Thoughts on the Bomber

[protest boy]

I know the final bomber design isn't finalized, but I wanted to lay down some thoughts on the way things are now.

1) I really like the new configuration of grenades/dumb bombs. I like the damage and knock back of the dumb bombs. Since they're hard to connect with and can't really be aimed very effectively, they seem appropriately powerful when they hit.

2) I think the dumb bombs should continue to fall until they contact someone or something instead of exploding in mid-air. I don't think people flying at the top of a map dropping bombs on people they can't see is really that big of an issue. And a bomb exploding in mid-air is much more likely to effect an unintended target than a tiny bomb that falls the length of a screen only to impact the ground.

3) Grenades in any configuration still need some working on in my opinion. I'm not sure what the exact solution is, but overall they are too effective. I feel one or more of the following needs to be adjusted: firing rate, damage dealt, self-inflicted damage, range, and area of effect.

At the moment I'm thinking that reducing grenade range (eliminates spamming grenades outside the visible area for kills) and reducing the damage dealt in near-miss situations would probably do it. I'm not sure if a near-miss grenade does less damage than a direct hit, but it should.

Dying to a salvo of 4 grenades from a bomber a screen length away that you never saw is very un-fun. Making the two changes I mentioned above would lessen those instances. I realize other planes can shoot off screen, but they're unlikely to result in a kill every time they contact someone. The bomber is different in this regard.

4) I'm thinking it would be nice to be able to tell whether a bomber has a functioning tail gun or not by visually inspecting the plane. On the other hand, I suppose you can't tell what a miranda is going to do, or any of the other planes before they actually do it, so maybe it's only fair the same is true of the bomber.

[DiogenesDog]

Agree with a lot of this. I'm not sure if it's actually imba when you're comparing good players, but it has a really flat skill curve compared to the other planes. I think the main thing is that the bomber just needs something to make it take a little more aiming skill. some random things that might help:

- reduce the rof, increase damage if necessary. make spamming a thing of the past.

- dont' like reducing range so much, since then you'll end up whacking people with the aoe much more often.

- I'd like to see more screwing around with the lob arc. this is the most unique part of the weapon, so the more you can exaggerate it the more fun / interesting the plane becomes to me.

- Slowing down the projectile might be a good idea?

- shrinking the projectile would probably be good for the game, but would look very strange.


I dunno, it's a tough problem. most of the changes that would make the plane take more skill would make it less fun to a lot of people, which is really unfortunate. :( that may be a necessary cost though if it reduces frustration for everyone else in the game.

on a different note, I feel like the flak cannon is just straight up better than the normal tailgun. and I play the same way with both of them, so... meh. I'd like to see their roles differentiated more.

[Triped]

Give grenades a setup like in this game: Nanaca Crash (http://www.megami.starcreator.com/nanaca-crash/). Make the indicator visible so the angle and velocity aren't random surprises to opponents. ;)

[Shyney]

I was about to post this exact same issue today. Bombers have always spammed, thats what they do, its the newb plane of choice for that reason(least amount of skill required to get a kill). But now they "spam" forwards too.. And its kinda ruining the fun of it, as well as changing game play on certain maps(city and hills). Bomber are now regularly lobbing instakill volleys half way across the map, in spam fashion, and just circling on their side, and repeating the process. Hills and city quickly degenerate into 2-3 bombers a side doing this endlessly, taking away the top part of the map for the game.
Its retardedly easy to do, requires no skill, and is not at all fun for the game..
Get a halfway decent player such as myself doing it, and its game over.. I did it one game to make a point. The results are here. And now everyone is doing it.
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5154/bombers.jpg
The astute among you will notice the "bombers are a ****ing joke" comment at the bottom. My k/d ratio with bomber is 12.68.... over 100 kills, and only 2.20 with Explodet..

The solution i was going to post, is already mentioned in this thread, 2 things i think would leave the bomber with a forward firing weapon, but one that actually requires skill, and stops this nonsense, of lobbing volleys across the screen, without changing weapon balance/damage,rate.

Halve(or less,) the distance and substantially increase its "arc", and you can leave damage/rate the same. Perhaps it would shoot off at a 45° angle, and have a substantial arc to it(like a grenade lob). This way its still forward firing, but if you want to hit, you have to "time" the shot. With skill it can still be used at med/close ranges as a weapon, and it cannot be used to spam-lob volleys clear across the map.

thoughts?

[cokane]

good point Shyney except...

your team lost. Who cares what kind of ratio you can rack up tbd if your team loses? I fail to see how that SS proves anything.

