On "realistic weapon values" idea

[Thrawn]

Hello,

I originally wanted to post it on the old bk forum, but seeing there is another one, newer, it might be better off in here. Firstly, do put "imho" in front of everything I say as this is more of a commentary or essay on the topic than some objective description of anything. Also, I don´t know whether there is a closed-betatester lounge like there was on blitzkrieg-mod.de, but I think there won´t be a problem if I continue to expand one thought from the Beta Lounge BKMod2 thread - this one being the "Realistic weapons" vs CoH2 (ie. +- vCoH system). It was one of the main selling points of BK and even new CoH2 mod(s) do put some emphasis on this. In their (and BK) perception, realistic weapons = more killing power and generally faster and deadlier firefights -> more realistic gameplay. I will try to argue with this point a little.

More killing power and deadlier firefights, based on "it is not hard to kill a man and my RoF is high", are not realistic. I would even argue they are doing exactly the opposite - making the game highly unrealistic. This was the case of BK that, while trying to have weapon stats based in reality, ended as a world on its own; not looking like ww2 warfare at all. And, to be honest, I think vCoH infantry firefights were more akin to real firefights than BK. Note that I am putting an emphasis on firefights and general look and feel of combat instead of individual weapon performances. This disparity, ie. why more "deadly as in real" weapons are making the game more and more strange is coming from game limitation and from how the game works. Firefights are slow.

Line of Sight and the visibility of people - In CoH - and in most RTS games as well - unit sees other unit if that unit is within her LoS (ie. certain distance) and if a range is sufficient, this unit can attack the other one and deal damage. In real world, this is not the case. In an open field with MG, if that MG is on the ground level and there is even some minimal vegetation, this MG will have a hard time seeing a unit once they "hit the dirt" and go prone - basically, it is very very easy to find concealment nearly in any enviroment against an observer that is on the same level as you. This basically goes again the old vCoH "pinned soldiers just lie in front of MG42 and do not die" complaint - I always saw the vCoH procedure of pinned squad not dying as something that is more believable than BK´s "you stand in front of an MG, you die," as I saw "pinned" and "supressed" status as an abstract representation of soldiers concealing themselves, not moving and lying behind anything, be it even grass. Only illustration I can currently think of is the Band of Brother´s attack on Carentan and MG in the first floor of that Café. What we can see is a group of soldiers walking down the road (red cover). MG opens on them, killing two or three before they manage to scatter and lie in the ditch by the road (yellow cover). At this point, they are practically safe from the MG as it cannot see them at all. By CoH (and BK logic), they are relatively close to the MG (ie. within LoS and range), therefore they are valid and legal target. Yellow cover is weak and in vCoH they would be receiving damage. In BK they would all be dead in short time or running back to the base. I know it is a movie, but it is valid example nonetheless. Basically, longer duration of and slow killing in firefights is more realistic, because it represents the most important point - soldiers are not not-killing the enemy because they are lousy shots or because their MP44 has wrongly modeled killing power, but because of their inability to acquire targets due to not seeing them. In CoH this is little hampered by the visual representation, as soldiers are sometimes shoving their rifles down each other´s throat, that is true.

If you can think about this for a minute, I have achieved my goal and I am very glad for it.

I stand by the opinion that the way to more realistic and more enjoyable firefights does not go through checking RoF of weapons, stopping power and accuracy of firearms, but rather through tweaking the vCoH2 current system and modifying the way in which supressed/pinned status, distance, red cover, no cover, yellow cover and green cover (in this order of importance) work. I will happily elaborate further if any kind of discussion emerges from this little brainfart.



Thrawn, or the guy who was forgotten with an access to the Blitzkrieg-mod.de beta lounge

[MeatshieldNZ]

Hey thrawn, its certainly an interesting point you bring up. My main concern would be is it codable? COH2 does have truesight so where does that end? In your example once the guys are lying in the ditch can they be coded to vanish from the enemy Line Of sight? if so then it would add another even deeper level of tactical gameplay which could be a good or bad thing, I guess it would have to be tested. I think truesight is going to be such a great addition to BK2 even in its current form that it will be a much more tactical experience rather than just hiding your spotter behind a bush and illuminating half the map.

