How I would personally go about a comprehensive framework for “fixing” Air RB, two possible methods:
- Completely scrap Air RB and make RB EC the only Air Realistic game mode.
- Heavily reform Air RB into something strongly inspired by EC, but still retaining the “one death” nature of it.
Now how would this work? What underlies all changes to maps, objective types, airbases no longer being able to be practically destroyed via bombing, and basically every other change stems from an unresolved mess dating to this game’s founding.
The mere ability of any single objective to auto-win the game without input from the other two objectives. Killing all planes leading to a fast automatic ticket bleed to zero, which bleeds to zero regardless of what attackers and bombers did, if anything at all. The old ticket bleed from airbase destruction was similar - it did not matter what fighters and attackers did. And attackers being able to wipe all the tickets via ground units without input from fighters or bombers. This meant that the three objectives - A2A, CAS, and Bombing were effectively competing against each other despite being on the same team.
To properly renew the game mode’s foundation would demand the following:
- Remove the “No active players left on enemy team” auto-win ticket bleed.
- Remove the “Airbase destroyed” auto-win ticket bleed.
- Increase ticket losses per aircraft kill so that killing all 16 players + AI attackers (I don’t remember exactly how many there are per team) bleed exactly 50% of the starting ticket bar in incremental chunks per plane death.
- Add many more simultaneously active bombing targets, but disable their ability to respawn. Adjust their ticket value to add up to 50% of the starting ticket bar.
- Either halve the number of active ground units or halve their ticket value such that killing all of them wipes 50% of the ticket bar.
- Extend match timers back to 1 hour, have the “supply line trucks/boats” spawn in at the 20min mark like is still seen on a handful of old maps when matches last that long. These vehicles would intentionally be worth 50% of the starting ticket bar.
Then, each objective is given the time to be taken care of without being forced to excessively step on the toes of planes whose purpose is devoted to other objectives.
Maps must be very much remade to fit objective setup like the above. I personally find maps of the style “[Air Battle] France 1944” to be a suitable model, of which there are several others of similar layout for [Air Battle] Hurtgen, one of the several Moscow maps, and a couple others. Each side has three well-separated groups of pillboxes and three well-separated tank columns, encompassing the majority of the map. The only current downside of this map style is that all players airspawn at 2000m, bombers included, which means bombers are even more defenseless than they currently are.
After those two are properly dealt with, then we can begin to seriously hammer out things such as:
- More varied objectives for attackers that require more player skill to deal with
- More varied objectives for bombers that require more player skill and/or teamwork to successfully take out (as there is only so much skill you can realistically add for bombers the way the game models them).
- Objectives that can influence the air battle, such as radar stations.
- Choice of ground units in the mode (classic Air AI or using player tank/ship models as is seen more recently)
- Re-incorporation of AI scout planes and bomber formations like were once present on some maps, which act as a lure to encourage people to actually climb.
- The question on how “necessary” red enemy markers, at least on aircraft, are. IMHO enemy aircraft markers should be axed completely, both to bring parity of Air RB with Ground RB and Naval RB, and also to encourage addressing of other serious issues they act to cover up.
- Addressing of the everpresent problem of dot spotting being unequal with respect to different graphics settings - DCS once had this same issue, and Universal Dot Scaling was what it took to fix it. Currently it’s way easier to spot aircraft on ULQ than on higher settings. The existence of red enemy markers is an excuse to ignore this problem. It is ridiculous to be able to spot enemy bombers right when they spawn while still on the runway.
- Many BRs are completely nonsensical, and would need immediate adjustment once red markers are axed. In general, speedy planes with acceptable maneuverability would go up quite substantially, while dedicated turnfighters would see BRs drop. Without red markers so easily spoiling surprise attacks, it would become much more normal to ambush and blow to smithereens that A6M Zero before it starts turning in the first place, as an example.
- Undoing years of idiotic nerfs to rudder control on countless prop planes and some jets which at one point or another were intensively whined about. Rudder bricking seems to be Gaijin’s “favorite” nerf for a “problem” plane. Some planes which once had it later had it removed - Fw-190s, I-185s, Ta-152s to name a few popular examples. Others had it given to them and still have yet to see it lifted - F4Us, Ki-43s, J2Ms, P-51Ds (though surprisingly not the A-36, P-51A, or Cannonstangs), P-51Hs, Tempests, F8Fs, and all the 5.0-6.7 BR heavy fighters.
- Gun damage being generally increased, as apparently it has been nerfed considerably in recent patches across the board for some reason. Most likely a bungled RealShatter thing akin to how Volumetric Armor is still a big problem with tanks.
There are many other specific little issues I could go on and on about. But these are some of the most important to mention.