[1.23.2] Redesigning The British Lieutenant

[ChocoboKnight88]

Ok, let me start with saying that...we won't replace/redesign the whole Brit faction just because we made some long sought after, necessary balance fixes to vanila gameplay. The British vanila faction will always remain there.

Saying that, the truth of the matter is that I have looked into what makes the Brit faction the least favoured faction in vanila game and this is what it comes down to.
1) Linear teching less flexible than even Soviets in 1.00 No matter what, you have to follow the same teching with the only HQ +2 trucks you HAVE to call in. The only variant of the teching is whether you buy a stuart or save for a quick Cromwell/Roo spam.

2) The infantry game play revolves around building a single blob as brit infantry relying on officers to become largely unstoppable...No flanking /splitting of force needed. When getting more lieutenants instead of being able to make separate 'groups/blobs' with them to give flexibility all you do is add it to the existing blob to stack yup the bonus.

3) The game breaking slowness of brit infantry forcing players to blob and making it impossible to play the game otherwise

Nobody is asking to redesign the whole faction. Just the Lieutenant, the most flawed unit in the whole faction.

As for your second point, that's the whole point of removing stacking veterancy, making them cheaper and separating Heroic Charge's offensive into a new ability altogether. Whether it's one lieutenant or three, the modifiers should remain the same. They should no longer benefit more from staying in one group rather than split up. Stacking Vet is one of the most frustrating things about using British infantry since it eliminates any reason to split up your forces and harass the enemy from various places at once.

My changes will make it so that you no longer have the overwhelming temptation of making a big blob of infantry to take advantage of the stacked veterancy.

I can live with a linear tech tree but we should at least do something about the restricted, predictable blobbing tactics the British suffer from. I believe the British don't need a complete redesign but only an improvement to the way the officer concept works.

You guys have changed the rest of the British army to eliminate the most overpowered things about it, but neglected to improve them in a way that makes them more enjoyable to play as.

Let's also not forget that you guys did take the step of changing how the Munitions Halftrack works. You made it able to reinforce infantry, completely changing the way it functions. Are you saying you can't change the way the Lieutenant works too?

I don't believe the changes I'm suggesting outright change the way the British army works, but it will improve the way it works and make them more enjoyable to fight at the same time.

Regarding Suggestion 3

I guess this is rather unpopular but another reason I suggested this was to make sure that Recon Sections won't be rendered obsolete. However, maybe a Capture rate of 0.5 is rather low. Maybe a Capture rate of 0.75 to match Panzer Grenadiers would suffice?

Regarding "Mad Minute"

I just want to explain why I think this ability is better on the Lieutenant rather than the Captain. First of all, it's using the current Cooldown modifier's of the Lieutenant's current Heroic Charge. Secondly, it make for a great ability to have when going on the offensive when you plan to use cover.

I suggested making it slow down infantry as a side effect because of how powerful the ability to shoot twice as fast is. Slowing the infantry down during this not only makes sense (When you are trying to fire really fast with a Bolt Action Rifle, doing so while running is close to impossible.), but this also allows the German player to fallback when they are losing the fight without having to worry about being chased down by fast-firing Infantry Sections.

I see this ability being very useful when capturing enemy territory. You could have the Lieutenant activate "Mad Minute" when next to a point, have him start capturing it and the Infantry Sections he's leading will set up a defensive perimeter around him to allow him to do his job.

I also believe the ability should be capable of being activated while garrisoned so that Infantry Sections could use garrisonable cover more effectively. The Americans and Wehrmacht are graced with HMGs to make effective use of that kind of cover. "Mad Minute" could be the British version of that kind of strength.

Best of all, "Mad Minute" is only usable at Vet 3, so you can't spam this ability using multiple lieutenants unless you successfully manage to get them all to Vet 3. It basically rewards careful Officer preservation too.

[Paciat]

Take away stacking (as a 1v1 player I dont care much about it) but make the LT cheaper or more survivable. LTs could cost +5 more fuel but -25 MP and the field truck the oposite.

[ChocoboKnight88]

Making him more survivable rather than cheaper won't change a thing. British Infantry will still be restricted in movement for the earier stages of the game. Make him cost no fuel and the British will have the leadership to spread out their forces a lot earlier and he would be a lot easier to replace should you lose him, without you falling too far behind in the tech race.

