Just what can I say.
Contrary to my hours on steam, I've been playing this ever since it was a standalone launcher; meaning way before ground battles were a thing.

It was a fun lil game to play with friends on occations and made for some nice and fun hour-long sessions at that.
The ground battles came along and all of a sudden I dont get arthritis anymore; it was fun.

But the longer the game stuck around the worse it got in so many regards, not too little of them because of Gaijin themselves, neither too little because of the community. I mainly play tanks mind you.

Obvious/Serious things out of the way:

1. The grinding is terribly sore and slow - We're talking about dragging grampas old mobility scooter through molases kinds of slow.

A low tier tank (Tier 1-2) takes about 1-3k RP (Research points/XP), which is very achievable just casually playing the game at those ranks.

A medium tier (Tier 3-4) tank takes about 20-80k RP, which will take much more time as the added amount of RP you get at higher ranks increases barely at all. It can take days to get a tank or two.

A high(er) tier (Tier 5-6) tank takes around 100-200k RP, which can easily take weeks if not months to get the required amount of Silver Lions and RP to research, buy and train your crew for it.

A top tier tank (Tier 7) tank takes around 300-400k RP which will definately take several weeks, and not uncommonly months to get - A point at which researching a single nations entire tech tree takes more than a year of constant playtime.

And to speed this up to any capacity we stumble into the next issue.

2. The Free-2-Play, Pay-4-Fun model.
The games ingame currency and artificial marketplace pricing is horrendous. How bad can it be ?
A mid-tier premium tank combined with a premium account yields around 400-500% RP and Silver Lion gain, whereas completely F2P you get at best 130%.
In most F2P games, paying for premium status gives you a fast-lane towards a much higher state; in warthunder its the bare minimum to get anywhere above tier 4.

Many times as of yet premium vehicles, may they be plain premium tree vehicles or event vehicles, came into the game massively broken, insanely powerful and put simply - Overpowered.
They tended to stay this way for weeks at times and then got nerfed into usable states; but not nerfed soon enough to not have negative gameplay effects, and certainly not late enough to squeeze every last penny out of people.

And that isnt over-reacting, normal premiums go for 50-80€, event vehicles can go for hundreds or thousands, see the Maus or the IS7.

3. The balancing
People love to cite the "Russian bias"- A term refering to the Russian armies being much more powerful than others due to Gaijin being a russian developer. But the more you play the less without merrit that seems.

High tier russians dont have spaling. Lower tier russians get Battle-Rating re-adjustments more frequently and more favorable than any other nation in this game.
Any tanks using new systems, however good they are for their respective nation, always ends up stronger on the russian counterparts. Trophy/APS ? The Americans designed, built, and perfected most of that technology; how come the best APS tank is russian ?

The IS1/2 and T34-85 historically were built as a direct counter to the german Tigers; They didnt use to be in the same battle-rating, yet now they meet every match. Odd balance choice to put historical answers to a vehicle in the same rating-bracket.
"But now germans have a counter nation and arent the single kings of that battle-rating" - Yes, but now you also have something stronger than a Kingtiger in your match as well. Better hope they dont team up... like they do every match because who plays anything else ?

4. Gameplay, mechanics and map design
The additon of helicopters to high tiers is the same as the gameplay of low-tier aircraft in tank battles - Annoying, hard to fight with the tools given, unrewarding to fight against.

In a similar vein of old school Battlefield being a meme for being warthunder with all the aircraft and tank one-tricks - Similar things are true here.

You can very much bully tanks with planes - And some people have made it their lifes mission to play Air Battles, with the objectives being players just trying to play normal ground battles.

The times of the broken PE-8 were a taste to mid-tiers what high-tiers is ever since helicopters got added. It doesnt make the game more enjoyable, it doesnt add uppon the basic mechanics - It makes the game annoying. And some people refuse to be reasoned with and Gaijin is the lead offender in this.

Maps are another thing. A few maps are quite nice, mainly the old school ones - not too big, not too small. Enough cover but not too much as to be a massive maze. No stupidly high amounts of bushes and other shrubbery. No mud or snow or sand mechanics making your molases tank even slower and even less agile - It's realistic, but you have to draw a line between realism and gameplay fun.

90% of maps are wide open planes with the odd hills - God forbid them being snow or sand, then kiss your depth perception good bye - or they are a mix of urban areas with cover and open planes with hills.

If you're not someone turret-peaking behind a hill you'll see the garage quicker than you would like to most of the time.
It makes the game slower and not for well played reasons, but for the ease of removing targets over several kilometers - I wasnt good in history but I missed the part were tanks shot ICBMs - This intercontinental hill-camping is some of the driest and most unfun thing to play against I've ever seen in a game.

Personal issues:



1. The pacing
If you came here after seeing one of the hundreds of advertisements showing high speed, high action gameplay - Forget that real quick.
90% of the game is getting to a positon and waiting at that position for some unfortunate soul to wander into your sightline. Sucks if that unfortunate soul is you though.

You dont drive around at high speeds have interesting dog-fights and try to out-manuver, out-aim or out-play people. You wait and every now and then shoot.

The game to me has a severe lack of consistency; if you get bored waiting in favorable position, someone who doesnt will get you. And that get's frustrating at times.

2. Mechanics
Certain nations are easier than others, specifically Germany and Russia. They hit hard and have tons of armor. Any german or russian can oneshot you anywhere on your tank, meanwhile you have to aim (with non stabilized gun bobble) at tiny weakspots - and if your crew accuracy isnt good enough you can still miss.

Engaging certain tanks like Panthers, Tigers, T34, KV1/2/220/85, Jumbos and so on eventually becomes more of a chore than enjoyable gameplay.

