I’ve been playing the game long enough to remember when balance existed. Top tier was Mig15 vs F86 Sabre, and each had a play style that would counter the other. Mig15s were good in the vertical, and turning. The Sabre was able to roll and reach higher top speeds. Everything was the best it would ever be and I took it for granted.
As time progressed, we got jets like the MiG-17, the cougar and everything still remained fairly balanced, but the issues started to really show when Gaijin decided to switch to mixed battles. Its now been about 6ish years since they decided to do that and ever since, its been tremendously fucked up.
Every match has turned into a blueprint vs blueprint style fight, where both teams are using the same aircraft and its thrown head to head rather than anything resembling strategy. They opted for “E-sports ready” rather than remaining a game about historical battles and the use of the vehicles in them.
Every Nation realistically has a meta (doctrine). At the current high-top tier, USA should have better technology and SA, while RU should have jets that are more durable and are equipped ECM that can move quickly to intercept. As it stands now, one second you can be fighting an SU-27, and the next you’re fighting an F-16 while you’re in a hornet. This throws the dynamic of the match off as before, you had abilities that countered the other side, but now its completely even and mundane. You can even scale it down for mid-lower tiers as Germany was always good at being interceptors, and USA was generally a BNZ nation, or how Germany had a high climb rate throughout the tree, and USSR had incredible low altitude performance. Now, both teams have every ability so its no longer about knowing how to use your plane against the other team, but rather getting lucky enough to not run into an aircraft that does what you do, but even better. To make it simple, every Nation had a set doctrine along with its respective vehicle strategies, and that was used to the other teams detriment.
Gaijin NEEDS to revert back to a historical battle setting. This could be alternate history or real history, I don’t care.
Here’s a suggested list of possible scenarios for the matchmaker post Korean war:
Taiwan strait conflicts (1954-55, or 1958)
Vietnam
operation urgent fury
Falkland war
Fulda Gap
Desert Shield / Desert storm
6 day war
Suez crisis
I could list more but i think you understand where I’m going.
Realism isn’t just about aerodynamic performance and physics of vehicles and weapon systems, it comes down to how they are used and what they were suppose to go up against. Many try to say that “War Thunder is more realistic than DCS” which is true only on paper if you look at a single issue. DCS does have issues with proxy fuses. But with that aside, DCS is way more immersive, and situational awareness isn’t handed to you and the flight models and fidelity are of much higher quality which leads to a much more realistic use of the combat vehicles in game.
