Serious SPG-Class Redesign with LOGIC of current gameplay involved: Looking for Serious feedback.

[Sovereign_M 37]

Ok I went super serious brain mode today to assess a problem which bugs the player base as a whole. 

I have been putting my brain to work with this whole "change arty" thing and I have come up with a few ideas to help the class out to make it both BALANCED, but at the same time FUN. I tried to come up with an entire class rework that could try to both settle current users/abusers and make the poor souls on the receiving end a bit more enthused about playing the game. The sandbox is interesting, but I don't like class buffs/debuffs and the concept of what they did with consumables at all. It makes the game less punishing to stupid mistakes and makes you think less, which isn't what this game is about. It is about correct decision making and good conservation/allocation of all of your resources IE ammo, gun and HP. To that end I have come up with another alternative, one that actually makes some goddamn sense. 

 

I saw what the Premium ammo on the Type 4 heavy does and it gave me some ideas. What if there were tanks like that with shit armor, but really good HE derpy guns like the one on that tank? A subclass of tank destroyers if you will. We already have tanks such as the FV4005 (aka shitbarn) that hit as hard as some arty. The main difference is they aren't punching out tanks from across the map less than a minute into a game from a perspective of where the enemy tanks cannot react in kind to such a threat. The obvious first step here is to limit the engagement circle of top down view to the maximum render range circle on the minimap. That will fix that problem but that in itself isn't enough. Giving SPG's a Siege mode like mechanic to "lock tracks" to a fixed emplacement where the gun can only fire in high angle mode would be necessary. This way, they couldn't fire at anything closer than 100-150 meters and if rushed, they would be completely boned. but at longer range engagements, they would absolutely smash whatever they target. which is the point of artillery in the first place. By combining these two mechanics, they can be effective tertiary line support firing over the flank of  tanks from camo, but are still close enough to the fight to be spotted, and removed quickly if they hang around too long. 

 

Next step is the top down sight. Nix that in favor for something a little different. a raised view to the left of the gun that shows a kind of Parabolic arc followed by a colored circle showing the EFFECTIVE Splash area that an impacting round will have. Limit this range to the edge of render distance so you can see what your firing at. Give different artillery different shell arcs like they do currently. Conc. GC. for example can have one that is nearly vertical for the entire range. Give some other SPG's like the T92 a nearly horizontal trajectory instead. Have an indicator in the corner of the sight like Meltymap's mathmod's old sight give gun eleveation and impact angles along with shell travel time to target. This will allow for some sick trick shots for RNG videos.  

 

Aside from "battery mode" you could also have the normal travel/direct fire mode, which would act more like a traditional paper thin tank destroyer. Hitting stuff this way should be pretty difficult though.  make it have the same or MORE aim time than the current T49 derp gun to make shotgunning things difficult, but not impossible. Reload times should be around 35 seconds at tier 10 assuming they can do about 600-800 damage per shot with HE splash thru armor. More if they are in "SPG deployed" mode and hit a topdown strike on 50 mm of roof armor. Just like what happens if HESH pens in full.  

 

 Give them about 800-1000 HP at tier X. That is enough to stand up to one shot from a 120 mm gun, but no more, and allows the arty to obviously oneshot eachother. This allows the vehicle to be involved more directly in the fight, but slightly removed in case expedient relocation is required. With a Matchmaker 2.0 that considered tank composition of teams that made games more balanced by tank type, combined with a TRUELY balanced class high alpha/Glass Cannon that I think players on both ends of these vehicles would enjoy the game much more. Arty can still bop things, but they will be close enough to be spotted, and have returning fire ruin their day just as fast as someone elses. 

[Archaic_One 1,853]

Apparently I am an asshole, so I suppose we'll rehash this fantasy yet again without my sarcastic douchebaggery.

[Raj 116]

How about WG actually introduces a arty mechanic that actually works with the game?

Red Orchestra artillery works because you may lose 15 guys to an arty strike, but you got 800 more reinforcements, it creates a dynamic that helps an aggressor move into territory right after it's done, or they can call it off early and rush the enemy well. 

Company of Heroes artillery worked as it told you to fuck off from somewhere, and if you decided to stick around you would be punished... quite severely.

