As someone who enjoys playing SPAA, i would personally see as much SPAAs as we can. Most of TTs still have a massive gaps in TT that needs fillings. Especially in mid tiers. In some nations there are a lots of options and in some they arent that many left.
BUT what i also notice is the low rewards you get for playing SPAAs. Feel like i get same rewards when i shoot down 5 planes with SPAA as i would get for 2 kills and assist. These low rewards, i would guess, are one of the reason why people dont play SPAAs.
So what do you girls and guys say? Would more SPAAs and rewards made you play SPAAs more?
The only reason I rarely use SPAAs is the lack of targets. It’s boring as hell to just sit and wait for something to show up that you can shoot at.
I don’t care about RP & SL, it has no influence on which vehicles I choose to play.
The main issue with SPAAs for me is to hit a plane in the first place. Practically all my plane kills are sheer luck. I cant hit relaibly and since planes come and go it also takes alot longer to train this. looking at other players there seem to be at least a sizeable amount with similar issues. They often get dispatched relatively easy by plains and once the planes are gone there is not much to do with them, sure you can try it as a tank destroyer wich can partially work in some cases but the experience overall is not very funny.
I think better rewards would at least reward the players that are able to use it better and promote their use to them. I doubt that it would cause more ppl to get an SPAA since most dont hit at all. It might work if you would reward near misses with “Air deterent” rewards so you get something for trying.
So…if there would be a like a SPAA training game mode where the planes would spawn non stop and you could bring the SPAA you want and lear to aim them?
The current ground mode has tanks standing around in various distances so you can learn how a tank looks at what distance to get an idea about it.
It would be nice to have the same display for air that stays static in various distances and heights so you get a feeling for how it looks at the various distances. And then get various planes moving around at typical speeds so you get an idea how you have to lead. It would also help if you could measure distances and speed for planes quickly so you have some help to determine where to shoot. The whole measurement is something i only ever use on tanks.
Yeah…pretty much more easily said then what i wrote XD. But yeah, gameplay can be boring. Especially the fact when you play tank, half of enemy team is in air, you die to cas, but when you spawn literally 10 seconds later into SPAA, there is no air targets to be found.
At most tiers, planes get to dictate the fight VS SPAA. Their ability to fly outside the battlefield and utilize cover/range far more efficiently is incredibly frustrating when fighting a pilot who knows their shit.
The rewards from actually taking down a plane are hot garbage, and do not incentivize it.
And current SPAA choice is, to say the least, lacking. US alone has 10+ SPAAs I can name to fill certain gaps and populate the tree more, not to mention make for more effective AA than current examples…
I’ll disagree. I play SPAA a lot and I even have pure SPAA lineups sometimes depending on the BR. Now I don’t generally play beyond 8.3, only because beyond that certain CAS have much more of an advantage and can probably see you well before you see them, and enemy ground units can engage me from longer ranges more accurately with laser range finders and thermals.
But at lower BRs, playing a SPAA requires you to check the map, confirm where friendlies are and plan your spots. With some SPAAs you can really help your team by damaging tracks and barrels, but I’m also there to prevent CAS destroying my team.
I do have certain parameters in which I’ll engage air targets, like not just firing at everything from the spawn, or only firing at one CAS when multiples are in the air.
Vehicles like the Falcon, or 341 (great SPAA, almost immune to strafing) I can be more proactive, and move around to engage at longer distances and closer to my team.
Others like the Bosvark or M53/59 I have to choose my spots, and also the target as they have less armor due to the open top and being exposed.
If I’m doing my role properly, I’m hoping that my team will enjoy their game free from CAS.
In the test drive there are two aircraft that come from the same direction and altitude, which you can practice your lead. If you destroy them they start from the same position over and over again.
I tried that one some days ago, but in case you dont destroy it it takes way to much time to get it to spawn again. Having more manual control over this would be helpful.
I mainly first spawn SPAA and try to kill the waves of Revenge bombers, I genuinely enjoy playing SPAA watching CAS players rage once in a while is gold!
