War Thunder is pay to win

Game Discussion General Discussion
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238

Just because it’s a minority does not mean it does not happen.

Yesterday alone I had a game at 2.7-3.7 where I shot this guy down:

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Another guy from the same screenshot:
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Another name i can pick out from that screenshot of a cool moment is…

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Why would these players go straight to ASB?

Their names all include @psn. Controller players. They seem to average around 2-3 hours of AAB, 2-3 hours of ARB. Likely this made them decide “not having mouse to aim with is putting me at a massive disadvantage” and went to play the mode where they’re on even footing.

And as said, rank 1/rank 2 planes are genuinely harder to fly than rank 3 ones due to cockpits, trim and gunsight (i hate telescopic gunsights).

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I’m not saying it doesn’t. I’m saying you kinda have to go out your way compared to the average player for it to be a big issue. For example, I had the same problem with the Israel tree, but you’re expected to be a more or less experienced player before you start grinding that one. By that point you probably know you can farm crew experience in AB or Assault before heading into RB/SB.

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I don’t know why we have to debate the truth a company has to earn money in order to run servers and pay wages?

So if I can - without paying money, just by playing - trade in a good vehicle in exchange for a far less usefull collectors item, this good vehicle isn’t exactly behind a paywall. After all, the other person usually spends his dollar on a non-P2W object that is just rare.

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They do, but they’re also running a PvP game.

In a PvP game, you expect a unit you obtain to perform the same under the same circumstances used the exact same way by any player. The only difference in outcome should come down to player skill, teamwork and strategy.

It’s OK for there to be a premium roster. Even E-sports games do that (AOE2:DE with its DLC factions). It’s OK for there to be pay-to-progress (for unlocking NEW units to add to your roster) albeit in a reasonable manner (don’t do the thing LoL does where you release a new unit way over-tuned and OP then nerf it down a week or two later - letting those who bought it dominate and abuse it).

Hell, I’d even be cool with there being a pure DLC approach - you need to pay to unlock aircraft above Rank N (one time fee, reasonable) or to unlock more than X nations (you get 3 nations of any order, unlocking the rest costs a one time fee).

But the fact that the same plane can do 5.5G indefinitely while the other passes out after about 21 seconds doing the exact same maneuver is frankly absurd.

242

Exactly. I once played an event while I was on a resort island. The difference in internet was the biggest p2w I ever had. I never before aimed at the “kill 12 in a battle” challenge. There I routinely got it in the fist 1-2 missions. And I played on a 6 year old notebook. Rest assured, back home I checked, but it wasn’t the notebook. :-(

After this experience, I realized that no crew skill in the world can compensate for those netcode effects. If I wanted true p2w, I should have moved to that island. Would have been the first WT investment my wife would have readily approved…

What shall I say? After the experience above, I no longer do.

It is the crew that passes out… And that difference is absolutely realistic, as it isn’t the same crew.
Don’t get me wrong, it would be OK for me if crew skill could not be bought.

243

So you come on here calling everybody who dares to disagree with your view point a liar? That is odious. People are right to pull you up there ,it was a hope that people like you were in short supply on this forum guess not.You can express an opinion but you don’t need to be so juvenile especially when you offer no counter argument.

If you could pay for zero downtiers that would be a thing that would give you a huge advantage in every game and take up a huge amount of slack from being a poor player.
Nothing like that exists in War Thunder.I can tell you as somebody who purchased every trick there is that my stats would tell the story.

The likes up you love to stat shame so as the fully confessed “Pay to win” player look at my stats and point out the evidence of my huge advantage.If the like of you couldn’t scream P2W at every corner then you would be crying Russian bias or Chinese cheat or whatever you people have to do to justify the fact that you still cant get a handle on this game after playing so many times.

You cant define P2W so why even use the term? There is no accepted definition across the board other than it’s literal meaning which you pay and you win.If P2W is not that then the phenomena does not exits, period.

Unlucky bud ,most of last few posts on here are stating how I have left the game n disgust and you can see how many games I have played lately.
I would have loved the money I spent to equate in terms of success.
That was never the case.

