economy May 2023 Economic Changes Summary and Findings (With Excel Sheet!)

[SKurj 234]

the game seems to be populated with more prem than TT vehicles in most matches... to me that says it's broken..

 

i've been playing a little over 3 months.. and well my excitement to play has certainly dwindled especially in the last couple weeks.  adding vehicles to the tree (by unfoldering) and further encouragements to using prem, just sets the tone of the game, and I likely won't ever be a long time player.  Well summer is almost here, if i am not back once it's time to move back indoors for the winter it will be obvious why.

[Panzer_Slasher 48]

Hello all! I went ahead and split the data Gaijin gave us for the economy update into individual nations and one big overall list in Excel (link to dropbox). I also provided some stats on the right side of the sheet. I also went ahead and plotted the old cost vs new cost to see if overall costs went down or up, which is attached to this post. The orange line is the same cost line, which means the vehicle did not change in price. Dots above this line got more expensive to repair and the inverse is true for below it. The blue trendline is the trendline for the data, if this is below the orange line vehicles got cheaper to repair overall. The best area for vehicles to move to is the lower right side of the graph, this means they were expensive and got cheap.

 

I didn't really do any digging, but it looks like repair costs for arcade went up (probably because of the helicopters) while the other two modes went down. The vehicle that got the worst of it was RB HMS Hood, increasing by 16262 to a total of 50342 Silver Lions! The vehicle that got the best of it was the SB Canberra B Mk 2 decreasing by 12661 Lions to a total of 21339 Lions! Suspiciously, some vehicles had very even repair cost changes; for example, the A-10A went from 5400 to 4500 Lions in both AB and RB. This is a very round change and unlikely to be controlled by an algorithm. There are some tech tree vehicles (T26E1-1 from 5400 to 4700 in RB) that also have this effect, which likely stems from Gaijin employees hand tuning the repair costs of certain vehicles. As of right now there are roughly 2410 vehicles in the game (I can't count btw) so it makes sense they run an algorithm to determine repair cost changes, otherwise it would take manpower they could be using elsewhere.  

 

This excel sheet likely has errors in the way I did the statistics / plots, but seems fine overall. Hopefully it's useful for making future sheets, I did use an odd way to index the cells instead of doing by hand cause I'm lazy. Excel is also stupid and doesn't let you hover over certain points and getting the vehicle's name, but I'm sure other programs exist that can do that easily. 

[Jarms 1,558]

I really hope Gaijin are taking notes. I don't think anyone found the recent economic update popular. Rewards are just gradually getting worse and the grind far longer. 

 

We really need some positive changes:

- Fairer repair costs.

- Better match rewards. 

- Massive reduction in modification RP costs, especially top tier. 

- Reduction of vehicle research RP costs, again, especially top tier. You can't keep marketing modern vehicles then expect new players to play for hundreds of hours to actually get to them. Especially considering now they have to grind through previously foldered vehicles. 

 

This is just slowly becoming another Parts and FPE fiasco. Something needs to be done before players get up in arms again. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Jarms

[BadInstructor 3]

I completely agree with you

Gaijin is disconnected from its playerbase

Please Gaijin, stop with this economy update nonsense, let the players ENJOY THE GAME

Why trying to MILK US DRY and make this game not enjoyable

STOP with those repair costs, it makes NO sense for players to lose progress as they play

You want to balance your vehicles ? You have a BR SYSTEM for that, You can always put them as a higher price to buy, but for the love of god stop with repair costs, rework completely your economy and get rid of them!

- BadInstructor | A player for 3 years with 1,222

[Panzer_Slasher 48]

I also decided to look at % based change to see any trends there; I don't think seeing anything odd means that the devs are doing odd stuff, since these plots don't have to fit a standard normal. Also, make sure to take note of the axes since they aren't the same on each of the three plots.

 

When looking at price change as a % of the original cost (going from 2k lions to 1k lions would be a -50% change, going up from 4000 lions to 16k lions is a 300% change, no change is 0%, to convert to % of original price add 100%; so -40% would be 60% of original price), there are several vehicles whose price changed dramatically, most of them being low tier. First, the SB cost for the Late 298D (a french premium bomber with a BR of 1.3) went up 2308% from 120 to 2890 lions, an odd choice, but ok. Next, the SB Gladiator Mk IIF's price decreased the most from 938 lions all the way down to 80 lions, a 89% decrease! The RB Kugelblitz went up 223% from 2187 lions to 5485 lions, truly Germany suffers. 

