Agreed. This would serve the chopper well. Especially now.
Why? Simple guys. EA wants the game to be more like a dumb arcade a la CoD.
Sad. Each had their niche before… now?
Agree with bringing back below the radar. Only other change I’d like to see across all helicopters is require them to be repairable ONLY when they are landed. The ‘flying engineers’ are a sorry joke in the little bird.
Don’t change the armament, don’t change countermeasures, don’t change anything. Helicopters pack a substantial wallop, but they have glass jaws. At the altitudes and manner that most of people fly them around in game, a LMG would seriously make for a bad day for the aircraft. That said, you have some people arguing for increased strength because attack choppers can’t be landed too hard or don’t take damage well so I can’t go 100-1 anymore. Same people turn right around and ask for fantasy land changes all wrapped up in unicorn farts. meh.
The helicopters are a tool just like all the other vehicles in game. If stingers are killing you, get your tankers to kill them (they won’t have anti-armor missiles). Teamwork. Appears to have fallen off the face of the BF4 world, but teamwork makes things easier overall. Quit depending on bringing back uber fixes because your soaked with tears over not being able to be superman beneath a rotor.
For a little perspective.
Flying engineers is awesome! More kills and points when someone takes it out (most rewarding with RPG) and balances out an otherwise slow and sometimes helpless vehicle (vehicle turrets wreak havoc on this vehicle). Plus it encourages teamwork!
EDIT: Also causes another side effect: One less pair of boots on the ground and gun pointed at you. It is a tradeoff between the effectiveness of one vehicle as opposed to another soldier that can create some offense.
Edit 2: Got around to reading your last part. If you read OP’s post then you will see he was explicitely calling for some changes but doesn’t mind the current challenge. Just that SOME things need fixing. Also it is easy to say “Have you tanks take out the stingers” but that doesn’t work. The amount of enemy armour I have seen carrying stingers almost outweighs the infy’s. Their gunner then has AA(stinger/igla) and reps for tanks on the ground; a deadly combination!. I have spent many hours in the attack helicopter and can say enemy AA in elusive It is “nowhere” but is “everywhere”. Many people that have spent much time in helicopters have come adept to find and taking out AA soldiers in decent amount of time. But it is not as simple as “Get you tanks to take out enemy AA”
Not saying they can’t fly or can’t fix the helicopter, just not repair it while in the air. Still requires teamwork.
If enemy vehicle turrets are a problem, then your tankers and anti-armor engineers should resolve that for you. That ‘awful’ teamwork word again.
At least no more base camping with heli and spamming TV missiles all over the map.
The smart rockets don’t work the same as it used to in BF3 
BC2 choppers were so fine
Read edit #2. Teamwork with ground makes sense and is able to be coordinated but ground soldiers eliminating AA threats isn’t as simple as it sounds. Even if they are helping you out. You still must do the majority on your own. At least in pubs. And that is what the game is designed and balanced around.
For the little bird example many times when you are working a tank the gunner starts firing in response to your attack. Without that rep man than you would NEVER be able to finish a tank from start to finish assuming the gunner is worth half his salt. Can’t escape the gunner the way you can escape the main cannot.
Also sberlins not sure you can suggest much seeing as you have only ever been on the receiving end of a helicopter. Only bothered to check BF3 but 14 kills with helicopters in about 375 hours of play. It is one thing to comment how it feels from the ground but another to comment from the air. The same mechanics can yield two separate feelings depending on perspective
Agree with everything OP said. Attack helicopters are now useless. I used to enjoy them in BF3, but now I dread getting in them. There’s simply too much stuff that can take them down, and I think that is ridiculous to be honest. And they weren’t as powerful in BF3 as what people are making out here, that’s just rubbish. If you mastered the basics, watched tutorials and practiced flying them, in BF3 you could often hold your own against the more experienced pilots. It was only the jets that needed nerfing. And you can’t now have scout helis that are considerably more powerful than attack helis, that’s just silly. Please sort it out DICE. It’s a mess as it is.
its even more sad when you remember that infantry-only servers were already here, so all the CoD-loving noobs could go there and play a shooting arcade to their hearts content. BUT NOOOO… they also had to ruin the game for all the people who actually enjoyed playing with vehicles. thanks, DICE. lesson learned. not buying/preordering the next BF game, let alone premium membership, until a few months after release, when its clear what they’ve done with the game.
Dang it Pomfrey who’s side are you own. One minute you seem against the AH and then for it lol. But yes…valid point there!! Both for the AH and he made a weak argument lol.
A VERY valid point. We don’t need below radar against stingers but we dang sure need it against other air vehicles. I don’t get why DICE moved it in BF4..especially when they added more lock-on threats. Makes no sense whatsoever…which thus cause me to believe it’s either a bug and or they straight up forgot about adding it in.
