Recent reviews by Contelopa

Have played on and off multiple times and on multiple accounts since 2016. TL;DR, Greedy, insensitive developers have ruined the game.

-Economy changes have incentivized new players to buy top tier premiums upwards of £50. This purchase means the player will continue through the unbearable grind to "make their purchase worthwhile".
-Clear bias. "The big three" (USA,Germany,Russia) get guaranteed content every major update. Their vehicles are buffed with enough complaining on forums (looking at you, wehraboos) or with enough personal bias from developers. Yaks are UFO's and ShVaks are laser beams. 50 cals and AN/M2 or M3's are similar. 'Minor' nations suffer.
-Gaijin do not listen. Ever. Not even to partnered creators. Gib Air Realistic Enduring Confrontation.
-Fun vehicles rarely do well. Doing badly = wasting time for a single tech tree that may take up to a year to fully research.
-Free to play is no longer viable.

On my first account (2016), I played completely blind. I played whatever nation I wanted without focusing one, never bought anything. Primarily played on arcade gamemodes. Never got much of anything done, I think my highest rank was III in Great Britain. Was never really too strapped for SL and yet I barely ever played meta vehicles bar when I did on accident. I played vehicles that I liked, and did okay in them. This, in my opinion, was the most fun I had on this game.

On my second account (2019), I had started to get used to mechanics. After my first 100 or so arcade battles, I switched to Realistic battles as my go-to. While I had begun to make more SL as a result of this gamemode switch, I was also researching vehicles blisteringly quickly. I was almost constantly out of SL from buying and repairing vehicles I was playing, not necessarily meta planes. I didn't really understand economy at this point, so you can guess what I did. I bought the Westland Wyvern S4. Hundreds of thousands from SL earnings just from a short grind. I got bored of this account when I hit top tier and hated every second, probably as a result of researching the Great Britain tree. About this time was when I was introduced to "The Big Three", more specifically, Germany, Russia and USA. If you want to have fun in cool vehicles (that were, IRL, more poster princesses than actually functional, i'm looking at you, MiG-9, Me-163 and F-104) while doing well (i.e not wasting your time on a grind that is already insufferable), play these nations.

So, finally, my final account (2022). I have not bought any premium time (beside the free 7 days premium), no premium vehicles and finally, playing actual meta vehicles that have good performance and/or good SL and RP modifiers in realistic battles. I am a decent player. I have a positive Kill/Respawn ratio for near every plane I have played. I'm at Rank 4 for USA. I have ZERO SL. I cannot afford to repair some of my vehicles (bombers in particular) in some cases, and I have researched very few foldered vehicles. Every single player at higher tiers I come across has at least a Rank IV premium (To non-wt players, at least £25 per player). The grind is now not only painful, but virtually impossible for F2P players, even with hundreds of hours of experience. I'm not touching this game for another few years. I recommend everybody else does the same. In an ideal world, greedy developers would be changed, and the mechanics, bug fixes and gamemodes which have been requested for years will be added. I no longer have any attachment to this game.

"review bombing will not cause modifying or nullifying in-game prices - if the game is shut down, no one wins."
'we prefer conservatively the "do no harm" principle - keeping the current status quo' - Gaijin Entertainment, in their "apology" statement.