We need to go back. (Mortars)

[Unarmed Civilian]

I have fond memories of barricading Muttrah City, squeezing the enemy's advance to certain choke points that had .50 and TOWs awaiting. This is no longer a reality. Because in my recent experience, since Mortars were introduced, anything, anything whatsoever built, is doomed to mortar shelling. This kind of killed immersion and the usefulness of this once critical asset for the defending positions: emplacements.

I have before suggested that mortars shouldn't be a thing available on the field, but rather work as a mini area attack that grants a mortar salvo every half the time it takes for a full area attack, mostly because it can be too punishing, specially if teams are unbalanced.

Now, I have thought about a new approach, instead of allowing mortars to be this almost "undefensable" threat, make it so it only damages infantry and vehicles, so that structures can stand firm and force the enemy to deal with them again with their own hands (C4/HE shells).

We are locked in this engine, and while the Dev team has got to lengths unimaginable with the limits they have, it is crippled with certain "bugs/limitations". Like bunkering your whole squad inside a bunker, with .50, razorwires, a FOB, and only have everything instantly pulverized by a rain of mortars, inside that THICK bunker war that was supposed to not let that happen.

So I humbly hope more few would enjoy this... Thank you for your time anyhow. Keep up the superb work, I've been a faithfull PR player since 2008'ish.

[AlonTavor]

If anything, I would reduce mortar's range on 2km maps, or slightly increase ammo cost (now that crates rearm twice as fast and carry 3 times as much ammo). I disagree on removing them.

[agus92]

snip

we are talking about "bunkers" that are built under 1 minute though...

Since you like to translate into real world, those "bunkers" would be few empty ammo boxes piled together with a couple sandbags. Something a mortar would have no issue dealing with.

[sweedensniiperr]

I agree. Perhaps it could be up to mappers to decide on what maps mortars could be on and not? Some 2km maps can be really annoying since there's not much space to hid on. While on other maps mortars are pretty necessary to defeat these "forts".

[lakinen]

There is no need to change anything on Muttrah City map.
reason:
-When both sides have commanders and mortar teams.Then it starts playing right.Commanders looking for opponent mortars and then starts bombarding each other.
-During this time infantry and vehicles have a lot of time to fight each other.
-the game would become boring if the FOB was initially set up and remained intact until the end of the battle(because the map is too tight,It's difficult to pass with the infantry behind the enemy lines)
-by the way ,mortar teams never have many points and kills(in 80% cases enemy APC come and destroy mortar pits)
-And the rarity is in the game to be seen mortar sq(nobody wants to throw the ammo boxs all round of game)
The easiest thing is to get rid of something(like ammo, range...)
The game just needs to play as it plays nothing more or less than that.

[Unarmed Civilian]

Muttrah has no balance. The sheer mobility the USMC enjoys with helis over MEC ground vehicles is absurd if played right. We are talking about pub games, people will not have the capacity nor will to play right sometimes. Placing AA and what not. USMC's mortars can be rebuilt fast and almost anywhere if the logistics is played right. I've been witnessing a lot of USMC mortars west of Muttrah Docks, behind those high mountains that the MEC infantry will have a very tough time getting to. While MEC is "landlocked", any USMC lonewolf can sail his ways to the mainroad and hears his way toward enemy mortars.

The point though is not the use of mortars, is that it KILLED barricading yourself whilst defending, almost every time mortars will be built and your nice HMG will be deleted.

[Unarmed Civilian]

One of the main things that differed PR from any other tactical shooters out there, and often made and still makes it shine above all, even after some years, was the utterly superior gameplay. Building stuff on the go was something rarely seen elsewhere. Recent titles have done it, namely Squad, now Battlefield 5 is going to make it I guess, but again, same button here: Mortars killed over 75% of the defense's bonuses for barricading themselves.

[InfantryGamer42]

It works as is should work. No need for removal.

[Unarmed Civilian]

This post is not about removing mortars, it's about how mortars changed gameplay in such a way that trying to barricade a sector has become almost entirely a waste of time.

And mortars do are abused. I've seem occasionally players take over a map by just building mortars, using all the ammo, then through the Squadleader, de-construct the empty mortars, then build again freshly new mortars with full ammo again. They keep doing this to keep their targeted zone a WW1 no-man's land style of thing. Where's the fun in that? Instead of concentrating on the map's objectives, the team will have to focus their main goal to hunt the mortars, and even if they succeed mortars will be rebuilt elsewhere and the same thing repeats itself over and over.

