Flak 88

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[Tymathee]

8 out of every 10 games i've played since the new doctrines have been put in, i've seen 88's and it's getting really annoying. I think there needs to be a way to balance it.

Now before you try to say L2P n00b, or 88's aren't hard to beat, avoid it, etc. I know all of this. I win at least half if not more games i play against 88's because my opponent relies on them too much for defense and just sits back and tries to pick you off and with a howitzer, you can whittle them down basically. The reason I am bringing this up is because I am seeing too many of these, just like the tiger ace when eirr was first released, cct's + pershings in 004/005, etc etc this is something that we are seeing way too many of and it not only cripples game-play for the allies, it just makes the game unfun because it just turns into a cap war and not a real battle.

right now this is the price & pop

Flak 88 - 450 MP, 220 F, 8 pop

One of the first things I'd like to change is the Pop, at least 9 or 10 because atm say at the start, you can field this as wehr.

HMG = 3
Mortar = 4

so now we're at 15 pop and with that you can field two gren squads with double lmg and scheck or you can let your teammate have the hmg's and mortar's and you go with a pak.

It's not so much that the axis who has the 88 can field, it's what the teammate can field that can go along with the flak wielder has. So if you limit what the flak wielder can bring out, you make him really choose when to bring that 88 out and with whom.

I'd propose a change to  like maybe 500 mp and 250fu with 9 or 10 pop and maybe a cost in pp's of at least 2 so it's not always that players #1 optoin anad they'd choose the most optimum time to bring it out just like a tiger or pershing or callie.

Now, for you wehr's that want to say do the same to the howie, i could care less, the howie isn't as huge a game changer as a howie cuz of what you can field with the 9 pop as compared to the axis support weapons and it's so easy for axis players to rush behind allied lines and take it out, and it's not as easy to take out an 88.   Give us v1's, rocket arty, firestorms, and precision strikes and you'd see way less 88's because they'd go down so easy. On the other hand, foo and off-map arty is very inaccurate and rarely destroys the gun so its easy to go ahead and recrew, even if you try and rush it with stuff right after the off map, you first have to take out the support weapons around it so you dont get torn up just going for the 88.

Thoughts? Let's not turn this into a flame war, this is a balance discussion and I want to see some legit thoughts on tuning down the amount of 88's cuz i'm sure there are plenty axis players that would like to see less of them as well since sometimes a wrongly placed 88 can lose a game or one brought out at the wrong time.

discuss!!!

[Smokaz]

Id rather reduce the gun health slightly but keep the health regen so that if you commit to destroy it and are able to close the distance, it wouldnt be such a hard thing to take out. Ive also seen at guns fail to kill it even though it has no health, like some kind of 5% error.

Alternatively, reduce its accuracy versus infantry and support weapons, but not at guns. Right now it gibs infantry, mgs and mortars far too good which I think are supposed to fare better against it than tanks.

The devs just need to make a design decision when it comes to the 88, is it a bigass AA-AT gun or a all-purpose long range support unit. If its the latter, reduce weapon health slightly. If its the first, reduce its accuracy against infantry based units.

[Malevolence]

I don't think that it needs a health reduction. However, reducing the accuracy against MOVING (not still) infantry further than it is now will result in a more balanced product in my opinion. If you sit still of course you can be hit, but moving infantry is a hard target.

[RikiRude]

I think the easiest and best thing to do would be to take away its health regen, give it a repair kit instead, so it would have med kit for the crew and repair kit for the actual gun. When it's repairing it obviously can't fire, but using a med kit wouldn't slow it down any. Or simply increase it's pop cap to 9 or 10. I think this is a unit where the devs could go a million different ways and it would be more balanced. Also with an 88 that's amazing AT on the field, freeing you up from spending munis on paks, and giving you extra munis to spend on LMGs and schrecks and such. As long as you are defending there is no real disadvantage to the 88, and if you have a team that gives you enough cover to set one up you are fine as well.

