COH: Europe In Ruins

What would you change about how Europe In Ruins : Reinforcements handles offmaps.

Voting options:
Tweak uses, Max and/or free - increase
Increase the maximum and/or the number of free uses granted by the doctrine selection. 
Note: This may be viable if we add a spotter unit.
Result:  More artillery uses allowed.

Tweak SP costs, per use  - increase
Increase the SP costs per use.  Either initial cost (for the first one) or how much it increases.
Result:  Increases the SP investment per use.

Tweak uses, Max and/or free - decrease
Decrease the maximum and/or the number of free uses granted by the doctrine selection.
Result:  Removes the number of offmaps usable in game, possibly limiting certain doctrines - may be counterable with on-map abilities.

Tweak SP costs, per use  - decrease
Decrease the SP costs per use.  Either initial cost (for the first one) or how much it increases.
Result:  Decreases the SP investment per use.

Uses and Costs are fine
You feel that SP Costs, and Max / Free uses are fine the way they are.
They may need changes in other areas (or, in your opinion, none at all)
Result:  Status-Quo

Remove uses, create timers
Uses are no longer used as a limiter.  Instead, every offmap has a timer - which is scaled on power and tier.
Result:  Battle Advantages are no longer tied to 'uses', and removed as a SP sink (for multiple).  Indirectly, the SP cost to 'allow' the ability will be added.

Limit Offmaps via unit targeting
Offmaps, instead of being able to target any location in LOS, will now be tied to units that can only target withing their limited LOS.
Result:  Offmaps will now need to be used tactically, and are tied to a somewhat 'fragile' platform.

Please post constructively, there are no changes slated at this time - this post is purely to gather feedback.
Also note, that the current war has progressed MUCH further than normal, and the amount of offmaps is slightly skewed - giving more than normal amounts of offmap arty.

I think that each doctrine should get their own unique onmap artillery piece and all offmaps should be removed (except a limited number of offmaps involving planes. These should cost munitions).

Blitz: Stuka
Terror: Nebelwerfer
Defensive: Axis howitzer from ToV campaign

Tank Hunters: Hotchkiss
Scorched Earth: Hummel
Luftwaffe: Air dropped mortars (+tweaked Henschel)

Armor: Calliope
Infantry: Howitzers
Airborne: Air dropped mortars (+ tweaked strafe and bombing run)

Artillery: Priest 
Engineers: 25 pounders
Commandoes: Glider dropped mortars (+ plane with rocket strike)

I personally like the offmaps, it adds some flavor. If you weather the storm, its much easier to beat a t4 offmap doctrine than a t4 like HEAT or something that adds buffs to a large array of units.

Its not hard to avoid them, even the RCA random arty fun. Just leave a unit to hold the area and pull back or to the sides.

Having every doctrine just giving out buffs would be boring, and the command bunker/unit option basically becomes a race to get your recon to them and keep them from getting sight on you.

I find them much less annoying than on map arty.

I think sp costs and uses are fine as they are, however, the problem with offmaps is that they are TOO accurate. All offmaps should have a much bigger scatter distance, minimum of 10-15 in-game units from the center of the area affected or more. Ofcourse, things like v1 and precision strike should have the scatter distance lessened to that of 5 in game units (half the normal scatter) or less since they are considered to be "accurate". But the golden rule should be that artillery should be used for supression and denial and not employed like a sniper attack.

concentrate eir playstyle to more basic strategy.
u'll be surprised how much u can find in so few :)

 less doctr stuff, more head_use.
   mr.oldschool

I think very similarly to SaintPaulis idea.
However i believe that as well as every faction having its own onmap artillery unit each faction should also get its own unique offmap artillery but try and balance it out so for example air dropped mortars are much weaker artillery compared to howitzers so Luftwaffe, Airbourne and Commandos should have more powerful offmaps. This will make the game much more balanced than it is now as factions without artillery seem to struggle especially at this stage of the game where factions with artillery have enough pp to get the max number of strikes.

Saint +1

    the best i saw on forums.
  concetraded on basic strategy/units.

explain via post:

ive got the feeling that axis has much more offmaps than allies. if thats right, it need balance.
also what i dont like is when the enemy uses their arty at the beginning of the game, killing for instance your ATG, and becouse you lost your AT, the enemy rushes in with their tank and you lose all your other unit.
id like to have a large timer on the 1st use of te offmap, so you can only use it after like 10 minutes or more.

the artillery i really hate is precision strike. its just a killmymortarbutton and it will alway hit.
i prefer offmaps where you always have a chanse of getting away(when supressed that would be retreat) and the arty should be less powerful and more supressing the enemy, damaging tank engines and destroying cover.
for instance precision strike can be changed to a barrage that buttons tanks and ATGS, and stun infantry in an area of effect.
these kinds of arty dont just kill the enemy, they help you to do it, and you wont make many kills with it untill you start moving your units into the enemy.

