Battle is over Autokill

Game Discussion General Discussion
85

Exactly. I call this grey nameplate. In the new system they replaced it in most cases with red nameplate, to keep planes alive for longer.

Even in that battle I showed above, the plane nameplate turned grey when I hit him, because it was recorded in the old system. In the new system, that guy would still have red nameplate, until he drowns.

So from this perspective, keeping planes alive for longer “makes sense”, because this guy can still drop bombs and possibly kill me. But imagine what would happen in the old and new system, if the battle end.

  • in the old system I received a kill credit the moment I caused severe damage to this plane:
Spoiler

So I already received 100% score and rewards, I don’t have to care to finish this guy. But he can still be dangerous. Players were dying from such planes.

  • in the new system, this guy would still be alive and keep the red nameplate. He would be just severely damaged instead. So I would only receive 80% of the score and awards, but no kill credit yet.

Now imagine what would happen if the battle ended at this point, where I took that screenshot, if there was no killing severely damaged planes at the end of the battle.

  • in the old system I would have +1 kill, he would have +1 death
  • in the new system I would have +0 kills, he would have +0 deaths, because this new severe damage mechanics delayed his death.

I know this is a low altitude kill, so you can say: “whatever, he would have died in the new system a few seconds later anyway”. That’s correct. But what if that kill happened at high altitude? And many damages, especially in Air battles are at high altitudes. This new system can delay death even by minutes, if the plane is severely damaged at high altitude.

A solution to this is to kill all severely damaged planes at the end of the battle. It’s not a nice solution, but it keeps number of dead planes at about the same level as before.

And before someone says: “but why not reduce amount of deaths globally?”. Well, that would affect everything, from rewards, camouflages progress to tasks. The whole game was designed based on that average number of kills.

The new severe damage mechanics only keep 2 instant kill conditions: killing the pilot and tearing off the tail. Every other kill condition was converted to severe damage condition.

And can you imagine how many players would complain, when they realise they have less kills than before, and that spinning plane that is on fire, without both wings and without any control is not dead yet only because the new severe damage mechanics keeps him alive for longer?

It simply makes sense to kill severely damaged planes at the end of the battle. By doing this, everything is very similar to how it worked before.

86

My only dislike for the new mechanic atm is income change. Even if not intended, it does deal nicely with the “you stole my kill” entitlement.

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87

It makes sense to grant the kills. It doesn’t really make that much sense to play the eject animation of affected planes unless its a workaround for Gaijin.

Kinda, not really. At this point in time i just makes it confusing what planes are severely damaged and worth going after from a reward perspective.

“Killstealing” can and still very much happen. Especially when fires are involved, which at least how i remember it being one of the most common avenues for people to complain about killstealing.

Anyways, one of these is severely damaged, the other isnt:
image-9
image-7

It would make sense to me to just mask the whole damage treshold issue by not playing the eject animation.

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88

Although i fully agree with almost all of your content in the recent weeks - i strongly disagree with you in this case.

Your pov makes sense just in one case:
If you score a severe damage which was a clean kill in the past.

If you consider that (as proven within the OP and a few other posts) that planes currently classified as severely damaged have either no problems to rtb or remain fully operational (like in my case) your pov is not really convincing.

I do agree that with a perfectly working game mechanic i might consider to support your pov, but as long as this new mechanic is in line with other bugged game mechanics, it makes no sense.

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89

War Thunder should be and could be a simple shooter so what is with all this mess?

90

No idea, but watch out for the off-topic police :-)

Off-topic

Did you ever realize that if you play in Air RB a 1 vs 1 as last players of both teams and you kill your opponent you won’t get the sole survivor reward of 5.000 SL if the tickets run out before he burns up or pancake if he stays in the plane? So with low tickets you need a pilot snipe to get the reward…

1 Like
91

You don’t have to agree with me, we are just presenting out views here. And to be honest, our opinions don’t even matter, because the devs don’t read this forum anyway. Because we never got any detailed explanation from the devs, there are many things we just have to guess and assume, and base our opinions on that.

Yes, and if you analyze any battle with the previous system, you would notice most current severe damages would be an instant destruction before.

Assuming the battle will end in this very moment I made the screenshot, I much prefer to see this plane giving me a kill credit than not:

Spoiler

I’m sure no one have any doubts this plane would be already destroyed in the old system. I used whole my ammo on this guy, and I couldn’t finish him because I couldn’t snipe the pilot or tear off his tail, and these are the only instant kill conditions that are left in the new system.

So yeah, my way of thinking is, it makes much more sense to kill this guy than doesn’t. Think what would happen if they didn’t kill such planes at the end of the battle, and how many complains they would see everywhere?

BTW: I don’t care how they do this, should they force J-out or just silently kill him in stats, it doesn’t really matter. I just know, this guy is dead for me. It’s only the new severe damage mechanics that still keeps him alive.

