Bases and airfields in arcade battles, spawn height

[Senio 18,599]

Today's hotfix brought some changes into arcade gameplay

 

 

1. Spawn heaight has been changed - fighters now spawn 1000 m lower and bombers 1500m lower.

 

2. Enemy airfield can now be destroyed only after all enemy bases are destroyed.

 

We try fix the bomber rush issue that is a concern to a lot of players. This update should change the situation and prevent the airfield bombing rush tactics

 

 

Please leave your opinion using the form below

 

1. Battles played in arcade - ____ battles

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter/bomber/attacker

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes/no

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. Yes/no

5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change

6. My thoughts in general 

 

 

 

[MostarSOKO 891]

Good fix, i think this will prevent base bombing all together. But there was no need to change the spawn heights the bomb point thing is enough imo.

Edited February 5, 2014 by MostarSOKO

[Mephiston87 228]

well theyr fairly equally lower, so dunno if it will change much. but the airfields thing is a great idea. I reckon that will solve the problem of base rushing.

[Plane_in_Vain 845]

1. Battles played in arcade - 10 battles so far today - all AB, apparenly 2126 in total in HB, 33 in RB and sweet FA in sim.

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter/bomber/attacker all - I play a mixture

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. In the first couple it was clear that no-one saw the very brief note at the launch of the map. I kept trying to tell one guy to stop bombing the base but he ignored me and ignored the one remaining pillbox. Last game I played I told people at the start. They blitzed the minibases, the game lasted about 8 minutes. Not much better. 

5. Gameplay /did not change - make ground targets even more valuable perhaps, and advertise this IN GAME to people as so many don't come on here.

6. My thoughts in general Nice try and I can see what you are trying to do. 

 

Question: Does any damage to the airfield that was attempted before the minibases were destroyed get saved and then become "live" once it is in-play? EG, if I drop 3000k of bombs will it suddenly appear as damage when the third minibase is gone or is all damage totally ignored before then and the base is fresh when it goes live?

Edited February 5, 2014 by Plane_in_Vain

[Katsukai 6,157]

I think this is an nice notice from the developers to have fixed the base bombing issue on arcade but please take priority on rebalancing the game and MM this is the currect core problem of the game it is maybe not really noticeable in arcade but it is an real problem on the RB/FRB community.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Alstede_Brand

[fortunadus 350]

i play all types of planes normal set up since 1.37 3 Bombers 4 jets. this update make it worse... bombers are easy to count out and ppl know your next step... ppl mostly attack the base in the order where you don´t see enemie fighters now you are reduced to an order to get them... make ist almost impossible to do something as bomer... as i Need like 3 shots for every bomber with jets like me163 or mig they have almost no Chance...

Edited February 5, 2014 by fortunadus

[joszef 3,034]

1. Battles played in arcade: Stopped counting, today around 20.

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter/bomber/attacker, mostly fighters, but play all, play to win

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. no

5. Gameplay is as it was before base rushing issues

6. Bombing is a it should be, no one is concentrated on main base, either it's small bases or tanks.

[elmarby 1,604]

1. 1800+ arcade battles.

 

2. I do not discriminate against Bombers, Fighters or those planes that swing both ways.

 

3. The following in blue added after more time with the new changes:

Yes, noticeable. Noticeably worse for bomber balance, also better for countering AF kills. Many bombers players seem to take a line of the Yer playbook of diving early because the reduced spawn gap pretty much nullified any chance of fighters not chewing them up. Fighters can more easily reach bomber altitude and then gain speed before the attack and line up his near helpless target as he likes it. This pretty much destroys any chance of a bomber evading pursuers. And because it is now so quick and easy to get to a bomber, more fighters seem to be doing it.

 

4. Yes. Was pretty easy with any support that was halfway decent. Soloed a fair few bases with Yer and non Yer. The latter is significantly harder due to smaller bombload and more limited line-up of bombers. already usually bombed out the three bases before I started on the AF because I did not want to spoil things too much for other players. So for me these latest change to base bombing does not change all that much.

 

5. This patch? Hard to tell just yet. Seems a lot of give and take, it looks like. Hotfix, not solution, at best. But cumulative with the last few patches, it is just a disaster for bombers. Seems slightly worse for bombers that can climb. But Wellingtons and He-111 suffer very badly. Unable to climd those are now in easy reach of even those that cannot be bothered to climb after the other bombers. So the weak bombers are disproportionally hit by these changes. Yer-2 remains disproportionally powerful compared to the other bombers.

 

6. This whole bomber thing got to be a problem when nerf after nerf reduced them to one trick ponies, the trick being base killing.

Now that bombers are not distracted by attacking ground targets they got rather good at a thing they did not used to do all that often. Which ruined the match for everyone else. So then they got nerfed into not being so capable of doing that one  thing any more either.

