Imho investments in Naval have to be seen as a kind of opportunity costs. From my perspective Naval is mainly implemented to strengthen the USP of wt (air, sea, land warfare and combination of different weapon systems) and to increase the entry barrier for potential competitors.
So even if they might produce losses with Naval it makes sense to continue with this in order to protect your core business (tanks & aircraft).
I thought about applying as tech mod / suggestion mod. Most of them are just players like you and me and doing their job as volunteer & for free.
Gaining insights how certain things work within gaijin might be helpful.
You might want to check this thread:
From my pov it boils down to this (my reply):
Thank you very much for your insights how the RU forum and devs are connected.
Seeing this thread as a whole it looks like all you need to initiate changes is access to the RU forum, 70+ people with >30k battles and the ability to read and write in Cyrillic letters.
Finding these 70+ guys looks much more effective than writing thousands of posts/bug reports/suggestions to improve the game.
I am not devoting that much time towards this, as I said in a previous reply I am very close to quiting the game. Ground RB has been ruined for me a long time ago, and now Air RB is walking a very fine line. If I don’t see it going uphill until next update (not this one that’s about to come out) I am done. I am willing to put out ideas and even make that mission as a proof of concept in my spare time, but no more than that. If they want to run the game into the ground, who am I to stop them.
At the end of the day, it’s just a game. While I am do want it to improve, I don’t want it that much to get a “job” at gaijin to maybe fix it.
If they don’t want to spend a few dozen man hours to improve that gamemode, what is there more to say. Ideas have been out there for years, Macekeeks and I didn’t really invent hot water here.
We’ll see what this update brings. Maybe they already fixed it, who knows.
Agreed - but imho the game mode looks exactly like the silent (regarding forum representation) majority of rather new/rookie players wants it to be: A more or less plain shooter or a cheap grinding tool for SL/RP to play CAS in Ground RB.
The challenge for long-term players is to find a niche which offers fun & a challenge; imho it is more than obvious that you won’t find this at top tier Air RB.
I like a lot of these ideas. Im not sure how i feel about pushing strike fighters and bombers to be the most important portion of the team but i think they should at least be given equal footing to fighters.
This suggestion is ultimately pretty similar to an Air RB Enduring Confrontation (albeit with some changes).
One of the biggest issues with these longer form game modes are people leaving after their team loses. Sort of like those one death leavers in Ground or what happens in Sim EC.
If a mode like this were to be made for Air RB, there should be incentives for players to stay. These incentives could include a 10% SL and RP bonus once tickets drop below a certain point (like 33%) or even some AI reinforcements. Like once tickets drop below a certain amount, a 4 ship of AI planes come to help the team. Not necessarily meant to be OP AI assistance but just a distraction for the enemy at least.
Additionally, i think getting the spotting mechanic well balanced is VERY important. I personally feel that enemy vehicle markers should remain off but enemy missile diamonds can remain on. There would be some exception to this. If enemies get within a certain range of a friendly airfield or objective, they become spotted. This could also help mitigate the airfield camping.
I also feel that any mention of a longer form Air RB should include helicopters. Even if they’re at a disadvantage, it would be nice to have them as an option and they could also provide that low altitude “manpad” risk to aircraft to provide additional risk to staying low. Similar to ground, Gaijin could also give the option for researching helicopters through aviation.
Really good ideas here and i would love to see some 30-45 minute matches come for Air RB. Kind of bored of the 5 to 10 minute match at top tier.
I hear you. We had thrown some ideas for this but nothing made it to our final proposal. One way to combat this is to make games joinable while in progress, like in SIM EC. This introduces it’s own problems like reward multiplier on win or loss, but I have nothing better honestly.
I agree and I like your idea.
Here’s one more. In a game called titanfall 2, if you lose a match you are given one last chance to escape on an evac ship. If you succeed your loss is treated as a win in XP bonuses and similar. Maybe something similar could be implemented in War Thunder? A last ditch objective to escape maybe.
Adding AWACS type aircraft that cover areas closer to their team’s side of the map would make it feel realistic and not tacked on for gameplay purposes.
I am honestly not sure how exactly they would fit given their speed and all. Another potential problem I see is that Chinese helis have that unflarable all aspect missile. We have suggested manpads, but that has proven to be quite unpopular in this thread.
On the other hand I am all for giving helis a proper gamemode, heli PvE sucks.
This could be a very cool idea. Maybe something like when a team loses, a nuclear bomber spawns in unspotted at a random location on the map at low altitude and your team has to find and destroy that bomber before it gets to one of your airfields. It would force the whole team to basically conduct a frantic search. There could probably be other ideas too.
I like this idea. It definitely would make it feel more realistic.
Heli PVE feels like it was made by the unpaid intern during their lunch break. Its really boring.
If helis were to be added to an Air RB EC mode, they would need their own bases much closer to AI ground units and in a position where they could cut off any low flying planes.
Increasing AI/bots/PvE and removing markers I am firmly against, especially paired together. Objectives/bots/etc in PvP games are not themselves the actual end goal, they’re a means to an end, to ensure players run into each other and have a fight. Forcing a fight is the whole idea.
I also take issue with the somewhat derogatory “third-partied” term; that’s just a negative way of phrasing “playing with teammates, as intended”. Any time you can engage an enemy with a numerical advantage, you should; this is, like, one of the most basic elements of Air RB.
There is nowhere in War Thunder’s development where AI or PVE has been a way to ensure players run into each other. This is purely just a way of you projecting what you would like AI and PVE to be. The PVE element in Air RB has always been a way to cater to more passive players. This was outlined by BVVD 2 Youtube Q&A’s ago when asked if EC can completely replace Air RB.