DuckOfDoom, LeoPhone, you are both quite right when you mention the accuracy of offmaps is an issue.

If they are 'clickable' they should not be 'I win' buttons.

Well, personally I always felt the issue with off-maps was that it helped even the playing field. it made it so that even poor players could help out in some useful way and potentially destroy a nuisance unit. It was always my aim to make up for lack of battlefield skill in my earlier days by being able to provide my allies with some form of powerful support.

The problem for most players was that losing vet to an off-map is a bitter pill to swallow when it takes so many games to get a unit into any kind of meaningful veterancy level. That, and that they are usually used against support weapons such as mortars and AT guns, which inevitably you have no more than 1-3 of in a company due to their high costs, so it's essentially a few munitions for the removal of a 400ish manpower support weapon.

Compared to field artillery, off-maps also contribute to the evening the experience/vet inbalance by being of roughly equal strength and usefulness across the board, unlike for example, the disparity between a 3rd level veteran artillery units and a fresh artillery units, each of which can take a sizeable chunk out of a new players resources, and with which they may not be either very good, or may be finding it hard to keep them alive.

Now, I like the sound of them being on timers rather than having uses. It would give equal availability to each player, dependent on length of game and frequency of use rather than needing to sacrifice long-term PPs on off-map increase doctrines for something that could potentially be reduced to little more than a hailstorm if there is a major balance issue. The problem is of course that suddenly we end up with a potentially limitless supply of V1s and bombing runs, but then true warfare has never been a peaceful/relaxing process.

The balance should not be about the strength of the off-map. tweaking with strengths of these things will just become an endless game of "why can't my V1 kill a Pershing", or "V1s should not be Pershing kill buttons." Instead the balance needs to be in the time limit between uses. Level of destruction, usefulness against mobile and static targets, ability to attrition enemy companies, etc all needs to be factored in to that discussion. Clearly for example, precision strike should be more frequent than off-map howitzers. However, this does not mean that a precision strike should be 2 minutes and a howitzer 3, nor does it mean that they should be 3 minutes and 15 minutes respectively.

Just so people understand my position, I doubt a true balance for this game can even be found in all honesty. When taking into account all the variables (unit speeds, strength, armour, suppression, manpower, fuels, availability, pop-cap, veterancy, player skill,doctrine enhancements, resource bonuses, map layouts, player communication, to name only a few) it's a wonder that the game is as well balanced as EIRRMod and the other developers have achieved. But the ability for new players to compete well in their first games for me would seem to be most important, not just for encouraging new players, but for the long-term survivability of the game and the mod, hence my advocacy of free-use off-maps on timer limitations as opposed to changing the usefulness and costs of off-map abilities.


Incidentally, I don't know if this thread includes such off-maps as Zeal, Allied War-machine, etc, however I think it might be worth considering including those in the discussion.

Regardless of what is decided, some SP tuning is in order I think. I'm about to head into another likely loss against mudkipz 100+ game airborne company.

I pay 12 SPs for 2 extra uses of ferocity, while mudkipz pays 15 sp for supply drop, 2 extra strafes and 2 bombing runs.

Who gets the most for their money, is just what I ask.

I like the tieing it to an on-map unit idea. Makes it so you can't  just press and click into an area way away from where you're fighting and it also makes it so the other team can limit your chance to get that off-map off by killing the unit. Question is, how would you limit this? Every side gets a specific "Off-map Officer" ?

I hope you voted for less free/ max uses and tweak max ;p

Yep, thats the idea.

Certain units may also have the ability to 'spot' for certain abilities as well.

i agree with Tym.

it be harder to put down arty, but its still just as effective as any other arty, although some balance issues may come up, you know FOO [Cpt and LT] German officer still has his Mortar barrage. Precision Arty and to a lesser extent the V1 being more pathetic to call down. precision arty is only good agasint AT, Mortars and MG because it being shot at any infantry can move out of its way wasting a good offmap that it can be used can be more useful agaisnt support weapons, but will the spotter team get close enough? i doubt that i reckon

if its the case, the Blitz may need a howi barrage copycat to balance it.

