Nerf Hotchkiss

[MrSuv]

After using it and using it against me, I have noticed that the Hotchkiss artillery attack has a too large AOE, killing soldiers and damaging (or killing) vehicles that are VERY far from the impact site.

I think you should reduce that area of effect because seriously, it's too broad.

I would like you to share your opinions on this, greetings to all.

[kwok]

Yeah this has been in discussion for a long time. Balancing it is going to be really slow. There was a recent tweak so it may be some time before people are ready to talk about it again. My advice for now is to keep experimenting the meta and focus on improving your formation (don’t blob) and play bigger maps

[MrSuv]

Sure ill do. Why play bigger maps?

[kwok]

I"ve been trying to convince players in this community that playing larger maps will solve a good amount of balance issues in the mod.
From a post I made a while ago. You'll see this repeated again and again by me because i'm insane.

I think the best way to balance maps is to just play on bigger ones. So, for 2v2's to play on a 3v3 map. For 3v3's to play on a 4v4 map (always with exceptions). This itself I think actually fixes a lot of balance issues people normally bring up. I'll go through the ones that come to the top of my head because I hear them often.

1. Too much arty:
I think it's not so much of "too much arty" as it is "too easy to arty". Right now, I think the "meta" is to rush to critical points on the map and hold them. Most of the time these critical points are high resource points or a building/"high ground" a force can easily defend and launch attacks from. The thing about the maps though, is that there is normally 1 critical point per pair of opposing players. So for a 2v2, there are 2 critical points and the game turns into something like two separate 1v1's each battling for their critical points. When there is only a single critical point that all fights revolve around, it's easy to just mark that point as an arty target. So, the same point gets artied over and over again, making it feel like there is "too much" and no skill involved. A player can safely fire into black fog knowing that the chances of hitting SOMETHING is very high.
Playing on a larger map creates more critical points, more ways of defending and attacking critical points, and allowing more places to dodge arty. This will make finding arty targets much more difficult and costly (via CD's or just flat MU sometimes depending on the situation).

The post is found here if you're curious: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=736
Since writing that post, a lot more logical reasons have come up and my claim has extended beyond balancing maps to balancing the mod itself. Bigger maps lead to more balanced games. Summarized reason:
BK extends ranges of weapons, vCoH maps are created for shorter ranged weapons. Naturally, if you scale the weapon ranges you must scale the size of the map.

[MrSuv]

You'll see this repeated again and again by me because i'm insane.

Hahaha

I think the best way to balance maps is to just play on bigger ones.

I think it's an interesting proposal, I take note and put it in practice to see how it works.

[Warhawks97]

Hotchkiss has already been in discussion here. Its too cheap, too fast, too many, too early with little risk and little requirments.

The AoE is the same as those of most other missile arty which got changed in recent arty reworks.

In future that tank will get as slow as it used to be (with rockets back to 2.8 speed from currently 4.5), rocket upgrade will require the Tank support command which means you cant get the missiles right after logistic company upgrade and its gonna take longer to get hetzer and hotchkiss at once.
So changes are on the way already.

[Shanks]

Yeah this has been in discussion for a long time. Balancing it is going to be really slow. There was a recent tweak so it may be some time before people are ready to talk about it again. My advice for now is to keep experimenting the meta and focus on improving your formation (don’t blob) and play bigger maps

the hotchkiis is super mega ultra OP, no matter the delay changes that have been given, the area of ​​damage must change, definitely ... is what I think

[MarKr]

The Hotckiss is changed in beta but there is (again) pretty much no feedback on beta. Therefore we cannot say if it needs more adjustments and so it is hard to say how balanced it will be on the release.

[Shanks]

if you changed the area of ​​damage, for a minor one, it's fine ... if you only delayed it in speed and postponed their acquisition, it's very bad (the main problem is the area of ​​damage, a missile falls 10 meters from your elite battalion and completely eliminates it, that's why the problem is, the area of ​​damage is great,but the damage is correct)

[MarKr]

From your reply I presume you did not play any game with beta. I've seen many occasions where people firmly claimed "you need to chage (something) as I say because any other change will keep it OP" we said we would change it differently and they said "it will solve nothing, it will remain OP". After patch release they agreed the unit/ability wasn't OP anymore even when we did not change it as they wanted.

[Warhawks97]

All rocket arty (germans) got the AoE of 15. The Hotchkiss is no different.
The real difference is that it has the damage of walking stuka just that it requires no unlock, comes earlier, is faster and cheaper to build and to use.

Delaying units and upgrades does makea a difference. The main issue right now is that it comes just as fast as a mortar halftrack and thus totally dominating the mid stage. At that time losses are severe set backs and game changers.

