Rewards for useful actions in the aviation SB mode

[_Scooter98_ 189]

I dont have premium and wasnt using any premium aircraft. 

 

These rewards are dog excrement. This is SB, a game mode that requires much more skill, time and patience in order to play. Now my 2 matches are far from the best, but if I earnt bugger all, how the hell is a mediocre player supposed to progress. Make the reward for killing a player the same as RB and its already 1000% better than what is being tested.

You used to be able to take out a couple of planes, die in all of them getting a kill or two whilst still coming out positive SL. Now, theres no point fighting because even if I kill 7 bloody planes, I STILL LOSE SL. Again I ask, how the hell is a newcomer to SB able to progress. 

 

Both of my matches I was 1st, had the most kills, granted I was not playing for the entire session, but my activity is below 80%. I havent the faintest idea how the 1st player isnt above the median.

 

The 15 minute Activity thing would probably work quite well in AB or RB. But SB is full of moments of nothing. There are times where I will fly for 15 minutes not finding anything. In fact that happened in my 2nd game. Flying all over the map VID'ing dots in the sky and not meeting an enemy. 15 minutes is just too short to average activity in SB let alone EC.

 

The results other players posting is disgusting. You are not only hurting new and experienced players to the mode. But pissing off the experienced ones so much that many have left.

 

YOU NEED A DEVELOPER WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS SB AND EC TO SPEARHEAD DEVELOPMENT! Someone who talks to the community and interacts with them and actually sees what issues/exploits/bugs we are encountering and suggestions to rectify them.

 

 

1st Game

• 47:54 mins of 1:26:05 game
• 1st with 5 kills
• 5:1 K/D
• 8:28 Activity for 74%
• Gross 52K SL, Net 9889 SL
• 14K RP

 

Spoiler

 

 

2nd Game

• 1:30:43 mins of 2:28:39 game
• 1st with 9 kills
• 1.29 K/D because of mouse aim IL-28's
• 13:40 Activity for 55%
• Gross 76K SL, Net -18734 SL
• 11K RP

Spoiler

 

[przybysz86 10,309]

2 hours ago, _Scooter98_ said:

Again I ask, how the hell is a newcomer to SB able to progress. 

exactly! It's one thing that people with 20 kills are unhappy that they don't get 1mln SL per hour but if you have positive K/D, you play actively and still lose money?

For every one 5:1 K/D guy there are 5 0:1 players that he killed.
If you lose money having 5:1 or so, then what about those he kills?

Faster/slower progress in one thing but game actually need players and if what is in this test goes live, we won't have any in 6 months. New guys won't come since they won't progress and old guys will leave because there would be no new guys to play with and 2v2 battles with same 4 guys over and over get old very soon.

Sim is hardcore mode from perspective of casual player - there is no discussion about it. Even WT sim that does not require you to memorise every switch is hard for them.
There are 2 ways to get new players to SB:
-make game easier
-make it profitable even if you suck at it.

1st option is stupid because at some point it stops being simulator and whatever you gain with softcore casuals you lose with hardcore simmers leaving.
Hybrid option is worse as it's basically what we have now with bomber turrets. you have fighter pilots who have high skill entry requirement and bombers who sit on auto-level all day and hunt pixels with mouse or press space. Even if my fighter would become high fidelity DCS-like complexity level, if I fight BS arcade boyz, that's not fun

With that out of the way, lets talk about option 2.
As I understand the goal was to have activity median on 80%? well, seems like it's not. even veteran pilots sometimes don't get that high and I don't expect casual newcomers to make it to this level

Also one more thing: you mentioned in initial teaser for this change @Stona that reason why it's being done is that in sim there are period of low activity.
Current system make things even worse.

First of all, 15min window is not enough. there are often cases (especially in less populated battles) where not finding enemy in 10-15mins is norm. and if you fly bomber that is slow climbing, it can take more than 15mins just to get to drop altitude so that you don't join the zomber nation and die to AAA, etcz
Even if I find enemy, since the reward for proximity is turned off (which I agree would be exploited if not removed) I need to do actual damage to enemy to get points. I had many pursuits that took more than 10mins when I worked my way to good firing position.
The problem is made worse by it not being "rolling window" but rather what seem to be fixed 15min blocks. This means I can have 5kills in one 15 min block and no kills in the other. I will reach reward cap in 1st and get nothing on the other.
good player will be at constant see-saw of  over-saturated 15mins full of action where activity is wasted (due to over-saturation) and 15min of nothing (which means nothing earned. this means that instead of constant earning over time we have blocks of good earning and those of bad ones with average reward being well below suggested 80% median.


speaking of blocks
I totally understand idea why if you die or switch planes your activity resets or you'  grind it in cheap plane and "milk" in more expensive.