 

A list of vehicles that got nerfed into oblivion (doubled in price at least)

Spoiler

• SB Me 163 B 214%
• AB AH-6M 317%
• RB Kugelblitz 222%
• SB XM8 125%
• AB Pz.38(t) A 104%
• SB M48 Super 103%
• AB Sd.Kfz.234/2 TD 144%
• AB and SB SMS Elbing 106% and 115% (Germany suffers)
• AB UH-1D (GE) 103%
• AB BO 105 PAH-1A1 110%
• AB EC-665 Tiger UHT 140%
• AB Mi-24P (Germany) 101%
• RB Blagorodnyy 157%
• AB Mi-24A 109%
• AB Mi-35M 103%
• AB Ka-29 142%
• AB Ka-52 105%
• SB Firefly FR Mk V 103%
• AB AH Mk.1 Apache 130%
• AB and SB J1N1 104% and 114%
• SB Ki-45 otsu 108%
• SB H8K2 609%
• AB IJN Myoko 128%
• SB I-16 Chung 28 (China) 110%
• RB Q-5 early 114%
• AB and SB D.510C 380% and 675% (but it's RB cost is -68%??)
• SB Phòng không T-34 104%
• AB Z-11WA, Z-9W, Z-9Wa, Z-19, Z-10, SA.342L Gazelle, up 180% 335% 340% 282% 308% and 468% (rip helicopters)
• AB Ro. 44 121%
• SB C. 202EC 152%
• SB Sagittario 2 133%
• SB He 112 B-1/U2 164%
• SB Ariete 116%
• SB VCC-80/60 102%
• AB Zrinyi I 109%
• AB A.109EOA-2 and A129CBT up 118% and 122%
• SB M.D.452 IIC 158%
• RB F.222.2 169%
• AB and SB Late 298D 302% and 2308% (from 120 SL to 2890 SL)
• RB H.35 155%
• AB Duguay-Trouin 159%
• AB SA.341F Gazelle, SA.342M Gazelle, EC-665 Tiger HAD up 114%, 140% and 133%
• SB SA.342M Gazelle 142% (rip)
• SB Ar 196 A-5 (Sweden) 452%
• SB Spj fm/43-44 107%
• AB AHS 118%
• RB A-4E Early (M) (Israel) 140%
• RB Ayit 167%
• AB Tzefa A, Tzefa B, Tzefa D/E, Peten, Saraph, Lahatut up 271%, 401%, 330%, 262%, 299%, and 524% (rip helicopters in general)

 

To summarize, lots of SB vehicles got nerfed hard along with the helicopters for most nations. 

 

A list of vehicles that are dirt cheap now (at least 30% their original price / -70%)

Spoiler

• SB OS2U-3 -80%
• SB SB2U-2 -72%
• SB M24 (TL) -88%
• RB Fw 190 A-5/U2 -71%
• SB Ju 87 R-2 Libya -75%
• SB S.M.79 AS (Germany) -85%
• SB S.M.79 bis/T.M (Germany) -71%
• SB S.M.79 B (Germany) -86%
• SB S.M.79 bis/N (Germany) -88%
• AB Fw 190 A-5/U14 -74%
• AB Panzer IV/70(V) -70%
• SB Pz.II C TD -84%
• SB I-16 type 5 -75%
• SB Yer-2 (M-105R) TAT -84%
• SB Gladiator Mk IIF -89%
• AB Crusader AA Mk I -72%
• SB Ki-10-I C-83%
• AB and RB B5N2 -78% and -73% (that's a steal!)
• AB P1Y1 mod. 11 -76%
• AB and SB L6/40 (31 Rgt.) -86% and -80%
• RB Potez 633 -72%
• RB 2C bis -80%
• RB S17BS -71%

 

To summarize that, mostly SB and low tier vehicles are now dirt cheap compared to their previous selves, I would have done 50% of original price but there were so many that I didn't feel like it would be worth my time. 

 

When looking at the histograms of the %Change repair costs, RB stands out the most as not being a normal distribution. There are a total of 371 vehicles whose price is between -20% and -14% when it looks like it should be roughly 150. Nothing about the data forces these plots to be normal, however, so it's probably just a coincidence but it's cool to see. The other statistical anomaly that I can see is 14 vehicles having their AB costs at least triple (200%), these are the helicopters who were nerfed due to enduring confrontation. SB had a fairly uniform distribution of price changes, so it's most likely that the devs didn't manually tweak costs there at all. 

 

For AB, 51 vehicles are at least half price and 39 are at least double.

For RB, 52 vehicles are at least half price and 7 are at least double.

