Most of the CAS issue IMO stems from core gameplay / mechanic issues rather than the aircraft themselves, and little incentive to play AA. My short answer is the reward system needs a pretty big renovation, as well as the categorization of AA. Long in depth answer below.
Section 1 (tangent)
There is very little incentive to actually play AA, but obviously a flat increase in rewards wouldn’t really work with how easy it is to actually play AA. War thunder heavily incentivizes individual performance over teamwork (that’s a problem for a different thread), winning earns you literally nothing, so why bother protecting your team from CAS unless you’re grinding AA or are literally forced to? I mean sure just because it’s a noble thing to do, but realistically about 5% of the GRB player base cares about their teammates or winning, If no one cares about their teammates, and there’s no incentive to play AA, no one’s gonna play AA, which Leads into section 2.
Section 2 (My proposals for solutions)
A. There is one incredibly easy addition which wouldn’t solve CAS, but would help. INCREASE WIN REWARDS. Literally everyone has been asking for this FOREVER, a greater Incentive to Win means a greater incentive to want to keep your team alive, More people per game playing AA means better defense against CAS, really not that complicated.
B. As I mentioned previously, AA make straight buns rewards, It takes forever to spade AA, and you earn nothing for actually playing it, but a flat increase for a pretty braindead way of getting kills wouldn’t make a whole let of sense, due to this I propose we remove the category of “SPAA” for higher tier air Defense systems and Instead split them into sub Categories such as SHORAD’s (I.E the Type 93, LAV AD, or Stormer AD) Point Defense systems like literally any of the 5000 Gepard variants (and even certain long range systems like the SM SV), and Medium / Long range AA. Why?
Two major reasons. Reason One being it allows you to change the SP amount of Certain systems, like how the Tan Sam is the same SP as a sky Sabre. As much as I hate CAS, you do have to acknowledge the balance flaw in the fact that it takes about 56% of a nuke to spawn a CAS aircraft with a handful of guided munitions, but some shitter in a Buk can drop like 100 SP, fire all his missiles at you, and smoke you. I think different levels of SPAA should have Different spawn costs instead of being a flat Per BR rate.
Reason Two, I think SPAA Rewards should vary depending if you are fulfilling your role or not, For example, I think SHORAD systems should earn more RP, SL, and SP for shooting down helicopters, Point Defense Systems should earn more for shooting down incoming Munitions, while Long range systems earn more for shooting down fixed wing aircraft (possibly earn more for longer range kills?), as well as a slight increase across the board (except for SP).
C. Add more external Incentives. We already have one in game with the skill bonus, add a separate one for Aerial kills and Munition shoot downs, earn enough and you get a fat multiplier. Another Idea is to add something similar to the daily research bonus, Play AA for a Certain amount of time / get a certain amount of kills to earn a bonus multiplier, or just make it like a battle pass challenge, instead of battle pass points, you could get a flat amount of extra RP / SL, you could even apply this to other avenues in the game like SPG’s, light tanks for scouting, Base bombing etc.
D. Lower A2A spawn cost, Remember the Point I made about 56% of a nuke for a CAS Aircraft that gets countered by 100 SP? Same deal goes with A2A aircraft, I use the F-5E FCU at 11.7 Japan as my CAS / A2A aircraft, takes about 650 to spawn it with a set of 4 AAM’s, that is LUDICROUS for how easy it is to get shot down at the BR, ESPICALLY while in a dogfight, and how little you usually ever get to do in it, obviously this would have to be balanced per weapon type and per aircraft (especially in low BR’s) when “Fighter Aircraft” have extremely high pen / caliber guns, as well as strike aircraft such as the Rook or A-10 with literal Anti tank cannons strapped to them, but this allows for things like Heli’s with F&F Missiles to be reliably countered, as well as Aircraft with standoff munitions. A side bonus of this being it would become much easier to grind Aircraft that suck in normal ARB.
Section 3 (FInal thoughts and conclusion)
Looping back to the intro, I think the CAS Issue primarily stems from a crippling lack of incentive to actually play AA, as well as the heavy incentive on individual performance over teamwork Rather than the aircraft themselves. love or hate CAS, It’s integral to the game and has to be here, Without it helicopters become 100% useless, half the strike Aircraft in the game would be Completely useless, and we would miss out on a lot of really cool content, the focus on “fixing” CAS should be on focused the roots of the tree, not the branch.
If anyone would like me to make this a separate suggestions post for further discussion or poles, let me know and I’ll continue to add onto it as I get more Ideas / thoughts.
