They did! Newcomers can research 9 of 10 trees with a fat bonus.
Also today you have way more bypass options in higher ranks with squadron and event vehicles.
I dont see an issue with the rate of unlocking vehicles in arb. If you play well it is quite fast - 13.5K rp in a 10.7 plane without any premium or boosts is quite possible while also having a cool match.
Unlocking modules needs a serious overhaul as some planes are unplayable until nearly spaded due to their main advantages being tier 4 modules (specific excess power or fancy missiles)
Tanks need to have the activity coefficient for time spent alive raised from 0.76 to 1.22. The respawn argument does not justify this disparity - you only gain activity coefficient for the single life and it seems to restart when you respawn or at least you get a nasty weighting. If i get 85% activity in a tank and survive 20 minutes, i should get the same activity as in a plane that got 85% activity and 20 minute survival.
(Activity coefficient is:
Seconds vehicle is alive x activity% x 0.76/1.22 if ground/air x economy modifier x 2/1.4 for victory/loss)
Air sb rp rewards dont bother me too much, but i wish we got skill bonus to reward going above and beyond in a 15 minute cycle.
Air sb ec has an sl problem. Spawn cost is absurdly inflated and sl gain falls below sustainable even at a 4:1 kd if you get those 4 kills too fast (in large part because 4:1 is the same as 2:1.). The useful actions system discourages pvp and pushing yourself against competent and challenging opponents as you end up losing sl (or go net zero with premium). Instead it encourages sealclubbing, lobby shopping, giving up at first hint of opposition and abusive gameplay (kill 1 person, afk above airfield and repeat while ignoring your team and victory condition).
The air sb sl economy must be overhauled that unless you are suiciding, teamkilling or griefing/trolling, you will always gain some silver lions for every match and with premium that amount should be significant rather than “we got net zero”).
This requires review of rank 4 and rank 5 aircraft. Why does the horten cost 17k to spawn? Why do the f80, f2h2, meteors, me262s cost 12-17k? Why does the f8f cost 8k?
Change these spawn costs to match air rb or maybe even air arcade and introduce a system that penalizes you for crashing/bailing without sustaining player or non airfield npc damage to prevent abuse.
Give discounts for flying a plane in an uptier lobby to reduce people only flying when theyre the topdog.
Give discounts to next spawn cost for being near an objective when dying.
Introduce a death bank system where you get awarded insurance (like you would sl) for individual actions which reduces your next spawn cost, thus rewarding going above and beyond while preventing excessive income from rigged matches and zombing.
(It costs me 13k to spawn. In rb, killing a plane is worth roughly 4500 sl at rank vii. Thus in asb, if in a rank 7 plane i kill 3 enemies and get shot down, my next respawn is free (in arb it would not be free but would be offset by the sl i gained)).
(Itd be better if we got 4500 sl per kill instead but the sim lobby system is easy to rig and abuse. This increases the income floor for both premium and f2p and doesnt affect the income ceiling)
2 Likes
This is always a bad argument. Game is a (almost) zero sum scenario…ONE player that plays “well” means five or six (the guys that died for the good player to get kills) OR MORE that will have bad results.
For the progress to work, it must be “quite fast” for the AVERAGE player. (PLEASE notice that i am not claiming it to the BAD players…AVERAGE means average).
And also…i understand grind must be hard-ish to have value and provide sense of accomplishment…i actually like that part…
My issue is more that i would like to play cold war stuff…and grind feels too hard to get there…and once there i can only play a bit before repair costs kick in. Lucky for me that i actually prefer WW2 combat…so i am happy enough.
BUT…a guy coming here to play MBTs or jets will have a huge grind ahead of him…
My past suggestions were
- A second entry point in early cold war (could be combined with higher research costs of late WW2 to make up for it).
- Premium purchases would allow research at same level of purchased vehicle.
1 Like
I have to say, those are some pretty terrible suggestions. But hey, I don’t think the grind is too much. I think War Thunder’s grind is easy compared to free-to-play games of old (Navyfield). And I really don’t get the mentality of those who can’t recognise and appreciate WW2 vehicles.
1 Like
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAGAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH
I think that the Helicopter grind is way too much. I only have 2 helicopters: AH-1G Huey Cobra and Alouette German light helicopter. I wish I could get more Russian helicopters but they are way out of my league.
I wish we could access helicopters earlier in the game.
Care to elaborate on why?
- Would bring more (mostly free) players that prefer Modern vehicles into the game
- Would make paying customers able to pay their way into the higher levels
BOTH would remove the need for MONTHS of playing something some players dont like in order they can play what they really like…along the way it would also reduce the number of 1-and-gone players at higher tiers (those who have only one premium)
I can see why Gaijin may dislike the idea…not really why players won’t…
BTW…i used this “mechanic” to play early DDs…otherwise i would have left naval much earlier. (I would still play naval it if work wasn’t taking so much free time…prefer DDs over coastal)
Simple free-to-play psychology. Grind is the game. You can lie to yourself and state otherwise, but you’re playing War Thunder and not some other game that makes vehicles available to you without grind or effort (be it Arma, Battlefield… take your choice). This game follows a strong tradition of free-to-play games where you work your way up from early designs to more advanced designs. I don’t care if you for some reason prefer boring DDs over the funnest vessels in naval (coastal) or whether some kid had the misfortune of growing up when games had already moved onto modern warfare (I grew up with Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Battlefield 1942, and the like) and they can’t fully appreciate WW2 vehicles. I want everyone to work their way through the different eras of vehicles - no matter how long it takes them - months? years? whatever, game will be here waiting for them.
One issue with this is catering.
