. SG:. RedxWings
76561198044633234 |
Commandos Doctrine is a very solid commander when it works, except for the fact that the glider is so expensive
and comes with a 4-minute cooldown (probably the longest cooldown in the game, currently?)
The doctrine is, situational however, since most of its abilities either only operate on a sector-level, or they only benefit specific squads (e.g., smoke raid only really helps commandos, and assault only really helps tommies).
Agreed, most abilities in the doctrine are actually quite useful, but it is tough to utilize everything.
Out of all commanders in the game, assuming that the abilities become individually useful and balanced with respect to one another, it's probably the commander that would be the most interesting to play with global cooldown on all abilities (like UKF faction conception)
I'm pretty sure that what was initially done with commando doctrine when it first came out. I find that fairly frustrating because there is a lot of abilities that can be chained in commando doctrine that can have quite a devastating effect. (e.g. smoke raid + mortar cover + commando insertion). However if the abilities themselves become way too powerful, might be best to do a short global cool down + unique ability cool down.
It would be interesting to try giving hold fire to all units, but limit stealth (i.e., make it so that you require cover).
The version of smoke raid I would be more inclined to try is targeting a particular location which causes smoke to start dropping in a big radius around that point. The ability could definitely drop yellow-cover smoke to allow units to stealth to the objective; then we could experiment with vision obscuring and shot-blocking smoke.
The benefit of having this version of the ability is that you can have a doctrine focussed around sneaky assaults. However, don't think it's interesting to keep the stealth-anywhere behaviour of current smoke raid.
I agree with the hold fire, but frankly coordinating a push while using smoke raid is really hectic. Also interesting tidbit about how strong the camo is, it should be scaled down but cover only camo might hamper any aggressive plays. Maybe something like the ostheer sniper cloak? (or whatever is slightly weaker than the commando camo)
Also make the radius of the smoke large enough, because currently smoke raid is like a stimulus overload for the enemy - smoke dropping everywhere, camo units appearing from nowhere, fake and real smoke (now that I know that exists, though it would be nice to tell which is which). It would be nice to keep that type of stimulus overload with the rework because it's an interesting concept.
Sprinting Tommies are amazing. Tommies never hit anything when they move in the first place. You can use sprint to relocate to cover, dodge grenades, or even kite enemies (with 60 secs duration, there's no rush). Assault is also probably the only reason you would ever want to tech Brit grenades. Try it; it's seriously scary and fun!
One of the downers of the ability is that it only affects infantry sections, and that kind of forces unit composition to go a particular way. This makes the doctrine restrict your playstyle than enhance it.
Sprint tommies are nice, but when using them it's not like they are meant to be in your face so to say, unlike commandos or royal engis. So it feels really weird when the ability called assault is really to try to find cover for infantry sections. (Teching nades will work but commando doctrine is currently fairly munitions heavy, which is why I won't tech for it if I plan to use other abilities).
I would make the insertion super-cheap; like 390MP, and also allow the glider to reinforce even in enemy territory. Thus, you can use the insertion operation to support an infantry operation to the frontline (since you don't have a halftrack if you picked the doctrine).
The cooldown should, of course become reasonable since 4 minutes is insane.
I am personally against the idea of allowing commandos to spawn from the glider to force players to use the glider offensively and to keep it more unique from Vanguard doctrine.
I actually like the current implementation of commando insertion (force spawn commandos at any place is powerful). I see where other people are coming from by wanting to build commandos from the glider, but I think the forward reinforce plane even in unfriendly territory is a good buff. That being said, keeping it at 500mp would be ok or reducing it just a tad bit. Forward reinforce can be a powerful tool. |
Fun game. (and a small part of me is really happy I won despite his bm gg)
Also commando regiment planes are weird as hell, makes pathing wonky. |
I'll provide feedback for the brit commando doctrine, since no one has already.
Smoke raid operation:
I actually love this ability but it is a little tough to actually coordinate the push. For those unaware, what this ability does it for each infantry unit (+ support weapons too? Don't remember.) in friendly territory it drops a smoke pot on the unit. Units inside will cloak (including support weapons) and have commando like camo briefly. Points will be neutralized faster.
It might be helpful to for this ability to either dictate where the smoke is being dropped so that I can plan around it; it's simply too much to keep track of when you have lots of units moving around. I suggest something similar to the tactical support scavenge royal engineer call in, where it highlights on the minimap where the wrecks are, or something similar to that effect.
Another suggestion is to have smoke drop on the borders of a neutral territory (enemy if you find this too powerful) and a friendly connected territory, which will help the ability be more consistent.
Assault:
This ability is iffy for me. What this does is a slew of recon planes will sweep the area and infantry sections only will be on sprint and have an accuracy buff. Having sprinting infantry sections sound nice, but being unable to fire on the move can make the whole assault theme of this ability more like "find cover for the infantry sections" theme.
I'd suggest giving the ability to have infantry sections fire on the move, with the caveat of reducing the sprint just a little bit, disallowing weapons to be able to be fired on the move, and reducing the assault munitions just a tad bit.
