Adding the huge maps to props was really dumb so maps definitely need to be tailored to BR levels.
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SL/RP income is steering player behavior & actions.
As long as i got 5.348 SL (prem B7A2) for a player kill - which requires outside headons some skill - and ~ 5.800 SL for a 0 skill task like bombing a respawning base (reducing tickets between 180-300), there is no incentive for new players to improve.
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The objective structure of the current mode is the root of the problem.
I’d follow up on that and say the objective structure is a result of needing an objective for any of the possible varieties of aircraft a player could spawn with. So, you can never tailor a map/mode to a specific kind of aircraft, and you get a mish mash where fighters end of dominating (which makes sense!).
Solutions as I see them:
- Split up the game modes to CAS, fighter battle, bomber raid, etc. (bad, fractures playerbase)
- Players select a roster (bomber, CAS, fighter, helicopter, SPAA(?!)) in advance, and then their options are limited based on whatever game mode comes up.
*yes this implies player controlled SPAA in AB could be an option
**dividing the aircraft types would be a task, but you could do single-seat/AI gunner/bomb bay as a first pass, with air battle, tactical strike, and strategic bombing as a rough mission spread
i agree with the vast majority of what you said, if not all.
I do believe you missed 1 thing however - Majority of air rb players these days simply do not care.
They want short matches, they dont care about anything other than SL or RP, the whole COD type behaviour and mentality has seeped into WT.
They dont want to use tactics or strategy, they want to just rush in and headon the first person they see, they want to only be in the most powerful vehicles and rack up kills.
They dont wanna fly for long, they wanna rush in, get what they can and get out and go into the next one, personally i HATE it, but i cannot ignore what i believe to be the common behaviour.
The majority simply do not care or want to actually play, i mean majority use every vehicle the same regardless of planes ability etc, take the bombers for example, perfectly content with flying straight into the enemy team over and over again, they dont want to do anything else, its like dangling a carrot and they take it because its all they know.
I want change, i want it to be more like what you said and more involving but i dont think this opinion is reciprocated.
I am not quite wording this right and i dont quite know how to say it but i think you understand what i am getting at.
Its a problem for sure.
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If the TO guys have not gotten their nirvana mode after nearly a decade of complaining, then I highly doubt we’ll get a split mode of any sort for aircraft.
Hence, we must reform the current mode we have, or outright replace it with a better mode more inclusive of all plane types.
Bombers and attackers simply can never matter much so long as fighters don’t need to care about them to win matches easily. Years ago when the reverse was true with attacker and bomber zergrushes was just as awful, and too many people think either the current situation or that are the only options.
Matchmaker reform can actually play a role here - if we already have a limit of 4 bombers per team, why not institute limits for every other plane class, too? Then nonfighters are no longer “flotsam taking up fighter slots” like some fighter diehards on the old forum would say from time to time.
Ideally, I would say in a 16-man team, 10 fighter slots and 6 non-fighter slots. People would be shepherded into their roles by an additional reward multiplier - do stuff according to your job, get more rewards than now, do stuff outside your job, get less rewards than now. A multirole plane picks a job in hangar before queuing, can change roles on the runway mid-match (provided there is an empty team slot available for it), and gets the corresponding bonus for that role.
1 Like
Oh I do understand, man. It was not great years ago when I joined, and its only deteriorated further since. PvE planes and their objectives are this mode’s missing flavor, and the constant gutting of the planes’ ability to matter in a match by fighter mains and gutting of their weapon effectiveness by tank mains will only make them even worse over time.
3 Likes
I’m not saying any particular way is better as of yet, but the main issues I see with type limits are:
- Even if the objective requires ground attack, Fighters are still going to be dominant on a gameplay basis. So if your fighter team gets swept you’ll be a sitting duck as bombers/CAS.
- If ground attack is the objective, and only a smaller portion of the team can complete it effectively, and that portion has no idea what they’re doing, that team has lost on setup.
I think take the slots idea just a littttttle further, and instead of 10 fighter slots and 6 non-fighter slots one game, have 16 fighter slots the first game, and 16 non-fighter slots the second. (It’s not strict, play with those numbers however you like, just bear in mind #1 and #2 above).
The only way to make fighters and nonfighters work together is to make the two need each other, like in real missions that were not purely air superiority like Battle of Britain.
And that means neither one should be able to easily end rounds all by itself.
Most matches should end via a fighter deathmatch phase and then a followup phase of bombing and strafing. Which is how the small battles in EC play out already. I have nothing against fighters having their fun. My objection stems from fighters doing their job preventing nonfighters from doing theirs.
Fighter-centric objectives would be worth 50% of the tickets (total value of all enemy players and AI strike aircraft). CAS objectives would be worth 50% of the tickets (all ground units). Bombing objectives would be worth 50% of the tickets (turn off base respawning, add more simultaneous active bases).
