They have not solved the problems of bot plundering and killing, server repair, and some ships. They have hardly solved any formal naval mode problems, and only copied new premium harvesting wallets
From late 2024 until now, War Thunder’s naval mode has received several updates that, in my opinion, haven’t improved the mode; they’ve actually destroyed it.
Before the compartment system, we had a localized, destructible armor system.
In my view, that system was much better: ships were more durable and gameplay felt more balanced.Then came the compartment system. At first, a single flooded compartment was enough to sink an entire ship. Later, they decided it would take three compartments to make a ship sink.
The system is completely unbalanced because ships don’t all have the same number of compartments. Some, like the Iowa are advantaged, while others like the Soyuz have nearly indestructible ones. Meanwhile, ships like the Yamato are absurdly fragile, a few shells can wipe out a compartment.
This mechanic is just bad; it shortens player survivability and makes battles less enjoyable.Then came the increase in Gaijin bots (let’s call them that, since they’re not player-account-controlled).
This change is both good and bad. Why?
Because those bots have been made too accurate, turning gameplay into a nightmare.
Coastal AI ships can obliterate players in seconds.
Take the PR-206 bot for example, it can kill anyone effortlessly, with no real counterplay.
They’re meant to make battles feel alive, but players aren’t stupid, this just makes the experience frustrating, especially when these bots shoot down planes from over 10 km away.The higher bot count has also ruined battleship matches.
They can snipe your turrets from kilometers away, and if you spawn first, you’re immediately targeted and doomed.
Bots destroy compartments as if they were made of paper. You sink, you rage — frustrating experience.On top of that, kill-stealing by bots has made naval even worse.
It’s not a bug — the kill always goes to whoever hits last.
It’s extremely frustrating when you sink an enemy ship by yourself and a bot fires a single shot just to steal the kill.
Less score means fewer research points — another frustrating loop.
Sure, bots reward the same RP as players, but is it really worth it? I don’t think so.Then there’s the introduction of anti-air missile ships.
Not exactly new, but the more of them there are, the worse the experience becomes.
Those missiles are anti-aircraft, not anti-ship, yet players abuse them constantly.
There’s no reliable counter except having your own missile ship.
It’s incredibly frustrating to get one-shotted by someone who fires, disappears, and racks up easy kills.
In Enduring Confrontation, it’s even worse, players spam missile ships, fire, quit, and rejoin. Two minutes, four kills, six deaths, and an Iowa spawns.
The arrival of AA missile ships has completely ruined naval gameplay.
(https://youtu.be/qaSbtWQ9g3k)The removal of the towing cable, a historical and useful mechanic, was another mistake.
Instead of fixing it, you just removed it.
And when players report it as a bug, you claim it’s not reproducible. But it is; spawn in a regular match, run aground, and there it is. You just need to actually play your own game.And now, the upcoming update feels like the final straw.
In naval battles, repairing is already secondary. The real priorities are fires and flooding.
If you lose one of four main turrets, you don’t need to repair it.
Same for your AA guns.Forcing crew members to reoccupy repaired modules only to have them destroyed again leads to faster crew loss and earlier death.
This change is clearly meant to make players die faster.Maybe new players coming from ground battles will like it at first, but once they realize it just makes them die quicker, they’ll hate it too.
Unfortunately, this past year has effectively killed the naval mode by making it more frustrating and less rewarding.
Developers, it’s time to play your own mode before making changes.
Listen to your community, test mechanics properly, and reconsider the aiming system. A suggestion have been asking for that since the new targeting mode was introduced.This year has truly marked the death of naval mode.
Unwanted mechanics added, good ones removed, you’ve succeeded in driving players away from your own game.
What’s the next surprise you’ll add, the one that finally kills the mode?
10 Likes
I wish, Nagato is Her 1930s refit, which Mutsu lacks. Improvements include: Improved armour, much more AA (98 25mm auto cannons) and the same shell, albeit a smaller caliber, that Yamato uses.
just copied a premium ship that was better than the free one. I’ve already forgotten when was the last time a free ship had the same level of AA firepower as a premium ship.
