British Emplacement Brace Counterplay Ideas

make bofors more expansive or less effective...

u can not allow to build such a cheap unit so early which perform so much OP....thats BS.

- u can get a cheap unit
- which perform very good

choose one...not both.

Intro/TL;DR

I was a bit disappointed to find that the upcoming balance patch wasn't suggesting anything in regards to British emplacements. Basically, the last couple of times I tried to get back into the game, mortar pits and 'sim city' completely ruined the experience for me.

It occurred to me that the main reason for me hating them so much wasn't necessarily that their weapons are powerful. They are powerful, of course, but that has a lot to do with the cost-benefit of a static resource sink (and there are far better people than me for balancing).

No, the main reason is that I couldn't find any reliable counterplay solution to them. Mortar pits are easily built behind obstacles and enemy lines in 1v1, and sim city builds complement each other against any literally any kind of attack in team games.

Anyway, to get to the point, the main problem seems to be the brace ability. I'm sure many, many people have come to the same conclusion in the past. That's not to say it's a completely bad ability, as other teams would greatly benefit from something similar for their static emplacements that have no way of defending themselves against artillery.

It mostly just seems poorly implemented as it offers no counter-play. With a single click it defends against everything for a substantial period of time, offering the British player ample opportunity to respond despite the fact that emplacements are excellent at defending themselves against ground units, they should be defended by other British units anyway, and attackers should be rewarded for getting in close.

So here's my list of ways to potentially improve brace counter-play:

• Make brace a defense against only artillery via target table.
  
  Not 100% realistic, but would be still be highly intuitive from a gameplay perspective. Requires British player to actually defend against ground units.
  
  
• Introduce one or more 'costs' to the ability:
  - While making the emplacement stronger against artillery, make them more vulnerable to close-range weapons like flamethrowers or grenades.
  Rewarding and intuitive gameplay
  
  - Have a small cooldown period afterwards where brace no longer applies but the weapons are not yet recrewed.
  Works for realism and gameplay
  
  - Maybe a small munitions cost.
  The weakest solution and definitely not adequate on its own
  
  
• Make brace automatically spread to all nearby emplacements within a certain radius. Less micro to defend against artillery strikes, but also shuts down sim city to ground attacks.
  
  Requires consideration from British player over cost/benefit, especially if combined with above solutions.
  

What do you think? Did I miss any good points in old threads?

Idea about that brace protects mostly against arty is good idea. But change hat emplacements can be unmanned would work too. For example, making that flamethrowers and other incendiary weapons can kill crews and damage emplacement would work well, and it would be balanced because 1: most incendiary weapons have rather short range, that british player can counter play, but still these flame weapons are threat, and 2:there isn't as many Incendiary weapons as there is arty, so it works in both favours. Both german factions still have way to counter emplacements with fire (ost flame pioneers and halftrack, okw Flame nade and stuka flame barrage) and those who want counter emplacements further can take commanders that have more incendiary weapons (mortar halftrack, flame hetzer)

Of course im not sure is this something that everyone would agree with but this is at least my standpoint. Reply id you have something to correct my view or to make this idea better. Thank you

There are a lot of game mechanisms that aren't fun to fight in each factions. And I'm not sure removing the mortar pit will make Brit funniest to fight.

I never suggested removing the British mortar pit and making them mobile. I think you're referring to someone else's post. All my suggestions are in the first post, but the main points appear to be technically infeasible with the current engine anyway, according to Mr Smith.

I've edited and simplified my original post to try and emphasise a couple of things:

• This wasn't meant to be a standard balance/'y I no win?' suggestion thread. It was about ideas on how core gameplay mechanics could be changed to make them fun/satisfying.
  
  
• My ideas were not very viable anyway. Mr Smith quickly pointed out that they were made impossible by game engine limitations.
  
  Basically, any suggestion you might have can't be dependent on different weapon types being able to differentiate between a regular emplacement and one with brace activated.
  