This is just a new framework which would then support all the more interesting PvE objectives the game has lacked for years - factory bombing, radar stations, the Tirpitz being a target on the Norway map, the possibilities are honestly endless. But right now there is no reason to bother when fighters end games 99% of the time anyways.
I think the thing is non-fighters only need fighters to not get killed by other fighters. Which still gives the round-ending ability to fighters, when present, because they can kill all the other aircraft.
Though I think what you might be getting at is having fewer targets–one ball bearing factory, one radar station, one Tirpitz–which translates to one engagement. So, you have one engagement, with one macro “pass”, and not a bunch of spread-out targets that you invariably get your ticket punched by a fighter when flying between.
Agree in general, but there are some prop strike aircraft and bombers that (if flown as fighter) can win games despite being “almost useless” in their intended role in a 90% TDM mode - most prominent: Wyvern.
And to counter this gaijin buffed aaa around the 4 bases and they get killed like flies…
As you play mostly props in Air RB - rather unsuccessful - and refuse to accept that you try to square the circle:
A small “real life” example what is wrong with prop Air RB (replay) confirming my initial claims that players and gaijin share the responsibility for most of the topics you addressed.
- U see a teamkill by a friendly Spitfire + crash of the Spitfire. 2 Fighters down right after spawn.
- U see a braindead friendly B-18B attacking a base low, despite gaijin buffed aaa defending bases and he got warned. Useless death.
- After 4 minutes i played 8 vs 14 thanks to multiple noob mistakes. After 6 minutes 2 vs 13…after 9 minutes 2 vs 6, some crashed and i killed a Bv238.
- The my last team mate decided to crash on purpose - despite being 200 kmph faster than the nearest enemy. There was no need to crash, we could have won this easily.
- Two of last 6 enemies crashed later, i killed a 190, a XP-50 and some ai planes to stop the ticket bleed - imho mainly caused by ai planes. I had no ammo left to kill the last 2 guys (B-25 & PBJ) and lost by tickets as the remaining ai planes wiped out my tickets.
So without initial team killing, stupid low runs into aaa defending mini-bases, crashing on purpose (Wyvern) and enemy ai killing my tickets. Stupid players and bad map design. Full stop. No need to make things more complicated.
And frankly, the vast majority of “bombers” which have significant forward firepower should be reclassed as attackers, since that is what most small bombers really did - CAS. Would remove any remnants of the sort of stupidity R2Y2s used to pull, still seen with Ar-234Cs, Helldivers, and occasionally B-25s/PV-2Ds.
No amount of changes I (or anyone) propose will change player brain cell input. If no changes occur, it will never encourage people starting to put brain cells into how they play the mode.
In my eyes, the root of the rot lies at each objective being able to win games on its own, thereby making the other two irrelevant once it is achieved. There’s no “room” to expand relevance of the other two without stepping on the toes of the one most commonly winning games. The game’s past shows the other end of the spectrum is just as unhealthy (CAS and airfield rushes).
Also, I would greatly appreciate if you don’t try derailing this into a stat-shaming fest with comments like “as you play mostly props in RB - rather unsuccessfully,” we have enough good ideas trashed by shouting matches like that.
The square peg has already been shaved to try and forcibly fit it into a round hole. I aim to glue the corners back on the peg, not shave it further.
I am not sure if you included your own proposal into “enough good ideas” but my core message was to outline that you won’t get better by changing given parameters if you struggle to play successfully in the current environment.
In other words - playing the game rather successfully despite all its flaws and weaknesses makes your points way more valid.
Imaging you see the need for a marriage therapy - and your therapist has 4 ex-wifes. So either he is not credible because he failed 4 times or highly experienced in non-working strategies for this issue…
I do not want to repeat myself - my position in this issue was detailed outlined here, here and here.
And as written earlier - the overwhelming masses are steered by gaijin with rewards for performed actions. So just by making certain activities less or more attractive gaijin itself decides how the players “behave” and what actions will be most likely performed.
From a holistic pov there is nothing wrong with proposals suited to increase the necessary brain power whilst playing the game. And don’t get me wrong, i support any ideas to improve Air RB if they look feasible.
But imho gaijin benefits extremely from the current state of Air RB - and the rather low entry barrier to play an aircraft based shooter with point and click with a mouse - without the necessity of complex thoughts whilst playing Air RB.
So again, i appreciate your efforts, but imho pure PvP and pure PvE players won’t see any benefit for them - and gaijin has simply no interest in creating more complex game play as this would increase the requirements to play the game, this might reduce the steady stream of new players, happy to buy some top tier jets for insane amounts of real money.
Have a good one!
Your suggestion is a really novel one and I personally like it.
We can add an additional mode Air RB(Mission) that works as you suggested and let both fighter mains and objecive-oriented ones participate, while having the original Air RB mode remaining but only accessible to fighter planes so that pvp enjoyer can still have pure air fights.
