As someone who voted overwhelmingly yes on these polls, I agree with your talking points and would love to see some change and balancing, in both the BR sense and performance metrics.
I think the cat is out of the bag as far as LDIRCM goes, and hopefully gaijin works with us to get it onto as many nation’s helis as possible, in order to maintain a sense of parity between different heli tech trees and dissuade a one sided meta.
As far as buffs to NATO AGMs, just overwhelmingly agree, they are underperforming and have plenty of sources to argue to contrary.
Japan has a proposal for an APS and Anti-drone system (including a 30mm rws lmao) to put on top of the type 10s, so we’ll see, as for sweden, yeah they are cooked even with subtree additions
Personally I think that it’s IRCM equipment is vastly ineffective when compared to other models (I.e. Z-10ME and AH-64E), which to be fair, it’s sort of balanced, you have to give something in return to have something. May be a issue or game design.
I think that, at the moment, given that the highest ground vehicles battle rating is 12.0 and at the same time, when airplanes are included, this can shift to battle rating 13.0, moving only one vehicle in battle rating will surely shift the problem to somewhere else. I advocate and I’ll keep saying the same thing—ground battles needs a higher battle rating cap.
AH-64E is definitely in between Mi-28NM and Z-10ME with full all around IRCM and more missile count, definitely makes it better when compared to these two, the only characteristics I consider that Mi-28NM may be better is the 30 mm 2A42 autocannon and Z-10ME TY-90 air-to-air missiles.
This falls under the same situation I’ve previously mentioned, ground battles need a higher battle rating cap, this won’t only solve some issues of vehicles being way too overpowered when compared to obviously underpowered vehicles but making easier life for said vehicles.
Because CM-502KG is a light anti-armor missile, the destruction power is lacking and overpressure capabilities is dubious, some times it happens, most don’t, the vehicle itself is great alongside with the IRCM performance and the presence of TY-90 on the loadout, the possibilities of this vehicle going at lower battle rating because of the CM-502KG is highly unlikely.
Only shift the problem, push it under the carpet as it doesn’t exist, perhaps a expansion of ground battles maximum battle rating for 15.0 could fix a lot of these balancing issues, considering battle rating 15.0 including airplanes such like Eurofighter 2000, Su-30SM and Rafale C F3 and helicopters as well like AH-64E. Z-10ME and Mi-28NM, while ground in general is restricted only to battle rating 14.0 to give more roon specially in mid-top tier battle rating (e.g., 9.3 to 12.0).
Sources states that LDIRCM can be overloaded and missiles like IRIS-T are able to ignore and bypass this protection, I think it’s something that Gaijin definitely should take a look. However I’m not either supporting in favor or against, I never took a look in said sources by myself, so I have my doubts.
Current infra-red homing missiles definitely still works, they’re small, fast and most of the time doesn’t warn the target, which is great for taking out larger targets. In my opinion multipath should be still a think. Vehicles like Buk-M3, IRIS-T SLM and SAMP/T could take huge advantages of the absence of this mechanic.
Definitely, specially for ground ordnances loadouts, and air engagements-focused loadouts should be cheaper as these aircraft tend to be highly effective when ground allied anti-air units are usually primary target when close air support units is present in the battlefield.
Definitely, and it’s obvious. It doesn’t only mess with balance but at the same time put all the idea of a realistic military combat simulator in question when Gaijin deliberately keeps weapons not accurate at all when there are clearly footage of said weapons working as intended and is not represented in-game correctly. Specially for ground-launched infra-red homing anti-tank missiles.
Considering that I couldn’t find no sources mentioning eight missiles in total for the Mi-28NM yet Gaijin represent these as it is at the moment, I personally think it’s a fair trade keeping eight or sixteen missiles depending on the platform and if it’s capable of doing so in real life.
Effectiveness, said missiles are rather small but doesn’t mean they’re completely useless, I think making said missiles more effective per hit will invest a lot in-game quality rather than relying ob spamming missiles (in one target, when it could be in multiple) and praying for some hit-and-kill situation.
