Echelon Grenades

This thread is so full of people who have never faced a mortar in their life.

This thread is so full of people who have never faced a mortar in their life.

Different.
Mortars all cost more for starts, what's more they are very unlikley to be capping points so they impact field control as well as army composition. Nor are they quite as mobile and take longer to get on target with their HE as well as their smoke. A mortar also can't fall back and do rear duties if the enemy adapts to a more mobile playstyle making them a smidge les forgiving in that regard as well. I have also never had to dig a mortar out of a building (mortar pits and removed Ost trench garrisons not withstanding)

Anything that can inflict a fair deal of micro without really costing any will be viewed as powerful. When you can do it passively it's even stronger (see old mega range mortar pit) when you can do that and still have a fallback job and mitigate some of the opportunity cost then it gets even stickier. Imagine if mortars were helping repair panthers at 35 min in the game...

Honestly I’m a huge fan of US forces getting riflegrenades. Historically the US Army utilized a TON of M7 and M8 riflegrenade launchers for M1 Rifles and M1 Carbines respectively.

(Don’t listen to imperial Dane when he claims you don’t need a launcher for US riflegrenades, he doesn’t know crap about small arms. Lol)

Linked is a Table of Organization and Equipment for a US Army Rifle Company. This old site is actually a great resource for TO&Es for US, Commonwealth and German armed forces of various stages of WWII.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100211073631/http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/toe/example_toe.htm

Honestly I’m a huge fan of US forces getting riflegrenades. Historically the US Army utilized a TON of M7 and M8 riflegrenade launchers for M1 Rifles and M1 Carbines respectively.

The idea is neat, it's the implementation I don't like. It doesn't require skill or thought to counter, just constant attention. Mechanics that rely entirely on overloading the opponent's micro in order to be effective are irritating mechanics.

If it's meant to be like a mini-mortar, make it like a mini-mortar. Don't make them dodgeable: make them explode in impact and scale their damage accordingly.

If it's meant to be like a grenade, make it like a grenade. It's a targeted ability with a cooldown and a more substantial blast.

I don't understand what's desirable to anyone about the annoying yet impotent halfway house we have now.

This thread is so full of people who have never faced a mortar in their life.

Perhaps giving a starting unit the power of a mortar may be a tad imbalanced?

Perhaps giving a starting unit the power of a mortar may be a tad imbalanced?

Perhaps not staying at maximum range with your gren blob and actually closing in will fix your problem?

And to the guy saying "but dey defndud by BAR RIfulZ", so use 2 panzergrens and steamroll them over, single dual bar rifle aren't going to stop that in any way and most certainly RET rifles aren't, cost should be similar.

.. Hopefully balance team is much smarter than to remove a new upgrade a week after release because it taxes an axis players micro in an annoying fashion.
...

Hopefully people will stop arguing about axis and allied players.

The mechanic is either good or bad regardless if it is in axis or allied unit.

The idea is neat, it's the implementation I don't like. It doesn't require skill or thought to counter, just constant attention. Mechanics that rely entirely on overloading the opponent's micro in order to be effective are irritating mechanics.

If it's meant to be like a mini-mortar, make it like a mini-mortar. Don't make them dodgeable: make them explode in impact and scale their damage accordingly.

If it's meant to be like a grenade, make it like a grenade. It's a targeted ability with a cooldown and a more substantial blast.

I don't understand what's desirable to anyone about the annoying yet impotent halfway house we have now.

They explode on a timer because that’s how the real ones worked. The US fielded many types of rifle grenades, but the most common two were the M9 anti tank rifle grenade, and the adapter that allowed regular Mk2 fragmentation grenades to be fired from the rifle. These types armed when they launch and then had the regular 3-5 second fuze that a regular Mk2 grenade had. So when you fact in the flying time, they usually would explode a second or two after landing, depending on distance, angle and time in flight.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_grenade_adapter

The problem isn't that you need to 'micro around it', the problem is the person on the receiving end needs to micro a ton to counter a unit requiring nearly zero. This means that the USF player can focus on micro'ing rifles/tanks, while forcing the opponent to do more for essentially 'free'.

Micro/Effort should be proportional; if it takes a ton of micro to pull off, it should require a ton to counter. Similarly, if it requires almost no effort, it shouldn't be very hard to avoid. This is why off-map has flares and a long delay; it's a 1-click low-effort ability, so it requires basically one click (a move command) to avoid it.

Sorry but rifle grenade withouth that hitting ground is almost nothing

It can be easily countered with cqc and even if its "annoying" any good player will micro most engagements anyway. Even if the complains were justified its too late to remove this from the commander.

It can be easily countered with cqc and even if its "annoying" any good player will micro most engagements anyway. Even if the complains were justified its too late to remove this from the commander.

You could easily remove it. CoH 2 has a long history of removing commander abilities for a whole variety of reasons.

I think a few adjustments to make it more useful as a garrison clearer rather than just a micro-taxer would be better though.

You could easily remove it. CoH 2 has a long history of removing commander abilities for a whole variety of reasons.

