Air RB Needs a total rework, badly

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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41

A few words upfront and to clarify some things:

  • A discussion is based on the willingness to understand other people. The goal is not to prove who is right or wrong because opinions (in opposition to faith) are based on facts and depend from individual perspective - in a best case you encourage others to reflect their position.
  • But for this mutual respect is essential. And mutual respect is shown if you read carefully deviating opinions - there is no need to defend your position as your initial statement is your opinion. Full stop.

So if you claim that some things need to change - i am with you. But in case when others have a deviating views on your ideas there is no need to create infinite loops and to shift goalposts just to circumvent or cover the flaws in your ideas.

Imho any proposals to improve Air RB should include a holistic and balanced view on the game itself and should be an improvement for all players of all plane classes.

So even this is just a theoretical exercise, any rework should be balanced to satisfy all involved parties. My opinion about your ideas:

  1. Some of your ideas are good and more or less the same like hundreds of other posts in the recent years, and others not.
  2. And not because they are bad, mainly as some of your ideas are simply just not precisely defined, contradict each other or mainly they are not balanced for all plane classes.

The passion of flying is not exclusively connected to fly single engine fighters and we have a lot of passionate pilots loving other plane classes, mainly bombers and heavy fighters.

  • So even you presented your idea how the game could be better - your pov is clearly fighter oriented - we have this currently in Air RB - called TDM.

  • So all of your ideas sound balanced, but a closer look showed that they are not really an improvement for non-fighter classes.

  • And this is comprehensible as you have neither the necessary experience as strike/heavy fighter nor as bomber pilot to assess the complex connection between map size & design, target locations and distance to them and necessary circumstances to make non-single fighters effective and fun to play.

  • If you see fellow players as food, this is fine - wt is at the end of the day a shooter and from a holistic pov there is nothing wrong with thinking this way. But i have serious issues if you ignore examples which were solely aimed to widen your view to see the broader picture.

  • I mean you admit that your heavy fighter experience is rather limited and after visiting Thunderskill i understand why you think that your smaller map proposal would be good for bombers too - you have imho zero experience in them, that’s why you fail to understand that it won’t work.

I tried my best to show you that your proposal “smaller maps” sounds good in theory, but is actually rather counterproductive for bombers and heavy fighters - and i used one small map (regarding distances between airfields), Frontline Mozdok, as example and connected this with your second (imho) critical proposal slots equally distributed by teams to show you the weak points of your thoughts, not more, not less.

Frontline Mozdok is imho near to that what you described - small distances, ground targets not in the middle of the map etc.

Small map Mozdok with your ideas

So imagine a 8 vs 8 with 3 strategic bombers, 2 attackers and 3 fighters per side. Team A comes with 3 Sterlings 2 Wyvens and 3 Chinese P-38s, Team B with 3 B-17s, 2 Do 335s and 3 P-38s. The Sterlings will never get near a base before the B-17 are in gun range, the 335s and the Wyvern kill each other in headons and even if one B-17 get killed by the 3 Sterlings there is simply no improvement for the Sterlings compared to today.

The different combat capabilities of different aircraft within the same class and identical or similar BRs makes this whole topic extremely complex.

Every successful heavy bomber pilot will tell you that he has to be smarter than the average fighter pilot in order to have a chance to drop and to rtb. If your proposal of close ranges to bases would be reality - after one week nobody would fly a “real” bomber as all bomber pilots would have to switch to stuff like T-18Bs, Tu-2s, Brigands or B7A2s as they would have otherwise no realistic chance for a drop in anything else.

Same with heavy fighters, they need room to be effective and on smaller maps they would have the same issue as bombers - their dots are visible right after spawn.

In order to end this imho just at the beginnin rather interesting discussion i decided to reply a last time in this matter to you. It is frankly spoken rather annoying to continue with a discussion when i got confronted with permanent shifting of goalposts and ignoring of deviating views.

