Small maps, too many players, and other issues with Air RB

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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11

I’ve been playing air sim for half a year now with mouse & keyboard (I share my control setup here: How to execute the FORWARD SLIP to land propeller planes at 500 km/h! Fast landings, easy aborts - #4 by _Mr_Fahrenheit ) and no head tracking.

I’m not the best player, but I can get regular kills and do well if the weather/visibility isn’t terrible. I do wish to note - it took me over 24 hours of mindful flying and practice to reach the point where I could beat people in dogfights with no previous combat flight sim (but a decent bit of civillian flight sim) experience.

You absolutely do not need VR for Air sim EC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf23CiNK4Z0

Now, for the OP

In my experience comparing ASB to ARB, the issue is less with absolute map size. This is in perspective of propeller aircraft, gunfighter jets and dogfight missile jets (up to F8U-2).

The issue is with OBJECTIVE DESIGN.

Demonstration:

Vietnam in ARB Map size: 128x128 km, 1 grid square is 16x16 km (rounded down).

Smolensk in ASB Map size: 128x128 km, 1 grid square is 16x16 km (rounded down):
image

Do you see the difference inherent in the objective design? (a few moments ago there was an air superiority objective where I was that spawned a ground battle. Over 50 kilometers away as we were engaging the objective, there was a bomber and people intercepting said bomber. Sometimes, you end up with A.I targets on the far end of the map as the objective RNG rolls them, or “arrows” likely spread wide apart.)

Smolensk is the same size as vietnam, except rather than concentrate every objective in a roughly 40 kilometer wide frontline (wasting 2/3 of the entire map), the objectives are spread widely across the entire battlefield with multiple airfields to spawn from.

This means we are actually using the full 128x128 battlefield rather than just a 40 kilometer wide column/row.

My solutions as thus:

  1. Create at least THREE, ideally MORE objectives that are placed roughly equidistant from one parallel edge to the other. These Three or MORE objectives must NOT be able to be ignored, their completion MUST impact either the chance to win or the flow of battle. They MUST be equally important.
  2. Spawn players FORCIBLY across 3 or MORE runways placed equidistant along the map’s edge, creating small squadrons of 5x5x5 players who will naturally fly towards their closest objective to score and find enemies, thus reducing player density without changing playercount or map size or time to fly.
4 Likes
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Is it? According to my data it’s just 64x64, but that may be outdated…

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image

From the wiki. Dunno if ARB Smolensk is the same size, but the comparison is more “128x128 EC map in ARB feels far smaller than 128x128 EC map in ASB.” Could’ve compared vietnam to vietnam, but don’t have a screenshot of that one on hand :v.

1 Like
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Funny enough…

I played a bit of sim, and i did try it in VR a few times.
Let me tell you, its much easier to check your rear on PC, and not nearly as neck-breaking.

However my hardware is a bit limiting ,so i cant say i had the “True VR Experience”

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I’m against that, as i think that:
Spreading teams in 2 group of 8 people (no choice of airfield) - on Enlarged EC maps spawning from 2 different airfield (per team) would largely contribute in a upgraded gameplay:
Spreading players accross the map
Having the same potential amount of ennemy to kill

Also,… and i still regret this, Gaijin still didn’t made specifics Jet Era Tutorials for people to learn how to play/dodge missile - making 80% of every team to die within seconds.

2 Likes
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I think you’re right: Checked it in Google maps, and from Smolensk to Rudnja it’s about 70km by car, and on the WT map a bit less than half the map width, so 128x128 seems correct.

I actually never tried Smolensk in Sim in High Tier, guess I’ll have to do that… = )

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Haha, yeah, proper warm up and mobilisation of neck and shoulders is important in VR. Talking with fighter pilots about this they just grinned and nodded knowingly… ;-)

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Having more airfields to spawn from (forced) is a solution I didn’t think of. It definitely sounds good, I’d support that.

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You really are the champion of terrible takes.

The small Afghanistan maps spawns both team at Aim120 range from each other. It’s hidden by the mountains, but you can climb vertically and toss an AMRAAM to the enemy spawn. It’s a ridiculous map for top tier, each side barely has the time to reach mach 1 before the missiles starts flying at pitbull range.

16v16 is not playable. It’s manageable if you’re a good enough because you can easily rack a few kills, as 90% of the playerbase is simply awful at piloting. It’s not fun however and doesn’t reward skill beyond basic positioning and knowing what each missiles can do.

We need Air RB EC. We needed it for five years or more.

