Sight flares vs Recon planes

They also specifically said that one squad in game exclusively having reduced damage modifier instead of more received accuracy is inconsistent and confusing so that unit had it removed last patch, but here we are with grens.

Not being necessary for the unit to function and having no justification while also not being communicated to the player in any way whatsoever. Uniformity was a small part of that, but shocks show that we're fine with a unit being inconsistent with others as long as this inconsistency is important to the unit's theme, is communicated or even just hinted to the player in at least some way, and actually has a reason to be a part of the unit (this last point being the most important). Shocks' armor fit his all of these things. Ranger damage reduction fit none of them. As someone else pointed out, Ranger tooltips/descriptions could have been changed to communicate the DR, but it still wouldn't have hit the other two points.

Gren damage reduction will be communicated/hinted at to the player, and it does serve a purpose considering how relatively easily they are wiped by explosives. Grens are somewhat thematically weak as units, so I wouldn't say DR adds to their identity, but honestly, the balance implication was the biggest reason here.

yes but the point of the doc was the ability to call in panther without tier 3, now that that is removed people will no longer always pick it + increase of price of nades it was already hit hard

don't get me wrong i do think flare and call in was cheesy but u can't just delete the doc and call it a day exchange for different ability, just recon will be useless

The call in was the point of all - you guessed it - commanders with call in tanks. No commander has regular tanks as call ins anymore, so why should OKW have one?
The nades were too cheap previously and should now be reasonable.
Even if you change the flare to a recon, it's still a very good commander. Line infantry utility - check, heavy tank - check, recon - check. CQC or long range specialization - check.

The reason that OKW always picked Spec Ops was not that other commanders are all bad, just that Spec Ops was outright broken in a way that it was never a bad pick, regardless of the map and the situation you're currently facing.

On the actual topic of flares:

Basically, I would have really pushed for it if I could. I was (IIRC) the one on the balance team to push for replacing spec ops flares with a recon plane, and one of the earlier people in this community to push for it. Unfortunately, said change was considered out of scope for previous patches.

Coming into this patch, it really came down to one question: Can you really see anyone picking spec ops after the command panther changes? The answer, to me, is a resounding no. In fact, infil nades were supposed to go to 25 munitions (not just 20), but even that was rethought given the other changes spec ops was receiving. As far as I and most people on the balance team can tell, spec ops will probably be a competitively dead doctrine after this and nerfing it further (by replacing spec ops flares with a recon plane) would just make things worse. It's an anti-fun ability that never deserved to be in the game, but nerfing the doctrine more would just be a little too much.

Maybe the flares could be replaced, other abilities could be buffed, and bundles could be created, but that's pushing towards a full redesign and the patch is pretty large as is. I wouldn't even know where to start with a redesign, personally.

Try putting in osther panzer tactician smoke instead of flare , or spoting scopes

Try putting in osther panzer tactician smoke instead of flare

That's just exchanging one anti-fun ability that never should have been in the game with another.

Spotting scopes ?

Spotting scopes ?

With the command panther's base 50 sight range and +15 sight range aura...? Would have to pass on that...

With the command panther's base 50 sight range and +15 sight range aura...? Would have to pass on that...

i mean there’s gota be a decent ability to swap with , blitz truck ?221 ?

On the actual topic of flares:

Basically, I would have really pushed for it if I could. I was (IIRC) the one on the balance team to push for replacing spec ops flares with a recon plane, and one of the earlier people in this community to push for it. Unfortunately, said change was considered out of scope for previous patches.

Coming into this patch, it really came down to one question: Can you really see anyone picking spec ops after the command panther changes? The answer, to me, is a resounding no. In fact, infil nades were supposed to go to 25 munitions (not just 20), but even that was rethought given the other changes spec ops was receiving. As far as I and most people on the balance team can tell, spec ops will probably be a competitively dead doctrine after this and nerfing it further (by replacing spec ops flares with a recon plane) would just make things worse. It's an anti-fun ability that never deserved to be in the game, but nerfing the doctrine more would just be a little too much.

Maybe the flares could be replaced, other abilities could be buffed, and bundles could be created, but that's pushing towards a full redesign and the patch is pretty large as is. I wouldn't even know where to start with a redesign, personally.

