Death to all the RNG gods

On a serious note, lately i've been watching more shoutcasts in the evening than i should (thanks, Imperial Dane)and in many games, the RNG just happens.

Sometimes subtle, a lucky mortar hit here and there, nothing big. Sometimes a mine kills a squad. A heavy tank gets a engine critical. And it starts to snowball, opportunities arise and suddenly the whole outcome of the game stands on the line... all caused by what exactly? By a roll of the dice.

Games that play out like this doesn't give my any satisfaction, and i can't stop to think what if?.

What if:


Soviet TM35 Mine

-reduce the AoE Damage Far value
-remove the chance of destroyed engine critical on undamaged engine

As rofltehcat explained in the One-shot-wipe-potential thread, mines deal as much damage in the center of the blast as they do on its edge, resulting quite often in squadwipes depending on a dice roll.



AT grenades and Panzerfaust

-remove the chance of destroyed engine critical on undamaged engine
-100% chance to stun target for a few seconds (similar to target weak point)

-100% chance on damaged engine crit on rear armour hit

-0% chance on damaged engine crit on front armour hit (only on (heavy?)tanks)

This one grinds my gears especially. The difference between a deflected AT grenade / Panzerfaust and an destroyed engine is day and night and has absolutely no correlation to player skill.

With the proposed change catching a tank out of position is always rewarding, especially on heavy tanks.

The 100% stun chance makes combined arms necessary - you can't expect to disable a well microed heavy tank from the front with luck by a single squad and pulling your AT guns afterwards to finish it off anymore.

The stun would give time for the rest of your army, a flanking second squad for the engine critical for example. But if you manage to do that, you will be rewarded 100% of the time. Not because the game decided so, but because of your unit control and positioning alone.

Think about that for a second.



T34 ram

-100% chance on destroyed engine and gun on rear armour hit

-on front armour hit only engine damage OR destroyed gun possible

Against heavy tanks like the tiger, positioning currently plays almost no role. (300 front armour, 250 rear armour - ram from the front yeah whatever)
Similar to AT grenades and Panzerfaust, i want to see flanking being rewarded heavily, while diminishing the potential on frontal rams.



Flamethrower for CE/Pionees

-chance of exploding only on squadwipe



Skillplanes

-remove the ~0,1% chance of pintle mounted machine guns to destroy airplanes
-increase the chance of ostwind and quad halftrack to destroy airplanes
-reduce the damage of shot down planes drastically

Bringing down airplanes by pure coincidence because you payed for a no-brainer anti-infantry upgrade on your tank is just dumb luck. Dedicated anti-air units should reliable bring down planes on the first pass.

I've seen a game were one crashed airplane destroyed two full health tanks. Even if it's rare, it should not do that much damage and decide games that way.


These were the biggest offenders i can think of. I secretly hope Nullist approves this, wherever he may be.

+1

There are some good facts here, however the game is not the same without RNG, without it its just always the same thing.
Its much more fun with it, has it creates some sort of realism and also some change on the game too

+1

Completely agree.

I agree with STNeffarion, you need dice in a game like this. Adds a little bit of realism to it. Sometimes you miss...sometimes catastrophic things happen in war.

I due agree about the German AA.

Just lost full health pio squad to one mine
Agreed with your points

Same points made hundreds of times before and always ignored. Just accept the RNG. It is not going anywhere.

+1

Even though it can be frustrating if you are on the losing end of it, RNG adds some realism and fun to the game if you ask me. I do agree on some points (t34 frontal ram only damage on gun OR engine) and perhaps it should be lessened a bit, I think it should stay

I agree with your suggestions. RNG is what makes this game great, but there are some cases where it has too big of an impact.

I would like to highlight the AA efficiency increase, here it is important that the ostwind or quad doesn't get buffed to the extent where they can completely deny enemy planes.

+1. This game would be so much better without all the RNG.

Yeah, I agree. More than the Tiger Ace or the commanders, the RNG is really bothering me lately.

Most games I feel like I'm fighting the RNG god 80% of the time, the other player 20%.

I would also like to see flame crits just go away, or at least only happen with a flame tank or flamenwurfer (which would be more realistic and make more sense). A dude stepping into a flame does not just die instantly. Think of it this way, every time someone drops a flame artillery ability or flame round they are doing as much damage to infantry as the old COH1 firestorm, which is ridiculous. I know they wanted stuff to be more lethal in COH2 but c'mon, flame crits are just retarded.

I have never liked the new instant-engine damage mechanic tbh either. But then we need better Ostheer mines, I don't understand why they can't just get rid of the S-Mine and give Ostheer 30 muni general purpose mines like we have all been clamoring for since day 1. Make Tellers doctrinal.

Splash damage still doesn't seem intuitive. Clumped units do seem to take a lot of damage as they should, but nades are still way too random. What bothers me is that if you toss a nade at 3 guys, who aren't clumped too much, you expect to do some damage every time, but this isn't what happens. You can't predict at all whether it's worth it to toss the nade.

Not being able to predict outcomes of actions makes for bad, uncompetitive gameplay, period.

+1

I´ll just say:

"Flamethrower for CE/Pionees
-chance of exploding only on squadwipe"

It would be almost the same since the squad dies (unless he is surrounded by other squads). I´ll prefer either a removal or reduce (1-0,5%) chance from small arm fires AND an increase of chance from explosives and flame weapons.

Offtopic: how unlucky can i be if i throw 7 AT nades and i had no engine damage on a P4 ?

+1

I completely agree with all of your proposed suggestions.

Amen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDuGl6hv6oc

+1. This game would be so much better without all the RNG.

AT-guns always penetraiting? Tanks always hitting? Mortars and Arty being spot on target with every shot?

Then I'd rather go play spamcraft or CnC

+1

Reduce RNG. It won't make the game unfunnier but far more enjoyable.

AT-guns always penetraiting? Tanks always hitting? Mortars and Arty being spot on target with every shot?

Then I'd rather go play spamcraft or CnC

I understand the casual crowd generally loves all the RNG.

Different strokes for different folks. I play RTS games as a pure test of skill. I like the general gameplay of this game, but the RNG takes away from skill.

+1

Only thing I would change is potentially remove ram completely. This ability has little historic accuracy as it is implemented, and is far TOO random. I could survive with it as you stated.

Also strongly agree heavy engine damage should be removed from fausts and mines.

Can we also remove crits from frontal hits in tank battles. I.e. when a tank fires at another tank and hits its frontal armor (when the target is above 5%) and still gets a crit. Extremely random, very annoying.

+1