Preface
Once again this game finds itself in a bad spot like it was not so long ago. Multiple major issues plague this game, technical or otherwise. From low RP/SL gains, questionable BR placements, overall BR compression, degradation of the Battle Pass, insane copy paste filled updates that also break the game while not bringing anything new, rank 3 copy paste event vehicles requiring 350K mission score to get, geopolitically questionable decisions (Singapore going to China being the most recent) to numerous bugs that have not been fixed for years. One could go on and list a bunch more. We all see it. The game is not in a healthy state.
I am however not going to focus on most of these issues in this thread. As the title states this thread is about the all but abandoned (like all gamemodes to be fair) Air Realistic Battles Gamemode.
The displeasure and disappointment other issues mentioned above have brought upon the game are certinally deserved as they are real things people are upset about. However they are only amplified because the game is missing one of its main components. That of course being gameplay and gamemodes. What we have in War Thunder would barely pass as a proof of concept for a beta. Fix your gamemodes and you’ll see your situation improve.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at Counter Strike. Sure you have people complaining about anti cheat, performance or blatant cash grabs Valve has been pulling recently but you don’t see anyone complaining about defusal, Counterstike’s premier gamemode. Add to the fact that defusal is 25 years old and has barely changed in that time. Having incredible gameplay has bought CS a lot of good will. Even with other issues in that game people are playing it.
We all see how out of touch you are with the community. On the ARB topic it’s clear to see why as most of your officials don’t even play the gamemode, or the game in general. It’s time to listen to someone who does. Your community who still has faith that this game can be salvaged and are tirelessly posting on your forums about the ways to improve your game, most of which you ignore. This ignorance has brought you to this point.
What is the point of modeling all these vehicles, systems and complex interactions if the main environment you get to use them in is basically one spawn deathmatch. This is definitely not what you show in your trailers or what people expect from a “realistic” game. You timed the release of the F-14 to coincide with the new Top Gun movie. Do you think that people you brought in with that move think gameplay of ARB is as interesting as the movie? I would wager that they don’t.
So, let us today, in unison, push for change on at least one core system of this game: Air Realistic Battles.
Demands
There are 3 things we need for ARB to work.
- BR decompression
- Good missions
- Good maps
BR decompression
Thankfully for you this is the least technically challenging part. You possess so much data that you can linearly interpolate BRs so that you have more of them. And you also have us, the players, to do any fine tuning with manual balancing. You also have some Community Creators that the community trusts that are very invested and skilled in ARB. You could have them as advisors. Of course whose advice you would actually take into consideration.
You also absolutely need to stop relying on players stats so much. You obviously see it as fair but your vision is flawed. This is because you forgot to include a lot of biases in your statistics like players skill. Even with all of those pure stats cannot be used to balance things.
Now don’t take my word for it. We are going to poll the community and see what they think.
- Yes
- No
- 14.3
- 15.0
- 16.0
- 17.0
- 18.0
- 19.0
- 20.0
- Yes (include which ones in replies)
- No
Missions / Gameode
This is the real issue with ARB. What we have right now is incredibly linear and repetitive and incredibly restrictive in terms of playstyle and planes one can effectively use.
Let me roughly outline the issues
- Win condition effectively boils down to destroying all enemy players
- Bombing and destroying ground targets barely contributes towards the win condition
- Dedicated bombers are all but ineffective in destroying player controlled planes, which is de facto the objective
- All “objectives” are on a straight line between the spawns on most missions
I am not going to tell you how to exactly fix the gamemode in this thread as there have been other posts made specifically for this. I am going to link some of them. What I want to do with this thread is to show you that people are sick and tired and that the gamemode needs to be fixed. At this point most changes you can make to it are going to be positive.
Last year with I was genuinely exited for ARB as it seemed were going to work on it.
- You introduced advanced ARH missiles and lowered multipathing height shaking up the meta and making it more “realistic” if I can say that.
- You added the option for smaller teams
- You added more types of ground units (first to Golah Heights map)
It seemed like you were going to do something about ARB and I liked the direction it was heading in. “Finally, they are fixing ARB” I thought to myself. However in hindsight we see that is not true. ARB hasn’t received much attention after that which deeply disappoints me.
Now I am going to throw in a few polls to see what people think of the gamemode as well as link some threads with proposed solutions to this whole mess.
- Very unhappy
- Unhappy
- Neutral
- Happy
- Very happy
- Yes
- No
- Yes, very useful
- Yes
- Neutral
- Not really
- Not useful at all
- Yes
- No
- Yes
- No
- Yes
- No
- Yes
- No
- Yes
- No
Some proposed reworks and ideas, some of which have been “passed to devs”
Maps
I personally think we have enough good maps in the game for most tiers that could work much better if the gamemode improves. One thing I will say is for high tiers specifically I would like to see more maps with varied terrain. More maps should be added in the future but what we have right now can be used as a starting point.
Closing words
I was losing hope in the game for some time now when I saw that they are not going to do anything with ARB. This is my last attempt to do something for this game. I am afraid that if this doesn’t work I am done. I think a lot of people find themselves in a similar situation.
To Gaijin,
I believe that you think we are here to ruin you. We are not. We are here because we believe this can be salvaged. Don’t let your game die and the only gamemode there was in it be a stupid beta quality deathmatch. Don’t let your game die as a digital vehicle museum. This is your last chance. Do right by us.
To players,
I urge you to make threads of your own about issues you find most pressing. Even if we disagree on what are the most important issues we need to remember that in the end we all want the same thing: for the game to be better. So go on, voice your concerns. I have a feeling Gaijin might be listening.
If you care about ARB please let Gaijin know in the replies of this or those linked threads. If you find any related thread please link them here.