Idea for changing up the Artillery & Recon Issues

[ColonialFungus]

One of the main complaints in the game right now is the Artillery and Recon Game-play Dynamic. Arty can feel dominating in certain matches and the only counter to it is for recon to spawn camp the main HQ's where the arty is housed. This tends be be boring as all sin from a game-play perspective with very little room for interesting decision making by both the In-Direct Fire Players and the Recon.

A possible solution for this would be to remove the Towed Gun Arty from the game entirely (or relegate artillery strikes to the commander's ability tab). As to what would fully replace it, there are two options; create a new mortar man role or have mortars be a buildable emplacement near garrisons sort of like how they work in Squad.

The mortar man would be a class or squad type that would be limited to just 2-4 players per game. They would have access to a deployable mortar that, once placed, would have a long cool-down before it could be placed again. This would allow the Indirect fire placement to be alot more dynamic but also make Recon's intervention more meaningful and interesting, as there would be an actual hunt for the mortar assets.

An alternate approach could be to have mortars be a buildable emplacement that uses supply and munitions to create and fire. These could be placed anywhere in friendly territory and would use munitions like AT guns or arty does now. This, like the classes, would make mortar-recon play a lot more dynamic. This option would be balanced by supply constraints and the inability to move the mortars around from their initial site.

Suggestions or musings welcome.

[Gibber1sh]

What problem are you trying to solve?

How impactful arty is and how difficult it is to counter, is based on the number of players assigned to arty / counter arty.

If all 4 members of both recon teams are on counter arty it will be more difficult to field effective arty unless a larger number of players is defending the area around the arty.

However with both recon teams on the arty that means they are not doing their other functions (garry/node hunting, placing garries, spotting tanks, providing flares, etc).

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I also disagree that the only counter to arty is recon - another counter is to have good garrison placement and to not all group up in one location.

You only need to be on the point if the enemy is pushing and arty can't be used when the forces are intermingled.

[Teh_Diplomat]

A mortar team seems like the most plausible solution; but if it's limited to 1 team, you had better hope that those who selected the role understand their task.

Ever had Recon that won't shut down Arty? Imagine a Mortar team that only wants to shell the forward position, and not assist in the defence.

At least if you're useless on Arty the TK counter will remove anyone who has shelled their own team, and there are 2 other guns if they refuse to defend mid.



At some point you realize the largest issue in HLL, is its free choice. The game allows you place spawn points in (most) any location; but the flip side is that your responsibility is creating, maintaining, defending, and re-establishing those.

What you've likely realized is that your enjoyment of the game comes down to your ability to project power, and spawn in reinforcements as quickly as possible. If you can do that faster, and closer than the opposition; you're likely to have a far more fun time than the enemy.

[Gibber1sh]

I strongly disagree with the "mortar hunt" mechanic.

Recon already has the "Node Hunt" and "Garry Hunt" mechanics we don't need another thing to run round the map looking for.

Additionally recon also has the reverse mechanic to contend with - their OP is usually hunted by the defending team. Its not so much of an issue when the friendly team is doing well with good garry placement. However it's a real challenge to figure out where to place your OP so you can be effective when the score is 1-4 and your team has no garries - do you try to support the attack or place your OP at the back of the map so you can get to arty.

In such scenarios Recon needs a real boost to their mobility.

If we are talking about "solutions" it may be as simple as the commander having to pre-allocate ammo to each gun - say a block of 500 ammo - if recon can get to the gun before the ammo is used the enemy team looses the ammo allotment - hence it become a real gamble ** / requires defenses to use the arty.

** - This could be exaggerated if the ammo resupply was on 5 minute cool down, so to get all three guns up the commander need to have a significant stockpile on the ground.

[ColonialFungus]

Originally posted by Gibber1sh:

I strongly disagree with the "mortar hunt" mechanic.

Recon already has the "Node Hunt" and "Garry Hunt" mechanics we don't need another thing to run round the map looking for.

Additionally recon also has the reverse mechanic to contend with - their OP is usually hunted by the defending team. Its not so much of an issue when the friendly team is doing well with good garry placement. However it's a real challenge to figure out where to place your OP so you can be effective when the score is 1-4 and your team has no garries - do you try to support the attack or place your OP at the back of the map so you can get to arty.

In such scenarios Recon needs a real boost to their mobility.

If we are talking about "solutions" it may be as simple as the commander having to pre-allocate ammo to each gun - say a block of 500 ammo - if recon can get to the gun before the ammo is used the enemy team looses the ammo allotment - hence it become a real gamble ** / requires defenses to use the arty.

** - This could be exaggerated if the ammo resupply was on 5 minute cool down, so to get all three guns up the commander need to have a significant stockpile on the ground.

The Preallocation idea is a damn good one. That would probably be the best solution if one wants to do as little as possible to change the current dynamic. As for the problem of recon hunting down stuff, that's kind of the whole point of the class besides actual scouting. They already have to go into the main to hunt the arty bois, at least in the new way countering it is a bit more of a cat and mouse dynamic than the worlds most boring main camping game. Also I've never encountered a team (at least on most public official and private servers) that reliably wipes recon OP's and if they're dedicating up to a full squad to hunt recon then that's a whole squad not fighting the main force.

[ColonialFungus]

Originally posted by Gibber1sh:

What problem are you trying to solve?

How impactful arty is and how difficult it is to counter, is based on the number of players assigned to arty / counter arty.

If all 4 members of both recon teams are on counter arty it will be more difficult to field effective arty unless a larger number of players is defending the area around the arty.

However with both recon teams on the arty that means they are not doing their other functions (garry/node hunting, placing garries, spotting tanks, providing flares, etc).

----

I also disagree that the only counter to arty is recon - another counter is to have good garrison placement and to not all group up in one location.

You only need to be on the point if the enemy is pushing and arty can't be used when the forces are intermingled.

Arty isn't just good for garry popping and is not really used for that as often as it is used for saturating the points with fire. The problem really isn't in the existence of arty but the game-play dynamic in its use and countering it. If the only other counter to arty besides recon camping main is to not be where the arty is coming down then I'd say there is a quite a bit of room for improvement.

[Gibber1sh]

Originally posted by ColonialFungus:

Originally posted by Gibber1sh:

What problem are you trying to solve?

The problem really isn't in the existence of arty but the game-play dynamic in its use and countering it.

Bombing runs have a 10 minute cooldown so there is only limited damage they can do.

Arty today can be used by a single person creating a continuous nuisance, a six man squad creating absolutely devastating amount of fire or any number of players in between.

Theoretically a six man could deploy onto arty keep firing until the first one of them was picked off then they could all redeploy onto the attack - in some ways this is uncountable since no-one wants to sit around middle spawn waiting "just in case" someone shows up.

On the other hand you can also tie up recon resources by having a simple rule - if you die and no-one is on arty spawn there and keep firing until recon kills you then go back to doing whatever else you were doing. Even if you don't get to the guns (the spawn is camped) you have prevented recon from doing other jobs.

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Most of the previous posts (not just this thread) keep wanting to put recon in the loop, as such either recon spend there entire game preventing something from happening (camping) or trying to stop it after it starts (hunting).

Come up with a mechanic where recon is not the counter, here is another suggestion:

Each gun can only be fired for 30 seconds then it goes on cool down for 10 minutes. You can roll through the guns for 1.5 minutes of continuous fire or do a burst with all 3 however you can't use them until they come off cool down.