Change back the dog fight mechanics

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    • Change back the dog fight mechanics

      Hello all,

      Since recently, without being communicated, the air battle mechanics have changed.

      Now, the old version wasnt perfect, as you had certain ways to do massive amount of damage without recieving any, or very little.

      Yet, the new version is even worse. Now you are rewarded to nót engage enemy aircraft during patrol runs. The player who stays online long enough to avoid the 15 minute tick, is the one that is rewarded with obscenely positive battle results.

      So all in all, the change was made that its a good idea to do damage by...not attacking?

      TL;DR

      Please revert back to the old dog fight mechanics, they arent perfect, but the new version is even worse.
    • Oh and when you do, PLEASE TELL US... changes that aren't communicated ruin the trust in game mechanics and, ultimately, the game itself.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • When patrol circles overlap and the tic of one side comes, the opponent (defender) fires back on that tick too.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      When patrol circles overlap and the tic of one side comes, the opponent (defender) fires back on that tick too.
      Fires back defensively or offensively? Hasn't the defender always fired back, using its own defensive values, when the patrol radiuses of two opposing air wings overlap? And then the two reverse when the previous defenders' 15-minute patrol clock expires, and the previous defenders now become the attackers, and the previous attackers become defenders?

      Am I missing something here? Has something actually changed?
    • Until two weeks ago, patrol-patrol air combat was one-sided; only on-tick damaged was dealt by one side at a time.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • Though on the surface the mechanics are still similar, it radically allows for a very abusive exploit. One that could also be used, sort of, in the old system, but it was not so devastating as it is now.

      Since I value openness, here is the exploit. Ill let Bytro decide whether they want something like this to exist in their games.

      1: Make very small air units, preferably fighters
      2: Find some poor sod who is using the regular 5/5 SBDE optimized stacks, patrolling somewhere
      3: Wait until their timer almost reached zero
      4: enter their patrol range just in time
      5: kill 5/5 unit (or most of them)
      6: rinse and repeat

      Additionally: Never ever ever ever ever, have your own patrol tick. Just dont. Forget sleeping, breathing or eating. Every 14 minutes and 50 seconds you have to press a button.

      Its like watching Lost all over again

      Note: Yes, this is pissing me off
    • miech wrote:

      Though on the surface the mechanics are still similar, it radically allows for a very abusive exploit. One that could also be used, sort of, in the old system, but it was not so devastating as it is now.

      Since I value openness, here is the exploit. Ill let Bytro decide whether they want something like this to exist in their games.

      1: Make very small air units, preferably fighters
      2: Find some poor sod who is using the regular 5/5 SBDE optimized stacks, patrolling somewhere
      3: Wait until their timer almost reached zero
      4: enter their patrol range just in time
      5: kill 5/5 unit (or most of them)
      6: rinse and repeat

      Additionally: Never ever ever ever ever, have your own patrol tick. Just dont. Forget sleeping, breathing or eating. Every 14 minutes and 50 seconds you have to press a button.


      Is this old or the new observation? And how it has changed since we talked about it last time? I heard about changes to air combat, but didn't have chance to test it yet.
    • :O He lives!

      Yes, its different now (see earlier posts) compared to the past.

      Planes do damage every time there is a tick, doesnt matter who does it. It leads to silly behavior and some people suspect there is a bug that make 'travelling' planes a LOT more powerful when they are hit (even moreso than in the past).

      Unless you think its normal 20 fighters kill 12 airplanes in 1 swift stroke (most 1,2,3 sized against the usual 5/5s) in a 15 minute battle. Happened to me today (and not the only weird result).

      Lets say this bug/feature is completely ruining said game, and Im not the only one complaining. You remember techstacking Para? This is probably 5 times as bad.
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      Until two weeks ago, patrol-patrol air combat was one-sided; only on-tick damaged was dealt by one side at a time.
      I am going to have to argue with that timeline. In a serious air battle 8/24 I am positive that there was damage to my own aircraft on both ticks of the patrol timer.

      My enemy had 39 planes, mostly Tac bombers and i think 7 interceptors in one stack, while I had 27 I think, but I had more variation, including naval bombers and rocket fighters. (high losses all around) I remember that I took more damage in response to my patrol tick attack than from the enemy patrol tick because Tac bombers at that level had an attack strength of 2 and a defense strength of 4.




      I suspect that this change would have come about from the changes to Patrol declaring war, and then the tinkering needed to make it only declare war after 15 minutes.
      War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin keep out of the way til you can. - Winston Churchill



      VorlonFCW
      Retired from Bytro staff as of November 30, 2020.