1 Like
Myoko class, last year i believe
Gave my feedback about this here
btw. why don’t you use proper naval tag for tread it’s hard to find it with unused general-naval
ps. tag choice on EN forum is kind of awkward you got here lots of different tags about naval warfare when on RU forum we got just one so naval treads is easy to find .
btw. here are other changes from devserver.
Naval weapon changes:
12.7 - 15 mm:
AI max aim range: 2.5 → 1.5 km,
AI max attack range: 2 → 1.5 km,
,
20 - 25 mm:
AI max aim range: 4 → 2 km,
AI max attack range: 3.5 → 2 km,
,
28 - 30 mm:
AI max aim range: 4.5 → 3.5 km,
AI max attack range: 3.5 → 2.5 km,
,
37 - 47 mm:
AI max aim range: 5.5 → 3.5 km,
AI max attack range: 5 → 3 km,
,
52 - 90 mm:
AI max aim range: 7 → 5 km,
AI max attack range: 7 → 4.5 km,
,
150 - 155 mm:
AI max aim range: 20 → 15 km,
AI max attack range: 20 → 15 km,
,
180 - 203 mm:
AI max aim range: 16 → 18 km,
AI max attack range: 16 → 18 km
naval repair speeds:
- primary turrets slowed by 18%,
- secondary turrets slowed by 20%,
- AA turrets quickened by 25%
1 Like
Naval players in gaijins understanding:
Let’s automate shooting and movement too, it’s so difficult.
It’s enough to compare it with the progression in ground and air mechanics to understand that the snail hates players of naval
16 Likes
You right, i just posted it.
Anyway, it do not change that this year was clearly bad.
I don’t understand why your hating on this. This is a nice change. Iirc it says you don’t have to use these presets anyway. There is no downside to doing these though
Because the developer is following the path of maximum simplification. Where it would be possible to work out the depth of interaction with the ship’s survivability systems. By making skill-based management
The pace of the top’s gameplay provides timings for deeper interaction with your own ship. But the snail is moving in the opposite direction
2 Likes
You do realize this also fixes the enemy team right?
If people are exploiting this, then that make ships incorrectly more survivable than others and can increase their BRs.
Automatic repairs would show which ships are actually durable and should be higher BRs.
If your preferred ships are worse, they could go down in BR.
I personally can live with both systems.
I just also feel that ships would be more balanced if their crew weaknesses were more prevalent.
1 Like
This is more dumbing down of naval and for who?
They pretending they didn’t have juggling damage control as a core naval mechanic for the past 8 years and now they are dumbing it down of just I dunno, making it take less time to hold down the hotkey to cancel one repair and switch to another?
Is managing damage control really getting distracted from shooting enemies when I am waiting between 30 second salvos in battleships?
I want my default that was stated to be available
Its my ship, I’m the captain, I choose what to prioritize on the fly and what to ignore.
I want my manual control back, not some system that has a 30 second cooldown between switching priorities
15 Likes
Who cares who has the BR if all the player’s decision points are cut off. It won’t be interesting to play at all
1 Like
If this new system means some of my open-gun ships move down in BR, I’m all for that.
Cause right now I don’t play open-gun ships much because I don’t want to do the exploits players are doing.
At the same time, I can live with the repair system staying manual, but the consequences of that means higher BR’d open-gun ships.
What is an open-gun ship? Something like german AA boats?
At the cost of destroying the player’s control over the unit’s status? Are you willing to pay even that price?
5 Likes
These people will agree to turn a mode into an actual cookie clicker if it means that rewards are slightly better.
1 Like
Some dreadnaughts, a lot of destroyers, etc.
Vessels where there are guns in open air instead of enclosed turrets.
This does include AA systems.
This would impact the survivability of these vessels. Soyuz could increase in BR faster due to having less open guns than say Yamato. I’d mention Bismark but that’s already a lower BR.
Also you only ever speak for yourself.
I’m sure the tankist woud like …