The overpowered annoying unfair plane and tank enemy AI in Assault Ground Arcade and possible solutions

(i hate that this post has to be so long but i’ve been playing the game mode for so long that i have to speak out to try and get changes since i really love this game and want to have a good time)

I have been playing Assault Ground Arcade for hundreds of hours and have been in all BRs and experienced all the maps, this is a compiled list of problems that cause us to lose 99% of the time which costs us silver due to repair costs and makes the overall gaming experience on the game utter garbage. After playing Custom Battles a ton i find that it would be nice if the ground battles from custom battles would be in Assault Ground cycle through the tons of maps and game modes and the AI from custom battles are way way better than assault ground and are not at all cancerous and annoying since their accuracy is more realistic and not super perfect hits nonstop they also have to stop to put out fires. Planes should be a player only thing and same with SPAA, cause yes i get there is SPAA but no one uses it and those who do use them as tank destroyers anyways and helicopters with only rockets can’t do anything due to AI SPAA. I have been unfairly targeted over and over and over by the same plane despite there being plenty of other players to go after and i really really hate the planes. it is too difficult to kill planes with SPAA and getting punished by it by being killed by them after theyre already dead is stupid they should not be allowed to use their weapons when they are destroyed.

  • Planes badly need to be nerfed in assault ground and should not be allowed to carry 1000lb bombs and tons of rockets, it is entirely ridiculous especially when you’re playing SPAA and you kill the plane and it says AIRCRAFT DESTROYED and they still nail you with laser accuracy bombs or rockets instant killing you causing you to have to respawn out in the open where you will be spawn killed by the terminator tanks. They also fly at annoying high altitudes and in annoying patterns making it extremely hard to deal with them with lower tier SPAA and even tanks like the AMX 13 DCA 40 despite having a very powerful 40mm gun unless they are swooping down to attack which just results in them getting a kill before they are killed every single time. I can’t even drive my Somau SM that i spent golden eagles on because i’ll get into assault ground battles and just get unfairly targeted over and over by unfair planes 1 hit killing my tank despite me playing assault ground to face enemy tanks because no one uses SPAA and those who do try to be a tank destroyer. The planes on Japan map at 3.7 are so broken that they don’t even do anything and it actually is so nice being able to fight tanks in a ground battle mode without having to deal with dumb unfair planes constantly spamming rockets and bombs with laser accuracy. I will list some battle ratings at where the planes are absolutely just ridiculous:

  • Maginot Line at 1.0 - 2.3 and even at 2.7 - 3.7 the planes are broken fly at super high altitude and are impossible to kill even with player spawned planes and constantly drop 1000lb bombs insta killing people

  • Japan at 2.7 - 3.7 the planes are useless and do absolutely nothing they do not engage players at all and are unkillable due to flight patterns

  • All maps the planes fly in a giant circle super high after spawning a few times then try to swarm players making it a nightmare to deal with them as SPAA if your team even has SPAA which never really happens and you end up just getting spammed by rockets and killed over and over by a single plane just because it wants to.

(In summary for the planes i feel they need to be stripped of their bombs and rockets and should be forced to fly at low altitude at 1km off the ground and can only use guns that are very inaccurate and fire HE only because this is Assault GROUND and i play it to face GROUND vehicles and considering how accurate all the AI is their firerate should be heavily reduced because even if you strip the bombs and rockets they’ll still hit you with perfect accuracy.)