[Spielführer]

I also assist Thrawns point. In both ways. If you are caught by suprise by an MG42, it will kill some guys in awesome time, but else everybody is hitting the dirt. So MGs are mainly for suppressing (like currently in CoH2) This is kinda realistic and also good for gameplay reasons. Also MG42 is not an ultimate killing machine on it's max range. Of course it is an awesome buzz saw but you can't simulate both things together in this game. Same goes for tank fights. Firing on max range especially on moving targets... I prefer CoH2 were you are able to flank with 2 or 3 Tankhunters (e.g. M10) and wipe out a Tiger. If you are good with micro (so better player) you will achieve your victory. If you are not that good (bad player) you will not be able to do so and the Tiger will rip you apart.

So the better player wins (good for gameplay). The game could need some tweaking since Relic is lazy in balance stuff but else the balance is kinda good

[Thrawn]

Hey thrawn, its certainly an interesting point you bring up. My main concern would be is it codable? COH2 does have truesight so where does that end? In your example once the guys are lying in the ditch can they be coded to vanish from the enemy Line Of sight? if so then it would add another even deeper level of tactical gameplay which could be a good or bad thing, I guess it would have to be tested. I think truesight is going to be such a great addition to BK2 even in its current form that it will be a much more tactical experience rather than just hiding your spotter behind a bush and illuminating half the map.

No, I don´t think the correct way to simulate this is by using true sight system, as firstly - it is not the same thing. If a squad goes prone, the MG (or the shooter in general) loses the sight of some soldiers, but retains general knowledge of where the unit as a whole is located. True sight system operates on strict sees / does not see basis. Secondly, true sight system and overly intensive use of it would create immense problems as even now in vCoH2, it is sometimes annoying (there are certain trees that block LoS, but they are not that distinct. If you place an AT gun behind them (since they give cover), the unit can still see the area before them as individual crewmembers are scattered, but it cannot fire, since the line of fire of the gun itself is obstructed by the obstacle). And the main problem is that units ordered to attack something they cannot see result in chasing it stupidly anywhere (happens all the time with stupid tank smokescreen popup the Germans in vCoH2 have). MG42 can engage unit that it cannot see because they went prone. It just will not kill them, but it can keep them pinned. With using true sight, MG will not be able to fire at them at all. What I have in mind is making this:

a) Supressed to represent "being engaged," not "being fired at heavily" - basically, unit should become supressed as soon as anyone starts firing at them from any weapon. The fundamental shift in mentality is that supressed (and to an extent, pinned) should not be outright negative thing. Being supressed should greatly reduce received damage from non explosive weapons (I am not going into exact parameteres and variables as I have no idea how CoH2 works), reduce movement speed in a way it currently does and reduce damage output, since - again - laying soldier will have harder time acquiring targets than if he is standing up. This way, being supressed would simulate the unit actively seeking cover. There should be an ability for all infantry to break the supression (as in: "lads, we need to move a bit, so get up and try not to get shot") or even grant immunity to it, but these abilities by virtue are sitational, as you want to be supressed when being fired upon.

b) Pinned to represent the fear of getting shot - while the supressed status is representing the will of soldiers to hide, pinned should represent the absolute need of them to hide. Units while pinned should be immobile, have no damage output, but have greatly reduced received damage, even more then while supressed. Only automatic weapons (and Garands) should be capable of pinning someone.

c) Range to play much bigger role - this of course warrants increasing range the engagements are carried out on, and brings tons of technical problem, but this thread is not about technical execution anyway, so: firefights should be lethal only at medium (maybe) and short range. At long (and medium range), infantry firefights should be a game of supression, not killing fests.

