I’m really enjoying this game but a few elements still are having a detrimental effect on the overall gameplay experience.
Bombers, Aircraft spam - At the moment aircraft can and will be spawned too often in game and people will usually use it to spam off a rocket barrage or go on a single bombing run and wipe out several squads then Kamikaze.
This disrupts the core of the game which is infantry combat significantly as having you’re whole squad wiped out by an aircraft is not fun. It also does not require much skill to do, all you need is decent map knowledge and make a good educated guess as to where the enemy are attacking from or watch for tracers. I’ve killed 35+ players in one run doing this in a JU188
Suggestion - Make it so bombs don’t kill you if your inside a building. Maybe a screen shake but no damage or lying down can decrease the damage. Increase the amount of squads you need to go through before getting access to a plane again to 6 to decrease kamikaze tactics.
Mortars were a bigger problem before the patch but I feel like they’re still in an odd place in that they aren’t spotted on map to other mortar teams so at least they have something to fear because generally people will do it from the gray area in the map so their completely safe and can farm kills. If they were spotted on the map they can be dealt with and would be I think a bit more interesting for the mortar player as well.
Artillery barrages - I know they recently made it so it’s now a cooldown of 48 seconds. This is still too often and too large. Arty also damages players in buildings which shouldn’t be the case. I think it should be 120 seconds or so and not affect people in buildings and maybe a smaller radius. It’s too disruptive to the infantry combat experience and having your screen rattled all the time is annoying as hell for everyone.
The only reason I’m posting these topics is because I think these elements detract from the core infantry game play experience and are not fun to play with or against for all involved. I enjoy this game but I think it would be a better place if some changes to the above elements were made.
Constructive feedback and your thoughts are welcome.
Thank you for reading.
Explosions should still cause concussion if you’re inside a building (IRL you’re better off in a trench than you are in the house).
Mortar shells should leave a trace by which they can be detected. Yes, not realistic, but an experienced soldier can usually tell by the sound where the shells are coming from (approximatelly, ofc.)
Also, you increase your chances of surviving shelling by going prone (or at least kneeling), which would be an interesting mechanic for this game to implement. Hear the sound of arty/stuka? Go prone. It shouldn’t give you 100% chance, but it should increase it significantly.
But making buildings safe havens is wrong both realism and gameplay-wise - we already have a problem where people don’t capture points - who is going to leave a building if shells don’t hurt you when you’re in it?
I’ll start from this as this seams to be a core issue. This is not infantry exclusive game but a combined arms game. Devs plan to keep it that way and other players love it that way. I can only recommend playing other games at this point.
Bombs kill you inside of the building if fragments can hit you, so don’t stay next to windows and gone prone when you hear them. There are other ways to limit kamikaze. I don’t know if devs can increase amount of squads some needs to rotate, it’s not a problem on premium account as you get 5 squads, on free account someone just needs to “suicide” 3 times, as far as I know.
You say they are a problem but don’t describe what is the problem. Is it: their existence? too much ammunition? too large range? Which is it?
If it has a long cool down then it’s purpose will be gone. And the way it kills is the same as with bomb - don’t camp directly at the window and check your map.
Overall, before starting to write suggestions, it’s good to read on exactly the same topic what was already posted 50+ times.
Aircraft spawns need to be pushed way back. Especially for the Normandy Maps which are pretty small as it is. AA need a traverse and elevation buff and even more diverse AA (Nation specific, which I suspect will happen later). Push Arty out to a full minute more more which would force the player to use it more wisely rather than spamming a target every 30 seconds. Mortars, I think they are better now and less spam, but what would be interesting is some sort of indication they are being used, such as tanks and AT guns with their flash. Also, with mortars as it stands you can fire directly under and in front of obstructed cover without the round detonating on you. The round magically appears at its intended range. Change that and mortars will be forced to find better, more open areas and with a flash and smoke report similar to that of AT and Tanks. As for buildings, I don’t mind it as it is now. Last thing we need is people hiding an entire squad in a house because they can’t be touched by explosions form arty and bombs.
I like your points. Concussed but not kill for indoors is what I had in mind as well. There is no destruction in the game so they shouldn’t die. The concussion effect is really strong so I think it’s still really useful for assaulting points.
I think you raise a good point though that we don’t want a building camp meta I 100% agree but maybe this just needs to be incentivised with rewarding more points or xp?
I’m not suggesting they remove planes I’m saying the frequency that they are attacking at the moment needs to be reduced. At the moment people are using them in suicide attacks to soften up the point and gain additional kills which is obviously not their intended purpose and leads to infantry players paying the price.
Mortars - now I don’t have as big a problem with them recently. I am not a mortar player either because it seemed boring to play. All I’m suggesting is that if they have the ability to indirect fire and affect cap points they should be more visible and thus easier to counter plus more engaging for actual mortar players.
If it had a longer cooldown it wouldn’t be abused as much but would serve more closely to it’s intended purpose.
The three factors listed above are all low skill, low risk but high reward tactics that I think hurt the gaming experience of others playing the game with little upside for keeping in their current state. Hence why I created this post to try bring some attention to not just my suggestions but those of the community.
If you think they are low skill/low risk then reflect that in your suggestions.
Increasing time it takes to resupply, doesn’t involve better skill.
Marking active Mortars on map, doesn’t improve anyone skill.
Increasing Artillery cooldown, doesn’t… improve… anyone… skill
The kamikaze/revenge bombing solution is to spawn planes not near the battle zone, like right now, but behind the supply point by like 1km at least. This means that when you spawn, you have to fly longer to battle area than if you would be returning from resupply point. This way, you have more motivation to stay in the sky and bomb from resupplying instead of from respawning. The better your skill the more your “time economy”. Other people proposed in addition to add “return to base” point, which would be somewhere behind the resupply and would allow to despawn plane without dying.
The mortar simply need to work closer to how they worked in real-life. Need to add overheating and random deviation from wind that constantly drifts during the round. It means that mortar man, or an observer, needs to correct his shots, pretty much constantly. The overheating would set a limit of intensity of fire or total time of prolonged fire.
The artillery observer, needs to have an eye on the target that he needs to bombard, all the way from calling it to the last spotting round. This way, he needs a line of sight, which means he can be spotted and killed. You won’t be able to call artillery simply behind the buildings, for that you would have to find some clever points, observing which, could allows to call fire a bit behind an obstacle.
Planes are the main problem. The bombs from planes have too much of a blast radius for these small maps. Planes can tank way too many shots before going down and there is no way to set up bots to man AA no matter where the squad goes (waiting at a AA gun is too boring of a job for a player).
Mortars should be forced to operate in the area that the enemy won’t get magically killed by the zone.
For artillery, force the player to look at the direction through his crosshairs/scope and mark it instead of marking the strike on the map. That would force the artillery player to be closer to the action and make it more dangerous for him to operate.
Increasing the time it takes to resupply would somewhat reduce the annoyance for the rest of the players. The game isn’t fun anymore when most of your deaths are to explosions from something you can’t counter.