It could be that flamer stop at right distance in 2 D but the elevation increases the distance although the weapon has an AOE of 2...
Or it could be that the AOE only work for target at same height level.
I mean the way CoH2 works you can't exclude anything, but I'd still go for the easiest solution.
I have seen this "no damage" issue regularly, I think I remember seeing it even in tournament casts. From what I know it does not depend on elevation, nor on cover, formation or whatnot. It usually got fixed once the flaming guy got two steps closer.
I think it has to do with some weird range calculation and flame damage, that the game thinks the flamer is in range so it stops walking while it actually is only at the border.
I don't know how exactly flamer damage is calculated, but there might be some kind of random chance to it. But this is just speculation.
As I said, walking just a little closer fixes the issue for me. |
Could Pip elaborate if he tested at different ranges?
I don't think this is a bug but an animation and some kind of calculation issue.
From my experience flamer squads sometimes stop early (they probably are at the very edge of their range) and start attacking. The animation also looks like it should hit but there's barely any damage if at all.
It is usually fixed if you order them to walk a couple of steps closer and attack then.
I stopped issuing attack commands because of that and rather let them walk a bit too close because sometimes it is buggy.
I highly doubt anything of this has to do with elevation or terrain in general. |
No I don't think its underpriced. For a cheaper munition cost other factions get access to grenade able to simply wipe a full healed squad. Zis barrage isn't likely to do so but it compensated with a longer range. Imo the barrage on itself is balanced, problem comes when you add a second Zis gun or in team game when multiple players are Soviet.
What make it prevalent is the need and low risk atm to build 2 atguns. I think its more a problem of game economy and popcap than Zis Barrage.
That a consequence of balance team's previous decision to make atgun more prevalent coming from the push given to medium tanks that are more reliable and less countered by TDs along side with this idea during many previous patches to constantly reduce units popcap and manpower cost leading players into litterally flotting in manpower and increasing army size.
I mean if the solution to that is to nerf the Zis barrage to the point where players will overcome it by building two of them, that's imo a really bad solution that only enable previous bad decision making.
I fully agree on the economy part. This is also why I suggested the CD rework, because if the ability itself is priced correctly, screwing will likely not be the right answer.
Reworking the economy is not worth it for a single utility ability.
It might happen that people get pushed towards using 2 ATGs even further. On the other hand it might make mortars more attractive as well in case of the rest of the AT build being sufficient. But it's impossible to tell this from a theoretical POV. |
It was always like that? or Did I notice this kind of a bug recently?
You take decrewed MG and even if u press shift and R only the rest of the sguad retreats.
3 guys who take MG just still stand so u have to manually press on a new mg team a force them to retreat as well.
Btw. another weird kind of a bug is when you locate mg somehow ... you take a look later on that and its in totally opposite direction which you wante
That is intended I think due to the initial squad still being selected.
The new MG crew did not exist before, so there is no way you can issue orders before it exists. |
The benifit in this case would be rapid reinforcement and manpower saved. It wouldn't always be applicable but there would be scenarios where having squads on the field with full models would be better than not. Grens are 30mp a head and most of their dps comes from the lmg42 so what models are standing around firing their rifles don't matter so much, especially behind cover. Combined with a halftrack or command bunker you could have a cost effective line holder for a Time
I like it because it has clear drawbacks-outside the defensive scenario mentioned, your squad is weakened. Assuming you can chose between the models you want to reinforce from it could have some use for sure.
While you are missing the imidiate reinforcement of merge you are saving like half the mp and time in reinforcement for grens alone. If allowed on something like pgrens you could end up with a nasty halftrack pshrek combo. Weaker but with its boons as well.
I like the idea because it's a choice based ability with a dynamic
You currently get a similar MP spread on merging Conscripts into Guards, yet few do it and pros even advise against it from what I see.
Yes, you'd save a bit of MP, on the other hand you lose quite a lot of resources if your squad cannot hold its position as strongly. Ostheer squads really count on every single model performing decently. Especially PGrens who suffer heavily if they lose models.
Obviously I don't know how it exactly would turn out, but judging by the usage of Conscript merge on elite squads, it will likely be a bigger ability rework that won't bring much at all, even if you might gain an additional 30ish MP on the short term. |
The same way you can spam grenades on late game when floating on munition or whatever other ability in fact.
One Zis can't spam its barrage everywhere in the map because its still a clunky unit to move that also need to be available to counter tanks. I maintain what I said the problem occurs when you got two of them as per meta and then: or you got a windows frame to use both of them on a single location for a devastating effect, or one of them while de second is kept a bit further to protect it from tanks flanking it.
IMO if you start nerfing the CD you'll basically make it way worst to use as single unit and enforce people to build two of them to overcome the CD nerf.
That's a fair point. A CD reduction however would also prohibit excessive use. Question though: Do you think then that the current barrage is underpriced?
On a side note, isn't possible for the moderation to speak with Vipper about his semantic pedantic attitude. Honeslty should we always lose so much time and effort to bear with its semantic arguments on every topic like him making the SU-76 the equivalent of the Brumbar because they both have somewho the denomitation of assault gun IRL but are completely different in game.
I won't publicly comment on the behaviour of single users. |
Claiming that Ostheer is floating munition is not very accurate.
