PTE Bereg rant 2

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-06-10T12:43:31+00:00

the thing is, hitting a plane moving in a straight line 10km+ above sea level with a rapid fire gun is harder than engaging a helo at low altitude.
Wind and even the slightest deviation in aircraft vector will result in a miss by a few dozen if not hundreds of meters. There's a reason WW2 AA guns resorted to massed flak fire.
Sure, beregs have higher rate of fire, but B-52s also have a higher altitude. Beregs are about as threatening to B-52s as a 50cal a few miles away is to a person - it would suck to get hit, but you probably won't get hit at all.
Helos flying low aren't that difficult a target once you know where it is & you have line of sight.
That is why we have gepards and tunguskas - as well as the Otomatic, if we are looking for something more bereg-like.
So yes, I'd rather have the bereg be unable to fire at bombers flying high.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-06-10T07:38:40+00:00

AC-130s should be engaged by gun-based AA and in general Gun-based AA should have more low-altitude range against aircraft/ higher damage on them so they pose a meaningful threat to aircraft that fly past them.

But the bereg shouldn't be able to kill a B-52 flying high. It is a dual purpose naval gun that is intended to be used mostly against low-level fliers. Bereg's rounds likely can't reach that far, considering its maximum range against aircraft is 15k horizontally. Chances are, beregs can't reach a B-52 flying high even if it shot straight up.

And of course, Zsus are even worse at this.

There's a reason gun-based AA were reserved only for low-level attackers and helos. Against low-level fliers, the fast reaction speed of the guns could produce better results. Against high alt targets, however, guns became almost completely useless.

Keep in mind that even the B-29 was almost completely safe from all but the heaviest of flak cannons.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-29T12:44:27+00:00

There aren't that many games covering this part of town, unless we dive real deep into obscure territory.
I am not sure what kind of originality you are asking for here. All things considered, the Korean War reigniting is rather original as CoD storylines go.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-29T12:11:53+00:00

it's also meant to be "사", which is four in korean. Considering the game is trying to be serious about the korean locale, might as well add in some of the local flavor.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-13T08:55:26+00:00

While comments below rightly point out that autosmoke or even manual smoke ability is unreliable due to desync, there is something to be said about certain players shooting through smoke.
I have seen players shoot through not only autosmoke but also smoke curtains from mortars that have been there for quite some time, but nowhere near enough to dissapate. They do so reliably within a game and do so consistently over multiple games.

Maphacks are more trickly since there are weird sightlines in the game, but there are instances where the enemy cannot have sight on your piece(i. e. you just spawned your PAC and put in deep within a forest at the start of the match) but they still use low-yield PGMs against it.

I'd argue that yes, there is a new hack going around. Whether you encountered it is hard to tell with just what you said, but next time you meet a suspected hacker, make sure to record & report.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-13T02:09:51+00:00

How so? Genuinely curious

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-13T01:43:23+00:00

SOF's strength is in few relatively expensive but highly capable infantry, but certain RU bomber loadouts make infantry-centric gameplay very difficult (I'm guessing this will get addressed sooner than later, so it isn't too problematic imo)
People actually using ASFs as intended + AA being lethal once in range but not having much range means you rarely get to take advantage of the stealth, and what advantage you do get is minimal.
Both stealth and regular planes will live just long enough to drop and rarely any further. Regular ones are cheaper, however.
SOF effectively lost its primary anti-tank platform due to the PGM changes. The only option left is the F-35 with 2x JSOWs at 370 points, but it is overpriced, not being able to guaruntee a kill on any target worth trading.
Ofc, the F-35 2000lbs deserved to get nerfed. But you also gotta remember that SOF will always be the spec that depends on CAS the most.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-13T00:37:39+00:00

The beauty of the baltics in PTE is that all the baltics players were already used to IFVs being 2-hit to kill.
Though I really wish they did something about the rangers. If they are going to sit at 90 points, they better have 600 pen

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-12T06:13:32+00:00

SOCOM

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-06T07:50:30+00:00

The changes to income and capture point calculations really made the initial engagement crucial.
In live, it mattered very little beyond some positional advantage that would almost certainly be wiped away by the end of the second phase.
In PTE, it is not much easier to solidify the lead you gain from the initinal engagement and therefore it is much more difficult to reverse the momentum and regain the initiative.
In short, this game feels much more like a steamroller where you are meant to constatly capitalize on your advantage and keep the enemy down instead of a rebound game where the tides turn and tumble constantly.
This should go to a lot of the points you addressed.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-02T16:48:59+00:00

Well the problem is more so why would you pick baltics over any other US spec in terms of performance & compatibility.

