Here's how blobbing works with FRPs (especially early game OKW):
The blob comes and you successfully repel it, all squads are intact, but you've lost models across the board. Now, instead of having a fair time to lick your wounds... *poof* here's the blob again, complete with full squads. You're still down models, so you're out-manned at the get go. Say you repel it AGAIN, down more models and maybe retreated a squad all the way to HQ. Your squad(s) is still coming back, and you have half strength at the front and *poof* again, here's the blob with complete squads attacking en masse. Now you're done. Further, by the time the distances between their FRP and your HQ is equal, so retreat time is equal for both, well, they now own more of the map. All from A-move with a blob. No reason to flank or whatever, because with the FRP, they can recover faster and back in action sooner than you can.
Everyone loves to spin this magical scenario and they always use the posterchild of FRP, OKW. This argument might work in cases where the person fighting OKW doesn't have a clue about what other tools are available across tiers in literally any allied faction, but let me create my own scenario to show you how this could play out, specifically from USFs standpoint:
You don't counter the blob with your own blob. You let the blob move around the field together, while you split your units up and cap the rest of the map. Invest in suppression, whether it be a .50 cal or a quad, and force retreats as often as possible. Tech to captain (or don't and just get mortars), get pack howies, (also infantry doc has access to mortar ht which has access to white phosphorous, a tool that is especially useful for fighting against FRPs). Force retreats and prefire white- phosphorous /barrage combos at the retreat point and bleed your opponent. If they're smart, they'll switch their retreat point to their base and you likely have an unsupported truck to destroy.
Now you say, what about kubels? Can't they continue to cap the map while the blob moves around grouped across the map? Well, if the blob is truly scary, I doubt there was any MP to spare for a kubel after your opponent put out 3+ squads of volks, a FRP and medics. But if there was, each faction has their counterparts which all more or less shit on the kubel. The ironic thing is, the unofficial balance team wants to swap the Sturm starting unit for the kubel. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in the scenario mentioned above.
The FRP is a risky investment, that's why you hardly see it used in top level 1v1 - it simply is not worth it in most cases. Go check the clip in trending of Von's FRP being shit on by DevM. That's one way of many that smart players handle those who want to take the risk of setting up their FRPs. And many of the arguments here has made it seem like an FRP basically hands you the game. I'd argue just the opposite, it's usually just a manpower/fuel trap for bad players.
When's the last time anyone ever saw a penal blob or lmg gren blob backed up by an m5/sdkfz respectively? Or the (now extinct) hated double 1919 blobs?
I did this just the other day, and it isn't uncommon. 1 MG into 4 grens and an HT and just pushed my opponent off the field in a 2v2 random against a premade of blobbers, 1 USF and 1 Soviet. I didn't necessarily blob, but all my units fit on the screen. All I did was move up to their base with the halftrack reinforcing losses, under covering mg fire until I was able to spam p4s. USF had his FRP which I punished more than once, and Sov player was blobbing his penals everywhere. My teammate was also Wehr. Just because you don't see it in whatever mode/level you're playing at doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And hearing you voice your opinion so strongly against an FRP and knowing that you think the above is rare/doesn’t happen at all gives me some insight into the type of mentalities that seem to be encouraging the removal of FRPs, which is concerning. |
Again, why you need a hard RETREAT POINT instead of MANUALLY soft retreating.
That's an extensive list of mostly great additions and changes and I’m not really arguing against your points. I'm arguing that the game does not need to remove any more features. We don't need entire reworks that take away the original features of factions (We had plenty of that with the OKW rework, for better or worse), we need balance tweaks and bug fixes. If bringing balance to each of the 5 factions while leaving their original concepts and designs in tact proves to be too daunting a task for the unofficial mod team, then they really have no business playing any role in the games balance. Period.
Hard retreats are required with factions who risk their STATIC assets by placing them in the field. This applies to both OKW and UKF. As for USF, their staying power decreases dramatically in the late game and they need to be able to sustain themselves better without having to retreat all the way back to base, it's what the faction was designed on (frequent and fast hit and run with more delicate units). As to the argument of soft retreating vs. hard retreating: There are times when both can serve the same purpose, but there are also times when soft retreating is not feasible whereas hard retreating is and vice versa.
