Another point I would like to bring up: The Camera from tank gunner sight setting. I think it is a big shame that this feature isnt enforced in normal RB battles and I personally feel it would be a huge improvement to have it enforced in RB, keeping the option available for AB.
In a game about unlocking different vehicles each one with all their different designs and quirks, the offset on the optics adds some pretty good variety to it.
It is also obviously pretty unrealistic and frustrating to have people shoot you through tiny gaps in buildings or around corners without having to expose half of what they should IRL to see through the optics!
This would all require another skill to be mastered in game. I honestly think it would be a substantial upgrade to the game.
Yeah it’s really wierd, really not sure why this is. Partially probably because some of them outdated, but the KV-2 model 1940 was added ages ago and has an extremely detailed damage model, so that’s not much of an excuse. Thankfully they are slowly, very slowly but surely getting updated.
Your second point I’m not sure I agree with though. Yes, it’d be more realistic and would limit cheeky shooting spots, but it would also makes the game much harder to play. One of, if not THE strongest point of War Thunder is how it blends vehicles perfectly between feeling realistic and being easy to control and use. Forcing new players to fire the gun from the gunner’s sight would hinder this a lot I think, and would turn away new players even more than they already are.
Interesting points though, thank you for the input!
- The Urgent Need for Battle Rating (BR) Decompression
As an Air Realistic Battles (Air RB) main, I will focus primarily on air matchmaking, though BR compression remains a universal issue across all game modes. Currently, matchmaking compression completely destroys the balance across multiple generations of aviation.
The Prop-to-Jet Transition: It makes absolutely no sense for late-era propeller aircraft to constantly face early jet-engine planes, where the performance gap is mathematically insurmountable.
The Top-Tier Fox-3 Absolute Chaos: This issue is equally disastrous in the modern jet brackets. For instance, early F/A-18 Hornet models sit around the 12.3–12.7 BR range. On their own, their flight performance and characteristics are highly impressive. However, these jets suffer immensely due to their compressed matchmaking environment.
How are these Semi-Active Radar Homing (SARH) missile-reliant jets supposed to fairly fight in a match flooded with 13.3+ Active Radar Homing (ARH) Fox-3 missiles? Because a vehicle’s viability is ultimately defined by its comparative competitiveness within its bracket, even a fundamentally great jet is instantly relegated to ‘absolute trash tier’ simply because it is constantly uptiered into a completely different technological era.
- Atrocious Grinding for Tech Tree and Squadron Vehicles
The current progression pacing has become exhausting and deeply unrewarding for the player base.
Squadron Vehicles: Even if you maximize your activity within a squadron, you are strictly capped at 20,000 research points every 3 days. Since high-tier squadron vehicles require roughly 600,000 points, players are forced to wait a literal 90 days just to unlock a single vehicle. This artificial time-gating is unacceptable.
The 9-to-5 Nightmare: The standard tech tree grind is no better. The RP requirements are tuned so harshly that an average player working a 9-to-5 job would need nearly a year of consistent grinding to reach a top-tier vehicle—even with an active premium account.
While I understand that Gaijin needs to regulate content consumption speed to maintain player retention, forcing a year-long grind for top-tier jets just to play a single, repetitive game mode is a disaster. Air RB has devolved into a basic Team Deathmatch combined with a mini-base bombing speedrun. If we are expected to invest this much time, Gaijin needs to implement more dynamic, engaging, and objective-driven game modes for Air RB.
- Absurd Premium Vehicle Pricing Tactics
To be clear, I have no issue with the developers introducing premium vehicles to monetize the game and support ongoing development. However, the current pricing model has completely lost touch with reality.
Charging $80 USD for a single digital asset is frankly absurd. Major AAA studios sell entire, ground-breaking new games for $69.99 to $79.99. When a single premium pack in War Thunder costs as much as—or more than—a massive standalone title like GTA 6, Gaijin’s microtransaction pricing strategy feels completely disconnected from the value it actually provides to the player.
I love this game and want to see it thrive, but the combination of severe matchmaking compression, exhausting progression loops, and predatory pricing makes it incredibly difficult to stay invested. I hope Gaijin takes this constructive criticism seriously.
