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

[PacketlossRedux]

The idea behind those specific missions(small maps) is to offer fast, action-packed gameplay, where you can play very aggressively.
Both sides clash quickly, fights happen right away, everybody gets frags.

So you want people to rush in, get a few frags, and leave because one side gets spawn pushed fast, and because no flanking routes exist the pushed back team can’t come back.

Congratulation! You created one-death leavers.

Gaijin, your map design is creating the problem that you are trying to solve with free backups and whatnot.
Horrible design.

Your small maps also tend to fail at facilitating multi-vehicle SPAAs, and the most modern air-to-ground weaponry you are constantly adding to the game.

---

The aerial warfare test modes, being special events for World War mode, is a mistake. It should be an evolution of Air RB/AB. World War mode flopped every playtest and will probably flop when it returns.
I can’t fathom why you want to separate the playerbase even more when simulator already receives such miniscuel attention.

[Realtek0]

The ONLY real good answer I got from that entire 24 minute video was the random vehicles to players with nothing else in their line up for ground RB, that’s actually amazing. Everything else was extremely disappointing.

It is absurd that I’ve been playing this game for almost a full decade and since then I heard stuff about queue times. Made sense back then when player count was much lower overall, but now War Thunder gets over 100k players DAILY, queue times were instant before and they are still instant now (Except in naval, I literally can’t spade my top tier ships because I can never find matches).

One of, if not THE most disappointing answer was them completely ditching the BR range being +/- 0.7 instead of 1.0, because, of course, it would impact queue times, same ol’ discourse. I can’t actually believe it would be this bad specially if you apply it where it really matters which is generally Rank V/VI + or AT LEAST give players an option, as the other guy here said, I’d trade a longer queue time for an actual fair and enjoyable experience ANY DAY.

Their “decompression” is not enough and it only works in top tier, the experience rank VI+ is generally miserable until you finally reach actual top tier and this seems to be engineered to be that way so you’re tempted to buy premium packs or premium account.

As also stated by someone else here, this QnA was just blaming the players.
“Maps are way too small? Well the players like it that way.”
“The game is pretty much the exact same since it’s launch? Same game modes, players do the exact same thing every single match? Well players like it that way.”
“Players already ban enough maps, It WiLl ImPaCt QuEuE tImEs.” Maps HORRIBLY “designed”, there’s an insane amount of “Broken spots on X map” on YouTube, guess why some maps are notorious in the community for being plain BAD and unbalanced?

Hey Gaijin, sometimes let’s say a 10.0-11.0 match has 4 or more 11.0s in a team but the other one has only one, is that fair?
“It depends on player performance, you might stomp or get stomped” (Didn’t answer the question)

God I could spend all day talking about this…

[Metal_Major_ZOD]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[Realtek0]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[Scarlétt]

really really disappointed from some answers !

1-about the maps
iv been playing war thunder for years from 2016 and ground RB it’s still cap the point and defend the point nothing new on ground rp !
2- pushing more small maps to the game and close range fight’s
i fully disagree with this it’s awful change and kill the point of armor in some tanks and it’s awful for top tier tanks !

improvements that can be done for maps:
for map add this as extra option in game modes to able to choose big maps or small maps from a filter
here image example !

2- add something new maybe ai targets to kill or protect a factory from enemy raids ton of ideas i can think but i know gajin wont something that players will enjoy !

3- about the 0.7 BR answer this very very disappointing !
so the game will end up from 1.0 br to 20.0 br at one point which will lead to kill some other brs and br have less players than others which will lead to high Q times which will not fix anything :/

again please gajin rethinking the splitting of WWI /WWII and cold war and modern war from each other it’s only fix i could think !

why you have so many tanks / planes suffer from up tier from other vehicles that outclass them in everything !

some examples
pancake 5.3 facing ta 152 air which outclass it in everything !

and object 279 at 9.0 the gun is very great good but the armor mean nothing facing 9.0+ tanks which have laser range finder dm33 and other 10.0 which is way way stronger and when the object 279 was
at 8.3 and 8.7 it was deleting everything at max down tier which is not fair !

or 5.7 tanks against 6.7 not all tanks can encounter them.

maybe limit the amount of up tiers or limit the amount of people who have 1+ higher tank in battles

i was hoping for better answers and no updates about game engines or when ray tracing will be improved and updates about VR its forgotten :( no hand tracking

[stangbro01]

So basically we have ZERO hope of ever getting larger top tier matches?? We have all these long range systems in place and most the maps are smaller than br 1.0 matches!!!

So who is going to spend years grinding to top tier for a WORSE EXPERIENCE??

[Bajtárs]

He just play the test drive. lmao

[Foe_Hammer]

“We believe it already offers enough variety”

The variety in question:

Spoiler

[Maldrokk]

So the game devs are so out of touch with the community that they drop a whole video saying “we see your feedback, and actually you don’t want any of the things you’re asking for.”

This just gives me more anticipation for the competition of war thunder to finally shine. Waiting for good news from actual game devs instead of premium peddlers.

[Creastroy]

I can still remember the community’s reaction when the add M44 before wasp for low tier germany

[_Ulysse]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[_Poul]

@Foe Hammer

“We believe it already offers enough variety”

The variety in question:

Spoiler

The only explanation for this is that the devs don’t play Helicopter PvE mode. I’m sure that if we could somehow force them to spade a single 9.7 BR helicopter, they would immediately realize that Helicopter PvE is still in an early alpha state, full of bugs and problems.