Problem is that we are working (or at lest that's how it looks) in 15min fixed blocks. this means that if I kill 5 guys and die moment after at 14:59, block I am in will get 100% activity and I will get full reward for 14:59
But what if I die just after block starts?  what if, in the same situation I die at at 4min mark? good player can kill 5 enemies (especially AI in formation) in less than that. In this case I only get full reward for those 4 mins. 

we know that activity does not transfer into next plane since we tested it 5 times (to be sure) - some examples below:
 

Spoiler

 

so if I am in a jet with missiles and I go behind enemy formation and I kill 4 of them in 60s (which is doable) and it's the start of the tick I get reward just for one minute if I die second later and another guy in exact the same situation can get reward for almost whole 15 min tick?  Unless we're missing something

it's the same story as with boosters that are consumed every 30mins of server time. if you join when server is at 30:01 you have 29:59 of useful booster time but if you join at 29:59 you have 1s and it's gone.

Edited July 17, 2021 by przybysz86

[Kernow1346 1,847]

44 minutes ago, przybysz86 said:

-make it profitable even if you suck at it.

Which is what happens in all other modes and there’s nothing wrong with that.  It has to be profitable (at least up to a certain rank) for everyone, because not everyone is going to be an ‘ace.’ Up to half the players are going to be average at best, by definition, and if they’re getting screwed over they’re not going to stick around.  The guy who gets shot down 5 times for no kills, but who wants to come back and try again, deserves a carrot being thrown his way, but with no points due to no kills and with no proximity points either all he gets is a 5 x repair-bill kick in the face.

[RBadek 631]

I absolutely agree with both @przybysz86and @Kernow1346!
With @_Scooter98_too.

We really need to make sim more profitable, to everyone. (But still take active action against all exploiters/abusers/farmers/zombers.)

 

[przybysz86 10,309]

12 minutes ago, Kernow1346 said:

The guy who gets shot down 5 times for no kills, but who wants to come back and try again, deserves a carrot being thrown his way, but with no points due to no kills and with no proximity points either all he gets is a 5 x repair-bill kick in the face.

yup, well said. no one says that it should be free grind for everyone. Beside - new system puts very real cap on income.

best you can get is 100% activity and victory even if you are alt-account farmer with 16 AI peons dying for you.

I personally think that this was partially the goal GJ had here. They mentioned couple times 80% activity median which means that gap between best pilot in whole WT (most likely exploiter) and 50% of SB population will be less than 20% of earnings. That is great. I just feel like something went wrong and that's it.

I hope that we have this test to polish it out exactly regarding these things and I am really, really happy to see test being done before it's implemented.
Now they have to make it so that we indeed have said 80% median, increase base rewards a bit, decrease spawn cost a bit and it will be great

Edited July 17, 2021 by przybysz86

[SaratogaCV60 178]

I did not pay too much attention to the economic system. But obviously EC6 has many other problems. 

1, The map is too small. EC6 should use at least a 128KM*128KM large map. In the current mission, an aircraft with a speed of 800KPH can retreat from the center of the map to the protection range of the air defense missile in a short time, which is not good for any attacker. 

2, The BR of some aircrafts needs to be adjusted. Yes, I am talking about IL28, IL28Sh and H5. These aircraft are too powerful for other 8.0 opponents. They should be adjusted to 8.3 or 8.7. In addition, I think the German Sea Hawk Mk.100 should also be upgraded to 8.3. Its AIM9B is too scary for other 8.0 aircraft. 

3, I once again proposed that EC should divide the camp based on vehicles rather than countries. In EC6 Germany's F84, F86, MIG15, IL28 and China's F84, F86, MIG15, IL28 will cause disasters in the identification of friend or foe. 

4, Battles should be open continually, otherwise many battles will lose most of the players within 30 minutes.

Edited July 17, 2021 by SaratogaCV60

[esapekkis 2,659]

Had second test run in EC2. This time I decided to go and try how much activity you get with bombing:

 

 

Spoiler

Didn't have any suitable bomber on 2.3 (and you cannot bring lower BR stuff to the test games), so I had to start with P-40C. I shot down1 player and strafed 6-7 soft targets with MGs to get enough SP for my PBM-3. Destryed 2 bombing points and droppped rest of my bombs to enemy airfield with it before returning to base. I tried to change my bomber and left the Mariner while it was repairing after belly landing. But sadly it counted as death so I lost all of my SP. Had to use P-40C again, so I went and shot down 5 mission planes (3 attackers + 2 escorts) in order to get enough for PV-2D. Which I used rest of the game to bombing enemy bombing points.

 

 

 

....to me it seems like you won't be getting good activity % with bombing either. At least in EC2 and if you return to base after dropping your bombs.