Just for comparison I play both Airborne and Royal Canadian Artillery. (used to play blitz, but too many around)

The hardest to play is RCA, as even though they have a lot more offmaps, as AmPm states, it's a lot harder to get a win with single powers than it is to face an entire army with passive buff's on the units.
I have to actively put in more ATG's for RCA as they can't keep up with the number of tanks like AB can.

I know why people cry about offmaps, because they lose things without a "fight", but without them, some situations simply turn into headbutting.
You could argue just as hard about removing mortars, yet every mortar has had it's range increased to match eachother.
These tools add extra dynamics to the game, being able to break a point and advance, and tipping the defence/assault balance so the enemy has to come to get rid of the mortar.

Right now I like the offmaps, for both sides, the major issue at present is that Saturation Mortar Barrage has no warning smoke, and it's use-able in the first 4 minutes of the game.

A lot of people also don't think about when you are facing two offmap doctrines, they think a double strike is a single strike etc.. without really realizing it's not.
Everyone groans when they see a double elite inf rush (AB, Falls, KCH) which can be just as powerful, but because everyone does it, it's accepted.

As long as these powers are balanced (which most seem to be) I think it's fine.
I'd go along with spotters, but RCA already have a lot of powers tied into single units, and I think a LOT of players will start to cry even harder when their own offmaps get tied into spotter units. To be honest, powers like these on spotters should NOT even have smoke, but we all know if they didn't the battlefield would be too unpredictable (which people hate obviously).

Offmaps require a LOT of resources to be put in to be really effective, which is ALWAYS at the cost of other areas in the company (like ATG, or Inf on field).

My RCA Battallion has over 500 munitions and 280 fuel tied into just arty. 3 of those on vulnerable spotter units. It's definately not the most effective form of combat, not by a long shot, but I like to play arty doctrines. To max out my uses, I have to invest just shy of 20 sp (used to be 21) which sometimes I won't get back every game, I usually take 2/3 and 3/3 instead.
My Airborne has everything tied into passive buffs, not only do they perform better as an army, they actually get EXTRA resources given to them through supply drops.

To go even further, a lot of people simply hate to switch-up their usual playing style to adjust to artillery. They are so used to bunching up, and moving around (not always as a blob, just close) presenting massive targets for these types of powers and instead of adjusting approach they start to moan.

Anybody facing a heavy tank, or a HT rush, or Elite infantry knows or quickly learns to adjust to deal with that threat, or they lose hard.

Doctrine choices are supposed to present tough choices to pick from, but also be a worthwhile choice for that army. Right now, Arty is just about keeping up, and that's with two tier 3 choices together.
There are always going to be problems with powers being used together, just like when you get 3 Airborne Battalions or 3 Blitz Battalions, it seems overkill.

No-one can say that passive buff's are not better at this stage.
Be careful not to over compensate for a select few games where there is a lot of offmaps being thrown about.

The issue with an off-map officer is that not only do off-maps then need to be balanced in terms of timers, cost, strength, effectiveness, usefulness and availability, but also in terms of on-field pop-cap, speed and survivability of unit, cost of recruitment in battalion tab, etc. If we're talking something akin to a British Captain, that could mean players removing key units from their builds to make space, and how they call them in in terms of which bundle, call-in timers if they're brought on in the later game, and population availability when trying to call in a 3 pop unit in mid battle with an on-field force of 38.

It's a good concept, but it brings a whole new level of complexity in balancing, strategy and tactical levels which, in all earnestness, only serves to confuse and alienate vCoH players who are trying out a new mod. The more estranged the tactical system becomes from the core game play, the harder it will become for new players to learn how to play effectively, and stick with the mod. As much as I love the core 20+ veteran regulars, long-term survivability and enjoyability of the mod for new people surely has to be a key factor in this.

I think that all powerful offmaps should have no free uses, cost about 4-6 SP per use and only limit to about 2 max uses. All less powerful offmaps should have one free use, cost about 2-4 SP per use and only limit to about 3-4 uses.

E.G.

Type: V1
Free Uses: NO
Cost: 5 SP
Max Uses 1-2 (Its deadly against static emplacements but extremely bad against moving targets.)

Type: Bombing run
Free Uses: NO
Cost: 5 SP
Max Uses: 1-2 ( Deadly against inf/tanks and static emplacements.)

Type: Strafin Run
Free Uses: YES
Cost: 2-4 SP
Max Uses: 2-3 (Good at pinning units and blobs but doesn't deal much damage and only good verse infantry.)

