[DC 1.51] Fire-on-the-move accuracy penalty too high

[forinax]

I'll start with asking a question: how did Relic come up with the idea of increasing that value for DC? As far as I can remember, and I've been playing DoW since release, never, ever anyone had a problem with this (apart from the no-penalty IG from the previous versions). It was perfectly ok to lose troops while retreating (and there weren't that many losses after, if you played it correctly), as it was viewed as an integral part of the game.

Two words: harrass and melee. Since I'm mostly a C/SM player, I will comment the issue basing on my knowledge of those races' weak and strong points.

Now, when my 3 tac squads get assaulted by a bunch of fast cc troops -- ASM, Raptors, Shees -- I won't be able to do a thing about it. If I stand, I get owned. If I move, I only move, without even injuring the enemy attached to my units. In vanilla and WA, throwing melee troops at a ranged mass was effective but risky. In DC, that risk is gone, making jump troops virtually invulnerable (hellooooo 1.4 ASM! good to have you back!).

Speaking of which, did you ever think about how would look an SM scout or CSM Raptor harrass or if these took little to no damage while retreating? I can picture it easily... and it doesn't look too good. Chasing away harrass troops, which are constantly on the move, does require the defender to be able to deal a significant amount of damage on the run (and now fof'ed Eldars... rofl). What? Turrets? Sorry, but no. Mounting an effective static defense fast needs more builders (vulnerable to attacks)/money to place them. While I do, the enemy is free to party on the map, thus leaving me behind in econ.


I call for restoring the old FOM accuracy values.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Completely agree, I chased a low health commissar across the map with my Chaos Lord and his plasma pistol, and he'd actually healed by the time he got back to his base.

[Hirmetrium]

lol @ n0z3's brilliant invicible commisar point :P

[Chris]

The biggest voice against on-the-move damage came from Ork players whining about plasma. :p Or more specifically, Ork players who didn't realise that if they combined eeeeemba trukks with their nobz they could pwnerize dancing squads just as badly as those squads pwnerized nobz.

Worst case scenario in my opinion would have been a minor nerf to plasma damage on the move... cuz I sure as hell wasn't seeing regular bolters cutting down huge numbers of troops while moving especially since WA nerfed focus fire. (remember in DoW when every single marine would focus down the enemy 1 person at a time? That was harsh).

At the very least I'd like to find out what Relics motive was behind such a massive nerf. I mean what the hell are you supposed to do when you have kroot using feral leap, ASM/Raps jumping ontop of you or flayed ones deepstriking right in the middle of your ranks? What can you do besides try to always stay +1 squad ahead?

Likewise, if I want to use combined arms and I disrupt my opponent how are my ranged squads supposed to take advantage if they cant hit the broad side of a barn door? There is no insentive for combined arms, pure CC mass is 110% more attractive.

[mlai]

I'm an ork player and I want old FOM acc back. Not "slightly buffed from current," not "back but with nerf." I want it back, period.

Of course, plasma does need to be nerfed to make it less anti-all. But not necessarily the FOM acc part of it.

Orkz had to deal with FOM acc and CC being all-or-nothing from day 1 of DOW. Was it the crux of their defeat? Never. If there was imba, it was always something else. If you got out-danced, you just need to learn how to counter-dance or use strats other than mass sluggas -> attack-move. Orkz have small squads for a reason. The mob bonus fix, blue bug fix, and loose squads was all orkz ever needed. The rest is skill. Real orkz don't need a crutch.

Pan-nerf to FOM acc doesn't just affect orkz, tho. It breaks the entire game on a fundamental level. Noob-catering has to stop.

[[eX]Xerxes]

As I understand it the change was made because they felt DoW's slipperly slope was too harsh, and they noticed other RTS games (namely SC) don't have fire on the move.

So far I've found it makes ork harassment ridiculously powerful. I don't even have to try now. I can run through your base taking 0 damage while I tech to crap you also can't kill because you'll be running around the whole time, and good luck trying to counter harass me while my building guns rape you.

Sure you could get flamers or plasma, but by that time I'll have so much more eco than you I can buy a new HQ just for the hell of it and have my grots fight each other to the death for my amusement.

