I agree there needs to be a clear line drawn, but in creation of this suggestion I clearly put it in a different place than you.
The thought here is that a single nation is not separated for shifts in its government, as a separation is generally not necessary when the previous form of the nation ceases to exist with the start of the other.
They could be if it is needed for space at some point if the system is there, but generally in this case it might be best to wait until it is necessary.
I do believe that East Germany in particular is an interesting case, being a split from the German nation that existed in parallel to West Germany, and later unified back into Germany. Here I can actually see a separate tab being reasonable, since it does reflect a very real split. I’d personally still wait it out until the space is necessary since it’s both Germany.
As for ROC/PRC, this one seems more difficult since it is an ongoing situation. It is comparable to the split Germany, however both of these still exist and it is very much up in the air what direction it takes. There might be reunification similar to Germany, or there might be a more clear split off nation of Taiwan, but until we know for sure there really isn’t any form of separation Gaijin can do that wouldn’t appear politically charged on something that is already rather controversial.
Here I’d say to keep them in a general China (neither PRC nor ROC in particular) tree similar to Germany, and best hold off any split.
Even then, there is no bias hese no matter how you put it. There is no benefit in having one tab over multiple, if anything having multiple allows for more space which means more vehicles as well.
There is no “2nd class” to anything. In this system the trees of (for example) Italy and Hungary are functionally the same. They are both fully independent trees that simply share a folder and with that lineups.
There isn’t even a “main” or “sub” tree anymore, since the “main” tree shown as the face of the folder is always the one the player has selected.
Interesting… So not being the nation presented when the game launches, but still getting the proper representation once selected makes these “2nd class nations”.
So what do you call not being represented at all, and rather being used as tool to fill another nation?
I’d personally say not having the space for the vehicles each of the two or more nations Gaijin currently confine in one tree is very exclusive. Sure, you include a little bit of diversity in one “nation”, but throw countless options out of the window.
On the other hand I proposed to have multiple nations with their own neatly organized separate trees to offer the necessary space to include the vehicles that in current subtrees wouldn’t have space.
For example, there is not enough space to fit the Indian Ground vehicles into the British ground tree.
If India had an independent but foldered tree, this would not be an issue, and players could create Indian lineups and play the nation without being forced to play Britain if they don’t want to, and without needing pay to get more than one of their vehicles in a lineup.
None of those options to play both disappear, lineups still function the same, but there is more space for both British and Indian vehicles. It’s a win-win situation.
Spoiler
(Provided overview from the suggestion, just in case you try to argue it’s “Copy-Paste” anyways)
Basic Stats of TT:
126 Total Vehicles
94 Researchable Vehicles
75 Unique Vehicles
24 “Copy-Pastes” (With the 1 event vehicle, 19% of Tree)
Now remove all the direct imports and effective duplicates, and there are less than half of the ground vehicles.
The thing about a sub-tree is adding the notable vehicles of the nation without forcing in copy-paste to fill gaps.
I included this part for that exact reason. But even if you don’t fit the 75 unique tech tree vehicles, but go with a value “less than half”, let’s say 50 for the sake of the example, you will not have it easy to find logical places for them in the existing tree. And keep in mind the tree also includes Britain and South Africa so far, so there needs to be enough space for their vehicles still.
This is the exact reason people want independent trees. Rather than a few “notable vehicles”, players prefer all unique vehicles, perhaps alongside alongside less unique vehicles with historical significance to form lineups. Basically these people want to play a nation, not uncommonly their own nation.
This also once again brings up “double standards” that you accused this suggestion of.
Spoiler
To me it seems like bigger double standard to give one nation a right to be represented as a nation, while another is added as gap filling tool for another, or worse spread across multiple national trees.
All nations are represented as nations in War Thunder.
Whether they’re the main focus of a tech tree or not.
And those stats they posted are inaccurate. A lot of the unique vehicles are copy-paste of the same vehicle… to fill lineups.
And of course I didn’t do a proper count of all the copy-paste, but I did get to 37 before stopping, and reduced it by 5 for margin of error in my post.
Sir, that quote has the specific language in it.
Direct imports, meaning not domestic productions.
Effective duplicates, meaning an almost identical variant of the same tank: See ZTZ-99II and ZTZ-99III.
The question is though, where do you draw the line?
The claim “copy and paste” has different meanings depending on who you ask, ranging from as little as just putting a new skin on a vehicles all the way to a licence built aircraft like the CF-18 or Su-30MKI
3D model, cause I’m a 3D modeler and the context I’ve used for copy-paste has always been that of game development and 3D modeling, and not that of writing cause… this isn’t a narrative-based game.
AKA, my use of copy-paste is more strict than most.
Also Su-30MKI is an Indian aircraft. Might be developed from an earlier prototype, but it’s an entirely new airframe requested by the Indian military.
Some nations get dedicated trees while some can’t even fill lineups, or are exclusively premium content, or are split across multiple trees. That means they cannot be effectively played as nation. This was exactly the point I was trying to make. You seem to preach equal treatment of all nations, but this is not possible with the current subtree system.
For everything subtrees do to help in filling lineups and providing capabilities and a variety that wouldn’t otherwise be there, they also have to share space. A common argument against subtrees is that in the limited space they can’t properly unfold, while taking away space for domestic vehicles in the main tree.
With this suggestion I aim to take away those negatives while keeping the positives. If that costs a single further click, then so be it, especially when that click leads to a neatly organized fully functional independent tree and opens for up many gameplay choices and new additions that would be impossible without this.
Clutter and treating sub-trees as inferior to the main tech tree is not “best”.
This is a sentence of frustration relating to previous games I’ve experienced in a negative manner.
The suggestions aims to relieve clutter in trees, allowing for the necessary space to have more logical progression within the tech trees.
The only added step to the UI interface is the nation selection, which functions not much different from the current branch selection. You can open the air tree to add an aircraft to a ground lineup, much the same way as you can select Hungary to add Hungarian tanks to your Italian ground lineup.
The subtrees are treated more equal than they are now. Rather than being lesser gap fillers under another nation, they have their own tech tree that functions the same as any other nation. Each nation in a folder can be considered the “main” nation as long as a player has it selected, so really there is no “main” or “sub” nations anymore in that sense.
Even if we treat defaulting to one of the foldered nations when launching the game as treating the others worse, that is still a significantly more equal treatment than not featuring them as their own nations at all.