Type: Precision Strike
Free Uses: YES
Cost 2-4 SP
Max Uses 2-3 (Sometimes good against support weapons but extremely bad verse moving targets and long callin time.)

These are jus examples , so don't flame at me for this. I might post more l8er on but need food :)

Thanks for the input Dragon2008, your post did lack the incremental increase cost though.

Eg, Initial cost 4, incremental 1 would cost:
4 for 1 use
5 for 2 uses
6 for 3 uses

While Initial cost 4, incremental 3 would cost:
4 for 1 use
7 for 2 uses
10 for 3 uses

Useful for scaling.

I dont think T3-T4 offmaps should cost SP for the first use still.

Woops ::) Thought id missed something out. Was hungry though when i was typing so my mind was else where :D


Well I think it really depends how powerful they r and how often they hit there target. Some T3's offmaps actully do better than some T4 abilites which is kinda strange so that should be taken into account if all the offmaps get revised.

I agree, I mean you pay a lot of PP for them but then again they are insanely powerful. Maybe just make them initial 4 incremental 6. so first is 4 sp second is 10sp.

Then how can you justify people paying 100 PP for a constant unlock, and someone with an offmap t4 having to always put in more and more pp, to keep up? Should we make all t4's uses and cost SP?

Fully agree with agga, if the first use of a T4 offmap costed SP, why would anyone want to take it over a stronger T4 that gives you passive buffs for no extra cost?

A T4 1 free yes but a T3 some small cost each time because on a unit you have to buy vet and replace the unit with pp if it dies.

I don't think off maps should cost sp because you have to spend A'lot of pp in the first place to unlock it. Also for people who have lives and can't play a million games, will be at a disadvantage. When I buy an unlock I want to use it in the next game not wait untill I can hord up more pp to unlock sp so I can finally use my off map. If you don't have A'lot of games in you will not have the pp needed to purchase your off maps which would just blow donkey balls. Off maps do suck but it's a part of warfare which you have to adjust too. Off maps make it harder to blob. I have learned this the hard way and now I try not to group things so close together. This isn't carebears online, and units will die in ways that are less then pleasing. If you make off maps harder to obtain then you will run into more situations that will make you want to bash your head into a wall which isn't any fun.  

Thats why SP is cheaper to buy for people who dont have many - ie people with lives ;)

u know whats funny? atm, there's only one doc that its normal off-map can be buffed with a t4 and that's infantry with arty expertise and all it does is enable one more free and one more ot be bought so i think you can get up to 6? I dunno, personally, i'd rather have on-map artillery but because of off-maps, sometimes it neutralizes it, especially howitzers, you rarely see howitzers any longer cuz everyone has off-maps now and you can't move it out the way (might b e nice if you enable howies to move)

i dont think off-maps are that big of a problem, but i do think that certain people spam them. It used to be that there was at least one side that had no off-map artillery. For Ami it was armor, for the brits engineers, the pe tank hunters and wehr blitz but now you give blitz off-maps, armor, engies and pe don't get it (other than captains and offficers in reinforcement packages but not really off-map)

Seriously though...some of you say precision isn't all that big a deal but because of storms it can be a pain in the ass.
a
personally, i think one of the bigger issues with off-maps is how hard it is to get out of its range, especially axis artillery since Firestorm and Rocket barrage have wide areas and drop a lot of close spread rounds. Inf off-map is pretty easy to get out of because of its randomness but yea it can still hit. Precision strike will always hit right where you point so its good to use if you catch someone off guard i usually get pissed off by it when i have vet that get bombed with it just because.

What about the current state of doctrine implementation?
Are there enough viable/equal doctrine choices implemented besides offmaps that would allow the userbase to vary their doctrine selections?
(Just make a select query to determine which are the most/less picked doctrine choices right now, if offmaps are in the higher ranks theres something fishy)

Ofcourse where as lower tier doctrine choices might not be selected by 1 person out of 5 this number should go up to 4 persons out of 5 not picking a certain t4 unlock.
Just saying if there would be more doctrine choices implemented and balanced we could certainly observe a normal distribution of doctrine unlock choices within the userbase (and therefore less higher tier offmaps)
(but thats just my number crunching mind, might be completly wrong ;))

Does anyone understand what i mean?

Which one do you mean?
Flanking Manouvers or Mortar Saturation Barrage?  ;D

If you mean the latter, if already seen it in action, and the lack of smoke makes it kinda powerfull yeah.
If you mean the first one, i havent had the time to try that one on my tankshock churchills and bangbusses.

