Past mistakes ... BK Mod's today problems.

[crimax]

Well, finally I found a bit of time to write some (no short) thought about my loved Mod and where she is going in my humble opinion ...


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Last 4.9 patch introduced a lot of modifications. One of the most important is the introduction of howitzer in RAF Doctrine.
Someone asked ... Why this ?
Simply because RAF, for long time, absolutely needed RA support. To be honest, almost any 3v3 or 4v4 good game, allies needed an RA player.

The problem was simple, if axis start to spam fortifications, bunkers or any other fixed unit then allies didn't have nothing than RA arty to counter this.
The second cause was clearly to counter an eventual SE doctrine on the other side.

Before the last patch every game I was in as allies (3v3, 4v4), I can clearly remember that one of the first questions was "We need RA !", "We need arty!", "Who goes RA?".
Most of you know that I think that there is too much arty in this Mod but I also started to ask an RA player in the team, WTF !
This became a necessity, no more a choice. A defeat from my point of view ...


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But when is this started ?

Unbalancing problems started when only Infantry doctrine and Defensive doctrine lost their second howitzer BUT at the same moment, no limitations were introduced to avoid fortification spamming.

What happened is clearly understandable.

Trying to limit artillery (in the wrong way), artillery became absolutely necessary especially on allied side. A joke !

The recent solution to introduce artillery support to RAF doctrine is only a fast solution to help RAF against emplacements (since airstrikes got a nerf VS fortifications). So we have one of the best doctrines in the mod, now with artillery inside. A second joke !

This is not the best solution and real problems are elsewhere.

Another thing I have to say is that after this modification I start to see "The Similar Doctrines Worm" in this mod. The worst thing imho.


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I don't want/like to write wall of text BUT I absolutely want post my suggestions for the future. Disagree only without suggestions is not constructive.

1) Give back second howitzer to Inf and Def doctrines (bad solution BUT rebalance the artillery for any army)
OR
2) Reduce artillery to SE and RA (better solution AND general artillery reduction)
3) Limit bunkers OR make them more easy to destroy
4) ONLY after this, remove Howitzer to RAF doctrine please. I am a RAF player but I cannot see this.

If you see these suggestions are a step back in past for BK mod with some differences to avoid spam. I know, there will be a lot of work to do but it is always so.


Regards.

[Wolf]

To be honest I am quite pissed off by that post, because it contains multiple inaccuracies and overall wrong assumptions. So I will, again, WASTE my time to respond to something like this. Especially because I am old RA player (I'd say 500+ games with RA), which was usually NEEDED or WANTED, BEFORE changes to inf/de. Or needed... well, it was plain AWESOME, any priest would destroy any heavy tank, any infantry, like anything that you would send at me, it didn't matter which doctrine you would put with RA, you had ultimate counter, who wouldn't want that ingame? Especially against stuff like old StuPa? That was one of the problems with arty, killing something very valuable, EASY. Thats why we removed some arty units, why we limited arty units, why we reduce immobilisations caused by arty, why we reduced stupa accuracy / range. We reduced the EASY stuff and I stand greatly behind this. Playing BK is now harder, especially for RA / certain axis factions.

Last 4.9 patch introduced a lot of modifications. One of the most important is the introduction of howitzer in RAF Doctrine.
Someone asked ... Why this ?
Simply because RAF, for long time, absolutely needed RA support. To be honest, almost any 3v3 or 4v4 good game, allies needed an RA player.

The problem was simple, if axis start to spam fortifications, bunkers or any other fixed unit then allies didn't have nothing than RA arty to counter this.
The second cause was clearly to counter an eventual SE doctrine on the other side.

You are now trying to tell me, that ALL the RA was needed for was ONE, SINGLE unit, that wasn't really even used in RA, LIMITED TO ONE, to play? You can't mean that seriously, you just can't.
How do you want to counter SE heavy arty with single cromwell? Yes, you should be able to do stuff that SE will have problem with, but I don't believe that ONE cromwell is problem for SE.

Before the last patch every game I was in as allies (3v3, 4v4), I can clearly remember that one of the first questions was "We need RA !", "We need arty!", "Who goes RA?".
Most of you know that I think that there is too much arty in this Mod but I also started to ask an RA player in the team, WTF !
This became a necessity, no more a choice. A defeat from my point of view ...

I understand that it happened, but I disagree with resons and that it is "new" because of arty reducement. Also, you say it like there was nothing else done to arty, howitzers got CHEAPER, before they weren't even used that much, because of the price and low survivability of especially emplaced ones. Inf got VT, Long tom got cheaper.

Unbalancing problems started when only Infantry doctrine and Defensive doctrine lost their second howitzer BUT at the same moment, no limitations were introduced to avoid fortification spamming.

By "second howitzer" you seem to mean ONLY the sherman 105 and grille. May I ask, what exactly losing sherman 105, while reducing prices of normal howitzers and adding VT means for using or not using RA? Can you count how many pieces of arty Def and Inf doc still have? Including off-map? A LOT.

No limitations were introduced to avoid fortification spamming.

What happened is clearly understandable.

