The infantry Healing mechanic - possible problems with it, possible fixes

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[Smokaz]

While infantry spam took a hit to the face a while back when the atg was made +1 pop, it only weakened infantry and atg heavy companies by a small amount from my experience.

We still have several mechanics left which skews the game towards heavy use of infantry. Recrewing and dropping weapons providing extra resources for infantry is one compared to the "leftover resources" from tank use. Map control has been mentioned before but one that has not received any attention worth mentioning EVER, is the healing.

There are two criminals in the healing system: The improved range triage and to a similar but lesser degree, the med bunker. They also in one way incriminate medikits by how they would need to be changed to stay in the doctrines, but we'll get back to that.

The improved range healing triage from mid and top t3 is not super imbalanced when only a single of them is used, though they are super cheap. I'd say the same for med bunker top T4. The base buildings themselves are no problem, aka the med bunker or the triage without a buff.

However once you realize that there is no downside whatsoever from having more on the field and just find other teammates who are inf heavy, the triage spam becomes brutal. I think anyone who has played the retardedely easy companies to play that me, david and elitegren had with smoke covered always-healing infantry would agree. Add vet 2 stickies, rrs or flamers to this mix and it becomes a joke, only completely unfeasible counter companies that would suck against almost anything else beat this, everything else is very weak to it. I've also seen Leophone experiment with the defensive similar build using trenches and med bunkers, but I haven't encountered a med bunker spammer yet. But I'm sure this post will spawn some coming attempts from players.

The main powerhouse effect is the +20 range. Normally around a triage, you would be forced into a very dangerous hugfest if you had lots of infantry to heal at the same time. With the +20 range you can have it cover a lot of green cover positions allowing you to literally blanket areas of the map with the triage effect.
Adding the emplacement armor just makes a lot of 1 shot weapons vs a cheap triage (its cheap for what it does with the buffs) ineffective at ending it for comparable cost or able to attrition wise (You can only get 2 offmaps from axis thast can kill triages). None of the axis offmaps will kill a buffed triage in 1 hit. A fair mention is also how smoke heavy allied companies can be if they want, and how healing directly counteracts flame usage vs this.

The defensive med bunker while not so beefy or long ranged without buffs, it still can gain noticeable defensive boosts with the top t4. Using this I would think that it compares to the double T3 triage in both survivability and range. With the added trenches you can make these stupidifying areas where anything but burst weaponry that can kill infantry in 1 hit will completely suck, something which I think makes up for the 1 larger population a med bunker requires. 140 munitions is hardly more a limitation for the med bunker than it is for the triage, and this is clearly broken. In addition defensive receives trenches, which basically makes DOT weaons even less effective against stuff under med bunker effect. And a mg can defend it from the inside. Can't remember whether or not inf has trenches.

Both of them also enjoy using shot blockers for their effect, helps them both a lot.

The problem is when multiple triages or med bunkers are available. A single triage or a single med bunker is still brutal when defending around it, but at least it can be avoided or fought around. But with these being affordable within strats centered around them, they very quickly would poison the game where this type of strat was used and nullify DOT weapons.

The counter to the builds are very narrow compared to without doctrine buffs, arty pieces can rape hugfests  around short range healing so some anti-measures exist. The firestorm nebel and the incendary hummel are somewhat effective at rooting out this kind of play, although severely reduced by the fact that the healing will outpace AoE effects and that this gives up pop for map control - infantry can come out and cap while these pieces have to "stay on" for ineffective periods thus also ending up encouraging more aggressive infantry capping.

Some thought to the solutions:

1:
Harcapping triages/medbunkers - for defensive, this will at least demand that it goes down to a T2 since its then a hardcapped upgrade compared to a inf t1 - its already questionable as a T3 outside of heavy gimmicking around it. The problem with this is that it still allows healing infantry spam to be really powerful in a good position.

