[POLL] Proposal for BR Decompression Around 11.7 and 12.7 Air RB

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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Introduction

Hello everyone,

In this post I would like to discuss and propose a mild amount of battle rating decompression surrounding the Air RB battle ratings of 11.7 and 12.7. This proposal includes two steps of decompression - meaning the top BR would go from 14.0 (what it is now) up to 14.7.

Link to BR Decompression Proposal Spreadsheet

Explaination of 2-Step Decompression

Firstly, I would like to clarify the effects of decompression. Battle rating decompression is when the top battle rating is increased and subsequent battle ratings are increased along with the top BR in order to relieve compression around a specific BR. As a result, your favorite aircraft may be moving up. But fear not, the matchmaking may not change very much due to the fact that pretty much everything else at that BR is also moving up.

For this set of 2-step decompression, there are 3 ways in which a plane’s BR may change.
1.) Zero BR Increase - Your plane has effectively been moved down in BR since everything else is going up
2.) +0.3 BR Increase - Your plane either joined its peers or was moved “down” relative to its peers.
3.) +0.7 BR Increase - Your plane joined its peers and does not face as many lower BR opponents.

For example, in the BR spreadsheet I have provided above, one may notice that the Mirage F1Cs and British Phantoms are not moving up to 12.3 like the F-4J/S are. This effectively means those vehicles at 11.7 and 12.0 receive better matchmaking because they did not move up. In contrast, the former 12.0 vehicles that are now 12.3 moved up due to having higher relative performance over their current 12.0 peers.

Another example that can be found in the spreadsheet is the Mirage 2000C-S5 and Mirage 2000C-S4. Both of these planes were moved up 0.7 to join the F-16As and MiG-29As at 13.0. I believe these planes all have much more similar performance relative to each other than the Mirage 2000Cs have with the vehicles that were put at 12.7.

What does this mean for each BR?

Current 11.7 becomes easier to play

With the current 12.7s going up to 13.0, planes at 11.7 right now will be able to enjoy much better experiences in uptiers. The MiG-23ML/MLA/MLD, for example, will no longer face MiG-29s and F-16As. Rather, in a full uptier, they will face the F-4EJ Kai, Harrier GR.7, etc.

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Mirage F1s and British Phantoms remain 12.0

With the F-14A IRIAF being moved to 13.3, these planes will no longer face Fakour-90s. The worst that these planes will have to face is the AIM-54A from the F-14A Early and the R-27ER from the MiG-29As. However, with Gaijin’s matchmaker, only 4 of these vehicles will be present on each side. 11.7 and 12.0 no longer facing Fakour-90s is a huge change that is very much necessary.

Furthermore, the Mirage F1s and British Phantoms remaining 12.0 keeps the BR bracket rather large. This should help the BR remain prevalent in the matchmaker and not create a hole.

Current 12.7s become 13.0

The Mirage 2000Cs join the F-16As and MiG-29As due to the fact that they are generally on par with each other. However, this BR bracket no longer faces high-end Fox-3 carriers. At worst, these planes face AMRAAMs from planes that do not have HMDs or R-77s/Derbies on limited airframes.

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Resolving Issues with Current 13.0s and Rebalancing Fox-3 Carriers

As it stands right now, the F-15A, Gripen-A, Su-27, Su-33, MiG-29G, Belgian F-16A, and Mirage 4000 were all the same BR - 13.0. With this proposal, there is a split between these planes. The F-15A, Gripen-A, and Flankers are put up to 13.7, while the MiG-29G, Belgian F-16A and Mirage 4000 are 13.3 due to minor lackings in performance compared to the others.

Furthermore, the current BR spread for non-top-tier Fox-3 carriers has a few issues. The same BR has a wide variety of performance levels - namely the F-4F ICE being too good and the Sea Harrier FA.2 being too bad. The Tornado F.3 Late is also higher than all of these planes for no reason. As a result, the majority of “early” Fox-3 carriers have been placed at 13.7 (alongside the F-15A, Gripen-A, and Flankers), with the Sea Harrier FA.2 and J-8F being placed at 13.3 (alongside the MiG-29G, Belgian F-16A, and Mirage 4000). More decompression may be needed though because the F-4F ICE definitely seems to be ahead of the competition at this BR but other vehicles may be too strong to be lower than it.

