CAS only mode (poll)

Game Discussion General Discussion
83

Sorry I missed this.Nice Post :)

Yes had everyone and everything in between since then and now.I had Dreadnoughts and Battle for the Falklands on the ZX Spectrum lol

I get your point completely but those games sold in droves and remember the price of them.30 quid 30 years ago? Those games are ancient but the playerbilty and immersion was amazing.Is there any justifiable reason why War Thunder shouldn’t be streets ahead of those games? Yet it falls short.That is a tragedy.The ARB game is shocking.Land on an airfield to capture it? Stuff for eight year olds( Unless you are in Korea lol)

Seriously ,why has time stood still for War Thunder? Why do I have anything to criticise after the game has being around for 11 years? The terrain is pure 2000s,The maps are worse that Company of Heroes or Sudden strike.At my age I should have no advice to give yet all I am seeing missed opportunities.

You know these old games and how they made you feel so tell me I am wrong.

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84

The point was simply that you said a mode for one type of vehicle is “NOT GONNA HAPPEN” but it literally just happened. You didn’t really give any caveats originally for “well, unless the reason it ___”, just “not gonna happen”

it just happens to be an entirely separate tech tree

Not relevant to anything here, which is why I ignored it the first time.

the definition of CAS is super ambiguous.

So what? The devs would just hand pick the ones they think seem reasonable and fun and have a whitelist in game. When you switch to that mode, it grays out the unavailable ones in the TT so you can clearly see what’s up, not a big deal.

Combined arms is literally the most popular game mode in War Thunder - Ground AB and Ground RB are both Combined Arms…

Ground RB is the least popular mode that isn’t completely dead (like naval and sim), and Ground AB is in name only/barely combined arms. You cannot main airplanes at all in it, you can’t choose any of your loadouts, you can’t even physically spend more than like 10% of the match in a plane. Even then, if you’ll notice, people are still screaming that they want a ground-only mode every 5 seconds on this forum. So even that super-reduced amount of combined arms isn’t fun for many many people. They still play Ground AB, the “much less combined arms” mode, just because they don’t have a choice to play ground only mode.

Given the option only between MORE or LESS combined arms, everyone flocks over to “less combined arms” from among the available options. Arcade ground is vastly more popular than Ground RB, almost 4x more popular.

Meanwhile, naval has like 4 players, and Air mode (not combined) has tons. 90% of players in War Thunder play either non-combined, or the most minimally-combined modes available (due to pure lack of a better ground only option being provided). How popular are the various modes? - General Discussion - War Thunder - Official Forum

So again, why would you double down on one of the least popular features in the game?

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I am literally telling you what Gaijin themselves have said. That’s why this whole argument is wasting everyone’s time.

Again when i say a mode for a very specific subset of vehicle is not going to happen, i am basing this off of Gaijin’s statements…

Helicopters are their own thing and had their own unique circumstances within the game to warrant a PVE mode. CAS does not share this circumstance at all. So you can be the “actually guy” and argue with me over semantics all day here but again. A CAS only mode aint happening according to the developer…not me…

Oh good let the devs hand pick what vehicles get into a specific mode from a tech tree…im sure that wont cause any problems…

What u linked me is somebody’s back of the napkin test for game mode popularity from 2021. You can do this right now. See next paragraph. Gaijin said in 2022 that Ground AB is most popular. Ground RB and Air AB are second and Air RB is third. So you are just purely off when you say Ground RB is the least popular mode…

You can do your own testing for this. Go join a match(make sure every server is checked) and see how many people are in a que. As of the last year, ive personally seen Ground RB exceed Air AB most of the time. Air RB has taken a major plunge at the lower tiers. Some BR’s are really hard to get into a match quickly for Air RB. Air RB is still very popular at high tiers though.

Gaijin has actually been the one to say that Combined Arms is their focus so Im really trying to play into their focus. Id be fine with a pure Air RB EC. I think its actually the easiest to develop for Gaijin but i was just going off what they said their focus was in the last Q&A or it was the one before last. They rly need to do more of those.

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86

What is the question ffs?

87

If Gaijin says “X is not going to ever happen”

And then Gaijin does X anyway.

