https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/334375564912173932?public_key=UOWlwLc8M1wOUKRPSEy9
watch how i die and tell me AA is justified, im waiting.
Garbage opinion. You just want to farm helpless aircraft and not get punished for it. How bout YOU get better and shoot people down before they can RTB.
Oh, you can’t? Skill Issue. Git Gud.
4 Likes
ROFL.
Yesterday I basically had to kill myself to let the enemy win.
Why? Because when a swarm of enemy aircraft appeared (typical German team, 75% dead within 120s from the merge) I did 180 degree turn towards my AF and started shallow diving.
When I was like 18km away, people started to turn around as they knew they won’t get within 900m (a distance where spraying may work) before I get within AF AAA.
It caused a situation where I eventually ended up above a few aircraft and they only survived because F84 decided to tank some 30mm and 20mm shells and keep flying and I simply did not even try to dodge the Attacker, as I felt the enemy deserves the win anyway at that point and did not want my 40IQ team to get the benefits of my hard work.
Thing is, AF AAA negatively influences game dynamics even when still very far from AF.
When people land, it’s their own fault they become easy kills. If you just fly straight and slow, like a lot of people so (unless I’m attacking, then they perform insanely well-timed dodges) should you also be protected? No free kills, right?
Landing is just as much of a choice as flying low and slow.
Strafing kills are just as much free kills as are people getting energy trapped who I literally single-tap with 30mm to conserve ammo.
I am not sure why some of you continue with beating a dead horse. I mean seriously - getting kills is way easier than 5 years ago and you still invest time & energy in order to have it even easier?
Even if you play this game for (semi-) competitive reasons and are eager to score as many kills as possible (which is not wrong as wt is a plain shooter) i recommend to take a step back and try to look at the whole picture:
-
I see mostly highly successful players advocating for a removal using and repeating the same arguments for years.
-
But i see also a lack of a neutral and sober view on your surroundings - you play with or against 95% absolute rookies (without any significant experience) or tankers without passion for flying which play Air RB with a complete different approach: They play for grinding & event mission score and don’t care about winning or losing.
-
So it is simply really hard to understand why this discussion is still ongoing - especially as gaijin totally ignores this issue and has (at least in the last 5-6 years) never released a official feedback.
-
They reacted indirectly as they removed af aaa from forward airfields (10.2023) which improved the game play significantly as the no-fly zone of the af aaa bubble is now just above the main airfield.
-
But even the removal of this af aaa was not suited to increase the awareness of way less experienced players; i see basically in every 2nd match a lot of guys strafing or getting strafed on forward airfields.
-
So the standard arguments of most “no af aaa” advocates (“take more fuel”, “conserve ammo”, “don’t get damaged”, “cover repairing friendlies”, “landing is a privilege”, etc.) are not wrong, but they follow the wrong assumption that everybody else would take the game seriously and would play due the same reasons or motivations as they do.
Those strafing kills are mainly based on a lack of experience of the “victims” like missing situational awareness or way too low crew XP to trigger markers and have zero value if you compare them with the satisfaction of getting a kill as a result of a classic dogfight, but that is just my opinion.
2 examples of the effects of a significant experience gap:
- Three extremely cheap strafing kills due to lack of crew XP
Summary
- In this replay you see 2 enemies above my forward airfield (a 109G and a P-38J) after ~ 7 minutes diving to kill a battle damaged T-18B which had previosly killed 2 bombers. I tried to strafe the P-38 but opened my fire too late as the P-38 got in range of my main af aaa. Btw: He never realized that i was firing at him.
- Diving to chase the P-38 made no sense as i saw a higher Spitfire ~ 6 km away, so i decided to climb and follow him as it looks like he was trying to lure me away - and this would give my 2 last team mates (3 vs 5) the possibility to repair and climb.
- I tracked the damaged P-38 heading straight to his own forward airfield and the Spit (with 3 kills) headed somehow in the same direction. I assumed a trap as i remembered a second Spitfire earlier but decided to dive and found both Spits and the P-38 landing and/or repairing (around 12 minutes). Even with my potato aim i managed to kill all 3 of them - leaving 2 enemy 410s left and granted a totally unexpected victory.
- After watching the replay it was obvious that the Spit i was chasing had a very low crew XP, he never got a marker whilst i got a marker even at 6 km distance; so his lack of crew XP resulted in 3 totally undeserved kills.
- Two cheap and decisive strafing kills due to lack of situational awareness
Summary
- In this replay you can watch 2 P-63s killing together 6 out of my 8 player lobby. They fought well and managed to kill my friendlies even whilst being outnumbered and outturned by A6Ms and SB2Cs.
- I had previously killed a base and damaged their Stirling bomber and saw that a smoking enemy P-63 headed to their forward airfield. The imho way better pilot in the other P-63 saw me 8 km away and broke off - heading also to the small airfield; he reduced speed and was even able to slip his plane.
- He focused completely on his landing & rearming and did not saw me diving on him at 11:50 - his already landed team mate looked behind him after his landing and got a marker at 11:56 at around 4 km distance - he was stationary and came in with 700 kmph TAS.
