Although It says I have 1,319.8 hours, I have much closer to 3,000-4,000, since I haven't launched via steam in a year and have been playing almost nonstop.

For the record, I main Russia in air and ground, but happen to frequent several other nations at all tiers.

I'll also be splitting this into 2 categories;

Brief description of bias;
In-game examples of bias;

Brief description of bias:

With that said, I would very strongly recommend against playing this game in its current form. You may hear mass reports of Russian and German bias, and let me break down what that means. Imagine this - IRL political allies of Russia receive in-game boosts to their vehicles' performance and reward gains, meanwhile NATO (besides Germany) receives tons of shadow nerfs to performance and rewards. They also receive the newest and best planes and technologies 2-3 updates before other nations, which is generally half a year's time.


In-game examples of bias:

For an American example, the M1A1 Abrams consistently (some days there doesn't even seem to be an update that causes this deterioration) has a slower turret traverse speed and engine performance, lower track traction, cheek armor, reload speed, shell velocity and behavior, and has thermals that genuinely are a massive hindrance. I'd much rather have NVD's or no additional imaging device whatsoever, because it's so blurry I literally have mistaken the backs of T-90A's for road signs before, as well as straight up not being able to see anything through a thin bush. On top of all of this, the tank cannot take any kind of damage. The moment any shell even touches the turret ring (or rather literally anything below or between the turret cheeks) it instantly dies. Pair this with the current state of Russian and German top tier tanks - My T-80BVM's ERA blows 2-4 times before actually being destroyed, fully impacting all incoming shells and negating them, and Leopard 2a6's are almost totally invincible from all sides. On my M1A1, I consistently non-pen their side armor with 491mm of penetration from close-up. When comparing every Abrams model with 8.0+ Russian tanks, it turns out they have the same mobility, in some areas worse mobility, than the T-72A...which is at 9.3 with almost the same shells as American top tier vehicles get. So Russia's 9.3+ tanks are all top tier (11.0 at the time of writing this) performance and stats. Whenever I play the Abrams, it seems that that gap becomes larger and larger.

Pair this with immensely inflated repair costs for mainly American vehicles, which Gaijin Entertainment describes as "balancing by player behavior". However, this makes absolutely no sense. Beyond how idiotic that idea is and the nuances of what it entails for new and casual players, it's also a straight up lie. The M1A2 costs 12k silver lions to repair spaded (all modifications researched and purchased), meanwhile Russian and German top tiers (with far better stats, mind you) cost 4k-6k. This means that the turnout for M1A2 players is going to be unremarkably low, due to how much strain that puts on people to constantly go for kills and ignore objectives, which also keep getting their rewards nerfed. This makes for constant downtiers for Russian and German players, as they're generally also on the same team vs all other nations besides usually one randomized ally, which never seems to be America or Britain.

For an example of bias in air battles, look no further than the MiG-23M, MiG-27M, and MiG-23MLD. In real life, the MLD was about on equal footing as the F-14A tomcat, early F-15A/C blocks, and although could fight F-16A's, would generally lose. This was mainly due to the very powerful engine and a very light, advanced air-frame with reinforced mounts for the variable-swept wings. This allows the plane to turn at high speeds without breaking its wings off, and recover quickly from maneuvers that used energy (the momentum/redirected and lost inertia of your plane). However, when the MiG-23M was introduced almost a year ago as of writing, it was already performing better than the MLD did in real life! This was mainly due to the use of an afterburner, which in real life the M model could almost never functionally do, as the engine would physically melt after 10 overall hours of afterburner, and only a few hundred hours of normal flight. The in-game depiction can stay on afterburner forever, without suffering any substantial fuel consumption or health consequences (this malfunction is currently modeled in-game on the AV-8 Harrier 1's for both America and Britain, coming as damage over time from overheating upon having your engine at first introduction of the aircraft being at 98% power, and has gradually gotten worse through shadow nerfs to a current 91% engine power before overheating and slowly taking engine damage which occasionally spreads to fuel tanks bursting.