[Compeador]

Fire-on-the-move accuracy penalty too high

Is not. :P

[tauknight]

From 60% to 10%? Massive nerf. =/

[phoenix717]

Actually, Ive not had any problems with dancing what so ever, still works as well in DC as it did in WA. but thats not chasing mind you, thats merely avoiding CC. so far, i havent lost any games because i couldnt finish off that last infantry or zerk etc that ran away from me. personally, i dont see a problem

[HaXxorIzed]

Foree, Xerxes, I love you both in a totally platonic way. Now get out and prove it conclusively please with a flood of high-level automatch replays that relic can't ignore : D

[eXarchProXy]

This comes heavily into play with the current vespid imbalance. They are almost impossible to catch, let along fire on the move and kill.

It adds to the over uberness.

If they want to nerf plasma let em nerf it. but don't nerf every other ranged damage type in the game.

[psychodil]

You can now flee from a ranged squad taking minimal damage, just like you can from a CC squad. Is it more balanced? Perhaps. Is it more fun? No. Does it increase tactical options? No.

I could understand why relic did thie, in order to make early CC units more in line with ranged units, but this was not the way. I must admit, I did/still do get pissed off with fleeing plasma marines doing far more damage to stormboys/nobs that stormboys nobs would do to stationary targets. In WA fleeing with a ranged squad would prove beeficial which was obviously wrong.

The best way would be to reduce the reload times of all the melee units, so they could get the odd hit on moving targets. This is the main reason why the FC sucks vs infantry.

[a1ph4riu5]

When I read the changelog, the first thing that worried me was the new fast teching to the next tier, with only the barracks required. Then I thought, oh nevermind, even if everyone fast techs to Falcons or their equivalents, we can all just run away and the new moving penalty will save us. Then I thought, damn, won't the be the case with practically everything? Do we all run away from each other until someone reaches their base-bashers first?

Still waiting for the game over here, so somebody please tell me it's not as bad as all that. :err:

[[eX]Xerxes]

It's bad for the game, but it doesn't break it.

Most of the time you don't notice it, but when you do it's wtf was that? e.g. watching shootas run through your base undamaged despite 2 tacs + FC chasing them.

[ir0nside]

It does break the game in the case of Necrons. They can march their Warriors into melee range, and while they approach, they're doing 100% damage the entire way there. When they arrive, you have to run your ranged units away, and while they flee.. the Warriors chase, still doing 100% damage the entire pursuit.

As a Tau player, this is very stressful when used well against my Firewarriors. It forces me to retreat my entire force and re-engage elsewhere each time I encounter Warriors set to melee stance, rather than dancing individual squads away - they'll just get picked off slowly doing that.

[DA CAP'N]

yea, if your gonna horribly nerf fire on the move, you should probobly do it to all the races.

[politrix]

While it is ridiculous that Necrons have 100% accuracy on the move, they should have better accuracy on the move than the other races. Right now it breaks the game in terms of CC squads because Necrons cannot be tied up if they do 100% damage while moving to avoid CC. However, they should have more accuracy than other races because they cannot chase anyone with their slow speed.

[[eX]Xerxes]

To be fair I don't see how the Balance team could have forseen 100% accuracy on the move being a problem. I mean it's not like we've had this exact same scenario (new race having 100% accuracy on the move) *coughIGcough*.

/sarcasm

[Carl]

You have to remember that the Warriors basic gun has a VERY short range, even fully upgraded, every heavy weapon almost (bar flamers) outrange it. If your not running out of range as soon as they start shooting then you deserve to lose.

Is it neccesseily fair? ot really since it requires a lot more Micro from the other player than it does the Necron player. But then again, relics never shown that they cared much in that regard so it's hardly suprising.

[ir0nside]

You have to remember that the Warriors basic gun has a VERY short range, even fully upgraded, every heavy weapon almost (bar flamers) outrange it. If your not running out of range as soon as they start shooting then you deserve to lose.

