SPAA in the game (the UK with ADATS and Italy with a god damn Otomatic for crying out loud)
Overall one of the worst updates in almost every aspect.
Just objectively looking at it:
Almost no new major content for the vast majority of players (still happy for the 12 people paying naval(note: I misstypted “playing”, but paying fits even better XD))
multiple game breaking bugs instead of the usual 1 or 1 1/2
spam of premiums (almost 50% of the new content is premiums or linked to premium)
severe lack of polish on the new content
broken or entirely missing flight/damage models
bugged/missplaced map objects and hitmaps for objects
reintroduction of already fixed Netcode issues from the last major update
Addition of useless new features over fixing near decade old issues
updates to broken systems/UI without even attempting to fix the old problems in those systems causing stacks of bugs(The fact that you still can not “Esc” out of the User profile when you use the search bar in the Profile, sth that worked pre profile rework and was already reported, while new additions to the same interface were made this patch)
So yea. Not only is it a rather forgetable update like “Hot Tracks” was, it also was of poor quality and increased the issues with the old code inseatd of fixing them.
Adding these ships when naval is in the state it is was a bit of a travesty tbh balance aside.
SPAA is nice
Everything else is whatever.
I play germany and russia, russia gets a non foldered 12.0 4km reverse tractor with an aps which is just an annoying 400k rp speedbump in the tree to an already not so great vehicle and a premium jet trainer thats awful.
German additions however are amazing. Finally a premium jet that isnt ass, although with how many US players are mad about it can see it getting 9m and moved to 13.0 where it gets clubbed. A bunch of swiss planes to fill the gaps and give us something to play at top tier that isnt just a typhoon, even if it is worse its nice to have.
And then we got the OP spaa on the same level of if not more than on launch pantsir.
I’m happy since I play/main germany, but I an see why people that don’t probably feel like they got nothing unless they really loved naval, but I guess the soyuz ruined that in some regard too.
Missile bug sucks, hope they fix it soon but I don’t only play air so playing ground for another week isn’t gonna kill me.
Overall a great update.
Not flawless, but I don’t expect flawless.
Missile bug that existed which prevented good higher BR gameplay for a few days. Not as bad as when A-4s dying crashed all clients in the match.
A bunch of minor bugs that require patience, especially when they’re reported.
Including HE filler being borked against aircraft, though the missiles working outweigh this issue.
All 10 tech trees have great top BR options for air and ground; despite some people complaining that Sweden, Soviets, and Germany have more skilled players than other tech trees.
If this was a free for all game mode, this would matter, but it’s 2 teams and the likelihood of one of the tech trees being on your team is extremely high.
@Oskar_Schindler - Armor is not everything. This is more to do with map design as all vehicles, regardless of function, is forced into the same cramped scenario again and again.
@_Baum - Honestly, I feel the force for new content is the issue instead of focusing energy of polishing the game a bit. I would play the same 5 vehicles for the next 5 years if it meant I did not have game bugs and accurate models. We don’t need 300+ vehicles added a year.
This I also feel is a bit of a issue. The dynamic has shifted to “Must have a premium to be able to progress” along with the “hate on lvl7 prem players just cause” regardless of their skill or willingness to learn and this is just terrible from the community that enables both sides.
@Sternlos - Sadly, with USSR tree you can only add in so many MBT before hitting T14. There was no real major change in design and hull design.
@AlvisWisla - I was waiting for you to defend the game somewhat blindly. TWS, RADAR, IR Signature, Floating terrain object, Misplaced terrain hitbox, sub-40mm SAP/AP damage stacking, Render engine, VRAM Leaks, hit registry (not ghost shell), etc are not small bugs. It is OK to love the game, especially seeing that there is not much else out there like WT, but timeto hold it to standard.
In my GB tech tree I should not have to rely on my team to deal with air threat while I can only bring a ADATS with no gun, etc to the table. ADATS you do not even have to CM to evade, you can just roll out or bank out. ADATS now does not compete with a slightly aware pilot in a E2K/Raf/Su/F18/F16 etc.
Do they? Several have no competitive SPAA or IFVs and even 1 or 2 barely have usable top tier MBTs for ground.
as for air, there is still a LOT of outstanding issues for several aircraft (like the Typhoons) and not everyone has gotten parity yet (like Sweden and China)
Also multiple TTs didnt get aircraft, but we didnt even get major bug reports looked at, let alone fixed for existing aircraft
It has a max effective range of maybe 7-8km. A Rafale should never be getting close enough to allow the ADATS to fire. Everything from the F-15E to Su-30SM is the same
Typhoon is forced into being closer by its nerfed A2G loadout, but can still probably sit out of that range.
Suffice to say. I’ve never considered the ADATS a threat at top tier, even in something like the Tornado Gr1
SPAA and IFVs don’t win matches, which is a strong reality despite me liking both; but liking something does not make it effective.
All 10 tech trees have good MBTs at this time after all the buffs to a number of them.
Sweden has 2 parities, which are both F-18s; and China has J-11B which is hilariously good.
@Its_Filthy
Saying the game has bugs is not defending it no matter how many times you say criticizing War Thunder is blind defense.
Its still good when radar is turned off and they dont know you’re there, also 8 missiles that can be launched very quickly against KA-50/52 that try to spam Vikhrs