Finallyy an actual nice change! Breath of fresh air.
Yes! Even though I would argue that 13.3 seems steep for the Bison. 13.0 for a pair of early Fox-3 on an outdated airframe is more in line with jets like the J-8F.
Though the image you provided looks like R77 on outer pylons. Is there any chance it could be 13.3 with up to 4 R77s?
Primarily this feature is aimed at higer BRs initially. Where examples such as the Bison gain the option of ARH gameplay or the current BR with SARH gameplay.
As mentioned in the blog, rhe initial list will be limited and will come with the updates changelog.
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This is a very ambitious undertaking, and will increase the complexity of BR management.
That said, I think it’s a really good idea. Hopefully implementation for Ground vehicles won’t be far behind.
So - I like the idea on the basic level, but I have a couple questions, especially as an Arcade player.
First is how exactly is this working? Is it we pick and choose what we want to bring on the plane, which is what the text seems to describe for things like the MiG-21 Bison, or is it a preset you select which is what the images before that seem like they show? Cause in Arcade ASM’s and Anti-Rads are basically useless 90-95% of the time, and the AIM-7M is functionally a 7F with a new name, so if I could get the Hornet down from 12.3 especially as I grind through it that’d be awesome. But if it’s gonna lock off a bunch of other things like 9L’s and Walleyes in a preset to get it below 12.3 - that’s far less useful. Not that I couldn’t play an F/A-18A with only 4x 7F’s but I like having the back up IR missiles for when someone is far enough I can’t reach with guns but close enough I’d prefer to not use an SARH missile if I haven’t expended them all already. Which separate in air reloading for aircraft in arcade would also be nice so I’m not waiting to use or ditch IR missiles to reload SARH/ARH ones or when carrying multiple bomb/rocket/smart ordnances types to have to expend all of say my 500lb bombs for my already used 1000lb ones to start reloading. But I digress.
My bigger and more important question is - will this result in a change to Arcade’s matchmaking? I know for the longest time it’s been kept that if you have one aircraft further out than your others in BR, it knocks .3/4 of the BR, to give you better matchmaking while researching upgrades on your new plane while having somewhat lower ones either due to the tech tree being a little weird or just hanging on to more of your fully spaded ones as you learn and upgrade the new one. However as is - that system has been exploited over the years, the current worst offenders being the Su-30 premiums that were being pulled down to 13.0 from 13.3. However - this new system does then leave open the possibility of further abusing that system. Let’s not even use my F/A-18A scenario, but let’s even use the F-16A, a plane that is well over BR’ed at 12.3 with at best access to AIM-9L’s only, and carries the exact same type and quantity of guided weapons as the 11.3 F-4E, but unlike the F-4 has to trade 2 of it’s already limited 6 IR missiles to carry the same number the F-4E carries with full missile load. Let’s say I strip it of every piece of ordnance other than the expansion to carry 6x AIM-9J’s, and that pulls it down to 11.3 BR - if the matchmaker isn’t changed that means they could run it at 11.0, and considering a fully armed F-4E sits at 11.3 with 4x SARH missiles as well as GBU-8’s and AGM-65’s it could carry maybe even lower than that. And while I’m the guy here going ‘The F-16A needs to come down some in BR’ - but even I have to say even limited to J’s that’s potentially too far.
This is a great change - the absolute suffering that is some of these stock grinds would be way more eased up with it, like the countless soul-crushing F-104’s that are ranked way too high in Arcade and were the most painful grind till you guys added the F-102, but with Arcade’s tweaked matchmaking where you can lower your top aircraft down a stage, I can also see where it’s possible for it to be used to further exploit Arcade’s matchmaker for someone to take an aircraft, especially a premium, and just go spawn camp with an aircraft nothing in it’s range can even touch.
This will lead to even less feedback being accepted from the players when assigning battle ratings. And as they rush this there will be really odd BR placements. Like the MiG-21 Bison which was mentioned. It should absolutely not be at a higher BR than the J-8F and certainly not at the same BR as the JF-17.
Small price to pay tbh. Yes it’ll take some time to get used to but it is ultimately gonna be like discussing any other BR
Would be cool if at some point they could also add the option to have BR adjusted by number of specific munitions carried. For example choosing to carry only 2 ARH missiles in addition to SARH rather than a full kit may only warrant a partial increase. Same could go for choosing only 2 instead of 4 fnf weapons on CAS loadouts.
Hope the F-104S. ASA can get an Aim-9L/i loadout now!
IRCCM for a ~12.0/12.3 BR
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This is my great fear. Also in that situation they will listen community feedback 10x less.
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Did basement guy escape containment? Too many good QoL changes coming to be goodwill from Gaijin
@Smin1080p_WT will these battle rating changes only be for weapon mods or will it apply to stuff like chaff, engine mods etc?
How will this work with the MiG-25 though?
Not every single vehicle will receive this feature. As we mentioned. Its for examples like the Bison, that can could gain extra / additional weaponary (in this case ARHs) that would requrie a drastic BR change.
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hoping the F102 can go down to 8.3 until it gets its AIM-26es
But my Pantsir and SM-SV are going to starve now
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Yeah, I think this is an important consideration for this feature. There needs to be a quick way to read from a statcard what BRs are available for the vehicles, to make sure people can find them for lineups and to decide what to research.
I also think this is another feature that requires a search by BR for the same reason. So I can quickly see all vehicles at a certain BR, including those that have custom BR presets for it.
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Are the french magic slingers included? There’s many planes in the french tree that would benefit from this option, to be used with or without magic 2 (the Super Etendard, the Jaguar A/E, the Mirage F1C…)
Soooo
Aim-9L for F-4F?
IRIS-T for F-4F ICE and Tornado SLE when?
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This sounds good and bad at the same time.
It could create situations where certain CAS aircraft are now uncatchable (at their lower BR’s), because somebody cheesed the dynamic BR system.
The exploit community is going to love this.