This is a silly argument. Games are not played on mile-long tracks in which you can simply back up, fire for two seconds, back up and fire for two seconds, back up and fire for two seconds, slowly whittling the enemy down until there is nothing left - and this doesn't even take into account the fact that interrupting your damage like this over and over ensures that they'll simply reinforce faster than you can kill them off.

Anyone who has encountered this knows that you can just "keep them just out of range" as you suggest, Carl. It's not nearly that simple.

[Carl]

Anyone who has encountered this knows that you can just "keep them just out of range" as you suggest, Carl. It's not nearly that simple.

I never said it was that simple, my point is warriors have a disadvantage, use it. 3 IG plasma Squads with preists can kill nearly 3 Warriors between them before they have to retreat, and it's a 2 second job to pull back. GL can do even better with their knockdown and better range.

Of course, it' more a T1 solution when dealing with just a couple of squads of warriors.

Also my point was more that with their low range (17 before upgrades) and slow speed they need it to get any damage in vs. a good player. I agree, even without playing the game i think it's a bit too good on the move. However, it does let them get some damage in.

You also have to remeber that some squads can get a LOT of damage in at range. Eldar Reapers and SM Scouts have big ranges, as do Tau. HB's and ML knockback arn't pretty eithier.

I never said it was fair however, in the end it isn't IMHO, but at the same time there is littile, (prior to vehicles), that can match a NW mass once it's in range, a simpile look at the DPS and HP figures show that up quite painfully. Indeed a fully upgraded Warrior can probebly best 2 Tac Marines with Bionics and Targeters. Add in FO depstrike, (it need looking at IMHO), to disrupt gunlines and it can get damm problamatic.

NW can be beaten by similar squad caps worth if they are the right units. But FO's morale drain and DS abilites can mess up that advantage quite heavily. That is where i think the issue lies, in the fact that 2 FO squad are kicking out enough morale DPS to break even Tac Marines in 3 seconds. On top of that you need to run away from the FO's to get away from their CC messing up your gunline. By the time Morale Comes back and the FO's are dead you have a damm big problem as the NW's have pushed you back a long way.

Just some thoughts based on comments/the VOD/Theorycraft from the RGD's.

[GRIM Ripper]

i agree its generally retarded... one on hand i like that fact that one mistake forcing you to retreat wont cost you your entire army like it was in WA, but on the other, fire on the move was a very important part of the games strategy.

i think they could "fix" it a few ways.... first just reduce the severity of the acc on the move nerf. make it 20 or 25% instead of 10%.

or another way would be to make only certain units (for each race... right now it seems to be random units have ok acc on the move, like cult plasma but not scout or SM?) or weapons have good damage on the move. for ex big shootas, flamers, plasma, scouts, stealth suits (which they do after upgrade), necron warriors (but not 100% acc), etc... they could actually have a lot of interesting dynamics by playing with the acc on the move differences more.

[Carl]

or another way would be to make only certain units (for each race... right now it seems to be random units have ok acc on the move, like cult plasma but not scout or SM?) or weapons have good damage on the move. for ex big shootas, flamers, plasma, scouts, stealth suits (which they do after upgrade), necron warriors (but not 100% acc), etc... they could actually have a lot of interesting dynamics by playing with the acc on the move differences more.

This is a pretty good suggestion IMHO.

The problem with DoW ATM is Soft Counters, it's no use making DoW's CC units like other RTS CC units, (i.e. they're actually there to kill the enemy), when you have soft counters. The games i've played have made a mixed ranged/CC force necessery by ensuring there are things ranged can do that CC can't. With it's Soft Counter, DoW does not do this, and because of this, any system that removes dancing in favour of outright in your face, kill the oponnent CC is in danger of seeing CC dominate as it can't be dealt with by ranged unless you have more squads, or it's a narrowish map that allows a smaller CC force of your own to tie up a pure CC mass.

[Zeru]

The incrediable on the move accuracy penalty has made melee units extremely difficult to deal with.
This is a particularly big problem for countering large amounts of melee units, especially those that can be built in mass and easily reach melee in the first place (jump troops,kroot)

I agree with what GRIM Ripper said, adjust the accuracy to a higher level (25-35% imo) for other races and lower necrons down from 100% (75-80% also imo).

