This is a complete revision of my old review, which I've since entirely scrapped. I will still leave my review as negative, however I feel Gaijin has made enough strides in the right direction as of current to at least remove my previous, more emotion-driven message and amend it to better represent how I currently feel about this situation.

The words coming from the team behind War Thunder have been giving me and from what I've seen and understood a lot of us hope of what the future could hold, and with them directly addressing our concerns with the economy (and shockingly the BR compression as well), this leads me to believe that they do mean it when they say this game means just as much, if not more, to them than it does to us. Even if by that they mean this is simply the company's lifeline and they want to keep it going for that reason, at the end of the day, the game has to be good enough for us to continue spending money on it, and a company that doesn't listen to their consumers typically doesn't hold up as well as the companies that do.

I don't have much else to add to this revision, because Gaijin hasn't shown us much. I'll leave this here for now, and I'll leave the negative review. As many have said and how Gaijin has acted in the past, these dev blogs mean nothing until changes come to the live game to stay. These are empty promises, and until fulfilled, we have no indication if they mean *exactly* what they say.

I love this game, otherwise I wouldn't have spent as much as I have nor would I have invested the time I have into this either. I, however, simply wish the money and time I spent in this game made me feel like it paid itself off and was well worth it, not strictly from the enjoyment factor but progression as well.

EDIT 1: The first set of economy changes has rolled out, and I can confidently say I'm actually having fun playing the game again due to it finally feeling like my play time is being rewarded. I do have premium account, but I can tell by the fact im getting around $20k per kill that I could not have premium account and still keep making money, granted I do well enough. The "RealShatter" mechanic, as a pilot, however, is more than enough to warrant me leaving my review as negative. Though I do feel it can be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to the few times you disintegrate the moment a 30mm shell touches your plane, at least make the shells feel like they do something. 20mm HE rounds dont do anything anymore unless more than 3 bullets hit in a single given spot (to actually do enough damage to the part to cause performance issues), and bigger caliber HE shells don't do much more for you. However, Realshatter is only applied to HE rounds; if your ammo belt has SAP-I, IAI, or I rounds, you'll be doing MUCH more damage, as REALSHATTER IS ONLY APPLIED TO -HE ROUNDS ON 20MM CANNONS OR LARGER. In my opinion, the best fix to this is to simply roll back RealShatter and re-work it from the ground up, because as it stands currently it is wholly counter-intuitive, due to your best ammo belt for killing air targets being your ground target belt, no matter what plane you go to.

EDIT 2: Gaijin's done it so far, they've brought the state of the game to a place it hasn't been in YEARS. After the first round of economy changes, they've finally removed the universally hated "real"shatter mechanic, showing us they ARE capable of giving us the best of both worlds, and for a pilot main such as myself, it's not a grueling battle of "How many crits can I get before the guy I'm shooting at sets on fire? (still doesn't die)" anymore. I imagine the majority of the playerbase would, however, greatly appreciate expanding and continuing on the initial graphic Gaijin gave us for their projected roadmap, as the visual indicator of what their intentions are is a very nice way to see if the community generally agrees, is impartial, or outwardly disagrees with any potential future implementations. The game, as it stands in my opinion, doesn't need too much major work in terms of air battles, and I can't speak on behalf of ground players as I don't have mauch more than 100 matches as ground forces, so I can't say what does and doesn't need work in that regard. I'm finally changing my review back to a positive one, but I recommend we still keep a vigilant eye on Gaijin and make sure they hold to their word. I hope they realize these changes are making us happy to play the game again, and I wish them well in continuing the solid effort in keeping their baby alive and well.