Bombers are pretty much not that great to play any more. It is extremely rare to evade or fight off fighters and on the occasion that you manage it you ruin everyone else's fun by bombing the bases and shortening the match to a ridiculous degree. That last part has gotten a bit better and will by the look of the new changes get better still.

But flying a bomber is very far from the experience that it once was, though.

 

You guys need to stop with ad hoc improvisations and hotfixes to balance bombers that break more then that they fix. Have a serious, experienced game designer on board to give it a good think before you implement a comprehensive solution that is fair to everyone.

Edited February 7, 2014 by elmarby

[fortunadus 350]

@elmarby:  pefect post just +1

[Tarskin 1,496]

1. Battles played in arcade - ____ battles

 

I can't check here (since I'm at work) but at least a few thousand

 

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter/bomber/attacker

 

I would say 70% Fighter, 20% Attacker and 10% Bomber is what my stats would show even if I would like to play my Lancasters and similar bombers more...

 

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes/no

 

Yes, the requirement of destroying strategic targets before the airfield can be destroyed is a decent solution for now (read my preferred solution at number 6).

 

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. Yes/no

 

No

 

5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change

 

I did not notice any real difference here.

 

6. My thoughts in general

 

I am happy with the fact that Gaijin attemps to fix an issue (according to some of the players) but I question some of the decisions. The lowering of spawn height makes relatively weak bombers (in regards to defensive capabilities) like a Lancaster even weaker and is clearly only designed to counter diving level bombers with a large enough payload to do significant damage with a singular drop only (ie Yer-2's due to their payload and high dive speed).

 

I also have to say that the idea of the match ending with the destruction of the airfield is flawed in my opinion. The majority of the maps have only a small airfield in it which could be considered as a forward air base, now given the fact that a lot of the aircraft in a match would not take off from such an airfield we can only assume that both sides have a proper airbase somewhere off-map.

 

This means that the destruction of the forward air base would not end operations and as such should not cause 1 side to win/lose 'instantly', I would suggest the following scenario (for ground strike maps):

 

1. Airfield is worth 20% of the tickets

2. All strategic targets are worth 10% of the tickets each (so 30% total)

3. All ground targets are worth the remaining 50% of the tickets (and please increase the number of ground targets again so that all targets count instead of only 'tanks/vehicles').

 

This scenario makes it so that low level attack planes and high level bombers contribute the same amount to winning a ground strike match. Ticket loss due to aircraft being shot down should also be kept in the game so that matches can end with bases/ ground targets still being alive.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Tarskin

[Plane_in_Vain 845]

Isn't it funny - tell people in-game this rule change and everyone shouts it's fake. lol indeed.

[Plane_in_Vain 845]

 

 

6. This whole bomber thing got to be a problem when nerf after nerf reduced them to one trick ponies, the trick being base killing.

Now that bombers are not distracted by attacking ground targets they got rather good at a thing they did not used to do all that often. Which ruined the match for everyone else. So then they got nerfed into not being so capable of doing that one  thing any more either.

Bombers are pretty much not that great to play any more. It is extremely rare to evade or fight off fighters and on the occasion that you manage it you ruin everyone else's fun by bombing the bases and shortening the match to a ridiculous degree. That last part has gotten a bit better and will by the look of the new changes get better still.

But flying a bomber is very far from the experience that it once was, though.

 

You guys need to stop with ad hoc improvisations and hotfixes to balance bombers that break more then that they fix. Have a serious, experienced game designer on board to give it a good think before you implement a comprehensive solution that is fair to everyone.

 

 

+1

 

I used to enjoy bombers. Then I stopped once ground targets became a waste of planes. Then I swore at all the base-busters. Then I saw how many lions they were scoring so sold my soul for about a day. I felt dirty. Now I really only tend to ground-attack in my Brit ground attackers, as they seem to be the only ones capable - Havoc and Boston. I don't bother with the US A-20 as low-tier US are to my mind not worth it. They just don't work. USSR SB#s and SU/BB's p[robably do but I played them to beyond boredom in the late spring last year.

[Teo41_ITA 637]

Theycould have fixed the airbase destruction (as they did!) and restored the old RP gain for bombers, instead of spawning them at a lower altitude and closer to the carnage... Edited February 5, 2014 by Teo41_ITA

[Plane_in_Vain 845]

Wait - has it been reversed~? Just played Grave Robbers and base bombing was available again. WTF?

[Liquidfreak 736]

Nice update, thx for that. Anyway still facing one main problem in this case. Enemies got EVERY single time more bombers tham my team.. so with spawn of ground strikes i mainly losing because of this.. My right coment as you, senio want will make later.. after few games.. thx anyway for this adjustment but think any change not happen if there not will be taken into account quantity of the bombers on both sides.

 

Edit - few game done, lets see.. 

