It is a vast over-exaggeration to say that the plane ruined the game or any other similar statement. The play rate of the Rafale significantly limits the impact it has on the game especially in the vastly popular game modes.
Even now games may just have 2-3 Rafales on a team on average while in the past, meta vehicles such as the F-14A or MiG-23MLD would see teams stacked full of said vehicles.
Well, considering the amount of players having USA (or event vehicle F-14), or USSR ( or prem vehicle MiG-23ML) is much larger than that of the French Top Tier player base, I think the proportions of Rafales are underrepresented, though it’s getting bigger to be fair.
Even just a few Rafales can dominate lobbies just because of the MICAs and good radar.
MICAs are much more useful than MRAAMs, even outside of 1v1s.
Max range is usually irrelevant because most experienced / semi-competent players would notch / chaff it without any issues.
The main reason why MICAs are so useful is because they give the user the ability to notch while shooting at closer ranges, which means less time for the enemy to notch while the user is able to play defensively.
They can be fired at distracted players. You know the missiles have mid course correction if your radar is looking at the general direction, allowing for striking in further away.
I mean you can shoot them and possibly kill distracted players at 20/30km, but that’s just 20 sec of RWR warning for them to take note of.
They may not be full on defending or they may be defending more than one at a time.
I guess, but I would rather have guaranteed kills by getting up close to be honest.
I don’t understand the people saying “french pilots are just better”.
The game in its current state favors close engagements.
Here is a comparison of HOBS performance of the:
MICA-EM (in orange), AIM-9M (in green), AIM-120-C-5 (in red), AIM-120B (in blue)
Launch Parameters:
Start Speed: 1200 km/h | Target Speed: -1200 km/h
Launch Altitude: 3000 m | Launch Angle: 0 Deg
Initial Target Distance: 1200 m | Target Altitude: 4000 m
Something’s fishy with that graph. Why does the AIM-9M stop turning and even changes direction at the end?
because it lost track… same goes with AIM-120B
also Statshark (the graph system he used) isn’t fully modelled on many points,…
and Turn radius isn’t the only point that should prevail in his argumentation,… but the truth is that he’s like many people today: having no clue on why Gaijin thinks the AIM-120’s are considered balanced vs MICA
(oh and btw,… it is known that both AIM-9 or -120’s don’t pull as much as MICA IRL, so the graph actually shows that pretty perfectly - no bugs on that side)
this is not accurate, statshark does not model missile pull well
heres a better example
R-77 buff save me 🙏 gonna be more maneuverable than mica in a year surely!
rafale mains to spawn a official document in from thin air saying the MICA-EM is missing 25% of its maneuverability
There is some truth to it at some BRs/in some vehicles.
However it’s also often used as a cope for players to feel better about themselfs.
It’s almost stupid how hard it is to notch the Mica missile and not miss, since the missile tries to reconnect multiple times. You literally have to maintain a defensive position until you’re safe from the missile while the Rafale can go back on the offensive. Who came up with the idea of giving the Mica a Seeker advantage? It’s unbalanced, and the argument that it doesn’t have its original range is a joke. Look at how weak the Derby missile is and how it doesn’t receive any buffs. I doubt Rafale users would trade range for the Seeker advantage.
MICA seeker performs like how all ARH seekers should.
It shouldn’t be so effortless to decoy an ARH missile; players should learn to respect the NEZ and understand how to defeat the missile properly by evading the search volume of a missile (don’t be in the same place as the missile thinks you will be) or by kinematically defeating them.
A problem that is manufactured by the stubborn devs, not the missile or carrier. They refuse to make long distance ARH viable, so close range is the only functional tactic that heavily favors MICA with huge acceleration.
However, this is a game, and we should have balance. The MICA then receives a realistic seeker with a FOV of 7, making it incredibly strong. So, if we give a realistic seeker to everyone, the R77-1 and the AIM-120C5 would dominate the Rafale at any point in the game, whether in BVR or close combat.
If even a professional player, one of the best in this game the Bad Karma considers the advantage Rafale receives stupid, who am I to disagree with him? It would have been better for MICA to have its normal range and not have a better seeker to guarantee balance, which is not what we are seeing here.
I agree completely. It would be much healthier for the game if things were like that. But we can only pick up the pieces from the devs mistakes, not prevent them. So the only ways forward I see are either buffing long range missile seekers or nerfing MICA (a mix of both would probably be the fairest, slight buffs to others and slight nerfs to MICA) to allow for other aircraft with weapons designed for distance to shine.
Unfortunately for MICA range, it seems the devs or the game engine are just incapable of modeling the weapon correctly enough to actually perform well beyond ~15 to 20km.
based on what?
as many others said, the current MICA is still a nerfed missile, not on par with IRL performances.
the seeker have been modified to match Historical Bug reports,… they can’t nerf the Seeker based on nothing,…
