A mechanic to prevent blobbing

Strategists on this site continue to amaze me with their hostility towards players. The badge is beyond worthless, it's a shame.

let me explain something to you, helping new and lower level players with content and guides(which just so happen to be the most continually and most viewed things on this site other than the infamous balance shitpostfests, which I guess is where you're finding 'hostility' from strategists) is far from 'worthless.'

Just because one member said something you dont like, doesn't mean an entire section of people and the work they do is 'worthless.' If a post is truly offending to you, report it and it will be handled.

tobis could've worded his post better to not be as insulting and condescending towards an experienced player thats just frustrated with a lame mechanic/tactic, and ill give you that. but that other drivel about a 'worthless badge' is pretty unnecessary, and just straight up false.

so do me a favor, and btfo.

Unfortunately, this isn't how suppression works. It will make suppressing squads in targetable cover more easily.
It would also affect suppression rate on 6 man squads.

Didn't think of that. Guess it's a bit tricky; but something really needs to be done. Perhaps have a second "open ground" AoE suppression stat on units, that can only come into play when not in cover? That way targeting squads in cover would still be the same, but blobs in the open would get increased suppression.

Also not sure how this would effect 6-man squads, since AoE suppression (iirc) only stacks onto other squads, not onto itself. If you mean 6-man squad AoE stacking onto other 6-man squads, then that makes sense. Again, a separate "open ground" stat could simply have a cap that limits the added AOE suppression to that of a 4-5man squad.

I still think it's possible, but it would need to be tested in a mod, and tested very, very extensively.

Says who? What is "too much", and who is firing at those defensive positions? What kinds of numbers are people imagining here?

Alright.

Basically anyone defending anything (i.e. VPs) is going to get hit by this, since defending (by nature) means having a bunch of units close together (see Trois Points 2v2 map mid VP). If that received accuracy nerf is something like 0.15 (because it's stacked or something), that basically means that all your units are going to take +15% damage from things that can 'miss' (i.e. other infantry). That would end up getting insanely out of hand with units that fire a TON of shots (centaur, M15 AA, Wirble, etc.), since all of them would be getting essentially a +15% damage buff vs. all infantry (this includes AT guns).

I don't think people realize how incremental modifiers work (exponentiating a fixed modifier by a number of entities in a certain radius).

We do; that's why it gets so crazy. Let's say that it's a multiplying 1.05x received accuracy (per 4 models), and our unit has a 1.0 received base. So one unit gets 1.0, two units get 1.05, three units 1.105... then it starts getting bad: 1.158, 1.22, 1.276... So at 6 units within stacking range you're getting around 27.6% more damage. Now, 6 is pretty high, but not unreasonable in defensive positions. Again, looking at Trois Points mid VP: You've got an MG, two gren squads, an AT gun, a Pgren squad (shreks) and possibly a Pio squad to repair your vehicles. And that's for Wehr; for Sov or USF, who have big squads (~6 models), you'd be seeing that 1.276 mult at 4 squads.

If it were an MG firing (suppression AoE), it's not that bad. The focused unit takes 1x suppression, and any units within some range (~10m? can't remember) take a fraction of that - and since it's a fraction, it takes forever for the suppression on AOE'd units to actually come into effect.

Received accuracy would be a toggle. Anything within range just takes more damage. Defending as soviets would be basically impossible (everything is 6man...), USF would have an even harder time, small axis squads would get wiped even faster.... It's just not very good.

Aah man, all these numbers and variables. This is why I had a feeling this would not be an easy thing to do...

They could have it so units supressed by aoe supression lose the defensive bonus quicker. It wouldnt hurt defensive lines because supression is generally used most on the defence, it wouldnt effect slightly spread units, only mindless blob. The ONLY way to make sure blobbing isnt effective is to make it unsustainable. Supression mechanics give too much "blob safety" by reducing their damage.

so do me a favor, and btfo.

Grammar nazi alert - I believe the term you are looking for is "gtfo" as "btfo" is not correct in this grammatic context. "Get btfo" would be correct.

But seriously, allow me to explain myself at least. A certain level of standard is expected from a forum badge, even a green one. Which is why I tend to notice when they behave haughty and superior to other players, as opposed to regular posters whose l2pposting just whooshes past my head. I've noticed the strategists' attitudes to new and experienced players before and have actually exchanged words with senior mods about this problem. I think the contents of the discussion would surprise you. Now obviously I am not going to post the details of private messages publicly, but they are available on PM if you do not believe me.

My point is, a few bad apples absolutely can spoil the bunch. How does the badge in and of itself have any worth if it's a crapshoot whether the guys having the badge will be helpful members of the community, or dismissive / constantly questioning people's skill when ever a potentially valid argument is put forward?

Perhaps it is my fault for expecting too much of a badge that indicates nothing more than that the user contributed to the guides section (which you are rightfully proud of). But when I see "strategist" I think "I should listen to this guy, he knows what he is talking about". If I have offended anyone who does useful work for the community, I will gladly personally apologize for my generalization. It was not my wish to derail the thread and I don't mind going to PM if you wish to take this discussion further.

I don't see the problems with blobing. It is only effective if you don't have suppression and/or arty. Suppression is very effective since squads usually get suppressed in 1-2 seconds of being shot. USF & OKW are the factions where you have to go out of your way for suppression but the upcoming changes should make it easier to get. Also OKW has obers & light tank so they don't lack anti-inf. The only strong blob is volk shrek blob since they can go in to one shot a vehicle and retreat.

