Breaking Markrs Myths

[Warhawks97]

I decided to transfer the discussion. I think your Hypthesis that arty upkeep helps is not correct:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfdk5bX22OQ

Meanwhile all i said is true: Nonstop arty but a constant lack of ammo to do just anything. Tara did not use arty but ammo was always an issue constantly dropping down... one global doc ability and he was down to 50 ammo and less and never recovered.
There is enough ammo for arty, but not for anything else.

You wont fix the arty issue unless you push build cost massively, barrage cost and CP cost. Period.

So fix this:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4752&p=42787#p42787
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4753

And this:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4220
He could have spend his fuel well for some armored support but they take away MP. Tanks eat MP and ammo needed for inf and doctrines, arty eats all the ammo and both eat all the CP.

What a sad situation we have.

I don't think this will solve anything. It will more likely just shift the "problem" you're describing into a different part of the game.

You say that ammo upkeep leaves too little ammo for upgrading infantry and so people just keep shelling everything because it is the safest way.

If you move arty upkeep to fuel, you will have less fuel for tanks/vehicles and so the only thing left will be infantry, but infantry is squishy (even if you upgrade it with weapons) so the safest way will be to shell everything...and because ammo would no longer lower the ammo income, you would have more ammo for even more shelling - either with on-map units or off-map abilities.

Also I disagree with this:

the upkeep did not really hurt arty usage

I've seen many replays since the change was introduced where players kept in the field just two or three arty units and still were able to use infantry upgraded with weapons. The players themselves said that if they had built more units, they wouldn't have been able to feed the arty with ammo, or upgrade anything - so exactly the "self-regulating" result we wanted.
Ofcourse, if a player builds 4, 5 or more arty units (or even less when they just don't control enough ammo points), then the player won't have ammo to upgrade infantry and probably won't even have enough ammo to feed just the arty units. This is the intended decision making behind the ammo upkeep - players know the ammo upkeep is there and so they know how much each unit will hamper their ammo income (and so their ability to upgrade units/use abilities), based on that they should be able to tell how many arty units they can afford before it starts noticeably impacting these things. From there they should consider how many of those arty units they REALLY need or if they are willing to have more arty power at the expense of little-to-no unit upgrades.

Arty that hurts ammo income hurts essentially infantry gameplay as well as the usage of doctrinal abilities while fielding arty and powerfull tanks remains quite an easy Task.

If the arty+tanks combo is a problem, then a better solution would be vehicle cost revision. It has been suggested several times and we agree it would be beneficial but postponed it for later as it is not as easy as "let's set all light vehicles to X, mediums to Y and heavies to Z".

Edit:
Another thing where cost based balance beats upkeep based balance is in the decision making what arty to use. Cost based balance means you can build and use a medium arty even though a heavy exists. You can then use the light arty for lets say 35 per barrage to achieve the goal instead of spending lets say 75 amm on your heavy arty unit. Upkeep now means that you have to decide which to keep on the field. Surely people will keep the heavy one. So they only pay upkeep for that one, but also only use that one because no other is left. Hence you get the feeling that every single unit you have becomes a 105 target. On the other side, much needed ammo is spend for heavy arty upkeep and their use because a light arty does not exist anymore.


Edit II:
Another example how your "self-regulating" upkeep system worked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfdk5bX22OQ

9 mins into the game and 3 nebler barrages and two nebler fielded.
Just ask yourself: How many 105´s, Grilles, Neblers do you see? And how many US Priests do you see? The answer to that should give you the answer you need. Priest is so rare i even forget it exists in inf doc.
Min 10: Howitzer fireing. So the game just got started, the first larger engagment and attack took place 3 arty units fired already 4 barrages... lmao. Did he even get a captain?

11:55: Still think 2 CP howitzer for 375 and 25 fuel is fine? Tara has one defensive unit: a Pak. Yet he got targted like 5 times by arty now.

27 mins into the game: Tara doesnt use airstrikes and just a few inf abilities and the cheapest arty you can get.Still he only has these roughly 150 that is just enough to have some use of infantry abilities. One airstrike and it would be all gone. Now imagine inf doc with tons of weapon upgrades, hundreds of ammo on WSC upgrades like sticky, better zooks etc. Fuel piles up while ammo is always low. Fuel is enough to throw tank after tank but ammo is a really precious ressource. So playing not really ammo intense and yet he has to take care what to use. But fuel? No probs here.

29:59: Tiger fires AP, 30:02: Tiger fires HE. Thats why i say: remove single shot HE. Make ammo swap but the swap would require 10 seconds to complete.

41:15. One doctrinal use and all ammo is gone and he does not even use arty. Fuel stockpiling. The other sides ammo situation is probably the same. But once they have 50 ammo gained, they fire a barrage.

[Krieger Blitzer]

Nothing personal, but i disagree with all proposed changes above.. including the topic about tank prices as i believe this one in particular is catastrophic.

Also, the game linked isn't a good example as teams weren't very balanced.

[Warhawks97]

Nothing personal, but i disagree with all proposed changes above.. including the topic about tank prices as i believe this one in particular is catastrophic.

Also, the game linked isn't a good example as teams weren't very balanced.

arguments? What will be chatastrophic in your opinion? That you cant throw out a dozen tanks in mid game and still get a Tiger quickly? From what i gather from your games is that you are a huge tank user, esspecially heavies, which btw remain unchanged from all my proposed changes.

