Like I said, I play predominately on console only lobbies, and depending on what time it is, there are a few intelligent groups that will actually use smoke.
I think the biggest reason WHY its not used much is because the standard artillery is just too powerful, and destroys all fortifications with fragmentation not even direct blasts, instead of actually getting blocked by some of them (sandbag walls). This means that instead of using smoke to help your troops advance on fortified positions, you can just delete the fortified position.
If that changed, I GUARANTEE you would see a lot more people using smoke.
How can I guarantee this? Because we’ve tested it in custom games. No artillery spam or aircraft rockets, to test the effectiveness of fortifications against infantry.
The result was that fortifications are still too easy to take out with infantry methods (which I’ve talked about before), but to get closer to the objective, we saw a LOT more smoke usage. Artillery smoke, tanks with smoke shells, even players packing smoke grenades.
IMO people dont really think about this at all, they are only interested in the small picture. All they want to see is the Kill feed and the points that come with it. Its why I see the bomber strike called in 24/7 even though its such a waste.
Smoke doesnt give this hit. Now if it was phosphorus smoke, people wouldnt use artillery strike lol (not advocating this by the way)
Even if they buffed the smoke, most people would only use it if it was a freebie and didnt cost them their artillery cooldown.
This is a large part of my point. I’m not saying their THOUGHT PROCESS is “let me destroy all the fortifications”, but rather “let me get a bunch of kills because there really isn’t anything they can do to stop me”.
As I said, if the fortifications actually held up, and stopped the fragmentation blasts, there wouldn’t be so many of those massive killfeeds. Which means less instances of them getting their gratification from it and stopping them from using it so much.
So how does this tie into the smoke artillery? By reducing the constant bombardment and its effectiveness that the artillery currently provides, players will be looking for more ways to adequately push a position. They will not have as much of their surrounding fire support that opens up the objective for them, forcing them to implement other means, such as smoke, to compensate for it.
Again, you guarantee it but I disagree in your approach in principal. Maybe it would increase the use of smoke but you know what else would? Making it as useful as it was in the past. And/or giving it its own timer. Both would be fantastic!
Either of those would be much better solutions in my opinion.
How do you explain the mass use of airstrikes? My observation is that they seem to net fewer kills than a well placed artillery strike yet they are spammed.
I think the only thought process is: What do I think will get me the most kills even if I have no idea if it’s true… I will spam that.
That’s why I feel smoke should not be locked behind normal artillery and airstrikes.
I perfectly understand why the smoke is so powerful. This is a winning tactic and I want it to be a winning tactic in the game. Now it’s not.
Smoke is a way to defeat a strong opponent. capture a difficult point. But the Smoke is not used at all. I want to change this and I don’t see any reason against it. Friend, you’re just telling me why the smoke is good and necessary. But for some reason in a negative way. I got the feeling that you were playing batelfield 1 and met my friends. And since then you’ve been traumatized.
AIRSTRIKES are whole different reasons all together usually. Not really as many people looking for mass kills as you would think:
clear very large amounts of cover in one go
CAN be effective at dealing with nests of MGs or snipers (or other pesky troops if they are in the open)
Easiest way to eliminate spawn beacons if you have a general idea where they are, but can’t otherwise reach them
works as an effective suppression tactic, as most enemies won’t try to run through it when its close to dropping.
My same opinion there also applies, if fragmentation from the explosions didn’t break every fortification it hit, rather only the direct blasts did, we would likely see a reduced usage of them.
As I just mentioned right above this, if fragmentation damage of explosions didn’t break fortifications, only the direct blasts did, you would see a reduction in players dropping explosive ordinance and an increase in people dropping smoke.
Solving the issue without opening up an extremely exploitable tactic that can be effectively implemented by a single player, be an absolute nightmare with 2 people, and if they are working with a full team, it will be completely unstoppable.
Also, smoke shells for the field guns would greatly help with the need for smoke.
Your opinion. I disagree. I would more appreciate your suggestions and opinions if you didn’t present them so forcefully, as if fact, when they are nothing more than opinions and preferences. Hopefully that is not construed as a personal attack. It is meant as a constructive suggestion.
If I was speaking ONLY from my personal experiences, you would be correct. However, I am frequently talking to other players, both new and old, about their experiences with different aspects of the game.
Especially when it comes to things that I intend to make and discuss about as forum topics.
So no, its not just my personal opinion and preferences, I’m actually taking quite a few into account.
Possible, but because the potential for those kill feeds are still there. Id wager arty/bomber would still be the go to pick as smoke has no kill/score potential.
Just like people insist on calling in air strike and more often than not get nothing. The potential is why they do it. “OMG this one time i got 20 plus killlllz eeeerrrmmmaahgaaawd”
exactly what I want. It’s just another way to get a win. No better and no worse than others. It also diversifies the meta.
why smoke is needed for an anti-tank gun. There is a mortar. But all this is not very useful, since the soldier cannot storm the point himself.
I have experience playing with smoke grenades.That’s why I say that in this game the usefulness of smoke is greatly reduced.
smoke also let smooth out some balance issues. for example, capturing a point in a field. It will help to use submachine guns more often, and not meta like Fedorov or FG422
Its not good for game balance to give that much power to a single player. I’m done trying to explain that part, as it seems that solo players can only envision what they would be capable of, but not what would happen against them with the same mechanic.
Have YOU ever used the smoke shells from the tanks? If not, go to the testing range with a tank that fires them, then come back to this part.
(Tank shell smoke is massive in comparison to mortars, grenades, etc., so the idea is that smoke shells of the field gun would be as well.)
Again, if you put 3-4 players worth of power into a single character, you’re going to see massive balance problems.
Its called using teamwork. Either make some friends to play with or at the very least pay attention to when your teammates cluster up for a push, and give them fire support then.
Perhaps for a little while, but within a couple months (once majority of players have an understanding of how that works) I’d wager that only the more dedicated support players would use it reliably.
it’s just smoke, not an avalanche of burning sulfur from hell. If I can use artillery separately from the smoke, it won’t turn me into a DOOM guy. John Rambo. Adam Smesher, with machine guns from his hand and a rocket launcher on his back. Or what else 3-4 players worth of power into a single character mean?
Currently, to have the same effect, you would need a radio operator to call down artillery, at least one person using smoke (most efficient way to get that much smoke currently without the artillery is through a tank), and at least one person at the ready to push in.
What you are asking for condenses all of that down into a single soldier. This causes the issue of too much firepower at once, without requiring multiple people. While that may sound good at first, take a step back and consider that since it no longer requires that many players to pull that maneuver, you will instead have considerably more additional firepower coming in at once.