(Mr.Smith's) Quality of Life mod

I've updated the mod with the changes to healing outlined here:
https://www.coh2.org/topic/55970/healing-quality-of-life-changes-idea

(I have also updated the OP to keep things better-organised)

I think my next goal should be to give Bulldozer/Scott/Brumbar some AoE barrage ability so that they can keep firing at a particular location even when backing off.

@Mr.Smith Great mod, you could see early warning. I think it's a little strange because is something 'op'





Thanks

A short update on the mod:
- Fixed the remaining bugs on USF/UKF medics. Now, they no will no longer chase after moving units.

This means that you no longer have to worry about the medics straying off into the combat area

Also, some Commando fixes (those guys were a smörgåsbord of bugs...)
- Fixed numerous bugs surrounding Commando ambush
- Gave commando ambush useful UI indications to help the player
- Changed the Vet1 smoke grenade so that it no longer triggers a 10-second cooldown on stealth

@Mr.Smith Great mod, you could see early warning. I think it's a little strange because is something 'op'

It's already fixed (both in Miragefla's mod, and my mod). I just forgot to add it in the changelog. Thanks!

PIATs

I finally managed to implement the following quality-of-life changes to the PIAT:
- Homing projectile, when facing a target directly (without any obstructions)
- PIATs will autofire over hedges, etc, if there are tanks nearby
- (also fixed some wonky squad AI)

Of course, to balance this out, PIATs lose the following:
- Their INSANE deflection damage, which made flanking heavy tanks redundant
- The INSANE range they used to have
- The fact that suppression had no effect on the accuracy of the projectile

In fact, in the QoL version, PIATs now have the shortest range of all handheld AT (30 as opposed to schreck's 35).

Let me know how those fixes pan out, and if PIAT raw performance should be buffed/nerfed further.

AT gun ambush & Hold Fire

I have replaced "Prioritise Vehicles" with "Hold Fire" on the following units which can benefit from stealth:
- JP4
- All AT guns (either natively, or through Soviet AT ambush)

These units will now permanently prioritise vehicles.

As a final addition to the mod, I have added the following:
- Handheld AT (Bazookas/Panzerschrecks/PIATs) have vehicle prioritise permanently on
- Handheld and can attack ground when inside garrisons, or inside vehicles*
- Raketwwerfers also gain access to attack ground ability when garrisoned*
- A possible fix to Valentine/Infrared Halftrack permanent vision bug (it requires a long 4v4 match to test)
- Guards troops can replenish even singular losses PTRS/DP-28 weapons (previously it was only possible to rebuy DP-28's if both of them were lost)

* unfortunately, garrison mechanics are weird:
- In order to access the attack ground command, you need to tab-select the AT unit
- In order for the squad to respect the attack ground command, you need to set a force-faced direction (a & click), otherwise they will ignore it
- Infantry that picks up an AT weapon also gains access to the set-facing command
- Issuing the stop command directly when having the squad selected will cancel the attack-ground command
- I know that there's an overlap between the stop command and unset forced facing for non-grid-key users

I found a fix for a well-known bug with the British "Designate Command Vehicle" ability, as described here:

https://www.coh2.org/topic/56674/brit-command-vehicle
https://www.coh2.org/topic/51725/british-command-vehicle-abilty-bug
https://www.coh2.org/topic/46452/permanently-unavailable-british-designate-command-vehicle
https://www.coh2.org/topic/47278/designate-command-vehicle
https://www.coh2.org/topic/45571/command-vehicle-abandon-bug
https://www.coh2.org/topic/39987/command-vehicle-abandoned

When a command vehicle is abandoned, it's impossible to designate a new one. This is because the ability gives the player an upgrade and remains disabled for as long as that upgrade remains. On abandoning the command vehicle, however, the upgrade is not removed. An easy way to fix this bug is editing the "vehicle_abandon" critical as follows:



I successfully tested the fix. Feel free to include it, if you want!

- Handheld AT (Bazookas/Panzerschrecks/PIATs) have vehicle prioritise permanently on

Does this mean that e.g. Panzerschrecks will only attack vehicles while the guys holding regular rifles will attack anything as they do now?

If so, I think that's not really the best idea because this makes blobs way more efficient.

Right now, if you command a blob with mixed infantry/AT weapons you have to micro those individually, have the squads with AT attack vehicles and the other attack infantry for maximum efficiency.

Also, currently counterplay to these blobs is to move in with infantry first, have the opposing AT squad unload their Bazookas on the infantry and THEN move in with the tanks. This won't work anymore.

Does this mean that e.g. Panzerschrecks will only attack vehicles while the guys holding regular rifles will attack anything as they do now?

Yes. This is what this change accomplishes, precisely.