      >>> Click Here to submit a bug report or support ticket <<<
    • No we did not release any further changes to the airplane behavior in the last 2 weeks. So if you notice something uncommon, which could be a bug and does not align with the last changes we made to the airplanes (check the big newspost about the change) then please report it as usual. Thanks!
      Sarah / Sasri
      Ex-Community Manager
    • Sasri wrote:

      No we did not release any further changes to the airplane behavior in the last 2 weeks. So if you notice something uncommon, which could be a bug and does not align with the last changes we made to the airplanes (check the big newspost about the change) then please report it as usual. Thanks!
      Thanks for the reply. Can you confirm/deny/explain what is mentioned here? Regarding the new mechanics? Whether its 2 weeks, 2 months or 2 decades, is a moot point in my view.

      I think Xarus already brought it up somewhere in the GO skype/discord chat. And if anything went unnoticed, I believe every bit of info is here in this thread.

      Bottom line is that something hás changed, and a possible side effect is the 'near invulnerable travelling plane' bug
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      When patrol circles overlap and the tic of one side comes, the opponent (defender) fires back on that tick too.
      Correct, we changed that. It was implemented some time ago already though, at latest during the last big aircraft behaviour changes, possibly earlier, but very certain not past that point, so not during the last 2 weeks.

      Patroling aircrafts now deal attack damage and at the same time receive defense damage vs. other aircrafts, just as it is in ground fights or in fights with direct attacks.

      Reason for the change therefore was to make it consistent and more predictable, as we often got false bug reports about "why are my planes not doing damage but taking damage"? Since both sides now receive the damage it should make it easier to understand the air combat mechanics.

      I am however unsure how this relates to the behaviour described in this thread. Imo it should not relate at all, but maybe there is some missing detail that triggers a bug or exploit that I just don't get. Therefore, please explain it again in as much detail as possible how this mechanic change triggers and exploit, and what the exact result of that is.


      miech wrote:

      1: Make very small air units, preferably fighters
      2: Find some poor sod who is using the regular 5/5 SBDE optimized stacks, patrolling somewhere
      3: Wait until their timer almost reached zero
      4: enter their patrol range just in time
      5: kill 5/5 unit (or most of them)
      6: rinse and repeat
      So what happens at point 4 and point 5 exactly, can you please explain with example values? Who gets what damage in that one tick?
      What should happen is that the patroling aircraft attacks and gets attacked back, resulting in both armies receiving damage.
      Are you moving out of the patrol range after 5 again, making sure that your patrol tick does not trigger?
      Also, what would have happened at point 4 and 5 before the mechanics change?
    • @freezy, consider a situation where two sides A and B have plenty of planes, lets say 50, and they each divide that up into five 5/5 stacks. Both sides start patrolling and overlap, so the air battle starts.

      Player A ticks first. EACH of his stacks fires once, each doing X damage, for a total of 5X damage. However, on EACH of those ticks, ALL FIVE enemy stacks fire back, doing 5X damage EACH (actually a bit more because def value is higher than off for tacs, but forget that for a minute) , for a total of 25X damage (!)

      Player B sees this, and he wants to prevent it. He realizes he must absolutely prevent the tick. So after 14m, he changes the patrol circle one millimeter, so the stack has another 15m before its tick.

      Player A sees this also. He changes after 14m as well.

      Etcetera, etcetera. Both players prevent their tick, because they will take 5x more damage than they inflict. Both stacks stay as they are, taking no further damage, because neither ticks. The situation only ends when one of the player needs to go offline, and can't change the patrol every 14m. He must withdraw his planes, leaving the battlefield to his opponent (if he leaves them, they get slaughtered in no time).

      A "battle" is fought without casualties or results, both players have to be online every 15m, and if they can't, yield the ground. All in all, a very undesirable situation!
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • Basically Roko explained it all for me, though I have a few small addendums

      1: If a 'defending' player is on patrol, as far as I know he deals back offensive damage. At least in the old situation, unsure about the new one, havent tested.

      Which leads to 2: 'flying' aircraft (ie aircraft not on active patrol, but they are in the air) actually do defensive damage if they are in the circle of the attacker during their tick

      Which again leads to 3: Ive seen disproportional losses, even with the defensive bonus. Think getting 11 planes killed (out of 20-25, cant remember clearly) kind of damage during one of my offensive ticks, nearly no damage done back (think 0-5% per fighter). My stacks were SBDE optimized and the opponent had roughly half my amount of planes. In his advantage, he had mostly fighters, while I had balanced stacks. So though I could concede that I could have lost more per tick, not the huge amounts we are talking about.

      And 3, is what I believe to be the bug, as if the 'flyers' get a defensive bonus thats...I dont know 10-20 times as much as it should? Probably exaggerating here, but you get the point:).

      Concluding, as Roko pointed out very well, the new system is a classical case of 'the cure is worse than the disease'.