" What aspect(s) do you think Gaijin needs to focus on the most? you can answer with multiple options." My asks for Naval are mostly tweaks that would not take long to adjust at all, with the only intensive request being something that would create more sessions: Raise the reward multiplier cap on Naval vehicles past 5.3. 4.5 for arcade and 6 for realistic is far too small. The repair costs for higher tier ships is too high as well. In order to land in low population matches, someone has to queue during server dead hours. And for some reason, those low population majority bot matches end mere minutes after the first point is capped, despite this not happening in high population matches when a point is capped. Ticket bleed needs to be changed by a lot in matches that mostly consist of bots. The matchmaker needs an option for short waiting times by enabling a higher chance at being placed into a bot match. Naval is very fun during server dead hours, because the majority of that small server population are all playing with an unspoken understanding. The only thing that stops me from playing naval all the time, is dealing with matches that only consist of other players. The tweaks made some time ago that increased the maximum bots in a match to the highest they could be, was a very good change.
My option on volumetric in game, most of its player base can not afford expensive computer, volumetric favours Russian vehicle due to its more rounded turret and slop armour design, is bad coding and they use 1 system for all vehicles, fixing one vehicle just because of 1 part will heavily increase cost, and the size of the folder for the game, most people can barely even run the game now and with update getting larger and larger, pc can barely handle the game, if every vehicle gets its own hand fixed and well tunned volumetric it will put the game to like at least 100 plus GB even just with the lowest model setting downloaded, also is called Russian bias because of the tanks design not because gaijin favour Russian tanks in a way.
Also I did like the address I’m not trying to side gaijin or in support of Russian bias being a Russian main, what I am saying is think from the perspective of DEVs and players like me that have a poopy computer, a good example would be like squad, its fun to play, however its requirements made a lot of player uninstall the game including me and I do not wish War Thunder be the same as I really do love this game.
First of, thank you for the poll, very complete and well done
A few points :
Regarding bugs : there is that one bug that makes SPAA with multiple vehicles unable to fire at times
The fact this has not been fixed for a while, making those vehicles useless at times, for no good reason, is quite shocking
Regarding premiums, there are far too many, and increasingly at the top Br. Jean Bart would be the one that stands out the most : in service, best design Richelieu as premium. The reaction from the staff after it was mostly regarded as a bad decision by the small naval community is not exactly reassuring : “well you see it’s not top Br, since it’s 8.3 and not 8.7”, completely disregarding the fact that it’s basically the best ship in its tree
When it comes to russian bias, i think it would be good to separate middle Brs from top ones. up to 10.7 it’s mostly fine. They get some strong vehicles, some balanced and some weak, like every other tree.
When it comes to top tier however the balance is out of the window, with the recent addition of Pantsir SM SV - needed “because Buk was performing poorly” while other nations got nothing with AAs performing even worse - being the last nail in the coffin
The amount of time required to process bug reports is also not consistant
While the issue only spans on a few Brs, most people grind trees to reach the top because they are interested in modern systems. You can’t have a game where after grinding for months you end up with a worthless line up only serving as food for an other tree, with that not so nice impression of political cope / agenda behind
More focus on Naval.
They have always had traces but top tier is where it goes to another level.
T-34 driver hatch, extra armour on T-54/55 nerfs to HESH and APDS 105mm guns having slope modifiers adjusted.
Various undertiered “Objects” 279 literally could not die when it was added.
Forcing high alt WW2 aircraft to fight down low where Yak and La are faster and better suited.
They have always had their little tricks.
My answers and my reasonings, feel free to try and change my opinions of the 22 questions
I will preface this with the fact i am an RB player, who plays roughly equal Air and Ground. Some of my opinions may change when other areas of the game are looked at
I respond to the questions in full, as criticism alone is not useful, but constructive criticism is very useful if this is read
(Written in Spoilers for hopefully obvious reasons, this is going to be one hell of a slug of text
Q1 - How do you feel about the overal current state of game?
A - It’s incredibly good, though some aspects need work.
Currently War Thunder is a decent game, and does a lot. As much as we give the Developers Flak for their decisions, We cannot ignore that the multitude of different mechanics within the game alone.
