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:.”
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.
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.
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 .
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…
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.
I maintain my previous statement. "There is no grind”.
It’s just a collective mass psychosis, and it’s all in your own head.
I guarantee you that if you drop the idea of “the grind”, you will have infinitely more fun when you play.
I don’t have an issue with it, since I only play vehicles I enjoy, and don’t force myself to progress to meet the META, however your statement about war thunder not having top tier as an end point for most players is objectively false and I felt the need to address it
“special taste” weird, I just think most ppl would prefer to play the vehicles they see their air force/army using yk , thats why you see a shit ton of ppl buying the clickbait f4s etc , cuz they aren’t stupid enough to grind the whole game as f2p to get the vehicles they actualy want to play with
your joking right ? , there is no way your saying this for real, how long did you take to get the vehicles you have btw ? , a day or something like that ? either way your grinding in the game anyways…