Base Bombing problem might be complicated than seems and need overhaul

[Stockholm_Blend]

I played bomber sometimes and spaded almost all of them(only Hungarian IL-28 left), and as a Milan-Tornado enjoyer, I understand that the current base bombing mechanism is outdated, and not suited to the current Air RB meta.

Base bombing nowadays Isn’t helping much in winning the match because Gaijin removed Airfield Destruction on higher BR. (I heard it is caused by Soviet Tu-4 which is useless now but was used to death stars a long time ago) but rewarding with a tiny few amounts of tickets decreasing.

It made [bombers] worthless in the match, especially the [Long Range Bomber] which has awful manoeuvrability with large payloads. (For example, B-17 or Lancaster and vice versa, those RP Pinatas.) They might be carpet bombing the AI ground force column with their large payload though, but I rather go with attack aircraft with an autocannon on that role than inaccurate Strategical Bombers.
Those big beauties lost their job long ago and all they can do is climb up and stay at high alt, keep advantage with defending gunners against interceptors (which many of you guys may call it as a trolling move and ruins ARB.)

The only good thing about base bombing nowadays is a ‘heavier reward than anti-air combat’ overall which Gaijin kept because bombers can do nothing but drop bombs on big large base targets.
(But thanks to awful overall stats and the survival rate of prop-bombers, many bombers did not reach the base before getting intercepted by Bf 109K or Do335B.)
(※Interesting: Gaijin promised proper working cockpits for bombers in 2014 and 10 years later, still there are much of bombers with Cockpit Placeholder)

Of course, as I said earlier, the Destruction of the Base itself decreases the tiny amount of tickets can be more helpful than being AFK to the team, but compared to Highlighted AI Ground Targets how much payload is needed for destroying… (hyperbolic) BOMBING/ROCKETING THE BASE is not helping the team but rather being a freeriding maybe.

A few days ago, Gaijin fixed the Few-Months-Kept bug that some rockets (SNEB, FFAR, S-5K for example.) caused too much damage to bases to end the rocketing of the base, and at the same time, according to data-mined data, They also decreased the reward multipliers of many of the bombs.

Some of us might feel happy about the end of the rocketing base era, and some of us might feel anger about decreased reward overall. (Well, Killing Rocketing and replacing it with base bombing or no bombing will cause decreased reward overall for them. right?) or harder times for escaping stocks of semi-top rank jets (buffing of stock missiles was Rank 8 Exclusive, So Rocketing the base like a dumb bomber was still the easiest and fastest way for Rank 7 and lower rank jets if we exclude using GE or boring Air-Assault as an option.)

This recent bugfix/nerf caused a few extra flaws about Gaijin BR decompressing thanks to Gaijin who uses “efficiency” for buffing and nerfing.

@Stona_WT

While we’re here, we’d like to give some additional context behind Battle Ratings and how they’re decided. Battle Ratings are decided based on how much a vehicle earns, but this is not purely economical. We use this metric because it’s all encompassing and considers every action a player makes with their vehicle, so this considers frags, assists, caps, and effectively every useful action a vehicle can perform all bundled into one universal metric.

This is the “Efficiency” of each vehicle and gives us a very well rounded perspective on all of its abilities and how it’s actually being used.

As Stona said about a couple of months ago on a different topic.

Thanks to broken-bugged rockets, the Flareless F-4C went sky-high and became 10.7BR while the purely anti-air concentrated F8U-2 with better IR missile and flares stayed 10.0BR. Also, the J35XS, the most exploited fighter on rocketing went even higher at 11.3BR (same level as MiG-21bis or F-4E variant or Thailand F-5E) with NO RWR INSTALLED and only 12 countermeasures and sees F-14A Early and AIM-54A(12.3). broken rockets is now fixed, and if it affects on ‘efficiency’ of them, then both of these planes need to be taken care of.