Then the first Gaijin was incorrect, lol, not the second one. (Where “X” here = “adding modes with only one subset of vehicle type in it”) I won’t say “lying” because maybe they just changed their mind honestly. But “wrong” at a minimum.

Helicopters are their own thing

Yes I know, and “being your own thing” is just a synonym for “a narrow type of vehicle”

What u linked me is somebody’s back of the napkin test for game mode popularity from 2021

No… try reading it again. He ran a script that constantly scraped the raw data from Gaijin’s own replay server for a week or two (and it was NOT during any weird event or anything by the way, I checked that when i first saw it. It was during a boring time with nothing going on except a battlepass IIRC).

I have no idea why you would ever choose to prefer some super vague rank order verbal statement about mode popularity, when you have access to hour by hour precise raw numerical data about the same thing, both from Gaijin themselves

You can do your own testing for this. Go join a match(make sure every server is checked) and see how many people are in a que.

Queues =/= number of games. They are not linearly related at all, and again I have no idea why you would use a vague, blurry, unreliable approximation of the data you actually want, when you have access DIRECTLY to the raw, hour by hour exact data in the form you actually wanted it to instead, from the same source.

The only possible caveat here is if there was some clear, strong reason for mode popularity to completely change by 2-3x in magnitude from 2021 to 2022. Which I don’t think there is any plausible reason for.

88

We DO NOT have access to Gaijin’s matchmaking data.

Several CC’s have been asking for it for years and Gaijin will not release that information. Years ago there was a post on War Thunders main page regarding this information and that it was proprietary.

I am not exactly sure what he is using in terms of a “replay server” and its accuracy but Gaijin has been very clear that they do not allow us access to their specific matchmaking data.

I think the one of the big CC’s made a video explaining this a while ago. It had something to do with War Thunders market evaluation and how no company wants full transparency on their worth. Thats a bit out of my depth…

Yes you are right. The que quantity does not equal the number of matches but it is the best data we have. PhyDaily has used it before in trying to determine mode popularity. It’s the only metric we have open access to.

Again, they’ve been very clear on this. We DO NOT have access to the raw data here.

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89

Alright well. Im proposing a Light Tank only mode because i can’t stop getting killed by Medium Tanks…

…sounds a little ridiculous doesn’t it?

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90

I’m not sure what you mean by “matchmaking data”. If you mean “what things it was CONSIDERING when designing and putting matches of people together” then no.

But if you mean “The matches it actually ended up making” then YES we absolutely do, what are you talking about? There’s a replay server where you can just go and grab every single replay of every single game that ever happens in War Thunder, nobody is stopping you.

They only stay up for like a day or maybe even a few hours, though, I don’t remember. That’s why the guy had to make a script to constantly scrape it, you’d never be able to do it manually and actually get a clear representative swath of data over the hours and peak periods and blah blah.

But you can go look yourself right now. It’s the same server you use to report cheaters and stuff, but just instead of “give me games I participated in” button, or any key word, just type nothing into the search box, and it will give you ALL games.

91

I think everyone here knows full well that CAS vs fighter planes have much vaster differences in their whole operation, doctrine, completely different types of targets, etc., than light vs medium tanks do. I’m not sure who you’re trying to fool.

A much much better analogy if you want to make an analogy to ground, is “SPAA vs all the other ground units”. And YES, I DO think that SPAA should have its own mode where it can shine. I already said that earlier in this same thread, even: I ideally want a ground-only mode (where you can spawn SPAA if you really want, but it’s a non-required tech tree line, possibly hidden to new players even, and all the BRs are only balanced around their performance as tank destroyers), and then a CAS vs SPAA mode.

92

The guy who did that study in your link is saying the times are off which screws up his data completely…

and from my experience, the replays are off so even in a situation where a script can be run, i run into issues with my replays all the time - missing matches, missing time frames, replay ending early, etc.

Again i am going off of what the developer has said. You can claim theyre lying. I have no idea…

Lol okay. This is just getting ridiculous. It’s just never going to happen. Im sorry.

A CAS only mode. An SPAA only mode… these would be DOA…far worse than Heli PVE.

Like ive said before. There are more inclusive options here that would help CAS be more effective - Air RB EC… this is a mode that a ton of the community has been begging Gaijin to bring to the game for years and would get a lot of support from the community.