Say what you will about FRPs being cheesy and how they shorten the time required to get back into the fight yada yada but that's only one side of the coin. Every one of the arguments FOR the removal of FRPs on this thread fail to bring up the disadvantages of them. Each one of the factions with FRPs can be punished severely if they are not smart with how/when/if they use their FRPs. There is no lack of indirect available for any of the factions to ensure that mass retreats to a FRP will not only possibly bleed the player for much of their MP, but also result in tech investments, squads or utility assets being lost in the process. For me personally, there is a lot of dynamic decision making on both the person with the FRP and the person playing against it. Simply removing the FRPs takes that element and any strategy tied to it away. No thanks.
I know it's a lot to ask of people who play this game, and especially a lot to ask of the people on this forum, but the constant bickering of things one particular player finds frustrating to play against just serves to stir up people's emotions and in most cases results in people making generalizations that miss half the point on many of the topics. Before calling for a removal of something that has been in the game since the launch of the WFA factions, you need to realize what that actually means and what effects it will have on the game in the future, and you need to think and really think critically as to whether this will solve the overall issue you're targeting (in this case blobbing and camping/staying power). We've already mutated one faction that had some pretty unique (albeit OP) concepts to be fairly similar to its EFA brother instead of taking the time to find a way to balance those features. If we keep going down this path we're just going to end up with more features removed and bland and incredibly similar factions.
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Can you describe that "creativity" cause i can't really remember it.
OKW: talking about resource starved OKW with Volk schreck spam or after the rework? Despite what version you talk about, they had been playing with the same commanders and units.
1v1 scavenge has been king since it's release. Then if you move on modes up you see a mix of Breakthrough and Spec ops. Some people go with Overwatch/Luft and with the recent addition of LeFH Fortifications has been back into the menu.
Right now, the whole non doctrinal units are worth and OKW is currently the strongest for 2v2+ for 95% of the playerbase.
USF: the ones who killed "creativity" was Relic introducing Pershing/CalliOP which basically overshadowed all of the other commanders. Note that since now light vehicles are balanced, this means you can't finish as easily games rushing to them which puts on evidence the flaws on the power levels. OKW been untouched by scope means it suffers the consequences on the lategame.
Heavy cavalry, Tactical support and Armor company. Depending on mode, you'll see more of one or the other. Mechanized, Rifle and Infantry are more niche, good, but still 2nd options.
I could continue with the other factions but i guess you get the point.
PD: i'll mention that outside 1v1, i've seen the most commander diversity on 2v2+ for SU since i can remember. Lendlease is a powerhouse on 1v1 but falls on 2v2+ on the lategame. Guard Motor is no longer king.
I wrote up a pretty extensive explanation of my thought process, but auto logout fucked me and I made the mistake of not writing my reply on notepad before posting. If I have time I'll try and remember and write it all up again, but basically my gist is this: What exactly has the unofficial balance mod added to the game? USF mortar (which I believed was already confirmed by relic before they started working with Smith and Miragefla but I could be mistaking). That's it. Everything else has either been unit tweaks so that they fill different roles they were never intended to fill, or the replacing of certain features within some commanders (LeFH for Fortification doctrine). Now what features have been removed from the game? And how many more will be removed before the game is considered "balanced"? To me, and this just might be my opinion, but balance is something achieved after many small tweaks to unit stats, not the removal of features or units you find too problematic or hard to balance. How does the removal of features open up more opportunities for creativity, and how does it add to the game? Diversity in 2v2+ has never been in short supply. 1v1 meta changes with any patch that targets the previously dominant meta and this is not exclusive to the patches the unofficial balance team has put out, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. However gimping entire factions by taking away the key features they launched with does limit the decision making you have to do while in game and in turn limits creative workarounds to overcome deficiencies brought about by those decisions aka Do i go for the aggressive FRP knowing my opponent has access to plenty of indirect that will eventually make short work of it?
I guess the team can make that decision for us by taking it away, though.
The fact of the matter is this: the three factions that have access to FRPs have them for a reason. You cannot (at least not without a negative consequence) remove them without EXTENSIVE overhauls to the factions that have them. At that point you might as well make a new game... or an unofficial mod  |
On what basis will feedback be considered on all this? |
There is where I feel you need a sharp slap - there would be no iteration or patch development without these mod makers.
Which in my opinion, would be preferable over the constant removal of features and toying with units so that they perform functions they were never meant to. Look, I appreciate all the effort that goes into it, but I feel like a product I paid for is misrepresented now, and if the game as it is now was brand new I would not purchase it. That's my opinion, however.
