If you could, how would you re-balance CAS in Ground Battles?

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
4212

Maybe.
There are players like me who rarely play RGB because of CAS. So it’s not like a new mode will cause queue times to go up when players like me start playing TO.

So all those players will be sticking with CAS, and not taking advantage of the free, stock, air units.

You can choose to believe that - but - it’s just an assumption.
In the RGB battles I’ve been in, CAS most often attacks ground units leaving spawn, and ground units trying to cap. Digging out “dug in” ground vehicles is an afterthought.

unfortunately offering free stock (let’s face it Gaijin is not offering spaded planes for free - as per your note about profits) air units to inexperienced flyers is not a good counter. Those players will just exit the battle rather than spawn a unit they will be doomed in.

The incentivizing counters for this mode I have not seen mentioned yet by Gaijin are…

  • stealth belts for spaa so the ground units are not lighting a beacon for air units to target. Air units have stealth belts - why not ground units?
  • proper air sights for spaa guns so they actually have a chance of hitting moving air units. Currently, gunned spaa have to rely on ground sights which does not reflect what they had IRL.
  • air units losing 3rd-person perspective for attacking ground. You want realistic - make it harder for the air units to wipe out a platoon.
  • larger maps / spawn areas. With the small maps spaa become targets way too quickly. Nowhere to set up safely.
  • There should be a timer - X number of minutes in battle need to have elapsed before CAS are available. Currently they can spawn too early in the battle and things quickly get out of hand.
4 Likes
4213

Willing to admit this would help the issue a bit, but I don’t really think this would be enough to counterbalance the issue.

Those players will be, like I said before this serves a different niche. Players like me who’s air tree is not up to the same BR as their ground tree for whatever reason. It is an option that can be used if the player decides to. If it doesn’t work for them, they don’t use it again. If it does, now they have it in their toolkit. It’s a pretty harmless add.

I mean multiple GRB matches I’ve been in the process was also scouting people holding strong positions, scouting them, and calling CAS to dislodge them. This is just trading anecdotes. Like I’ve said before this is the consequence of a strategy that doesn’t have a proper counter built up.

And yep, the whole thing is hypothetical, I have about as much proof for my POV as you do.

Positing that every person that will take this out will be completely inexperienced does not really track. You will likely see it more often than not, but for people who prefer ground but can handle flying as well it can be a useful option. Stock planes are not in nearly as bad of a disadvantage against spaded planes as stock tanks against spaded tanks. Like I mentioned before even if a kill isn’t achieved the CAS player is still forced to deal with the threat which opens up vital windows of time.

I do like this idea, I think the primary reason this isn’t done is because these belts don’t really exist for ground based SPAA IRL, at least from what I know of, could be wrong. Doesn’t mean I don’t think they should be added, but Gaijin is known to be sticklers about this in weird ways.

1000% this. This would be a pretty huge help as well.

This would also be a help. Currently it is far too easy for air units to spot ground units in GRB. I could see Gaijin resisting this idea as they’ve taken the approach to basically just applying ARB rules to planes in GRB.

This is definitely a larger issue, maps in general need /a lot/ of work, and so does the spawn system to deal with spawn camping and the like. One wrinkle I can see however is a lot of SPAA tend to be shorter range in nature and need to be closer in to engage properly. I mean just about the whole of the American SPAA tree is this way outside of a few at higher BRs.

This I do support as well, however, and I’ll admit this is a purely subjective thing because I just find it super cool and amusing I would miss heli rushes with rocket pods. I’ve never really had a problem with that strategy since in most cases tanks can deal with these helis and it’s just really cool to see y’know?

1 Like
4214

Had another thought, what about AI controlled SPAA periodically respawning? Similar to Nuclear Thunder but less… Oppressive.

This applies constant pressure that either needs to be countered or otherwise maneuvered around to deal with. From a realistic standpoint this tracks as most assaults have some kind of anti-air element supporting.

In lower BRs this discourages dive bombing in predictable patterns as you’ll get blasted out of the sky, and loitering above the battlefield to spot targets is also dangerous for the same reason.

In higher BRs where long range SAMs come into play these can serve to intercept guided munitions, engage aircraft sitting at too far of a distance for SPAA to engage reliably, apply constant pressure to helis using the cover peak strategy, and make the strategy of sitting high above the battlefield (where a lot of SPAA radars struggle to detect) an extremely risky proposition.

This way CAS now has depth to play instead of feeling like an unfair “I win” button while still keeping it around as an option to deal with strong positions

4215

The thing is that for people who just want tank vs tank combat it changes nothing.

In the end they will die to something they can’t do anything about. There is no difference if it happens in 1 out of 5 or 100 battles. The issue still exists.

As long as this people need to play combined battles in order to play tanks, nothing will change when it comes to balance.

