The abandon mechanic and why it isn't the enemy

Hello,

When people are talking about death crits (the kind of critical hit you receieve when your vehicle is struck by an otherwise lethal shot), they often mention how the abandon mechanic is too game-deciding when it happens at the wrong time.

Another problem pointed out that it is really far too unpredictable with a chance of 5% to happen and as such, it seemingly only exists to decide games when it happens at the wrong time.

So, if abandon isn't the real enemy, then what is? Simple, the other death crits. Engine damaged and main gun destroyed are the biggest offenders as they hardly prevent you from getting away, but even Engine Destroyed can make a lot of difference and give you a considerable chance to get away with your vehicle intact.

Death crits can mean the difference between losing both your Jacksons or finishing off the damaged King Tiger before it kills both, and it can also mean absurd situations like a Sherman surviving multiple should-be post mortem shots from a Panther while getting lucky with its own shots; making a Sherman win a 1v1 engagement. There are numerous examples to give regarding this, but I believe we can all agree that all of the examples that could be given here are absurd.

So where does the abandonment mechanic come in in all of this? Well, if you have noticed a pattern here, all of the aforementioned death crits have no drawback; they are simply an extra life. A tank that should have been dead can soak up a bit more damage, deal more of it, and maybe even make a getaway simply because RNG said so. Coupled with the luck-reliant armor mechanic, this results in the armor game being too luck dependant; the worst you get is a few more seconds with a tank still taking damage and shooting and the best you can get is not having lost your tank at all when your enemy has potentially lost a lot in trying to destroy it.

And abandonment changes that. When a vehicle is abandoned, it's fair game. It still soaks damage and can be destroyed, but now there are actual risks involved. Either player can take it; it won't be able to deal damage or move out of harm's way. It will take up a large portion of a squad to capture it and it won't be very likely to be returned to combat effectiveness. However, if you do beat your enemy in the engagement, your chances of recovering your losses remain the same while you are far more likely to claim some enemy vehicles as a trophy. If you do lose however, you'll have to be a lot more conservative with your units until you manage a now relatively common abandon on an enemy vehicle under favorable conditions and get even.

How would this be achieved? Simple: make Engine Destroyed, Engine Damaged and Main Gun destroyed all come with an abandoned vehicle. For reasons mentioned above, the vehicle is not going to be combat effective if recaptured immediately, and it will be a battle trophy that can still be finished off by the enemy even if they are losing.

Here's a list of the advantages:

1- Smaller units that you need to spam are more worthwhile. As opposed to an IS-2, losing a T-34/76 to your enemy is not as big of a deal, and is less likely to happen as your remaining T-34/76s can still destroy the IS-2 hulk if it is not in a favourable position.

2- The abandon mechanic is not as random: It doesn't decide games due to sheer luck anymore but instead becomes something you can and should expect, and something you can prepare for. Vehicles will get crippled and then abandoned quite often this way, and you should not disregard that possibility when engaging the enemy.

3- The games simply get more interesting. Abandoned vehicles can spice a game up, and without binding the entire mechanic on sheer luck, they suddenly get to be an actual gameplay element rather than "oh snap, why have you done this to me, RNG?" situations.

4- Death crits no longer become no risk and reward. Instead, there is a risk and there is a reward when a vehicle is abandoned instead of being outright destroyed.

Let me know what you think.

IIRC, abandonned tanks used to have death crits, it was bugged a couple of patches ago.

IIRC, abandonned tanks used to have death crits, it was bugged a couple of patches ago.

It's not what I meant at all. I am saying death crits should always come with an abandon, on top of the crit itself.

Would definitely be an improvement on the existing, terrible status quo.

With the high armor values of the likes of the Panther, KT, Tiger, IS2, an RNG death crit will often require two opposition tanks firing a combined extra 4+ rounds to finish it off. That's a lot of time remaining in a contested zone while being unable to change target or withdraw, and more often than not WILL lead to tanks being lost.

