First!

Well, I asked this somewhere else, but not sure if I'm going to get a reply there. I wanted to suggest, if this isn't a thing...
In AS1, at least as far as I know, skirmish/bot matches missed out on a lot of really cool units that -only- Multiplayer had access to.

This bummed me (and plenty others) out, and seemed kind of silly. Is this going to happen again in AS2? If the reason is that you guys think that access to -all- units messed up the story mission's balance, then at the very least we should be able to play "non-story" single-player or co-op matches versus AI that give us access to everything, so long as we can afford to order the unit with the earned points.

Simply put, -please- find a way to give single-player (and people without dependable internet) players able to access everything that multiplayer can access. We're missing out on the good stuff that makes this series so great, and it's immensely disappointing.

First of all thanks for opening this as official thread :)


Here my suggestions:

-New tools for the host so that he can move players in different slots and balance MP games

- Give grenades a certain degree of accuracy, like it is for all the other weapons.
With the grenade falling within a certain radius of an aiming circle instead of always falling on a tiny point with 100% accuracy

- improve the smoke grenade concealment mechanism. Not sure about actual smoke grenades effects in AS2.
I would like to see smoke usefully used for concealment or to blind enemy units like tanks.

- More deadly weapons for infantry like it was in the closed beta.
I feel like more deadly weapons give to inf maneuver more importance and "grenade throwing rush" less power.

- HEAT rounds, specially for short barreled tanks.

-HE/AP for auto cannons instead of the single type of round we have now that simulate both behaviours of AP&HE.

- New feature where pressing M a full screen tactical map appear where I can put markers and icons on it.
This would help in planning between teammates

-Territory Mode.
New mode where the faction conquering more territory win, made on big maps with the whole map divided in zones to cap.
It would be also cool to have a secondary victory condition like the team that made more "Combat Points" get a sort of award,.

-Improved resupply mechanism. not semplified like infinite ammos but something like an help in rearming your troops.
Like ammos distribuition according to the kind of weapon owned by your soldier or soldiers that auto resupply them with new ammo when close to a supply truck or a loot command to quickly take ammo from a dead body in auto.

-improved suppressive fire/morale mechanism.
this is harder to explain but I would like to see improvements in this important area too

-A command to force Tanks/SPG to watch/guard a certain direction without moving the Hull/Turret "too much". so that SPG don't show their sides and tanks the sides of their turrets.

-A command to force a unit to engage Tanks only or to force it to use just a certain kind of ammo

-New testmode where you can use two faction at the same time so that you can do test like Firefly vs Tiger etc etc without have to go in the editor.


More suggestions/thoughts in the threads below:

• Your modding community need 64-bit
  
  
• AT-Grenade Tweaks Proposal
  
  
• improve Infantry weapons Ballistic/Material-Penetration
  
  
• Just a thought about ASII Tank Battles vs WWII ones
  
  
• Mortars
  
  
• Moving from collective LOS to individual LOS
  
  
• Camo net for Selfpropelled & Fix Tank-Hunters 1
  
  
• Camo net for Selfpropelled & Fix Tank-Hunters 2
  
  
• Thought about AS2 and realism
  
  
• Key question
  
  
• HEAT rounds
  
  
• How to Balance competitive matches while keeping game realistic
  
  
• Improve distance view
  
  
• Old lobby is a big miss
  
  
• Any plan to improve the Morale/Suppression mechanism ?
  
  
• Give grenades a certain degree of accuracy ?
  
  
• Drag&Drop of players by the Host ?
  
  
• Italian army in MoW AS 2
  
  
• Feedback-tracker
  
  
• Time for this series to move toward a little more realism and tactical gameplay
  
  
• Separated CP for vehicles and Infantry
  
  
• Realism vs Balance
  
  
• Arty tanks OP
  
  
• Making Arty a more realistic/skill-required weapon
  
  
• realistic small arms usage
  
  
• Individual Soldiers vs Squads
  

Balance and issues - The complete topic and summary discussion thread

I was suggested to put this all in 1 topic so it is easy to follow. Please do not de-rail topic and also suggest things I may have missed there's so many things. I will update the first post with other things I have missed and also elaborate with examples on all the below when i have more time. I would just like to get the ball rolling again.
Please also don't take this as a huge whinge, I have alot of nice things to say about the changes too... but I won't say them because it will not improve things. So just for some dev supoprt i'd like to say.. i love this game thanks.