I think a few adjustments to make it more useful as a garrison clearer rather than just a micro-taxer would be better though.

This was a community vote, tested for weeks (with a lot of feedback) and very VERY recent so I don't see it happening. Its totally different bruh

Just use your stupid OP Assault Grens and too early Panzergrens. How is this even an issue?

Just use your stupid OP Assault Grens and too early Panzergrens. How is this even an issue?

Just as it is too soon to call RE riflegrenades OP it is also too early to call the new Assault Grenadiers OP.

I think the newly moved Panzer Grenadiers hit a bit too early, but they aren’t OP.

Time will tell if it is OP or not. I would base my opinions on high level players and how they perform with them. Then we will see if things need to be adjusted.

Just as it is too soon to call RE riflegrenades OP it is also too early to call the new Assault Grenadiers OP.

I think the newly moved Panzer Grenadiers hit a bit too early, but they aren’t OP.

Time will tell if it is OP or not. I would base my opinions on high level players and how they perform with them. Then we will see if things need to be adjusted.

They aren't OP, they are a frustrating game mechanic.

You don't need time to tell that this is the only infantry grenade ability in the game that auto fires and you can't aim. It doesn't reward skilled play from either the usf player OR the axis player.

Make the ability cheaper, make it a free targeted ability once unlocked, give it a 15 second cooldown.

Suddenly it's a good ability that rewards skilled USF players instead of relying on the whim of where the ai shoots it. It will also become less frustrating for the axis to play against.

They aren't OP, they are a frustrating game mechanic.

You don't need time to tell that this is the only infantry grenade ability in the game that auto fires and you can't aim. It doesn't reward skilled play from either the usf player OR the axis player.

Make the ability cheaper, make it a free targeted ability once unlocked, give it a 15 second cooldown.

Suddenly it's a good ability that rewards skilled USF players instead of relying on the whim of where the ai shoots it. It will also become less frustrating for the axis to play against.

A grenade volley kind of ability. Sort of the assault grenades but weaker and longer ranged.

I can see all of the arguments in this thread, and understand where they’re coming from, but this is a tough one. If you gave the REs a 60 muni upgrade that was like a free gren rifle nade, would that be fair? Grens have to pay every time. Would it be fair if you made them pay for the upgrade, but also made it cost munis each time you use it?

So far, the suggestion I like the most is to keep the 60 muni cost for the upgrade, but make the ability free but on a cool down. On top of that though, because the ability isn’t that strong like that, I’d give REs something else with the upgrade like a flame nade.

Edit: and by ability free but on a Cooldown after upgrade, I mean, as it is now not like a gren rifle nade

The idea is neat, it's the implementation I don't like. It doesn't require skill or thought to counter, just constant attention. Mechanics that rely entirely on overloading the opponent's micro in order to be effective are irritating mechanics.

If it's meant to be like a mini-mortar, make it like a mini-mortar. Don't make them dodgeable: make them explode in impact and scale their damage accordingly.

If it's meant to be like a grenade, make it like a grenade. It's a targeted ability with a cooldown and a more substantial blast.

I don't understand what's desirable to anyone about the annoying yet impotent halfway house we have now.

+1

Perhaps giving a starting unit the power of a mortar may be a tad imbalanced?

Nobody tell this man about sturmpios. Or flamethrowers.

Rear echelon riflenades are also way worse in every way than a mortar except for the fact that they don't have to setup or pack up. Not quite the "power of a mortar" as much as just kinda looking the same-ish as a mortar.

After like 5 1v1 games as USF, my build order has been 4xRE to LT and 2xMG and here's what I think. The riflenade damage output is good, not too strong and not too weak. now considering, that the upgrade costs 60 muni, it is worth mentioning that in the early game I didn't really feel the impact. But I did have the capping power which was nice. Later stages, the riflenades will do enough damage to idle squads and MG's if I manage to flank well enough, so its extra micro for my opponent. Tho keeping RE's alive requires extra attention.

Right now, its assgren + pgren blob vs riflenades and Its a good counter for this sort of axis strategy (most players play wehr atm). I haven't played anyone top50 yet, so I think this strategy is fairly difficult against a good opponent as it does require a good micro to pull off. It's a gimmic strat and I do believe this will ease off soon enough. I personally see that RE's gain a little boost with the upgrade, nothing game breaking. Also, mp bleed is quite heavy with RE's constantly dying.

Considering Team games, I had success in both 2v2 games I had, but it wasn't easy, both games dragged to 1H mark and RE's weren't the backbone of my army.

I do like the commander, but seriously, riflenades aren't as op as I read from this thread. They are different for sure, but not gamebreaking and I wouldn't mind them being as they are, a little flavor to the commander.

Now I will get some games as axis and see what others do with them.

When you're facing flamethrowers, you have to micro your units out of cover or they'll take extra damage. Facing RET Riflenades, you have to micro your units to move a bit after you hear the ping. You even have an extra second before detonation and longer range means longer reaction time. I personally don't see how this is really any different from flamethrowers.

They're even pretty easy to counter compared to flamers by rushing within 20 range (their minimum firing distance).