Tara is struggling the way every infantry player does. Getting steamroled by arty and tanks while there is no fucking ammo for your infantry, let alone doctrinal support abilities.

[kwok]

So... I think almost everyone chose not to read this. But, because I made promises I regret now... I did read it.

So here's Markr's "Myth" I suppose...

I've seen many replays since the change was introduced where players kept in the field just two or three arty units and still were able to use infantry upgraded with weapons. The players themselves said that if they had built more units, they wouldn't have been able to feed the arty with ammo, or upgrade anything - so exactly the "self-regulating" result we wanted.
Ofcourse, if a player builds 4, 5 or more arty units (or even less when they just don't control enough ammo points), then the player won't have ammo to upgrade infantry and probably won't even have enough ammo to feed just the arty units. This is the intended decision making behind the ammo upkeep - players know the ammo upkeep is there and so they know how much each unit will hamper their ammo income (and so their ability to upgrade units/use abilities), based on that they should be able to tell how many arty units they can afford before it starts noticeably impacting these things. From there they should consider how many of those arty units they REALLY need or if they are willing to have more arty power at the expense of little-to-no unit upgrades.

I don't know why you posted that replay because it sorta demonstrated EXACTLY what we wanted to happen...

1:00 - Right off the bat upgraded his engineers to have flame throwers
8:30 - Upgraded infantry section with Brens
11:30 - Upgraded commandos with thompsons (also immediately used grenades and smoke after upgrading)
30:00 - Achilles upgraded with HE
35:00 - Achilles upgraded with HE

Of the 7 units he created that could be upgraded, he upgraded 5 of them all while also using arty AND airstrikes... Like, isn't this just a prime example of how to manage munitions?

... So tradeoff successful? I mean he COULD have gone arty but didn't because tradeoffs. Arty spam reduced while still being able to use abilities, upgrade weapons, and use off map abilities. He even did it with teams where he was basically 1v5'ing lol. Balance success!!!

He got steam rolled by tanks yes... but in this situation I really don't think the reason he lost is because he didn't have ammo... What's he going to do... buy that extra bren to stop the tiger tank? His most reliable AT option (airstrikes) and he got no support to effectively use the achilles and get the necessary flank shots. Munitions wasn't going to save him there.

Took the time to watch the whole thing (at double speed) and seriously don't understand how your replay supported any of your points because I feel like it just strengthened MarkR even more.

[Warhawks97]

1. Markr said ammo upkeep reduced arty use. It did not! Fact. It maybe reduced the ammount of arty units, but not the volume and even this is questionable. First claim busted. Ammo upkeep on arty changed nothing. So his main Myth, that upkeep has helped to reduce the arty by "self-regulating" is a myth.

2. He played CW with trucks quickly set up on ammo. He didnt tec any off map till well into late game. If he had teced off maps a bit earlier to support his pushes he would have had not the ammo he needed for his inf.
Also, all other inf on the field that i could see never got upgrades and used their default loadout or weapons they get for free. Tara, as a strong opposer of artillery still just so had enough ammo. Imagine someone having an arty piece. He wont upgrade anything anymore.

3. CW RAF inf doesnt need nearly as much ammo as an AB or inf player would need and there is not a a fucking WSC that makes you spend 150 ammo first to have somewhat better equiped infantry. Imagine a inf doc player that has to unlock WSC stuff, using a piece of artillery and has to upgrade not just 5 squads with one weapon upgrade, but like 6 squads with like 2-3 upgrades on each squad. Have fun.

4. The ammo, despite rather conservative ammo use, a handfull of upgrades, cheapest possible artillery and no planes untill well into late game and yet his ammo count dropped lower and lower and lower while his fuel quickly piled up. If he had more ammo, he could have used a lot more of his doctrine power like a cluster run and a rocket run or whatever to actually achieve a real breakthrough.
So the point stands, if he had gone more artillery madness, he might have had a bit better chances, or enough ammo to actually use the air support instead of having to decide: Inf upgrades and abilities or airplanes.

5. The early game is the moment where most infantry is upgraded, at least to me. Later on i often throw them without upgrade into the battle knowing that spending 100 ammo or more for various weapons is not really helpfull when i expect the squad not to survive for long in the arty mess.

6. Answer me also this question: Why is it ok that i dont have to manage my fuel which is stockpiling many times or at least is enough to not worry about, but ammo should be a ressource that i have to think about 50 times before i make a decision for what i spend it. What has ammo done to you? Or what has fuel not done to you that you hate ammo so much?




Tara is one of few that never use doctrinal abilties all that much till very late into the game and tries to prevent using any arty at all even when he plays as SE. He is making his own life sometimes pretty hard by doing so. But thats because he likes the challange even when it is frustrating. Still losing the game despite playing as perfect as one can do to stupid nonstop artillery rain tells stories about this game current situation.



So, overall, increasing arty build cost, barrage cost and CP cost would help fixing a lot more issues as to have cheap arty that is super early available and which is always the more effective way to spend your ammo on. Keep in mind also that alcon is really not a player you got to fear and yet his early nebler and aa tank rush saved him at least for long enough. Would be interesting to get the save file from tara to see other players perspective.



