Bombers were part of War Thunder since the beginning. One would think that if they exist in this game for so long then surely they must be doing good after all these years but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The amount of neglect that these planes were and still are shown is simply astonishing.
The lack of detailed cockpits and lackluster damage models were not great but at least you got proper rewards for bombing bases and could end matches if you and your teammates managed to destroy the enemy airfield.
Then the invasion of bots happened. (Can’t say from which country but we all know )
Gaijin instead of cracking down on those bot accounts decided that it would be a great idea to nerf the rewards from bombing and the multipliers on bombers. That resulted in bombers getting punished for the thing they are designed to do which is idiotic. That alone had an impact on the number of bombers appearing in matches. Before the change most teams always had 4 bombers. Surprisingly enough that wasn’t the nail that put bombers in the coffin.
That title would go to the changes regarding bases.
Before the change you could bomb the enemy airfield after destroying the three enemy bases. After the enemy airfield got destroyed, your team would automatically win.
Nowadays most of the maps have 4 bases that require more bombs than the previous ones to destroy. New bases appear after destroying the first four (similiar to bases in Simulator but a lot worse) effectively making any remaining bomber players stuck bombing bases till the time runs out. Airfields are unable to be destroyed.
This effectively killed the bombers. Most bombers in matches rarely reach the base in time before being killed. Them coming back to base is even more rare. Now if you managed to somehow survive all of this then you will be completely dependent on other players that hopefully shoot down all enemy planes. You effectively become dead weight for your team because you can’t destroy the enemy airfield nor contribute to the battle in any meaningful way
How could this be fixed?
I know someone will say this so lets get this out of the way. Making matches only for bombers is not possible in any way. Bomber players wouldn’t want that themselves.
The first thing that should be done is fixing the rewards for bombers and reverting the base changes. This would effectively bring back the players and matches actually more interesting. Fighter players used to complain about having to climb in order to kill bombers. Interestingly enough they still were climbing after bombers stopped posing any danger to them. Maybe they realized that altitude advantage is a thing. I don’t think they would have such a problem now.
My idea
So I have been tinkering with this idea that would crank up the gameplay of bombers. Every bomber would have access to a “Formation” modification that would allow you to spawn in with two same bombers behind you flying in the formation. The mechanic is already present in single missions. If enemy killed you then you could switch to the other plane and continue fighting. Now here’s the kicker. If you enabled this modification then your repair cost would triple as a result but you would get a chance to bomb a lot more bases and get an even better score. You would be able to switch between the bombers in any moment but with 5 second delay. If the enemy killed one of your planes then he gets rewarded as if he killed a player. For example if you bring a bomber with 10k repair cost and all of your planes get shot down then you will pay 30k . It’s a very high risk= high reward idea but it would bring a lot more life into the bomber gameplay as well as matches in general.
Feel free to give your opinions down below
I think you are correct with everything you say, the measures you explain could also help the bombers, personally I played with bombers but as you explained it is impossible to even bomb the enemy bases without first dying very easily, so Another possible solution could be that the bombers are more difficult to eliminate, that many more shots are required to eliminate some, so at least you could give the bomber the opportunity to defend itself with its defensive turrets, in real life i don’t know how difficult it was to shoot down a bomber but in the game it is too easy, in fact when I play with some fighter and I see some bomber I think “free points” and I also feel bad for the person who plays bombers. Gaijin make the bombers tougher!!
I think reverting to the old system would make for a great first step. I think fixing the damage models would also help.
I used to mainly fly bombers for a while, and the main way I used to earn points was by flying as aggressively as possible, which often meant putting myself at risk of fighters. This only really works at low tier though, playing bombers at or above 2.7 is just masochistic at best.
The idea presented here is also a good option, though there still remains some issues. I think that another way of protecting bombers would be spawning in a couple of fighters alongside them (especially heavy fighters, which can struggle even with lower spawn points)
I would love to see the actual loadouts of Me-410 in game. We know it could take more than 2x500kg
The actual load out for BV-238 would be great too but that might be too op
Totally agree with you.
With planes I basically play only with early-mid jet bombers, and yes I can affirm is pretty difficult (and useless for grind); worst things of that are all the attacker (such the Saab 105, Sea vixen; etc), they become your worst enemies even if they are in your team cuz they will always steal bases and then go to fight other planes, basically doing both bombers and fighters role and making bombers useless and most likely force you to wait till the bases respawn or someone kills you…
Also if someone damages the bases without ending them, you will receive only a bunch of points.
Fighting give you way more point now
Maybe an idea would be to restore the old rewards for bombers and attackers, while leaving the current system with reduced scoring for fighter planes. But these must be lower than score for a kill. In every game mode, AB, RB and SB.
One of the main things we need is a gunner rework. Not just for aircraft, but a rework and unification of the aircraft, ship, and tank gunner systems.
