Thread: Smoke9 Jan 2023, 14:02 PM
The current system in arbitrary and not intuitive at all.
In my opinion it is far intuitive that a single smoke grenade will not be able to provide a complete smoke screen while a artillery shell will.
And at least with my suggestion similar unit would use similar munition with similar effects.
The only arbitrary things in the current system are USF smoke grenades and commando smoke grenades, because those provide additional bonuses. The rest functions the same: They all block sight, and that's it.
It is surely not the most realistic system, and probably neither the best, but it has some very good points going for it:
It is easily understandable for everyone, it is intuitive to the level of "smoke blocks sight" (it is still an arcade game, you cannot expect people to know all differences when even hand held smoke grenades did not function the same) and it is very easy to use. Plus - although this is specific to animations and the game and can be changed at will - in CoH2 there is no visual clue that different smokes behave differently.
I have nothing against differentiating between smaller smoke grenades that are thrown by hand and big artillery shells - although it makes things overall more complicated, it is intuitive that they behave differently (although at this point there is the question of how large the calibre has to be to change from one to the other). But I am against the idea of adding many different types of smoke as you suggested, like specialized smokes for e.g. vehicles, even if it made sense for gameplay. The game would become less readable, less intuitive, and probably also harder to balance if you want to keep smoke and its effects consistent across factions.
Smoke is large modes is used constantly from early to late and there is little a play can do to avoid its effects.
Unit not firing and smoke acting a shot blocker is not what I would expect especially I have played Coh1.
The reaction to "counter" smoke is very intuitive and logical: Either brace for a closer range fight and/or move vulnerable units further to the back.
It is hard to realistically "simulate" smoke in an arcade game like CoH. CoH2 is illogical in the sense that small arms and especially MGs stop firing. But we're still talking about a game in which e.g. tanks can fire through smoke accurately despite the crew having no knowledge of the target - just because another unit can still see the enemy behind the smoke.
The only realistic way to fix this is to remove ground targeting - which in turn is seen as a feature to learn and improve gameplay. The main take away is: There is no realistic implementation for smoke if you target a large audience. The game should strive for intuitiveness without creating "hey - this does not look right!" moments. There is a healthy suspension of disbelief that we can use ("all smoke blocks sight" / "large smokes block sight, small ones only partially conceal infantry" etc), but it is not clearly logical a 81mm smoke grenade from a mortar will give bonus A while the 75mm mortar shell from the Sherman will give a different bonnus B. At this point, you're trading a very small amount of improvement for the depth of gameplay for a very big problem in readability. |
Thread: Smoke4 Jan 2023, 16:15 PM
I am pretty sure that in real life a smoke screen from ML-20 is match more effective in concealing movement from smoke screen from a hand held grenade...
Which is solvable by increasing the smoke radius per shell and scatter, which is totally fine and not against anything I said. My point is that the game should be intuitive to the players. It is intuitive that a 152mm shell can create more smoke than a handheld grenade. It is not intuitive that (random example) the smoke of a 152mm shell creates some bonus for the soldier/vehicle within it, while the same soldier being concealed by the smoke of a handheld grenade does not/gets a different bonus.
Different types of smoke already exist in game like the commando grenade smoke and the USF grenade smoke, so the current system is already complicated. The suggestion would rather simplify the system and make it more complicated.
Exactly, and no one uses USF smoke to make an Axis vehicle go slower or the commando smoke to get light cover (for the latter I am not even sure if it works that well since models in smoke cannot be fired at, the only solution is some kind of radius around the smoke that applies, even if the model is not in the smoke anymore. Which does not make sense). Most people probably don't really know about it in the first place. They use these smokes when they want - well - smoke to cover an advance. It could be a normal smoke grenade as well.
Your suggestion would use what is currently rather an oddity of very few units into a more fleshed out concept. But as I said, this will still create confusion for the players since there is no inherent logic reason for smoke to behave differently.
