This game needs side-armour!

I have witnessed the post from Quin, explaining why side armour was not included, but this "evens out" mentality is just wrong. Especially when one is playing a map such a Pripyat, where it is incredibly hard to completely flank an enemy tank, as a result you end up scoring hits on side of the tank, (closest to the front) meaning no damage.

In addition, it would potentially buff and reward Russian players (especially T-34 users), as they would be greatly rewarded for flanking a Panther in hopes of scoring a hit on its weak side armour.

Though a Tiger's front could not be penetrated by a T-34 at any range, the T-34 certainly could penetrate a Tiger's side at ranges of 460 meters or less. Imagine if the T-34 possessed that ability in game? (The damage, not the range)

No wonder many are complaining about the under-powered T-34!

Which brings me on to my last point, why bother even mentioning side armour in the tips, if it doesn't exist?

It's silly, nonsensical and needs changing.

If there is anything you should take away from the beta, it's that you need side armour!
I wouldn't even mind if this feature wasn't available at launch, I remember the great post-launch support Dawn of war 2 possessed! There is no real reason not to do it!
Thanks!

I agree. It also makes facing armour correctly a bit less needed and rear armour hits a bit more random.

Yeah I agree too. I want to be rewarded with a bit more damage for a clever flanking manoeuvre or ambush than what I'm currently getting. I mean what is with some of these tigers an panthers just deflecting perfectly good, almost point blank, side shots. It would be a fair system to implement because it would effect both sides surely?

So thats why , attacking from the sides is so less rewarding ?? I just thought my tanks had a lot less penetration , but it turns out they ve got many ideas that are rectally derived MVGame , srsly is that because of engine limitations or good old stupidity ? OMG do they even know what made the old game good ???

They probably do, but they made it so long ago so they most likly just forgot about it.

I'm not sure why the T-34 would be considered underpowered. It's essentially 1/3rd the cost of a Tiger or IS-2. It should be much worse and lose 1-on-1. The T-34 is meant to be a mobile tank used for killing infantry and light vehicles, then for ramming lategame to disable heavy tanks.

I do believe side armor could be a good addition, but a map like Pripyat is a bad example. No one likes Pripyat competitively. It'd be better to relate side armor to matches on Kholodny, which is actually a reasonably well-balanced 1v1 map, or Oka/Moscow for larger games.

A t34 is very hard to get right, probably because it was a very good all round tank that the soviets could pump out by the train load. It's real life design was In many ways superior to anything else, especially when it first came out. Speed, firepower, reliability and armour were all places it excelled. How can this be translated in game without making it too overpowered? Simple truth is it will never satisfy everyone for the sake of balance

I'm not sure why the T-34 would be considered underpowered. It's essentially 1/3rd the cost of a Tiger or IS-2. It should be much worse and lose 1-on-1. The T-34 is meant to be a mobile tank used for killing infantry and light vehicles, then for ramming lategame to disable heavy tanks.

I do believe side armor could be a good addition, but a map like Pripyat is a bad example. No one likes Pripyat competitively. It'd be better to relate side armor to matches on Kholodny, which is actually a reasonably well-balanced 1v1 map, or Oka/Moscow for larger games.

However, in the end, Pripyat is a map people will play on. Furthermore it was chosen to demonstrate this issue exactly, to show that it can be exploited in one's favour.
If you are at a choke point with a tank which possess good frontal armour, all you would need to do is expose your front half, with your ear half being blocked by the 'bridge's walls'.

I actually possess a reply where 4 T-34s are up against 1 tiger, due to clever usage of the environment the Tiger barely got penetrated, in fact in the replay you could see I was hitting the side of the Tiger, but it was closest to the front, making the round bounce off. (as stated in the original post)

As a result I had to sacrifice one of my T-34...

It's a good thing it was for fun

It's impossible to satisfy everyone, but a decision still has to be made regarding the T-34. I feel that it fits well where it is, despite how it may have been in history.

Pripyat does demonstrate the issue, but my argument is that it isn't a good idea to balance a concept based on an outlier. The competitive community will prefer maps like Kholodny, Oka, or Moscow, all of which have plenty of ways to flank your enemy and maneuver vehicles. Side armor should be balanced based on which maps will be used the most, rather than what maps are special cases. Trying to balance side armor using a map like Pripyat will cause imbalance issues on other, currently more balanced maps.

You should be forced to sacrifice a T-34 against a Tiger either way. You can either ram the Tiger, destroying the main gun and crippling the engines so that it can't get away and can't cause damage, or watch as the Tiger destroys one of the T-34s. I think it'd be unreasonable if you were able to keep all of your T-34s alive against a Tiger, especially considering the cost difference.