Edit: Rewatched it now. The inf never got more than one Bren during the game and commandos pay just 35 ammo for thompson without prior 80 ammo wsc unlock to get them this cheap as it seems. So the most common ability used was smoke (15 ammo), nade (15) and sniper shot ability two times or 3 (25 ammo).
So to get your logic:
Players are allowed to buy a single unlock for their inf, use occassionally an ability but only if they dont use artillery and only in very rare cases a doctrinal ability. But dare you come up with a Ranger squad that has two thompson upgrades and a zook. And if you use arty or tanks, you are not allowed to give weapons to your infantry because you know, ammo managment. But we dont care about your fuel managment at all.

Edit II:
Oh, i also noted that he often couldnt afford AP rounds for achilles. He only bought HE. AP upgrade and usage would have depleted him too much i guess. But its ok, because you know, aMmO MaNagMenT. Meanwhile despite all the achilles and cromwells being build: fuel keeps floating like crazy despite the fuel income being less than half that of the ammo income with no fuel point being even upgraded, probably because everyone is floating fuel, because you know, we dont give a shit about fuel managment. Let them spam AA tanks and stugs and panzer IV´s and whatsnot as much as they like. But dare someone buys a second weapon upgrade for his infantry or even worse: AP rounds for his tank destroyer. We must punish him immediatly in the name of God ammo. Hail God Ammo.

Edit III: Finally stopped buying HE on achilles as well, knowing that he now has to spare his ammo for air support. So when you decide to use doctrinal abilities, you have to give up all your upgrades and unit abilities. Interesting. Let me guess: Ammo managment?

[Consti255]

I have to agree, when i build a sherman i always look on the ammo before i look at the fuel.

[tarakancheg]

I dont really know why is this game out of all possible games is an arguement because it is played on best map in the game (sarcasm), but whatever.
I won't state the obvios by saying that we are playing in such arty heavy state of the game for a 3 months for sure and i just got tired of it so decided to take a break.
The reason i am in this thread is that i feel like people chose my opinion for me so i will just give a couple of comments.
First of all this is "yet another" la fiere game where 1 axis guy went Def and just spammed emplacements and arty playing point and click, 2nd player plays tiger doc with rocket to farm for EXP for said tiger and right flank is as always an isolated 1v1. (80% of la fiere games goes like this for me) This map point layout is bad and holding any of 3 point does not give you anything except 8 mp/min per point rewarding sitting back and throwing arty at each other till you can take any of meaningful points.
"Play bigger maps" arguement wont work, i gave up on playing on bigger maps because people simply wont join and i will be siting like an idiot there in a lobby for 2 hours before giving up and signing up for another arty party.

1. Markr said ammo upkeep reduced arty use. It did not! Fact. It maybe reduced the ammount of arty units, but not the volume and even this is questionable. First claim busted. Ammo upkeep on arty changed nothing. So his main Myth, that upkeep has helped to reduce the arty by "self-regulating" is a myth.

Problem of arty spam does not lie in an upkeep of any sort, if people want to use arty (or any click to kill ability) they will find resourses for it so if you want to change that you have increase the cooldowns, ONLY THEN UPKEEP WILL START WORKING AS INTENDED, but right now you dont even need to get 2+ arty pieces except as RA for overwatch because you cooldown is so small that you have just enough ammo to fire your arty non stop, and if you swap ammo upkeep for fuel you will make using arty even easier because DEF DOC DOES NOT NEED FUEL. you get 2 TH, 2 arty pieces and then just spam emplacements. What do you need for that? Fuel? No, you need manpower, IF you want to change this then you have to increase MP upkeep for Arty and emplacements you can not "delay tech" for DEF doc or SE BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO T4 AND THEIR ONLY FUEL GOES FOR TH ALL OF THE OTHER RES GO INTO ARTY AND STATIC ANTI INF.
P.S. you can decrew your own guns with flamethrower to not pay upkeep if you dont need arty ATM.

2. He played CW with trucks quickly set up on ammo. He didnt tec any off map till well into late game. If he had teced off maps a bit earlier to support his pushes he would have had not the ammo he needed for his inf.
Also, all other inf on the field that i could see never got upgrades and used their default loadout or weapons they get for free. Tara, as a strong opposer of artillery still just so had enough ammo. Imagine someone having an arty piece. He wont upgrade anything anymore.

Pack howi was alive and using upkeep 15:00-37:00, Top right corner was not OPed what i should have done with my HQ

3. CW RAF inf doesnt need nearly as much ammo as an AB or inf player would need and there is not a a fucking WSC that makes you spend 150 ammo first to have somewhat better equiped infantry. Imagine a inf doc player that has to unlock WSC stuff, using a piece of artillery and has to upgrade not just 5 squads with one weapon upgrade, but like 6 squads with like 2-3 upgrades on each squad. Have fun.

all air docs are weak RN imo because of a arty+bigeer tank than your opponent has meta.

