Yes, they are simply not good enough to be placeholders. I think no bots are. They can serve amazing purposes as AWACS, Bombers, ground targets… Interactive stuff. We can create incredible dynamic objectives using these that’ll make the game way more interesting which will itself make player retention better. The one thing bots should not replace, are the actual players!, it doesn’t solve anything but give the remaining team something to shoot at whilst the problem still persists.
I seriously doubt anyone is gonna find it enjoyable to fight bots. It’s just dull. As soon as people realise enemy team is just bots it’s not gonna motivate anyone to fly-out again.
Sure some noob that wants some RP might stick around for a bit, but our issue is NOT retaining the team that’s left hanging. our issue is retaining the team that left the game. And that team certainly doesn’t have insufficient targets to go after.
The fact that barely anyone goes for those AI fighters that are already in the game, and fight back- is proof enough that 1. people don’t find it interesting. and 2. the AI is simply not good enough. It’s just a nuisance on the radar screen. Even in air RB.
Let’s not compromise our game mode by adding dull bots when it doesn’t even solve the issue of keeping the players in the small team around. Can we stop pretending it’s going to solve the actual problem SIM is facing?
It’s just a selfish measure to give the larger team something to shoot at. (Which I’m 100% sure they are gonna get bored of).
wait not “replacement” but “placeholder”.
placeholders, if there are too few players on one side. until enough players join in.
as it always was in the past. only better implemented.
and in the long term with revised AI. without laser cannons, but the placeholder AI should actively help the losing team. I say that because the radical AB solution of mixing all nations wildly because of a lack of players is the worst solution.
The current nation sets are also a disaster. flexibility is extremely limited as a result.
in parallel, of course, the AI bombers, attackers, recons…and the more dynamic mission objectives you mentioned.
@PCPaulDPearl wild nation mix is dead to EC. I am relatively sure of that.
the sim tank community has always cathegorically rejected the mixing of nations as in AB. unfortunately, the players could not prevent the techtrees from being mixed more and more.
…and the sim tank battles work. the lack of players there is only because of the rotation not because of nation settings.
Reason is F-16C and all other F-16’s got too good of a flight model, they are even better in instantaneous turn than MIG 29 that wasn’t even real MIG 29 should win at one circle every time but f-16’s just do everything better and the 9M is just very op in sim with smokeless motor even if it should be low smoke motor
sorry I didn’t want to interfere because I don’t fly the F-16 and the Mig in WT. but in DCS. and what you write is very strange. which Mig pilot is so crazy and circles permanently after an F-16?
Right now the only time I see AI is also with mixed teams. I agree AI would be preferred but either would work (Both at the same time is undesirable but again, that’s what we currently are getting when we get either).
What I want are these options being opened up for users to create. Those options being:
Allow us to enable bots
Allow us to customize the nations completely, up to and including all vs all
1 would allow games to start quicker and last longer (she’ll thank you)
Would allow a better sim or also enable games to start quicker and last longer, depending on your choices as a game room creator.
For now we get to play a game with bots but it is (usually?) all vs all when we do. I’m going to come back with video or screenshots the next time I play one of these matches.
this AI bot planes (Frank, Horst, Peter…) are in official rooms. in user created rooms they were removed in 2021. which was a big mistake.
it currently has nothing to do with mixed rooms. whether this AI is present or not but whether these rooms are official or user created.
user created rooms can be recognized by the player name of the created room. in the past, user created rooms were listed separately.
Yes, that’s good. AI bots yes or no would be a flexible solution.
I would probably always activate the function. others would rather turn it off. that would be fully flexible and depending on the needs of the players.
yes remove the current nationsets. replace with many nation choices. but not USA vs USA or something! pls no.
I am more in favor of a long-term and thorough rebuilding of the techtrees in sim mode. i.e. own sim techtrees. focus on authenticity and balancing. without loot planes and juggling until it fits at some point.
yes allow 1 vs 1 to start and the battle could start immediately. normally players join once the battle is running.
If the opponents all leave, the battle has to run a little longer so that new players can join.
one last point. No sim server will be removed for cost reasons. but Gaijin should cut a few arcade servers for a change :) Gaijin wants to save costs with as few EC servers as possible. we have to defend ourselves against that.
Won’t this just worsen the issue of having players spread out in multiple lobbies? I think it’s a GOOD thing that it takes at least 2 in each team to start a server. If you can’t even get 2 players into each team, then you should join an already ongoing battle instead and help fill that one up.
I can already see it happening, 10+ lobbies with 1-3 players in each. It’s gonna derail quickly and we don’t have a large enough player base to fill those lobbies up.
At least they include all nations, everyone gets to play - in actually pretty logical lineups. What you were proposing before was letting people completely remove a nation from a battle, leaving those players without any lobbies.
It’s gonna spiral out of control quickly. People are simply gonna ban nations from their lobby that have “too OP” jets for the current meta. Giving whoever makes the lobby full control of what nation goes up against who is just a terrible idea and it’s never gonna work in practice because people are going to be selfish and biased when making the lobbies.
If the current lineups are so terrible, why don’t you just come up with a couple nation sets you want in the game and ask Gaijin to add them to the list?
That way you get your nation sets and we don’t have to deal with lobbies with even shittier nation sets from players who don’t know how to balance a match?
I certainly do not trust the player base with the responsibility to balance an entire game mode.
You have to consider the human factor. Yes, you will be able to create some unique and good scenarios with custom nation sets, but 99% of the player base is just going to f*** it up and everyone is going to suffer because of it.