[GodlikeDennis]

Adding greater fuel cost to the LT would be bad because then every Brit would start with a bren carrier (or an infantry section then bren if he wants to BiB). We don't want to limit the already limited choices Brits have. I actually agree with a mp decrease though as long as the stacking is removed. Perhaps down to 250?

[Zerstörer]

Ok, think about this a bit more to understand why the change alone in the stackable bonus isn't the answer and in fact won't change anything...

There are only 2 bonuses that can stack up. 12.5% Damage from Vet1 and the 10% cooldown from vet2
There are 3 main reasons why you attach 2 Lieutenants to a single blob.
1) Shared veterancy-by keeping them in the same blob you ensure they get the most vet possible in the smallest amount of time, while being more difficult to pick out.
2)To ensure the blob's longetivity- so that if 1 lieutenant is killed/retreats there is a second around to keep the movement bonus and the 2nd heroic charge.
3)Micro nightmare-Keeping separete blobs with lieutenants micro'd well is a nightmare. Because of the movement bonus, its not like you can retreat the injured lieutenant yet still keep the troops around to fight effectively even without him. People could do that as things stand now, they can seperate the lieutenants. Its not so much the actual stackable bonus gain that's the main reason.

The cheaper lieutenant will only make sure the blob replaces any loss all too easily. Any new lieutenant you make will still join the same single blob in order to gain vet fast. There is an over-reliance on them to make British infantry work in a basic manner.

As I said above, you need a combination of changes to make any serious overall change. But that in turn would mean redesign, which is not what we've agreed to do.
Small changes to a vanila faction can easily lead to major discontent. Larger ones are even less welcome in general. Why? Because its US making the changes, not Relic. If Relic makes them, you can argue all day long but at the end of the day you'll play COH with their changes and work around them etc. When WE make the changes, well then everybody who felt they didn't get their way starts going on about how OP/UP the rebalanced faction is and how we ruined them even more...which ultimately hurts our mod for no reason.

[GodlikeDennis]

Sure you can argue that people will still blob because of those things. But any faction can blob because of ease of use. Ami noobs like to blob airborne and use fire-up on all of them at the same time. If you actually take away that stackable bonus though, they won't still be rolling death like they are now. I'm sure you'll be able to code the LTs to not share vet when in the same radius either. A noob will be punished for blobbing up like that and a good player who actually has the micro to split up his blob will benefit more from that than grouping his units into a single mass.

Currently, a vet stacked blob with 3 vet 2 LTs will do almost triple damage and have 30% more accuracy than normal squads. Heroic charge doubles damage output further to 5 1/2 times normal damage (I take damage output as including rate of fire - therefore includes cooldown/reload). This goes without saying to be A LOT!

Just while I think of it, can we make it so that arty callins don't provide vet to the LTs/soviet snipers. It's far too easy to get vet that way.

[Kolaris]

I think the LT is way down the list of British things that need fixing, but he could do with a radius increase, stacking decrease, and individual vet increase.

Territory control, AT, and cost of basic Infantry unit are all much higher priority though imo.

[GodlikeDennis]

I don't think Brits have a problem with AT since PIATs were buffed. The comet is excellent as well, once you get to it.

What should happen is that the Recon upgrade is removed from Infantry sections and instead, a recon section is added as a cheaper and weaker squad. This would alleviate British capping problems, diversify the British force a bit more and make the 1 minute cutoff trench less dangerous.

As you suggested once before as well, why not make the recon section have no/little penalties against elite armour?

[Blackbishop]

I don't think that the recon section should be separated from tommies. Just need to add something to make them more valuable, by now the only job they do well is capping and occasional sniper... I think we need to create a new thread about this, in order to avoid going off-topic.

[Kolaris]

I don't think Brits have a problem with AT since PIATs were buffed.

Define "problem".

No British AT can hit a moving/kiting target. Thus, we get bullshit like Button to act like a crutch. I'd call the whole system broken even if its workable.

[GodlikeDennis]

In this situation, I define problem as having a difficulty in killing enemy armour, not whether or not it's fair or fun to either player. If button were not an instant stunlock and rather a gradual thing I would actually say it's one of the best parts about the British faction. At least it promotes combined arms.

The entire British faction is broken from mobile HQs to soldier armour. Everything they have is designed as a crutch for something else they have. They are just a giant gimmick.

