-
- and 3. are absolutely insane and Gajin will never let 5. happen
Remove it entirely from Ground Battles.
It doesn’t prevent stalemates. It doesn’t add complexity. It doesn’t require skill. It doesn’t even need you to actually play the other gamemode for the sake of grinding planes. It is a useless, witless excuse for a lack of adequate skill in utilizing the armored vehicle you’re meant to play.
But it’s already in the game so what’re the devs gonna do?
You know what else is just in the game: April Fools Events. Present for 2 to 3 weeks and decently balanced for the time that they exist. CAS existing in the game for as long as it did does not excuse its blatant unwieldiness when talking about game-to-game balance.
Just spawn in an SPAA.
Grand idea. One issue: None are adequate.
We’re talking about a matchup of a player that must juggle the trajectory of a self-directed object in a 3D space, who’s speed and profile may change at the literal flip of a dime. All while being a stationary point on a 2D plane from its targets perspective.
It’s telling that Volume of Fire is the main strategy most nations have in dealing with CAS and yet its unreliability is astounding.
Well maybe it’s a skill issue.
If it were a skill issue it would have pertained to an equal matchup. It does not. This is an incredibly skewed matchup.
The one who has a skill issue in this situation is the one who requires that matchup to be heavily in their favor in order to succeed.
That doesn’t tell I’m having a problem.
That tells me I’m fighting someone who doesn’t deserve anything but for me to spit on them. Below any sort of respect. An insult to both mine and the entirety of the Ground Forces Playerbase’s knowledge and expertise.
If implemented well, and in a mostly balanced way, it can add alot of depth to GRB. It can be used to strategically take out tough targets, clear out a cap point, or to just do damage to the enemy team. SPAA should be made a counter (whether it be a lead indicator like arcade, or moving them all down in BR), and the SP costs need to be rebalanced.
That is a skill issue, some are quite good for their BR.
Removing CAS would make SPAA, attackers, and some bombers obsolete in WT.
1 Like
Bombers are more or less obsolete already with the execption of the Pe-8 and the Lancaster and those two are only of any use because of the large bombs they can carry. SPAA wouldn’t be obsolete either as a lot of players using SPAA tend to use them against tanks instead of planes.
Personally I would be all for removing weapon damage from planes and tanks inside of the other teams spawn. I’d also remove any bomb damage if the player in the aircraft dies before the bombs go off. Would stop people suicide bombing and bombing players in their spawn.
That’s not much of a consolation prize for the multitudes of SAM vehicles and SPAA with poor penetration. What is a SA-13 going to do with its 7.62mm secondary to a tank? How about the Type 93 that has no ability to engage ground targets at all? Ozelot can’t do much of anything without air targets to engage. The higher BR SAM trucks/tanks can occasionally surprise a tanker with overpressure, but that’s definitely not something they should be expected to do at all times. That recently added PRC truck with the 25mm turret has pretty terrible penetration, and isn’t all that great at taking on the average medium tank at the BR.
If you remove aircraft, there is now at least a 50/50 split of vehicles that no longer become usable in battle.
Not long spawned, and bomb dropped right on me, luckily i still had spawn protection.
Anyone out there defending CAS, please tell me how we’re supposed to counter this?
Even if i spawned SPAA, they’d have dropped before i got lock, and if i didn’t have spawn protection…back to hangar i go.
No game should allow you to spawn camp with ease, yet aircraft in WT have free reign over spawns.
This situation looks hopeless anyway. Your team is almost gone, the enemy team holds all caps and is already in your spawn. So what is the complaint? Being bombed in the spawn? There is also an enemy on the ground waiting for you here.
What else should an enemy in the air do?
3 Likes
It doesn’t matter the situation my teams in, this happens to either team, with or without the advantage.
If it happens to either team it is not an unfair advantage.
Loose the ‘unfair advantage’ notion.
Is being bombed in your spawn, fun, fair or enjoyable?
Getting killed out in the map sucks, yeah, but that’s the risk you take when you advance.
Getting killed in spawn is infuriating.
You haven’t been given the chance to be useful to your team.
You have no ability to defend yourself.
