Anybody who has played at this bracket and also knows what they’re talking about will tell you the F86 and MiG15/17 downtiers were an awful decision by gaijin. They tried to push these changes through a few years ago but back then the playerbase was quicker to tell them how awful of an idea it was… it seems like the playerbase has since then forgotten this lesson and is now not talking about this at all for some reason?
Just to lay out why this is an issue,
The F-86/MiG-15/17 were the meta and most competitive jets at their BRs BEFORE they were downtiered…
No other minor nation jet, NOT ONE, was lowered to match this idea that the MiG-15/17 and F-86 needed to go down. Gaijin basically said this was a uniquely MiG/F86 issue when in fact it wasn’t. (The only reason these went down at all was compression coming from 9.0+ which affects ALL jets in this bracket)
It has made all minor nation jets (Such as Swift, Mystere, Venom, J29, etc) feel MUCH WORSE than before where even then they weren’t powerhouses compared to the F86 and MiG15/17.
This has basically killed most rank 5 jets as they just get infinitely uptiered into F86/Mig spam where they can’t do anything to compete.
It has made the issue where people seek to only play the USA even worse with pampering the USA even more with these F-86 changes…
Just to further show off my point, the MiG15bis is now a lower BR than planes such as the Me163, Swift Mk7, Venom, Hunter F1, G.91 (all R variants), Yak-30, Yak-23, (even within the USSR nation itself) and is the same BR as planes such as the G.91 Pre serie, Javelin, etc… this is not fair
The solution is simple, revert ALL changes (save for the CL13 Mk4 change, that thing actually deserved it) and then work on decompression for jets as a whole to fix this issue instead of just further pushing the issue down while ALSO only catering/pampering one or two nations overall.
Last note, I am aware that nations like Germany/Italy/Japan also stood to benefit from things like F-86 or MiGs going down, but their NATIVE designs saw no benefit and this only serves to further the idea that minor nations are just worse than majors when it really doesn’t have to be this way.
I do find it very bizarre how in 2014/2015 top tier Korea meta, the likes of Venom / Hunter were regarded as balanced peers (Or in Venom’s case actually inferior) to Sabre F2 / Mig15Bis, yet these days they find themselves at higher BR’s.
I do not play the 7.0-9.0 range much at all anymore, so i’m no position to comment on what is under-BR’d and what’s over BR’d. But yeah… So wild to see to see all these aircraft which used to be at the same BR now sit so far apart.
It makes me laugh how back then, we used to scream at each other because of things like ‘‘He has 20kg more thrust! literally gamebreaking!’’ or ‘‘He has a 2s faster turn time! Unplayable!’’.
And now we’re experiencing things which travel at completely different mach’s, firing completely incomparable missiles at one another, in 16v16 AMRAAM slop as Betty and Rita narate our demise.
I think it’s more so that the old players of WT were more invested in good gameplay and balanced nations (especially because back then nations actually MATTERED because we had NATION matchmaking and not just mixed battles and mirror matches) and were overall more skilled on average. After COVID hit the playerbase skyrocketed in both player count and stupidity… the game became much more casual as a result and that’s why today nobody (nobody as in, we are the minority complaining about bad balance/compression) cares about balance.
I have so much love, nostalgia and happiness towards that era of WT. The games. The soundtrack. The lighting. The way tracers used to look. The ‘Afterburners’ on non AB jets.
I’d genuinely pay for a standalone time capsule of WT right after 1.53 dropped. Right after Hunter but just before Mig17. Perfection.
I completely agree with that. The changes weren’t needed in the first place, and they’ve only made stuff worse.
I find this very funny since Germany has both MiGs and CL.13s, but they got screwed over really hard since their domestic WW2 designs are now facing MiGs/Sabres every match. Now even the Me-163 is the same br as an F-86A or MiG-15.
Overall I wouldn’t call it a bias towards those nations, but rather gaijin relying too much on statistics.
2007scape but for WT would be nice just to have the old historical and immersive matchmaker back. I miss fighting the AXIS on the allies side or the JAPANESE in the PACIFIC with the US/UK and all the other fun matchups and maps you could get, but I don’t want to make this topic about that. I really want to bring attention to the F86/MiG-15/17 issues. no offense
The reason I say its a bias is because you and I are both aware of where the majority of statistics involving the F86 or MiG-15/17 come from and it isn’t from the minor nations that happen to have variants of them
I don’t think this is fully true, but you have a point. Casual players just want to reach top tier, but what I think is that the non casual players just don’t care about rank V-VII anymore. Look at the amount of stuff talking about a handful of top tier vehicles, and compare that to people talking about this BR and how gaijin ruined it.
It just sucks to have no one care about genuinely good and balanced gameplay outside of their top tier bubble. Most players see it as a speedbump rather than something they should play and enjoy.
I agree that the infatuation with whatever so happens to be the current top tier (because these ppl never go back and enjoy “old” top tiers they grinded for a year or 2 ago, only whatever is currently top) is a big drive in people not caring about the rest of the game being balanced or not, and it’s sad af
What caused the likes of F86 / Mig15Bis to drop so much compared to its old BR peers?
Was it players stats or just a arbitrary decision ? It’s really hard to imagine a Sabre F2 / Hunter F1 performing differently enough to warrant such a gap forming.
Player stats driven by the fact newer players pick USA/USSR first mainly, only reasons that make sense.That or gaijin making a deliberate choice to undertier these to promote playing the 2 big nations in the air.
Back then you actually fought opponents close enough in skill that it mattered, I’m guessing.
You can still get these matches sometime, I’ve had them the most while playing the Ki-27 funnily enough, but other props work too. Very rare though, which is really sad because I quite enjoy them. Completely different scenery to normal Air RB, each team has a very well defined set of advantages and disadvantages.