[All] Light Vehicle Metagame

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[TheWindCriesMary]

They are exclusively AI units so wouldnt a vehicle or tank based AT unit be a viable counter ?

Not to mention Armor doctrine being the only one whose LVs being the ones who can capture.

I would say, traditionally yes. The only problem that I've seen when I use tons of ACs or T17's (i've actually never played against a coy that uses lots of these, only with) or someone else uses lots of Flammens is that they break the dynamic of a match by exhausting a balanced companies AT assets. This opens the door for a KT, Tiger, sherman etc. from another player to basically run the game unmolested because all the ATGs or rangers/airborne have been exhausted fighting 30+ flammens or 20+ ACs.

So while a tank is a good counter, it's very hard to use that tank if the enemy has all of their support weapons intact because all the infantry your team has fielded has been whiped out and couldn't destroy any of it.

[XIIcorps]

but again, how many times can a player spam said gimmick unit without others becoming informed.

If you repeatidly face said gimmick coys without making changes to your own composition is just setting out to fail.

When Shab was running Clowncar spam and i knew i deliberatly replaced all my Inf loadouts with AT riflles, relying on Tanks and LVs for AI actions.


Same could be said for these units.
They should only catch you off guard once.

[TheWindCriesMary]

In theory, yes. In practice, no.

Because you can instantly create a coy with full doctrine unlocks and such, it's really, really easy to fool people in the launcher by having a multitude of different companies to call on. There's a whole mini pyschological game you might have noticed in stack battle prep where guys like Skaffa, Shab, me, Bolt etc. are constantly switching. It's an age old delicate dance.

But it means you can never know if that 0 or 1 game coy is the flammen/t17/ac spam you faced last game or a completely different strat. It's fun for us but does it beget good gameplay and indicate good balance for the mod as a whole? Probably not. There is bound to be a good solution out there we haven't thought of yet that walks the line between allowing this creativity and synergy for a team in a 3v3 without going too far in the extreme.

[GelezinisVilkas]

There are no problems with removal of pool limit. The main issue is:

Some vehicles are too cheap in terms of fuel for what they can do. Remember that by buying a vehicle you are making it impervious to infantry weapons. As stated by Skaffa, he could make a 26 flammenwerfer HT company. In that scenario, 40 Fuel is a very small premium to pay with only 5popcap, you can field an entire army of it literally. Other units at fault is for example the PE scout car. Low fuel cost, able to cap territory and low popcap.

The M8s are fine because while their fuel cost is not high, they eat up a significant amount of munitions. The T17 is fine too. The main problem lies on allied reward units are like Chaffee and M3 Lee which are relatively low in popcap while bordering on the capabilities of a sherman / full fledge medium tank at a far cheaper munitions cost.

The counters for light vehicles is HHAT but British is gimped in this regard because while ranger zooks, panzerschrecks are dual purpose in fighting against vehicles or tanks, British only have Boys AT rifle which can ONLY damage vehicles if they are dumb enough to stay there while costing a huge amount of munitions. Their equivalent of Piat is unreliable and requires button from the bren to work.

The solution is really simple. Price units properly in terms of cost and popcap, give viable counters to respective factions.

[NightRain]

Building trololo companies will always have weaknesses. Regardless of the potential of the unit. If AC coy meets AB, AB's going to have a real bad day. If AC blob meets bazooka spam. AC's going to have a really bad day. It is a simple thing really.

T17 will have a change in the future so arguing about that is pointless because its change is imminent.

[GelezinisVilkas]

Building trololo companies will always have weaknesses. Regardless of the potential of the unit. If AC coy meets AB, AB's going to have a real bad day. If AC blob meets bazooka spam. AC's going to have a really bad day. It is a simple thing really.

The problem is do "balanced" companies have viable counters if they play conservatively? In my opinion the answer is no and I'm looking at the British in this regard.

[NightRain]

Have you ever tried stuart spam? RCA stuart spam 3 shoots everything that axis consider as light.