At the same time, you are butchering Cancer commander which is not meta but cause it's Simcity, no one is gonna bat an eye.
That whole commander is anti fun and never deserved to be in the game, but here we are nerfing it into the ground.

Is it possible to provide some feedback as to when/where the flares are been used?

Maybe the flares could be replaced, other abilities could be buffed, and bundles could be created, but that's pushing towards a full redesign and the patch is pretty large as is. I wouldn't even know where to start with a redesign, personally.

Could you just use the same flare ability from overwatch that just got fixed?

I agree on OKW and UKF flares, but throwing the SOV flare in there too is a bit far fetched.
It requires a vet 1 mortar in range, so it can only be deployed on the front line and you can counter the strategy by wiping the mortar with pushing it or artillery. It also is a bit more micro intensive. OKW and UKF flare is just a two-click ability and you see what you want to see. Nothing else involved.

EDIT:
81mm SOV mortar (standard version) does not require vet to flare, 120mm mortar does need vet 1

+1

Can we change sov stock mortar flare? Make it linger much shorter? Make it cost ammo?
Brit flare to follow okw arti flare too?
Sniper flare at least need vet and seems fitting on this unit.
I think lingering flare breaks the suspense of the game true sight

Can we change sov stock mortar flare? Make it linger much shorter? Make it cost ammo?
Brit flare to follow okw arti flare too?
Sniper flare at least need vet and seems fitting on this unit.
I think lingering flare breaks the suspense of the game true sight

Newsflash sunshine:
It does cost a hefty ammo price, requires a unit and that unit to be relatively close.
You can "spam" it one after another, but if you do, you aren't even going to be able to throw molos.

Don't even attempt to deflect discussion from OKW imba uncounterable flares to anything else, because that anything else was balanced ages ago already.

Can we change sov stock mortar flare? Make it linger much shorter? Make it cost ammo?
Brit flare to follow okw arti flare too?
Sniper flare at least need vet and seems fitting on this unit.
I think lingering flare breaks the suspense of the game true sight

It does cost 30 and has 80 range. Drop height is 18, maybe a member of the balance team can translate how much that is in seconds.
But I don't think that the ability must be shortened, it's good for what it is.

On the actual topic of flares:

Basically, I would have really pushed for it if I could. I was (IIRC) the one on the balance team to push for replacing spec ops flares with a recon plane, and one of the earlier people in this community to push for it. Unfortunately, said change was considered out of scope for previous patches.

Coming into this patch, it really came down to one question: Can you really see anyone picking spec ops after the command panther changes? The answer, to me, is a resounding no. In fact, infil nades were supposed to go to 25 munitions (not just 20), but even that was rethought given the other changes spec ops was receiving. As far as I and most people on the balance team can tell, spec ops will probably be a competitively dead doctrine after this and nerfing it further (by replacing spec ops flares with a recon plane) would just make things worse. It's an anti-fun ability that never deserved to be in the game, but nerfing the doctrine more would just be a little too much.

Maybe the flares could be replaced, other abilities could be buffed, and bundles could be created, but that's pushing towards a full redesign and the patch is pretty large as is. I wouldn't even know where to start with a redesign, personally.

And yet overwatch flares and spotting scopes were nerfed and while both were bullshit they are clearly tier lower than SpecOP flares.

Also what is the scope for this patch? It changed mainline infantry, support weapons, doctrinal abilities and make up of doctrines as well as heavy tanks, its kinda shifty to call flares out-of-scope.

As for SpecOP's viability - it was not picked for techless heavy in larger team games, it was picked for infiltration nades and command vehicle aura and most of all uncounterable recon on demand, nothing has changed in that regard, it will still get abused just for flares. So how it's okay to nerf sim city but refuse to touch flares, unlike flares simcity was always counterable

At the very least, flare can be move to command panther as an ability of the vehicle, now to be use, it will required to be call in from the command panther.

At the very least, flare can be move to command panther as an ability of the vehicle, now to be use, it will required to be call in from the command panther.

While i like this idea, and this would open up a slot in the commander as well, this is more akin to a rework which i'm not sure they are able or not to do.

Reminder that while it sounds "ez" to copy paste functions, there might not be anyone to actually code it and even worst test it. If there was a mod doing this, it could actually be feasible to implement.