For SB, 46 vehicles are at least half price and 21 are at least double.

 

I also updated the excel sheet so that it has this extra page, green is small reduction in price, yellow is at least half off, and purple is dirt cheap. Blue is double price and black is triple price. These colors should make it easy to find vehicles that you may not have considered using before. As before, there are likely errors with the excel sheet but at least it looks good. Link is in original post. 

[ClankVin 19]

Low SL income has led to an increase in automatic script players and cheating players in the game.Cause the hope for ordinary players to obtain new vehicles through a reasonable game duration is becoming increasingly slim.Continue to reduce the SL revenue of vehicles will lead to more players choosing to use automated scripts or even cheat!

Edited May 17, 2023 by ClankVin

[ClankVin 19]

The income mentioned earlier mainly refers to the income of top-level vehicles.I believe many top vehicle players already know how amazing the number of cheating players is.And many automatic script players have already destroyed the sea battle mode.

[Weslg96 0]

I have been playing warthunder since 2014, I have only seen the grind and economy get worse, with little improvements to gametypes or balance, excuses for things like BR compression and the grind fall flat and make no sense. I love this game but I do not want Gaijin to let their greed get in the way of enjoyment. 

[Barry100 185]

The grind has gotten longer and longer.  Lots of folks who have played for years are gone.

[Bonrath 220]

Well this is actually why they're also pushing for SL crates. Most of the income comes in by "below average" players who buy SL with GE. 

And lest we forget mentioning win and loss reward nerfs, making them closer to each other in value threw teamwork out the window completely. I guess thank Reddit for that, they were the ones who did the "good" kind of math lol.

Anyway, forget about changing anything, it's not like anyone's gonna care, don't make yourself suffer because of dumb decisions others make. 

 

[PercussionCap 24]

5 hours ago, Uncle J Wick@live said:

I have the same opinion but if you look at the Italian air tree (especially rank II to IV) you see the deadly combination of objectively overtiered planes with way too high repair cost. And if you look back - the G 56 prop fighter had about 50k repair cost. So imho gaijin killed this air tree with repair cost and BR increases. Almost nobody (besides some stupid guys like me) flies in Air RB regularly "non-premium/non-event" Italian tech tree planes as they are outperformed and have higher repair cost.

 

But if a vehicle is cheap to repair, you can still play it for fun even if you don't get the best results - this is one of the reasons why I believe low tier is so enjoyable, no repair costs to worry about and you can just play the game without worrying about going bankrupt. A high repair cost just turns people away from it, even if it is competitive.

[READTHESCROLL 30]

They don't understand that you attract more bees with honey. We are like bees trying to explain to flies that honey tastes better than sh!t

[Sgtdangles 4]

As a player who has been happy to support War thunder monetarily, I have spent over $16,724.25 (that is just where i stopped counting) from 2014. That said i agree that making this game more difficult to get ahead is the wrong direction. Normally i don't comment on this kind of topic but someone shouldn't feel like they have to spend money to progress. I know free to play games need to money, however they also need a player base for that to happen. There will always be people who will pay to progress faster who lack patience (I am one of them). 

[Tjeck 194]

26 minutes ago, Bonrath said:

Well this is actually why they're also pushing for SL crates. Most of the income comes in by "below average" players who buy SL with GE. 

And lest we forget mentioning win and loss reward nerfs, making them closer to each other in value threw teamwork out the window completely. I guess thank Reddit for that, they were the ones who did the "good" kind of math lol.

Anyway, forget about changing anything, it's not like anyone's gonna care, don't make yourself suffer because of dumb decisions others make. 

 

The win / lose income %  were fine by me, especially when outcome of the match is mostly decided by which team has less bots and cap bases. What killed it is time reward system that benefits bots and campers and punishes active players. But now things got worse tho.

[Jarms 1,558]

On 17/05/2023 at 10:32, Tjeck said:

The win / lose income %  were fine by me, especially when outcome of the match is mostly decided by which team has less bots and cap bases. What killed it is time reward system that benefits bots and campers and punishes active players. But now things got worse tho.

 

I didn't mind when they readjusted win/lose income. My issue was how drastically they reduced the income from winning. The only thing that should have been done was increasing the losing teams reward, as it was far too penalising. 

Edited May 20, 2023 by Jarms

[Nepnepnoire 2]

Just give up or find more people to resist.

Reduction of SL could force more players pay for 70$ or others,and this undoubtedly benefits them.

795%-495%SL F-4EJ ADTW is the funniest thing i've seen in this change, I'm curious about the players bought this thing would think.

