Do i really have to agree to that a third time? Obviously not, the su34 is fine where it is. Which ergo means the premium su30s being lower than it but being better are too low. While still, as you reasonably presented in your first post from top to bottom everything is too low, pushing hard from the top down at everything that doesnt get fox 3s (maybe besides the outliers with serious flaws in their flight models like F4F KWS LV and Av 8b plus)
Mig 29 (9-13) with two R27ers and 4 R73s being 13.0 and su30mk2s with 6 R77s (or R27ers) and 4 r73s being 13.3 will never stop being hilarious to me
To start off, Gaijin should decompress 13.7 all the way to 16.0.
A general rule of thumb should be the top 1/3 performers move up in BR, middle 1/3 “stay” in BR (relative 1 step down) the bottom 1/3 performers move down BR (relative, 2 steps down).
For example, as a rule of thumb.
For 13.3 planes,
JEFF goes down to 14.0
F16ADFs “remain” at 14.3
Premium Su30s to 14.7
For 13.7 planes,
F16Cs, Gripen C, MiG 29s can “remain” at 14.7
F-15C, Su-27SM, F-2A, J11B to move to 15.0.
For 14.0 planes
Don’t think there’s any under performing plane that needs to go down to 14.7.
Hornets to “remain” at 15.0.
F-15E, MICA M2Ks to 15.3.
For 14.3 planes
F16V and POBIT to “move” down to 15.0.
Super Hornets can “remain” at 15.3.
F-15C GE, J-10C, Gripen E, Su-30SM to 15.7.
For 14.7 planes,
J-15T to “remain” at 15.7.
AESA Typhoons, Su-30SM2, Rafale to 16.0.
Just 0.3 br higher than harrier with 4 aim120a 2 aim9m. Makes more sense the more you think about it yea. But oh hey, su30s wont suffer against 14.7, thats what matters
I think decompression should start at minimum 8.3 or 9.3 and above, but not the subject and essentially yes, balance issues like this exist because of BR compression. If they do not want the Su-30s to be fighting 14.7s, simply move the 14.7s up. If the Su-30s are balanced for 13.3, which I get the impression they’re not but I haven’t played them so I will not make an absolute conclusion, but they’re oppressive to fight in 12.7s and 12.3s, then move the 13.3s up too.
I think players might also be encouraging BR compression by accident too, they play a vehicle and fight oppressively more powerful vehicles because of compression, and as a result you see so many “please move X vehicle from 12.3 to 12.0!” Which is more BR compression, because the X vehicle is bad because it fights 13.3s, and moving it to 12.0 will oppress 11.0s with absurdly more powerful vehicles. (Sometimes X vehicle might actually be genuinely underpowered for it’s tier but quite often the proposals to lower vehicles is because of BR compression issues, like what it faces in an uptier, or the vehicle being underpowered for it’s tier but OP for the tier 0.3 under it). Though I am not blaming the playerbase as a whole or anything, but I think both the mindset of players as well as the mindset of who sets the BRs should change a little: there is very few downsides to moving BRs up, but many strong downsides to moving BRs down.
But yeah, outside of maybe like 10.3-11.7 or so (from my experience these actually feel decent to play), anything above 7.0 feel more compressed, (9.0-10.0 feeling horrendous), because they moved the old 9.0s of the pre-supersonic age to 8.0-8.3 instead of decompression, then did exactly like tanks and just added more and more and more of the ‘newest thing’ modern stuff without considering that X will have all-aspect 30g missiles and fight flare-less subsonic jets from the '50s and stuff like that.
