TL;DR, if Crew Improvement is bad, then current Crew system is fundamentally broken.
So, I obviously just saw QB's video, and he have another rant for the Crew Improvement System because he considered every single crew skills there as mandatory. And I may finally able to see why my opinion is different from him, and also think why the status quo is not any better.
When I saw the Improved Crew skills, I honestly think its pretty good. Finally Radio Operator can have something that is other than Situational Awareness. The Radio Operator job also usually disappear on most high tech tree anyway since I think that (most likely) they will balance it out by capping number of skills so Commander who usually get the Radio Operator sub-job will now need to choose whether to take more Radio Operator skills or its own Commander skills. Some balancing probably need to be done with the calculations, but not impossible. When I saw QB calling all the new skills "mandatory", I honestly think that means it does its job. However, he thinks that these are "catastrophic changes" and should not be implemented, because it will means that "5-skill crew will be mandatory"
In his word "….You can currently be competitive with just 3 crew skills in World of Tanks…..", and honestly it is true, because almost every crew skills in World of Tanks are useless in making you 'competitive'. Eagle Eye is useless. Relaying is useless. Signal Boosting is useless. In seeing all the alternative for skills and common ones like Repair, Brother in Arms, and Concealment, some of the somewhat useful even kinda thrown to backburner like Preventive Maintenance. However, this kinda begs the question, what're the point of those skills being there if nobody picks it up or it does not makes you competitive? Why not just remove them from the game? If players who had 80k games is only barely more competitive than player who have like 10k games, then does it says something about how useless all those grinding are?
I'm not advocating for more grinding, nobody like that and nowadays everything wants your time. I mostly played less than 1-hour a day myself, only as long as the daily missions require and usually ignore "impossible" fourth mission. Which is probably why I'm saying, if these crew improvement are "bad", then honestly the status quo is no better.
Some people who are against the crew improvement are saying that "the current system is fine, why break it", but the current system is fine only because it is broken. If 6-skills crew are barely any better than 3-skills crew despite the amount of grind/cash, then it is broken. WG probably know this which is why they are desparately trying to find a way to fix it. However, if 3-skills crew are the minimum to be "competitive", then it is also fundamentally unfair to the people which only have 1-skills crew. 3-skills crew are not easy to grind, especially because the standard for time commitment has shifted. If the concern for the Crew Improvement is "there is no way for the newer players to be able to catch up to the older players if this is implemented", honestly, those new players probably already balked if the current 3-skills crew are being considered minimum to be competitive, especially if they are training the 'wrong' skills.
I honestly like Steel Hunter and I think that it is the most balanced mode in World of Tanks. Everyone have similar crew, everyone have similar equipment loadout, and every similar tanks have similar proficiency. This is why my suggestions are 2-way path forward. Either proceed with the improved crew (and it will be hellish path with the community reaction will probably be pretty bad depending on how they are compensating or balancing it), or go the other way and get rid of the concept of Crew Skills altogether. Why should a Manticore crewed by 1-skills commander are so much worse than a Manticore crewed by 5-skills commander? And while at that, maybe just get rid of the concept of having "crew" altogether and just make people buy the tank at full capability from get-go? If the BiA is "mandatory" for all tanks , then just tune up all current tank stats by 2.5%, and adjust the balance from there.
Of course, since it probably will be a massive loss of potential revenue for WG by getting rid of "Crew", maybe I'll suggest a monetization point (if they don't already notice it). Since you guys will be implementing tanks levelling system, and you will be introducing ways to reduce all the excess crews to Skill Books, why not let people use those converted crew to level-up tanks? And to incentivize people to level-up tanks, why not let it be tied to profiency, with extra levels means extra profiency? A Level 75 Badger will definitely be more dangerous than Level 1 Badger, especially if the enemy able to see the levels. It will also give necessary info to the enemy that this particular tank is more dangerous than other tanks, in a way that having a skilled crew does not convey. Currently, a Skoda T56 with BiA crew, does not look any different from Skoda T56 with non-BiA crew, so you cannot calculate how much is their reload time for example. Of course that means that a tank is not a peak form before grinding it up to max level, but is it any different from having a "competitive" crew?
So yeah, hope I can convey my reasoning in this super wall of text. Nowadays, not much game left that emphasis this much grinding so I honestly think the required grind is already a demerit point if they still want to get more mainstream players. Game like Overwatch for example, does not gimp the hero if you have not played long enough using that hero. It is honestly WG's choice if they still want to emphasis grinding (and use grind skip as a way of monetization), or go the other way to make it less unfairly grindy. I personally prefer the latter given how I don't even complete mission like "Be Top 1 in Damage dealt". Merry Christmas everyone.