5 Likes
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Me pointing towards ARB EC

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@ShinGetsu
Afghanistan was restricted, and I for one am glad it was brought back. It however is an exception to the rule, and was only brought back because players demanded it, it’s a nice break from the massive maps that are the rest of the rotation.

I get that you’re the best WT player ever in your mind, but 16v16 is what makes the game playable for those of us that are good to average.
Air RB has always been about positioning and awareness, which are both skillsets; just like real life.

But yeah, keep claiming that the good in the WT community that represents my views more than not are all bad take sayers.

@Creastroy
Air RB EC requires a new AI so demand WT makes a new AI, and that would still be 16v16 if not more.

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If you try and use positioning at prop and early jet tier, the match will be over because every game is a steeamroll for one side. If you use it at top tier, the same thing will happen.

16v16 has made air RB way worse than it used to. It is an assault on your senses, and it doesn’t reward skillfull play. Every 1v1 ends in a 3rd party at some point, and it doesn’t allow for prolonged fights. Better players should not have to have a worse experience because worse players want something that gives them easy kills.

It does not. Just fiddle with the marker system, and copy+paste SB EC with RB controls.

1 Like
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SB EC is broken and needs new AI as well. There’s a reason Pyrenees doesn’t have an EC version yet. Gaijin’s clearly waiting for new AI.

Stop demanding trash when you can demand good instead.

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It would be better than the trash that currently is 16v16 ARB.

Because Gaijin doesn’t care about sim?

1 Like
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Imagine being such a child that you think accusing someone of being a woman is a gotcha.

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Remove top tier markers.

2 Likes
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Tbh, I wouldn’t mind bigger maps. 250km^2 would make things like Falklands or Cyprus very cool and possible. Also, imagine the possibilities for servers that do community events.

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After discussing the air RB issue with some people, I think that what would help the most is having several (at least 2, preferably 3) airfields on each side to spawn from. Maybe such large maps wouldn’t even be necessary YET.

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Necessary? No.
Cool? Yes!!

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Problem is without what @Shplendyt suggests, no matter how big one makes a map it will still feel small where it matters - which is the size of area where legitimate player interaction occurs.

Vietnam in ARB and ASB is the same size - 128 x128 km. By every measure of your request, it’s a pretty big map.

However, in ARB it does not feel that way. Is it because when I play ARB, it’s in jets while I do ASB in props? Maybe. But I think much more impactful is the fact that if you look closely in ARB - Vietnam’s ground targets are spread across some 3 gridsquares wide and the bases too are spread within that tight column, maybe reaching 4 squares across.

To add to this, airfields spawn within this 3-4 square wide column of relevant objectives and the shortest path from AF to AF coincides with the objectives so despite having 128 km width to work with, you narrow it down to just 3x16 (48) to 4x16 (64).

This seriously impacts player density and leads to furball formation.

If you try to be smart and use the entirety of the map and say, try to fly behind the enemy team to flank? Well - by the time you arrive, even if you had only taken a mere 3 minute long detour - the match is already over because the average player takes the most straightforward and intuitive solution to the problem presented.

What’s the solution?

Multiple airfields that are spread equidistant across the map with forced spawn distribution (to prevent everyone spawning in the middle) that respects squads and tries to balance aircraft types. This could be 3 airfields at jet tiers and 4 at prop tiers.

However, even with forced spawning you’ll still have the issue that players will just fly to the middle and it devolves back into a furball again and due to this, you’re effectively punishing those who need to fly longer.

As such, we need further development in introducing pivotal, game-changing and provitable objectives that reward first dealing with the flanks before joining the center of the map again.

In prop tier sim, we kind of have this with A.I bomber/attacker/survey intercepts giving good rewards alongside the “Air superiority point”, spreading out even more populated lobbies and this is before considering that ground battles appear in multiple grid squares (often disconnected) and minibases being scattered along the entire width.

It’s not perfect, and once you reach jet tiers the a.i gets broken flight models leading to supersonic sabres flying like dolphins (Community Bug Reporting System), outrageous damage models (Community Bug Reporting System) and not to be forgotten - after korean jet tiers they award miniscule rewards making them not worth doing. Ground targets also suffer from BR differences causing certain ECn brackets to get horrible rewards (For example you can encounter LekPz in 4.7-5.7 lobbies, and you’re still bombing LekPz in 9.3-10.3 lobbies)

But it does make a difference at prop brackets in diluting the player density, making even 64x64 km maps feel bigger than ARB’s copy-pasted EC maps.