I thought there is just one condition that was moved from critical hit to a severe damage (engine damage), but it was actually you who noticed the destruction of all horizontal stabilizers on the list as well. In my opinion, this latter condition doesn’t make sense, because this type of damage does not affect the aircraft’s performance (at least not in any significant way). I don’t understand why was this even moved from a critical hit to severe damage. Maybe this condition will be removed in the future, I don’t know.

It would be great to have an detailed explanation from the devs what exactly was changed to severe damage condition and why, but it probably won’t happen.

In the first article, the devs described this new mechanics as:

If an aircraft is damaged to the extent where it would have been counted as being destroyed previously, (…) this new mechanic will count it as severely damaged.

In the Russian forum comments about this article, it’s interesting that the players understood this mechanics from the very beginning (which is strange, because on our English forum most players didn’t):

Spoiler

По дорожной карте: предлагаемые изменения в механике уничтожения самолётов и ночных боях - Новости и обновления - War Thunder — официальный форум

You can use Google Translator to translate their comments. Many players noticed that this new mechanics won’t change how critical hits work, it will only delay deaths and complained about this. Maybe that’s the reason why the devs decided to change at least two critical hits conditions to severe damage? I don’t know, it was never explained anywhere. We just know the plans clearly changed, the original design was different.

And to be honest, even with these 2 critical hit conditions moved to a severe damage, it still doesn’t help in any kill steals situations, because this part is currently incorrect:

both players will receive a kill in the statistics window for defeating the enemy, which is taken into account when unlocking camouflages and completing tasks.

The severe damage currently doesn’t give you a kill credit, and I’m quite sure it’s a bug. But keep in mind this article was written before the test we had. What if the devs realized this new mechanics gives many more frags to players than expected, and they just changed their mind and decided to give kill credit only to finisher? They never said this is a bug and they will fix this.

It’s the same with critical hits, we just don’t know if that’s a bug or change in design. They never wrote anywhere in severe damage mechanics articles they are going to reduce number of critical hits in the game. But it is currently hugely reduced, and we don’t even know why.

BTW: If someone doesn’t know. The critical hit is worth 33% of the kill score, so it actually makes a significant difference to remove most critical hits. This affects the scores hugely. If that’s just the design of this new system and it will stay this way, then this new system is just terrible from that perspective. Less score means slower event progress, lower rewards and lower activity. And you lose that 33% with pretty much every severe damage/kill in the new system.

The problem is, we don’t even know what is a bug and what isn’t. So at least for now, we have what we have. If it was up to me, I would change horizontal stabilizers condition back to critical hit condition, and I would keep planes dying at the end of the battle. But it’s just my opinion. What matters is the devs opinion, and unfortunately we don’t know it.

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92

Well, using 7.62mm AP-non-I guns and their ability gradually apply damage. Id say its more like:
50% severe damage on a plane that is somewhat impaired but otherwise flyable
15% pilot snipe
35% damage that would be counted as kill in the previous system, or lead to it.

Using cannons its more likely you will apply the damage needed to cause what would be considered a kill. 7.62 more clearly shows the ease at which one can get severe damage compared to kills

93

There was something about this in the patch notes of Feb 15 iirc. I was thinking this may have been the reason for change in crits too, that is why I quoted them back then.

94

I am quite sure we are not alone with this.

This whole mess we see from time is irl mainly seen in highly complex IT landscapes or working/production processes. Small changes at point A produce delayed and often not predicted outcomes at point D. The only way to get rid of “surprise” effects is to reduce complexity - but imho Gaijin increases the complexity with every new “feature”.

As we have deviating opinions on “auto-kills” at the end of the match - fine for me, agree to disagree.

Regarding your claim regarding adding of artificial 80% kills in the overall statistics as a “real” kill - same as above, agree to disagree.

I mean you kill one of the last remaining somehow realistic features of wt: The principle of “one kill - one pilot”. You can shoot down a plane just once (irl) - why artificially increase kill numbers (and therefore de-validate real kills) by assigning 2 kills for 1 killed aircraft?

3 Likes
95

We know that the only instant kill conditions that are left right now are sniping the pilot and tearing off the tail. And because we know that all other kill conditions were moved to severe damage, it’s not that hard to figure out which kills in the old system would be a severe damage currently.

I analyzed the battle I played some time time ago in the old system (before critical hits were changed):

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLNvvaAiVX8

  • 1st kill (2:55): The engine (one from two) and then wing was destroyed. I got instant kill, in the current system that would be severe damage.
  • 2nd kill (3:20): The engine (one from two) was destroyed, which caused a fire and then the destruction of the wing. That was a kill in the previous system, but in the new system severe damage.
  • 3rd kill (4:38): The enemy tail was torn off. That’s an instant kill in both systems.
  • 4th kill (5:18): The wing was destroyed. That’s instant kill in the previous system, severe damage in the current system.
  • 5th kill (6:20): The pilot was sniped, so it’s an instant kill in both systems.
  • 6th kill (6:22): The wing was destroyed. In the new system that would be a severe damage.
  • 7th kill (7:02): Another wing destroyed. In the new system that would be a severe damage.
  • 8th kill (7:50): The pilot was sniped. Instant kill in both systems.
  • 9th kill (8:01): The pilot was killed. Instant kill in both systems.
  • 10th kill (8:54): I think this plane died from the wing damage, but I’m not sure. His pilot was killed seconds later, so he wouldn’t survive this for much longer anyway. I’m not sure if I killed his pilot or it was my teammate. This could be a “kill steal” in this new system.
  • 11th kill (9:30): Probably the pilot was sniped. Instant kill in both systems.
  • 1st assist (9:53): I hit his engine, so it was a critical hit in the old system. My teammate finished him a few seconds later, so that would be severe damage for me in the current system, but the kill credit would still go to my teammate.
  • 12th kill (10:02): I’m not sure how this guy died. It could be due to tail damage (because I see a critical hit to the elevator message). Let’s count it as the same condition in both systems (tail torn off).