2:
Adding a negative healing effect. Lets face it: its kinda gay that infantry being healed are fighting at full power. It doesn't make much sense from a game perspective, nor is it realistic at all. Something like +50% received damage and accuracy from being under the traige/med bunker effect would completely root out this kind of play, while still allowing one behind the line to be effective at restoring non-fighting squads.
However this would have to extend to medikits since healing centers are the only way allied infantry really heal. The immediate feel of this is bad, since medikits are such a big deal to wehrmacht/pe medikits when they are fighting DOT weapons.

The positive thing with adding a negative effect (derp wording, I know) is that it would completely exterminate any inherent advantage to infantry spam being mass buffed by several healing positions pushing up with the greater ability for map control that infantry spam allows. It limits the amount of impact infantry spamming can have across the map.

3:
Limit number on the field - I find this to be a very good solution, the only thing this doesn't solve is when the position is so good that its basically unbreakable, which is kind of rare and obscure to happen with the size of EIRRs maps. Not sure how feasible from coding perspective.

4:
Scrap the range increases - they promote defensive play around the triage/medbunker, which is kinda overpowered for several instances of the healing buildings while not being overly problematic for a single one.
Requires doc rework, some work to find new replacements which is annoying.

I would also like to point out that I think the 4v4 maps are so big that in these games it would be avoidable to a greater extent, but I would also like to point out that the likelihood of 2 inf players or 2 med bunker players clearly rises in this type of game. But in 3v3s and 2v2s this is a BITCH to deal with.

While this type of play is narrow and forces preplanning your teammates and builds, when it's present it breaks the game very much in favor of infantry and should be made less effective/possible before it turns into FOTW or becomes popular.

Another great thing is that it would help equalize infantry being "repaired" vs tanks being repaired. All tank doctrines giving move or fire to tanks have some downside to them, while healing has not. Thus reducing the promotion of infantry play somewhat, equalizing tank/vehicle use vs inf spam a bit more.

[RikiRude]

I have to say, all healing things should be hardcapped, I agree.

Triage medic bunkers at 2, ccs at 3, healing scout cars (not really sure tbh), not sure how those healing crate things work either, AB medic at 2, ambulance at 3, something along those lines, but you'd also have to limit med kits as well to balance that whole idea out.

Also you are suggesting that firing your arty into the area that people are healing should solve your problem, but no it shouldn't you should fire into the area, and attack it as well.

Also what you say about overlapping triages could also be said about 88s, having multiple, maybe even the same could be said for on map artillery, to a MUCH lesser extent, since they are so pop heavy.

I think one way to solve the problem I didn't read mentioned is make all these healing things more pop possibly? Make big range triage a different unit that is 3 pop, same with top T4 medic bunker. Also I find a problem with the 4 pop AB medic, seems like too much pop to be honest, considering SC healing is 3.

But in general I feel that maybe you are over exaggerating, I've never had a huge problem other than KCH and OL, with infantry being able to heal. Though I also haven't dealt with this overlapping lots of triages problem either.

[Smokaz]

I have to say, all healing things should be hardcapped, I agree.

Triage medic bunkers at 2, ccs at 3, healing scout cars (not really sure tbh), not sure how those healing crate things work either, AB medic at 2, ambulance at 3, something along those lines, but you'd also have to limit med kits as well to balance that whole idea out.

Also you are suggesting that firing your arty into the area that people are healing should solve your problem, but no it shouldn't you should fire into the area, and attack it as well.

Also what you say about overlapping triages could also be said about 88s, having multiple, maybe even the same could be said for on map artillery, to a MUCH lesser extent, since they are so pop heavy.

I think one way to solve the problem I didn't read mentioned is make all these healing things more pop possibly? Make big range triage a different unit that is 3 pop, same with top T4 medic bunker. Also I find a problem with the 4 pop AB medic, seems like too much pop to be honest, considering SC healing is 3.

But in general I feel that maybe you are over exaggerating, I've never had a huge problem other than KCH and OL, with infantry being able to heal. Though I also haven't dealt with this overlapping lots of triages problem either.

