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.
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.
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.
What he gave was not a response at all, im sorry but a simple 1 or 2 games at top tier would highlight such.
So, to put it bluntly, MM isn’t random in any way.
Typical eomm garbage
Go check my replays, not argueing about my experience and videos of the same problem.
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.
I’m not seeing any helicopter with FnF missiles in your stats.
I would kill to just have translation and subs over dubbed over :/
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
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.
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.
Cool your jets
So basically, any questions were interesting but let’s focus on the main ones, and answer with 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)
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:

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?
I remember getting the Mi-4 and being excited to be able to work towards the Mi-8 only to realise PVE was abysmal and since I didn’t have any vehicles for a lineup I couldn’t use the convert ground to option when it was added.
I wont be subject to playing Sw*den.
My brother in christ, I am not playing advance to rhine on top tier. I am literally not even playing the game if the map roll is terrible. Why do you have 3 different modes if all of them are catering to one single player!? WHY!?
Disappointing QnA, but I guess it goes well into the mindset of the devs and answer your questions of are they going to do anything about the horrid state of ground.
Answer is no.
At the very least there’s few good answers, I hope whatever aerial warfare is, it will be something like ARB EC. It’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room, how monotonous the game feels at times because of the dumbing down of gameplay. Where are they getting this “players prefer to play small, single lane maps and get spawn camped” idea?
UI. What BVVD said makes sense to me. While some elements could be improved, I think the current UI is generally fine. I can understand not prioritizing this part of the game.
Anti-radar missiles. Agree with BVVD here also. Anti-radiation missiles are part of modern warfare and add more layers to the SEAD dynamic. Ofc this should be tested thoroughly so that CAS/SPAA balance is not disrupted too much.
Bomber survivability. YES, strongly agree. Not much more to say here.
Indirect artillery sight. Agree. Maps are waaaaay too small for real indirect fire.
Team play mechanics. No specifics, but happy to hear you’re working on this.
Naval battles fix. I don’t play naval and won’t comment on this.
Smoke artillery. Agree completely. Good call on not adding this, teammates are already annoying enough with regular smoke.
White Rock Fortess. Not a huge fan of WR Fortress but happy to see it return.
Top tier premiums. I agree with the spirit of what BVVD said, but don’t think it’s accurate to what’s actually happening. Some premiums, like M1A1 Clickbait, are way too close to top tier vehicle performance. It’s also problematic that there is no longer a BR bracket at top tier without these premiums.
Air RB EC. I’m sad to hear we won’t get ARB-EC, and I don’t agree with BVVD’s reasoning. Air RB EC test mode “not being popular” doesn’t neccesarily mean players don’t want it, it could be explained by other factors like poor rewards, not enough advertisement, lack of polish, and it only being available one time several years ago. However, I’m interested in this “aerial warfare” mode and hope it can fill the void left by ARB-EC.
WW2 vehicles. I don’t feel too strongly about this. I’d like more WW2 vehicles but also recognize most of the famous ones have already been added.
Blocked map areas. Disagree. I understand the map is sized exactly how the designer intended, but that doesn’t mean players will like it. Many players like me don’t like being funneled into lanes and given no space to maneuver. I don’t want to play on maps like this, period.
Copy-paste vehicles. I actually agree with what BVVD said here, as I think every operator should get the vehicle they used. However, you say that “C&P does not come instead of unique things” but to players it still feels like it does. You need to do something to alleviate this concern other than denying it.
World War mode. I’m looking forward to this, but I hope there is a way to take part without being part of a squadron.
PVE. Not my thing, no comment.
Strategic bombers. I understand why you won’t add these given the state of air RB, as it’s currently a fighter dominated team deathmatch. However I am dissapointed that you haven’t attempted to include bombers and make them a valid part of the mode as it was several years ago.
0.7 spread. I’m sorry but this seems out of touch. I personally am very satisifed with the queue times and would happily spend more time to get a match that is more fair. I don’t buy the variety argument either, the 1.0 spread forces players into meta vehicles anyways so they can survive a full uptier.
Submarines. I don’t play naval, no comment.
Game modes/objectives. Hard disagree. People stay in War Thunder despite the 3-cap mode, not because of it. You have a monopoly on semi-realistic “sim lite” vehicle combat market. When people say they want more/fresh objectives you should listen. Players are also more intelligent than you give them credit for and can handle more advanced gameplay than driving into a color coded circle.
SQB. Don’t play, no comment.
Map bans. I still think you should try it out, give players 2-3 bans and see what happens. Personally I think map bans are merely a band-aid and doesn’t solve the wider problem of poor maps and player preference of small vs. big maps, urban vs. open. You should look into what maps are banned the most and try to fix them, and also give players more agency about what size map they can enter.
Heli PVE. Disagree, the mode is barely holding together and needs fixes badly. It being broken is the reason why so few play it. And since so few play it won’t be fixed. That’s circular logic.
One-death-leaving. YES, thank you! BVVD and I are on the same page, down to the exact words: “don’t punish players for leaving, encourage them to stay.” I appreciate the random vehicle spawn option and look forward to seeing the details on how it’s implemented.
FNF-missiles. Mixed. I think BVVD’s WW2 CAS comparison is quite valid. Some people forget how deadly lower tier CAS actually is. However there is one major difference and that is detection. You can more easily see and hear the WW2 bomber coming for you, but not a FNF IR missile. While I agree that asymmetry is interesting for gameplay, you can rarely rely on teammates giving SPAA coverage. There should be more incentives for people to spawn and play SPAA in their intended role.
Regenerative steering. BVVD’s doubts are valid, I don’t think I agree, but I appreciate that you’ll let us test this and give feedback after.
Matchmaker Team balance. I don’t agree with BVVD here. Just because battles turn out differently every time doesn’t mean we should give up on trying to balance the game. Each team should be as equal as possible in my view.
Battleratings. You say you take our feedback into account, but me and other players don’t feel this is the case. Or maybe you do a little bit, but evidently not enough for us to feel satisfied. There are so many instances of vehicles that are neglected every BR change, or get uptiered/downtiered in a way that doesn’t match the vehicle’s actual capabilities. Me and others feel you should take vehicle characteristics into account more than you do currently.
Big Ground maps. Please, BVVD, you yourself spelled out the big problem with small maps and why many of us don’t want to play them. Players should have more freedom to choose their preferred map size. Also, some larger maps being banned doesn’t neccesarily mean it’s because of the size, it could also be due to genuine map design problems that could and should be adressed. There is also the split between fun and grind. Large maps are IMO more fun, but I also recognize smaller maps are more profitable due to shorter time between kills and capture points. If smaller maps are more “popular” in the MM filter, this may be the reason why.
Basement guy. I laughed. Thanks for releasing some of the pressure.
Overall I think it’s more reasonable takes than unreasonable ones. It’s just that a few takes were really bad IMO and a sign that BVVD is not completely in touch with the community opinion. Or at least forum opinion.
the problem of map balance should appears only if people plays them,…
that should be a secondary point of my actual take, as the Dev team in charge of tank maps should revise their way to balance maps.
also, if you read it all, i ask for maps that actually fits larger and deep integration of various systems (SAM/ Arty-SPG)
thanks, i do know what i said