4. The ammo, despite rather conservative ammo use, a handfull of upgrades, cheapest possible artillery and no planes untill well into late game and yet his ammo count dropped lower and lower and lower while his fuel quickly piled up. If he had more ammo, he could have used a lot more of his doctrine power like a cluster run and a rocket run or whatever to actually achieve a real breakthrough.
So the point stands, if he had gone more artillery madness, he might have had a bit better chances, or enough ammo to actually use the air support instead of having to decide: Inf upgrades and abilities or airplanes.

for the entire game arty ate 160-ish muni with upkeep. Wow. a single airstrike. RAF has 3 of those with a 3 min CD on each BTW.

5. The early game is the moment where most infantry is upgraded, at least to me. Later on i often throw them without upgrade into the battle knowing that spending 100 ammo or more for various weapons is not really helpfull when i expect the squad not to survive for long in the arty mess.

because the inf you upgrade at the start is the inf that has Vet midgame required to survive tank HE midgame and if you are decent you wont need new inf untill some tank HE wipes an entire squad.

6. Answer me also this question: Why is it ok that i dont have to manage my fuel which is stockpiling many times or at least is enough to not worry about, but ammo should be a ressource that i have to think about 50 times before i make a decision for what i spend it. What has ammo done to you? Or what has fuel not done to you that you hate ammo so much?

Because ammo gives you abilities. Abilities (nades included) deal heavy damage to/wipe high vet and elite squads, by killing those you allow yourself to push back enemy AT and recon giving your tank an advantage (provided that it is same class/better one than your opponent has) and by that wins you the game.

Tara is one of few that never use doctrinal abilties all that much till very late into the game and tries to prevent using any arty at all even when he plays as SE. He is making his own life sometimes pretty hard by doing so. But thats because he likes the challange even when it is frustrating. Still losing the game despite playing as perfect as one can do to stupid nonstop artillery rain tells stories about this game current situation.

click to kill is boring, i use it only as a comeback tool.

So, overall, increasing arty build cost, barrage cost and CP cost would help fixing a lot more issues as to have cheap arty that is super early available and which is always the more effective way to spend your ammo on. Keep in mind also that alcon is really not a player you got to fear and yet his early nebler and aa tank rush saved him at least for long enough. Would be interesting to get the save file from tara to see other players perspective.

answered in first quote.
No save but you can see that there is just an emplacement line with AT in front it 100%.

Edit: Rewatched it now. The inf never got more than one Bren during the game and commandos pay just 35 ammo for thompson without prior 80 ammo wsc unlock to get them this cheap as it seems. So the most common ability used was smoke (15 ammo), nade (15) and sniper shot ability two times or 3 (25 ammo).
So to get your logic:
Players are allowed to buy a single unlock for their inf, use occassionally an ability but only if they dont use artillery and only in very rare cases a doctrinal ability. But dare you come up with a Ranger squad that has two thompson upgrades and a zook. And if you use arty or tanks, you are not allowed to give weapons to your infantry because you know, ammo managment. But we dont care about your fuel managment at all.

*insert long thread about AB muni drop existing an playing bigger maps"

Edit II:
Oh, i also noted that he often couldnt afford AP rounds for achilles. He only bought HE. AP upgrade and usage would have depleted him too much i guess. But its ok, because you know, aMmO MaNagMenT. Meanwhile despite all the achilles and cromwells being build: fuel keeps floating like crazy despite the fuel income being less than half that of the ammo income with no fuel point being even upgraded, probably because everyone is floating fuel, because you know, we dont give a shit about fuel managment. Let them spam AA tanks and stugs and panzer IV´s and whatsnot as much as they like. But dare someone buys a second weapon upgrade for his infantry or even worse: AP rounds for his tank destroyer. We must punish him immediatly in the name of God ammo. Hail God Ammo.

Paying 75 ammo for a 1 shot for a unit that has less range then a tiger, because that is how many shots it will be able to make if it is lucky? No, thank you.

Edit III: Finally stopped buying HE on achilles as well, knowing that he now has to spare his ammo for air support. So when you decide to use doctrinal abilities, you have to give up all your upgrades and unit abilities. Interesting. Let me guess: Ammo managment?

i realised that wasting 35 muni on one of the worst HE in the game to kill Vsturms may be suboptimal.



My point? Play bigger maps. Oh wait... nobody does:)
And nobody will play bigger map because it is simple to play some 3-lane 3v3 map without worrying about flanks and such. but i guess i am going of topic with that.

[MarKr]

Jeeez, another wall of text full of "surely", "noone ever", "always" and "if he hadn't" but we were to break down these exaggerations, they would turn into "maybe", "some people", "sometimes" and "yeah, but he had, so...".

All I see is an opinion that is strongly based on personal preferences and playstyle, disregarding of anyone who claims the opposite and "rebutting" points with "tunnel vision" arguments or "what if". Tarakancheg already reacted to each of the points from his own perspective, which is a lot different from yours but I'm sure you'll come up with a wall of text explaining to him why he's wrong and why your opinion and playstyle is right/better.

So far it just feels that you have a problem with huge stockpiling of fuel that you have no use for, while also wanting to upgrade everything every time for which you don't have ammo. So you came up with the whole "fuel upkeep for arty" and "tank should cost more fuel". If I tell you that we want players to make decisions about what to spend their ammo on - upgrades or abilities or arty, you will tell me something like "that's bullshit because (wall of text that can be summed up as "I don't like it"). And the only acceptable "fix" for you is your own solution that just so happens to require overhaul of half of the current game mechanics.