[Shyney]

the point was JUST to prove bomber is a joke, and this spamming is retardedly easy, and requires zero skill to do.. as the pic clearly shows :) which was the point of the thread(bomber spam).
I wasnt showing it as a good strategy or anything like that, just that this is ALL some people do now, circle/spam, circle/spam.
I fail to see how your comment, has anything to do with the "point" of my post.

[duck]

I feel it is already fairly hard to aim using the grenades, when you're shooting at a specific plane. But it's very easy to fly in circles and spam. However that is only an advantage on certain maps, namely hills and city. Bomber doesn't do so well in Mayhem.

If something has to be changed, maybe we could try raising the energy requirement of grenades, so holding down "F" doesn't create a wall of grenades ready to fall on an unsuspecting victim, but instead creates only one or two. You'd have to raise the damage accordingly. This would make the grenades more "expensive" and create an incentive to actually aim at a plane and not lob them blindly.

[lamsbro]

Along the same lines as what duck is talking about, we could also try decreasing bomber ammo regen by a lot.

[nesnl]

I think that we can all agree that when it comes to dogfighting that the bomber is at the biggest disadvantage. Obviously skill plays into it somewhat but when you get to the higher level games you really don't see many people playing the bomber. So the issue seems to be how do you make the bomber less of a plane that favors spamming and more of a plane that is about skill.

The bomber is really the only plane that can get an instant kill in the game (I know it's not instant but it's close enough). I actually think that this is an important aspect to the bomber that I think should be an integral part of the way the plane is played. I see the benefit to being able to insta-gib someone as the trade off for being the worst dogfighter. I think the key is to design the bomber so that it retains its ability to insta-gib but at the same time not nerf it so much that it is unattractive at all levels of play.

If you increase the lob arc I see this as a bad thing because a lot of maps have small enclosures or tunnels. If you create a larger arc you basically are limiting the bombers playable area to large open spaces.

I think the solution is to reduce the splash damage of the grenades by a substantial amount and at the same time slightly increasing the damage from a direct hit. I think we have all been victim of the "spam" on hills or city and realize that you don't have to be directly hit, but merely be in the area of the explosion to get killed. If you reduced the AoE of the grenades it would encourage more aiming and less spamming. Along with this maybe there could be a return to bouncing grenades. The skill cap would be increased just as it is a skill to bounce a good Miranda shot.

However, it may be fine the way it is. The bombers are played by mostly new players and only really seem to be a problem when the game has 4+ bombers in them. In any of the games with mostly level 60s you might only see 1-2 bombers and their effect doesn't seem as bad as when you are in hills dealing iwtha barrage of 12 grenades over the top of the mountain every 4 seconds.

[cokane]

Yeah, honestly, the bomber is not too dominant or lame right now. Any changes to make it weaker, and we'd just have a crappy plane imo.

[DiogenesDog]

I definitely disagree that the bomber is a terrible dogfighter. it's better than the explodet vs most planes if it gets caught in the open imo. and the rear gun is much more deadly vs loopy/miranda than people give it credit for.

the only way it really sucks is if you try hard to point your nose at them like it's some kind of fat biplane.

[protest boy]

Yeah, honestly, the bomber is not too dominant or lame right now. Any changes to make it weaker, and we'd just have a crappy plane imo.

I'm not advocating making it weaker, just different. As Maimer said, somehow change the parameters so aiming is encouraged. More damage per shot, fewer shots per second might do it. Less splash damage, more for a direct hit...etc.

[Snowsickle]

The bomber is really the only plane that can get an instant kill in the game (I know it's not instant but it's close enough). I actually think that this is an important aspect to the bomber that I think should be an integral part of the way the plane is played. I see the benefit to being able to insta-gib someone as the trade off for being the worst dogfighter.

Ever played biplane or miranda? I hear they're pretty fun.

More often than not, gibbing mechanics end up feeling stupid for anyone playing against them. Miranda and biplane already make use of the "hard to aim/melee range" instakills; if bomber were to be based around it I think it would need a relatively unique skill component or you run the risk of killing the variety between planes. That aside, I'm a fan of keeping instagib mechanics to a minimum.

Also I don't know how you can say bomber is a bad dogfighter. It has the smallest safe angle of attack of any plane in the game and enough health to handle a decent amount of punishment. Maybe bad in that it doesn't involve a lot of finesse like biplane/miranda, but it certainly isn't lacking in ability to compete.

[Ferret]

"It's good for new people and it instantly kills." Gee, it's almost like I think that someone should not be able to pick up the game for an hour and proceed to instantly kill me anytime I'm on the screen (or sometimes not).