"But you can deny the enemy mortars if you leave them be and camp them, right?" Wrong!
I've tried that, the mortar squad will temporarily elect a Commander to use the "erase" ability to remotely destroy the mortars and then again rebuild them where they see fit.

[Murphy]

Even if you change the range of Mortars they will still be used to destroy FOBs and the emplacements that accompany them. The whole role of Mortars is to keep the battle moving and making any static defense a big risk for the Squad that is defending in the open. They are the Rock to the Scissors of TOW/HMG (Also other Mortars to a big extent).

Having a huge FOB in the open used to be quite OP with very few counters (CAS/Armour cannot attack when the AA/TOW are manned by capable players). I believe the entire point of Mortars was to keep these FOBs from being overwhelming and to serve as a way to force teams to find hard cover or advance. Allowing games to be determined by megaFOBs doesn't happen as much as it used to and I believe that is in large part due to the implementation of Mortars as a way to demolish enemy emplacements.

[chrisweb89]

Knocking down TOWs, AAs, Mortars and to a lesser extend HMGs and FOBs themselves is ok with me. What I would like to see is them being nearly useless as killing the foxholes and wire itself. The whole point of a foxhole is to defend against incoming rounds, but they go down way to easily and for the little protection they offer, are just a dead giveway on where you are. It should be your first choice when taking mortars to run into one and get prone, not to outrun the mortars because more than 1 shell near a foxhole will kill it.

[waldov]

Knocking down TOWs, AAs, Mortars and to a lesser extend HMGs and FOBs themselves is ok with me. What I would like to see is them being nearly useless as killing the foxholes and wire itself. The whole point of a foxhole is to defend against incoming rounds, but they go down way to easily and for the little protection they offer, are just a dead giveway on where you are. It should be your first choice when taking mortars to run into one and get prone, not to outrun the mortars because more than 1 shell near a foxhole will kill it.

This x100. Foxholes are neglected far and above the other emplacements and for good reason, it just's an obvious static position vulnerable to both mortars and heavy weapons. Really it should be impervious to anything but a direct hit inside the foxhole itself, just like real life foxholes.

[sweedensniiperr]

It should be your first choice when taking mortars to run into one and get prone, not to outrun the mortars because more than 1 shell near a foxhole will kill it.

They were closed the entire way iirc. But were annoying to jump in so..

Maybe there could be foxhole that is way smaller, just for one player to stand in. Our foxholes now take like 6+ people.

[mries]

Would it be a thing to make foxholes nearly indestructible? As basically they represent holes in the ground and/or little sandhills. Only tank/cas HE and 2 c4 or something.
Only downside would be the blocking capabilities of an entrance.

Why isnt it a thing to place foxholes regularly without crates, like the possibility to place one in a vicinity of 200m.
Might give a whole new dimension to inf play.

[agus92]

Would it be a thing to make foxholes nearly indestructible? As basically they represent holes in the ground and/or little sandhills. Only tank/cas HE and 2 c4 or something.
Only downside would be the blocking capabilities of an entrance.

Why isnt it a thing to place foxholes regularly without crates, like the possibility to place one in a vicinity of 200m.
Might give a whole new dimension to inf play.

But then that is OP because it takes nothing of time to build those sandbags... And hence the spam would be huge.

[LimitJK]

Why isnt it a thing to place foxholes regularly without crates, like the possibility to place one in a vicinity of 200m.
Might give a whole new dimension to inf play.

hidden FOBs >>>> everything else, with the current meta.

with nothing to effectively defend fobs from heavy assets a spotted fob is a dead fob (not even considering enemy mortars).

[mries]

I agree, hidden fobs are best. But by making foxholes small and buildable anywhere (with preventing spam with a limit and vicinity limit) you give foxholes purpose again by creating new defendable objects around flags.
Just a thought though.

So seeing a foxhole doesn't necessarily mean a fob close. But does defend inf on certain choke points or flags.

[sweedensniiperr]

yeah, because foxhole = FOB relatively close

[Unarmed Civilian]

Where is the balance though? Before we used to see ample use of emplacements, nowadays it's not even remotely as used as back then. Needs balance. People build mortars, use the ammo, then rebuild again freshly new mortars on the very same spot.

[lakinen]

You think it would build mortar pits no ammunition on them(to be balance).Maybe that's not a bad idea(because now we have more ammo on boxses,and more speed reloading),and it looks real .But I do not know if that's possible to put in engine.