In World of Tanks, you have one life, a ton of HP, and only 15 tanks per side. Why not introduce mechanics that actually make sense for a """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""Support""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" vehicle? One idea could be to give artillery smoke shells, perhaps with half the reload compared to normal shells too. This would allow arty to cover up attacks and retreats of allies, or even help allies capture enemy bases undetected. This would actually make the game more dynamic and fluid compared to everything always being open territory.

Another idea might be for flares, this would make it so enemies very close to it (maybe 15m radius) to be spotted from max view range by any allied tank. So basically Artillery on green team shoots flare, enemy is within 15m radius of it, and your ally is 500 meters from enemy, your ally moves in to 455m and spots the enemy regardless of camo. This would actually make artillery a anti camping utility. Wow amazing isn't it? Different artillery could get different flare stats perhaps, from a 10m circle to a 20m circle.

Also make counter artillery better for artillery. Not only make tracing back enemy arty a bit easier, but also artillery currently have no way to get damaged essentially until very late game. If an artillery fires from the same area from 3-5 times maybe it should be lit up. There could even be a crew skill that allows 25% better detection of artillery. For example a T92 fires 3 times from the same position, it could get lit up. Some smaller caliber artillery could do 4 rounds and then the 5th round makes them detected. While if someone has the 25% crew skill they could light up a batchat 155 58 for example. I think the skill should extend past 455Meters, and through cover as artillery does have quite a large gun. This skill could be limited to light tanks maybe in passive scouting for example.

 

Other than that, I would say just please reduce damage across the board, and remove artillery that can shoot over mountains such as CGC, or FV304. Maybe make spall liners actually useful against artillery too, because the only tank I see people even consider it is like the Maus, and very few even do so.

[RealBattousai 248]

Well take a look at this video with the changes in sandbox currently being tested, maybe we can discuss these as a starting point.

 

 

[SuperTheBoss 82]

I have an idea of how to change arty to work in the game...

just get rid of it.

accept no alternatives.

[KenadianCSJ 666]

The only fix is a removal.

[DHP 502]

1 hour ago, KenadianCSJ said:

The only fix is a removal.

1 hour ago, SuperTheBoss said:

I have an idea of how to change arty to work in the game...

just get rid of it.

accept no alternatives.

 

I don't like arty but you guy's live in a dream where arty doesn’t exist. This will never happen, so I don’t understand why you guy’s keep bashing yourself with this idea.

[sohojacques 271]

If arty must continue to exist, massively reducing the alpha damage and splash radius while improving the accuracy would take the fucked RNG out of getting hit when hurtling about and mean some tiny amount of skill is required in playing it.

[Jaegaer 180]

26 minutes ago, sohojacques said:

massively reducing ... splash radius

No, exactly not. The alpha needs to be smallish but the radius needs to be huge. Why? Because that will make arty shoot at lonely tanks in the back rather than engaged tanks at the front for fear of splashing allies (for this the splash indicator was introduced so you see how many allies you would splash).

Another method would be for arty to get more accurate at range, so shooting further away (so steeper shell arc) would mean you hit much better. This too would punish backline campers but it, alas is VERY counter intuitive.

tl;dr make arty ineffective against people that actually push, make it rock against backline campers

[sohojacques 271]

46 minutes ago, Jaegaer said:

No, exactly not. The alpha needs to be smallish but the radius needs to be huge. Why? Because that will make arty shoot at lonely tanks in the back rather than engaged tanks at the front for fear of splashing allies (for this the splash indicator was introduced so you see how many allies you would splash).

That theory makes a lot of sense. Too much sense for your average arty player, in fact, as they have no fear of splashing allies. I get fucked by my own arty on a regular basis. Followed by the usual apology about RNG. 

[Taze 43]

1 hour ago, Jaegaer said:

No, exactly not. The alpha needs to be smallish but the radius needs to be huge. Why? Because that will make arty shoot at lonely tanks in the back rather than engaged tanks at the front for fear of splashing allies (for this the splash indicator was introduced so you see how many allies you would splash).

Since when has arty feared splashing allies? This morning? At least yesterday they couldn't care less, speaking from experience.

[Sovereign_M 37]

Not sure what the downvotes are for? I figured this would be a good way to change the class to where it would make it a more engaging class of tank to play, instead of clicking away like a doofus the whole time. The whole "remove it" argument is never going to stick. WG have put their foot down on that already. I'm just trying to find a way to actually fix the vehicles that makes sense instead of changing the whole way the flow of battle works. IE: messing with consumables making trained crews basically useless with the common "repairing" skill for example.  