The word which people look 'balanced' isn't the right term. If a company fails at a task then it was insufficient. There are no balanced companies and there'll never be any. It is a fantasy in which people fall to and cry as a excuse or as a reason "SPAM!". Balanced company is a mindset players have. I consider my stuart spam company balanced since it performs in every task but people call it spam since it has over 3 of one unit type. Balanced company is a mindset, fantasy, idealism. Non-exsisting thing in all fairness.

[tank130]

There are no problems with removal of pool limit. The main issue is:

Some vehicles are too cheap in terms of fuel for what they can do. Remember that by buying a vehicle you are making it impervious to infantry weapons. As stated by Skaffa, he could make a 26 flammenwerfer HT company. In that scenario, 40 Fuel is a very small premium to pay with only 5popcap, you can field an entire army of it literally. Other units at fault is for example the PE scout car. Low fuel cost, able to cap territory and low popcap. <snip>
..................................
<snip>
The solution is really simple. Price units properly in terms of cost and popcap, give viable counters to respective factions.

But use 1 flammenwerfer HT in your company and it is very easy to counter even in the hands of a skilled player. They must be used in pairs or triplets to amount to any good. So if you adjust the price or pop of the individual unit, you are making it even more useless unless it is spammed in blobs

[TheWindCriesMary]

@Gelez:

I think you may some great points about how some units are able to outperform their cost, especially in the case of capping scout cars etc. With that being said, I think changing the price isn't the best solution as it doesn't affect the multiple roles that some units have which make them problematic -- this is especially true in the case of T17s.

I've run 10 T17s in my company and run 3, regardless of the number they're simply far too effective and put shermans, greyhounds, staghounds and basically any other allied unit in a comparitive role to shame despite being relatively cheap.

I'm just not confident raising the price will address that. It may reduce the amount of T17s someone can get from 10 to 7 or 8, but those 8 will still be a devastatingly effective field presence.

@Nightrain: For the most part I also agree with your argument that there is no such thing as a balanced company -- there's companies that achieve their goal or don't. I think one of the things I like the most about having no pool is the freedom and lack of restrictions. It lends itself to coming up with inventive ways to win the game that don't fall within simply getting 4-5 AT pieces, some indirect, some break through units etc. and playing out every game the same way.

With that being said I think this style makes it easier to identify some units that become too effective at too many roles rather than more difficult.

[CrazyWR]

Thanks Smokaz, will do.


@Crazy: You're a supporter of no pool (and I am too) and you make a good point about scaling costs potentially being the same devil in a different cloak. Are there any solutions you think that address the problem of 23 AC's or 30 flammens and how that can be almost impossible to prepare for?

I would say that balancing an entire class of vehicles, in this case LV's, around the problem of one of them being spammed or being OP is not the right answer.  I agree t17s need nerfed, and I think that one change would make a huge difference.  As for 23 AC's or 30 flammens, I am of the opinion that in order to build a company of that level, you must seriously weaken yourself in other areas, and thus it is a game of roulette whether you are successful or not without serious team coordination to cover said weakness.  If you are comfortable rolling the dice and building that company, you should be allowed.  At some point though, there isn't much difference between 12 flammens and 20 or so on, if they aren't working after a certain point, more are not the answer.  Therefore, the question will always be...did your enemy bring enough of a counter to them, or just a token one.  And while gimmicks are fun, they aren't companies you can play for 60 games...

Basically I'm saying that if the problem is a unit being too effective, nerf the unit or nerf the price, depending on which you feel is the better option, and work from there.  Don't nerf an entire class of units just because of one unit in that class causing problems, or a few gimmick companies.


Also, has anyone heard from Myst lately?  It seems like he disappeared...

[TheWindCriesMary]

That sounds more than reasonable. Especially since some LVs are operating at a very reasonable level (hotches, stuarts, pumas etc.) and it would be unfair to give LVs a blanket nerf when it's only a few extreme outliers causing some woes.