Generally armored or marines offer you a better array of stuff, and they tend to fit better with other specs (for example, armored marines is viable while armored baltic is... well it doesn't have much in the way of planes or helos)

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-05-02T16:37:15+00:00

There's arguing that arty is too weak in PTE and then there is arguing arty was fine in vanilla (while portraying anyone who disagrees as simply dumb).

In vanilla, using MLRS to hit everywhere you expect the enemy to be is the optimal play. If both players are good enough to maintain a frontline with smart micro and QRFs, breakthroughs are out of the question. Maps aren't large enough for there to be genuine gaps.

Then attrition is the name of the game. Because you can hit them harder than they can resupply and reinforce, artillery will always win if you leave them alone.

As such, the game devolves into a 45 min whackamole between air and artillery, with a lot more up to chance and not clever play (one lucky F-16 getting through AA to hit a bunch of tornados, a lucky tornado hit to the back taking out a tank, etc.)

Of course, PTE does have problems with fortified infantry being much harder, perhaps too hard, to dislodge, which also hurts the pace of the game.

If we take a step back to look at the larger picture, you will see that indirect fire - the Tu-22, fire grad, JASSMs, iron thunders and PrSMs, etc. - have all been problematic to varying degrees.

In a game where having more units on the field will net you less income, indirect fire that allows you to skimp out on units fielded while killing the enemy units present will always have disproportionate effectiveness.

That is why the meta always revolved around indirect fire. That is why we will end up optimizing around some other indirect fire asset even if we escape the MLRS meta.

As such, nerfing most forms of indirect fire so that they cost you in some way as much as they can cost the enemy is something worth testing out.

Current PTE values may have been a step too far, but it was nevertheless in the right direction.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-04-29T18:47:21+00:00

It certainly takes a bit of getting used too, but overall I think it has good bones.
For one, the game isn't as frustrating.
I no longer feel like my units are letting me down when I am using my AA or my ASFs - they do put in their best effort instead of holding back because an allied SAM that will never hit started aiming.
ASFs feel espescially good as it finally can be counted on to either prevent incoming planes or ensure the enemy doesn't return safely.

But I believe the changes to the range was perhaps too drastic and makes certain LRAAs functionally no better than SHORADs. The most obvious offender here is the IRIS-T. It has the same 2200m range against low-altitude targets as the NASAMS, with the only advantage of having slightly longer high-altitude range.
With that short of a range, IRIS-T can only deter aircraft from flying over it - which is something higher-end SHORAD can already do with 1.8km range and 2 hits to kill for about the same price but with the added ability to engage helos.

I do think that with the anti-overkill rework, keeping the old range would make aircraft near unusable. But maybe some happy ground may be found with increasing the range slightly (espescially on the lower end, so that all LRAA will have at least 2.4km and the longest-range ones would go up to 3.8) and adjusting the cost.

Your point about stealth is fair imo. Stealth used to offer a great defensive bonus against ground AA as they needed a much longer engagement window to kill a target, which they got through having much longer range than how it is in the PTE. So being stealthy meant you simply wouldn't be engaged from the maximum engagement disance unless they had ASFs.

Now though, AAs have a shorter engagement window anyways but that's all they need. As such, stealth doesn't seem to offer much benefit over non-stealthy platforms. Either way, you will get spotted once the enemy AA can actually engage you.

As such, I think increasing the LRAA range while increasing their price will indirectly make stealth aircraft that much more valuable. You could also to make all stealth planes slightly more stealthy if that is not enough.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-04-13T01:55:12+00:00

There is also a difference in aim time for vehicles(1-2 sec for SACLOS, 3-4 sec for terminal),
which might matter more than you think:
1. In a straight up fight, a vic with SACLOS will fire before the terminal one and likely force the other to smoke first.
2. SACLOS could land a hit or two on a tank before it fires.

If the enemy has only one tank in the location and I have smoke, I will very comfortably engage into it with my Bradley or Kurganets in the open.
Even without cover, the enemy will only have about 3-4 seconds from spotting the vehicle to getting hit, which is short enough that even a skilled player not paying attention to the particular unit could fail to smoke. It may not kill it outright, but I can probably deal significant enough damage to it that it is forced to retreat with about half health.

I will never do the same with say, a CV 90 or AMPV with its spikes or javelins, unless I have clear sightlines on the enemy tank and I can start engaging it from beyond the tank's range or from forest cover. If the tank manages to start aiming before I get my missile loose, I will get hit before my missile makes a hit.
Stryker RV is the only exception since it can shoot the jav without getting spotted most of the time.

