The trend of not getting any rp/sl/kills/enjoyment because you spent 20 seconds too long flying defensive

Anyone else about sick and tired of this? You fly well, aggressively even, and yet you end up with many 0 kill games in jets (especially the closer to top tier you get) because if you spend literally 20-30 seconds flying defensive to any threat, the game ends?

Like, at this point I am genuinely convinced I am not fighting an enemy team at all. Whenever I DO get into a fight at top tier I generally just WIN it because of how bad the playerbase has gotten… that said, if I EVER have to say, notch a missile for 20 seconds? I will literally never get within 10km of an enemy before they die in some games.

The cause? LIterally 90%+ of players seem to just fire as many missiles as possible before dying then race as fast as possible to headbutt the first missile that gets fired at them… I actually get EXCITED when I see an enemy notch a missile because I know I might actually get a fight… it’s that sad.

What can be done about this? Besides adding RB EC and making the game better for everyone of course…

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Honestly, I’m not sure if RB EC is likely to make a difference. While it helps in SB due to splitting up player density across a wider map thanks to airfields and objectives - it rapidly loses effectiveness at doing so the higher BR you go. Prop SB EC is fun. Jets? I don’t really play it as missiles aren’t really my thing but judging from SB LFG discord conversations, it’s a very frustrating experience all the same.

Adding, EC economy will make the above trend even more annoying. The 15 minute timer can be brutal. You might spend 15 minutes flying not gaining score and then finally get 1000 score at 15:01 minutes and die at 15:30 minutes and get like basically no reward (0.5x(SLmod)x0.92, so cstang would be ~1012), while if you got 1000 score at 14:30 minutes and died at 15:05, you’d have been paid 15x(SLmod)x0.92 (so, in my cstang it’d be 30036 SL).

This is somewhat of a tortured example, but it had genuinely happened to me before where a 30 second difference in when I got my kill credit following a critical hit changed my reward from what’d have been say, 600 score over 15 minutes (0.85x15x2200) into 150 score before 15 minutes (0.54x15x220) plus 450 score (from my target finally dying) in the next window (which if I survive another 15 minutes would give me (0.75x15x2200), but of course in a hectic dogfight that’s not guaranteed.

Re adding proximity score would certainly help alleviate the low rewards, but it’s more useful at low tier than top tier.

Lowering player counts, removing multipathing (and adding stock chaff), more spread out players, and overall better design of air RB would be great.

It’s one of the main reasons why I stopped playing prop tier, because if you aren’t an aggressive idiot, you might not end up doing anything.

It would at least mean your game is entirely 100% pointless if you don’t chase kills like a rabid dog for the first 3 minutes

I am curious since you constantly advocate for this, what is the defense of an amraam+9M equipped plane or similar capable IRCCM from just forcing you into a notch then IR missiling you when you’re in a state of no defense?

That is when you can launch an ARH back, use terrain to doge, or run away to reset the fight in your favour depending on the plane.

How are you doing this when you are forced to notch? Not everybody has MICAs.

Not going to be readily available unless you hug it like its cover in a fps game all match

How are you going to “reset”? In the case where some guy is just tunnel visioning you to eat you?

that’s why I carry 2x napalm bombs. increases the chance of you getting at least some rewards.

ah yes all the terrain on maps, like sinai, denmark, moscow, and smolensk

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Also me side climbing to kill that B-24 only to see a random Ki-44 go vertical and one-shot it only 800m away.

Also me climbing for 2 minutes to realized everyone is already dead.

Also me who can’t dogfight but also can’t find any enemies.

Also me when that one Vought decides to teamkill me after I reach 3000m.

You forgot Fire arc and Aral sea!

I also experience this, but more than teams and players believe this is due to design of ARB; being structured like team deathmatch, not objective based mode.

Why try to conserve your resources when the game usually ends within 5 mimutes?

What can be done? make the game more objective oriented instead of TDM oriented. the only way this game can be enjoyed when you’re not flying like a suicidal maniac is by making the game discourage flying like a maniac and gives us more challenge so that the nature of the game become PvEvP.

And nerfing IOG after losing lock so that it won’t make defensive fluing against missile a chore that loses any advantage you have. defensive flying as of now is just getting out of crocodile mouth and diving into Hippo mouth with how vulnerable you are after defending against missile.

This game mode was made for WW2 vehicles. It survived early jets and jets with WVR missiles. But ranks with BVR missiles? The whole structure of ARB isn’t made for it. And never was.
For toptier the worst changes were 25min time limit and 16vs16 battles and the lack of maps big enough. Even in lower tiers it’s a mess. 99% of the players have no clue about positioning themselves.

But Imo it’s not only about how the game works. It’s more about what new players learn on their path to toptier: Nothing except egoistic gameplay. No tactics, no teamplay, grinding is the only goal.

A 4 player squad with average skill and a little bit of tactic is able to rule every prop battle. Why is that?

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If you tied tickets to objectives it would probably help with this