The Correct change to the Bomber Plane "issue"

Suggestions
1

I see here that basically daily someone makes a post saying to nerf planes and their bombing abilities.

The reality? Bomber planes are fine as they are. People complain because they haven’t got them unlocked yet or simply are unable to fly planes well so think they require “no skill”

The change that should be done to the game to help with this feeling of frustration is that there should be more powerful Anti-Air cannons.

The current state of AAA cannons are a mess as they either do nothing or somehow 1 shot the plane flying above. The marker to suggest where to fire shots is often inaccurate and doesn’t help at all and the rotation speed of the AAA cannons are slow to the point that you’ll often miss the bombing run entirely.

If there were better AAA cannons or pre-built Anti-Air stations on maps that players could interact with, there wouldn’t be this issue with people feeling so frustrated and angry over losing entire squads to something that often feels somewhat unavoidable.

Maybe if there were markers that let ground troops know where the bombs have been dropped, things would be a bit more relaxed for ground troops as I feel some of the frustration comes from not knowing where the bombs have been dropped before running head first into the blast radius.

Nerfing the planes isn’t the correct response. Unfortunately, as things are, the existing counter-measures are not in the state they should be and, if they were changed, I feel planes wouldn’t feel as annoying as they are.

Let me know what you think, I’m happy to be wrong.

  • RSG_
2 Likes
2

Affirmative. My suggestion was more or less the same, given that I believe that once unlocked the ability to build Anti-Air and Anti-Tank guns should be available to any engineer on any squad.

I think planes should be high risk high reward kinda deal. So far, they are no risk game breaking impact.

3

While I agree with your idea it has an obvious flaw - pre build AAA will get bombed as priority, it would be an easy kill. IMHO we need a better AA guns, but without armor shield. A mobile AA would be even better.

3 Likes
4

I think making the resuply point could be Tripple the distance away and would give people enough time to even build spaa. At the moment the bomb spam is way to frequent and that’s even with someone up there eg me smashing bombers everytime they spawn.

2 Likes
5

Your entire premise is flawed imo. The problem with bombers isn’t that they’re inherently broken, it’s that the system of respawning in them is. They’re completely fine and well balanced when it comes to 3CP maps. The problem is entirely on 1CP maps.

The problem being that on a 1CP map there isn’t a number of respawns, so you don’t have to worry about losing a squad. This means you can spawn into a plane in between infantry squads, quickly do a strafe and suicide, and then spawn back into your infantry to ground pound. It takes me around 40-45 seconds between spawning into a plane and spawning into my next squad, and in that time you can get an entire bombing run off - almost regardless of anti-aircraft fire you’re going to get at least one off anyway, even if you couldnt hope to make it back to base to rearm. It’s also faster to suicide and spawn into something else - letting the slot open up for someone else to come in. When you suicide you’re in the slot for ~25 seconds, so that’s every 25 seconds that your team has a bombing run possibly with proper timing (not that it will ever be that quick, but 25 seconds is broken levels).

Me and some friends do this quite often running as a squad of 4, whoever dies takes the plane and suicides, and we can usually keep up a rate of at least one run every ~45 seconds, compare that to rearming which takes around 2 minutes per run, and you get to the state where it is broken when abused.

Additionally, on 1CP maps, the enemies are incredibly clustered, so you’re very likely to get 10+ kills for each bombing run, and quite often will get more than 20.

Extra AA will not solve this at all, as they will be able to get that one bombing run off regardless, unless MAYBE you’re focused 100% on anti air duty, which is silly to ask of someone and largely a waste of a player - and they’ll likely still miss quite a few.

What they should be doing is spawning the plane much further away from the battlefield for 1CP maps in particular, so that it’s actually not worth it to suicide a plane and it makes sense for someone to actually go rearm and attempt to not die while using it. Currently it’s just a free arty strike you can do in between your other squads - and it barely even uses up any tickets to do so.

7 Likes
6

Yes, but not by much, it should depend on campaign. In Moscow its kind of on the edge of being too much as it takes about 1.5 minutes to resupply and come back.
On Normandy it should be further away as planes are faster, the round trip is under the minute now.

