This is not a question of pleasing both parties - it is a fundamental difference in understanding of how this game should be played and what is the goal of Air RB.
You saw it at the end of last year when af aaa was ineffective after 2 or 3 updates in a row. The forum was full of “halleluja” and “praise the lord” or “WTF” and “Gaijin fix this !!!”.
So with the deletion of forward af we have now the situation that the majority of clueless players get farmed even easier than before and the already existing experience skill gaps vs experienced players gets even larger.
What is the impact of af aaa right now?
Subjective feelings due to lost time?
Eliminating the need to improve and to make the right decisions?
Problem for prop BRs or jet BRs?
Providing variety of plane classes to participate?
I hoped that the deletion of forward af aaa will have a positive impact on learning curves, but it seems that i expected too much.
Seeing the example of the fellow player with the Wyvern above: Yes, a waste of 10 minutes. Seeing the vid of the player faming 4 guys on forward airfields: Yes, a skill issue of the 4 players getting caught with pants down.
But:
Without af aaa on main airfields we would see such scenes every match. Such easy kills de-validate any air kills you scored “fair and square” whilst playing above the center of the map.
I actually share the view of most players that hanging around the enemy airfield is rather useless, but these guys simply forget that they are not representative for the average wt Air RB player.
Why? The same guys getting roasted on the forward airfield like in the vid above are representing the average wt player. So without af aaa they will do whatever the can to score points - either performing the usual headon nonsense, spawn in an XP-50 to farm clueless bombers - or attack guys trying to land; simply because these are the only ways they can get kills.
So even if i share a lot of views from both parties (so pro and con) i simply see no solution for this issue. And not due to the game mechanic af aaa - it is a problem within the player base.
The average wt prop pilot 5 years ago was way better than today, af aaa was not that lethal and the quality of matches was either very good or very boring thanks to the historical MM - and ofc depending on which side you flew.
I was always defending af aaa as a point of retreat for non-fighter pilots as I assumed that they would play the game due the passion of flying and trying to make a difference - i was wrong. The majority of “new generation” players use Air RB solely as grinding tool.
But this does not jusify the deletion of af aaa on the main airfield as this is simply the only way to survive a steamroll due to the collapse of own fighters for PvE players in non-fighter planes, just to land and j out.
As long as some guys which try to transform prop Air RB into the same 5-8 minutes TDM like in top tier jet matches just don’t get the point that they kill the last viable option for PvE players to participate (and to ensure plane class diversity) the only solution for them would be a fighter only mode without af aaa. But they reject this proposal as this would rob them more or less free bomber / strike fighter kills.
i should’ve worded myself better, yes it still wouldn’t satisfy both parties. But i think this kind of improvement would at least be a stepping stone for both grounds. People who are anti AA don’t like the airfield campers. my proposal is supposed to reduce this and still keep the airfield aa for its intended use. I know there is no real solution that would satisfy both parties because you can never satisfy everyone. I’d love to hear better alternatives, or even a different gamemode for “TDM”
Everyone in here didn’t realise, that there’s a ticket bleed for the faction, wich landed it’s (last) plane.
Implemented since a couple of years? (3-5 years ago i think)
If your not winning due to ticket bleed, there’s another plane up, or you guys just didn’t play the objective - or are just massively behind. (those blue and red bars on top of the screen) Simple as that?
Didn’t count the times, where I had to land to rearm and refuel my Kfir, only to loose due to ticket bleed, hence the fact that i was taking of, but weren’t rewarded for taking of in time…
Edit:
This game orient itself on realism.
Theres no Airfield without any kind of AA at all.
Airfields are also not 20km from the frontline. And no WW2 AAA could hit a fighter maneuvering during a 700km/h dive.
So there you have your “realism”.
No dude, they weren’t. The setting is not realiatic, airfield being the dexiding favtor of air battles is just hilarious idea. You should become a stand up comedian.
In WWII? Often times they were, especially for the Germans and sometimes for the Russians,if they weren’t destroyed beforehand.
Btw, both Airbases are devided by ~20-40km to each other in WT, while IRL the average distance was smth around 60-120km.
But no one in Warthunder want to fly for over 15 minutes to the battlefied… The usual player starts crying, if there’s a 30sec timer for a landed aircraft…
60km. Yeah sure. 13m of flight between 2 AFs. Where are you getting this data? I’ll tell you. You’re making this stuff up to support your ridiculous argument.
WT has unrealistic setting, unrealistic weapons, unrealistic pilots and space-laser AF AAA shooting down WW2 aircraft. It makes 0 sense.
With 13m in-between airfield you don’t need to fly high. Just take off, bomb them and you are back to base before the soup gets cold.
Seriously, you are beyond delusional.