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Moving 14.0 to 14.7

Towards the end of these changes, not much else needs to be done other than moving everything up. Everything at 13.3, 13.7, and 14.0 has gone up 2 BR jumps (14.0, 14.3, and 14.7 respectively) except for 3 vehicles: the Tornado F.3 Late, the J-11A, and the F-16A OCU. The vehicles that did not move up 2 BR jumps did still move up 1 BR jump.

The Tornado F.3 Late went to 13.7 and not 14.0 because it is not better than the F-4F ICE, and it should be at the same BR as the other “early” Fox-3 carriers.

The J-11A went to 14.0 and not 14.3 because it is a dramatic downgrade from the Su-27SM. The J-11A is heavier, has worse engines, has the SPO-15 RWR, is missing 2 extra missiles, and only has one DL channel. It should not be the same BR as the Su-27SM.

The F-16A OCU went to 14.0 and not 14.3 because it lacks HMD and only has 45 countermeasures. This is much more akin to the JF-17 or MiG-29SMT than it is to something like the JAS39C, F-15C, etc.

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Miscellaneous Changes

Included in these BR changes are:

  • The reduction of the F-104S.ASA from 12.0 to 11.7. This makes sense due to the recent F-104 flight model nerfs, and the F-104S.ASA still lacks its 6x AIM-9L loadout.
  • The increase of the A-10C and F-111F due to their performance improvements over their counterparts. Firstly, the A-10C having AIM-9Ms and HMD implies it can easily go up to 12.0 alongside this decompression. Secondly, the F-111F gets 2 more AIM-9Ls and better engines over the F-111C, and it has 3x the AIM-9Ls of the 11.7 Tornados with much better flight performance.
  • The F-14A IRIAF was moved up 2 BR jumps due to the strength of Fakour-90s
  • The F-14A Early and F-14B could receive their upgraded AIM-9s if necessary.

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Closing Notes

Please note that these changes are subjective. Going into detail and specifying BR decompression is difficult to do, this is just me putting my best foot forward attempting to do it. Please feel free to suggest changes in the comments - I can definitely get things wrong. I tried my best to consult some friends about these changes, but we’re a niche set of a broad community. Please voice changes you would like to see with reasoning as to why you want said change.

Directly below is a poll for feedback regarding the balancing proposal as a whole. Following this main poll are 5 subsequent polls about various balancing decisions made in the BR spreadsheet. If you select other, please comment your thoughts on the issue.

Polls

How do you feel about the proposals that have been put forth? (Multiple selections are possible).
  • I like all of the changes (2 step decompression + miscellaneous)
  • I only liked the 2 steps of decompression (move things up 1-2 steps without rebalancing much)
  • I only want 1 step of decompression for now (pick a differnt BR and only do 0.3 BR increase)
  • I liked some of the balance changes but not all
  • I do not like any of these changes
  • Other / No comment
0 voters
How do you feel about the F-104S.ASA in the context of this decompression?
  • It should be 11.7
  • It should be 12.0
  • Other / No comment
0 voters
How do you feel about the A-10C in the context of this decompression?
  • It should move up to 12.0
  • It should stay 11.7
  • Other / No comment
0 voters
How do you feel about the F-111F in the context of this decompression?
  • It should move up to 12.0
  • It should stay 11.7
  • Other / No comment
0 voters
How do you feel about the Mirage 2000Cs in the context of this decompression?
  • The Mirage 2000Cs should only go to 12.7
  • The Mirage 2000Cs should go to 13.0
  • Other / No comment
0 voters
How do you feel about the F-14A IRIAF in the context of this decompression?
  • The F-14A IRIAF should only go to 13.0
  • The F-14A IRIAF should go to 13.3
  • Other / No comment
0 voters

Update:

I have changed the following vehicles according to some of the polls and discussions.

  • F-111F remains at 11.7 (it does not move up to 12.0)
  • Harrier GR.7 remains at 12.3 (it does not move up to 12.7)

The reasoning for not moving the Harrier GR.7 up goes as follows. It has similar armament as the A-10C, which is coming up to 12.0. The GR.7 is only marginally better in terms of flight performance, and it loses out on the HMD. This makes the GR.7 more of a peer with the A-10C, but the A-10C is still slow enough that a 0.3 BR difference is fair.