In the OP is mentioned that ideas can be presented - and ideas might be discussed. So if i reply to 2 ideas (small maps & slot allocation) and gave you clear signs why that might be a not an improvement it makes zero sense to start discussions about BRs, usage of certain planes or you opinion about air spawns, their altitude or if they deserve that or not .

Because from a pure logical point you have just 2 ways to deal with your idea of small maps:

  1. You define a combat scenario including a map and adjust all aircraft regarding classification, actual combat effectiveness vs current BRs, air spawn, time to target and best way to give them a purposeful game play in order to contribute

or

  1. You come from the aircraft performance on average and adjust game play (maps and objectives) based on current performance and try to improve their game play and the fun whilst using them with minor adjustments to aircraft settings like BRs, classification, air spawn or not.

Every other approach will kill the idea as you get overwhelmed by the underlying complexity.

If you choose path #1 it is pointless to reply to every counter argument like:
“Do this, do that” or “I have no problems with that” or “adjust this parameter” and so on an so forth as this should have been considered upfront - and the discussion drifts away from the core as you get lost in details.

Have a good one!

I decided to out put a spoiler to my feedback to your last post as your reply was imho not really suited to improve prop Air RB.

Summary
  • Imho it can deal with almost every fighter and it was even in my 2.247 matches in the TT version the perfect weapon to fight XP-50 and Yak-3 spam.
  • What a plane needs and what it gets are different topics and your assessment is your private opinion.
  • With the same logic all interceptors with extreme good climb rates would need a lower airspawn.
  • And - a “real” interceptor should have sacrificed turn vs climb and armament - so by giving these planes an IC spawn even gaijin increases the gap vs non-airspawn fighters.

  1. If i say i reverse climb on small maps in my SM 92 in a full uptier in order to have a chance for a good positioning it should be clear that there is a very strong connection between map sizes, distance to bases and combat effectiveness.

  2. So even if you assess them as “shit in one way or another” does this not imply that others come to the same conclusions - if you check my stats in this plane you might realize that these can be played, it requires just more experience to make them work.

  3. So if the distance to bases is too small you can’t get fast enough to altitude - if the distance is too great, you get outclimbed by fighters with airfield spawn.

  4. Therefore your reply just proves that you assume that your way to play the game was the basis for your proposal - despite i wrote earlier that there is no challenge for me to fly single engine fighters - and imho also not for others if they have more than 10 days fighter experience as their experience advantage vs the average opponent is way too high.

  5. And yes, besides a few exceptions twin engine fighters suck usually - that’s why i fly them.

  • This is nice for you but has the same confidential level as mine - purely anecdotal.
  • And tbh imho there is huge gap between anecdotal evidence and facts - and you can claim whatever you want, nobody cares.
  1. Same here - nobody cares.
  2. And the question is not how you perform
  3. And frankly spoken your stats do no not confirm your self-assessment.

If you try to defend your initial positioning by rejecting other positions and not considering them as plain & simple feedback you missed the key part of any fruitful discussion - trying to understand deviating opinions and to reflect your own positioning.

Seeing your replies just as rather one-side declarations of your views, it makes for me no sense to continue, thx for understanding!

2 Likes
42

Fox-3 will reduce team sizes 😆 WT has turned into chance or dare as it is right now

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If we could agree, that we talk here just about prop BRs, i’d like to respond:

Your idea sounds comprehensible if you share the underlying assumption that there is a higher demand for fighters vs non fighters.

  • Imho this has to be seen as a BR related assumption and also seen in the context of BP tasks or grinding events.

  • After an actually rather painful experience to spade the IT/HUN Tu-2S-59 at BR 5.7 (31 missions 30% full uptiers, 30% full downtiers) i would actually rather not recommend to follow this path as from my perspective we have at certain BRs a much higher demand for grinders.

  • You see at 3.7 the current Il-8 spam, the 4.3 Wyvern spam just followed by a concentrations at 5.7 (Do 225 B-2 and corresponding AD2 & AD-4s) which clearly shows a demand.

  • A limitation of non-fighter slots would therefore face a rather stiff resistance despite i agree that it might be suited to improve the game play in general.