If you set up AF 30km from frontline you’d get strafed to death as soon as enemy would discover your positoons, since 30km behind frontlines means you’ll get like 4m of warning from frontline observers, not really enough time to scramble.
Agreed, but somehow just af aaa is the bad guy here… :-)
Imho this is actually correct - but only for USSR vs Germany up to mid/end of 1943.
And mainly based on the fact that USSR fighters rarely crossed the front line. Their purpose was mainly to cover own strike aircraft / bombers going for tactical targets at the front line. So Germans were usually safe if they made it back behind friendly lines.
Regardind ETO / MTO fights US/UK vs Germany the distances were far larger.
From a theoretical pov you are right. But from a historical pov the issue has to be seen in the right context. A small example of airfield raids by the USSR:
In the early morning of 5 July, the VVS launched a large raid against German airfields, hoping to destroy the Luftwaffe on the ground. This effort failed, and the VVS units suffered considerable losses.[t][190][183] The VVS lost 176 aircraft on 5 July, compared to the 26 aircraft lost by the Luftwaffe.
If you read analysis of aircraft losses above North Africa your theory is true, despite the distances were far larger; the majority of axis plane losses were a result of bombing them on their airfields. The vast distances and the lack of early warning systems were a main factor. Similar to the situation above Italy & the Balkan after 1943/44.
But i fully agree - arguing with irl topics whilst playing wt is useless.
AF AAA is a party pooper, ruining matches and allowing toxic players to extebd the match to full 25m, everything else just a part of a fairly enjoyable gaming experience. Hence it’s the bad guy. I’m not looking for some mind-blowing historical experience in a mode where 1946 turboprop clowns on 1941 fighters.
Every time I check back here it is a new set of players making the same dead argument about poor attackers and bombers needing AAA, “fighter jocks” and “PvP only mode”…
The fact there’s already a XP-50 at airfield 5 minutes into the game is unfortunate. Guy has no clue how to conserve his ammo/plane to stay up longer in the match.
AF camping in a Yak-3 against one person in a 190 F-8 is pathetic. Stuff like this is the exact reason why AF AA needs to be changed because this type of gameplay is cringe and annoying. It’s always the mediocre players defending this type of gameplay too because they need a handicap. If AF AA was somewhat realistic or at least had a timer before cooling down, Air RB would be a lot less annoying. Thankfully at higher tiers AF AA is basically worthless.
I seriously don’t get why people have an issue with AF strafing. When I get AF strafed I don’t complain for stronger AF AA. I recognize it was my fault I got into that position while someone else managed their plane better. Of course, if someone is flying around map borders and then showing up to AF 10 mins later, that’s pretty stupid but so far I’ve never actually seen any person do that (especially in props).
I would be pretty happy if that Yak-3 just simply quit. He could have scored a kill vs T18B before I’d be able to kill him most likely. He had an idea how to dodge, Yak-3 is mind-numbingly good at reversals and (till the next patch) it can take a huge beating thx to M-geschoss 0.4 mm fuse and MG131 0.3mm fuse not working vs Yak-3 aircraft skin (a bug that’s few years old BTW).
But no, better to fly circles around AF and lose on tickets (ground pounding is so engaging :)).
Your post (with the replay) replies to a guy using af aaa by himself, i watched some replays a year ago (?) when he flew in a squad and got caught low with a bunch of squadded 190s - dragging the enemy team into the aaa of his forward af, either just a coincidence or on purpose, idc.
This guy was referring to weaker plane classes, whilst here imho on of the best 4.3 fighters camped vs a rather weak Fw 190. Even if you are obviously the far better pilot - a good flown Yak-3 leaves you very few options outside high speed passes.
Even it was a classic example of braindead / useless camping - u had a also a French bomber at 8 km. So in any case the game would have lasted long as you had the combo af aaa and spaceclimbing in one match.
Next time on this map - relax if you come from this side of the map. You were never in serious danger to lose by tickets. This is the revised version of the old Krimskaya (?) map with deviating time slots for ai plane spawn. That’s why you were behind tickets mid/late game.
The late spawning ai Hs 129s won the match for you, they come late (~16-17 minutes) but have zero problem to kill 1.500 tickets in less than 2 minutes. And in order to reduce enemy tickets you have to kill 60-80% of them - in deviation to other maps killing a single ai planes has zero ticket impact. My bug report regarding the old map was never processed - with the chang of the map into a “Frontline” map they transferred the old imbalance into the new version of the map. Come to your own conclusions.
In other words you might have lost the match if you had spawned in on the other side of the map. If you go low you to kill the Hs 129s then you get jumped, if you stay high you lose if your enemy is running.
The translation of your replay comes from a user flooding the forum with vids clubbing rookies whilst flying meta planes - imho ok if you see this game as a shooter, but your plane choices show a passion for skilled game play instead of relying on superior performance - totally different.