 

 

 

After quickly glancing through the new max SL/min values for SB it seems like Gaijin is trying to make each Rank pay you more SL the higher you go. At the moment you can earn about the same amount of SL with same kills/actions using some rank 2 premium planes as you earn using those cool high tier premium props/jets. (thanks to the rather wild variance in the SL reward % modifiers on many airplanes) So now many (at least premium) planes will get their SL reward potential rather noticeable reduced on lower/mid ranks. (and some higher tier planes/premiums with silly low reward % might benefit from the new max SL/min sytem). In the end playing EC2 will give you clearly lower rewards with great/excellent games in the new system. So if you want to get more SL while playing props, you need to fly higher Rank planes in EC4

 

And of course there is rather many mysteries with the new max SL/min values, just like we had with SL reward % modifiers. Like why the German Fw190-A5/U12 has 720 SL/min while Fw190-A5/U2 has only 380 SL/min? Makes no sense at all that one of them earns twice the SL compared to the other.

 

And unfrotunately I'm not sure yet if the average Joe benefits at all from these eco changes.

Edited July 17, 2021 by esapekkis

[Tim_Fragmagnet 9]

While I would probably be fine with this system if the payout were significantly higher, a problem arises in that it even further discourages fighters from performing escort duty for bombers and attackers.

Everyone should be paid well for participating in the completion of objectives. However, fighter pilots tend to get the short straw here.

I feel that it would improve the mode if fighters escorting bombers/attackers were paid dividends of what said bombers/attackers earn from ground targets. Not taking reward away from them, but getting a copy of a small portion of the reward, getting a further reward if said bomber/attacker makes it back to base and lands. With this escort reward being paid to the fighters in full regardless of whether they land or not.

 

They then also get paid for shooting down enemy players trying to stop said bombers/attackers as normal.

 

What would this mean? This means you would find fighters trying to maintain air superiority over ground objectives so that their bombers/attackers can do their job. The fighters would thus find more consistent fights and thus have less need to fly around HOPING to find targets, and the bombers/attackers would generally tend to have a more interesting session, instead of just braindead farming of ground targets and sometimes getting randomly shot down by someone diving at high speeds.

 

A similar system could be used for naval dive/torpedo bombers, but for the bombers themselves. We all know attacking naval fleets means getting shot at by large amounts of AA. So flying with a group of other dive/torpedo bombers helps spread the AA out so everyone is in less danger. If you're flying in proximity to dive bombers as a dive bomber, you should get dividends on any rewards the other dive bombers get for damaging/destroying naval units.

 

The rewards system should encourage the team to work together and help each other. It's something that has been sorely missing from air SB, and I'm sure everyone would have a better time. This would also likely bring some air SB players back to the game.

We all know air SB isn't doing too great, I want to play it more, but the rewards have not been great, not as a fighter attacker or bomber, so I tend to just go back to RB and earn in 7-12 minutes what would take me 30-40+ minutes in SB. If this new reward system goes through with these values, I don't think I'd ever touch SB again.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Tim_Fragmagnet

[TaumelScheibe 183]

Just a friendly reminder how big the rewards in our current system are:

This was regular Italy EC4 match, the full 3 hours.

To be fair it was a fairly low populated match so the majority of kills were bots.

But thats still a terrible for a 3 hour long match with 150% SL and 500% RP Booster, i earn more in a 10 Minute AB match.

With the Cost for the researched Modules thats a total of negative 7k SL.

 

 

If the new Sytem lowers the Rewards even more i don't see a Future for Warthunder SB.

 

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by TaumelScheibe

[Tim_Fragmagnet 9]

By the way, I would like to bring to your attention the repair cost of the F4U-4B in sim. 82,777 SL when spaded. Making players pay the full repair cost up front will basically remove this plane from play entirely.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Tim_Fragmagnet

[Kernow1346 1,847]

I appreciate you’re only the messenger @Stona, but really the OP was a very long-winded way of telling us next to nothing.  Rewards will now be a fixed number of SL per minute, with that amount varying by aircraft, multiplied by how active you were in a given period.  Aside from the general idea that activity is related somehow to things which earn points, we don’t know what activity is or how to get a decent reward.  However, from the feedback received so far it seems a decent reward is unlikely.  The feedback also reveals a lot of confusion and has raised many questions which I suspect have not been considered by the devs.

 

Given that you will get what behaviour you reward, we need to know, what behaviour do the devs wish to encourage in sim EC?  For the past few years it would appear to have been mindless one-way bombing; 30-minutes of activity followed by AFK farming; and, above all, making sure you end up on the winning team, because that has been most highly rewarded.  It’s a serious question.  The devs need to get their heads out their a… algorithms and consider what player behaviour they desire.  It would be good and enlightening to hear the answer (if there is one).

