Hello everyone,
I would like to address an issue that negatively affects match quality in War Thunder, especially in mid- and high-tier battles.
1) Only One Vehicle in the Lineup
Currently, players can enter a match with only one tank in their lineup.
This often leads to the following problems:
Increased number of early leavers
Fast and uneven team collapse
Poor gameplay experience for the remaining team
Reduced tactical depth
When a player dies once and immediately leaves, the team is basically fighting short-handed.
✅ My suggestion:
Entering a match with only one vehicle should be disabled, or
Players who bring only a single ground vehicle into battle should receive a 1-hour temporary ban if they leave after one death.
This encourages building proper lineups and keeps matches fairer.
2) Dead-Leaver Punishment
Currently, players who leave right after their first death (or early in general) face very weak consequences, which do little to discourage this behavior.
This affects game balance heavily—especially when multiple teammates leave early, effectively deciding the game before it even develops.
War Thunder is a team-based game.
One-vehicle lineups and dead-leavers ruin the experience for everyone else on the team.
By enforcing minimum lineup requirements and real penalties, matches become more balanced, enjoyable, and competitive.
Conclusion
I strongly believe:
✅ At least two vehicles should be required for ground battles
✅ Leaving after first death should result in real punishment
✅ This change would significantly improve match quality
Thank you for reading — I would love to hear your thoughts!
Rewards > punishment. Until Gaijin is able to figure out how to make good maps, as well as decompressing the BRs, people will continue to 1DL constantly. If people are instantly leaving, this suggests an issue with the game design. Gaijin should make it worth it to continue spawning in a loss, and Gaijin needs to rework and make better maps too.
Gaijin is giving us 5 free universal respawns per day with the next update, so it’s a start towards making people 1DL less.
You won’t get any matches because everyone would be banned.
I don’t want to be banned just because I don’t want to play on Seversk or Attica in a full uptier for the 3rd time in a session.
So if i wanted to research Israel tech tree from scratch, i would get constantly banned unless i spend money or play with Magach 6B Gal and M-51 at 9.3 with penalty to research
I understand your concern — of course there are situations where leaving is unavoidable (high ping, packet loss, real-life interruptions, etc.).
No one is saying that players should be punished for technical issues outside their control.
The idea behind this suggestion is to discourage intentional dead-leaving and one-vehicle lineups, which are consistent problems that ruin match quality for entire teams.
If someone disconnects due to genuine connection issues, the system could easily detect:
Sudden disconnect vs. manual leave
Network instability (PL / ping spikes)
Re-joining attempt
Players who reconnect within a short time wouldn’t be penalized.
So to clarify:
✅ Accidental disconnects → no ban
✅ Intentional leave with only one vehicle after first death → penalty
The goal is not to punish people with technical problems, but to improve game quality by reducing intentional early quitting.
I get your point — starting a new tech tree can definitely feel limited at first.
However, the proposal isn’t meant to punish players who are genuinely progressing through a new nation.
The problem starts when players intentionally join a match with only one viable vehicle and then leave immediately after dying, which heavily harms their team.
Two thoughts on this:
✅ 1) Progression isn’t blocked
Even early in a new tech tree, most nations let you put at least two ground vehicles in a lineup very early on.
They don’t have to be the same BR — just enough so you can continue playing after your first death.
And if someone doesn’t have enough vehicles yet, the system could simply prevent them from queuing real battles until they have at least two.
No ban needed — just a minimum requirement.
This avoids the problem entirely.
✅ 2) The goal is fairer gameplay
The proposal isn’t “buy more vehicles or get banned.”
It’s simply encouraging:
Proper lineup construction
Less dead-leaving
Better match balance
The penalty would only apply to intentional first-death leavers, not to players who bring reasonable lineups and actually participate.
So in your example:
“I would get constantly banned unless I pay or play high BR vehicles.”
That wouldn’t happen.
As soon as you have 2+ vehicles in the lineup — regardless of BR — you’re fine.
No penalty.
I get the frustration with bad map/BR rotations — that’s a separate issue and should be fixed on its own.
But the suggested penalties only target people who enter with a single vehicle and leave after one death.
If you bring a normal lineup and just play the match, you’re not at risk of being banned.
This isn’t about punishing map-avoidance — it’s about keeping matches from collapsing because half the team leaves instantly.
Understand your frustration and you’re obviously not alone about 1DL. I try to stick it out for the entire battle but sometimes it’s just not worth it for a variety of reasons.
The best suggestion that I can offer is let it go and move on. Nothing has changed and nothing will. Do your best to just play and have fun when and where you can.
Anti-consumer practices such as the ones presented should be avoided.