Commando Insertion:
The main complaint of this is that one would think that the commando doctrine is less commando-y than the vanguard doctrine. To get one commando you would need 500 mp from the commando doctrine, while to get one commando from vanguard, you would need 890 mp but you get the airlanding officer + forward retreat point, which is worth the difference imo. The difference in mp shrinks if you want to build more commandos.
However, I like the aggressive aspect of the commando insertion, but it's worth while to facilitate a change to bring the commando aspect into the commando doctrine. Leave the insertion as is, but if the player decides to call in the glider defensively, within friendly territory, give a possible upgrade to the glider to allow it to build more commandos. It can only build commandos only when in friendly territory. To maintain the flavor of vanguard, the upgraded commando insertion glider should not be able to have a forward retreat point.
Mortar Cover:
Good ability. Only issue is with this ability is being sector dependent. Wildly op on some sectors, wildly up on others. Maybe area of effect circle should be used? I'm not 100% on how this should be changed.
Air Supremacy:
Pretty useless in 1s, very powerful in team games. However I think it should be changed thematically (and this is also conditioned that the schwere truck has the AA toggle mode, otherwise this ability would be useless against multiple okws). Have a recon plane enter first, then a few seconds later a strafing machine gun plane, a few seconds after that a bombing run plane (I'd recommend it to do damage equivalent to 75% HP of an OKW base truck, just to incentivize people to push in conjunction with air supremacy.). Reduce the munitions for this ability, I think anywhere from 200-250 would be a good price point. |
But one can't complain I suppose... |
Uploaded by request.
Two idiots idiot until something happenz. |
He's dumb.
We're all dumb.
(but I'm a little more dumb) |
Frankly should have lost this, but...given enough time, something bad will happen (to the enemy). |
On a not too serious note:
In fact they didn't beat all those guys: Jesulin and DevM where in the lower half of the brackets together with only Barton out of that list. Everybody else was in the upper half, which Noggano won (who wasn't beaten at all). And during ESL, Hans and Price both managed to kick out DevM on occasion. Actually, there isn't any hard data that would rule it out that you might have won the whole thing if only you would have been in the lower bracket .
On a more serious note:
Well, I probably should have explained this a little better... (damn, I tend to produce too long posts already).
It's totally fine that whatever DevM played is emphasized because it was successful (and it still would be). But, realistically, it could totally have happened that he would have been kicked out of the tournament early using the very same builds, because of his or his opponents day's form, or a series of unlucky incidents.
I doubt there is THE best faction/doctrine/BO, it always has to do with personal preference as ESL showed. And with your personal skill level. Clearly, if I copy DevM's build, I wouldn't suddenly be successful as he is, far from it. Actually, I'd expect the opposite because his build might not be the best for me, as e.g. I can't make snipers work, I'm just not good enough.
So, rather then trying to find out what THE BEST meta is, the goal (I guess) would be to find out what (good) players consider viable commanders/BOs. So, rather than carving out the best strategy, it's more about deemphasizing those that seem not overly viable.
This gives a little more options for people looking for advice on how to approach a game.
Me personally I'm more interested in numbers that tell me something about the state of the game. You can find a lot of strong claims here on the forum, do those hold up? Like: How many commanders are viable? Do people exclusively go for BG-HQ? Relic tried to make OH T3 and T4 more accessible in the last patch, did that work out? Everybody seems to go Cpt. or 444 these days. Really? Stock units vs. call-ins? A lot of people say conscripts are useless, are they?
At then end of the day it comes down to what more people would like to see, hence the poll (which I wouldn't have done if I would lean strongly either way). In case I go with "both" I'll throw in a sentence when I find that a specific statistic differs significantly between the tourneys, ok?
Oops you are right on the first bit. I took a look at the brackets this morning to check my validity of my statement and I guess my brain refused to function correctly.
I just worry about getting too granular. You are right that not everyonr can replicate devms strategty because of their skill level, but wouldn't people be more comfortable countering in a certain way instead of another? And being more comfortable in countering vs. countering and winning becomes another issue. I think deemphasizing what isnt viable needs to be broken down. Some units never see the day of light e.g. valentine, sexton, etc. while some units are used a little more often and contribute to a victory or a loss.
I do like the claim busting thing you bring up though. I'd imagine it in the same vain as mythbusters, which would be quite funny.
And since tric brought up the "sameyness" of each tournament, theres no reason to specifically find a differing statistics other than the obvious maps and players.
Apologies for busting your balls, I'm always interested in how people construct / back up their stats. |
Actually, the player difference to me is actually the strongest argument for merging the two. As ESL showed personal preference played a very important role even for the top of the tops. The most replays for WPC are involving either Devm or Jesulin. So any analysis would be biased towards their preferences (which to some extend is justified, because apparently it worked out for them). However, neither of them participated in tric's tourney, so this gives a little more weight to other players like HelpingHans, Noggano, Talisman, Paul, Barton and Price.
Actually going to use the same argument against you: you are looking for the current meta so that people can adapt/counter no? So most sane people will gravitate towards build orders that will win. So Jesulin and DevM in total have both beaten all the people you have mentioned, would that not suggest that their strategies are better? Introducing new people would make their builds more prominent but would those build orders beat Jesulin or DevM? Or it can just be a difference in skill rather than build orders, it's hard to tell skill is equated to win in tournaments. |