The Length of Arcade Battles: Opinions of the Community

[Spud_Bencer 18]

IMHO, besides bombing bases, pillboxes and airfields (a fine feature to make points), it should be mandatory that each side USES UP ALL THEIR PLANES to see who won the match...

If you don't kill all the bomb targets, NO WIN, but also, NO WIN if you just kill the bomb targets.

There's too many battles over within 5 or 6 minutes, especially if one side has lots of bombers...

Unless they come up with an AB mode called "Interception", where you match bombers against fighters and flak-AI.

Just my 2 cents.

[ledhed14 239]

Just make airfield loss stop bleeding tickets so the other ground targets get a going over to win .
It seems a simple win - win for everyone as fighterbombers and attack planes will be needed for a win .
Why so stubborn to stick with broken system ?

[InfidelCrusader 344]

I'd like to say to this:

Early tier games (Tier 1 and 2, sometimes tier 3) have a really nice length! 10-15mins average.

But tier 3 (BR range close to tier 4) + 4 games end too fast...

So I'm going to vote for: "Far too short. Should be considerably longer." And 10-15mins (Games where I actually use all of my 5 planes sometimes)

I thought about 20 mins, but that'd be too long for me.

But I consider T1 and T2 to be (already) the perfect length most of the time. Problems arrive higher you go in the BR range

yeah same here

tier 1-3 take ages

late tier 3 -4 (i dont really play tier 5) are over very fast! mainly because of the big bombloads

 

about 15min are enough

and for tanks.. same. 15min.. but with only 3 tanks in AB? screw this, give us "unlimited" spawns back! like it was in 1.41 or how it still is in AB planes..

[InfidelCrusader 344]

make it how COD makes it: 75 kills and the game is over  :lol:

i think i should stop giving dumb ideas to trolljin..  ;)s

[InfidelCrusader 344]

"B17s back then were not often used for airfield bombing"

mainly because of its poop bombload?

[long5hot 7,302]

"[background=#d8d7d2]B17s back then were not often used for airfield bombing"[/background]

[background=#d8d7d2]mainly because of its poop bombload?[/background]

I presume you're quoting me? Yes the bombload, and also the slow speed of the plane (compared to Yer-2s) plus the lower rewards from airfield bombing. Not to mention the fact that with the significantly larger bomb splash back then and tanks that didn't dodge, you could farm whole tank columns from 5000m altitude. Edited November 14, 2014 by long5hot

[Renamed748193 565]

IMHO, besides bombing bases, pillboxes and airfields (a fine feature to make points), it should be mandatory that each side USES UP ALL THEIR PLANES to see who won the match...

Now that's a problem. There's still some old-fashioned guys playing this game who don't like throwing away their planes and have a will to lose none. It's a rare taste, I know. But it tastes very good to me and every now and then I see others ingame with the same attitude towards the game.

[Agent_Of_Change 2,231]

Now that's a problem. There's still some old-fashioned guys playing this game who don't like throwing away their planes and have a will to lose none. It's a rare taste, I know. But it tastes very good to me and every now and then I see others ingame with the same attitude towards the game.

 

This is very much the case.  Those of us with a preference to not lose planes would then end up in a likely stalemate km's above the enemy horde and if they don't climb why should we go down to them?  I agree that not requiring all planes be expended is the way to go but allowing it to be victory as it is now is the right thing.

[gpanicucci777 481]

My heart breaks each time I lose a plane... But I wouldn't mind games going on for ages and ages. So long as it isn't like the rb climb/wobble/lack of ammo fest

That's. 1 way for gaijin to increase the grind. They love that $1-1iT Edited November 18, 2014 by gpanicucci777

[Boban_Rajovic 2,179]

The voting pattern is clear.

 

I'll just add my comments for the votes I gave.

I've voted for "Far too short. Should be considerably longer." and "15 to 20 minutes".

 

But here's the deal, time preference varies by BR, for example, 15min game is still not good enough for jet combat, I'd like to have 20+ minute games with jets, because they require more time to set up proper attacks, etc.

 

Another thing, some ridiculously small maps and 1-airfield Domination maps do not belong in T4 and T5.

 

 

However, I'm not even hoping for a change anymore.

[long5hot 7,302]

However, I'm not even hoping for a change anymore.

And that's what's so sad about all this. 18 months ago when patch 1.31 first started the trend of making battles shorter there were long threads (with polls) showing the same dismay over the loss of enjoyable gameplay and with nearly 90% of people voting for a restoration of longer battles. Back then I had a lot of faith in Gaijin and believed they'd do the right thing. And they did pull back the ticket loss and gremlins to a degree in subsequent patches, but never to the point they were at prior to 1.31.