[Sharpshooter824]

Yes, the fact that is can easily 2 shot AT guns should be changed so that it is less accurate against AT guns and other support weapons and maybe slightly less accurate against infantry so far away..as it is now its a crazy everything sniper to be honest, I don't mind vehicles but infantry and support weaps it should not be able to snipe with such ease

[spinn72]

Ways to go:

Pop Increase to 10 or 12
Price Increase to 550/300 or something higher.
Moving of autorepair to Vet2 or 3
Reduction of Gun Damage or range and movement to Vet such as Range +10 at Vet1, +5 at Vet2 and 3 (i don't think this would be good)
Reduction of Gun health to 3 shot kill by tanks or Schreks (again this wouldn't reflect the unit a lot)
Reduction of Health of Crew significantly (so mortar/howi kills easier)
Reduction of Accuracy at long ranges (so the 88 doesn't snipe infantry from 70m anymore)
or even further reduction of accuracy to infantry so it really cannot pose a threat to infantry at all like an AT gun.

[CrazyWR]

if you decrease its accuracy vs AT guns, you need to decrease the accuracy of AT guns against it though.

[Sharpshooter824]

er AT guns can rarely get into range of an 88, whats frustrating is they  can snipe your At guns while you are busy fending off a P4...

[DuckOfDoom]

As it has been pointed out in my thread, maybe its not the flak itself thats flawed, but rather the retarded mechanic of attack/defend mode. Flaks generally arent that bad in R+ games, because its rare that a wehr player will be able to place an 88 in an optimal denial position along with spotters when both sides are constantly playing territory tug of war. The biggest problem a flak88 represents is when it can be setup without pressure, it can be placed in the perfect spot on the map which denies the allies any decent chance of leaving the spawn, or forces them to take a horribly disadvantageous route. I do agree however that flaks (the gun itself) also should not heal by any means other then repair kits (although the problem with repair kits is that if the flak is ever decrewed the kit will be lost).

[gamesguy2]

Reduce acc vs infantry, defend mode gets 2 minutes instead of 3 to setup.

Done.

[panzerman]

it's a heavy support weapon is it not so it shold be able to rape stuff at longer distances,

i reckon just bump up the pop and maybe price and leave it as it is.

you need to remember that it is stationary so unlike a 57 or pak it can't run away from arty or blobs coming to kill it. and i i have only seen 1 atm and i have played all my games with a defensive player in my team.

i think to make it a rarity they should make it a little higher pop like u guys said.

[Sharpshooter824]

PE has the flak88 in luftwaffe which seems to be most common doctrine as PE so..

[Malgoroth]

This is absolutely mind boggeling.

I'm not going to try and argue on the side of attack/defend mode. I think the advantage of defending for either side is ridiculous and as it is now, toally lame. It's either really easy or a bullshit up-hill battle. The fact that the 88 is a fantastic defensive weapon only exacerbates this issue and makes people bitch and moan that it's "unfair!!!!!!". One thing that I noticed the 88's critics never mention is that it CAN'T MOVE. All this talk of nerfing a unit which can't move just hurts my brain. Being stationary means that a good chunk of a players pop cap will be spent defending the fucking thing rather than attacking. This leaves the initiative up to the allies.

But mostly IT CAN'T FUCKING MOVE. Yeah, it rapes tanks. Yeah, it's ok at killing infantry. BUT IT CANT MOVE. Drop artillery on it. Rush it with rr airborne, or rangers, or commandos, or a tommy blob, or snipe it, or mortar it from cover, or smoke and flamer engies, or smoke and ANYTHING. It's not like it's going to run away from you... BECAUSE IT CAN'T. 

Now go ahead and list me all the specific, nuanced scenarios where each of those counters will fail.   

And to Tymathee...
So... a lot of people enjoy using the 88 (which you admit isn't OP or hard to kill), and your response is to limit how they choose to play the game by nerfing the unit so they won't want to use it anymore? I find it especially strange since in that same post you go on to say how the 88's are hard to kill. Make up your mind please so I know which way to respond.