On top of the afterburner issues of the MiG-23 variants is the biggest issue of all - Variable swept wing introduction and limitations. For the past 4 updates (being in order, IXWA Strike, Red Skies, Direct Hit, and Ground Breaking) Russia has gotten a new variable-swept wing aircraft with severely overstated aeronautics and equipment limitations. In real life, the MiG-23MLD could *only* go to 33-degree variable sweep by the most experienced pilots without wing-armament mounts, and only at speeds of below 700km/h. Even at this speed and this sweep angle, the plane was extremely unsteady and constantly threatened to break down entirely, as it just didn't have the air-frame or wing mounts to support that kind of stress. In-game, however, I can go to mach 0.9 (or 1,100km/h) in my MiG-23M, MiG-23MLD, and MiG-27M at sea level-1km altitude having my wings entirely unswept before I have to slide my wings back to a 45 degree sweep, and soon after to a full 75 degree sweep for supersonic flight. This means I can wildly out-turn all of my opponents at every speed and altitude, while also having missiles that totally ignore flares, sustain lock 90% of the time, and perfectly predict and turn with my opponents all while instantly locking upon activation from 6km frontally and 8km rear-aspect. With the accumulation of all of these things already makes for an insanely overpowered aircraft in the current game climate. However, it gets worse! I can also *gain speed and energy* while in an upward-corkscrew. This means in turn fights, instead of quickly bleeding energy like my enemies, I actually get stronger and faster! All with no drawbacks on my fuel consumption or air-frame stress. What can counter me? Literally nothing, not even the JA37C Viggen. My R-60M missiles, which were fitted to MiG-23MLD's in the mid-late 80s, can function as both long-range missiles and short-range dog-fighters due to their massive g-load and maneuverability, as well as their huge burn time. It's utterly insane.

Meanwhile, at American top tier, no planes can do more than 2 turns before losing all of their energy on afterburner with no load. They take an insane amount of time to take off (with missiles and few bombs, they can take the entire like 7km-long runway), they also burn their fuel very quickly, have radars that straight up do not detect MiG-23's at all, can't consistently lock over 6km, and can't seem to lock for more than 2 seconds over 10km at optimal radar settings. They also have double or triple the turn radius of Russian and German jets, leaving you entirely unprepared for all dog-fighting, and no matter how good you are, you can be easily bested by a tiny bit of competence.

I'd go on, but I've hit the character limit. It's just such ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and they're just constantly nerfing rewards for all players instead of just making a good, balanced game with acceptable grinding times and progression. I've been playing consistently since 2013, and I've spent way, way too much money. I adore this game, but I'm honestly close to leaving.

