I really think thats a huge key factor. Without that I’m not sure this shows anything other then more games made. Im assuming this also includes split lobbies, which have absolutely been more common in the past year.
Though even still this is all inferring.
What I can say without a doubt is the prime complaint every top tier I’ve played, comming from random players not viewers of mine, is they are no longer playing top tier due to this meta or are playing much less of it. It absolutely is having an effect, but it’s impossible to show with numbers since those are purely up to interpretation.
Could be just the loud vocal minority, but it is a noticeable trend just from ingame chats.
I’m not saying iron dome meta isn’t a factor that can push players away, just pointing out that stating the relationship of causality is a conjecture at best and outright wrong at worst.
Please look at all of the planes that red team has in Feb. 2025 in the 14.0 - 14.7 bracket. There are literally 0 Russian planes in your Feb.2025 sample size which is obviously going to skew results.
then get better sources for me to nibble on. You’re the one that brought up statshark and asked to segregate 14.0-14.7 instead of what I did which was 13.7-14.7 specifically to account for this
It is not hard to figure out what top tier looked like a year ago based on the old brackets and what planes were in the game. Just by not counting Su-27SM and Su-34 in your figures is leaving out around 46,000 games in your figure. It is only recently that there has been a 13.7 or 13.3 bracket.
This is why I made comparisons amongst Eurofighters since players with those tech trees have had the lowest number of additions that would cause them to migrate to other planes in their own tech tree.
Well if you want me to crunch numbers before 14.7 was added then you’re gonna need to provide me the numbers.
you literally told me to segregate actual top tier from 14.0 and lower. I did exactly what you asked. 14.0 to 14.7
Your eurofighter example doesn’t do much. even a insanely popular plane like the bf-109 f4 is trending down. you cant extrapolate this into a causal conclusion
the point is, you can’t say “iron dome killed top tier”. There is no data to back up that claim, if anything, the existing data supports the opposite conclusion.
I think if you looked at the average kills per game that more experienced top tier players get or the amount of time they are spending in alternate tiers that you would see a pretty clear picture.
I think this makes it a little more clear. In the same period of time last year you a good bit more games and those games likely had more activity in them.
vs
If you look at kills per game as a metric of activity then you were averaging around 15 kills per game last year vs 9 kills per game in the first 3 months this year.
It shows that experienced players are changing their preferences due to it. It also supports claim that the average game has a much shorter lifespan than before which will also cause an increase in number of games played.
I also started streaming regularly last year, my performance has noticeabley dropped just from this alone. Having to deal with teams regularly populated with actually competent players who know my playstyle makes my performance worse.
Not to mention ive started playing ground sim withing the past few months. These matches are obviously much quicker and relatively lower kill per game.
Lots of nuance with these statistics, which is why alone I don’t think they really prove anything.
I agree with you the Iron dome is absolutely having an effect. Though I don’t think this necessarily proves it.
But I don’t think this really needs to be proven with statistics. Literally just playing the game is enough. Read the chats, ask the players. Countless people in the 14.0 and bellow brackets talking about how mich better it is without constant MCM. And the opposite in toptier with constant ingame discussion about players either thinking about or actively stopping their participation in top tier sim.
I’m wondering if the devs have any future plans that relate to this thread. Or at the very least is there discussion/consideration going on regarding the future of missile on missile combat mechanics?
Shooting down other player’s missiles clearly seems intentional, but I’m curious if the success rate for this is what they consider to be ideal. Of course munitions being shot down is historical, given the conditions are correct for these things to happen (ie. large enough RCS to be seen, and close enough proxy range to detonate). But are there any plans for future developments like more accurate/detailed RCS values for each munition, or even better modeling of explosion fragmentation?
For example, it would make sense for very large munitions like GBU-64s, AIM-54 Phoenixes, Grom-2s, etc. to have large enough RCSs to reliably appear on a missile seeker’s radar. But smaller missiles like AIM-120s, R-77s, AIM-9s, etc. seem as though they should have considerably less of a chance to get seen by a missile seeker’s radar. There has also been discussion here regarding explosion shapes that might be interesting.
Ultimately, this comes down to gameplay as well. Adding a very reliable way to hard counter incoming munitions (specifically AAMs) generates an environment of Fox-3 spam. This dumbs down gameplay and removes tactical elements for normal engagements.