[spinn72]

Please don't turn this into a 6 page rant thread.  Just watch my replay (vet3 Flak 36 defending with 55 or 60 odd range, Flak 88 is 70 range).

All we are doing here is suggesting what needs to be changed if it does, if it doesn't just say you like it as it is.

[gamesguy2]

Please don't turn this into a 6 page rant thread.  Just watch my replay (vet3 Flak 36 defending with 55 or 60 odd range, Flak 88 is 70 range).

All we are doing here is suggesting what needs to be changed if it does, if it doesn't just say you like it as it is.

88 has 100 range.

[Tymathee]

And to Tymathee...
So... a lot of people enjoy using the 88 (which you admit isn't OP or hard to kill), and your response is to limit how they choose to play the game by nerfing the unit so they won't want to use it anymore? I find it especially strange since in that same post you go on to say how the 88's are hard to kill. Make up your mind please so I know which way to respond.

just what spinn said. I've been here in the eir community for over a year and have been in eirr since day one and every unit that's been used like crazy (i stated examples on both sides) has been nerfed in advantages, price, etc so that you don't see it every game.

Basically what I'm trying to do here is limit the games that this unit is deployed in because obviously since a lot of companies use this unit, it's not crippling them as much as it should for such a heavy unit.  A lot of pe do use luft, mainly cuz you get a lot of infantry (may need to change this, you can basically field 30 infantry units with luft atm if you have enough (12 pg, 4 ag's, 4 tb's, 4 fj's and 12 lufts so 34) that are stronger than the normal pe infantry but i'm sure getting that 88 doesn't hurt either. and its not just pe im seeing, its wehr so obviously there are a lot of defensive companies as well.

so again like spinn said, i'm trying to do an actual discussion not create any flame wars, not saying it's op or anything like that cuz i can beat it but its overused hence, something may need to change.

[DasNoob]

I just played a game and I didn't see one.

Locked, because the below post is so well thought out... and really we don't need to see more of the same responding to it.

[TheWindCriesMary]

 This is becoming pathetic, and with this third thread it has officially stopped being funny. What is this, the third attempt by a small group of allied players to get the flak 88 nerfed? There are armies with half a dozen vet 3 commandoes and rangers in them, howitzers all over the place, and all kinds of powerful combinations that can be fielded by the alllies. But why have we not seen 3 different threads posted on any one of these units?

Simple, the people who keep posting their complain threads in the guise of "balance concerns" are not playing the armies that they want balanced . But thats the way it's supposed to be, right? "My armies unit's can never be too strong, but the second I see an enemy unit that is "annoying"... by god I better get myself over the forums asap so I can manipulate it into being nerfed for my benefit!"


 The first problem with every single one of these threads is that the conflict of interest in their professed original intention: "a genuine concern for balance" is incredible. It's like the wolves trying to convince the shephard that they are genuinely concerned about the safety of the sheep. They always begin the same, and they always blatantly ignore the fact that every army (especially their own) has it's units that are unconventionally strong. Rangers, Knights Cross, Commandos, Howitzers, and Flak 88's. One problem though, you know the last unit I mentioned? There are fewer of them in the game (PE and WM combined) than any of these other units by atleast a multiple of 2). Oh I'm sorry, was it claimed in this thread that they were being "used like crazy", in numbers far beyond anything ever seen?

 Don't worry, just do what I do  when you see someone try and pass that blatant lie off as truth: laugh like crazy, and nod your head knowingly at a poorly concealed attempt to decieve.

 This particular thread has a few glaring absurdities with it's case. To make sure there is no mistake about what they are, I'm going to lay out my three favorites one by one.:

1: The flak should be nerfed because it's "annoying" the writer.

8 out of every 10 games i've played since the new doctrines have been put in, i've seen 88's and it's getting really annoying. I think there needs to be a way to balance it.

