Air Realistic Battles existed before Airfield AA was implemented and it did not prevent people from being able to land and re-arm. You just needed to have a little bit of situational awareness or have team mates to cover you.
The initial reason that AA was added was to prevent spawn camping on Enduring Confrontation modes where you could just sit above the airfield and kill people before they took off.
This was never a problem in Air RB because there are no respawns to begin with.
Most of the people that are complaining about airfield camping play the game for the PvP experience. People aren’t just complaining about losing to airfield campers…but even if you “PTFO” you are still stuck babysitting some guy for 15+ minutes because he won’t leave his protective bubble. The amount of gameplay that is actually happening is basically confined to 5 minutes of climbing into the fight, 5 - 10 minutes of actual fighting…and then the rest is just babysitting 1 or 2 guys while the timer runs out. People don’t want to spend the majority of the game babysitting some try-hard that doesn’t want to see his KD drop below 5.
And you are also saying that returning to airfield and repairing/reamring to go back and fight more is dumb? Sooooooo you aren’t a team player. your goal is shoot stuff down get shot down and move on to next match?
No it’s not “dumb”, but if you get strafed, it’s your own damn fault (or your team’s).
Stop making stuff up, discus what I actually wrote.
I am a team playwr. I win matches a lot more often than your avg WT guy, I help teammates whenever I can.
I really don’t care about “realistic” tbh.
War Thunder is still video games so, doesn’t need to emulate everything exactly like flight simulators for airline pilots. As with any “realistic” game, such as Gran Turismo and Forza Motersport, it is necessary to incorporate some “unrealistic” elements into the game’s design, since the game is played by people who are not actual military pilots for makes more playable.
I just posted an examples of destroying aircraft on the their airfield, ignoring the background.
That’s ok and fine for me because Air RB has nothing to do with “realism”. I simply replied as both parties (pro and against af aaa) often use real world events in order to justify their positions.
So the anti-af aaa guys use WW2 examples or your 7 day-war example as evidence why af aaa is op and has to be removed - and the pro af aaa guys use also irl events why af aaa is necessary - and both claim realism.
I mean even if you agree that the af aaa acquires targets way too fast and is way too accurate in the first 30 -45 seconds (at least for prop BRs, jet BRs is different) it is obvious that the main question is " TDM or PTFO"…
As long as we have people with different goals entering Air RB matches (earning by PvE vs PvP as TDM) and those parties do not realize that gaijin simply designed their economy to support the PvE guys (in order to provide the TDM guys with “easy” targets) continuing with this debate makes no sense.
Imagine they would cut base bombing rewards to 25% of the current value - nobody would fly a bomber or strapping bombs to their fighters / strike aircraft. It would exclude the vast majority of Air RB players from this mode as they simply use this mode for income and not for the game experience.
From a holistic pov af aaa gives them the illusion that there might be a chance to survive one or 2 bomb runs - not realizing that they simply play the role of victims/targets for planes optimized for killing them.
Well, I have an idea that might work and join several warthunder mechanics so that they work together reinforcing teamwork.
Strength of AAAs according to the number of team tickets
Basically, as the number of tickets decreases, the AAAs will have their number and strength reduced, if the ticket reaches 25%, the smaller arfield’s AAA are destroyed (due to lack of ground force and supply), still being able to repair aircraft but without protection, so only the main airfield is protected, which will also have its strength reduced as tickets decrease. This mechanic would have teamwork as a principle, since it would require the work of ground attack planes to destroy ground positions, and bombers to destroy enemy bases, thus reducing the enemy ticket and weakening it in general, since a good part of realist players don’t want to spend 25 minutes in a WarThunder RB (otherwise try the simulation mode, that you will have plenty of time to admire the landscape and fly without problem).
The problem:
In general, a lot of maps can be won by attackers before fighters have even chance to engage. And sprinting to the map middle is a huge gamble because… Enemy may have no attackers and then it’s gg for fighters who haven’t climbed.
So generally, entire gamemode is broken, so we’re looking for something quick and easy to implement like - huge nerf.to AF AAA :)
Agree, the map is called Operation Uranus and you spawn as strike aircraft on the left side about 2km away from a hell of ground targets. Even with a bomber you can kill 15 to 20 ground units undisturbed…
Questions to gaijin regarding sections for map feedback were ignored.