I'm not gonna do that.

[Warhawks97]

@Tara:
Yeah, def doc might not need much fuel. Barely any doc needs fuel only for the early tec race. But as i said in the other topic, if an howitzer makes you pay 50 fuel to construct+ upkeep it will prevent players from arty spam+fast tec into tanks, Its super easy to get 1-2 Howitzers and still guard them with Pak vehicles, 20 mm vehicles, 75 mm Stubby HT/Stubby panzer IV. Two howitzers + HT or stubby tank makes you pay less than 100 fuel in total.

And replacing ammo upkeep with higher barrage cost would hurt only the artillery, not the entire army. Basically artillery is killing the enemies army but also the rest of your army except for the stuff that protects them.

So far it just feels that you have a problem with huge stockpiling of fuel that you have no use for, while also wanting to upgrade everything every time for which you don't have ammo. So you came up with the whole "fuel upkeep for arty" and "tank should cost more fuel". If I tell you that we want players to make decisions about what to spend their ammo on - upgrades or abilities or arty, you will tell me something like "that's bullshit because (wall of text that can be summed up as "I don't like it"). And the only acceptable "fix" for you is your own solution that just so happens to require overhaul of half of the current game mechanics.

1. You added RAF doc with 4 different airplane abilties + an ability that cuts cooldown into half. That entire branch is usless after you used one of them. There are two types of RAF players (or AB). Those who only get airstrikes and pack howitzers and then those who tec for inf. But having any sort of combined arms is nearly impossible.


2. The alternative to "simply bomb all to dust" is a decent unit composition. But you cant get it because you only do one of the following things:

Use infantry to most effect but then you have to spare all ammo for them. One fucking satchel, one bundle and 50 ammo gone. One weapon upgrade and the same. And when game turns arty heavy you cant avoid losses and keep spending ammo for upgrades for inf that maybe lives for 2 fights is a waste.
OR
Use tanks but then all ammo is gone. As inf doc i can get one sherman but have to sacrafice everything else. Perhaps i have one inf squad that has one weapon upgrade but thats rather usless since it ends up to mix 3 rifles with 3 thompson.
OR
Research. Research all your WSC upgrades or PE inf support center stuff and you can be sure that you cant use much on the field for the next 10 mins.
OR
Use arty
OR
use doctrinal abilities.

But you never really get to a point where you can use a nice mix.
As inf doc player i often go tanks+ unupgraded cheap inf or arty+ unupgraded cheap inf.

As PE SE i often times find myself playing only inf heavy (weapons, flame nades etc) OR give each squad max one G43 upgrade while arty takes the remaining ammo. Often times i find myself using only schwimmwagens and 20 mm cars since there is neither enough MP once i lost 1-2 inf squads nor enough ammo to re-equip new squads with the smpliest set of weapons and getting inf only for k98 makes no sense in late game. Stormpios in this regard come in handy with their stg at that point but squishy as fuck that die to any random arty shell or a single HE shot combined with cal 50 burst.


Armor doc in this regard has it way easier when you have enough CP. Once you have the 3 CP ammo unlock it becomes much easier to use tanks along with infantry equiped with grease guns and thompsons while also using occassionally off map arty. Armor doc is, hands down, the best combined arms army that can effectively use all three ressources without having always one hand tied on its back due to high ammo consumption or artillery ammo upkeep. Thats why i love armor doc the most currently. Its the only doc where i can use x AND y and not only x OR y.

[Consti255]

Jeeez, another wall of text full of "surely", "noone ever", "always" and "if he hadn't" but we were to break down these exaggerations, they would turn into "maybe", "some people", "sometimes" and "yeah, but he had, so...".

All I see is an opinion that is strongly based on personal preferences and playstyle, disregarding of anyone who claims the opposite and "rebutting" points with "tunnel vision" arguments or "what if". Tarakancheg already reacted to each of the points from his own perspective, which is a lot different from yours but I'm sure you'll come up with a wall of text explaining to him why he's wrong and why your opinion and playstyle is right/better.

So far it just feels that you have a problem with huge stockpiling of fuel that you have no use for, while also wanting to upgrade everything every time for which you don't have ammo. So you came up with the whole "fuel upkeep for arty" and "tank should cost more fuel". If I tell you that we want players to make decisions about what to spend their ammo on - upgrades or abilities or arty, you will tell me something like "that's bullshit because (wall of text that can be summed up as "I don't like it"). And the only acceptable "fix" for you is your own solution that just so happens to require overhaul of half of the current game mechanics.

I'm not gonna do that.

Tbh, i dont see here any personal preferences in hawks suggestion?
I mean yes, i support the acutal solution, because i hate arty partys and i would like to play bigger maps, but when i want to do it noone joins, even if i host 3v3 maps and close 2 slots, players come in and say OpEn ThE SlOtS. And no i hate playing 1v1s i got my ass smacked many times by Kwok in a 1v1. Not to mention i will smack his ass one day. Yes this is a personal opinion on game modes, but from what i can tell, maybe 20% if not less are playing 1v1s in this game.