 The problem here is two-fold. One, that the author has somehow managed to find the 10 people (that's right, there are only 10 people currently in the game with a flak 88 in their company) for 80% of his games. Seem unlikely to you? Thats because it is.

 The second, and bigger problem here, is that the flak is "annoying" and therefore should be "balanced". "Balance" is a funny word here, because he doesn't mean balance. What does balance mean in this case? Translation: it should be nerfed so that I don't find it as annoying.

 Annoying is not an argument to make something weaker. Enemy units are supposed to be annoying. I, for example, find rangers and commandos annoying. Does this mean I should argue that they should be nerfed? Hell no. They are annoying because they are good at what they do, and can be extremely tough to deal with without a plan and the right combination of units to counter them with.

 The exact same thing can be said about the flak 88.

2: The flak 88 isn't overpowered, but it's overused. Something may need to change.

 Translation: The 88 isn't overpowered, but 10 people in the entire mod have one. Omg! I want this nerfed so I don't have to face them as often because they are annoying to have to deal with.

 

Basically what I'm trying to do here is limit the games that this unit is deployed in because obviously since a lot of companies use this unit

 "Obviously" the author has never bothered to check the leaderboards. They are a handy little tool that helps prevent patently untrue statements like this from making it to the forums.

3: The author doesn't care if you try to compare howitzers to 88's, because they are soooo different and unrelated so obviously you should never nerf howitzers... only 88's! Because if you did nerf howitzers that would be crazy, and everyone knows balancing only works in one direction.

"I find howitzers really annoying. Every time I play an allied player, I run a high risk of running into two deadly units: rangers, and their howitzer friends. A howizter can sit just outside an allied players spawn, and reach past half way shelling me to smitherines on a regular basis. If I want to kill it, I have to somehow break through the allied defences with something fast and mobile and hope I get lucky. Most times whatever I send will get hunted down, even if it does manage to kill the crew of the howitzer. And that just kills the crew. In 30 seconds that baby will be recrewed with a fresh barrage to fire. If i'm lucky, my partner has a v1 they can use. Sure it wastes a huge offmap, but it's worth it. If not, I better bring something with a little more power than an ac if I want that gun dead.

 That means I have to instead bring something that can "destroy" the gun altogether. A tank? A clown car full of shreks? Now I'm wasting tons of mp and munitions just to stop this one unit with it's super ranger and squad one-hit massacring abillities. Omfg so annoying. Well atleast there are only 10 of them in the game. Wait, what? There are twice as many as that? Holy shit! Balance plz!"

 But in all honestly, howitzers don't need to be balanced. Yes they are extremely useful and can decimate squads and fixed positions, but thats exactly the way they should be. Its artillery ffs, and the way it behaves in-game is an exact representation (scaled to map size and game balance) the way a howitzer should behave. Even though there are 20 of them in the game (21 exactly), and they are extremely annoying, I know that as an axis player im supposed to find them annoying.

 Also, as an axis player I know that they are a stationary pop sink with zero mobillity. That gives me an advantage, because I now know that my enemy has 9 less pop to move around with than I do. Advantage, axis.



 Basically, if the only argument this thread is trying to make is that 88's are not OP but are overused, then it was flawed from the start and we don't need to waste any more time indulging it.

 The leaderboards conclusively prove that the erroneous claim that they are overused "like crazy" is patently untrue, and therefore the main objection here with the 88 needs no further consideration.

  As to the other people in this thread who believe it is overpowered, I invite each of you to come try out the Luftwaffe or Defense doctrines for a few days. Save up the PP and buy yourself a flak, and come enjoy the unit for a little while. I promise that you will quickly come to understand just why the flak 88 is not unbalanced. Probably after yours gets ganked for the 10th time in a row because you thought it was invincible.

 And when you have experienced more than one side of the coin, come back to this thread and let me know if you still think it's in need of a nerf. If you can honestly tell me that you do, and that you won't stop playing with it after it is, I say the devs should go ahead and do it.

 -Wind