 

1. Battles played in arcade - 2450

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. Yes - because lot of the bombers.. on ENEMY side always more, with players of full garage of them

5. Gameplay became worse, because changes doesnt any real effect

6. My thoughts in general = game is worse and worse, because 1. stupid mm, was sealclubed or sealcluber from 7 games now 5 times.., 2. bomber unbalance on both sides, mine or enemys., enemies mainly have more of them.. 3. sealclubing - in case one i had full germans jets and fighting against propellers, in case two like just now my early meteor facing mig15/sabres (there really need to be era 6 and higher br for them) 4. bombing is easy and make big profit when you compare with fighters job 5. so many ground strikes, ye i can get it yours op yers need to be helpful

 

Edit 2 - little more games played and yes, this move make longer games and bombers have almost no chance to do bomb minibases and then airfield. i think there will help limit players from 16v16 to 10v10. Playing some 10v10 games and that was better for all, not so many fighters to catch bombers, not so many bombers to need them catch. 

 

Played matches: type map country w/l time

ground strike - green ridge - usa - lose - 7 min
ground strike - crater - usa - 10vs10 -  a lot enemy bombers destroy all fast - lose - 5 min
ground strike - iron range - usa - win - 12 min - sealclubed
ground strike - african canyon - ger - win - sealcluber - 14 min - enemies lose all planes with half of the points, we have 1 target left, 10 kills prop by jets - boring
domination - stalingrad winter - rus - win - half sealclubed - 8 min
ground strike - gorge - brits - lose - 8 min - there was so many b17/24/25, yer, tu2 on enemy side, 3 players on enemy with FULL garage of the bombers, easy done 3 small bases then destroy airfield, early jets/props battle - the most curious thing in this game come with 1.37 is - bomber cant be shoted down even with 3,4,5 teammates since is load out.. yers are specialist in this
ground strike - green range - brits - lose - 12 min - hardly sealclubed - two early meteors against sabres/mig15, others propellers - quart of my team left just after join when seing this jets parade

 

So at end i wanna say one.. In this game bombing coming more important than real fun (for me, personally is not fun clicking to space and get big profit for nothing, but like bombers too ofc sometimes) and i am near final left this game because of EVERY SINGLE patch or minipatch bring there more bugs, crazy decisions, unfinished things. For example hit detection, any bug with net code (fighting against non EU players are always about luck, no skill, russians, china players, usa players). I really know how to shot and when i meet someone from that parts of the world, its every time like roulette, yes or no, mainly you just not hit them properly but they are to you easily. Some problems is obvious, like mm, ground strikes spam and many many others. I write about this a lot, lot, LOT of the posts but nobody care. Playing without few days an year.. maybe its enough... Sorry for wall of text but this is LAST coment from me, i am just boring about screaming on the forum... howgh

Edited February 6, 2014 by Liquidfreak

[manitoba1073 4,944]

1. Battles played in arcade - ____ battles

27867 flyouts

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter/bomber/attacker

 I fly all classes

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes/no

Yes

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. Yes/no

Always will be able too

5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change

I can tell you now, you made it worse for bombers, very much worse.

6. My thoughts in general 

Well you Privelaged over all bombers yet again, if you want to have just fighters, then delete the damn bombers from the game. You let the lazy players win gj.

Edited February 5, 2014 by manitoba1073

[SCP 968]

1. Battles played in arcade - 5942

2. Preferred aircraft class - Fighter

3. Are the changes noticeable? Yes, slightly.

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly.  No, neither managed to destroy one in 4 games at Era 3, but I also didn't have much issue with base rushes previously.

5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change Better

6. My thoughts in general Even though I didn't see a major change, I think it's better for bombers to go after strategic targets instead of airfields. I would like Gaijin to encourage this further with more strategic areas and better rewards for destroying them. I also think dropping bombers and extra 500m was overkill.

Edited February 6, 2014 by SCP

[Flanker151 381]

 

Today's hotfix brought some changes into arcade gameplay

 

 

1. Spawn heaight has been changed - fighters now spawn 1000 m lower and bombers 1500m lower.

 

2. Enemy airfield can now be destroyed only after all enemy bases are destroyed.

 

We try fix the bomber rush issue that is a concern to a lot of players. This update should change the situation and prevent the airfield bombing rush tactics

 

 

Please leave your opinion using the form below

 

1. Battles played in arcade - ____ battles

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter/bomber/attacker

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes/no

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. Yes/no

5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change

6. My thoughts in general 

 

 

1000+ battles

- All types preferred, fighter only since 1.37

- Not noticable

- Yes they can destroy the base as fast as when the airfield had a huge health bar by destroying all the ground units or bases.

- Gameplay worse for bombers as they are now suicide dive rush missions.