The need for limitations of slots is imho also connected to the actual use versus the intended use, so “banning” of non-fighters which are acting as fighters would be a relief for their enemies at some BRs, but those pilots able to contribute with PvP actions in non-fighters have to be seen rather as a benefit for their own team, so i am not sure this might be appreciated.

I don’t refer here to guys flying out op stuff like Wyverns, i saw a lot of skilled AD-4 and AM-1 pilots able to intercept Ju 288s before they could drop - and much more “designated” fighters dying to return fire…

Imho the higher you go, the less numbers of non-fighters you see. In my 6.7 uptiers i was often the sole bomber in my team, and the other side had often 4 bombers (Ju 288 & Ar 234) and 3-4 Do 335s, so the slot regulation is imho done by the game itself, but is strongly connected to their actual combat effectiveness.

But i fully agree there should be a kind of limit - as written in an earlier post it is sometimes pointless to play certain matches just by looking at your team composition and the played map.

I really like this idea.

But imho the effectiveness of “bomber” vs bomber is not only related to “significant forward firepower”.

  • Based on own experiences the forward firepower is just the most obvious aspect - a high performance bomber like a B-18B or a Ju 288 excels not with rather limited forward firepower (fixed 13.2 autocannon / MG 131 Z in chin turret) but with very strong turrets (13.2 / MG 151) - so backward firepower. So an experienced pilot intercepts an enemy bomber best by predicting his flight path and by “parking” in front of him - and spray him down.

  • Helldivers, T-18Bs and Brigands which excels with bomber kills could be tamed just by the role they were developed for.

  • If the bomber spawn is intended to allow bombers to kill a base, they need a bomb sight for level bombing - this takes the SB2C and the Brigand out.

  • The T-18B and the T-18B 57mm were specific attack versions of the B-18B - so classifying them as strike aircraft is more than justified.

  • Regarding all other aircraft you mentioned - imho hard to justify as long as they have a navigator/bombardier and were actually used as level bomber. I mean following your logic you would have to include the B-26 too.

  • If you consider that the more dakka approach on US bombers comes from their usage in low strafing runs after or whilst attacking as level bomber (and this is also valid for all other real bombers) i would recommend to focus on comprehensible reasons like missing bomb sight and intended role as strike aircraft.

A few additional remarks:

  • Following your overall logic, you might think about strike aircraft which perform extremely well as fighters.
  • Or plain nightfighters classified as interceptors like Do 217J or P-61s.
  • Or unjustified IC spawns for Fw 190As, F-82s, etc - or even such plain things like the rejection of the air spawn of the Navy’s pendent of the XP-50, the XF5F - accompanied by several JP interceptors without air spawn.
  • Or why is the air superiority spawn deviating from the IC spawn? Why has a single Ki-61 an air spawn and all others not?

It boils down that a hell of classifications are set by gaijin in their attempt to balance - together with BRs and “adjustments” of flight models, but these effects are rarely connected to irl events or actual combat performance.

Have a good one!

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The fundamental issue there is that you simply cannot please everyone.
Fighter players will always complain that a bomber or attacker is space climbing and delaying the end of the match. Attacker and bomber players will complain they can’t play purely PvE and never get intercepted by fighters ever.

I’ve been around for years, I’ve seen all this happen.

I don’t play bombers or attackers much because they provide zero actual gameplay. They’re cool aircraft and all but flying in a straight line and pressing spacebar a couple times isn’t for me and I don’t see how anyone can have fun doing so. Attackers are slightly more useful but you still rely on your opponent screwing up so that you don’t die instantly - this was hilariously the case somewhat recently when a Typhoon lost a dogfight to my Bf 110 G2, which is an overweight brick that preys on complacency.
I still question whether he was a paid actor or not.