 

Do they want players to abandon losing teams?  Or would they rather see full games where players are encouraged to fly all types of mission and to remain in game as long as possible?  They’ll get what they encourage.

 

[esapekkis 2,659]

22 minutes ago, Tim_Fragmagnet said:

By the way, I would like to bring to your attention the repair cost of the F4U-4B in sim. 82,777 SL when spaded. Making players pay the full repair cost up front will basically remove this plane from play entirely.

 

You can check the upcoming repaircost changes from this table:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRgqvTcPVaBMNhYcqLUu3FUKUJF1jTggodwlPIf2w8hPQ0hTivihnDTeqzHhoJuZs_HWPF7oifl3wBp/pubhtml

 

(stock F4U-4B repaircost will be reduced to 34820 in SB before the spawn cost = full repaircost is implemented)

 

Feedback for repair costs (and probably also for new max SL/min values) can be given over here:

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by esapekkis

[Tim_Fragmagnet 9]

8 minutes ago, esapekkis said:

 

You can check the upcoming repaircost changes from this table:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRgqvTcPVaBMNhYcqLUu3FUKUJF1jTggodwlPIf2w8hPQ0hTivihnDTeqzHhoJuZs_HWPF7oifl3wBp/pubhtml

 

(stock F4U-4B repaircost will be reduced to 34820 in SB before the spawn cost = full repaircost is implemented)

So its spaded repair cost will still be 54,887 SL, at its current rate of 960SL per minute, you would need to achieve an entire hour of 100% activity to break even, and that's if you don't get shot down or otherwise crash.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Tim_Fragmagnet

[Mursac 87]

I'm at my wits end with this mode.  The general consensus I'm seeing is either we get full credit for our actions with significant gains over RB, or we're gone.

 

Individual Actions

- 1:1 earnings for all individual actions, awarded at the time accomplished.  You join the match and get full credit for all actions, no matter how long you're there.  No earning caps or reductions. Period.

 

Landing

- If landing is to have an effect on our score, then make sure it actually functions as a bonus for living, not a penalty for dying.  None of this 50% withheld until you land stuff.  Instead, put a XX% bonus on top of 100% earnings for surviving.  I know this was put in place to hit zombers.  It hit honest players harder, and zombing is still a thing.  It didn't work.  Either remove it and consider new ideas (more to follow later), or turn it into a genuine carrot.  

 

Battle Activity

-Get rid of the "Activity" percentage. This is simulator battles.  Even with the improved air defenses, you can still be hit on the runway when you spawn by a particularly enterprising offender.  There are also no markers for enemies.  You can chase a dot across the map only to find it's friendly, and inversely, fly right by an adversary and never know they were there.  We are in a constant state of either hunting an opponent, or evading detection.  All of this means you are functionally "in combat" the moment you spawn.  It makes sense in RB since people will run away to prolong the match, but here?  No.  There's no point.  Evasion is naturally a part of the game.

 

 

 

So, the above will cause sim earnings to shoot through the roof (that's the entire point), and remove mechanics intended to curb abuse.  I think there are better ways to counter abuse than taking the switch to all of us... for the love god stop going after earnings.  

 

Passive Behavior

- I know the game has a way of telling whether or not we've taken off or landed, since we get RP bonuses for both.  Set the game mode so that a "takeoff" condition must be met before the game will credit you with any RP or SL, and scoring switches off again when it detects a death or landing condition.  Why?  Because, not scoring until takeoff and after landing would eliminate passive scoring from the ground.  No landing near an enemy airfield, or taxiing off the end of your own.  There is one critical distinction to be made: this should only apply to actions taken during the time you're on the ground.  It would royally suck to damage somebody, then not get credit for the kill if they crash while you're landed.

 

-How about bot accounts?  Most of these are simple and fly around aimlessly.  What I suggest is to implement some kind of diminishing return to passive income after going thirty minutes without landing.  This way, a bot can't fly to space and farm the whole match.

 

Strafing

- This is a bit more rare these days, but is still a possibility.  Simply don't charge repair, spawn points, or tickets to respawn if you're destroyed on an airfield.  Sweet and simple, no need for drama.  Just don't penalize the victim, okay?

 

Zombing / Bomber Spam

- Yeah... this one is more or less a function of our respawn mechanics.  Unless every single aircraft gets a wait timer (for the love of god, don't), any first spawn aircraft with bombs will be able to do this.  You'll have to go outside the box on this one.  What makes bombing so good isn't the earnings per ton, or total tonnage; it's the consistency and predictability.  Bombers always know where targets are.  It's steady income, and more importantly: a reliable way to bleed tickets from the other team; reliability that fighters and interceptors do not have due to the unreliability of hunting / spotting, and the semi-random nature of airborne objectives.  Bombers and attackers inflict a larger ticket impact than the other team could possibly match by intercepting them, and lose nothing by killing themselves, since they come out ahead on both points and tickets, at least relative to fighters.