- I managed (ofc) to miss all my shots on the P-63 trying to land (potato aim thx to Hotas and compression = skill issue) even he had just 200 kmph speed and his squad mate finished his repair (what else…) exactly at the time i was in gun range.
- So i performed an Immelmann (fully aware that i fly through the guns of the 2nd guy, he scored a crit) killed the guy trying to take-off (12:40) and then his friend (who tried his best, but i had way more energy and the better turn) at 13:32.
- As their last guy was a damaged Stirling these way too easy kills rendered the very good combat performance of the two P-63s completely useless - if they would have repaired on their large airfield they would have won easiliy as my last remaining team mate in a A6M has a highly negative K/D and 0.38 KpB and the 2 P-63 showed extremely good cooperation.
So if you strive for a removal of af aaa - be my guest and address this topic in every dev blog or other somehow official thread - but from my pov there is no need for a conflict between players as just gaijin can change anything related to af aaa.
Alone the fact that you get killed by Rolands or M163s at WW 2 BRs should give you an indicator that gaijin is deaf regarding certain topics.
Have a good one!
Edit:
Hidden as an airfield was relevant, but not af aaa.
As a rather funny side story regarding airfields:
After 20k Air RB battles i saw today the first time ever an enemy using a hangar on an airfield as cover. The A6M pilot ran out of ammo on Peleliu and tried to capture the neutral (and therefore undefended) airfield (which does not work in Air RB, just in Air AB). As he got blind hunted he rolled into a hangar and had cover from my strafing attacks as 0.50 cals can’t pen the hangar roof.
The downside of this strategy was that his team lost this match (i played initially 1 vs 7 - in a 11 vs 11 lobby after 5!!! minutes) as 4 of his team mates died due to various reasons and i killed the other two. As the “inactivity ticket drop” gets triggered even on neutral airfields and i managed to kill the last airborne enemy at 22:44 the ticket drop started around 24:25 and drained their tickets to zero.
1 Like
Unrelated topic do you have fun playing war thunder?
- Yes
- No
- I deleted WT
0
voters
I consider strafing kills very satisfying.
I enjoy the damage models, even if they kind of suck, I like hitting the enemy with a ton of ammo and then replaying that in slow motion.
I would love to see fuel and ammo storages around AF with realistic AAA, as I generally love it when things go boom.
My little dream is seeing infantry in game and introducing a truck full of russian infantry to 30mm HE.
So, as you can see, different people enjoy different things.
And BTW, not my fault people are obsessively grinding and never getting gud. I don’t enjoy jets. I don’t care whether the game is competitive or not. I want to see planes explode.
There is nothing wrong with that.
Wtf 😂😂😂😂
😂👍👍👍👍
1 Like
Well, I just want to see a few people get knocked unconscious while they facetank 30mm mineshell while in the middle of explosion of an ammo crate and fuel barrels they are sitting on, while their friend, private Ivan is on his way to ISS due to the way blast from the said crate propagated. You know, normal stuff, just like people get knocked unconscious IRL during f.e. a boxing match.
Thing is, this game lacks soft targets and targets that are getting destroyed in a fun way.
I love “fully modelled tanks” and other vehicles, though it’s kinda hilarious the only way to destroy a truck is to ki… knock the crew unconscious. I just want more detailed stuff. Like AT guns with shells lying nearby that explode. And more soft stuff. Trucks, trucks, ammo trucks, fuel trucks, commander vehicles, motorcycles, electric scooters, battle donkeys, wheelch… Well, you know what I’m talking about, normal advanced military stuff from WW2 and modern times.
Steam locomotives that get destroyed in a realistic way with steam coming through every new hole.
Ammo storages, bit and small.
Etc. Etc
Then we may talk about ground pouding in Air RB being some kind of alternative to killing the last guy. :)
All I’m seeing from your reply here is that you lost by both circumstances and choice. It is your choice, but to come here moaning about it is just braindead, dude. If you had no AF with working AA to return to the rest of the enemy team would’ve hunted you down and killed you. Having an AF with AA allowed you to refuel, rearm, reset and make an attempt to turn the match around whilst the enemy team made an error in not splitting their forces between keeping an eye on you and PTFO’ing the ground targets to knock your tickets off.
Well, you made a half-hearted attempt and gave up and so you lost faster. It’s whatever because it happens but again, coming here to moan about it is just braindead. Need I remind you that in this game the only player you’re in control of is yourself? This isn’t CoD where you can go cracked-out ADHD and carry, nor should it be that way. Gaggle of randoms or not, if folks don’t play as a team then they deserve to lose as a team. That simple.
Cute flag, btw.
AAA don’t seem to work below 30-50m. Not even the gun AAs does. This is broken.
dude you don’t deserve aimbot aaa because you failed to conserve your ammo and your team lost, no you’re not going to 1v6 and turn it around you’re going to fly strictly within your aimbot aaa bubble and hope it kills anyone who gets too close you can’t lie to me. and if you had any experience in game such as a player like myself you would know most fighters have poor or even no cas options. drop the elitist tone btw you’re not that guy lol
3 Likes
And you don’t deserve an easy kill because you contributed nothing to the match.
