Lefh Counter Barrage Controversy

Jump back to quoted post24 Mar 2021, 16:43 PMHannibal

And yes, it might target suboptimal points. A good player can do better barrages into the FOV. But the issue is that CB leads to having literally zero downtime. Even a good player will forget to use the barrage ability for some time after it becomes available again. CB will fire without fail, because in team games there are 1-2 barrages per minute somewhere on the map. And while there might be differences at the very top tier level, CB level the skill gap between "bad" and "average" players, simply because micro and game knowledge are limited resources here. 5 okay barrages are as good as 4 good ones, especially if I don't need to think about this unit anymore.

Jump back to quoted post24 Mar 2021, 16:32 PMSander93

It will randomly target an indirect fire unit. That could be a Katyusha backing away at the other side of the map or a lone mortar. Could be a ZiS firing a barrage on the frontline. That's fine, but I would rather manually target my barrage and hit concentrated enemy positions and inflict more damage. It only takes a low amount of micro and the damage potential is significantly higher in most cases.



Both of those units had their effectiveness moved from auto fire to the player targeted barrage. Isn't that exactly what you are advocating for the LeFH?

Jump back to quoted post24 Mar 2021, 16:02 PMpvtgooner

I like where youre going with this but what if we invert it. Make COH2 units have one ability you click and now the unit is on auto-target and auto-move. Sure, micro is a hallmark of RTSs but having to pan around the map and press two or three buttons is just so much harder than clicking and forgetting. I would like to see more of that. Maybe a button I can press that makes my sherman auto toggle AI shells when in range of them so I don't really have to spend any attention on it. Shouldn't have to tbh.

Jump back to quoted post24 Mar 2021, 19:02 PMTea2theBag

Hi there. I've just come across this thread. This is my thought process with the LeFH's ability to track


And thank you for posting my test video to bring light onto the issue my friends and I discovered. Appreciate it. I welcome a discussion.

An encounter with the tracking in a live game

British Counter Battery to compare

The shell scatter as requested to test by /u/gtacleveland

Jump back to quoted post24 Mar 2021, 19:02 PMTea2theBag

Hi there. I've just come across this thread. This is my thought process with the LeFH's ability to track


And thank you for posting my test video to bring light onto the issue my friends and I discovered. Appreciate it. I welcome a discussion.

An encounter with the tracking in a live game

British Counter Battery to compare

The shell scatter as requested to test by /u/gtacleveland

Jump back to quoted post24 Mar 2021, 17:45 PMSkysTheLimit

I don't see the point here though. I'm saying it was always dumb, so yeah nothing needed to happen in the last 8 years?

I think almost all loiter abilities that attack are hilariously OP still, and they used to be even worse. Does the fact that they haven't gotten better recently make them not OP? No, not really

The thing that makes those abilities OP imo is very similar to CB (though loiters are much worse imo): A computer is doing a bunch of work for you

Jump back to quoted post24 Mar 2021, 20:57 PMpvtgooner

Yeah exactly. Note "barrage" not "counter-barrage". I'm asking you to implement things youve said evenly to other units. Are you really asking me a redundant rhetorical question when yes thats exactly what I'm doing?

• Priority is to give it an activatable ability like the UKF one. Displaying it's cooldown (Maybe increase the cooldown?) and subsequently putting barrage on cooldown with a small ammo cost.
  
• Secondary/optional Reduce the damage. As I believe CB does more? (Unconfirmed) Reduce the accuracy. Again as I believe it has a fog of war accuracy bonus? (Unconfirmed) Start the cooldown from when it ends firing and not from when it begins (Unconfirmed)
  
  Counter Battery remains in the game. The majority of the arguments against it (Including mine) are satisfied. It is still useful but requires resources and attention. That is the middle ground and I personally think that's fair and I would like to believe everyone agreeing with myself and others about it would also agree with this.
  
  I can't honestly see a logical reason as to why this would not be okay.
  
  Thank you again for sharing my videos and bringing up this discussion. Hope everyone is well.

Jump back to quoted post25 Mar 2021, 10:57 AMHannibal

Again, my whole point was that people should relax and put it back into perspective. The way this discussion went two pages ago was way overblown.

Because what happened was that a bug was discovered that can basically not be abused, is rarely triggered and that was therefore so unnoticeable that it got discovered 8 years after release. So the discussion that we have here is no different from one that we had months ago. The discovery of this bug is good, but in the end does not change the performance of CB. And that's what people should discuss about (it now has moved more to this topic thanksfully): CB itself, or this bug itself. But in the end this bug is mostly decoupled from the balance of CB since it occurs rarely.