Going back to the suggestion, for me its not a personal playstyle choice, its a solution to many off balanced things right know.
Its not a personal playstyle opinion that arty spam from def doc is a thing, its an outspoken fact, you can see in almost every Def doc game right now.
Also, Def doc doesnt just needs MP, fuel is essencial for emplacements and Nahshorns. As well, UP THE ARTY COSTS.
If you are not willing to change for a fuel upkeep or change the 2 CP arty, please rise the fuel costs for those pieces, so we get atleast 2min more to breath and decied a game for us before this arty madness starts.

[MarKr]

Tbh, i dont see here any personal preferences in hawks suggestion?

I didn't mean just this topic but the underlaying suggestions too, because in the end if you wanna do anything Hawks suggests, you have to do pretty much (at least part of) the rest, too.

I could go through the topics and search for the specific quotes but I honestly don't feel like wasting any more time on that. So just the main gist of the topics that he made in the past months:
- The one about making "medium tanks the workhorses/powerhouses with perma HE and whatnot else" - is based on historical accuracy (which is something that Hawk's builds most his suggestions on) where medium tanks were the most numberous tank types. Also, he mentioned several times that he plays mostly with medium tanks - so his personal preference/playstyle and the suggested change would benefit that personal style.

- The one about various changes in higher fuel dependacy while make ammo more available (this was the main point or at least a "connected" topic to several threads). We said that we intentionally made changes so that everything is NOT available at the same time. He wrote stuff like "arty eats so much ammo that there's not enough ammo for unit upgrades and abilities" (paraphrase, not a direct quote). So...use fewer arty units so that you DO have ammo left for upgrades/abilities? Other people commented along the same lines, saying that it is possible. But the reaction could be summarized as "well, I don't play that way" - so, personal playstyle.

- The one with "make (list of units 0CP)". Claiming that you always have to unlock them first no matter what or otherwise you get crushed so hard that you could break the time-space continuum. Proven by other players that it is not always necessary to take those unlocks first if you're willing to take other than the meta approach - so again preferences.

- Some time ago there were suggestions that would limit camping. It's no secret that Hawks' playstyle is very mobile-oriented. One player once told me "If he (Hawks) could, he would have players go with their units head-on-head like rams all day long." So requests that directly or indirectly limit camping capabilities benefit that playstyle while hamper defensive playstyles. This is not a recent thing, though.

Yeah, the thing where people won't play 3v3 on 4v4 because "bUt It iS 4v4 MaP" is a tough one. I guess we'll just really have to edit the maps and remove those extra slots.

[Warhawks97]

I could go through the topics and search for the specific quotes but I honestly don't feel like wasting any more time on that. So just the main gist of the topics that he made in the past months:
- The one about making "medium tanks the workhorses/powerhouses with perma HE and whatnot else" - is based on historical accuracy (which is something that Hawk's builds most his suggestions on) where medium tanks were the most numberous tank types. Also, he mentioned several times that he plays mostly with medium tanks - so his personal preference/playstyle and the suggested change would benefit that personal style.

When i began with BK i was a 100% inf player and used tanks in support. Panzers did cost a hell lot of ammo and most HE was usless. It was pointless to get any medium tank at that time except they had a top mounted MG42. Then Medium tanks and tanks in general got a lot cheaper and HE deadly effective and inf less effective due to HE and handheld AT changes.
However this meant that the absolute best way to spend ammo and res in general was medium armor since they would whipe the floor with infantry. There was almost no more reason to spend ammo into anything aside arty and HE rounds. Logically i placed my entire gameplay arround them which sucks. Its great that mediums have a use now compared to early BK days, but the way how they dominate and take away ammo for all others is just stupid.

In the past i payed a lot of fuel for any tank and never bought ammo since HE had never hit shit, hence other units used this ammo. All we had to do then was to keep the fuel cost tanks used to have while making their main gun able to use proper HE (not OP HE). Instead we turned tanks into Heavy Ammo consuming units very powerfull HE.

Also the idea with the HE is based on two things:
1. Make HE less oneshot instant killers but instead weapons with good AoE to damage, stun and suppress or even pin infantry. So instead of driving up, fire one HE to force an instant retreat, tanks would instead several HE shells to keep enemie infantry down while friendly infantry moves in to clear it.

2. Single shot HE bypassing reload times. A Tiger that can take out a tank with AP and 2,5 seconds later whiping a squad with an HE shell and retreat savely isnt crazy, Huh? It needs 3 seconds for Tiger to pay itself of sometimes. But inf has to fight dozens of battles before being nearly as cost effective.

3. Units role. My idea would be that TDs start with special AP by default or get AP via global fuel based research while HE needs to be bought as extra ammo once per unit. Meanwhile battle tanks are able to fire basic AP and basic HE by default but without access to special AP unless they get it based on their doctrine. Their purpose is multirole essentially which means fighting hard and soft targets. But BK treats literally every Tank like a Tank destroyer. To be an anti tank unit. Thats just wrong. Tanks are multirole weapons supposed to overcome defenses (HE required) and to support friendly infantry in any situation, including against enemie inf (HE required). Buying a 75 mm sherman currently is like buying a rifle squad without rifles.


