You don’t seem to grasp that getting correct gun lead is far harder in an SPAA vs a plane than it is in a plane vs another plane. Unless the plane is 1) flying perfectly straight at your AA, 2) turning in a very slow circle overhead, or 3) stalling out above your AA, your chances of hitting the plane before they realize you are there and then avoid you entirely are null. And while you’re staring at the plane for a while waiting patiently for a kill shot, any tank can stroll up and annihilate you while most times you can only scratch their paint, even from the side.
Tell me, is that “fun” to you? Much less fair? I can totally understand why AA shouldn’t frontally melt most things they run into, but saying they can’t reliably pen the sides and rears of most opponents makes them needlessly frustrating to play.
What I care for is making SPAAG actually fun to play more of the time, like the majority of tanks are. To do that, they need to be able to kill tanks and reliably hit planes with no more practice than should be expected to hit a tank with any other tank cannon. And that means an arcadey lead indicator to counter unrealistic flight behavior and spotting ability of the planes, while also undoing old anti-tank belt nerfs, adding missing anti-tank ammo options, and removing tiny shell count limits on high tier SPAAs’ antitank rounds.
My ultimate goal here is shutting down a major arm of the CAS debate - complaints of “SPAA are useless and defenseless!” mainly, by making them no longer such without dozens upon dozens of matches practicing every gun’s lead and undoing old nerfs to their AT capabilities so they are not defenseless against seemingly everything even side-on.
Then if someone wants to complain about CAS, they must first answer why they refuse to use the now-rebuffed SPAAG. And intentionally there is none beyond “but I don’t wanna!” which is not an excuse to either add a CAS-free mode nor nerf any CAS weaponry, as it is purely said complainer’s own fault.
And yet planes get equally cheesy mouse controls enabling them to snap around very unrealistically, as well as 3rd person camera making spotting AA from long range very easy.
The lead indicator (proposed to be at far shorter range than Arcade’s one) is meant to compensate for the unequal benefits planes gain from RB-standard features.
These would definitely help, but frankly not help enough to make SPAAG as easy to understand as using any tank cannon vs another tank. And to even hope to put an end to this mindless drivel argument on the nature and “balance” of CAS, SPAAG intentionally need to be boneheaded-level easy to use. They need to be easier to successfully use than the CAS they are intended to kill, and also be able to defend themselves from tanks so average joes not just use them, but move into useful positions with them.
Where those sights would help the most is Simulator, since planes have to get much closer to the ground to positively identify enemy tanks due to being restricted to cockpit view.
Do I necessarily like adding more arcadey features to realistic? No, not really. I only proposed such to counter equally arcadey features we all know damn well are not going anywhere as they are too integral to selling the game.
SPAA are stuck on maps overcrowded with obstacles which block large amounts of their LoS to see planes with. Tank maps are also pretty small so tanks and AA of all kinds are fish in a barrel from the CAS perspective.
Planes get superior visibility of the whole battlefield, and are able to identify SPAA well before they get inside SPAAG useful gun range. Many SPAAG do not help themselves by cowering in their own spawn most of the time, either.
Planes gain far more advantage from mouse controls than tanks do, and this is a large part of why CAS weapon hit rates are so much higher with unguided ordinance than in real sources.
Neither of those features is getting neutered or taken away from CAS, therefore I plainly see SPAAG in need of some kind of mechanic to compensate. If planes can spot AA and effortlessly dodge in ways unlike reality, then its only fitting for AA to unrealistically get lead assists.
Air will all ways be superior to ground, hence why i suggest more air at start via reducing sp cost for air units that can provide air cover while not being a full threat to tanks on the ground by increasing ordinance costs
Oh I fully support something along the lines of that.
Doesn’t change the fact that SPAAG in the bulk of the game are for the most part frustration without any real payoff except when one can melt tank sides easily.
I just want to see SPAAG be made about as easy to successfully use in their intended role as using most tanks to kill other tanks is. Right now they are anything but easy, yet are expected to be used en masse. Marketed like a commodity, but priced like a luxury in regard to time spent learning it. Hence why I propose changes to make it about as easy as most other tanks already are.
And restrict their view of their surroundings even further, yes, they indeed can.
We have waited, and waited,and waited some more for average players to actually bother learning SPAAG correctly.
They haven’t. Clearly they never will, and skilled SPAAG users are too few and far between to make up more than an occasional difference. Those same average players then continue to throw fuel into the utter xxxxshow of the CAS debate as a whole.
I personally want such fuel to stop being thrown into the mess so it can actually start burning itself out, so it stops igniting other areas and modes of the game. Making SPAAG far easier to use successfully to where those same complainers suddenly have much less reason to complain will help accomplish that. That is where the lead indicator would come in, alongside realistic AA gunsights.
That is a separate issue somewhat remedied by undoing nerfs to their antitank belt compositions and/or ammo supplies of antitank rounds.
Ideally, I would go so far to buff SPAAG as to 1) give all of them realistic AA gunsights, 2) give all non-radar ones lead indicators out to 1.5km range, 3) undo the old AP belt nerfs, 4) remove high-BR AAs’ tiny shell count limits on their AP(FS)DS, 5) give AAs any missing ammo types where appropriate to enhance their anti-tank ability (German 37mm APCR, 40mm Bofors APDS, R3 20mm APDS, 40mm Bofors HE-VT), and 6) give all players default SPAAG in their decks with preset ammo loads like Naval does with planes.
Alongside all that, I would remove the kill camera, force planes to runway spawn, delete the helicopter FOB and rear base, make helis spawn on the plane runway, use Simulator’s SP system so aircraft are no longer dumb powerups both with and more importantly without ordinance, and copy Naval’s idea on default planes by adding those to everyone’s deck.
Then, every single player has all the tools they need to help themselves, none of which are “too hard” to learn how to use, meaning not ONE of them has an excuse to keep complaining, let alone try asking for tank-only mode.
No more unrealistic than too many other mechanics already in the mode. Don’t get me wrong, I do not feel all that nice about adding more arcadey features. But in this case it feels downright necessary to counter something which is too vital to selling the game to newcomers (plane mouse aim and 3rd person camera) which will never be nerfed nor removed from the mode.
I am against making RB more AB. And tbh nothing will be accomplished if the community can not agree on simple stuff as there wont be enough leverage to push gaijin in said direction
Despite our disagreements, it amazes me that the community can’t even agree on axing the kill cam and forcing planes to runway spawn. Most of the CAS hate is revenge bombing hate - thus you’d think removing the features which enable it so easily would be widely supported.
The current kill cam footage could simply be played at the end of the match to still act as a newbie teaching tool without giving said newbie any ability to abuse the information for cheap kills.
The kill cam & midair spawn are what’s cheap IMHO, not CAS itself for the most part.
I do think they could remove the back ground from kill cam as that gives its location a way. Gaijin wont remove air spawn simply because it will make match time longer
I fail to see how forcing planes to runway spawn in RB would be so detrimental.
Match times in Sim are just as short and planes runway spawn there. Helicopters spawn on the pad in RB & Sim.
And aircraft can’t really capture objectives practically anyways. Helicopters are so fragile that nobody dares bring one that close to possible MG fire.