These hyper niche modes just arent popular and they’re not happening.

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93

Just a had a brilliant game on flanders in a T34.Absolutely riddled with CAS,got bombed to Fk but they didnt kill me.I ran out of ammo ,took a SPAA with MG,funny as F*.

I would have cried about it 3 years ago now I take it as it is.I fought like a trooper despite the CAS overkill.Then I used my PE8 with the the wrong bombs loaded and killed somebody with a single tiny bomb.You can’t buy this ,comedy gold .Long live CAS.Just gotta have the right sense of humour and be in the mood.:)

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Uh I didn’t cite anything about the durations of matches, so not really relevant. If you scroll like 2 comments down, the answer is given, which is that the replay server cuts off games after a fixed amount of time (or probably data), likely simply to save bandwidth. Our discussion here only requires match numbers though.

Lol okay. This is just getting ridiculous. It’s just never going to happen. Im sorry.

It could easily happen, not because they designed a bespoke mode like that, I agree that’s very unlikely. But just as a default side effect of adding a ground only mode: All the ground (tank) mains would leave the original Ground RB, and the people remaining would be… drumroll CAS and SPAA.

95

His whole script is dependent on time…Which throws off the entire data set…

Maybe im reading it wrong. Idk. Im going off what has been said by the dev… which i can replicate pretty well from Que quantity. But idk maybe its all off.

Its not going to happen though. Nobody is going to want to play SPAA only lol. CAS is usually just played by grinders in aviation modes. Nobody really enjoys it…they’re just grinding…like a job…

I still say a better solution would be one that is more inclusive to other styles of gameplay. No need to eliminate fighters if you’re asking for a PVE mode. They can do PVE against AI targets like you’re doing PVE against ground targets.

EC would open up a world of possibilities too. I just dont think pushing for a CAS only mode is very productive if you want more options for CAS.

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96

He basically just did a script that does the equivalent of you yourself going on to the replay server site every 15 minutes or whatever it needs to be before they expire, running a search for “[blank]” and then writing down all the metadata for the matches that come up – listed duration (which is inaccurate itself), mode played, map played, etc. The he ran it for I think 2 weeks it says? during a time when there was no weird event grinding going on or anything.

Its not going to happen though. Nobody is going to want to play SPAA only lol.

If so, then the mode will die, but it would still be an accidental experiment at least briefly that would have a chance to succeed, just by hanging around for awhile after the tank mains left. And if you’re right, and it doesn’t succeed, then no big loss – that just proves that everyone was a captive audience in the first place, and people didn’t actually like playing SPAA all along, so who cares if it withers away?

It’s only a big loss if people DID enjoy it, and if so, then it WOULDN’T be a loss, because it could just be left running.

Win win

97

It’s not a “no harm, no foul” situation. It’s a waste of development time.

Thats the way Gaijin is going to see it. So when things like this get asked, they waste Gaijin’s time and make them laugh at anybody asking for another game mode, which they already don’t want to bother making.

It’s a very niche mode you’re asking for here when the current modes could use work and when there are other modes that are more needed. Half the Air community has been asking for Air RB EC for 7-8 years and have been ignored. Gaijin’s gunna ignore this CAS only mode…

Again…CAS should have a better role in an Air mode. But be smart about what you ask for.

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98

What I described involved literally zero developer time…

It’s a very niche mode you’re asking for here when the current modes could use work

What I described WAS one of the current modes.

I think you should scroll up and re-read… Bottom half of CAS only mode (poll) - #94 by A_Cute_Chihuahua

99

This is very naive…

Uhhh you’re proposing some “what if” scenario here that isolates SPAA and CAS… its NOT a current mode… it would be a new mode - the whole point of this post.

Look dude its fine. Idc about arguing over this anymore.

If we’re lucky, we’ll finally get Air RB EC or some overall PVE mode where CAS can be more effective. Most likely we won’t.

Aside from in a Custom Match, a CAS only mode isn’t happening.

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100

I think you should scroll up and re-read… Bottom half of CAS only mode (poll) - #94 by A_Cute_Chihuahua

You obviously did not scroll up and re-read, let’s try again. I gave you the link and everything, wasn’t being vague.

101

Jesus. Read your own link…

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