  • Tanks As for the tanks here are a few vehicles that you know are unfair and annoying for sure but torture players with unfairly, they are ungodly accurate terminators that can hit you at 2km with laser accuracy while driving at insane speed on uneven surfaces. Tank AI do not respond to fires when they are set on fire they just auto put it out and don’t have to stop and fire fight like players do allowing them to get to the base and bleed tickets, they also abuse high tier rounds nonstop which is super annoying that the French Sherman jumbo is spamming T45 APCR shot which makes it a nightmare to even deal with them using the Churchill VII that includes all other Sherman models for some reason. Spamming players with premium tanks at 2.7 - 3.7 is dumb as well as having to deal with Heavy Tank No 6 and when you bought Chi-Nu II and you can’t even face Chi-Nu II with yours because it’s a 4.3 and gets up tiered past 3.7 which makes no sense. All tanks we face in assault ground should be the same tier that the player can use, it’s super annoying i can’t face Churchill III with a Churchill VII or Chi-Nu II because they are just barely a high enough BR to get thrown against Tigers and Panthers which too are too high tier to be at 4.0 - 5.0. You can’t drive Tiger II at the BR Tiger II appears in and it gets so highly up tiered it might as well be useless. The max BR for tanks should apply to the AI as well, i really hate that i can’t face a lot of the top tier tanks with that very tank because players get up tiered but not the AI.

  • At 2.3 we should not being seeing Valentine II, it is a 2.7 and should be facing 2.7s and 3.7s who have guns that can deal with them either that or lower Matilda III, Valentine II, and Churchill I to 2.3 to combat them. Sinai is a dumb map and im sick of facing Valentines i have no hope of damaging since Italian guns are trash at low tier and you expect me to grind to even get rounds that can do damage to them, most tech trees can’t damage the valentine at all it’s super annoying.

  • At 4.0 to 5.0 the French Sherman Jumbo is extremely ridiculous it’s been moved to 5.3 so it shouldn’t be facing 5.0s and after the nerfs to APDS Challenger II can’t even deal with them in the front nor can any tank making them a super annoying nightmare to deal with

  • Captured Churchill and Churchill III in general at 3.7 BR for players is unfair, it is a 4.0 and extremely annoying to deal with. tie in to that the Canadian M4A5 “RAM II” which is also extremely annoying to deal with and you spam spawn them. You can’t even fight Churchill III with Churchill III if you own it because it’s a 4.0 and gets up tiered yet i can face them with an Achilles cause yeah a 17pdr AT gun for sure isn’t 4.0 worthy yet Chi Nu II is.

  • Chi-Nu II at 4.3 bullying 3.7s with Type 4 Kou is super annoying im super sick of seeing my whole team get instantly wiped every time on Japan cause they never miss and always 1 hit kill. It should be moved to 4.0 to 5.0 to be with Chi-Ri II

[Ammunition count for player vehicles is too low and the base circle where you get ammo is too out in the open where you will get killed trying to get ammo and the ammo timer between each shell is too long making you have to spend minutes on the open base to collect ammo it is a problem especially for tanks with low ammo count and SPAA. Ammo collection for players in the out in the open base is too slow, a lot of tanks in the game have too low ammo to deal with so many tanks and you can’t respawn because you’ll get spawn trapped by the AI sniping at long range. the Ammo collection area needs to be large and cover the entire capture area so that players always have ammo to deal with the AI. and btw p.s. special ammo you have to spend silver on runs out during the battle causing you to have to change ammo in assault ground because you literally run out of shells due to them having to be bought and restocked so please auto restock those rounds during the battle cause i shouldn’t be running out of APDS for Challenger II because it costs silver and requires restocking after battle. Ticket bleeding is still too annoying and aggressive especially when youre dealing with insanely strong tanks like Valentine II and Churchill VII.]

and if you think flying a helicopter is fun all the AI tanks hit you at over 2km with laser accurate machine gun fire and it’s super annoying, no matter how fast youre going they hit you over and over with pure accuracy even at 3km speeding away from them. The AI enemy SPAA is also way too annoying and accurate and spawn too close to let helicopters who have only rockets do anything thus spawn killing them every time they try to move in to combat enemy tanks. Helicopter reload times for missiles and rockets is way too long even with trained crew for how many tanks spawn and aircraft.

Maps
Maginot Line is a decent map, has decent cover and alright AI spawns the base has a bunker that protects you while you get ammo

Sinai is dumb and has no cover and the ammo base is too far out in the open so you can’t get ammo, all in all a terrible map for the gamemode with no cover the buildings get knocked out by planes so there is no cover especially with the planes being cancer with rockets and bombs.