The game as a whole is extremely strong, But it is far from perfect, most of the mechanics are very good, but some do have notable flaws, such as Volumetric and Overpressure.
Overall I think the state of the game is good, the mechanics work as they should the majority of the time, and it leads to a good gaming experience, but the lack of gamemode variety is shocking (further details given in response to their specific questions)
Q2 - How good do you think the **air** game modes are?
A - There are some good elements, but they’re overal dissapointing.
Air has an issue of being too repetitive, Team deathmatch, while War Thunder is a PvP game first and foremost, PvE elements are so weak to the point of being useless.
The easiest way in my opinion to sort most the issues out with air RB will to introduce respawns, and use the larger maps, or even just use more of the existing maps (could be done with simple repositioning of the airfields), this would provide longer matches, and more compelling gameplay, rather than a 7v1 manhunt for the last player after the first 5 minutes and the furball therin
If Nuclear Thunder with its issues ironed out (many to do) and some tweaks (less SPAA, but still a presence) would be very good, adding risk to PvE elements, (getting shot down by SPAA) and a high reward for doing so.
Rather than the Free RP Pinyata of Bases and Howitzers/Pillboxes with no meaningful impact on the course of battle - If PvE aspects had stronger rewards, but greater risks,
I believe it would make a great change, as it could provide a very compelling PvPvE gamemode, where PvE can and will decide the course of battle, but PvP can also seriously hinder the progress of PvE related enemy progression, allowing for both PvE and PvP to decide the battle, making Fighters and Bombers equally viable
Q3 - How good do you think the damage models and basic combat is for **air** battles?
A - It’s quite good, though some tweaks are needed.
The Damage models themselves are generally fine, though I can name a number of improvements,
Delta-Winged aircraft, or that just those with large wing areas are disproportionately effected by wing damage (E.G Mirage III or Javelin), where 1 small .50 caliber hole in the wing can feel like one wing has lost 50% of its lift, as the wing root with 70% of the wing’s area (and is only one component) was yellowed, I have at least 2 clips of this causing my Mirage IIIS to enter an irrecoverable flat spin, with no other damage, and can certainly remember too many times that it has happened in my Javelin.
While heavy bombers, or heavy fighters feel far too fragile, possibly due to the lack of damage segmentation model, such is the same issue with delta-winged aircraft with each featuring large sections, where smaller aircraft like the F-5 - that has an unusually tanky flight model - has tiny sections
The basic combat within the battles is fine, you turn to gain advantage, my only real issue is that the method of engagement isn’t too realistic, not necessarily unenjoyable
No aircraft in real life even in a dogfight will always max-perform their aircraft, No sane pilot would pull 12Gs for a recommit for a missile joust, or even pull 12G to begin with. This can sort of consistent overperformance can be seen most prominently in WW2 modes, where IRL it is more of a Waltz, but in game its more of a boxing match
Aircraft in game pull too many Gs too quickly, and it makes planes with high speed bleed (Delta’s), but otherwise ok rate (F/A-18), or Dedicated rate fighters (F-4) to struggle more than they should in the game enviroment, as it is very hard to not pull too hard constantly, bleeding excess energy
This isn’t nessacarily an issue with the gamemode, but I would appreciate an option in gaijin’s setting to tweak the instuctor on a toggle, E.G a restrict G force function on a toggle, (Such as the current “Cobra button”) where without it enabled, you plane performs identically to current in game currently, but With it enabled you can restict your aircraft to a preset number of Gs (possibly a drop down like bomb series, or toggle-able mid match like ripple quantity) Say, 7G, which would greatly improve rate performance or energy management at high altitudes, or on particularly sensitive airframes like Deltas, F/A-18 and MiG-29 (I should probably try to write a suggestion on that if i’m honest)
Overall the Damage models are generally good for most aircraft, but it can certainly be improved in the case of delta winged aircraft and Heavier/Larger aircraft in general such as bombers
Q4 - How good do you think the **ground** game modes are?
A - There are some good elements, but they’re overal dissapointing.