For a F2P game, WT doesn’t do anything to incentivise spending money in the game at top tier…when you can’t leave the spawn.
My comment still stands from a few posts up.
Top tier is a shitshow, for multiple reasons.
6 Likes
Took my Fw 190 F-8 with a nice 1000 kg bomb to 9.3 and 11.3 today, I dodged 4 SPAA missiles in a row one match. So fun dunking modern vehicles with my WW2 fighter.
1 Like
Do you feel the same way when you get killed in the spawn by a tank?
You can make a comeback in rare situations when there is no CAS present or you can bag a couple of goons spawn rushing,that can be fun ,It’s game over with CAS though to be fair.Only a fool will waste re spawning in those situations.
Yes, I do.
But at least with that, they’re marked on the map, and you have spawn protection.
Against aircraft, unless you have a radar, you don’t know where they are…and when you do find them…chances are, that AGM or LGB is already en route.
And with the travel time…by the time it gets to you…spawn protection is over.
2 Likes
love this in depth covering of how you think things could be improved
1 Like
the only REAL adequate spaa in high tier belongs to russia, their pantsir
Step 1
Remove the option for players playing tanks to spawn in aircraft. If a player joins the ground battles matchmaker aircraft are grayed out.
Step 2
Go through all the air tech trees for every nation and mark each plane with one of the following colour markers: Green, White, Red.
The end result should be all attackers and strike aircraft and dive bombers are marked green, all fighters that can carry bomb or rocket ordinance are marked white and all large strategic bombers, floatplanes, hydroplanes and fighters with no ground ordinance ability are marked red.
Step 3
Go and mark every helicopter with the same green tag
Step 4
The join in progress feature that currently exists in the game is expanded to allow join in progress between the air realistic matchmaking queue and the ground realistic matchmaking queue. If a player is playing air realistic and has it turned on the game will consider them viable to be matchmade into the ground forces match from the air rb queue.
Step 5
Update the ground forces matchmaker so that when it initially sets a match br and finds those first set of tank players it does a check to see if within the br range and in the appropriate nations any players are currently queuing with a green checked plane or helicopter. If it finds two viable players for each side they are matchmade into the ground forces match. The matchmaker continues to fill the match when it reaches 30 out of 32 players and it has 2 green pilot per side it picks up a remaining 2 pilots per side (2 whites preferred to be fighter cover for the 2 green marked planes) per side. The end result is both teams should have 12 tanks and 4 planes each. Smaller matches will see smaller sized plane sets, aircraft will always be a minority in each team representing at most 1/3rd.
Step 6: Those 8 planes/helicopters go by a modified Air RB ruleset. No respawns, start on airfield, only change is no markers on ground forces or enemy planes. Their objective is to defeat the opposing air force and support the ground force’s attack. They will have no direct effect on the match tickets, but new options to them include features like using bombs/rockets to ‘bomb’ cap points to ‘decap’ them to help the team, so they can assist ground forces but not dominate the match.
Step 7
Remove the spawn point system from ground forces as it’s no longer needed. It was created to control the flow of aircraft but tends to cause a snowball effect in matches regardless of aircraft. So its better to either use the preset points system used in simulator or set a hard cap on ground spawns like in arcade.
Step 8
Miscellaneous bits and bobs
-If no player is queing in a viable plane for the br that match is being matchmade for then the ground forces match will continue as a tank only match, Gaijin can set that such matches default to poor weather or night time to give an in world explanation of the lack of air support.
-Similarly a green marked plane unable to find a ground forces match to join will default to the standard queue after a preset time and matchmake into normal air RB match.
-squads can matchmake with the aim of getting into ground forces by having green marked planes in their lineup. Like current matchmaking gaijin will attempt to matchmake squad with squad.
-squads that bring both a green and red marked plane will matchmake according to the red marked plane to stop players abusing squads to bring in planes like the pe8 into ground forces.
Pros
Removed the ‘power up’ aspect of CAS that currently infects the mode. It is now a full featured role in the match, the air RB rule restriction of one life combined with the lack of need for ‘revenge’ or ground level knowledge of the flow of battle means players wont be able to come into the game and just suicide bomb units. Also the forced airfield spawn ensures that by the time aircraft arrive at the battlefield ground forces have dispersed enough to discourage bombing tanks coming out of spawn.
