The Jackson and Micro Fairness

I think the biggest issue right now is the really small number of people willing to play allies, even in 2v2. The US late game is too weak, and apparently people don't like Soviet much anymore either.

The Jackson, in my opinion, is just too hard to use. To successfully use a Jackson, you need to be essentially only microing this unit, as you need to use hold fire, target something, get in range, then scoot out of range while avoiding any other threats, and then decide whether to try to advance or not. It's so flimsy that anything coming out of the FOW on a flank is probably going to kill it, and on many maps it's extremely difficult to place it somewhere safely. This while microing a PzIV or Tiger is the height of simplicity and they are fairly easy to multitask with since even if you don't have those units on screen, you can probably get them out of a dangerous situation without losing them. The Jackson, on the other hand, is just so fragile that there's a high risk of losing it if you don't have it on screen at all times.

Not to mention the unit's target priorities are really screwed up. If it does happen to misfire or fire at infantry, you're in trouble, as the opponent will scoot out of range or prepare a flank or rush.

The thing really needs more health and less damage. Of course no one's playing much Allies - it's just too much of a challenge to use these vehicles, and losing one essentially means game over given their fuel cost. Add to that the fact that US AT guns are too slow and lack maneuverability for even basic backstopping of Jacksons and you have a really, really pathetic late game.

There's "let's take up the challenge of playing the late game underdog" and then there's an unplayable late game slippery slope, and in my opinion, the US has just too much of a slippery slope to make playing the faction at all enjoyable. Comebacks are not possible.

I think you and people who are thinking that majority of players like to play with germans because with Allies is harder to play, are mistaking.

Which is the hardest faction to play with? Most demanding, most mistake punishing? If you don't know yet, I will tell you: OKW.

And now, let's study this:
There is a POLL here where someone asks which is "your favourite faction"? What do you think most people chose? OKW.

Conclusion:
- people dislike easy-play / easy-win factions. This is the reason for which before the add-on most people were playing OH, while the differences between vanilla factions were not as high as the differences between OKW and the other factions. People like challanges, not trololols. Make playing russians and USF as challanging as OKW and we will see the opposite.

So when someone thinks that most people will chose easy to play factions, he's mistaking. Of course there are people that prefer the easy way or experience a need "to kill da nazi" and they play exclusively allied, but an objective player will be more attracted by the faction that challanges him the most.

Allies in 2v2 is indeed easier, unless their opponent is double OKW, which is insanely OP.

The logic of OKW is hardest to play only can applied in 1v1, in teamgames, they are insanely powerful.

Before buffs to the m36 are taken in consideration, relic should fix the target priorities and pathfinding issues.

After that we will see if the Jackson needs some more love.

I think you and people who are thinking that majority of players like to play with germans because with Allies is harder to play, are mistaking.

ok tell us why.

Which is the hardest faction to play with? Most demanding, most mistake punishing? If you don't know yet, I will tell you: OKW.

got any arguments? or are you infallible?

And now, let's study this:
There is a POLL here where someone asks which is "your favourite faction"? What do you think most people chose? OKW.

Conclusion:
- people dislike easy-play / easy-win factions
....

see what you did here? you are stating your opinion like it's a fact while supporting it with an evidence that you pulled out of your ass.

back on to topic.

totally agree with jackson. one mistake, dead. one missed shot due to infantry priority, one more enemy armor getting away. it is a really hard unit to use.

i hate bringing up jackson from the back to take a quick shot only to have jackson shoot at an infantry.

Before buffs to the m36 are taken in consideration, relic should fix the target priorities and pathfinding issues.

After that we will see if the Jackson needs some more love.

This. Long overdue

Allies in 2v2 is indeed easier, unless their opponent is double OKW, which is insanely OP.

The logic of OKW is hardest to play only can applied in 1v1, in teamgames, they are insanely powerful.

The Jackson, really shine in good micro and good ambushing, if you use it like vCOH M10 glorious frontal assault and swarming, you are definitely doing it wrong, unless you are abusing crew for pop cap and upkeep, got too much Jackson to spare. 2 Jackson can rear shot taking down the heaviest panzer in matter of seconds.

Tried did that with 7 Jacksons into a Jadgtiger protected by a hornets nest of Rakentenwerfer, Paks, Grens, they success, but only 1 survived.