Japan is alright but still suffers the no cover situation, AI will just shoot through the building even if they can’t see you and 1 hit kill you then spawn trap you, the ammo collection area is too out in the open and gathering ammo on any map isn’t worth it.

Ardennes is absolutely horrid, you spawn in open with AI all around you and just get spawned trapped with no cover requiring there to be better spawn protection that lasts way longer for players, the ammo collection area is too far in the open and there is no cover.

Fulda is pretty cool but it needs a better ammo area placement for tanks asides that it’s a good map at high br.

Mozdok is good and i do like the map a lot but the problem is ammo placements and repair pickups being in the open making it hard to play SPAA or tanks with low ammo.

Summary for all maps: the base capture area for the AI to capture the base needs to be far smaller and the AI need to spawn much further away and not be able to shoot until they are within 1km and there should be way less of them due to ammo and reload times for players, ammo collection circles need to be well covered to allow SPAA to do its job in peace and for players to be able to gather ammo easily without risk or fear. All maps need a lot more cover for the defending area to slow down the AI and give players a far better chance, the bases should have SPAA emplacements to deal with the planes that are friendly AIs or at least friendly planes that engage the enemy planes that are the same AI type with the same laser bs accuracy. This is supposed to be a defense situation so there should be makeshift cover and tools to help defend rather than just being completely out in the open with nothing.

My major summary for everything:

Planes need to be removed or nerfed to just low caliber guns with bad ammo entirely, the enemy tank AI need to have their accuracy and speed heavily reduced they should not be instantly putting out fires and not having to stop to fire fight the fire and should not be getting 1 hit kill snipers at long range while driving, Maps need more cover around the capture area for players and the ammo collection area needs to be far bigger or give ammo far faster to compensate for having to sit out in the open, vehicles with low ammo need to be given more ammo. All Assault Ground maps and BRs should be replaced with custom battle tank battles with different objectives with BRs that both AI and Players are locked to so that all tanks see each other as player and AI and there is no unfair uptiering where youre not facing tanks that you can’t use because they are a BR tier higher. My hope is to help build a nice and engaging fun PVE mode for Assault series so that we can actually have fun in it because this game shouldn’t just be focused on just PVP.

PS if you think it’s not that bad and you’ll do fine then i dare you to do multiple matches in different BR clusters of Assault Ground Arcade and see if your PVP skills will save you here and make you win constantly and you will literally see just how horrid and terrible this game mode is. I will not be playing the even worse PVP experience either, it’s either PVE or im just going to leave the game fully.

34 Likes

Didn’t know anyone played this, the difficulty of these modes are ramped up way too high considering the average player that attempts to play it, ensuring new players always fail due to not playing it perfectly.

Major issue is that air arcade is 6.7+ … like what? Half the freaking vehicles in the game are just a bracket? We get 5.3-6.3 but then we get 6.7-12? The fuck.
A Mig-29 in the same bracket as a Spitfire? Absolutely insane.

Ground the same issue with 8.3+… technically a smaller bracket but compression is even worse so it’s still night and day, and 8.3 vehicle simply cannot compete and another absolutely insane bracket that no sane person came up with.

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what annoys me is facing Churchills they are so tedious, but like the BR system for all the Assault modes is just horrid and causes major problems with vehicles just being hopelessly matched against swarms of vehicles they can’t do anything to. Like all it takes is a whole team of low 1.0s against the 2.7 Valentines and you’re just screwed and will lose period. But what gets me is just the premium tanks in general how most of the 3.7s are premiums and then on mozdok it has to be the captured churchill III its super dumb. And the biggest thing that makes me so mad is not having SPAA and then your team doesn’t have SPAA and you just get spawn killed and killed over and over and over by the planes. There is a decent portion of the community who plays it even at high BRs so i have gotten plenty of matches constantly, sure the ques are sometimes over 3 minutes but i’ve been in hundreds of PVE battles on that mode and it always is 99% loss rate constantly mainly due to the annoying planes and wave 3 top BR tanks that just are a nightmare.

