I play planes.
Never in my life will I ever need to think about ever playing tanks. I can take a rank 1 reserve plane in AAB/ARB/ASB, use it and over time unlock rank VIII top tier aircraft without ever feeling disadvantaged for not having a tank. Maybe in ASB to offset the absurd spawn costs at rank V jets, but a premium solves that as does playing rank 3 games to save up for your rank V grind.
I play tanks.
You say, that playing tanks I should not have the same experience as with aircraft and I must play game modes with planes to play tanks?
Do you not realize the absurdity of this?
If I play planes, I can progress without any friction to top tier using only planes.
If I play tanks, I must be punished for wanting to play tanks and not planes (or even if I want to play planes - not wanting to play planes in game modes/rulesets I don’t enjoy).
My record for “most useful” yak-9k spawn was driving a Kv-1 Zis-5 to C on advance to the rhine at spawn and getting an assist on a panther before dying to CAS. I was so very useful to my team. Game-changing, truly.
And I’m not alone.
Consider:
ULQ is a good player.
But in no universe can you say he was “useful” for his team in his sacrifical M2A4:
Your argument that CAS deserves dominance falls apart at first examination.
Even you agree that one player gaining utter dominance over peers without the ability to return fire with appropriate use of their chosen vehicle is ridiculous and abusable.
Good job.
You grind SPAA with tanks.
You get zero plane RP with tanks.
You cannot get any clearer logic than this.
I can play ARB/AAB/ASB without ever touching any vehicle from the other branches (ground, naval) and have maximum enjoyment without handicap.
ARB/AAB/ASB have issues, but this point cannot be denied.
GRB/GSB should likewise be playable without ever touching naval/air trees. Helicopters I can see as justifiable purely to maintain consistent logic and prevent presenting a surface for you as helicopters CAN be grinded by only playing tanks (although inverse still fails to provide RP for tanks).
First: Competition is better at lower BR (prop tier, rank II, III, IV) than at rank V jets in ASB. Idk about rank VI/VII/VIII as I don’t play those. What might be the cause?
Maybe the fact that at prop tiers, when you die you don’t go into an irrecoverable debt spiral - so you respawn and keep trying and trying and trying until the match ends or you get bored/tired. You can do that in a yak-9k, bf109g14, spitfire and so on. You cannot in a Horten unless you have a premium account or a massive amount of saved up SL.
Here’s your warthunder example. Making it not impossible to play and gain progress even while losing improves competetiveness.
I consider myself competent at flying (especially my rudder control outside dogfights).. My ability to dogfight is not the best, but still think I’m peer to the average player (according to statshark vehicle stats, I perform better than the average player in my planes though, so take of that as you will.)(F4U-4, P-51C, F4U-4B I the basics inlearned in, becoming outliers). I get stomped by experienced players, as is right - 228 hours to a few thousand means I’m still fighting my plane a lot of times while it’s second nature to them. If you desire proof, feel free to inspect my dogfights that I recorded and make your criticisms.. I feel most proud of these-two
You’re also permitted, in fact encouraged, to look at my sessions played:
StatShark - See All Player, Missile, and Vehicle Statistics (ASB, ARB, pick your poison.)
And my vehicles:
StatShark - See All Player, Missile, and Vehicle Statistics (ASB, ARB, pick your poison. ASB is more representative as I play it more.)
Could also offer a personal sampling, but we play with different control schemes (which makes neither of us superior or inferior, better or worse - just confounding factor for comparison due to lesser experience in the other’s style. We could draw comparisons in both of our chosen styles to account for this. I’m quite keen at new experiences and happy for opportunities to improve my flying even if it’s an unusual context!)
I dislike how awfully tiny the GRB map is for flying planes, making high-speed mid-altitude dogfights effectively non-existent (which are what I prefer - 3-4km altitude band at 450-550 km/h starting speed).
Coinciding with the map design is the match duration - a fun dogfight can easily take 3-5 minutes on its own depending on whether you count from first shot fired, the merge or the preliminary jockeying for energy and position before the merge. Airspawns is also another thing I hate (only heavy bombers unable to take off or have awful climbrates should get airspawn) , alongside vicinity of airfields - I prefer being as far from airfields to not get an oil leak by hitscan flak.
I also dislike how my preferred planes (Corsairs, Mustangs, Bf109s) feel with mouse aim (too much rudder, flop around like a dead fish, constantly try to level wings out).
I also, rather shockingly, want to play with my T-34/KV, tiger/panther, my firefly/comet/centurion (and her variants) not fly planes. If I wanted to fly planes, I’d go to the mode where I fly planes and has neither of my issues (controls, map design, mission design.).
A terrifying concept, I know. Someone deciding to play ground battles after flying around for a week to play with cool tanks and not with planes (which they adore, but not in this context.)
Edit:
SBMM and ruining games.
SBMM is such a crucial aspect of competetive gameplay, that before there was an official AOE2 matchmaker, players created their own tracking system for ELO. Without SBMM, competetive AOE2:DE couldn’t exist.
Without SBMM, competetive Dota2 and LoL couldn’t exist.
And Dota2/LoL, in addition to SBMM, also necessitate a “Role queue” (players tell you what role they fulfill before queueing, with different ELO/MMR for different positions filled. Not honouring the role queue is a reportable and punishable AND enforced offence.) T
This is necessary because teamwork is necessary to win. Without a “Pos 5” (someone who has powerful early game advantage and falls off rapidly into late-game, transitioning into a utility position then), “pos 1” (powerful late game, but pitiful early game and mid-game) cannot be played. Pos 5 would dominate pos 1 if not for pos 2 and 3 whose job is to weaken the enemy pos-5 and maintain presence and create “space” during the mid game. Pos 4 is weird and either helps protect pos 1 like pos 5, but has better mid/late scaling or assists pos 3 in suppressing enemy pos 1. The decision making is only possible because SBMM ensures all 5 positions/team are equal in skill and game knowledge and role queue ensures both teams have all positions filled.
“Pos” is “Position” and refers to priority of “farm” (resources), with pos-1 getting primacy (you should farm even if there’s a fight happening except to clean-up until you “come online”) and pos-5 “you should never farm unless it’d go to waste or to the enemy”. Of course, there’s additional nuance and ways to break position rules at high skill levels.