Fuck, I misclick the edit button to reply button.

Jacksons dominate all non doctrinal Wehr armor for cost and are unflankable in the manner of the Su85. I'd be hesitant buffing it too much beyond target priority switches.

It's a pretty interesting topic to try and look at the skillsets required to play each faction in each phase of the game and determine what playstyles and factions are actually more difficult. Are they more rewarding as well?

I assume this is what you mean by "Micro Fairness"?

It's nothing new really. All tank destroyers have always have required different skill ceilings and skillsets to use compared to normal tanks. The frustrating part of the Jackson is that the turret is basically a disadvantage as it is more likely to shoot at infantry when it comes into range of the enemy force rather than tanks. The new "Hold Fire" is great for mitigating this possiblity but every second counts when you're using a fragile tank destroyer so putting direct firing controls into the player's hands really sucks for this tank. The Jackson scares away threats by doing extreme burst damage. If you don't micro your tank well enough then you don't get that burst damage on time.

I actually think that the US Late Game is underestimated for it's effectiveness. I think that the skills you need to do well in the early game don't necessarily translate over to the late game where things are quite difficult but the faction is fairly powerful.

I will say that meta-game shifts have moved me away from the Jackson. I don't like it as much anymore as it only really functions when it has a good front line to back it up. I almost never rush one out and instead rely on softer AT counters to create that front line and bring it out later.

One of the biggest issues facing this tank is the return of Magic Blitz speed. It used to be that charging the Jackson with a Tiger or a Panzer was a situation you could possbilbly micro out of if the terrain was favorable or if you had the right support. With a speed boost of 35% back on these tanks though it's very difficult to escape them now. Even in the most favorable speed matchup a Blitzkrieg Tiger has a speed of 6.36 to the 6.5 of the Jackson. There's not much room for mistakes there.

That being said I find that having a couple Shermans on your front line gives the Jackson plenty of breathing room and the ability to flank with your Shermans gives you room for the Jackson to operate much easier. In one of my closest 4v4 random matches recently this sort of compostion let me take down a King Tiger even in the worst terrain possible: the phonebooth forests of Lienne. It wasn't pretty but somehow it worked.

I think that double US in 2v2s is also pretty viable as well. Hell. My friend and I are like 36-1 in our 2v2 team and we only play double US.

I guess the question is not if US forces late game is too weak but too hard? It find it very challenging myself but I really don't know where you'd start there.

I think the best fix to make it easier would be to add a new firing mode for tank destroyers like the Jackson so that they just don't fire on infantry. Tank targeting only. That'd go a long way to making this vehicle far more usable while not impacting their vision for the unit: a high damage glass cannon with good manuverability.

Tank targetting only... thatll be very nice.

In my opinion the game is getting more and more imbalanced because relic thinks they have to buff soviets even more so people start playing them (which will probably never happen).
This thing resulted in the current state that soviets are ridiculous OP.

It's a pretty interesting topic to try and look at the skillsets required to play each faction in each phase of the game and determine what playstyles and factions are actually more difficult. Are they more rewarding as well?

I assume this is what you mean by "Micro Fairness"?

Yes. I think Ciez said in another thread it's a high-skill high reward unit, like the Kugel or snipers. However, we already have the veterancy system to reward high skill and good unit preservation. I think the Jackson should be more durable and do less damage to make it easier to use. Unlike early game manpower only units, losing one is just too punishing for the US because of their lack of reliable AT and the high fuel cost. OKW, on the other hand, can survive the loss of a Panther because of their shreks and pupchens. Sometimes Wehrmakt can even survive the loss of a Tiger.

I think you and people who are thinking that majority of players like to play with germans because with Allies is harder to play, are mistaking.

Which is the hardest faction to play with? Most demanding, most mistake punishing? If you don't know yet, I will tell you: OKW.

And now, let's study this:
There is a POLL here where someone asks which is "your favourite faction"? What do you think most people chose? OKW.

Conclusion:
- people dislike easy-play / easy-win factions. This is the reason for which before the add-on most people were playing OH, while the differences between vanilla factions were not as high as the differences between OKW and the other factions. People like challanges, not trololols. Make playing russians and USF as challanging as OKW and we will see the opposite.

