A Few Gameplay Observations

While you won't find me in the top 200 I would like to address some concerns I have with the game as it stands. I will do my best to address things in an unbiased approach as this is more about game polish and less about ZOMG I LOVE GERMANS!

1) Slow Infantry Combat leads to perceived RNG

- Since each rifle round is an independent roll from the next it is entirely possible for squads in green cover fighting to catastrophically kill one another.

- In a 100 iteration manual test Birdkiller and I found that his grenadiers won 61-39 over conscripts. (This is not a reflection of grenadiers being substantially stronger just the outcome of our small case study). This test was repeated at mid-range 52-48 and close 59-41. What is important here is that the slow nature of the combat between infantry squads can easily go either way.

- The issue lays in our next test of 100 iterations from mid-range. This test involved 1 squad being in green cover and 1 squad in the open and was repeated twice. The results were 73-27 Grens (Green Cover)-Conscripts (No cover). 22-78 Conscripts (Green Cover)-Grens (No cover).

- While this is not particularly wrong one can see how if you have 3 simultaneous engagements across the map you could easily lose all 3 and be forced to retreat despite have 1 engagement you should win 1 toss up and 1 plausible loss. This can easily cost you much of the early game and while comebacks are not impossible vetted dug in enemy's are certainly harder to get at.

2) Unsupported or Undirected SUPPORT WEAPONS

A. MG42/Maxium Free fire multitargeting is micro that if required would reduce the combat power of idle MGs. This would be an amazing change that would address 2 issues.

(1) MG42 would not insta pin 2 squads if they are foolish enough to turn the same corner allowing for you to remedy the error in your ways. Since the MG would have to be microed it would not allow a blind charge but it would allow you to pull away and break LOS forcing a reposition.

(2) Maxium would not switch targets reducing its killing power on the initial target.

B. Mortars auto fire mode on mortars is particularly annoying from both sides of the field. This causes more fratricide and instant squad kills than it really should. Requiring this micro would particularly reduce some of the more frustrating weapon systems. I will address this in 2 points.

(1) 120mm or the big daddy of mortars can either be a game winner or loser for a soviet player. The auto target function if the RNG gods love you will consistently wipe away squads with zero thought from the operator. For this reason micro should be required on this weapon system end of story.

(2) 81mm mortar while I love this thing for knocking those pesky conscripts out of houses far too often I find my mortar tube goes a little rogue and nails one of my friendly squads. (I understand that the hold fire function exists and use it regularly but I feel that this sweeping change would alleviate many of the issues I see with mortar systems).

C. Anti-tank guns in a constant auto fire mode is broken much like Stephenn and many other players have stated implement a hold fire function.

While I know that this post will either get no one to read it or serious flame from our usual trolls I hope that it does not die in vain because I think some of these changes would make the game feel more fluid and less "You only won because of MG42s" or "That 120mm mortar saved you".

Interesting observations and it seems you guys actually put in a little more effort than usual to produce these results. I believe it deserves at least 1 reply!

I also like your suggestions regarding weapon teams, even though the machine gun teams in particular appear to be quite a touchy subject around here.


Looking forward to seeing Relics own balance vision regarding support weapon teams

Thank you for taking the time to read it at least! I have been playing for some time now and tend to play a bit more soviets as it is my weaker faction and I would like to get better. I was trying to approach these issues from a rational perspective for both sides not just my sole frustrations as one faction.

one question about your gren vs. con comparison.. hope this makes sense..

because cons have more models (6 vs. grens 4) would they not have a higher chance of eliminating the grens down to 2 men - the usual number for retreat - vs. the grens doing that to the cons??

IE: If the test was to see who hit the "retreat threshold" of say, 1,2 or 3 men would cons not do better in this test?

I think this is important to consider because battles are fought until retreat, not until death, unless something goes wrong.

one question about your gren vs. con comparison.. hope this makes sense..

because cons have more models (6 vs. grens 4) would they not have a higher chance of eliminating the grens down to 2 men - the usual number for retreat - vs. the grens doing that to the cons??

IE: If the test was to see who hit the "retreat threshold" of say, 1,2 or 3 men would cons not do better in this test?

I think this is important to consider because battles are fought until retreat, not until death, unless something goes wrong.

I understand completely what you are getting at here and for the purpose of this test we let them kill one another only because while you and I might have a certain perception of when you would retreat another person must retreat sooner or later.

For that reason we let the squads kill one another. It is work noting that only about 5-10 of all of our tests ended with 1 man standing. More often than not it would be 2-3 grens left or 2-3 conscripts.

I hope this answers your question!