In my part, no, nerfing a weapon because others don’t work as inteded definitely is not the right path to take but rather the completely opposite. My comments may be biased some times but when it comes to historical and technical accuracy, no biases should be considered and every nation and weapon should be represented correctly. Product 305 LMUR should be a rule and not a exception.
I personally think so, definitely, with sources given specially, this would give much more clearer vision of how this mechanic will be affected with any changes focusing on representing it correctly as its real life counterpart.
Just like in airplanes, helicopters should recieve equal treatment and not being mere cheaper versions of what a fully loaded airplane can do but much more safely and easier.
Absolutely, hopefully with larger enough maps for ground units to take advantage of ground and taking protection from it, could be nice as well. I cannot see a missile festival when said mechanic is added to Brimstone missiles, something that people tend to forget about when comes to historical accuracy of air-to-ground weapons is: “How about the dudes down below, what they gonna do? Absolutely nothing. Perish.”.
Not only help but advocate to people that airplanes in ground battles can not only work against ground vehicles but air vehicles as well. At the same time, air target scores should be reworked and perhaps reward increased.
Product 305 LMUR in first place because of its reliability and missile path behavior gives some advantages, second comes AGM-179 with quantity over quality, and in third CM-502KG against light armored vehicles, easily can overload anti-air units. Spike ER and PARS 3 LR should be reworked or platforms have a lower battle rating when a proper ground battles decompression is rolled out.
Definitely, specially when comes to infra-red homing missiles, which struggles a lot against said targets, some needing absurd distances under 2,0km to be able to reliably engage an helicopter.
Possibly accurate, however I’m afraid most aircraft could struggle with this and some anti-air platform take huge advantages of the absence of this mechanic as I mentioned earlier.
When comes to voting for “which is best” poll, I recommend using pie poll, in this case should’ve been applied to the Which missiles do you consider to be the strongest Fire-and-Forget missiles on a helicopter chassis? (multipe choice encouraged) poll.
First of all, thank you for taking this initiative!
I believe the two ideas below can greatly improve the game balance at all Tiers, and greatly limit the current FnF weapons spam.
Suggested Air Space balance improvements:
1. Limit Air Units Presence in Ground RB
Merging Planes / Helicopters Spawn Point pools (similarly to how Light and Medium Tanks Spawn Pools are merged) would limit multiple air spawns in Ground RB without removing the option entirely. It would also force players to actively decide whether they want to fly a plane or a helicopter for CAS as flying both would be much more expensive and unlikely to be available to them. I understand the FnF CAS spam is a frustration to many players, and this would synergize very well with the new Loadout Spawn Point system.
2. Remove SPAA as last viable option for losing players
Similarly, merging the SPAA Spawn Point pool with TDs and Heavy Tanks and increasing SPAA Spawn Point cost to a minimum of 100 would force players to chose their options wisely. SPAAs are currently so cheap to spawn (70SP) that they are the last resort to losing players / losing teams, often leading to 4+ SPAAs camping their spawn, not contributing to winning the game, and completely denying Air Space to even competent Pilots, since most SPAAs are very easy to use efficiently. A lot more on that hereafter, if you are interested!
I hope these ideas will make their way! I’ll also post them in the Suggestions section of the forum.
See you on the battlefield!
WanouMars
If you want to read more (it’s a side topic, I would say):
With a bit of distance, I still think that the few days that followed the release were a real nightmare, as many people used GE to unlock Mi-28NM and LMUR immediately, which completely broke the balance: NATO players only had access to IRIS-T at the time which couldn’t counter them effectively.
This was made even worse on the SA server as it is was plagued by 1 death leavers who just got the Chinese MBT on sale… (SA server / Chinese Premium, do you see the pattern?)
Now that the hype has dropped, I don’t find Russian teams to be so oppressive anymore - and, as I checked their win rate, which is around 40-50%, I realized that they pose little threat after all.