The counterplay you describe is, exactly, how one deals with AT blobs currently. However, this is completely gimmicky, and hinges on the AT squad having bad DPS-on-the-move (Volks, didn't have issues damaging on the move; and at all ranges, that's why they were so cancerous).

Imo, this quality-of-life change is worthwhile to include in the game:
- I see no reason to deny a player control over their squads, if that control makes so much difference in performance
- This is in-line with the force-facing MGs in building. Previously, you could pop a crappy squad to flank, to make the MG rotate, and then push through with the blob.

You are correct that it might raise some balance concerns. IMO, all handheld-AT deserves a nerf, especially in the following areas:
- range
- deflection damage

However, I don't think it will make that much of a difference:
- PIATs/Zooks have a pretty tight reload cycle, anyway
- Panzerschrecks are pricey and only ever come on clumsy, inconvenient squads.

Since I intent to keep this mod a collection of neutral pluggable-fixes to other mods, I am not planning to put-through any balance changes:
- If this mod were about balance, the first thing that would get nerfed is Airlanding Officer Heroic Charge.
- The PIAT nerfs were necessary, due to the drastic ease-of-use changes, which are very commonly requested (by players and modders alike)

On the flipside, it will take more micro for the AT-player to attack enemy squads (AT still deals non-negligible damage point-blank) or, accidentally blow up their cover.

PS: I am thinking that Luchs needs both a prioritise vehicle button, and a hold-fire button.
- However, both abilities usually occupy the same slot in the grid, and have the same hotkey (H).
- If I had to move one of these abilities to "V" (bottom right), which one should it be?

PS: I am thinking that Luchs needs both a prioritise vehicle button, and a hold-fire button.
- However, both abilities usually occupy the same slot in the grid, and have the same hotkey (H).
- If I had to move one of these abilities to "V" (bottom right), which one should it be?

Put Hold Fire to V. It's closer to the QWEASD keys where your left hand will tend to be and I think Hold Fire will see more button pressing when you need it (e.g. for kiting), while Prioritize Vehicles will probably get clicked once for a while and not again during that while.

Imo, this quality-of-life change is worthwhile to include in the game:
- I see no reason to deny a player control over their squads, if that control makes so much difference in performance

What about a hold-fire toggle instead? This way you can control when and on which target to unload the first volley so more micro is rewarding, while the dreaded A-move blob doesn't become more powerful.

What about a hold-fire toggle instead? This way you can control when and on which target to unload the first volley so more micro is rewarding, while the dreaded A-move blob doesn't become more powerful.

You mean, revert the change to a hold fire ability that disables all weapons while it's active, or just the panzerschrecks?

To me, this just boils down again to more micro for micro's sake. AT guns have a prioritise vehicle function for the express purpose of preventing infantry from baiting their shots. It's only fair that dedicated AT infantry has access to a similar function:
- Somebody paid good money to upgrade that infantry
- With damage nerfs in June patch, giving handheld AT to infantry no longer increases their AI power
- With the added change of completely banning AT infantry from engaging infantry, giving AT weaponry to infantry will completely gimp the unit's damage vs infantry.

Again. This boils down to the following:
- If handheld AT is too potent, nerf its stats
- If handheld AT is too spammable, increase the cost.
- If some units have too much utility in their hands that doesn't depend on equiped weapons (e.g., bundle nade, smoke, snares, minesweeping) while also having access to good AT, then remove the side-utility when AT weaponry are present.

The other reason I want to avoid having too many toggles (or at least make the most common state the default state) is because it looks ugly. When was the last time somebody saw a Jackson/Panther/JP4 without prioritise vehicle on? The rest of the time (i.e., all of it), there's an ugly (but useful) yellow icon hanging atop the tank.

Wouldn't the game look prettier without all those prioritise-vehicle icons saturating the field?

hey,

just noticed all the work made by Mr Smith and the others to fix bugs.
awesome work !

i'm going to make some ai battles to give u feedback on this mod.

i guess we should all spam @Kyle_RE with a link to this mod.

so after 3 ai 4 vs 4 expert mod, i noticed some huge freezes and sluttering, which never happened before.

hey,

just noticed all the work made by Mr Smith and the others to fix bugs.
awesome work !

i'm going to make some ai battles to give u feedback on this mod.

i guess we should all spam @Kyle_RE with a link to this mod. He is lazy enough to just make a copy pasta of it but whatever...

so after 3 ai 4 vs 4 expert mod, i noticed some huge freezes and sluttering, which never happened before.

That is an excellent idea to benchmark the requirements of this mod. Many of the changes in this mod required me to tweak some conditional actions (some of which are checked as often as 100 milliseconds), while others required me to include repeated actions.

1. Is there any chance you can describe what units the AI built, or, even, uploading a replay to this site, so that I can inspect it?

2. Could you repeat the same test by having 4 Soviets vs 4 Soviets battling it out? There's only a handful of things I changed in that faction, and I want to try to see which changes are the heaviest.

