Ground Attackers, Battle rating & Rewards. We need an official discussion

Dev Server "Tusk Force" General Discussion - Dev Server
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More than a year ago now, as a direct response to the extensive requests for the Tornado IDSs to share a battle rating and not be errenously split between 2 BRs we got this response regarding ground attacker “Effeciencies” and the relationship between BR and Rewards for these aircraft.

You can read the full segment here:

Spoiler

Continuing the discussion from Responding To Your Feedback On Separate Battle Ratings:

and the important part is this:

We never got this thread and this issue has not changed in anyway in the past year. If anything… Its gotten worse. So it is time for this thread. To have a proper place to provide official feedback to this side of ARB and hopefully, improve the game for the better for a notable chunk of aircraft which currently have a terrible time.

Do you want an official thread for this promised discussion?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

But I want to lay down some personal thoughts on the matter within this thread alongside that request:

The biggest issue imo, is that aircraft have a battle rating dictated or at least certainly influenced by maximum bomb loads however there is a built in system that I dont think many people know about. 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 vasatly 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

So first things first. Either BR needs to be dictated by bomb load or this deminishing returns mechanic needs to be removed. It is rather unfair to be “balance” the ability to take more bombs than someone else using two different methods. One is more than suffecient.

Would you like to see this deminishing returns mechanic removed?

  • Yes
  • No
  • No, but it needs to be changed/improved
0 voters

The next issue is one of offensive/defensive performance. If battle rating is dictated by the aircrafts ability to perform in A2A combat, then once again, the current system fails. Many ground attackers are notably weaker than those at the same BR or in a few instances weaker than those at a lower BR. For this im exlcuding those that are a hard BR minimum due to advanced loadouts (such as all-aspect or IRCCM) but notable examples of this would be aircraft like the Jaguar GR1A and the Tornado IDS and its equivalens. You have 3x Tornado IDS at 11.7 all of which are much weaker than the Mig-23MLD at the saame BR in both A2A combat and base killing. So it is time that BRs better reflect any aircrafts ability to actually operate within the gamemode and nots its theoretical rewards if it manages to sneak past the enemy team (which is not easy in the maps we have in ARB and the ever present markers)

Would you like to see ground attack aircraft have a BR that better represents their A2A performance (Where no other factors apply)?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

Following that you have the available targets themselves. Its one thing to have a large bomb load and another if you can actually make it to something to drop your weapons load on, but it becomes entirely irreelvant if there is nothing on the other side to actually drop your weapons on. I would propose turning the forward AFs into modular airfield such as found in Air Sim, so that there is always something to attack and destroy. I would also add additional ground objectives that have a direct impact on the match outcome (such as SAM or Radar installations). Finally I would increase the rewards for killing the AI ground vehicles. Unless you are killing a lot, they are generally not worth the risk to engage.

Would you like to see the quality & Quantity of ground targets improved in ARB?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

Another core part that really needs to improved is the impact that ground attackers can actually have on a match. Quite often they are dead weight to a team, unable to really have any measureable impact on the match outcome, which in turn, deminishes the overall value of ever really bringing a ground attacker to the gamemode. Increase the ticket bleed for ground targets would be one step in the right direction, but I would also enjoy far more dynamic aspects such as objectives that apply buffs to your team or debuffs to the opposing team (Such as destroying radar stations that reveal your position?)

Im not sure what else could be done, but at the moment ARB is a deathmatch, and the first team to be killed, loses.

Would you like to see Ground Attackers have a greater impact to a typical match?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

Finally, is the problem of “fighters” that are able to be highly effective in the base bomber role, usually thanks to their ability to run Napalm. Now I have no good solution for this. I’ve heard many ideas, but they all have negatives. But I do think the first is probably a bit of a rebalance of Napalm itself But beyond switching its damage to more of a damage over time effect, I dont have much of a solution in this regard. But it absolutely must be a part of the overall discussion for the requested thread above.

I think thats about it. I would love to hear peoples views on a mud mover overhaul for ARB and I really hope we can get the forum to actually discuss this problem properly and for the devs to actually listen to the community feedback. This is a MAJOR issue, and it really needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

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100% agree with you in all of this.

as for the fighter baserusher issue i think there needs to be two things done to remedy this

  1. tiered rewards for aircraft type with fighters getting the smaller reward, strikecraft getting an intermediate and fully fledged bombers getting the cream of the crop. this does mean reducing rewards for the majority however something needs to be done to wean premium fighter players off of farming bases and into playing the actual game as their intended role, a fighter.

