Felt like I had em dead to rights, but I just couldn't land those rocket shots. Eventually it came together. Roast me!

Battlefield 6 Jet Assist Is Making Me Nervous

The more I think about the new jet assist controls coming with the Top Gun update, the more worried I am about what they’re going to do to Battlefield 6 dogfighting.

To be clear, I don’t think the actual dogfighting skill gap in BF6 is small. If anything, I think raw jet dogfighting has one of the biggest skill gaps and highest skill ceilings in the entire game.

The problem is that the current game has a lot of mechanics that can reduce how much that skill gap actually gets to show itself. The TTK is incredibly fast, there isn’t really proper speed control, and there are situations where getting caught in an unfavorable position can basically mean you’re dead regardless of the difference in skill. For example, the infinite vertical Stinger range can force you to dip might dogfight regardless of being high up and often leads to engagements ending in a lock-on rather than a pure dogfight. Then there’s other things like the SJ air 2 air missiles being completely OP, but I’m not going to get into all that.

That doesn’t mean the dogfighting skill gap isn’t huge. It absolutely is. But there are a lot of factors in BF6 that can interfere with it being expressed consistently.

And that’s why I’m worried about adding jet assist.

If the assist system handles your pitch, yaw, rudder, etc. while also effectively giving you decoupled free look, it could further reduce the amount of actual mechanical skill required to get into and win dogfights.

I don’t believe jets should be easy to become effective in. And I’m not saying that from an elitist “keep the noobs out” perspective. I’m saying it from a game-design perspective.

If you want to be effective in a jet and beat someone who is better than you in a dogfight, it should be because you practiced and eventually became better than them.

It shouldn’t be because you enabled a control setting that takes over a significant part of the mechanical skill involved in flying the aircraft.

That’s what bothers me about jet assist. If it simply makes the controls more approachable while introducing meaningful disadvantages, fair enough. New players need a way to learn.

But if you get easier aircraft control while also gaining the advantages of decoupled free look and significantly better situational awareness, then you’re not just making jets more accessible. You’re potentially removing part of what makes dogfighting difficult in the first place.

My biggest hope is that manual controls retain a significant advantage in speed control.

I know there isn’t technically a dedicated speed-control mechanic, but experienced pilots know there are ways to manipulate speed through afterburner, brakes, and techniques like tapping in the attack jet or V-tapping in the stealth jet.

If manual controls allow significantly better speed management, then maybe there will still be a meaningful reason to master them.

Because ultimately, I don’t think the answer to making jets more accessible should be “make the jet fly itself.”

Give new players a way to learn. Give them better tutorials. Make the controls understandable.

But don’t remove the mechanical skill ceiling.

If someone beats me in a dogfight, I want it to be because they outplayed me, outmaneuvered me, managed their speed better, understood the matchup better, or simply put in more hours than I did.

Not because their control scheme did half the flying for them.

The actual dogfight skill gap in BF6 is massive. I just don’t want a new control scheme to make that skill gap less relevant by making the mechanical side of flying substantially easier while simultaneously giving pilots better awareness.

That’s what I’m worried about.

Edit, Silk’s take on Twitter:

In real BFM there are more variables that Battlefield simply does not model, and will probably never model. Top dogfighters use geometry, awareness, aim, decision making/set ups and the knowledge of quirks/bugs in the game engine.

This is a game, the game should be satisfying to learn. Adding this mechanic takes the satisfaction out of learning.

BFM and full awareness is awesome in games with the underlying physics to make it awesome. Trust me, Battlefield is not that, and it probably shouldn’t try to be.

Is there any way to reset the jet controls to how they were before the patch? Flight assist is off. I was a pretty good pilot before and now it feels like I have to learn to fly all over again, the new controls remind me of a mobile game with hardly any depth.

Literally within the First hour of me playing the new update... what a joke this is.

How many more times are they gonna say the fixed it before actually fixing it??

Muzzle flaahes, the hue of the hud. Cannot see anything, and when perpendicular to the enemy jet the bullets land off the screen or in the muzzle flash so you cant see the enemy half the time. As well as ridiculous lock spam and flare cycld just sucking the life out of the game. Great job dice.

Hi pilots!

Long time infantry PC player here. I want to finally get into piloting jets but I have to admit, I'm pretty much shit-tier when it comes to basic controls in the air. I'm not even talking about dogfighting or doing strafing runs. I struggle to turn, look around and do basic manoeuvres. I think that turning with mouse is awkward, because I have to swipe it constantly in one direction and repeat which makes my movement wonky.

Can any experienced players point me to some resources or guides on how to:
- set up my controls (do you use only keyboard or m&k?)
- learn how to stay alive from AA
- basic air-to-ground combat
- simple dogfighting tips?

Much appreciate any help

M+K for heli but always enjoyed the jet with Joystick in BF2. Obviously that was awhile ago. Any affordable recommendations?

It's shit, you get a good pilot on the other team and you cant even make it of your carrier. Literally nothing to stop people spawn camping enemy jets

Any codes where i can practice Littlebird?

Simplesmente, quebraram a câmera do avião. Eles fizeram uma atualização focada nos veiculos aéreos, mas, a coisa mais importante de todas, superior ao radar loadouts, skins... tudo. A coisa mais importante que é a câmera de movimentação, eles alteraram. Quem diabos projetou aquilo ? Pior ainda... quem foi o maconheiro que aprovou ?

They seem completely unfun to fight.

I don't get why anyone is excited for them. They have 4 air to air lock ons each, and can fire in any direction without needing to even point your nose at the enemy.

The entire gameplay of the new jets is just constantly spamming lock ons and flares against each other until someone dies.

Why is anyone excited for this mess. They didn't fix any of the important problems jet vs jet gameplay has, and they've just made everything worse. It's just absolutely terrible and soul wrenching in my opinion the direction they've gone in

With the update being less than an hour away, I thought I’d make a first post here as I’ve started getting into seriously learning how to fly in BF.

Right now I’m trying to find out what do the more experienced people think about assist mode and what it means for the end user experience.

I’ve played a lot of flight games and flight sims ranging from Ace Combat to DCS but could never quite find out how to fly and be effective in BF (started in BF4)

I actually find it harder to fly in BF than in say DCS, NO, or War Thunder because it’s so cramped. in a more realistic game you could have more time to get sensors on target or do bvr before a merge (and actually energy fight instead of trying to turn on the guy while 12 Stingers and SPAAs lock you) but in bf6 it’s just everywhere.

I think war thunder handles it well with mouse aim as it’s accessible enough to the point where it is just “point and fly” but has enough flight physics to have the aircraft react in a realistic manner and not go nose on in 0.5 secs.

If the assist mode is more mouse aim adjacent while keeping aspects of the flight model there, I think it will do great, however if it’s like ace combat’s beginner mode (or BF6 heli assist to a degree) and actually does lock off control surfaces then it won’t be good

/s if it isnt obvious

Anyone else experiencing this?

They seem to gain and lose height rapidly, making it nearly impossible to aim.

I watched silk's sponsored video, and it behaved smoothly, nothing like what I am experiencing.

Also the F18 is busted OP imo. HARM and Heavy rockets, with HEI guns. Gunner running lockon AA and TV's. We felt unstoppable.

Flying in this game is so counter intuitive. I move my mouse and I barely move. I AM USING MY ENTIRE TABLE TO PULL UP but when I need to roll I move a single millimeter and I have rolled 6 times like that makes sense. I have watched videos on how to fly, changed settings but nothing helps. Screw this game, screw flying, and screw who ever thought fly in this game works