START -

Performance is the worst thing and ofcourse you know :P that part..


Infantry spam and extended infantry play at the start -

An untended consequence of MG nerf and cover nerf and improved infantry stats for rifles for shoot outs. The infantry play lasts a very long time now and it's all about shoot outs grenades and rushing to the flags. This is very noticible in 1v1 games, and this is proved in the tournament with the best players at this game proving that the best way to win is to spam infantry. The player who does not spam the infantry is basically signing his loss. Most of my games in 1v1s i go 5x assault squads as a start build.. then maybe the game will elevate to a stuart battle. This is with players that are quite evenly matched. This gameplay does get quite boring and kinda needs to be fixed. It's like we are missing out on 80% of the game.. AS1 tournament 1v1 played nothing like this and it was more strategic..
Some simple suggestions to fix -
Increase MP gain per second at the start.
Remove the light vehicle timers/halftrack/222/luchs etc.. to 1 minute or so.
Other suggestions / maybe a balance between AS 1 and AS 2.
- increase damage
- make mgs better

USA tank destroyers and Late medium tanks -
Basically the germans get the H/Stug that can max range the USA late mediums and tank destroyers such as the sherman 76 and wolverine. When the late mdieums are 800 mp compared to the H and stug at 550mp. Clear embalance. There are still a few useless units around such as the medium heavy usa tanks.
Some simple suggestions to fix - Reduce price of tank destroyers for usa and sherman 76.
Same issue with UK tanks? quite possibly. edit *9/5/2014 seems so.. H can max range a firefly too.. firefly 850 MP!

222 - Something is wrong with this.. a luchs can penetrate a m20 at max range, but a 222 cannot. It's meanto have the same gun. Also a m20 can penetrate a 222 frontally at 90 yards. Basically it's a no brainer to not choose a 222 now. worse gun??!?? confused on that one... And horrific ability to counter a unit its meant to counter when it can max range it frontally.

Unlocked units - Some critical units for winning games are locked. I find this to be quite silly. Halftrack is locked but not the m20, the croc special point is locked, Pershing is locked but not the veteran tiger. The easier tanks to use like the matilda is locked but not the cromwell.
Some simple suggestions to fix - If you really want to keep units locked... unlock the units that are actually not useful.. such as the sturm tiger, super pershing, all arty, willys jeep etc..

Matchmaking - Fix issue with people leaving the game. Basically whenever the host leaves the game is not counted. If a player leaves that is not the host he does not get any loss in rank. Also if match making is 2v2 above and the rank is not sufficient to match, a pop up box comes up and says it is not sufficient. Then you have to click search again.. meaning you probaly lick it 10 times in the space of a minute. It needs to keep searching...
Also include maps that are more balanced if possible which leads to below. Also min bandwith as a setting if this is the best option... which leads to the below.

Bandwith setting in game - why isnt minimum the default ? it's been the better netcode option since AS 1 and changing it is annoying and new players have no idea about it.

Maps - There are alot of unbalanced maps , these are not slightly unbalanced where another side of the map is better etc. These are just out right unbalanced.. this is I supose a suggestion for future maps that are made.. it does not have to be symetrical to be slightly balanced... cross roads axis side for example.. westland allied side etc.. clearly one sided.
There are also weird maps labeled 8x8 but play on 3v3.. when played on 3v3 normal mode the spawns are all screwy. People spawn to close to each other and new players don't know where to go.
Some maps are also labeled 2v2 when they clearly shoudl be labeled 1v1.. such as urban garden. There are some maps which should be 1v1's but i am not sure because of the label issue as previous. Such as tramway.. this should be a 1v1.
Suggestions - What matters here is timing to get to cover from the start point.. also cover options

*(edit 8/5/2014) Soviet and German bike compared to all other jeeps - There is no reason to get a jeep when the bike is basically unkillable... and does not get immobilized and can move aroudn and flank easily. This unit is quite OP on maps such as tramway in a 2v2. Yet again IM not even sure if tramway is a 2v2 map.. which should be 1v1. All maps which have a spawn directly opposite imo in such narrow areas is a bit silly. It is run up to flag and pray.. or have a german bike and win.

