They key difference to consider (and how to tie our discussion back to the Coelian): Absent obvious bugs of “tank rolling forward server desync causing shell to ignore armor” and “rapid-firing shells glitching through armor”, did the player in question use the right tool for the situation? Was he aggressive and got punished or was it the other way around?
All too often, you get comments of people merely dying to something they damn well could have countered but either didn’t use or didn’t bring the correct tool to do so, then asking for a nerf of what they go claim as “unbalanced” when really said player was just terrible.
And I can toast to that.
Yup, rational suggestions get buried under comments like the above.
If the Falcon (as one example of an AA punted up for going TD) had the short-range lead marker I proposed, it would swat jets and helis just fine.
Funny, my idea for giving non-radar AAs a short range lead marker stems from seeing how upon getting radar AAs, average players start actually using their AA as AA much more, and complaining about CAS starts to drop off.
Myself included - I frequently don’t bother even trying due to all the disadvantages most AA have vs CAS I specified above.
Hence my argument to largely do away with much of the CAS debate save for certain individual weapons which may be issues from time to time - make the counters so straightforward to use that would-be complainers have no excuses left but their own stupid preference.
Cries in Hs-129B-2, still being punished for a nerf back in update 1.57…
Thing is, even before you had the Coelian’s change, more and more AAs were trending in this direction.
- Kugelwind added with full HVAP belt it still has
- Type 65, ZSU-37 seeing full HVAP belt brought back
- M19 and M42 Duster lowered to where they’re frankly just as bad as the Coelian
- The L-62 ANTI-II and Lvkv 42 are tier for tier arguably nastier than the Coelian, yet nobody bats an eye
- The Swedish Bofors truck has 66mm pen APHE at 2.3 or 2.7, and the German 37mm truck has 49mm pen APHE at 1.7.
- All the ZSU-57s sitting where they are at 7.0 are capable of being far more destructive than the Coelian absent shell phasing bugs.
- The ZSU-37/2 going down with its rather high pen guns.
- AMX-13 DCA and Leo 40/70 are already pretty nasty even without their best shells.
The game is already trending in this direction. I say it’s time to stop dragging out ripping off this band-aid and just go nuts, get it over with already. Autocannon buzzsawing tanks is fun and funny for the same reason taking an artillery piece to a tank is.
And yet if we applied the same supposedly “overpowered” label being thrown at the Coelian to the ZSU-57 and M19/Duster simply because they easily melt unaware tanks, the ZSU-57 would be easily 9.0+ for this reason, and the M19/Duster would still be at 4.7/6.7 respectively where they sat and rotted for years.
Glad you and I see eye to eye.
I have mixed opinions, moreso because I see the entire “earn SP for plane” as the root of much of the balancing nightmare snail made for themselves. You can never balance something if its primary counter (other planes) is also locked behind a SP wall. Then it becomes a race to see who gets the powerup first.
Hence I think personally Simulator’s system is leagues better. 1000SP per player, no ability to earn more, forced airfield takeoffs for everyone. Once you’re out, you’re out. All vehicle classes in the air and on the ground are available right from match start, and it’s up to the players to use the correct tool to help themselves since they have everything available instantly. Thus if they pick wrong they can’t whine about it and not have said whining turned back on themselves.
I would tweak the exact numbers Sim uses, but use that system as a basis to upend how RB works.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much else left to try.
- Tracerless HE belts are double-blind. Planes will not see them yes, but AA will have no idea how close or how far they were from hitting.
- Accurate WW2 Spiderweb Gunsights are often proposed, but because the planes themselves fly very unrealistically these won’t help much outside Simulator mode.
- Giving every AA three AI-controlled clones that aim at the same thing the player does would magnify whining about AA-TD syndrome tenfold, as well as probably lag the game into unplayability (like the CIWS opening up on planes in Naval EC did last time I played it - so many shots the whole lobby lagged)
What else even is there if the goal is making SPAAG without radars achieve parity with CAS? There really isn’t much other than some sort of short-range lead marker. At the minimum to make it require some level of awareness, it could function similarly like tracking radars do where the player has to click on the target to make the lead marker appear.
I have thought about this for a long time, my friend.
I too detest how so many of my generation (late 20s here) are snowflakes. Hence why I originally said to the complainers “cry yourselves to sleep over the Coelian, sleep on it, grow a set, and shoot the damn turret” many comments back. All human beings unfortunately require some form of “tough love” to grow up. I was no exception.
Currently the RoF of these is usually so low that hitting planes with the ones that get VT rounds is more dumb luck than skill.
As all vehicles in this game are modelled in pristine condition with all their capabilities the game can currently model, I say yes. Let the initial flood of crying come and go, let people adjust to it, and lessen the effect of AA going Ersatz TD mode on their BR movements.
It will be the motivation snail needs to complete the volumetric armor mechanics which are in fact a good idea and always were - they just never finished the job. Volumetric shells are a good idea and would not be memed into nonexistence anymore because if every tank had fully volumetric armor models, there would be no plate seams to glitch onto.
Honestly, we aren’t. Most of what is actually making the Coelian “busted” currently are just bugs or poorly-aged game mechanics that affect all autocannon vehicles. The rolling tank shell phasing glitch. The overload the server shell phasing glitch. Barrel damage existing at all. Non-radar AAs being outmatched by most CAS.
The Coelian is merely the latest messenger for all these and then some. But snail has been for years opting to shoot the messenger instead of actually admit, let alone address, the deeper rots.