Practice over time,Map knowledge ,huge luck and the mighty down tier is what cause my good games when I have them.The right vehicle on the right map with probably a poor opposition overall. Camo is as old as war itself and as for the other perks ,F2P veterans will have most of them so do you want those guys to lose everything as well?

If you can’t take what this game is about then leave.I have.

244

I’d consider pay to win as being able to but an advantage over others.

Crew skills are pay to win because they allow you to buy a direct advantage over other players with the same amount of RP investment.

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I consider F2P for a number of years to be the same and at no cost so what now?

In fact we do have people calling for level 100 players to be banned form low tiers ,so that answers itself.Find me true equality in the free game and I might agree with you.

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ace crew skills are free, just play. do not cost GE so not p2w

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Hypothetically, if it took players millions of years to get aced crew for free, the game still wouldn’t be P2W by these standards.

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Getting the grind done by money (either buying a Prem or paying for mods) is the only advantage - but it is a real advantage having all hte mods done vs stock - I don’t think that is deniable - just ask yourself whether you prefer a spaded or stock vehicle and why that is.

Sorry if it wasn’t clear.

And yeah - beginners buying high tier prems and ruining their team is exactly what I was thinking of when I said he was overestimating the player base!

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Can you even still get them for free? I’m talking as sets, not 1 single bush from an event

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It’s a PVP game.

In a PvP game, one that’s respectable, one expects the same unit to behave the exact same way with the exact same outcomes if the same operations are performed under the same circumstances.

Same plane. Same initial conditions. Same inputs (within acceptable variance as demonstrated by the graphs).

VASTLY different outcomes.

Difference?

Either 400 golden eagles (roughly gives 4.5K skill points, as the plane already had little under 1K invested) or … we’ve got roughly 712 crew XP invested and need 5142 total, so 4430. Or 443 000 RP.

443 000 RP, 2200 RP per 15 minutes assuming perfect gameplay - 50 hours.

50 hours until the two planes are at parity or 500 golden eagles.

Can you look at someone straight in the face and claim having the ability to sustain 5.5G indefinitely versus someone who is yet to use that very aircraft for 50 hours and thus passes out after 21 seconds is NOT a massive advantage?

Because of crew skills, my F4U-4 technically turns better than all my turnfighters because my turnfighters pass out before they get lead on target.

In a PvP game, paying money should be about unlocking NEW EXCLUSIVE units to use in a roster (ergo - “DLC model” like AOE2:DE practices) and making it faster to obtain new units significantly (League of legends model) and cosmetics (that do not impact glance value). Units themselves should have no variance between whoever uses them outside of the user’s skill.

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And I would require the word “exclusive” in there. For instance, squad vehicles are imho no pay2win, despite being able to buy them and get an advantage over others that don’t own them.

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So we are down to chess. Because your definition rules out randomness completely. There can be no duds in your games, no random bounces etc.

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Part you’re missing.

AOE2:DE is a respectable PvP game. It has exclusive factions/units, but whatever faction/unit you use functions exactly the same regardless of whether you’re playing Japan with only the base game or have all the DLCs.

League of Legends used to have P2W on par with Crew Skills. It was called Rune Pages. You’re encouraged to investigate and discover the sheer amount of controversy such a mechanic had in a “E-sports” game. Rightfully, Riot removed it and made players have access to all runes at level 1 with only access to more pre-set configurations being tied to progression/payment.

Dota2 is epitome of e-sport/PvP. You get full roster, you get zero out-of-match influence over what happens in-match. In Dota2, people even consider skins that change the colour AND silhouette of heroes potentially P2W due to glance value being impacted, giving a minute advantage as the opponent needs a fraction longer to ID your unit. There was a whole drama over adding a hat cosmetic to a red hero as it made him similar to another.

Overwatch is another example of a functional PvP game. It has bad design choices made that killed it, but it was actually player-skill oriented.

Team fortress 2 has “either buy or unlock” equipment. That equipment functions the same regardless though. Whether you’re a orange box owner or some random f2p, your rocket launcher will behave the exact same.

Mech Warrior Online has exclusive units/loadouts that are only obtainable by paying. However, non-exclusive loadouts perform exactly the same regardless of who uses it, provided equal skill and circumstance.

FF14’s PvP arenas use pre-built characters and pre-generated equipment to eliminate Out-of-Match influence over player skill measurement.