Frontline Mozdok is just too small, you can easily see the enemy airfield right after taking off. That’s not what I want either. And besides, due to how high up the airspawns are you might be able to drop your bombs before being intercepted anyway…

The Great Heavy Fighter Rant

Spoiler

Heavy fighters just suck for the most part and are a terrible idea to fly, bar a few options. The main upside of extra range just isn’t relevant to WT, but all the tradeoffs in agility and speed are.
The only “heavy fighter” I’ve flown in an appreciable amount is the Bf 110 C, which can hold its own against single engine ones. Not as good as the 109 E4, but it’s good enough and nobody expects it to hang with them. Again, preying on complacency.

This is not something that can be argued - a plane whose primary role is shooting down other planes, that is slower and less maneuverable than the average single engine fighter at its BR is NOT a good aircraft. You can make it work by working harder than everyone else for the same result, sure, this doesn’t make them good.
I don’t think it’s a great idea to worsen the experience for everyone else because one unpopular plane type benefits slightly when what they really need is a BR reduction or an entirely separate gamemode - Air RB EC, where the increased endurance might actually matter. This also goes for attackeds and bombers, which see far more actual use in Sim EC because the gamemode encourages it with a much longer match timer and the inability to win by just killing 16 players.

People grind with premium attackers and bombers because it’s easy, not because they enjoy it. The F-5C is a fantastic fighter - how many have you seen strapped down with bombs? I’ve seen too many doing so. Even with the new F-20. A Wyvern squad can literally end the game on tickets in some maps before any of the fighter players spot the enemy team.
I ask people why they recommend the Ju288, the answer is always something along the lines of “it requires no effort to turn a profit”, as they help ruin the 6.0 ARB experience for everyone else.

Again, I don’t see a point in accomodating this type of player when they have singlehandedly ruined an entire BR range, at the very least. One could argue that Wyverns and XP50s ruined another.

The Stats

Spoiler

Yeah, some of my stats don’t look great. For starters, you can freely assume that 1/4 to 1/2 of my matches in any given aircraft are in Ground RB where not having markers and being able to sneak up on people is fantastic, but I also get slapped by AA I wasn’t careful with, or I uptier my aircraft a little too much, or I get caught out by someone who sneaked up on me, or something else.

Even in Air RB, I don’t play for the most kills. I will intentionally give my opponents altitude and speed advantages if it means they’ll actually fight me instead of floating 2km above, in front, or behind me for the entire match. I’ll give airfield campers the easiest times ever just so they crawl out of their hidey hole and play the game. I go after what I perceive to be the biggest threats instead of the easiest kills and I toy with my food. As one might surmise, this isn’t the most optimal way to play if I seeked only to flex with stats.
This is fine, as I seek cool fights and good times instead.

My suggestions address two of the major problems that the general community and myself have spotted - team imbalances caused by plane types (as in, 6.0 air rb) and too long a flight time to get into combat. It doesn’t have to be like arcade, but we can cut down on that a little for no degradation in gameplay, and I see both of these as issues that are very much worth addressing.

I’m not gonna back down on my suggestions just because they’re not perfect - issues can be fixed (rather easily when people are willing). The core of the matter is that 32 players in a match is too much, and if we’re reducing that we should also reduce map size. Attackers and bombers are simply unsuited for a mode with no respawns.

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Half of each team will experience a significant emotional event after takeoff, you say?

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Nobody asked for that.

Imho we have just fundamentally different understanding what a rework should offer:

vs:

That’s all.

That 16 vs 16 is too much for Air RB is nothing new, it it is discussed since introduction.

That small map sizes might be a benefit for guys that look for more instant action - might be true. But that things like tactics, strategy or something like a game plan got lost in the last 3-4 years is a fact. And smaller maps are imho detrimental for strategic game play.

So i agree (ofc) to smaller lobbies, and disagree to smaller maps.

No big thing. There is no need for a consensus.

Have a good one!

To outline my understanding of a more challenging game play i use a map which was mentioned in a parallel thread.

That an 8 vs 8 for prop BRs on such a map:

slika
slika1113×1108 109 KB

(see thread)

…would give all plane classes (including non-fighters) a realistic chance to follow their intended roles is from my perspective clear.

