has anyone tried napalm on the SAM sites?
So there’s definitely the stereotype that US mains suck, and they kinda do lol, but in the 20 or so matches I played, I saw attackers win… twice. It’s a bit too stacked against them right now, and I don’t think skill issue alone explains this one.
- Defenders are entirely focused on air to air; the A2G systems assist them not only in shooting down targets but also in spotting them and denying map space - attackers are split between A2A, A2G with the Phantom, and helicopters, so defenders almost always have free reign and map control
- Symmetric player counts mean that when the attackers are split in roles, the defenders have a great advantage in A2A and then cleanup afterwards. Even if attackers go entirely A2A, defenders control 2/3 of the map thanks to the AA so they can just retreat if needed; defenders don’t have that option
- There’s too much for attackers to worry about between SAM threats, the AAA being honestly too strong, and fighting a losing air war
- Attackers are US, so of course (at least from my observations), there are less skilled players on attackers on average
It all leads to the defenders having a very chill experience as they will always have air superiority and just need to watch out for the occasional attacker getting through the air defenses and hitting the SAMs. Meanwhile, as attackers, you have to sweat like crazy for a chance to win.
With that being said: it’s still great to have something different, with some refinement I think this could genuinely be a great alternative gamemode. I hope this event is extended or brought back frequently (with changes to improve balance of course), and I hope there are more future air events to mix things up.
I also hope that markerless air RB is experimented with more as an alternative gamemode as I find the dynamic honestly pretty fun. Don’t remove markers from normal battles, just… have this as a permanent option or something, like a markerless air RB EC.
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Are helis even supposed to be useful? I’ve tried to play them, but they just aren’t able to do anything. They can’t get close enough to really use anything, because they have zero spatial awareness because there aren’t any markers, and they will just get killed by some AA before they can even do anything.
No markers sucks too, and I’m tired of people pretending air RB without them would be good. You could reduce them, but having no markers doesn’t fit the vibe of a mode that’s over in 10 minutes.
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Eh, no markers does fit for those that like dogfights. Makes it harder for people to 3rd party lol
For the heli’s eh… yea you right
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Having fun with this, i feel like I’d like to see a method for attackers to place more reliable bombing mission marks etc, for CCRP.
Baiting the S-75 sites and getting them to launch is a good way to see them just wish was easier to share them information to accurately than trying to use squad mark + map pings from range. then using that to try and accurately place CCRP stuff is rough.
Everyone spawning automatically on 1 side instead of being spread is a problem for sure.
one side just ends up being completely swarmed with defensive fighters.
No markers would be fine for air RB EC, but not a short gamemode like this. It conflicts with how the mode is designed, and it adds alot more dead time than there needs to be. I’d prefer a reduced marker system like this:
Very excited for what this means in the future of PvPvE and PvE game modes, I love the idea of having more realistic objectives and gameplay in the RB gamemode that isn’t team deathmatch, SIM is a lot of investment to set up. But, I think these SAM sites would be an excellent addition to SIM as well. I like the idea of having helicopters in these modes, but this implementation doesn’t leave them with much to do.
The test is a lot of fun, but there are definitely too many MiGs for the attacking team to be able to focus on attacking ground targets with no markers. I like that you have to watch for smoke plumes – but when you’re also getting jumped by MiGs in a fully loaded F-4E, there’s a reason the US side never wins.
I’m really excited for a return of RB EC / other long format gamemodes where I can use planes and helicopters for more realistic and ground attack objectives, especially with gliding bombs and other advanced ordnance, and this is a great step towards that.
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This summarizes perfectly how i feel about the mode
I want to see it improve and i want to see it become a real gamemode for the game in the future
But the current balance on it is pretty bad Regardless of how good or bad the average american player is i always found myself at the top of the team with tons of kills
But no matter how well i or someone else does its just way too stacked against the american side right now
The comment about the defending side being a chill experience is spot on
My games defending have been super chill since im just flying around shooting down people without a worry Mostly in part because the Mig-21 is just straight up a better dogfighter for this kind of enviroment
While when im attacking i need to sweat like crazy to keep us up and we still lose…
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@Smin1080p_WT @Stona_WT This game mode is incredibly unbalanced at the moment. I will list some of the problems I have encountered.