I find the main reason that SPAA is “Boring” is the Lack of SPAAs in most countries Except:
Russia(they are good now please.), France-ish, Germany-mostly), Britain-ish)
But the major issue is the oversized muzzleflashes of every autocannon in this game. I’ve made a report about the Bofors40mm´s in this game. For real you are a more visible target to planes then they are to you! You have a rave lamp above your tank and a sign that says Hey I’m right Here!!
Just to start things off: I enjoy playing SPAA and do it a lot.
So the following is obviously not from my first hand experience.
What I think keeps people from playing SPAA:
It’s not the vehicle, they want to play. IMO a rather selfish reason.
Rewards for shooting down aircraft are too low. Lower than those for tank kills for some reason I can not grasp.
If there are no targets up and the SPAA can’t be used as light tank, gameplay is relatively boring.
Many SPAA vehicles are very vulnerable, both to foes on the ground and in the air, so playing them can become very frustrating.
Slow firing SPAA with slow turret speeds yield less success than high rate of fire SPAA with 20mm+. The availability of the more effective variants is rather limited for a lot of ground trees though.
The SPAA themselves are the issue for me .I find most of them useless. I like and play the SPAA that actually work and get kills with them. I also need cover for them, and Gaijin are going through a flat map period.
I’m a huge SPAAG fan- if you look at battles played, something like 3 of my top 5 vehicles are SPAAGs.
The current problems as I see it with SPAAGs
The learning curve
SPAAGs, like any gun, have a learning curve. Knowing where to shoot and distances/velocity is, again, like any gun, something that takes time.
HOWEVER.
The big thing with SPAAG is that the velocity, fire rate, distance, etc. is so different between every SPAAG. Except those that operate the same weapon systems, knowing where and how to aim is difficult. I’ll take the M19/M42 as an example. Both of these are dual 40mm Bofors carrying SPAAGs. The 40mm have a slow rate of fire, are often not as fast as you’d like, and also generally speaking require a high knowledge of how to lead them/aim them to hit targets. Although generally an insta kill once you hit a plane, knowing how and where to fire takes so much time and is such a steep learning curve, that being willing to sit through it is hard.
Going for tanks/AP belts
Some of the reason SPAAGs aren’t played is because they are- just not how they are supposed to. Vehicles like the Leo 40/70, ZSU-57, R3-T20 FAHS, and M19/M42 all have fast firing decent penning cannons. So why would I try and hit a fast moving, hard to kill plane, when I can simply go in and absolutely wreck some of the tanks I see? Especially for vehicles like the M19 that sit at such a low BR and can front pen a fair bit of what they face, learning to play SPAAGs when I can go for tanks (and somehow earn more rewards) is ridiculous.
At top tier- lack of ability
The ADATS is one of my favorite vehicles in the game. No question. It’s missiles are effective at SPAAG duty and it gets 8 of those puppies. Plus a 25mm gun as an in case. But an issue? It’s missiles (and gun) can only go up 65°. That means that any plane that has climbed up high enough is impossible for me to shoot down, as even if I manage to spot the guy at 30k feet in the air, my missiles won’t be able to reach up that high. And that’s assuming I see him. Lack of ability, like in the ADATS (or Stingers locking on to Helis) makes these vehicles frustrating to play, and make me want to leave them out of a lineup
That’s just my opinion though.
TL:DR SPAAG is more difficult and at higher Brs incapable of facing quite a few of the threats they face, making it not enjoyable to play it overall.
The problem is that SPAAs are bad and CAS is OP. You are very rarely going to kill a plane before it’s dropped it’s bombs, and there is little benefit to kill the planes after they have dropped their bombs, otherwise why would half of them just suicide after anyway? They get to spawn close to the battlefield, take out priority targets, then quickly spawn back in a tank. Meanwhile SPAA playing passively is doing little benefit to their team, taking out unloaded CAS, not helping to take caps.
The rewards are bad but that is hardly the biggest issue.