So when someone thinks that most people will chose easy to play factions, he's mistaking. Of course there are people that prefer the easy way or experience a need "to kill da nazi" and they play exclusively allied, but an objective player will be more attracted by the faction that challanges him the most.

Your conclusion isnt based on your evidence at all. If you look at another poll you'll see OKW is the strongest in teamgames.
I think OKW is a way more interesting faction than the US because they just have way more variety. OKW is imo less punishing because of the great AT choices in every tier available. Fuel is less important in teamgames too. They actually have lategame units opposed to US with its jacksons that dont work in every map, so what else are oyu gonna build for AT as US? bazookas with crappy penetration or atguns with slightly better crappy penetration?

I find the jackson too hard to use on the attack. It's too flimsy and you need lots of vision to chase tanks at range. And if you lose vision for 1 sec it'll waste it's shot on infantry.

So what I do now is just keep it at the back and if the opponent overextends with their tank, swarm him with jacksons. You will have the vision to get off the shots and as axis usually lead attacks with their tanks the jackson won't have inf to worry about. I've killed many of the heavy tanks this way.

I think pathing issues and targeting priority definitely needs to be fixed, a further buff to the acceleration may be needed but we'll see later on.

This thread

I think you and people who are thinking that majority of players like to play with germans because with Allies is harder to play, are mistaking.

Which is the hardest faction to play with? Most demanding, most mistake punishing? If you don't know yet, I will tell you: OKW.

And now, let's study this:
There is a POLL here where someone asks which is "your favourite faction"? What do you think most people chose? OKW.

Conclusion:
- people dislike easy-play / easy-win factions. This is the reason for which before the add-on most people were playing OH, while the differences between vanilla factions were not as high as the differences between OKW and the other factions. People like challanges, not trololols. Make playing russians and USF as challanging as OKW and we will see the opposite.

So when someone thinks that most people will chose easy to play factions, he's mistaking. Of course there are people that prefer the easy way or experience a need "to kill da nazi" and they play exclusively allied, but an objective player will be more attracted by the faction that challanges him the most.

I had to read that twice to fully comprehend it.

Let me be real:
-The Jackson is great as a support tank, ya don't use it as an assault tank, but a support tank, because of it's slow rotation, awful targeting priority and slow reload. It's redeeming quality is it's high velocity AP rounds. It guarantees if say you're sending in Shermans first to deal with the inf/tank that if the tank tries to flank around your shermans or back up slowly the Jackson will be able to hit it from a considerable distance.
-Also most people would say the Allies are hardest atm in 2v2 or above considering dbl OKW is very powerful with it's late game capabilities and an ostheer/OKW pair-up actually assists in giving the OKW more fuel with fuel cache spam, so really it's the exact opposite of what you think SSHeini.

I think you and people who are thinking that majority of players like to play with germans because with Allies is harder to play, are mistaking.

Which is the hardest faction to play with? Most demanding, most mistake punishing? If you don't know yet, I will tell you: OKW.

And now, let's study this:
There is a POLL here where someone asks which is "your favourite faction"? What do you think most people chose? OKW.

Conclusion:
- people dislike easy-play / easy-win factions. This is the reason for which before the add-on most people were playing OH, while the differences between vanilla factions were not as high as the differences between OKW and the other factions. People like challanges, not trololols. Make playing russians and USF as challanging as OKW and we will see the opposite.

So when someone thinks that most people will chose easy to play factions, he's mistaking. Of course there are people that prefer the easy way or experience a need "to kill da nazi" and they play exclusively allied, but an objective player will be more attracted by the faction that challanges him the most.

I play Allies because it's harder to play with them. There are some OP Tactics for OKW.

so really it's the exact opposite of what you think SSHeini.

It have never happened before, really

Before buffs to the m36 are taken in consideration, relic should fix the target priorities and pathfinding issues.

After that we will see if the Jackson needs some more love.

I have to agree with that...the Jagdpanzer IV for example has one of the most horribly pathing ever seen

Other than lack of Micro and the target priority issues, Jacksons are insanely powerful, they can (Almost) 5 Shot a Tiger I in Frontal armour, assuming all penetrate. Have 2 Jacksons out? Tanks are no Problem