Russian bias thoughts?

[yousa gaey]

I have come across a review which is interesting:

´´I use to think the whole Russian bias thing was just people finding ways to make excuses for their poor performance, but over time the evidence has become too numerous to ignore. Russia has:

The highest win rate at top tier (and many other tiers besides).

The most vehicles.

The lowest repair costs.

Some of the best vehicles in their class (MiG-23MLD, MiG-27K, Ka-52, Tunguska, etc).

Even when they don't have a best in class vehicle, they are still very competitive (T-80BVM).

Artificial buffs to soviet vehicles, such as the lack of spall on top tier tanks.

Completely under tiered vehicles like the BMP-2M and PT-76-57.

Some may point to other nations having their time of dominance, but the fact is that they have never lasted as long as this. The Leopard 2A6 lasted one patch while they Ka-50 has been around in its current state for years at this point.

It may also be pointed out that Gaijin would not allow the personal nationalistic biases to get in the way of profits, however:

It may be profitable for them to have the USSR as overpowered. It gets people to spend GE to grind out the tree in one way or another.

History has shown us time and time again that people, even within large organisations, do not always behave rationally.

The Russian government is a totalitarian state, their interference cannot be ruled out. War Thunder serves as an excellent tool for propaganda, it wouldn't do well for the Russian military if it appeared weak. Speculation, but one based on sound logic.

People have data mined the game files and found hidden modifiers on the Russian tanks such as almost twice the chance for their shells to cause fires, over penetrating or overly large explosive radius and damage after penetration. it is widely known that Russian shells are 1 hit nukes most of the time, poor Americans with their solid shot.

Russian tanks are the only ones who keep their historical rates of fire for untrained crew and maximum historical rates for trained crew, everyone else gets hit with the nerf bat in reload speeds.

Sloped armour tends to bounce shots, if the RNGod isn't smiling at you then you can bounce 88mm shells off the side of a T-34 at point blank range, the sloping modifier aplies to everyone but Russians tend to have the most sloped armour and so are the main recipients of its benefit. The game desperately needs an overmatch mechanic.

German tanks in particular suffer twice the inertia of Russian tanks, making for much greater wobble when coming to a hard stop and thus taking longer to lay their gun on target. This despite most WW2 Russian tanks not having any shock absorbers, German tanks did. In general Russian tanks tend to give the impression of driving like go-karts.

Despite consistent poor build quality on the part of Russian factories for some tank designs Germans are the only ones hit with penalties for 'late war supply problems' such as a 10% nerf to the effective armour thickness of the King Tiger . To add to it with a visibility system Russian tanks don't seem to suffer from their notoriously bad poor crew space and optics (when they had them, aka early T-34's) but get a bonus to not be spotted instead.

All these issues and more, even when fans can meet the established evidence criteria to show how wrong it is, gaijin tends to ignore, or take a year to patch it. Problems with Russian tanks tend to get patched much faster and if a newly introtuced tank to the game starts to club the Russians, expect the nerf bat to appear at warp speed and expect BR (battle rating) adjustments to forever favor Russians, by the time Germany gets a tank expect it to be immediately placed against the tank later developed to kill it. Tiger vs IS-2 for instance.

Keep in mind, in a game like this where skill matters almost anything is killable by anything else short of a Panzer III trying to kill a T-10m, but just because its possible doesn't always make it fair.

Another example is how HEATFS rounds were severely nerfed some time ago after Gaijin realized they penetrate Russian armor too reliably. There is a reason why Russian win rates normalized when HEATFS was the only thing players loaded, and then went back up after the nerf. In real life, HEATFS isn’t stopped by a bush or blades of grass.

People will speak anecdotes to try to defend the game or their favorite branch. The stats speak for themselves. Go to thunderskill’s website and look at the vehicle statistics. Only the Russian branch has vehicles performing as well as premium vehicles, I’m talking 65% win rates in RB or AB. T-54, T-55, T-72… they all have very good win rates. Now look at the American M1 series, M60, M47, etc…, below 50%, and they keep getting balanced/nerfed. German vehicles are also underperforming, hence why this year (2020) many were dropped in BR. Unfortunately, this screwed up the balance for the other nations EXCEPT for Russia, which continues to have better than 55% win rates for at least one vehicle in ever BR.

Gaijin is a Russian company, and as such they heavily favor their nation’s tanks. This was very obvious when Ground Forces first came out. They do create OP vehicles for other nations from time to time… but the difference is those get balanced. IS-7 has been OP since release with 65% win rates. Hasn’t actually been balanced beyond some meaningless things. It still maintains 60+ win rates.

Look at the M48/M60 tanks, and how their mantlets were paper thin in the game, despite realistically being the strongest part of the tank. M48 and M60 tanks perform very well in the real world against their Soviet counterparts, but in War Thunder, USSR reigns supreme.

