As the title says the game went downhill .
Air battles are in bad position, too fast, no more skill based, like they used to be. It all started with the “temporary” mixed MM implemented back in the day. And the last bit was reducing time limit from 60 minutes to 25 minutes which forces the battles end too soon. I have not touched Air RB battles since that. There is just no point anymore.
Ground RB is pretty much ruined now too. Battles go by too fast, I do not remember playing for longer than 15 minutes anymore. No more close, clutch games. Just an arena shooter small maps, with no ability to flank at all. Even when you flank the reward is poor compared to people who rush into middle, kill one tank, die and repeat. All the map changes have destroyed the whole “tactical” approach as it forces players to go brawl up close with every tank, even TDs like Nashorn, Sturer Emil and so on…
Additionally the sound design is at it’s worst ever. If I had the chance, I would gladly return to the old pre 1.43 sounds, they were 10x better than what we have now. At this stage personally I can not hear anything during battles as it is just one big messy ball of random sounds with no information at all. I can not tell how far away shots are being taken, I can not hear any directional sound, I can not hear any engine sounds (even at 30ms…), no falling bomb sounds, to the point it is absurd…
Graphics are worse too. There is just too much flickering textures, bad textures on maps (e.g. winter Finland the south side on C capture point is unplayasble because you can not render the rocks on the opposite side even when looking directly at them and people can see your tanks through rocks because they are not rendered for them). There is a lot of rendering mistakes, tanks disappearing behind fences, no rendering of objects, too slow rendering of tanks when coming around a corner, etc.
The point is, I can not hear nor see anything during battles anymore. I had so many occasions where other players were just ramming into my tank because they could not hear/ see me either.
Visual and sound design went backwards 10 years. maps are too restricted, they are creating one way corridors with no more possibilities to move and play “freely”.
Few years ago I enjoyed the game so much more, I could even bring in nice score. In the WT of today I am happy to be in middle of the scoreboard because my gamestyle is no more supported and rewarded by the game. I always enjoyed staying alive as long as possible in single tank. Nowadays you are rewarded for loosing your tank… (you gain score for being hit and dying…)
It is sad for me to see WT in this state. I enjoyed WT since 2013 but as it is now, I am not sure if I can enjoy it any longer. All my friends left the game 1-2 years ago too, they would like to enjoy WT again but we just can not…
Can we please bring back WarThunder from 2015 ? Maybe “Classic WT” server with the addition of AirRB EC mode ? Because the development team has degraded the game since it’s start just too much.
Anyone wants the old WT back too ?