5 Likes
4216

You’re playing a combined arms game. Accept you’re gonna have to deal with combined arms or find a different game to play, I don’t know what to tell you.

This is how the game was designed, I’m working within the confines of how Gaijin made the game and marketed the game. You’re asking them to suddenly do a 180 and remove a major component that sets them apart from the competition, from a business standpoint it’s a really bad idea.

If you want a separate mode, fine whatever. However this is out of scope for this topic and the combined arms mode still exists, which still poses the issue of “how do you balance it”

4217

You are talking to the guy who abuses air in GRB and openly talks about it. The difference is that I can tell when something is unbalanced.

Please point out where I have said that they should remove something from existing gamemode.

3 Likes
4218

As I have said, it will balance itself the moment where people who want pure tank vs tank combat are out of the mode.

2 Likes
4219

Nobody ever questioned the fact that it’s currently unbalanced…

Not really? The balance issue still exists, all you’ve done is moved the people who really don’t want to deal with it. If you want to propose that go ahead, but this topic probably isn’t the right place since this is regarding how someone would balance CAS.

4220

So teams only have players who want to deal with it, meaning many people are going to use CAP and SPAA… sounds like balance to me.

4 Likes
4221

It doesn’t resolve the underlying issues of game impact that affect CAP and SPAA. You’re just masking the issue with people who complain about it less instead of addressing the issue directly

4222

The thing is that I don’t actually mask it.

I take people complaining out of equation by giving them what they want.

4223

Definition of masking the problem. The problem still exists on the headliner mode for the game. Now you have a game that advertises combined arms, a new player joins, sees 2 modes, one with and without, and fines the main thing advertised to them is broken because the issue was simply pushed under the rug

4224

It is not pushed under the rug.

People who want combined aspect of the game play it and are prepared for it. There is lack of people with SPAA/CAP in the mode.

4225

The problem is your headliner game mode still has unbalanced elements. The issue has not been addressed, your headliner game mode is still a mess.

4226

Examples?

4227

Example of what? The current state of the game? I think we’re all well aware of that.

Take a look at every ad and paid sponsorship Warthunder puts out. All of them emphasize combined arms combat as the premier feature of the game. Which they should, it’s pretty much the only PvP game out there that does this outside of squad based milsims. The closest competitors is just tank v tank.

So, let’s say we implement this solution. Snap our fingers and now a pure tank v tank mode exists, nothing else has been done. Queue times increase but nothing dramatic, and the snobs in the community have yet another thing to turn their nose up at people at. Complaining about CAS has simmered down somewhat as the people who really hate it now have somewhere to go. It’s a solution in the context of currently present players, if you’re ok with combined arms still being unbalanced.

Now imagine you’re a brand new player who downloaded the game after seeing a paid ad from one of their favorite Youtubers or wherever talking about the amazing combined arms warfare in this game, something not present in any other game! You join your first game and it’s an absolute mess. Planes are everywhere, you don’t know what’s going on, some players are popping into SPAA but there is just too many planes. From what you could tell ground vehicles are basically just point pinatas for planes and there really doesn’t seem to be too much done to stop the spam. This goes on over a couple of matches.

Then you decide to start looking around, maybe go into the public chat and ask the community, and you get pointed to the tank v tank mode. I know at least the first thing that would go through my head is “wtf? I wanted to play combined arms but this mode is borderline unplayable, and instead of fixing that, they just made a new mode to avoid it”

Personally, I would uninstall immediately. This demonstrates that the development team behind the game doesn’t really understand how to balance their game and is instead perfectly happy to sell people on a mode that’s terribly balanced then point them to another mode that doesn’t have what they were sold on.

4228

Meanwhile, naval with sometimes 5 minute+ queues:

Edit

Honestly, queue times really aren’t the issue. If it changes a queue time from 15~20 seconds to - say 35~40 - and people start whining, it’s because they’re too brainrotted on tiktok/youtube shorts/instagram reels/whatever facebook calls its 30 second garbage.

4 Likes
4229

I agree with this personally, I only bring it up because Gaijin is really allergic to increasing queue times. It’s commonly cited as a reason for BR decompression not happening, and why nations aren’t paired against their rivals in history like they were originally.

4230

This makes no sense.

All decompression does is move vehicles around. Does not remove them from the queue.
Probably similar to changing BR range from 3 stres to 2 steps. Same amount of vehicles - you are just changing what battles you are placing them into.

4231

Its gaijin, have they ever actually made a decision that made sense?

but the theory behind decompression affecting queue times is that a match is +/- 1 BR. If currently to have say 100 players queuing it will take X time. But if now those same 100 players are now spread over a larger area, too large for just 1 brakcet to be queued together, then it would increase queue times.

Now I do think a decent decompression would increase queue times… from about 3 seconds to make 4.

2 Likes