Full feedback from more than a few matches, and I’m disappointed that this is the best the devs can come up with after 9 months of apparently working on nothing else.
AI Balance
This is a massive issue that needs to be addressed urgently. The AI SPAAGs are still as overpowered as they have always been over the past 5 years. If anything, they’ve gotten worse, because they can now shoot down incoming missiles. Time and time again the effectiveness of AI controlled SPAAGs have been brought up, often referred to as “death-spheres” for good reason. You enter within their engagement radius, and you die.
Non-radar assisted SPAAGs (whether that be because of a lack of radar or the radar has failed to locked onto a target) have greater effective range than some SAMs in GRB have, and even those with a radar, don’t always use it to give you an RWR warning.
Changes that must be made:
- AI MUST use radar if available before being able to fire
- AI without a radar should have heavily limited range (1-2km at most) with heavy accuracy penalities
- With or without radar, the accuracy of the fire needs to be mitigated, I would suggest using the same code added to the naval AA recently to add induced spread.
It is time the devs stop ignoring the playerbase about this issue, because I don’t know how many more times we can bring up this issue, whether in regard to NE or ASB. It has definitely been a consistent complaint in all the previous NE events, but has still yet to be addressed. This time round is especially apparent, because many aircraft are attacking with unguided weapons and cannot avoid the death-spheres. This renders the aircraft basically unplayable in a ground attack role.
Doesn’t even really change when talking about other types of AA. The Hawks start firing at you the moment your wheels leave the runway, the SACLOS SAMs on the Charles F Adams are laser accurate, and basically impossible to dodge, if you get any warning at all. (This is the same issue with OSA at the higher BRs, so it’s clear no feedback has been considered regarding that)
So overall, every single PvE target having aimbots just isn’t fun and renders a lot of aircraft unplayable due to this.
Carrier vs Carrier
I genuinely do not understand how such a glaring and obvious imbalance made it into the game. Baku does not have a catapult, meaning most naval aircraft cannot take off from it without a massively lightened payload and using every inch of space. Forestall has a catapult, everything can take off from it easily.
This gives Bluefor side a massive advantage when it comes to attacking naval targets and flanking the battle. Also the carriers are generally a lot safer to take off from than the airfields, as they are better protected and less likely to be nuked.
Let alone arrestor wires to allow the carrier aircraft to land back onto the carrier after a sortie.
Now the soviets lack any meaningful naval aircraft at or around this BR, so for them it wouldn’t necessarily matter, but many bluefor nations are always paired with the soviets, and so this blocks them from using their carrier aircraft from a carrier. Either enforce true Bluefor vs Redfor, or add a Catabar carrier to both sides or neither side.
Anti-Naval
I really don’t know how I feel about the anti-naval role. On one hand, it’s fine. Spawn in, fire off some ASMs, and you’ve killed some naval targets. Sometimes they snipe every single ASM out the sky, sometimes they don’t. It’s random.
But good luck using any bombs against them, between the SACLOS SAMs and the HE-VT, you aren’t getting close. It’s basically impossible. This renders naval targets basically un-attackable if you don’t have ASMs, and a lot of aircraft don’t have ASMs.
Then after all that, the rewards are pitiful. Basically none
And Carriers…. Well Carriers have always had stupid damage models, been brought up 100 times before, never got fixed when naval AI actually got proper damage models like 3 years ago. Basically the only way to sink them is to drop dozens of bombs on their deck, or nail the turrets (at least on the Forestall) and start a fire. ASM is basically a waste of time to use against them.
All the while, you have aimbot accurate HE-VT being fired at you. (I think it might even be hit-scan and not even modeling actual shells hitting you, so it’s largely impossible to dodge)
So overall, it’s usually not worth going after the Carriers, sink everything else with ASMs from a safe distance and then just leave the Carriers alone.
The match cycle
The match cycle is pretty boring overall. You spawn in your aircraft, if its CAS, you pray you have some sort of guided weapon to deal with SPAA, if not, get ready for a lot of Kamikaze runs. If you are CAP, then it’s an easier time, but then again, the BR range is compressed to hell, and the devs won’t fix that. So you might be hopelessly outclassed in A2A combat.
