F104 is going through very serious problems

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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This post is not about the F104A or the F104C, but rather their subsequent models.

the discussion applies to the f104 G onwards.

F104G (11.0 and 10.7), F104S, F104S TAF and F104S.ASA are completely unplayable in their current state and due to overBR.

It’s impossible to play with this plane, after the FM changes without a proper BR adjustment.

The F104S has the same BR (11.3) as aircraft such as the Mig21bis, F5 E FCU, AV 8B (NA) and Sea Herrier FRS.1, Su-22M3, Su 24M, Su17M4, JA37C, J11B, Mig27M, Mig23M and MF.
The F104S is extremely inferior to these same BR planes, both in flight performance and armament.

Not only that, the F104S is inferior to planes below its BR, such as the F5E, J7D, J7E and AJS37… but at least in the BR Range 11.0 the armament is similar to the F104S and it only has inferior flight performance.

…and this is the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s now talk about the uptier matches that the F104S faces in the br range 11.3.

Facing F4s, Mirage F1C, F4J, JA37D, Mig23 ML among others are already very, very difficult match ups, in which you cannot make any mistakes and your opponent needs to make multiple mistakes for you to win these matchups.

Now you face F14A, F14A IRAF, F4EJ kai, mirage 2000C/D, These are impossible matchups, you can’t do anything, you are literally combat statistics in these matches and they are very frequent.

F104S, and S TAF Need to go back to BR 11.0, it’s a question of urgency.
F104S.ASA should be 11.7 or 11.3 for game health reasons, because from this BR the plane is unplayable.

This plane is completely lost in the game in terms of function, It is an interceptor that cannot fly high because other planes of the same BR have better misses than them and the F104 cannot perform evasive maneuvers and there is still the issue f14 in this equatio, It cannot be a good bomber because it does not have CCIP (in the case of the f104S and S TAF) and it is intercepted, even more so with the changes in FM and current low altitude performance, he is definitely not a dogfighter, You can’t even verticalize the fight anymore and you try to do boomig and zooming.

What is the function of this plane now?

A plane that was once fun and not very competitive, became completely useless, FM changes that nuked the plane’s performance, it was the biggest FM nerf this game has ever seen, the BR changes that left this plane overBR and compression in BR that is already over BR, like for example the f14A and A10C with aim9m

How does the game balance team not see these things and question themselves? and there are 2 other planes in the same situation, the Kfir canards and the J35XL, the J35XL is in an even more critical situation.
These are planes that are a key part of the grind of nations that are in a horrible spot.

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I love that gaijin decides of all planes that could have been nerfed, they decided the F-104 platform is the overperforming one

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Only sad reactions

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the A and C went from great to rather useless. The rest went from useless to . . . useless.

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The rest weren’t useless, just not easy to play for the average scrub. Now they are useless.

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One thing that i would note is that the stock grind of the “2nd gen” 104s were painful, especially the japanese.

Anyways, those went from mediocre at best to useless. And genuinely i don’t think it should be a priority to look out for a sweetspot to the 104s, as they’re quite complicated to balance.

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It should ALWAYS be a priority to find a balance point for all vehicles, otherwise there is no point in having them added in the first place if they don’t have any reason to be played.

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If i managed to join the game before the F-104s introduction, i would’ve position myself against its addition in this forum. It has always been a complicated platform to balance due to its assets, one having a minigun at such br, and a ridiculous thrust generation compared to its competition. But it also had a decent sustained turn up until the most recent reaper’s data nerf.

giggles in Ground Realistic Battles
I just gave up on that line of thought, tbh

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Yeah the balancing is kinda wierd for them. I enjoyed them back in the days where the F104G was my first supersonic plane and the following versions were kinda bad but I still got some good funny matches with them. I didn’t played them since the last update but I am wondering about one thing…
For example the Kfir C.7 is 12.0 gets 4 python 3’s (best none IRCCM missile in game) is as fast as the f104S.ASA because it has a even better engine and it can dogfight… It doesn’t get a radar (its not needed in RB anyways because it doesn’t get radar missiles) and it gets more flare pops overall but they are placed pretty bad… This is just one example.

Also fighting F14A (especially the IRIAF ( I got it too and can tell how cracked the Fakours are)) its pretty bad. Only 4 aim 9ls and 30 flares / Chaffs is not enough to fight against Magic 2s/aim9ms/ and I’m not going to talk about radar missiles you won’t turn 90 degrees in a good time to dodge the missile.

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F-104S is perfectly playable and more powerful than it use to be due to being reduced in BR with the recent BR decompression.
F-104S no longer sees F-14Bs and so forth.

F-104S shares its BR with equivalent aircraft such as Mig-21Bis and JA-37C, and all three of those are superior to all the strike aircraft you mentioned.

F-104S was OP when it was 0.3 lower, it absolutely decimated games. So yeah, it’s fine where it is.

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Do you expect evryone to play 8 hours 24/7 to be as good as you…? Some ppl can’t waste so much time and don’t have that much skill and this is the most important point… I do think that you are talking about e-sports rn…

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@LostPlayer2023
I’ve played an average of 2 hours a day for the last 5 years, no where close to 8.
Learning how to bomb safely [if that’s what you want to do in F-104S] is a 20 - 60 minute lesson.
Learning how to boom and zoom furballs is a 2 hour lesson at most.

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This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

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@Italy_Suffers 's post claiming basic facts are nonsense.
F-104S was so OP that I got consistent ace matches whereas the best I’ve done for aces prior to F-104S was the few I did in EJ Kai.
F-104S aces were so common for me that I stopped screenshotting them cause it wasn’t a highlight of that aircraft anymore.

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Do I look like a bomber… I always used it as a fighter

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You are one of those who sais: “This plane was op now its needs to be useless af” To be fair having a conversation with @AlvisWisla makes more sense than with you. You and I had bad experince with each other…
SO I was talking to alvis so you better don’t interrupt us

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I never said that. You have me mistaken for someone else. Also it’s a public forum so you should probably figure out how those work. You sound like you have a few eggs out the basket yourself so I’ll leave you both love birds to it

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Its italien lover vs. Italien hater (you)

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It was taking a while for the court jester to appear.
Average american main…
Average american citizen…
What to expect from this combination other than nonsense?
critical sense definitely does not exist

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@Von_Valinor
Is the American main sitting right next to you at this time?
That’s a rhetorical question since there are no American mains in this topic.

F-104S was recently reduced in BR and you want to reduce it again… once 1.0 below F-14B, now 1.3 below F-14B.