Artillery support & mortars make bad gameplay?

(Technitai) #1

Like most people I can deal with any weapon in the game by using a countertactic. So when something goes wrong it’s really my own fault (unless there’s a teamkiller or extreme n00b on the loose, of course). Even mines don’t bother me so much, as there are ways to deal with them. But I fucking hate it when I’m just happily walking around and fragging opponents and suddenly–out of nowhere–a bunch of bombs land on my head and I’m blasted to bits and there’s absolutely nothing I could have done about it.

I’ve been playing ET since it was released and I simply love the game, but I’ve been getting more and more annoyed by the fieldops’ artillery support and the soldier’s mortar shells. It just makes for crappy gameplay. Air support is cool–I can see the signal flares and when I hang around for too long I’m clearly an idiot. But there’s absolutely nothing I can do to defend myself against other air raids. It gets especially annoying playing against allies in a map like Seawall Battery where it’s nearly suicide to walk anywhere near the axis base when you’re facing lots of fieldops. It makes the game really lame cause it’s no longer about skills but about luck.

I think the artillery support and mortar should not have been included in the game for obvious gameplay reasons. Does anyone agree?

(Dynomyte001) #2

Mortars take skill… artillery doesn’t… artierlly is good when used correctly… but when lamed it’s cheap.

And I should know… I love to do it :banana:

(Technitai) #3

I’m not saying that these weapons are lame from the perspective of the person using it. Like you say, especially the mortars are not easy to handle.

I’m just saying that if you’re the target of these weapons it’s unfair, because there’s no countertactic whatsoever. You’re a sitting duck.

(Mikey21) #4

Whats even worse is when friendly fire is turned off and almost the entire other team are field ops. Not only do you have to deal with the air strikes and artillery but you have to deal with the few non- field ops shooting at you while they are getting hit by the strikes and not dieing. :banghead: :angry:

(gonzoboi) #5

i think artillery and mortar make the game actually much more real and get you more on the edge while playing. In a real battle, people died and die stupidly by artillery (own or enemy’s), mortar shells, lost bullets, landmines, even your flamethrower mate next to you exploding and covering you with gasoline or whatever.
It’s not just about having a good aim and jumping a lot, but also knowing where you are, what are the crucial bottlenecks in a map (artillery and mortars, as well as landmines, will most likely be hitting those spots since thats where they’ll get kills) and also some real ‘combat sense’… the artillery actually warns you with a smoke grenade some seconds before it starts coming, and the mortar… well, shit happens in war :smiley: . Also, servers with weapon restrictions ON will limit these to a reasonable amount. I actually think a part of these weapon’s sweetness is actually their psychological effect on the enemy, they reduce morale when they keep an area impassable or simply make most enemies get to the front with half their health only.

Of course, artillery, airstrikes and mortar can become really cheap when used for spawnkilling, but then that’s not a problem of the weapons themselves but rather of those who use them in this way. I still find the flamethrower and panzerfaust to screw gameplay worse, not only because 90% of times they are used by noobs or immature 13-year old teamkillers, but also because they produce some really non-realistic behavior (like blowing yourself to pieces to kill a nearby enemy or spraying a room filled with both mates and enemies with fire)

(kotkis) #6

Is it fair to get blasted by a panzerfaust who shoots in advance from lean? No, should it be? No. Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do about it, but does it really matter? You’ll spawn again in short time, and you aren’t playing for kill/death ratio, aren’t you?

(lennyballa) #7

Well, in ww2 they also didnt tought about playing fair do they? (Hint hyrosima, japan)

(Ragnar_40k) #8

For artillery/airstrikes: you see the smoke and you hear the plane(s) - (mostly) easy to avoid. And for mortar: watch out for the incoming grenades - you can see the trajectories. They maybe get you once or twice, but then you should know in which direction the mortar guys hides. And once spotted, mortar guys are easy to kill. It also helps to kill enemy Covert Ops to “blind” the mortar.

(damocles) #9

Aitrstrikes you can avoid easily, but artillery is a problem. When the fieldops level up, the artillery lasts a lot longer, meaning that bombs can still drop long after the smoke has gone. A lot of people die this way. The smoke should last as long as the artillery does

(Dingo19) #10

Put wall mark lifetime on long. If you see fresh big black scorch marks around an area, you know there is a high possibility of arty.