I like what @115404605 posted.
To fix suicide routine and other issues, you could spawn further than resupply point, not closer like it is right now. The benefits:

  1. this will prevent rapid revenge kill
  2. demand a commitment to the role, because spawn-bomb-resupply-bomb-resupply cycle becomes more effective, time wise, then just spawn-bomb-suicide
  3. give chance to fighters to shoot down bombers before they get to play area
  4. remove 1 minute delay at the start of the match as it will take about 1.5-2.0 minutes to get to battle zone after spawning

The other issue is map sizes - they are small and cap sizes - they are super small.

1 Like
7

I sort of agree, but wholeheartedly at the same time.

AAA does jack. Planes have gone from “paint scratched increases drag by 900%” to "way way WAY too tanky.

8

AA is at best still very limited.

  1. Your line of sight is limited so you likely can’t get a shot until after the damage is done

  2. Most pilots use kamikaze tactics so even if you hit them they’ll still drop their bomb load on target

  3. Effective AA gun use without taking a squad out of the battle (at which point you’re better off using a fighter) is really only possible on the defensive

The problem is that attackers keep getting heavier and heavier bomb loads.

1 Like
9

Or the correct change could be to reduce the balst radius of the bombs for proper balance. And don’t go citing the “muh historical accuracy” BS. If this game were historically accurate, a shot to the chest would one hit kill from any gun at any range. They wouldn’t just “go down” and spend 8 seconds reviving themselves. Guns would need sweeping changes to make them “historically accurate” in terms of performance. Semi auto rifles and LMGs would do the same damage as their bolt action rifle counterparts.
The historical accuracy claims of reducing bomb explosion radius to balance the game aren’t about historical accuracy. Since I never see that group complain about anything I mentioned above. They are just players who want their explosives to be OP so they can continue to stomp. Either that or they have the same beliefs of what historical accuracy is as that of a COD player.

1 Like
10

AA traverse is terrible.

Kamikaze attacks need to be heavily punished, spawn bombing needs to be heavily punished.

2 Likes
11

Potentially a lower squad spawn limit to 5? For bombers? Or a last maybe a 3-5 minute cool down?

12

Won’t be a popular opinion, I’ll venture, but take all the players out of the bomber cockpits, including fighter bombers. Have airstrikes ordered up similar to artillery. Person ordering the strike would designate ground zero and azimuth of the bomb drop. Pure fighters could still strafe and also shoot down airstrikes.

13

There are quite a few things they need to improve:

  • More xp for shooting down planes (whoever last did damage to a plane gets the kill if they bail out)
  • Anyone inside a building isn’t killed by bombs
  • Longer distances to resupply
  • Planes should take damage from LMG fire
  • Penalty for suicide bombing run (longer wait time)
  • Let any engineer build an AA gun once it has been unlocked in the engineer squad
  • Being able to spot planes
3 Likes
14

Oh no, I have planes unlocked and I’m quite capable at flying. But I don’t want to have to get my into a fighter to deal with bombers killing countless allies because no one else on my team wants to fly a plane in a boots on the ground game. Flying isn’t fun to me. I hate it, and I hate having to stop playing infantry to deal with a plane that’s evaded anti-air fire and is bombing with impunity.

Using anti-air also feels terrible, and the time that I have to spend trying to gun down a bomber with an anti-air gun is less time spent actually, you know - playing infantry and actively fighting infantry or ground vehicles rather than having to deal with someone in the sky.

Planes make me so damn salty and yes, I know I’m probably not being objective here. I apologize in advance.

3 Likes
15

At the moment it feels like people in the skies are playing a completely different game where they farm the rest of us on the ground.

2 Likes
16

Gaijin, hire this guy, please.

17

Also make the resuply 3x the distance away to give people a ground on a break.

1 Like
18

They are a collection of all the good ideas a lot of people have shared over the last few weeks.

Gaijin really need to address bomber spam as a priority. It’s basically a different game mode that pilots play, and one that makes the main game mode frustrating to play.

I was playing earlier and had several full squads wiped instantly, just as I was about to reach an obj, it’s so idiotic to instantly lose a squad with virtually no warning or way to avoid it (you still instantly die in buildings).

19

it wouldnt be that bad if they just gave the buildable more ammo, and more rounds in a single magazine. Though a different AA gun wouldnt be that bad

20

Please do not reply in very old thread if you want to suggest something please create a new topic about your idea.