Well dam, that survay felt like something people get offered money to complete ( just having a joke )
I honestly hope that GJ would look at the results and see that the playerbase is pretty much ( at least those that use the forums ) in line with each other on what we believe the issues are and what we’d like to see been worked on/ implimented.
I would like to add that i think a section you may have missed is what era of vehicles we’d like to see added to the game. For years I’ve read hundreds of post and comments about the content added been focused in some cases almost exclusively to higher/top tier and players would like to see some mid tier stuff added also.
It would have also been interesting to see people vote on if there Air / Ground / Navel players. As some Air mains wouldn’t care about the same issues a ground main would when it comes to Aircraft, and vice versa when it comes to Ground vehicles and Navel assets.
Overall i think a relatively decent survay but I know that GJ wont take notice, they wont see it and eventually it will get lost in the void that is the Forums archive.
I’ve thought about the optics thing making the game harder to learn, it’s true but i dont think it would be a big issue. Most players probably start playing in arcade mode and still have to make a jump to learn a few things in realistic mode I think. In most optics you can see the cannon being to the side so its not hard to figure out that the round will be coming from there and not the reticle center, of course like irl this would be mainly an issue for closer ranges, and since the game has the hit camera players could learn to adjust easily.
I play with the camera on the sight, and I dont really have an issue changing between tanks, ive only had maybe 2 or 3 where the huge optic offset was a major thing
Salt the snail
Sail the Snalt
War Thunder Review
Rating: 4/10
War Thunder offers a huge selection of vehicles and impressive graphics, but for many casual players, the experience can become frustrating over time.
One of the biggest issues is the rank progression. Advancing through the tech trees requires a significant amount of grinding, especially at higher ranks. For normal gamers who don’t play every day, unlocking new vehicles can feel slow and repetitive.
Another downside is the game’s approach to historical accuracy. While War Thunder is marketed around real military vehicles, many battles feature vehicle matchups and scenarios that feel far removed from actual historical engagements. Players looking for authentic battlefield recreations may be disappointed.
The monetization is also hard to ignore. Premium vehicles, premium account time, and various paid boosts can provide noticeable advantages in progression speed. Although skill still matters, the game often feels designed to encourage spending money rather than simply rewarding gameplay, giving it a pay-to-progress atmosphere that many players view as bordering on pay-to-win.
Overall, War Thunder has plenty of content and an active community, but the heavy grind, questionable historical authenticity, and aggressive monetization make it difficult to recommend. There are other military vehicle games that offer a more enjoyable and less frustrating experience for casual players.
Verdict: A visually impressive game held back by excessive grinding and monetization. There are better alternatives available for players seeking historical battles and a fair progression system.
Dude go to steam that’s where you leave reviews
Cause it ain’t make for people like that, it’s an MMO fella
That’s not what it means smh this isn’t historical battle simulator and the game would suck really bad if that was the case. dude might be saying “Buff Germany” without even Realizing.
What do you expect, it’s a free to play game?
Every time I see someone mention graphics in this manner I begin to think they’re not actually gamers and are simply art gallery watchers.
OK I know a lot of people are not happy with Gaijin but honetls I think they are doing a really good job. We get 7 Major Update per year with quite a few new tanks and yes a few of them are copy and past out of simplicity reasons, time perspective and to get good linups in countries until they have the uniqe vehicles developed. They also still manage to get new interesting vehicles in but they take a lot of time and resources to get them working and implemented and can easily cost them 10k€ plus per model. They can not make everyone happy it just does not work. We have 2 major parties for premium vehicles:
- They do not want copy past premiums because they are boring and they should be uniqe
- They do not want premiums to be uniqe and behind a pay wall
Also the copy and past from one tech tree to another like the Leo 2 makes sense for me. Some Tech Trees need linups and are really struggling to get one from their own countries so they add a new vehicles from a different country to it. The Leo is easy to do, they have the files already, the chassis and everything and only need to do some slight adjustments. This saves time while they are working on the more uniqe vehicles for there countries that can take multiple years to create and research. People think only because the add one vehicle that they are not working on anything else. Which is just not true. Also some countries people want to have in there have not enought vehicles or uniqe vehicles to get a own tech tree so they add them to a different country. For me that also makes total sense.
