I am not sure if the majority of Air RB players had the opportunity to follow the thread of the fellow Air AB players, they have discussed the fact that critical hits become much harder to score than before the 15th of February 2024.
I’d like to draw your attention to the posts of the fellow player @_Poul - they describe current effects in general and with examples for Air AB; should be worth your time to read them. Especially when he combines the low amount of crits with upcoming changes in wt.
For me as pure Air RB prop player it looks like following:
Before that date, critical hit tasks (2 x daily and special) were among my favorites as they were extremely easy compared to others - and they helped a lot to get at least to level 80 in every BP round without playing 24/7.
Now it is for me almost impossible to use these tasks as it takes ages to get / score critical hits. I already had matches with 2-4 kills with just 1 critical hit - usually you either score hits and the enemy burns up, or i get an instant kill.
Due to missing crits it looks for me that also the number of assists dropped significantly - and i set now multiple times bombers like B-26s, Pe-8s or Bv 238s on fire and they flew with burning engines 5-6 minutes and either burned up (B-26) or get killed by other players, giving not even an assist.
As an example - i scored in this match 9 plane kills with my BP B7A2 (3 player aircraft - each 5.348 SL - and all 6 ai planes - each 1.604 SL) and had:
25 hits (7 on player aircraft - 267 SL each, 18 on ai planes - 80 SL each)
3 critical hits (2 on player aircraft - 535 SL each, 1 on ai plane 160 SL)
This is a total mismatch of hits and crits and can’t be right.
Yes, i have a potato aim as i use joystick with SFC and instructor off, so i am happy if i hit something in the first place - so compared to mouse aim hits on specific components are not really possible - but for me it is obvious that something went wrong on gaijin’s side.
I mean i play just for fun without any grinding intentions, but i am not sure if you have realized that less crits and subsequent assists means also less income…
Edit: After 15 matches today: Crits only on bombers, only hits and instant kills on fighters…
I don’t know the date this change happened, but it makes no sense at all killing an enemy by only a hit. And a hit is only half the SL.
Another problem, it become harder to make decisions in battle because hits never appear in the battle log. Only a hit forces me to chase, a critted player most of the time is out of the battle and I can ignore him.
The biggest question I’m asking myself since years:
Who is pretesting the updates without noticing the effects to the game?
It’s everytime the same: realshatter, mid map aa, AF aa…and many more, now this one.
As an addition to my OP - my last match proved again my initial assessments:
Less crits in total, fighters mostly instant kills.
Less crits means less score for kills and reduces assists.
Just for the sake of writing it down - regarding effects of “Severe Damage” on mission score, SL/RP reduction due to missing crits and with reference to the highly detailed analysis of @_Poul for some Air AB battles - a summary a match (replay link) in the Battle Pass B7A2 premium:
Edit: Thanks to the new upate at noon - replay corrupted.
Skill bonus ------------------------------------3.561 RP
Total: ----------------------------------------------------46.420 SL / 13.057 RP
Main differences to “old” world:
The mission score for a kill dropped from ~ 650 to ~ 500 points.
This is caused by instant kills on fighters (2 hits on each) leading to 450 score for the kill and 2 x 50 score for the hits = 500 on average. Clean one-shot pilot snipes were extremely rare in the old world. On average you scored a crit (previously a score of 150) and 1 or 2 hits - plus 450 score for the kill itself - so ~ 625 to 675 per kill.
Based on experience i would estimate that the total reduction of mission score is around 15-20%, mainly based on missing crits.
Fun facts:
Summary
My B-17 kill had a delay of 6 minutes (crit 4:15 - crash 10:59) and was attacked by a VB 10 C (which score a crit and 2 hits) but got killed, then by a 190 (which scored a crit and 4 hits including a fire) which was also killed by the B-17 and by a 2nd 190 A (which scored nothing) which was also killed by the B-17 - and the kill was still rewarded to me.
The B-17 scored 3 kills with 7 hits (not a single crit) whilst being mortally wounded, dropped almost 3 times my TNT load and got even included the “getting killed score” of 135 points a mission score of just 1.941 points. This is imho a result of missing crits and the small bombs bonus. I received 464 points for my base kill and he just 331, despite he dropped 12 x 500 lbs with counted 0.6 tons of TNT - and i just 9 x 60 kg with 0.228 tons of TNT dropped.
Interesting facts:
Summary
The last 2 planes (XP-50 and P-61) got instant killed - with 2 hits on each. XP-50 with cutting right wing off and a pilot snipe, P-61 also a wing and a pilot snipe - without these pilot snipes i would have not been rewarded with the 5.000 SL as sole survivor.
