Artillery is really in need of a counter

[Lethn 10]

Sorry guys but after finally being able to get some decent games going with Operation Arrowhead ( yes I bought it, surprisingly painless to play on desert maps because of the lack of trees and decent U.S skins :D ) There's one thing that still bothers me. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but is Bohemia not aiming to make this a realistic shooter or as it has been said 'simulator'? If that IS correct, then why is it that in multiplayer games artillery is the magical IWIN button in Arma 2? The equivalent of the grenade launcher or the 'noobtube' as it is more commonly known in Modern Warfare or Grenade Spamming in most first person shooters?

Here's a scenario I just went through, I drive rabidly towards a town and I get blown up by a helicopter. Fair enough, this is Arma 2, so the logical step would be to get AA. So I hop in another players plane for transport as I know the air whore will instantly start stalking us to get an easy kill ( This is after I got blown up in a shilka which didn't spot the chopper because of the annoyingly slow and buggy A.I ) I eject from the plane while it flies off as I hear the chopper behind us and take the git out with an AA launcher. Great! Even being able to live and yell a taunt over the global chat at the git for using such cheap tactics against us.

First thing that happens after that is immediately the artillery spam kicks in, now I had already respawned at another base where this was happening so I switched to this one but low and behold they were targeting this one too. It is utterly maddening that there is absolutely no defense beyond randomly moving bases which is often a costly and tedious affair and also isn't guaranteed to work.

So I have maybe three ideas in my head to offer up to the developers to get past this problem, surprisingly the air once you get round it is surprisingly easy to counter. You just need to get round the silliness of the A.I and just gun yourself though they seem capable of handling helicopters when they actually spot them.

. Let us reinforce buildings - Let maybe players or commanders spend money or supply on actually reinforcing buildings so that they are indestructable like the bunkers to artillery shells. However maybe make it so that things like satchel charges or explosives will be enough to bring them down, this will force the enemy to actually make a direct attack instead of being so cheap

. Make a player actually have to use their binoculars to sight the position for artillery like in reality - In my opinion players should not be able to randomly pick out a grid and fire away and just 'guess' the location of a base or enemy, this would encourage far more teamwork and organization if players had to designate grids to each other when using artillery

. Let infantry dig in - I'm sure you've all watched band of brothers, if Bohemia feel this is too complex for their animators to bother with then at least put in a half-assed version. Have the 'dig in' option put into the menu and let players or A.I build their own little foxholes, you don't even have to bother with animations but this would make things far more interesting, it would be good if you could also use the foxholes like an emplacement and shoot out with your chosen weapon

If you're going to go for realism then everything should have a weakness or counter to it, you can't have this RPG crap going on because in the end if you give people the giant hailstorm of death and they figure out it's the best weapon in the game then everyone is eventually going to use it. Hell even the Vietnamese won against the Americans and their stupid arty spam just by digging tunnel networks, I don't care if you find it too difficult to put in, if you're going to boast realism then aim for it.

Edited July 6, 2010 by Lethn

[Nicholas 5]

War is not balanced or fair in real life either.

[Lethn 10]

Hurp Durp but in case you didn't notice it can be unfair for either side rather than just the one without having the artillery spam.

[Nicholas 5]

Hurp Durp but in case you didn't notice it can be unfair for either side rather than just the one without having the artillery spam.

Well maybe play a different game mode?

[Montanaro 0]

artillery is the biggest killer in war.

Learn to deal with, or play a different game mode.

[cossack8559 10]

Its not cheap, its war... Artillery is very important in war and should be very deadly.

[Nutlink 10]

Well maybe play a different game mode?

This. Sounds like you had a bad session. It's all up to the mission creator if there is going to be artillery available or not, among other things.

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Simple. This is a mission problem, and NOT a BIS/OA problem.

[tsb247 0]

I've often found the best way to counter artillery is with more artillery... Or simply moving the base.

Hey, all is fair in love and war, and it obviously isn't love.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

I've noticed in my many hundreds of hours playing Warfare missions that those H-Barriers that the commander and repair truck can build are extremely good at lowering or out right preventing artillery damage to buildings.

A good commander can surround the factories with H-Barriers and it will take a direct hit from artillery (often a low chance occurance) to bring it down.

[tyler4171 10]

I've often found the best way to counter artillery is with more artillery... Or simply moving the base.

Exactly, but if you want counter with your own artillery, use Guns against mortars, Rockets against guns, mortars against rockets (which strangely work....)

[schurem 0]

being able to dig in would be great.

One should be extra vulnerable while digging, and the AI's visual awareness should be down a bunch while its digging. We should have both a heads up (ready to fire) and heads down stance while manning a foxhole. Should make for fun defence missions.

