Video Q&A with War Thunder Game Director Viacheslav Bulannikov!

Official News, Development Blogs and Updates
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Just going to say this too.

The most appropriate response a Community Manager can give here is to either offer a further explanation of BVVD’s responses (if they have the answer and some of us do understand if you do not), or to assure players they are listening to the comments here and will take them back to either to BVVD or the dev team in general for further clarification or to revisit a stance with new information. A Youtube Comment section to one video is not the same population as your own forum. There might be some overlap sure, but best to not assume they are the same people.

If you don’t like bad assumptions on player takeaways from the video, do not insinuate an equally bad assumption that players didn’t watch it.

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lmfao the response at 18:37 is jure pure ignorance and to be honest pure lack of understanding of the BIGGER ISSUE.

So explain to me how MI28 with DIRCM sitting in multipath attitude is somehow “balanced” or justified when SLM/IR guided systems cannot engage it because over performing DIRCM, it often sits tree top level avoiding SAMs with ARH missiles that love to just nose dive into the ground because hey look gaijin cant give rotatory blades proper radar cross sections (which is funny af tbh)

Oh while giving them LMURs to dump out by constantly sitting at helipad re-arming every 2/3 minutes and having some insane firing angles that they almost always result in a 1 hit because top down approach on MBTs with shocker… not ERA on the top.

That Q&A is legit the worst thing ive listened too

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Amazing, 24.45 minutes of
Q: We have have a problem
A: no you don’t
This level of avoiding to answers is pure art

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At some point in the future, its possible a Revenge class may indeed appear in the British Naval tree. But its too soon to mention specifics at this stage.

Our intention is not to have ships be too similar, or directly identical across multiple trees. Whereas the answer here was referring to vehicles that are directly identical. No sister ship of Arkhangelsk/ HMS Royal Sovereign is going to be identical, and as mentioned above, we prefer ships to have at least some differences. So our focus has been on other unique ships for the British tree currently. But a Revenge class remains possible for the future, simply it was not the contextual focal point of the question you are referring too (which was on tanks like M44, M55, not capital ships).

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@Smin1080p_WT Can we get a better response on FnF munitions namely LMURs and Helis re-arming with almost constant immunity. that response simply is not good enough to the issues at top tier and blatantly ignores MANY issues

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Naturally we are always keeping the flow of information going back to the developers from reactions to feedback on all subjects. However the answers provided were the most detailed and comprehensive that can be given, directly from BVV himself.

Unfortunately we cannot keep posting a Q&A of a Q&A around and around again with follow ups to the same question over and over again when the main factor has already been answered in full detail. Of course if there are separate questions that are largely expressed in the community that may be on other aspects not already answered, then they could of course be possible for future Q&As or news subjects.

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Hey. The answers within the video are directly from BVV himself and the dev team.

There is no better response to provide in this case, as they come directly from the source.

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Genuinely, have you ever played helicopters? Sitting at 60 meters will give below trees altitude, at which you can’t fire at anything. Anything higher - instant ASTER to the face.

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What he gave was not a response at all, im sorry but a simple 1 or 2 games at top tier would highlight such.

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So, to put it bluntly, MM isn’t random in any way.

Typical eomm garbage

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Go check my replays, not argueing about my experience and videos of the same problem.

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Non-responses. 1200 GE for 20 players for 2 months of non-stop grind is a good reward. Schizophrenia about 32 map bans. Personal opinion of game designers about balance of vehicles mixed with stats.

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I’m not seeing any helicopter with FnF missiles in your stats.

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I would kill to just have translation and subs over dubbed over :/

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I said before go watch replays and videos of the mi28 issue, I’m not arguing about something that is a problem and is provable by multiple videos and from multiple people of varying experiences

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I have asked you if you ever played on helis at that tier. Instead of properly answering, you start whining and asking me to waste time on replay check. And when I bother to check your stats, I see that you are Z-19E player, with zero FnF helicopters purchased.

Yeah, it’s provable by my experience from mi-28nm in sb, where I took off, and the moment I took off I died to ASTER.

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Dude, at least half of the BR suggestions I see on BR change topics are biased and unfair.

@ItsOnyy
If you’re only now finding out tank games are all going to be shooters with tanks, that is a jarring realization when you don’t go into it from the start.
It’s always been this way for all tank games. Whether we agree it should be this way is irrelevant.