The worst part is that it wouldn’t even take much development effort to improve the situation. Many issues could be resolved quickly - but we would need devs who actually care.

[gfdsa_killer]

venezuelan su30 being more competitive than other TT planes top tier

[gfdsa_killer]

Ah-1 9.7 heli vs apache and ka52. Pretty fair.

[Omaneko_JASDF]

[NajmiCreative]

They need to look up Heli PvE again, plus it could have resurgence in players thanks to fellas like Bob Dickinson (love your videos btw) and right now mainstream FnF missile slingers ruining it even more for grinding purposes, and damaging everyone elses gameplay for ones below 10.3 Sim/Arcade BR and with the current BR for helis on said battle modes they just grouping up every single 9.7-11.0 helis in one lobby without BR separation.

People keep saying Heli PvE is boring because they’re slow pace but actually it could even done within 3 Useful Actions/30 minutes with helis above 9.7 and enough players from what I observed. It does valid for Rank 5/9.0 and below helis if there is less players around and tend to quit after 3 Useful Actions aka when the large single use booster expires. 9.0 Heli in other hand actually needs cooperation between players as some of the helis didn’t have guided missiles and had rely to teammates to get rid of SPAA or not having basic rockets and guns to wipe out enemy assault/defence battlefield.

Myself even memorized how Heli PvE conditions work as well, for example:

• if convoy is destroyed before reaching a tile adjacent to frontline border, it will trigger Enemy Defence objective afterwards on corresponding tile horizontally/vertically next to border
• If convoy arrives at the tile adjacent to frontline border, it will despawn and trigger Enemy Assault objective on your side of the border
• Enemy Defence objective could also be triggered if Enemy Assault objective has been completed on adjacent tile to it
• Enemy attackers will attack your recently captured frontline or ongoing Enemy Assault/Defence objective asset and your own convoys (yes it exists)
• Enemy bombers, obviously, will bomb bases. Most of the time or sometimes if they unable to find a base it will circle on the middle row (or column for Southeastern City and Canyon) of the map. In rare cases it could even circle above moving convoys (yes I’ve experienced that once or twice on Vietnam map)

[PlayedStatue626-live]

The M109s weren’t even as bad as they at least came in multiple variants, now it’s 5 of the exact same thing

[Nick_Cloud]

i saw the interview…
I disagree with 98% what’s been said…
The fact that they don’t even consider that 1DL comes INTENTIONALLY , because of the game’s flaws that are so many that i can right a book 800 pages and win nobel prize analyzing them…
The fact that they didn’t even understand that helicopter PvP failed specifically because Ka-50 coming way before it’s time (while severely nerfing EVERYTHING else that could retaliate by not giving them all their ordinance) …
The fact that they don’t understand that the game has enough diversity in any case …the balance is utterly garbage. They don’t even try to make some balance with ordinance power… Ex. F-16A Netz 12,7 can surely have a chance against a 16C block 50 or 40 if they all play AIM-9L, but once the 16C gets the AMRAAMs and 9Ms is another kind of beast altogether both in 1v1 or many VS many or 1 VS many .
And here the compression kicks in … you could have 20 BR levels , and a mixture of BRs per plane , by weapons it carry (make it change by equipping the mod via tick like the performance ones, or you could integrate the rating in the ordinance profiles ) and there you have diversion and balance (i solved it with quantum mechanics… no , it’s obvious …and it will always work ) .

The fact that we even applaud them for getting game modes (SEAD, gunfights) … and they don’t perma them or even long term them or even rotate them since they are in demand…

I don’t know , his answers make me think that they just…not care as long as they get money and they will minimize ANY COST and any advancement that costs and they just don’t care about the game as a game…

I will tell it again, and take it as a feedback . If another game comes , with half the diversity …but with some not even good maps/missions etc. just mediocre , but with balance and at least the intention to be balanced… WT is done for.
At this point the saving grace is that there is no competition. And while i get that the market for this genre isn’t huge and many industries don’t really care to make this kind of games…
What if a shift comes? Would you want to be melt even if you try last minute because your own playerbase doesn’t trust you (at all) first and foremost, or have established playerbase that won’t switch games that easily .See warcraft… it passed a phase that it was trash, it’s 20 years old , the graphics don’t say much comparing with newer games -ok it’s cartoon-ish that saves a lot but still… But it had establish a playerbase and never really fell off…in its worse day it was king of MMO-RPGs with nearly double the second’s numbers…oh and add a sub to play model. And yes those guys started from a small company and now is colossal …

WT is 12 years old and still operates in beta. WoW in 12 years was destroying the markets and still is.

[Cpt_Bel_V]

@Nick_Cloud

WT is 12 years old and still operates in Alpha

Fixed

[Chickbecombo]

The scariest part of all this is that they genuinely play their own game, look at the current state of it, and still think this is acceptable, especially when it comes to maps.

I’ve been on these forums for years, watching people ask, and beg for bigger maps in Ground and Air RB. Players have suggested everything.
spreading out bases to fix the fearball, adding more airfields and spawn points so we actually use the whole map, making matches last longer than five minutes, giving Ground RB enough space so you don’t get nuked by top-tier CAS two minutes in, and maybe, just maybe, not losing both spawn points before the match even starts to breathe.

And after all that? They give us this. It’s honestly terrifying how out of touch it feels at this point. It doesn’t even look like they’re trying anymore.

Air Sim hasn’t had a meaningful update in years, and yet they still push these tiny maps that last under five minutes and leave you mentally drained when you’re done, and they seriously think this is an acceptable mode and map ?