Dumping the heli grind on ground forces isn't a solution

Game Discussion General Discussion
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Because that seems to be the intention here, instead of solving the issues with helicopters, reducing the grind, improving the PvE mode and otherwise implementing helicopters better, the grind was added to what is already the worst grind in the game, ground forces and now you call it a day?

Obviously it wasn’t added to air forces because that would actually allow some decent progression considering air is infinitely faster to grind than ground forces for unknown reasons.

Back in August I already predicted this would happen:

they shifted the burden to ground forces and the next time someone complains they’ll tell you how you can already grind it using ground forces, so they can postpone it for another 5 years, that’s how long we waited for this.

And one week later it already happened.

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The requirements are still insane, and even if you use ground forces to research helicopters and are unable to progress your ground forces in the meantime, which should not be the most effective way, the module grind is still an absolute nightmare where you need to earn 300.000 RP for modules whilst lacking useful weapons and maybe getting 1K RP per game.

And that’s not even talking about the bad layout or copy paste helicopters in trees that offer zero value but still require hundreds of thousands of RP.

Of course I would love to be proven wrong and hear about Gaijin’s plane to improve helicopter PvE, reduce the grind or allow air forces to grind helicopters.

Although somehow when we complain about CAS the argument is that it’s all about combined forces, but when asked about air being able to research helicopters, they’re night and day apparently.

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They are seemingly also not aware that heli PvE takes plays on maps the size of air maps, which at least they agree on.

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Because yes, it is actually a bad idea and not fun.

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And getting 17k RP after an hour is also very bad and not fun.

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So would love to know what the plans are for helicopters in the future.

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Not only are the maps and the AI horrendous in heli PVE but matchmaking is also too wide, so there are a lot of helis with 3-4 km range ATGMs that cant lock targets (after you suffer with just rockets) competing for kills against things like the KA-50 or the Lynx. And better pray someone does not decide to start taking down planes or the match will be over in 20 minutes, wasting any booster you decided to use.

If you decide to research playing GRB it turns out you have to lower your BR quite a bit because most helis sit at rank V and VI, for vehicles that cost double the RP of their ground counterparts plus researching the modules, so the grind gets even longer.

So far it seems like the only playable helis are the starters and the top tier ones, everthing in between for every faction is just filler to make the grind longer. They also performs poorly in both GRB and heli PVE (barely no AA options, no effective guns, poor sights and slow missiles that need multiple hits to destroy most targets, plus are harder than ever to guide, with poor range).

There needs to be a fix for the grind since there are few helicopters in the game and the only factions actively bringing them into battle are USA, UK and Russia (China too, maybe, but i mostly see the premium one) since at least those have competitive options at top tier that perform as needed, so it is more attractive to grind them, while the rest just ignore their heli trees.

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You can’t even play with the rockets because the SPAA just snipes you when you get within a few KM and the rockets are really bad, plus they refuse to give them a ballistic computer to give you even a small chance of hitting something, and then other helis just scoop up the kills as well.

Missile damage was already poor and the difficulty guiding them just made it even worse, and if you can only carry 2 or 4 ATGMs as your only means of attack, good luck getting any kind of score.

I’ve spend hours in heli PvE and the rewards are insulting, showcasing how helicopters are just designed to be impossible to play with hundreds of thousands of RP required you can only obtain by paying for them.

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Wholeheartedly agree. Helicopter grinds at the moment are immensely aggravating despite the bandaid “grind-with-tanks” fix. The other alternative is mind-numbingly spending hours upon hours on PvE with abysmal rewards.

Heli PvE as a mode in general just feels so kitbashed and unfinished, but at this rate I’ve given up any hope of PvE receiving any update at all, if even.

Currently crawling my way to the Tiger UHT, and I loathe having to slog through two basically identical BO 105s for pretty much no reason (can’t they at least be foldered?)

I should probably get the HFS 80…

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Heli PvE isn’t even viable for some of the reserve helicopters as the AA will slap you out of the sky, and when you do have ATGMs, you get maybe 2 where you get 1-2 kills and then spend a minute reloading whilst everything gets killed.
And then you get 20k RP for an hour of work, it’s insane.

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I just hate how the “solution” that’s implemented is “lmao just play ground” rather than incentivizing you with a fun way to grind. I wouldn’t be as irritated with the ridiculous RP costs if the other avenues were at least somewhat engaging.

Heli PvE has some genuine potential, or at the very least, it’s one way of grinding without having to worry much about getting sniped by a Pantsir or something (yet of course, they had to give the SPAA bots bullshit railgun accuracy against reserve helis that don’t even have missiles)

Reasonable idea, ruined by appaling execution.

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It’s just lazy, they somehow spent years on heli PvE which is just plane EC but replaced airfields with helipads and that’s it, there were/are even bomber targets to attack, no idea how you’re supposed to however.

There’s just no effort put in, it’s clear there is no interest to make helicopters viable or grindable, they just want you to either buy a premium heli or spend the convertible RP on them as it’s just whale bait.

And the grind for ground is just atrocious as it is, I don’t want to grind another 2 million RP on top of it.

