I’ve been playing War Thunder for over 10 years, with around 44 in-game days in Air RB and 11 in-game days in Air AB.
Throughout the years, I have seen very little attention given to Air RB, when compared to other game modes. With a few exceptions, Air RB has remained mostly the same. The same old mechanics from the P-26 through the F-16. Air RB remains a super-simple team deathmatch. At the lower tiers, this works relatively well. The matches are a decent length, there’s some strategy, bombers/attackers have AI to attack, and if you desire respawns, low-tier Air AB is pretty fun. However, at the upper tiers of aviation, Air AB is a missile-spam, unplayable mess and Air RB is deeply flawed.
Simply put, top tier Air RB satisfies nobody.
From what I’ve seen, there tends to be two types of upper tier Air RB players:
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Those who want fairly quick PVP matches.
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Those who want longer strategic encounters with a mix of PVP and PVE gameplay.
The solution that could please every type of player would be to split Tiers 6 - 8 Air RB into two modes: Air RB Team Deathmatch and Air RB Enduring Confrontation .
Air RB Team Deathmatch could be very similar to what we currently have. No respawns, non-EC maps, but with smaller teams - 8 vs 8 to 10 vs 10 max. There certainly is a good debate to be had as to whether this mode would retain bases to bomb or airfield AAA but that’s for a separate debate.
Air RB Enduring Confrontation could take the current EC maps we have and expand upon them. I would like to see multiple airfields per side, AI ground forces spread out along the front line of the battle, aircraft carriers (if the map has water), the current 16 vs 16 team size, rolling objectives, improved AI, longer match times, most importantly respawns. This mode could add a significant amount of strategy and fun to Air RB, similar to how it does for Sim. The ability to respawn would significantly change the dynamics of the battle. Sure, the initial furball will still occur, as it does currently in Air RB but the battle gets interesting after the initial furball and when the losing team starts respawning in and the winning team scatters to either reload, hit objectives or push towards their respawning opponents. This would allow for a much more dynamic battle. Air RB EC would also allow for the addition of more weapons and aviation platforms such as supersonic bombers, long range air to ground missiles and we could actually use anti-shipping missiles.
Please consider splitting Air RB. I believe War Thunder currently has the player base to make this happen without a major impact on the matchmaker.
Thanks for reading.