Solving GFAB CAS issues WITHOUT removing planes

Game Discussion Arcade Battle
16

The numerical balance here can be tweaked, the air mission with a limited time, whatever that is, is always going to have a problem of the system needing to decide who has the upper hand in such limited time situation. When players spawn naturally, it’s similar to the ground - you have time to figure out your approach against the players that are already in the combat zone.

That’s a separate problem of balance whether allow it, and how to allow it. Again, it was made in a way that it’s too easy, as opposite of players having to land on the airfield, and that’s a bad thing in arcade in general. It could’ve been made in a dozen different ways, like for example you have to go back to a point in the sky at specific altitude like it was in world war, so you cannot indefinitely chase that bomber to the edge of the map, or they could simply make the autopilot land the plane for you, there could simply be an exit zone and so on and so on. But someone decide to go into the extreme and let players reload mid-air because they won’t be able to land the plane and will crash. And that was IMO a bad decision. But since we’re talking about combined arms on the ground, we have room to change this if the spawn point was about spawning your own plane as it is in naval AB and ground RB.

If you limit the planes too much, either by how often they can be used, or how useful they are, it’ll be against the principle of combined arms. What should happen is that planes are equal to tanks in the skill required to make a kill, so they should be balanced out through statistics and either BR offset or have separate BRs in ground AB based on their efficiency.

Well, here’s the problem - if you penalise any player that crashed, even when he got shot down, then people will stop using the planes, and again - that is not what gaijin wants if they want the combined arms, so such system is not going to be accepted IMO. If you don’t penalise players crashing into the ground just because someone scored the kill on them, the kamikaze problem remains. And people will do kamikaze runs for example because it’s easier to aim rockets from close range, and because cannons are more potent from point-blank range.

That makes sense, but I feel like it was done this way so the fighters in general have it significantly harder to take part in the fight, exactly because there are no other ways that the game is penalising pilots…

I’m not so sure about this is enough though. If you have a marker, often it’s really easy to quickly figure out what the vehicle is, especially if you have a big screen. It takes a bit more time for every separate vehicle to find it, and figure out if that’s the same one that you were looking at the moment before. So not having types of vehicles there is a good start, but not having markers for not-spotted vehicles is even better.

17

Wow, and I had hopes that something would actually happen for the roadmap, but no. They just pretend that they want to fix something…

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18

I agree, the system used in naval should be implemented across the board, AB & RB tanks would benefit from such a system. The respawn point system in RB is the main cause of all the anti-CAS feelings as far as I am concerned. And both ground modes could use a lot of work in the air vs ground situation(s). I do like the limited number of planes & sorties that AB has, that would seem to work better for RB as well. Just have to do something about the really poor spawning system in AB. But being able to use your own planes instead of something totally random and generally not very useful would help the plane part. The idea of having more “continuity” between the modes is very much to my liking and would seem solve a good deal of existing issues . . . just my opinion tho

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19

That’s exactly my point. And on top of that - having your own plane you care more about it and don’t take out stupid heavy bombers risking to be taken down before you do anything specific.

20

I’m not quite sure that using the naval AB system for ground battles would be that good actually.

It would be great for US, Germany and Russia, good for GB, China and France , but I think Japan, Italy, Sweden and Israel would get the short end of the stick.

It might be a good option for researching helicopters though, but I don’t think that would make the ‘CAS op’ players happy.

21

Why though? Even if they are missing aircraft at specific BRs, there’s still option to have something given to you, and also if they would be missing out there, then it means there would be motivation to give them something there. Aren’t they missing out now in the RB for the same reason?

The thing is, in RB new players that are not skilled with aiming at aircraft aren’t a threat against aircraft. In AB everyone has lead indicator on the aircraft. And it already works in naval AB that people don’t want to loose the plane too easily, they try to survive longer. And also BR offset can be there, and also you won’t be taking out have bomber because it will mean getting killed easily and not having the plane till the end of the match. Right now people won’t see it, but it once it’s there, it’ll work and we’ll have less problems with it.

22

I don’t do RB, so I don’t really care how things are done there. Wings rip off in RB, for reload one has to land… horrible mechanics…
So you would be ok with some nations having to rely mostly on random planes with stock crew and 60s reload, while others can bring fully leveled planes in ace crew that will drop several tons of bombs every 30 seconds, with several good options at just about any BR?