Jump back to quoted post24 Mar 2021, 14:12 PMHannibal

People here are getting almost outraged if Sanders or someone else says that tracking is only an issue in very rare circumstances and then instantly insinuate that stating this equals defending it and most of all defending the whole CB itself. It's just nuts.

id say the "people making out sander is defending it" comes more from the repeated "it only saves 3 clicks" bit than the tracking. the tracking makes the claim even more Ludacris, but the claim itself shows as an apathy to the effects being able to remove enemy indirect without any work at all and greatly underplays the impact that being able to kill something like a katy or mortar or pak howi or mortar HT or zis has. without any input from the player. at all.

Back to topic, but I can only say what I have already said before:
The thread started out as purely focusing on the tracking. It then widened a bit to CB in general which is fine by me. But many here start mixing both issues into one another to somehow "prove" their point.

Most Allied units barrage for quite some time. I have not tested it in game, but judging from what Elchino wrote they will usually be counter barraged during their barrage or at the end of it. And assuming that the barrage finishes and the Katy/... starts moving before the LeFH is set up, there is a decent chance that the Katy will be in the cone half way, so the LeFH barrages an empty spot half way on the map. If your vehicle is still in range at this time. There's a lot of conditions and in most circumstances, shift queueing your unit back to base will do exactly what is should do.

thats it though, it doesnt JUST proc on katys. if you try to dispense smoke, itll get ya. if your mortar autofires, itll get ya. i dont think its reasonable to retreat your mortar every time it fires a smoke shell (cant do the whole barrage or itll get ya). forgot about a mortar and the enemy pushes near it? hope to hell it doesnt set up and fire a single shell at the enemy because if it did it may well be gone..

Is it still possible that you drive your Katy back to base to be barraged there? Yes, but rarely.
Is this whole tracking behaviour stupid? Absolutely.
Is it worth the drama? Nope.

its absolutely worth the drama because it can change the outcome of a game entirely. if i recall right the elephant and JT had their damage reduced so they couldn't 2 tap tanks from a mile away if they fell in their sights, yet this is capable of deleting units without them even r4evealing themselves and it can happen anywhere on the map. and running away isn't even a guarantee!

This behaviour has only been discovered just now. But suddenly this is used to state that CB is OP because it tracked (no personal statement of mine on CB intended here). But this OPness went unnoticed for years, so it probably is not as a huge deal as some make it out to be.

when it came tom light matters not, for a long time people didnt think the CB was worth it because it stopped the lefh from barraging and *ahem* you could just do the same thing with only 3 clicks anwyays. tha has proven to not be so and thusly its being blown properly into proportion. a game based on micro and unit preservation that can delete units without any micro deserves all the attention it can get until its changed.

So to sum it up:
Tracking is very stupid, CB a bit stupid, LeFH ability could use a redesign and all of this is blown out of proportion.

again i disagree. we need to make a stink about it so that it DEOS get cahnged and we need to show how broken it is or we might end up with a 5 fuel increase and 1 less shell on CB as a token "shut up now" nerf, especially if sanders view that its only saving a few clicks holds sway on the balance team. knocking off full health units with no effort is a problem, regardless of how. doing so even after counter measures are taken on those that can still doesnt protect you against a no micro counter attack is worth blowing up.

Jump back to quoted post25 Mar 2021, 21:30 PMKoRneY

We've come full circle. Years of hate on indirect and now the bandwagon is hating something that punishes indirect.

Jump back to quoted post25 Mar 2021, 23:27 PMthedarkarmadillo

...

Jump back to quoted post26 Mar 2021, 04:00 AMIntoTheRain

The Gren hate is just weird.

They are cheap as dirt, get access to all of their kit without side tech, and have super low vet requirements. I legit don't understand how anyone can complain about them after the T4 and formation buffs in the last 2 patches.

Jump back to quoted post26 Mar 2021, 00:24 AMHannibal

For all we can assume the tracking is difficult to abuse and an overall rare event. Please provide some reasoning why you think this occurs so often.

Jump back to quoted post26 Mar 2021, 00:24 AMHannibal

My reasoning is that in almost all cases Allied barrages fire for so long that the LeFH will turn and CB trigger before the unit has left the cone.