If you play 1 vs 1 as last player: If you kill just the plane by cutting the tail off and the pilot does not jump out and the tickets run out before the plane crashes - the enemy is counted as alive and you get no 5.000 SL reward.
Without the enemy losing 2 planes (direct or indirect) due to buffed aaa defending bases i would have most likely lost this match - just due to the ticket disadvantage (and playing 1 vs 4) and based on the fact that airspace near enemy bases is deadly for Japanese planes thanks to buffed aaa defending the 4 bases.
Both “critical” and “severe” damage imply significant harm, but the severity can vary depending on the context. In general:
“Critical” damage typically indicates the most severe level of harm, often implying that the damage is life-threatening or could result in significant loss or failure.
“Severe” damage suggests serious harm but may not always be as dire as critical damage. It could still be substantial and require immediate attention or intervention to prevent further deterioration or negative consequences.
So, my solution is:
“Severe damage” - here you would introduce damages after which the aircraft is still airworthy, but due to the incurred damages, it does not operate as a fully functional machine.
“Critical damage should replace the currently introduced severe damage.” - This should include wing detachment, tail detachment, and control surface damage."
Out of curiosity, I went back to the original word salad dev blog and found this sentence rather on the nose given what we’re now seeing with lack of critical hits in lieu of Severe Damage.
All damage that significantly reduces the performance characteristics of an aircraft and can be formalized falls into the category of severe damage. Inflicting this damage means that you have most likely damaged the enemy to the point where their combat effectiveness is critically reduced.
Since all we can do is speculate as to Gaijin’s intent (because they haven’t commented), my assumption is it was their intention to replace what we’ve come to know as Critical Hits with Severe Damage, only it wasn’t fully flushed out given the myriad and wide range of ways Critical Hits have historically been registered, rewarded and most importantly impacted the flight performance of a aircraft.
Further compounding the issue are the new stealth damage model tweaks—particularly the higher instances of wing(s) popping off—which are almost always scored as Severe Damage and not Critical Hits. Previously, a wing tip or blackened control surface might have rewarded a Critical Hit, now it throws a plane into a flat spin or an uncontrollable dive with an accompanying Severe Damage notification.
If you destroy more than half of the enemy wing, in the new system you see severe damage (in the previous system that would be a destruction).
If you destroy less than half (or exactly half) of the enemy wing, in both systems you see a critical hit, that can give you an assist if someone else attack this target.
This is a critical hit, because I destroyed let’s say 49% of the enemy wing:
Spoiler
It doesn’t matter my target lost the control over their plane after losing 49% of the wing. It’s still “only” a critical hit, like it used to be in the old system. If I had destroyed at least 51% of his wing, it would be severe damage instead.
You see now “severe damage” so often, because you very often destroy more than half of the enemy wing, which is severe damage condition. In the old system that would be destruction (the nameplate would change color to grey), so you wouldn’t pay attention to that plane anymore.
What changed between the two systems is that parts that give you severe damage have critical hits disabled, so when you damage them enough to make them black, they won’t give you a critical hit anymore. In the old system making part black was a critical hit. So destroying more than half of the enemy wing in the old system was destruction (100% kill score) plus a critical hit (additional 33% kill score). In the new system destroying more than half of the enemy wing is just severe damage (80% kill score) without additional critical hit.
I don’t like inconsistency between Ground and Air in this regard. In Ground a kill automatically means a crit, in Air, it is not the case.
In the end, it wouldn’t be an issue, if battle tasks wouldn’t require it.
After I finished grind of current battlepass, I decided, I won’t grind battle tasks anymore, because they often require you to play in a way, that is in conflict with the game design, so you end up actively sabotaging the match, just to progress in the battle task. Or I simply end up frustrated, because I didn’t progress in a battle task, even though I did very well in a match. It is just ridiculous.
I cannot believe how silent Gaijin has been on this topic… If it was the other way around, where players where getting extra rewards, they would of had a fix out the same week.
Before the critical hits change, it was working the same way in Air battles:
The number of critical hits in Air battles was about the number of kills + assists. There could be slight differences, because you could lightly damage an enemy, and when he e.g. crashed (or J-out) you were credited with a kill without critical hit. So you could get less critical hits than kills + assists. You could also get more if you critically hit the enemy and then he landed and repaired or just didn’t die until the end of the battle.
Screenshots are from Arcade battles, but this doesn’t change anything.
