Air RB is Shovelware

Upper tier Air RB’s entire game mode seems fine tuned for one thing:

  • Forcing the match to end as fast as possible.

Did you want a tactical PVP knife fight?

  • Well how does 16 vs 16 sound with modern jets, modern missiles, on maps with one spawn point, AI shoved into 1 central location, so that 120+ missiles are flying all over the place at once?

Did you want a strategic PVE mode?

  • Well how does braindead AI flying F-86 sabres against your F-15 sound? How does a bunch of WW2 pillboxes randomly placed within the center of the map sound? How about bombable bases that contribute nothing to the game at top tier sound? Or how about we just give you larger maps with no other changes sound?

Did you make it to the end of the match, successfully avoid the 120+ missiles, get to the final 1 vs 1 climax?

  • Well how would you like it that if in the middle of your final dogfight that you worked so hard for, the game just ends…

Remember our braindead AI?

Well they saw you were having a good time and suddenly gained 200 IQ points and started destroying all mid map AI to bleed tickets and end the match early…

WHAT A JOKE.

This game mode is in the saddest state Ive ever seen. Aside from shuffling players in and out of matches as fast as possible, there is no point of this mode.

It works okay at the lower tiers but falls flat on its face at top tier.

This is unacceptable. Ive seen mods created by one guy that had FAR better gameplay than Air RB.

Gaijin needs to do something about this because upper tier Air RB is NOT fun.

It’s Shovelware. All quantity. No quality.

45 Likes

Air RB needs to be reworked in a massive way. I’d start with removing 16v16 and making the max size 12v12 for rank VI and below, with 10v10 or 8v8 the default at rank VII-VIII.

I’d also remove ticket bleed, change bases to an actual objective(city, bridges etc.), while keeping similar rewards, and rework how Ai ground targets work. The PvE aspect of Air RB is poorly designed, and hasn’t been changed in a long time

Even at lower tiers its mid at best. The games are repetitive and not very engaging for half the match.

15 Likes

Do a rb search in replays and see what the average times is for a match

1 Like

Do you know what it is for the upper tiers? Like say tiers 7 and 8?

From my experience, at 12.3 its probably around 5 to 6 minutes, if that and at around 11.3 maybe around 7 to 9 minutes.

This is what happens when you take a game designed for WW2 machinery and keep adding new stuff because you want more money but do absolutely nothing about the core gameplay because you lack the creativity, ability, interest and competency to do so.

Your post was flagged as inappropriate : the community feels it is offensive, abusive, to be hateful conduct or a violation of our community guidelines.

29 Likes

No ieea been playing tanks. Just this secound did a search and everything on the first page is 4 to 7 minutes long. Takes 1min/1000m for the average prop to climb. Is it really worth it. I used to watch the first content providers on youtube and they would be disappointed how this game has turned out. Gaijin will keep pushing the players till they break the game and the players willstrike again 😆

1 Like

Lol, even at mid tier it’s insufferable because there’s no carry potential, you have to pray that your team is decent enough that they don’t get baited into the first furball they see. Going up against 7 people when you’re the only one alive because your team flew low is mentally infuriating.

I can carry teams, but doing it every damn often is not fun. No matter how good you are, always being forced to carry will never be fun. It’s exhausting.

1 Like

Highest I ever play for ARB is 5.7 in the Plagis Spitfire. If I want to play top tier jets, I play SB, massive maps, fewer players (usually) and overall more tactical gameplay. I tried the Gripen C once in ARB, hated it, not fun at all.

What’s stupid is you could do a lot to just patch ARB short-term before actually fixing it properly. A second AF and spliting the team to spawn on both, would widen the engagement area. Larger maps would help there too.

You could add better/more PvE stuff, but thats not what ARB is for, though we could really do with an RB EC Gamemode (ASB but RB controls)

3 Likes

This applies to the entire game, there are a 1000 small, no effort things they could do that would take them 5 minutes to implement and significantly improve the quality of the game, yet they have done absolutely nothing in 10 years.

13 Likes

Yep, totally agree. Actually, that does sound like an actually good thread to create

“Small changes to any gamemode with a big impact”

But yeah, I would actually love for them to not release any new vehicles or major features in 1 update and spend it ONLY doing bug fixes and gamemode TLC.

3 Likes

We’ve been suggesting things for the last decade, but it’s just the community arguing with each other, Gaijin isn’t on this forum and doesn’t want to spend time on the forums so we just get some moderators who don’t have any power to make changes anyways.

6 Likes

Probably won’t be the last time either, they simply do not listen.
Even their promises in the roadmap they’re not fulfilling.

3 Likes

I agree and I believe thats the reason wt is stuck at like 200k players average daily when other shooting games like csgo are at 900k+.

They are very good at 3d modelling for sure and I like the aspect of a virtual museum also. But, they focus too much on cosmetics when the gameplay mission-objectives still looks like in beta test and its actually the most important in a game.

4 Likes

They don’t do the 3D modeling though, they outsource that.
They had a good idea for a game, released it in 2013 and then realized all they had to do was to just add new vehicles to rake in the money.

3 Likes

What, no one disagrees with the OP? Fancy that.

I only play aircraft in sim, so honestly couldn’t comment on AirRB being the absolute worst. Maybe it is, but, TBH, you just described the whole of WT (outside the EC modes). So many comments above about ‘no imagination or creativity,’ ‘no new gameplay f-o-r-e-v-e-r,’ ‘just keep churning out half-baked new stuff, that at least looks good.’ All sadly true.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, of course! The one thing I credit Gaijin for and they don’t even do that. LOL. I expect they do have some talented programmers, but the suits stop them working on anything that might veer towards creativity.

2 Likes

They really have just given up on creativity and reserve creativity only for events but thats just such a waste of time because most events are 1 time things.

They really just have no motivation to change anything. The playerbase keeps growing and the only thing newer players care about is the grind and new vehicles.

Im all for the new vehicles but it seems to be the ONLY focus and it’s so frustrating.

When compared to other popular game modes, the aviation modes feel significantly dated. I mean Ground RB has its issues but it plays FAR better than Air RB.

So many of us have been shouting at Gaijin for years to no avail. Even CC’s submit polls to Gaijin with thousands of votes showing that players want a change to Air RB. But nothing yet.

Maybe the 2024 roadmap will have something but don’t hold your breath.

1 Like

No publicly is bad publicity 😆

Maybe the 2024 roadmap will have something but don’t hold your breath.

Even if it did, they’ve already shown to not to the things on them if they feel like it.

2 Likes

Shall we make a song about it?! I hope someday they will join us, we are not the only ones…

”So in everything: power lies with those who control finance, not with those who know the matter upon which the money is to be spent. Thus, the holders of power are, in general, ignorant and malevolent, and the less they exercise their power the better.”

— Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928): Freedom and Society, p. 153

Was he thinking of WT? What I said before about suits (those who control finance) stifling any creative devs (those who know the matter).

4 Likes