Disclaimer: this discussion is about ARB matches taking place at BRs where propeller driven aircraft are the majority.
This is NOT a discussion about separating gamemodes based on plane types. Make your suggestions for that here
This is NOT a discussion about current/past/future damage models of any planes.
Hello all,
The recent changes to the survivability of bombers sparked a lot of discussion about bombers and their overall role in War Thunder. After reading peoples thoughts and participating in the discussions, i started to think of ways to improve the overall match experience in ARB for all different planes and their roles.
I would like propose a few changes to the way Air Realistic Battles (ARB) are structured. Favoring more teamwork oriented overall structure and roles, where all plane types would have more equal impact on the outcome of the match.
The current situation and inequality:
The current situation in ARB heavily favors fighters and team deathmatch-type gameplay. Meanwhile other, less dogfight capable aircraft serve more as something for the fighters to shoot at or something to get fast rewards with before moving to the next match, rather than something that can have a meaningful impact on the outcome of the match.
Teamwork doesn’t seem to be encouraged or even required for a victory.
Often people can be seen to go in for the first targets they see in hopes of getting fast rewards, with little regard to the outcome of the engagement.
Spawns and the start of a match:
Let’s start by looking at the obvious first step, the start of the match.
Instead of spawning bombers close to the same general area on the map as fighters, just higher, they could be spawned further back, some ways behind the airfield and spawn point of fighters.
Strike aircraft could be spawned slightly ahead of the airfield, but not as far and/or high as in the current iteration.
- Friendly fighters would have an easier time to reach the bombers altitude to escort them, without requiring the bombers to slow down or circle back as they currently need to.
- Strike aircraft wouldn’t have as much of an advantage on reaching ground targets and objectives, but still would have slight head start to give slower strike aircraft an equal chance of reaching them
- Fighters and interceptors would have a better chance of reaching altitudes to intercept enemy bombers/strike aircraft.
- It would discourage bombers and strike aircraft from rushing straight towards a bombing point/ground targets, to get easy and fast rewards as the enemy would have greater chance of intercepting them.
- Overall making it riskier to go at a bombing target/ground targets alone would encourage teamwork and gives incentive to escort bombers and strike aircraft or intercept opposing team from doing so. More on this later.
Objectives and roles:
AI ground targets could be left fairly unchanged from the current iteration.
If all plane types would have equal chance to reach objective they wish, be it ground targets, enemy aircraft, ground targets or bombing points, it would discourage rushing in for fast rewards.
- Make separate bombing targets; some with less health spawning closer to the center of the map, designed for strike aircraft. Others with massive health pools designed for bombers with heavy bombloads.
- The destruction of bombing points should reduce the amount of tickets from the enemy team more than they currently do, and be proportional to the size of them; see above.
- RP and SL multipliers based on aircraft type and targets;
Fighters having a reward multiplier for destruction of enemy fighters.
Interceptors having a reward multiplier for destruction of enemy Strike aircraft and bombers.
Strike aircraft having a reward multiplier for destruction of ground targets and damage/destruction of smaller “tactical bombing targets”.
Bombers having a reward multiplier for damage/destruction of bigger “strategic bombing targets”.
This idea needs refinement, maybe changing roles of some planes etc. Please leave feedback, suggestions and ideas for improvement
Miscellaneous ideas and mechanics:
Some other ideas to encourage teamwork.
- Give small rewards for staying at close proximity to friendly planes for X amount of time. This would encourage flying in as a team instead of rushing in alone. Needs refinement to avoid being abused by flying with friendlies away from the battlefield
- Increase the rewards for staying alive in a match for extended periods of time. This would both discourage rushing in for fast rewards while encouraging staying with friendlies to have a higher chance of survival.
- Match times would need to be adjusted to discourage rushing in.
I know that ARB especially has moved towards faster matches, faster time-to-engagement and encouragement of rushing in.
But overall i think these changes would still give players to freedom to play as they wish, while giving more incentive to use teamwork to engage the enemy and complete objectives.
I would love to hear feedback and suggestions to add to the lists.
I’m probably also forgetting most the things i had in mind for this, so the list might get additions from me as well in the future.
Please let’s try to keep the discussion on-topic and civil.