He was referring to Osttruppen commanders. Those float early munitions due to the lack of MG42 upgrade.
They don't have constant mandatory expenditudes to make their units viable, unlike soviets.
They don't have 110+ muni dumps per squad to upgrade their units.
Their pintles are cheapest in game.
They don't need to pump muni into timed abilities constantly to make their units perform on the level opposing units do(hi, maxim and 57mm).
They might not be too floaty, but compared to all other factions, even OKW, their muni expenditure is absolutely lowest in game with a spike at T2 due to 251 flamer.
I am not quite sure which game you are describing, but it sure as hell ain't CoH2. |
snip
Neither ZiS nor SU76 have anything to do with the Brummbar. Such is mentioning the SU76 being an assault gun as a response to Esxile's claim. It simply has nothing to do with the discussion.
Barrage cost muni and constantly barraging = no mines, no weapon upgrades, no offmap.
Muni cost regulates.
There are multiple ways to balance abilities, but tying them to cost alone creates heavy differences between modes.
Making abilities powerful and expensive will lead to strange cheese tactics, making them weak and cheap might make them feel useless and not worth the micro effort.
The damage the ZiS barrage does is in order for 35-ish munition in my opinion. I would not screw around with that too much since it feels in line with other abilities. If the issue is spamability, CD might be the way to go. |
My interpretation of this would be like merge without merge. Basicly, yes you are getting a squishier model, but you sre saving on reinforcement cost and time. Might be useful from a halftrack on the front where you don't want to retreat.
Perhaps being limited to weapon teams would be best, but I think the idea is quite fresh and manages to give it some niche outside of "get vet 0 ostroppen way to late in the game"
I understood it the same way. But as I said, you are just gimping your own squad. Merge on elite units is very unpopular, but if you do so it provides the huge advantage of getting a better weapon or keeping a better squad on the field. The suggestion of OP does neither of this. Your choice is to gimp your squad by reinforcement, most of the benefits of merge are lost.
Honestly, I would have suggest stop beating the dead horse at this point.
vCoH had medics mechanic aswell as abilities to replace losses, because you was expected lose models\units.
CoH2 became a game, where even loosing 1 squad might be very punishing, especially if its vetted.
Both relief and rapid consicription are abilities that arent fit for CoH2. Anything based on loosing something in Coh2 by default wont fit its gameplay.
I would have been x100 times better to just replace this abilities, considering we have only 2 commanders for each side having them.
Lightning War Doctrine - can easily have Breakthrough from encirclement doctrine
Festung Support Doctrine - Defensive Fortifications from Defensive
For soviets its harder, both Conscripts Support Tactics and Soviet Reserve Army have not only rapid but also rapair kits. Which makes both of them even less usefull.
I think a simple MP cost reduction mechanic is the easier way to go. But I agree that this ability does not fit into the current game's design where fast wipes have been toned down for years now.
This ability is just full of contradictions.
First of all it costs a massive amount of munitions and many times you would be better off using the respective commanders' sector artillery or stuka loiter.
But let's assume you use it before a big engagement (most likely towards late game). You get your ostruppen squads but you also manage to retereat all your squads with a few models left.
Great, now you are left with a bunch of one of the weakest infantry units, they have no veterancy and they need to be upgraded with lmgs (further increasing muni cost). But most importantly they take up pop cap so in the end you have even less manpower to reinforce your retreated squads that would be more effective on the frontline than those fresh ostruppens.
So overall you paid tons of muni and manpower and the result may put you in a very disadvantageous positions, while for example using smoke bombs and sector artillery could have saved your troops and win that engagement.
There was a proposal about relief infantry returning some manpower for each model lost, that would make far more sense imo.
This. And what MMX posted.
I am also all in for reducing MP reinforcement cost or returning MP in some way (although I think this might be bugged).
Unvetted squad issues aside, no one really wants yet another two squads in the late game if your infantry build is already finished. The only way it is useful is if you know that you lose some squads that need replacement, but you don't know this before the engagement. You know it only when it is almost over, and by this time there are not enough models left to drop to trigger a replacement squad. So your only chance to make this useful is to spend 120 MP in advance in anticipation that you might lose 1-2 squads. If you don't lose 1-2 squads, you might still lose enough models to get new Osttruppen/Con squads. So you get punished for keeping your squads alive. |
Try to get your fact straight, I have simply pointed out that the claim that the Soviet do not have an assault gun is false, I have not mention brumbar in anyway.
That does not contribute anything to the discussion then.
Until the SU76 finds a proper, usable role in the Soviet rooster again, it is not relevant for the current discussion.
On topic though:
I think Soviets need their ZiS barrage, otherwise they have literally no means to burst models until the late game Katy. All of their infantry has highly decentralized DPS and grenades are hard to get. If you play a non-elite infantry doctrine you won't get any at all.
I think this is also why the T70 is so good: Because it is the first unit that let's you actually burst down models instead of slowly picking them away.
Soviet Con/T2 builds have a hard time wiping infantry, the barrage is the only way to do that (again, until Katy).
The nerf it got might be slightly overdone, at least it looked like this to me in the tournament. But to be fair I have not played with it in the preview patch, so I can't really judge. A CD nerf would have also been in order in my opinion, since the main problem is two ZiS barraging constantly in the late game. |