This should make melee units happier then they were in WA and ranged units happier then they are now (atleast those who can fire on the move)

[The_Guardman]

Do not forget that some specilized unit is (fluff & TT) thinked to be a move & fire platform. In this category we can find Obliterators, Terminators, all no-artillery Veicles, Immortals, crisis suits, eldar guardians, warp spyders, fire dragons, MANz & WB.

[dreddnott]

Immortals are the BOMB in tabletop. 24" Assault 2 Gauss Blaster for the win.

Ironically, they're the ones with a fire-on-movement accuracy penalty in Dark Crusade, while the Necron Warriors (24" Rapid Fire Gauss Flayer) have no penalty.

[Question]

I thought -all- necrons had no accuracy penalty.

[Deaths Abyss]

Im still hoping that this is just an all-round rough balance before relic release a patch with different accuracy values for different troops.

[nemesis09]

Im still hoping that this is just an all-round rough balance before relic release a patch with different accuracy values for different troops.


This is highly unlikely. Especially since relic still has countless weird values within their damage chart existing since the beginning of DOW, but they haven't done rat shit about that. Adjusting accuracy values INDIVIDUALLY? Its the same chance as getting married to Jessica Alba and winning the lottery on the same day..

Why can't they just revert the old accuracy values back and do the balancing from there? Melee is so overpowered now..

[JORUS-OTR]

i think highpenalty is fair & realistic to the combat - CC has went more important and it press players to mix their units. the penalty for nec warriors is unfair.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Its the same chance as getting married to Jessica Alba and winning the lottery on the same day..Cause and effect? :p

[Tadatsune]

Verily, marrying Jessica Alba does indeed cause you to win the lottery.

[kornuletz]

i play ork, and agree with this. things were better back then, in the old days...

[Militaris]

Hmm Interesting. I didn't realize there had been such a nerf for shooting on the move. That might explain a few things about squads getting hosed and doing what appeared to be no damage to others. Something does indeed seem wrong here. So basicly none of the old dancing tactics work at all..especially vs the necron.

Good lord. That will make it that much worse for ranged units trying to close with other ranged units if those have longer ranges and are already set. Hmmm...this really changes things.

Even so, I gotta say while at times it seemed like moving units did next to no damage at all, it hasn't been as huge an issue for me as all this. Might be though if someone goes mass CC and I built the well rounded task oriented forces I tend to.

[FatherG]

Note for Tau players: If you think your FW squads are going to be set upon by fast moving melee; throw a snare trap ON your FW squads. Whatever lands/DS/gets close enough to melee them is going to get caught in the snare. They get slowed down enough for your FW to get to a decently safe firing position. This works even better if you have a Devilfish nearby. Throw your FW in the Devilfish, move back about a HQ-length and redeploy. By the time the snare effect wears off you should have long since deployed the FW and re-snared their line.

[SCtenth]

lmfao@10% accuracy on the move. If that isn't FUBAR I don't know what is. More realistic? HAHAHAHAHAHA. More "realistic" would be closer to 50% on full auto. This isn't boy scouts with AEGs. I think NWs should remain as is, but definitely no lower than 80%.

My ranged troops are suddenly a bunch of Ishmallah al-jihadis! Great! Good thing I play necrons now eh?

Yeah I do recall losing entire ranged squads while trying to retreat from an overwhelming ranged force, and how badly it pissed me off. But if morale actually meant a sh*t-f*ck in dow anymore, that wouldn't be the case.

Desired Scenario:
Morale breaks at the right time (not talking IG here), accordingly, troops move faster, therefore run away and get out of weapons range quicker.

But no, what happened was troops that HADN'T broken were getting slaughtered, running away at normal speed, and finally breaking once down to a single half-dead guy who got shot in the back that final time, forcing me to make a whole new squad.

And now, it's just lala-land altogether.

*cheers*

[mlai]

I need to know what I'm supposed to do as SM in a 1v1, if I'm being rushed by tier 1 melee troops such as Kroots or orkz.