If hotchkiss missiles come later, esspecially the combo of Hotckiss and hetzer (which is atm the most deadly combo i can think off in mid game) and more risky to use it then does makes a difference.

[MrSuv]

The Hotckiss is changed in beta but there is (again) pretty much no feedback on beta. Therefore we cannot say if it needs more adjustments and so it is hard to say how balanced it will be on the release.

Sorry for the question, but how can I be a beta tester? I'm interested in doing it to give feedback, maybe not so much of balance (I'm noob), but of technical problems or bugs.

All rocket arty (germans) got the AoE of 15. The Hotchkiss is no different.

Interesting, are you sure about that? If so, then perhaps you could change the animation of the explosion to be more consistent with it AOE, since it really looks in-game as if the soldiers died within meters of the explosion, and hence the birth of this post.

[Warhawks97]

I will take a look at hotchkiss missile when I am back home.

It does of course has higher damage values as for example the 150 mm rocket launchers. Weapons can have same aoe but different damage. You would have to compare hotchkiss with terror doc walking stuka.

[MarKr]

Sorry for the question, but how can I be a beta tester? I'm interested in doing it to give feedback, maybe not so much of balance (I'm noob), but of technical problems or bugs.

Here you can find a step-by-step guide for the Beta access

[mofetagalactica]

There was this thing who always wondered me, if it does such high damage and still have the same aoe of rockets units, why does it cost only 55ammo to use such hability while the halftrack one cost 110m ????????????????????? :thinkingemoji:


Honestly i still think that delaying and making it slow it wasnt a good choice (even when im complaining with this unit),instead i would have just fixed the AOE not to be the same than other rocket units, using an aoe that fits the explosion (visually) would have been more than ok.

[Warhawks97]

Why? it uses the missiles which walking stuka also uses. The Germans created these 280 mm and 300 mm rockets in order to increase the blast effect.

The 210 mm nebler carried 28,6 kg of explosives compared to 2,4 kg of the 150 mm neblers. The 210 is what SE has. The Walking stuka shoots even bigger missiles. the 210 mm had a splinter effect of roughly 100 meters.



Writing this made me thinking of something new. What if we give 150, 210 and 300 mm rockets the same basic damage. The difference would be that the bigger missiles have only higher damage in the center of the explosion and slightly beyond while beyond that the damage for 150,210 and 300 mm rockets remain the same. The bigger missiles would simply have a bigger shrappnel area which was their main purpose. Thus they wouldnt insta whipe entire squads in single rocket and instead causing damage to their health pool, killing a few soldiers here and there but no insta whipe outs to everything that is in their AoE.


Like right now all missiles have AoE of 15 and roughly the same damage modifier for each range AoE range bracket. Thus 150 mm deals damage but kills less while the bigger missiles have higher damage at every AoE bracket bc they have twice as high basic damage.

The change would be that bigger missiles cause only more damage in the direct center by having higher damage modifier there but beyond that damage keeps the same just that bigger missiles have in total a higher AoE. Visiual change is not needed as you wouldnt see the shrappnels in real life either.
Just an idea that would solve "it kills everything within AoE range" issue.

[MarKr]

Why? it uses the missiles which walking stuka also uses. The Germans created these 280 mm and 300 mm rockets in order to increase the blast effect.

He said

why does it cost only 55ammo to use such hability while the halftrack one cost 110m

So I would say he meant why Hotchkiss salvo costs 55 ammo when walking stuka (halftrack) costs 110 ammo and I would say it is because Hotchkiss fires 4 rockets while walking Stuka fires 6, so it can kill more stuff.

[mofetagalactica]

Why? it uses the missiles which walking stuka also uses. The Germans created these 280 mm and 300 mm rockets in order to increase the blast effect.

He said

why does it cost only 55ammo to use such hability while the halftrack one cost 110m

So I would say he meant why Hotchkiss salvo costs 55 ammo when walking stuka (halftrack) costs 110 ammo and I would say it is because Hotchkiss fires 4 rockets while walking Stuka fires 6, so it can kill more stuff.

There isnt any big difference afterall, lets just say its just a 10% more destructive, but you can already do that with 4 rockets lol.

[MarKr]

Well, you sort of can NOW because when you shoot at current max range, the AoE is smaller than when you fired at the previous (longer) max range where it gave you a chance to cover the area better. But you said

There was this thing who always wondered me

so it sounded like you wondered about the cost difference even before the range changes.

[mofetagalactica]

Well, you sort of can NOW because when you shoot at current max range, the AoE is smaller than when you fired at the previous (longer) max range where it gave you a chance to cover the area better. But you said

There was this thing who always wondered me

so it sounded like you wondered about the cost difference even before the range changes.

Wasn't the range changes also applied to the HT one too?