I would like to see further discussion on the Mirage 2000Cs as the voting is very close.

9 Likes
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actually a thought-out Post if you read all of it. +1

5 Likes
3

Going to take a bit to read through it.

But i feel that the br placements for the f14b and f14 iriaf should be different.

Iriaf gets fakours but the f14b gets better flight performance, aim9l instead of aim9p, and a huge amount of countermeasures.

4

In my opinion the Fakour-90s more than make up for the F-14B’s benefits. An alternative that I saw somewhere was the F-14A IRIAF getting R-73Es and a new RWR, but that would make it ~14.0-14.3 worthy in my opinion.

1 Like
5

I suppose it would depend on the player. If they were the same br, i would take the f14b.

I just think decompression should have all 3 at different brs. Of course the f14a would be lowest, than f14 iriaf, then f14b.

But i think most would agree at least on the f14 iriaf being higher than the f14a

6

Only one I have issue with is the Harrier Gr7, it’s not that strong at the moment, and probably needs to move down anyway, so I’d just leave it at 12.3 with this proposed decompress

1 Like
7

A-10C without the drawback of being an A-10, i agree with that.

8

I think F4S and F4J needs 9L and then move to 12.7 as well, HMD is a pretty good tool for such kind of heavy fighters, comparing to the F4 EJ kai, worse radar but HMD can help u lock the enemy faster

9

I’ve honestly been hoping for a “F-4S Late” to come to the TT with the main addition simply being AIM-9Ls. It would definitely be a cool vehicle in my opinion, but I sadly doubt Gaijin would undercut their $70 premium like that :/

11

Even if decompression doesnt happen, F14 IRIAF is long overdue going to 13.0, even the biggest baboons that cant go 1:1 in any other plane somehow magically go 2:1 in it, weird.

1 Like
12

This is very well thought out. I’d love to see suggestions for BR compression overall in both air and ground trees just to get a sense of what it may look like.

1 Like
13

Thank you!

I can say for certain that it’s not easy to handle balance overall, it wasn’t easy doing just 2 BR jumps (and I still got stuff wrong lol).

14

Changing the BR’s of a hand full of vehicles in one very small segment of the game is not going to “fix” the BR’s or the system as a whole. This has been the approach Gaijin has been using for a long while now and . . . it simply doesn’t help. At most it merely moves the same issues around to different BR spreads.
A comprehensive strategy to changing the entire BR system, how it works and is implemented is what we are in need of and frankly . . . I just do not see Gaijin having the extra time/resources to even consider such an undertaking really.
It generates no revenue, so that is a huge strike against the idea right out of the gate. No matter what they might choose to do or how they go about it, a large portion of the player base would not like it anyway . . . they simply cannot please everyone. I do not play high/top tier(well except naval RB, but . . . that’s different anyway, isn’t it?) and your post, as well thought out and nicely presented as it is, means nothing to me and my game play whatsoever, sorry. While your idea seems sound, again, without a massive BR adjustment, top to bottom, these things are just fingers in the dike. . . . you want some radical changes for the entire game?
Change the BR’s to include a 0.5 in each full BR range . .
i.e. 1.0 - 1.25 - 1.50 - 1.75 and so on, this would give you “decompression” across the board and allow for a +/- 0.75 BR spread per match(still the same 3 steps up or down we use now, but with more leeway) Start with Reserves as 0.75 BR, everything else would start at 1.0 and go from there.
Why not split the air & ground trees like they did with naval? WW II, Cold War & Modern . . . ease up on some of the “inter era” matches ups?
Generates no revenue, massive workload . . . ain’t gonna happen.
Realistically, most things that would improve the BR system we have just do not add up for Gaijin to make a move, “not financially viable” . . . it’s good enough as it is . . . C’est la Vie . . . .

15

11.7 - 12.7 are already decompressed.
F-14A IRIAF is already decompressed to 12.7 where it belongs. It’s a direct upgrade over F-4J thus is 0.7 BRs higher.
It can’t go to 13.x unless F-4J and F4FGR2 [without AIM-9Ls] goes to ~12.7 as well. If they get AIM-9Ls they go to the same exact BR as F-14A IRIAF for balance and decompression reasons.

