Among recent wave of videos of concerned WT YouTubers I was amazad to see not a single one of them bring to light one of the core issues that plagues War Thunder - lack of quality assurence on the content that is being released.
I want to clarify, I do not think that game is completely left on it’s own by developers, some of the neweк issue I will mention bellow are already fixed. However, considering the magnitude of the issues, and how often they occure, I feel this needs to be brought to light and talked about, not to harm developer’s reputaion, but to alert of the issue.
Almost every update something breaks, and not just something, core/significant mechanics. For the past two years different updates caused following issues upon release - missile damage dissapeared, APFSDS damage dissapeared, APHE shells ignoring armor on moving vehicles, not being able to configure/use chaff/flare, fuel amount configuration. And thats only what I can remember, now lets see how the very recent update went -
- M829A3 - new APDFDS for entirety of top tier US MBTs, upon release failed to do damage to modules almsot making it unplayable.
- TUSK kit on Abrams downgrading M829A3 to M829A2.
- GBU-53/B - new guided glide bomb for US top tier CAS, constantly misses/phases through enemies making it fail to do any damage. Literally unplayable since day 1. Report
- Wheeled vehicles don’t get damaged wheels back upon repair. Significant borderline gamebreaking bug for entire class of vehicles. Report
- Planes being able to fly through trees.
Again, thats only what I know of. As you can see, the very new things that are the spotlight of the update, that people will be getting their hands on the first thing, some even paid out their way to get their hands first - are not working from day 1 of the update.
Not even premium vehicles are safe, the following example is infinitely less significant compared to what was listed above, but nontheless, is very showing of the magnitude of the issue :
New Rank VI premium tank M60A1 Predator has set of addon tracks on hull and turret, but only the one on the turret have been moddeled.
As I said in the beginning, many of those issues were/being fixed quickly after thre release of updates, but many of those either being forgotten about/lost in pile and fixes for those come after months. Like for example the wheels repair bug I mentioned, thats a very significant bug, update dropped a week ago, as of time of writing this post, the bug report still not received even “Accepted” tag
Again, I’m not trying to blame or judge anyones work, if you ask me - the bug report team is clearly understaffed and could receive some help.
The second part of this issue that I want to expand on is technical inaccuracies and technical bug reporting. Developers make their own research into the capabilities, armor/module layouts, looks when prepearing to release new vehicles. Naturally, developers are not omnipotent and don’t have access to all/secret documents and thats completely understandable. But when additional information being provided by pationate players in the first months or even days following the vehicles release, and it left in “Accepted” or “Open” state for months or years, it honestly makes people give up on reporting and seriously damages will to play.
Special place in this case are top tier vehicles, the very things the grind exists for, things that many players focused to accquire. There are dozens if not hundreds reports on top tier tanks (helis and planes probably too) sitting for years waiting to be implemented or addressed. I get it when old/middle of the tech tree vehicles get their fixes in “low priority”, but when it’s top of the line vehicles? People put hundreds of hours to get those.
In my opinion new vehicles should receive high priority for fixing, and top tier ones should get constant high priority, reports for those should not be waiting for years.
Another facet of this issue is when in the patchnotes for the upcoming update you see vechicle that has bunch of technical reports, waiting for implementation, gets something removed or changed, while the entirety of mentioned reports being unaddressed. That happened to me this update when I saw thermals being removed from BTR-3E1, while ATGM fire on the move, spall liner coverage, Hunter-Killer capability, telescopic commander sight(yes, minor thing…but very crucial!) being left unaddressed. If you gonna make a touch us on the vechicle, why not make a considerable one? We are not expecting you to fix everything in one go, but please, don’t streach it in tiny pieces over the years.
As a closing note - I understand that war Thudner grew into a huge and extremely complex game with thouthands of vehicles and hundres of mechanics. Dear developers, I appreciate the game you have created and keep developing, and I only want it to keep succeeding. Thats why I want you to see and address this issue.