Air RB Needs a total rework, badly

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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21

Thanks for your efforts to write some things down.

As the player above - i am a prop main, and i have together with an inactive account >400 days game time.

Despite i share your general view on most issues - i am not sure if the T2 is solely responsible for the de facto elimination of the historical MM and the following downward spiral and deterioration of Air RB.

But at the end it doesn’t matter - the mode is ruined and will never recover; all proposals of passionate pilots will be killed by economic interests of gaijin - and the overwhelming majority of players which see Air RB as a tool to get somewhere else.

The mixed MM (like US vs US) and the end of the historical MM (still there, you see it in small prop lobbies) were major factors in this decline, yes, but imho this respawning bases nonsense in May 2020 had a much worse effect - the mode changed to a grinding tool for everybody able to hold a mouse.

More detailed view on past and current facts:
My retrospective Golden Age for props

At prop BRs you had at the end of these days a kind of tired lobbies, flying axis was boring like hell as 109s outclimbed almost everything, and the Spits at higher alt get swarmed, US fighters were totally outclimbed and flying JP vs RU was similar unbalanced; the only exceptions happend when some Be-6 pilots slammed 80% of your team.

Same with maps - i flew on Norway when US/UK had an air spawn and axis not. As soon as Air Spawn for both teams were implemented US/UK teams sucked like everywhere else.

And I remember those painful 1 hour long fights on Pacific maps whilst flying US planes like on Wake Island - mainly caused by airfield take-off by US and air spawn for Japan fighters. In case you manged to sneak out of the hordes of Ki-84s, J2M2s and A6M5s bouncing on you, you needed 15-40 minutes to outrun and later outclimb them above 8 km in order to use your superior speed to do something. Lower you had always J2Ms above you, Ki-84s behind at same alt and 3-5 Zeros below and behind you - as you were mostly alone after 5 minutes vs their entire team.

With a realistic view on things you might agree that you can’t compare 2019 Air RB with 2024 Air RB - the sum of changes by gaijin and the shift within the player base (instant action addicted) made it impossible to enjoy Air RB as a whole, you have to find niches to somehow enjoy the mode looking for the “perfect match” - meaning dogfights vs skillful opponents in better planes and winning totally outnumbered by a mix of skill, luck, better tactics and overall strategy.

If you look close enough you see also a shift of axis dominance in props - the times of GER/IT/JP teams stomping everything else are long gone.

  • Gaijin presents in every BR step and ranks a superior fighter for US and RU/USSR players - a lot of them severely undertiered, just think at stuff like P-39 N at 2.7; the 3.0 USSR version at rank III, the P-51 C-10, the 4.3 Yak-3 and F4U-4, the Yak-3U at 5.3, F4U-4b 5.7, P-51 H-5 at 6.3…

  • This is no accident, they simply offered the most popular nations US and RU tools with undertiered stuff nobody else has - in order to make their grind easier and to get faster in ranges where the money comes from: High/top tier jets for insane prices…

Regarding MM in jets - i mean the results you describe are connected to reality - the cost explosion of developing high end stuff resulted in just 2 nations able to afford it (or not) - the only 2 exceptions were France (proud but bankrupt) and Sweden (neutral and they had and still have the money); everything else is just trash from a technological pov.

So if gaijin releases a new shiny aircraft for nation A it has usually at release date some op features and it get ordered like hell - and later u see a slight nerf and nation B get a new shiny aircraft - repetition in infinite loops…

The forum is full with very good proposals of highly experienced and passionate pilots - but imho they are not the target group of gaijin. And from their pov the current form of Air RB reflects exactly the needs of the paying majority of players - just look at the ever increasing numbers of players, they want to play a plain shooter with instant action and an easy grinding tool.

So at the end of the day all requests for a rework will be ignored as neither gaijin nor the majority of fresh players with access to credit cards see a need for it. I mean if you look closer - all proposals increase complexity and the need for things like tactics and strategy, this stuff is totally absent in most matches.

I hope that gaijin will offer an additional mode combining the good things of the old word and implementing the ideas of passionate players in a niche mode (between Air RB and Air SB) - actually i would pay 5-20€/$ for a monthly subscription - but i see such an offer more in 3-5 years, currently gaijin won’t reduce player numbers in Air RB…

Have a good one!