As mentioned by others earlier, I’ll be glad to give up auto regen in order to give us below air radar back…while leaving other things as is right now. Even though I’d like to not to be disabled too with it…let’s at least try that.
bump…
For all those complaining about the scout being OP and stingers being useless against it:
One hit from the javelin is the equivalent of the laser guided RPG from the beta. Just make sure it hits. I don’t care about the scout even though it can be OP. It take the same amount of teamwork to bring it down that is need to keep it alive. However, the same amount of teamwork needed to keep the AH alive is EXPONENTIALLY greater than what’s need to keep the scout alive!
IT’S REALLY NOT EVEN FUNNY THAT----no one even thinks to mention or try the jav against the scout. No, we want to do it all on our own and get all the credit for destroying that whole team in the scout. Nevermind their teamwork. I agree it can seem OP. We know snipers will be in the game. As one to put the PLD on it and take it out. May take 2 to 3 times killing them but I bet you that team will either leave the server out of rage and or stay out of it! Try it…and see what happens!
People seem to have tunnel vision on this topic. Its not just about choppers when dice was balancing vehicles, its about vehicles as a whole.
Think about it. If you’re a non-engineer infantryman and you’re on a big map with lots of tanks, IFVs, helis,jets, AA, and don’t forget the AC130, is making one of those many vehicles more powerful a good idea? Big maps are also filled with snipers too.
So what is an assult class going to do against all this? Or support? Choppers have less to worry about than most and they can bail out preventing a death when they get in trouble. Yet becuase some people really like flying them they wish for them to be stronger? Vehicles should be viewed as a whole, not individually and from what I can see the chopper was made the way it is because of the large amount of vehicles on a single map.
Now, if there was only say 1 chopper, tank, and IFV per team… that would be different and warrent making them much harder to bring down.
+1 agree with OP! I thought that the ammo restrictions (massive change just in itself!) was more than enough of a nerf from bf3 AH days!
But BF always gone down hill since BF2 days. How i miss the the maneuverability of those choppers. barrellrolls ect. chop vs chop fight were EPIC! Infact the jet dynamics were great too. None of this hit ceiling then just STOP… Anyway thats what happens I guess when you make one of the best games EVER made and then fire all the staff that made it, then proceed to make games for all these console/COD noobs who won’t take the time to learn how to take out air assets with skill based weapons!
on a side note tho… AWESOME THAT SRAW IS BACK
Good for you. You can check my DD214 and find I have plenty of time as a 100B, 100E and 152F. Truth be told, the helicopters in BF3 were just pointless whoring for kills. As for perspective - BALONEY - it doesn’t change when you witness near invulnerable helicopters in game kill whoring round after round after round. I only got those 14 kills because I happened to spawn on a squadmate. Everybody complained about the ability of the helicopters to shit an endless stream of flares when both pilot and gunner had equipped them. Thankfully they adjusted that in BF3 and made it a little better for the ground guys.
As for your example, if that is the case, the LB needs to change tactics. Not be buffed into not worrying about being shot down which is what most of the posts here have as an underlying theme.
They are balanced now. That the helicopter fanboys don’t like it means it must be just about right. If they do choose to buff helicopters - IMHO a big mistake - then they ought to buff the .50 and 12.7 vehicle machineguns. Two bursts from either of those should send the helicopters scampering for cover and repair.
Again…I see people that either barely play the game or have little to no vehicle experience at all, are the ones against tweaking the AH for the better. Sberlins mentioned buffing the guns on vehicles. Guess what? They did. I can’t help it if you guys don’t want to use vehicles or don’t like em. There are infantry only servers or you can go play another game that has no vehicles. You know the one. People come to BF to play with the vehicles…not to admire them sitting in the garage!
I’m for balance. And I try to make people to bring valid arguments. Not “only use this weapon”. “They made BF for casuals” while they casualy ram the helicopter into buildings because the arcade style controls helicopters have in this game. And this while they seem to imply that an engineer firing a stinger has absolutely no worries in the world except the exact same thing they are firing at.
So I agree the AH now feels more like flying a zeppelin instead of a helicopter and that a stealth jet is good only for ramming or taxiing, but I fathom what bringing them into viability combined with a required nerf to active radar missiles and MAA range nerf would mean for infantry on this claustrophobic maps.
Exactly this. As I said before, the maps are to small and there is very little cover for how many vehicles are on it and the number of players. I for example play either engineer to deal with vehicles or recon for deploy beacon and C4. Any other class in CQ and I feel like I’m wasting space on the server (note that since this is the first Origin game I bought I only play alone).
Also the map design is an issue. I think that points on each map that can’t be captured just by staying in a vehicle would have helped.