Since "Troops" would be well armed, well trained units capable of defending themselves quite well (let alone dispatching an individual armed with a .45 containing an ungainly 32 round banana clip), it is at the very least a misnomer.
What we have right now are singly-purposed suicide bombers. They rush headlong towards their target and detonate when they arrive.
All kidding aside, "strafe the map room" has now gone from "bomb the map room" to "send a wirb to camp the map room".
This is not what AH is about. As it stands, that storch bailer or otherwise purpose-bailed pilot hiding out to snipe "troops" with his .45 caliber mortar is a griefer plain and simple. 15-20 people, operating in concert to take a base... fight through the enemies real defenses... satisfy the requirements set forth... shut down the town, the AI death-ack, close the base... that saint who has been waiting patiently for their chance at glory in their M3 or even worse - goon... he lets his troops go... and... and... they look like they all went in... no cap... what happened guys!?
Did you strafe the map room? Yes.
Did you bomb the flag area? No, we had troops running... but wait, carpet bombing won't kill our own troops... or our own GVs... but it might ferret out that essentially invisible Quake 0.5 player that is hiding around there!!!
The novelty of the ability to bail out and still be armed IS classic AH... and should never go away.... however, the following are no brainers:
1. For downed pilots: 7 round magazine, maybe a separate mag with reload time. No more explosive .45 rounds, rapid fire with a 32 round mag. Give a single round a 50/50 chance to kill a troop.
2. Either hide Troop icons, or show bailed pilot icons. This is absurd. If the game wants to be an FPS, then give us Infantry load outs and we'll deal with these "pilots" ourselves. If not, give them the same chance as the "troops".
3. Ground bail-out = auto landing. It's insane the number of proxy kills you get when taking a base (especially a vbase) from people who are spawning and bailing. There is no legitimate reason to spawn valuable military hardware and then lose it to the enemy (plane explodes, kill is awarded) simply to try to play Quake in order to compensate for shoddy defense. You can't fire bomber guns on the ground... and you haven't been able to for how long? And why? Because people gamed the hell out of it, and would continue to do so to this day.
4. Award kills for downed pilots. At this time, a downed pilot is still armed and capable of affecting the war. At the bare minimum "You killed so and so" needs to be displayed. As long as an enemy unit is armed, they need to award a kill when defeated.
This game is a lot of fun, and I very much enjoy it... mainly because of the awesome squad I am a part of. We don't mind coming up with a legitimate bust on a base take... we assess what went wrong, give credit to the defenders when due, and then we regroup and try again (or drink more and bust again). We will, like anyone else, get torqued off when we get killed... but when storch bailing shenanigans botch otherwise perfectly executed missions, that more than anything else elicits more than a couple "Alright guys, that's it for me for the night"'s.
When you have a group of guys having a great time like that, and something other than a skilled and determined opponent operating within the intended parameters of the game discourages the entire party... it's time for something to change.
