Just add Respawning to Air RB

just place a lot of MANPADS and SPAA on the airfields, but also further from the airfield, hidden amongst the terrain. Otherwise camping airfields would be too easy with modern aircraft.

Yeah, that would work too. further out but at a reduced density would be good in most gamemodes I reckon already

Yeah, KH-25/25MP/25MPU/27, KH-28, KH-31, but I don’t have ranges for these kinda missiles off the top of my head.

Nah, its just noobs. Normal players are still cautious because we know its high risk high reward.

Its dead. If it’s just noobs then noobs make up 98% of teams.

2 Likes

There’s no skill, all outcomes are random

1 Like

I believe some of these are in the files for the next update so i wonder how they will be implemented.

Although i really share lot of your views on things - your reference to Ground RB is imho the main reason why a rework of Air RB should focus on maps and game play first before you might even think about a multispawn in Air RB.

  • Basically the main flaw of multispawn modes is the illusion for newer players that a respawn option would give them alternative options and might be suited to turn around a almost lost match in a victory.

  • Seeing this option more realistic - the only players which will benefit are long term / more experienced players - the 98% rookies in Air RB will neither have adequate experience nor actual skill to use the additional flexibility.

  • So if you apply the same stupid game mechanics like in Ground RB respawning rookies will decide close matches just by killing your own tickets and provide the enemy with additional spawn points.

So if you see Air RB currently as mode in which wrong decision making leads to a “Game Over” event - a multispawn Air RB would just increase the possibilities for rookies to make mistakes. You would see the same ODL discussions and the result would be the same. Or just imagine endless streams of Ju 288s bombing respawning bases…

As long as the mode is more attractive than Ground RB regarding economy Air RB is flooded with non-pilots - without a significant increase of the average player skill you try to fight symptoms, but not the root cause of the decline of Air RB.

1 Like

I would love to see Air RB EC. As is, Air RB plays like Air AB (a quick furball and gameover). EC will enable time for attack and bomber aircraft to flourish and not just favour fighters - making many of the premiums more attract to buy.

I see no reason for this not to be added to the game - just stick it in Events like Sim EC and let players decide which mode they prefer to play.

And with regards to airfield camping; as with Sim EC, air defence systems can be utilised to solve that problem. To allow strike aircraft at least one pass (as IRL) I would suggest exponentially increasing defence system aggressiveness (accuracy/fire rate) based on time an individual spends in the vicinity of the airfield, thus anyone trying to camp will eventually just get deleted.

I mean all of these problems you described are issues with Air RB right now. Multi spawns doesn’t exaggerate the problem or change much of anything with regards to new players.

ODL will always be an issue and the only way to truly mitigate this would be to give everyone some sort of a reserve vehicle or to allow multiple spawns into the same vehicle like Sim EC or Naval EC.

The upcoming update does add the ability to use backups mid-match so it’ll be interesting how that impacts ODL.

No matter what you do, you will never change the fact that new players don’t play the game well. The best that can happen is the matchmaker tries to equally distribute newer players to each team but it’ll never be perfect.

I agree that we need fixes to maps, team sizes, and objectives but as i said in my OP, there really is no point of a No Respawn game mode anymore. It doesn’t provide any benefit, which is why all the newer game modes have some sort of Respawning mechanic.

If Gaijin changed Ground RB to be a No Respawn mode, people would freak out. Im just saying to give Air RB the same mechanic that Gaijin gives every other mode.

1 Like

I’d probably play ARB if it had respawns. The respawns could come in waves and have air spawns based on class. Essentially respawns acting as waves in an operation.

1 Like

I am not sure if we have the same understanding about why Air RB has seen such a quality drop in the last 3-5 years. I do agree that Air RB is stuck in a “non-development” trap, as the mode looks the same without adapting to increases in plane performance and decrease of pilot skill on average.

  • I am a passionate pilot too, but some years ago it was actually a challenge to play Air RB, as the overall player skill was especially at BR 4.0 - 6.3 rather high and you needed actual skill and a meta plane to play there successfully.

  • Now you are forced to play non-meta planes in order to reduce your massive experience advantage vs the average opponent in the same BR range in order to have a challenge. Anything else leads to no fun.

  • Even as i assess myself as a rather mediocre pilot, i was able to score K/Ds of 10-15:1 in the BP 109 F-4 or in the US P-47 D-28. And in the 5.0 full-uptier (85%) “Ju 288 black hole” in my Italian P-47 D-30 (assigned to 4 Ju 288 in 6 vs 6 matches) i scored a 7:1 k/d - unthinkable 3-4 years ago.

So the lack of experience as seen today is caused by players just reacting on gaijins offers and economy differences between modes. As long as the Air RB economy is far better than Ground RB and tasks like bombing respawning bases require little to zero skill - there is simply no need to improve as long as the received rewards of doing such tasks allow a rather fast progress.

  • From my perspective this respawning bases nonsense in May 2020 was the root cause for the decline of average pilot skill - offering multiple possibilities to earn SL/RP without any skill necessary opened the mode for non pilots even more.

