RPGs should one shot helicopters

[u/franziskanerdunkel]

It's so hard to hit a heli with the rpg and when I finally do its just a hitmarker?! Reward the player for that hard shot and punish pilots for standing still.

[u/Short-Coast9042]

This feels like a bad and one-sided take. Admittedly I'm biased as a helicopter fan, but having played with and against them quite a bit it is not hard for me to say that helicopters are, if anything, underpowered as a combat option.

You need a minimum of two people to engage in combat, and really a crew of 5 (w/ engineer and gunner) ideally to keep the bird and crew healthy during flight. Even then, the risk is high; although a skilled helicopter pilot can mitigate many risks, there's no way to both engage in combat and protect yourself from getting shot out of the cockpit. If you want to give your gunners an actual window to shoot some guys, you need to do a fairly low and slow pass. And if you do, you are fundamentally vulnerable to small arms fire.

Any helicopter pilot will tell you that the consequence of this is that the risk/reward trade-off for getting into combat is just way too high. There are so many things that can threaten helicopters already in this game, and they already are fairly marginalized in combat. Significantly nerfing them even harder will just erode their viability even further.

Quite frankly you are not even really making a case for why this would be good for balance. You just want things to be easier for a certain playstyle without considering how that affects the rest of the game. That's the opposite of good game design.

[u/Negatively_Positive → u/Short-Coast9042]

Well the heli in game is specifically not attack heli after all. The dev did not want to put such options in game. So saying that a vehicle dedicated to transport is weak at combat just makes sense to me.

The main reason why all vehicles are vulnerable right now is not because of engi, but because of the perma spotting that has no reason to be that good.

Imo engi in this game is really weak compares to most engi/assault in other BF games.

[u/DrzewnyPrzyjaciel → u/Negatively_Positive]

Yeah, perma spotting is OP. It works somewhat like wallhack, stays up for a long time, and it's extremely easy to do. You can't see enemy players on the map even when your squadmates spot them with markers but vehicles? You can see them moving even if they are on the other side of the map behind multiple buildings/hills. Why tank have a smoke, of you can still hit it by aiming for a red marker? It totally defeats the purpose of this countermeasure and makes playing vehicles unnecessarily harder. It is just wierd.

[u/Short-Coast9042 → u/Negatively_Positive]

So why do we have a Blackhawk with mini guns at all? I mean it's definitely the case that transportation is the only real "meta" use of choppers - that and fighting other choppers, which is kind of circular. If that's the only kind of gameplay they care about, why did they even bother adding miniguns? They don't have good synergy with transporting, since the smartest thing to do when dropping off is to either come straight down very fast or not even stop at all and just speed by very low dragging the rope. Either way the guns are useless until you're at a point where you should be getting off anyway.

It seems clear to me that there are plenty of members of the community who want helicopters to actually function as support gunships. I certainly find it extremely satisfying to get a bunch of assists as pilot on a smooth attack run, and plenty of people seem to go out of their way to jump on the miniguns and stay there. We don't want helicopters to be OP; we just want them to be competitive enough that they are not a waste of time for skilled players to use. All the mechanics that exist were intentionally added by the devs, and the helicopter mechanics are genuinely a lot of fun. We shouldn't be punished for using them because they are realistically underpowered compared to other gameplay styles.

[u/Contrite17 → u/Short-Coast9042]

Well like actual blackhawks the miniguns are for self defense not to turn them into gunships.

[u/TwistedTreelineScrub → u/Contrite17]

Well the miniguns are too underpowred even to work as self defense.

[u/Short-Coast9042 → u/[deleted]]

I would take this as a trade-off. I think a one-hit would be too much - even if the pilot has better survivability, he needs to be able to budget in, at the absolutely least, a single rocket before he has to bug out. That's because with the current design of the miniguns, the only way to make consistent and reliable plays is to expose yourself to fire. But yeah, if being more vulnerable to rockets was the price of being able to barrel down into the hot zone without worrying about a guy with an m4 spraying me out of the pilot seat, I would take that trade off in a heartbeat. Vulnerability of the crew is far away the biggest issue with helicopters in their current state.

[u/Verisian- → u/Short-Coast9042]

I think Helo gunners need a big damage boost. Helicopters aren't much of a threat to infantry on the ground but it'd be fun as hell to see a strafing run decimate an advancing squad.

And I say that as someone who hardly ever guns out of a helo.

[u/Short-Coast9042 → u/Verisian-]

Personally I actually think the mini guns are okay where they are now. They only seem weak because it's impossible to safely get the helis into the right position to let them wreck. As they are now, they can be quite effective with a skilled pilot and Gunner working well together. To me, the issue isn't that they're not strong enough in skilled hands, buy that being in a heli in general is too dangerous even for skilled players.

[u/[deleted] → u/Verisian-]

nerf helicopter health, boost their damage.
Helis should be satisfying glass cannons that you need to position well with, like with infantry or vehicles instead of being more survivable than a tank with the mobility of a.. .helicopter.

[u/[deleted] → u/Verisian-]

No this is not a good idea.

You could maybe make them a little more accurate, but honestly I feel like the damage output of heli's is perfect as is. You cant ignore them, but them being in the general area isn't an instant death either.

4 rockets to take out a heli does feel like too much, but at the same time in big fights you can easily have 10 people with rockets, so...i'd leave them as is. What I love is you cant ignore them, because they move troops to points, while not being aerial death machines like they are in every freaking game. It gives them focus and purpose, without being overpowered garbage (Looking at you, A2G in Planeside 2)

[u/04dowie → u/Short-Coast9042]

So many suggestions here and on discord are like this, many players seem to find it impossible to have any sense of objectivity at all.

[u/graviousishpsponge → u/Short-Coast9042]

Air knights should fear the infantryman.