maybe extra SL for landing a damaged aircraft, scaling based on extent of damage (sim-exclusive replacement for soft landing)
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It’s been years since they’ve done anything to update SB. They don’t make money off SB because most players play RB or AB.
With that said, because of the lack of attention to SB, such as more maps, map improvements, AI and objective improvements, cockpit and gauge improvements, more accurate flight model improvements, fixing bugged lobbies, etc. I would also assume that they won’t do much else with it. Regardless of SB players being patient and discussing SB here on the forums. I don’t have much hope in Gaijin updating and improving SB, I’d be pleasantly surprised if they did.
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A part of it is due to the demographic of players Gaijin is attempting to attract that just want CoD in vehicles. The stigma of sims is also shown by the lackluster responses and hamfisted efforts of management too. Honestly the biggest joke is how they’re pushing out half-baked premium vehicles for the same price of a DCS module without the content. Yet they still fail to put in the time to truly listen, understand, and grow this mode into something that draws players (and their financial capabilities) from games like DCS and IL-2.
A largely former player RideR2 used to make full combined arms EC missions on the full-size air maps. Playing in those custom matches was the best example of potential greatness this game could have, and showed that with some creativity and back-and-forth communication with the dedicated sim playerbase, you can have a truly unique and fruitful mode that anyone could enjoy with a little bit of thought!
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I hope this post catches the eye of someone at Gaijin. I moved from DCS to Air sim after I finally gave it a go and is really the only reason why I still play war thunder. Sim is a gold mine and with DCS & Razbam bumping heads this is the perfect time for War Thunder to open its doors to those sim players.
All that development time put into Aces of thunder could have been used for Sim mode which already plays very well in VR. I still have hope that someone at Gaijin will stumble upon Air sim and realized how good it is and how great it could become.
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The lack of transparency isn’t exclusive to Air SB. No one knows what’s being worked on until Gaijin announce it and they don’t announce anything until its development is nearing completion. The fact that they still model cockpits for every single plane they add, and the fact that they’ve recently updated the RWR displays on nearly every plane that has them, means that they’re probably working on something they’re not ready to show or commit to yet.
Even the lack of bug fixes or new objectives could mean that they’re planning to overhaul the entire game mode completely, and any updates to the current system would be a waste of effort. But that’s too optimistic. What we need is transparency.
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Ya and the sad thing is sim would only need a little push to compete with dcs in the form of a sim lite alternative, much like squad and hll are to arma.
Imagine if all the resources dumped into aces of thunder was funneled into sim, or any other project gaijin backed (with WT money) most of which are dying.
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Gaijin would make big money if they also inbvested on Sim. I dont understand why they dont. There is clearly demand for a sim-lite airplane game. The thing that disappointed me the most, lately, was the fact that they didnt change BR for sim. Like, they totally disregarded the mode that needs it the most.
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I’m going to be honest with you. It’s because they don’t care about sim.
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Yes, my friend, the situation is bad for simulation pilots. We’ve been talking about the same subject for many years, with wonderful ideas that sparkle in our eyes, but the reality really hurts.
I sometimes get the impression that if simulation mode were to go 15 days without a player, the Snail would simply shut down the game mode. The customers keep the simulation mode alive, much more than the developers.
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Yes. For example, the “SB business” isn’t as numerous as the “RB business”. Therefor why pay attention to SB. That was my point in my earlier comment.
That being said they could still improve SB. It won’t hurt nothing making improvements in SB EC, such as adding more EC maps, updating objectives and AI. Heck, even alot of the RB community has been asking for EC maps for RB matches, and objectives updates.
But still, I understand why they haven’t. As frustrating as it is that they neglect sim because it is the only mode I play consistently.
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I’ve started collecting a few thoughts for myself, as basis for future suggestions: Sim EC changes - Google Spreadsheets
In my view, especially the points that are green both in the columns “Effort” and “Risks” could easily be implemented with, ahahaha, little effort and little risk, and thus could be first steps to a better WT Sim EC…
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I would also add “The gap between players’ skills” and “Disbalance in vehicle performance”.