Also in the same article in which Stona talked about Efficiency,

@Stona_WT

However, on the economy side of things, the Battle Rating of bomb carriers — which are discussed in many topics — are optimal or even underestimated. This means that their weak capabilities for air combat doesn’t prevent them from receiving on average a good or even great reward. As noted above, the average reward is one of the main factors in determining the Battle Rating of a vehicle. Therefore in order for us to be able to reduce the Battle Rating of these aircraft while maintaining healthy economic progression, the rewards for damaging and destroying bases would need to be reduced so that the average reward (the effectiveness) of bombers and fighters is equalized.

Gaijin tells us that ‘Attackers designed for base-bombing in current meta’(those Tornado IDS variants or F-111A and F-105D can be examples) are doing fine on their ‘reward-netting’, so despite that their anti-air capability is awful compared to a pure-fighter variant, Gaijin won’t buff the Attackers BR unless nerfing the base bombing reward for balancing the economy. Then Gaijin nerfed the reward multiplier of base bombing on a recent bugfix.

@Stona_WT

Therefore in the summer, we’re planning to give more clarification and bring this issue up for discussion — whether or not we should reduce the rewards for bases in order to reduce the Battle Rating of aircraft that mainly bomb bases, or leave everything as it is now. Please follow the news for more details on this.

With no discussion.
When Gaijin talked about the “Average Rewarding” between fighters and bombers, and it was the reason for none-buffing F-105D or F-111A. then there can be a Counterexample like “We nerfed the average reward of bombers, and we need to equalise the average reward between fighters and bombers, so we will nerf the anti-air player kill rewards too on the following next patch.” right?
I think we need to keep our eyes open and watch the whole situation. ‘Better safe than sorry.’ right?

Sooo, anyway What I want to talk about was

1. ‘Base Bombing’ of the current meta is completely dumb and not aiming to win kind of gameplay thanks to Gaijin who neglected the Tactical/Strategical Bomber (the most neglected class in war thunder air mode)
2. Those bombers need to take extra care and need new roles rather than being “RP/SL Pinata” on air realistic. If Gaijin is planning to get rid of the current base bombing meta and fix it with a new one.
3. There were some planes that got affected by broken rockets with extra rewards and which received overrated BR thanks to exploited earnings according to the “Efficiency” theory. those planes need to be taken care of too.
4. We can cheer about the end of the dumb ‘rocketing era’ (if you hate those rocketeers) but we also need to keep our eyes peeled about “Nerfing the Average Earnings” which Gaijin attempted last year.
5. If ‘Average Earnings’ becomes a problem, a Win-win on rewards by buffing the player kills reward is always better than a lose-lose on the reward by nerfing base bombing reward while keeping player kill rewards on pos level.

[SpeclistMain1]

@Stockholm_Blend

(But thanks to awful overall stats and the survival rate of prop-bombers, many bombers did not reach the base before getting intercepted by Bf 109K or Do335B.)

This. 100%.

@Stockholm_Blend

Gaijin tells us that ‘Attackers designed for base-bombing in current meta’(those Tornado IDS variants or F-111A and F-105D can be examples) are doing fine on their ‘reward-netting’, so despite that their anti-air capability is awful compared to a pure-fighter variant, Gaijin won’t buff the Attackers BR unless nerfing the base bombing reward for balancing the economy. Then Gaijin nerfed the reward multiplier of base bombing on a recent bugfix.

I’d also like to add that the F-111A, F-105D, Tornado(s), etc. still will not reach bases before an F-4C/E/J/S/F/EJ, F-5A/E/C, F-104G/S/ASA, Su-22M3/4, F1C, Kfir C.2/Canard, etc. equipped with bombs.

[joshje100]

Genuinely the majority of issues with base bombing can be fixed by making them spawn faster like how they were just after the F-111 was added. There was no teamkilling for a base, there wasn’t any base stealing, there wasn’t many people leaving a match with no rewards because you could just wait 30s for the base to respawn.

[Agent_D47]

Just imagine when Gaijin reintroduce destructable airfields again. And balance the base health in a way that 1/3 of the games are finished with destroyed bases. Because bombers and their mission is the raison de etre for fighters, fighters would not exist if there were no bombers to defend against.