Agreed
No the problem is there are nothing to counter airplane and bombers, which is different for grenade which can be thrown back if you are lucky, now how are you suppose to throw back a 500lb bomb back to the sky?
This thread is 41 replies long and skimming through it it seems thereâs some confusion and frustration. TLDR â Learn to fly or master anti-aircraft.
Planes do NOT need to be nerfed. Planes play a critical role in killing grey zone camping tanks and wiping steamroller teams. If you try flying, youâll find very quickly that it takes quite a bit of skill to be able to hit anything. Sure 250-500 lb bombs can have a big blast radius, but youâll quickly find out how long you stay in the sky uncontested - not very long. To actually hit a large kill you need to know each map to a certain degree and get the angles right. To be fair, I learned bomber in about 4 consistent days so it isnât as steep as one might expect. Dogfighting & flying in general takes longer though.
Look, to anyone who is frustrated by planes, learn to build AA and use it. Yes it is easier said than done, but one to two solid AA shots will take down a plane. Due to the way the targeting system is currently, there is no carpet bombing, so be thankful for that. The majority of players fly low and aim manually rather than flying 1,000+ ft in the air. If you get good with AA it does not matter if you are premium or not, you will be the bane of 80% of every pilotâs existence.
Historically during this period the absolute best counter to a plane is another plane. So if you donât like getting decimated with bombs, which is NOT a regular problem to my recent experience, then learn to either use AA or fly a fighter. More people knowing how to shoot another plane out of the sky is good for the battlefield. As well you are already an engineer to build rally points and ammo for your team. It also makes for some great air-to-air and anti-air combat.
Spoiler alert! Many bombers donât actually know how to dogfight so it is easier to do that you may think - merely need to learn how to fly first! And thatâs the thing, yes it is mindless to get a big kill fly back and watch kills go brrrr, but if thatâs all the pilot knows how to do heâs easy to shoot down. You just need to contest themâŚ
Right now the balance is good and as a tank/infantry main Iâd know if planes were overpowered. They are not.
While I agree with almost everything you wrote, please consider that this thread was active in June 2021.
Since that, we now
- have bomb markers
- bomb blast now considers buildings and bunkers (at least to some extent), so your team wonât get wiped out when you think youâre safe 2 levels below ground
- going prone supposedly increases your survival rate vs. bombs
- also AA rotation speed is increased (at least I saw someone mentioning it)
- AA sometimes was taking up to 20 hits to cause malfunctions in the planes, even more to get them down from the sky
So planes werenât nerfed much, yet life is much better on the suffering side. No constant 10-20 kills every bombing round any more.
The most prominent long lasting issue I remember to be still around is the suicide-bomber pilots. In reality that should happen only on the Axis/Pacific. 
Suicide should be punished otherwise, and there needs to be a way to land your plane properly once you wish to switch to another squad.
Which is the other issue, if you donât pay, you need to determine before the match whether you bring a tank or a plane to the party.
I donât know whether the broken hitboxes are fixed by now making dogfight a terrible experience earlier. Hope so. It sometimes took up to 2 minutes + 1 reload for a fighter pilot to kill certain planes.
âŚI must admit it is true, yet grey zone camping tanks should not exist to start with.
If a tank is outside your reach because of custom game rules and not because of tricky enemy tactics, thatâs a broken game mechanics, not a good reason for planes (or only temporarily).
Planes should of course stay because they are fun, and much better balanced than were before.
I did not realize this was started in 2021, so thank you for that. Most everything I said was based on the current experience. Every critique you made is a fair point.
^-> This is fair and I didnât consider it since I always had at least a premium account. The way the game is setup leveling would take forever to get to max without it. So Iâd recommend if itâs possible that everyone get a premium account. But thatâs here nor there. The dogfighting has improved and as long as you arenât shooting at max range a plane can be shredded pretty quickly. At max range youâd still have to go reload if youâre unlucky.
Anecdotally Iâve found a plane can be killed with 150 bullets or less if you are right behind them. The trick is to figure out how to focus fire on a wing or the engine. The lead target it gives you doesnât seem to end up hitting consistent critical parts. But that can also be the angle of the shooter vs receiver.
^-> The grey zone is annoying although Iâm not sure how else you could prevent rampant spawn killing. They recently reduced the time you get out of bounds before death which makes it harder to kill the grey zone tanks with infantry. That should be adjusted back IMO. It is also a death sentence if a tank gets stuck out of bounds. In short, I agree with this totally.
Andris youâve made some very well thought-out good points. Glad youâre contributing in the forums!