Battlefield 6 Vehicle Balancing.
Before I get started I want to say, Dice to PLEASE do not separate vehicle progression based on faction/Model like in 2042.
Keep Progression simple like - Attack Heli, Scout Heli, Main Battle Tank, Infantry Fighting vehicle, Fighter Jet, Attack Jet.
DO NOT, split them into Apache, Tiger, F-16, Grippen. If I progress the Attack jet it should give me progress in both the Grippen and the F-16.
Having the progression split between factions penalizes me for something I had no choice in and makes what should be fun vehicle progression into a Sloggy Grind.
-Aircraft vehicle base Repairs
I think we all know that mistake where in Liberation Peak the NATO Side can Instant repair constantly at both bases but Pax Armata cant repair jets and has to land the Heli in base to repair.
I actually prefer NATO's instant repair for aircraft because it alleviates downtime in a playstyle where you already have combat downtime due to flare cooldown.
There needs to be a cooldown of roughly 15-30 seconds implemented to prevent helicopters base camping when fighting another helicopter.
-Attack Jet
Base rearm should not always be available. rearming at a base should activate a 15-30 second cooldown to discourage base camping and to actually make the bomb cooldown matter. (have you seen silk's strategy, it is definitely over tuned and encourages infantry farming vs hunting for vehicles).
Jets cannons are far to strong against other aircraft, it should roughly take 80% of the cannons overheat gauge to take down a Heli, it seems that the jet will kill in 2 small burst
Jet on jet combat suffers the same issue. it is nearly impossible to react to damage and engage in a dogfight, often leading to whoever lined up guns first wins.
-Attack Heli
When trying to claim a Heli there is currently a scummy way to Hold the spawn by standing on the Helis spawnpoint. Instead of it being who can click the fastest to claim, it now becomes an "if i cant have it, no one can".
There have also been instances where players will RPG the Heli off round start spawn.
The only solution I could think of is to remove physical Heli spawns until Deployment to avoid Griefing
Attack Helis are in a place where they feel like a glass cannon. They have decent armanment with the addition of gunner fired Anti tank missiles but are Far too squishy feeling more Fragile than previous scout Helis.
If the Attack Heli is this squishy, I Fear for the Scout Heli.
rockets shred but have a small radius, I would like to see the AOE radius of the rockets increased but the damaged decreased, we are shooting rockets not cannonballs. there are also often times where rockets feel like they have no effect on armored ground vehicles, and no AOE effect on infantry.
Helicopters are threatened by Stingers, RPG's, AA Vehicle(needs buff), AA Emplacement(needs to be able to be locked on or just removed I have never liked these), and small arms fire.
Small arms fire should not be able to do damage to the helicopters, as fragile as they are currently it is hard to recognize the real threats (50 Cals, AA emplacements, AA vehicles) as any player with a gun can do damage.
I'm all for pilot sniping, but shooting a helicopter with a 9mm submachine an it resulting in the helicopter exploding is bad design.
5 stingers is overkill, when there are more than 3 engineers looking for air you are basically locked to hovering around a spawn or hiding in a faraway valley. i think 3 stingers is probably the sweet spot and maybe they can even ammo bag to 4, 1 single engineer without the support of an ammo bag should not be able to clear the enemy's airforce.
In its current state any aircraft in the playable area will be getting a stinger fired at them.
2 stingers should take down an attack Heli, but with the stingers doing 90% of a Helis health and small arms fire being able to do damage and 3 AA emplacements available it is realistically 1 stinger. I think a small nerf to stingers damage or a buff to aircraft health is needed. and completely remove small arms damage to vehicles.
Flight model is a lot like 2042, but I actually feel like the weight feels decent(not BF3 or BF4 decent but better than 2042). The problem is it feels a little sluggish. solution, Give the throttle input a little more power and increase Yaw control.
I feel that many people playing the Heli are new and just need some practice,(If you need proof that Helis are Flyable watch TheBurntPeanut video of him flying with Rogue). once you get the Heli moving its speedy and just feels slow around turns even in a neutral flight position.
-Heli Gunner main gun has far too much downtime for how fast Air strikes need to be. Solution is to increase round count to 20 or 30 with a slower but more accurate Rate of fire, but increase the time it takes to reload.
This encourage Teamwork and Timing, Between pilot and gunner timing the reload with needing to recharge flares.
I actually enjoy the shorter flare window in BF6. The issue is The maps are smaller and Helicopters are much closer to the battlefield to be effective. This means you have far less time to delay flares because stingers are so fast and close.
Solution - shoot out 2 extra flares for just a little more time to evade.
Visual bug where if there is enough distance the Heli rotors blades are not spinning.
-AA Vehicle
in its current state its a stinger launcher, probably more effective to just play engineer than use this vehicle.
this vehicle should be the most threatening target to any air vehicle.
the problem is the main gun having a 6 round burst that does no damage. the window of opportunity is already so low with the high speed of aircraft, the last thing i want is to reload as I'm adjusting my shots.
its an Anti aircraft Vehicle, it should go BRRRRRRR. if an aircraft fly's close it should be destroyed because this is what the vehicle is intended to do.
this is where your aircraft would need to work together to destroy the vehicle to regain control of the skies.
-AA Emplacements
Honestly Please just remove them. They are for some reason better than the AA Vehicle at the moment.
The amount of threats to Helicopters is overwhelming at the moment.
Having AA Emplacements is overkill, and the Hit or miss feeling with the Heli rockets make these nearly impossible to counter from the air, if you do decide to keep them at least allow them to be locked on with a Hellfire.
-IFV
splash damage feels a little over tuned.
Remove the ability for the whole team to spawn on the IFV. It ruins the Flow of the game and the tides can be turned in vehicle combat if 2 engineers spawn and start repairing. Its an IFV not a clown car.
Save it for Transport helicopters.
-Main Battle tank
I really like the implementation of Multi purpose rounds and Armor Piercing rounds, however the Multi Purpose rounds AOE feel underwhelming against infantry, often needing a direct hit to kill someone on full health.
I find myself getting more kills with the coaxial Machine gun instead of the main gun.
I would like to see Multi purpose rounds act more like High explosive rounds.
High explosive rounds have a big blast radius and do Devastating damage to buildings, infantry and light vehicles, but little damage to armored vehicles needing you to switch to armor piercing to deal with the enemy MBT.
This would add Risk Reward factor and put more emphasis into the importance of ammo choice in ground vehicle gameplay.
If you get surprised by an MBT with AP rounds loaded you should be at a disadvantage if you weren't prepared to fight that vehicle. Just a suggestion.
-Closing Statement
If you Disagree or Agree and have any other suggestions for balancing Please Drop a comment below and lets have a productive discussion and hopefully get this thread some traction. Lets make this the game what we have been waiting on for 10+ years.
