Someone said that the game mechanics are orientated around trying to make money, which is really friggin true.

I just wanted to play funky lookin' vehicles man why you have to make things so hard.

The silver lions you gain from a match is near 0 with repair costs if you play tech tree, the talismans you put on tech tree vehicles doesn't get SL boost so there is no way to reward yourself more for playing a favorite vehicle. Only way to get SL multiplier boosted is a prem vehicle, or prem time which is needed to get over the net SL of 0. Overall, you need something with prem in the name to make your profits stay above losing SL. Which both prem abilities require you to pay.

The golden eagles in the game used to be obtainable regularly through something called wagers, which is you complete a task within a game and you go up to the next level. It was small amounts but it used to be a way for f2p players to at least attempt to get one of those prem vehicles. Now you have to buy it monetarily.

They may argue you can still get a pack through gaijin coins but that is even worse, since you can't convert the money you put into their economy out. Even when you get the pack, what you usually have to do is grind one of their god forbidden events which is the equivalent of a full-time job. You're better off working $11/hr and buying it at the end of the event after working for like 4-6 hours depending on the price instead of sitting through the grind for 40 hours in a week. In the end, you are still buying ♥♥♥♥ with money since it's so hard to do anything in this game.

The battle pass too, used to start off with garnering a great start. However, realizing they could milk the ♥♥♥♥ outta it, they did just that. The rewards have only gotten worse, with you having the BUY the battle pass to get a vehicle which is somewhat good. Though, they did do something I will mention that makes people want to buy the pass.

To make matters worse, prem vehicles sometimes they are lower than the battle rating they are supposed to be at meaning you have to fight these prems knowing full well they do everything better than you. They want to frustrate you into making a purchase in the game, do not give in like I did. To give an example, during the battle pass that gave people who bought the pass the pt-57-76, it was extremely under-tiered and was dominating its ranking. People saw this and abused the battle rating it was at, even gaijin themselves promoting this frustrating-to-play-against gameplay by giving the top spot in one of their thunder shows to a pt-57-76 full downtier nuke which was against end of WWII tanks. Only after they made huge amounts of money off of this experience did they decide to finally move the vehicle up in battle rating.

Also, if you don't have a premium vehicle which always comes with modifications, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a good start whether you are playing air or ground. For ground, higher tier tech tree tanks usually don't start you with a shell that is called APFSDS, and that is needed to effectively kill tanks since everything at higher BRs has protecting against chemical rounds, HEAT-FS. But you guessed it, they start you with HEAT-FS usually making the gameplay utterly unplayable. Not only that, but you don't get fire protection equipment or parts. Lets say your engine is out, you can't put out the fire AND you can't fix the engine to working completely normal again. As you can see, the mechanics are meant to feed into your frustration and cause you to buy these modifications on tech tree tanks if you didn't get the prem tank for that BR. Same thing goes for higher-tier air, which has something called countermeasures, which is needed to get missiles to stop going after your aircraft. Prem aircraft starts with flares, but tech tree will never. Hope to God you time your dodge right if you don't have countermeasures.

If you are to play, please get some friends to join you in it. However, it is best just not to touch this game.
The things I went over are just the general mechanic monetary aspects, we aren't even getting into the specific bugs that exist that just ruin game balance in general. Some include but not limited to some ERA removing spalling (also fuel tanks remove that spalling) which is important to knock out the crew in tanks, volumetrics on sides of some tanks which allows them to take a shot they shouldn't have, and broken air belts/high-explosive shells in air which are needed to effectively take out other air targets.

The whole entire structure of the game is to make you frustrated enough to buy something. DO NOT GIVE IN OR PLAY. My funny ass has hours that can prove this.

Edit: My opinion has changed they added anime body pillows.

Someone said that the game mechanics are orientated around trying to make money, which is really friggin true. I just wanted to play funky lookin' vehicles man why you have to make things so hard. The silver lions you gain from a match is near 0 with repair costs if you play tech tree, the talismans you put on tech tree vehicles doesn't get SL boost so there is no way to reward yourself more for playing a favorite vehicle. Only way to get SL multiplier boosted is a prem vehicle, or prem time which is needed to get over the net SL of 0. Overall, you need something with prem in the name to make your profits stay above losing SL. Which both prem abilities require you to pay. The golden eagles in the game used to be obtainable regularly through something called wagers, which is you complete a task within a game and you go up to the next level. It was small amounts but it used to be a way for f2p players to at least attempt to get one of those prem vehicles. Now you have to buy it monetarily. They may argue you can still get a pack through gaijin coins but that is even worse, since you can't convert the money you put into their economy out. Even when you get the pack, what you usually have to do is grind one of their god forbidden events which is the equivalent of a full-time job. You're better off working $11/hr and buying it at the end of the event after working for like 4-6 hours depending on the price instead of sitting through the grind for 40 hours in a week. In the end, you are still buying shit with money since it's so hard to do anything in this game. The battle pass too, used to start off with garnering a great start. However, realizing they could milk the shit outta it, they did just that. The rewards have only gotten worse, with you having the BUY the battle pass to get a vehicle which is somewhat good. Though, they did do something I will mention that makes people want to buy the pass. To make matters worse, prem vehicles sometimes they are lower than the battle rating they are supposed to be at meaning you have to fight these prems knowing full well they do everything better than you. They want to frustrate you into making a purchase in the game, do not give in like I did. To give an example, during the battle pass that gave people who bought the pass the pt-57-76, it was extremely under-tiered and was dominating its ranking. People saw this and abused the battle rating it was at, even gaijin themselves promoting this frustrating-to-play-against gameplay by giving the top spot in one of their thunder shows to a pt-57-76 full downtier nuke which was against end of WWII tanks. Only after they made huge amounts of money off of this experience did they decide to finally move the vehicle up in battle rating. Also, if you don't have a premium vehicle which always comes with modifications, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a good start whether you are playing air or ground. For ground, higher tier tech tree tanks usually don't start you with a shell that is called APFSDS, and that is needed to effectively kill tanks since everything at higher BRs has protecting against chemical rounds, HEAT-FS. But you guessed it, they start you with HEAT-FS usually making the gameplay utterly unplayable. Not only that, but you don't get fire protection equipment or parts. Lets say your engine is out, you can't put out the fire AND you can't fix the engine to working completely normal again. As you can see, the mechanics are meant to feed into your frustration and cause you to buy these modifications on tech tree tanks if you didn't get the prem tank for that BR. Same thing goes for higher-tier air, which has something called countermeasures, which is needed to get missiles to stop going after your aircraft. Prem aircraft starts with flares, but tech tree will never. Hope to God you time your dodge right if you don't have countermeasures. If you are to play, please get some friends to join you in it. However, it is best just not to touch this game. The things I went over are just the general mechanic monetary aspects, we aren't even getting into the specific bugs that exist that just ruin game balance in general. Some include but not limited to some ERA removing spalling (also fuel tanks remove that spalling) which is important to knock out the crew in tanks, volumetrics on sides of some tanks which allows them to take a shot they shouldn't have, and broken air belts/high-explosive shells in air which are needed to effectively take out other air targets. The whole entire structure of the game is to make you frustrated enough to buy something. DO NOT GIVE IN OR PLAY. My funny ass has hours that can prove this. Edit: My opinion has changed they added anime body pillows.