Main point here is that current implementation in COH2 make smoke a mechanism that a big impact and little counter play. That result in overuse in game.
What do you base it on what is "big impact" and "little counter play"?
Smoke works as expected, and fairly close to reality considering what an arcade RTS is able to portray. |
Thread: Smoke4 Jan 2023, 13:32 PM
I find this system way too complicated. Smoke is smoke, there is no logical reason why it should be different, the only exception being phosphorus grenades that release burning hot and toxic particles.
Otherwise, all smoke should work the same and the effects should be logical. Logical in my opinion would be obviously sight reduction and arguably an RA/target size buff for infantry and vehicles within it (applied on a per-model basis), since the silhouettes and movement will be harder to see for any attacker.
I don't logically see how smoke launched from a mortar has such a different effect from the smoke grenade of infantry (which again could be different for different squads) and again from smoke launcher of tanks. This will not be logical to the player and hard to communicate. It will lead to confusion and players either not caring which smoke they are using - just like it is at the moment in CoH2 - or always needing to check which type of smoke they have.
The only reason to complicate such a thing would be a big improvement in gameplay. I can see some potential regarding this, but it is not worth the effort and confusion that it will generate. There's other places to innovate and get more return in CoH3. |
Call-ins system is competently fine. Its just need adjustments.
Delay upon unlock. In other words, say you stale your CP for quite some time, allowing you to instantly pick call-in unlock. This is where the problem comes from, such approach allow you to pretty much have a "panic button" considering you have enough resources.
What should be done - make cool down upon call-in unlock. It shouldn't necessary be equal to re-charge timer, but say at least half of it.
CoH2 did it right with 0CP call-ins like paths\ass.engis and so on, basically it they had "production" timer, but it worked only after the game start.
Imo this production timer should always be applied after you unlocked call-in, to mitigate instant panic usage.
Or something else could be done. Maybe call-in units should arrive after a delay which will represent their production time? Or just commander buttons should act like a simple unit order from building?
Definitely there needs to be some kind of delay.
One major problem with call in units in CoH2 was that they allowed tech skipping. If you didn't use call ins back then, you were always one tank behind. This made the meta and gameplay very boring, especially in smaller modes where power spikes matter more.
They somehow need to be bound to tech, but at this point it does not really matter if they are build in a building or called in from off map, beside the building delay.
What I personally dont want to see, is, CoH2 style, unit inclusion in tech buildings, like P4J for wehr.
Why is that?
What call ins could do though is to shift economy needs. That's apparently already Relic's design, since the call-in tanks in VulcanHD's video did cost manpower, but not fuel.
You could then build e.g. more LVs early on instead of infantry, generate less bleed and re-invest the saved MP into the vehicle call-in. Or, conversely, play more infantry heavy if infantry call-ins cost less MP and more mun or fuel.
It could also still work in the late game, when you realize you're out of one resource and can shift costs that way. |
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The game looks good with both a positive and negative meaning.
From what I have seen in this match as well as some gaming news and coverage about CoH3, there does not seem to be something obviously game breaking or unfun about it.
But there's also no real selling points. It looks almost like what CoH2 could/should have been with another redesign. Apart from that, the all of the gameplay in the skirmish could have occurred in CoH2 as well.
Once they fix the most annoying bugs and balance issues, it will be better than CoH2. Players, myself included, will gradually transfer to CoH3 I guess. But it seems to me more like a step than a leap forward.
edit: Just to add, I think the best "new feature" is that vehicles seem to be MUCH more nuanced than in CoH2. It does not look like the CoH2 design of several classes with the higher class beating an equivalent investment of lower class (e.g. Tiger beats P4 beats Luchs or something), but more of a continuum of vehicles and strengths. This should make vehicle fights much more enjoyable. |
The reason why the M1 mortar is regarded as a hand me down version is probably not the AoE that were THAT much worse, but all the combinations of small downgrades.
