- This topic has 7 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 11 months ago by
.
Home › Forums › General Discussion › Balance Discussion › My lot on the RNG debate.
MeatShieldNZ.
Death_KittyEverything I have said here, I have said before, so I’m going to make this short. There are 2 personalities trading arguments right now, and I think they both make some good and bad points. To protect their identities let’s call them… lystavicious and kick12me.
Lystavicious: Call-ins are a nice bit of randomness in the system, allow the developers to show off skins for a variety of units, and force players to play around with different options. They should be a supplementary force rather than something that can be rushed.
Kick12me: Call ins a part of the tech trees of the docs they appear in, so they should be useful no matter what you get. You should never be penalized for summoning a call-in. Call ins should always benefit the player.
My stance: I agree with both sides: call ins that are random now, should remain random, but there should not be “crap” call ins that set the player back. They should remain a supplementary force, a capstone that augments your units rather than is the focus of them.
As I have brought up in the past, the osttruppen from Iron Will and static infantry, and the luftwaffe reserves from… luftwaffe, I think can broadly be agreed to be good examples of random call ins done right. As it so happens, I believe there to be three problematic call ins: the beutepanzer of iron will, which alternates between a KV-1 or KV-2, the ragtag circus of US infantry, which alternates between a panther, panzer IV and a stug, along with some other units, and finally the independent tank brigade of USSR shock army, which alternates between 2 sherman 76’s and a valentine and a churchill.
So my suggestions here will be to make sure that no matter what the combinations, the call-in remains broadly effective, while at the same time not being something that you can just rush to get for a free win.
Suggestion 1: Independent tank brigade: Up armor the churchill.
This call in on paper is very good. You either get 2 above average medium tanks with assault infantry, or a crappy little tank and a heavily armored wall to cover your infantry with smoke. Except the churchill can be penetrated by almost anything, meaning it can’t act as a cover for the infantry. The nice thing about this call is that is acts as a supplement: The british option lacks the damage and penetration power to be powerful on its own, while the american option lacks the survivability.
Suggestion 2: Beutepanzer. Add a demolition squad to the KV-1 call in with satchels.
In this call-in the KV-2 is vastly superior to the KV-1, mainly because unlike the KV-2,, the KV-1 has very poor utility, and tends to fall off harshly after tier 3. The KV-2 is very effective against buildings and emplacements, while also being able to stun tanks. Giving the KV-1 call in a squad with satchels and maybe AT nades could help close the gap in between these two call ins. Buffs to the KV-1 might also be in order, as it is a very poor tank at the moment.
Suggestion 3: Rag-tag circus: Revamp the 2 non-panther options:
The idea here is to limit the amount of WP in the doc but making the random call in the only way to get to it. If you don’t get WP shells you get a panther. Everyone wins. Locking WP shells this way also prevents spamming them.
MystaliciousI can agree with these suggestions.
It would make the “weak” (I dont think IWs KV1 is bad) into something that would supplement the forces even better while also eliminating a rush CP unlock for a cheap “Butt Saver”.
Limiting WP is always a nice addition ontop aswell!
Also I very much have to agree with what Lystavicious says.
123nicki like it. ofcourse, it depends a lot on what exactly the capabilities of the infantry that support the KV-1 is, and how the WP shells work on the sherman. will they stun like all the other WP direct fire abilties (WP nades, and WP rifle nades) ? if so, i think its a fair trade off.
personally, id make the greyhound come with the stug and panzer 4 call in and remove it from the panther call in, just too make it a bit more even in what your getting (that canister shot is a p useful tool).
im for the up armored churchil too. for historical reasons some people might want too see a historical evidence of such a modification (i personally dont care), since historical accuracy is what lots of people care about.
MystaliciousAbout the Churchills up armor…. The Russians recieved Mark 3s and 4s which have the correct armor value in the mod (Don´t trust Wikipedia).
HOWEVER these tanks were really liked by the Russians who crewed them. There might be no evidence (need to dig it up) but for the sake of balancing it would not be that bad to increase the armor via field modification afterall if you like something don´t you want to make it better?
Death_KittyI’m happy both of you agree. the reason I don’t personally like the KV-1 is it has poor utility: there are more mobile options for canister shells, and its armor tanks to get penned by panther and the tiger, while it has no chance of penetrating the big cats. It even struggles against panzer 4’s. It is simply outdated by the time the mod is taking place, and without utility it’s only role is as a tank vs tank unit, which it is poor at. It has a niche role in tier 3, yes, but in iron will the KV-1 tends to enter at tier 4.
GamecksI feel that brings us back to the tank HE damage debate. If tanks were more effective against infantry there wouldn’t be any “useless tanks” late game i.e the KV1, T34/76 and Panzer IV as soon as someone gets 85mm’s. Considering the fact they are under fire from 2x MG’s for all those vehicles at least infantry should honestly be chewed up much more than they are now by tanks. This would solve a decent amount of the problems you discussed, especially with the Churchill IV. There would certainly be more bang for buck if vehicles were more useful against infantry. If you want to see what I mean with “tank” MG’s not doing hardly anything go into a test map, spawn the Panhard with 1x MG and use it against an infantry squad in yellow cover. You may as well leave your PC on overnight cause they’re gonna be there a while.
Death_KittyA good point, however there is a risk of making infantry worthless if they get suppressed/cut down by vehicle MG’s and HE. Assault infantry, or any infantry, would not be capable of moving once any vehicles were in the area. While this works for a format of game like Wargame, where infantry have a role in towns, garrisoning buildings and making pushing through them a nightmare, this is not the case in CoH.
I agree SOME vehicle MG’s are a bit lackluster, and that HE shells are under-performing, but a careful balance must be struck.
MeatShieldNZGood post DK, such a civil place this forum 🙂
Having call ins change depending on tier is only something that our modders have only learned to do very recently. I have no doubt that next year many of the call ins will be tweaked and balanced better, including changing with each tier.