Some pros and cons:

  • Yes - guys on speed grind tours won’t like it just due to the sheer size, same as min fuel spammers as you needed fuel here.

  • And yes, the map had some drawbacks - mainly caused by stupid spawn locations, but the map is large enough that even a Sterling or a Yer-2 have realistic chances to drop and rtb.

  • But this depends on his skills to choose the right route and right strategy. So as today, the guy flying straight to a base will get killed, the guy able to “read” a game, able to spot openings and able to spot dots (not markers) can evade spotting if gaijin finally fixes the way too low contrail alt - see bug report.

  • The 4 bases were non-respawning and the 2 airfields were “killable” - despite this happend almost never as you needed about 10-12 tons of TNT for each. A base required around 0.5 tons of TNT.

  • As a fighter you had all options: Going for bombers, escorting own bombers, defendind own CAS planes or going for enemy CAS or like many US pilots - max loadout and killing pillboxes, tanks or bases - or just looking for dogfights with enemy fighters, But you needed a strategy and you knew that going low will get you killed very quick as you get swarmed and your airfield was too far away.

As a summary:

The map forced you to think about what you are doing and was a pleasure to fight on if you had some experience. The map got less exiting after the cut to 25 minutes, but is was one of my favorites.

If you add stuff like more challenging target for friends of CAS (like described here) like slowing or stopping enemy ai by killing bridges (we had this also on Korea) it would be perfect…at least from my pov.

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47

Who has not had an emotional breakdown because of WT 😆

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48

The main point with the matchmaker having distinct slots is to begin the long road to getting fighter mains and nonfighter mains off each other’s throats. I find the mutual hostility between these entrenched camps beyond silly at this point. If nonfighters existing on a team no longer means they are “taking up potential fighter slots,” that is one less reason for a fighter main to get mindlessly angry at “bot farmers” and “spacebar warriors” (quoting terminology from one of the most unbelievably selfish diehard fighter mains of the old forum, X_Broman_X) for simply existing.

After all, if the game was meant to be purely a fighter deathmatch, then why aren’t purebred bombers and attackers only AI-controlled? Because popularity issues aside, even in the Combined Arms modes a fighter-bomber is leagues better than a dedicated nonfighter due to better speed and often agility.

The issues of intentional gunshipping will always be an occasional nuisance. An He-177 tried to pull that xxxx on me, and I proceeded to pitch up and saw his wing off with the dual Hispano Mk. V turret on the Shackleton.

I personally think that only reward coercion can mostly curb various “abusive behavior” - intentional gunshipping, fighters cutting grass, airspawn abusing attackers and bombers, dedicated bomber interceptors abusing airspawns to bounce climbing fighters, etc. Where you pick a designated role for your plane before queuing, you gain large bonus rewards (say 5-10x more) for killing targets in your designated role, and you have greatly reduced rewards (say 5-10x less for killing targets outside your role. Intentionally too large a modifier to ignore unless you’re such a long-term veteran player that SL is meaningless.

And obviously there are many other planes which would fall under the example of “airspawn abusing bomber playing Ersatz Fighter,” I just listed popular examples. Of course the B-26 would count, even though its downward-angled guns make it quite ineffective at the job IMHO.

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I like the underlying idea of connecting SL/RP income to fulfilling intended roles - but this would add another level of complexity, and imho punishments are way less effective that increasing rewards.

Your description of the eternal fight between fighters and bombers (at least in the community) is somehow correct, but imho not the issue. Gaijin itself nerfed and still nerfs bomber game play constantly - as they state " the ultimate goal of wt is to kill an enemy" or something like that when they introduced the (s)kill bonus.

The main problem of wt Air RB is the low entry level to participate (either by point and click by fighters or pressing spacebar in bombers) combined with the increasing numbers of non-pilots in it.

If you revisit the OP you might agree that almost all changes in the last 4 years were aimed to further reduce the necessity to learn & to improve - in other words the average Air RB player became less smart (polite) and the game play less challenging for already experienced pilots.

