I have seen a lot of Mig-23, Mig-21, F/A-18,… (mostly premium) carrying bombs in ARB which is really a waste of airframe and as a result many players have no skills when they reach top tier. I think it is best that all aircraft with name tag “Fighter” are not allowed to use A2G load like Bomb, Rocket, Napalm,… in Air mode. After 5 minutes of the match they can be allowed to rearm at the airport and can carry A2G load (this is to solve the problem of only 1 or 2 enemies running away in the whole match which is a waste of time). Aircraft with name tag “Strike aircraft” can still carry A2G load as usual and this is completely true to its design purpose (some aircraft need to change tag like Mig-27). This forces players to learn how to use planes to shoot down enemies instead of just carrying bombs and flying like bots for 90% of the game. This will lead to more interesting and competitive matches when playing air.
Inb4 T_T_1
To be fair ? I’d support a dogfight mode , only Air to Air…
Random battles isn’t supposed to be A-A only (even if it is more like a deathmatch).
Y’all don’t bomb in your Kfir Canard?
I must admit, I like the idea. However, I dare forecast what is going to happen:
The same as in Arcade. “Bomber Bobs” will now resort to bombers and attackers to grind the tree.
Also, it would not address the problem of the air RB mode, namely being a total death match with fluff sprinkled in. This is what makes the mode as a game much inferior to arcade.
I do what are you talking about
hear me out, just make the bases not appear for fighters IF theres a bomber or ground strike focused aircraft in the battle.
No. Those aircraft should be able to carry both, the issue is them exclusively running A2G and not bothering with A2A.
Better solution. Fighters should get increased reward for PvP, Strike aircraft should get better rewards for PvE (though they need to fix a few designations)
Combine with a decent RB EC gamemode that people could play instead of ARB and making the PvE side of things a bit more engaging in ARB. (both SAMs to evade and more/different targets)
Should fix the problem entirely
EDIT:
Thank you for the note. Even on the rare occasion that I play ARB, I still take full A2A loadouts with my strike aircraft. I never go full PvE in a PvP match. The only real issue I see with ARB personally is for bombers. I honestly have no issues with Stike Aircraft, in any mode.
Original Message:
+1 to everything @Morvran says on this topic, as always. I love my strike aircraft, and I love my fighters with some bombs. I very often get top kills, top ground units destroyed, and top points captured in Air Arcade. All in the same match.
I PvP in my strike aircraft, and I PvE in my fighters. I always take A2A ordinance in my Strike aircraft, and I never take fewer A2A ordinance in my Fighters to make room for bombs. I maximize each type’s potential with my loadouts.
Removing loadouts or abilities is not a solution.
But this thread is about air RB. Arcade works fine in that regard.
Exactly.
The problem here is that a mediocre fighter gets more RP by effortlessly destroying a single base compared to putting effort and taking down 2 enemy aircraft.
Literally: 1 base gives more RP than 2 air kills. You need 3 air kills to finally surpass the RP of destroying a single base.
So it’s no wonder people grinding prefer to focus on bases for maximum efficiency.
Or reduce the RP gained by fighters, and burn time and damage of napalm to bases needs to be reduced drastically as well. I don’t like the idea of imposing limits, but I understand the frustration of “fighters” cannibalizing what little role Strike Aircraft have in the game.
Let alone the fact its quicker.
Something like a Mig-23ML can take a base and be out of the match much quicker. So its not just better reward on average, but you might get 2 matches in just doing base bombing vs maybe only 1 or so matches fighting to the bitter end.
I also remember when I was grinding the German tree with F-4F Early.
For context: a sad flying brick without flares or chaff and armed only with 4xAIM-9Js… facing AIM-7s, R-24s, AIM-9Ls, R-60s, R-60Ms and even R-73s.
Naturally, I preferred to primarily focus on bases, as that thing is practically USELESS as a fighter… yet people kept TKing me, calling me “trash zoomber”, etc, just because “F-4s are fighters, not bombers”.
Best of all is, I STILL carried the 9Js to try and engage in air combat after bombing. I just wanted some guaranteed RP before going into battle against all-aspect IR high G missiles and radar missiles without flares or chaff and armed just with soem rear-aspect low G missiles.
But now hold on. This isn’t quite right. A base kill followed by quick death likely pays less than two kills and survival for the game.
The problem is, that if you survive and have no kills, you have wasted much time. If you die and have no base, you have wasted little time.
Imo, this is why I have always wanted multiple spawns for ARB. I think it should be something like GAB or NAB where you can spawn in 3 vehicles in one match. Maybe this is like what those who are advocating for an ARB “Extended Confrontation” mode would like too? We can unlock up to 10 crew slots, we should be able to utilize more than just 1 of them. I personally never liked getting only 1 spawn in ARB, spending all that time taking off, flying over to combat zone, dying to a random missile, and having to start all over again with a new queue. I just do not see a point in not allowing us to bring in at least a couple/few planes into the same ARB match.
Or make it spawn point based like GRB so that you need some points to respawn so that players don’t just J out to respawn in order to “reload”. Something, anything to allow more than just 1 spawn per ARB match.
Having only 1 spawn causes most players to be extremely kill hungry, playing risky and brainlessly to try and get at least one kill/base destroyed before they are forced to re-queue in a new match. This is why I play AAB instead of ARB. For me, it is a much more relaxed and laid back experience in AAB when I know I can just spawn in with another crew slot and not worry about dying multiple times.
2x base kills over 2 matches would probably still reward about as much as maybe getting 2-3 kills in 1 match. Though ive had a number of matches recently where ive literally gotten no kills, not due to a lack of trying, but because everytime I fire at someone they are killed 2 seconds before my missiel impacts
A lot of aircraft labeled as “Fighter” are really multi-role aircraft. In the examples you gave you mentioned the F/A-18. Can you guess what the A stands for…
The rewards for attacking tank columns are ABYSMAL