Balancing Indirect Fire

Hi there!

I had a thought about how to keep the intended purpose of the light indirect fire weapons (mortars (mobile and the pit)and the light howitzers making them less spectacularly lethal.

So, as we all know the purpose of the light indirect fire weapons is to disrupt enemy formations/defenses, thus making it easier for your forces to win their engagements. The current performance of indirect fire weapons certainly accomplishes that, but I feel that it goes too far in terms of pure lethality. Indirect fire should force the opponent to move their units around, not wipe them out wholesale (small squads in particular).

There are two possible solution I have in mind: the first is to properly space out squads to make them more resilient to AoE weapons and reduce frustrating wipes. I feel like this would be the solution that requires the least changes as it should be a fairly simple task to copy-paste the spacing of well-spaced squads like Infantry Sections and Paratroopers into other units.

The second solution is to remove autofire from light indirect weapons, leaving them with only barrages. Now, the cooldowns would have to be lowered of course, but I feel that without autofire indirect fire weapons would be less lethal to units as they wouldn't be able to "track" targets, but simply deny an area of the map, fulfilling the aforementioned purpose of indirect fire.

Let me know what you guys think.

I always thought that removing the auto-fire and making it just barrages with quick cooldowns would be better, but what about attack ground?

The enemy can just move out of the barrage making you wait to be able to use the next barrage which would be annoying even with a quicker cooldown, this would only make the Mortar useful for breaking up concentrated positions

Now I support putting a bigger micro tax on the mortar, so I would say remove auto-fire and leave the barrage abilities as is but you also need to leave attack ground or replace that with an ability so players that actually micro the mortar are allowed to "track" mobile enemy units by using the ability while any of the other abilities are on cooldown, or just leave it bombing a building to get a nasty MG out at the end rewarding the player who is actually mircoing

Edit: Remove auto-fire and remove cooldowns on normal barrages

I always thought that removing the auto-fire and making it just barrages with quick cooldowns would be better, but what about attack ground?

The enemy can just move out of the barrage making you wait to be able to use the next barrage which would be annoying even with a quicker cooldown, this would only make the Mortar useful for breaking up concentrated positions

Now I support putting a bigger micro tax on the mortar, so I would say remove auto-fire and leave the barrage abilities as is but you also need to leave attack ground or replace that with an ability so players that actually micro the mortar are allowed to "track" mobile enemy units by using the ability while any of the other abilities are on cooldown, or just leave it bombing a building to get a nasty MG out at the end rewarding the player who is actually mircoing

Mortars and other indirect fire weapons are meant to disrupt the enemy, not win the engagement for you. By forcing them to move away from an advantageous position your infantry's job is now that much easier.

To clarify, when I say lower barrage cooldowns, I mean somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-10 seconds, thus rewarding a microing player with almost constant support.

Mortars and other indirect fire weapons are meant to disrupt the enemy, not win the engagement for you. By forcing them to move away from an advantageous position your infantry's job is now that much easier.

To clarify, when I say lower barrage cooldowns, I mean somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-10 seconds, thus rewarding a microing player with almost constant support.

Yeah thats what I meant pretty much, nothing is more annoying than to move an infantry squad and you get bombed by the mortars and the enemy didnt even click once

But still making the barrage be real short is probably the best so if for example you bomb an AT gun and he moves it and you know where it is you can continue bombing its new position

Yeah thats what I meant pretty much, nothing is more annoying than to move an infantry squad and you get bombed by the mortars and the enemy didnt even click once

But still making the barrage be real short is probably the best so if for example you bomb an AT gun and he moves it and you know where it is you can continue bombing its new position

That would certainly work.

Yeah thats what I meant pretty much, nothing is more annoying than to move an infantry squad and you get bombed by the mortars and the enemy didnt even click once

But still making the barrage be real short is probably the best so if for example you bomb an AT gun and he moves it and you know where it is you can continue bombing its new position

Should we also implement this for HMG, ATgun etc... all units in fact. If you don't give them direct order they stay here and do not fight.
There are many ways to reduce their effectiveness, but removing auto-fire is just bad and already tested with the ISG/Pak and considerate as bad idea at the end.

