God forbid CAS not be the dominating presence in ground battles anymore.
Imagine a hypothetical reverse of this situation, where we had player controlled Pantsirs in Air RB,. Just shooting down players right after they take off. Air players would justifiably call this outrageous. They would scoff at the SPAA players telling them to just ‘‘spawn a tank and come counter me’’.
But for some reason, we’re allowed to do nothing from the ground in ground battles. (Well, except Russia)… The rest of us just have to accept that we will be obliterated in our spawns. We just have to accept a permanent state of helplessness from above. We have to tolerate ‘Just spawn a jet and counter me’ advice. As if a ground player wants to play CAP anymore than an Air RB player wants to play a tank.
This whole topic basically just boils down to tankers not wanting to be bullied in their only mode, vs CAS players who don’t want to lose their bully privilege in their side mode.
But tell me, what other means do you think you can use if you don’t have an AA like the Pantsir in your lineup? Just blocking us from tank matches is not only against any kind of “reality” but also makes any armament aimed at CAS unnecessary. It’s part of ground battles to defend yourself with an aircraft; if you don’t earn the necessary points for that, then it’s not our fault as CAS players.
All the AAs that have been suggested in this forum have missiles that are superior to the Pantsir. If they are implemented, they would need to be nerfed to fit the match properly. I’m not mocking you for not wanting to defend yourself more effectively; if you want to play as a tank, go ahead. But you’re missing the part where self-defense not only helps yourself but also supports your entire allied team.
I do feel like I need to point out that AI SPAAGs in Sim are so massively overtuned that they create death spheres if you are carrying or have been carrying any A2G weapons. Been like that for over a year. It sucks.
There needs to be fair counter play for both sides, just making it purely and solely SPAA dominant is just as bad. Every nation needs stronger SPAA, even the soviets, but at the same time, those stronger SPAA could then enable new weapons to be added to aircraft for counter play, like ARMs.
In fairness, many aircraft that specialize in ground attack, dont really have a gamemode other than GRB either. This is one of the biggest issue imo. ARB is designed to be bad for them and the gameplay essentially boils down to bombing a base or trying to dogfight in an aircraft not meant to dogfight. Air Sim is probably the best we’ve got for ground attack aircraft currently, but many dislike the full controls and cockpit view and the gameplay is far from good for many, essentially boiling down to “drop bombs on bases” again.
The only gamemode that offers any degree of Challenge or Dynamism is GRB for these aircraft. Yes the counters need to be better and more importantly, more evenly distributed, but also they need to work on an air mode better suited for ground attack aircraft, like an Air RB EC with improvements to PvE objectives.
And then there are helis… PvE Heli EC Is such a total buggy mess that is so incredibly boring, its not even worth pretending it exists. It basically doesnt. Again, that means anyone who wants to play a heli, realistically speaking, is limited to one gamemode, GRB.
The subject is very complex. As a CAS player, I know how frustrating it is to be hit by an A6E-TRAM at 6 km altitude and not be able to retaliate for some reason I don’t understand. I know how annoying it is not to have ground defense at certain BRs. How did I overcome that? By using fighters to combat other fighters. Waiting for the company to make changes is unthinkable! You need to fight with what you have, even if it means leaving the ground and going after the enemy in the air. No airspace of any COUNTRY/NATION relies exclusively on its air defenses; they have jets focused on air superiority because they know how dangerous it is to leave the air to enemy domination. Refusing to combat this just because you don’t have a good enough AA doesn’t mean the problem favors those who are criticizing CAS. It’s complicated, but that’s life…
Or, just keep them at their full capability, and we could consider actually lowering the spawn cost of CAS to reflect their new status as the underdog in the dynamic.
Actually competent SPAA would open the door for things like SEAD missiles. SPAA / CAS players could actually duel one another. It would be far more engaging for both parties compared to this current slop of CAS launching AGM’s & GBU’s from multiple times the range of 9/10 countries SPAA, and telling them to ‘just spawn a cap bro’ when they get frustrated with it.
RB EC is something I’d absolutely love to see. Not just because it would be fun, but because, as you say, it would take a huge burden off GRB by diluting the CAS mains elsewhere.
Yep, Though the only issue I have with spawning fighters (and dont get me wrong, as an air main im more likely to spawn in CAP and farm the free CAS kills :P ) is that its priced WAY too high. When SPAA costs 70sp but a CAP aircraft costs 550sp. It looses a lot of value personally. So a change to how CAP spawn costs are handled would be good. Was a really good suggestion the other day to ahve CAP get cheaper over the course of the match till its practically the same costs as SPAA after about 5-10 minutes
Yep, but would need to be done right, currently the AI ground targets are woeful and really quite dull. So would need Gaijin to invest a huge amount of time and energy into it and currently, they dont seem to be bothered. Sim has long been Abandoned by the devs it seems.
Do also consider that grinding a singular tech tree can take many months, sometimes years for F2P casual players - the kind of player who makes up the majority of the playerbase.
There will be many people who have made it to top tier in ground who simply will not have the top tier aircraft of that nation, and thus they lack the ability to go after top tier CAS (CAS who, with the introduction of Su-34 / F-15 will become incredibly effective fighters in their own right)
It is it unrealistic to expect the average player to have access to the this stuff. This is why they all call for better AA, because you need the counter to be located in an accessible manner, adjacent to the things experiencing the issue.