So ideas to avoid “abuses” of aircraft outside their intended roles are welcomed and appreciated but imho they just scratch on the surface of the underlying issue:

Gaijin tries everything to make skill less important and reduced the outcome of most matches to a random event - and the reduced skill requirements makes the game mode highly attractive for ever increasing numbers of non-pilots.

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50

The reason Gaijin keeps nerfing bomber gameplay is partially because of fighter vs bomber animosity. Since fighter mains outnumber nonfighter mains, fighter whine ends up being the loudest collective voice, and thus gets listened to, leading to repeated gutting of every single bomber, bar none.

And yet if that is supposedly the ultimate goal, why do we even have player-controlled non-fighters at all? There is not one game mode where nonfighters are on equal footing in terms of objective relevance to fighters, save for maaaaybe some bombers in Sim EC purely because of arcadey 3rd person gunner view and how bombsight mechanics work. If aerial PvP was the only goal, we could have the exact same result without question if all bombers, attackers, and most bomber-killer-specialist heavy fighters were little more than AI-controlled set-pieces on maps.

Dedicated attackers and bombers aren’t any more relevant in Combined Arms modes, either. Fighter-bombers are faster and more agile, and thus can both defend themselves from fighters and dodge surface-to-air gun/missile fire more easily.

Indeed, and this is a travesty, to say the least.

That’s why both bonuses and maluses in tandem were the idea. Not just one, but two stacking incentives to do the job you’re queuing for, or you will earn basically nothing for your time inputted. Changing roles mid-match would be possible if some people have died and there are slots available, provided your plane can do that role.

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Imho you are right with “partially”.

From my pov average fighter pilots are just acting like the overwhelming majority of wt players if they face obstacles they can’t handle either because they are unwilling or unable to deal with them - they cry for mom & dad irl and in wt for gaijin. The better fighter pilots are aware of that “real” bombers are no threat - just the the noob unable to choose the right approach or unwilling to outclimb high performance bombers complain (ofc there are exceptions).

I do not believe that the majority of bomber nerfs are actually connected to the complaints of fighter pilots, maybe the open nerfs of ai gunners and the hidden nerfs with accuracy of manual gunners are related to that but imho gaijin is simply unable to balance bombers correctly regarding BR settings and game impact.

I mean the total number of playable aircraft is a valid point to see this kind of aircraft classes active in wt, but gaijin is not really a fan of bombers. Because with some pilot skill, they are actually a pain to kill. This depends of course on the selected model, weather specific circumstances like heavy clouds and the average IQ of the chasing fighters.

Example of being a pain to kill

3 or 4 months ago i played in my SM 92 a 2 vs 7 on the UK map, with me a Halifax and the guy wanted to land and rearm. I convinced him to climb and he reached 8.500 - 9.000 meters and i flew top cover (at 10-11 km). I flew the Halifax on my old account and knew that the plane is very fast at very high alt - the few P-38s and P-51s pitching up had severe issues to get even on co-alt and in gun range. A few short dives on them and they had to go down - ofc we won by tickets. But without the extremely heavy clouds and without blocking their blind hunt orders long enough and buying him time to climb, i might have lost the Halifax.

Example of being a pain to kill II

If you watch this replay just focus on the enemy bomber, a PV-2D. He got almost teamkilled after spawn, repaired and killed all 3 non-respawning bases on Poland in a low level bomb run.
And he used the good speed of his plane at tree top to gun down my last 3 teammates (2 Yak 9s, 1 B-25) with help ftom his af aaa.
Checking his stats i saw a rather experienced fighter player (66days) but i also saw on his TNT dropped that he used sea mines to bomb the bases, which are totally useless vs tanks and pillboxes.
And instead of switching to GP bombs on his af he kept the mines. All i had to do was staying alive and just attack when he would kill a few pillboxes and avoid being hit by his upper turret - he attacked pillboxes with mines instead of his 0.50 cals, killed a few worthless aaa and lost.
There was no need to force an attack on a guy trying to gunship you whilst you are flying with a level 3 crew. And you see that a rather good fighter pilot is not automatically also a good bomber pilot.