It used to be "dance around LP2," "move in tandem with chasing enemies to shoot them while dancing," "dance criss-cross and crossfire"... Well it doesn't work anymore. So dancing Scouts/SM now suck and FC becomes the only one dealing some CC damage, and he can't cut the mustard.

Do I have to build turrets now to a rush, like a noob? I noticed DC turrets seem to be cheaper.

[Carl]

That would help mali, but as long as your running around a LP2/Turet they are taking a lot more damage than they are giving.

[mlai]

I'm just used to using skill to overcome an inappropriate BO choice, in this case dancing to offset the fact that I don't have LP2 or turret when the enemy CC rush comes charging in.

Nowadays I find I'm screwed, skill or not, if I didn't prepare for a CC rush. Dancing does jack. And if I actually start winning a bit, the CC rusher slowly runs away to recuperate and my chasing tacs can't do ****. I'm lucky if my entire tier 1 army chasing halfway across the map kills one kroot.

[forinax]

Here's an interesting idea about solving the issue.


About FOM.

Instead of making it unit and race dependant, why not have a general rule for all units in the game. A standard rule would make a lot more sense I think, about something so central to the game.

For instance, have a basic reduction for firing on the move for all units, and have a varying fire on the move penalty that would be inversely proportional to the unit's speed. The rule be 100 - base reduction - varying reduction = percentage of regular shooting efficiency the unit shoots at.

Let me illustrate this, supposing that the reduction is given as a multiplier.

Have everyone start at .75 (they shoot at 75% of their usual shooting effeciency). Make SM go down to say 40 (shooting at 40% of their usual shooting effeciency, a reduction of -.35). Take a unit which moves 1.5 times faster than space marines (like perhaps priested IG). THeir penalty for FOM would be given by 1 - base - inverse speed proportional modifier, in this case: 1 - 0.25 - 0.35 * 1.5 = 0.225
Accordingly, necrons would shoot well on the move. This would overall work well I think, since every player could easily know that a fast unit makes a good chaser but shoots poorly on the move, and vice versa.

Just saying something I was thinking about.. take it or leave it.



by gobogen @ DoWSanctuary

That's about global FOMA modifier. There were also ideas about giving every unit it's own accuracy (like it was done to Necrons... whoopiedooyay) value, but personally I think that task would be too much for R balance team. :>

[thegreatbooha]

A good solution to having high fire on the move penalty is to make the ranged damage increase research at T2/T3 lower the fire on the move penalty, that way CC is still good early, and late game CC monsters like shees, nobz, FOs etc... won't be OP.

[Durandal]

can someone explain me something ? i read plasma rifles now are supposed to be more effective on the move, but we're talking about FOM being nerfed alot. does that mean this nerf doesn't affect plasma guns ( chaos and sm ) or ?
dumb question but it got me thinking for a while

[forinax]

A good solution to having high fire on the move penalty is to make the ranged damage increase research at T2/T3 lower the fire on the move penalty, that way CC is still good early, and late game CC monsters like shees, nobz, FOs etc... won't be OP.


Yes, I have proposed more or less the same (to have researches that increas acc at every tier) at DoWS.

Durandal: I'm not 100% certain, but I think the 10% value is global, so plasma and other such still suck on the move. With the exception of Necrons and their 100% accuracy.

[Rune]

As someone else already mentioned, I think the best solution to this problem would have been to increase CC accuracy when they were being danced. This way, dancing ranged squads could still get moving damage in, but at the same time CC squads could actually do damage to a retreating squad.

Anyway, as for the problem at hand, I agree that a small buff back to FOM with a tiny nerf to the necron's would be the best solution.

[Carl]

Yep, all plasma (except Cultist Plasma anyway), is 10% on the move.

[Heartcutter]

I like the lower accuracy a lot. Here's why:

Retreating in the face of superior firepower isn't fatal. Your opponent can't chase you back to base (at the same speed your army runs) and completely obliterate your force on the journey home. It gives comeback ability.