Nope, the point is to remove the current mode (or make that the “event” seen once in a blue moon) and replace it with something that all plane types actually fit into well.
Currently, only a modest portion of fighters fit into the mode truly well. Multirole fighters are effectively penalized for going multirole. Bombers are little more than fighter bait. Attackers are extra-seasoned fighter bait. Dumb marker mechanics favor climb rate and turning radius over most other traits.
And the snail has long since said they won’t add new separate RB EC mode, so we have no choice but to replace what we have with something better.
All my idea is meant to be is a better framework that others can build upon.
So…are you trying to go into the usual stat-shaming fest regarding my player card by saying this? I don’t care to “git gud” at the current mode because I frankly don’t enjoy it that much anymore. If you are trying to stat-shame me, then it seems you have run out of points to say, and there is nothing more to discuss.
I, like too many other people, only play it because there is nowhere else worthwhile of my time to go if I want to deck out something for use in Combined Ground/Naval.
I certainly would enjoy it more with a better framework making the mode more than “big dumb deathmatch,” but that would only be the start of what I would do to the mode if I were able to.
What you’re asking for is infinitely closer to SB than to current RB, just go play that.
That is exactly the problem of Air RB - the mode was designed for people which enjoyed flying and share the passion for aerial warfare. And it became (or was reduced to) a tool to grind to get somewhere else.
A fellow player above nailed it:
So as long as the income / reward structure makes Air RB attractive for non-passionate players trying to act as pilots without even caring about the mode - there is no point to discuss any changes which are solely determined by gaijin.
I talked about credibility of claims. And i invested imho way too much time trying to encourage you to take a step back to see the broader picture.
If Air RB would be a very sick person with high fever - you can’t heal the fever by trying to cool down the body - you need to fight the infection.
I described very detailed (and even in my first post) that mature/experienced players support anything what increases fun by adding more challenging game play.
But this doesn’t change the fact that those players are not the target group of gaijin - and the player mentality of the overwhelming majority is exactly as described by the fellow pilot. So in order to earn money gaijin tries to satisfy the majority and the game looks exactly like that - as you can see in the ever increasing number of players…
3 Likes
The root in question:
In all seriousness, I agree. Games should not end independently of player input except by timeout, and especially silly when some of those AI units kill themselves off by the dozen slamming it into a hill. I don’t agree with irrecoverable losses even when you’ve eliminated the entire enemy team, because oddness with varying player counts on spawn could influence that and it’s generally just not a pleasant feeling to win and still wind up losing.
We really need an added bank of tickets on top of what we already have, maybe one that can only be depleted by bombing bases, to stop auto bleedouts, if your suggestion isn’t implemented.
As long as the same goal is accomplished - games not auto-ending from any single objective on its own - I care not what means specifically is taken to achieve that. I see AI-self-destruction and “no active players left on hostile team” bleedouts as equally destructive to overall game health.
There is currently zero incentive for fighters and nonfighters on the same team to work together beyond fighters either roleplaying or feeling pity for nonfighters. Nonfighters are sometimes treated as outright scum because “they’re taking team slots that could have been more fighters.”
I used to enjoy Air RB purely for its own sake - but its deficiencies gradually ate away at my enjoyment, as did ceaseless gutting of my favorite aspects by either overly-whine-prone sections of Air RB’s playerbase (fighter mains screaming bombers and CAS into total worthlessness) or by other mode playerbases (tank mains causing overkill CAS nerfs blanket-applied to all game modes, naval mains causing torpedo effectiveness vs bot ships to become spotty at best before we stopped seeing naval Air maps entirely)
That isn’t even taking into account tiny maps that start feeling cramped at just 4.0BR, idiotic red enemy marker mechanics that overly favor turning radius and climb rate for most prop matches until equally idiotic P2W G-force losing control forces a mentality shift, placement of ground units on maps being facepalm-worthy, stale and uninspired objectives for CAS and bombers, and the gradual homogenization of most Air maps to be functionally the same in recent years.
The “infection” I see is more the mode turning blue from oxygen deprivation - mainly at the fault of fighter mains choking it to death. And the solution to that is breaking the choke-hold.
All my ideas are meant to be is making room for ideas like yours to then flourish in. Right now if CAS or Bombing were attempted to be increased in relevance, we’d see fighter whine cut it back down to uselessness in maybe a year at most. I disagree on the “need” for the airbase destruction win condition - in my eyes that was just as disgusting and unbalanceable as “no active players left on hostile team” currently is.
I find your ideas quite encouraging, man. But so long as any singular objective can auto-end rounds on its own, there is no incentive for the devs to even remotely begin to implement such things. We’re caught in a vicious downward spiral - nonfighters are nearly irrelevant to winning most games, thus they get no new content to make them more interesting, thus they remain irrelevant or potentially get even more irrelevant.
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