Players? who cares. Dont forget that Italian sabre~

[Jarms 1,558]

44 minutes ago, PercussionCap said:

But if a vehicle is cheap to repair, you can still play it for fun even if you don't get the best results - this is one of the reasons why I believe low tier is so enjoyable, no repair costs to worry about and you can just play the game without worrying about going bankrupt. A high repair cost just turns people away from it, even if it is competitive.

 

You know, one compromise I'd even be happy with is getting a repair discount for each additional vehicle you spawn in a mission. If you're actively playing to win and spawning multiple vehicles you should be rewarded for that. Something like:

- Spawn one vehicle: Full repair cost. Hits one-death leavers the most.

- Spawn two vehicles: 5% discount.

- Spawn three vehicles: 10% discount.

- Spawn four vehicles: 15% discount. 

- Etc. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Jarms

[Morvran_ 661]

Yeah, some aircraft like the Buc S2 are essentially unplayable at the moment, because its repair cost is greater than what you can reasonably earn, its even worse in sim, with a 30k+ spawn cost but really a max of maybe 15-20k earnable per sortie, meaning you have to have 2x perfect sorties in the aircraft just to break even. Many aircraft, especially bombers all have the same problem

[Morvran_ 661]

Overall, I dont care about the repair costs in many vehicles. It sucks in Sim, but in ARB its almost not noticable. But there are exceptions that they seem not too care about, Buc S2 for example is still stupidly expensive to repair in sim its basically impossible to ever even come close to break even in that aircraft with Premium time and a 100%+ SL booster. Its insane,. Many aircraft have the same issue. The repairs costs in sim can be greater than what you can earn in 2 or 3 sorties

[Uncle J Wick@live 407]

 

9 hours ago, PercussionCap said:

14 hours ago, Uncle J Wick@live said:

I have the same opinion but if you look at the Italian air tree (especially rank II to IV) you see the deadly combination of objectively overtiered planes with way too high repair cost. And if you look back - the G 56 prop fighter had about 50k repair cost. So imho gaijin killed this air tree with repair cost and BR increases. Almost nobody (besides some stupid guys like me) flies in Air RB regularly "non-premium/non-event" Italian tech tree planes as they are outperformed and have higher repair cost.

 

But if a vehicle is cheap to repair, you can still play it for fun even if you don't get the best results - this is one of the reasons why I believe low tier is so enjoyable, no repair costs to worry about and you can just play the game without worrying about going bankrupt. A high repair cost just turns people away from it, even if it is competitive.

 

Dude, i an not sure we are are talking about the same stuff here.

 

I was answering to a guy who claimed that repair cost should not be used by gaijin as balancing factor and gaijin should use the BR setting to balance vehicles. I fully agreed and used my Italian Air tree example as evidence that gaijin uses both approaches for ages now. And the result is that the Italian Air tree is highly unattractive for newer players as they are forced to fight in underpowered but overtiered planes agains better planes at lower BRs burdened with high repair cost. The combination has severe consequences on fun, economy and actual progress within the tree for them.

 

9 hours ago, PercussionCap said:

A high repair cost just turns people away from it, even if it is competitive.

 

Despite i do not agree with gaijins policy to use repair cost for balancing reasons - I do not see a problem if a good positioned plane with superior performance has a higher repair cost than an overtiered plane. One main issue in the recent years was always the fact that you needed in some planes 3 kills in Air RB in order to compensate your repair cost if you get killed.... 

 

9 hours ago, PercussionCap said:

and you can just play the game without worrying about going bankrupt.

 

 I actually play just for fun and i can currently afford to get shoot down 5.000 times without any score in my favorite plane. 

 

But this is imho not the point here. 

 

It is just the fact that all this economy/BR/repair cost stuff combined with dependencies between different modes (Ground/Air/Naval) just became a gigantic complexity to steer and the results are not suited to make anybody happy.

 

And tbh some results make not even sense.

 

I created a thread regarding "Italy vs China" - based on the example of the same P 47 D-30 flying for both countries.

The Chinese one sits at BR 5.0 at rank III with repair cost of stock 1.2k SL, so max 2k SL fully spaded.

My Italian one sits also at BR 5.0, but at rank IV with 10k repair cost fully spaded.

 

This is a joke if you consider that Italy has the honor and privilege to get their plane dragged into 70-80% full uptiers to 6.0 accompanied by 4 Ju 288s; so you have just due to the matchmaker a 50% auto defeat by default.  

