The current Air RB gamemode is configured to place 32 players in a single match on a 16v16 format, this is a terrible set up, especially in top tier, for several reasons:
Your contribution to the teams victory is diluted: Victory is completely dependent on the performance of your team, as even in the unlikely scenario in which you alone obtain an ace, there are still 11 other players able to change the outcome of the match, and if those players completely decimate your team, even your best performance is punished not by your actions or skill but by your team’s overall performance.
The furball: The furball is a term used by a lot of people in the community to describe what happens at the middle of the map, where the majority of users on each team meet every time and merge into an immense area of combat where literally everyone is overwhelmed by the amount of information both through visual missile icons and RWR alarms. There is no skill involved when engaging inside the furball, it’s only about being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time.
Match outcomes: There are only two possible outcomes when you join a top tier Air RB match currently, either your team is entirely decimated in the furball through the first 4-5 minutes and you are left with a couple of teammates or alone, having zero odds of defeating the 8-10 enemies left. The second outcome is the exact opposite, in which the enemy team is decimated and you were either lucky to have a few kills or you have to scrap off the bottom of the barrel with a couple of AI kills.
This is not fun gameplay, your performance doesn’t influence the match, no amount of skill matters once inside the furball and the matches end quickly without any satisfying action most of the time as even when you are lucky to merge with someone, you are guaranteed to get third-partied.
Please consider this Gaijin, it’s genuinely ruining Air RB as a whole.
i honestly find it ridiculous how many people want to keep this 16 vs 16 missile clusterfuck that is top tier. i am not an expert jet player (only playing jets for a few months now) but i find it extremely exhausting having to watch out every second in every direction to spot potential incoming missiles (which there are dozens of) and not being able to focus on the one enemy that i have picked as my target. many matches end up with me getting killed off within the first few minutes because i happen to be on the flank where there are 4-8 enemies coming while the rest of my team decides to go to the other flank. also, reducing the match size would most likely positively improve the experience for 11.0-11.3 planes since they have more chances to not get into full uptiers and actually have a decent chance of performing better than just being a free kill for the enemy throwing a Phoenix or R-27ER at them
I enjoy the 16v16 more than anything else.
It’s a welcome challenge that’s far & above what I expect at lower BRs.
I wouldn’t want the top end to be as or less skill required than lower BRs.
16 vs 16 is a disaster. If we had an actual Air RB EC game mode with respawns, multiple airfields, rolling objectives and long matches, 16 vs 16 would be fine but the current game mode is 1 spawn team deathmatch.
16 vs 16 encourages the worst forms of gameplay from tiers 6 to 8. Nearly every kill is against someone not paying attention.
These modern aircraft are not even designed for a 16 vs 16 scenario. Hence why your RWR is always lighting up like a pinball machine throughout the match.
I think tier 6 could probably get away with going back to 12 vs 12 but tiers 7 and 8 really should go down to 10 vs 10 at least.
Air RB was supposed to be a hardcore PVP mode and at the moment, it just isn’t. It’s a cheap ripoff of Air AB.
Their 16 vs 16 ghost patch earlier this year was the biggest mistake ive seen Gaijin make to Air since 2013. It completely killed the mode for top tier and has just turned it into a skill-less disaster.
If Air RB is going to remain a team deathmatch mode, then the team size needs to be reduced.
I think 16 v 16 only fits on the big air RB maps with EC like grids on them. [Operation] Afghanistan, [Operation] Rocky Canyon, and [Operation] Spain are the examples of the maps I mean.
I think normal air RB matches with the format of 4 bases in the middle of the map should be reduced to 12 v 12.
Now that F-15s are here 16v16 is more accurate than ever and the challenge above props that I crave.
I didn’t come to War Thunder for Counter Strike in the air, I came for realism & challenge.
There is no realism in 16v16, there is no realism in 32 modern jet fighters fighting in a furball. And there’s no challenge if all outcomes are random.
Tbh, 16v16 should gone from 7.3/7.7BR and higher BR.
As a Korean War era jet main, the implementation of the 16v16 was the second biggest mistake after the implementation of supersonic jets and AAMs because it means more dumb players on my team or enemy team and it makes hard to carry them even more with x2 or x3 squadmates.
I couldn’t agree more, with the introduction of the upcoming update “air superiority” these new jets and the missiles they carry will make this problem so much worse we need changes made sooner rather than later! I don’t see myself playing top tier for much longer if nothing is done about it. The big EC maps that you see from 10.7+ I don’t actually mind 16v16 it’s much less crowded and chaotic than the smaller maps such as “city” and “alternate history Spain” but I rarely see those larger maps in rotation which is another issue gaijin needs to fix (map rotation). On the smaller maps I think it should be 12v12 or 10v10 but we need more than just a player reduction, having all the ground targets and bases centralised around the middle of the map only exacerbates the problem even more.