Regardless, Pripyat is the only map that makes it difficult to flank a tank. All of the other maps in the closed beta allow for easy flanking.

It's impossible to satisfy everyone, but a decision still has to be made regarding the T-34. I feel that it fits well where it is, despite how it may have been in history.

Pripyat does demonstrate the issue, but my argument is that it isn't a good idea to balance a concept based on an outlier. The competitive community will prefer maps like Kholodny, Oka, or Moscow, all of which have plenty of ways to flank your enemy and maneuver vehicles. Side armor should be balanced based on which maps will be used the most, rather than what maps are special cases. Trying to balance side armor using a map like Pripyat will cause imbalance issues on other, currently more balanced maps.

You should be forced to sacrifice a T-34 against a Tiger either way. You can either ram the Tiger, destroying the main gun and crippling the engines so that it can't get away and can't cause damage, or watch as the Tiger destroys one of the T-34s. I think it'd be unreasonable if you were able to keep all of your T-34s alive against a Tiger, especially considering the cost difference.

Regardless, Pripyat is the only map that makes it difficult to flank a tank. All of the other maps in the closed beta allow for easy flanking.

I wasn't suggesting I shouldn't have lost a single T-34, I was just amazed by the amount endurance the Tiger demonstrated.

Concerning Pripyat, I agree overall, but like I said, this map greatly allows a player to potentially exploit the lack of side armour. It's still a map which will be played, which means it is a map which will show the problems of not possessing side armour.

I disagree with the mentality, of "ah it doesn't work with this content, so I'm going to work around this content". It can potentially promote, and excuse bad-game design.

It necessarily doesn't need to be at a choke point either, it's entirely possible one could do it with a building, I assume.

It wasn't to say the mechanic doesn't work in one map, it was just to emphasize how this could potentially be abused.

We haven't seen all the maps, so I will reserve judgement, but in the end, it can lead to gaining a huge, unfair advantage.

This same thread on the CoH 2 beta forums is really interesting because Quinn Duffy replied. He says:

Haha. Anything is possible. Seriously.

The challenge we had with side armor and the different values we had was finding a system that was reasonably fair to the attacking player and the defending player. With a single value for side armor (say applying different values to each side of a four sided box) you actually lose a lot of front armor, because you as a defending player have to have your tank facing directly forward. Any shot, even glancing, on the side armor becomes a side armor hit.

Some games might model the angle of the incoming shot and determine penetration, and again that kind of thing is entirely possible, but it adds a lot of simulation and may have odd results that are hard to visualize.

Our approach to creating decent front coverage was to apply the front armor to the front 180 degrees of the tank. That allows the defending tank to receive the benefit of facing their front armor even if they're not directly facing the attacking tank.

One of the things we do is look at the intent of an issue, in this case you'd like something to encourage and reward flanking.

- I would agree wholeheartedly that we want to encourage flanking, but side armor might not be the best answer (or it might, I'm just speculating here).
- We could look at special criticals for penetrating side hits - maybe you have a chance to hit the treads more frequently. That's more engineering though.
- We could look at vehicle roles - perhaps lighter faster tanks like the T-70 could be used. The 45mm could penetrate the weaker armor of most German tanks.
- We could shift the 180 forward of center so that more of the tank's side would be 'rear armor'.

And there are some things we did do to help flanking;
- We continue to work on vehicle pathing to improve the ability to flank.
- We've added more 'sticky' targeting, so the vehicle remembers your target and that allows you to flank more effectively without your tank choosing a new target every time you issue a move order

Anyways, there are a number of potential solutions to help address the issue.

Hope this helps!

Quinn

To save time and to see if the people here can help out (the beta forums aren't so great...) here's what I posted:

I'm not really understanding the "defensive" player vs "offensive" player distinction: presumably the defensive player is someone whose tank is sitting still and the offensive player is the one sending the tank forward to attack? That's not really how tank combat works in CoH, though, is it? Generally both players are moving their tank, or the one sitting still is the one that is immobilized or engine damaged, which tends to be the "offensive" player because they have to drive into enemy infantry/AT and risk engine criticals on the offense.

But because generally both players are moving their tanks, getting a side hit on the enemy makes it just as easy for the enemy to get a side hit onto you, doesn't it? Because you don't have time to retarget your tank so that its forward armor is facing the enemy tank any more than they have time to always keep their tank's forward armor facing you.

