Critical Balance Issues in Sim Battles - 12.7 vs 13.3 (Fox-3 Power Creep)

[Schindibee]

@FeetPics

Let’s look at the statements you have made in this thread.

Those earlier statements do not contradict my last statement. Point is, you have the freedom to chose (with limitations, admittedly, those being the restriction of the defined rotating brackets).

@FeetPics

Your solution is to fly other aircraft when the one that you want to fly is not in a window where it is viable in the bracket.

There’s different aircraft I love to fly, for very different reasons, so I chose to pick days/rotations that best fit the playstyle I want to fly a specific day. With fighters I’m more careful about what rotations I pick, with attackers it’s less of an issue as part of the job then will be to avoid contact with the enemy anyway, and that is less affected by BR.

@FeetPics

You even have your own little calendar setup so that you always know what BR bracket has the best planes in it and what is the strongest for a given day.

Not necessarily strongest. Consider it like a “menu”, where you can chose whatever you feel like at any day. Take today’s R2 rotation:

Depending on how I feel tonight I will maybe fly the A-7D (even though it’s not top BR - but I prefer the 7D’s Mav’s to the 7E’s Walleyes…).

If I feel like it, I could also take out an A-10, which would be even two steps below today’s maximum, but which can handle that uptier quite well…

Currently I also enjoy the Swiss F-5E, (which admittedly is in a strange position anyway with its unrealistic and contradictory implementation of weapons and radar in WT…): It would be silly of me to fly that specific aircraft at higher BR’s where I’d struggle with rear-aspect IRAAM’s against more common all aspect IRAAMs.

Or maybe I feel more like multirole, so I could take the Hornet out. Which I might add I can also do in 13.3 and higher matches if I focus on ground attack, and with maps that allow good use of the terrain.

Yes, there is a restriction by being “forced” into a bracket system - but one can just as well use this as motivation to vary what one plays…

@FeetPics

You have even said that you avoid Fox 3 tiers

Yes, I said that, and mean it, but not because I feel at a disadvantage by Fox 3: Also if I’m in a Top BR plane of a Fox 3 rotation, I simply do not enjoy the Fox 3 playstile. Or not yet, too early for me to say…

@FeetPics

I don’t find this argument compelling at all because no active or intelligent player willingly plays in full down tiers anyways

My assumption would be, that this would mean that a lot of people would play a certain BR, and people who enjoy other BR’s, especially adjacent to those FTM BR’s would find it hard to be able to fill a lobby.

So for example if 98% want to fly 12.7, the 2% who prefer 12.3’s would never be able to start a match, and would almost always be forced to uptier, whereas with the current system they at least have the possibility to play their 2 days out of 8.

Or - more fitting to this thread: If 98% want to fly Fox 3, the few that want Fox 1 only will almost never have a chance to start a match unless of course they accept the uptier into Fox 3 World…

But that’s speculation, of course.

Another way could be that like in Ground Sim, fixed, defined vehicle setups would be used. Those could even be set up in a way to prevent one of the other things about WT that irk me so: having the same aircraft on both teams…

As to which way would be best, well, that really boils down to personal preference, I guess…

[FeetPics]

@Schindibee

Those earlier statements do not contradict my last statement. Point is, you have the freedom to chose (with limitations, admittedly, those being the restriction of the defined rotating brackets).

No but they do illuminate an overall picture and overall approach to the game that can be generalized.

@Schindibee

There’s different aircraft I love to fly, for very different reasons, so I chose to pick days/rotations that best fit the playstyle I want to fly a specific day. With fighters I’m more careful about what rotations I pick, with attackers it’s less of an issue as part of the job then will be to avoid contact with the enemy anyway, and that is less affected by BR.

The context that most fighters fit in is going to be whether or not they are good for the day. Even with attackers I would be willing to bet that the likelihood of you sticking around in a game is heavily influenced on whether or not the enemy team is actively preventing you from getting to an objective.

Very many times what determines the course of a sim game is whatever team builds PvP momentum and causes the enemy team to quit. Ground attacker players predominantly do not stick around against teams that have built momentum. Typical player turnover is 1-2 deaths in a sim game before people go and find a new one.

I can actually use yourself as an example.

These are the top 5 planes that you have played since around Christmas in Air Sim. Your highest average deaths per game is 1.3 with the A-10. I think it would be fair to say that you typically leave a game after a single death or at maximum of 2. This is fine insofar that it is not atypical.

The only plane in your top 5 for a PvP jet is the Mirage 2000 CS4; a plane that is easily one of the strongest 12.3 planes in the game and one of the most popular amongst dedicated PvP players in down-tier days. It is actually the best performing 12.3s in terms of kills per spawn.

