[2023] In Detail: Air event markers in Ground Arcade Battles

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Greetings, fighters! We continue to work on making our game better in all aspects, and today we’d like to present a new article type: In Detail. It will include both player suggestions and our ideas that we’d like to elaborate upon and discuss with you.

Let’s discuss in detail markers in air events
We’d like to disable ground vehicle markers for pilots of fighters and interceptor helicopters during air events in Ground arcade battles. The markers will remain for strike aircraft, bombers, and helicopters with air-to-ground rockets and ATGMs.

Air events are a rather old mechanic that was adapted to new vehicle ranks by including more and more modern aircraft. But with more powerful payloads, more advanced fighters with front-mounted cannons appeared in the sky. Such aircraft were intended to escort or destroy strike aircraft (depending which side they’re on), but, beginning at the mid ranks, the fighters often prefer to rush to the tank battlefield and attack low armored vehicles.

As a result, we believe, gameplay suffered for both ground vehicles that had to fend off 2-4 aircraft instead of one serious aerial opponent, as well as the strike aircraft that were left with no cover while costing many times more.

Besides, after the middle of the battle the dominating side started to actively use air events for massive air attacks, lowering the comeback chances of the side that was already losing.

What’s going to improve
Fighters aren’t the “main characters” in air events: you can infer that from the fact that you can’t initiate the events as a fighter. Effective escort/interceptor fighters costing one point are meant to improve the chances of the strike or to counter it — depending on the side.

Fighter pilots that aren’t tempted by highlighted positions of the ground targets will concentrate on their immediate task, the tankers will clearly see their main target in the sky, and kamikaze attacks that annoy many of you will happen much less often.