if WW2 recieves nukes we would need to imagine luft '46 level of reconstruccion of blueprintss to ive nuclear bombers to all nations except US.
Not that I oppose it tho
What’s wrong with the unlimited spawns of EC, but lack of enemy red markers on aircraft specifically? Honest question.
And you resort to insults and stat-shaming when you run out of arguments beyond “but I don’t like it.” How typical. If you look at my vehicle roster you’ll notice - I intentionally avoided modern tiers despite having ample time to go after them. To me they felt too incomplete gameplay-wise while simultaneously being far too grindy to be worth my time.
The reasons I do not like red idiotmode markers are mechanical:
- Vulnerable planes cannot hope to hide, and rely wholly on enemy stupidity to do anything.
- Off-meta fighters are unable to surprise the meta planes much. This places excessive emphasis on climb rate and turn radius in props, in jets its just a clusterfuck beyond any description, and that’s before missiles. I have only second-hand experience seeing Missile Thunder, and people complain about it, and know that the marker mechanics are a considerable part of what made that so insufferable. You get spotted by one player (or bot) and a dozen Fox-3s fly your way immediately, which is impossible to dodge.
- Markers basically force the mode into a big Team Deathmatch.
They are literally in the way of making the mode truly realistic. What I am asking is to take the lack of markers already seen in other RB modes and applying that to RB Air.
If you “wonder why” - I have been complaining about this for most of those ten years. I want a mode for ground attackers and bombers to truly belong in which does not ruin tankers’ days by default and retains both the easy controls and lack of idiotic red markers seen in Combined modes. Is that truly THAT MUCH to ask for?
Simulator is too costly to enter, and would force me to completely re-learn how to fly. While putting me up against player-grade ground units with noscope-accurate guns that make ground attackers mostly impossible to play. I tried. Gave up.
The nuclear aspect is by far the least interesting part of this to me, especially as more people learn that the meta is to only spawn the current top performing air to air fighter, farm kills on newer players who don’t know what they’re doing and/or people actually attempting to perform SEAD/ground strike, then stockpile SP until they have enough for the borderline uncounterable, game winning nuke.
Frankly, I’d contend that with the current implementation, you are actively throwing the game if you ever spawn in a tactical nuke. All you’re doing is taxing yourself SP to make a ticker incrementally tick, when just by playing smart and slow, you can almost certainly win the game by yourself.
I’m all for largely removing the strategic level nukes, or at least radically changing how they’re achieved and what they can do.
Removing markers entirely will not a well liked changed and will make the game worse.
However, changing how they work, and how they are done would be very welcome. I’d suggest making a mandatory spotting range of within 5 km, but making the max spotting range only 10 km. The information of planes should also be severely reduced, and only begin showing up at about 2km away (within the range where you would visually identify things. The specifics can be changed, but I do think making spotting more reliable, but with less range is the way to go.
Shared spotting should stay because it’s not realistic for players to not know if another plane is near. Proper communication would fix this, but that will never happen.
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What I am proposing is what Combined modes already have. Full spotting on friendlies, none on enemies.
The problem with any arbitrary range is that no matter what you pick, it will either be too much for classic prop/entry jet gun-play or too little for missile-thunder.
Removing red enemy markers entirely dodges this impossible choice of where to place the goalposts, by having none.
Tell me you are disconnected from reality without telling me you are disconnected from reality.
Shared spotting is the reason nonfighters are worth so little. Can’t hide. Can’t run. Can’t survive more than a light breeze. Turrets don’t work if they have them. Ordinance is hit or miss if it works.
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It makes sneaking past enemy aircraft trivial. A black dot sillhouetted against the sky is already a fairly difficult target to spot unless you’re specifically looking for it, let alone one that’s ground hugging. Accordingly, planes trying to sneak past the lines with a nuke would be almost impossible to counter. There will be almost no point trying to play defense
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It massively benefits planes with better RADARs. In the current implementation, the only nation that has RADARs that are effective at low altitude (In the stock loadouts) are the Soviets. Accordingly, they’ll have a massive advantage in finding and locating enemy aircraft. It also massively benefits players who can bring in non-stock planes as well, as in particular the F-4J and S have RADAR that’s easily the best in the bracket, along with competitive RWRs. In short, it makes the balance issues inherent to an assymetric gamemode even worse.
Vulnerable planes are just as able to use terrain and skirt around the map borders as any other plane. You should play these vulnerable planes as vulnerable planes, with the deliberate intention to avoid detection and the knowledge that if you fail, you’re in a vulnerable position.
This would not benefit off-meta planes any more than it would benefit meta planes. Sure, you can theoretically get the jump on a superior plane and win, but it’s just as likely that you’ll be jumped by a superior plane, at which point you might as well just J out.
