The “just ground pound” is the type of answer that fixes nothing, as people are specifically frustrated because they are forced into something they don’t enjoy, that’s often futile and that’s often not even viable with their planes of choice, just because some player decided to use AF AAA.
Furthermore, if you go ground pounding vs a decent player AF camper, you’re getting smashed. How does that solve anything?
You’ve worked on your positional advantage in Bf 109 G6 vs goddamn Spitfire Lf Mk IX, only for him to simply deny you your advantage. Yay, such a great gameplay solution!
2 Likes
Because you’d be giving up all your altitude and most of your speed advantage over an airfield camper that generally can’t go above ~3.5km since that’s where AA coverage ends.
You’re just giving them a HUGE advantage, and this is assuming you even have enough ammo left to take out a relevant number of ground targets after most of the enemy team is gone.
1 Like
And that the current map you rolled has relevant ground targets for you! If it’s full of medium tanks, you’re not going to achieve much with your HEF-I belts
3 Likes
If you just want air-to-air combat and no airfield repairs or rearms, DUEL events are the best for you…
Otherwise, AAA at the airport, in a standard daily game, is fully justified.
You need to repair, re-arm, load bombs, land with a damaged plane … without AAA it would turn out that only medium damage to the plane is enough and you can immediately end the game by parachute …
Another thing that was already here and was solved, the player was trying to get the damaged person to the airport and the opponent just before landing, shot him like a target … poor …
In addition, if the player thinks and watches the game, he can decide, at the cost of repairing individual planes, what are his chances of winning, if it will not be more profitable to land and repair, congratulate the other team in the chat and end the game for himself…
1 Like
It’s been stated repeatedly that the problem isn’t someone who lands under cover and rearms.
The problem is someone who flies overhead the runway, makes a one eighty and begins circling it within AAA range indefinitely to delay the match without realistic counterplay at prop tiers (that AAA fire magically hits you regardless of predictability and speed without hitting the enemy)
5 Likes
Then, keep turning on airfield like NASCAR.
Whats next?
2 Likes
By ground pounding you are effectively giving the guy that did absolutely nothing to deserve it, all the positioning in the world to effectively kill you. Why should someone that circles the airfield bc hes scared of dying in a videogame be entitled to every possible advantage bruh. Landing should not be a guaranteed out of jail card. If you have to land its bc you made mistakes and being punished for those mistakes is a good thing since it’s literally a videogame. Faster paced gameplay is a good thing and having to wait for someone riding af AA death bubble for 15mins at the end of the game is not good gameplay at all.
4 Likes
Is gaijin didn’t punish you for dying then maybe you could remove AF AA, but right now it needs to exist. Being a free kill for someone who did nothing to gain an advantage because you made a mistake is bad gameplay.
I think they should only have it activate when a player is landed on the AF, and 30 secs/1min after they have taken off again.
You made a mistake, you lose. That’s normal.
Yesterday I had a battle where I killed 8 guys, then got attacked by 3 more, missed my last 40 shells and died. What did the last 3 guys do to deserve the kill? Nothing.
Their teammates tied my up, forced me to use up all my ammo, removed my energy advantage.
And this is OK. Brcause this is a team game and my team has failed. I have no problem with that. I did not DESERVE any more chances that I got.
Such is life.
1 Like
I shouldn’t die to someone who did nothing all match but ignore combat in order to prey on planes that can’t fight back. They do not deserve anything for doing that, because they have done nothing skillful in order to gain an advantage. They didn’t drain my energy, or outplay me, they just waited for a free kill. I refuse to support that behaviour.
You shouldn’t be able to die on the AF, but the AA should only protect you when you are physically landed on the airfield. What’s wrong with that? It removed the ability to abuse it, but it doesn’t make rearming pointless.
You should never be punished for playing the game.
3 Likes
To be fair, conserving your energy and ammo is a strategy.
But I do agree that simply being damaged doesn’t mean you did something wrong. You can do everything right and still get hit by a bombers guns or a fighters wingman.
1 Like
Honestly I feel the korean jet/early vietnam air field defence seems about… OK.
It shoots rolands at you, which won’t catch you if you make a quick entry and egress to boom some camper circling above the airfield. However, it gets too numerous to dodge if you linger and eats all your energy.
It feels far more fair to me compared to the magic flak (that can delete you from the air even while maneuvering and flying rapidly WITHOUT friendly fire - if it had friendly fire like a flak box it’d make sense at least).
So tuning AAA to like the effectiveness of Rolands around the era of sabres and demons might achieve that without any special mechanics?
2 Likes
Yeah. As long as WT punished you for dying and/or trying to continue (rearm/refuel/repair), then you should always have protection on the AF. You shouldn’t be a free kill because you are trying to continue to fight, because that punishes that player for playing the game.
I agree. To me AF AA is only an issue at prop BRs, and it should be changed to be actual AA and not hitscan damage that you can’t outsmart.
2 Likes
I agree, I don’t think you should be entirely safe on the ground or infuse your AA envelope. Bombing and strafing aircraft are very real world tactics.
But that said it should be a dangerous thing to attempt.
Such people make the game easier for you and me. If we do our part, they can’t do anything, as they are outnumbered heavily anyway.
The problem with AF AAA is that it’s useful not only for camping, but also as a safe retreat.
I’ve had a match where dude in G.55S flew towards AF each time I tried to engage him.
If you know G.55 you do realise that if you’re below it in German plane and you are not a lot faster with some serious alt to spare, you’re in deep trouble as that thing barely compresses and has an excellent turn rate and is super pleasant to fly.
Unless you’re very good (I’m not) you have to make sure G.55 dies before you go fight at low altitude.
The thing is, you can approach the guy over and over and he’ll just head back to AF. Again if you aren’t a lot faster with some long-reaching gun, GL with that.
And how can we prevent such scenario?
What game mechanic will stop a guy in a perfectly fine plane to basically stall the game for you? Same tactic can be utilised by basically any plane in game, but when it’s a plane that’s very hard to counter once he has energy advantage…
Anyway, I see no good solutions to this that involve leaving AF AAA.
Unless it literally only targets planes once they kill somebody on/just above the AF/only works when a plane is landed/up to 30s after takeoff.
So give up your altitude advantage so the person camping AF can then get an altitude advantage and come after you lol.
3 Likes
There is a very simple counterplay, and that is that you push tab and check your mission objectives. Go get to fight the war you are supposed to fight.
It is called warthunder for a reason, this is a war being fought and not an air combat simulator.
1 Like
The mode is called Air RB and there are dedicated fighters in it.
Being able to force people to face AI is ridiculous.
I’m sure my SAP and HEI/HEF-I shells will do wonders against that column of medium tanks.
2 Likes
It is also called realistic, so I don’t know why you would think you could find and enemy airfield without AA. Sure, we could make it a proper and much more rewarding mission to destroy the airfield AA and radar… but the existence and ways to deal or avoid is part of every pilots training. Unless you think we could find players interesting in manning the AA guns themselves we need AA to make the mode realistic.