Trying to limit artillery (in the wrong way), artillery became absolutely necessary especially on allied side. A joke !

The recent solution to introduce artillery support to RAF doctrine is only a fast solution to help RAF against emplacements (since airstrikes got a nerf VS fortifications). So we have one of the best doctrines in the mod, now with artillery inside. A second joke !

That is absolutely not true, I asked MULTIPLE TIMES on forums, how would people prefer to destroy emplacements by OTHER MEANS THAN ARTY. I was btw. the one who on the old forum wanted to remove multiple mortar bunkers. I removed perma MGs being available to infinite amount of bunkers. Honestly, you have problem with bunkers that don't have perma MG? These without perma MG can be cleared out and its not THAT hard, that you would absolutely need arty for it. Another emplacements? 17 pdr emplacement was removed from RAF, all emplacements are vulnerable to AT weapons now, unlike before when even like half of them bounced. Satchels / demos vere buffed against bunkers/emplacements. 107 (which almost NOBODY used before 4.8.x) got HP reduced. 88s are more vulnerable to Arty, range evened to 85. You call THAT ALL "No limitations were introduced to avoid fortification spamming"? I disagree. We didn't limit the numbers, but we reduced viability to use them, indirectly with Churchill buff also, as you now have additional means how to get to the emplacements. "since airstrikes got a nerf VS fortifications"? When ? Airstrikes got price reduction and they are killable if you actually use AAs (and learn how to use them properly). "So we have one of the best doctrines in the mod, now with artillery inside. A second joke !". You have nebel in every axis doctrine too, and I repeat, this is limited to ONE unit. I WAS against giving RAF any arty, but ONE cromwell was atleast understandable, and we clearly said that is the only arty unit RAF will get.

I don't want/like to write wall of text BUT I absolutely want post my suggestions for the future. Disagree only without suggestions is not constructive.

1) Give back second howitzer to Inf and Def doctrines (bad solution BUT rebalance the artillery for any army)
OR
2) Reduce artillery to SE and RA (better solution AND general artillery reduction)
3) Limit bunkers OR make them more easy to destroy
4) ONLY after this, remove Howitzer to RAF doctrine please. I am a RAF player but I cannot see this.

1) Really, how the hell giving +1 105 sherman to Inf rebalances artillery for ANY army? You have problem with RAF having arty or not having RA in game? Okay, so you will reintroduce (by your words almost) the NEED of having Inf. or RA ingame, because you don't want RAF to be able to play without them ? (which I don't believe for the start). And even more surprising, you want to give def back 1 grille, because? ? ?? I don't even know why? Def has absolutely NO problem with arty.

And you think this ONE/TWO changes are equal to reducing SE and RA, limiting bunkers and removing ONE raf howitzer?

2) RA main limitation was to remove howitzer free fire bug, which I did, second was to give shared cooldown to aimed fire and normal fires, which people before me did, another thing was to reduce immobilisation, which I did again. SE is one of the doctrines that should have some disadvantage, I agree on that, but still, RA has Firefly, M10 and commandos.
3) Again, do you have problem with normal, non invulnerable MG bunkers? Do you realize, that satchels damage against bunkers was increased?
4) I still wonder, why do you think its so much balance breaking, because you did not see RA in games? Or because when you see double RAF ingame, it definitely means, that 2 arty pieces are too much? Well then play vs double def doc, or double SE doc, it will ALWAYS be weird when multiple of the same doc is ingame.

I really don't get what this topic is supposed to be about, I guess that ONE unit instantly removed RA and Inf. doctrine from game? Thats bullshit, and you know it. People are playing RE much more these times, because before they almost couldn't. When they will have enough, everything will go back to almost evenly distributed game. And dunno if its related to that game we watched yesterday, but cmon, whiteloki played like it was 4.6 or something. Noodle (airstrike awesome) map with shittons of ammo. Can't take it seriously.

[crimax]

@Wolf_CZ

There are no reasons to be pissed.
I only posted my opinions about some wrong streets taken.
I think mod is still balanced but in the wrong way.
Last but not least.
I hope to still have the freedom to post my opinions and you to conserve your calm.

This told.
Keep up the work.

[Wolf]

I am pissed because its always the same, something changes, and somebody comes with how "BK is now bad this way" its HIS opinion, but puts it like its kind of some global problem with the game. Then we read how removing 2 arty pieces from two doctrines, while keeping many others in there, and adding one single unit to one doctrine, while removing emplacement from it (and next read how we do nothing to reduce emplacements) is suddenly ultra bad way to balance the mod, which removed two doctrines from play (which is not true anyway). That kind of sucks. People are very forgetting about what was done to reduce bunkers for example (and how people were pissed by not having tons of perma MGs).