Luan i get you,

the current distribution curve is very skewed due to constraints that don't reflect a proper distribution across the population even if you do factor in players will attempt / look to factor in an off map in their company build usually.

Without all doctrines in we can't really assess the true distribution and frequency of off maps.

That being said the dev team have discussed this before we are aware of the issues that are faced, but seeing as the implementation of all doctrines has been a very large undertaking by a small team, we have not been in a position to assess critically the impact they really have.

The war started with little to no doctrine implementation and has progressed to nearly full doctrines and yet we could say we are about 70% there.

Hence BETA status arguments are used when looking at player feedback/suggestions/complaints we are still not at a liberty to review impact and distribution until we have a complete data set.

That being said we still look at the feedback but with a considered view that we are still in implementation phase, and while that current feedback is still skewed and thus not necessarily reflective of what it truly will be, add in emotion which will skew the feedback further then we have to be very very subjective on the feedback.

 

love em or hate em, its a fun topic!

The majority can be dodged to a good extent.

A lot of people complain about Mortar Saturation, but while it doesn't have smoke, it has a very audible barrage firing effect. I use it, but I'm not against it having smoke.

Personally, if we go with spotters, we should implement fake smoke on RCA and Terror, as these two are the mainstay.
People should be affected by the mental attributes of these powers, it's not a black and white thing, it's about the overall play out of the battle.

A lot of times I would prefer to bluff a barrage, but am unable to do it. Even if it was a skill, I'd love to see it implemented.
I was hoping Lit Up would add a scare factor to my army (since it's primarily weak on the ground).

There is also the fact that some doctrines can spot a LOT easier with certain units.
personally I think anything cloaked should have it's sight radius decreased.

Jeeps, Bikes, Scouts etc that can't cloak should be the warning signs of any offmap outside of dedicated officers imo.

strafe is undodgeable because relic changed the angle of the .50cals some patches ago.
your blob is down before u can see the plane on the minimap

Remove uses, create timers and not just for offmaps also for stuff like conviction and inspired assault.

i dont know when offmaps became the god above all else issue. I think i remember slightly bitching about it.....like months back and im guessing it was worse then cuz im happy at where its at now.

This thread has been cleaned.

Please respond only to the topic post.  This thread was not intended to open up a debate between people, just vote, post your opinion on now off-maps should work and GFTO.

More like Earthshaker but a lot less damaging (but longer lasting). So you can get out of the area, or you can have a long-term risk of getting blasted for 50 damage that may or may not occur depending on the type of cover your troops are in.

That'd be a pretty neat kind of offmap in my opinion that is less "wtfrandompwn" than earthshaker and less tactical use than 105mm offmap or the like.

Now that's a good idea. I wouldn't have a problem at all if it went to x amount of time before you can use it again.

If u switch to a timer it means you get more uses per game which would be worse than wat it is now.

I say that art. should be used to breach. That will say, I would like to see that the time before drop is pretty high, like 5-8 secs. (or even more!) and it got a bigger spread (and maybe more shells and longer duration). Maybe drop in FOG (withoug giving LOS).

Flavoured example:
The axis has garrisoned Tanteville village with mgs, atgs, mortars etc. The allies drops a art. in middle of the village, which axis see and get the option to either 'soak it up' hoping to be lucky or withdraw from that sector. When the barrage is over, both axis and allies are going to make a dash for the village, making it a "meeting engament" in that local area. Art. is used as a stalement-breaker.

And if the axis choose to stay, the allies may press forward in cover of the art. making it hard/risky for axis to reinforce while allies risks some too. I don't know anything about coding, but in the 'eye-of-the-storm' there should be higher risk, but shells can land far from center.

I'm not going in to cost etc. Just giving my idea. Art. can be used defensivly too, but it's tricky to lure the enemy and match the incoming art. ;) Hence, art. will be more random, but get more strategic uses. That will say, art. in itself don't give a win, but combined with your forces it does, like pinning doesn't win by itself, it helps your troops dealing the damage. It can also be used to "lock sectors", like a flank sector, negating it from the presence from both sides (due to longer duration), which in itself is a viable strategic option like trying to surround and back-cap.

so the things wont change?
 axis stomped voting ? :))

I feel that a majority of off-maps should have longer drop-time, and drop more shells, but be more dispersed, and take an overall longer time to completely drop. As it is now, almost all available arty is like a Precision Strike, coming down way too fast and accurate.

My idea for some of the offmaps was something like this. Perhaps implementation with the war map would be best for it, though.