Although It says I have 1,319.8 hours, I have much closer to 3,000-4,000, since I haven't launched via steam in a year and have been playing almost nonstop. For the record, I main Russia in air and ground, but happen to frequent several other nations at all tiers. I'll also be splitting this into 2 categories; Brief description of bias; In-game examples of bias; Brief description of bias: With that said, I would very strongly recommend against playing this game in its current form. You may hear mass reports of Russian and German bias, and let me break down what that means. Imagine this - IRL political allies of Russia receive in-game boosts to their vehicles' performance and reward gains, meanwhile NATO (besides Germany) receives tons of shadow nerfs to performance and rewards. They also receive the newest and best planes and technologies 2-3 updates before other nations, which is generally half a year's time. In-game examples of bias: For an American example, the M1A1 Abrams consistently (some days there doesn't even seem to be an update that causes this deterioration) has a slower turret traverse speed and engine performance, lower track traction, cheek armor, reload speed, shell velocity and behavior, and has thermals that genuinely are a massive hindrance. I'd much rather have NVD's or no additional imaging device whatsoever, because it's so blurry I literally have mistaken the backs of T-90A's for road signs before, as well as straight up not being able to see anything through a thin bush. On top of all of this, the tank cannot take any kind of damage. The moment any shell even touches the turret ring (or rather literally anything below or between the turret cheeks) it instantly dies. Pair this with the current state of Russian and German top tier tanks - My T-80BVM's ERA blows 2-4 times before actually being destroyed, fully impacting all incoming shells and negating them, and Leopard 2a6's are almost totally invincible from all sides. On my M1A1, I consistently non-pen their side armor with 491mm of penetration from close-up. When comparing every Abrams model with 8.0+ Russian tanks, it turns out they have the same mobility, in some areas worse mobility, than the T-72A...which is at 9.3 with almost the same shells as American top tier vehicles get. So Russia's 9.3+ tanks are all top tier (11.0 at the time of writing this) performance and stats. Whenever I play the Abrams, it seems that that gap becomes larger and larger. Pair this with immensely inflated repair costs for mainly American vehicles, which Gaijin Entertainment describes as "balancing by player behavior". However, this makes absolutely no sense. Beyond how idiotic that idea is and the nuances of what it entails for new and casual players, it's also a straight up lie. The M1A2 costs 12k silver lions to repair spaded (all modifications researched and purchased), meanwhile Russian and German top tiers (with far better stats, mind you) cost 4k-6k. This means that the turnout for M1A2 players is going to be unremarkably low, due to how much strain that puts on people to constantly go for kills and ignore objectives, which also keep getting their rewards nerfed. This makes for constant downtiers for Russian and German players, as they're generally also on the same team vs all other nations besides usually one randomized ally, which never seems to be America or Britain. For an example of bias in air battles, look no further than the MiG-23M, MiG-27M, and MiG-23MLD. In real life, the MLD was about on equal footing as the F-14A tomcat, early F-15A/C blocks, and although could fight F-16A's, would generally lose. This was mainly due to the very powerful engine and a very light, advanced air-frame with reinforced mounts for the variable-swept wings. This allows the plane to turn at high speeds without breaking its wings off, and recover quickly from maneuvers that used energy (the momentum/redirected and lost inertia of your plane). However, when the MiG-23M was introduced almost a year ago as of writing, it was already performing better than the MLD did in real life! This was mainly due to the use of an afterburner, which in real life the M model could almost never functionally do, as the engine would physically melt after 10 overall hours of afterburner, and only a few hundred hours of normal flight. The in-game depiction can stay on afterburner forever, without suffering any substantial fuel consumption or health consequences (this malfunction is currently modeled in-game on the AV-8 Harrier 1's for both America and Britain, coming as damage over time from overheating upon having your engine at first introduction of the aircraft being at 98% power, and has gradually gotten worse through shadow nerfs to a current 91% engine power before overheating and slowly taking engine damage which occasionally spreads to fuel tanks bursting. On top of the afterburner issues of the MiG-23 variants is the biggest issue of all - Variable swept wing introduction and limitations. For the past 4 updates (being in order, IXWA Strike, Red Skies, Direct Hit, and Ground Breaking) Russia has gotten a new variable-swept wing aircraft with severely overstated aeronautics and equipment limitations. In real life, the MiG-23MLD could *only* go to 33-degree variable sweep by the most experienced pilots without wing-armament mounts, and only at speeds of below 700km/h. Even at this speed and this sweep angle, the plane was extremely unsteady and constantly threatened to break down entirely, as it just didn't have the air-frame or wing mounts to support that kind of stress. In-game, however, I can go to mach 0.9 (or 1,100km/h) in my MiG-23M, MiG-23MLD, and MiG-27M at sea level-1km altitude having my wings entirely unswept before I have to slide my wings back to a 45 degree sweep, and soon after to a full 75 degree sweep for supersonic flight. This means I can wildly out-turn all of my opponents at every speed and altitude, while also having missiles that totally ignore flares, sustain lock 90% of the time, and perfectly predict and turn with my opponents all while instantly locking upon activation from 6km frontally and 8km rear-aspect. With the accumulation of all of these things already makes for an insanely overpowered aircraft in the current game climate. However, it gets worse! I can also *gain speed and energy* while in an upward-corkscrew. This means in turn fights, instead of quickly bleeding energy like my enemies, I actually get stronger and faster! All with no drawbacks on my fuel consumption or air-frame stress. What can counter me? Literally nothing, not even the JA37C Viggen. My R-60M missiles, which were fitted to MiG-23MLD's in the mid-late 80s, can function as both long-range missiles and short-range dog-fighters due to their massive g-load and maneuverability, as well as their huge burn time. It's utterly insane. Meanwhile, at American top tier, no planes can do more than 2 turns before losing all of their energy on afterburner with no load. They take an insane amount of time to take off (with missiles and few bombs, they can take the entire like 7km-long runway), they also burn their fuel very quickly, have radars that straight up do not detect MiG-23's at all, can't consistently lock over 6km, and can't seem to lock for more than 2 seconds over 10km at optimal radar settings. They also have double or triple the turn radius of Russian and German jets, leaving you entirely unprepared for all dog-fighting, and no matter how good you are, you can be easily bested by a tiny bit of competence. I'd go on, but I've hit the character limit. It's just such bullshit, and they're just constantly nerfing rewards for all players instead of just making a good, balanced game with acceptable grinding times and progression. I've been playing consistently since 2013, and I've spent way, way too much money. I adore this game, but I'm honestly close to leaving.