  

The joke are really their costs.

400 mp for 2 mortars with the widest range and dmg output.
400? the cheap ost mortar costs 240 mp....butr the will have no chance against a british emplacement...and bleed your manpower like hell if u trie this.


30 fuel for a bofors??
30 fuel u get only 222 or a half luchs. yeah...thats really cheap and doesnt let comes your tanks later

You are absolutely corect. An axis player must break his legs to counter an emplacment with maximum efort the brit player can sit back and laugh while clicking a green button. "Lost the emplacment?" "No problem just build another one " its that cheap

I have an idea for brace.

Fire whoever designed it,
Then remove it from the game.

Orrr
Fire whoever designed it,
Reduce brace time/increase recharge time

Annndd
Fire whoever designed it,
Do not allow standfast/brace to be activated at the same time

I have an idea for brace.

Fire whoever designed it,
Then remove it from the game.

Orrr
Fire whoever designed it,
Reduce brace time/increase recharge time

Annndd
Fire whoever designed it,
Do not allow standfast/brace to be activated at the same time

This lol. What an idea...who the hell designed it ?

Brace is broken ability, I know. And I'm not saving anything by saying this, but...

Once, CoH1, my friend(?) spammed simcity and pushed my team all the way back to my base. This was basically a 1v1 in 4v4 in Red Ball Express, so I had no way to flank it.

Then I went double panther and double streck on PG.
I watched his city burn, one by another. He feel so useless that stop playing. That day, his team was destroyed. All of his friend blamed him for losing the ground so quickly.

I admit I don't grab much of Brace situation in 1v1, but in team match, the british does really need it to stay competitive with axis power, albeit annoying.
The last match I faced 3 brit+us. That was great battle because they combined emplacement and combat unit. But they still downed because axis can focus their artillery on one emplacement. Imagining that there was no brace, I believe they would not stand that long.

These are my stories and experiences about Emplacement so no need to be offensive about this.

In the end, I suggest following:
- Reduce Brace dmg reduction 75%->25%.
- Brace now increase armor by ~200.
So when bracing up, weak ap weapon (like mortar) rely on chance to damage while high ap weapon (artillery, atgun, tank cannon) can still threaten emplacement.

End.

Given that emplacements can not move, they are very vulnerable to thought out strategical counters. You can say that it takes little micro or skill to have an emplacement locking a portion of the map down, but the skill and micro comes in defending from a well executed attack on an emplacement.

Come on! In an average level 3v3 or 4v4 game (i.e where emplacements currently get spammed; not high level play, but a specific target of this patch), it is SO easy to defend a sim city against the average opponent.

Royal Engineer Regiment commander for 'Stand Fast' auto-repair to ALL of your emplacements at once for just 50 muni. That in itself pretty much negates the majority of damage from two mortars firing at it for a long period of time, and with a minimal level of micro your mortar pits will shred enemy mortars, or at least force a retreat which will ensure on their return your emplacements will be at full health.

Once 'Stand Fast' is on cool-down, brace can be used for 30 seconds of invulnerability in which you might risk manual repair with a couple of engies.

Even if they manage to take out one pit, you will have been doing huge amounts of damage to them, and the replacement 400mp is absolutely nothing in larger team modes, and will be built in 15 seconds with the couple of engies you almost certainly will have waiting next to your emplacements.

Of course players of a higher standard will be able to effectively and efficiently counter, or those who are communicating to co-ordinate actions, but any 'average' player won't be removing that sim city without later game LeFH spam or OKW offmaps. Even then the Brit player will have the floated resources to switch into Comets and Fireflies, knowing that the opponent has tied up most of their pop cap into specific arty counters to sim city.

Again, this is not high level play, but this is what is going on in the 'average' 3v3 and 4v4. You will see plenty of people in ELO rank 15-20 in these modes successfully crutching on emplacement spam / auto-repair as the backbone the rest of the team build from.