I can agree, and this problem would get worse with more map bans. 60 map bans wouldn’t be your banned maps statistically speaking. All you’d get are small city maps if that’s what the greater good wants.

Good overall Q&A IMO. Good clarifications, especially on the fact up to 32 players in a match have maps banned impacting my ability to get Pradesh, Red Desert, etc.
If more people got multiple map bans, I’d never get large maps in War Thunder ever again by that math.

Regen steering rework occurring is a net positive.

Glad to see multiple new modes get worked on.

HARMs coming in next year to make CAS stronger. Alright.

Addressing the fact they bring unique vehicles to the game constantly, wish more people accepted that fact.

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  1. Leaks are not confirmations
  2. The leakers themselves say it does not cover everything

Cool your jets

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So basically, any questions were interesting but let’s focus on the main ones, and answer with my thoughts:

  • “Subject” (timestamp): my thoughts

Aircrafts:

  • “Air RB EC” / “Aerial Warfare” / “WW mode” (5:40/8.40) - for once we agree, Air RB don’t win much to get the EC feature, but the “Aerial Warfare” should be really good (a thing that last test-event showed to be worse than actual Air RB), so i’ll keep an eye on it,… aswell as the WW mode which was really disapointing on it’s early stages.

  • Current air RB maps (outside Q&A): they should be extended and reworked at high BR.

Tanks:

  • “Maps being reduced” (6:45 and 23:10): the problem of new holland is true for many maps in the game,… corridors, no way to turn around an opposition block,… many vehicules in the game are made/designed to flank large amount of ennemy forces then skirmish from flanks or back of those ennemy forces.
    this is why the proposed gameplay doesn’t fit the game - many things should be reworked, first by increasing the access of areas instead of forcing head-on battles.

  • “new modes” (12:55) : people can’t leave the UNIQUE gamemode proposed by the game, if they’re willing to research their vehicules,… so they’re actually enduring a gamemode they hate, in the sake of progressing within the game - M. Bulannikov, your indicator is not good, you should start a real survey on this.

  • “Maps for high tier” (23:10): i detailled my reasonning about “fast gameplay”, later in that post.
    YET: tanks that are highly mobile and having high performances on both Gun and Armor are used more Tactically in todays real conflict. as such the current High Tier gameplay doesn’t fit any realism because of how short and narrowed the maps currently are,…
    it will also give more space for SAM and Arty-SPG systems to work as a true Backbone of the main forces.

Helicopters:

  • “Helicopter PvE” (16:15): needs a reward overhaul, it actually takes longer to research new helicopters than any other type of vehicule within their main gamemode that should allow players to make the research.

  • “Helicopter research converted from Tank” (16:45): will it be possible to do the research with aircraft too?
    they’re also a way to unlock access to Helicopter Techtrees within War Thunder (by reaching rank 5), but such feature wasn’t given to Aircrafts, in order to research Helicopers (vehicules that should be interesting more aircrafts players than Tanks players) - do something about it.

Naval: (not something i look much onto, so i’ll skip that)

Matchmaking / BR management:

  • “0.7 BR spread” (11:05) : we agree the 0.7 BR Spread rule will only kill diversity,… but the game needs a BR overhaul at certain ranges, most notably on the overcompressed Jet ERA (needs are an actual decompression by 4 to 6 BR steps), and some in the World War 2 ERA (with at least 2 new BR steps)

  • “BR balance decisions and players imput” (21:55): most players clearly believe from experiences that the player imput onto BR changes are often discarded/disregarded by gaijin.

meanwhile most decisions seems to follow up the in-game results of any vehicule, without much thoughts about the BR change,… this also explains why players wants you to put the 0.7BR rules, because “decompression” alone never was efficient to give a true break of current problematics in the game,… the BR balance change is often viewed by players as inefficient, because it disregard many aspect of the current main issue within the game → the skill differences between playerbase.

