End the diminishing Returns mechanic

Game Discussion General Discussion
1

Do you want to see this mechanic removed?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

Gaijin has long had an extremely negative opinion of ground attackers and have consistantly gone out of their way to ensure that ground attackers are less viable than fighters or fighter-bombers, this can be seen in a number of ways, from how they balance them via BR, how the gamemodes are designed and built, the rewards given, etc etc. But the most egregious in my opinion is the diminishing returns mechanic.

This mechanic needs to be removed.

The mechanic works like this, the more bombs you take, the less reward you will get per bomb. Take for example the Buc S1. I can run 8x 1000lb (of 2 different types) and with that bomb load I can in theory destroy 1.8 bases. However, I will earn vastly more reward if I run only 4x bombs and destroy only one base, than if I run 8x bombs and destroy one base and damage second or kill some Ai units. This entirely negates any advantage I may have over something with a slightly smaller bomb load. (I have heard multiple times that it is at 8.7 because it has a larger bomb load than the Canberra at 8.3, but with this mechanic in mind, should that matter?)

A core advantage of ground attackers over fighters and fighter-bombers should be an increased bomb capacity, but this mechanic totally eliminates that advantage, and that isnt factoring in that taking a greater bomb load already has a significant negative impact on flight performance and balances itself already

I conducted some quantitative testing of this and the results are below:

Tornado Gr4 (talisman and Premium)

Bombs RP SL Score
5 4410 10540 536
6 3901 9320 473
7 3533 8441 428
8 3257 7781 396
9 3045 7268 369
10 2872 6861 348
11 2733 6523 331
12 2616 6244 317

In essence, whilst it does show that if I can get 2x base kills, I would earn more than just 1, the rewards are notably reduced. Additionally, as I increased the number of bombs, the consistency of getting base kills drop significantly. I can usually always get a base kill by running 5x bombs, but it took me a number of matches to get 1x base kill with the max bomb load. Not too mention the fact that just because I have enough bombs too kill a second base, doesn’t mean that there is 1 active, or I’ll survive long enough to reach the target. In the 20 or so matches I did for this data, that happened only twice and the second one, just barely.

Whilst I was unable to get clean data, due to the fact that Ai vehicles reward a different amount depending on exact type. I did log this data a bit and does show that the rewards are also impacted by the amount of weapons taken

Though interestingly, napalm doesn’t seem to be impacted in the same way and so doesn’t get an immediate and notable reward advantage as you can run fewer bombs. But you still get the FM advantage.

Harrier GR1:

Bombs RP SL Score
3 Napalm 3961 23613 536
5 1000lb 4569 27231 618

So either bomb load needs to be balanced via BR / natural negative performance impact or via this mechanic, it cannot be done by both simutaneously and I would vote removing this mechanic

18 Likes
2

this mechanic is in place to prevent fighters with enough nalpalm bombs to destroy bases to rush faster than attackers and steal all bases

2 Likes
3

They do that already, all this does is punish aircraft without Napalm

16 Likes
4

Sure, why not

5

Not sure if that is the reason. But as a fighter with bombs, you are better off to take only 2 napalm and some missiles.

6

Yes but I myself still think the whole target system should be completely changed in WT, as discussed in several (mostly Sim EC related) threads:

WT should come away from hitpoint-based area mission targets towards modular targets with realistic resistance depending on weapons used:

Instead of having a certain area into which one simply needs to drop a certain amount of certain bombs (with certain damage), have mission targets comprising of various objects with various resistances that need to be taken out.

Not only would this make attacking such targets extremely more interesting, it would also allow for fairer, target and hit dependent rewards. For example a “bunker complex” of 5 hardened shelters, each yielding x SL/XP, vs. “assembly area” with numerous light barracks and vehicles, each yielding y SL/XP. The bunker complex would best be hit with precision bombs, the assembly area would better be killed with area weapons (incediaries, rockets,…). Then there could be factories, powerplants, SAM or ballistic missile sites, …

Would be completely new mechanic, but could offer a lot if done properly…

21 Likes
7

Honestly would buff strategic and heavy bombers in SB EC and let them climb up high and kill bases frkm there.

Curre tly theyd spend all their time climbing and landing exactly due to diminishing returns.

Would enciurage going for bases rather than airfield.

Would create o jectives for fighters at higher alt.

More higher alt dogfighting = i like.

So i support.

But i do prefer schind’s suggestion.

Basically do what il2gb apollo does and theyre golden.

6 Likes
8

Just stop letting fighters and multirole jets bomb bases its not that hard gaijin

9

But then Mig-23ML and F-4S players would have to learn how to actually play the game :D

6 Likes
10

People base bombing with napalm don’t care if they get less rewards, they’re still getting quite a bit regardless.

11

Until there are more bases that spawn, this should exist to incentivize people to bring one base of bombs, especially in simulator.
Having to sim hop until there are <4 base bombers isn’t fun as is.

@Strafenhoernchen
This mechanic isn’t for that.
Strike aircraft on average are faster.

12

I am conflicted. I want rewards to increase and to help bombers/strike aircraft but I think this is the wrong way to go. As long as bombers/strike aircraft are useless (their actions have next to no effect on match result, at least in ARB) I kinda don’t want more people to play them because rewards got buffed.

Before I can support this change the gamemode needs to change so that bombers/strike aircraft are actually useful and not just one less fighter for the team.

13

Mentioning sim as a reason to keep this mechanic is hilarious given the fact it’s the only gamemode where I can consistently get 2+ base kills per sortie without even trying, there are AFs always available to bomb and the rewards are heavily capped, so the main buff would be grinding events with the increase in score gains.

But this mechanic also decreases the rewards gained from killing ai targets too

14

Perhaps, and yeah a PvE overhaul is definetly needed, but ground attackers already have BR dictated by payload more often than not and the negatives of running so much is usually enough to not justify it anyway. I’d probably still only run 5x mk13 on the GR4 in ARB, but it would be nice to feel like I wasn’t being punished if I decided to run more to dump on a few ai targets

15

i dont know but my tornado with normal bombs is slower than some mig 23 with incendiary bombs

2 Likes
16

This even punishes ww2 heavy bombers lmao

2 Likes
17

Yeah, they might be some of the worst affected, especially as not all have custom loadouts

18

Sounds to me it does the opposite favoring base bombing f104 (enough for one base) and making it harder for bombers to break even if they manage to kill more than one base

19

you ignore the fact that bombers in lower brs. have the advantage of the “time played” bonus the longer a player lives the more RP and SL they get, since bombing a base raises your activity. in br beyond classic bombers (10.0+) strike aircraft can take advantage of that. also most of them can still fight or use missles to take down enemy. example tornado: i bomb 1 base. return to airfield and make a 2. run i get most likely more SL and RP than doing 2 bases in 1 run and then die.

Also with the wide existence of fighters beeing able to carry enough incendiary bombs for 2 bases. the mechanik in my eyes ensure that there is a higher chance for every player to get 1 base.

in my eyes the problem isnt that strike aircraft get punished for destroying more than 1 base. its more a problem of fighters beeing able to carry lighter incendiary bombs than some strike aircraft therefore having a huge speed advantage

20

I wanna cry every time I see a Mig-21 base bombing.
I quit playing for a day because in one match I saw all 3 of our Mig-21 Bisons carrying Napalm, one of them TK’d the other, and then we had to hard fight the match because we were down 3 fighters. If R-73s were enough for a Bison to change the outcome of a match, they’d be at 11.7. But no, I’ve won and pushed enemy players back using the R27R1s because the Bison is one of the best rat fighters in its BR bracket.

1 Like