 

I wait for any attempts by gaijin to convince me why both planes do not share the same parameters regarding repair cost and why they not simply use the modifiers to deal with the obviously different playstyles. To implement repair cost in their balancing approach adds just simply another layer of complexity to this whole economy issue without creating a real benefit. 

 

And all of the players have in in their various modes similar examples of similar performing vehicles but huge deviations in repair cost. And instead of simplifying things to make them more transparent (with such easy things like a flat fee for repairs), every update make the whole stuff even more complicated and it looks like Vogons (google it) could not create more unnecessary complexity.

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Uncle J Wick@live

[Ion_Protogen 48]

Either cap plane repair costs at 13k sl, and tank repair costs at 8k sl (Ideally 10k and 5k SL), or make it impossible to lose SL in a match.

 

There is no possible reason why you should lose sl going 3/1 in a rank V or VI jet. Its just ridiculous at this point.

[CheddarMilk 6]

They won't, they don't care. They are even turning against premium players by officially reducing SL income of the premium F4EJ ADTW by almost 40% without any compensation. ADTW is bad at air combat, the only advantage comparing to other premiums was its ability to earn SL, and now its SL % is only slightly higher than that of the non-premium ones. Someone created a thread asking them to stop cutting premium income and that thread was either deleted or hided by one of the mods. How do I know it? Because I replied in that thread and all the history is gone. 

 

Edit: I just find the thread is not gone, it was moved to another place, but for some reason I lost history of people who reacted to my reply.

Edited May 17, 2023 by CheddarMilk

[미안해芳村 愛支 7]

1 hour ago, Nepnepnoire said:

Just give up or find more people to resist.

Reduction of SL could force more players pay for 70$ or others,and this undoubtedly benefits them.

795%-495%SL F-4EJ ADTW is the funniest thing i've seen in this change, I'm curious about the players bought this thing would think.

Players? who cares. Dont forget that Italian sabre~

Yeah that was a kick in the nuts half the income was slashed in an instant

[Thug Shaker Actual 225]

I fully agree, I started this game in 2013 and essentially, all premium did was helped you boost and level up faster then. The grind took a while then without prem, but now, oh my god it's unbelievable. Especislly at top tier.

 

After having taken a long break from 2017 until now, the disparity was shocking. I was fortunate to have not been creeped by progressive costs or a new player who knows nothing, so it was very noticeable. I felt like I was going nowhere.

 

So for the first in history I bought premium, and even then the SL gains were just not good. It's absolutely nothing like it used to be. 

 

I certainly will not be buying premium once mine expires, it's just stupid. Paying for costs of a AAA game Every year and then tac on all the premiums. Gaijin clearly knows what they're doing and the players aren't idiots, we know too.

 

In top tier I'll get 6 kills but have 5 spawns and get maybe 5k SL or go negative 5k SL still. That's with premium and a premium jet and a tally. It's disgusting. 

 

I do a bit better in mid tier, my USSR lineup has 4 premiums and with premium I can often get 25-45k SL, which still feels horrible if I get 7-8 Kills. The RP is always there if you have premium, without premium the RP gain feels nonexistent and you're never making money.

 

With the unfoldering and funneled SL gains as you rank up, this game practically is not free at top tier as you're Essentially required to now spend money to get anywhere. That's their model, get hooked, get involved, and now if you want to get past your 150hours of grind to top tier, you better buy prem or a pack.

 

Ntm how since every premium tank/plane has better repair costs and gains, it's all people use, and for people the grind is so long we get low skilled Aces ruining top tier games for us veterans who struggled and gave tons of money to get there after thousands of hours. Sure is fun to have put 2.2k hours in the game just for 90% of my team to be premium one death leavers. 

 

If the game is so bad that no one can make it to top tier or the premiums are better than tech tree vehicles, than something is absolutely wrong with your model.

 

Please atleast just be open and tell us to our faces if you expect us to have to pay to get to top tier or have a fun time.

[CheddarMilk 6]

Lol to gaijin improving players' experience is like committing murdering. The successful way of managing a f2p game is to keep the image of player friendly while taking money unaware, what gaijin is doing is like announcing to everyone they are going to rob that money from the players. I mean at least you should make most players believe that you are doing for the players' good. I'm still shocked till this day how they decided to set the HEAT rounds as stock in place of the APFSDS rounds at high tiers. This move was way too intentional, and years later players would only remember that gaijin wanted them to suffer. An opposite example is the new vehicle updates. Addition of new vehicles essentially make the grind harder, but these updates are mostly welcomed and far less intentional. You see what I mean? Stop making your reputation even worse gaijin!