Ground is very stale, with Both Arcade, Realistic and Simulator being effective Team Deathmatch, but with some capture zones sprinkled in. While not always a bad mode, it is extremely dry and uninteresting after so many years. Even Break, with its issues, had dynamic objectives which got you moving around the map.
In addition the CAS problem, There is a time and place for CAS, but it is far too prominent in ground battles, CAS should be made harder to spawn, and CAP loadouts (WIthout AP belts) should be easier to spawn, Either that, or remove aircraft in their entirety for a possible seperate mode.
For such a large part of the game, Ground has almost no form of variety when it comes to gameplay, unlike air where you have 3 dimentions, ground has 2, and no significant PvE Objectives, as the Zones are there mostly to promote PvP at the points.
A mode where Tank riders, or APCs/IFVs can actually be utilised would be welcome. This may be able to be an interesting mode, where Machineguns have use, and the need for addon-ERA for AI Infantry attacks would be interesting, and the need to protect your “Cargo” promoting further teamplay between IFVs and Other tanks, promoting more than just the MBT meta at higher tiers, though at lower tiers no such player vehicles like IFVs tend to exist, so Tank Riders or possibly AI controlled Troop transports such as Trucks (Studebaker), Halftracks (Sd.Kfz.251/1) or stuff like Ram Kangeroos to be added
Though i can’t really give more ideas for a gamemode, as i lack a clear vision for what i’d want while it not being janky or too far removed from Warthunder’s style
Q5 - How good do you think the damage models and basic combat is for **ground** battles?
A - It’s alright/no strong opinions.
The Damage models of ground vehicles has received notable attention recently, allowing for soft-kills of more modern MBTs, disabling them, (wether this is a positive or negative to the game is subjective) Generally, the Damage models are quite well modelled, providing more than all but true-simulators, and more than some of those, but there are some very large issues
Barrels:
Currently gun barrels can be shot out very easily with a muzzle break, However without a muzzle break, it can be very RNG wether any damage is inflicted upon the barrel, leading to what would be a shot for a firepower kill, to be a wasted shot, leading to a death. This could be fixed rather easily, by flat-capping the ends of barrels, rather than actually modelling the hole in the damage model which is what tends to cause the jank in my eyes,
Volumetric:
Volumetric while a great system generally, can cause and is known for extreme jank when it comes to joints between plates, and is known to cause major issue with complex or multiple plates, such as Panther/Tiger mantlet, KV-1/T-34 turret face, AMX-13 FL-11 and other Oscillating turrets in general, it can be improved for sure, as we are seeing gradually roll out, but for such an old system by 2026 standards, its a disgrace its taken so long to start to fix the major issues
Redundancy/damage model segmentation:
Currently if for example, a Transmission is damaged, or engine is damaged, it is fully destroyed, wheras it is known many tanks such as the A57 Multibank could operate with multiple banks inoperable, albeit at a reduced power, In addition some tanks in game feature dual engines. such as the Chaffee or matilda, they could operate on one engine with both engines mated to the same gearbox, and some tanks had one engine per track, allowing a tank to pivot if one was destroyed, this can also go for if a final drive was shot out. or one side of a transmission,
this results in Mobility kills being too easy to achieve this is very easy to see when it comes to tracks / Tyres, where Machineguns can immobilize a tank. It is also very easy to see in Wheeled vehicle’s “Transmissions” where the knocking out of a portion of a driveshaft, or Differential should disconnect the pair(s) of wheels that are connected to that portion
Q6 and Q7 skipped as i don’t play Naval, and it would be disingenuous of me to comment on improvements when I don’t play it, although I did vote
Q8 - How is the grind for you?
A - It’s a bit slower than I’d like, but still doable.
The Grind is certainly slow, it is by far doable, Ranks of vehicles barring further progress should be removed though, as why should I research a Yak-15 when i want an Su-27? why shouldn’t I be allowed to just go straight up the centre line?, if i want a Gripen, why should I research a MiG-21?