Your other successful PvP plane is the Hawk 200 who’s niche is basically having 4x Aim-9L and countermeasures at a tier where you have the potential to fight things that have neither of those things. It is basically purely an upgrade over the niche that the A-10A Late fills.

@Schindibee

Currently I also enjoy the Swiss F-5E, (which admittedly is in a strange position anyway with its unrealistic and contradictory implementation of weapons and radar in WT…): It would be silly of me to fly that specific aircraft at higher BR’s where I’d struggle with rear-aspect IRAAM’s against more common all aspect IRAAMs.

It would also be silly to play it at it’s own BR against the Swede F-5AG that has Aim-9L. And it would be silly to play it when the F-5E FCU is at the top of it’s tier. So we are arguably back to the same situation.

@Schindibee

Or maybe I feel more like multirole, so I could take the Hornet out. Which I might add I can also do in 13.3 and higher matches if I focus on ground attack, and with maps that allow good use of the terrain.

This is purely hypothetical on your part because it is something that you have chosen not to do at all in any battle rating with the F-18. And considering that you have the F2 ADTW…there is literally no reason to play the FA-18 at days that are not 11.7 - 12.7 on your part.

Which this point is interestingly enough reflected in your own chart. It seems that whatever is highlighted in red is what you consider to be the best for you on any given day. Most of the planes that you have congregated towards are incredibly good for their BR and especially in a downtier.

@Schindibee

Yes, there is a restriction by being “forced” into a bracket system - but one can just as well use this as motivation to vary what one plays…

My point is that variation is just “pick another very strong vehicle for the given day”. If this is taken to its logical conclusion then it actually creates less variety and the only people in non-meta vehicles are newer players that do not know any better.

@Schindibee

My assumption would be, that this would mean that a lot of people would play a certain BR, and people who enjoy other BR’s, especially adjacent to those FTM BR’s would find it hard to be able to fill a lobby.

This already happens for the most part. Except it’s just cyclical. You can really see this at 12.3 - 13.0 tiers. The guy who plays Mirage 2000 CS4 on 12.3 bracket will move to German F-18C on 12.7 bracket and will then move to F2A ADTW on 13.0 bracket.

@Schindibee

So for example if 98% want to fly 12.7, the 2% who prefer 12.3’s would never be able to start a match, and would almost always be forced to uptier, whereas with the current system they at least have the possibility to play their 2 days out of 8.

The most popular 12.3s in the game are F-18s and they are predominantly popular because nothing else in the 12.3 bracket is nearly as good as they are with the exception of the Mirage 2000 CS4. The later F-18s are super popular at 12.7 because once again…they are the best in the bracket.

There are basically 5x the number of F-18’s vs MiG-29s when you look at the monthly game numbers.

The only thing that beats out the premium F-18s in popularity is the F2A ADTW at 13.0 which is…once again…arguably the best plane in that bracket.

These are the in-game stats of a popular sim streamer since December. The vast majority of his games are going to be whenever the plane is at the strongest bracket. As I said earlier…this practice is not uncommon.

@Schindibee

Or - more fitting to this thread: If 98% want to fly Fox 3, the few that want Fox 1 only will almost never have a chance to start a match unless of course they accept the uptier into Fox 3 World…

Most people do not want to fly SARH planes against ARH planes. The only exception that most people make to flying SARH against ARH planes is when the ARH plane is a 3rd gen plane with limited ARH capabilities.

@Schindibee

Another way could be that like in Ground Sim, fixed, defined vehicle setups would be used. Those could even be set up in a way to prevent one of the other things about WT that irk me so: having the same aircraft on both teams…

Gaijin should do this as soon as possible because it would kill multiple tiers of sim. There is another post I made somewhere comparing the January game numbers for 12.7 + 13.0 airplanes. The number of games played in NATO / NATO adjacent was something like 8.9 times as many as USSR / USSR-adjacent planes. Which shouldn’t be surprising when you realize that the MiG-29 w/ R60 is largely uncompetitive and has been for over 2 years.

[Schindibee]

@FeetPics

I can actually use yourself as an example.

Hehe, you analyze me better than I myself! = )

I would agree with many of your observations, although there are details that one can not take from those simple stats.

• I indeed do sometimes leave when I see myself at a very disadvantaged situation, more often than not however it’s external factors like time available that is more limiting. I rarely play more than one hour, I think around 45 minutes is the norm (VR user). I think I already am overly selective in joining battles that I want to play, actually.

• F-111C and A-7E I mostly only played because I was grinding for a decal requiring kills with GBU’s. Now that I have that decal, there’s less incentive for me to use those aircraft.

• Target availability plays an important part as well: If I want mudmoving in a Warthog, but there’s no ground battle events for a long time, I eventually also give up. Or anti ship with the Buccaneer but most ships are gone.