Then they introduced the minibases and the bomber rushing began in earnest, with new Domination maps that were highly susceptible to fast ticket bleed while promoting stupid clusterfrack furball play over a single airfield or with a few airfields compressed together. Then came the stealthy removal of half the ground targets from most Ground Strike maps. After a while it became obvious that Gaijin WANTS short battles, and mindless furball gameplay is their idea of what Arcade should be right up to the highest tiers. Its also evident that they couldn't care less what the community thinks of this, the developers are pushing their own agenda for reasons I really don't understand.

Why would they deliberately make gameplay worse rather than better? Yet that's what they're steadily & relentlessly working towards, and its caused me to lose all hope that they'll ever listen to our feedback and start making changes that actually improve the game rather than sucking the fun out of it.

[BratwurstBob 3,855]

Its also evident that they couldn't care less what the community thinks of this, the developers are pushing their own agenda for reasons I really don't understand.

Why would they deliberately make gameplay worse rather than better? Yet that's what they're steadily & relentlessly working towards, and its caused me to lose all hope that they'll ever listen to our feedback and start making changes that actually improve the game rather than sucking the fun out of it.

This. The absence of logic is the most common demeanor for the company and it's policies.

[long5hot 7,302]

What saddens me most is that short games are now common from biplanes right up to T4 (I don't have jets so I can't speak for T5). The main cause is the removal of half the ground targets from most Ground Strike maps, along with the fast ticket bleed in many Domination battles.

No longer is it a worthwhile pursuit climbing to win altitude supremacy, hunting base-pounding bombers and screening your own from climbing fighters. Not when a couple of ground attackers down at tree top level can kill 10 tanks, enough to put one side or the other ahead, and then the gremlins script eliminates the remainder. In so many battles now its all over in 10 minutes or less and anything happening at high altitude is just irrelevant.

Gaijin want us to furball at low altitude, that much is becoming clear. They want us to play mindlessly without tactics or strategy, to blow through our planes & pay big repair costs to cut down our earnings. They've designed Arcade now to cater to the lowest skilled player who simply doesn't care, and are removing the enormous potential it had to be so much more. All through making battles short, and through spreading out the PvE objectives to make it impossible to win a battle by mounting a good defense.

For the first time in 2 years I'm finally becoming fed up with Arcade due to the short battles that have been forced on us. RB with its long commute to & fro, its poor spotting, its wobbly FMs, its small numbers of planes in the air and its long queue times ... just doesn't interest me. If Arcade's become so dumbed down that its appeal is lost, its maybe time to take a long & perhaps permanent break from WT. I'll give 1.45 a chance, but if that doesn't improve things (and I'm under no illusions that it will) then I'll prepare to say my goodbyes.

Btw Wibox, thankyou for posting this poll. If you're reading this, I wonder though if it will be seen by developers and if there's any chance they'll reconsider their drive towards shorter & shorter battles in Arcade? Edited December 9, 2014 by long5hot

[Sweetie_belle 279]

I agree with Longy, above. This game has many, major problems, but first and foremost is how short matches have become. I guess that's a pretty good way of masking the other issues, since we barely get to play the game in the first place. It used to be that Tier 2 (usually) was a safe haven from these short games, but that's just not so anymore. Even Tier 5 is afflicted with this- I had one match, in my Mig-9L last 4:15. I climbed. I didn't have time to do anything else. 

 

This seems to be a trend with F2P games like this- they suck me in with massive potential, and never really develop it. In Gaijin's case, they are actively avoiding said potential. 

 

They can add in nice new planes, or make new and bigger maps, they can even fix the DMs and hit detection, but unless they do something to make matches last longer, I don't see myself sticking with this game for much longer.

[LivewareProblemm 29]

Gajin really needs to understand the level of frustration that short games leaves in the player. Instead of feeling you have given it your best no matter what the outcome when there is a short game you left with no sense of enjoyment from the game. There is no sense that the time you invested that particular game was worthwhile.

 

I play regularly with a friend who never comes to the forums and so isn't influence by what's on here and to hear them groan in frustration and puzzlement when a games finishes quickly you see  quickly how even casual players are disappointed by this odd approach by the developers.

 

There  is also the related question of how games end.  I use to have no trouble knowing why a game ended in the way it had.  These days a sizeable percentage of the games are just a mystery with none of the usual reasons for a game finishing seeming to apply (eg airfield mostly intact and vehicles left intact).  If there is a programmed self destruct of vehicles as suggested above that would explain a fair bit and,  from a game play perspective, its so wrong.  For me this is a worse feeling than the feeling left by a short game. 