In addition, Higher rank vehicles shouldn’t recieve a penalty for researching vehicles of lower ranks (premiums already have this), this would help a lot in grinding out a tech tree once you’ve reached the top and you’re just fleshing it out. Though the restrictions to using a low rank vehicle to resarch a high rank vehicle I support, as it deters seal clubbing, a prominent issue at lower tiers, where statpadders lay
In addition i would propose an extension to the Folder system, allowing very similar vehicles to share the same spot in a tech tree, allowing for more unique vehicles in their place, (E.G Mk.V spitfires in a 4-height folder, or putting Putting say Centurion Mk.3 and Mk.10 in a folder together
Q9 - How do you like the selection of vehicles and nations in the game?
A - There is a great selection, but more should always be added.
War Thunder does have a great selection of vehicles, and great variety, what lacks is a reason to use that variety due to the “Meta” and needless BR hell and compression for many vehicles
But recently there has been an uptake of Copy paste, with very little different between it and over variants, while many nations did operate a vehicle, we need to ask ourselves does a more unique vehicle already fill its role, will it be needed? Take M44 in the German tree for example, Would germany needed it if the Hummel had come earlier? or in the case of British Rank II ground, where if any true copy paste was added, it would either stretch the folder system to breaking point, or break the 3-height rule per rank, as time progresses this will occur to more and more nations and effectively starve them for new tech tree additions due to the lack of space
I don’t see any room for new nations, as many of the main contenders lack vehicles throughout every BR and era, and will be heavily sub-tree dependent, Such as Poland, it has a strong set of vehicles for higher Tiers, but its low tier will be near non-existent, with it only beginning at mid tier, similar goes for nations like Turkey or (either/Unified) Korea
Q10 - How do you feel about recent updates overal?
A - They have been alright.
The Recent updates have been Okay, they have focused more heavily on fixing bug reports i believe over the previous year or so, which i am very welcome for, but the increase in premiums and the lack of diversity in new additions certainly reduces from them greatly, with great dissapointments coming in the forms of the F-14D and F-20A, and some vehicles that should never have been a premium. such as 4th gen FOX-3 vehicles, Like the two Premium Su-30s, and upcoming F-14D (though less of an offender, as the Phoenix is significantly worse, and is the F-14 airframe is worse too)
Ground is bar far not good either, with far too many premiums and/or event vehicles being able to see the top BR, which has only expanded with recent updates
Q11 - How do you feel about the vehicle selection is recent updates and events?
A - Equal part good, equal part less so.
Getting a good event vehicle is difficult, too different and people cry something unique is hidden behind an event, and too similar and people call it copy paste, In terms of Events, Nuclear Thunder was the best thing that ever happened to War Thunder. It set the standard for what War Thunder could be, Even if Nuclear Thunder was flawed in itself, and their event vehicles couldn’t fit better, as they are vehicles that couldn’t really fit within the main tech tree due to their role (see the health of Tu-4 and B-66)
Though i have seen nothing, the recent selection of vehicles for new updates does seem to be getting very samey and losing its uniqueness, take the next update, the Palmaria and Hummel are just more 6-inch artillery, which has been done to death already, Welkin is just another off-meta heavy fighter, Voodoo will be just another annoying early supersonic harming the 8.X range even more, the new Abrams’ being just that, an abrams with the rest being mainly copy paste, or naval. Of course not saying that they shouldn’t come, it just feels all samey
Q12 - How do you feel about the amount and quality of premium vehicles in recent times?
A- There are too many of them, we should really tone down the amount of premiums.
Premiums should be limited to 3-4 per update, maybe up to 4-5 on the larger updates such as march/December, its a disgarce to see nice vehicles getting paywalled, and a tech tree equivalent not materialising, this happened for Strikemaster after its battle pass, this happened to the F-14D, Qing-6, KV-1 '42 “Klimi” and more.
oh then there’s the fact Italy got a tech tree MB326K and Premium MB326B but the literal nation the MB326K was made for doesnt get it (South Africa as Impala Mk.2 iirc)
Q13 - Do you think the different nations are well balanced against each other?
A- No, certain nations are definitely stronger than they should be in certain aspects.
