Recently, the experience in War Thunder’s naval mode has become increasingly frustrating, especially for players progressing through the Silver Lion tech tree. The 6.0 battle rating has practically become an insurmountable barrier.
First of all, one absurd issue is that at 6.0 BR, some tech tree ships don’t even have basic armor-piercing (AP) shells unlocked by default—they have to be researched separately. This means players are entering high-intensity battles using clearly inferior ammunition, which is almost useless against heavily armored targets.
At the same time, this BR range frequently faces battleships and various premium ships. These vessels not only have overwhelming firepower and heavy armor, but are often fully equipped from the start in terms of modules and ammunition. The result is simple—tech tree players are completely outclassed in both offense and defense.
What does this look like in actual matches? Very straightforward:
You can’t penetrate them, but they can easily sink you. No matter how skilled you are, it’s extremely difficult to compensate for this kind of mechanical imbalance. This is no longer a matter of “skill”—there is simply no room to fight back.
This design leads to several consequences:
New or non-paying players are driven away at higher BRs
Overall naval gameplay experience deteriorates
Matches lose fairness and competitiveness
If a game’s progression relies on such obvious imbalance, it can hardly be called “balanced.” The developers should seriously address this issue, at least in the following ways:
Make essential shell types (such as AP) available by default instead of locking them behind research
Improve matchmaking to prevent cruisers from frequently facing battleships
Reduce the performance gap between premium ships and standard tech tree vessels
Overall, the current naval environment is extremely unfriendly to tech tree players. Rather than a “challenge,” it feels more like a one-sided stomp. If no changes are made, the naval mode will continue to lose players.
Bit more complicated than that; many people just don’t look at the naval forum.
6.0 is that weird transitionary area that also exists to a lesser extent at 5.0.
Cruisers like the Cleveland and Fargo struggle against many of the battleships they can see (at range at least) whereas the Hippers and Graf Spee can hit well above their weight.
Conversely, 6.0 is where battleships start becoming very common. While I agree HE shouldn’t even be the stock shell, I’d also argue improved rudder shift should be stock for all ships so they’re not easy punching bags
I’m currently researching hard on it. I’ve already played 6 arcade battles with the 6.0 heavy cruiser, losing 5 and winning 1. My K/D is 0/6. That’s right, it’s as absurd as it sounds. I can’t kill any real players, which is why I still haven’t completed the first research module…
Also try going for softer targets if you can. And use HE for hitting the top of targets to knock out the crew. It takes a bit longer but even for bigger ships it works.
In 6.0, all soft armor targets have disappeared 😭, I can only try to attack the side of AI players to sink them, because the damage HE does to AI targets is also negligible… while the opponent’s battleships can silence me with a single salvo, this is completely unplayable, and the battleships are all at 6.3…
Agreed, although given that many players opt for buying better ammo with GE, Gaijin might be extra reluctant to implement this.
I’d like to see a complete overhaul of the MM system for Bluewater Naval, with Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships forming their own distinct MM pools with newly adjusted BRs to reflect any vessel’s comparative strength within that pool. Players should still be able to bring ships from a “lower” category into “higher” category battles, but nobody should have to face BBs in a DD other than by choice.
Premium ships are not more powerful per se than tech tree vessels. Many of the best/most popular premiums like Luigi Cadorna, Helena, Blagorodnyy, Prinz Eugen, Frank Knox or Moffet have direct TT equivalents at the same BR with identical or (in Zheleznyakov’s case) even better specs, and thus have only an initial advantage by being fully spaded right away.
That being said, there are of course outliers due to number of reasons, as in their BR being too low like Leningrad (a TT version exists, but both are equally undertiered), or not having an equivalent at all in the tech tree, either because of Gaijin’s decision (Des Moines), or a vessel’s uniqueness (Gneisenau).
At its core, the problems at 6.0 aren’t a tech tree versus premium issue, it’s a result of Gaijin’s inability
to create a balanced environment using a MM system that is completely unsuited for matching vehicles of vastly different capabilities (much more so than in Air or Ground).
The fact that they’ve lowered the BRs of early BBs at the same time as massively nerfing the penetration values of the guns on the cruisers that now have to face those BBs is just the icing on the cake.
I bought a premium account just to research armor-piercing shells. After three matches, I finally unlocked them, and then I played a few more games—but my K/D against real players is still 0/?. I genuinely cannot understand why the balance is this bad.
I took a screenshot of a match I just played. I used two respawns and only managed to eliminate 300 of their crew. Is this supposed to be a joke? Their battle rating is only 0.7 higher, yet they have an overwhelming advantage.
At this point, I don’t think Gaijin needs to make any further adjustments to the game mechanics—because if a bunch of pigs who don’t even play the game are running it, the game will never satisfy its players.
maybe you have to try to play rb is more easy to farm all ship and have more chance to kill same the dreadnought, for kill an a dreadnought you can ammorack under the 5km with all cruise shooting outside this range is unless you dont have the pen for that you have to use the he for the outside crew but is same unless becouse this ww1 dreadnought cant lose alot of crew
As annoying as it sounds. If you’re playing cruisers you just shouldn’t even try to engage battleships, especially at range. There are usually still some other cruisers to shoot at.
But you’re correct. 6.0 is rough for cruisers. And it only gets worse for 6.3 or 6.7 cruisers.
All I can say is just push through it till you have battleships of your own.
It’s a real shame because 6.0 has some very cool cruisers, but I can’t recall the last time I played that br for fun.
