The devs never mentioned this change, and it actually happened a few weeks before severe damage mechanics was implemented.
Many players assume it was a silent nerf to the score (and rewards), especially they changed that just before the Air event (that required 45k score every 2 days). If you didn’t know, a critical hit is worth 33% of the kill score, so 3 critical hits are like 1 kill (the same score). Much less critical hits in battles hugely reduced the score (which is needed for events, so this change made events harder to grind).
But the truth is, no one knows why most critical hits were removed. This change wasn’t explained or even listed anywhere, so we can only speculate. It was also only a server side change, so we didn’t see this change in client data mines.
Some players asked our community managers about this, but never received any response, so I don’t think our community managers know why it was changed. And there is no way for us to contact the devs directly and ask them about this.
I just don’t get why you had to nerf the already poor rewards with this feature. Kill stealing doesn’t really matter if you still get good SL and RP, but with this I’d argue it’s been made worse in some aspects, not to mention its wonky nature.
This guy would have easily made it back to base, he has basically all controls, engine is still running, nothing important has fallen off. Yeah liquid cooling is gone, but that will be a problem in 120s, so maybe his engine quits by the time he lands, but who cares?
I would need your support with this, because the more players report and support the issue, the higher chance it will be passed to the devs. Even if you write nothing, but just click “I have the same issue”, you can help this way.
I tried my best to explain this problem in my report, but I’m not a native English speaker, and it’s always up to the bug moderators to pass the issue to the devs. So if some bug moderator decide it’s “not a bug”, the devs won’t even see this bug report. That’s why your support can help.
Is it possible to that the severe dmg mechanic made it alot harder to do air assist tasks? Its pretty rare now to achieve a significant hit for an assist, without kill or severe dmg kill.
Scoring assists is imho strongly connected to scoring critical hits.
The most reliable way to get a crit is to attack a prop bomber as you score vs prop fighters usually either instant kills or just hits. Other players found a workaround by attacking specific ground targets (with revised damage model) which allow critical hits, but this requires that somebody else kills them. Even ai planes (a rather easy source for assists in the past) tend to blow uo instantly.
I skip any tasks which require assists or crits. The special task (kill 20 bases) takes way less time than scoring 8 assists in Air RB, at least at prop BRs with the “right” bomber.
Thats actually right. Achiving Assists is very difficult. The path between no Assist at all and Kill / Severe Damage Kill is too narrow. Its too complicated to collect assist (or criticals), that any kill task is much easier. When you’ve got the task to get 5 critical hits in Air AB, you sometimes rack up 10 kills and still the task ist at 3/5 or something. Even worse with assists, cause there you need that crit and someone else to kill it. That would be two ‘IFs’.
Its better to change these assist / crit tasks for something you migh influence in a more direct way. On the other hand Gajin could acknowledge how difficult these tasks are and greatly reduce the requirements.
That task I keep, as it is easy to find targets which will die soon.
Switch to default belts. Head for blue cloud. Just hit everything that exists, burns, spins. Just don’t hit it long. Bursts only. I wouldn’t go for bigger tasks than 3 though. 3 you can get comfortably in one match. It just requires a play style I don’t like to keep up for longer.
I’m late to the party here, I’ve got an air AB task to get 20 crits. I’m really struggling to get anywhere with this. I’m blowing wings and tails off left and right, using 20mm cannons and insta killing aircraft, but not getting crits, just severe damage.
Question, what is classed as a crit now? is there a sure fire way to get crits rather than severe damage? Seems like a pretty broken mechanic at the moment?
I actually find it a little bit easier to get assists now, but you really kinda have to go about it differently. Seems the best way is to just get a plain, simple, low damage, regular hit on a plane and then completely disengage. Chances are better that some will take care of them for you than how it was in the past. Previous to this change, you basically had to go for a critical hit and then hope someone took them out later. When a great deal of the time they would crash or die due to your damage and you’d get a kill instead of the desired assist. It takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, I think getting an assist is now easier than scoring a critical hit. I would also add that critical hits are not as hard to come by as when the change was first made. I mean after a short time they even lowered the number of crits you needed to do the tasks, but it was still difficult to do. I re-roll crit hit tasks all the time now when before they were one of the tasks I preferred. Try it some and see if you can manage it better, we just cannot do most of what we have been doing for years now and get the same results . . . game is different for sure. I don’t know if it is better or worse, but regardless . . . it’s what we have to work with, so may as well make the best of it. . . . until it gets changed again . . lol.