While i don’t believe this is any wrongdoing on gaijin’s part due to how they balance, and how it (unfortunately) makes sense,
I don’t believe there is a Russian bias as such, but a Major nation Bias, In essence, I’m claiming the “Minor nation tax” is a real effect, which leads to minor nation vehicles being overtiered compared with their major nation counterparts, due to the average skill difference between the average Major nation and minor nation player
Gaijin could improve this by weighing Absolute vehicle capabilities with its performance from players, if they adopted this it would help minor nations a lot, but unless gaijin completely rewire their balancing methods,
In addition, BR compression may be a part to play in this, creating “Meta” BRs, where minor nation vehicles may not inhabit, forcing them into mostly uptiers, due to Quantitative matchmaking (1/4 of team being top BR, rest is any other BR)
Q14 - Do you think Russian bias is a problem in the game?
A - Russian equipment feels stronger than it should, but it’s manageable.
See Question 13, I believe there is an (unintended) Major nation Bias
Though Russian vehicles do benefit from Volumetric, the APCR calculator (awful way of doing it, and inaccurate), and fuel explosion mechanics more than most, but it isn’t major.
The only exception is the BMPT which is horrific that it ever entered the game in the state that it was, but it wouldn’t be the first time a vehicle has been massively OP on release
Q15 - How do you feel about current battle rating compression?
A - Decompression is a big issue and should be a major point of focus for Gaijin.
Compression is a major issue, this is seen majorly in air from BRs 7.0 and up, getting especially bad in the 8.0-10.0 range, where air could likely be decompressed to up to 16.0 easily, and 20.0 if we push it, while in ground, Compression is fairly tame , but its bad in the 2.0-4.0 reigon, where you go from peashooters to KV-1s, very quickly, and in the 7.0-9.0 area, where vehilces are gaijin their first advanced tech, such as Stabs, Thermals and LRFs, which create major performance gaps between the top and bottom of each 1.0 battle spread.
Decompression is needed, sooner rather than later
Q16 - Do you feel like the game is as reallistic and immersive as advertised?
A - I think there is a good balance between realistic content and unrealistic content.
The game maintains a very good balance between realistic and unrealistic, hence why nothing comes close to its Niche
To the arcade side you have Wargaming, with WoWs, WoT and WoWP (I have never met a World of Warplanes player), and on the simulator side you have Gunner Heat PC and DCS, but there is none that match War thunder in its Arcade-Simulator category
I don’t think it’s what it is exactly advertised to be, but the game itself is close enough for me to brush it off, Its by far not on the same level of lying as Warpath on mobile for example.
War Thunder offers good realism and immersion, while still being accessible to the masses, That’s what War Thunder has always been, and what it continues to be, that was always its main draw to the game
Q17 - Do you feel like there are many bugs in the game, or that the game is unstable?
A - There are some noticable bugs, but the game is very playable.
War Thunder for a game of its age, and on an engine older than Source, is remarkably stable, some of the major bugs I notice come from the Anti-Cheat, hiding vehicles in plain sight, though some others are noticeable Such as ground audio not being accurate to the correct bearing, but audio not appearing at all is an Anti-cheat / Keen vision (i think?) issue
The Major Instability in the game comes from the game servers, which are in desperate need for an upgrade and replacement
Excluding that, War Thunder remains highly playable
Q18 - How do you feel about the recent infantry mode in relation to the base game?
A - I think it’s a great adition that could open up great opportunities for the game as a whole.
I’m personally looking forward to Infantry in War Thunder, but I am concerned what this could mean for further updates after the official Infantry release, but overall, i’d think it’d open up air and ground to the potential to new game modes, and increases in variety of game play, which is what War Thunder needs
Q19 - Do you feel like your feedback is heard by the developers?
A - No, I feel like we only get through to Gaijin with major effort, and we really need clearer communication.
Transparency. Transparency. Transparency.
The devs are currently about as transparent as brick, With how many bug reports are shelved, unresponded to, or “Forwarded as Suggestion” and never acted upon, it really gets on our nerves, as can be seen so many times
Even recently, our feedback for a tech tree F-14D was flat out denied, they could have made the F-14D premium squadron specific, or the F-14D(R) Grumman F-14D(R) Super Tomcat — Ah Here We Go Again but no, and nor was feedback about the Abrams listened to until a massive uproar came out, and feeback regarding Lower BR ARM carriers was flat out denied.
