Recent reviews by Concorde

Look, I unironically love this game. My hours are hilariously deflated as I only switched to Steam in 2021 as a player who started during 1.31 (June 2013). I probably have closer to 6,000 hours on this thing. I'm not even leaving this review because of the most recent drama because I can DEAL with a crapped economy if everything else were tolerable.

Note the majority of this digest pertains to Realistic, but as a short summery Air and Naval Arcade are generally very fun and I haven't touched ground arcade in over 4 years, probably should revisit it.

Air is the game's specialty and where you're gonna have the most fun usually. I say usually because high tier props is a miserable experience thanks to an absurd Axis dominance at around BR 5-6. Jets are damn fun and I consider 7.7 the lightning in a bottle, if you want to play any BR, that's the fun one. The horrific grind isn't even terrible for RP, air has some of the best RP gains (Admittedly I'm prem and renew during anniversary like any sane person should), but with focus you can push into a new plane in just a few days. THE PROBLEM comes with air's horrifically low SL gains. Even with premium vehicles its a struggle to get the 1.5 mil needed to buy and crew, and then crew experting is so wildly out of control they need a hard 50% cut to air crew expert cost across the board, if not more. Top tier is a fine enough experience depending, very YMMV, but there's a lot to like with air at rank 2 and 3, as well as 5 and early 6.

GROUND however, is a disgustingly pathetic slog. Godawful RP gain, betterish SL gain, and a frustratingly poor experience that Gaijin seems very happy to make us suffer in for every major event. I've literally noticed a change in trees to pop back upright after shot to keep them obscuring firing lines, quite literally one of the worst mechanics in any game. In addition: Smoke is cancer. Repairs prioritize everything except your gun and breach for no good reason and thus screw you more than you think it would. Reload resets if your loader switches to the driver seat (When it should just apply the new time midway and calculate the percent and just, see it through from there). There's little way to discern what bushes can be MG'd and what cant. Certain guns of the same caliber (and similar/HIGHER pen) can't destroy certain obstacles. I noticed this last one during April Fool's when the M2 can't destroy guardrails on Alaska but the NVST could. Inconsistencies and little issues like this add up and become absurdly annoying to deal with, couple with certain trees (Sweden) being absurdly broken at most BRs they're at and you're a slave to the meta even as low as 3.3. Top tier isn't worth discussing as anyone who plays it has below room temp IQ. If you wish to suffer, cap out at 7.7-8.3 and don't go a lick further. If you can MAKE it that far with how pathetically slow the grind is.

Naval despite being a kicking boy by the community is a treat. Pick a nation that isn't UK or Japan and you're in for fun, especially US. Just, play US. As soon as you get a ship with 5/38s its beyond over. 5.0 with destroyers slinging at each other like maniacs on both sides and the occasional cruiser getting involved is fun at both Arcade and Realistic, might even be the best mode overall, SL gains are cracked too and RP isn't terrible. I, genuinely like Naval.

So despite my praises and my disdain, the issue at the end of the day is this game is a long, suffer filled experience. I really like it and REALLY hope Gaijin pulls themselves together, but even before everything went down I simply could not wish this upon even my worst enemies.