And being a pain to kill means longer match times (which increases queue times) and an increased level of difficulty for the average player - both are not desired goals for gaijin.

Imho there is some truth in it, as from a holistic pov the sole purpose of the game is player interactions. And markers in Air RB for enemy and friendly bases or ground units are just gaijin’s way of “engagement optimized” map layout.

You could also argue that PvP activities are just implemented to create a kind of more realistic scenario than pure PvP. Or you might argue that PvE game play is just implemented to increase the number of available air targets for PvP players…

The main issue of PvE in a bomber is the effort you have to invest in a game to contribute to your team effort to win. If you exclude high performance stuff like B-18Bs or the very rare Tu-2 at 4.3 all bombers are killable, it just depends on the skill of your opponents. For “average bombers” above BR 3.7 it is hopeless to play Air RB…

And - if you had a long day and you need to calm down:

Use the Ju 88 A-1 for one or two relaxing matches - very effective with some experience (80% WR) in 144 matches. And i actually lost just 2 planes in these matches (one to buffed midfield aaa and one vs a pathetic stat padder with 177 days as fighter in rank I & II, there is nothing you can do vs a Jap 109 with 20mm) - just because i was able to avoid enemy fighters by reverse climbing. And the high win rate is a result of airfield kills - i came in very late and very high, usually the bomb load was enough to kill one base and the enemy af.

2 Likes
52

I believe that repeated nerfing of bomber ability to have an impact on game outcome lies squarely at fighter mains’ feet. Why? Every time a bomber of decent potency is added, fighter mains complain about it doing its job and actually having to go shoot it down or lose. Thus after enough complaining, we see its BR raised, its gunners made to shotgun more even manually, and the bombing objectives neutered so much that it loses all relevance (this happened when the Me-264 was added, for example).

Economic nerfs are definitely not related to fighter whine. But everything else I’d daresay is.

I found it especially rich that certain fighter mains dared to call attackers “skill-less bot farmers” and bombers “brainless spacebar warriors,” when to even begin mattering to your team’s outcome you need to have the stars align seven times over.

Had a match in the premium Su-6, El Alamein. When left unopposed I was able to wipe out more than half the tickets myself, but then my fighters melted and I was hopelessly swarmed. Ended that round with 1 air kill and 23 ground kills.

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53

So it appears I was chat-banned for stating an obvious fact and someone with banning power not wanting to accept reality.

In a few Air RB matches I played yesterday using my Su-6 and Do-335B-2, I would frequently see anywhere between 2-6 enemy players drop everything and dive immediately for me regardless of the map (the aforementioned El Alamein round was the sole exception), and me, not wanting to reward their terrible behavior, would purposely crash just as they were about to get in gun range.

Then I’d say something in chat to the line of “Fighters, not attackers, win 99.9% of matches. Why not go kill those first?”

And someone clearly did not like being told that blatant fact that they were wasting their time to climb and altitude on a plane which really didn’t matter much to game outcome.

SMDH…

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54

Chat has been disabled for everyone. I don’t think you were chat banned.

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55

Oh, what for? Has it been stated?

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idk the exact reason; some have put hypothesis forwards but i’d rader wait for an official reason if it’ll be given.

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In an EC mode, attackers are far more relevant if you want to do ground attack. The better payloads alone justify it.

Of course they’re nowhere near as important when you can simply win the match by shooting the entire enemy team down and there are no respawns.

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58

What I’m seeing is more evidence that we need proper manoeuvre kill credit more than anything else…

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They used to be before the AI units were swapped out for player tank models.

Now, fighter-bombers are the best, followed ironically by strategic bombers (to outrange the laser-accurate SPAA), followed then by dedicated attackers only after the SPAA are all dead.

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Ah, I see we’re back to terminator AAA.

Even with detailed DMs for tanks, having more bombs on board is definitely an upgrade.