MarKr wrote: ↑24 Mar 2022, 15:34
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).