• Hawk 200 and 209 are really niche, as you say. Powerful armament, but poor flight dynamics and no radar and thus no IFF makes them challenging but fun to play. But I haven’t used them a lot yet, I think both variants only twice or so since I got them…

• Other factors are of course the country itself: Swiss F-5E I fly basically only because it’s Swiss, but I prefer fighting in the Thai FCU. And ironically even though my heart beats especially strong for the Mirage IIIS, it’s unrealistic implementation WT disgusts me so much I rarely ever fly it…

• I think I’m not a very good fighter pilot, especially not in the missile-jousting ranges. I’m more the sneaky type trying to use landscape and wits to get kills, and generally am more active as base bomber (which I also haven’t really done for quite a while now) and attacker, less of a fighter.

• Match outcome is of little importance to me: I try to be a good and valuable team member of course, but I don’t need to grind SL or GE, and really focus almost solely on entertainment when I fly in Sim EC.

• In general I haven’t flown a lot recently, and almost not at all in WT in the second half of 2025: I was very active in MSFS2024 then, which in turn these days has almost stopped completely. Times will change again when my mood changes again…

In the end, everybody should play what and how he or she likes most, and I still believe the current BR rotation system of Sim EC allows those personal choices better than any other matchmaking system in WT.

[SBUA_syvash]

Gaijin should do this as soon as possible because it would kill multiple tiers of sim.

Please elaborate why that would be a good thing. Because they are already dead anyway, and something better might come out in the new “meta”?

[Raymondjm5-live]

I suggested earlier to create a permanent Br bracket from 12.3 - 13.0. This would force period appropriate fighters to face each other. Players on the red side would access to semi active missiles and would face vehicles with semi active missiles most of the time. The best way to balance the F15A, JAS39A, and F2A is to bring the first generation SU27/J11 and SU 33 down to 13.0. This would also provide an intermediate tier for players to get used to IRCCM missiles and evading semi active missiles. The exception would be certain Aim120 busses that wouldn’t survive at 13.3. These would include the harrier ii, f4ice and kfir c10 mayne even the tornado f3.

On another note I’m sick of seeing gen4 aircraft fight Vietnam era planes from 12.3 - 11.3. That is just a farm session. Can anyone explane how a J8 with semi actives is supposed to kill a hornet, tomcat, or mirage 2000s4 at the merge? Can anyone explain how an f5E is supposed to kill the 12.3 aircraft. Can anyone explain why the hell the netz with python 3 is shooting at mig 21 variants?

The 13.3 - 13.7 should be a permanent Br Bracket to allow planes with fully active missiles to face each other. The planes at this br are capable aircraft. I think that 13.3 is a confusing br to balance. They should have left the sparrow f16s where they were 12.7. Either way the f16s with aim120 are good enough.

Now before you discard my suggestion it answers a lot problems. For instance why does the mirage f1c get irccm. Well because it uptiers to fight 12.3. What if it never did? Does it still need the magic 2? Why do these 11.7-11.3 aircraft need irccm? Then supporting certain airframe performance being inflated because they often get uptiered becomes a dead argument.

The next thing it addresses is this if the 12.3 aircraft have to face 13.0 shouldn’t they be the most retrofitted version. For instance if the f14A which saw service into the 80s had an ALR 62 rwr at some point then use it. There would be trade offs for certain aircraft. The f14B has better thermals and more counter measures. If the f14A gets the ALR 62 then the only difference is better rate for the f14A, aim154A and the horrible thermals. You could also reduce the spawn cost of the planes at the bottom of the br bracket by 50%. Encouraging people to use them for the reduction of cost at the risk of facing challenging competition. I would personally take some of the underdog aircraft for the fun of it. The reduction of cost would support players at the bottom of the br and the planes have enough capabilities to be leathal.

Then we have the conversation of balancing airframes. Since we have a permanent br bracket. We will have win rate data that is more concrete. This will allow the game to adjust performance and armament for a specific environment that is less dynamic. Players will know what to expect. Since everyone doesn’t have the tech trees with the “broken,” opressive planes there will still be diversity in team composition. So you wont see a team of 15 su27s. The game will kind of be balanced. Since players have a consistent environment it makes training and helping players easier.

[Raymondjm5-live]

Or just say fuck it and have the 12.7 j37 with a quadrant rwr and derbies face 13.7 aircraft. Or have 12.7 face 13.7. IDC really it just seems like a better alternative to flavor the day br rotations.

[SBUA_syvash]

reducing spawn/repair costs depending on how far down the bracket an aircraft’s BR is might be the simplest and easiest solution

but it might also backfire, incetivising “grinding” behaviours and thus feeding even more kills to flavour-of-the-day PVP “hunters”. But at least the grinders might stay longer since their risk/reward margins would improve. Who knows, maybe even shoot back.

