The latest update has highlighted one of the biggest problems with the game at the highest echelons: the difference in capabilities between stock and spaded vehicles. Although this problem is nothing new, the disparity has reached its breaking point; certain vehicles are unplayable because the battle ratings are 100% based on a few rank IV modifications, without which, the vehicles would be significantly lower in battle rating.
Take, for instance, the AV-8B Plus. The plane is subsonic, has terrible maneuverability, and has only two AIM-9Ls stock at 12.3 in ARB.
12.3 is littered now with vehicles that can kill you from 10km away with ease (e.g., vehicles carrying the AIM-7Ms and R-27ERs). And that is what you have to worry about if you are playing perfectly. If you decide to go high, there are vehicles that will take you out from over 50km away. If you do manage to make it to the furball, all you have are two missiles which can get one-flared. Meanwhile, other players have AIM-9Ms, R-73s, and Magics which are far more resilient.
The AV-8B Plus is in a particularly bad state because it doesn’t even get stock bombs to go after bases or ground targets which it realistically has little hope of ever reaching. What you are left with is a vehicle that has no place on the battlefield in its stock configuration.
The only solutions to this problem are to (once again) give vehicles better stock performance/ordinance to be effective, or to implement a system where certain modifications (like the AIM-120 for the AV-8B Plus) affect the battle ratings of vehicles.
You’re missing the point of the Grind, This is a Free to Play Game Model, Which means from the start everything is painful, that’s how they make the MONEY, I know just how POO it is, unfortunately, that’s the whole point to make you play so many games in one tank plane heli boat, and say, goodness this is taking too long to grind might spend some GE.
To reach top tier, most players have already invested money into premium accounts and vehicles. I am all for Gaijin making money, but there are plenty of other options available to accomplish that. Gaijin has not even tapped into selling customization options yet.
But unfortunately, where they let us beath over here, they strangle us there it’s a losing fight, just depends on where the player base lets them play before we go heyyyyyyyyyyyy what’s going on here, and they go oh so sorry here have some stock parts hahahahahaah
We very much need ordnance-based BRs (only ordnance though, so missiles, tank shells, etc), it’s one of the most needed gameplay improvements and would be beneficial for far more than just stock grinds.
Let me help you, your wording here implies that the AV-8B is ALWAYS a brick, but that it ALSO only gets 2x 9Ls stock. I’m just saying the AV-8B flies fine and isnt a brick. Even stock you’re definitely exaggerating.
Lol, clearly you are here to pick a fight. The semantics of where the word “stock” should go is a moot point given the context of the rest of the post in which it is clear I am distinguishing between the vehicle’s stock performance and spaded performance. But even if this was the only sentence in my post, the word stock does not imply that it is always not maneuverable simply by the inclusion of a single permanent characteristic (that being the adjective “subsonic”) juxtaposed against an impermanent one (that being “AIM-9L”).
Furthermore, “stock” does not modify only “AIM-9Ls.” Had I put it before “AIM-9L,” then you might have an argument. But I put it after all the descriptors because my clearly ascertainable intent from the rest of the post was to highlight its STOCK configuration.
But even going by its spaded configuration, the AV-8B Plus is not categorically a “maneuverable” aircraft, having terrible speed and nose authority compared to its counterparts at 12.3, in addition to a less than stellar turn radius.
by the logic of researching ranks, USA and France can only access to IRCCM missiles only and only after they have researched all the performance modifications. And they’re either stacked below all the layers or sided to count as a fifth layer. Missiles are either at the bottom right so that you have to grind all the first line of the 1st rank, or under useless rockets.
Missiles aren’t under idiotic modifications, all of them are packed all together, and even the su27sm looking the hardest of the grinds is still 100 percent easier than that of the F-15C strike eagle.
@Miragen i have the f-5c and took me only 20 battles to get the AV8B from scratch, by blasting 4-5 ppl off the air every two matches, the other ones are between 2 and 3 kills per game. But “Only” 25 matches that took me about two days for 5 hours a day non stop
I strongly support such idea and I think it’s not just for the easier to grind aspect but also for choices of BR. By taking different ordinances you can have options for different BR, here’s a list of what I think could be feasible:
Mirage 3C: in the first 10 year of its service magic was not introduced.
Magic1 -10.0
Else - 9.3
F4E: Aim7-E2 variant is not introduced until almost the end of vienam war.
Aim7-E2: 11.0
Else: 10.7
F14B: Aim9M is in service in real life
Aim9-M: 12.3
Else:12.0
Mirage F1s: Magic 2 is not in service until around 1985
Magic 2: 11.3
Else: 11.0
Mig 29s: R27-ER is a really late variant for these jets, and R60M is outdated by the time Mig29s are introduced.
R27ER+R73: 12.7
R27R+R73: 12.3
R27ER+R60M: 12.0
R27R+R60M: 11.7
Mig 23ML: in real life ML is not equipped with R24s.
R24s: 11.3
Else: 11.0
And etc. These are just a few example of this idea.
I’ve inquired if it would at all benefit one to treat the game as a twenty or forty euro one-time investment, as one does for most games one plays.
Maybe make it 40.
I have been informed that if you are only willing to spend 20/40 over your entire gaming lifetime, you might as well spend nothing.
I have played plenty of F2P games, and most you could get away with either a one-time investment of 40/60 or a monthly sub of 5-10.
Guild Wars is an example where a single one-time investment will guarantee you having fun indefinitely. SWTOR is the same. Elite Dangerous isn’t F2P, but it is a live service game where you can get away with one-time investment and receive pretty decent annual support in new vehicles and crazy events like the thargoid war of this year.
I’d say even periodic investment in form of during-sale premiums would be a fair expectation, akin to subscription in FF14. Something like 40 euros/year.
However, that 40 euro/year, from what others post here (they have premium, stock grind is still hell) is not one bit helpful if the stock vehicle is useless.
Still was a grind and a half, Spent the last week grinding helicopters 300k RP just to get a stock helicopter ah… ah… hahaha learn to enjoy the grind or a part of it, we spend so much time saying how shit it is (It’s horrible) but there is always a good time to be had earning the SL RP in stock plane tank etc… nothing makes me happier than to slap a spaded tank with HEAT or winning a dogfight with guns in a 9M-73 filled lobby