So I think they really try to do it right.
What they should do in my opinion for the premiums is to have them in the tech tree to unlock and as a premium so there is no advantage maybe a slightly different varient that does not give you a real advantage over the non premium versions.
Gajin is doing a mix of that and I get it honestly. They try to make everyone happy but it is just not possible.
There are 7 things they really need to get fixed.
- Volumetric, it is nice to have and makes it possible to model vehicles that we do not know everything of to make it balanced but there should be a max armor cap per vehicle. I am so fed up by not penning a T34 side on with a Tiger 2 because I hit the side skirt or a specific place where the game thinks the armor is 10 meters thick.
- Barrels eat rounds and it just dissapears into nothing. This really needs to be fixed. The gun needs to break when I shoot it with my 88mm Tiger Cannon the barrel does not survive when I hit it no matter the angle.
- Grinding. The grind is just way to much for higher vehicles. One way to fix it would be to have copy past vehicles from one tech tree to another automatically unlocked if you unlocked it in one already. Obviously you need to get to that point first in the other Tech Tree but I do not want to grind the Leo 2A4 10 times for each nation.
- Make it possible to get old vehicles that can not be optained anymore for new players via events. It does not need to replace new events with new vehicles but additional to that. This would be great.
- THE BMPT IS JUST BROKEN AND MAKES 10.7 upwards completely unplayable. PLEASE FIX THIS Gaijin.
- Give us new game mode that make it more interactive with the tanks. It feels like it does not matter if i am there or not. Just some new good game modes would be great. For example I would like to have a ground game mode without CAS, it is so anoying to die mostly to CAS, especially in light tanks. But also I want a mode where I feel engaged. An example would be like in battlefield the “Breakthrough” mode. One Team need to defend and the other one needs to get furhter into enemy territory and push the defenders back.
- Fix the Maps, they have some bad design. I know you are working on that but still some are so bad that you can get spawn camped from a cross the map and you have no chance to do anything against it.
They tested this a few years back on Port Novowhatevertheendis and it was rather good, until you ended up spawning too far back from the advancing team and you’d have trouble catching up.
Definitely should bring that match style back. Another one I actually miss is old-school break where there’s 2 capture paths, one defensive, one offensive and it’s a race to cap the enemies spawn.
I can’t believe this was 2014… It had to be later… like 2018 at least… https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1h3zi1j/anyone_else_miss_the_break_gamemode_from_like/
Disable helis, remove bmpt, remove pantsir sm sv. Problem mostly solved.
You mean every time they release, it’s super strong tanks from the country that’s the world’s favorite at faking things.
Wake up babe, it’s not December 2025 anymore.
The community gave tons of ideas how to improve and balance the game, how many actually in the game or they just improve PROFILE UI? Don’t wasted your time on thing that you can’t change.
This is going to be an unpopular opinion but upon looking at everything said and giving some thought. I do think that many of the issues concerning Premiums and Copy-paste, maybe even maps, on being improved is due to the community’s fault. Most of the drama currently ongoing was started from Gaijins AI shenigans but the rest was due to people’s favorite CCs saying they are annoyed with the Spam. So many players like to complain to gaijin how they need to stop adding copy-paste premiums/uniques while others praise it. No one is on the same page and instead Gaijin is getting a wave of complaints where the positive feedback is covered up by meaningless feedback. There are no solid middle grounds that people are willing to accept or even give. I’m guilty of such case, suggesting we have only domestic copy-paste over export, but I do like the occasional unique vehicles. I do agree that we are losing identity in trees and that’s a problem. However, there’s a really good solution to all of this.
Add more Game modes. (First time commenting forums so not sure how to quote, I’ll figure it out as I go.)
Tech-trees can maintain Identity with game modes that limit vehicle options. Bring back historical game modes. Add game modes for large scale maps that make modern MBTs actually fight at the ranges they were designed for. There can still be city zones where brawling can and will happen. Add a dedicated Night mode, they are really fun in ground IMO.