So there would be these types of tanks in the game:

1. Howitzer tanks (stuh, 105, scott, Stupa) and howitzer-like tanks (Stubby Panzer III and IV).
- Howitzer tanks have decent HE but shells flying slower than those of other tanks but are thus able to fire over minor obstacles and engage emplacments over a decent distant.
-Howitzer like Tanks work in a similiar way. But instead of having the ability to engage emplacments and trenches from afar, they do have a high rate of fire which will be more important overall than single deadly HE shots. So nice to damage and suppress a lot of infantry arround them and to bomb them down with a high rate of fire. Also these tanks are cheaper than other normal tanks.
- Both can fire HEAT rounds when necessary as self defense

2. Medium Multirole tanks (long barrled P IV to 75 mm shermans, cromwells etc etc etc)
- AP powerfull enough to take on most enemie armor and enemie mediums. But also decent HE rounds.
- Cost a fair ammount of fuel for their multirole capabilties.
- Special AP only via doctrine


3. Multirole tanks with focus in fighting tanks (Panther, 76 sherman, Firefly)
- They have either weaker HE (like 76 sherman) but maintain good rate of fire and decent AP power
- Or they remain a decent HE but swapping from AP to HE takes a long time. Reload in general takes a long time but outstanding AP power (Firefly, Panther, Pershing)
- Special AP only via doctrine (76, Panther) or via upgrade (Firefly).
- Basically unsure about firefly whether it should be treated like a heavier TD with HE as upgrade and AP as default or vise versa.

4. Heavy multirole Tanks (Tigers, KT)
- Cost a lot
- Have lots of HP
- Powerfull AP and HE capabilities
- Breakthrough tanks
- Takes a very long time to reload or to swap from AP to HE and back. Pre-planning is key.
- Special AP via doctrines.

TDs:
- usually equiped with special AP by default, have to upgrade HE if they want to use it
- Cost effective when used vs tanks
- Light and heavy TD... one have high rof, the others outstanding firepower.

Infantry Tank (Churchills)
- Provide additional boost to nearby inf (harder to suppress)
- Usually HE shooting in support of friendly inf, but can usually do both with average AP power.


Right now many tanks feel quite similiar to each other, except that heavier is always better. Having swap AP/HE would boost lighter tank units as they could swap between AP and HE much faster than heavies could ever do and thus react to threats more quickly.

Again, vcoh in this regard was much better. Stubby tank IV had a bad ass rate of fire vs inf, Panther had range and pen but was weak vs inf, and the 76 gun upgrade made you better vs tanks but worse vs inf, so there was a tradeoff. BK sadly has lost this original philosophy. Bigger is more or less always better instead of having pros and cons.

- The one about various changes in higher fuel dependacy while make ammo more available (this was the main point or at least a "connected" topic to several threads). We said that we intentionally made changes so that everything is NOT available at the same time. He wrote stuff like "arty eats so much ammo that there's not enough ammo for unit upgrades and abilities" (paraphrase, not a direct quote). So...use fewer arty units so that you DO have ammo left for upgrades/abilities? Other people commented along the same lines, saying that it is possible. But the reaction could be summarized as "well, I don't play that way" - so, personal playstyle.

Its pointless to argue with you about anything because you have no plan how the games look like when actually playing it. Use fewer arty and you get bombed to dust. Spend ammo on inf and its wasted when the artillery reached a level that made infantry survival almost impossible. Every game ends in arty games. Its not that i want it to happen, it just happens because players think: "Arty is so cost effective, Why should i bother with other upgrades. I spend that little ammo thats left on artillery rather than for anything else".

Game Phases are as follows:
1. Get a bit of inf and give them weapons to win first engagment. One such famous upgrade is the 100 ammo lmg42 on heavy assault grens.
2. Arty asap. Spend all ammo on it to grind exp.
3. Get Tanks from the farmed exp.
4. Very late game: Either get super heavy tanks OR get super heavily buffed elite inf with damage reduction modifier and huge MP pool. That inf is often pre-equiped with weapons (commandos, 82nd, infiltration ranger, urban assault squad etc) so they dont take much ammo and will totally whipe the floor with basic inf which doesnt have upgraded weapons to stand a chance and suffer from the stupid infantry vet changes that made everything just worse.

- The one with "make (list of units 0CP)". Claiming that you always have to unlock them first no matter what or otherwise you get crushed so hard that you could break the time-space continuum. Proven by other players that it is not always necessary to take those unlocks first if you're willing to take other than the meta approach - so again preferences.

Lmao, I guess you got some paranoia. I am by far not the only one seeing it this way. Sukin, consti and several others brought it up many times over. We are all sick of this repetetive unlock system. As said, we TRIED to do things differently. But each time you get smacked in your fucking face if you dont rush arty/tanks. Tarakancheg is the masochist among us who keeps trying to play and unlock differently but often enough he has to rely on its super human micro and brain to have success or he simply loses in the end simply because he refuses to rush arty and TD.

- Some time ago there were suggestions that would limit camping. It's no secret that Hawks' playstyle is very mobile-oriented. One player once told me "If he (Hawks) could, he would have players go with their units head-on-head like rams all day long." So requests that directly or indirectly limit camping capabilities benefit that playstyle while hamper defensive playstyles. This is not a recent thing, though.

I dont even what you want to say here. I never suggested a limit ever except for Bunkers which were huge no brainers. But other than that i always said to keep the game dynamic via cost adjustments eg by making AT guns a bit more expensive since even the 50 mm had a cost of just 230 MP while vehicles and inf were well beyond 300-400 MP at that time.