And yes, everybody can post his opinions, to which we may react how we please. As you could see, I didn't ban even people who cheated, people who had some personal battles etc, so I am definitely not against somebody posting his opinions. However, please think a LOT before posting stuff like this, try to think about what you are asking, because from your post, there is like the only one global idea - make RAF depend on other doc 100% of the time. Other than that, there is urge to reduce emplacements, which we actively do, but it has its own limits too, we can't remove them from everything, there are a lot of people who have fun in playing more defensively, you'd be surprised, but there are MANY, but usually not on forums. So we do that by reducing its viability and we will continue a bit with that. Somebody wanted to add another emplacement btw. some cheap wooden bunker, so while somebody wants to remove or reduce emplacements, people want to have more o.O

[JimQwilleran]

Imo, the changes that happened since 4.8xx are only good for the mod. I feel it's balanced. I also dont think that amount or effectivenes of arty in any doc is now bad. Generaly arty is pretty balanced now.

[Krieger Blitzer]

I also dont think that amount or effectivenes of arty in any doc is now bad. Generaly arty is pretty balanced now.

Hmm, the Blitz doc arty is so awful now when compared to any other doc in my opinion... 85 ammo barrage that does absolutely nothing -_- Also Maultiers are too slow and expensive! Even as Armor doc I often feel like if I have better arty in fact.. or let's say; I wouldn't be in need for any kind of so much arty support anymore.

Somebody wanted to add another emplacement btw. some cheap wooden bunker, so while somebody wants to remove or reduce emplacements, people want to have more o.O

True That's Panzer Lehr actually!

[Sukin-kot (SVT)]

Wolf is exactly right here.

[Warhawks97]

....make RAF depend on other doc 100% of the time.

Atm i feel currently almost 100% depending on teammates when playing Armor doc (98%) followed by TH doc (90%). Armor is quickly checkmated by pak and 88 defense and TH doc. TH doc very quickly pushed and forced into ambush defense when fighting RE (or even CW generally with 17 pdr´s and range boosted tanks).

RAF cromwell was a good step.


And i appreciate all the steps done to reduce defense campy like reduction of perma MG´s, more expensive paks, satchel strenght vs bunkers etc.


As for bunkers i havent checked it yet, can stil all docs build bunkers made of concrete? If so then wooden bunkers could be added for temporarily defensive option replacing concrete bunkers except for def doc (those could build both).


Though i must admit that not the limit of arty units caused less arty in games. I think the RAF arty cromwell and stronger churchills that are now capable of cracking early game defense have finally caused a reduction of overall artillery use by allied. Also the cost increase for paks reduced the ammount of those and anti tank warfare is more often done by own armor now.

[Butterkeks]

I also agree with Wolf.
I don't see these "problems" that some players have with the arty or so.

I often wrote it that I think the mod is as balanced as never before. The old team and also Wolf's new team did some great changes from which the mod really benefits.
It sometimes bugs me when all I get from axis is massive nebler spam, but they are actually so easy to be countered as the only need two or three hits by an allied howitzer in order to destroy them.

1) Give back second howitzer to Inf and Def doctrines (bad solution BUT rebalance the artillery for any army)

I really don't think that this would be a good idea. Remember the times when there were two Grille? It was a huge pain in the ass and many people simply went for def doc to snipe allies with grille. I'm so glad that this is over.

2) Reduce artillery to SE and RA (better solution AND general artillery reduction)

I don't know. Reduce arty of RA? As far as I know, RA players now have two Priests and don't even bother to build stationary howitzers. Sowhat do you want to reduce?
SE has in theory 210mm Nebel, two Wespe and two Hummel. But I've nearly never seen that Axis have the ammo to use them properly. Only if there's much ammo + fuel (for ress trade) on a map. Then Axis arty can be way superior (simply because of their numbers).

A question from my side: Why is there no ress trade or supply drop (like in AB) for most Allied docs? It actually doesn't make sense and gives axis a huge advantage.
Am I missing some information or intention here? Excited to see the answers

3) Limit bunkers OR make them more easy to destroy

MG bunkers are limited and if they are quite easy to destroy imo.

4) ONLY after this, remove Howitzer to RAF doctrine please. I am a RAF player but I cannot see this.

This was requested by many players (including me), simply because RAF had no chance vs emplacements and it adds more versatility to the game (no obligatory RA or inf anymore).

"since airstrikes got a nerf VS fortifications"? When ?

They really did Wolf I don't remember the Patch number, but before a typhoon rocket run could kill any emplacement (Flak36, Mg nest etc). Thus it got weakend, I don't remember if it was the old team or yours, but they really were

[Warhawks97]

The old dev team reduced rocket strike strenght. It was because they destroyed base buidlings completely. So there had been games with like tripple RAF doc, all of them using rocket attack to kill the base. One rocket attack could destroy two base buildings. That was bad but the good thing was that they knocked out bunkers in a single run and any emplacment. Now they do like 50% damage to base buildings but also often only damaging emplacments.

[Butterkeks]

The old dev team reduced rocket strike strenght. It was because they destroyed base buidlings completely. So there had been games with like tripple RAF doc, all of them using rocket attack to kill the base. One rocket attack could destroy two base buildings. That was bad but the good thing was that they knocked out bunkers in a single run and any emplacment. Now they do like 50% damage to base buildings but also often only damaging emplacments.

Yeah, you're right.
It was weakend because of the base buildings^^
Forgot about that^^