9/10 times you hectically aim at weakspots you brain-numbingly learned, still bounce because your shell somehow hit something else than what you wanted to, just to get completely atomized by them shooting 2 meters besides you - Looking at you old KV2.

3. Variety
The game has tons of vehicles - But most of the time you see 2-3 different ones at best per tier. There simply is tanks that are better, that will always be the case. Just sucks if your nations entire tier is worse than the other ones.
The game quickly falls into a stale "If I dont use it I will loose" mindset which will reduce the many choices and variety of tanks down to a trickle of selected ones by meta.

Other games have strong guns too, stronger than others. But with enough ability you can still win. But warthunder has tanks that, no matter how good you are just make you go "I'll just turn around now I wont win this" - and prompty get send back to garage because you are forced out of position. The dopamine disapears realy quickly like this.

CSGO ist eins von den Spielen.

+
Skins in lustigen Farben, simples Design. Das wars aber schon.

-
Jetzt fangen wir an mit was jeder mit mehr als 3 Hirnzellen und 50 Stunden in dem Game mitbekommen wird. Gehen wir das doch mal langsam ab.

Spielsuche:
Die 4 einzig spielbaren Maps kommen rein, man verbringt 20 Minuten damit im Community-Market zu warten bis dann mal ein Match gefunden wird. 2.34 Minuten sind für Valve-Devs einfach länger als für den Alltagsmenschen.

Auf die letze Sekunde schaft es der letze dann auch sich einen von der Palme zu wedeln und auf "Accept" zu drücken. Die Map läd.

Nachdem man im Warmup schon die Hoffnung auf ein gutes Match verloren hat, besteht das Team aus einer der folgenden Individuen:
-Harald (32, geschieden, aus NRW)
-Volodya-({sN!p3r}]~(99*RUS*)~ (26, hat die 3te Klasse 6 mal wiederholt, aus Sibirien)
-убийца ки*ки (12, Hörbuchanalphabet, scheinbar dein Vater)
-Cesur yürek(30, spielt aus dem Internetkaffee am Hauptbahnhof Penzberg, spricht weder Englisch noch Deutsch)
- ╾━╤デ╦︻ ₳₭-❹❼ 𝓰𝓸𝓭 (14, spielt 16 Stunden am Tag Shooter mit Track-Pad)
- :) (12-45, stolzer Besitzer eines sehr guten Gaming-Chairs)

So, CSI:Miami profiling fertig. Erste Runde, los gehts. (?)

Drei Teammates lassen im Voicechat aus der Flugzeugkabine auf russisch grüßen; klingt schon mal nach CS.
Die Profistrategie "Rush B no stop" funktioniert immer; mit 80% Chance darauf dass 2 Leute dich blocken, 2 treffen nix, der 4te flashed sein Team und alle 5 bekommen von "wasilly" ihren Haaransatz 4cm zurück verschoben.

Runde 2-15 schaut dann ähnlich aus.
Ökonomisches Verständnis von Venezuela ab Runde 4, "EZEZEZ" nach dem 3er p-90 rush als CT nach Runde 7, 4 AWPs stehen Mitte auf $0 (Die geleasted AWPs gibts nicht zurück ADAC). Die letze Runde wird dann versucht mit MPs und Shotguns 5 AWPs zu rushen; spätestens ab hier setzt Depression im Endstadium ein.

Die Seiten wechseln, der Spaß geht von vorne los. 5 Leute erkunden die Map und one-tabben während dessen deine Mates, deren Schuld, die Schuhe mit Klettverschluss gehören nun mal zu.

Veste an, Schuhe zu, Waffen im Anschlag gehts wieder los.
-Team-Flashes
-Geblockt werden
-"Sorry du bist mir in den Schuss gelaufen" -Harald scouted so gut im Sprint wie seine Hüftprothese das zu lässt.
-"Kalash better AWP"
-"Why no win?!?!?!?!" -убийца ки*ки im 1 gegen 5 in der Eco gegen Full-Buys nachdem er alleine rein läuft und LiveLeak-gleich exekutiert wird.

6-16 Endergebnis, das Gegnerteam hat Steam-Level 0, 20 Stunden im Game, Drücken schlimmer als s1mple und haben auf 64 tick Servern keinen Kopf; man muss ja nun mal das Hirn treffen, schade dass das dann einfach so klein ist.

Diese und ähnliche Erfahrungen haben mir ermöglicht...
...fließend auf Russisch, Brasilianisch, Portugiesisch und Türkisch zu beleidigen.
...endlich das Kettenrauchen anzufangen.
...herauszufinden, dass ich täglich 8 neue Väter habe
...meine Niere zu verkaufen damit meine Waffen zählen wie oft ich keinen Kill hin bekomme.
...meine Nachbarn bei den Lärmklagen kennen zu lernen.
...mich durch unterschiedlichste Tastaturen, Mäuse und Headsets durchzuprobieren.
...nicht über die 30 Jahre zu kommen.

Valve tut nichts gegen Cheater, da steht die Pharmaindustrie hinter.
Denn ohne 3 Cheater im Gegenerteam würden die Verkaufsraten von blutdrucksenkenden Medikamenten drastisch sinken.

Depressiv bin ich schon, Alkoholismus und Nikotin Sucht klingen gar nicht schlecht wenn man einmal drinne ist, mein Inventar ist ne bessere Anlage als Microsoft Aktien und Immobilien in Berlin-Mitte zusammen, und wenn Amazon mir noch einmal Leitern und Seile vorschlägt mach ich ein Road-to-Global.

tl;dr spiel ich täglich 5-6 Stunden lang.