Unit Ranges

At the moment I feel that a number of units have far too much range. ISU152, Elefant, SU85 are the worst / most common offenders. Pak43 is on the edge but I give it a pass because it's immobile so you'll always know where it is and it's extremely vulnerable to any form of artillery.

As team games drag out they become basically artillery fests between these units and it makes me feel like I'm playing the Scheldt on every single map. Coupled with the supreme ease of scouting (recon planes, cone sight, spotting scope), this just isn't fun for me.

I'd like to suggest a rethinking of how these units work to make them more interesting. The goal here is to still keep the flavor of their being long range heavy tanks but make their practical use more in CoH's flavor instead of backline ultra hard counters.

1.) Give ISU152 + Elefant the ability to switch between AP and HE rounds with a 15s cooldown. AP being what the Elefant fires right now, HE being what the ISU152 fires except with way less penetration and slightly reduced splash. Imagine the Tiger from the vCoH expansion campaign a bit. The thought here basically is to make them require some thought / effort from the player and the cooldown prevents them from being good vs everything all the time.

2.) Reduce their range to whatever 1 screen length is (50?).

3.) Reduce cost of both slightly and slightly increase rotation speed. Since they'll be further up they need ability to react faster and without a turret that means rotation speed.

4.) Leave concrete piercing round with its large range to the ISU152 as a munitions based ability. Fires HE round with improved penetration / splash. Basically what it is today.

5.) Give Elefant a slightly less long range barrage similar to SU76 as a munitions based ability. Fires 4 shells over 12 seconds with standard spread.

6.) Reduce SU85 range to same. This obviously requires some work elsewhere to make Sov AT viable without the SU85 in its current state, but in the long run would be good and is outside scope of this.

Thoughts? Flames? Suggestions? I know it's all a bit of a pipe dream on some level but felt like doing some legwork for devs instead of just the usual bitchfest. Thanks.

At the moment i feel like giving the Elefant 200 range.

Plz do not try to fix what is not broken. These super units (Elephant and ISU152) have many week points and can be countered with ease. Many Russian players ignore 152mm howitzer but it is great unit against pretty much everything including Elephant (esp with Vet 1 ability).

Plz do not try to fix what is not broken. These super units (Elephant and ISU152) have many week points and can be countered with ease. Many Russian players ignore 152mm howitzer but it is great unit against pretty much everything including Elephant (esp with Vet 1 ability).

I'm not saying at all that they're uncounterable or that they don't have weaknesses. Just that they're not well designed (in my opinion obviously) and make for stagnant games.

Imagine if the KT in vCoH could fire halfway across the map. Snooze. Far, far less interesting, tactical, and fun than wading knee deep into the frontline and causing some action there.

...

I actually think the range on tanks in general should be increased to encourage scouting and combined arms.

Hm, truth is that units having range further than your screen-view was something that amazed, and attracted me when I first played CoH, all that time ago. I hadn't played an RTS that had done that before, and not so well!

While certainly, there can be a discussion had about the balance of some units having the ranges they do, I don't think there actually being units that can shoot further than the screen is inherently evil.

I actually think the range on tanks in general should be increased to encourage scouting and combined arms.

This is something I could agree with!