artillery and late game squadwipes

Rofl.

I've been complaining about Ostheer squads getting 1-shot for the past year and a half. This isn't a new issue. But guess what. So far we've more or less removed that capability from grenades (unless you screw up and don't stick in green cover - or fail to dodge them), we've limited the ability for most tanks to 1-shot squads (go back and look at the old KV8, IS2, ISU), mines don't 1 shot as much as they used to, even the Katyusha/Werfer (especially the werfer) aren't as gimmicky as they once were. And hell, at least you can play around the Katyusha a lot more than you used to be able to. Oh and the Stuka has been nerfed compared to what it was.

This thread is about continuing to improve the game in a constructive manner. I care about this game and its future, not some goofy ladder losses. So unless you think that having your squads get 1 shot is good, skillful and fun game play - please get over yourself and realize what we're actually trying to do here.

@Fridod - bombing runs and off-maps are totally different. All of those things inherently have counter-play because they drop a giant flare where they're going to be. If the B4 did the same thing, I'd have no problem with it. (They also almost exclusively require LoS on the target). If you fail to move out of the huge flare, you deserve to lose some stuff.

My suggestion:

Don't hijack rant tread and try to make it into constructive discussion. People don't read all posts, and you may have good points but for a lot of readers tread stays OKW whine thread.... Make a new one with clear point

P.S. not disagreeing with you on what you are actually saying

The reason the commander B4 is in is called "Counterattack Tactics" is because of that ability to turn a game around when it looks like everything has gone to shit. And now with Osteer's+OKW's ability to play sim city and create giant roaming blobs of doom the B4 is essential and is one of the few ways allies can stay competitive late game. People here seem to forget the B4 is also very good for killing heavy tanks and whatnot.

i think okw sim city and blobs should be dealt differently.

as to simulating the 'counterattack' feel, b4's dice roll/lottery jackpot does not simulate counterattack for me.

i think okw sim city and blobs should be dealt differently.

as to simulating the 'counterattack' feel, b4's dice roll/lottery jackpot does not simulate counterattack for me.

How exactly? The go to way of dealing with entrenched enemies is artillery and the B4 is the big daddy of artillery. Nerfing the B4 and the already under preforming 152 howitzer is only going to make it ever harder for the allies to deal with blobs/entrenched positions.

The counterattack commander also has other things to "simulate" a counterattack such as a early call in heavy tank, recon, shock troops, and For Mother Russia which allows your troops to "Run the Guns" as it were.

Once again you forget the B4 is not just a anti emplacement/infantry artillery piece, it also can be vital for getting rid of Jadgtigers or elefants as well.

Arty wiping your squads? Tough noodles, thats how it works. vCoH vets such as myself got used to it and got over it. When you here the boom-echo in the FoW, you spread the hell out or prepare Uranus for blood mist.

Arty gibbing your squads and pissing you the hell off is just part of the game. I would frankly say, get over it. It's supposed to dislodge you and make you GTFO of an area. If you lose a squad, again, tough shit, build a new one and carry on. The enemy is down 16 pop and has wasted 600 MP on a static unit that must be micro managed and is of dubious value if it misses. You're looking at a 90 second cooldown in the meantime.

Just...ffs, deal with it. Yes, sometimes shizzle happens that wipes units and it's all completely outside of your control. DEAL WITH IT. Seriously. Arty is already borderline useless, just...let it live, please.

Without target tables, you can't really make the changes you're proposing without utterly killing artillery. Trust me, I've coded my own vCoH mod and served on the .rgd coding board of another, whilst also coding my own solo mod in CoH2. Just...it can't be done.

To anyone having issues with arty wiping squads.

your playing the wrong game

B4 isn't even RNG based unless your building it in your own base, even a point or two outside it will leave you hitting fairly accurately.

this thread isnt about those units. this unit is about indirect fire units instagibbing squads cause of rng. tell me, what are you supposed to do from prevent a mortar shell landing ontop of a squad thats clumped in one of the numerous little yellow cover craters that litter the ground at the end of the game?

