Okay, I want to jump in here.
I started playing with the Beta, so my 744 battles is a bit subjective... maybe 744 with the "modern" setup.
I used to be okay. Not real good, not bad, but not useless, and not an embarrassment to have on your team.
Now, I can't do anything. The only way I get kills is if someone runs into the back of my ground attacker. (or maybe if my gunner shoots a very low hp enemy)
I started playing a lot of GA because putting me in a fighter is about pointless, and heavy fighters just means that the other team's HFs shoot me down before they are in my range.
Multirole means that I am even less maneuverable and slower than if I'm in a fighter.
I want to like this game so much. I keep coming back to it, but I genuinely have no idea what to do to not be so frustrated that I have to walk away for months at a time.
Really, I wonder if anything would be different if I just started a match and walked away. -I never help my team.
I've looked at your recommendations to Deutch and I do that stuff. -stick with the pack, don't chase heavies, leave attackers for last, and so forth. None of it matters. There is no learning curve, it is either my team wins the match or not. The only time I get a good score is if my team wins and keeps them off my GA so I can rack up some points on ground targets. ...which doesn't actually help my team one iota.
you say to grind through, but take my P38 tier V for instance- in order to get halfway decent guns and engines I'd have to play 40 games or more. (at the rate I earn xp in that plane) That is 40 games of frustration and mindless dying. And even then I'm not at the good weapons and engines, only ones that might keep me in the match a few seconds longer and do a couple more points of damage.
I can't help but compare this game to WoTanks, which I started playing while I waited for this game to come online. Sure, in WoT, you face tanks of higher tiers, but there is terrain to utilize. I might not be able to go one on one with a tier higher tank, but I'm not usually just target practice. In WoWp, I'm not even useful target practice: I die too quickly. ...which the other guys never do. How do their guns do so much damage, while mine don't? I mean, if I have an enemy plane lined up, big, fat, red circle with my reticle right smack dab in the middle, and I open up, I pling him for a couple points, then he flies away. If bullets start flying near me, I'm twisting, turning, boosting, climbing, diving, whatever... none of it works, I'm reduced to a burning hulk in a moment.
I just don't get it. WoWp gives new players and just plain old flabbergasted ones absolutely no motivation to power through and keep playing.