[DukeRustfield]

Now, when my 3 tac squads get assaulted by a bunch of fast cc troops -- ASM, Raptors, Shees -- I won't be able to do a thing about it. If I stand, I get owned. If I move, I only move, without even injuring the enemy attached to my units.
But they don't do anything to you either and they generally cost more. You'll certainly do more to them than vice versa.


Games are not played on mile-long tracks in which you can simply back up, fire for two seconds, back up and fire for two seconds, back up and fire for two seconds, slowly whittling the enemy down until there is nothing left
Right, wars are fought on merry-go-rounds (roundabouts for you in UK). Where people when faced with overwhelming odds, do what mighty warriors have always done: run in circles while screaming like little girls and firing their weapons with deadly accuracy.

Dancing was stupid. It was completely unintuitive to new players and had no relationship to any other game let alone how things might shake up in a real world. I know it's not the real world, but come on.


i agree its generally retarded... one on hand i like that fact that one mistake forcing you to retreat wont cost you your entire army like it was in WA, but on the other, fire on the move was a very important part of the games strategy.
This is another thing I hated. If you're dealing with units of the same speed, and most were, you might as well fight to the death, because running will just make him attack-move you into oblivion. Your only "hope" was to get broken. Which is also silly.


married to Jessica Alba and winning the lottery on the same day..

/looks at lottery ticket
/prays


Kroots or orkz
I think this is more of a problem. CC units SHOULD disrupt formations. You got your formation of SM all lined up and then some rampaging Nobs come bursting in. It shouldn't be that they just run around in circles. The problem is that early game there are no alternatives to counter them. NW with their no shoot n move still get beaten by Kroots.

[forinax]

Right, wars are fought on merry-go-rounds (roundabouts for you in UK). Where people when faced with overwhelming odds, do what mighty warriors have always done: run in circles while screaming like little girls and firing their weapons with deadly accuracy.

Ehm but wars aren't also played the way that when enemy soldiers are running away they are almost invulnerable. Showing your back to an assaulting troop usually means you'll get a shot in your back.

[mlai]

1. Retreating should have a penalty. If you didn't know your firepower is inferior, you should have scouted first.


But they don't do anything to you either and they generally cost more. You'll certainly do more to them than vice versa.
2. The dancer expends more micro. The amount of micro required for the miniscule damage isn't fair.


Dancing was stupid. It was completely unintuitive to new players and had no relationship to any other game let alone how things might shake up in a real world. I know it's not the real world, but come on.
That's like saying Roman Cancel in Guilty Gear is stupid and unintuitive to new players and therefore should be removed. It's an integral game mechanic to those who know the game, and becomes a marker of skill while still taking other things such as terrain and placement into account. Unless you're changing the game engine, you don't screw with things like that. Command buffering in Street Fighter 2 was originally an unintended game bug, but Capcom had the foresight to realize it works as a game mechanic, and it made SF2 the deepest and most popular fighting game of its time. It certainly wasn't realistic or intuitive; it cut consecutive move animations short.


This is another thing I hated. If you're dealing with units of the same speed, and most were, you might as well fight to the death, because running will just make him attack-move you into oblivion.
It was an appropriate CC-range mechanic, and made orky attacks the all-nothing rush that was characteristic and also balanced around.

By the time tier 2 mass/vehicles rolled around, dancing didn't matter as much as positioning and macro, anyways. Dancing made tier 1 fun, and could only be truly appreciated in tier 1 anyways, when you had only a few units and few unit choices.

[Tadatsune]

Sigh. "Scouts charge!" rings so hollow now...

(I might as well contribute something: Seems to me that the reward for dancing well was too high before (or so say the developers), thus the nerf. But it also seems to me that they went to far (as RTS designers tinkering with balance are wont to do). I still think a "happy medium" is best. Micro'ers are still rewarded for their skills, but things are balanced out a bit for the micro-impared.
Personally, I can't micro for shit, but then I like to play one-handed lying down on my futon - might have something to do with it. What I hate more then dancing, however, is the flat out illogic of charging soldiers armed with automatic weapons spraying bullets everywhere but not being able to hit the massive army standing right infront of them.
Charging & persuit have a place in the game, as does retreating while firing. Take these out and you make me one unhappy RTS player. I deserve to get punished if I blunder into enemy fire and have to retreat, and I deserve to be punished for my lack of micro skills and my refusal to use hotkeys. I will gladly entertain the idea that the previous FotM rates were too high, as was the micro level required, but I will not be convinced that an across-the-board cut to 10%, with little consideration as to unit types and roles, was a good idea.)

