TL;DR: Company of Planes is OK-ish if everyone has easy access to AA. Company of Area Denial is not fine at all in teamgames.
I almost completely agree with Gdot on this. Certain abilities are overwhelming enough on their own that they scale too well on teamgames.
There are certain abilities that are somewhat counterable (e,g, skillplanes). That's OKish
- For most factions: just invest in an AA unit
- For USF/Soviets:
However, the abilities whose ONLY counterplay is "Oh, just move out of the targetted area" get outright abusive when used in a coordinated manner. These include:
- UKF Artillery Cover
- UKF Air Supremacy
- UKF Mortar Cover
- OKW Assault artillery (try to use two of them on adjacent sectors, see what happens)
- OST Stuka dive bomb
- current CalliOP/Pwerfer
- ... the list goes on
I've no idea how to solve this scalability issue, except for maybe making maps bigger/less bottleneck-y.
Gdot might be referring to an experience of his from last night (I happened to be on the opposing team):
What? And give blobblers yet another handout? no thanks.
Your proposition would just incentivize yet more blob spam tactics and yet again put the micro tax on those that are already micro taxed because of the diversity of their units.
Nope, nope and nopety-nope.
Please heed the following advice and reconsider your position.
The whole argument of:
- People blob
- Therefore mines/PeeWerfers/CalliOP/Mortars should continue to instawipe squads
- Thus, people will stop blobbing (so that they don't get all their squads wiped)
Is flawed, and similar to the following argument:
The reason is that there are unintended consequences elsewhere in the game:
- Having access to easy squad wipes encourages buying said units
- Mortars currently require no micro
- This promotes lazy playing for the mortar-guy
- Provides a frustrating experience to the victim-guy
- This is despite the fact that the mortar-guy does not deserve that reward
Vickers has higher DPS between 0 and 41 range, the shorter the range the bigger the difference. Vickers also has better crew guns for ranges 16 to 35. It should win in a garrison at all but the highest range, but there are basically no situations in the game where two MGs will be firing at each other from garrisons at 42+ range so effectively it'll always win.
That explains a lot of things.
Considering that the Vickers costs that much more though, I would like to see its utility scale somewhat as it Vets beyond veterancy level 1.
Could you take a look at the flame half track and see if there is anything strange with it? I'm finding that it performs nearly as well as the 2013 - KV8 and pre-nerf Croc.
From my understanding, all vehicle-mounted flame weapons deal the same amount of damage. The issue with the flame HT is that it carries two such flamethrowers. Thus, double the damage, double the excitement.
Actually, I'm reconsidering my position on Vickers:
- Its price is fine. This is considering that UKF gets access to cheap mainline infantry (I mean Sappers; Tommies are just urgh)
- The Vet1 ability is great (no question about it)
- Vickers just needs to scale a bit better at higher Vet-levels
And by scaling, I am thinking of ONE of those two buffs:
1. (maybe at Vet3) SLIGHTLY buff its unpack time, but ONLY when the MG is leaving garrisons/trenches. That way Vickers can suppress Grenadiers/Volks and have time to unpack/reposition ONCE without having to eat a grenade in the face 100% of the time.
2. Buff its passive penetration bonus, so that it actually poses a threat to light vehicles.
I would opt for option #1. That way Vickers can be better used in conjunction with trenches (which don't allow the MG to cover a 360 degree area anyway).
The idea is to repurpose highly-vetted Vickers to a "suppress-and-reposition-once weapon" as opposed to a "suppress-and-retreat-or-get-wiped weapon" which is its current niche in the late-game. This will also give Vickers a distinct flavour from MG42/Maxpin which are "camp-and-pin weapons".
1. (if this doesn't take too much time/effort: ) How do different faction HMGs really compare to each other, with respect to:
- DPS (mid-far; near is irrelevant)
- Time-to-suppress
- Time-to-pin
(at vet0/vet3)
2. When pitting a Vickers vs an MG42 (both garrisoned), on mid/far ranges (assuming both start firing at the same time, and no armour piercing rounds for MG42), the Vickers seems to win (albeit barely). Is there any reason for that, or are we just imagining things?
3. (#Vetgate-related): Do Infantry-based bulletins actually apply correctly to squads? (i.e., considering that most of them are tied to offensive ability)
PS: I think that Firefly tulips deals 60 damage per rocket; far-modifier is 1.0 (not 0.25) => A tulip pair instakills garrisons (as demonstrated by Sexwings)
Yeppers. The moment I saw that ability, I knew it was going to be as OP as bananas (like the PE ability from CoH1). However:
- The AEC used to be incredibly expensive (at 440MP)
- I hadn't figured out a way to workaround the targeting bug (what Northweapon posted)
Having said that, I find that the AEC has an amazing synergy with:
- Firefly
- PIATs
- Hammer tactics (Warspeed + spotting)
1. The Firefly baits the enemy armour (and has enough HP to survive, unlike the Jackson)
2. You wait until the enemy armour has fired their shot on the Firefly (so that the AEC won't die)
3. AEC dives in with warspeed (also infers received accuracy bonuses) and immobilizes the armour)
4. AEC steps back out out of the enemy range, but close enough to provide sight for the Firefly
5. (Optional) Bring some PIAT guys to fire at the enemy for free Vet
7. ggwp no re
Ok so went back to original point saying vickers not as good as MG42. Vickers is vulnerable to getting hit by volks creep because of its lower suppression ability. However, as it picks up vet I would rate it the best MG in the game.
This is really a situational difference and not a failure of design.
Try using the Vickers this way, keep it in buildings to help it spin quickly. Also prefer it on maps where the enemy is likely to get in buildings himself because the vickers does excellent damage to enemies within buildings. When you reach vet 1 build a trench covering your flank and looking over a VP or fuel point. Let it sit there and pick off stray units or even give you suppression when you attack with its extreme range. You can also try keeping it in green cover and picking off MG42 gunners, you will kill them fast enough to force a retreat. Then focus on the other infantry. The issue of units in trenches receiving too much damage from mortars should be addressed in the next patch.
That's true.
Beware, though: Using Vickers in a trench against Ostheer is suicide:
- Trench cover counts as garrison cover
- There is currently no damage reduction for trench cover vs grenades
- All models in the trench are very clumped up
Thus:
- A single riflegrenade will wipe the garrisoned squad inside the trench 100% of the time (provided the enemy knows where to aim)
Vickers is better in buildings/trenches and an amazing HMG. It's great at what it does.
Mg42 is also great at what it does, probably slightly weaker than the vickers all things considered (there are plenty of extremely relevant stats being left out of this discussion like burst length).
The extra range in buildings at vet 1 is insanely good and the vickers can self spot (unless this was reverted?) more things that throwing stats at each other instead of playing the game fail to exemplify.
Both HMGs are strong and cost effective... Why is this a thread?
The Vickers can only self spot if you recrew it with Tommies that have been upgraded with Pyrotechnics supplies. However:
- You will be paying a 35MP reinforcement cost on the crew (Tommies will use their old reinforcement cost due to a bug)
- Pyrotechnics supplies suffers from the same woes that offensive veterancy does; only the initial models receive upgraded sight
Having said, that, I agree with everything you said, except for one thing; How can the lengthier burst of the Vickers ever be considered as an advantage (and not a disadvantage):
- Even with the burst length factored, Vickers definitely deals less suppression per unit of time
- Longer burst length means that the enemy can dive out-of-sight/in cover during your burst, and thus receive less suppression/damage
Sure, if the burst length of the MG42 and the Vickers were equal, the Vickers would be even worse. However, what did you have in mind?
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