Out of the three branches in game (air, ground, navy), navy and naval battles are the most ignored and neglected one despite being the oldest one and having a history of thousands of years. While we got modern aircrafts, ground vehicles and helicopters, we don’t even have all the world war 2 ships in game like Bismarck and Yamato and we still don’t have submarines. And all of this is while naval vehicles are the most comprehensive set of vehicles too and unlike ground and air vehicles they don’t only exist from the 20th century onwards and Gaijin could add old wooden battleships too (like that April event). there’s literally hundreds of years of opportunity available but Gaijin intentionally ignores them. Like we have modern jets with anti ship missiles in game that can’t even use them properly in game because the top tier battleships are 4 battle ratings lower than that jet. I’m sure if Gaijin adds modern naval vehicles there would be tens of times more players trying out naval battles. so why does Gaijin intentionally ignore and neglect naval vehicles like this?
It’s the least played, and new models cost money so the incentive is not as high as churning out yet another top tier jet fighter for the noobs. That’s the main reason.
The other reason is that Naval doesn’t really fit the game modes that it has been jerry rigged into like ground and air. The maps are far too small for larger vessels, its hard to balance gameplay between the coastal and smaller vessels than the larger battleships and cruisers without every match just being the same vehicle type against each other. Plus it is plagued by the insane BR compression, the cost of parts being absurd and to top it off the spawn points are literally in clear sight of each other on most maps making a match about as fun as being spawn bombed in ground battles.
Gaijin seem more focused on, more and more “content” aka vehicles to stack the trees (copy pasta), rather than fixing the mechanics of the game or introducing new modes. And that’s not just a Naval issue. Now to be fair, they have come up with improvements over time but its probably too little too late. I just hope it doesn’t go the way of Enlisted because I have noticed lately that queues for naval are getting beyond 15 minutes for certain BRs.
I’m pretty sure naval is not popular because the gameplay is as you described it: spawn in, wait for the rangefinder to find the range of the other ship in enemy spawn right in front of you and keep on adjusting the aim and firing the cannons until you get close and get to maneuver between the rocks (only if you survive till you reach the middle of the map).
The thing that makes other game modes more interesting for me is the fact that you go from a biplane with 7mm machine guns to supersonic jets with BVR missiles. but for naval you go from big ship with cannons to even bigger ship with more cannons. If they add missile ships or submarines or controllable or at least responsive aircraft carriers it would be very much more desirable in my opinion.
Naval was implemented horribly and it doesn’t bring much attention.
I don’t think they are neglecting naval. We have constant ships added every patch. I have had no problems playing naval so far. Coastal and blue water.
I don’t care for modern ships, I would like to see more nations navys added like Sweden and China. They are gradually adding them though. We recently got the long awaited French navy.
If you want to see what it could be like, look at the war thunder mobile naval, they currently feature more modern ships.
which is a big shame honestly.
I’ve seen some other naval based games like Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age and got really sad that War Thunder has not implemented modern naval battles despite having modern naval fighter jets and all other modern vehicles but not the ships :(
Well naval was first added almost nine years ago. 9 years into naval and we still don’t have late world war ships like Yamato and Bismarck let alone the post war battleships and modern missile carriers meanwhile we even have the under development tanks like Challenger 3 and we are at most 2 years away from 5th gen aircrafts if Gaijin doesn’t postpone it (we will get the F/A-18 and modern F-16 blocks and russian jets like Su-30 and 35 and Chinese J-10B and C and there will be no other aircrafts left between 4th gen and 5th gen)
There is a catch-22
It is the least popular of the gamemodes and thus Gaijin has little incentive to invest vast amounts of time or effort into fixing any of the issues, big or small.
but at the same time, due to the many issues currently plaguing naval, few have incentive to get into the gamemode and thus it remains the least popular.
I personally love naval and think it is a far better gamemode than ground is. But alas, that is an opinion shared by few. That being said. One of the greatest changes that could occur is a decompress for naval and that I beleive is dependent on air to be decompressed with it. So despite the lack of effort towards naval, the greatest fix for naval is dependent on changes to air and ground first and so they will come sooner rather than later.