We already have a bunch of AI/PVE elements in ALL air game modes. They’re just completely outdated or poorly implemented. They either need to be updated in RB to be more like an “EC Lite” mode or completely removed altogether to be more like a true TDM.
Third partying is not a “derogatory” phrase. Lol C’mon…
The problem with this “third partying” is that Air RB is now just becoming a cheaper version of Air Arcade, especially at the upper tiers. There’s not nearly enough distinguishing features between the two modes anymore. It’s also just completely unbalanced. Last month i did a test where i played 100 matches at top tier over 2 days and 84 of them ended in complete team wipes which i counted as 6 or more surviving players in the winning team. This setup is not balanced well if the vast majority of games end like this.
Gaijin needs to distinguish its game modes better. Air RB should be midway between Air Arcade and Air Sim. It’s not even close to that currently.
Although i fully agree to the first part of your post - this quote is rather bold, as the individual circumstances are decisive.
So if a team mate is obviously controlling a fight and sits in a better aircraft - there is no need to 3rd party his desired victim and robbing his points by swooping in for a cheap 3rd party kill.
In opposition “baiting” an enemy from a 1 vs 1 in a 1 vs 2 (from his perspective) was always the main goal of team work - it makes sometimes just sense if you got chased by a slightly slower, but way better turner to create this. The sole downside is the fact that gaijin killed the proximity score.
Although i agree with most of your views (in general) - imho the fellow player is correct. Ground targets are marked and visible for both sides - just to enforce player interactions = the PvP player knows where he can find PvE players.
Agreed - or Air AB+.
The increase in complexity from Air AB to Air RB is practically non-existent.
Yes. This is how we use ground targets and AI targets in War Thunder but its not the reason for the ground targets and AI targets. It’s just how the game has evolved since there has been little to no development of these passive interactions for years.
Again i ellude to BVVD himself saying something translated very similar to this a few interviews ago. Ground targets and AI are for passive players.
But yes many of us as more PVP interested players use the PVE elements to guess where enemies will be.
True, if a teammate already “clearly” has the kill lined up I’ll likely keep an eye on them if I can, but I won’t actively try to land hits unless it seems they’re escaping/etc.
This topic seemed more about being on the receiving end to me, and the whole “we were having a gentlemanly 1v1 until the enemy’s unsporting teammate jumped in and killed me” kind of attitude is one I’ll always take issue with. Like, no, the enemy’s teammate did their job. :P
The sole purpose for ground targets is to lure less skilled / experienced players (mostly designated non-pilots) into a mode which is basically a PvP mode - as gaijin creates the illusion that PvE actions might be a way to participate.
The fact that you get 3 times the RP for a base kill vs a player kill is just the most obvious sign that this is no accident.
Idk if the devs have even thought that hard about this.
War thunder doesn’t really have a direct competitor. Unless we make a big deal about it, they don’t really have much incentive to invest in the game modes.
I think it just boils down to developer burnout.
Look at BVVD on the Russian streams. Read @Stona_WT response to comments on the forums. The dev team really just seems burned out. They’re not having fun anymore.
I think the reason that they barely touch the game modes and that they don’t fix glaring issues unless forced to, is that they’re bored with all this. Its a job. Not a passion.
To a long term War Thunder player and outsiders it really is confusing how outdated the aviation game modes are.
I mean if we were developing aviation game modes from scratch under the “Arcade - Realistic - Simulator” categories, i think a general outline would be pretty easy to come up with.
Arcade Battle Length: 5 to 12 minutes
Realistic Battle Length: 20 to 40 minutes
Simulator Battle Length: 1 hour +
What do we have now? Arcade lasts 10-15 mins. Realistic lasts 7 to 15 mins and simulator lasts 2.5 hours…
I don’t think there is “the receiving end” for third partying. It might suck more if you get kill than when your target gets killed, but it feels bad either way. We are just pointing out that there can’t be any sort of realistic engagements, BVR and WVR, when there is 20+ players all inside of missile slinging distance of each other for most of the match’s duration.
I just want kills and death to be more meaningful. Not this “Oh man, I only kept track of 6 enemies and then this 7th one came from above and killed me. Must be a skill issue. Onto the next game.”
Imho the increase in difficulty has nothing to do with time, it is about:
Arcade battles: Fast paced game play as a plain shooter - with a mouse and keyboard.
Realistic battles: More tactical & strategic game play - and actually flying & controlling an aircraft with a joystick and without this point and click nonsense with mouse aim and instructor.
Simulator battles: Removal of crutches like AEC, auto trim, 3rd party view, markers, etc. to be as close as possible to irl
Air RB is currently point and click but i get what you’re saying. Maybe once upon a time it coulda been a joystick mode but now people are married to point and click.
One of the very early interviews with the devs had a section that discussed what they were aiming for when they made the game modes and they explained that they wanted an average game time of 20 to 30 minutes since they figured that was about the time that most people had per day to play games.
Even the most popular PVP games today like fortnite, warzone and battlefield have matches that range from 20 to 30 minutes - battlefield being 30 minutes.
So that seemed to be the foundation of what drove their game mode design when they first introduced aviation game modes. Thats why i started with a generic outline regarding match length.
They dont even come close to their original 20 to 30 minute average anymore. Id bet its like an 11 minute average game time for air.
No,… the mouse aim might stay, but having no Markers on ennemies what so ever is currently good enough at high tier since we have radar, because the current is a nonesense.