I appreciate what you're saying. But as I said, and others have said, it is in fact about more than just indirect fire. The issue is bigger than indirect fire. Although I think we're otherwise in agreement.

CoH should reward good plays.

as to simulating the 'counterattack' feel, b4's dice roll/lottery jackpot does not simulate counterattack for me.

Counterattack doctrines always relied on heavy bombardments via planes or artillery right before counterattack, thus b-4 in this concept actually make sense.

On topic: b-4 broken, but okw blobs of death probably broken far more, so it is fine as long "counter broken with broken" concept goes. Other static play/blob counters may be not perfectly fine, but fine.

I only partly agree here.

Katusha, Stuka and ML-20 only really are a problem on certain maps (for example semoski). One of the main issues here are the OH 4-man squads.

The 120mm is a tad too effective for it's price and on some maps I'd argue it's even op.

Scott, Pack Howie and the LeIG suffer from the problem, that they wipe squads when firing in flat trajectory but can't hit shit when firing with a step trajectory. This needs to be adjusted so they deal reliable damage over all ranges.

The B-4 is in a bad spot for the reasons stated and discussed here.

Arty wiping your squads? Tough noodles, thats how it works. vCoH vets such as myself got used to it and got over it. When you here the boom-echo in the FoW, you spread the hell out or prepare Uranus for blood mist.

Arty gibbing your squads and pissing you the hell off is just part of the game. I would frankly say, get over it. It's supposed to dislodge you and make you GTFO of an area. If you lose a squad, again, tough shit, build a new one and carry on. The enemy is down 16 pop and has wasted 600 MP on a static unit that must be micro managed and is of dubious value if it misses. You're looking at a 90 second cooldown in the meantime.

Just...ffs, deal with it. Yes, sometimes shizzle happens that wipes units and it's all completely outside of your control. DEAL WITH IT. Seriously. Arty is already borderline useless, just...let it live, please.

Without target tables, you can't really make the changes you're proposing without utterly killing artillery. Trust me, I've coded my own vCoH mod and served on the .rgd coding board of another, whilst also coding my own solo mod in CoH2. Just...it can't be done.

That is depressing - because I was waiting out hoping for a mod to coh2 to makde it close to VCOH in how weapons work - no silly random squad wipes etc.

So there is no hope for this game to have the same level of control over explosions, small arms and tank combat like COH had?

"Spread out" button. It's all you need when your inf is clumping.
Nerfing mortars, arty etc... Is pointless when You can just use that button.

Without target tables, you can't really make the changes you're proposing without utterly killing artillery. Trust me, I've coded my own vCoH mod and served on the .rgd coding board of another, whilst also coding my own solo mod in CoH2. Just...it can't be done.

Please elaborate.

That is depressing - because I was waiting out hoping for a mod to coh2 to makde it close to VCOH in how weapons work - no silly random squad wipes etc.

So there is no hope for this game to have the same level of control over explosions, small arms and tank combat like COH had?

CoH1 had silly random squad wipes, Devm vs Symbi SNF4 comes to mind as the big example.

This thread... Lemon and Ciez loses some games = all arty should be nerfed. We really need a bigger community.

You noticed this too eh? I'm happy that Soviets have had all their heavy tanks adjusted so squad wiping is a rare occurrence. Shame the same logic can't be applied to the Tiger, King Tiger, and walking Stuka.

I think there needs to be more late game squad wipes. This is war. Not some magic land where a group of infantry can sit in front of a tank and not die to the main gun. Some of my more forward thinking Bears have adapted to this magic land by using tanks like a monster truck. Crushing is far more rewarding than using the main gun for anti-infantry purposes.

You noticed this too eh? I'm happy that Soviets have had all their heavy tanks adjusted so squad wiping is a rare occurrence. Shame the same logic can't be applied to the Tiger, King Tiger, and walking Stuka.

I think there needs to be more late game squad wipes. This is war. Not some magic land where a group of infantry can sit in front of a tank and not die to the main gun. Some of my more forward thinking Bears have adapted to this magic land by using tanks like a monster truck. Crushing is far more rewarding than using the main gun for anti-infantry purposes.