There are hints those are planned for 2025, but that being said, we are only just getting early WW2 ships for many nations. Britain still lacks its WW2 built battleships like HMS King George V and many of its WW2 refit ships like HMS Warspite. We are only slowly getting counters for ships like Scharnhorst and I do not believe we should hastily run towards Bismark or Yamato without dramatic improvements else where. They would do more harm than good.
This is tricky from a gameplay standpoint and how best to implement Anti-Ship missiles and their counter without it being a rather dry gamemode. Whilst there are a few more modern ships I would like to see (like a County-class destroyer for Britain) and I am glad they have for now, remained within and around WW2 for capital ships. Especially with so many yet to be added.
You also have to consider the compression as well, and how such vehicles should or could be balanced. Do you place a frigate or Destroyer armed with Anti-Ship missiles above those of battleships? or do you place them alongside WW2 destroyers that would stand no hope against them? Do you create an entire new gamemode/tree for them?
I reckon we’ll see Submarines before we see ASMs added to naval and I think that is the route I would prefer to see for now.
Not enough
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Revenue for gaijin to care
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Players for gaijin to entice
These go hand in hand with each other and make an infinite cycle until more people want to play or get interested in ships.
I think that is going to change soon.
According to the CM-disclosures from last time - they are going to add the most powerful and well known battleships.
This might include the Richelieu, Musashi, Yamato, Iowa, Bismarck, King George V, Littorio, etc…
They also said a new type of vehicle is coming to the game. This can be anything, from Aircraft-Carriers, Submarines, to tank-destroyer-equivalant boats.
Knowing these implementations will come this year, i think the playerbase is going to skyrocket for naval this year.
That being said, if the playerbase is going to skyrocket, more attention will be given to naval, since naval still has a LOT of mechanics left to add.
From radar and missle warfare, to submarine hunting, mine-laying, playable submarines, playable aircraft-carriers, etc…
Given the fact we’ve had test events for Subs. I would put my money on that for now. That being said. We have also had overhauls for ASM guidance. So maybe that hints of new gameplay planned for naval as well
Gaijin did a really bad job in implementing it and hence it is why it’s so unpopular and to fix it they just increased the SL reward percentage, almost as if they tried to bribe players so they ignore Gaijin’s poor implementation and play naval anyways.
I just wish we get more modern naval vehicles and honestly the missile gameplay wouldn’t be that hard to mix with the rest of the naval vehicles, same as ATGM carriers in ground. Early anti ship missiles like the Soviet KSShch can be placed a little bit higher than the current top tier battleships just like in ground battles where 6.7 world war 2 heavy tanks can often get uptiered and meet early ATGM carriers. And as for the more advanced ones like the harpoon, they can be placed in more than a 1.0 battle rating above the ww2 battleships so they never meet in ideal conditions even in a full uptier.
I think a game mode with modern ships and submarines and aircraft carriers would be the best thing ever happening to naval players and I would love to see the day when I can takeoff in a F/A-18 on an aircraft carrier and try to find enemy ships and launch anti ship missiles at them while trying to dodge their anti air missiles
maybe because its insanely difficult to progress? boats are fun until you meet enemies with high caliber guns that oneshoot you, and ships… i just don’t want to play starting bluewater after ive met some wunderwaffe launching missiles at me, apparently it was russian
Russian missile ship against French destroyers, equality
unless you actually keep pushing because apparently tier 3 bluewater gives insane cash
Premium time + Premium ship + 500% booster :P
Yeah, Naval gives some really solid SL, especially with a premium ship
I would also like submarines, in additional we have depth charges and working sonar
WHATT THE HELL?
i legit opened my mouth from seeing this
HMS Belfast was the best premium I ever bought. Easy 200k per match without a booster
This is like OG silver intake for arcade.
I wish I could play realistic, but spamming A the entire time gets really f**king old.
They need to have crews update range like in AB
I just wish the range updated with the lead marker, rather than it updating based upon the target’s range changing. With fixed update intervals you could better calculate the lead needed and it deals with the issue of the target changing range minimally, enough to effect your aim but not enough to update
i play the game without paying. Maybe I should get some french ship, too. Right now im kinda low on cats for simultaneously grinding tier 3 of two nations