Mortars are getting silly
To be clear, I like the idea of mortars. I think they add an important indirect fire optioon for dislodging the most stubborn of snipers and well dug in forces. However, I have noticed a number of issues relating to their use.
Early in the BF6 Lifecycle and within the first 6-8 weeks of launch, m ortars were rare due to the unlock requirements. While I dont necicerrily think that it was a good thing, it gave us a benchmark by which to judge the current state that they are in. Around this time, there was a sweet spot where you wouldn't see them every game, and they usually came in singles or pairs.
More recently, that has dramatically increased, particularly in Breakthrough. I have been witness to up to 1/4 of a defending team sat at the back spamming mortars at the objectives, flooding them with so much ordinance that it becomes basically impossible to capture them. This issue is made worse on maps such as Mirak and Lib Peak where the defenders have a huge dead zone between there spawn and the objectives, and on Blackwell, where there is a huge amount of cover for the mortars to hide in. Additionally, this same deadzone rarely exists for the attackers. The line of their spawn is often far enough forward that there is little meaningful cover to use mortars from, leading to one sided mortar spam that has much more limited options for being countered.
That being said, the options for countering Mortars are already limited. Flanking, whilst effective, can effectively be countered by a single person paying attention, or by any snipers behind the mortars, as this does happen. I have yet to test the Hardware suppression system, although i would expect it to make flanking a little more effective. Recon Drones work, but are often shot, and rarely work more than once due to the player becoming aware of being targeted. The best counter is another mortar. counter bettery is basically guarenteed to work against solo or duo mortars, but any more and the return fire is overwhelming.
Further to this, in some cases, another mortar becomes the ONLY option. In Breakthrough, mortars placed during a sector attack remain once the sector moves, leading to a mortar placed at the far back of a player's own spawn, completely inaccessable to flanks or drones. If no other changes are made, this needs to be fixed. It allows mortars to be placed in areas they are not intended to be, and makes them invulnerable to anything but their counterpart.
Possible solutions
Though I hesitate to suggest this, a limit per team seems reasonable, riding the line between being useful and vastly oppressive. I would also suggest that mortars outside neutural territory are broken after a few seconds to prevent mortars from ending up in places they shouldn't be. To be clear, i think that the overall balance of a single mortar is about right, but coming across them in large numbers is starting to get silly.