[Paciat]

The entire British faction is broken from mobile HQs to soldier armour. Everything they have is designed as a crutch for something else they have. They are just a giant gimmick.

PE have soldiers armor and they blob like crazy.
You should stop the British blob before it gets build. Same with all fractions.
The truth is that PE grens get defensive vet bonuses while British blob dosnt. LTs just raise offensive stats.

[GodlikeDennis]

British infantry are stronger by default so they need the defensive bonuses less. You seem to be forgetting the captain as well...

First of all, we are getting even further off topic. Second, just because PE blob doesn't mean they're not also broken.

[ChocoboKnight88]

I think the LT is way down the list of British things that need fixing, but he could do with a radius increase, stacking decrease, and individual vet increase.

Territory control, AT, and cost of basic Infantry unit are all much higher priority though imo.

I disagree on him being unimportant. I believe the Lieutenant is the most important thing to improve on. His bonuses are the root cause of overpowered blobbing in the British army. The way Relic decided to implement him as an important unit through passive stat boosts is deeply flawed.

That's why I think toning down some of his bonuses and replacing them with actual leadership abilities (Like "Mad Minute") would have been a lot better and more interesting. All the current system reflects is him giving his troops a morale bonus, but he doesn't provide any real leadership. Abilities like "Mad Minute" would ultimately reflect him telling his troops to adopt different tactics when fighting. This makes the officer system more interesting.

Relic tried to implement "Mad Minute" through mixing it in with "Heroic Charge" but we can all see how that worked out. It gave British Infantry effective defence bonuses combined with an incredibly powerful cooldown modifier. It gives British Infantry unbelievable offensive power without any drawbacks until the ability wears off and can be restarted again immediately when more than one Lieutenant is in the area. It not fun to fight against this at all, leading to futher discontent against the British.

Whereas splitting the cooldown bonus away from Heroic Charge and giving it it's own ability (minus the defence and speed bonuses) would make this powerful bonus more balanced and promote making use of cover. "Mad Minute" was a defensive tactic to hold your ground in real life so the way it's currently implemented through Heroic Charge is not an accurate representation.

As Zerstörer said, the Vanilla factions are here to stay. Major redesigning of the faction is out of the question -- Something I happen to agree with. Whenever people attempt to make sweeping changes to the British faction, it doesn't tend to gain any long term support. This is because they change far too much and you are forced to relearn them all over again. Not to mention that it loses the support of people who like (or are used to) the current system.

I want us to try and improve on Relic's design of the faction (The design that people have played with from day one) through small but significant improvements to make it work better for everyone without needing to relearn the faction. That's what I believe needs to be done.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Ok, let me start with saying that...we won't replace/redesign the whole Brit faction just because we made some long sought after, necessary balance fixes to vanila gameplay. The British vanila faction will always remain there.

Saying that, the truth of the matter is that I have looked into what makes the Brit faction the least favoured faction in vanila game and this is what it comes down to.
1) Linear teching less flexible than even Soviets in 1.00 No matter what, you have to follow the same teching with the only HQ +2 trucks you HAVE to call in. The only variant of the teching is whether you buy a stuart or save for a quick Cromwell/Roo spam.

2) The infantry game play revolves around building a single blob as brit infantry relying on officers to become largely unstoppable...No flanking /splitting of force needed. When getting more lieutenants instead of being able to make separate 'groups/blobs' with them to give flexibility all you do is add it to the existing blob to stack yup the bonus.

3) The game breaking slowness of brit infantry forcing players to blob and making it impossible to play the game otherwise

Well, I am still of the opinion that you should not have changed the roo. Oh, I know Ger players would disgree, but then they would - would'nt they. They have numerous counters already to the roo.

I agree with some of the above. The brit slow inf is at least to me critical. I don't know how to approach this, perhaps that can be fixed when they upgrade. The brit can fix this himself by selecting sniper squad for all squads. Obviously this has critical failures in other places if this is chosen.

The other thing brits should be able to do is to make more trucks. The simple fact is that their production is always limited to three 'buildings'. This allied to the monster costs on units, and slow building does not help.

The last thing I will say is that when the main HQ truck is killed, I see notable problems, for example, all squads walk slowly no matter wether they are in territiory or not (because the truckless area is no longer owned?) - but thats something that should not happen.

Personally, I find brits fun to play with and against. Just my opinion.