Once you eventually get enough SP for a nuke carrier, all CAS aircraft become obsolete. Why take the risk of using unguided bombs or rockets against a depot or convoy when you can just throw a nuke at it. Let alone the Airfields which can only be damaged by nukes. Even the SAM sites, if you can get close enough to deal with, are easier to take out with a nuke than any other non-ARM weapon.
Then the match ends not that long after that. What should be quite a drawn out, enduring conflict-esq gamemode, becomes a short, arcadey gamemode with little in the way of actual tactics or gameplay.
Economy.
The issue is that the gamemode is ENTIRELY balanced around throwing nukes at each other and an assumption that each nuke drop is going to take out a lot of AI, probably an Airfield and maybe even a few players on said airfield. It is not at all balanced around the idea of dropping a 1x 1000lb bomb onto a tank, or firing some ASMs or even ARM at targets, and just walking away with a few AI kills per sortie. You get basically no RP, and the SL rewards are low, and that’s without factoring in the repair costs which are high, and due to the overtuned AI, very common.
The SL and RP rewards need a significant increase to actually make the gamemode viable as a method of actually grinding a tech tree, rather than it just being a sandbox gamemode which you are only playing for the fun of it.
BR ranges
The chosen BR ranges result in some aircraft being good, and others DOA, and if it remains with static BRs, then you will have your Meta aircraft, and then nothing else. The solution though exists. It’s in ASB, and is one of the only good things the devs have ever actually done for ASB in the past decade. Rolling BR brackets. Every 48 hours, what is meta changes, good aircraft become bad, and bad aircraft become good. Everything gets a turn.
This is the only fair thing to do.
Lag/Server issues
I have yet to have a single match where it didn’t lag out, or there wasn’t massive desync that made the SPAA look like it was firing in the opposite direction but still hit you. I have a solid connection most of the time, usually no issue at all. But NE, lag fest every time.
RWR
RWR spam is far less prominent at these lower BRs, especially with the reduced number of things pinging the RWR, but it is still time for an RWR overhaul, with filter options, a few times so far ive missed an RWR warning because it was buried under a dozen others.
Let alone the issue of trying to play anything that doesn’t even have a radar, especially if its a medium - high alt aircraft. Tried to take the Lightning F6 out, and immediately got killed by a Hawk. No warning, no defence, just dead.
Conclusion.
Fun for 1 match, if you are in the mood, but boring after 2 or 3 matches. Even playing different aircraft, trying different things…. Just…. Gets old quickly.
Too much emphasis is placed on being in a nuke carrier, and none is placed on being in anything else.
And the worst part, I feel like I’m not contributing if im doing anything other than playing a nuke carrier. I can take out multiple SAMs, I can take out the entire enemy fleet, I can go hunting players, etc etc. and unless im throwing nukes at Airfields, I might as well just be sat AFK, because im not really helping much, other than drawing attention away from anyone in a nuke carrier.
So what would I change.
- Fix the stupid SPAAG code to get rid of Death Spheres. Seriously, 5 years of complaints and it still hasn’t been fixed in a gamemode all about SEAD.
- Get rid of Nukes, or at least make them really really expensive so they are rarely seen.
- If Nukes remain, Add nukes to all aircraft that can carry them as a loadout option, so you aren’t dependent on a level 1 pilot, no modifications and no CMs. Potentially even a weak aircraft on top of that.
- Add proper objectives to attack with conventional weapons, we have seen refineries and large factories from the SEAD and Deep-Strike event prior to Nuclear Thunder and then never seen them ever again. Why? Rather than destroying Airfields being the objective, it should be to destroy these heavily defended targets
- Add CBUs, especially anti-Runway weapons such as JP233, to replace nukes for damaging Airfields.
- Increase the map size. I still don’t know why NE is on a postage stamp sized map, when the map is huge
- Rebalance naval, make sure both sides are on an equal footing. Either replace BAKU with something with Catabar, or remove Forestall and replace it with something that lacks Catabar.
- Overhaul Carrier damage models
- Remove the ability for Ai ships to repair, so a hit is a hit, and maybe even a fatal hit
- Add rolling BR brackets, like we have in ASB.
This could be a fun gamemode you could play over and over again, but right now. Just like every other gamemode, it is fun for 1 match, but then gets stale after the second.
