Greetings, fighters! We continue to work on making our game better in all aspects, and today we’d like to present a new article type: In Detail. It will include both player suggestions and our ideas that we’d like to elaborate upon and discuss with you.
Let’s discuss in detail markers in air events
We’d like to disable ground vehicle markers for pilots of fighters and interceptor helicopters during air events in Ground arcade battles. The markers will remain for strike aircraft, bombers, and helicopters with air-to-ground rockets and ATGMs.
Air events are a rather old mechanic that was adapted to new vehicle ranks by including more and more modern aircraft. But with more powerful payloads, more advanced fighters with front-mounted cannons appeared in the sky. Such aircraft were intended to escort or destroy strike aircraft (depending which side they’re on), but, beginning at the mid ranks, the fighters often prefer to rush to the tank battlefield and attack low armored vehicles.
As a result, we believe, gameplay suffered for both ground vehicles that had to fend off 2-4 aircraft instead of one serious aerial opponent, as well as the strike aircraft that were left with no cover while costing many times more.
Besides, after the middle of the battle the dominating side started to actively use air events for massive air attacks, lowering the comeback chances of the side that was already losing.
What’s going to improve
Fighters aren’t the “main characters” in air events: you can infer that from the fact that you can’t initiate the events as a fighter. Effective escort/interceptor fighters costing one point are meant to improve the chances of the strike or to counter it — depending on the side.
Fighter pilots that aren’t tempted by highlighted positions of the ground targets will concentrate on their immediate task, the tankers will clearly see their main target in the sky, and kamikaze attacks that annoy many of you will happen much less often.
This seems all good and well, not sure why removing the markers for some planes and not for others makes much sense, especially at higher tiers where the modern/automated weaponry of many aircraft don’t really need markers anyway. But I think it could be worth a try. The only thing about aircraft in Ground AB battles that really needs addressing is the spawning system, the placement of planes is abysmal . . . you spawn in a bomber with 2 bogies on your tail, many times being shot before you can even move, while your “escorts” are over a kilometer back with no chance to even get in range of the enemies before the bomber is gone, or if it does make it very far, the escorts have no chance of even getting close enough to be of any help. It is so bad it barely makes it worth going up in a plane the majority of the time. Which is too bad, but I have a feeling this is also intentional to make the whole “flying experience” in AB Combined battles less effective and appease those on the ground. I would estimate 1/3 of the time I “J” out of my plane because no reason to attempt to fly anymore and it is better to just get back to my tank. And even the times I do continue to fly, it seems like 50-50 chance of doing anything to score or help my team. The current spawning system is so bad, I would say make Ground AB have no planes, yes . . Tanks Only. Then all those that moan for a Tanks Only mode get their wish and the game makers do not have to bother with coming up with an equitable spawning system for aircraft in those types of games. I would rather keep the planes myself, but I would also like to see some sort of spawning system that does not ruin the experience 90% of the time … . but that’s just me.
Totally agreed, the spawn is ridiculous.
Either the ennemy spawns at your left and you’re dead, either it spawns 1km on your rear and he can’t do anything.
I also j out most of the time because I can’t catch up with the attacker and if i don’t come back to my tank he’ll focus my tank while i’m running after him
Also, why the hell do I get a Ho 229 when the ennemy has a Mig 15 ?? I do like the “skill matters” award but it dosen’t seem very fair.
I had a second thought that I was wondering if it might catch any wind. Instead of removing markers for certain planes(I still fail to see the logic here) why not do a total overhaul of the markers all around. Just make the markers a single dot, no names, no vehicle identifications . . or perhaps like the little red arrows used in GRB when a player is marked? This would eliminate some “clutter” on the ground/screen, make “Revenge” a little more difficult while not totally gimping the “spotting” of ground units. It would also eliminate any prejudice of plane types. I mean players are gonna do what they are gonna do . . regardless of changes in many cases. For some reasons a lot of players “assume” every single flyout is merely for “Revenge” which I do not think it entirely true and is greatly exaggerated. But I am sure it happens. And many are still gonna fly directly into the ground/tanks to assure some sort of “hit” and hopefully scoring. No way of knowing if this is done out of spite, lack of flying skills/experience or just how they learned to do it. Increasing the rewards for “Safe and Sound” might help a little, but I imagine it is still gonna happen regardless. But a more simplified marking system with less “personalization” would seem like a more general way of fixing things . . a little anyway, then removing the markers for some planes and not for others . . . . all or nothing. But the plane’s spawning system is still by far a more important issue and should be a pressing matter for the game makers in my opinion. The spawning system in the entire game should have been overhauled years ago and has been the cause of more problems than anything else in the game . . . by a great deal . . again, in my opinion.
If you want there to be less kamikaze attacks then don’t allow them to be a free kill. If you die in an aircraft, shot down, crash or kamikaze then that should count towards one of the 3 spawns allowed.
As has been mentioned, spawning locations of aircraft leaves a great deal to be desired.
If possible there should also be some limited protection for ground vehicles from aircraft in spawn locations.
Yes, the idea of removing the name tags instead of the entire marker would make tanks of people in the air a lot less obvious and therefore less likely to be “first” targets . . . since in the air = that tank is not going to be moving anytime soon. So a simpler “red dot” marker would still show the vehicle, but those in the air would have to use a bit more skill/brain power to pinpoint others also in the air. And as for the planes we randomly get . . . why not implement the system used in AB naval . . bring our own planes. I am in no way a fan of the respawn point system in RB tanks and stopped playing that mode because of it years ago, but it seems to work in AB naval fairly well. And I feel like it’s because your naval vehicles have a set “3 spawns” without the spawn points being a thing . . . this is what makes it work better in my opinion. The only other thing that I think needs to be done is the removal of the “averaging” thing for AB line ups . . . while that is an Air only thing, it has outlived it’s usefulness and would smooth things across all the modes too . . . again, just my thoughts . . .
the change may be good for light tanks but all ground units should have permanent markers to exclude the possibility of using illegal software. The toptier spotting mechanic makes AB feel like RB. 1 is the fact that a lot of novices with zero crews were let in there, which translates into the visibility of the team.
2 maps are big enough that most of the time we don’t have any markers.
3 eliminating the advantage of people using illegal software by highlighting the goal for everyone in the game. And that’s the most important thing.
I remind you that you don’t need EAC to play AB, apart from the fact that this software is hopeless.
Dear friends, thank you for participating in this discussion! We’ve noted your interest in the core idea and also collected a lot of helpful feedback that we’ll pass to the developers.
The planned improvements will be released in one of the next updates.