 

Here's the idea: Apply a ticket value to bomb loads.  One that isn't discarded when you jettison the bombs.

When you equip a bomb load, the ticket value of the aircraft will be combined with the ticket value of the bomb load (equal-ish to the impact it could potentially inflict).  If you die at any point before landing, your own team takes the same ticket hit that that you just inflicted on the other team (or tried to, if you were intercepted).

 

Killed before reaching the target?  Your team takes a ticket hit equal to both your bomb load and aircraft.

Killed while returning home?  Your team takes the same ticket hit as before, but it's mostly offset by the hit you just inflicted.  Your team comes out behind, but only by the value of a single aircraft.

Killed on the airfield?  Theoretically none, if the strafing related changes above ever become a reality.  If not, then the same as if you die before reaching the target.

 

 

In summary, stop taking our silver lions.  You want to use the stick rather than the carrot?  Fine.  We'll be the stick. Just make it worth our time.

 

[The_Tea_Rex 801]

49 minutes ago, Mursac said:

Battle Activity

-Get rid of the "Activity" percentage. This is simulator battles.  Even with the improved air defenses, you can still be hit on the runway when you spawn by a particularly enterprising offender.  There are also no markers for enemies.  You can chase a dot across the map only to find it's friendly, and inversely, fly right by an adversary and never know they were there.  We are in a constant state of either hunting an opponent, or evading detection.  All of this means you are functionally "in combat" the moment you spawn.  It makes sense in RB since people will run away to prolong the match, but here?  No.  There's no point.  Evasion is naturally a part of the game.

 

This 100%. 

[[email protected] 26]

 

21 hours ago, AWACS_Thunderhea said:

TeaRex's comment sparked this question in my head: The  85K SL/h average in SB... where did it come from?  
Did it come from ALL SB modes, including Ground Battles? That would be problematic, because rewards are much, much bettter in Ground Simulator Battles compared to Enduring Confrontation,.
Did it come from all Enduring Confrontation rooms, that is, official (game-created) lobbies and player created rooms mixed in? That would be problematic as well, due to the huge number of 'farming' rooms, which would (and do) skew the statistics. 
Did it come from official game-created Enduring Confrontation lobbies only?

 

On 15/07/2021 at 07:00, Stona said:

 

Info I got:

 

It does not take into account reward for the battle time and for winning.

Reward for the battle time is, as a rule, +30% of the reward for useful actions.

Reward for winning is also +67% to the final reward (at 50% winrate can be considered + 33.5%).

Then the reward per hour will be 50K * 1.3 * 1.335 = 87K
And 87K SL per hour is the correct reward for the La-9

At the moment, the average reward for all players for it is:

• in AB 94500 SL/h
• in RB 81648 SL/h
• in SB 85284 SL/h

In AB reward is higher because the unit is more efficient in this mode. At the same time, it spends on repairs per hour significantly higher than in RB and SB.

 

I think there is some bad data being used to come up with these 'solutions' to the economy. The AVERAGE SL/h can be highly inflated due to zombers, farmers, and a few extremely top % of players. It's the MEDIAN that matters, and only those of official EC matches, not custom rooms. I tried 2 test servers EC2 games today, both games didn't accept new players after first wave, so eventually it died out about an hour after start, then only 2v2 left, which also meant a lot of time was idle chasing or looking for targets, if this kind of test data is being used to make decisions about economy, it's also flawed. I predict the test data from the test rooms will show most players get way less than 85k SL/h, probably closer to 10k SL/h for >1 K/D ratio, and negative SL for <1 K/D ratio, how does that encourage more people to play sim, who undoubtedly will start with <1 K/D ratios.

 

My 1st EC2 game net + 3.2k SL with 3:3 K/D ratio & a few bot kills & CAPS, about 1 hr playing time, no SL boosters

My 2nd EC2 game net + 5.7k SL with 3:1 K/D ratio & a few bot kills & CAPs, about 1 hr playing time, no SL boosters

 

 

It appears the original problem is zombers and farmers, more focus should be turned towards nerfing that aspect in SIMULATOR battles (more realistic & difficult to aim as gunners maybe?!), rather than changing the whole sim system (which was pretty good to start with years ago), instead to accommodate how easy it is to farm as bombers. Focus on the original problem, not coming up with half-solutions that create more problems. Lots of people here have great ideas and give it more thought than the GJ team it appears.

Edited July 18, 2021 by [email protected]

[_Scooter98_ 189]

A couple of suggestions since just bashing the topic isnt useful to anyone, not to mention infuriating to anyone who spent time and effort creating and implementing it.

 

 

The developers just dont seem to understand what EC, let alone SB, is and how it works.