So, qduffy or anyone else: can you explain the offensive/defensive distinction? Is it just meant to cover cases where one player (aka the "defensive" player) isn't paying attention to their tank at all and it is thus sitting still long enough for the player who is microing (the "offensive" player) to move their tank to the side, then turn the body of their tank so that it's facing the "defensive" immobile tank?

Someone tried to respond but it wasn't very helpful so I am still super confused.

(inb4 CoH2 is being designed for noobs)

Even if the you are engaging in a combat dynamic where there is 1 mobile attacking tank vs 1 defending "player-chosen" (as in, the player is making the choice either accidentally or consciously to not move their tank) immobile tank, the defending player's tank doesn't have accuracy punishments because his tank isn't moving while the attacking tank is.

Also, to get a successful flank, one would expect the attacking player to have at least 2 pieces of AT, so 2 tanks or a tank and an ATG (ignore the idea of infantry based AT for now). This means that it would be almost impossible for the defending player to position their actual front armor against both AT weapons at the same time. BUT, if they set it at an angle, they can use the fact that the front half of the "side armor" is actually front armor and just angle it so the tank is deflecting as much incoming fire as possible. So this kind of still discourages large pushes and flanks because instead of relying on your opponent to back their tank and supporting forces back, giving you the area of the map, your opponent can just turn their tank a little and hope that the extra 5 seconds or so gives them the extra oomph to win that engagement.

I don't understand why this isn't implemented. Quinn is talking about fairness, but its not fair for a 178° shot to deflect from strong front armor and a 182° shot to score a rear critical. Both of those shots should hit the side and do damage somewhere in-between the front and the rear.

Well the problem with side armor is that tank combat ranges are extremely short in coh2, so if you're slightly to the left or right of the center front of a tank, chances are you'll hit the side armor instead of the front. The only way to mitigate this problem is to add a multiplier for angle of impact, but that would make the system needlessly complex and very difficult to integrate intuitively.

I believe a better solution would be to shift the border, where front and rear armor meet, a bit forward, so that when a tank is being pelted from the side, the chances of rear hits are vastly increased.

(inb4 CoH2 is being designed for noobs)

So let me put this straight...
- there's no side armor
- there's no pop-cap
- resource layout is horizontal and no DEVs seems to look on it as a problem
- sectors on dull maps presented so far, where objects doesn't look to serve any purpose, looks to be drawn in total chaos and not merging with a map at all
- currently gameplay reminds me Civilisation 5, where all action centers either on the sectors/fire-pits or building
- cover??? You do not need to care about troops much as you can tech basically in minutes, get VET from damage, so why bother using cover

....these are only the MAJOR flaws... tons of small ones as well yet.

Could anyone now tell me: why bother playing COH2 over COH1? [do not mention the online services]

so true

(inb4 CoH2 is being designed for noobs)

it is happening to most franchises reason being that pc gaming isn't a niche market anymore - imho indie games are the only ones still aiming at core gamers.

Well the problem with side armor is that tank combat ranges are extremely short in coh2, so if you're slightly to the left or right of the center front of a tank, chances are you'll hit the side armor instead of the front. The only way to mitigate this problem is to add a multiplier for angle of impact, but that would make the system needlessly complex and very difficult to integrate intuitively...

If the tank is facing you, you hit the front. If its almost facing you, you'll still hit the front. If the tank isn't, you hit the side. If your behind the tank, you hit the rear. I don't think that's actually a problem. Measuring the angle of impact isn't needed, they just need give some benefit for hitting the side.

So let me put this straight...
- there's no side armor
- there's no pop-cap
- resource layout is horizontal and no DEVs seems to look on it as a problem
- sectors on dull maps presented so far, where objects doesn't look to serve any purpose, looks to be drawn in total chaos and not merging with a map at all
- currently gameplay reminds me Civilisation 5, where all action centers either on the sectors/fire-pits or building
- cover??? You do not need to care about troops much as you can tech basically in minutes, get VET from damage, so why bother using cover

....these are only the MAJOR flaws... tons of small ones as well yet.

Could anyone now tell me: why bother playing COH2 over COH1? [do not mention the online services]

The vehicle armor system IS EXACTLY LIKE the system from COH1. Exactly.

The vehicle armor system IS EXACTLY LIKE the system from COH1. Exactly.

Oh hi Quinn!

I feel rather about about now, as I made this thread a few days before you illustrated the potential problems of adding side armour. So I hope you didn't go thinking I took away nothing from that discussion! It was greatly insightful!

Out of interest, have you and the team discussed any possibilities of moving away from the current system in favour of something else?

I can understand if the team hasn't, especially when the team is focussed on getting a polished game out.

Thanks anyway!