Something needs to be done about "First Spawn CAS"

Game Discussion Simulator Battle
1

Do I even need to explain the problem? Simulator games are unplayable because of this plague that is called First-spawn CAS that ONLY exists in Ground Simulator games.

This is a huge problem, because it doesn’t limit the number of players who can first spawn CAS. What happens next is that you have one team (or both teams) spawn more planes/helicopters than tanks, leaving barely any ground targets to engage, and the battle turns into a Ground Targets Simulator, rather than Ground Battle Simulator.

Incase it’s not clear why this is a huge problem:

  1. Current system allows players to ONLY play air, regardless of whether or not they have a ground unit in their lineup. Even if you don’t have a vehicle that is in the allowed vehicles list, all you have to do is to have any ground vehicle in the lineup to be allowed to participate in GSB games.) If they die, they can either jump into another plane or bring a backup, without even having to play a ground vehicle.

  2. First spawn CAS leaves less ground targets to engage for either teams, defeating the point of a “ground” battle. In many games I happened to be the only tanker in the game along with 3 more players, same on the enemy team (after I checked the replay). All 4 of us died to CAS immediately, and did so again after respawning.

  3. Following up on point number 2, first spawn CAS, especially in higher tiers where fast jets exist, catches tankers in their most vulnerable moment where they’re still moving into position or getting a capture. You don’t dare get a capture point, because within the next few seconds you’re gonna get a GBU, JDAM, AGM or dumb bomb on your head.

  4. Playing CAS in GSB, other than WW2 prop planes (to some extent), is a handheld experience. It doesn’t take a genius to fly in damping mode and use a targeting pod to drop guided or unguided ordnance on the battlefield, be it helicopter or plane.
    Certain planes that have defensive gunners (such as the Tu-2, and almost all old prop bombers) can simply use the defensive gunner view to scout the entire battlefield and easily spot targets to bomb, defeating the entire point of forced cockpit view.

  5. In higher tiers, not even the most advanced SPAA can kill enemy CAS planes which is also an issue that Gaijin already acknowledged, but in GSB, the problem is much worse. No matter how many SPAA you have in the team, all the enemy has to do is to first spawn CAS, put a point of interest marker on the enemy spawn, go up, fire AGMs, go low, rearm, rinse and repeat. SPAAs can’t even reach that distance to engage them.
    It’s the same deal with fire and forget helicopters like Eurocopter Tiger. They can just hide behind an obstacle, peek out, fire all AGMs and go back to rearm unharmed (literally that’s how I spaded the Tiger UHT).

  6. CAS Players don’t have to do anything to earn it, they can just jump into a plane/helicopter and farm the battlefield. It turns GSB into an event farmer for CAS players, because they get double the amount of score and rewards that a tanker would get from a kill, and you get so little reward and score for killing them.

Currently, GSB games are played like this:

8_2 and 8_2_2: spawn, try to get a capture, then get bombed by an enemy bomber with a bomb so large that can’t be dodged. Now this by itself isn’t a problem, the problem is that the bombing happens in the first minute of the game. In 8_2_2 it’s a worse problem because that’s the jet era, and Radarless SPAAs simply can’t keep up.

9_2: Hinds, Z-11s, BOs, Lahatuts, all of these can easily outrange and dodge gun SPAAs, as there are no guided SPAAs in this bracket, and guess what, you can spawn them twice considering how low their SP cost is.

10_2: Not only Gaijin didn’t fix the problems of this bracket, they decided to double down on making it worse with the introduction of MiG-27s, Phantoms and Su-22/17s. I have no idea what the snail was thinking when adding these planes to this bracket, because right now, you get mavericks and Kh-29s in your face before you make your way to the capture point. Not to mention the Z-19s, YAH-64 and AH-1Ws that are waiting there to jump on you with missiles that have 8 KM of range right from the start.

11_2: Probably the most unplayable bracket at the moment. Same problems as 10_2 just magintudes and magnitudes worse.

Ground Simulator Battles is probably the most fun and challenging game mode in the game, but it has become unplayable because of negligence. A lot of players don’t play simulator for this exact reason, no one likes to get an AGM or bomb in the face just moments after spawning. It doesn’t make for a fun experience, and it only gets fun when you’re lucky and you end up playing with a group of tankers unintruppted by first spawn CAS players.