2 Likes
22

So basicly gaijin only have short term interests in its player base. Sounds like to me the story of the goose that laid the golden egg

23

A rework is very much needed. I won’t play anymore until Air RB is fixed.

24

No thank you. Air RB is easily one of my favourite modes, I’m absolutely against any “reworks”.

More carriers to land on and night matches would be nice though.

1 Like
25

I can add several things I see as glaring issues:

  • Ability of any single objective to end games automatically (killing all players on enemy team, killing all ground units, and on a few maps still destroying the airfield). This discourages teamwork, and pits people who main fighters and those who main nonfighters at each others throats. I have nothing against fighters or their fans in principle - I only think that fighters finishing their job should not prevent nonfighters from finishing theirs.
  • The mere existence of red enemy markers on aircraft causes most games to degrade into a big furball centered around who was spotted first. In prop tiers this overly favors turn radius and climb rate. In jets it just makes things a mess of too many missiles to possibly evade them all.
  • Maps either being far too small from as early as 3.3 BR onwards, and/or ground unit distribution on maps being limited to one postal code even when the playable map area is enormous. Funnels everyone to one spot with a poor bomber or attacker as the initial lure - even though said plane really can’t do much else as it isn’t designed for Air PvP.
  • I see the use of player tank ground units to not be all that bad, but with match timers being so short people will simply not bother going for them. Same with naval pillboxes. We have the short-range runways closer to the ground scuffle to rearm ordinance at but not the time to bother and not the point to bother since PvP auto-ends every game barring a spaceclimber dragging things out.
4 Likes
26

This is my credo for years - but the majority has no problem with dying, this multi-spawn nonsense of Ground RB (and all other modes) made them resilient to fight for their survival. Basic things like turning away from enemies if intercepted, improve positioning before engagements or simple things like evasive action and using gunners at the same time are no rocket science, but they are very rare to see…

I fully support most of view and points, but imho this is a wish list that requires so much efforts from gaijins side, that it is unclear for me how you want to convince gaijin to invest money for a change.

Despite i liked your post i have deviating views on map sizes and slot allocation.

Regarding smaller maps:

  • I mean these smaller maps would require a total rework for prop tiers and the fellow players enjoying missile thunder need actually larger maps; currently you see maps like City and Kamchatka at rank III and at high/top tier in more or less the same layout.

  • Just look at Frontline Mozdok - you have this there. Matches there are usually a pain as the snowball effect starts much earlier - so the 8 vs 2 or 2 vs 8 situation happens much earlier than usual. And even if they would reduce team sizes , so you then play 1 vs 4 either above your or their airfield.

  • Large maps helps you to exploit weaknesses of your enemies - like better performance at higher alt in order to fight better performing planes at lower alt. Smaller maps end much earlier above the enemy airfield - leading to the usual camping.

  • And smaller maps just work in favor for US teams with a high number of ic/air superiority spawn. Not long ago my team with 2 air spawn 110s faced 4 XP-50s, 2 P-61s and 2 French VB-10s - great job gaijin.

  • On larger maps i am able to create 1 vs 1 s by playing noob and luring 1 or 2 to follow me and as soon as one gives up i can win these fights, but small maps (depending on the position of your airfield) takes these possibilities away as you either run in the map border or other team members won’t break off looking for easier targets.

  • And larger maps require skill, luck and much more preparation for risky attacks. I survived today a 35 km defense run on the very large Sinai map - from the enemy forward airfield (i caught 3 guys landing, 1 kill, 1 severe damage and the third jumped out before repair ended, giving a kill to a friendly) back to my airfield - but it was risky as a 4th enemy already had taken off and i had no chance to get guns on him whilst going 830 TAS. So i decided to attack their best players (109 and Ki44, landing) and hoped that i could outrun the Yak-9U despite flying away from my airfield for the strafing run. It worked, but it was very close - i could keep him 1.7 km away despite the Yaks are insanely fast below 3km - at least compared to a SM92. On a small map like Mozdok i would have attacked the airborne Yak - despite losing energy like hell as i would have been able to retreat even if all 3 landing / repairing enemies would have taken off. On a large map they can equalizze my energy advantage very quick - and i played 1 vs 5 at this time.