This would hopefully make the infantry combat looks basically like this:

Soviet squad is walking through a narrow field (no cover). German squad in a ditch (yellow cover) starts firing at them at long range and supresses them immediately. Soviets return fire and supress the Germans. At this point, both units deal little damage to each other, with German receiving almost no damage due to being in a cover. The Germans call for mortar support and in short notice, they start shelling the field. At this point, Soviets face the decision - either they decide to break the supression and relocate to avoid being mortared to death or they remain engaged in a firefight with the Germans. The former means that Germans can deal some damage to them since they [Soviets] are not supressed. The latter has the risk of being shelled, but in return, Germans cannot really relocate without receiving damage.

This should also make ambushes possible in a way that weapons during an ambush have no supression, hence dealing full damage. It opens a lot of possibilities as a whole imho.

Same goes for tank fights. Firing on max range especially on moving targets... I prefer CoH2 were you are able to flank with 2 or 3 Tankhunters (e.g. M10) and wipe out a Tiger. If you are good with micro (so better player) you will achieve your victory. If you are not that good (bad player) you will not be able to do so and the Tiger will rip you apart.

With tanks and "real values of armor/pen" there is another problem that is not as easily solveable as in infantry fights - very damaging (as in "real") shots reduce the game to a question of who offered a bigger sacrifice and more virgins to the RNG God. I would dare to say that vCoH2 tank vs tank fights are rather fine, short of get-out-of-jail popup smoke.

[Wolf]

Problem of both CoHs is that we are fighting in "real" and pretty close environments, while pretending that its hundreds of meters / kilometers of distance. Ever heard of "but tiger cannot be penetrated on 2km!!" on forums? Yeah...

We and players have to understand that it cannot work like that, it won't be real values, it will be values, which will make "harder" tanks harder, weaker tanks weaker. It will always be mostly up to RNG in cases where you are in 30-70% of penetration, and even then rng on criticals. However majority want tank fights where very damaging shots are and I agree with them.
I doubt that infantry fights in vCoH were somewhat better than in BK, 2 men standing face to face not being able to kill themself was one of the reasons I really disliked vCoH.

I don't think that suppresed state itself should give such a big bonuses, it should be primarily the cover, what makes unit harder to hit, if there is cover next to the road, then of course suppressed inf behind cover should be hard to kill. Also as you can see, people ale still mentioning frontal tank attacks with inf, if they would be only suppresed, they could just fire anyway and would still survive.

Also, from gameplay point of view, if any gun would suppress almost instantly, I am not really sure if it would be fun to play with inf at all, due to how many MGs certain tanks/vehicles have.

I am not going to pretend that BK2 will be realistic, both CoH and BK never were realistic, we had "realistic features" or values changed to be based on some real events or data, but it never was realistic and it never can be. Even the retreat is not realistic, giving bonuses because of you can't control unit? And due to CoH2 armor system, its possible that we will see more "unbelievable" shots than in BK1.

[Frehelias]

Hello,
Thrawn, or the guy who was forgotten with an access to the Blitzkrieg-mod.de beta lounge

You still have access to the beta lounge on the "old" forum.

If you don't throw me a PM here.

I fixed beta access for you here as well.

[Thrawn]

Thanks. I meant it as "I surprisingly have access to closed section despite being inactive for almost a year"

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Problem of both CoHs is that we are fighting in "real" and pretty close environments, while pretending that its hundreds of meters / kilometers of distance. Ever heard of "but tiger cannot be penetrated on 2km!!" on forums? Yeah...

Yes, I am aware of that. Now, I am not sure how possible is either rescaling of units, creation of larger maps and unlocking the camera height, but making engagements more long-ranges could be an interesting path to follow.

I don't think that suppresed state itself should give such a big bonuses, it should be primarily the cover, what makes unit harder to hit, if there is cover next to the road, then of course suppressed inf behind cover should be hard to kill. Also as you can see, people ale still mentioning frontal tank attacks with inf, if they would be only suppresed, they could just fire anyway and would still survive.

If "supressed" means "laying on the ground", then it does give very important bonuses. This of course clashes with the short range focus of both CoHs, but at non-short distances, being prone on the ground should give bigger chance to survive than not-being prone behind wooden fence, bush or any other similar yellow cover. The state of infantry AT warfare, that was retarded both in vCoHs and in BK, stems from infantry handheld weapons having the same or only slightly lower range than any of the weapons tanks possessed. Now, to push my agenda again , quick supressing and the requirement of being supressed to survive longer would mean that tank rushes should be less frequent.