88s aren't buffing every unit around them constantly all the time. It's also a separate problem imo, since 88 currently kill everything - not only armor - that enters its range. It hits infantry and support weapons way too easily and often. Its kinda OP in some regards itself.

Its very nasty when they do it correctly. Also your suggestions would nerf 1 triage or med bunker, which isn't a big problem though clearly worth more than they are priced at - with the buffs. But this is more the domain of to some perceived problem of doctrine buffs being free in the top trees.

Scout car isnt a big deal cause healing range sucks on this thing so defending around it with infantry spam is stupid - it also pretty fragile compared to the others, while a buffed triage with emp armor can take a v1 to the face.

[aeroblade56]

But allies already have the downside since we only have infatry spam, which is what USA is about combined arms and spam as we all know the only legit strategy is. atg,Hellcat,bars.  Take away triage from this strategy and it becomes much more of a problem for USA. as we can not move the triage with us the, halftrack healing car is retarded and the medkits that Heal in battle. we would have to hug the triage to get any sort of good affect which is by all means dangerous.

Anyway since the recent income of reward points since the wespe is a common unit now triages are now death trap much like the bren carrier.

[nikomas]

But allies already have the downside since we only have infatry spam, which is what USA is about combined arms and spam as we all know the only legit strategy is. atg,Hellcat,bars.  Take away triage from this strategy and it becomes much more of a problem for USA. as we can not move the triage with us the, halftrack healing car is retarded and the medkits that Heal in battle. we would have to hug the triage to get any sort of good affect which is by all means dangerous.

Anyway since the recent income of reward points since the wespe is a common unit now triages are now death trap much like the bren carrier.

If riflebar and hellcat spam is the only way to go? Why does my armor company have a positive win loss ratio, given when I started with it I was crap with allies to?

[AmPM]

Hmmmm...perhaps if the units healing use an ability or fire their weapons it turns the healing buff "off" on them until 5 seconds of non-firing/ability activity have passed.

[smurfORnot]

Anyway since the recent income of reward points since the wespe is a common unit now triages are now death trap much like the bren carrier.

dude,stop bringing reward units in...THEY WILL BE VERY RARE,do you understand that??

halftrack healing car is retarded and the medkits that Heal in battle.

medikits heal at what 1/3 of triage speed?
you better be safe that enemy wont throw nade at you when you pop them in battle or that you have to move,cuz you will probably die then. It is nice to heal in battle,but it has quite a bit of disadvantages.

[hans]

If riflebar and hellcat spam is the only way to go? Why does my armor company have a positive win loss ratio, given when I started with it I was crap with allies to?

win lose ratio is not acceptable as an evidence!

[lionel23]

I see no issue with the healing in the game.  No hardcaps are needed for the following reason:

1) Triages and Def companies pay muni for it (120-140, depending on faction)
2) It costs pop.  2 pop for US and 3 for Def.  If you end up placing 5 bunkers on the field, thats 15 pop of 'bunkers' that have no combat capability, nor is there any overlapping heal.
3) Companies that take healing lose out on other things.  Why should I be punished for running 4-5 defensive med bunkers at the expense of ATGs/MGs/Mortars just because someone isn't taking or bothering with assault infantry and artillery?  Even though those 'triages' have emplacement armor, they still get one shotted by heavy artillery (ie hummel round).  They can't move - unlike the ambulance.  So just mortar and bomb away at it or hit it with flamers and shreks.

[nikomas]

win lose ratio is not acceptable as an evidence!

True, let me reprhase that... Why does my company work with only one or two hellcats at the very most, and normally just one or two squads with bars at the most?

What I meant was, you dont "Need" to spam TD's and bars to have a good coy, if you are a decent player that is.

[aeroblade56]

True, let me reprhase that... Why does my company work with only one or two hellcats at the very most, and normally just one or two squads with bars at the most?

What I meant was, you dont "Need" to spam TD's and bars to have a good coy, if you are a decent player that is.

Yes we should clearly listen to the axis T4 elite support spammer.