I feel like ground arcade could use some improvements

[_Zekken]

Context: exclusive GRB player here. I have been playing a fair bit of ground AB lately as some new friends started playing and we’re doing arcade so they can learn the game a bit before I transition them to RB.

The game mode is pure chaos, and not in a good way, this is making it extremely frustrating to play. But i think they can make it a lot less chaotic and more enjoyable without making it "more like RB with just a couple of small changes:

First, is artillery. In RB you get to use it once and then its stuck on a long cooldown before you can use it again, but in AB you get multiple charges of it you can place all at once when you get kills and such, with no cooldown. This leads to especially cap points being absolutely devastated by never ending hordes of artillery.

Even if Artillery isnt incredibly dangerous especially to anything with armour, the constant noise, explosions, piles of smoke from those explosions blocking your view, and your aim being constantly rocked around by those explosions is honestly awful.

I feel like changing the Artillery mechanic to being the same as RB would be much healthier for gameplay.

The next, and honestly the thing that makes me most frustrated, is gun accuracy. Its horrifically bad in arcade, and feels like an RNG mess. Someone who is hull down and only showing their turret is at a massive advantage because its pure RNG whether you hit them no matter how good you are at aiming.

I can sort of understand why they made everything so much less accurate, with the aim crosshair+vehicle outline highlights. but I dont think the benefits offset the drawbacks. At least in WoT for example you have the aim circle so you know your shot will go “somewhere in that circle” and so it doesnt surprise you when it goes to the edge. But in War thunder you’re just left with confusion about why your shells are flying off all over the place unpredictably.

Im also a little bit on the eh side of the whole, auto crew replenishment when you are down to 1 crew member. Im not entirely sure whether its something that should be changed, but it IS the thing thats caused my newbie friends the most confusion so far, you keep pumping shells into this heavily disabled tank but they will. Not. Die. And then they suddenly turn their turret and kill you. I have to admit, it can be frustrating to kill 4/5 crew, but that last single crew member is just sitting in an ultra awkward place for you to actually hit to finish off the tank before he gets his replenishment finished.

Maybe just remove the auto replenishment when you only have one crew member, so less than 2 means you’re dead, but still allow you to replenish crew at any time instead of just on cap circles like RB?

I feel like, if two of these three things were changed, ground AB in general would be a much more enjoyable and less frustrating experience.

[Valcour]

I’m not sure that artillery strikes in AGB are much of a threat as it is. I will lob it at a clump and feel lucky if I get a hit or two. I am always amazed if I manage to knock out some one.
My 2cents.

[_Zekken]

Its not the lethality that is annoying, its the noise, the dust and smoke they kick up which blocks vision, and the constant rocking of your tank and thus aim. Its the worst on smaller maps with caps close together in cities (B cap on eastern Europe, middle of the town on poland for example)

[Valcour]

This is true as well. The map design has been poor for years.

[Blogaugis]

@_Zekken

First, is artillery. In RB you get to use it once and then its stuck on a long cooldown before you can use it again, but in AB you get multiple charges of it you can place all at once when you get kills and such, with no cooldown. This leads to especially cap points being absolutely devastated by never ending hordes of artillery.
…
I feel like changing the Artillery mechanic to being the same as RB would be much healthier for gameplay.

I can see some merit in this - it does put the folks that don’t have artillery call researched into greater disadvantage against those that have it, but on the other hand, everyone moves faster and thus have easier time evading the strikes.

@_Zekken

The next, and honestly the thing that makes me most frustrated, is gun accuracy. Its horrifically bad in arcade, and feels like an RNG mess. Someone who is hull down and only showing their turret is at a massive advantage because its pure RNG whether you hit them no matter how good you are at aiming.

I’m not sure if it’s lack of gun accuracy modifications or not, but it kind of seems so to me.
I didn’t notice significant differences from AB to RB. And even if there are some subtle changes to accuracy, I think marking and penetration indicator makes up for this potential shortcoming.
Arcade battles, at least in the past, often had smaller maps in comparison to realistic (turns out Fire Arc is the new name for the old Kursk map, guess I’ll add a like to this map).