Again, I don’t really care about RB… As far as naval AB is concerned, it works great for me, destroy 9 ground or naval targets with either bomber or attacker are among my favorite tasks, can sometimes be done in a single game…

Having your own permanent planes would be a bit like AB squadron battles, which had caps on the ground for tanks but were usually won in the air.

23

I don’t play RB too much, but that was just to point out that this kind of problem already exists in RB.

Yes, because if it would solve the main problem with the planes, while bringing ground AB players to grind out plane trees, it would be a motivation for gaijin to add more planes to those nations that are missing out.

About the bomb reload in the air though - I would prefer it not be there anymore in the game and you would have to get back to plane spawning point at specific altitude at least to get bombs and rockets, because it would prevent indefinite climbing. But that’s the balance and maybe just option to have players hunting down bombers without time limit would prevent such situations before it would happen.

The point about RB is that the problem is similar - SPAAs in both GF AB and RB are not a deterrent against planes. But in naval somehow you start caring about your plane. I don’t know about 9 naval targets killing - balance in naval is tricky because it’s easy to kill multiple small boats, but not that easy to kill big vessels. It’s a similar problem of planes having same BRs for both ground and air battles in RB now that they are solving by splitting BRs between the modes. In ground modes it won’t be such big discrepancy between different tanks as it is in naval, so it should be easier to balance it out.

Not exactly though - having to get some significant amount of points to spawn the aircraft makes it so that some of the better players on the ground would have to leave their best tanks or get killed nad lose them before jumping into the plane and on top of that getting a second plane would not be as easy as in squadron battles. On top of that - again - naval and squadron battles have/had instant bomb fuse and reload in the air, which significantly affect your effectiveness. Imagine how many time would you be able to drop bombs with heavy or even medium bomber if you had to return over the airfield at specific altitude to reload, and how effective you would be with forced fuse.

You need to separate thinking about the plane spawn systems from specific modes, from the balancing gameplay mechanics that are added on top of them. BR offset of planes against ground vehicles in your lineup, forced bomb fuse delay, bombing aim reticle in 3rd person view, no reload in the air, turret-top machineguns working like AA guns on ships with a toggle - all that should be to our disposal to balance things out, but first step is making dying in aircraft penalised properly.

24

Basically what you want is to nerf planes to RB level, just short of making them disappear altogether, while I just want to use them to the best of their capacity, and ideally use them to help with the tank grind. For plane RP I can play air or, to some extent, naval. I actually like the current system, what with everyone starting on the same level.

It’s already bad enough that they made the ground marker disappear for fighters, though I guess that helps open top vehicles. It was fun strafing them…

25

I didn’t say that I want to nerf things to RB level and that all those should be implemented, just that there are a lot of mechanics that can be used to balance planes against ground. Planes are still a lot easier to fly in AB, so even if all those nerfing mechanics where to be implemented, it’d still be better than in RB.

Yes, but again - if plane will be yours, the removal of marker for fighters will not make sense anymore as this is just artificial attempt to force players into covering the bomber. Separate this being now in the game from potential spawn system implementation, markers may or may not be implemented.

Air mission is flawed and is unfair to everyone involved. Because it can’t really be fair, it’s based on RNG, and since it has effect on the battle, because it has to, otherwise it’d be useless and unused, such RNG affects the outcome of the battle, for one team a good uninterrupted bombing run will decide the tide of battle, for another team in another match they’ll have consecutive bombing runs that are ineffective because of being intercepted all the time.

With your own plane and unlimited time it is at least clear that it’s your skill deciding how you try to go around enemies approaching you in the air, until we get to spawn camping problem, where taking away mid-air reload of ordnance would counter this issue and issue of climbing up on top of the combat zone.

Even if we discard the approach of being able to use our own plane, and having given a random one, an unlimited time that costs a lot is better than lots of short air missions with forced RNG deciding whether you’re effective or not.

26

I quite like the idea of using the Naval AB mechanic, it works well in Naval and CAS is not a problem in either coastal or bluewater because of it… that and the effectiveness of AA is better in Naval, in ground its a joke until you start getting up to SAMs.

SPAA needs massive improvement in the game between Ranks 1 to 5, since most are guns. It is bizarre to me that I can slap a bomber in the face with dual 40mm SPAA and they tank it like a Maus in a full down tier, yet when I play a bomber in Air AB, I get my planes wings and tail blown off by a ruddy 12.7mm.