Again, don’t take my word for it, go to thunderskill and compare the stats. Russian vehicles either dominate all the other nations in comparison or are competitive. Whereas other nations either do worse or are competitive (aside from premium, I’m looking at you AVRE meme tank). Although, German AA line is superb, but once you get to the Shilka and Tunguska, you will dominate even MBTs. The US does have the ADATS, but the road to the ADATS is full of hair-pulling frustration.

Which brings me to my final point - again reflecting on anecdotal evidence. Players will use a specific vehicle from other nations as an example of how Russian bias doesn’t exist. For example, as mentioned above ADATS. But again as I mentioned above, the vehicle line leading up to the ADATS is 90% pain. Something always left out of the narrative of these arguments trying to defend the Russian bias.

At the end of the day, you can kill a Russian tank easy enough, but comparatively they will have just as easy of a time killing you. It comes down to player skill, and Russian tanks are much more forgiving, hands down, than any of the other branches in this game.

TL:DR - This game has incredible Russian Bias and anyone who says otherwise is acting in bad faith, is very undereducated on the facts, or is a genuine moron.´´

In my opinion there is something fishy going on, the main give away would be the negative change in the American Vulcan and A-10 guns when the SU-25 came about, not to mention the BR changes. And the change in the Russian ERA being more effective against HEAT rounds which most tanks have as a stock shell. Furthermore, the new Abrams ERA being good and comparable to the Russian ones, but being nerfed into oblivion.

Any thoughts?

[Hotschi48]

Yes, two thoughts.

First, don't mix politics into a discussion about a video game.

Second, this line of yours, "anyone who says otherwise is acting in bad faith, is very undereducated on the facts, or is a genuine moron.´" speaks volumes about your attitude and manners - which are non-exisitng.

[OneEye]

you would think if they truly wanted to bias they would add more gun depression to the tanks along with all that other stuff.

What people need to do is create a custom match and do actual controlled testing. Set tanks as stationary and drive to known distances.

[yousa gaey]

Publicado originalmente por Hotschi48:

Yes, two thoughts.

First, don't mix politics into a discussion about a video game.

Second, this line of yours, "anyone who says otherwise is acting in bad faith, is very undereducated on the facts, or is a genuine moron.´" speaks volumes about your attitude and manners - which are non-exisitng.

If you took the time to read this, which you didn't, you'd know this is a review from Steam of another player that peaked my interest.

[Ruiツ]

I don't think there is any Russian bias. It was an excuse, then it became a meme, now it's becoming an excuse again. This game, made by Russians, brought out by Hungarians, hosted in Germany, is changing too quickly & becoming too dynamic for nationalistic bias & labels to become possible.

[Hotschi48]

I took the time reading the review and your post, thank you. This whole stunt of copying such a review into this forum is useless in my opinion, whether it peaks your interest or not. It's a bait. nothing more.

[yousa gaey]

Publicado originalmente por Hotschi48:

I took the time reading the review and your post, thank you. This whole stunt of copying such a review into this forum is useless in my opinion, whether it peaks your interest or not. It's a bait. nothing more.

Calm down with the tin foil hat, mate. Just because your opinion is far fetched and biased doesn't mean other people can't have a civil discussion on it.

[Hotschi48]

No tin foil hat here. And no reason to calm down either. I am relaxed.

You copy a "review" which is full of politics and stereotypes and expect a "civil conversation"- while writing that MY opinion is "biased".

Classic.

Just for the record, I don't care whether Gaijin is a Russian, Hungarian, or whatever country's company. I couldn't care less. this is a game, nothing more.

[mogami_99]

Well they must not love the Russian Navy. They are very good light Cruisers but they have the same BR as every one else heavy cruisers. So think on that (Russia has no heavy cruisers)

[FkYoSht]

Also the Strela is bad.

[SevenDEF]

3.0 - 4.3 ground is fullrussian bias.
You can drive braindead on any map and bouce everthing plus pneshot anyone

[hawley.kevin]

i just tryed russin by plane xD love them guns seem OP

[Cadako]

The one reason I know Russian bias exists in this game is that we can see how utterly horrible their vehicle performance has been IRL from the war they're losing. If Russia had vehicles that performed the way they're coded in War Thunder, they would've rolled over the Ukraine.

[♠Gamer3106♠]

Publicado originalmente por Cadako:

The one reason I know Russian bias exists in this game is that we can see how utterly horrible their vehicle performance has been IRL from the war they're losing. If Russia had vehicles that performed the way they're coded in War Thunder, they would've rolled over the Ukraine.

Real life≠videogames

The is 2 was able to pen the tiger 2 on occasions when the Tigers armour was bad quality. Does this happen in the game? No.

[♠Gamer3106♠]

Also, I totally agree with what hotschi said.

Everyone who doesn't agree with op is suddenly biased

[Tim]

seems to mostly be a circlejerk.