Hi! Today I’d like to bring up the problem of helicopter content in the game. As we all know, there was a PvP Confrontation mode for helicopters, where players could go and spade their freshly-bought vehicles either for ground RB or for staying and having fun fighting other helis. It was a great mode, which prodived fun and farm for a vast number of helicopter enjoyers. Until this happened…
An Update 1.81 “The Valkyries” was introduced on the 19th of September 2018. This stared helicopters’ way in War Thunder. Since then, players had a great time in the EC mode. It had it’s flaws, provided lots of challenges, but was overall balanced and fun to play. This had been lasting for 408 days until the 29th of October, when 1.93 “Shark Attack” was added. EC balance was changing during this time as new nations and new helicopters were getting added to the game. However, 1.93 with Ka-50 put an end to it all. EC sessions were simply inundated with these pack premiums. They were everywhere. Even adding F&F PARSes to German Eurocopter later didn’t save the situation, though it made Sharks’ life more difficult, but didn’t stop them from total dominating in PvP matches.
Ka-50/52 is a powerful helicopter, but not invulnerable. Other top helicopters could counter him, and did it quite efficiently in the right hands. But the situation was critical because tops were not the one facing Ka-50/52s. Every rank V/VI helicopter that joined the session also had to fight Sharks, which was absolutely unfair. Poor AH-1Gs and Mi-24s that don’t have laser warnings were a mere food to all Ka-50/52s, eliminating any chance for them to grind and have fun. This is where I’d like to introduce my suggestion.
I propose to bring back the Helicopter EC with the ranking system for sessions. It’s pretty simple. All we need to create different environments is:
generate maps for rank 5 helicopters;
generate maps for rank 6 helicopters;
generate maps for rank 7 helicopters SEPARATELY.
So the key feature here is separation. This would allow rank 5 helicopters to fight the same kind of enemy, and so on. Therefore, it would create a balanced environment for everyone and allow to grind helicopter tech trees with fun and interest, as well as give players a choice of how to grind their helicopters instead of monotonous playing GRB. What do you think about my suggestion? Do you have any ideas whether it needs an improvement or not? I’m open to discussion! Thanks for your attention!
I agree that Apache doesn’t have much against them when face-to-face, but catching Ka-50/52s from the side is a pretty viable tactic. However, we’ve got more helis with F&F armament, that’d create a problem for Sharks. Also there’ll be the mass effect. It’s not 1v1 in the session, so players from different spawn points would still be able to counter it
Eurocopter Tiger UHT/HAD block 2, AH-129D. These have PARSes and Spikes respectively. Other helis have ATASes which are quite good against helis. Chinese Z-10 also has TY-90s. Pretty annoying weapon, isn’t it?
Well apache is the top tier heli for
USA
Israel
Japan
Sweden
Britain (Though Britain has laser guided AA)
While I don’t have anything with a Spike or PARs to shoot at a KA-52 for testing… those are IR weapons…which the Ka-52 has been declared immune to.
(And also, even if they’re not affect by the stupid, incorrectly implemented, Ka-52 EW system- they’re still not Proximity fuse, so they rely on Direct hits like the Hellfires we have in game.)
I think you are grossly mistaken if you think it’s not just going to be filled with Ka-50s/52s, and Mi-28NMs wanting relive the glory days of why Heli PvP was removed in the first place.
And TY-90 is an IR, I’ve not seen it shoot down a Ka-52 yet.
Well, I gotta say I forgot about that a little bit. But that’s the essence of discussion! I suppose Ka-50/52s could be limited in use of this system in EC so other helis could counter him with IR missiles. We are already going in the direction of balancing game for long time. Just take the F-16 Netz, for example. It can carry Python 3s right now, although it’s highly unlikely it could do it IRL. And there’re lots of other examples. I guess, this Vitebsk limitation could be done as well
That would alleviate the problem a little bit, but there’s still the problem of most IR missiles not being able to target helis from more than 3-4 km away.
Where as Vikhrs is laser, and 10km away.
If Vitebsk was downgraded to reality and they lost the Vikhrs (since only a few other helicopters could mount its equivalent) it would go along way to making them a bit more interesting…
But they can’t do that or they’d open themselves up to all sorts of problems from people buying Ka-50 packs for cash because of Vikhrs…
(I’m pretty sure that’s why they nuked the game mode entirely in the first place. They couldn’t actually fix it.)
If they un-gimped the lock range and G-limit of heli mounted Mistrals and Stingers it could be a fun game mode. But as it stands most of the helis are going to just be free food for Vikhrs.
Heli PvP was never going to work when they introduced the Vikhr, it’s going to be even worse now 2 more nations have Spikes/F+F
Even with rank split MM you’re still going have Helis that just dominate, AH-1G would club every other Heli of a similar rank as it did in the very 1st PvP
They’re definitely not competent enough to make the mode fun and if they somehow make it fun it won’t reward worthwhile RP or SL at all.
The fact they put Ka-50s against helicopters with MGs that weren’t even able to take off without being shot by some pixel 10km away says enough about their competence.
We had to wait what, years? To get a heli PvE mode which is just a lazy rework to replace the airfields with heli pads and you spend an hour to get 20k RP or something.
Well, I have something to say here. Don’t you understand that there’s always a predator and a prey. Just like in ARB now. There’re F-16s and 29SMTs. Others are weaker, so they have to survive (except for blocks 10&15, it’s a whole different story lol). The same is in Heli PvP. And that’s why this mode would be interesting. It’s a challenge to shoot down a superior enemy, and it would be pretty rewarding imo
Helicopters and fixed wings have completely different dynamics between them. The truth is, helicopters are much more like tanks. Specifically, extremely thinly armoured tanks that seldom have cover of terrain, always sitting ducks compared to the missiles they face.
Let’s take the Hellfire for example.
No proximity fuse, no fire and forget, and lofted flight profile. You would be lucky to hit a stationary Kamov from 5 km away.
The Vikhr, on the other hand…
Proximity fuse, no fire and forget, but beam riding. You will hit whatever helicopter you are locked onto 100% of the time, from 10 km away. Do not forget that this means they also outrange Stingers and Mistrals, even if they worked properly.
If you want to take Spikes into account:
No proximity fuse, lofted and extremely slow, but fire and forget. It has a better chance to hit than the Hellfire, but it’s still capable of missing for any reason.
It would essentially be no-counters pound town for Kamovs first, and Tigres second. It would be akin to a GRB match consisting of F-16C for Kamovs, SANTAL for Eurocopters, and M113A1 (TOW) in the case of Apaches.
Can the TOW missile hit the F-16C? Maybe. Is it a counter? I would not say so.
Can the Mistral hit the F-16C? Probably. Is it a counter? Maybe, but the SANTAL will die in the process, every time.
Can the Maverick hit the M113A1 or SANTAL? Yes, every time. Is it a counter? Yes, every time.
Exactly, but you forget one thing. Do you know how to dodge Vikhr? Most of Heli players don’t. And that’s the thing. But it’s literally a piece of cake. Especially if we just take the rank 7 environment where literally everyone has laser warning system. You can just hug the ground, flying 10-15 m low, and their proximity fuse won’t work. Even despite Kamovs’ airframe, they can’t fly too high. And ATAS/Mistral can lock them from like 3-4 km. If we disable EW system for Ka-50/52s in these matches, you can get close to them and just kill with IR. Even if they shoot at you. You just need to know how game works
Heli pvp died because no one played it.
Heli pvp was literally up for over 4 months with no players because of PVE, it doesn’t need brought back.
PVE earns more RP anyway.