The grind never ends (War Thunder)

The T-34 experience. Press W, win.
I've been playing War Thunder on and off, maybe 3-4 matches every few days. Trying to get out of the RB T-34 hell as Germans and hoping to find more fun in the upper tiers. Perhaps improve my skills while getting utterly destroyed, the best kind of way to git gud.

Anyway, yesterday I unlocked the itty bitty Hetzer, my first tier 3 tank. It's the first sloped armor German tank you get with a punchy gun, roughly equal to a basic T-34. I was expecting to pay those T-34 hordes in the 3.7 BR a visit and give some taste of their own medicine . . . oh boy did I get some taste of medicine myself. I was immediately thrown into matches with Tigers, Panthers, KV-2s, Jumbo Shermans, T-34-85s which have no difficulties dealing with a cute Hetzer while my shots kept plinking off (again).

The thing is, all the work you put in unlocking any tank is immediately nullified by the horrible matchmaker uptiering you. It's designed so that there are always better tanks than yours are around to make you feel inferior. So you keep grinding, grinding and grinding until you reach the last tier and finally sit at the top of the hill. Funnily enough, the stuff at the later tiers are so powerful that they pretty much one shot each other so you'll never feel satisfied.

This works in World of Warships becuase you can still hold your own against upper tier ships. An Aoba can fight a New Orleans hope to have a decent chance to win, the arcade nature of the game allows that. However if you're in a Pz IV F2 fighting a T-34E, you're just a speed bump for it. It'll one shot you and keep on roflstomping. The simulation nature of the game makes the engagements ruthless and unforgiving, yet the developers made a matchmaker that doesn't pay attention to this.

Besides the tank porn, the only motivation I have left is to have enough tanks unlocked to be able to participate in more simulation battles, where the decks seem to be more balanced due to restrictions. They're planning to limit heavy tanks/OP stuff per match, so it might become fun later on. I still don't get the developers though. They have a wonderful game under the hood, but their neglect of the game modes, matchmaker and maps really undermines the experience.

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About Rak

I'm an engineer who likes to write extremely long articles about games that border simulation and mainstream.
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