  2. different bases for different aircraft types

title really says it all, fighters get their own bases to blow up so that the poor dudes in slower strikers and bombers need not pray for no Wyverns or migs. some what contradicts my want to wean fighters off of bases and into being fighters but we ultimately can’t fully stop them unless we disable ground strike ordinance for them in air gamemodes

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Yep, that could work. Especially if the inverse was done for PvP rewards as well.

(though I think reducing the rewards only would be bad, but instead the rewards could be reduced a little but the inverse increased) I/e fighters would earn 25% less from base bombing but PvP rewards were increased by 35% and the opposite for bombers)

I’ve seen some good suggestions to just add different types of bases that react differently to different types of bombs, all of which require a different amount of damage to destroy. Could even go a long way to making GBUs a more viable weapon to bring in ARB, if certain bases had “weakspots”

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Reducing rewards is inherantly bad (however the SL economy is so inflated now it wouldnt really matter to anyone other than the crap players that abuse the system out of skill issue)

maybe some bunkers that AP bombs deal extra damage to, would make the pointless AP bombs on so many aircraft at least have some use because we are not using them in naval as HE yeild is still king there.

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Yeah, exactly that kind of thing.

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maybe it can nudge gaijin to add the grand slam 22,000pdr bomb to our lancasters (not just so we have an even more crazy “no more tanks on that point” bomb). while they are at it can we also get Barnes-Wallis’ bouncing bombs just for the sake of it.

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Actually, you can do a lot of damage to tickets.

At a low BR. But once we get access to the weapons needed to clear large swathes of targets? You can remove all of them and not move the tickets even a fraction of what you get kill 20 low br targets. Pretty sure I checked this out with a bunch of wyverns a bit back, and clearing a map myself in a frogfoot.

Objective specific armament would actually be really good as we could justify JP233 and finally eat the migs.

But you would end my reign of terror in my air to air su 39 😿

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What a great mechanic. So despite taking the increased risk to yourself as said bomber, like reduced speed and maneuverabilty because of the increased bomb load weight (and keeping yourself in the battle longer) you are penalized for trying to do more than with trying to do less.

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Precisely.

Which is also why napalm fighter bombers are so annoying. Because a way to balance that out would be simply that I can run a lot more bombs in the long run and get more reward as a result. But I don’t. There isn’t any meaningful value for me running 12x bombs on my Tonka because the weight and drag increases combined with the reduced rewards.

I’m gunna get some hard data over the coming weeks and plot out what the reward drop off looks like

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Don’t forget we also lack incendiary armament on lower rated bombers, but it is present on a bunch of fighters. Most notable example being the Lancaster, which had a notable incendiary payload. But isn’t present in game. Yet lots of stuff that aren’t bombers around the rating have incendiary payloads.

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Depends on what modes someone plays.

One might find oneself forced to play ARB or GRB to make enough SL to play their chosen game mode.

I’d much rather SL gain not be reduced further. Fixing other game modes would be great (why does Ho 229 cost 17.3k to SPAWN and can only earn 19.8K SL assuming perfect play per 15 minutes? Nobody knows!), but keeping the current “barely not drowning” is better until then.

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Yeah, it’s annoying how it’s being gatekept like it is

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Agreed on everything in the original post.

The game is in dire need of PvPvE improvements and I wouldn’t mind getting less SL in return for more enjoyable gameplay. SL/RP earnings are such an incredibly bad metric to base bomber BRs on.

They could just raise the ticket drain for base destruction and ground pounding a bit so the destruction of most ground targets and all four bases is enough to win the match. As it stands I’ve had multiple situations where most, if not all ground targets and even AI planes were destroyed, but there still were tickets left because some of the allied AI planes destroyed ground targets, which causes no ticket drain.

Also, turn the secondary/forward airfields into bombing targets as well. Their destruction should drain a fair chunk of tickets and cause that airfield to be inoperational. Main airfields should also count as bombing targets, but their destruction should not end the match.

I do hope that someday we will see some actual PvPvE mode like ARB EC with proper and dynamic objectives, but it seems that such a mode is very low on Gaijins priority list…

2 Likes