Agree too, hidden features in MM, insane BR setting policy, unwanted as nobody asked for features (like real shatter, 16 vs 16, ballistic update, contrails at 5.4 km on hot maps) are besides various and not announced FM changes and a lot of very strangely acting bomber pilots (running in straight lines or contesting enemy af aaa) from my pov a much bigger issue than af aaa…
So even if gaijin would come to the conclusion that they have to change something, it looks like they see the very strong af aaa in prop BRs just as a tool to allow progress without forcing pilots to improve.
Just imagine how many new people would get discouraged to buy expensive premium jets if they got clubbed at prop BRs without af aaa. Gaijins’ whole business model to force tankers to buy premium/op bombers/attackers in order to earn SL would be at risk.
But they get clubbed anyway. Most AF aAA campers are experienced, some are actually very experienced and dangerous.
Novice players are those trying to turnfight or identify as a bomber while in Fw 190 D13.
Novice players are mostly getting frustrated out of the game just because of their own sheer stupidity and lack of good in-game tutorials showing a few more advanced maneuvers (utilising compression, reversals, basics of energy management, forcing head-ons for the win - oh the last part would turn my life into living nightmare because I often full commit in Fw 190 F8 and greatly enjoy the fact people dodge).
The best part is, even those diehard money makers who camp the AF “to get a win and more SL” would be better off landing and getting out of the game and starting another. Same with B-18B space climbers (there’s simply no counter to those).
So overal it’s just detrimental towards gameplay. The best example would be Fw 190 D9 vs f.e. Spitfire Mk XIV. So Fw 190 can outrun Spitfire at most common altitudes.
But lets imagine Spitfire at 3700m spots Fw 190 at 3000m - as long as they’re within around 11km from AF, Fw 190 will most likely escape, because he’ll need to cover only around 8-8,5km to get to safety. That’s 20s of high speed flying, but guess what - it’s pretty damn doable. Well, but that’s not that bad. It’s way worse if he take Fw 190 F8 vs Spitfire Mk IX LF. He can basically match my speed at low alt and is faster everywhere else.
So I have some alt advantage I worked for by pushing him down/not chasing after bombers etc. And lets imagine I scored some shots.
I dive on him again, he dodges, I follow up, and he just goes straight for AF.
And now what? My fuel will run out, or maybe my ammo is super low and I may have serious doubts I will be able to take out an undamaged spitfire with a lot of energy, or maybe my engine got damaged and this is a now or never.
I lose simply because my enemy can reset his mistakes. And thx to ballistics nerfs, if he’s running away at over 550km/h and I fire from beyond 700m, my M-geschoss shells will.never catch up to him and IT/AP will deliver around 0 damage, so it’s not like the guy has to create a lot of separation.
Ok, so I RTB too and now I have Mk IX LF Spitfire over my head who escaped via AF.
What should I do now?
Camp the AF of course.
As you can see, this leads nowhere.
AF AAA has to be way further from any real map objectives to at least partially avoid the “bolt towards AF at the 1st sign of trouble” if we really want to keep it… Maybe maps indeed need an “air superiority zone” which when uncontested for long enough, causes ticket bleed to one side (IRL that would simply mean the command sends attackers/bombers to safely batter the enemy ground forces). I can’t think of any other solutions that would require players to actually stay in the combat area, because just running the clock is the very thing every game has to avoid.
Although i agree with most of your post - the majority deals with particular and very specific aspects of your playstyle - and leads imho away from the opening post.
So there was a proposal / suggestion for a change - actually 5 people liked this (including myself, first verbally and now officially - despite i dismiss some wording).
What is the status? Will there be an additional poll to get at least a statistical significant number of participants and their view on things? Was there a contact with devs? If yes - what’s their pov? If no, why not? Requests ignored?
It would be great to get an update regarding progress in this issue as otherwise this thread is just repeating already addressed statements. Just look at the Ground RB guys and their infinite discussion loop regarding a TO (Tank only) mode.
No, your position up in the air is only there for air superiority. One plane might stay up to keep reloaders down, but the rest of the team should go objectives, either offensive or defensive. Taking out the AI ground units and planes gives victory in most matches.