The solution to that does already exist in game. In naval, in addition to whatever you have in your line-up, you can have a choice to spawn in either a fighter or bomber (usually light bomber) appropraite for the BR/nation. That would be the simplest and best solution to that issue.
If they werent fully spaded, and had a “moderate” but fair loadout, it still incentivizes players to grind the air tree to allow them to gain access to better aircraft, loadout options etc. but doesnt leave them with nothing at all.
For example, for Britain 10.7, that could be:
Fighter:
Sea Harrier FRS1e (vs the FRS1 or FGR2 you would have access to from grinding the tree)
Bomber:
Jaguar GR1A with 2x 1000lb bombs and 2x rocket pods. (vs GR1A with 2x GBUs and Tpod and additional defensive aids like Phimat)
The wider concept wouldn’t even be new to ground as they’ve done it with Strike drones, Just a shame they chose to do in the form of CAS for everyone instead of CAP for everyone lol.
If i had a penny for every second i have spent staring at them through my Machbet / Chaparral’s optics, listening to that high pitch seeker noise, watching the white circle never going green, i’d be an incredibly rich man lol.
I often notice they are visible in third person, but when you go into optics they seemingly de-render. Can’t stand the things.
But it’s impossible to be F2P after 3 months of playing and dedicating a little less than 2 months. You will unlock rank III for both air and ground, be able to participate in events, and then sell the vehicles to acquire packages to reach those vehicles more quickly.
The problem with us CAS players arose at top tier; no one cares about a P-47 doing CAS, an F-86 CAS, F6F CAS, Yak-3, or LA-7—no one cares about those CAS. The issue seems to be that players at those levels (5.0/7.7/9.0) no longer want to use fighters to combat other fighters; they want to depend exclusively on their team to defend themselves.
They’ve forgotten the basics, and that frustrates me. I’m not to blame if they aren’t capable of doing the basics to fight me; I’m not to blame if there’s no Pantsir in their nation. I didn’t learn all the tactics to evade a Pantsir for nothing, nor did I adapt my payload for each map for no reason. I started this discussion trying to help them find ways to combat me since laser-guided bombs need to maintain the lock long enough while you maneuver to evade missiles, and Maverick missiles can be lost when smoke is used. I offered more ways for you to combat me, and still, you keep pressing the same issue. I shot myself in the foot trying to help you, and it doesn’t seem to be having any effect.
You want to be helped, but you only see the things that harm you while forgetting that the changes I mentioned hurt CAS even more. Why do you think there are practically no players in simulation matches when it’s a map with low clouds or overcast? Because it’s extremely frustrating and detrimental for both CAS and air superiority fighters to have to fly at often high or low altitudes, only to end up being shot down by a map AA or collide with a tree that has a hitbox higher than normal.
Honestly, do you want CAS to have to pay 1,000 points to spawn? Fine, implement that into the game now! I don’t mind having to capture and defend flags because I know a bunch of enemies who only know how to press W will come, and I’ll eliminate them to get my ground attack. The amount of points doesn’t matter; what makes CAS dangerous is precisely denying that it exists in the match and not seeking a way to counter it, whether with another fighter or with AA. If you don’t have AA, use the fighter.
So just apply that to all top-tier fighters, problem solved. If it’s too little, raise it to 1,100 or 1,200. Make the match a little longer, and it will be acceptable for both sides.
I dont think the SP Costs are wrong currently per se, if anything too high, but that the costs are universal across all BRs and all airframes despite that not always be fair.
I hear what you’re saying, and i’m aware of the options that exist. I just don’t think those options are good enough.
Let me paint the scene. I’m in my Merkava. A Su25 blows me up from 15km away. Okay, I remember what the forums told me (Just spawn AA bro), I spawn my AA. He blows me up again from 10km outside my lock distance.
Okay. I remember what else the forums told me (Just spawn CAP bro). I spawn my Baz / Barak. Within a second of spawning I have Pantsir missiles imbound. I hit the deck. I’m now simultaneously trying to dogfight enemy aircraft whilst evading missiles. Meanwhile my friendly AA cannot support me at all because they don’t have the range - and i can’t enter their range without dying to Pantsir.
So i then come to the mental conclusion that other countries besides Russia need equally strong SPAA. To be able to defend themselves from the ground, to be able to support their own CAP etc. Because right now the SAM threat environment is extremely one sided.
So i ask for more & better SPAA here, and i have CAS players tell me no. We don’t need that. I need to spawn the AA i already have. I need to spawn the CAP i already have. Neither of which is working adequately in practice.
No ! I’m not asking for that at all. All i am asking for is good SPAA. CAS only costs such a ridiculous amount of SP because there is little counter to it. If you had SPAA that can actually counter CAS - You could actually even reduce CAS spawn costs.
Insisting that players have to grind out an entire second tech tree to have a useable counter to enemy cas is not really a superb argument when there is an entire air defense tech tree.
If even a sovereign nation like the United States doesn’t fully rely on its own air defenses, why should you depend on them in your nation’s lineup in the game? Develop your aviation tree; have something equivalent. And yes, it’s a valid argument—if you don’t have a good air defense, your options are either to quit the match or simply accept it and grind a lineup for air superiority to defend yourself and your team from CAS.