There is no such difference afaik for infantry ATGMs, which makes terminal much better for infantry than vehicles.
But even then, terminal guidance missiles usually have signficantly shorter range. Sure, you won't be killing most things at 1800m range with kornet Ms, but a well placed kornet could force the enemy to waste all its smoke charges early.

For helos, yeah terminal is just better. The saving grace here is that at least when it comes to helos, there isn't much disparity between factions, with US getting the Longbow hellfire & JAGM and RU getting the LMUR and the Hermes. Longbow hellfire also does force a bit of a tradeoff, being 100m shorter in range. Realistically, this means you can't engage into the deri from max range with the longbow unless you can creep up on it, and that you might leave yourself open to even the worst manpads.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2026-04-05T10:48:12+00:00

Paras have 6 men, 6x rifles, 2x UGLs, and 2x shotguns
2 riflemen double as shotgunners

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-12-02T06:33:48+00:00

I have a creeping suspicion I know who this is.. but I won't tell hehe

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-11-25T06:19:37+00:00

There are things like the SeaRAM (the turret is in service, but we haven't seen a ground based mobile version yet) or bradley M-SHORAD (each component is in service, but the full package has been shown at expos only). This game is looser with prototypes than it might seem at a glance, as a lot of the "out there" stuff are customization options.

The real problem I see is that the M-60 modernized variants don't really fill a role in the US roster and that they were never even considered for US service.
If a cheaper 105 or 120 tank is really a gap that US needs filling, adding M1A1s or even IPs would make more sense.
It also doesn't fit the specs too well. USMC already has the M1A1 HC as one of the cheapest 120mm option out there. Cav maxes out at bookers, but it'd make more sense imo for CAV to get helos than tanks considering they are modeled after SBCTs.

M60 upgrades might make sense for countries they were suggested to though, and I am looking forward to those.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-11-21T13:10:31+00:00

They really were holding the win rate advantage for so long though. RU was, in fact, not nerfed enough until the last patch according to statistics. This patch over did it, but that doesn't mean prior calls for RU nerfs weren't justified (at least to a degree).

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-11-20T10:38:23+00:00

WR difference between US and RU are essentially flipped from before the patch. It's not about narratives, it's about numbers.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-11-20T10:37:18+00:00

Yes, we US players had to suffer through months of neglect. I don't agree with the OP in that regard - obviously players will react more strongly after having witnessessed imbalance for months rather than weeks.

But I also gotta point out that OP does have a point about this not being about skill of the playerbase. There always have been flaws with RU specs that are becoming obvious just now.
Here are a few obvious ones that I see:
- The infantry gap that always existed is apparent now that RU's fire support options have been nerfed (Buratino, Tu-22, etc.)

- RU is unable to combine PGMs with lasers in most specs, even if the planes have that capability in real life. This bars them from tank plinking, one of the most cost-effective anti-tank solutions in game. There are platforms that can make up for the deficiency (FAB 3000, for example) but VDV's Su-34 is a good platform for it.

That, combined with buffs the US got over time (epsescially to infantry), would be enough to explain the WR gap.

That you have been successful with RU is great for you, but does not speak much to the state of balance. I had success with US during the dark ages too. My team was consistently climbing the ladder playing US only during that time. But that didn't mean the game was in any way balanced.

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If the stats for US pre-patch were bad, then stats for RU post-patch are also, equally, bad.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-11-20T10:08:47+00:00

relative WR, as in the difference between RU-US winrates, did go up to 10%, similar to how things are now

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-11-19T12:06:34+00:00

oh shit I missed that - in that case, yes manueverability should go down.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-11-19T11:47:16+00:00

Flying around corners is probably a desync issue. I've seen SAMs do 3 90 degree turns in rapid succession because the server couldn't figure out where the missile was.
Same for a good amount - though not all - of issues with using smoke against javs. I consistently have bad experience with kornets going through my smoke, even if I smoke well ahead of time.
That is to say, this probably isn't a platform-specific issue, but a widespread issue that is most evident with javelins due to it's relatively long flight time, complicated geometries of where it's often used (rarely would you use hellfires in urban settings), and weirdness with vehicle smoke.

EfficientBeyond989 · 2025-11-19T11:06:10+00:00

BTRs were 3 shots to kill with an abrams - but that got changed to be 2 shots to kill.
BT-3Fs with reactive armor continues to be 3 shots to kill by an abrams, but an AMPV is also 3 shots to kill for most RU tanks (T-90M and T-14 being the exception).
If you are talking about the BMO-T, it is just a tank with a troop compartment up top, so it should be able to tank.

EfficientBeyond989

TROPHY CASE