*(edit 9/5/2014) This goes onto Jeeps - which are actaully worse then the bike in performance. Kubel and willys to be exact. They cant flank because they get imobilized too easy.. thats not being said the bike is a bit bs!.. needs to be some in between. I can also imagine if the dodge does not get immobilized it would be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ely OP unit like in previous games... I think the problem mainly is there needs to be a inbetween damage... Not as invinclbe as the bike.. but also not as fragile as the jeep..... Careful on this though, if the dodge armor is changed it will be OP.

Still alot of useless units around - I can name a few I would never ever ever buy. Spetznaz, 1 pointer scouts, OSS commandos (compared to bradenburgers bit emba emba).. I do like now though some of the SPGS such as sturm tiger and avre have not been nerfed in ranged like the AP shells of tanks. This makes those units less useless now and viable in big team games. then brings me to the point of player sizes..

Player sizes - right now 3v3 is the max we can play normal.. that is pretty damn small... we used to do 8v8's in the previous mow as for inhouse games.. the large games wereso much fun. Are these taken away? are we ever going to get them back?

Balance protection and casting games - Definately need a way to turn this off, as now it is impossible to cast games especially for tournamnets with an extra player to balance this. (this is not possible alot of times as the flags change if more 4 players are in a 1v1 game).

Additions from others to be added here. (if alot suggest) -

The Centurian model needs to be at the top of the modeling priority. The Commonwealth are lacking a Top Tier Main Battle Tankhttp://imgur.com/a/rJicy
The side armor can be hit at an extremely low flank angle by hidding the front of the tracks somehow counting a diagnal hit as a sideways hit. Meaning you can penetrate it from mid-to long range with average guns from the front.

I wont bother collating everyones opinion since there's a official one. will just reply down here. cheers

Sooo there was already a balance thread open and I already posted all my thoughts there. So not sure if that thread has been read or not by insinct. Anyways, seeing as I agree with basically everything strat says I will just post any additional thoughts I have. I do back strat's post 100% though.

- German vet sniper. Needs a rate of fire nerf or be removed completely. Now that infantry play is so important it is very unbalanced that Germany gets the perfect counter to infantry for just 1 point. German players can spam snipers the entire game. Not only does it give Germany an advantage in infantry play when they already have one in tanks, but put simply, playing against snipers is not fun gameplay. It is annoying always having to play super aggressively to take them out, just to have your opponent buy another one for so cheap.

- Even though Strat says this in his post I want to reiterate it because it is so important. The Sherman 76 is way overpriced, and all USA tank destroyers are useles for their price. USA has no counter to 550mp german tanks, especially in 1v1. Commonwealth firefly also suffers from same problem that it can be maxed range by units it is supposed to counter.

- Maps:
Crossroads and red october are very very unbalanced, Better player will not win on these maps.

Market and some other 8v8 maps the spawns are screwed up when played in 3v3. On each team 2 ppl spawn beside each other and 1 person on the other side of the map. This means for the entire game 1 person on each team is fighting 2v1. 4 ppl get easy game, and 2 ppl get impossible to win game. It is not fun, and basically makes the maps unplayable.

Ubran Garden and Tramway are marked as 2v2 but play significantly better in 1v1 mode. Why are they marked as 2v2 maps? Nobody ever hosts them as 1v1 maps because of this.

Argentan. Allied side is very unblanced. On their left side it is an open field with no cover at all. Allies literally can not assault left flag unless they go through the middle. However, Axis side also has better cover in center. Allies also or cut off from their middle and right flank by buildings, while Axis can have people shooting from middle at their right flank. It is very very poorly balanced.

Infantry attacking tanks: the algorithm of infantry route approaching/attacking tank should be changed. Now soldiers ordered to attack a tank with grenades do not care if they stand in front of the tank's gun or MG or not. Usually they go to stand frontally, like Robocops, than they wait in the "attention" pose, than try to throw grenade and usually got killed before the throw. AI should avoid tank's MGs and guns, and try to flank the tank or get close to its back.
For now the only solution in those kind of situations is to manually control infantry in direct control mode.
Another thing is soldiers should be able to throw grenades imediately, without any stop or wait before the throw. Many people including me wrote about this issue before, but for now nothing has been changed.