6 Likes

It’s always a joy to see my useless 5.7 BR (How the F, or why or who even decided it ?) Swedish tanks vs 6.7 Germans that i cant even penetrate or out-maneuver or even flee.

or my German 9.0 jet with cannons, basically vs ANY other nation 8.7+ with Air-to-air missiles.
not gonna say anything about “big failure tree” helicopters which is impossible to research

4 Likes

Worked hard to get my Panther A, was worth it, except most of the time they up tier me and it seems like I.m really just a light tank now fighting for my life against the big heavy’s. This game is getting sick, needs an enema. Bought the DO 335 B2 for real cash but any fighter kills me even though I’m very fast. Rated speed is not true to game, as a German prototype if produced, it would have gotten combat flaps, speed brakes, and a parachute, but this is WT Moto (unspoken but true) “I shot you first”.

6 Likes

This really depends on the vehicle, sure a T-62 is going to have a bad time but a Leopard A1A1 might actually be more valuable than a 2A6 due to not being crippled by 1st stage ammo stowage, same with the Type 16 vs Type 10 etc.

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Even in the old forums, I have advocated for changes to this game mode for a long time, alas to no response from anyone, even after trying to link them into the conversations. I really enjoyed playing the arcade assault modes in the past, but we are in such a new state now with the amount of updates that have dropped that this mode seriously needs to be revamped and reworked to function modestly with the changes that have been made.

I also have made past suggestions to improve the air assault game mode for 6.7+ with changing some of the aircraft as there is no reason you should be facing BR 4.7 aircraft at this level. (for anyone interested this is said link - Future of Assault Air Arcade? - Assault. Air Arcade - War Thunder - Official Forum )

I honestly do not even go into 8.3+ ground assault due to the nature of the current bots that seem to be plaguing not only these game modes but progressing throughout WT as a whole (that’s another topic all itself).

The only hope that we may have now with respect to the recent events, is that perhaps someone actually does take the considerations or at least assigns someone on the Dev team to look into this game mode. I even wonder what had become of the trial pve beta escort mission some of us tried out a few years back, as it just seemed to vanish as well.

It would be great if we could get some response from someone to let us know that, yes we see the concern for these game modes, that there is anyone working on fixing/updating it, as well as making it more enjoyable as it used to be.

Apologies if post was a bit lengthy.

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Arcade assault, air or ground are too hard and long for the results… Not any SL and 1 booster / day …

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If you have to fight the usual top tier vehicles I don’t think the A1A1 with maybe 350mm of pen can cut it against tanks balanced against the 2A6 that has almost double the pen at 650mm.

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Air is actually very easy if the team is savvy. You lose due to clueslessness or selfish landing players trying to “save SL”. I worked it out after one PvE Air. Just like PvP modes the players you get make one heck of a difference.

Also, if you are low in the BR bracket your actions are rewarded more and setting up before a wave comes allows to beat the a2a missile spam (though this bracket now needs a split between early a2a/no a2a and missile buses.

PvE ground is brutal.

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Ardennes is oof with all of the M1s, but on most other maps 105 APDS can do the job, it’s better than 120 HEAT-FS against Challenger waves even.

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This. Air Assault is extremely easy if you have a team that understands.

Ground assault? Getting sniped by a tank in 2.0 from .5km away 10 seconds into spawn is not what I’d call fun.

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Not only that but the absolute insanity that are air assets at 8.0+ that completely bombard you with pin point rockets, etc. while you struggle even with aa to ‘critical’ hit their aircraft while you get insta sniped when you go into one nearly as soon as you spawn.

1 Like

I find assault games generally too hard to bother much with them, also the BR brackets are way too big, especially for air assault (F7F-1 and Ki-84 Hei would get in a team with F-14, F-16…).

I only do air assault once in a while with jets, but tbh the RP from the booster I might get could also be obtained by simply playing regular games instead of staying in an assault game for ages.

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I find this mode ok, of course in lower BRs fewer competent players are needed than in higher BRs.