Potentially I lost:

  • 6 instant kills due to severe damage mechanics

Potentially I gained:

  • 1 severe damage instead of critical hit

Instant kill in both systems:

  • 6 situations

So basically half my kills (6) would be delayed and these planes could be finished by someone else. One situation could give me a severe damage instead of a critical hit, but it still wouldn’t give me a kill credit. In the new system (that is probably bugged with kill credits) that could lead to 6 less kill credits and 6x 20% less score/rewards. I’m not even including the critical hits change in these calculations. How is that a win for me? In the new system I wouldn’t gain a single kill (at least right now, when severe damage doesn’t give you a kill credit), but I could lose 6 of them.

Of course I understand it’s not like every single severe damage I caused would be finished by someone else in the new system. But there are so many situations where my instant kill was changed to severe damage and this is exactly what I’m talking about. More opportunities to lose score. It’s like a potential (not sure) lose of the score. The score you would already have before. From my perspective you can lose more than gain in this new system. But this probably hugely depends from the playstyle, the BR (do you play propellers or jets?) and the game mode you play (Arcade or Realistic).

I can only talk from my own perspective. And I see a huge drop in instant kills in battles (I play propellers in Air Arcade).

I suspect this is just a terrible translation from Russian. The changelog on our English website says:

The detachment of an aircraft wing when the allowable load is exceeded is no longer counted as a destruction, the same as with the tearing off of flaps or landing gear.

This doesn’t make sense to me, but when I use Google Translator on the Russian changelog:

The separation of an aircraft wing console when the permissible load is exceeded is no longer counted as destruction, as is the case with the separation of flaps or landing gear.

I still don’t understand what the “wing console” means, but it suddenly makes more sense. When you turn too sharply in Realistic, you can lose some wing elements due to overload. Google Translator suggested that separation of flaps and landing gear is not counted as a destruction of the wing right now (which is correct). But the destruction of “wing console” (whatever that is) was counted as destruction of the wing, and they changed it. I suspect the “wing console” is some very minor element of the wing, that previously could cause the destruction of whole wing, when you overload it. And right now destroying that small element is no longer counted as a destruction of whole wing. But that’s just my guesses and assumptions.

I’m pretty sure the English changelog is just badly translated, because I don’t understand it at all. This change makes much more sense, when you Google Translate it from the Russian changelog. How weird, isn’t it?

2 Likes
97

Then submit a bug report. This isn’t a valid argument against the system itself.

98

Just going to say, this is pure fantasy to make out that intentionally denying a kill is the same as staying aloft…

We’re not arguing that the entire system is bad, it’s just this one little facet.

2 Likes
99

You don’t really have time, as the matches are way too short.

Chances are the battle is ended before you reach airfield, or at the very least “decided” before you can return to the fight.

So most likely your team wins the game for you (but you miss out on rewards since you’re sat on airfield) or your team is wiped out, and now you’re the last one alive…

1 Like
100

Most matches are nowhere near short enough for this to be the case. Unless I’m dead, I find myself repairing/rearming in most matches.

Regardless, this isn’t relevant to the topic, as it’s specifically about the end or match timer (or ticket bleed). The match being (subjectively, supposedly) “decided” by the time you repair has no bearing, even if we accept it to be true.

101

Well, it depends on battle rating.

I think my statement is accurate in air RB matches 10.0 and higher.

Whereas games in props and very early jets 2.0-8.0 last much longer.

102

I addressed in this post the issue within the devblog, the whole purpose of this blog is feedback. So devs are supposed to read it or to get summaries by CMs.

By quoting @Stona_WT and @OrsonES, both CMs (=community managers & actual staff) they got “pinged” so they might answer sooner or later.

I checked the bug report site and saw several other reports dealing with this new mechanic - all of them not processed. Seeing 7 unprocessed bug reports of me addressing other bugs i decided that i have done enough.

If your attention span would have lasted longer, you might have had the chance to read the next paragraph:

I kindly ask you to stop quoting me. Thx in advance!

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103

The length of the game has no bearing on the kill being given at the end of the game ,the amount of time you spent damaged is irrelevant.
If a working plane is classed as dead when the game ends, then it matters not whether it flew for ten minutes or one.

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104

I agree this “written off” horses…t is a cheap bulls…t kill

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