Q20 - Say a competitor to War Thunder were to suddenly show up that is better in almost every way (whatever this means for you personally), how likely are you to switch to this new game
A - I’d start playing both games pretty equally.
I’ve played too much War Thunder to let it go fully, and it is genuinely a great game, I don’t believe any competetor, even it if had resolved the major issues of War Thunder, would ever collect the Charm War Thunder has, but if it is genuinely better I cannot stick my head in the sand,
however the likelihood of a competitor ever arising to be the pepsi to Warthunder’s Coke, is extremely unlikely, it’d need a massive budget, and would have to avoid infringing on Gaijin’s patents, and then build up all the game mechanics and vehicles that War Thunder has had nearly 15 years to do
Q21 - What aspect(s) do you think Gaijin needs to focus on the **most?** you can answer with multiple options
A1 - Fixing current gamemodes or adding new ones.
Stated in Q2 and Q4
A2 - Communication with the players and community.
Stated in Q19
A3 - The grind and progression.
Answered in Q8 - It can certainly be improved
A4 - Bug fixes and game stability.
Answered in Q17 - Improve the game Servers
And PLEASE dear god make Clouds Server-side and not Client-Side
Q22 - What aspect(s) do you think Gaijin needs to focus on **less?** you can answer with multiple options.
A - Premium vehicles.
The only part of the game Gaijin needs to focus on less is Premiums, They have a ton of income already, all premiums is doing is degrading the quality of the game, flooding higher BR brackets with copy and paste, and unskilled and new players
This is Harmful for the game in the Long term.
and now you can feel free to probably ignore this 3 hour write up
I personally hate Top tier ARB/ASB game play generally.
No ECM
No Datalink with buddy
No AWACS and bogey dope
No multicrew game play
I would play DCS World instead if I want to get a feel late Cold War or the modern.
While I would love to see Impala (especially mk.2 with more weapon options), MB-326K wasn’t specifically made for South Africa, it just had the most success in SAAF and was even built under license with a different engine compared to the second prototype we have in the game. MB-326 series is still very important for Italy both in export and domestic service, it’s more than fair to have it represented in the Italian TT in multiple variants.
oh i never meant it as in Italy never should’ve had it
I mean it more as in, Why on earth doesn’t the ZA sub-tree have it
They said in the Q&A that they give all operators of a vehicle the vehicle at the same time, what makes ZA different?
Where? I haven’t seen such statement. Would be wonderful if they actually did this.
was in the BVVD one in december i think it was,
when they were adressing copy and paste specifically the plague of SPHs
Timestamped
Thank you very much for all the time and effort you put into this, very insightful!!
we need more ppl to sign it tho
lets see we gonna have democracy or dictatorships
Even that isn’t consistently reflected in practice though.
Germany got the DF-105 years 3+ years before France did.
That being said, I’m against the trees being flooded with copy-paste and losing their unique feel (see M44, M55, M109, BeNeLux as a whole, etc) so I’m not to broken up about them not sticking to that rule at large.
What I don’t like: Allied aircraft on Axis side, Axis aircraft on Allied side in Air Sim. I flew an hour today and I probably dived some 5 times on a P-51 with bare metal fuselage in my 109 only to realize it was japanese or chinese after having already wasted my energy.
Ground is just as bad. Sherman’s, Chaffees, Pattons, etc on every side.
iirc later T-34s did have 70mm driver ports, and its not like a vehicle has ever had ahistorical extra armour, right? (M6A2E1)
Not a Russia-exclusive problem, again (Turm III, T58, PUMA (when added), F-14s (when added), J-7D, F-15A/J/Bez, etc). Not to say it doesn’t happen with Russian vehicles.
More of a player issue than a gamemode issue, no? You have a lot of time to climb.
I’ll have you know that I did not ignore this “3 hour write up”. In fact, I read the entire thing! Very well put together Teaz. Hats off to you
This was before air spawns and you often had front line battles. Side climbing was not an option on smaller maps.
Its not as bad now as you have time to climb.