EDIT 3: I'm reverting my review back to a negative one, as although the changes to the game as a whole are decent SO FAR, the problem with botting has gotten so out of control. There used to not be too many bot accounts, and as knowledge on how to automate gameplay slowly became more widespread, the number slowly increased. However, Gaijin recently announced they would be "cracking down" on this botting activity; needless to say, the problem has become worse than it quite literally ever has been in the decade of this game being alive. Every single match in virtually any BR has become plagued with 1-2 bots PER TEAM MINIMUM, EVERY. SINGLE. MATCH. It's extremely frustrating not knowing how many of your teammates are going to be deadweights whenever you press "To Battle!". Despite these players being free kills for those of us that actually play the game, they're still taking the place of what could be a legitimately helpful teammate. Once the event is over and I gain the ability to sell my SU25BM ticket, I'll likely be taking another hiatus from this game unless playing with a group. It's a very frustrating issue that feels like it's being completely overlooked despite Gaijin saying they'll "crack down" on this issue, especially considering over the past week there's one particular bot I've seen and reported at least 3 times now, all on different days. Them "cracking down" has seemingly made the problem much worse by bringing it to everybody's attention and getting others to think "you know what, since they said they're cracking down on it, let's prove that they're doing nothing" and the players automating their games are WINNING HANDS-DOWN.

EDIT 4: The botting problem seems to be far better than it was a few months ago. My main issues I now have with the game are issues that have been prevalent for years, only becoming worse as the game has intoduced dozens of high-tiered jets. The first issue is the spotting system, which has been an issue since 2018. It wasn't that large of an issue then, seeing as this was when supersonic aircraft were first introduced, but it became a larger issue when the missile alert warning system was removed from every aircraft except the T-2 (this was removed at a later time) in the game when the MiG-21 and F-4C were added to the trees. Since then, higher tier combat has gotten faster tied with longer range weaponry, and while RWRs help with medium range combat, it ignores the elephant in the room, and I'm relatively confident every player with a good amount of playtime can name multiple instances where they were able to see a silhouette of an enemy, but the game doesn't register that they're spotted. The second issue pertains more-so to aircraft, but is arguably the worse of two evils, as this leaves some aircraft to do nothing but collect dust in most people's hangars aside from avid enthusiasts of said aircraft; BR compression. It makes absolutely zero sense that aircraft such as the CL13 and G91 can fight against aircraft that are more maneuverable, faster, have vastly better AAMs and countermeasures, and said aircraft shouldn't be capable of fighting others they're so much blatantly better than. The current BR bracket having top tier at 12.3 leads to immense amounts of era overlap between the range of 8.7-11.0. I don't have precise ideas on what an alternative maximum should be, but 14.0 would be a good place to start with solid revision of where current aircraft lie.