My own suggestion is to have a separate spawn point system for all aircraft in the game. Whenever you get kills, you get aircraft spawn points, which you can use to spawn helis and planes (something similar to EC Naval, where you can’t spawn battleship from get go, and need to acquire a specific amount of spawn points). This will keep the same spawn system in GSB (3 tank spawn system) while allowing you to spawn air as a reward for good performance or at least after doing something.
But honestly at this point I’m open to any idea that will fix this disease.

Something needs to be done about this, Gaijin, Please, stop neglecting Ground SB and make the changes needed to make this game mode more playable, to attract more players to it.

9 Likes
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I completely agree. Sim mechanics might have worked a few years ago, but the game has changed tremendously, especially in the 6_1+ brackets where CAS is already reached and engaging on the battlefield when the tanks have barely capped the first point.
The first spawn CAS mechanic is outdated and needs to be addressed ASAP. Whether it’s limiting aircraft spawn for the first 5 minutes of battle, implementing a separate spawn point system, or another solution Gaijin can come up with, something needs to be done.

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Expecting Gajin to fix simulator mode is wild.

4 Likes
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Honestly, Simulator mode is a wasted potential. It could become a selling point of the game as well. What we need is a proper tutorial for players on how to play the mode, to introduce the challenges of GSB, such as sight parallax of gunner sight as well as friendly fire and learning how to IFF.

If it receives the necessary changes to make it more playable it could attract more players towards the game AND the game mode.

1 Like
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While limiting CAS is something I will always approve, I can provide one argument in favour of first-spawn CAS:

It’s simulator mode.

And simulator mode means that for air combat - many players will be using headtracking, VR, HOTAS, pedals and the whole shebang. I make do with my scuffed set-up, but I think most other pilots I know go all-out.

I can’t imagine setting all that up, then awkwardly swapping back to tank controls, then swapping back to comfortable piloting position to be something people look forward to.

Having a maximum amount of planes in the air is a good idea, but I think it’s worth keeping first-spawn planes due to the friction between changing from ground to air combat.

As caveat, I am a propeller plane player so idk if having proper rudder controls and all that make that much of a difference for jet fights.

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What kind of argument even is that? “Air” simulator games exist for that exact reason.
Just because someone spent money on a VR/HOTAS setup (which is more of an enhancement than a necessity) doesn’t mean the entire game mode should be tailored for “their” experience. It shouldn’t come at the cost of making this game mode unplayable. I’m not saying CAS should be removed, I’m saying “first spawn” CAS should be removed for the reasons I mentioned in the first post.

2 Likes
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Something I noticed in a recent sim battle was that there were a few level 15s first death leaving after dying in their a-10’s. Sad that this mode is plagued by wallet warriors as well

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Helicopters should spawn with engines off just like aircraft. That would solve a lot of player frustration alone, as jets would already be in the air to suppress and ground vehicles would have spread throughout the map so ripple-fired beam riding ATGMs don’t thread through vehicles trying to clear spawn.

Another thing is that most of the ground battle zones in GSB are too small for what these vehicles should be engaging at. The largest maps for the ground vehicles are only 12.96km2 in map scale area, when these steel behemoths should be rolling in battle areas that encompass 25km2 of area at minimum… Or better yet, since these are sim matches, have player controlled ground vehicles on the full-sized Sim Air EC maps!

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I like this idea purely on the basis of playing France and wanting a place where I can use unstabilized vehicles at long ranges

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I have made a rant thread on the fairness of SPAA at BR for those who actually bring SPAA (mainly affects top tier when you have IR that can only lock sub 3km or systems like the roland 3 when the enemy jet is 11Km out).

Same time - CAS should not be limited from play as someone has actually gone and grinded out air, got half decent at it and use it effectively.

For me personally - the best solution that we have found so far while we wait for improved SPAA on some tech trees is to manage our squad if we go in with a 4 stack. So what we do -

Co-ordinate our spawns. If we are in a 4 Stack : 1 Fighter, 1 SPAA, 2 MBT as first spawn or in a 2 man : 1 Fighter & 1 SPAA as first spawn. We look at what the team spawns with and then react accordingly. If someone else does bring SPAA we will leave the SPAA for later and hope the team mate looks up.