Only certain way I have found to get critical hits now is to go after the SPAA they have placed behind the pillboxes on the emplacements of certain maps . . the newer Air Conquest maps, Volcano Valley & Rocky Pillars come to mind, they have them. Harder to take out than most “soft” ground targets and almost always get a crit before they die. Just not a lot of them on each map, but generally not looked at by too many players.
Hope that is helpful . . .
Yeah yeah . . light damage, I find a single “Hit” on the screen will generally do the trick. Get that hit then disengage . . . you’ll have better luck getting an assist than in the past . . . not a lot, but still better. Trick is stopping in time . . . that little extra shot can easily turn it into a Severe Damage and then your chances for an assist are gone. I don’t change my belts, maybe plane selection order sometimes. But basically I just adjust how I shoot now for various things. Hardest part for me has been the lousy hit detection that came along with all this . . can’t trust the lead indicator at all anymore, I just use it for “ranging” for my convergence more than anything . . . lol, but at least it helps a little with that
The assist from regular hits works the same way as before.
My record in the old system was 17 assists in one Air Arcade battle. It’s much harder to repeat that nowadays with much less critical hits and inability to get additional assist from an already dead plane (technically it’s still possible, but it’s a very rare situation after the changes).
The difference with assists between a hit and a critical hit is actually very simple.
Critical hit guarantees you an assist. So when you see a critical hit, when this player die from your teammate, you will get an assist. Well, to be precise, there are three situations where critical hit won’t lead to an assist: when the critically damaged target crash/J-out, when the battle end before your teammate kill that critically damaged plane and when that critically damaged plane land and repair (repair ‘removes’ all critical hits on the target).
With regular hits it’s a bit more complicated. When you hit an enemy plane, there is a hidden timer attached to your hit. If the enemy you hit die within 30 seconds in Arcade (or within 60 seconds in Realistic) you will get an assist. You can count this time in your head and when it’s close to the end, you can hit the target again (this will reset the timer). But it’s harder to get an assist this way, because you have to keep controlling your target. With a critical hit you don’t have to do this.
More info about this here:
Attack the green areas shown in the screenshot:
Basically almost every plane part that is in the middle of the plane (red area) won’t give you a critical hit anymore. It’s not 100% correct, there is still at least one part in the red area that can give you a critical hit when destroyed (turns to black), but it’s very rare to see this, and I’m not sure which one it is. The only reliable parts you can shoot at for critical hits are green areas.
Yes, thank you for a more detailed explanation. And yeah the way it was before this is very good way to approach things. But since the “change”, critical hits are just a mystery and seem far more random and more difficult to get, intentionally or not. I have just found it a bit easier to work assists now than in the past and crits just . . . well . . . ya never know now. And a great deal of all that hinges on the hit detection which has been “nerfed”/changed a great deal than in the past. Last year, Aug/Sept/Oct (I forget exactly) there was this very same hit detection “dampening” in game for roughly 4 - 6 weeks, then everything went back to normal, all well before the Severe Damage mechanic was even mentioned. I have to assume this was some sort of “hidden” testing for implementing the new mechanic. It was like the hitboxes were shrunken a great deal or something . . made everything seem very “RNG” when shooting at planes . . even ground targets became a little dodgy. I was glad to see it go away, but it is back with the implementation of the Severe Damage mechanic. Overall, I do not mind the new mechanic too much, just takes some getting used to, but that poor hit detection thing has made “skill” a lot less important and yeah . . seems far too RNG for my tastes . . but it is what it is, C’est la Vie
The plane in the screenshot is NOT severly damaged.
Meanwhile planes which retain both elevators and have no other damage, than then proceed to dogfight me - severe damage.
This plane is also not severly damaged (the guy bailed out after getting into spin seconds later, and I got the kill, but I did not even get a crit, it’s just a hit nowadays):
Oh and “burn for 3 minutes and continue to dogfight” thing is back.
I got damaged by F82 because after quite a long engine fire caused by friendly, I assumed he was done for. A minute later it turns out the guy is shooting at me, he then kept burning for quite some time before the teammate finished him off because he wasn’t going anywhere.
Similar story with burning P-47 who flew past me, then proceeder to fly back to base, land while burning and get repaired. He burned for 2:40 before the repair started, he did not take any damge other than dead engine in the process.
Also, this plane was only destroyed because the pilot bailed out. It has 0 engine, 0 control surfaces with sole exception of rudder (GL with that) yet it’s drifting through the air waiting to get kill-stolen by some low life:
