The developers trying to eliminate bombers from AB AIR?

Game Discussion Arcade Battle
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The developers trying to eliminate bombers from AB AIR?

1.69, “Regia Aeronautica”. This was the last version of the game when it was still good to play bombers in Arcade AIR Battle. From 1.71 (November 1, 2017), bombers became very easy to shoot down and much more vulnerable. :( In reality, they were flying fortresses, and several of them flew together in formations, covering each other, and were often escorted by fighter aircraft as well. All of this has been taken away from bombers, and they have also been weakened considerably, instead of at least increasing their Hit Points to the skies.

Last year came another blow : bombs being destroyed in mid-air! Nowadays, nine times out of ten, this is how you end up dying: the bomb gets shot down! They have made things even worse for bombers, so the aircraft is no longer safe even after releasing the bombs! What’s more, even dealing damage on the ground is no longer guaranteed. :( I am still curious how many aircraft were actually destroyed during World War II by shooting down their bombs? Based on a quick, superficial two-minute Google search, I couldn’t find a single example of this. Strangely, I don’t see 4× as many points, Light Bulb, or Silver Lion for the fact that bombing is now so extremely risky!

Then, a few days ago, another blow: in Arcade AIR Battle, the bombs became noticeably and significantly weaker, and their effective destruction radius became much smaller, while the description doesn’t even mention this. The fact that a 1000 kg bomb can’t necessarily even take out two light vehicles is outrageous! And, of course, the bomb can still be shot down in exactly the same way, and it still destroys the bomber. :(

Net Silver Lions and a waste of time to fly a bomber. :( Things are seriously messed up at the moment, and it would be good if they fixed them. They could even introduce some kind of bomber formation or escort system, because if things remain this way, an entire branch of the game becomes practically pointless. :(

Have you experienced these things as well?
What do you think could be improved to make playing bombers in AB more worthwhile?
How could we get this message in front of the decision-makers involved in developing the game?

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I’ve noticed that all BV238 drop their bombs at the start of the match and gun-ship me to death (ARB).

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One of the big problems the game has is trying to have every plane,vehicle and ship ever built, mocked up, a prototype or a fever dream wonder weapon as a playable unit in a extremely limited RNG shoot em up.
It maybe needs some variety but in actual warfare especially modern there are not a lot of choices, there are specialist vehicles but most are not.
This is were the game fails very badly, trying to balance units that are totally not suited for the narrow game play that the game has, strategic bombers are a very good example, there is no strategy in the game, especially long term strategy, large bombers destroy infrastructure, production facilities and military sites, very rarely used on front line operations.
But this is what we have in WarBlunder, single bombers flying into heavily contested or enemy controlled airspace to destroy a single tank, bunker or machine gun nest, with the outcome just an easy kill for fighters or AAA (player or AI controlled). Trying to balance it is almost impossible so we swing from one extreme to another, it would be better to just remove them from the game or have a completely separate game mode.
There are so many other examples in ground and naval as well in this narcissistic drive to have a record for the most vehicles, planes or ships in a game.

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You guys wanted to be indestructible right? Good! have fun being an indestructible, slow, boring and innefective vehicle to farm RP/Silver Lions!

Everyone has figured out that the best way to deal with bombers is ignoring them and kill other fighters and ground units to win their games. Maybe shoting them a little to cause a fire and making them even slower but thats it.

If someone else is still having a hard time with bombers just ignore them and you’ll see that your games will become way easier and enjoyable.

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The number of people I still see go head first in undying bombers and showering in their defensive fire while doing - as expected - no significant damage in return tends to indicate otherwise.

Also, bombs these days fly low and kill ground units with their defensive weaponery - sometimes outright ditching bombs to be more efficient there -, and dive through dogfighting fighters in nigh impunity. That makes them pretty hard to ignore at times, since they’re basically an airfield AA, shorter range, but moving around. Even harder to ignore when they start camping ground units and airfields or even strafing fighters on airfield… including on the defended one, because they don’t really care about airfield flak either.

Pretty sure the “bomber survivability” update was not meant to be a “500m altitude mobile AA platform that does no give a damn about its positioning because it knows it won’t get punished at all ever” update but here we are. But hey, according to bomber players, “this is more realistic”, so, yay. Silver linings.

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Yeah I’ve encountered a couple of guys like that, the good thing its they are around 2% of the bomber playerbase, most of them just bots flying on hight altitude droping bombs that do nothing.

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I completely agree. Unfortunately, the development direction regarding bombers is also wrong, because more than 10 years ago, back on the old forum, I wrote that there should be an escort system for bombers, so that it would actually be worthwhile for fighter pilots to escort them. Nothing happened. Well, actually, something did happen: not long afterwards, bombers were significantly weakened.
Then, last year, came this nonsense about shooting down bombs and the bomber being destroyed instantly. And now, I assume that they want bombers to attack bases instead of bunkers and tanks, so what did they do? They significantly weakened bombs against vehicles and every target that isn’t a base. Once again, they chose the worst possible solution.

Bombers could be made significantly stronger, perhaps with an airspawn at 8,000–10,000 meters, while fighters would start lower (which is roughly how it worked in reality), or they could even make it so that each bomber is escorted by 2–4 AI-controlled fighters. It would be more realistic and would also give bombers a better chance of actually completing their mission.

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Are you playing the same game as I am?

I am experiencing exactly the opposite: Fighters have no problem climbing the few hundred meters of altitude difference between the two types of aircraft, and the barely effective defensive armament isn’t much of an issue either, because after just 1–2 successful hits, the bomber explodes into pieces. Or they can simply shoot down the bomb after it has been released, and the bomber is instantly destroyed. :( On top of that, you don’t even necessarily get any ground damage. None of this is balanced in any way, neither through reduced repair costs nor through significantly increased Lightbulb or Silver Lion rewards.
And that’s not even mentioning the fact that the strategic aspect is being completely removed from the game, turning it into nothing more than a simple point-and-shoot shooter. :(

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Unfortunately, almost nobody thinks about it the way you do. That’s exactly the point: in Arcade Air, everyone immediately goes after the bombers because they are basically free frags. It is absolutely worth climbing those few hundred meters, because you can get an easy kill with just a few shots.

The 500-meter altitude you mentioned is unfortunately also a result of stupid Battle Pass tasks such as “destroy 32/180 vehicles with a bomber.” These tasks shouldn’t even be in the game, because destroying ground vehicles is supposed to be the job of strike aircraft.

I’ve been playing the game since January 2, 2015, with more than 26,000 battles under my belt. I’ve spent a total of 21 days flying bombers exclusively (and another 98 days flying other aircraft), but I have never, ever seen a bomber destroy ground vehicles using its defensive armament. With offensive armament, yes, that is possible — I’ve done it myself.

By the way, to understand what I’m talking about, you should play 10–20 Arcade Air matches in a bomber. You would immediately realize just how mistaken your view of the situation is.