I believe that if you want to play a mod, find it on the workshop and play it. Relic seriously misstepped when entrusting this community with balance, especially with Mr. Smith in one of the decision making roles. The game was more attractive when all factions were unique and there was no shortage in creativity when it came to high level play. The direction balance is headed doesn't seem to promote that same kind of creativity.
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i dont know why you are getting so testy.
i already admitted it is only my word vs yours. im not trying to talk down or anything.
i also do not understand the last sentence ( i understand the phrase).
I apologize. I get a little adversarial sometimes, especially about things I'm passionate about.
The last sentence is applicable because you're comparing the defending of keeping FRPs for the sake of avoiding homogenization to witch hunting, and I'm calling out your desire to do away with FRPs as the same thing.
While I understand the points that everyone opposing FRPs has, and while I also think at some point the removal of FRPs might be feasible, my opinion is that currently this change would be very damaging to the state of the game, both in terms of balance and gameplay (I don't understand how one is exclusive from the other, please elaborate on this). I've already listed why I think this, and I've seen that there are others with similar concerns.
Using the Unofficial Balance Patch as a platform to test changes like this is great, however with the current modders at the helm of said balance patch I am a little concerned for the overall future of this game. We've already seen plenty of feautures removed from the game for the sake of shaking up previous iterations of meta only to be met with new balance problems each time. The game is pretty far along in it's lifespan, and at this point (at least in my opinion) the focus should not be on drastic overhauls and removal of features, but on small tweaks that are meant to fine tune unit performance so that no single unit clearly overperforms outside of it's own role. |
With FRP, the these aspects just disappears and why wouldn't you constantly attack if you can be back on field immediately, when retreating does not mean lesser field presence.
There's this thing called MP bleed.
Seeing some people using terms "homogenisation" to argue against this is really just a witch hunt - 3 armies all have FRPs but they are vastly vastly different in other aspects.
Now ain't that the pot calling the kettle black. |
Why do others believe USF needs to blob to remain effective and must blob more if FRP is removed? Bloody hell USF actually is one of the better factions to soft retreat with Captain On Me! back into ambulance heal. USF can remain effective on the field without FRP as I mostly don't need or require it in 1s or 2s. I mean USF does have two half tracks albeit limited to doctrines but USF doesn't require FRP and I would gladly give away FRP if it meant OKW and Brits had their's removed. FRP have no place in CoH2 as it's just a crutch for bad positioning and lessens the impact of punishing a blob.
This would be fine had these factions not been built around this mechanic in one way or another. One can argue that with enough reworking the removal of FRPs would add more tactical depth to the game without limiting it's current features, but before that can happen there needs to be much more discussion and changes made. This whole idea of removing features without major overhauls to the factions you'd be removing them from is so reckless and I guarantee you will result in far more unfavorable outcomes. |
Is it necessary to re-add them though? Like, is there a good gameplay reason to re-add them to the mod? There are numerous gameplay reasons why FRPs should go.
FRPs having been there since "the release of OKW" is not a good gameplay reason.
At some point, OKW didn't have a non-doctrinal MG. Now that it has a doctrinal MG. The fact that OKW has access to suppression platforms is good enough reason for them not having access to FRPs anymore.
Also, have you played EFA mod version as OKW? Do you think they still need FRPs after their rework?
I'd definitely like to give it a shot just to see how it plays out, but if I did I'd likely play as an EFA. That way I can shit on unsupported trucks and emplacements, and force the USF to blob even harder because it's the only way he'll be able to maintain field presence longer than 15 seconds with his rifleman after the beginning of any engagement.
You would re-add FRPs because, as you'll find out, you'll effectively half the useable units/features of two of the armies, while forcing the third to either blob harder or stay in his base in order to keep units alive. |
The fact that a terrible design choice has been bundled with the game since release doesn't mean we should stick with it forever.
Otherwise, let's go ahead and put Blizzard, Volkschrecks and Rifle flamers back in the game. Also, let's revert Brace back to 100% uptime too, herpderp.
Why stop there Smith? Why not just make every faction have the same units accessible at the same tiers, and just reskin them for each faction. That sounds like a game you might want to play.
Seriously though, you shit on faction diversity so hard if you remove FRP. These factions we're essentially built on keeping their infantry in the field for different reasons. There are plenty of disadvantages already in place for banking on and camping a FRP.
You will create a balance nightmare when you remove them. It's unfortunate you've been given the keys to the balance-mobile, because you're gonna drive it straight off the fuckin bias-cliff. Wish I could say I didn't see this coming. |
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