[ben_s 11]

Artillery is one of the most used tactics. And is used to do exacly that. Once you find a location. If you cant get into it using infantry and its too long for aircraft to get there, use artillery.

Sorry, but artillery is one of the oldests tactics in war.

[DieAngel 0]

Go break their artillery?

If i recall artillery isn't that good with moving targets...

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Counter to artillery fire?

How about.... Counter battery fire?

[maturin 12]

Digging foxholes would be nice. And counterbattery fire has been implemented in some usermade warfare games.

[That guy 10]

artillery is called "the king of battle" for a reason ;)

STEEL RAIN

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Uhm, yeah, but in Arma there are no such things as suppression missions, only utter destruction. With the survivability rates we have I just don't find it much fun, even the current mortars feel to strong. You don't soften up enemy forces, you obliterate them. Don't know how it works in PvP, but with AI this is at least usually the case. (Arma2, not tested much with OA yet).

[Lethn 10]

I love how people keep blaming scenarios or mods, that's stupid, this is a blatant problem with game code which mods normally can't solve. Shifting the problem over to the mods is going to make it worse and worse as the game gets popular, if more and more people play this game then things like this are going to get easily noticed.

[whisper 0]

I love how people keep blaming scenarios or mods, that's stupid, this is a blatant problem with game code which mods normally can't solve. Shifting the problem over to the mods is going to make it worse and worse as the game gets popular, if more and more people play this game then things like this are going to get easily noticed.

What, that artillery kill people? That's sure hell of a problem....

[Lethn 10]

How about you lot actually make some arguments on why it is balanced currently instead of throwing annoying and sarcastic comments my way that only help my argument even more if you're so bothered by me proposing ways to survive artillery strikes?

Edited July 8, 2010 by Lethn

[whisper 0]

Because there is nothing wrong with having artillery actually killing people.

The way you refer to pilots using choppers against you ("cheap tactics", and so on... ) only reinforce the feeling you see only 1 way to play this game, and it's your way.

This is not how BI games work.

FYI, you allready, as a mission maker, have many options against arty

limit access to it

reinforce buildings (yes, mission makers can already do it)

make some kind of artillery spotting capability

etc....

All this can be done by mission makers

and 95% of mission played online are made by community mission makers. Don't ask BI to "fix" these missions

EDIT : I would understand a wish/request for some shelter done by BI, why not.... But "BI must fix this terrible issue"? No. It's not a terrible issue for many, and it's already fixable by the mission maker

[snoops_213 75]

It balanced is so much as that if they are calling arty in on your position then they obviously know where your HQ's are and in war HQ's are high priority targets if they are in range. Quicker to hit it with arty than wait for air assets to be re directed. As people have said though BIS made a basic arty framework and the community are the ones making the missions with these feature so ask or make one yourself that you feel would be balanced. There are some mods/addons/scripts that are MP compatible that improve arty in how its called and effort needed to actually call it. As for the tactics part well if your on a public server well expect anything. Maybe find a different server?

[Montanaro 0]

How about you lot actually make some arguments on why it is balanced currently instead of throwing annoying and sarcastic comments my way that only help my argument even more if you're so bothered by me proposing ways to survive artillery strikes?

Just because you die by it and it pisses you off, doesn't mean it's unfair or unbalanced. It just means you like to complain when you haven't bothered to do anything about it yourself.

Let's not even venture into the aspects of realism and "balance", because I don't think you know enough about the matter to make it worth my time (and apparently others agree judging by their comments).

But please, continue your silly statements like "whatever comments you post, only make me more correct". :j:

[Lethn 10]

There's no point in even posting on official boards if fanbois half the time keep constantly putting words into my mouth.

You don't seem to be even reading my posts properly so I'm not even going to bother genuinely responding until you do it properly. By the way if you tell me that vehicles having an extreme amount of difficulty going up a gentle slope in sunny weather is 'realistic' I'm seriously just going to lol. Instead of accusing me of stupid things, try and come up with a genuine argument for NOT having any of this stuff in, either that or get lost, because I'm not going to bother wasting my time with people like you anymore.

I want a game that's fair and balanced I don't want to see magical "I win" buttons hidden in places for players who play a bit longer than the others to find, I don't think that's much to ask, every time you guys make comments like "You just want to play it your way" you only make it seem to me that you want to keep things the way they are because you've found an easy way to win matches without much effort. Reminds me very much of the bickerings I've had on MMORPG forums and even with the GM of a certain game claiming that their pvp system was 'balanced'.

Edited July 8, 2010 by Lethn