Nope. What makes it a team deathmatch is multifaceted:
- A gamemode that emphasizes air to air kills over all else. They are (almost always) the only thing that contributes to who wins the game, and thus who gets the most rewards out of it.
- A map where all the action is focused into a single, tiny area by virtue of having a single spawn location for each team, who will then immediately fly towards the enemy because that’s the only thing that gives them any points.
- A single spawn means an early advantage can snowball into an easy win, putting even more focus on killing the enemy team as quickly as possible.
This is not the reason. Even if an attacker is unspotted, it’s easy to see their presence in the killfeed and deduce where the free kill is hiding. Even if you removed the killfeed, watching ticket bleed would also clue players in.
The real reasons are as I listed above. Attackers and bombers do not meaningfully influence the team’s chances of winning, while also being inherently vulnerable to fighters. Meanwhile, the enemy team is highly rewarded for the number of kills they get, with special bonuses to those who kill the most the fastest.
To solve this, you create a large map, which spreads players out enough that there’s room to groundstrike.
You add respawns to remove the impact simple air to air kills have.
You add objectives that only attackers/bombers can manage, which influence the course of the game (SEAD opening up areas in the enemy’s rear, taking out bases/airbases, etc).
All of this has (largely) already been solved by Nuclear Thunder.
You do not need to remove player tags, especially when doing so also introduces issues of it’s own.
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God no. Not without at least doubling the map size again.
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or expanding the combat line, on the current map theres a massive plateau thats a solid 50-70km and just not being used.
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Markers have been snail’s lame excuse not to address the dots being sometimes a little too hard to spot. Why not make them easier to spot in exchange of ditching the arcade handholds?
That’s just radar being radar. BRs of course need adjusting to suit the new mode, what else is new. Radar should matter more, but its effectiveness is being partly-diluted by idiotmode red markers.
I do play them as vulnerable planes, but there are no targets able to be hit that are not guarded by cracked AA or SAMs. I generally like what Nuclear Thunder is going for, but they proceeded to (in typical snail fashion) go a little too far in the other direction and have ALL the ground units under an AA umbrella. Can’t use guided weapons because SAMs shoot them all down. Can’t use dumb bombs because cracked IFVs explode you before you get close. And there are no other targets.
That is better than what we have now. If the other guy is not paying attention, he dies. Same goes to you. He cannot easily see what you are outside point blank ranges, and therefore may be more prone to making a mistake in the engagement. An off-meta plane winning some of the time is better than it almost never winning because it is seen from 5 miles away and the other guy knows exactly what it is.
I do agree with your reasons, but also think red markers act as a multiplier to make those things that much worse.
Not the killfeed. Just the 3D bright red marker on screen itself. Without that, enemies cannot see what kind of plane is the issue. Without the idiotmode markers, there is no shared spotting at all. Without the idiotmode markers, it becomes impossible to “lock onto enemy marker and faceroll on keyboard to deny them a killshot” which is just obnoxious.
I agree Nuclear Thunder solves many of the problems of Air RB.
Yes, we do. Most of those issues are only due to other issues the game is capable of remedying since years ago and chose not to.
Making them easier to spot is an arcade handhold. Spotting aircraft should be a skill.
I’m confused. Do you want planes to be easy to spot or not?
With how they’re designing the mode, there will be a set BR spread, and set nations on each side. Accordingly, each side is going to be assymetrically balanced against each other. It’s what’s led to this strangeness where the F-4E was given AIM-9Ls specifically in this gamemode, in order to have it match up against the MiG-23 MLD in a slightly balanced fashion.
Adding a large benefit to RADAR complicates this equation even more. You’ll end up with a situation where somthing like the F-5E might be considered worse than the T-2, on account of the T-2 having a PD RADAR, which is also the only PD RADAR Japan gets until the F-4EJ Kai.
While I agree the SPAA coverage and performance is currently excessive, there are ways to beat it. Popup attacks using terrain has been my go-to for tackling depos before nukes. You can also CCRP bomb toss to take down SAM sites that have been spotted from a safe distance.
Importantly, none of this would be helped by removing tags from aircraft. I assure you, whatever magical RADAR systems the AI are currently using (That can see you through solid rock at times), they would be unaffected by losing the name tag.
So the solution is that, some of the time, while flying, having made no mistake greater than not looking in every direction at all times, you’ll just explode and die? And this is considered beneficial, because some of the time the person who killed you without you even seeing them coming might be in a plane that would struggle to defeat you otherwise?
Why not make non-meta planes better by giving them roles that suit them better than their more conventional, meta counterparts? Like, for instance, interception, or escorting high altitude bombers, or SEAD, or ground attack in general?
This doesn’t generally matter. Whatever is doing ground attack is going to be vulnerable to a dedicated fighter. Just knowing that something is currently busy attacking ground targets means A) He’s low on energy from looping attack runs and B) He’s laden with ordinance, meaning even less agile fighters will still be able to dunk on him.