I just pushed a tiny update to the mod.

1. Handheld AT weapons (e.g., PIATs/Zook/Schreck), now give squads that carry them a -60% penalty to received experience.

The penalty remains -60% regardless of what type of AT weapon is carried, and regardless of how many weapons are carried.

The rationale behind this is that many players have been stocking their squads with a single zook/etc in order to powerlevel that squad, without hurting AI too much.

2. All TDs (not just JP4) now have vehicle prioritisation permanently on. The affected TDs also receive a hold-fire ability.
- Due to the other changes in the mod, this won't affect coaxial MGs/MG upgrades etc

3. Changed Anvil Advanced Warning so that it now only affects territories by players that upgraded Anvil (previously, it used to affect all allies).
- In the Live version, this ability does absolutely nothing. It's bugged.
- In the QoL mod, the ability used to give sight over all friendly sector points
- With the new change, the ability will only give sight (to all allies), on only those territory points controlled by the player

This is so as to bring the passive ability in-line with OKW Overwatch.

2. All TDs (not just JP4) now have vehicle prioritisation permanently on. The affected TDs also receive a hold-fire ability.
- Due to the other changes in the mod, this won't affect coaxial MGs/MG upgrades etc

Stupid question , is Partisan AT, Boys AT Tommy and British sniper, PTRS form Guard infantry and Conscripts not receive -60% Xp penelity too ? they are also have handheld AT Too .

Stupid question , is Partisan AT, Boys AT Tommy and British sniper, PTRS form Guard infantry and Conscripts not receive -60% Xp penelity too ? they are also have handheld AT Too .

No, it's just Bazooka/Schreck/PIAT.

Although it did occur to me to give a penalty to PTRS as well:
- Given the low burst of AT rifles, 60% would be too much.
- I didn't want to give huge penalties to units that double-wield AT weaponry (otherwise, RIP Panzergrenadiers)
- At the same time, I didn't want units that equip a single AT weapon to be good anti-everything (single-zook Riflemen, Sturmpioneers)
- Due to how the stuff behind the scenes work, giving a penalty to PTRS rifles that is different from the other AT weapons would be either (i) too much effort (ii) inconsistent (e.g., what happens if you have 1 PTRS and 1 Bazooka vs 2 Bazookas or vs 2 PTRS?)
- For the AT-bearing units, if a fix is required, this can be implemented by changing veterancy requirements for the affected units (e.g., Guards).
- In any case, the PTRS really doesn't deal that much damage to help cheat veterancy.

I pushed a new update where I standardized vehicle flamers and infantry flamers.

1. All infantry flamers are a copy-paste of OST flamer.

2. All Vehicle flamers are now a copy-paste of a nerfed-down version of the KV8 flamer*, with a heavy emphasis on long bursts (6 seconds), heavy, and long-lasting dots (15 seconds) rather than direct alpha damage.

That is to say, we are moving away from the "let's wipe your squads on retreat" that the 251 flameHT and the Churchill have been using, to a model with heavy emphasis on area denial; the flames now last 15 seconds, with a decent dot, which means you can use them defensively.

3. You can now use flamer weapons (infantry or vehicle) to burn buildings down, again.
#MakeLienneForestGreatAgain

*each 251 flamer deals precisely half the amount of damage of other vehicle flamers (both directly and in dots), to account for the fact that it's the only vehicle with two flamers.

PS: Despite the massive buff in raw damage that the Flame Hetzer got for the mod, it will still, probably suck pretty hard due to:
- lack of durability
- lack of turret
- cost relative to timing

I found that medic upgrade in the OKW CP make t2 rush safe (no need to worry about infantry MP bleed )
And I'm confuse about the first time i call AT gun ,TD in action. i saw "Hold fire" ability that's why my TD wont shoot anything lol . after toggle it all TD and AT gun only shoot vehicles !!!
nice mod !!!

I found that medic upgrade in the OKW CP make t2 rush safe (no need to worry about infantry MP bleed )

While this is true, I find the lack of micro-free healing even more frustrating (OKW early-game/UKF late-game).

On the flipside, just about every faction has their flavour of budget-cutting shortcuts:
- Lieutenant
- Soviet T1 (and occasionally T4 if call-ins are involved)
- UKF infantry upgrades
- OST, where T2 is the only true "mandatory" tier

Why not give that to OKW too?

A more long-term solution would be to bring light vehicles more in-line with their counters (thus make T2 rush less of a no-brainer). Also give something to T1, tech-wise. Currently, the only true appeal for OKW T1 is the FRP gimmick in team games -- and of course healing.

There are so many good proposals out there to fix this, that it's difficult to pick any single one of them. Thus, I'm going to leave light-vehicle meta as is in the mod.