It was not like this hardly at all in the past. I guess the influx of newer players has changed the game a good deal. Well, the game itself has changed a good bit yes, but the player base
is also much different now.
To me, and this is just my opinion, the entire premise of aerial combat is to stay alive,
and complete your “mission” . . it is “military” action after all.
The #1 and key way to do this is to stay out from in front of an enemies guns.
Not to fly directly into them . . lol, but many have missed the memo . . . BIGLY even.
The art of dogfighting is not now, nor ever has been going . . . “head on”, but it is
a misperceived maneuver many consider a valid tactic . . . apparently . . . lol
You can blame an excessive “grind”(as many see it) a lack of patience, or just complete
disregard for any actual piloting skills, immersion or pretending . . to each their own.
Many want to pretend they are Tom Cruise playing Maverick, pretending to care about Goose, when we all know he is in love with Val Kilmer/the Iceman(cool name btw), but
I ain’t that guy. I am a gamer, I just like shooting stuff and the military aspect is
secondary to me. Again, we all like different things.
But even without pretending to be an actual pilot, a fragment of common sense and some
stratagem and wile will tell you a head on is a bad move. The only maneuver worse than
a head on is a full blown intentional kamikaze.
That being said, there are times when you know you are gonna die anyway, whether an act
of desperation or “heroism” and taking someone out with you might even be “noble”.
But those times are rare I think . . … lol very rare indeed.
The worst angle to attack an enemy is head on, the second worst is directly from the rear.
You have guns pointed at you in the front(you effectively aim for the enemy when
you line up to attack here) and even from the rear, you are minimizing places to hit
the enemy plane, reducing your chances of success. Literally any other angle is
far better to approach/attack.
I play AB, and it is crazy how often this happens in the games I play, it is “inevitable”
that at some point(many times even) some goober is going to fly straight at you, as
fast as they can, guns blazing . . . just hoping to get some hits or even a kill.
I fly slightly above the action looking for a target and all I see is two guys, squaring off
and flying right at each other, and then . . . KaBlooie . . . two dead guys . . . lol.
It is what it is, I mean you can even watch it in the eSports tourneys . . . that’s all they do.
lol . . .why even bother? . . . maybe tankers just flying planes because they have to/ get to,
I dunno. Streamers/content creators doing it and even advocating it . . .I have no idea.
But it is out there, and I doubt it goes away . . . it is just “meta”
Me? . . . I’ll stick to chicanery & sophistry and an occasional wonderful little mano et
mano actual dogfight with some guy with a similar/equal plane and skills and we will
go at it until someone makes a mistake . . . this is what I play for.
