Hey, it’s your favorite plane hater again, and yes, I caved and downloaded War Thunder again. Since most people who use the forum will simply plant a flag and refuse to move when suggesting a tanks only mode, I’ve come up with a compromise. Before I start, I’d like to point out that my suggestion only goes for Ground AB, not RB. I’ve heard that planes are pretty abysmal there too, but I personally haven’t played it (not even once), so I won’t comment on it.
My first suggestion is to make it so you have to get KILLS to acquire plane privileges. No longer will you be able to rush a capture point in a light tank and fly an attacker. The kill requirement should be at the minimum 3 for attackers and 4-5 for bombers.
Make plane kills NOT count towards vehicle K/D. When I say something along the lines of: “Hey, I managed to have 2 K/D in a vehicle that becomes near unusable in arcade!” Nobody thinks it’s impressive because bad players constantly level out their K/D ratio via planes. They’ll get a capture, maybe one kill, hop inside an attacker, kill 2 targets and die.
And lastly, extend plane run-time to 2-3 minutes from 1 minute and remove all ground markers for attackers and bombers. Make it so they still have to use their eyes to spot enemy ground vehicles, instead of the current system where players see a cluster of red enemy nametags, spam rockets and bombs, and faceplant their plane into the ground.
PS: Add a penalty for dying in planes, whether that be from crashing your plane into the ground, or just dying to enemy planes. A penalty that I have in mind would be to impose a cooldown to attackers and bombers, incentivizing air players to play strategically and not just spam rockets at the nearest SPAA.