[RunaDacino]

I tried suggesting this.

Idea for encouraging players to pick off-meta planes and join lobbies even if their favourite vehicle is bottom bracket by compensating repair costs (non-prem), additional rewards (prem).

Hello! The way spawn costs and the useful actions system interact leads to some anti-fun behaviour being incentivized. It makes flying bottom-bracket vehicles doubly-punishing as not only are you an underdog, you lose just as much SL as if you were top-bracket. Thus, if you only want to fly a specific plane you might opt to skip playing air sim until you’re middle or top bracket for that plane’s BR to minimize your losses. This I feel is bad for population numbers. Having read that in the pas…

It’s been sitting there since 2024 november.

ETA: Also kind of related -

Air Simulator "Deathbanks" from Excess Useful Actions for Respawning Without Paying SL

DEATH BANKS Originally, I thought “What if score rolled over between useful action cycles?” but that’s clearly abusable and would just solve the issue of “People leave lobbies” as getting the full reward requires sitting out multiple UA cycles until the roll-over runs out. Still, this is one of the biggest issues: It takes 30 minutes of very anti-fun flying that hurts both the player and their opponent’s experience and it’d solve that quite well. How can we avoid it being abused? It’s simple…

Tried to suggest this to encourage people to NOT lobby hop the moment they die if they have a decent performance going already. Wouldn’t stop people hopping with 1-2 kills, but should hopefully discourage those who had a good sortie from ditching when things get hot.

[Raymondjm5-live]

What do you think?

[Raymondjm5-live]

At the worst to make my idea work you might have to sub bracket 12.3 - 13.0 to find a middle point. Maybe break it into 2 concrete br brakets based off of performance and armament?

[Raymondjm5-live]

12.3 aircraft f18A vs 13.0

[Schindibee]

@Raymondjm5-live

I suggested earlier to create a permanent Br bracket from 12.3 - 13.0

We have this already, except it not being permanent.

But what would permanent here mean? Would this sacrifice the brackets with 12.3. and 12.7 at the top?

@Raymondjm5-live

Can anyone explane how a J8 with semi actives is supposed to kill a hornet, tomcat, or mirage 2000s4 at the merge? Can anyone explain how an f5E is supposed to kill the 12.3 aircraft. Can anyone explain why the hell the netz with python 3 is shooting at mig 21 variants?

Those are individual balance/BR-placement questions, not general question about how BR’s, brackets and rotation work, I would say.

My now already infamous response would be: Why do you take out an F-5E against 12.3 aircraft, or MiG-21’s against a Netz?

@Raymondjm5-live

Now before you discard my suggestion it answers a lot problems.

Sorry, I can’t see a single problem solved by this, that isn’t already solved by the rotating brackets.

The permanent bracket aspect would (like free match generation discussed before) be a fundamental change of the whole system we have now, and I personally really feel that while being cool for some BR’s would very negatively affect the BR’s around it, especially the ones just below.

@Raymondjm5-live

This will allow the game to adjust performance and armament for a specific environment that is less dynamic.

I myself are very opposed that aircraft capabilities and armaments would be (even more…) adjusted away from their real life counterparts! I’d much rather see BR adjustments, gladly using decompression to better balance the aircraft’s combat capabilities.

[Raymondjm5-live]

Did you not see the 34 kills I got the f18A against 13.0? Is 12.3 that weak? Oh I get it the f18A is soooooo weak.

[Raymondjm5-live]

It needs a 12.3 day to play the superman simulator against 11.3 planes. Also what are the available 12.3 that aren’t nato? Please list them

[Raymondjm5-live]

So what are their choices, going back to “they decided to fly a 11.3, that’s their problem”? Please tell me the 12.3 chinese aircraft or russian aircraft I forgot about?

[Schindibee]

Yes I saw, and such piloting skills are impressive. I’d also expect the 18A to be close to the early C’s especially in a dogfight.

So the F/A-18A is a very powerful 12.3 - but it’s not the only one and a Harrier Gr.7 or M2k S4 might also not fare as well in uptiers…

@Raymondjm5-live

It needs a 12.3 day

Let me guess: you really like playing 12.3, yes? ;-)

[Raymondjm5-live]

Gr7 attacker, disregard. If you’re an attacker just hit a forward operating base and be happy. I’ve done the same in the mirage 2k.

[Raymondjm5-live]

You have less countermeasures so you only have two engagements. Then you land.

[Raymondjm5-live]

I like flying 12.3 against 13.0

[Schindibee]

All that may be true, but I really think of little importance to the discussion about how BR-brackets/rotations as a whole should work in Sim EC.