Somewhat serious post, would love to hear opinions! (Yes, yes, I know: “TLDR”).
I feel like War Thunder’s nations as a whole are losing their identities. It used to be that if you selected a certain tree you were also selecting a doctrine, a playstyle and design philosophy that formed that tech tree’s core. Each nation had strengths and weaknesses, and required intimate knowledge of it’s rival nations to recognise how to deal with different targets.
The philosophy of integrating minor nations into existing trees was originally founded by Gaijin (to my understanding), to provide stop-gaps to nations that had dead space within them at certain brackets. To that end, it’s done very well. But at this point I personally have serious concerns of the lines blurring, providing every nation to some degree with a good chunk of the base vehicles in the game.
You simply can’t rely on a tech tree’s identity anymore during a match, and there’s less and less motivation to try out a new nation when you already own a lot of what it can offer. I feel like some of War Thunder’s depth has been wiped. It’s no longer about adapting your stratagem to face your enemy, because the vehicles they’re using are more like a hero shooter with a pre-game select screen rather than a “faction” based team game with shared strengths and weaknesses.
I used to be a very avid defender of so-called “copy/paste” vehicles, and in a lot of ways I still am. They frequently have little alterations or downright upgrades compared to their indigenous counterparts. But that’s only in regards to them being sprinkled into a tech tree, like a pinch of herbs for a subtle change. But I believe that Finland, Hungary, and to a lesser extent even China have brought us to the top of a slope coated in oil and ice. South Africa is what I consider to be the only strong exception, providing a host of unique and brand new vehicles to fill the spaces in the British trees.