A more extreme example, but why should the opponent be able to fly to the other AF to camp it and prey on people actually playing the game? Why are they entitled to free kills in an unfair situation? They did nothing to actually earn that except fly in circles, so why should they be rewarded because there isn’t basic defence?
What fighters don’t have guns? (Excluding that British thing) This is completely false for nearly every American plane, and nearly every plane above 10.0.
The only elitists here are the ones asking for AF AA to be removed entirely, and forcing a purely fighter centric (and very “if you’re a bad player, don’t play”) style of narrative.
2 Likes
he’s soooo smug and then you check statshark and the mask falls flat. here comes the comment flag i guess :)
1 Like
whereas the people defending airfield AAA have been completely rational, polite and have had great arguments to support this mechanic.
oh wait.
1 Like
Whilst i agree with that in general i won’t call them “elitists” - it is mainly a matter of their general approach why they play wt. If your goal is to get as many frags as possible af aaa is an obstacle - and obstacles have to be removed.
As written in my last post there is nothing wrong with that as wt is just a plain shooter - but they often forget that they are surrounded by casual players without any competitive approach whilst playing the game.
Fact is that without af aaa you would see just fights similar to Anakin slaughtering younglings in the Jedi temple.
We have certain maps without working af aaa and if an experienced player is aware of this, the result is always the same: Effortless kills.
An example:
-
In this match (replay link) i played on Saipan (8 vs 8) with a rookie US team 1 vs 5 after 10:25. My last team mate tried to kill their best player (which i had identified whilst climbing) and got killed - whilst he spotted all remaining 5 enemies low above their af at B point (with non-working af aaa).
-
The rest is history - 1 enemy died to incompetence (B7A2) and 1 enemy (A6M) managed to dodge my attacks but the other 3 died either whilst landing or take-off due to strafing attacks. Game ended with ticket win before i could kill the low and slow A6M.
So if your goal is to get free frags: Nothing better than having no af aaa. But as written earlier: If your goal is to have some fun with somehow fair fights based on positioning or just a contest of pilot skill suchstrafing kills have zero value - at least for me.
Based on your logic my team (in the example above) lost as i played 1 vs 5. You might agree that nobody is going to surrender just because he is outnumbered - the relative and absolute positioning is decisive.
So if this airfield on B point would have had a working af aaa i would not have been able to kill 3 of them. So your point is just based on assessing prop Air RB as a pure TDM mode based on numbers.
Ok, bomber/attacker lands, doesn’t get strafed and then what?
Also - if 5 guys are getting strafed, it’s on them.
I’ve been strafed maybe once in the last few hundred games and I landed on forward AF a lot.
Recently I won 1 v 8 mid-map.
It was fun.
But if even 1 of these guys decided to camp the AF, I would have lost.
Couldn’t strafe them as I was pretty damn busy killing people. Day before 1 v 7 and same scenario, before that 2 v 8, same story. Each of these games won because enemy did not utilise AF AAA.
1 Like
Dude what are you talking about, if a player is able to fly past the entire enemy team and somehow post up over their af then they deserve it in 16v16 matchmaker lmao, not to mention it’s I guess impossible in this unrealistic hypothetical for two people to try and interpret. So no if your team utterly drops the ball you still don’t deserve a literal get out of jail free card sorry
And dude are you being willfully ignorant here lmao, are you just going to pretend guns only fighters are able to pen medium tanks you know the way to remove tickets?
and dude you if you can’t see the elitist tone he has the you might not understand human interactions, wanting the game to be fair is hardly elitist lmao. Stop pretending people use AAA to actually rearm and reenter the fight I have far more battles than you and can confidently say nine times out of ten they were abuse the AAA to try and win by being a rat.
At prop tier it is very easy to just climb to the side and ignore all fighting. At top tier you need to take more into account, but the same can still be done, and isn’t hard to do. With how air RB is designed, there isn’t alot of need for someone to go around the edge of the map, so it’s unlikely that you will be shot down when doing so.
You can also shoot down AI planes, or destroy the soft ground targets. There are a few maps where this isn’t possible, but those are usually poorly designed maps.
The player who is unable to fight back against someone who purposely refused to play the game is unfair. It simply isn’t fair for someone to camp the opponents airfield to earn kills they have not done anything skilful to get.
People do that, and they also abuse it.
Once again, my solution is to only activate AA when an aircraft is:
- Damaged, and/or out of missiles or ammo and within 1 KM of the airfield in all directions
- When an aircraft is landed on the airfield
- 2 minutes after the other plane has taken off, and then the AA disables for the next 5 minutes to prevent running back again.
2 Likes
Why are you even talking about AAA at top tier it’s not relevant you have to actually be braindead to die to a sam in anything past 12.0, too bad sams see 6.0s… And like I said if someone does that in a 16v16 lobby and the team can’t take him out they’re just worse and deserve to lose, I don’t see why you want a get out of jail free card and why you’re willfully ignorant to the extent it is abused, which is far more than it is ever actually used to rearm and re-engage.