Also, from gameplay point of view, if any gun would suppress almost instantly, I am not really sure if it would be fun to play with inf at all, due to how many MGs certain tanks/vehicles have.

As I said earlier, units should have an ability to break the supression, maybe even gain resistance against it. The supression would protect units. I recently played Vietcong 1 (again) and it kinda amazed me how on the highest difficulty some gunfights play out. You shoot at the enemy, but he is too well fortified. You may score a few hits here or there, but the gunfight is long and overall nothing thrilling happens. Then you decide to call an arty strike. Meanwhile, the firefight still goes on. It takes about 20 seconds for the radioman to call the barrage and about 10 more for the shells to start falling. And the arty is the real killer that enable your squad to move, not the guns themselves. Supressed infantry in cover is incredibly hard to kill - just imagine how impossible is to kill a guy ducking or laying in a crater (speaking of, green cover would suit craters more than yellow) with a gun.

[Wolf]

As I said earlier, units should have an ability to break the supression, maybe even gain resistance against it. The supression would protect units. I recently played Vietcong 1 (again) and it kinda amazed me how on the highest difficulty some gunfights play out. You shoot at the enemy, but he is too well fortified. You may score a few hits here or there, but the gunfight is long and overall nothing thrilling happens. Then you decide to call an arty strike. Meanwhile, the firefight still goes on. It takes about 20 seconds for the radioman to call the barrage and about 10 more for the shells to start falling. And the arty is the real killer that enable your squad to move, not the guns themselves. Supressed infantry in cover is incredibly hard to kill - just imagine how impossible is to kill a guy ducking or laying in a crater (speaking of, green cover would suit craters more than yellow) with a gun.

But thats exactly what I would like to avoid, if they would have ability to break supression or even resistance, then it encourages exactly what I said with frontal attacks on tanks.
Supressed units have certain bonus already, I am just against making it even better, I am not going to remove it or something.

[Thrawn]

IIRC, soldiers under effect of "Oorah!" are not firing at all. Another solution could be tying accuracy modifiers to that ability.

[MeatshieldNZ]

As I said earlier, units should have an ability to break the suppression, maybe even gain resistance against it. The suppression would protect units. I recently played Vietcong 1 (again) and it kinda amazed me how on the highest difficulty some gunfights play out. You shoot at the enemy, but he is too well fortified. You may score a few hits here or there, but the gunfight is long and overall nothing thrilling happens. Then you decide to call an arty strike. Meanwhile, the firefight still goes on. It takes about 20 seconds for the radioman to call the barrage and about 10 more for the shells to start falling. And the arty is the real killer that enable your squad to move, not the guns themselves. Suppressed infantry in cover is incredibly hard to kill - just imagine how impossible is to kill a guy ducking or laying in a crater (speaking of, green cover would suit craters more than yellow) with a gun.

But if we take this approach, wouldn't more veteran units be at a disadvantage to rookie units? EG A rookie squad gets hit by MG but gets instantly suppressed and receives very little damage. A Veteran squad gets hit by MG but is resistant to suppression so gets cut to ribbons?? Also while what you are trying to achieve is more realistic it doesn't sound fun to play, you could have all your infantry squads on both sides squirming on the ground with no option but to retreat or be artied. IMO this may be a case where gameplay needs to win out over realism. Maybe a compromise like what the US rifleman can do with BAR's is the way to go?