When i started BK things were as you described: Elite inf units clashing in the middle of the map along with heavy tanks for 4 hours while arty flew nonstop right into them or overhead. That was just a silly way of playing.


for quite some time i am suggesting to drop HMG costs, mortar costs and basic infantry costs so that these three unit types become your mainstay and easily accessable units that you have to position and re-position all the time. But instead we still sit here with HMG´s that cost as much as artillery and sniper ability to whipe squads in 1-2 burst without ever suppressing while mortars impacting like artillery and competing with them in terms of cost.

Yeah, the thing where people won't play 3v3 on 4v4 because "bUt It iS 4v4 MaP" is a tough one. I guess we'll just really have to edit the maps and remove those extra slots.

According to your myths, arty ammo upkeep would prevent heavy arty usage regardless of which map we play or number of players. That turned out to be wrong. Arty ammo upkeep didnt delay and didnt reduce the volume of arty. But he severley nerfed everything else: Doctrines and their abilities as well as the alternatives to it like well equiped infantry or combined arms.


I guess you have just gotten blind and every post you see that has to do with tanks, upgrades etc is instantly related to me. I know that a lot of guys out there think the same way except those who abuse arty the most and always complain when they get beaten up by an enemie using heavily beefed up and veted infantry (not a joke).
I know that Agent Dunham sees many things the way i do and only occassionally comes to forum when i push him, Erich sees things similiar as i do, consti does, Frost at least in parts when i got a talk with him, sukin from what i can see from his reaction to some of my posts because he got as frustrated as i do and thus hasnt been online in steam for quite some time, Sgt Smith when i have a conversation with him in steam.... So dont say that it always only "my preference". We all are being frustrated currently by so many things going wrong. I often get called a crazy guy that i still come back to forum to remind you about the biggest flaws BK currently has. I told to Consti that i am already seen as a pariah here in the forum which seems to be true. But he said that he is perhaps also seen as one just because he points out the biggest nonsense in BK (eg 2 CP 105 arty, 135 ammo just to use one tank etc etc).

[MarKr]

I started reading, first part was ok - no indirect insults or passively-agressive stuff. Then I skipped the list of tanks, as I'm sure I've read that in another topic already. Then I got to this:

Right now many tanks feel quite similiar to each other, except that heavier is always better. Having swap AP/HE would boost lighter tank units as they could swap between AP and HE much faster than heavies could ever do and thus react to threats more quickly.

Again, vcoh in this regard was much better. Stubby tank IV had a bad ass rate of fire vs inf, Panther had range and pen but was weak vs inf, and the 76 gun upgrade made you better vs tanks but worse vs inf, so there was a tradeoff. BK sadly has lost this original philosophy. Bigger is more or less always better instead of having pros and cons.

Which supports what I said, because it is literally your preference of one state of the game over another and your preference is the basis for your suggestions.

And then I got to the old, played out "you don't play, you don't understand". Just this thread alone - your first reply was Tiger, sayin he disagrees, then kwok, saying he disagrees, then Consti who supported you, then Tara who said he disagrees with you. So you have 3 people with in-game experience and you waved them all off with pretty much "nah, you're wrong, I'm right". And that was enough for me to not read any further.
They didn't react back to your replies, which seems to make them wiser than me, as they seems to have learned that one reply is better than a "wall-of-text party". I'll do better to follow their example.

[Warhawks97]

Markr, everybody has a preference, saying not to have is a lie. Do you want to keep the games literally reserved for a bunch of guys that host all day long the same matches with the same start and arty madness and same docs over and over? I have been playing and testing all docs, used lots of different openings and so on. But in the end the mod forces you down to one narrow path.

I will just repeat what i wrote in the arty upkeep topic:

I think players just got used BK being an all out arty party game. This is why you see the same players hosting the same games every day. At the same time, many of those other players that like to use their brain a bit more are gone or stay away for weeks because no sane human on earth can handle this game for more than one day without getting crazy.

Like let me start:
Wurf and his mates: Bloody Gulch, la fiere, duclair. He might take luft but his mates get arty for sure and he, too, nowadays.
Sturm and Psylo? Bizory, base camp and get mortar and rocket art asap.
Hazee and budies: Lane maps with crazy ammount of arty. Usually Road or goodwood etc.
Ete and his buds? Similiar story.
And a bunch of other 2 or 3 men crews on high valley and so on.


Then i sometimes see guys online when i am lucky but they only play 1-2 matches and disappear again for a week or more.
So, when you talk about "specific few", its always the same bunch of guys with heavy camping and arty in mind that have games open 24/7. Every time i go online, i see these games open waiting for a bunch of poor dudes to join their madness and insanity. And after not seeing other games and hosting rosmalen standard res without anyone joining, i go off.

So, what is your thought about what the mod should be?
For a tiny ammount of players that host same maps everyday, pick same docs and go arty madness without even trying to play differently? And that at a cost for a lot of players who can and want play differently but which always get disappointed and often leaving the mod for weeks or even months?

Its up to you for who you want to reserve this mod. This mod has a lot of potential, many units, many abilities, many different unlocks, but in the end it comes down to a handfull of unlocks that you got to pick if you are not far more skilled than your enemie.