If i think at your slot-mirror proposal:

  • This is technically seen not feasible and also not dealing with the BR setting policy by gaijin - just imagine 4 B7A2s vs 4 Yer-2s or 4 Yak-3s vs 4 F6F-5Ns - all at the same BR and in the same class, but totally different combat effectiveness.

  • I mean i had today a match with 8 il-8s and a Wyvern plus me in a SM 92 - this were 10 attackers, 1 bomber and 3 fighters vs 10 fighters, 1 attacker 2 bombers…alone this require either the same nonsense in top tier; in this case UK vs UK and USSR vs USSR in one match (it was actually a 15 vs 13 as 3 guys did not spawn).

So you might agree that the benefits you see for smaller maps or slot allocation & limiation can also be seen as downsides - it just depends on your pov.

But in any case - have a good one!

I mean if you were gaijin you would probably do the same - satisfying the largest customer group which generates the most income. And if the largest customer group consists of minors which won’t play for 5 or 10 years they try to earn as much money as they can whilst those minors are “hooked”…

And as long as new players join in larger number than those who quit - from their perspective they are on the right track…

1 Like
27

Would completely break the matchmaking. Most players wants to fight other planes, not AI targets. The 6.0 matchmaker is completely broken right now because the Ju288 is ultra spammed and force the game to launch games with 4 of them when there’s not enough fighters and attackers.

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I am very aware of the ju88 spam. That BR bracket is very broken, right at the end of the prop era, what a wast, very disappointed. I would rather wait or be given expected waiting time, or join a differnt BR. 6v6 is rubbish. That has nothing to do with 1 of my ideas, the other is not put CAS and bombers on same team

29

I am curious did you ever experience the old 3 base air rb? Where while maps were smaller they had actually tailor made objectives on them instead of the very lazy copy and paste map objectives we have now.

It is just my view that air RB as it is, is just wasted potential sadly, they could make it a very fun mode but they went with a lazy method and removed the unique aspect the old matchmaker and maps used to have.

If you were not playing back then then you might see this as a good mode, and even if you were playing back then and like this mode, there are still ways to improve it, so even if you are not for a rework maybe you would like them to have more unique map types where one side has only carriers for aircraft while the other starts on land. The main issue is that the mode has stagnated into a bland mess where maps mean nothing because the objectives and gameplay boils down to being the same thing.

1 Like
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Imho your first part “completely broken” is correct.

Your logic has a decisive weakness - nowhere else you see such small lobbies combined with a historical MM. If you theory would be correct we would not see up to 10 Wyverns, 5 XP-50s or currently 8 Il-8s in matches early morning or late night.

It boils down that gaijin found an easy way to satisfy German tankers (4 bases, 4 Ju 288) and just plain unskilled US/UK tankers in fighters.

Their first part has a high chance to bomb a base (and gain a net profit) without any skill necessary and the other group can continue their braindead game play based on “point and click” into headons without stiff resistance.

Basically no really skilled US/UK player plays there as the BRs of their planes got dragged too low and fighting in superior planes vs totally outnumbered axis fighters is no challenge - and experienced axis player avoid this bracket due to this.

The few very good axis players still playing there managed to drag the Re 2005 from 5.3 to 6.0 just because their enemies can’t use their superior performance.

31

I know some people like them, but asymmetric modes are an instant nope from me. I’m not opposed to improving how bomb bases work, or better spreading out ground targets, that sort of thing though.

32

Ah, you’re wrong about one thing here !
Bombers have been limited to 4 per team for a while. I think it’s been the case since at least 2016. This is what breaks the matchmaking specifically, and this is why I call a hardcap on strike fighters and fighters a bad idea.

Wyvern, XP-50s, etc. Are attackers with no limitation whatsoever. The problem with the Ju288 is specifically that it’s a bomber, and the matchmaker has a hard cap that limit their number per game. So to accomodate the overflowing numbers of Ju288, the game decide to create small team to dilute them over a larger number of matches.