Should we also implement this for HMG, ATgun etc... all units in fact. If you don't give them direct order they stay here and do not fight.
There are many ways to reduce their effectiveness, but removing auto-fire is just bad and already tested with the ISG/Pak and considerate as bad idea at the end.

Comparing Mortars with other units such as an MG and Pak you actually have to micro much more as you cant shoot units outside of its arc of fire and their position is often more important such as putting MGs behind Green Cover or making sure there isnt many shock blockers the enemy can dip around, overall theyre more risk vs reward compared to mortars
The test for the ISG/Pack Howie was because they had suppression

Everytime you see a Mortar its behind a building or a screen of enemy forces so often unreachable unless flanking (which can be dangerous) or building your own indirect and when you do get a flank off it often isnt that successful as they just need to retreat or brace there is no reason for them to stay and fight and unless Im winning theyre just gonna comeback, now some factions do have good stock counters like the Stuka Halftrack for OKW but otherwise it will either be overrun them with your units or build your own indirect to have an arty fest

But the problem I have is that they should only be effectiveness vs static forces but still if you be mobile the mortars will slowly tear you down

Now if you take cover behind something and the enemy has a mortar nearby he doesnt have to do anything literally nothing for that Mortar to attack you it will do it by it self then if I move a squad to a different position guess what Im still being bombarded until I leave its range or kill it, Im putting in all that micro to avoid a mortar while the owner of the mortar isnt even controlling the mortar

While say a Pak or MG you can fight somewhere else so it cant reach you and if it actually wants be apart of a battle it will have to move and if I am forced to fight, I can smoke or try to stay outside of its arc all the while forcing the enemy to reposition his team weapons

Unless you're a Brit Team Game player who's only strategy is emplacements then you shouldnt have much of a problem with the Mirco tax this puts on you

I don't agree with removing auto fire, that would make the units useless. What needs to be done is nerfing indirect fire VS foot/line infantry. Right now investing in foot infantry in teamgames and 1v1 2v2's is just a giant manpower bleed because motars, especially in pairs, completely kick the shit out of line infantry.

Right now best way to counter motor duo's is to invest in sniper(s) which not every faction has access to. Right now OKW is suffering because they are getting blown apart by motars, and USF would be suffering too if they didn't have the best motar in the freaking game.

Motar duos (and emplacement strats) also have the negative side effect of slowing the game down, and adding half an hour to the already long games.

Adjustments need to be made to the accuracy of motars, especially the USF and UKF ones.

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Like I say, there are many ways to reduce mortar impact vs static units in cover. Like I suggested on the gren topic, give Gren/other units a defensive bonus vs indirect fire while not moving in cover.

Relic could also implement an arc of fire for USF/OST/Sov mortars like Pak and ISG have so they, at least, need to re-position if you are flanking them. And maybe nerf the packing/unpacking time of those units making them much more vulnerable to flanking.

there are plenty of options before reaching such unilateral nerf like you propose.

Like I say, there are many ways to reduce mortar impact vs static units in cover. Like I suggested on the gren topic, give Gren/other units a defensive bonus vs indirect fire while not moving in cover.

Relic could also implement an arc of fire for USF/OST/Sov mortars like Pak and ISG have so they, at least, need to re-position if you are flanking them. And maybe nerf the packing/unpacking time of those units making them much more vulnerable to flanking.

there are plenty of options before reaching such unilateral nerf like you propose.

It was the 2nd option suggested by the creator of the thread

You'd be taxing the normal, casual none-competitive players too much, I'm not even sure half of them even know ground fire exists.

Spacing out infantry sounds better, you pay the price for having 2 squads bunched up and taking up all of the little spaces in a cover position.

Man having mortars with some sort of forward observers as their eyes would be awesome tho, as in, they can only bomb what their observer sees and relies back to them like in reality.

I'm all for reducing all these micro-less easy RNG wipes. Though I'd say if auto fire were to be removed, then normal barrage should not have a cooldown. Or just tune mortars to be like they were in vCoH, with barrage being more deadly than auto fire, which had lower damage (IIRC).