This is a complete revision of my old review, which I've since entirely scrapped. I will still leave my review as negative, however I feel Gaijin has made enough strides in the right direction as of current to at least remove my previous, more emotion-driven message and amend it to better represent how I currently feel about this situation. The words coming from the team behind War Thunder have been giving me and from what I've seen and understood a lot of us hope of what the future could hold, and with them directly addressing our concerns with the economy (and shockingly the BR compression as well), this leads me to believe that they do mean it when they say this game means just as much, if not more, to them than it does to us. Even if by that they mean this is simply the company's lifeline and they want to keep it going for that reason, at the end of the day, the game has to be good enough for us to continue spending money on it, and a company that doesn't listen to their consumers typically doesn't hold up as well as the companies that do. I don't have much else to add to this revision, because Gaijin hasn't shown us much. I'll leave this here for now, and I'll leave the negative review. As many have said and how Gaijin has acted in the past, these dev blogs mean nothing until changes come to the live game to stay. These are empty promises, and until fulfilled, we have no indication if they mean *exactly* what they say. I love this game, otherwise I wouldn't have spent as much as I have nor would I have invested the time I have into this either. I, however, simply wish the money and time I spent in this game made me feel like it paid itself off and was well worth it, not strictly from the enjoyment factor but progression as well. EDIT 1: The first set of economy changes has rolled out, and I can confidently say I'm actually having fun playing the game again due to it finally feeling like my play time is being rewarded. I do have premium account, but I can tell by the fact im getting around $20k per kill that I could not have premium account and still keep making money, granted I do well enough. The "RealShatter" mechanic, as a pilot, however, is more than enough to warrant me leaving my review as negative. Though I do feel it can be bullshit to the few times you disintegrate the moment a 30mm shell touches your plane, at least make the shells feel like they do something. 20mm HE rounds dont do anything anymore unless more than 3 bullets hit in a single given spot (to actually do enough damage to the part to cause performance issues), and bigger caliber HE shells don't do much more for you. However, Realshatter is only applied to HE rounds; if your ammo belt has SAP-I, IAI, or I rounds, you'll be doing MUCH more damage, as REALSHATTER IS ONLY APPLIED TO -HE ROUNDS ON 20MM CANNONS OR LARGER. In my opinion, the best fix to this is to simply roll back RealShatter and re-work it from the ground up, because as it stands currently it is wholly counter-intuitive, due to your best ammo belt for killing air targets being your ground target belt, no matter what plane you go to. EDIT 2: Gaijin's done it so far, they've brought the state of the game to a place it hasn't been in YEARS. After the first round of economy changes, they've finally removed the universally hated "real"shatter mechanic, showing us they ARE capable of giving us the best of both worlds, and for a pilot main such as myself, it's not a grueling battle of "How many crits can I get before the guy I'm shooting at sets on fire? (still doesn't die)" anymore. I imagine the majority of the playerbase would, however, greatly appreciate expanding and continuing on the initial graphic Gaijin gave us for their projected roadmap, as the visual indicator of what their intentions are is a very nice way to see if the community generally agrees, is impartial, or outwardly disagrees with any potential future implementations. The game, as it stands in my opinion, doesn't need too much major work in terms of air battles, and I can't speak on behalf of ground players as I don't have mauch more than 100 matches as ground forces, so I can't say what does and doesn't need work in that regard. I'm finally changing my review back to a positive one, but I recommend we still keep a vigilant eye on Gaijin and make sure they hold to their word. I hope they realize these changes are making us happy to play the game again, and I wish them well in continuing the solid effort in keeping their baby alive and well. EDIT 3: I'm reverting my review back to a negative one, as although the changes to the game as a whole are decent SO FAR, the problem with botting has gotten so out of control. There used to not be too many bot accounts, and as knowledge on how to automate gameplay slowly became more widespread, the number slowly increased. However, Gaijin recently announced they would be "cracking down" on this botting activity; needless to say, the problem has become worse than it quite literally ever has been in the decade of this game being alive. Every single match in virtually any BR has become plagued with 1-2 bots PER TEAM MINIMUM, EVERY. SINGLE. MATCH. It's extremely frustrating not knowing how many of your teammates are going to be deadweights whenever you press "To Battle!". Despite these players being free kills for those of us that actually play the game, they're still taking the place of what could be a legitimately helpful teammate. Once the event is over and I gain the ability to sell my SU25BM ticket, I'll likely be taking another hiatus from this game unless playing with a group. It's a very frustrating issue that feels like it's being completely overlooked despite Gaijin saying they'll "crack down" on this issue, especially considering over the past week there's one particular bot I've seen and reported at least 3 times now, all on different days. Them "cracking down" has seemingly made the problem much worse by bringing it to everybody's attention and getting others to think "you know what, since they said they're cracking down on it, let's prove that they're doing nothing" and the players automating their games are WINNING HANDS-DOWN. EDIT 4: The botting problem seems to be far better than it was a few months ago. My main issues I now have with the game are issues that have been prevalent for years, only becoming worse as the game has intoduced dozens of high-tiered jets. The first issue is the spotting system, which has been an issue since 2018. It wasn't that large of an issue then, seeing as this was when supersonic aircraft were first introduced, but it became a larger issue when the missile alert warning system was removed from every aircraft except the T-2 (this was removed at a later time) in the game when the MiG-21 and F-4C were added to the trees. Since then, higher tier combat has gotten faster tied with longer range weaponry, and while RWRs help with medium range combat, it ignores the elephant in the room, and I'm relatively confident every player with a good amount of playtime can name multiple instances where they were able to see a silhouette of an enemy, but the game doesn't register that they're spotted. The second issue pertains more-so to aircraft, but is arguably the worse of two evils, as this leaves some aircraft to do nothing but collect dust in most people's hangars aside from avid enthusiasts of said aircraft; BR compression. It makes absolutely zero sense that aircraft such as the CL13 and G91 can fight against aircraft that are more maneuverable, faster, have vastly better AAMs and countermeasures, and said aircraft shouldn't be capable of fighting others they're so much blatantly better than. The current BR bracket having top tier at 12.3 leads to immense amounts of era overlap between the range of 8.7-11.0. I don't have precise ideas on what an alternative maximum should be, but 14.0 would be a good place to start with solid revision of where current aircraft lie.