(Wah) #11

Artillery strikes are simple to avoid. There are plenty of warning signs. The first bomb that drops is a smoke bomb (doesnt hurt you), and even if you miss that, the artillery has an unmistakable sound as it hurls through the air. This is the biggest sign for me to take an alternate route, or just wait until it stops. Other than that you can see the explosions, and the big black marks they leave on the ground. Just use a little common sense and you wont get hit by these.

Handheld mortars are harder to avoid since they dont give you much advance warning unless you see them flying through the air. These are also easy to avoid since most people send every single one onto the exact same spot once they find a good one (usually right next to your spawn point). Just walk around it, take an alternate route and you will be fine. There isnt a spawn point in the game without at LEAST 2 exits to it, some have a lot more than that (dont forget you can jump out a window).

The only abuse that I really see is on the fueldump level. Once you get to level 3 signals, you are able to call continuous (non-stop like) artillery strikes on an area making it is totally impossible to fix/move the tank unless someone kills the field ops first. My advice here is to get an engineer and covert ops (with uniform) to sneak into the fuel depot via a door and blow the fuel dump while the axis is still at their first spawn attacking the tank.

(senator) #12

Wrong :slight_smile:

If it’s a direct hit you’ll die even from the smoke spotting round (it has no splash damage, true). If you are good you can ‘sniper’ enemy sniper this way :clap:

(Pamper) #13

FYI, a level 3 artillery barrage lasts 17 seconds from “Firing for effect” to the last explosion.

IMO that’s too long, and enables a single fieldop to seal off a portion of the map permantently. I think a better improvment for SIgnals level3 would be to decrease the time between the smoke puff and the first explosive shell.

(Pamper) #14

Fueldump has an exploit, but that’s not it. To call arty, fieldops must get within line-of-sight, meaning they can be killed. Maybe by snipers, maybe by Ally arty, but more likely by someone jumping the barbed wire with a Tommy gun.

No, the real exploit would be Axis mortarers who shoot from their side of the map. 2 mortars (with 2 fieldops to supply them) can keep the tank under a permanent barrage. If some other Axis delays the tank while those guys are getting setup, then the grate won’t even be blown. The only way Allies could break through that situation is a multi-layer stack to climb into Axis spawn (which is easy to guard against)

To carry out that plan would require more coordination than you can find on a public server, though.

(SCDS_reyalP) #15

I doubt this would work (certainly not with just two mortars. Maybe 4 or 5…). repeated engineer rush could keep the tank moving. Sure, it would be boring (spawn, rush tank, repair a fraction, go splat, repeat) but it would advance. Landing a mortar on a partially repaired tank doesn’t undo the repair. It decays over time, but with enough engineers that’s not very significant.

The same goes for non-stop artillery.

(damocles) #16

There isnt a spawn point in the game without at LEAST 2 exits to it

Except the axis spawn hut on railgun :confused:

And for most maps, all it takes are two mortars to do both spawn exits and you have a pinned team.

(SCDS_reyalP) #17

You can get out the back window on railgun… or at least I can, maybe you need to go on a diet :moo:

edit:
One mortar per exit doesn’t fire nearly fast enough kill everyone, and those who are smart enough to MOVE as soon as they spawn will likely get by with their invulnerability.

(twiFight) #18

Or when mortars target a critical objective in a map (repairing the brigde in fueldump for example). When done right by the enemy this is (almost) impossible to do. Especially since you need to get there three times within a given amount of time (else you need to start over).

Add an enemy engineer that plants dynamite whenever you construct a part of the bridge and you have a 100% enemy proove defense.

(Ragnar_40k) #19

Simply construct the footbridge or get some medics over the fence and the mortar guys are dead meat.

(ulan-bator) #20

In my opinion, the field ops are destroying the public servers, 2 or 3 axis level 3 field ops, are able to lock down most maps by themselves. And it’s just getting worse, more and more ppl realize how effective the field ops are…
imo, the following should be done:

  1. Improved Signals, put that on lvl3, put Enemy Recognition on lvl2, and
    Improved Air and Ground Support on lvl 4.
  2. “Improved Air and Ground Support” should be improved “Air support”, and not affect artillery.
  3. Improved signals should only affect air strikes.

Mortars are no problem, they’re almost only usable on battery, and the are quite handy there. On every other map field ops are way better.

So PLEASE splashdamage, do something before every public server gets ruined by the field ops :frowning: