Company of Heroes: Eastern Front

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Messages - ChocoboKnight88

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1
Announcements / Re: Who Dares, Wins!
« on: December 12, 2010, 12:52:08 AM »
I wouldn't want the PIATs to be toned down though for the sake of consistency. PIATs are finally useful now so they really ought to not be touched. That's why I suggested the Boys AT Rifles since it will have a good excuse to be in the normal game now.

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Announcements / Re: Who Dares, Wins!
« on: December 11, 2010, 11:33:57 PM »
So what are the SAS going to be capable of that sets them apart from Commandos? Is there a risk that they will preferred over them?

By the way, a thought occurred to me... If the SAS are going to be tier two infantry equipped with PIATs and Sappers are coming a tier earlier -- Why not give Marine Sappers Boys AT Rifles and let the SAS get the PIAT upgrade that normal Sappers get now? Because honestly, I think the early PIATs might be a little overpowered vs the Panzer Elite's early vehicles. But then this is purely theory crafting after all...

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Announcements / Re: Who Dares, Wins!
« on: December 09, 2010, 01:45:40 PM »
Before I start my questions, I'd like to thank and applaud the EF team for attempting to make the British a more popular addition to the game.

Exactly how are the SAS going to be implemented? Are they going to replace the normal Commandos? Are there going to be four per squad? If so, are their stats going to be boosted (to make up for their decreased numbers) to match a Commando squad in terms of damage output and health? Are their anti-tank weapons going to need an upgrade requirement, so we can choose between anti-infantry and anti-tank power?

I kinda have mixed feeling about the SAS being put in the game. While I do have the utmost respect for them, there are just too few of them make them realistically replace Commandos. In a documentary talking about modern-day SAS I watched a few years back, I they said there were only over 100 SAS soldiers in the whole country because the standards of joining them were so high. I don't know if I want to see them used as expendable soldiers in COH.

Moving on from the SAS... I don't know if I like the idea of moving the Bren Carrier to a glider. That means the British will have no mobile HMG during early game, making it much harder for them to fight off HMGs and massed infantry if the German player is using bikes to destroy any mortar emplacements being built.

If the change was made to combat Bren-in-Bren, didn't we already take care of that when we increased the damage it takes when Auto-repairing? Isn't this really unnecessary?

4
Balance Discussion / Re: [1.23.2] Redesigning The British Lieutenant
« on: August 31, 2010, 02:13:20 PM »
I think the LT is way down the list of British things that need fixing, but he could do with a radius increase, stacking decrease, and individual vet increase.

Territory control, AT, and cost of basic Infantry unit are all much higher priority though imo.
I disagree on him being unimportant. I believe the Lieutenant is the most important thing to improve on. His bonuses are the root cause of overpowered blobbing in the British army. The way Relic decided to implement him as an important unit through passive stat boosts is deeply flawed.

That's why I think toning down some of his bonuses and replacing them with actual leadership abilities (Like "Mad Minute") would have been a lot better and more interesting. All the current system reflects is him giving his troops a morale bonus, but he doesn't provide any real leadership. Abilities like "Mad Minute" would ultimately reflect him telling his troops to adopt different tactics when fighting. This makes the officer system more interesting.

Relic tried to implement "Mad Minute" through mixing it in with "Heroic Charge" but we can all see how that worked out. It gave British Infantry effective defence bonuses combined with an incredibly powerful cooldown modifier. It gives British Infantry unbelievable offensive power without any drawbacks until the ability wears off and can be restarted again immediately when more than one Lieutenant is in the area. It not fun to fight against this at all, leading to futher discontent against the British.

Whereas splitting the cooldown bonus away from Heroic Charge and giving it it's own ability (minus the defence and speed bonuses) would make this powerful bonus more balanced and promote making use of cover. "Mad Minute" was a defensive tactic to hold your ground in real life so the way it's currently implemented through Heroic Charge is not an accurate representation.

As Zerstörer said, the Vanilla factions are here to stay. Major redesigning of the faction is out of the question -- Something I happen to agree with. Whenever people attempt to make sweeping changes to the British faction, it doesn't tend to gain any long term support. This is because they change far too much and you are forced to relearn them all over again. Not to mention that it loses the support of people who like (or are used to) the current system.

I want us to try and improve on Relic's design of the faction (The design that people have played with from day one) through small but significant improvements to make it work better for everyone without needing to relearn the faction. That's what I believe needs to be done.

5
Balance Discussion / Re: [1.23.2] Redesigning The British Lieutenant
« on: August 30, 2010, 03:04:35 AM »
Making him more survivable rather than cheaper won't change a thing. British Infantry will still be restricted in movement for the earier stages of the game. Make him cost no fuel and the British will have the leadership to spread out their forces a lot earlier and he would be a lot easier to replace should you lose him, without you falling too far behind in the tech race.

6
Balance Discussion / Re: [1.23.2] Redesigning The British Lieutenant
« on: August 30, 2010, 01:28:40 AM »
Quote
Ok, let me start with saying that...we won't replace/redesign the whole Brit faction just because we made some long sought after, necessary balance fixes to vanila gameplay. The British vanila faction will always remain there.

Saying that, the truth of the matter is that I have looked into what makes the Brit faction the least favoured faction in vanila game and this is what it comes down to.
1) Linear teching less flexible than even Soviets in 1.00 No matter what, you have to follow the same teching with the only HQ +2 trucks you HAVE to call in. The only variant of the teching is whether you buy a stuart or save for a quick Cromwell/Roo spam.

2) The infantry game play revolves around building a single blob as brit infantry relying on officers to become largely unstoppable...No flanking /splitting of force needed. When getting more lieutenants instead of being able to make separate 'groups/blobs' with them to give flexibility all you do is add it to the existing blob to stack yup the bonus.

3) The game breaking slowness of brit infantry forcing players to blob and making it impossible to play the game otherwise
Nobody is asking to redesign the whole faction. Just the Lieutenant, the most flawed unit in the whole faction.

As for your second point, that's the whole point of removing stacking veterancy, making them cheaper and separating Heroic Charge's offensive into a new ability altogether. Whether it's one lieutenant or three, the modifiers should remain the same. They should no longer benefit more from staying in one group rather than split up. Stacking Vet is one of the most frustrating things about using British infantry since it eliminates any reason to split up your forces and harass the enemy from various places at once.

My changes will make it so that you no longer have the overwhelming temptation of making a big blob of infantry to take advantage of the stacked veterancy.

I can live with a linear tech tree but we should at least do something about the restricted, predictable blobbing tactics the British suffer from. I believe the British don't need a complete redesign but only an improvement to the way the officer concept works.

You guys have changed the rest of the British army to eliminate the most overpowered things about it, but neglected to improve them in a way that makes them more enjoyable to play as.

Let's also not forget that you guys did take the step of changing how the Munitions Halftrack works. You made it able to reinforce infantry, completely changing the way it functions. Are you saying you can't change the way the Lieutenant works too?

I don't believe the changes I'm suggesting outright change the way the British army works, but it will improve the way it works and make them more enjoyable to fight at the same time.

Regarding Suggestion 3

I guess this is rather unpopular but another reason I suggested this was to make sure that Recon Sections won't be rendered obsolete. However, maybe a Capture rate of 0.5 is rather low. Maybe a Capture rate of 0.75 to match Panzer Grenadiers would suffice?

Regarding "Mad Minute"

I just want to explain why I think this ability is better on the Lieutenant rather than the Captain. First of all, it's using the current Cooldown modifier's of the Lieutenant's current Heroic Charge. Secondly, it make for a great ability to have when going on the offensive when you plan to use cover.

I suggested making it slow down infantry as a side effect because of how powerful the ability to shoot twice as fast is. Slowing the infantry down during this not only makes sense (When you are trying to fire really fast with a Bolt Action Rifle, doing so while running is close to impossible.), but this also allows the German player to fallback when they are losing the fight without having to worry about being chased down by fast-firing Infantry Sections.

I see this ability being very useful when capturing enemy territory. You could have the Lieutenant activate "Mad Minute" when next to a point, have him start capturing it and the Infantry Sections he's leading will set up a defensive perimeter around him to allow him to do his job.

I also believe the ability should be capable of being activated while garrisoned so that Infantry Sections could use garrisonable cover more effectively. The Americans and Wehrmacht are graced with HMGs to make effective use of that kind of cover. "Mad Minute" could be the British version of that kind of strength.

Best of all, "Mad Minute" is only usable at Vet 3, so you can't spam this ability using multiple lieutenants unless you successfully manage to get them all to Vet 3. It basically rewards careful Officer preservation too.

7
Balance Discussion / [1.23.2] Redesigning The British Lieutenant
« on: August 29, 2010, 03:18:04 AM »
As we all know, the British are the least popular faction to play with or against for most of the community due to their predictable play, expensive infantry, inflexibility and their reliance of a fragile officer to move through unfriendly territory. Plus if they do get enough officers, they are extremely hard for axis players to stop. Something needs to change.

I'd like to point out that I really think the current officer system is the biggest reason for their notoriety. It's not very well thought out in the fact that they are required to make already-expensive infantry useful and having more than one gives them excessive bonuses. Not to mention that the only infantry AT weapon the British have are on a another squad entirely and they aren't reliable on their own, increasing the size of the blob further.

These aspects don't help deter blobbing at all since it makes it more beneficial to blob, while at the same time, makes it dangerous to spread your forces out too far. These restrictions make them un-enjoyable to play for people who are used to the fast-paced and extremely flexible Americans and Whermacht.

I have some ideas that might save what remains of the British Army's popularity while at the same time, staying faithful to Relic's original concept and increasing the British Army's flexibility. My idea's revolve around the Lieutenant.

Lieutenant

As we all know, they are extremely vital to the success of British Infantry in the game but they are vulnerable and losing them not only puts a halt to the British Offensive and their veterancy, but it also slows down your teching by quite a bit during the Early-Game to Mid-Game phase. The average British player doesn't want to risk losing him at all and keeps all his forces near him to not only benefit from his aura, but to better protect him from possible assassination attempts from the Germans. The current design makes him just too important.

Here's what I propose we do to change him. Here's a list of changes with their reasons below it.

1: Remove his Fuel cost and adding it to the Field Support Command Truck.
2: Remove his Stacking Veterancy.
3: Decrease his Capture rate to 0.5 or 0.75 (From 1)
4: Remove his offensive Heroic Charge's bonus and keep it's speed, received suppression and received damage modifiers.
5: Give him a new ability called "Mad Minute" at Vet 3, which basically consists of the offensive bonus of the current Heroic Charge (Decreasing their Cooldown by half) and temporarily decreases the infantry speed.

Reason for Suggestion 1

I proposed removing the fuel cost because they are so vital to make British Infantry fight properly outside their territory and make them easier to replace when lost. This allows the the British to get more Lieutenants on the field earlier to help Infantry Sections spread out more. However, I wouldn't suggest this if they never had further changes.

Since he was also used as a prerequisite for the Field Support Command Truck, removing his fuel cost would have made a British Player capable of teching faster. So increasing the fuel cost of the FST from 30 to 45 would eliminate that problem.

Reason For Suggestion 2

This is a massive reason for the overpowered British Blobbing that plagues the game right now. Have more than one accompanying Bren-equipped Infantry Sections with PIAT Sappers would tear everything apart. This promotes blobbing far to much and need to be put to an end to encourage British Players take advantage of spreading out more when they have more than one Lieutenant on the field.

Reason for Suggestion 3

I'm suggesting this because a Lieutenant with no fuel cost would make for a tempting capping unit and aiding the British in their efforts to take a favourable position during early game, giving them an unfair advantage. So making them the slowest capping unit in the game should prevent this from happening.

Reason for Suggestion 4 and 5

The current Heroic Charge is in my opinion, another reason that British Blobbing is so powerful. It makes infantry resistant to suppression and damage, makes them run faster and makes them fire twice as fast. The bonuses are far too excessive for one free ability. So I propose we separate the bonuses into two separate abilities. "Heroic Charge" essentially being a slightly improved fire up. "Mad Minute" being a 'stand your ground' type of ability.