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The aircraft targets are really only viable if you have the Z-9W in particular (somehow gets the low tier bracket in PvE). Which is a damn shame, as without killing them, you’re practically stuck playing until everyone leaves, as killing planes in PvE bleeds a sizable chunk of tickets. I usually just leave after about 30 minutes when I’m playing on the low tier bracket. (big boosters only last that long as well)

And the heli nation I’m currently grinding (Germany) doesn’t have a decent premium heli, although it’s not quite as lame as Japan’s (and not even because of the paintjob lol) which I pretty much give up on grinding as I simply cannot stand playing the UH-1B with only FFARs. (only reached halfway through the AH-1E grind before losing my sanity with it)

Hell I’m still stuck at 7.7 Germany after so long. I did put my nose to the grindstone long enough to be able to grind out the 2PL, but obviously playing top tier without a lineup is… suboptimal.

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I think I grinded a single heli in all the years they’ve been added, and only because heli PvP was somewhat viable early on before the Ka-50s and such ruined the game.

Now you gotta dedicate an extra million RP to unlock some basic heli’s which just takes away from the ground research which is really painful as it is, and after that you’re still stuck with a garbage helicopter that requires hundreds of matches to unlock weapons with you can actually use

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+1. we need to spread the message on the heli grind, even if players start coping “No, helis ruin the ground RB experience!” they are annoying to deal with but it also isnt fun that 99% of players cant play them cause of the long eccesive grind

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Z-9W is ok imo. sure its good if you have the TY-90 but to get the TY-90s is a different story. only having 36 small calibre rockets isnt fun and still only 3km range atgm at 9.3 (heli pve) and 10.0 (ground rb) which is terrible when the mi24a at the same br as 128 small calibre rockets, 6 pylons and 4km range atgm

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Heli PVP was a slaughter house, but at least you got your RP. Now even with a premium heli its absurdly slow to grind anything. I think they made it like this so people burn cash on premium helis.

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not to mention the change for bombing bases has made it worse

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Heli PvP was okay before Ka-50s were added, you would engage other helicopters with MGs or trying to use mouse guided missiles up close was quite exciting, and then in their infinite wisdom, they made the baffling choice to add Ka-50s to the same match, and whilst still flying a helicopter with machineguns, you got killed on the helipad from 10km away from something you couldn’t even see.

I’m still not over the fact that Gaijin does things like that, it requires negative IQ to even consider it.

Not that the mode didn’t have a plethora of other issues, only Americans with the AH-1G were able to mop up all the ground targets whilst an Alouette could get 4 ground kills on a good day before having to RTB.

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I personally had fun even after. Turns out back then (and most likely it is also the case now) Ka50 grinders shared exactly 2 neurons between all owners . It was very easy to get an Apache with stingers / hellfires and just hide behind a building , popping up from time to time to take down a black shark or whatever unfortunate heli was within 3km.
With this tactic i speedran US helis, i went for the AH64D (saw its absurd upgrade prices) and hopped to the AH1Z, which is my favourite heli in-game to this day.

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Because the US had the only helicopter able to grind RP in that mode and progress to have the advantage over everyone else, if had an Apache with stinger it’s a different ballgame than an Alouette with MGs where you get blown up on the heli pad.

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That is true, and i guess in that sense they achieved their goal, as i did but the Ah-64A Peten .

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I would like to see helicopters being involved in air sim since there is a relatively good rewards system and ground units to attack and on some maps a helicopter even is needed because the units might be between mountain tops.

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Helicopters with missiles shouldn’t face those without them, the fact they just threw them all into the same match is nothing short of insane, and then they did it all over again with planes as well of course because Gaijin would never learn from their mistakes.

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I remember on the old forums the heli pve “feedback” thread, where everyone was always asking for the AI to be fixed, a better BR spread for the helicopters, better and more maps and objectives, the RP to be reduced and many other things.

Never once did anybody from gaijins side comment on any of the feedback in that thread or even just intwract with it. Instead what we got were a few comments here and there from smin or another cm saying the basic bs line of “we are constantly developing the mode and fixing any issues” or something along those lines.

I also remember how in heli PVE for the first month or so the RP anf SL gain for helicopters was actually fairly decent. And then they nerfed it into the ground making it a complete slog. They would go on to nerf it even more over the next few updates.

In the entire time heli pve has existed we have gotten 2-3 new maps, no fixes for the, barely any changes to the gameplay, and barely any fixes for the br spread of helicopters.

They have never reduced to rp cost of helicopters despite continuing to add more, the rp cost of modules across the board is still way to high, And in some cases they actively want to make the grind even worse for no reason at all like with hungarian helicopter slop. Instead of making hungarian helicopters their own separate line next to the italian ones they instead shoved them into the existing italian line and made the already terrible grind even worse.

I have only ever fully ground the Russian heli tree( i am a terrible person yes i know i feel bad myself),I would love to grind out the US,French and Italian heli trees especially since they have added things like the spike helis, black hawk, littlebird and kiowa. But that isnt happening any time soon.

Overall its very evident that gaijin doesn’t care about helicopters other than maintaining their premium slop cash cow. Them making it so you can grind helis with tanks was just their excuse to avoid fixing things even more and Heli PVE is even more dead than SIM is as a mode.

Helis as a whole were something that could have been a very interesting thin had gaijin put effort into it and instead we got this unbalanced messy grindslop that nobody likes.

Imo, at the end of the day they should have never added helicopters they were a mistake.

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