Mirage 2000C5 would have to be the same BR as F-14A IRIAF for decompression and balance.

ALL 12.0s in the game would have to go to 12.3 if F-14A IRIAF moved up.
ALL 12.7s, 13.0s, etc would have to move up as well.

They’d have to be the same BR as F-14A IRIAF.

16

No they are not.

11.7s right now should not have to face what is currently at 12.7. (Hence 12.7 → 13.0)
12.7s right now should not have to face what is currently at 13.7. (Hence 13.7 → 14.3)

That is the whole point of this decompression spread.

Fakour-90s are the issue here, not the plane itself. The plane itself is mediocre at best, but the Fakour-90 is far beyond anything at 12.7. It being the same BR as the F-14B is more than fair.

This makes zero sense. The F-4J/S are dramatically worse off than the F-14A IRIAF. Furthermore, they do still face the F-14A IRIAF since they sit at 12.3 and 13.3 respectively.

The British Phantoms are also a bit worse than the F-4J/S. The American Phantoms get AIM-7Fs and HMS, while the British Phantoms only get better engines. This justifies a 0.3 BR difference in my opinion.

2 Likes
17

@Blanchboi

This is an opinion, on top of that the current 11.7s are among the most capable for their BR. 11.7 is already decompressed in that regard.
13.0 is compressed and that’s about it.

I get if I had a massive skill issue and was trash at War Thunder I’d be claiming 11.7 was compressed, but I’m far more rational than letting emotions get the better of me.

Fakour 90s have not been an issue since F-14A moved to 12.7. They’re worse than AMRAHMs, and perfectly balanced at 12.7.
IF I was absolutely garbage at this game and let myself die to them, yeah I could see myself with a shortsighted view that they were OP when they’re not.

The F-4J has worse radar missiles and slightly worse energy retention than the F-14A IRIAF, thus 0.7 BR difference.
F-4J would have to be 12.7 in your ideal world in order for balance to occur, which means Mig-23MLD would have to be 12.3, JA37C would have to be 12.0, Mig-21Bis 11.7, etc until you reach 9.3 vehicles where you’re decompressing 9.3.

Cause objectively speaking the only two things F-14A IRIAF has over F-4J is 4 radar missiles and marginally improved energy retention since F-14A requires more fuel than F-4J in matches.

HMS is a gimmick when you lack thrust vectoring missiles.

18

That is also an opinion.

Sorry I don’t find fighting Fakour-90s with horrible RWRs to be very fun. I’ll reconsider what I consider to be fun to fit more in line with the factual AlvisWisla :)

1 Like
19

My poor Mig-23 with SPO-10 facing ARH missiles isn’t fun. It’s a really good plane at 11.7, but it’s held back massively by its godawful rwr. The MLD fixes that issue (and it could even go up in BR because of that).

Is it a fakour approaching me? Is it tracking a lock from a teammate nearby, or an enemy 30km away? Or is there just a kfir in my general vicinity?

I don’t think 11.0-11.7 is that compressed compared to other BRs, but it still is compressed. The Mig-21MF at 10.7is 0.7 worse than the Mig-21bis at 11.0, but the 21bis is 0.7 worse than the Mig-23ML/A/D at 11.7. 12.0+ is the really compressed area.

1 Like
20

RWRs that tell you you’re launched on are good. Cause you don’t need to notch Fakours, you just need to out-maneuver them on the deck, which is easy enough.
Literally have done it in every aircraft at this point.

21

It’s actually very useful, because it allows you to easily lock a specific enemy, rather than hoping ACM locks what you want to lock.

Why ignore the entire reason why it should be at 13.0? Obviously if you ignore its best missile it’s going to be worse.

Currently, Fakours are too good to be facing 11.7 planes, and the IRAF is better suited to be in ARH missile territory, rather than having them at the lowest BR they exist at.

Not true. Their speed and range allows them to force at minimum 4 players into a defensive position. They are also potent against higher alt planes due to them having the range advantage.

Which is something several planes that can face F-14s don’t have.

1 Like