It balances CAS in that there is always a guaranteed opposition in the air that is equivalent at least in br to each other. ka 52 will not be able to run rampant if at least two F15s or equivalent is confirmed to be flying on the opposing side. A dynamic will develop for small scale air battles mixed with rapid CAS runs that should be an interesting and exciting match dynamic.
A manageable and clear set goal line for SPAA’s in terms of what they need to kill (they know there are 4 aircraft max and only need to shoot each one down once) and also the existence of support in the air. It will be a viable option to go SPAA first and help your own air force quickly win the air battle so they can fully support your team.
Because its a partial merge of two existing queues and uses the already existing join in progress feature, no need to split player bases or create queues by adding new matchmaking queues. In fact because there will always exist a default mode to fall back to this solution ensures no plane or tank is unable to find a match (except for helicopters, but personally I’d argue they should let helicopters into high tier Air RB anyway)
The marking of planes for special roles system also already exists in game, gaijin marked all bombers so that they would be limited in each match to 4 per team, so the feature does exist already just needs to be expanded.
Benefits air RB as well as ground forces as it removes a lot of ‘difficult’ planes from the matchmaker which have traditionally struggled in the air rb game mode (hs 129 etc)
Most of the changes are behind the curtain changes on gaijin’s end, so there is no requirement to introduce a new complicated game mechanic in match to manage planes. Players just choose if they are flying or tanking and if they are flying there is a high chance depending on the type of plane they picked that they could end up in a tank game playing CAS.
Option to opt out of the mode for pilots. If players dont want to ever fly CAS they can turn the join in progress feature off and fly every plane in standard air rb.
aircraft will always be BR appropriate for the match playing. No more ju87s flying in the cold war.
CONS
No mixed squads. Cant have a squad where 2 players are in tanks and 2 in aircraft
Helicopters could in ‘theory’ get trapped queuing forever if there is somehow a sudden collapse of players playing high tier ground forces (incredibly unlikely but I will flag it is a very distant chance).
No option to directly queue to fly air cover (i.e not as CAS but as a fighter protecting tanks other cas planes) in ground forces (unless certain fighters with multiple variants of the same type are given green markings, like for example one of the p51D variants could be marked green and others white. the P38J could be green while the P38L is white and the P38K is Red the bf109 f4 trop could be marked green while standard bf109 F4 is white etc)
1 Like
I read all that.It was a long read but it’s interesting.
My take is simply this:
There is a much simpler and easier way.
1.Keep GRB as it is.
Zero changes.No nerfing of CAS, no spoiling the enjoyment of those like War Thunder as it is.We have a whole section of happy being .Good
2.Make a separate GRB with no aircraft in it.Zero CAS. I don’t care why anybody would want to play a GRB game with no aircraft in it .I only know that many do.
So you make a no CAS GRB as a new mode.A whole new set of happy people.Good
If people want to play both modes good.Nobody loses anything on either side of the coin and that is acknowledging that for many there is no coin ,we are one team playing one game in all it’s forms.
As everybody is quick to point out ,This game has a huge number of players still and has come a long way from what it used to be.I have seen interviews with Anton,Gaijin’s CEO and he does not want a new War thunder to compete with the old one but he is keen to move onward and hopefully upwards and this could be a way to do that.
My proposal would be to trial it for a month or two.It may be a success or it may fail but I imagine both the Devs and the player base would learn a lot about the game from it.What you can do with no aerial threat would be interesting.Staying on CAP would be an option for example.Maybe even towed semi static guns could be introduced like the UK 17 pdr or German 75mm.
SP guns with open crew would no doubt be more numerous as would the fast light MG vehicles , Rat tanks or even SPAA to hunt them.
TO could possibly become a game in its own right and have elements that standard GRB cannot accommodate due to the aerial threat.How you play would change,it would have to.
I think WT needs something like this.Many old vets are bored and many newbies frustrated.
Give it a go.
do you understand that the devs won’t do this, no matter how much you ask?
I don’t really care to be honest and I have asked them.
3 Likes