There are already reward incentives to push players to stay in matches longer.
Queue times, as well as higher rewards per minute from staying in longer matches are factors that should be spread to everyone.
But it is not really about the rules of the game really though is it, they were going to have the best game ever played on War Thunder, the most number of kills ever, a whole tech tree researched after one awesome battle, more silver lions then they would ever need, a parade in their home town and a statue in honor of this epic awesome game they had.
But no they were thwarted by the evil ODL and quitters on their team, they demand retribution and punishment for this travesty and slight to their honor, reputation and that of their family and country, it is all a bit drama queen and over dramatic really, a large contributing factor why the game and the player base is such a mess.
Just thought I would copy and paste my reply to yet another torch and pitchfork post to punish them all, just sick and tired of people who have a bad game or think they are far better at the game then they actually are.
Not only is this fully ChatGPT slop, but you fail to understand why this issue is present in the first place.
Gaijin sell premiums at high prices, meaning that people will likely buy only one and not have another in their lineup. This leads to people using one good vehicle in their lineup, and nothing else OR a low BR vehicle that does nothing. They made a good stride towards bundles, being relatively cheap and offering a semi-complete lineup, but this issue is still persistent at the highest tiers.
Map Design is also a big contribution here. Maps end up fitting this COD-TDM style of W-keying to an objective with no regard to tactics. Especially when someone doesn’t like a map: Just rush forward, die once or twice and leave.
(Edit) - Rewards. You can earn much more by rushing aimlessly, getting a kill or two, dying and then leaving and joining a new match. Yes there is increased rewards for staying longer, but in combination with bad map design, you can be completely overrun in your spawn and killed over and over again. And the increased rewards are not nearly enough to keep players engaged. I’ve nuked when most of both teams have left, and still got bits and pieces of RP. This is without a premium vehicle or premium time, so it literally felt like pennies.
Also, I don’t think that punishing these players is necessarily good practise either. In competitive games, we still see people leaving (in games like Valorant, Queue-Dodging) in ranked anyways. Don’t like a map? Dodge. Bad teammates? Leave. No matter the punishment, people keep doing it.
So neither of your suggestions are plausible. The first one would go against Gaijin’s main profit, Premium Vehicles. The second has been proved countless times to not work.
edit - you can find reasons why people one death leave here. The most popular reasoning is Map Design, Uptiers and Other.
Looking through the most liked replies, you can find some other small reasons;
Wanted to play only one vehicle and backups are too valuable/scarce
Steamrolling is so easy on some maps that you are guaranteed a loss after losing control
“COD TDM-like”
I’m not saying it is inspired by COD, I am saying that maps seem to fit this COD TDM style where you just run around nabbing kills at full speed. I’ll edit it to make it clearer though.
Yes and No. You can earn more in a match by surviving longer, yes. You could also earn more over time by rushing in, getting a kill or two, leaving and getting into a new match to repeat it. Not to mention that since its generally easier to rush in, it feels like you’re getting these rewards quicker and instantly, rather than a single great big reward at the end. Its common that people want smaller rewards quick than large rewards after a while.
I don’t use ChatGPT… You can check my posts, I follow the same style of writing everytime, never using ChatGPT. Run it through an AI checker if you want. I don’t follow proper grammar at times, don’t use unnecessarily complex words and even make mistakes. I also don’t follow usual ChatGPT mannerisms;
For example, I don’t use headings, I don’t use emojis, I don’t use bolding or separators (img) and use the regular dash over the Em Dash. I also don’t address before or after (like a Speech).
If you want to run the original post w/o edits in a AI Checker, here it is.
Unedited Post
Not only is this fully ChatGPT slop, but you fail to understand why this issue is present in the first place.
Gaijin sell premiums at high prices, meaning that people will likely buy only one and not have another in their lineup. This leads to people using one good vehicle in their lineup, and nothing else OR a low BR vehicle that does nothing. They made a good stride towards bundles, being relatively cheap and offering a semi-complete lineup, but this issue is still persistent at the highest tiers.
Map Design is also a big contribution here. Maps are designed horribly to fit this COD TDM-like style of W-keying to an objective with no regard to tactics. Especially when someone doesn’t like a map: Just rush forward, die once or twice and leave.
Also, I don’t think that punishing these players is necessarily good practise either. In competitive games, we still see people leaving (in games like Valorant, Queue-Dodging) in ranked anyways. Don’t like a map? Dodge. Bad teammates? Leave. No matter the punishment, people keep doing it.
So neither of your suggestions are plausible. The first one would go against Gaijin’s main profit, Premium Vehicles. The second has been proved countless times to not work.