  • I still remember when i first met 3 bombers with an early bot script (B-18Bs) programmed to drop (all 3 bombed the same base) and chase the nearest enemy - i did a split-S followed by a steep dive and all 3 died due to overspeeding…

So in order to solve the experience issue you either have to align Ground RB economy with Air RB economy - either by increasing Ground RB rewards or decreasing Air RB rewards - and to get rid of respawning bases as the main challenge of pure base bombing was to kill the enemy airfield, a pure base kill is and was always a milk run in the “right” plane.

Again, i see the benefits of you other proposals in the OP, but without fundamental economy changes respawning in Air RB changes nothing - except that a few experienced players might have more options.

In addition you might look at your last battle summaries. You will find out that the overwhelming majority of RP income is a result of battle score / actions / activity and most important, your survival time. Do you really expect that you get the same rewards in a respawning mode?

…i recommend to grab a coffee and check out this thread:

You will get a grasp of how newer players and experienced player see af aaa in general and how toxic the forum community is…

Both of you - have a good one!

1 Like

Essentially a RB EC, Gaijin used to run those, and I enjoyed playing that a few years ago. I sure hope they can introduce it as a new game mode.

We did have Air RB EC for a very very short period of time. They ran an event for 2 days like 5 - 6 years ago. It was pretty fun.

EDIT: this isn’t the one I remember since I distinctively remember flying japanese aircraft [Event] Enduring confrontation in the skies above Stalingrad - News - War Thunder

1 Like

I mean Air RB and Ground RB are very different and prioritize grinding different vehicles so its comparing apples to oranges.

Rewards are pretty good in Ground if u can actually play well. When i do well in Ground, which isn’t often, my RP and SL rewards are fairly similar.

As far as rewards being changed if Air RB with respawning was added - im sure it would be adjusted but should maintain the same amount of earnings per in game time. We have no reason to believe Gaijin would alter that rate in my theoretical proposal.

I dont focus too heavy on earnings though. Part of it may be because i have every plane in the game or just because i hate focusing on the grind since i find it stale.

I think maybe we are just focused on different BR brackets. Respawning bases have more of an impact on the lower tiers but no impact on the upper tiers. I feel the problems with Air RB more heavily impact the upper tiers. My issues with the lower tiers have more to do with map design and premium vehicle imbalance (cough- ju288 - cough) whereas the issues with the upper tiers seem far more pronounced to me and it’s st the upper tiers that i see Air RB really breaking down.

If someone desires respawning at the lower tiers, Air AB is a heap of fun. But Air AB at the upper tiers is trash, which is why AB is not very popular at top tier but the most popular at low tiers.

But yea there are other issues with the Air RB mode beyond just no respawns. My point in the OP is that the No Respawn mechanic has No Purpose anymore and is just a hinderance or a mechanic to suffle players through a match as quickly as possible. This isn’t much fun at all.

1 Like

About 50%

high tier jet battles are too quick now its like 1 min of flying towards them 30 seconds of fight and boom rounds over, it needs some type of overhaul. you know the game mode sucks when its more entertaining to spend 80% of the match tabbed out until you finally find someone.

1 Like

they wont bring back air RB EC because you could generate 100k of RP in like one match and they are afraid of making the grind slightly less

All they would need to do is nerf the overall match modifier if over-earnings is an issue.

The bigger concerns about an additional game mode are:

  • Does it noticeably harm the Air RB matchmaker?

  • Will enough people play it?

These questions are kind of why i lean towards modifying the existing Air RB game mode towards an “EC Lite”.

EC in War Thunder includes 2.5 hour matches and i think thats a recipe for disaster for Air RB. Most people cannot play the game for that long.

There’s a huge gap between 5 minute matches and 2.5 hour matches. I feel like the ideal time for a match is 20 to 30 minutes.

20 to 30 minute matches rarely ever occur in the current top tier Air RB. The only way to consistently achieve that match time would be to allow for respawning in some form.

I personally like the way Ground RB’s respawning works. It allows for line ups, while maintaining in-match consequences through the Spawn Point system.

I think this spawn point respawn system could work very well for Air RB and could create a much more dynamic match while maintaining consequence for players who mess up.

Ofcourse Gaijin can’t ignore the other issues.

-Team sizes need to be reduced at the top tiers, especially on the non-EC maps.

-We need multiple airfields per side and Carriers on maps with water.

-They need to fix excessive ticket bleed issues that prematurely end the match. - City…

-they need more objectives and need to spread the objectives across the map to discourage a single furball.

-and maybe they need to rethink spotting. I think for Air RB, friendly players should always be spotted but the enemy spotting system feels really random.

I could see either eliminating spotting altogether for enemies(like Ground RB) or have spotting only within a fixed radius of your plane.

If spotting was removed for enemies, i still think they should be spotted within a certain radius of your airfield, carrier and maybe within a small radius of the bases scattered through the map.

I could see a variety of arguments for spotting changes but right now it feels broken.