Thoughts: Base bombing/Ground attack/Power bar system could use a redesign from the ground up.  Turn it into a MOBO system or something, anything other than just blow up the stuff GG.

[swedeonthemoose 12,809]

somehow it feels i get punished for just being a bomber pilot =_= ive never killed a base ever and now the fighters can get to me even faster then before

[Mephiston87 228]

Yes fighters get to us much faster, and spawn being camped has happened in nearly ever game i have played, ESPECIALLY when its foggy up high.

[ForceM1782 91]

1. Battles played in arcade
About 20-25 battles since this fix. Other than that... A few thousand, can't check now!
2. Preferred aircraft class
Fighter
3. Are the changes noticeable?
Yes they are noticeable. The 500m less height difference make quite a difference, and games seem to last a bit longer. Most of the times they last an acceptable timespan.
4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly.
It depended, there were still fairly short games, but most lasted over 10 minutes, which isvquite okay.
5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change
It got better.
6. My thoughts in general
This was s necessary and very good change. There are actually now games again where the ground units play a role instead of only bases. It is still pretty hard to intercept bombers before they drop bombs. But I guess that's okay. I actually have seen a lot more high altitude fighting since the patch. Bombers seem to dive even quicker, if attacked, but also even after that a following fighter can get back up to respawning bombers altitude quicker. And since more fighters do this, there are more of them at altitude. I consider this a good thing because now if bombers get to bases it's because opposing fighters got distracted by escorts, rather than just being able to rush to enemy bases with no chance to intercept them. Edited February 6, 2014 by yewen

[SpruceMoosey 259]

1. Battles played in arcade -

about 1500 battles

 

2. Preferred aircraft class -

3 fighter, 2 bomber, 1 attacker line up avg. give or take.  Probably more fighter orientated.

 

3. Are the changes noticeable?

Yes very noticeable

 

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly.

Reasonably quickly in a couple but much harder in others.

 

5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change -

Much better but can no doubt be improved.

 

6. My thoughts in general

Bombing - Better rewards when I have bombed,   More strategic choices needed weather fighter or bomber.

Bomber needs to choose weather to help with the minibases then Ground units or try and go for the airfield win.

 

Fighting/attacking - Fighters need to choose weather to escort or hunt up high, or try and decimate easy ground units down low while fighting for air superiority.

 

 

The games I have played have been longer and more satisfying, and given much more variety to the way a team can win.   Bombers other than heavy bomber base bombing are now more viable taking out ground units.

 

It has been a lot harder when the opposing team has many bomber hunters, making it very hard in a couple of matches to make much of an impact.

 

Minibases/airfield changes - Can't fault this at all, think this makes sense to me and is an improvement any way you fly.

 

Spawn height changes - Not sure about this one myself, I think it might make it very hard for the heavy bombers that have trouble gaining height to have much of an impact if not escorted in pub matches.  

 

Makes it easier for exploit based players to camp above bomber spawn, however when this has happened I have been able to chase them off or take them down.  Could put that down to people not being very situationally aware or just simply not willing to bother.

 

 

 

Overall a good start, I am very happy with this so far

 

 

 

[WWlad_CCCP 1,150]

 

1. Battles played in arcade - ____ battles

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter/bomber/attacker

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes/no

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. Yes/no

5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change

6. My thoughts in general 

 

1. Not sure exacty thousand or more.

2. Fighters and bombers

3. Yes a little

4. Yes

5. Did not change

6. Fail logic making base indestructible before you destroy 3 support bases game is always over at that point making airfield bombing pointless. Planes with high climbrate are still abusing it to get above spawn and then BNZ everyone who spawns games still end extremely fast only domination makes lenghty battles. In general Arcade became borefest after 1.35 it's just climb and BNZ with every plane my best guess would be to revert fighter spawn to 1000m for fighters and bombers 4000m or 3500m this way you have choice to either fight low or high or go for bombers. This choice is missing making Arcade boring "Who takes position above spawn" game that lasts 3-5 minutes.

Edited February 6, 2014 by _EDF_WWladCZ

[Pteromerhano 177]

Wow way to go now the game is totally ruined for bombers, who do i ask about a refund on the premium bombers that i have wasted my money on buying ? seriously i want my golden eagles back and you can take back the now unusable bombers.

[_Hennesy_ 29]

1. Battles played in arcade - __2__ battles

2. Preferred aircraft class - fighter/bomber/attacker bomber

3. Are the changes noticeable? yes/no  yes

4. Our/enemy team managed to destroy bases and airfield quickly. Yes/no  bases yes airfield no

5. Gameplay became better/worse/did not change  worse.  i was attacked after only 1 bombing run. insta crit engine and had to bail.  need more defenses to survive with more fighters able to hunt me.

6. My thoughts in general  I like the idea of having bombers and fighters closer together but bombers need more defenses since they cannot defend themselves as easily as fighters can do.