4 years ago

Breakthrough is heavily unbalanced to the attackers benefit

I like breakthrough as a faster paced, more focused mode.

I do not like how often it feels completely one sided for the attackers. They get at least double the vehicle spawns and helicopters as attackers, they have 600 tickets and get a huge number replenished for each sector they take.

I dont know how many matches ive had where the attackers win with 550 or more tickets left.
That means the defenders killed 10% of the reinforcements needed to win.

So many of the final points are completely free for the attackers, using kaleidoscope as an example, the new defense point on the ground between the two skyscrapers is completely open and there's almost nothing the defenders can do but stand in the open space and get obliterated.

Some of this will need to be remedied by improving maps with additional cover which has been discussed by DICE
But the vehicle spawns are a big problem. Breakthrough should be a less vehicle focused mode, in my opinion. Breakthrough should be where you get the fun infantry combat in tighter spaces that people loved from operation locker/metro etc in the past (with hopefully a map with that sort of gameplay coming before too long)

So maybe only allow one transport and one attack air vehicle per side, and give more transport vehicles and tanks for both sides.
Defender spawns should be better as well. If they own a point, they should spawn nearer to that point, in a space in cover where they can defend more rapidly. There are way too many times when a point gets overwhelmed by attackers quickly and defenders cant reinforce at all because they spawn way too far away. Attackers should have to use insertion points to close the gap between spawn and cap point, not defenders.

The last point is that the last stand sector should never be only one cap point. I think more sectors should have 3 capture points as well. Bringing back the rooftop capture points with a *no spawn zone* for vehicles on the rooftop could help too. I think those points were really fun, if they had been balanced properly. No vehicles on the roof, No defense spawns on the roof, and ziplines to all rooftop points similar to orbital would help this.

I really hope that there's a big rework to breakthrough coming between now and season 1. Right now the mode is dull and easy win if you're on attacking side, and frustrating and dull easy loss on defender side. Many people I play with simply back out of matches if they are put on defending side, and lists of which faction is attack on each map are handed around so you will know if you're attacking when loading into the game.

discussion

38 Replies

DarthFDG
Hero+
4 years ago
I'm pretty sure Breakthrough was intentionally designed to favor attackers to help keep the game moving forward.
Sounds like you might like Conquest better.
DaMutha1
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
All I play is Breakthrough and, unfortunately, I see more than enough completely inept attacking teams, including on that very spot on Kaleidoscope yesterday. Entire team kept going on the roofs and around to the left and made no effort to take the building bordering right on the objective. Completely infuriating.
Psubond
4 years ago
@SpudBug it all depends on which team is more aggressive. the problem you run into is when defenders get TOO aggressive and try to spawn camp, when that happens and the attackers get behind them the zone is lost.

if either team is full of useless snipers they are screwed. if both teams are full of them then the defenders usually win
SpudBug
4 years ago
@DaMutha1 Yeah I think the difference is that the attackers need to be almost actively not going for capture points to lose. The defenders have to be high skill and coordinates focused on objective to not get steamrolled by even average teams.
SpudBug
4 years ago
@DarthFDG This is a really poor response. I'm sure the internal teams have metrics and if they see attackers winning 80% of matches that's not a fun or fair gameplay design.

It's good for attackers to have momentum but defense in breakthrough 2042 isn't fun. That's why you see the lists of "attacking factions" people use so they can quit matchmaking if they are on defense. The heli spam you're under as defense is absurd and unbalanced at a minimum. And then the defenders often cant spawn on squad mates "in combat" if they are on the point so it's running to defend the point that rarely even has cover.

And then 20-30 teammates are just sitting away from the capture point taking potshots at infantry or going for kills, watching the point get taken.

The fact is that the attackers gameplay flow is much more straightforward and easier for the casual player to understand and accomplish than the defender gameplay flow, even without the huge imbalances in tickets and vehicle spawns.

Defenders are asked to not sit back and get kills (which is fun) but instead go into a small, dangerous area with limited cover that will be under fire by ground vehicles and infantry, while bombarded by helicopters. (which isn't fun)

It's no surprise most casual defense teams will sit around outside the point and try to shoot at attackers from a safer area. While attackers have a very simple and fun objective: move forward and kill defenders, who either lose by being killed or lose by retreating.
SpudBug
4 years ago
@DarthFDG This post angers me a great deal as someone who has tried to go out of my way to defend this game and find the good in it and have patience with updates and fixes.

"Breakthrough was intentionally designed to favor attackers" is a really, really bad way to design a game mode, for half of the players to have a bad time.
Skill4Reel
4 years ago
Do you remember Battlefield 1s' 64 player Operations and how there were constant complaints about the attacking team not having enough tickets? In that game it was often said that the mode and maps favored the defenders, and that this was unfair.
Attackers get more tickets now because it was a huge issue in previous games. Also I always see people defending from useless positions. The vehicles will be parked far behind the objectives. Which is good for keeping the vehicles safe, but a terrible strategy for preventing the other team from getting into the capture area.
SpudBug
4 years ago
@Skill4Reel there's a core problem that most of the capture areas have very little cover for defenders, and defender spawns are often too far away so reinforcing a point is unlikely since players who spawn in won't simply run across open area to reach the objective and die on the way, so they sit outside the objective and go for kills.

The excessive heli spam doesn't help either.

Kaleidoscope's center objective in the data center is probably one of the best for back and forth. The last points on kaleidoscope are the worst.
ATFGunr
Legend
4 years ago
@SpudBug That’s a great observation about spawns for defenders, it’s been a major flaw for defenders. Helo does a run, kills a few, the flags gone by the time they can run back… if they choose to even run back. Too many maps are lost on the first point when a portion of the team decides that sniping is better. The maps do pretty clearly favourite the attackers, however the right defense can be effective but it takes all the players to do it. Taking the last point off the roof in Kaleidoscope was important, but dropping it in the middle of a kill zone was lazy development. Attackers can kill from above and again by the time you can spawn and run back, it’s over.
Bolvard
4 years ago
@DarthFDG Then whats the point in defending ? If this gamemode favours the attacking side people will quit the que if they get put on defending side.

I played so much breakthrough since launch and on every map the attacking side has major advantages, one of them is to get more vehicles.

The defending side have to deal with 3 air vehicles and 4 bolte / 2 tanks at once, how is this balanced ?
But aside the Fact that the attacking side can literally spam transport vehicles, the defending team DO spawn to far away if an objective is contestet, making it extremely punishing if you or your squad get killed once.
And many get killed on the way back to the objective becouse of the open area.

On discarded on defending side you spawn more close to A1 then to A2 if you want to A2, making it literally pointless to run across the wide field of Grass.

An additional point is the reinforcement, attackers get way to much reinforcements per sector gained.

600 tickets and each sector replenish 300 means you start to gain the upper hand past 300, everything before is just pointless beside farming kills.

In my opinion the tickets for the attacking side should stay the same but drastically reduce the replenishment of each sector gained to 150 tickets so the attacking team can be punished earlier.

personally I only play on attacking side on each map so I don’t have to deal with the vehicle spam and have to equip an m5recoilles all the time and I immediately opt out of any game if I get out on defending side.

Also I noticed that the defending side got a longer respawn Timer if you get killed by headshots, explosives or being run over by vehicles where as attacker you can spawn instantly again, not having to wait the timer.