1. No air defenses for attacking team/Americans: Right now the defending team can just hang around the enemy spawn and pick off any F-4E’s that have a full fuel and weapon load. The MiG-21’s are substantially advantageous at this time because they do not have to worry about winning an objective and have a half the map covered with friendly air defenses. It would be better if the attacking team had some bases that had air defenses to rely on, like M163’s. I’m not asking for much, but something is better than nothing.
2. Attacking team too reliant on focusing the main objective: If the attacking team wants to have a good chance of winning, everyone would need to start off with an air-to-air loadout and kill as many MiG-21’s as possible in the beginning of the match. This doesn’t happen realistically because everyone would rather focus on the main objective and bring bombs or rockets rather than thinning out any of the defending teams’ aircraft. The defending team only has to care about killing other planes while the attacking team has to worry about multiple dangers.
3. No fire-and-forget weaponry for attacking team: I was saddened to hear that there were no anti-radiation missiles for testing, because the main reason they were developed was to ease the work load off of those doing Wild Weasel missions. Even though the early AGM-45 Shrike variants weren’t that good and antiquated to use, it would still help if they were implemented to some degree. Right now you have to get very close to the SAM sites all while having to worry about enemy aircraft spotting you while trying to take them out. I can understand why Wild Weasels were such dangerous missions. If a balancing factor is being considered then the F-105 Thunderchief could carry the Shrikes while the F-4E’s have more of a focus on air-to-air duties.
4. Defending team weaponry needs a nerf: As from my understanding, Vietnam never used MiG-21bis and never used the R-13M missile. Their inventory consisted of MiG-21PF and MiG-21MF carrying R-3S and R-3R’s only. I would understand this may be too drastic of a change and could just retrofit the MiG-21bis to only carry 4 missiles of the R-3 category. I think this event should be extended to keep testing the balance for either side and just keep tweaking the defending teams’ weaponry. If the defending team is still too strong then you could swap the MiG-21bis for the MiG-21PFM/MF with R-3S and retrofitted R-3R’s.
5. Helicopters have poor performance on Afghanistan: Because Afghanistan is at a high altitude, the helicopters have a substantially hard time maneuvering between the mountains. Even worse if they have to try to fight off an airplane or evade a missile.
6. SAM sites use SACLOS instead of guiding on radar emission: I think I have encountered moments where the SAM site was locking onto one of my team mates and I wasn’t receiving an RWR warning until my team mate decided to go low and then the SAM site starts locking onto me and guiding it’s missile mid flight. I had barely any time to react to this sudden change and I believe it might be because the SAM sites use SACLOS guidance, but I’m not sure.
These are the main problems I have encountered. The defending team has it pretty easy just because they have one thing to focus on while the attacking team has to worry about many dangers. This isn’t the fault of the players or their skill level. I would understand if there might be skilled players deciding to only play on the defending team for an easy farm, but it really is just the design of the gamemode in its current form.
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I have a bit of a crazy idea, what if they had AI F-14 really really far back and they would launch phoenixes at MiG-21
It would fit Vietnam theme since F-14 did see use in Vietnam
As much as i like marker-less RB, way better than normal RB…the event is not SEAD.
I mean, thematically is SEAD and understandable if you test the SA-2 for example … but in practice we could test the counterparts like AGM-45 Shrike /AGM-78 StARM and i won’t say AGM-122 Sidearm (too new) , but you could try AGM-67 Focus for the helis -it’s not anti-radar, but A-G and it can work against Shilkas .
But dogfighting with no markers , we need that for modern jets. It’s very good!!! A permanent event mode or something will be good.
In general, we need more events like this. Good or bad implementation it doesn’t matter, you have to try things till you find the formula.
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That’s a tough one because they only saw service at the very tail end of the war and the Phoenix missiles are pretty strong in-game. The Phoenix missiles were also meant for bombers and not small fighter aircraft like MiG-21’s. I think a better solution is to just nerf the weaponry of the MiG-21bis or just outright switch the defending teams’ planes to MiG-21PFM with R-3S and R-3R if they are still too strong.
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You can snipe the 21s with 7E2s
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Mode is hot garbage. Absolutely skewed in Russia’s favor.
Go figure.
Except its not for GRB. Its for the new ARB game mode. They literally said it in the post about the event. I doubt we see it in GRB as single one would just hit anywhere between the two airfields.
No you can’t. Any competent Mig will hug the ground making the Sparrows nothing but dead weight because the 4E radar is dog water and can’t separate targets from ground clutter.
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I keep my fingers crossed for this test. Solid PvE can be a saving grace for top tier BS you are serving.
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I love it. The simplicity of it, the mig v phantom, the objectives. Keep it in forever like this.
Actually they had MiG-21MF available with 4x R-3S/R in late phase of war.
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I have to say, after playing this event with some buddies, this is EASILY the best thing added to WT in a long time. Something actually new gameplay-wise with potential applications in wider gamemodes in the long run. Everyone I played with was talking about how this was the most fun they’d had playing WT in years.
Now thats not to say this was perfect. There were some clear issues quite frankly.
- Spawncamping from the soviet team is incredibly easy to perform and night uncounterable for the americans.
- Preset loadouts, while useful for those who dont typically do any form of ground attack or have the vehicles unlocked, also limit player creativity and adaptability to the game-mode.
- Some of the SAM sites were effectively out of bounds, which made them very hard to strike, as you’d get spawned flying away from them while you were trying to line up a strike due to hitting the map borders.
- The shilkas seemed a little too good. It may have just been bad luck on my part, but anytime you got anywhere within ~2-3km from a Shilka, you’d be killed outright or at the very least crippled to a point where you were borderline combat ineffective. This wouldnt have been a problem if it wasnt for the fact that the shilkas sometimes turn off their radars, making them almost impossible to spot until you’re already being fired at when you’re already dealing with evading superior enemy aircrafts and the S-75, making many deaths to them feel very random and unfair.
I do want to dedicate a little extra on the Shiljas though. I very much like that they felt deadly, dangerous, and they did their jobs well. I dont want them to be nerfed to the levels seen of AI SPAAGs ingame atm, and I actually dont think its necessarily bad they turn off their radars and the likes, as that would be tactics that would be performed irl. The issue imo stems from the faft that they are laser accurate with or without the radar and there is no effective way to mark their approximate position for our team long term, or even to decern their position a bit more accurately as the game drags on. Flying around looking for the next objective and suddenly exploding due to a stream of 23mm shells hitting your pilot square in the jaw despite no RWR warning and with no way to provide long term intel to your team regarding potential threat locations just seems like theres a bit of an RNG death mechanic to the mode.
The above complaint may simply be due to limited experience with the mode though, so I’ll definitly keep playing and hoepfully get a better idea around how I feel regarding the current implementation of the SPAAGs in the SEAD mode. Generally speaking, atm I think I ratger these AI SPAAGs to the ones we have in-game in all other gamemodes, but I think they still need a little more work to get them just right.
They should feel dangerous, not unfair, and atm I’m leaning towards them feeling a bit more like the latter.
I havent yet tried the helicopters, so I dont wanna comment too much on them. What I can say is, I’m interested and optimistic in their inclusion, but atm not sure how they’d be effective in the game mode. The TOWs and Hydra-70’s theyre armed with seem to be subpar for the threats at play, and the games end too quickly for things that move as slowly as they do. We were using them as a glorified TGP at first, using it to easily spot SAM sites, but once we got a better hang of the gamemode, we stopped running them entirely.
Overall very positive, a fantastic step in the right direction despite some teething issues. I look forward to playing this some more, along with me being a bit more (cautiously) optimistic about the future direction of WT!
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