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1

Balance Discussion / Problems with USSR

« on: July 14, 2015, 10:48:22 PM »

I've noticed the Soviets struggle to keep up on bigger maps, for several reasons.

• No forward HQ. All other factions, except British, can convert a building into an FHQ to produce fresh infantry or at least heal and reinforce (if PE). The Brits can move their trucks forward so that's not an issue for them either. The Soviets just have their medic truck, which to be honest is very underwhelming given its cooldown and how easy it is to destroy. It also can't reinforce troops either. I literally just keep it in base unless I'm playing co-op and my partner makes an FHQ.
• No halftrack. That means no troop transportation and (again) no reinforcement. This is a rather big issue for them because of their zerg-oriented gameplay. Of course you can always rely on your ally in team games but it seems like a rather big oversight not to have troop transportation or reinforcement outside of the base.
• Very reliant on upgrades or doctrine troops. This consumes lots of fuel, which Soviets *need* for their super expensive buildings and vehicles. On fuel-scant maps, they are just stuck spamming infantry that takes forever to arrive at destination.

I really like the soviets because of their unique mechanics and voice lines but with these things in mind I have little reason to play them over USA/GB on medium and larger maps.

2

Bugs & Tech Support / Ingame Bugs

« on: July 10, 2015, 09:14:23 AM »

I've been playing this mod for a week or so on the steam version of Tales of Valor and these are the bugs I've noticed.

Wehr:
- Snowmen and vanilla Grenadiers don't get veterancy. Moreover, medic bunkers spawn regular grenadiers even if snowmen are selected. In both cases, the forward HQ can't produce either regular or snowmen grenadiers.

Ostheer:
- Ostheer troops do disproportionate damage against British emplacements. A single squad of Landsers could annihilate a Vickers faster than a tank in the vanilla version.
- Several tooltips are missing, especially within doctrine trees.
- The HMG emplacement from Fortress doctrine shows a wider arc before being built, but after it's finished it turns out the arc is a lot more narrow.
- The 'triage centre' doesn't heal troops at all, nor it has a subability that does so. There is no way to heal Ostheer troops short of that paradrop from the first doctrine, which heals very little and with a huge cooldown.
- The "OP" truck can anchor onto a sector that's being captured but won't secure it or stop the capturing. When it does that, it has to pick up and anchor again to provide the bonus, which means waiting the cooldown unnecessarily.
- Trucks on sectors seem to share the resource drop cooldown, but only visually. I was still able to call a resource drop when it was "on cooldown".
- Most troops are unable to pick resource paradrops.

Soviet:
- Soviet buildings are extremely hard to destroy with tanks compared to other base buildings.
- The sniper fires much slower than other snipers. Even the sniper ace from the urban doctrine is slower, but less so.
- The heavy mortar does disproprotionate amounts of damage compared to any other mortar. I'm fairly sure it's a damage table bug and not a balance issue.

Panzer Elite:
- The Jagdpanzer reward vehicle seems underperforming in all aspects compared to Hetzer, and costs more. Again, this is likely a bug and not a balance issue.

AI in general:
The AI seems to play slightly different compared to vanilla (Americans using T17 and Flak Halftracks, Wehr using halftracks offensively with pioneers inside for the machine guns). This is good, but I noticed they eventually degrade into churning out AT guns and nothing else. Airborne Americans are especially prone to that. Moreover, I've noticed they rarely re-crew abandoned guns, only if they happen to have idle infantry around. While it could be a legit strategy and not a bug, "Company of AT guns" isn't entertaining every single game (Sov/Ost don't do that). All in all, the Soviet and the Ostheer AI is MUCH more challenging compared to Wehr/USA.