"Mad Minute" halving the Infantry Sections cooldown alone is still an extremely powerful bonus. Making the ability do that and nothing else would make it too powerful. So I suggest that it decreases infantry running speed to normal Infantry Section speed in enemy territory and should still effect them that way in friendly territory for the duration of the ability. That way, you can't use it to storm an enemy position and destroy it very quickly. So it makes it a sort of defensive ability that's best used from a position of cover.

For those unaware of the concept of "Mad Minute", here's a small article about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_minute

One final thing though. Those two abilities need to be on a shared timer to ensure that both can't be used at the same time.

Final Comment

These changes won't fix everything wrong with the British, but I think it would be a step in the right direction. It not only decreases the need to blob but also allows the British to move more freely -- earlier. It also makes the Lieutenant easier to replace when lost, allowing more room for error that other factions enjoy. The changes also decrease the power of the British blob, should the British player choose not to change his strategy after these changes.

If you play like me and want to keep and AI and AT infantry in separate control groups, these changes will make setting this up more quickly and easily without being tempted to keep the two groups close together in order to benefit from the stacking bonuses.

What do guys think? Are the changes worth considering?

8
Bugs & Tech Support / Re: [1.21] Bug Report Thread
« on: August 04, 2010, 01:11:25 PM »
Quote
* Sherman Crocodile Health increased by 10%.

I just checked this using Corsix's Mod Studio and it says the ebps file (Where you would modify the Sherman Croc's health) remains unchanged. Meaning this patch 1.2 change is not in effect in the public release.

Here's a thought though, might a Health Modifier have been better at Vet 2 instead of a penetration modifier?

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Announcements / Re: EF Tournament 08/08/10
« on: August 04, 2010, 03:08:46 AM »
Okay then, Noun! I only spotted his name after looking at the main site. lol.

10
Announcements / Re: EF Tournament 08/08/10
« on: August 04, 2010, 02:55:28 AM »
It would seem Relic is helping out by advertising the tournament on the ingame page! Thanks Thunder!  ;D

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Bugs & Tech Support / Re: [1.21] Bug Report Thread
« on: August 04, 2010, 01:46:34 AM »
Sherman Jumbo

It seems that the Sherman Jumbo has a few problems concerning it's crushing capability. It seems that they phase through tank traps and and even hedges, leaving them undamaged! Go ahead, try it!  ;D

12
Announcements / Re: EF Tournament 08/08/10
« on: August 03, 2010, 12:44:24 AM »
Oh! I didn't see that there. Thanks for pointing that out. Oh well, I guess it's to be expected that the EF tournament puts the main focus on the Russians and most popular axis faction, Wehrmacht.

I'll just have to keep telling myself this desicion isn't based on anti-OF bias, which was the first thing I thought when reading that rule.

Still, I'm looking forward to watching the replays.

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Announcements / Re: EF Tournament 08/08/10
« on: August 02, 2010, 11:47:46 PM »
Is there going to be a hotfix for some remaining bugs before the tournament starts? Since the British have their Button-Up bugged, they'll have an unfair disadvantage.

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Bugs & Tech Support / Re: [1.21] Bug Report Thread
« on: August 02, 2010, 10:15:36 PM »
Okay, I'm out of work right now so I got to test the Russians again after reinstalling and they are fixed. :)

EDIT: The Tank Hunter's eyes seem to be missing. lol.


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Balance Discussion / Re: 1.20 and 1.21 Observation about brit changes
« on: August 02, 2010, 09:58:07 PM »
I like the Brits, but I'm happy about all CW changes.
I don't like ToV, I don't want to tolerate combining the two words Brits and Abuse anymore.
With these changes the CW is no longer the specific Abusefaction.

I don't understand your mindset, I mean this is positive.
The Brits will be respected by the communityplayers.
I feel the exact same way. I am fed up with the constant, relentless and bias hatred that the British face every single day on every single forum and how your achievements with the British aren't recognised because of it. If this patch transforms this opinion and has the British recognised as a legit faction, it will become the best patch ever released since I started playing Opposing Fronts. Well, minus the unfortunate mishap of making Button-Up work the opposite way from intended.

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