I have no earthly idea what you mean by this. Defensive flying is a tactic that exists whether the enemy that’s currently shooting at you is highlighted or not.
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I will say I agree with removing markers but only for the sole purpose of benefitting aircraft operating in the strike role. Its effect on balance in air to air combat would be marginal at best (aside for actually giving a small boost to opfor on account of IRST existing).
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it would make 9m’s significantly better since they are reduced smoke
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I disagree. The effect on air to air combat would be profound.
It would place a much higher emphasis on powerful RADARs in general, and on TWS modes and high quality RWRs in specific.
It would be a massive boost to all IR missiles. Not just AIM-9Ms either, as to know a missile is being fired at you from anywhere outside of front aspect, you’ll have to be looking in that specific direction at that specific moment. Given that the entire point of this change is to make it easy to sneak past enemies, extrapolate that out to how easy it will be to sneak up from behind an enemy and throw a missile at them before they even realize you’re there.
This, in turn, would lead to a significant weakening of SARH power relative to IR missiles, since they’d be broadcasting your location and the fact that you’re firing to the enemy, which will become one of the primary ways to know someone is there.
Naturally, this means planes with IRSTs will suddenly spike in power, as they gain the ability to track targets without alerting them.
In terms of this gamemode in specific, it makes nuke planes borderline uninterceptable, and it’s already hard enough to intercept someone as it is. Playing defense by interdicting strike aircraft will become very difficult, to the point I imagine most won’t really bother with it unless additional mechanics are added to force it.
The overall meta will be players skulking around the edges of the map. Occasionally and largely accidentally stumbling across someone, frequently without their target even being alerted. The number of deaths you’ll have with no idea you were being targeted will skyrocket, and that is a profoundly negative experience. Just talk to the people who are being jumpscared by Fakour 90s how fun it is to only realize you’re under attack when it’s already too late to do anything.
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Sorry, I should have specified that i meant the balance of air to air combat, because that was my point exactly. It affects everyone equally.
Most aircraft can detect others beyond 50km, it shouldn’t be a major issue to find enemies. I often hunt people down by detecting them with my fulcrum’s radar (which is by no means on the better end) over 80km out.
While scary, fakours are easily spotted both visually and by RWR.
Well we actually need the F-4G “Wild Weazel” added, because the event with the Anti-Radiation Missiles (ARMs) for only the A-7E and A-6 TRAM being extremely slow, making Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) insufferable for the US.
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would be nice to see planes and bombs from different nations / eras
Although those might be impossible to balnce tbh
You have a Radar…having red markers for aircraft in this game mode is dumb
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I think the event is a great concept, but the ground pounding definitely needs some rebalancing. Right now, the AA units respawn way too quickly, which makes trying to clear them out feel a bit useless since the airspace is never actually safe for more than a minute. It’s the same issue with the factories; destroying them just seems to result in them respawning without much impact on the match, so the whole objective feels a bit pointless.
On top of that, the lack of rewards makes the whole experience feel pretty unmotivating. Because there isn’t much incentive to play the objectives, it feels like the most “productive” thing to do is just spawn at Airfield 1 and brainlessly rush the enemy to farm SP for a nuke as fast as possible. If the rewards were better and the ground objectives were more impactful, it would promote a much more spread-out gameplay style. If the AI also had to travel further to get back to the front line after being destroyed, it would actually feel like your actions matter, making the gameplay loop a lot more engaging.
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Even then, not really.
Take the current implementation. The Soviets would gain an immediate advantage, being the side with RADAR that’s effective against ground clutter, along with having IRST while the US doesn’t.
Only this is also thrown into chaos, as if the US side brings in F-4Js or Ss, they have a far better RADAR than the gimmick MTI mode that the MiG-23 MLD has. Meaning that the balance depends entirely on how many people bring in their own vehicles.
To be fair, this is already the case, however this just makes the imbalance worse by making the F-4E even weaker in comparison.
Unless they’re ground hugging. Which they will be, unless they like being slapped by SAMs.
A ground hugging plane might as well be invisible to the US team until they’re spotted, unless someone brought their own F-4, and again I’ll point at my point above.
It was an example of the kind of moaning you can expect on the regular if this change went through. As you point out, they have the ability to counter Fakour 90s pretty easily. They’re almost always fired from a consistent spot, and they have a massive, smoky trail for most of their travel time.
And yet people still miss those signs, and end up eating them, and then complain, visciously, about it on the forums.
Now imagine if those same players now had to contend with players showing up behind them at any time, firing missiles with much less obvious smoke trails and much faster time to kills, and their only recourse is the spend the trip into the combat area scanning every possible direction like an owl on meth.
Call it a skill issue if you want, the point is that’s not a fun gameplay loop for most players.
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