TLDR : We treat it as a team based game.

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Same kind of argument OP made. You want to eliminate an actual playstyle from other players whom already got set up to do just this. Can you not see that being an issue in itself. And quit acting like he is are hard to kill that spawn first. They have to get close it is to do anything in which your turret MGs must them. You should give it a go one match to see.

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I can’t speak for high tiers because I don’t play the high tier lobbies but world war two CAS in sim is fine. I’ve played on both sides, it’s not difficult for pilots but neither is it difficult for SPAA and others to shoot them down.

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I dont play a lot of ground sim, but i do notice that if you get into a game where half your team is in planes its basically over as you have no ground presence. A lot of players arent even playing CAS but just looking for sim dogfights without having to fly around a giant map in EC looking for them.

Skill floor for CAS in sim is also raised exponetially higher than RB, most of these guys basically do jack nothing all match. For every 1 guy that shuts down a lobby on CAS there is 100 that can barely fly let alone have a similar impact for the team they would have in a tank.

Id rather see matches qued either as ground or cas and split the teams 12+4. But then que times for cas would be horrendous (oh no…). So at least you avoid the situation where your team has significantly less prescense on the ground.

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I wish it was the same in Ground RB, I’d love to be able to spawn a fighter at the beginning of the match and just wait to shoot down CAS planes, or make the other team sacrifice a tank to be able to contest the air space.

1 Like
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SPAAs clears up the fixed wings and could do nothing to heli wiggling around
while jets … the ns23 vs tiny heli … bruhhh

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As CAP its diffulcult against good heli players, they have auto aim canons, a2a missiles that are usually better than what they face, impervious to IR and radar missiles most times, so you have to catch them off guard and kill with guns, gettimg close to them is usually MAD if they are paying attention. Difference between a good heli player and average is massive.

Had a few matches recently around 10.0 were these monsters get a sub 2 min heli spawn because light vics NEED airstrike for some reason and they shut the game down completely.

And for some reason AGM loadouts for helis are incredibly cheap to spawn even cheaper than CAP.

The best counter to helis is AGMs, but taking these increases sp cost significantly.

2 Likes
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Ye
They don’t even want to fix GRB…

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Yeah I’m pretty sure I can MG my way out of this:
image

Or heck, even the Pe-8 that gets an airspawn at 2km above ground at the very beginning, vaporizing all players that dare get a capture point:
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Pffff. who am I kidding!!! I could just MG the F-16 or A-10 that launched this:
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Or I’ll do you one better, how about MGing this:
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or this:
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Yeah I definitely should’ve used my machinegun turret, silly me, I forgot to set the keybind for it!

Anyway, Like I said, the problem isn’t CAS itself. It’s being able to spawn CAS from get go. I’m not exactly the most skilled pilot, but even I can get at least 5-6 kills with something like a Tu-2 or a Tiger UHT or YAH-64.

By all means tripple the amount of rewards that you get from a kill in a CAS plane, just remove the first spawn CAS system.

Again, by all means, if they’re hardcore CAS players, be my guest, erase the entire lobby. But I’d like to be able to do something within the first 3 minutes of a game other than dying to a guy who spawned a heli or plane, who is just gonna spawn another one when they die, and then later get in a tank because CAS spawn cost is so damn cheap. I should also repeat that when half of the team spawn a plane or heli from get go, that means there’s less targets to engage on the ground, or in other words, you’re just food for whatever that’s in the sky because there’s barely anything on the ground to engage.

I posted this screenshot in another thread, but it’s worth posting it here again:

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image1917×373 171 KB

That’s exactly what the problem is. AIr sim rewards suck, and instead people try to get the rewards that they’re looking for in ground sim, where they also have access to ground targets that can barely fight back. Add in the fact that the maps are much smaller than EC maps, and you get yourself an easy hunting ground.u

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Ya I was doing the same thing tbh, i asked myself why fly around in props in an ASB EC maps for like 5-10 minutes looking for someone that isnt just a bot or base bombers when i can que ground sim and get constant action.