My opinion on Air Units in War Thunder:
It is very fun and rewarding to fly planes / helicopters in Ground RB
Excluding FnF weapons, flying Air Units require skill and knowledge to contribute to winning the game, but in reality, if good players fly while the game is still even, it will often lose them the game
My opinion about the new loadout Spawn Point system:
It’s a great idea and limits multiple CAS Spawns aggressively, even though I was not a fan at all initially! It also now finally makes sense to fly with minimum loadout and helps some units to make a comeback, like the German P-47!!! <3
My opinion about ground Anti-Air units (SPAAs)
70SP is way too cheap, leaving SPAA as the only option left to poor players, often leading losing teams to field 4+ SPAAs, completely negating Air Units until Top Tier
Since most SPAA players camp their spawn, they don’t contribute to winning the game
In most cases, the skill required to operate SPAAs is vastly lower than the skill required to fly Air Units, which is a clear imbalance. Yes, SPAAs are a hard counter to Air units, but it shouldn’t favor poor players in SPAAs against good players in Air Units with that magnitude. This is even more obvious with radar guided SPAA, and tracer-less SPAAs, as example (good luck killing a Gepard or a Strela with your Etendard IV !).
The Spawn Point cost difference between SPAA (70 SP) and CAS Units (~400-900 SP) is a clear imbalance and punishes flying players way too harshly (yes, you can get CAS for cheaper, but don’t be a toad !)
>> Making SPAA so cheap and so easy to use is a VERY, VERY, bad way to balance CAS - and shouldn’t be the last resort to losing players / losing teams.
Should consider also if rewards for destroying aircraft should be increased in GRB to encourage usage of SAMs, SPAA and multipurpose vehicles as an active measure and not a reactive measure.
An interesting idea, however personally I think this has potential to shift the issue even more, reducing the amount of players actively participating in Tank v Tank combat, and getting objectives etc…
Still if you want I can add a poll on it.
Honestly, i think MP is fine as it is, perhaps even slightly too low. Keep in mind that outside of the battlefield, the size of trees often reaches 35-45 meters, giving you only 25-15 meters to play with while going supersonic. So its realistically more of a 20 meter multipath zone on average, more on desert maps ofc.
Not having any MP will make planes be just unable to do anything really, especially with how tiny maps are and how far newer missile systems can reach with still respectable speed. Getting rid of MP would just make it a “point and kill” with no reason to use smartly and no real counterplay (notching exists but isnt always possible, especially with fast missiles giving little window of opportunity, doubly so on older airplanes) once the missile is already on you.
Plus keep in mind, on a lot of maps (north holland, Sinai, maginot line come to mind straight away, but theres ofc more) even with the now further spawns you are more than able to spawn in and already be detected by the SAM radar (due to the environment being flat). Getting rid of MP with ARH self guiding missiles would just make it a problem.
Instead fixing poor flight performance of missiles, radar performance (ie. refreshrate, spin, missing TWS ESA, etc.), DL bug and non-functional proxy (like on BUK)
would make SPAAs life much easier in my opinion, atleast for people like me that enjoy doing air defense.
Rework every BR of SPAA at and above radar tier, mostly increasing their BR’s, but increasing the SP cost of CAS to make planes/CAS much harder to spawn and act more as killstreaks rather than 1 cap and 1 assist for a full loadout
Tbh i have never had any issue countering gepards with cas. My experience facing them is mostly with A4E and Su-25k or Helicopters so take that as you want.
I don’t really play much top tier, but from my understanding, the issue is that not many people actually use SPAAs. There isn’t always someone manning a SPAA, so a possible solution would be to make air kills more valuable.
It’s not about their SPAA capabilities(even though they absolutely smoke aircraft), it’s about how disgusting they are vs tanks. Gaijin won’t ever remove their APDS or even APHE belts, so only solution it send them up.
Every autocannon vehicle in the game is just overperforming and disgusting to playing against, that’s basically fact.
Just because you cant turn your brain of in an aircraft anymore, while plying a point and click adventure with your AGMs dosent mean that the new SAMs are OP
