Hehe, yes, I saw you too! I actually just quickly jumped in to test if my controls assignment are still ok, and what the players are atm flying.
I spawned in the Kisarazu Cobra on the westernmost helipad, as everone else seemed to have spawned in the middle and eastern pads.
Then after only a minute or so, a convoy spawned right ahead of me, maybe 5km away, but while I stabilized and approached to get in TOW range, a Hind (IIRC) that was farther away than me eliminated all but one vehicles in one go (Vikhr’s, I guess), but the 2 remaining vehicles just went into a valley so i could not get them, and the Hind killed them as the valley was better aligned for him.
Then there was an A-point that several helis were rushing for at the same time, and a ground battle popped up in the East, where everybody else was.
So I decided to leave again. I’m actually surprised about the 200 score: Maybe that came from taking off and spotting the convoy? But I actually didn’t fire a single shot…
Later that evening made a short flight in the Alouette 3, so in the low bracket, and there I was close to top of the food chain and could kill some SPAAG’s and 105mm’s…
My only issue are those with fully spaded helicopters playing the mode. Whole point of it is to grind out modifications so you can use the helicopter in actual battles without having to do it stock or semi-stock. People that play it to try grind SL when spaded are just silly. Much better ways to earn SL. And if any mad sod is using it to grind actual helictopers (as in actual helicopters - not modifications), you’re even more silly. Easiest way to unlock helicopters is simply by turning on the ground RP to heli function.
It’s not all about grinding. Heli PvE is the only game mode to play heli if one doesn’t want to do ground as well.
So one could ask why not play ground mode. Well, I will fly helis and aircraft exclusively using my VR goggles, but at the same time in the current state playing tanks with VR is practically impossible. So it’s either one or the other until some small but extremely impactful bugs are fixed.
The whole point of helicopters in this game is to use them in ground battles. That’s it. Play a different game if you want helicopters for helicopters. PVE in this game is not it.
Me. The game itself. Helicopter PVP battles were so bad. Where are they now? So terrible they got removed. Helicopters are for ground. You know it. I know it.
You speak for yourself, not for “the game”, and certainly not for me.
Indeed it was bad, but also there the biggest issue was bad balance because of lack of separation of BR’s.
Turning PvP into PvE only solved the issue with players getting killed by the top of the food chain (then Ka-50’s) wich could kill everyone at distances where no one else had the slightest chance to fight back, and the possibility to quite easily abuse PvP gameplay to grind by teaming up and killing each other repeatedly with zero effort. But it didn’t solve the “only topmost helis can have fun” issue…
Developing the PvP further (or now PvE) would easily have made heli-only game modes fun and rewarding, and the one single most necessary change to do that - the separation of tiers/BR’s - was stubbornly refused to this day.
It’s not that heli only battles in WT wouldn’t work, not at all.
Helicopters are for ground, they’re balanced for ground, and people invest in helicopters to use them in ground. I don’t understand why you’re saying otherwise. When they make a worthwhile PvP mode for them, maybe it will be different.
If anyone is investing their time to use helicopters in this game for a half-baked PvE mode where there are limited targets, boring objectives, snoozefest gameplay, limited opportunities for a vast majority of the helicopters - please, go play Arma or some other game that invests their time into helicopter gameplay.
Edit: By the way, part of the problem with them balancing and implementing changes to helicopters to keep up with the never ending arms race that is Ground - they added all these fire and forget weapons but haven’t changed PvE mode to keep up with it. It’s just terrible.
I’ve been “grinding” my AH-1E in the Japanese tree exclusively in PvE and it’s quite the something.
I’ve completely abandoned the idea of carrying TOWs on it as they barely outrange the 3km range of SPAA. As well as having awkward launch angles
My choice of objectives are rather limited with just the bases and convoys/battles to go for. Not having decent AA options either, means I can’t do anything to the bombers/attackers.
Trying to snipe moving targets is almost impossible, so that really just leaves bases and stationary battles.