It is different from p.1 mentioned (More challenging piloting and fighting).
I have no problem with piloting and fighting, but I will never be able to compete with active sim players.
Many players are hunting for ground units, but they should rely on the team to avoid being killed by enemy, since they simply cannot compete with fighter planes. The gap between players’ skills only exacerbates this.
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I AGREE. I feel frustrated too. Just opening up new maps would be so cool. The simple thing is to take a breather (for just a week, snail).
The same thing over and over again gets boring. Discovering new maps is a cool challenge to explore. That’s minimal, Snail.
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@Schindibee - Could you please include my suggestion about “Battle Pass” in your spreadsheet?
(I) The simulation is too difficult, I think they should count the bots - bombers and attack planes (this would be an attraction for new players to try the air simulation).
(II) The missions are always the same, it’s annoying. Add (A) Destroy X number of enemy bases. (B) Destroy X number of enemy ships. (C) [leave your suggestion].
This would add a lot and give more value to destroying bots (I’m not talking about zombies, but about team participation to fulfill small objectives).
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Great analysis Schindbee, if Gaijin would just implement the item labeled as small impact alone i believe it would prove that more players would became sim players including many from DCS.
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@Schindibee Very good analysis, I would also add that we could use a Teamwide VOIP voice communications, that need either a a microphone sensitivity check (by playing game sounds in the background while recording a test file) or a requirement for Push to talk, so that we don’t get those that annoy everybody with thier feedback loop from the game.
I mainly play sim for the early cold war aircraft, because that’s what’s interesting, WW2 is better served by the IL-2s and modern by Falcon BMS and DCS, which are often more fun, because the server admins have a more fair system than Gaijin’s often extremely biased BR.
I’ve updated my table and added some stuff that was suggested. New additions are marked with oranage item number.
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Re step 1:
I believe a simple tutorial would do wonders, especially for propeller planes. Don’t need a fully developed mission and gameplay - just a wiki page the game prompts you to read the first time you click simulator game mode with a thorough but concise description of aviation principles (especially for propeller planes ala “Why is my plane going to the left?! Are my controls broken?!” that I find myself answering every 2 weeks on the /r/warthundersim subreddit.)
There’s nothing right now in terms of official support to teach people about left-turning tendencies, precession, yaw-roll coupling, stall recovery, preventing spins from stalls, keeping coordinated.
I remember back in the day we used to have in-game encyclopedia that would go into pretty nice detail about game mechanics. Its return would be quite impactful I believe.
It would not solve modern players who refuse to read and research before jumping in, but doing so would become a “Yes, I acknowledge the resources exist and I have personally chosen to skip them” rather than “How was I supposed to know I should go to /r/warthundersim, watch content creators on youtube, research flight instructor videos for GA on concepts I hadn’t even known were a thing?”
For step 3,
Another aid would be normalizing aircraft models for A.I vehicles to match the nations involved. This can be very egregious if flying on eastern front missions but with alt history lobbies (GB/UK vs ITA/GER/USSR/JAP) because the map expects (USSR vs ITA/GER) so you get bluefor soviet A.I aircraft which can end up flying off from the main group and causing teamkills.
As a stopgap solution, removing teamkill kick for hitting a friendly A.I aircraft would work potentially especially with how it’s possible to hit an A.I bomber, stop shooting and then 10 minutes later you are credited a teamkill due to Artificial Stupidity (the A.I bomber died for no explicable reason, the shots you landed were superficial at best and would not have made an impact if it were a real player).
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Thx, re-specified this here:
#15…“complete re-development of AI assets, their identity (and affiliation), their missions, their programming”
BUT: we still have the conflict with nations vs. “blocs” anyway, so this will not easily be solved without solving that issue (#22-24)…