First things to understand.

• SB is much harder than RB or AB.
• The average EC game goes for 1-2 hours. There are MAJOR lulls in combat some more than 15 minutes (especially for low BR aircraft).
• Any statistics from the AB/RB (even SB to an extent) economy will be detrimental to the EC economy if not modified by somebody who plays (or at least has a working understanding of) SB EC.
• The economy needs to be balanced around the average to new SB players. A skilled player damn well should earn more.
• Developers need a SB community liaison at a minimum to discuss problems and suggestions to rectify.
• There are issues with exploiters/Bots/Zombers which the community has been infuriated with since they became prevalent. The community is not against, you except in the amount of time it takes to rectify something.
• Any statistics will be highly inflated because of Exploiters/Bots/Zombers.

 

The current economy and the test economy need a lot of work to become remotely okay. It is hostile to moderately skilled players let alone new players. Exploiters and Zombers are still an issue. Players in several large SB communities are vehemently against this new economy, and have been at the economy over the last 8 or so months. EC SB is just too dissimilar from AB/RB for any economy to be developed that is not EC purpose built.

 

 

I suggest trialing this new test economy with:

• Keep the test session going for another 5-7 days.
• The activity session increased from 15 to 30 minutes and the reward cap increased or remove the activity modifier altogether. It would work with AB/RB, but EC is too different.
• Use the economy values from 8-12 months ago and modify from feedback.
• The reward for target destroyed (player, ground, naval, bot, all) needs to be AT A MINIMUM equal too or more than AB/RB.
• The reward for rocket TNT damage needs to be kept nerfed.
• The reward for bomb TNT damage should not be more than destroying targets (ticket and Score/SL/RP wise).
• The repair cost of vehicles DRAMATICALLY reduced. Anything over 20K needs to be heavily brought back down. (An exception could be made for EC6/7, with a base higher reward, and force players to play lower EC to get SL but anything over 40K is ludicrous)
• The average (especially new) player will die several times without shooting somebody down. The economy needs to reflect this. Repair costs need significant adjustment.
• REPAIR COST REFUNDED IF YOU DO NOT DIE/LAND
• No/Marginal reward for killing a player on the AF (excluding crash landing)
• No/Marginal repair cost for dying on the AF (excluding crash landing)
• No Respawn Points cost for dying on the AF (excluding crash landing)

• Keep the 50% reward withheld till landing. But ONLY enable it for aircraft with a higher than average TNT Damage/Strategic Bombers.

• There are a few major SB Communities/Discords. I suggest economy developers talk to them and get feedback directly from players. I am sure the administrators will be more than accommodating and keep everything civil.

 

Regarding Activity.

1 hour ago, Mursac said:

-Get rid of the "Activity" percentage. This is simulator battles.  Even with the improved air defenses, you can still be hit on the runway when you spawn by a particularly enterprising offender.  There are also no markers for enemies.  You can chase a dot across the map only to find it's friendly, and inversely, fly right by an adversary and never know they were there.  We are in a constant state of either hunting an opponent, or evading detection.  All of this means you are functionally "in combat" the moment you spawn.  It makes sense in RB since people will run away to prolong the match, but here?  No.  There's no point.  Evasion is naturally a part of the game.

 

 

As @przybysz86 mentioned before.

7 hours ago, przybysz86 said:

make it profitable even if you suck at it.

 

The gap between Skilled players and Unskilled/New players needs to be up here . Give current people a reason to stay in SB, and new people a reason to play SB.

At the moment the gap is down there. People are leaving SB (and WT in general) because SB is neglected.

 

 

[ShadowsRise 0]

Some thoughts on the B18B game that AWACS_Thunderhea shared. To calculate SL earnings for a non-premium account use SL_rate * activity * time_minutes * 1.3 * 1.67 for wins and omit the 1.67 factor for losses. For the B18B game, 342 * 0.75 * 95 * 1.3 * 1.67 = 52902 SL should be earned which is relatively close to 49074 SL given in the image. I would assume that the difference is due to the 15 minute segments of time that are used to calculate rewards. However the premium reward of 26302 SL is weird because it should be half of 49074 SL like 8900 is half of 17800 for the Achievements. 26302 is a lot closer to half of 52902 than 49074, but I do not know if that is just a coincidence. Ultimately SL reward calculations are still a bit of mystery, but this result appears to be close to the theoretical result of 52902 SL. None of this includes any repair costs yet.

 

 

An activity of 75% when the player score is over 10k in 95 minutes seems low to me. If I understand correctly, the time played or points earned in 95 minutes is below the median for the SB game modes. If I had to guess, I would say that the 10k points in 95 minutes is below the median because SB EC is at disadvantage due to its slower pace when compared to other SB modes. Even with 100% activity, the B18B game will only add ~25k SL to the 102076 SL result.

