The Ki-84 hei has been sitting at BR 7.7 (Air AB) for years now, and its current placement highlights a long-standing problem with late propeller aircraft trapped in jet matchmaking, which still remains unaddressed.
At 7.7 BR, the Ki-84 hei is consistently pulled into early jet lobbies (8.0–8.7) due to the BR matchmaking spread. This means the aircraft almost never fights other propeller aircraft, despite being a prop itself and belonging to Rank IV. Rank is irrelevant to matchmaking, but it strongly affects lineup coherence and this is where the issue becomes even more apparent.
Japan has no viable Rank IV / BR 7.3–7.7 prop lineup to support the Ki-84 hei. Most Japanese Rank IV props sit at 6.0–6.7 BR, making them completely uncompetitive when dragged into jet matches. As a result bringing a mixed lineup severely handicaps the entire crew slot and bringing only the Ki-84 hei leaves the person effectively alone in jet matches.
This makes the aircraft isolated both in matchmaking and progression, discouraging its use entirely.
The key issue appears to stat-based balancing. Because the Ki-84 hei is effectively unplayable in its current matchmaking, it is rarely used. Low usage combined with survivorship bias (only very experienced or dedicated players flying it) results in artificially inflated performance stats, which then justify keeping the aircraft at 7.7. This creates a feedback loop where the aircraft’s BR never changes because it is no longer played by the average player.
As a result, the Ki-84 hei is not balanced by BR — it is effectively removed from normal gameplay. A reassessment of its BR placement, or meaningful decompression at the late-prop / early-jet boundary, is long overdue.
You the type of person who thinks they are better for playing realistic then you should play sim battles, also according to statshark I have a better battle rating than you so I think level isn’t at play here.
There is no requirement for any player to play any certain mode, regardless of level
years of experience or what rank of vehicles that a player has.
Telling another players what they should play goes against the entire premise of the game.
I believe a player should find what part of the game that they enjoy, and do that . .
It doesn’t matter what anyone else plays or says.
I prefer Arcade for air and ground battles. Some of us like the faster pace(it is getting ridiculous tho)
and more constant action . . . while others cannot maintain that level and play other modes.
I would rather play naval(and I do, both AB & RB) than fly Air RB. I find Air RB mind numbingly slow,
boring and not the least bit “realistic”. But I am a gamer and not a pilot, so . . . .
To each his own, no reason to chide anyone for their choices here. They made several modes
and added several vehicle types because . . . . people like different things.
The Ki-84’s are beautiful and one of the best props you can fly, even in AB.
It’s just a pity that Gaijin cannot find a way to balance them or someplace we can play them
against like opponents . . . but then again, almost all Super props are like this now.
It is what it is, and with Gaijin’s focus being 97.3%(yeah, I made that number up for emphasis) completely top tier jets and ground vehicles, none of that is likely to change . .
any time soon if at all.
And all of the players that enjoy playing vehicles that are not top tier, get to sit in the back
of the bus . . . . with all the neglected vehicles that are not “meta” FOMO/HYPE driven.
stat shark is useless, and arcade is just a worse act combat, the vast majority of players play rb and sim skills do not translate over so that’s not really comparable.
Come play RB where the Ki-84 Hei gets put into 7.3 jet lobbies and becomes food for things like Meteors and Su-11. I enjoyed the Ki-84 but being overpowered was never a thought that occured to me.
Far more than 1% my friend, games have hardly any wait times in queue and
always plenty of players at BRs far below “top tier”.
Long time players, such as myself, play all over the place, have many vehicles
to choose from and have tried more modes and vehicles than the average player.
Since 2020 or so, when Gaijin began marketing the game via youtube/twitch sponsorships
all of which have been aimed at a much younger demographic, the landscape and the dynamics
of the game have changed radically. The newer/younger players are not as familiar with or
interested in the older vehicles . . … WW II and so on, so are naturally driven to seek the
more modern stuff . . . and that’s not an issue really, it benefits the game, Gaijin cashes in
pretty good too I am sure, so the game keeps going . . . everybody wins.
But assuming that since you play RB at whatever BR and that means everyone else does
(or should in your opinion) is more than a little misguided. Even the content creators are
prone to such attitudes.
Statshark doesn’t show any vast differences between AB & RB, and the most played BR are
. . . in the middle . . .
Never said it was, just someone who is, again, not addressing the issue of the topic, arcade or realistic no matter the mode its still an issue, even if you say most players play RB which i don’t doubt, theres no official numbers published by gaijin, which also doesn’t mean one of the modes should not be paid attention to just because it isnt the realistic one or the most played
Making people play game modes they don’t like is part of why game mode distinctiveness is reduced. Consider ARB in 2015 vs 2025. It’s night and day - today’s ARB had lobby sizes increased, match duration decreased, airspawns added, G-force limits relaxed significantly (I am yet to rip a wing to over-G in props while I distinctly recall doing that back in the day) and compression/control stiffening also relaxed (109s come to mind - they’d lock up in dives and now you retain control to great speeds. Same for F8F’s rudder).
Let people go and enjoy air arcade. If you force arcade people to play RB due to better rewards or social stigma - we get people who will want ARB to be turned into air arcade as that’s what they want.
GAB and GRB has the same issue.
All three modes should be equally respected, supported and provide time-to-kill adjusted rewards that are still equivalent.