Depending on the map, bases stop respawning after like the 5th or 6th one. So really, I just try and snipe gepards or the recoilles guns with the mighty mouse rockets. As well as the occasional landing pad if I happen to be closest.
In all honesty, I don’t have much of a problem being outcompeted by the FnF missiles, though I haven’t really ever seen more than 1-2 of them in a match. There’s usually plenty of “scraps” left for me to pick up a few targets.
As a gamemode it can also be a neat change of pace from the meta oriented pvp modes. But it is a painfully slow grind. On average I get around 9.5k modification research per battle with premium time. And I’ll have to do it all over again with the next heli
Well, I don’t play it at all currently, exactly because of the reasons you mention.
But: I find that’s not an argument to not develop the game mode and thus make it interesting and appealing.
I actually fought quite a lot for improvements in heli gameplay in general, not only the (then) Heli PvP gameplay, but also controls etc., but then eventually gave up when nothing moved.
Yup, that’s the issue. Even 1-2 helicopters with FnF can clean up whatever convoys are popping up.
Be me - Stock Mi28MN with Ataka missiles
Enemy convoy spawns within range, typically a couple of Gepards and some Bradleys. Often some AT guns will spawn, too
I lock on right away to my first target and start guiding my Ataka in
If I’m lucky, I’ll get the kill before the wave of FnF missiles take out the whole convoy.
If you get lucky, they’ll leave you some scraps (usually the AT guns).
No effort and no risk at all to a) add more targets to ground battle events and convoys and b) spawn more of them at the same time, respawning reliably!
(Note we have the same issue also in Air Sim EC, especially from 10.7 onwards (GPS-land): too few targets, and I thin especially recently not spawning often and reliably enough.)
I think atm the spawning of such event is trigger based, and only spawn when certain conditions are met (e.g. only spawn a ground battle when a zone is successfully capped an/or when certain number of bases are destroyed).
Better would be if they spawn so that there is always e.g. 5 bases, 1 capture zone and 2 convoys. Or more of each actually.
Again taking Sim EC as comparison, there we have the issue since the recent patch with added longer range ItO SAMs to airfield defenses, which in some maps (especially Denmark) means that often 80% of the bases are impossible to attack as they are fully covered by the SAMS of nearby airbases.
I think it’s really also since that change that ground battles spawn so much more reliably, which makes me assume that the trigger from destruction of those bases matters to spawning of other, completely unrelated events… = /
cant forget the spotting aircraft bug/feature, used to be if it was in line of sight you could see it, now you have to rely on spotting mechanics that are half broken so people disappear mid dogfight or you die to an invisible enemy
i remember in the pvp days id fly the german allouette with rocket pods before they removed them and use them as a countermeasure shooting down their missiles and then them if they let me maneuver close enough. mode was alot of fun back then but seriously unbalanced.
Well, that’s a general issue in WT, not WT alone, but maybe the whole gaming world: A lot of gamers focus very much on grinding and getting to the top of something, and often forget that playing the game and enjoying the game is one of the most important aspects of even playing a game.
If you simply enjoy flying helicopters you would know that the helicopter exclusive mode is not worthy of your time in its current state. So what is there to think about? You going to tell me with a straight face that you play Heli PvE in this game just to insta-nuke a convoy that spawns every now and then? Wow, such fun, such challenge.
Way to misread the situation. Go look at what vehicles I play. I certainly don’t just sit around grinding to the top, I play things I enjoy.
Btw, I was playing helicopter focussed games when many here were still in the sack.
Yeah I was actually sceptical about my remark and how it could be interpreted, and tried to keep it broad/community wide and not to imply something “personalized”. Didn’t succeed, apparently, sorry… ;-)
Very much agree! In its current state, Heli PvE really isn’t worth playing for fun, and after a total of three very short tries over the last days, I will box it again, sadly.
Well, I’d think about how the mode could be improved - which could be done with a few quite simple action points - but sadly they have stated that there is no intention to do so at the moment and foreseeable future.
So question is, is it worth to bother and invest in trying to get them to change, or just wait it out…