I find it counter intuitve and visually confusing that three squads clumped together will be just as hard to hit as if they were spread out when it comes to small arms, especially when explosives and tank shells act the way you would expect, doing more damage to clumps of units. For that reason alone, a mechanic like this is something i would like to see in the CoH series at some point, though I have no clue if something like that could work here.

As for bottle necks ... Well, it would be a danger you accept when you run many squads into the same small corridor. Just like you're already taking a risk with bottlenecks when the enemy has mortars.

If you wanted a realistic way to handle it, it wouldn't be that the rec acc goes up in a blob, it would be that bullets were modelled balistically, and missing one person might result in hitting another model clumped up nearby. This is the real world reason why soldiers don't march in tight formations clumped up in battlefield situations against accurate, massed enemy fire.

I find it counter intuitve and visually confusing that three squads clumped together will be just as hard to hit as if they were spread out when it comes to small arms, especially when explosives and tank shells act the way you would expect, doing more damage to clumps of units. For that reason alone, a mechanic like this is something i would like to see in the CoH series at some point, though I have no clue if something like that could work here.

As for bottle necks ... Well, it would be a danger you accept when you run many squads into the same small corridor. Just like you're already taking a risk with bottlenecks when the enemy has mortars.

We need Cruzz, Smith or whoever has more knowledge, but there's already a mechanic implemented on the game that works like that.

We need Cruzz, Smith or whoever has more knowledge, but there's already a mechanic implemented on the game that works like that.

Wait really? You mean it already works that way, or just that the mechanic exists in some capacity?

Grammar nazi alert - I believe the term you are looking for is "gtfo" as "btfo" is not correct in this grammatic context. "Get btfo" would be correct.

But seriously, allow me to explain myself at least. A certain level of standard is expected from a forum badge, even a green one. Which is why I tend to notice when they behave haughty and superior to other players, as opposed to regular posters whose l2pposting just whooshes past my head. I've noticed the strategists' attitudes to new and experienced players before and have actually exchanged words with senior mods about this problem. I think the contents of the discussion would surprise you. Now obviously I am not going to post the details of private messages publicly, but they are available on PM if you do not believe me.

My point is, a few bad apples absolutely can spoil the bunch. How does the badge in and of itself have any worth if it's a crapshoot whether the guys having the badge will be helpful members of the community, or dismissive / constantly questioning people's skill when ever a potentially valid argument is put forward?

Perhaps it is my fault for expecting too much of a badge that indicates nothing more than that the user contributed to the guides section (which you are rightfully proud of). But when I see "strategist" I think "I should listen to this guy, he knows what he is talking about". If I have offended anyone who does useful work for the community, I will gladly personally apologize for my generalization. It was not my wish to derail the thread and I don't mind going to PM if you wish to take this discussion further.

I don´t want to derail the thread but I feel the need to step in for tobis.
In all of my state Office threads he has helped me a lot, invested lots of time to watch my replay and even explained stuff further via PM.
Overall he was very friendly and helpful to me. And besides that I think that the balance section of the forums is really a toxic place where everyone is very inclined to his own opinion in general. Everyone is human even if a Batch is handed out and even strategists have a right to express their opinion.

And since we´re speaking about prove, just look at my thread in the Ostheer state Office.

Anyways sorry for offtopic. Can´t really say much to the Topic, except that I really wish there was a way to get rid of blobbing. It still is too effective although counters exist imo. And since I´m on the low end of the ladder I really see it often....very often..

So I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I'm of course not sure how this would play out in an actual game. This idea may have been expressed in the past but anyways: wouldn't it be possible to punish blobbing by giving two (or more) squads that are completely clumped up together some kind of recieved accuracy nerf? When you think of it, it would be pretty darn accurate to a real life situation, units bunched up are simply easier to hit.

there are so many situation where you can't do better than clumped up together squads... It would be unfair in that regards.

i agree with 3+ units. what if we make green cover negate this? like 3 clump with one of the unit in green cover mean 2 units are clumped.

There is a lot of tools to counter blobs, you should be happy when your ennemy is blobbing, he is gonna lose a lot quickly

Wait really? You mean it already works that way, or just that the mechanic exists in some capacity?

NOTE: this is from August 2015

Burst small arms and focus_fire: false

HMGs and a select number of other small arms have focus_fire: false. What this option does is effectively give every bullet two chances to hit, once as normal and if that one misses then it will check the scatter area for another target and try another hit roll. This is effectively extra damage (and suppression for HMGs) spread over random targets next to whatever you're firing at. You can see this effect with the Kubel pretty easily as it often leaves squads with a lot of models but low health due to on average firing 1.8 bullets at random targets for every 1 that hits the model it's firing on.


Small arms with focus_fire: false:
BAR
Grease Gun
hmg42
mp40
mp44
ppsh
Maxim
DSHK
hmg34
fg42
kubel
OKW mp44

Interesting... It might need to be toned up.. I mean for a mechanic such as this to be in game and nobody know that it is kinda defeats the purpose imo....

I'm 100% for a blobbing penalty. Perhaps it should be 4 squads in tight formation though as 3 seems a bit few and most of the worst blobbers go for 4+ anyway. Either heightened received accuracy or a negative cover bonus and some kind of indicator so you can at least see what's happening.