Gunners should not open fire without prompting from the player (unlike current air/ships)
Gunners should fire on targets assigned by the player (system already in place with ships)
Gunners should open fire at far enough range to be a deterrent, but with poor-ish accuracy at range (like vs-ship ship gunners, thus a notable buff to air gunners, but a nerf to vs-air ship gunners)
Tank secondary AA guns (roof .50s, etc) should be included in the same system
This would simultaniously fix a whole pile of issues. Aircraft gunners would actually be more than worthless but require the player actually paying attention and manual action, ship gunners would similarly require paying attention and action instead of nuking every aircraft / PT boat without even knowing they exist, and tanks gain a tool against CAS. And it’s all unified as a consistent system.
Remove airspawn form every plain that it’s not a bomber, strike aircrafts and interceptors having such huge advantage is stupid thing, easily climbing and killing bombers with ease, not to mention that strike aircrafts can drop bombs stealing bases from bombers rendering them useless or just damaging the base and stealing the main rewards of destroying bases from bombers, remove the airspawn and adjust BR for these aircraft that will no longer have it.
Especially for naval battles, where brave souls on planes, forced to fight with floating flakturms, in meaning of AAA numbers.
(Dont forget about HE-PF)
Make AI gunners useful - On an Aced crew they should be firing at 1.0-1.2km, with Expert 0.8-1.0km, then 0.7-0.8km without Expert. They should also be fairly accurate, due to the general firepower disadvantage bombers have (most bombers can only point at most half of their MGs towards any target, of which the total amount of MGs are usually at most half of the firepower of a fighter).
Decrease bomber BRs across the board - Imo, there should be no prop bomber above 6.3 - maybe 6.7. Put the Tu-4 at 6.3, B-29 at 6.0, and move downwards. This will of course require adjustments to the base HP. The jet bombers should also be moved down, especially the ones with little to no countermeasures; the main things that will have to be worked around are the prop-to-jet transition BRs, or putting certain types of missiles too low.
Make bombers tankier, they shouldn’t be paper - This applies to every bomber, especially the bigger and slower ones. Short of a 40mm+ cannon, one shots should not happen under any circumstances - and for most types of MGs/cannons multiple passes should be required to take them down.
Increase bomber spawn altitude - The current spawn altitude is just far too low, virtually every nation in the game at all BRs have fighters or interceptors that can outclimb bombers. Imo, 5-6km should be the minimum spawn altitude for most BRs.
Fix MG bullet spread/ammo and targeting inconsistencies - Generally the bullet spread for bombers is massively larger than for fighters, and this just shouldn’t be the case. Additionally, some bombers don’t have access to their historical ammo belts (iirc), which also makes their defensive/offensive capabilities worse than necessary. Additionally, add the MG targeting system to the B-29.
Increase the rewards for attack aircraft/fighters hitting ground targets, but massively decrease rewards for them hitting bases - This will generally just stop attack aircraft/fighters from taking bases at all BRs.
Move the jet bomber/attack aircraft spawn be much closer to bases and ground targets than the fighter spawn - No fighter should be getting to a base before a bomber, even a supersonic fighter against a subsonic bomber.
Responses to other people within the thread:
The AI gunners should most definitely fire on their own, and the accuracy of the plane gunners should be made to be as accurate as the AA guns in Naval, tbh. Their accuracy should also be good, to the point where fighters would be 100% shot down without dodging.
Requires going to location for reference photographs, or the purchase of reference photographs to use for commercial purposes.
On top of that the labor cost required.
Are due to CPU cycle limitations for compatibility with as many computers as possible.
You mean Gaijin is cracking down on bots:
No, not only would the AI overhaul need to include that functionality, but it’d delay the AI overhaul for no real gains when there are vastly superior options one of which is playing sim…
I agree that reward buffs across the board might be necessary.
It’s just your post doesn’t do much to address the problems present let alone the ones your post mentioned.
LOL! No you don’t. Old systems for bombers were far worse.
I don’t know when we got our current system for bombers prior to 2018, but when I played bombers in 2015 the rewards weren’t better.
AI overhaul they’re working on hopefully includes this.
This one I disagree with as a bomber player.
All aircraft need damage model buffs. It’s not 2021 anymore after all. If any feature should consume more CPU cycles it’s improved damage models.
There’s a lot more planes it could be added to. The P-61C, A-26, any US plane with that flat-pack style turret. On top of that there’s several British and US bombers that had dedicated radar gunsights in the tail turret.
But overall I agree with you on the need for a massive change. There’s a reason the Germans wound up resorting to sticking Nebelwerfer rockets on the Me 262 in an attempt to engage outside of a bomber’s effective range.
I don’t like your solution, and only because I think “high risk high reward” is playing bomber in and of itself PLUS the fact that I have proposed an idea about how we go about bomber.
That is, create a “target zone” where an entire plane bombload is not enough, you and the other bomber in the team need to bomb that spot so you all can benefit from the reward altogether. Instead of putting 4 individual target, you’re better off putting 2 “target zone” that require 2-4 plane bombload for each zone.