Yup I lost a couple of meaningless ladder games with Lemon a few days ago which is why I've been working for the past year and a half to get squad instant one shots toned down. Super solid logic there bud.

And who ever mentioned anything about wanting infantry to be immune to tanks? Seriously read the thread dude. This is about fixing an obviously broken area of the game in that there's no way to avoid or play around things like the 120mm mortar or the pack howi erasing your infantry. It isn't fun, interesting, or skillful gameplay. It's pretty much the same logic as the old ISU. Required a specific doctrinal counter and one shot squads with no way to avoid it. If the isu was broken for those reasons, then the b4 is as well.

Stuka and Axis mortars one-shot squads as well.... just saying...



And there should be a button to spread out squads and infantry, although this may encourage blobbing. But it would probably be for the best

You are throwing the word "broken" around too easily. Stop. This is war, units die. War isn't nice. An MP investment (at a minimum) went into the foe getting that defensive, indirect fire unit. That investment takes away from a potential offensive unit. A perfect trade off. Capitalize on that trade off. A 120 MM Mortar is 400 MP. That is one less set of shock troops or nearly two less sets of conscripts.

If you are having difficulties with stationary indirect fire units I'd recommend that you and Lemon try out one of my cheese tactics. The synergy between the Osttruppen doctrine and Special operations doctrine is amazing. If you want to see what broken really is use the Artillery flare within their base area and drop rail way artillery on the USF players base.

And there should be a button to spread out squads and infantry, although this may encourage blobbing. But it would probably be for the best

AoEII had different formations for units. I don't see why this couldn't be incorporated into the game.

So... B-4 should not wipe infantry?

You are throwing the word "broken" around too easily. Stop. This is war, units die. War isn't nice. An MP investment (at a minimum) went into the foe getting that defensive, indirect fire unit. That investment takes away from a potential offensive unit. A perfect trade off. Capitalize on that trade off. A 120 MM Mortar is 400 MP. That is one less set of shock troops or nearly two less sets of conscripts.

If you are having difficulties with stationary indirect fire units I'd recommend that you and Lemon try out one of my cheese tactics. The synergy between the Osttruppen doctrine and Special operations doctrine is amazing. If you want to see what broken really is use the Artillery flare within their base area and drop rail way artillery on the USF players base.



AoEII had different formations for units. I don't see why this couldn't be incorporated into the game.

Never have I said that units shouldn't die. Of course units should die. I just have a problem when units die and there is literally *nothing* that could have been done to prevent that from happening. Sure maybe once a game that would be fine, maybe. But I've had games where SIX Gren squads were instantly killed with no way for me to react or prevent that from happening. At that point, in my opinion, it is just poor design/poor mechanics. Part of that has to do with 4-man Ost squads being a liability, part of it is the new cover system, and part of it is because of the way AoE profiles work.

The problem I have with the B4 is mostly that it can be built with no risk because the range is so huge. This leaves the only reliable counter to be a combination of off-map abilities - one to gain vision and the other to destroy the gun (as far as I remember the only off-map that will 100% destroy the B4 is the stuka dive bomb, oh and I guess railway). Sure I'd like to see it instagib units less, but unfortunately I don't think they'd ever change it to be more akin to the ML-20. Also, the vet 2 and vet 3 bonuses are hugely problematic - and have been proven to be game-breaking on other units in the past, so why they still exist on the B4 is beyond me.

And yeah, the Stuka should probably be toned down as well. It is easy to dodge with normal infantry but blowing up entire weapon teams/the weapon itself is pudding. Even if you know where it is headed there is usually no way to move the weapon teams quickly enough, which sucks.

As for the flare/railway combo, that's an issue with the USF base being super dumb - something I've complained to Relic about since the first day I was in the WFA alpha. Railway in general is probably the worst off-map... but maybe that honor goes to Major arty.

So... B-4 should not wipe infantry?

It should, but not from the safety of base bunkers.

It should, but not from the safety of base bunkers.

Fair enough.