I think adjusting the T17 slightly and maybe reducing some of the stackable benefits from doctrines for units like the AC might be a productive first step.

Good points.

In terms of Myst, I think summer is a busy time for a lot of us. I bet he'll be back and roaring in a bit once things settle down (just my guess).

[AmPM]

From reading through this, it seems to be an issue with either doctrine buffs moving something into the realm of "unbalanced for it's price", or the T17.

For the first, the way to fix it is to adjust doctrines, for the latter, the T17 probably needs to be adjusted from where it is right now and raised in either price, or nerfed.  I think price adjustment, due to the complaints in this thread, are not the best way to go about it, since it is claimed that 1-3 of them can troll a game. So that really comes down to nerfing it in some way.

So, what nerfs would help the situation without destroying the viability of using light vehicles and specifically the T17?

I would suggest starting with either it's Damage Output or Durability, since mobility is a core concept for LV's.

[Hicks58]

Or just remove their ability to cap so that T17 users have to field infantry alongside their LV's and AT support of choice which will cut into pop.

[TheWindCriesMary]

Or just remove their ability to cap so that T17 users have to field infantry alongside their LV's and AT support of choice which will cut into pop.

I think this is probably the best solution brought forth yet (it came up in the other T17 thread as well). I think in general it's not beneficial to gameplay to have LV's (not just for the T17) that can cap on the allied side (aside from the scout car).

As they're not vulnerable to small arms fire and are so mobile and effective against traditional fringe capping units, this is really what makes them such a tremendous game determining presence even in just 1-3 numbers.

[NightRain]

Myst is currently moving homes aka his tied up in real life. I repeat again. T17 will get major change so no need to worry about it in the near future.

[XIIcorps]

Or just remove their ability to cap so that T17 users have to field infantry alongside their LV's and AT support of choice which will cut into pop.

ive said this like 5 times.
Making it so the t17 cannot cap removes their field presence.

[tank130]

Looks to me like the real issue is a doctrine issue, not the unit itself.

[nikomas]

If you want to get technical about the unit it's also priced well above most LV's, give me one non-reward LV that's priced at 120FU. I've said it before, but it's partically a light tank and not an LV, I'd almost feel upping the population and re-designating it into some sort of "Heavy Vehicle/Light Tank" (practically what it already is, but losing out on the capping perks while gaining others) might have some merit.

I don't see what merit nerfing it into a "proper" LV would have however, there's already the greyhound and a swathe of reward LV's for the allies. The last thing they need is a merly "competent" AI LV... Even then, Compared to what a pair of upgid hotches can do the T17 looks quite balanced.

The T17 has been raping infantry since way back when and with the mid T4 it has always been total be...

HOWEVER.

Let me point out that pretty much all gripes that Wind has with it in that post are DOCTRINE based, not core vehicle stats. In fact the only thing actually part of core stats in his bulletpoints is that it can now penetrate vehicles somewhat. I thought we weren't in the buisniss of balancing units on their (potential) doctrines?

Point still stands by the way.



As for LV metagame with removal of pool? Saw that coming miiiiileeees away and anyone that didn't simply never used LV's efficiently in the first place. They pack a disproportionate amount of punch and health for their fuel cost, that goes for pretty much all of them.

[TheWindCriesMary]

I agree with Niko that it's practically a light tank in its current performance.

One thing that is interesting and I cant remember who mentioned it, but part of the problem with the T17 at the moment is the new reload mechanism. Right now it fires a whole clip pretty accurately for a while before needing to reload.

Definitely gave it a huge boost in performance that aggravated other factors.

[XIIcorps]

The light vechicle/light tank label is going to cause all sorts of problems.

http://forums.europeinruins.com/index.php?topic=28234.0

Is the Stuart going to become a light tank and not a light vechicle
Is the Hotchkiss and all of its variants going to become light tanks and not light vehicles.

I mean if you want to get down into the details of it. Anything propelled solely by tracks and mounting a cannon in some form of turret is technically a tank.



As for  T17 its the only LV thats an unlock iirc.