People who have no appreciation for WW2 air combat will complain, complain and complain that it’s “boring”, “too much time/effort” and whatnot. Gaijin then slashes the 1 hour long ARB game to only 25 minutes, puts airfields and objectives in a way that you only need ~1-2 minutes of flying to engage the enemy and punish side climbing and disciplined flight with automatic A.I ticket bleed (not caused by anyone groundpounding - the game can and will end well before the 25 minute timer passes while you’re having your final 1 vs 1 duel as the last two standing).
The auto ticket bleed was removed, but the culture is still broken and ARB became “fly straight at enemy without smart approaches and try to kill the half of the enemy team that doesn’t even bother to fight back, just straps bombs on P-47 and F4u and makes japanese generals and admirals in late WW2 proud of their holy wind inspired honour.”
Tank battles are the same. Maps are made smaller, flanking routes minimized, APHE boosted beyond compare to make it more and more arcadey and minimize time spent travelling and positioning because “WW2 tanks slow and borign D:.”
1 Like
Oh my god how fucking hard is for ppl to understand that this is not an post about ww2 being boring or some shit like that, this is a post about the grind on this game where you have to play for years to reach the endgame, and don’t even try calling this shit an journey…
I’ve responded to Dudes Rug saying splitting WW2 and Post-war would be less impactful than expected.
I argue that it’d be worth it to split the two because Gaijin makes changes that favour post-war gameplay preferences and negatively affect WW2 brackets.
All of this really doesn’t matter, they will not do anything to make the grind better. In fact it’ll actually get worse as time goes on and more top tier vehicles are added.
The problem isn’t the existence of a grind, it’s the extent of it. The massive player strike and protests in 2023 made it clear that War Thunder’s grind wasn’t just demanding, it was excessive, even by free-to-play standards.
1 Like
Literally don’t feel any grind, just get to what to like playing and play that and research higher up stuff with those. I almost maxxed out french and italian grounds just playing their rank III stuff for example.
Don’t obsess with always playing the latest thing you unlocked, play BR/vehicles you enjoy and then move on once you got atleast like 2-3 vehicles at a BR for once you want to try out/are interested in.
I straight ignore spading vehicles unless i find em fun like i spaded the M-50 and T92 but not any other vehicle in US ground around its BR , i’m not good with those tanks i just find em fun and weird so i focus on them.
So if you like 80’s tanks you have to GRIND through all cringe tanks just so you can start playing what you like.
1 Like
Gaijin has previously stated that the end goal of war thunder is ‘completing a single tech tree’, in their eyes that is the achievable standard for your average player, and they incentivise this with their increasing sale of high tier premiums.
The focus of the game has been rank 6->7->8 over the last 4 years and claiming otherwise is blatantly false, furthermore when all advertising material, loading screens, icons and symbology are angled towards modern (high rank) equipment, then the facts are laid out right here.
War thunder has an end goal, and that is reaching top tier.
Let’s see…
This is not the end goal they think for the players, because the game has no actual end-goal. They produce material as an end goal for the “average player” (average player has nothing to do with skill in their eyes, has to do with hours in the game and money that person may spend) .
It’s different to see in the end of the line of a tech tree a plane like Rafale than Mirage III for example.
Yes, you -me and the boyz may know (or at least find it as an opportunity to learn) things about military aviation… and may love Mirage III more than Rafale and keep spending hours with it and learning about it (RL features/action etc.) , but in the “current” world people know Rafale.
The average ^player^ may not knew about MIII in his life (personal experience, a RL friend thought every delta wing is M2K) .
The kids of today know of F-16 as your everyday fighter plane in NATO nations , the first thing i saw and i instantly wanted to be a pilot was F-4E Phantom II low flying over the sea! Young people today may not know even what a Phantom looks like! But if they see F-16 they want to play that!
It’s about marketing!
The “average player” doesn’t have to be an aviation enthousiast (or tank or ship) . The “average player” is a gamer. Giving them an “end goal” that they know what it is brings them in .And of course they will sell more premiums of any kind because the player wants to play with what he/she likes!
In order for the game to be sustained and even expand they need that kind of players … they don’t have to be enthousiasts. Just players. And of course you may never see them in the forum as well.
However , for the enthousiasts … there is no end game in a game like WT. They can play WW2 forever. They will play F-86 10000 games. That doesn’t bring more people=money to the game. Rafale will. Iconic planes of our era (F-14/15/Su-27) will.
In the end playerbase is a bag with many mixed and different people and interests. There is no actual line to what someone sees as “end game” and especially when the game is the vehicles and us .
1 Like
Yes…i question if this is working…for Gaijin itself…
In my PERSONAL case it is not…i simply GAVE UP on grinding to top tier almost all nations i play…i am moving so slow in higher tiers that i prefer to research vehicles i don’t have yet on the lower tiers…and a few hugh tier, but very slowly…
The odd part is that 8.0 grind is already the top i am willing to grind…higher than that is beyond the time i have available for gaming…
Of course that if Gaijin has enough players grinding to the top, the this is a moot point…me (and players like me) will play middle tiers…and guys that play much more (or better) will go to top tier…
I can complain that i will never play MBTs or jets…but lots of others will…and i actually don’t believe i am “entitled” to it…game is free and grind is part of the model…
MY POINT is that it would be better FOR THE GAME and GAIJIN to have easier access to top tier…ibut i have no data to check it…
lmao, no.
When i finally get all top tier RU and all top tier GER i’ll kindly f-ck off from the grind and just play with these nations.
I will be free of grind and i will FINALLY be free to play and enjoy the game.
And i will never start any other tech tree due to excessive grind (maybe if i’ll get a good premium 10.7 lineup on discount)
The grind is not the game. game is the game
there is literally nothing insulting or offensive in this post, so don’t bother flagging it
You will still need the SL to crew and expert the stuff. And every two months, you no longer have all the top tier RU and GER stuff. It won’t end, if tree completion is your goal.