Such problem went as far as forcing you (DEV Team), to give the F/A-18A at the same BR as the F-4EJ Kai, despite the amount of tremendous differences between those 2 aircrafts, and this at the introduction of the F/A-18A,… yet the F/A-18A does holds a winrate stats under the F-4EJ Kai.
the current problem is that the shortlist of BR changes comes from statistics at the beginning of your process,…
a Solution would be to :
1- Ask “Trusted Players” (Player Councils - actives and grinding at least 6 nations) about what vehicules should be moved for balance (through surveys)
2- Fact check-it with statistical results and your internal point (as you claim it to happen)
3- make a short list (Maximum 20 vehicules per TYPE of vehicules)
4- show the list and let all players talk about it

What the player “wants” in the mind of Bulannikov:

  • “Map bans” (14:20): it’s a feature that should have never come in first place,… introduced by Gaijin to premium players, it have been given to everyone to avoid a Pay-to-Win argument on Forum and Steam.
    Delete the ban feature, and it will be become far easier to not have a spam of single map, and have the access of several other gamemodes.
    [Add-on N°1: TankMap dev team should prioritize the balance issue of their maps]
    [Add-on N°2: Ban system make a total of 32 (directly by players)+2(like/dislike) maps banned possible - that’s an insanely high amount of ban]

  • “fast gameplay” (23:10):
    most of the players willing to have such “fast gameplay” are the one coming from Battlefield/Call of duty games where the focus is given on Arcade type battle with INFANTRY which is far more spread accross the map.
    Bulannikov said it himself “80% of players” (the same amount i considered to be bad players in this game,… there might be a link there somewhere) - those 80% players don’t know anything about vehicule based warfare.
    the game would gain in notoriety, fun and gameplay, if you, Devs, forced yourself to make it strategical and teamplay based (which is not the case today)

  • Artillery sights (2:25) :
    it’s impossible to have such indirect fire anyway
    because with the maps and fast gameplay Gaijin thinks that players wants will never allow to add range.
    the problem is to Deepen the Gameplay on both Width and Depth potential gameplay. (as you were speaking of it at 23:10)
    something like a Tank map of 20x8km would largely help to increase the abilities of such Arty-SPG.
    with such maps, we would have the possibility to get Artillery special features:
    by using the map and use the kind of feature we have for aircrafts avionics, we could be given an approximated range, on the map or alongside the map.
    then with information the player got, he will be able to adjust his own gun elevation, and he will still have to aim for a general direction with it’s vehicule
    as a resume: it’s a simple add-on feature, combined to an increased map size that will give SAM and Arty-SPG systems more value and more possibilities.

  • “Player leaving after one death” (17:05) - most players leaving after one-death does it not because they own a single premium vehicule, but because they see the game as inefficient to grind if they’re killed.
    you’ve gave a lot of possibilities to respawn mutliple ground vehicules, and the issue is still there.
    the solutions i can think of would be to add a reward bonus if you’re still in the game at the end of it (conditions of 85% activity, to avoid the bot farming, and be in any vehicule at the end of the game)

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As for dedicated helicopter PvE, we don’t have any active or in-progress plans for its additional development right now either. We believe it already offers enough variety - in terms of goals, objectives, helicopters with different weapon loadouts.

This basically says: “We don’t play Helicopter PvE mode, but we believe it’s in a perfect state, so there’s no need to touch it.”

It’s really not that hard to play a few battles and see for yourself what the Helicopter PvE mode currently looks like.

A lot of bugs that are simply ignored in bug reports, including broken objectives (bases, sector attacks, sector defenses, landing objectives, planes). These are crucial parts of the mode. In many battles your only option is to J-out and switch to a new match, because some bugged objectives will never fix themselves (bugged bases, bugged landing objectives).

Still only two BR brackets, which may have worked three years ago, but now helicopters with 3.75 km missiles get matched with helicopters firing at 8 km. This could be solved very easily, by adding more brackets - but this suggestion (made two years ago!) continues to be ignored:
https://forum.warthunder.com/t/additional-br-separation-for-helicopter-pve-mode/32055

The newest helicopters with fire-and-forget missiles made the situation even worse. They completely dominate battles and greatly reduce the chances for other players to get any decent score:

Spoiler

Far too few objectives for 10 players in a single match. Of course, the suggestion to reduce the number of players per battle also gets ignored:
https://forum.warthunder.com/t/proposal-to-reduce-heli-pve-matchmaking-player-count-per-battle/32054

Rewards are very poor, especially the RP part. This game mode only feels even somewhat worth playing when you use huge RP boosters. Without boosters, there’s really no point in playing it.

Do you know why Helicopter PvE isn’t popular? Because it feels like it’s still in a very early alpha state.

The saddest part is that some of these fixes wouldn’t even require much coding. Reducing the number of players in a match is basically changing two values on the server, and the devs still refuse to do it. How blind do you have to be to pretend that this game mode is finished and working perfectly?

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