AI is on top of my list

[nearmiss]

LOL

The sim world is not the real world. You don't die in the game, and players want to enjoy all the air combat.

Even online you play different than you do offline. When you fly against good flyers in the air online you can get your head handed to you very quickly.

I would say online is closer to actual combat, but the element of gambling your life on a possible bad move doesn't mean anything. The most capable online players are careful not to waste their E and expose themselves anymore than possible. They want to get kills, and staying in the game is important.

Real world pilots flew and fought to stay alive, and reckless abandonment of caution wouldn't keep them alive for very long.

The AI performance makes the most difference to Offline players, and can make it or break it for a good air combat experience. So you want as competent AI as possible offline, especially since your wingman is a package of binary coding.

A competent AI is important with the COD, because there is no way to put large numbers of aircraft into the air in combat with human players. You could sit for hours waiting for enough players to join the server. AI performance is going to be very important to Online and Offline players in the COD, no way around it.

It's nothing like the IL2 with a small number of Online players pitted against each other. AI performance was ignored in the IL2, because there just was no capacity to put a large number of players into the fray at one time. Many of the players in those air combat situations will have to be AI players. AI performance cannot be ignored, it will have to be competently dealt with or all enthusiasm for the COD will be dead very shortly.