[Jaegaer 180]

51 minutes ago, Sovereign_M said:

what the downvotes are for

This topic is a long standing one and all of what your said (and then some) has been discussed ad nauseum.

You also ucase gameplay logic but then fail to actually grasp the goal that WG had when it introduced arty (stop camping). Consequently one of your suggestion would mean that arty would preferrably shoot things it can see - eg the active, non camping part of the enemy team. Which is exactly NOT what arty should be about.

The best thing (mechanically) would be to tie the accuracy of arty not on range but rather on shell arc. By adjusting the shell arcs to be mostly flatter than today arty would get very derpy up close and more accurate the further away it shoots up to a maximum of like 900m away and then drop off again. This means arty has a definite advantage of shooting targets far away - aka redline bushkemp snipers - and is bad at shooting at pushing, active targets.

Only problem with this is that it is unintuitive as heck as the average pubbie will likely take forever to grasp that concept.

[Sovereign_M 37]

thats another good idea. but it doesn't really solve the problem of getting bopped across the map in a big slow heavy brick tank on the way to an engagement. 

[Archaic_One 1,853]

Lets see how the sandbox changes work, its silly to beat one dead horse while WG is literally riding away on a different horse.

[SuperTheBoss 82]

A serious improvement that I've said for a while that would at least help with part of the problem is removing arty view range so it can only proxy spot or at least reducing it drasticly.

This wouldn't help all cases but would at least eliminate those instances when all you need to do is destroy an arty and it outspots you and kills you. I understand this would take some fun out of playing arty but this annoys me even more than getting one shotted doing normal things.

I wouldn't even mind if arty became more consistently useful in other ways but if it's the only vehicle on a team I think it's reasonable that it would be useless.

[Flaksmith 934]

20 hours ago, Sovereign_M said:

a TRUELY balanced class high alpha/Glass Cannon that I think players on both ends of these vehicles would enjoy the game much more.

As if

[zyl 5]

5 hours ago, Jaegaer said:

You also ucase gameplay logic but then fail to actually grasp the goal that WG had when it introduced arty (stop camping). Consequently one of your suggestion would mean that arty would preferrably shoot things it can see - eg the active, non camping part of the enemy team. Which is exactly NOT what arty should be about.

I thought arty was meant to be a "skill bridge" weapon, much like a rocket launcher in a normal FPS. The stupidest idiot can kill the purples, but it's not actually a great way to win games.

[KenadianCSJ 666]

15 hours ago, DHP said:

 

I don't like arty but you guy's live in a dream where arty doesn’t exist. This will never happen, so I don’t understand why you guy’s keep bashing yourself with this idea.

Because it's still the best solution. Just because they don't want to do it doesn't make us any less correct.

[OOPMan 1,266]

Just make the arty like it is in WTGF. You can say what want about WTGF but the arty mechanic there are vastly less cancerous yet still mildly useful. For those people that haven't tried WTGF:

Arty in WT is an activate ability available to Light and Medium tanks. Activations are gained by scoring points while playing (By landing hits, capturing zones, etc). When activated the artillery ability allows you to call in a strike on an circular area within a distance from your vehicle (In other words, you can't call in a strike on the opposite side of the map). After a short delay (During which players in the targeted area receive an audio cue warning them of an incoming strike) the barrage begins. A few ranging shorts are fired and then a full barrage of shots land in the general area targeted.

I actually really like the WTGF arty system. The barrage is generally pretty inaccurate and the odds of scoring a kill with it tend to be extremely low except if there are open-topped vehicles in the barrage zone so it never feels like using it is a cheap way to get kills. That said, it is actually useful in that it kicks up a lot of dust and smoke which can serve as cover while also have a decent chance to cause some damage to the tracks of vehicles in the barrage zone.

All in all, it's a pretty good system and quite well balanced (Which is surprising for Gaijin).

Of course it will never happen in WoT because they would have to remove an entire class of vehicles which would enrage a large pool of players who might well quit even if you did give them Free XP to the value of their cancermobiles. About the best you could hope for is a system which draws on the Gaijin system somewhat and maybe encourages non-arty players and arty players on the same team to work together maybe by allowing scouts/mediums to request arty support in a given zone and rewarding any arty players that actually provide the requested support...