Air RB and its possible rework

I can’t edit the post to add more polls, that broke it last time. I didn’t think of this when I made them, I’ll throw it in when I tag CMs in a few days.

EDIT: I also have no evidence that “small” games net less RP, I haven’t played enough of them.

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No problem and great work with the polls, I just think it prudent for everyone to keep in mind what’s lost or changed when/if on a smaller team.

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Multipathing was a great change, but what it did was reveal a bunch of issues, not cause them.

The IR spam meta was dogshit but what it had that the current meta does not is the ability for stock aircraft to nab unsuspecting kills as well as for players who dont understand radar to get away with it by flying low.

What they need to do is make stock vehicles more competitive (stock chaff and fox1/3s) and have a MANDATORY tutorial on notching and radar evasion to play 10.0+

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FIX THE GOD DAMN TREES.

(They said they did, but they have not)

A few hundred people doesn’t really represent the community to be fair

Pretty short sighting. Also, considering the state of top tier right now I’d say that is not the case.

yes, they’ve never been great(hence the non meta bit) but they were at least playable.

Now it’s go for the best jet or don’t bother.

Glad to see the stuff I vote for is generally voted for by others. I’ve never been a fan of radar missile gameplay in the first place honestly, but this update just made 11.0+ unplayable if you’re facing fox 3’s.

I think my answers on many of these polls would be very different if small games were guaranteed. The current state of missile thunder makes the largest issue (and easiest to fix!) the game sizes. IMO 12 vs 12 is still too much especially at 12.3-13.0.

Maybe after they fix/finish all of the ARH missiles, they will all be on par or better than 120A, resulting in more enjoyable gameplay.

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Good point. We’ll redo the polls if they make some significant changes.

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Smaller game = faster team wipe + you get less potential kills.

Rewards mostly depend on match time + activity (RP) and kills (SL), the smaller matches reduce both.

So yes you will gain less per match.

However, you also have to keep in mind that you can play more shorter matches, especially for SL gains it just mostly matters that you get a lot of kills quick, end the match, and go next. Thats why smaller maps, if you’re good at the game are insanely much better for gaining SL, you frag people fast, win go next.

RP is basically the opposite, you want to at least do something (like get 1 kill) and then survive within the match as long as possible, ideally even landing and taking off once to get the “withheld” RP (although its not worth playing passive like that unless you got a high booster on).

Personally I also dont really give a shit about rewards, I just want to play the game and have consistent, fun and skill dependent gameplay, basicalyl the opposite of what we’re having right now.

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The few smaller matches I had the pleasure of playing 9 days ago now (haven’t got a single one ever since) lasted for actually longer and were way more balanced.

It’s 16v16s that end up snowballing within 3 minutes after spawn normally.

Smaller matches involve actual dogfighting, defence and tactics, while 16v16 end up boiling down to a kamikaze head-on on ground level (even with multi pathing reduced, it’s still the good ol’ reliable) where one team stomps on the other in seconds.

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This is my main issue with 16v16. Every single match ends in a steamroll.

You also lose out on lots of kills if you aren’t in the first group to the battle. This is noticeable at prop BRs, where if you are one of a few planes climbing, and no one else does, you won’t get any kills. It also happens if you play a slower jet, because everyone dies so quickly, because of the amount of players in a small area.

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that last one is difficult to say. top tier spaded gameplay? an absolute riot! stock gameplay, OH HECK NO!!

Assume you are spaded, like I put in some other questions as well

This is the main reason why I hate 16v16.

I normally try to sideclimb a bit; and when I am engaged by a missile, I execute defensive maneuvers which, by the way, successfully save me from the missile.

But, by the time I turn back towards the battlefield, everyone is just… dead. Because, while I was trying to actually engage with tactical and mindful gameplay, everyone else just went full kamikaze on a mass head-on furball on the middle of the map, exchanged missiles, and died without even trying to evade.

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Yeah that always happens, it’s so frustrating

I would like a separate choice for ARB EC, its a near necessity

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We are trying.

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damn the polls have 1000 votes already, is that enough to tag the community managers?

They do, and they have been stable for quite some time now. It might be enough. I’ll start writing the post now, they can always check the polls again in a few days if they want to.

I think the last big poll about multipathing also has around 1000 votes, I don’t think we are going to get much more.

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@OrsonES @Smin1080p @Stona_WT @magazine2
Hi, this thread has been going for some time now and we believe now is the time to get Community Managers involved. We would like you to do a few things for us and also ask a few questions.

We would like you to read our original post and also the polls we made yesterday. You don’t need to read the entire thread, I tried my best to include feedback as additions in the original post, but you are welcome to if you want to.

We think that our issues and concerns with top tier ARB are valid, even if some of our proposed solutions could be better. We tried our best.

Is Gaijin open to implementing a gamemode where these issues are addressed, either in form of changing current ARB or making a separate mode? We feel that there is a big enough audience to entertain this idea.

If such thing is possible, we would like to hear your feedback on this topic. And if it isn’t we would still like feedback. Either way, we want transparency, We want to heard.

Now regarding the polls we made yesterday.

Let’s get the most clear cut polls out of the way first.

A large majority of participants have enabled the option for smaller battles but are quite unhappy with how often they get them. Also majority has stated that they find these small matches more enjoyable. 90% of voters also said that they would like an option to exclusively play these small matches, even with increased queue times.

It’s pretty clear that people want to play these small matches, so why not give them an option to do just that?

Another pretty clear result shows that people want top tier planes to have full sets of countermeasures available stock. Just like you made flares stock when more advanced IR AAMs started to get added, we now want you to do the same but for chaff as well. More precisely, remove the default flare/chaff modification, and make it stock.

Participants also found the grind for top tier planes to be hard or near impossible now. The gap between stock and spaded planes grew even larger with this update with the introduction of ARHs. Stock planes can’t touch spaded planes for the majority of the match, simply because of the range difference.

We think that top tier planes should get 2 radar missiles stock, and most voters think that those should be of the active variety. You decided that 2 IR missiles should come stock when they started to dominate top tier. Is it possible to do the same again, this time for ARHs?

Before I address the ARH and multipath polls, I would like to point out the last poll. Majority of voters (around 60%) found top tier gameplay to be overall worse than last update. The interesting part is, I don’t think this is because of ARHs and mutipathing at 12.7-13.0 since around 60% of voters voted that they actually like them. I am no data analyst, but I think this means that people are unhappy with other aspects of this update and not it’s gameplay addition and changes.

Regarding ~10.3 to 12.0 planes without good radar guided weaponry most people voted that they don’t like playing them. Around 35% of voters stated that they like playing some such planes, perhaps the ones with amazing flight performance or IR missiles.

In another poll regarding the same BR bracket most people would like to see a BR rebalance for planes that do carry good or excellent radar guided weapons. Would this be possible? I would also like to mention here that we don’t want to make these planes unplayable, so increasing a BR cap by 2 or 3 steps would be necessary in our eyes.

As for the multipath change, votes are pretty close to draw much conclusions for both top tier and ~10.3 to 12.0.

Thank you for your time. We are eagerly awaiting your response.
Have a good one!

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