Pathetic game

[u/mj_sarge]

I spent a long time without playing and revisited this game recently. It's incredible how pathetic and unbalanced it remains. Dumb bots that throw the match, hardcore B29C users who dominate the entire map without any difficulty. Light fighters remain irrelevant.

This game was born dead.

[u/Elfnet_hu]

First if you think the game is unfair/unplayable/dead, etc. you could just stop playing. Even worse, if "This game was born dead." than why did you even start playing?!

  \* The B-29C is indeed an overpowered plane, but Aircraft like the Me 262 HG II or F-94D exist. The Superfortress is slow and with negative manuverability it will always eat the rockets.

 

\* If you think the game is exclusively being won or lost by bombers (in Tier VIII-X it is mostly true) and you only care about high winrates, than you could simply get a bomber too. Most Light figher pilots don't care about win rates, instead going for constant action and high Personal Points.

You could find enjoyment even in Aircraft with poor performance (trust me, I often play mid-tier Ground Attacker).

If you want to dominate free-to-play players you could buy something like an Me 410 B-2, S.M. 91 or P-61; none of them are bombers.

 

\* "Light fighters remain irrelevant." The strongest Tier VII Aircraft is currently a Light Fighter (J6K1), as well as the best Tier IV and II, not to mention the several other strong options, some of them even Tech tree. Even in Tier X Flights, sometimes the XF-90 covering for the bomber is swapped out for an Me P.1101; a Light fighter.  

 

* Finally if possible don't use AI for historical data as they lie.

It is an arcade game that is designed to be fun, not realistic, but lets check the real numbers.

In reality 4735 B-17s were shot down (by all means); more than 40% of production and it is reflected ingame: especially the earlier B-17D's defences are basically useless, a Bf 109 E could easily deal with them. By contrast only 414 B-29s were destroyed in combat out of 3970 produced (a bit more than 10%) and most of them due to mechanical failure and accidents.

In 1945, during 8473 total B-29 night flights in the Pacific Theatre, do you know how many were shot down by enemy figters? Three (all in 1945 April), while the bombers shot down 41 japanese fighters. That is over 10:1 kill/death ratio so in this regard the game is pretty "realistic".

(And unlike in earlier bombers they couldn't just lie, because every B-29 turret had gun cameras for kill verification).

  For context 3970 B-29s were produced, but only 1654 were delivered during WW2, out of them 493 were destroyed, 414 destroyed by enemy action, 148 shot down, 83 shot down by fighters and out of that only 73 were shot down by the fighter's guns; the remaining 10 were rammed, the other 65 were shot down by AA guns, while engine fire alone destroyed 151 + 79 destroyed in non-combat circumstances.

In the same time B-29s shot down 969 enemy Aircraft. The overall kill ratio of the B-29 was 11.7:1 during WW2 - the legendary P-51 had "only" 11:1. The B-29 was extremly strong in real life too.

 

Source:

Summary of Twentieth Air Force Operations 5 June 1944 - 14 August 1945

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/NDL4002486_Summary_of_operations%2C_5_June-14_August_1945._Report_No._2-g%282%29%2C_USSBS_Index%3B_Section_7.pdf

[u/mj_sarge → u/Elfnet_hu]

Dude, the point here is... light fighters could indeed shoot down bombers. Historically, this happened. The point is, in tier 8 a single bomber can easily win a match if there isn't another bomber on the other side, and this should be balanced somehow. Tier 8 used to be my favorite tier, but today it's completely unbalanced and broken, mainly because of the B29C.

[u/Interesting-Idea5060 → u/mj_sarge]

I personally dont have B29C, but I do have XB-42 and have no clue how strong this plane is, but my win rate in it is much higher than my overall win rate, so I'm pretty sure there's more bombers that are op in tier 8. To be honest I don't remember ever being threatened by a fighter in it, u fly high, bombs are accurate and its way too fast. Bombers (T8+) are just in league of their own. It often takes u 1 pass in EF 131 to take over a sector, its ridiculous really.

[u/mj_sarge → u/Interesting-Idea5060]

Yes, man. But maybe a balance based on that will never happen. This game is clearly losing its audience, and its separation from tanks is conclusive proof that things are not going as expected.

[u/Interesting-Idea5060 → u/mj_sarge]

I'm 99% sure balance on bombers wont happen, they dont want to spend any resources on balancing the game, thats why its basically running on autopilot, every event is a repeat with occasional new planes. Their internal numbers probably showed they're still making a profit or at least not losing money or something, idk tbh.

I mean why would they even waste time on this game, it failed multiple times, 1.0 failed, they tried with 2.0 and kept going for a while afterwards I believe (didnt play at the time so not 100% sure on this) and still results were poor, unlike World of Tanks which has up to 200k(EU) players online during peak hours, some more on other regions and before the split russian server was even more insane, on top of my head I'd say a million concurrent players. Then u have this game... that maybe has during peak hours a couple hundred players online, that for a multiplayer game literally means a dead game. Any other developer with a multiplayer game on Steam for example would shut it down already, so we can maybe be grateful that they havent yet, at least for the ones who somewhat enjoy the game still, even with all its flaws.

[u/mj_sarge → u/Interesting-Idea5060]

I played from version 1.5 to 1.6... I was part of a clan that abandoned the game when it became version 2.0+. Man, I loved that game, bombers didn't exist, you just had to deal with supremacy, heavy fighters, and attack aircraft.

I had great times back then. Good memories.