Worse AoE
5 less range
And most importantly: It screws up all USF timings.
Building the mortar that early means giving up a Rifle squad, which you'll dearly need against Axis spewing out main lines at this time. Alternatively, it delays the officer and LV, so also not a great option. Worse AoE gives you a worse performance overall, and the 5 less range ensures that you're more likely to get hit back by artillery even in the early game. If my math is not mistaken, moving those 5 meters in means that an OST mortar could be laterally displaced compared to the target by roughly 28 meters left and right (so 56 meters in total) and still be able to hit you. You're also more likely to constantly needing to move the mortar to make the best out of it, in a faction that is fairly micro heavy.
Also, is the cost difference really only 10 MP as coh2.win states? I somehow thought it would be more.
As much as I respect his fortitude and decision and tenacity to create such simulations, they serve no real purpose. On paper they look nice and all, but the amount of extra, beneficial information they give you is nil. Mainly because there is no standard empirical method with which you will measure. It's a game with a large amount of variables/parameters, and trying to fit it to some model is... well. Not really necessary. Not to mention impossible. As nice as it looks, it's just a bunch of simple equations fitted to some data model, which was taken from the seralia stats. Not really telling anything.
The sheet is fine. The simulation is artificial by using a standardized squad and formations, but this alone does not mean that it couldn't represent what is happening. AoE is fairly straight forward, there are not THAT many variables in the game outside of the ones that have already been considered by the calculation.
Not to mention, nowhere does he explain the methodology he used in generating such stats. Which equations, which model, which representation. He just puts graphs on a paper, says he did 2500 repetitions and calls it a day. That wouldn't fly in a high school physics journal. I'm not saying he's lying. Of course not, but just putting graphs and giving a short explanation is... in poor taste.
He has given a brief but informative description of the test. The calculation sheet he used is linked, where he also explains how the sheet works. It's not a scientific paper, but I am not sure what you're expecting from a gaming forum. This is some of the best and also pretty well documented calculations that I have seen in any game/community. |
I think only flamethrowers and demo charges have this IIRC
I thought all AoE weapons (with maybe a few exceptions) do at least their far damage to all entities, even if they would be outside of their AoE?
This is also what Gachi pointed towards. |
Generally more resilient as in they're extremely likely to get hit, and will take damage across the entire squad, but it'll only be the "far" damage amount every time.
Half (or 55%? Doesn't really matter though) of the far damage is very low for most tanks. For mediums that's 4 damage per model, an Ostwind emptying his whole magazine is 18 or so, even for the Tiger and Pershing this is 12 and 14, respectively. We can roughly assume that this number is equal to the DPS if we assume 5 models squad and ~4-8 seconds for reload.
The damage is also very consistent. Apart from building collapses, which are also fairly predictable, I rarely lose squads in buildings. You can often zoom away for a moment and come back later with barely any risk.
Having a clumped up squad behind a sandbag is not better in any way. There can be complete misses, and the next shot will take out 3 models at once. You can't zoom away from this, the sandbag might be destroyed super quickly, and when you retreat your squad stays clumped up for a while, leaving you with the opportunity to take another unlucky shot and lose it, while you can leave buildings often through the rear door and be out of sight immediately. This also allows you to dodge grenades completely, while you might get some of the damage behind a normal sand bag when trying to dodge it, either because you reacted a bit too late or the squad formation bugs out.
I haven't tested it out specifically, but I don't think there is any major advantage of green cover over garrisons, unless you're a top10 player that never misses anything on the battlefield and can perfectly estimate the outcome and duration an engagement. |
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Small addition related to this topic:
The garrison bonus is a tiny bit worse than green cover (green cover has a 0.5 RA and 0.5 damage modifier, garrisons have 0.55 on one of them, but I can't remember if it was RA or damage). As Vipper already said, garrison cannot be negated by coming close to the target and they are generally more resilient to AoE damage. |
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