The bombers limits has been introduced because the B-17, B-24 and Tu-4 spam (and before that it was the Yer-2 and the G8N as well) kept breaking air RB with 1200 meters laser gunners, high bomb load and the ability to end a match instantly by destroying base then bombing the airfield. It got so bad that the meta for Air RB at some point if you played germany was to spawn in a Me410 B6/R3 which got an airspawn and 30mm Mk103 guns. If you didn’t have at least 2 or 3 Me410 you would lose the game.

33

Now that bomb bases and ground AI have been reworked in the last year or two, maybe the bomber cap should be removed too.

34

You can say that part again… They also have no problem with throwing away all their altitude to chase one bomber or attacker at low altitude, which is often a bot.

Maybe with time and smaller team sizes this would change.

Well, gaijin can’t expect to get something out of nothing, right? They spend tens of thousands in outsourcing vehicle models, some gamemode tweaking isn’t beyond them.

Of course, I said at the start of my comment that my list of suggestions only applies to prop tiers - I don’t enjoy jets that much and spend considerably more time flying those outdated contraptions.
I think the team size reduction would still benefit missile thunder very much, however.
Frontline Mozdok has issues with anything airspawned having a MASSIVE advantage. It’s no secret and it’s been like that for years.

Kinda, but maps already have a lot of playable space ‘outside’ of the map border that isn’t normally shown. Better performance at high alt would be compensated for by some planes getting interceptor air spawns, thus still allowing them to get nice and high despite being closer to the enemy.
I find that smaller maps only end up closer to the enemy AF when the match is already imbalanced, and that happens easily when you have 32 players ready to throw themselves at the enemy and start the snowball effect.

This is just a problem with current balancing. The B7A2 only gets a bomber spawn because it is a torpedo and dive bomber, it could easily get a lower frontline bomber or even attacker spawn instead. The Yak3 would move up in BR (as it should already, that thing does not belong at 4.3) - and the XP50 should have had its airspawn removed years ago, or be moved up in BR.
Fortunately for XP50 players, they just suck at the game so it stays there.
The F6F-5N is a little overtiered, probably due to its better firepower, much like the F4U-1C is. Again, smaller team sizes putting a greater emphasis on flight performance will likely help.

Also for whatever’s worth, I’d take a Bf 110 C against those lol, “nah I’d win” is in full effect there

I haven’t had this happen in the many Pacific ARB matches I’ve been lucky enough to encounter. Since there’s less enemy players, you never have to pull them away for so long or so far to get an even fight. You also don’t have to worry about surprise 3rd parties as much.
Lower player counts also makes coordinating with teammates easier, which is something I basically never see outside of late game scenarios with just a few players per side.

This is to ensure that one side isn’t stuck with 4 bombers, an attacker, and just one fighter (6.0 germany) while the other gets a full complement of fighters. Such matches are neither balanced nor enjoyable for either side.
At top tier it falls apart because every plane does everything, but this isn’t relevant there anyway.

35

But that would just make matches with teams that are entirely comprised of Ju288s.

G8N? High bomb load?? I agree on the gunners, but as for bombing it sucks.

36

Don’t forget, last BR adjustment the A6M5 Ko from the old Pacific Pack is now 5.3! One more BR jump and it’ll be considered just as good as the F4U-4B.

1 Like
37

Hmh - i strongly disagree with your assessment of the B7A2, but ifully agree that balancing is imho the key to many issues.

The B7A2 was a multi-role aircraft for torpedo, dive and level bombing - u see the window for the bomb sight below the gunner/bombardier, so the bomber spawn is justified as 9 x 60 kg kills a base even in a full uptier to 4.7.

Regarding the spawn alt - its the same as a tactical bomber; 3.500 above ground whilst strategic bombers have 4.500 meters.

But your overall logic applies imho to a lot of other aircraft - and the correct spawn classification is just the tip of the iceberg.

  • Look at useless (irl) planes like SB2Cs, also tactical bomber spawn - no bomb sight. Without alt advantage helpless.
  • Or the Brigand - misused as bomber hunter whilst having a bomber spawn without having a bomb sight.
  • Or the T-18B 57mm - specifically developed as ground attack version of the B-18B- with 400kg bomb load. - imho a clear need for.classification as strike aircraft…
  • Or stuff like P-61 or F-82 - never designed as interceptor…whilst actual interceptors like 109 Z or a hell of JP planes have airfield spawn.