TL;DR - yes if X is at Y br because it can’t fight Z vehicles at Y + 1.0 br, then simply move Z vehicles up. It isn’t going to break the game, it will simply make most players happy and enjoy the game more…
Here is the issue we run in to - and I say this as someone who has fought them, a lot, and has finally played the one I bought during a 50% off sale. Let’s assume for a moment that the Su-30’s are, in fact, balanced for 13.3 in all air modes, including Arcade which is the numbers I’m going to use cause that’s where I play. I can bring 6x RVV’s, 4x R-73E’s, and still have a ground attack option if memory serves - but they just moved the F-16ADF, which has only 6 missiles - AIM-120A’s or AIM-9L’s - not even 9M’s, which puts it at a disadvantage cause even if it goes missile for missile with ARH the Su-30 still has 4x IR missiles to hit it with and the ADF is guns only at that point. And the ADF has no ground attack ordnance period - so why is it then that it got moved to 13.7 when the Su-30 stayed the same? And while in the Japanese tree - a MiG-29N with 6x of the same ARH missile as the Su-30’s, but unable to carry extra IR missiles - sits at 13.0? Disregarding the ability for these planes to get matchmaking a bracket lower based on lineups (where you can run the Su-30’s at 13.0 in Arcade and the MiG-29N at 12.7) - if those planes represent 13.3 and 13.0 - then the F-16ADF should be 13.0, the CM maybe 13.3 cause it can hit ground targets while having missiles but that’s debatable, and the PoBIT at 13.7 cause it actually has the most advanced AMRAAM’s, but only gets 6 when everything else starts to get 8+ missiles even if still older models. Kinda like how the F-16A makes no sense at 12.3 when all it has is 9L’s, when even 11.7 planes have SARH that smash it in the face before they get close, forget about newer 12.3’s like the F/A-18A that has even better AIM-7’s to smash it in the face with before it ever gets close.
If they are powerful for 13.3 they should go up - but they haven’t done it for reasons that are inexplicable if they are saying the F-16ADF needed to go up.
But Gaijin’s changes at best seem to be arbitrary, they say there is method to the madness, but more often it looks just like madness, it seems like there is no actual baseline for capabilities. If they want to say ‘Su-30’s are what a 13.3 plane should be’ - great, they need to pull all the stuff with with only SARH down to 12.3 or lower, and balance around the other planes around that so it’s facing comparable planes in weapons and abilities. There needs to be a bar set, and the BR formula needs to be way less opaque so it can actually maybe make some sense.
If they do not want the Su-30s to be fighting 14.7s, simply move the 14.7s up. If the Su-30s are balanced for 13.3, which I get the impression they’re not but I haven’t played them so I will not make an absolute conclusion, but they’re oppressive to fight in 12.7s and 12.3s, then move the 13.3s up too.
They’re 13.3 because the Su-27SM is 13.7.
It’s the same as the F-15C being at 13.7 because the F-15E is at 14.0.
The TWR difference between F-15C and F-15E is the same as Su-30MK2/MKK vs Su-27SM.
I think that goes back to what I said regarding the decompression. If they move everything down only to 12.3 or lower, then it’ll just compress 12.0-12.3 and make the 11.0+ range madness to play. This is the entire problem I brought up that ‘X is too weak to face Y, please move X down’ just causes more BR compression and ruins a higher percentage of the game’s balance.
I think the mindset should be if stuff with only SARH missiles are too weak to fight what a 13.3 plane is, if the Su-30 is balanced (my stance does not change based on if the Su-30 is balanced for 13.3 or 13.7), then stuff with SARH missiles shouldn’t be moved down, but rather stuff with more powerful BVR missiles and all that should be moved up. I was agreeing with the guy I was replying to that the fundamental problem with many of these BR issues is BR compression.
I am not going to pretend I know much about this range though, I only recently got into missile tier jets the several months - I got to the MiG-19PT and MiG-21F-13 way back when they first added supersonics, but really wasn’t enjoying missile gameplay so I stuck to ~8.7s and under until I decided to try again recently. So I am not going to pretend to know how balanced this stuff is, BVR missiles and stuff is new to me in terms of actually playing them. But from my experience in tanks, from my experience in jets pre-all-aspect missile tiers, almost all balance issues in the game in every gamemode has it’s roots down to BR compression and BR decompression is the best solution I believe to BR issues across the board with only few exceptions. This is why I am not taking a stance on whether the Su-30, which I do not own, is balanced or not. But fighting jets with BVR missiles with jets that only have short-range missiles is not the most fun to do, especially if those jets have good airframes and those missiles are very good and smacking you back into the hanger. Which is why my conclusion is the same as the rest of the game - BR compression is the issue, because there should be more separation between these jets with these loadouts: if jets with SARH missiles are forced to fight jets with AMRAAMs and stuff, then at least those SARH missile jets should have some advantages in some aspect in an uptier, for example jets with very good airframes but SARH missiles should be the top of those tiers and the jets with AMRAAMs they face should be jets with weaker airframes and abilities in exchange for their missile capabilities; or same with missile count, where if you get uptiered to face extremely capable missiles, it should be jets with only a very limited number of them. I think that makes it more fair and fight-able for everyone, and not where current 12.3s get uptiered to face 13.3s with like 10 super-capable missiles and good airframes…