 

I think lower tier SB EC is going to suck because SL rewards can be pretty pitiful. A perfect B18B game at 100% activity with a victory will earn ~44.5k SL/hr while reserve vehicles will earn less then 4k SL/hr under the same circumstances. Also there is actually an apparent cap of ~100k SL/hr at 100% activity with a victory and one spawn for any non-premium plane without a premium account. The SL income rate is relatively linear from 4k to 100k for increasing BR including one spawn. Basically this is an attempt to resolve the farming exploits of SB EC, so I doubt any amount of criticism is going to change anything.

 

Best case scenarios with only the initial spawn cost (most high tier jets like these hover around 100k)

A-4E Early: 912 * 100% * 60 min * 1.3 * 1.67 – 13650 = 105147

Sagittario 2: 816 * 100% * 60 min * 1.3 * 1.67 – 5680 = 100612

IL-28Sh: 912 * 100% * 60 min * 1.3 * 1.67 – 18580 = 100217

IL-28 (Germany): 960 * 100% * 60 min * 1.3 * 1.67 – 25910 = 99140

[[email protected] 26]

Here are a few ideas to both make air sim more like real world and fix the bomber farming problem, and in turn the need to 'fix' the whole EC economy all the time.

 

1. Make bombers repairs proportionally more expensive than fighters, just like real life, it takes much more resources to build, maintain, and fly bombers vs fighters.

 

2. Get rid of autopilot while gunning, this is both unrealistic and gives unfair advantage to gunners

 

3. More realistic and limited gunner view, just like cockpit views, instead of allowing wide angle 3rd person view in SIMULATOR. 

 

4. Limit number of bombers that can be spawned per team per half hour/whole hour. Could even market this as a feature simulating wartime material shortages. This simple constraint puts more focus on helping escort bombers and put more value on their missions, just like real life.

 

The fact is, bombers are not like fighters in the real world, and they should not be in WT. These changes shouldn't require a lot of work to implement either. It's not like we're asking a lot, just bring the stakes of flying bombers up, not currently where it's mostly identical and easier than fighters.
 

Edited July 18, 2021 by [email protected]

[BiggestBunny 99]

If this is all at its core really about preventing the abuse of SB by zombers and the like, please instead just literally remove our ability to damage strategic targets. It would be far better to limit all player ground attack to hitting only tanks, pillboxes and such than to try and preserve current bomber gameplay (by far the least engaging part of the game) by forcing a solution that instead drags the entire gamemode down with it. Sim cannot be a mode where you spend hours in a single game only to be locked out of further play by repair costs - even if you lose, and even if you didn't do very well. Losing lions on a bad game might not be gamebreaking in AB or RB where it will always be limited by match length and limited spawns (not to mention the additional income through wages, battle pass, and so on) but in EC people will simply leave, and win-or-lose having games end either by getting spawncamped alone against a dozen players, or alternatively by realizing that there's no one left on the enemy team, just becomes a frustrating and bitter experience. For EC to really make sense as a concept there needs to be some sort of basic floor below which you cannot drop.

 

But really, if the main issue is the need to restrict a very specific type of player, please don't solve it by firing shrapnel into the room.

Edited July 18, 2021 by BiggestBunny

[[email protected] 601]

On 16/07/2021 at 08:50, TaumelScheibe said:

I had a similar experience even in the EC6 event, i had plenty of kills but most of those happened in a short period of time, that might be the problem.

The majority of the enemy team left early, so there were a lot of 15min Battle intervals without "useful activity".

It seems that your Activity goes down significantly if you have intervals without action.

 

 

It makes no sense to bring this Into the gamemode If that’s the case...

4 hours ago, [email protected] said:

Here are a few ideas to both make air sim more like real world and fix the bomber farming problem, and in turn the need to 'fix' the whole EC economy all the time.

 

1. Make bombers repairs proportionally more expensive than fighters, just like real life, it takes much more resources to build, maintain, and fly bombers vs fighters.

 

2. Get rid of autopilot while gunning, this is both unrealistic and gives unfair advantage to gunners

 

3. More realistic and limited gunner view, just like cockpit views, instead of allowing wide angle 3rd person view in SIMULATOR. 

 

4. Limit number of bombers that can be spawned per team per half hour/whole hour. Could even market this as a feature simulating wartime material shortages. This simple constraint puts more focus on helping escort bombers and put more value on their missions, just like real life.

 

The fact is, bombers are not like fighters in the real world, and they should not be in WT. These changes shouldn't require a lot of work to implement either. It's not like we're asking a lot, just bring the stakes of flying bombers up, not currently where it's mostly identical and easier than fighters.
 

 

Bombers were never the problem of EC, but the gamemode Itself, don’t take It to the bomber players.

[przybysz86 10,309]

5 hours ago, _Scooter98_ said:

Use the economy values from 8-12 months ago and modify from feedback.

I am not sure about exact time we need to backtrack but indeed point can be made that wit so many exploiters, farmers and zombers we had for past year or so, stats would be skewed.

 

1 hour ago, [email protected] said:

 

It makes no sense to bring this Into the gamemode If that’s the case...

 

Bombers were never the problem of EC, but the gamemode Itself, don’t take It to the bomber players.

of course. bombers are vital part of SB ecosystem and people who would like SB to be fighters only are very short sighted.
Problem is that for years bombers represented much lower skill entry level. that's as such is not as bad but at the same time they enjoyed on avg higher rewards as well

To be fair, even that alone is not a n issue but on top of that they had moue aimed gunners accurate gunners- combine all 3 and you can see why bombers are treated like a extremely arrogant kid who owes everything to his rich parents and thinks that others should stop ranting and just "get rich" instead.

 

but from economy standpoint problem with bombers was that theyi economy setup would allow them to progress even when dying every single sortie while every other type of plane would require much more skill and would often still progress slower. bombers were only group where you could care not about skill at all and still make progress

it's this disproportion that created that split between bomber pilots and rest of community. I think that's sad because, as I've said, they are vital part of ecosystem and I personally would rather see them as high-risk/high-reward type but it's the opposite

Edited July 18, 2021 by przybysz86

[przybysz86 10,309]

7 hours ago, _Scooter98_ said:

The economy needs to be balanced around the average to new SB players. A skilled player damn well should earn more.

one point here, and fogive me for being devil's advocate: if we leave rewards uncapped it is inviting farmers, etc.

If that's why GJ is introducing the activity cap then I guess it's acceptable. I know people will hate me for that but someone who is 100x better than a new guy dont have to earn 100x more as long as he earn enough to progress. above certrain level, rewards are meaningless. yes you go through tech tree in a week rather than 2 months but so what?

 

of course currently good players are loosing money too (especially at top tiers) and that's another story- that's unacceptable

problem starts where to get exploiters stopped not only good players are somehow held back but it affects new guys.

Noone is born skilled sim pilot unless you have years of experience in other game. WT with their softcore-sim approach, where you don't haifve to learn switchology is in perfect place to be entry sim for many new players (either totally new ones or migrating from AB and RB), they are ones we should look after as they are ones who will keep this community alive, not guys who have almost every plane unlocked and get 100:1 K/D

 

I still think that this is what GJ was aiming for with 80% median activity - put hard cap on over-achievers to stop exploits and bring back avg Joe up, closer to their level.
And while it will sound unfair that even best piloting WT will earn, at best 25% more than 50% of WT population, so what?
I know it hurt pride a bit to not be able to brag about those millions in reward but in the long run, if we all earn well it does not matter if we all earn the same.

Let's make sure we all earn well and good guys can brag abut their K/D rather than how they are speed-running whole tech trees
 

Edited July 18, 2021 by przybysz86

[esapekkis 2,659]

9 hours ago, Mursac said:

Landing

 

- If landing is to have an effect on our score, then make sure it actually functions as a bonus for living, not a penalty for dying.  None of this 50% withheld until you land stuff.  Instead, put a XX% bonus on top of 100% earnings for surviving.  I know this was put in place to hit zombers.  It hit honest players harder, and zombing is still a thing.  It didn't work.  Either remove it and consider new ideas (more to follow later), or turn it into a genuine carrot. 

 

 

At the moment you get a 100% bonus to your earned SL when you land your plane (or you can say -50% reduction if you die). With the new economy you will get 25% bonus to your earned SL when surviving (or you can say -20% penalty when you die). No matter what number you put on your "XX% for landing bonus on top of your 100% earnings": it will also mean that you get certain a penalty/reduction from your "actual" 100% earnings if you die instead of returning to base.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, _Scooter98_ said:

• Keep the 50% reward withheld till landing. But ONLY enable it for aircraft with a higher than average TNT Damage/Strategic Bombers.

 

How about using the reward RP modifier and max SL/min + repaircost values to fight that problem instead. Me264 earns too much? Drop the reward modifiers and raise the repaircost....lets say until median Me264 pilot earns the same as the median Wellington pilot earns. They are sitting on the same BR after all.

 

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by esapekkis

[ItalianHitman 1,288]

18 hours ago, przybysz86 said:

First of all, 15min window is not enough. there are often cases (especially in less populated battles) where not finding enemy in 10-15mins is norm.

This system is fundamentally flawed and a longer window is not gonna fix it ...

If you get one or few kills shortly after takeoff, and then get killed, you will get almost nothing for those kills because you flight time before the kills was too short and the activity % resets after you die ...