The list is endless…

I theory - maybe.

I talk about stuff like my SM 92s, i fear nobody above 7km (ok for some planes i take 9) - and if you look at a map like Poland and if you spawn from the south you often get overwhelmed by incoming air spawn planes - you can’t evade them as the map ends after the airfield. Air spawn for stuff like P-47s - we had this 6 years ago. You know what happened.

In other words i need time and space to make my plane work - so you have to climb outside the 10 km spotting distance and get above contrail alt when you gap is much larger. Even today i have to reverse climb at full uptiers in order to gain positioning on most very small / smaller maps.

You might argue - just fly another plane then. And you would be right, but them i would fly the same meta stuff like the others and leverage even more my experience advantage vs on average far less experienced players. I fly Air RB not to increase kill numbers (ok when i started this was the case) - i like the challenge - and i see no challenge in clubbing tankers with meta planes.

Despite the fact that you can’t select the SA server anymore (which offered, depending on daytime, 30-40% of my matches on the 4 main maps - Peliu is very rare) you underestimate the effect of the air spawn for US/UK fighters.

The airspawn for all enemy fighters nullifies together with the large distances like on Iwo Jima or Saipan your airspawn advantage even vs 3.7 P-51Cs and the 4.3 Spit without considering stuff like P-38s or XP-50s.

So your are forced to play extremely aggressive or to hide in the mist on these maps 50 meters below the contrail alt (6.400m) - this mist strongly reduces spotting distances from 10 to 4-6 km.

And i talk not about the start of the match - i talk about those matches when you play with 2 other B7A2s, a H8K3 and 2 Zeroes vs 3 Wyverns, 2 BR 4.3 Spits and an US interceptor. Usually the Wyverns spray my rookie team down and i have the 2 Spits at my six until my ticket run out.

And actually - a lot of matches end in ticket defeats for JP as the last US/UK player knows about auto wins on 3 of the 5 active maps - an example in this thread.

Example

A very easy example for auto-win maps: Iwo Jima

Main issue here:
US teams can win on some Pacific maps with doing nothing.

Do i think it was correct from the US player to play the auto-win card?

  • Yes (ok, maybe with a very holistic view) and no.
  • Yes (in case you really search for something positive here), he might have won and generated victory SL/RP bonuses for his team.
  • No, because a map that requires nothing but running/spaceclimbing to win a match with 0 points is a slap in the face of pilots actually trying to win by fighting vs players or environment.

Detailed view

  • This map is like Saipan an auto-ticket win for US teams after 15 to 25 minutes. The JP team has zero chance to prevent enemy ai units to capture A point (Iwo Jima) or A and B point (Saipan). Experienced US players are aware of this. After countless ticket defeats on these 2 maps i check now every match there the enemy lobby for highly experienced US players - and like in this example i found one.
  • Without preemptive climbing to 7 km and activating blind hunt at the right point in time i would have not been able to find him on this excessively large map. Without further climbing to 8 km i would have not been able to attack a 46 km away flying PV-2D bomber with aced 0.50 cal ai gunners with the necessary altitude advantage which forced him to dive and turn.
  • A standard player in an A6M2 would have lost this match because the PV-2D is quite fast and he would have been unable to catch him in time - so the bomber pilot would have won the match with 0 points and 0 activity…

So it is gaijin that prevents “fair game play” due to unbalanced maps.

Even if they argue you might have a 50/50 chance to be affected by bad map design - the semi-historical MM on Pacific maps is a clear example why such designs affect mainly JP pilots. Even if there is no spaceclimbing US bomber - a lot of Wyvern pilots run all over the map and they are simply too fast to catch.

Mate - i have no clue what you are talking about in the next block:

You claimed:

Which i support in general, but i used an example of match from today that this would mean that in this case the Il-8s had to be allocated to both teams to “bring balance to the force” - joke aside to ensure that both team have the same number of slots:

And from my perspective your answer is not dealing with my point that in this case a slot allocation based on classes would have resulted in a USSR vs USSR lobby aka as mixed battle which happens in prop BRs only when a squad with multiple nations participate.