[Warhawks97]

Great Topic. Basically i agree on thrawns points. Ive somtimes mentioned it in several topics in old forum that being suppressed should give more defensive bonuses. Ive been talking there about "dirt penetrating bullets" which kill inf squads in seconds even when those are suppressed in a crater and where no bullet could actually reach them. To be honest thats what i like more on vcoh. HMGs mainly suppress and that way the guy with the infantry can draw MG´s attention to one inf squad while the other is going to flank and kill it. At the first look, where thrawn said that arty finally kills the enemie inf it sounds like "omg even more arty" but finally it reduces the need. In BK -where squads get insta killed by an MG42 salvo- nobody is even trying to make a step away from green cover with the infantry and rather barrages the entire enemie territroy first where it should be the opposite. First going in to check, facing resistant, call arty OR try to flank with another squad when the MG needs to reload. In vcoh i often wait untill MG reloads to get in with another squad to throw a Grenade and its the point where vcoh makes just more fun to be honest. Also wounded guys can be easier collected as in bk. In Bk a wounded guy is literally dead and lost cost due to extrem high cost for casaulty stations. I dont want to know how many got wounded and which returned to fight.

One reason which causes it in BK1 is the silly armor type. When an MG kills "inf type" realistic it does nothing against "Elite armor type". When it kills Elite more realistic it becomes an overkiller against normal inf type. Saying that, i just hope that a Human will remain Human and that there are no huge HP and "armor" differences between Humans.


@Meat: Not every weapon would insta suppress but rifle fire of severals squads should be able to pin when enemie has no cover. Its already the case in bk where weaker inf (mostly pioneers etc) get suppressed by heavy rifle fire. Also maybe squads with semi automatic weapons could have an ability which increases rof, thus effectice suppression but losing extremly on accuracy. In vcoh Panzergrens with G43 can do that against a certain enemie squad. Also suppression would be pretty much the same to rookies as well as veterans. Just Veterans and elites would have ability or improved sprint which enables them to remove the suppression for a while. If used stupidly they would die fast, correct, but if you wait untill the HMG reloads or if the squad isnt directly under fire then you can run up to the MG and kill it with MPis and grenades.

[Wolf]

Having "remove suppression" ability just destroys the whole purpose, if MGs would be made to mostly suppress, which would be removed on insta button click, you have frontally attacking infs all over again.

[Warhawks97]

Having "remove suppression" ability just destroys the whole purpose, if MGs would be made to mostly suppress, which would be removed on insta button click, you have frontally attacking infs all over again.

you didnt understand.

Only high veted inf and Elite Inf would have that. Also you need to use it wisely. If activated while the MG is shooting directly at them the squad would get shred into pieces within seconds. It should be activated when the squad is being suppressed by indirect fire or when the MG have to relaod. Its not simply activating it and do an frontal assault on the MG. The squad would lose the suppression cover bonus and thus dead within short bursts which then would result in high casaulties and costs as elites would be expensive to build and reinforce. Also not every doc would have elite inf (e.g BK I Ranger in all US docs or in every axis doc another kind of elite inf).

[MeatshieldNZ]

@Meat: Not every weapon would insta suppress but rifle fire of severals squads should be able to pin when enemie has no cover. Its already the case in bk where weaker inf (mostly pioneers etc) get suppressed by heavy rifle fire. Also maybe squads with semi automatic weapons could have an ability which increases rof, thus effectice suppression but losing extremly on accuracy. In vcoh Panzergrens with G43 can do that against a certain enemie squad. Also suppression would be pretty much the same to rookies as well as veterans. Just Veterans and elites would have ability or improved sprint which enables them to remove the suppression for a while. If used stupidly they would die fast, correct, but if you wait untill the HMG reloads or if the squad isnt directly under fire then you can run up to the MG and kill it with MPis and grenades.

@Warhawks
This is a direct quote from Thrawns post above: a) Supressed to represent "being engaged," not "being fired at heavily" - basically, unit should become supressed as soon as anyone starts firing at them from any weapon.

That is why I posted what i did as a reply to Thrawn. So it looks like you 2 have different ideas about suppression. I think your idea could work with a lot of testing so it actually works from a gameplay perspective.

[QWERTYAndreas]

When being fired upon, everybody will be Down within a second.

Generally, if the enemy fires first you dont know where he is. Thus you cannot engage him. You hit the dirt, find the enemy and engage.

I think you are rigth about MGs being more realistic in vCoH. By making infantry taking Little to no harm when supressed, but making the MGs letahl when not supressed you archieve a rather realistic version.
You can break supression, but the MG will be very dangerous.