Death crits as currently implemented are up with plane crashes as the worst examples of intended RNG in the game.

Abandonment is a far more acceptable mechanic than the tank crits, for reasons you describe.
There seems to be enough risk that the reward of retrieving the abandoned vehicle doesn't feel as unfairly advantageous to the one who comes out on top. If it does, it's clear that the other didn't or couldn't capitalize on the risk, thus the opponent seems to 'deserve' the vehicle more. I fear that USF might have a slight too much advantage in this, though, if it's hit with the engine abandons.

Edit: I still iffy on it, though. What if the RNG gods make it survive forever if someone is trying to destroy it?

I fear that USF might have a slight too much advantage in this, though, if it's hit with the engine destroyed abandon.

I did think about that, but let's face it, the only reason instant critical repair isn't OP is because USF tanks don't really die based on crits; they die because the most they have is 640 HP and they generally die like flies. You could argue that is intended design, but I'm sure not everyone is too happy about AT mines not slowing USF down much.

If anything this would give them a chance to earn their heavy tank.

i dont like abandoning at all

flanking the enemy and then (almost) losing all your tanks because the enemy tank was not destroyed but abandoned is the worst RNG you can have. now you want to make that happen every time? flanking would be much less rewarding against a capable enemy, because you would need more time to finish him off.
And last but not least, a well microed and protected Jagdtiger or any other longrange tank would be even harder to kill, because after you killed it you would need to destroy the wreck again.

i want to get rid of heavy RNG aswell, so here is my approach:
-remove abandoning
-crits dont happen instead of death anymore, but if a tank is left with 5% or 10% of its health after a shot, it receives an !additional! crit based on the direction where the shot came from:
front: main gun destroyed?
side: light engine crit?
rear: heavy engine damage?
this would enable plays and counterplays and it would add another strategical layer

Abadoning is one of the most BS things ever could happen to a game

did you know that you can abandon crit an abandoned tank?

Abandons wouldn't be so bad if recrewed vehicles always were immobilised - so you couldn't easily jump in and drive to safety.

I also like scratchedpaintjob's e-sports aproach.

This community has got so hung up on death crits when there are so much more RNG bullshit that actually decide every game.

How about fixing so models have more space between them when a squad is moving so they don't get wiped by a single tank shell. A fix for flame engineers not to have their flamethrower RNG explode like all the time. Bundle grenades do inconsistent damage for it's cost. Mines still wipes squads too often. Fix the random delay for a MG42 team to actually start firing instead of waiting half a second when you redeploy which allows the enemy to not get supressed and flank the MG.

All these things are more game deciding and frustrating than deathcrits, deathcrits has always been in company of heroes and removing them or reworking them would take a lot of work for little benefit.

Making crits occur on low-HP tanks rather than on tanks that were about to die would definitely be a good idea, as scratchedpaintjob would implement. I'm not quite so sure that purely deterministic crits would be good, tehre is definitely some room for play like a front-hit is 50% chance main gun destroyed, 25% chance gunner killed, 25% chance crew shocked. Arbitrary numbers but yeah, directional crits and crits on low hp rather than death would be good.

Sides should probably have probability of immobilized (broken treads), another crew member injured/killed, crew shock etc. Rear would be engine destroyed/damaged.


The main problem is... there is no side armor in CoH2

side crits cannot be measured as there is no side armour.

This community has got so hung up on death crits when there are so much more RNG bullshit that actually decide every game.

How about fixing so models have more space between them when a squad is moving so they don't get wiped by a single tank shell. A fix for flame engineers not to have their flamethrower RNG explode like all the time. Bundle grenades do inconsistent damage for it's cost. Mines still wipes squads too often. Fix the random delay for a MG42 team to actually start firing instead of waiting half a second when you redeploy which allows the enemy to not get supressed and flank the MG.

All these things are more game deciding and frustrating than deathcrits, deathcrits has always been in company of heroes and removing them or reworking them would take a lot of work for little benefit.

start a thread my man.