Your reference to top tier is imho not valid as not the roles are decisive, the fact that you fight identical planes from identical nations is annoying for a lot of players - and specially mentioned within the OP.

I mean i flew a few times vs very experienced players in the same plane - a nightmare if you meet on similar energy and alt.

I am sure about that i am wrong about much more :-)

Imho i was just not precise enough with my example.

I wrote:

I should have written:

Nowhere else you see such small lobbies combined with a historical MM. If your theory would be correct, we would not have to wait up to 4 minutes to see up to 10 Wyverns, 5 XP-50s or currently 8 Il-8s in 16 vs 16 matches early morning or late night.
The MM would shorten the queue times after the minimum lobby 6 vs 6 is full - and he would start a match- without sticking to the historical MM.

I hope this make my pov clearer - so if shortening queue times would be a valid explanation for the 288 phenomenon we would see way more very small matches with other highly popular planes without the historical MM.

But somehow the historical MM is only active at these small lobbies (and also at lower BRs) even if there are no German bombers involved. So just by “killing” the historical MM we would see 2 UK Spits (or Ki-84s or Yak-3Us) and 4 Ju 288s vs 6 US fighters. This will never happen, i outlined the “real” reasons - or at least my assumptions and subsequent conclusions to that.

I know the history of the 4 bomber slots and met legends like fmt3 those days in his B-29 with 10.000+ kills in it. And i scored my highest kill ever in a Fw 190 D-13 at 10.600 meters with a 90 degree climb stall shot 5-700 meters above me :-)

In order to stay on topic i agree to disagree.

Have a good one!

1 Like
38

It’s a single engine bomber that can tango with fighters to a limited degree (and is arguably the role it is most used in). It doesn’t need an airspawn that high.

I agree that what gets and doesn’t get an airspawn is a long and confusing list.

I wasn’t around then, but they were very strong. I propose to just move them up, now that they could get altitude more easily. Smaller maps would also make that airspawn not as significant as it would be right now.

I never do this, even in my twin engine planes (that I rarely fly because they all tend to be shit in one way or another). By the time i’m that high up, at least half my team is dead. Only the Bf110 C and J5N have gotten much attention from me, and both can climb about as well as most single engines.
Early game matters too much for me to leave my team to their own devices for that long.

I’m gonna be real, I’ve never really struggled in any of them as Japan. Countering US/UK props is piss easy and I don’t have to run for half the match to do so. Ki-43-1, Ki-61, Ki84, Ki100, A7M2, J2M3, A6M3, you name it, I can get ace in a game with any, the enemy doesn’t concern me in the slightest. Bet even in the N1K2s I could do it, and those are about 250kg too heavy than they should.

If I die its because I made a mistake I shouldn’t have, especially now that japanese guns work again.

No, just that those IL8 players are gonna have to wait a little longer for the matchmaker to find more enemy attackers to put them up against. I have very rarely seen a match with Ju288s on both sides and I’ve played… too much 6.0 germany air, to be honest. There’s a lot of 288s but the vast, vast majority of matches are them against another nation.

For what its worth, you could also make bombers and attackers cpunt towards the same ‘pool’ as their primary role will be PvE.

39

FOX-3 missiles will eventually come, and when they do, Air RB will be inevitably reworked. There’s just no way they introduce FOX-3 missiles without at least reducing team sizes.

40

Besides what I mentioned earlier, matchmaking is also a serious problem. Not so much in BR spread but rather that it allows non-fighters to fill up slots for fighters in the first place.

Since every nation has a decent mix of fighters, attackers, and bombers these days, would it be all that difficult to have the matchmaker have preset “fighter” and “not fighter” slots? Ideally 10 fighters and 6 non-fighters.

Solving the issues of airspawn abuser bombers like the Helldiver is simple - make them designated as Attackers instead. With their pitiful engine performance relative to fighters at the same BR, they will quickly fade into irrelevance. Any “bomber” with significant forward firepower should be classed as an Attacker instead. This means things like Tu-2s, B-25s, PV-2Ds, T18B-1/2s, possibly even Pe-2s but that’s pushing things since a single 12.7 and a single 7.62 isn’t exactly much.