In your own post “Camel’s AIR SB Nation lineup” you even admitted yourself that the tech trees would have to be modified, implying it won’t work with the current state of the game. You wrote: "not an easy task! the tech trees would have to be modified!"
the player base can only grow if there are enough rooms available! no player will fill a room if his Br in his nation is not available at that moment. this is only possible with more choice of rooms! more rooms more possibilities. no online game works with too few rooms.
I assume that there are enough chairs in your house. or do guests have to stand? it’s the same with the EC Sim rooms.
there are always players wandering around the hangar and lobby looking for an EC Sim room with a suitable nation and Br. and those who can’t find a room will play RB or leave the game. The only solution: more rooms!
how often do sim players hang in the lobby desperately waiting for 2 enemies? I don’t know. but we all hate it.
if there really are too many rooms with too few players at some point, then there are certainly ways to regulate it. maybe a generous upper limit of rooms per total number of players. but since gaijin is never generous, I would gladly do without something like that.
by the way, while we wait forever for 2 enemies in the lobby, the hangar consumes an infinite amount of power. a look at the processes shows a very high consumption, although the game is actually only running “standby” in the hangar.
perhaps the power consumption due to the waiting time in the SIM lobby should somehow be compensated with GE. but I digress.
I have copied your entire text here with a quote. because these are very important points.
so the answer is very simple. if you see rooms with too few nations then you should simply be able to start a room with more nations. [why doesn’t that work? - precisely because you have to wait forever in the lobby until 2 enemies arrive … we just had that above and it must work more easily].
so you should always have the possibility to start a room with many or les nations immediately! very simple answer.
that’s the great thing about the clickable nation selection. you say there should be enough nations in your battle. so you just set it! it starts. and then you have exactly what you want. and I am sure players will join.
the current 8 nationsets are completely unfeasible and insufficient. we have hundreds of jets in the game. where is the nato vs communist set please? I would suggest that! but it’s not just that. to list all the reasons would go beyond the text.
no I think we don’t need nationsets we need a clickable function. by the way, the fully historical sets I suggested were just a kind of supplement for history freaks. luxury for freaks like me, parallel to the clickable function. more important is the clickable function. more flexible than any gaijin-nationset. I’m a little more optimistic than you are.
finally. yes it was a mistake not to give sim its own techtree from the beginning. now after so many updates we have techtree chaos. so gaijin should start thinking about the sim tech trees today. because in 2 years everything will be more chaotic. then it will be impossible!
In addition to that, allow us to queue for several rooms in parallel!
I for example like certain maps, and dislike others. So with this I could check the not yet started matches I would like to participate, as opposed to how I do it now: Join - wait for enough players - get impatient - leave - join another or the same waiting match - repeat…
Sadly this will never work as the trees themselves are a mix of opposing alliances: Germany, China, to some extent even Sweden (with Finland using a lot of Russian hardware).
I’d actually rather go for a similar approach like ground, where prefabricated vehicle sets are used…
It’s so annoying not knowing if the F-104 or F-4 that pings you is American, German, Japanese, …
you’re right. I should have waited for you. you have the simple and best solution for the jets.
but for the many ww2 airplanes I would prefer the clickable selection from before
maybe you’re right?! maybe it’s enough to just add a few new sets?! or maybe not. i don’t know if my ideas will work.
but I know one thing for sure. we sim players play the most challenging and “best” WT mode that has the potential to become much more successful. if gaijin allows it. which is not the case. maybe you see it realistically. but I see some things differently. I think we players don’t have to justify ourselves for our wishes. we mustn’t make our community smaller than it is. gaijin has to justify itself.
we sim players have to make demands. we want the best servers!! we want more rooms!! we want more sim mode maintenance!!..
then sim will grow. if gaijin allows it.
I didn’t buy premium airplanes for gaijin to tell me: “You’re just a sim player. your community is small because we don’t want to make the mode big. there could be abuse. so settle for little!” … - yes thx gaijin and - No!
When it comes to Simulator battles matchmaking when I am in a squad of 2 or more players, due to there being strict player count limits on teams, we can only ever find a match if the team we are joining is down players. In specific higher tiers (5,6,&7) it is very rare to get an open Simulator room unless all of us have the ability to switch teams and happen to still have the same vehicles.
In short, squads have a hard time finding matches when our player count hits 3 people, especially with 4 people.
I know if team player number limits were changed that would lead to fairness issues. So a solution I can think of is having larger matches on maps like the 131km x 131kms that can handle more people. Or having larger matches in addition to larger maps above 131km.
In my group of friends that play WT, all of us like Sim battles the most. We just don’t get the option to play them often because of team player count limits. I’m sure other Squadrons run into similar problems with Simulator Battles.
Ok, you interpret the high number of players in these all vs. all rooms as success.
I interpret the high number of players there as a lack of different rooms. I think that’s why there are so many people in those rooms. These are people who have been hanging out in the lobby and found the only free room in their br.
to me that would also be another indication that the other 8 nation sets are not proving themselves.
I remember that before 2021, all vs all rooms were sometimes created. these were pure grinding rooms. so what we call “PvE rooms” today.
if people want to play all vs all rooms, they can do that.
but I definitely don’t want all vs all rooms to eventually be the only option for all sim players! with no other alternatives. that would be terrible. that would be a sim that is 100% arcade sim.
I accidently ended up in one of those rooms 2 or so days ago, and after my first death left for another room, being especially careful to not select any such room anymore…
We could also call these rooms a TK fire zone :)
I understand that it is easiest to fill such a room because all nations are duplicated.
but I hope this is not the only Sim EC future