I must say AA on higher BR-s is not useful as missiles are slow and you can easily evade them. You can easily strafe or be strafed and in most cases AA is ineffective.
Yeah lets ignore:
…lure them into AF AAA and kill them. And it’s as easy as it sounds. But that’s exactly the kind of gameplay AF AAA apologists want to see every match.
This is not my playstyle. This is simply “proper fighter playstyle” and for whatever reason other succesful fighter users have the same issue.
This topic is generally: people who want skilled, engaging gameplay vs people who want to farm/are so bad they can’t get results without AF camping.
There is no reasonable compromise. If someone wants engaging ground attack fun, there’s already a CAS-dominated mode called ground RB, where Ground stands for CAS. If someone wants bomber gameplay, he can just set his alarm and press space with their computer turned off - it won’t be much different anyway and why waste precious electricity?
Exactly.
So the issue has multiple dimensions and depending on your preferred BR range you might have different experiences and your are either highly affected or not…
If you had the chance to follow this thread also in the old forum you might see various types of demands:
For removal of af aaa the main arguments are:
For keep it as it is / strengthen jet af aaa the main points are:
So what ever your position in this topic is, you might have even different views on things - depending if you are playing props and/or jets , so as a pure fighter player you might have different povs than people which play all BRs and plane classes or just non-fighter planes.
The elephant in the room is:.
Regarding “attackers not being useful without AF AAA” - overwhelming majority of attackers dive to the middle and die. Only absolutely busted planes like Wyvern can complete several runs. Attackers often can end match before any PvP combat can really take place (example: that desert map, Tunisia?). So it’s not like AF AAA is “crucial” also withiut fighter cover attackers are toast anyway after they refuel. All they can do is… camp the AF.
I think nobody is really bothered about jet BRs, jet gameplay is IMO busted in general. But AAA is a true problem mostly for props and early jets.
With props less then with jets, but still in it’s core the ARB games usually are playing out as team death match.
The only players having an issue with the AF AA are fighter bois who want to play team death match instead of focusing on the objective. IRL fighters would only get near an enemy AF it they would know the AA was dismantled. Otherwise only attackers and bombers would get near for attacking an AF. That is because military bases in general are defended so that is not a place where a battle is fought out because the attacker would not like to be near the enemy base for it giving the enemy a very clear advantage.
Removing AF AA would hurt attackers and bombers much more then fighters because fighters can bring ammo for large part of the game. Bombers and attacker’s though are fighting their perfect mission and therefor have to RTB and reload, exactly because they are doing the job as intended.
In ARB we need more players focussing on the objectives because it would make the game play out in much more immersive stories and battles fought out. Defending the mission winning bombers reaching the enemy AF is in the end more rewarding then the same dogfights happening over and over again in the middle of the map. In large groups dogfights also usually end up by somebody third partying and taking the kill. For the coolest dogfights I would prefer a duel game mode for 2vs2 or 3vs3 and the rest of the modes stay at their war/battle oriented gameplay.
Only fighter air superiority and teamplay garant non-fighter planes to survive with AAA or without AAA. No AAA does not change this.
Af aaa is not needed for that, fighter cover can do it even better.
This is nonsense, all multiplayer games have random teams and in everyone teamplay matters.
And in my experience the more the teamplay matters the most fun players get out of the game…
Two teams face and in 90% of the matches the one that eliminates the other team wins.
How is that not a TDM?
The other 10% is just an alternative not how the gamemode is designed.
Agree, this has nothing to do with AAA tho
What does an attacker or a bomber in the airfield against a fighter waiting outside AAA protection?
Nothing
Af aaa doesnt ensure that.
Same as two points ago, ARB already is a pure TDM mode. No AAA does not change this.
No AAA only makes teamplay matter more.
Strafing runs are easily countered. An enemy will only be able to strafe once, after that you will be above him and it will be an easy kill.
So they arent cheap kills, in fact they are expensive kills because it costs your death.
On the other hand af AAA alllows low skill gameplay where you run to AAA protection when you are in danger. And there is no counter to it.
Dude - i summarized all positions, there was simply no need for commenting on them, the deeper meaning of a summary is exactly to avoid endless repetition loops…
As this proposal came from you - what’s the state of this?