Air RB and its possible rework

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
,
162

It’s not the idea you don’t like, but the execution. A lot of other games use the same anti cheat technique, only in those game’s it’s implemented better so people are happy. The spotting system is very complicated, and I don’t honestly know if what you are referring to is a bug or intentional, but you seem to think it’s a bug.

You think they aren’t working as they are supposed to, so they are bugged.

While this bug does affect ARB, it’s not within the scope of this thread. I am well aware of a lot of bugs that affect aircraft, but you will see that I didn’t include any in my original post.

163

I’m dead xD

1 Like
164

“match dynamics”
Basically 16vs16 chaos purely based on luck. fly close to the ground to be invincible from radar missiles and fight in some dumb furball for a few minutes.

No strategy, no thought, its become just like ground battles, brainless call of duty style gameplay.

6 Likes
165

I find it incredible that 16v16 is still a thing in top tier ARB even after the multitude of threads made saying how utterly trash and garbage it is. The only way to get somewhat consistent wins in TT ARB is to get into a 4 man squad in the best planes.

5 Likes
166

Idk why you and @TheSeeker even started this exchange.

Ever thought about that the current spotting/marker system keeps cheaters away from Air RB? Most cheats in Ground RB are based on enabling spotting without markers…

Imho spotting & markers is (besides dots, contrails and sound) essential to assess enemy threats (location, amount of enemies and their energy state) outside SB, that is the reason why i play Air RB.

And yes, the spotting mechanics are not working as intended, this is purely a result of weather effects. Dusk / dawn weather, heavy clouds and various cloud layers at different altitudes (some are extremely thin) allow you to sneak up on enemies until it is too late.

As spotting and markers are a universal game function (like weather) - and markers also facilitate PvP actions - it makes no sense to discuss to terminate them just for radar equipped aircraft; neither from a game play nor from a game mechanic perspective - in prop RB tiers you need them.

I fully support any changes with regards to the markers regarding the annoying ai planes, so things like replacing ai dots on you minimap with triangles or anything different than enemy player aircraft, but this is imho a different topoic…

167

My opinion goes back and forth on enemy markers for RB.

The removal of them would definitely provide additional gameplay mechanics at the upper tiers but i understand how it could get extremely annoying and increase the “3rd partying” aspect. It would also give an advantage to players with good monitors.

Gaijin definitely needs some consistency with markers. Maybe it is the weather effects but there are times im literally dogfighting someone and they’re not spotted. It’s goofy and broken atm.

Even if markers for aircraft within a certain proximity remain on, maybe there is a way to make them more interesting without killing awareness.

For the upper tiers, I can imagine a setup where an enemy is spotted by a “diamond only” within a certain distance from your plane. This could be effected by crew skills.

  • this could be called “level 1” spotting.

This spotting could also cause friendlies within a certain distance only to spot that enemy as a diamond only. Maybe if you get super close to the enemy, the full spotting is revealed (plane type, player name, etc).

If you have a plane with a radar that is only pinging the enemy, now the red diamond is made larger and more noticeable.

  • this could be called “level 2” spotting.

This could now illuminate this specific enemy at distances greater than the standard level 1 spotting for you and your friendlies within a certain proximity to you.

Then if you successfully lock an enemy, now that enemy is fully revealed - plane type, name, etc.

  • This could be called “level 3” spotting.

Level 3 spotting could also occur within a certain proximity of your friendly airfields as well and potentially if we ever get an AWACS.

As stated above, level 3 spotting could occur if you’re just really close to the enemy as well.

I Just want something to make gameplay more strategic and interesting.

Right now spotting just feels like an RNG.

168

For this we will need extra-large maps like those in DCS and make sure every ingame jet gets their proper external fueltank loadouts.
Yes gaijin where are my fuel tanks for J-8B/F after even mig 21 got their tanks??
Also if we get AWACS and supersonic bombers i would really want to own them in my own hangar… I’ve been dreaming for the three drones and C-47/Ju 52 etc in my own hangars for a long time.
.
Also a similar rework for the PVE modes will be tasty.

169

In my opinion it would be great to revise markers to “just a red dot”, but that should be complimented by smaller lobbies, OR, by adding AWACS as well, and as long as AWACS “sees” the enemy plane the labels should be as informative as they are today. Haven’t thought this through in all aspects, but something along those lines. Therefore I vote to keep markers as is, because ONLY changing the markers in todays combat chaos (which is more suitable than “combat environment”) of 16v16, that would change many things drastically. MAYBE to the better, but that’s very hard to know. I would be open to have more different game modes cycling around in ARB matches (as EC vs. Regular are today), so that some matches are 8v8 or even 4v4 without labels, some are the 16v16 small map chaos we have today and some are EC. Hopefully even some more variants to give more varied gaming experiences.

170

A lot of people here only look at one of our proposed ideas in isolation. This would obviously not work. At least a few would have to be implemented together to be an improvement. We can’t really spread airfields across the map if all objectives remain in the middle, for example.

I also see a lot player focusing entirely on markers in this thread, while they are honestly the least of the problems ARB has, in my opinion.