GW2 follows the same trend.

254

Absolutely, the permutations are endless and to expect equality ridiculous.
If I had of realised when I started this game that it was Console vs PC I may never have bothered but on X Box forums all you hear are complaints about it being cross platform as many are concerned about the obvious disadvantages of playing on a console against a player on PC.
So we can all whine about equality issue form the offset.Same with server availability etc

I dont think its fait to have somebody on a console who cant even achive basic flight physics against somebody on a PC where a mouse is reckoned to be better than a Joystick.
Then we can say ,well what about those who have a £3000 PC and full flight controls? What about an ex fighter pilot playing against an ex air cadet like me who flew tanks for a living?

There is no equality anywhere at any level and even two people entering the game as newbies at the same s may well have no parity whatsoever if one is on console and one on PC. Some countries are miles from a server.

You are lucky that you only have one thing to spend all your earned points on ,that being G as tanks have so many that could be an issue.Like I said I dont play air ,it bores me but I know I cant fly on X box ,in fact I can’t even do a loop which I can in a real plane. I know I cant fly on console well so I do as much CAS as I can get away with and leave it at that.

I could have cried about it or suck it up and I decided to accept it and press on. I think all things considered I got quite good.I am currently in a 6.7 French tank with no armour, no fire protection, no spare parts,firing potaotes at 7.7 US monsters and yes its damn bleak and progression is painful.

That is WarThunder so crack on with it, get your wallet out or say goodbye : )

That is all any of us can do and I am being told on here that it’s kids who are spending all the money so being young is no excuse it seems.If they can all buy packs then they can all buy a premium account or spend low amounts on a few crew skills to put on G suits.

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Yes because spending tens of hours grinding an event vehicle worth $20 is definitely worth all that time you’d have to put in. Its not the problem that Gaijin is trying to make money its the fact they blatantly ignore unbalanced things within the game for a profit. Hell they probably could make more than enough money from premium time and the market place alone, people spend hundreds to literally get one vehicle and there are thousands of player that always have premium time up. Worst part is that they make the sales worse and worse as the years go by so people are more enticed to buy vehicles not on sale.

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You will always be in competition with such people that is my point.No level playing field anywhere.

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1st:

This is something desirable.

PLAYER SKILL should matter in a PvP game. Now, SBMM would be ideal or at least a ranked mode to avoid situations where you stomp a lobby and it feels dirty, or situations where the enemy team is sitting above your airfield and farming planes taking off.

None the less, PLAYER SKILL meaning one player consistently outperforms another player either in a mirror match-up, or a fair assymetric match-up is a GOOD THING.

AAB/ARB are a mess using controller, yes.
However, one of the ASB streamers I watch consistently literally plays on an XBOX controller and does quite well. It does take configuration - the default settings are utterly horrid for controller, mouse joystick and real flightstick. Do note: Mouse joystick, not mouse aim. There’s a world of difference.

I do concede people with certain hardware have a out-of-match advantage that is not personal skill/strategy/teamwork (VR, head tracking). However, it is not something created by gaijin or the game itself, just a consequence of “flying a plane in first person and needing 3D awareness.” Their dedicated first person flight game, Aces of Thunder seems to seek to solve this by requiring VR by default.

This a legitimate issue and there should be better server availability for oceania/eastern asia.

This sounds like a control issue. New players coming into Full-real controls using Mouse joystick run into the same issue. For mouse joystick, the solution is to move from “simplified” (it keeps your plane level and max aileron input only gives 90 degree bank rather than inversion and pitching up is not allowed beyond some 80 degrees) to “standard.” This does mean Y axis becomes inverted.

For x-box controller, I imagine the issue has to be something similar or the instructor getting in the way if using it in RB.

ANYHOW

Player skill giving consistent advantage = Good.
Server location giving disadvantage = Not good.
Gaijin-developed and implemented features that favour one side even in a mirror match up = No respectable PvP game does this, not even freemium models (MWO, LoL).
Player hardware giving an advantage = Not ideal, but such does persist even in pinnacles of E-sport balancing like Dota 2. Furthermore, a lot of hardware differences can be compensated and equalized with proper set-up and mindful practice until that set-up feels second nature.