 

Most successful games depend on the feeling of immersion being successfully maintained. That your actions have a bearing on the outcome.  Once that feeling goes the sense of immersion goes with it.  Once the game mechanic starts showing through (particularly such an artificial  one) then that sense of immersion falls through the floor.

 

You know I still look at this game with a sense of profound respect when I see the degree of technical excellence they have put into it and then scratch my head when I see some of the gameplay decisions coming out  from Gajin.  Its like their are two totally different groups, one which created the game and another that is calling the shots now.

Edited December 12, 2014 by LivewareProblemm

[Firaxin 3,181]

Gajin really needs to understand the level of frustration that short games leaves in the player. Instead of feeling you have given it your best no matter what the outcome when there is a short game you left with no sense of enjoyment from the game. There is no sense that the time you invested that particular game was worthwhile.

 

It's funny, because Gaijin has publicly explained that the reason they refuse to raise the playercount per team any higher than it's already at, is because then individual players wouldn't feel like their contributions were "meaningful," which is debatable.

 

And yet by shoving a mission design down our throats that encourages <5 minute games, they guarantee the same effect.

[Th3GreenBaron 55]

I prefer longer games, where I can use many of my planes, and really use the 2x with some kills. If the match is finished after 5minutes neither am I satisfied, nor do I get some reward.

 

 

Ground Attack

For low tier the battles mostly are long enough but with raising bombloads on tier 3/4, matches are way too short. I think it should go longer, but Bombing still needs to be attractive, so just raise the rewards or give the bases more "lifepoints".

 

Dominatiom

Especially domination matches are over in no time, if one team doesn't cap in the beginning. For sure, it's the teams fault and if a team is bad, the round can end fast, bit maybe just raise the tickets, so that battles go at least 10min.

 

All in all i prefer longer matches, but what is most important is, that a game can end faster, if one team is just better. And I like the idea that battles has different lengths, beacause you never now how long "war" goes, and some fights are short, some are endlessly long.

[Hopit 4,416]

The domination ticked bleed has to go.

It's insane how fast it goes if other team loses their ground targets and have 1 zone less.

[sgtlongbow 1,936]

can we please get rid of the spawn limit on tanks already!

[Kanay 5,183]

Far too short, should be 15 to 20mn like it was many moons ago, best matches i ever had in this game were long matches, nowadays it's just way too short to even enjoy and it's probably worse for new players as this also push players in rushing objectives or enemies, not taking them time to climb or use any tactics, doing stupid things like bombers diving on targets or mostly head ons for fighters , longer matches will give more time to new players to try different things with them planes and discover the strengths and weakness of them aircrafts, not like we see regularly many players loosing 3 ( or more ) aircrafts in less than 5 minutes just because the gameplay favor the rushing and not the tactics or any thinking ...

Edited December 17, 2014 by Kanay

[BratwurstBob 3,855]

Dear Players,

 

The length of Arcade Battles has always been a topic in our Community. Please use this poll to give us an insight about your thoughts on the length of battles and use the comments to give further feedback and also reason to why you vote how you did.

 

Thank you!

2 months later, nothing happened. You can post all you want, Gaijin will always follow it's own agenda.

[Kanay 5,183]

Something happened ... Dominations maps ground units act like an airfield now ... destroy all ground units and the tickets will bleed like after an airfield destroyed ... no matter if you have the majority of the bases captured ... Saw this few times in Peleliu in 1.43 but now it seems to be on all domination maps ... 

 

 

The last type of games where we could often enjoy for more than 5-8mn ... now it's even shorter than ground strike maps, Domination soon to be renamed " Easier Ground Strike mode "...

Edited December 17, 2014 by Kanay

[Krawdad 10]

Something happened ... Dominations maps ground units act like an airfield now ... destroy all ground units and the tickets will bleed like after an airfield destroyed ... no matter if you have the majority of the bases captured ... Saw this few times in Peleliu in 1.43 but now it seems to be on all domination maps ... 

 

 

The last type of games where we could often enjoy for more than 5-8mn ... now it's even shorter than ground strike maps, Domination soon to be renamed " Easier Ground Strike mode "...

Seriously? Wow that is bad news. Do you know if this is also the case for Light Vehicle domination maps? All it takes is a single fighter to kill all the ground units in that game type...

[Kanay 5,183]

Happened numerous times yes, Sicily and some of the most recent dominations were bugged yesterday yes.

 

Only had Stalingrad as domination today and bug didn't happened, but yesterday had numerous domination maps ( didn't had Stalingrad so i can't say if it was fine or not yesterday ) and it was like this each time one team killed all ground units of the other team ... Didn't played low ranks so i don't know for light vehicles versions .

[gotyourtail 7,941]

Games are too short for Era 4/5, especially for Era 5. 

Edited January 4, 2015 by gotyourtail