Can anyone tell me why Firefly is priced at 850mp? And why are the German/UK assault squads at 100mp, and Soviets have them at 115mp?

i can say the firefly is of a similar problem with the 76. It can get maxed ranged by a 550MP tank the H and stug.

RE ggerman assault squads are 110 mp. They were 100mp but after alot of lobbying this has changed. It's fine now at 110 i think.


RE UK assault squads at 100mp, i don't mind this atm, feels unique. I have tried spamming them and cannot have the same effect. They don't haev direct impact like a stg44 and the UK assault squads are definately hte worst in the game atm. The em grenade launcher is a great weapon no doubt, but it is very situational. Most of the time it cannot get into a good position to do well.. but it can get into good situations in urban environments for sure.
Never the less from my expereicne I cannot get the UK assault squads to be OP with spamming it just doesnt work for me.

Well, any way that rewards the player who is "there" (managing the infantry) is great.
The 5 riflemen squads are a good example of this.

Originally posted by MihaoMihao:

Infantry attacking tanks: the algorithm of infantry route approaching/attacking tank should be changed. Now soldiers ordered to attack a tank with grenades do not care if they stand in front of the tank's gun or MG or not. Usually they go to stand frontally, like Robocops, than they wait in the "attention" pose, than try to throw grenade and usually got killed before the throw. AI should avoid tank's MGs and guns, and try to flank the tank or get close to its back.
For now the only solution in those kind of situations is to manually control infantry in direct control mode.
Another thing is soldiers should be able to throw grenades imediately, without any stop or wait before the throw. Many people including me wrote about this issue before, but for now nothing has been changed.

Agree would be nice if it will be fixed, will help new players.

Be nice if they don't glitch and auto go into the range of throwing, instead of glitching. Right now instead of actually attacking the tank, to get a good grenade you have to run with the tank and ensure ample time for the throw time animation to take effect.
Skip to 6:15 minutes to see the way to throw AT grenade now... Most players don't do this, i dont think they should. Not a huge issue cause it can be considered a "skill thing" to know how
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5rVsbSvUHo&list=PLqzo_p9193XJ5Gcy8WnetCmNw289p3IIy

Originally posted by Ultimaratio:

- German vet sniper. Needs a rate of fire nerf or be removed completely. Now that infantry play is so important it is very unbalanced that Germany gets the perfect counter to infantry for just 1 point. German players can spam snipers the entire game. Not only does it give Germany an advantage in infantry play when they already have one in tanks, but put simply, playing against snipers is not fun gameplay. It is annoying always having to play super aggressively to take them out, just to have your opponent buy another one for so cheap.

I hope this refers to the locked units part of the game.

Kinda agree with the sniper. You do have to play super agressive and outplay the germans to counter the vet sniper. This is non new player friendly.. I have no problem countering it, but vs a player of the same skill, i think i will fail more then succeed to do so. I don't think it's a major major issue, as you can overcome it with super agressiveness and using your .30 cal with a instant rush.
But sniper is more easier to use, less risk and most of the time will do its job without getting killed in the hands of a skill ful player.

I didn't realize German assault squads are 110 mp now, not really checking the updates...

Regarding Firefly, I just can't understand why would they price it at 850mp, that's 125 mp more than the Soviet T-34-85, which is clearly superior to that hunk of junk. Also, the Soviets get Su-85 for 550mp, a pretty solid tank hunter IMO. The UK has no such option, and yet they're expected to go against 550mp Pz4 H and Stug 3? Makes no sense to me.

Edit: UK Achilles at 800mp and Archer at 700...WTF???

Price reduction is needed again imo.
The basic details are because of teh realistic penetration values now.
For most or all guns
All german penetration has increased
USA got a penetration decrease
UK got a slight penetration decrease

The MP cost did not follow the above - UK has not as bad of an issue as USA as the 17pounder nerf wasnt much at all.. pretty similar gun. I think a slight price reduction is needed.

What I think would help versus RNG and make flanking more reliable is an aiming circle in form of a vertical ellipse.... {LINK REMOVED}http://hotmath.com/hotmath_help/topics/ellipse/ellipse-image014.gif
like in the image. This would help flanking since the vertical ellipse would cover more area of the tagret when it gets flanked.

Suggestion: auto resupply ammo for infantry.
From a truck or even from the fallens.