An example would be like in battlefield the “Breakthrough” mode. One Team need to defend and the other one needs to get furhter into enemy territory and push the defenders back.
I believe there is a suggestion somewhere on here for this exact game mode. I think it would be great as well.
I would rather see Gaijin cut back on adding vehicles like the Leopard for France and focus more of that Energy on developing game modes while also showing us teasers of those game modes. Copy-paste should only be added if a tech-tree really needs it for that lineup. If a lineup has 3 tanks and 1 anti-air at least 0.3 BRs within each other than it doesn’t need a copy-paste. THEN when the domestic vehicle, AMX30C2 in this case, is added then have the Leo be foldered in with the AMX as an option to grind. Not a requirement. We have over a1000 vehicles and yet there are many which are limited in how they play because of the game modes.
Now, the problem I have with Gaijin is the lack of discussion with the player base. At the very least I wish they would show us what they have planned or what they are working on. Nuclear Thunder is a good step forward, but Air isn’t the only mode. Infantry is whatever to me until it releases and I can play with it. In terms of everything else you said.
Barrels eat rounds and it just dissapears into nothing. This really needs to be fixed. The gun needs to break when I shoot it with my 88mm Tiger Cannon the barrel does not survive when I hit it no matter the angle.
Funny enough this isn’t a bug but was a purposeful buff since people were annoyed with autocannons destroying barrels with ease. I wish they would make doing damage more consistent since it seems to be a hitbox problem more than health. The 88cm muzzle brake if shot from the side will almost always destroy it. The size of the caliber does affect the chance greatly.
Grinding. The grind is just way to much for higher vehicles. One way to fix it would be to have copy past vehicles from one tech tree to another automatically unlocked if you unlocked it in one already.
That’s too unrealistic for Gaijin to add. If you had the top tier Leopard for Germany than you would have top tier in 3 nations. The costs need to be reduced or the research bonus on vehicles needs to increase. Modifications take way too long to grind compared to lower brackets and its faster grinds on modifications would ease pain as well. Since the bonus research is a huge help. Matches ending fast also exacerbates this problem. A research cost reduction on either of those would be nice.
ima be so honest, this might close because there is already one. But I agree with you
Thanks for all your thoughts and I agree with you in most things and you are correct. The only thing I want to point out would be the grinding thing.
Ok so what I mean is the following:
- You unlock the Leo in Germany which means you needed to grind to that point.
- You start playing a new Tech Tree that has basically the same Leo.
- You grind to the point where you can start researching the Leo of the new Tech Tree.
- Instead of needing to research you just need to buy it.
With that it means you still need to grind normally but an already researched vehicle does not need to be researched again.
Other than that I totally agree with you.
7 major updates per year, Where did you get that number from mate? We get 5 major updates per year.
On your copy-paste point I have to disagree. 10k is barely anything for a company that makes well over 100 million a year, there is also no way it takes years to develop new and unique vehicles. Gaijin has said themselves it can take over a year to develop an entirely new vehicle, but I honestly don’t buy it. Making the visual model of a brand new tank takes 2-4 weaks for an experienced artist AT MOST, the damage model shouldn’t take half as long. By far the most difficult and time consuming aspect is the research, which again, I do not believe takes a full year.
This is even more outragious considering the new vehicles we do get are rarely ever actually finished. The SEP V3 is a prime example. You’re telling me it took over 2 and a half years to research and model the SEP V3, only to make it a regular abrams with a slightly stronger turret face?? The Belgian Leo 1 is missing a ton of features as well, as for many others.
So adding copy-paste to hold off on and “work on” unique stuff is a poor excuse from Gaijin’s part, especially considering they don’t even attempt to resolve the problems it creates.
Regarding premiums, I don’t like that the attention is drawn to ‘should it be copy-paste, or unique’. We shouldn’t be getting half as much premiums in the first place. They are incredibly unhealthy for the game and are just plain greedy.
On the rest of your points I almost entirely agree. We despirately need proper gamemodes, there is no actual gameplay at the moment.
Copy-paste vehicles I think are fine, we just need to get properly implemented unique vehicles allongside them AND we need a huge research discount when you already have 1 version.
I dont like