28

In RB it’s a joke because most of the people can’t aim without lead indicator, so they don’t even try. In ground AB it’s because you can strafe without caring about anything. Also note that naval spawn system has a BR offset for the planes because vessels have a lot more guns. It could be the opposite offset for ground making it so that you’re allowed to take lower BR plane than your tank lineup BR.

Also I think that on top of that, having a toggle for turret top guns to fire at approaching aircraft automatically similarly to how it works with naval vessels would do miracles because then it’d be harder for the planes to approach, and in most cases you’re visible on the map and marked anyway, so you’d toggle it off when you want to sneak around.

The thing with not being able to destroy something - that’s another problem here that the game is rigged against you doing the tasks in timely manner, and it’s just that against planes you don’t have a repeatable scenario to be 100% you’re cheated by the game, so it’s even more rampant. It won’t change until we play with our own planes.

29

Ive been playing a while. Im into playing random vehicles
I like assisting teamates.
GAB. Plane suicide and an over abundance of planes screams that Gaijin is at a crossroads.

  1. Maps are way to small. And the constant same spawn locations are eyeroll boring.
  2. planes suicide killing takes away from the cat and mouse fun of ground combat.
  3. in many matches there are simply too many planes.
  4. way to many high yield bombers
  5. planes spawning behind enemy lines is nonsense
  6. enemy planes spawning behind friendly planes is also nonsense

CHANGES NEEDED:

  1. Planes count as ingame deaths
  2. add 1 or 2 more spawns inkeeping with plane deaths
  3. get rid of high yield bombers GAB
  4. fighter deaths count as .5 deaths
  5. light tanks/armored cars/ SPAA count as .5 deaths
  6. get rid of capture points and use a type of map control. Map area control of sorts
  7. relax on the one shot kills. Allow some room for “luck”
  8. make mord structures “destroyable”
  9. bring in more weather obstacles / and night day scenarios
  10. add an airport spawn point with actual fixed AA guns
  11. Infantry and motorized/ mechanized infantry squads would be awesome, but wishful thinking.

Thoughts?

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30

Agreed, planes should spawn on their side of the battlefield.

No, means that they would never be used. I would just take out 2-3 more tanks and instead use that to get more kills + win the match.

Somewhat agree, though I do not want my bombers only having 50 or 100lb bombs. Ideally loadouts just need a heavy lookover.

But like.
Why.
This is unnecessary, just give LTs some buffs.

Eh, no. As another game mode though, sure.

Integral to how WT works and inconsistency is bad, so no.

Agreed.

No point, given how AB aircraft work.

1 Like
31

Finally constructive comment. Thanks
This is the kind of back and forth needed.
Now if Gaijin could get onboard lol

32

Planes need to be your own for unlimited time like in RB if this were to happen. Nobody will risk using planes if they have limited time and enemies spawning right on top of you when you take out the bomber for a bombing run. Penalising players in randomised and time-constrained scenario is a no-go and will effectively make people not use the planes at all. In RB it’s at least fair that if you see someone from far away in fighter plane, you can try to run away or evade etc. In AB you don’t have time or often even chance to do that.

I tried suggesting that since we have exception to the rule where dying in plane isn’t penalised, then maybe if this plane is killing you in a vehicle, you shouldn’t be penalised for that. The idea was that for the amount of damage you’ve taken from the ground vehicles in proportion to the damage from the bombs/rockets/plane cannons, you’d get a time cooldown for when you can bring back that vehicle as long as it was actually killed by the plane or crippled by the plane and killed off after that. But the suggestion was removed by the mods because for them it created a situation where deaths are not counted equally which is funny since you’re not penalised for crashing your plane.

Getting rid of them is a bid overkill, but a system where spawn point locations and capture point location are randomised would make it not so repeatable.

If we’d have our own planes to use for unlimited time, then I’d like the airfields to be close with just a requirement to pass over them at low altitude for repair and reload, but take away in-air reload of bombs and guns in AB. and make it so that enemy planes get definitely shot down once they get close to your airfield so it’s actually safe to do that thing. It would mean that if you want to camp up high, you better conserve your ammo. If you try to play aircraft in RB and run back to reload, you’ll see that it takes time to do that and it would balance out the guys that use bombers all the time and get back to their tanks.

