the real problem with the mortar and bofor is how much area they lock down. More specifically, the mortar emplacement hard counter other mortar and the bofor's own suppression barrage add to the firepower.
A mortar emplacement together with a bofor is impervious to most early game assault because you can't barrage it or assault it.
the bofor's own direct fire is decent, but it's only around the level of the okw's flak truck. It's the fact that mortar emplacement and bofor have the range to counter mortar that make it OP.
even the soviet 82mm will kill the okw truck if given the chance.
The mortar emplacement doesn't counter other mortars, it gets countered by them as it can't move and sappers get wiped from repairing under fire. Put two next to a halftrack, that's roughly equal to the manpower cost of a mortar pit + squad inside, and then bomb it until it's down. Fun fact, if you add a pak to that you can attack ground the bofors and reinforce the losses you take from the barrage to destroy both emplacements simultaneously. Then when his emplacements are both destroyed, you have units you wanted to get anyway and he has just lost ~800 manpower. |
The bofors is the only thing with an impact the Brits have in the mid game. AEC is as good as a motorized trash can against infantry. And its supposed advantages over the bofors aren't even always available anyway: like the bofors it can't chase down vehicles anyway due to snares, and unless you leave yourself completely open to infantry by making multiple of them you won't be able to send it away from your army where a bofors would've been anyway because if you send it away your army has no protection against vehicles. |
Here are my issues with UKF. I'm wondering, is it just that I'm not suited to play the faction or is it the faction itself?
1) Worst indirect fire in the game
Mortar pit does the least damage per manpower of all mortars, it's literally only very slightly more effective than a single Ost mortar but costs more than double. It's immobile. It must be produced on, not off the map. It bleeds the squad inside. Base howitzers are little more than a visual effect. If it wasn't for the recently patched wasp flamethrower, this faction would be unable to attack garrisons and green cover, and it's unable to disrupt things like a pak and mg wall with a mortar flare+incendiary barrage+katyusha combo etc. and can't respond back to indirect fire. This despite its infantry relying on not being constantly shelled since it wants to be static and lacks assault weapons. Even selecting the artillery doctrine still leaves you with worse and (most importantly) much later artillery than even the stock units of other factions.
2) Self-destructive mid game
Every faction has units that help you take advantage of doing well early and establish map control. Every faction, except the UKF. Sniper has the lowest dps of all snipers, in return for marginal vehicle damage and a snare that requires veterancy and so they don't offer any real vehicle defense until later. AEC is a piece of trash against infantry and can't even chase well-used vehicles down anyway because of snares, forcing you to semi-blob or get caught by a low investment light vehicle+faust squad combo. Bofors even if your enemy lets you put it down at a good spot can be destroyed by simple attack ground from outside of its range. I've already spoken of the mortar pit, but in the context of the mid game, it doesn't give you any direct combat ability while being so expensive and so all the enemy really needs to do is take out your machine guns and gg. And there's no way you'll time these units simultaneously - you have to choose what gamble to take.
Switching to Soviets by contrast is like getting a fresh chance at life. Maxims are better than UKF infantry, mortars are much better than mortar pits and come earlier than both them and the wasp, and then you can just keep swarming the enemy adding T3 and doctrines. The Brits mid game, however, invites the opponent to take the game back if you did well or seal the coffin if not.
Point 1 and 2 are my major problems with this faction and they combine together to become worse. Points 3 and 4 just add salt to the injuries, but I have to state them too regardlessly
3) Predictable gameplan
Because of the Brits reactive (ie. counter-based) rather than proactive mid game, it's pretty obvious what to do not as but against them: prepare to scout for emplacements & destroy by denying the map/rushing/mass indirect fire/attack ground AT, make a light vehicle(s) and keep a faust squad around it if you haven't seen a bofors, and then win the game with whatever means you personally like. Is he going to make a T-70? did he get guards? are shocks coming? is he transitioning into SU-76s with that quadtrack or saving up for T4? Nah. With Brits, you know exactly what he's gonna do and what to do against it. Against a quadtrack>su-76 transition, there is no easy answer. Against a mortar pit and AEC, there is.