Grenades need some kind of damage, fire rate, size and/or range reduction. No other plane can instantly kill you to the point where you have no reaction time or any chance to mitigate damage. Biplanes come close but they have to get right on top of you, explodet rockets are easy to see coming, using a miranda to shoot a charged shot and then using the forward warp can near-instantly kill but, again, you have you let it fly up to you and it takes pretty decent timing and effort from the person using the miranda. None of these compare to being hit by one grenade and then instantly the next three without any recourse. The 45% damage they do themselves with grenades also makes it so much better close range than it should ever be. It can fire something like 8 grenades and hit itself before taking enough damage to kill itself. Then after a close range pass, if the target survived, it's left behind the bomber, and the tail gun tracks.

I really have no desire to see one grenade do 50% of a plane's health in damage while the arc remains relatively unpredictable (everything else in the game travels in a straight line).

[Phasma Felis]

4) I'm thinking it would be nice to be able to tell whether a bomber has a functioning tail gun or not by visually inspecting the plane. On the other hand, I suppose you can't tell what a miranda is going to do, or any of the other planes before they actually do it, so maybe it's only fair the same is true of the bomber.
Can't you do this already? I'm pretty sure the barrel of the tailgun vanishes when you select Bombs.

I still kinda feel like they should either make Bombs the primary weapon or change the name of the plane. (Bombardier? Grenadier? Fatboy?) There's some interesting gameplay potential in a plane that can demolish behind or below but has no forward firepower. But I dunno.

[DiogenesDog]

Just wanted to mention that I think making it do more self damage would be pretty gay with the current camera zoom. By the time you get to fire sometimes they're right on top of you, so it'd turn into the amazing suicide plane. :(

[Triped]

Give grenades a setup like in this game: Nanaca Crash (http://www.megami.starcreator.com/nanaca-crash/). Make the indicator visible so the angle and velocity aren't random surprises to opponents. ;)

Still the best idea in the thread.

[cokane]

I just want to say that right now, the bomber is the best it's ever been in this game. It seems like the bomber's been whined about for a long long time.

I think people are exaggerating the effectiveness of grenade spam. I almost never see bombers win FFA games. I almost never see bombers used effectively in TBD games. At least not groups of them.

Everyone's ignoring Maimer's comment, which was probably the smartest in the thread. Bomber spam is only effective on 2 small parts of 2 maps. It is just the nature of those maps as to why bomber spam works. It doesn't work like that anywhere else.

To change a whole plane, especially when it's as good as it is now, over 2 map details is foolishness. I think if lamster tries anything, it should be small tweaks. Remember, altering grenades is going to affect all 3 versions of the bomber.

[Ferret]

I ignored it because it's not true.

[DiogenesDog]

seems pretty true to me. explain?

well, any map with an open horizontal area, especially if there's a choke. so like they're pretty good at spamming on Woods too, but the lack of a choke means you're way more likely to miss.

[k4ir0s]

the point was JUST to prove bomber is a joke, and this spamming is retardedly easy, and requires zero skill to do.. as the pic clearly shows :) which was the point of the thread(bomber spam).
I wasnt showing it as a good strategy or anything like that, just that this is ALL some people do now, circle/spam, circle/spam.
I fail to see how your comment, has anything to do with the "point" of my post.

WTF are you talking about? all planes spam.
Each plane only has 2 attacks, im pretty sure spamming is unavoidable for all of them. -_-

The Explodet spams mines, Loopy spams rockets/double rockets etc...
Some people could say those planes require zero skill too...

If you'd ask me, I'd say the Bomber requires a good amount of skill. Its not as easy as you think to make 1st on the score board with a Bomber. Why do you think most of the good players avoid picking it. With the other planes you could fly straight at your target from any direction and spam whatever until their dead.
But with the bomber the grenades dont even dont fire straight, you have to fly on an angle to actually shoot someone down. Same with the bombs, the only way to kill a full health target instantly is to fly straight up or straight down on an angle while making every single bomb hit the target.

[k4ir0s]

Yeah, honestly, the bomber is not too dominant or lame right now. Any changes to make it weaker, and we'd just have a crappy plane imo.

Yeah really, I cant imagine anyone still playing the Bomber after a nerf, its already underused as it is.

[Ajplagge]

The decreased range hasn't seemed to help, simple solution is just give it a bit of a burn time between grenades no?

[nesnl]

The decreased range hasn't seemed to help, simple solution is just give it a bit of a burn time between grenades no?

The range wasn't decreased.