33

At the very least:

  • lost planes, lose tickets;
  • no spawns from behind;
  • like the idea of interceptors from the front;
  • re-balance load-outs, no 28X500lbs or 16 hellfires / PARS3, etc;
  • re-balance helicopters, the same Tiger is a full BR lower in AB then RB;
  • rework flares and lock-on range on helicopters;
  • CAS can still do stuff after kill message and reward;
34

I really don’t find CAS to be much of an issue in GAB. The limited time people have in planes basically means that they function as a “killstreak reward”. Players get a short-term burst of power from the aircraft and then they’re forced back into their tanks. In GAB, CAS does not decide the outcome of the match, ground vehicle gameplay does.

Making them into a spawn will introduce all of the problems from GRB into GAB, which is a bad idea to say the least.

35

Require the player to cap a zone first or get intelligence awards as an additional thing before spawning any sort of aircraft.

36

With it working as currently where the RNG can rig the odds of you doing anything because you have limited time to do anything before you get shot at in a bomber, it’s not acceptable to penalise player for this. And it would be really hard to implement something that figures out if it’s player’s fault for crashing into the ground when he’s also being shot at which affects flight mechanics when damaged. Take a look at all the situations where game is counting your damage plane as a kill despite you being able to still fly, which gets really cool to try and land such heavily damaged plane at airfield, but game’s already counting it as not possible to control and forces you to bail out. There’s no correct solution for fairly penalising players for using planes other than making the conditions fair which means the same setup as in ground RB or naval AB where plane is your normal vehicle to play until you get killed.

Ground RB has proper setup for this which makes some equipment increase the point cost significantly for the plane. Good example is that you can rush the point and cap it on 3.7 and be able to jump into XA-38, but you cannot do this with armor piercing rounds in its 75mm gun, but you need to kill something and do some assist on top of that to get enough points to effectively use the gun, at which point it means you probably have to pick a vehicle that can survive some combat a bit and maybe it’s not worth bailing out right away. It would make a lot of sense to be able to pick out a heavy bomber with some semi-useless loadout in contrast to how unmaneuverable it is and need a lot of points to actually take out a loudout that makes sense to use that thing, because it means either you have cover to be able to go drop bombs and get back safely, or you’re going to waste that big amount of points in attempt to change the tide of battle while knowing you will loose the plane after that.

The planes are a problem to balance because they are not idiot-proof to use. This causes a lot of people trying to use them to lower down their stats. First the helicopters should be made in a way that you can easily shoot with them, then let’s get back to a discussion of points required to take out advanced ordnance - it’s already the same thing in ground RB where you can start with early helis, but in most of them except for some soviet ones, you can’t pick out a good guided missile from the start.

So exactly the same approach as GFRB and naval - a spawn point system and treat it as normal spawned unit and not a limited-time power up.

Yeah, until it actually does. The new “reward” system makes it so that I sometimes can do 3 bombing runs in a row. I think this works like this: if you make more than enough kills for the heavy bomber while playing the objective, there’s higher chance you’ll get the 3 air mission points after surviving your initial flight. And if you manage to make 3 kills or more with bombs and survive, or something similar, it also has high chance of you getting those 3 points for another air mission. I’ve had many matches where if I was the first one to pick out a bomber thanks to be being able to do like 4-5 early kills with VFW (I do 3 kills and kill one or two more during the count down to air mission), I do a bombing run that is successful and I get another one, and if in another one I also kill a lot, I get the third one. These things happen.

And also this means I’m denying the opposite team the opportunity to use the bomber. And not only that, but playing in a squad you are able to know when the current air mission finishes to be ready to have higher chance of taking the bomber for yourself and denying it the opposite team. While playing in squads of 3 or 4 we often do this that there’s always someone from our team doing the bombing run.

The problem of planes in RB is that there’s no lead indicator and you have to spend a lot of time playing SPAA to actually start doing something. This means a lot of people don’t bother, so if you want to play tank, there’s high chance that SPAAs start popping out only after a lot of people are pounded with bombs out of their spawn points so they are forced to take out the SPAA. Give players both in SPAAs and in planes the lead indicator that’s in AB, and it’ll be a completely different dynamic in those battles. The problems don’t translate 1:1 from GFAB exactly because of the fact that the conditions in those modes are different.

It may work against campers, but it makes the conditions complicated to show how these work. Look at how they are unable to make an indicator that easily shows how much more points you need to be able to get nuke. And now you want to add something the the base requirement - they definitely won’t go for it.

And while it sounds interesting, this might mean that now you are penalising the players that play SPGs and don’t charge the objective, so it’s another point against going this route.