4) Even worse against doctrines
The stock odds are bad enough, but then he starts busting out doctrines. There are so many things that screw you up. Breakthrough OKW doctrine has the pfusilier flares + ISGs to both keep tabs on you and incessantly bomb your statically minded units. Breakthrough + kubel capping + he attacks = you'll either lose all of your territory, or not have your AEC there to defend when he brings his luchs in to attack. And so on.
I feel like this faction relies on the enemy screwing up, not just you doing well. The same feeling I had about them in CoH1 minus the sheer exploits like ketten spam>marder rush, pio spam, and so on.
Please help me. |
last patch = total broken balance for this game......
Well.... Relic for some reason didn't implement all of the changes in the competitive mod, creating a state unintended by the makers of that mod, and inexplicably switched the USF mortar that was actually tested and supposed to go into the game, for another one... |
It would be strange for the Ost mortar's stats to take account its veterancy, because the USF mortar's doesn't unless it starts with less than 80 range and gets it from vet 3. As far as I can tell, the Ost mortar has a 106 range barrage. |
OH is the only faction that your not able to blobb.
So you use combined arms
That becomes useless due to US turbo motar
UKF motar emplacements
Both of those 1 shot grens like clockwork
Both of those out range the OH motar and outperform it.
So as OH. You either gotta go doc for the MT
Or have a hero sniper that does enough damage to bleed the enemy.
But point is, is OH you MUST or you HAVE to do X otherwise is GG.
The funniest part is that OH has the smaller squad sizes yet they so weapon crew reliant. Always having to recrew and insta retreat due to having 1 man left over.
If you're gonna rant like this then at least get your facts right.
The mortar ranges are: UKF 115 > Ost 106 > USF > 80.
The UKF mortar is the most inefficient in the game, or in other words it has the lowest dps/manpower of all mortars. It requires a squad to sit in it just to get ~1 more dps than a single other mortar that isn't static and costs less than half of the UKF investment. It also has the worst vet offensively. The only good things about it are that if you manage to keep it alive (good luck), it doesn't bleed (though the squad inside it does), and it has 9 more range than normal mortars (yippie...).
The USF mortar is indeed better offensively than the Ost mortar, especially with vet. It ends up having lower range but less scatter and a shorter reload than the Ost mortar.
Ost is not alone about having to do X or gg (most notably UKF mid game is based on that concept) although I agree that it shouldn't be that way if it is. |
So you are really justifying a 2.4 sec reload Mortar with insane accuracy cause it cost 280 ? xD
AFAIK, 2,4 second reload is false. The difference between the mortars is this:
USF: 3,31 reload, 8 scattermax (gets total -40% scatter with vet 1 and 2), 80 range
Ost: 4,31 reload, 7 scattermax (gets total -20% scatter with vet 2), 106 range |
UKF is a faction with wide open holes to exploit. How exactly is it fine?
It's got the worst (base howitzers) and most inefficient (mortar pit 400mp + 200+ mp unit required to sit in it while being static) indirect fire in the game, while at the same time being one of the most vulnerable factions to indirect fire due to static, long-range units. It can't have all of the things it needs simultaneously in the mid-game, you choose between putting up a bofors, mortar pit, or getting an AEC all of which have easy counters before, during and after production. Lack of snares = you need to invest significantly in AT specialists that may turn out useless, just so a vehicle doesn't GG you, and the enemy having snares = your AEC if you get one can't chase vehicles down anyway so their threat remains and they're also vulnerable to pak/raketen/schrek that you want against UKF anyway because of carriers, emplacements, and the inevitability that they'll go for tanks (and schreks blow up cover).
The brit mid game is the game's weakest and basic familiarity with the faction combined with rudimentary scouting and not being afk (basically the same thing) shows you the path to counter whatever build he tries when he techs to T1 as he inevitably wants to do asap. The Brits mid game is so bad that it relies on your enemy actively or passively screwing up rather than you doing something right, because that's not enough.
Disclaimer: I don't have any regiments except the 3 free ones + vanguard. |
How was this bugged mortar let through testing? and why didn't they hotfix it now? O_o |
Commanders have been flawed for so long despite being one of the easiest to fix aspects of the game, that I don't think it's ever gonna happen. When was the last time a commander was ever positively changed design-wise? You guys are wasting your breath. |