My opinion on this matter has at earlier discussions been ridiculed. Therefor I am going to make myself as clear as possible. I don’t aim to remove CAS or helis all together from ground RB. This discussion is about how to make ATGMs fired from helis more fun for everyone. Please understand I don’t pretend to know how to fix it myself, I am curious what we in the community can propose together, to make a cohesive alternative to what we currently have in game right now.
Now for some passionate discussion: I HATE ATGMS. Especially when they are fired from helis. My solution to the issue would be to just remove ATGMs from heli. Obviously, this is not a realistic solution so let’s work one out together.
Often when you are killed or hit by these heli-ATGMs you rarely have a chance of getting behind cover, or any other way reacting to their imminent danger. This is because of the ability that helicopters have in war thunder – to traverse any terrain and by doing that, eliminating any and all potential cover for ground vehicle. Often though on many maps there are already very little cover. Because of this helis firing ATGMs can be quite comfortable with sitting kilometres away from the battlefield, firing their ATGMs at ground vehicles who can’t see either in the distance. This is extremely annoying to ground players who already must occupy themselves with keeping attention to enemies on the ground as well as those flying above(CAS, drones and/or ‘kamikaze helis’ 😉) The issue becomes that you have very little attention to spare for these ATGM-helis and you have very little chance of spotting them hundreds of meters away, this leaves very little available action to counter their threat or to even get the reward for killing them, because a lot of times ATGM-helis are out of reach for most combat engagement.
Then on the part of the ATGM-heli their gameplay loop is a little like this:
Fire ATGMs at ground vehicle, score a couple of kills, then head back to base to reload. Rince and repeat if you are not shut down by an angry persistent pilot or a lucky shot from the enemy. My guess is that this is for most people not a fun or engaging time. I have very little faith that the ATGM-heli-players even enjoy this gameplay loop, I think they only do it to grind the next heli in the tech-tree. This problem might already get a small remedy in the potential update that is gonna make it possible to research helicopters through playing ground vehicles. Thus fewer players are gonna grind using the early helis which in many cases primarily fires ATGMs. But the issue is still going to persist.
I hope I have done a good job at laying the groundwork for a productive discussion. As I stated earlier, please provide your own take on this topic I would like to know if I am the only one going crazy every time I am killed directly or indirectly by an ATGM fired from a heli.