Sometimes we’ll be “trapped” in a team with lots of teammates that dont know where to hit targets, where to camp better, not taking the proper initiative, applying the worst tactics (smoke inside the lines, using planes to attack heavy tanks etc), it’s sad and happens a lot.

But that bomb thing I have to agree, S8000 narvals dropping 1000lb bombs (two of it) is overkill.

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There are issues certainly in air assault, but nothing compared to the ones faced in the ground assault. For air at least it relies heavily on the teams performance, albeit there are limitations. Most issues can arise at the last bracket of 6.7+.

The heli pve mode i dont really complain about other than mostly rewards being an issue in that, as it can truly come down to knowing your limitations of heli, armament, and prioritizing targets through maneuvers, etc. (Not withstanding ai accuracy)

But my god, ground has become exponentially difficult.

The lower BR are not too bad, with most being inexperienced to know where to hit targets, etc as previously mentioned.

The higher BR brackets struggle from including but not limited to…

-sync issues between server and client
-multiple bugs (ai telepathy, ghost shots, insta repair) some fixed or repeated.
-map design issues (one of the largest issues)
-ai accuracy is through the roof (literally, especially mgs firing at aircraft of players from extreme distances)
-time to prep, repair, maneuver between waves.
-number of enemy ai per wave
-types of enemy ai
-ai aircraft (combo of player vs ai issues here) destroying players quickly.

Coupled with lack of player coordination/communication, player skill/experience (low lvl using higher tech vehicles inefficiently), players behaving not player like, players idling just for the booster, bringing lower tier vehicles, etc make for a severely bad experience.

Im hoping to get some time in the near future to go over the old forum posts to culminate more updated info regarding our previous suggestions/discussions of these issues as they still remain unresolved, to which ArcticWarriorFox has also provided some detailed depth about.

If for anything, perhaps it will be something that gets looked into in the near future; doubtful, but i know many of us would like to see changes made to provide anyone playing the pve game modes to enioy themselves whilst making adequate progress for the effort put into the games as well.

Apologies for any mistakes or errors made

5 Likes

The AI air in ground assault seems to be about 80% more aggressive than before LaRoyale. I’m playing 6.7-8.0. Totally agree the ground AI machine-gunning of aircraft at great distances would seem to indicate gunners being replaced with Cyberdyne model T-800 aerial targeting systems. Times 3 for the AI SPAA’s. I can honestly say I have asked myself if Gaijin wants everyone to quit Assault games so they can get rid of them.

Like someone else said, I don’t even go into 8.3+ anymore, the bots can be ridiculous.

7 Likes

Helicopter bot of tank assault is really annoying. As a simple punishment for helicopter bot users, I would like Gaijin to change the thought routine of the enemy AI aircraft so that when the player helicopter spawns, it will ignore the player tank that was aimed until then and aim at the top priority. That way, the player tank will be able to reduce the damage from the airstrike thanks to the “air decoy”, and if it is a player helicopter that is not a bot, it will actively evade and counterattack with AAM or gun, so it won’t be shot down so easily. There is also the option to go for Helicopter PvE.

2 Likes

Player helicopters should never have been in PvE Assault, was a shock when I saw them and made zero sense since they have their own Event (horrendous). Why then make it horrendous for tanks using their PvE mode? (I get the player controlled air waves but they are time limited like ABGF).

1 Like

Not to forget, the enemy ai can use both main gun and mounted machineguns at the same time, whilst focused on different targets…

For example on kursk they can fire on the move against your teams ground units whilst simultaneously easily sniping pilots with machine guns from near distances of 1.5k out… this isnt even factoring in the additional aa vehicles placed specifically to counter the heli too…

In a mode that relies heavily on team coordination and timed bomb runs by aircraft to aid, the addition of heli made it exponentially harder for the cas spawns to help mitigate already an extremely difficult job as if you dont immobilize most of the lines of enemies they will drop your points in about 10 sec.

I still absolutely dispise that they also implemented a ticket loss for each player vehicle destroyed, it only compounds difficulty.

3 Likes