I am working on making a mission that will incorporate most of these ideas so that players can actually play it, but it will take some time. Also not everything can be done, we don’t have radar datalink, so AWACS wouldn’t work, or at least it not in that way.

4 Likes
171

I agree with this. I also believe air spawns at altitude and spread out(perhaps in a line or multiple groups) would add more variety and options for tactics. I think it would make things less linear and also help with the “boring” fly in a line for 4 minutes and then furball that can be seen in the bigger top tier maps

With ARH coming this would give the option to BVR or you could dive to the deck, cashing in on altitude for speed for flanking.

Edit: I also believe that airspawns would be less work than adding airfields. So maybe that is something Gaijin might look at as an option.

2 Likes
172

Only concern I have is Bombing being a priority objective. Especially with Air spawns, a single squad of planes like the B-29 or Tu-4 could spawn and very quickly obliterate the objectives, leading to a quick game over with very few if any people actually managing to get kills or destroy other targets.

And it isn’t like currently Ground Pounding doesn’t affect the game- it very much does. The average ground target subtracts 100 tickets from the enemy team, the same as a kill of a player vehicle- and even now, solid ground pounding from vehicles like the Wyvern or the A2D make games quick and not fun to play.

So unless you remove airspawn, and make rewards better for people destroying ground pounding planes, I hardly see that working. The rest of this however isn’t bad, although I also personally don’t mind WT as it is now.

Edit: also, you would need to give every nation groundpounders of decently similar capabilities - if you put the US up against Germany or Great Britain or Japan or anybody pretty much who isn’t Russia, they are 100% winning that fight because of how much ordnance they carry and how fast/capable they are. The AD-4/2, or the AM-1, or the A2D, etc. etc. etc. all are better than any of their contemporaries save maybe the Wyvern, as an examples. So that would be another thing to have to consider.

2 Likes
174

skill issue, do you play ground arcade instead of realistic because you can’t see the tanks too??

175

Replying to both of your messages here.

The fact that you compare GRB and ARB directly indicated that you didn’t know the mechanics. At long ranges that’s super normal for air battle, objects are simply not rendered. And even within render distance, things are affected by crew skill. For GRB these are not a big issue as most battles are within 10km range.

So, the way you spoke only showed that you haven’t played ARB much and probably never played air sim, and you were just assuming and guessing.

3 Likes
176

Too many people using things like eyesight to justify the bumper bowling of markers in RB is dumb, I agree. But it must factually be said that War Thunder has too few game modes to be making drastic changes to the existing ones. Any of these changes MUST be implemented in an additional game mode, which means additional server capacity, which means additional cost without a direct way to offset that cost.

177

How comes? People that are playing this new mode are not playing ARB at the same time. No need for more capacity.

178

This has got to be one of the worst changes I have seen presented in the years Ive played for, the removal of markers for other players will lead towards a rat meta where you will have even less warning for the IRCCM no smoke missiles. Survival at top tier is dictated by your ability to detect and react to threats, 0 detection = 0 reaction = 0 fun.

You can currently get a feeling of this if you play high tier ground RB and die to an AIM9M, a mode where you may see 3 or so planes at a time. With this change you would be extending this to 16v16.

You already know the frustration you feel when you have a harrier or J7E drop a missile on you from 3KM above you but extend it into every single game with not just invisible missiles from players that you have no marker from but add active radar homing missiles on top of it.

personally I think there should be a larger range where you are able to see opponents so that you can be in a better position to react towards them.

1 Like
179

Of course, because our entire post is about markers. Also we never said we want markers removed, we just made a poll to see what other players think.

2 Likes
180

I dont get why they dont just make arcade 16v16 only, thats the whole point of the mode, arcade gameplay. Yet for some reason Gaijin goes to quite the extent to make sure their vehicles are accurately and realistically represented, but the combat they find themselves in is the direct opposite of realism.

Realistically a small group of planes 2, 4, or 8, would face off in BVR and joust with radar missiles until they merged, in war thunder that never happens because anything that carries r27er’s completely rules the high alt, due to the fact that they are several leagues better than any other radar missile in the game (why hasnt the phoenix been buffed?) and so everyone hugs the deck, meets in the middle of the map and the game plays out the exact same every time.

Challenger tanks and ATGMs are a perfect example for ground, they are designed to fight at long range but that only happens in war thunder 5% of the time, and so these vehicles perform poorly. This is why the ATGM nerf absolutely baffled me, try playing something like the striker or swingfire now xD. Its honestly a joke, and completely broken.

2 Likes
181

Yes, that’s… the whole idea. War Thunder is a big sandbox to play around with realistically-modelled vehicles in game/sports/etc-like matchups (two teams evenly matched, TDM or simple objectives, a defined area, etc).

This has always been what it’s supposed to be. War Thunder is not about specific conflicts/doctrine/tactics/etc, nor should it be.

182

“War Thunder is not about specific conflicts/doctrine/tactics/etc, nor should it be.”
It is about a specific doctrine though, close quarters CoD gameplay and only that.

1 Like