[DukeRustfield]

1. Retreating should have a penalty. If you didn't know your firepower is inferior, you should have scouted first.
I sent my Necrons out scouting 15 minutes ago but they still haven't left my base perimeter. Not every race has terrain-avoiding inviso scouts.


2. The dancer expends more micro. The amount of micro required for the miniscule damage isn't fair.
Make shift-click more reliable. As it is, units pause too long at each subsequent click.


That's like saying Roman Cancel in Guilty Gear is stupid and unintuitive to new players and therefore should be removed. It's an integral game mechanic to those who know the game
I don't and likely most people don't know the game. Use analogies that are real world or this game if you want comments.


"Scouts charge" is a contradiction. It's like Medics Attack!

[timotheus]

Its a step in the right direction, however, perhaps too much of a nerf bat was applied. Accuracy of 25% sounds fair (you cant shoot well when running in real life). This would cause some losses to units fleeing from ranged, but not make the player who loses one engagement lose the game.

However, 10% is miniscule, leading to instances where a full SM squad cannot kill a fleeing commissar at 20HP.

[SirNick]

I kind of like the new dynamic of actually being able to run away from an engagement that the new accuracy penalty has introduced.

I, as others have mentioned, don't particularly like how some races are unable to deal with harassment due to their sole combat units being ranged and slow and needing dancing. By "some races," I mean in particular both Chaos and Loyalist Space Marines. Since the majority of their early (and for Space Marines, later too) game consists of using their ranged-based Space Marines, the lack of fire-on-the-move for those units is a real killer for them since early melee units (Kroot) or harassment troops (Raptors, Shootas waving "Hello" as they pass by Heretics) can have their way unmolested.

I think that something that could be interesting would be to reinstate fire-on-the-move to Tactical and Chaos Space Marines' Bolters in particular, along with perhaps a raise in Plasma on-the-move accuracy from 10% to 30% or so as compared to the old WA value of 55%-ish. Keeping the Bolters able to dance is what will allow Tier 1 Space Marines able to dance long enough to survive harassment and melee and to get their Armory up for ASMs or their toys in Tier 2.

Keep everything and everyone else at 10%, but I'd reckon in particular those Space Marines need a bit of a boost to those Bolters.

[mlai]

Necrons don't need to scout in tier 1. Later they have Summoning Core.

Shift-click was reliable pre-DOW 1.3. So was pathing in general...

Games =/= real world, hence the analogy using another game. And it was important that it be a game of a different genre.

I don't think any nerf was needed. If the CCer expend as much micro/macro as the dancer, being shot on-the-move can be minimized.

What was needed is engine change for CC on-the-move.

[Carl]

What was needed is engine change for CC on-the-move.

I agre with this, I think the limitation is an inability to have the unit moving and having the fighting oart of the engine running at the same time. In IC you commonly get situations where a chasing melee unit would hit thin air and still do damage, it looked dumb. So they got rid of it for DoW, however, it is a change that would have been so useful if they'd modified the engine to make it work right.

@Sir Nick: I more or less agre with you there, pure ranged armies are going to find the new values a headache, and it's difficult ATM to mix and match (CC and ranged) together for some armies whilst still having enough raw damage output to be useful.

I think people will adapt to this change as they will adapt to the fact that you can't take your amy and move it up to the Necron army then micro like crazy and win as you would with any other race. Eventually people will adapt, but ATM it's somthing of a system shock, and they're struggling like fish out of water.

If i had to name a SM unit that should get good fire on the move, i'd say Scouts, (no penalties for any of their weapons except Sniper Rifles), That way they'd be even more useful and necessery, but, (due to small numbers later on), wouldn't cuase SM's to gun down the enemy on mass. the same could be done with Cultists by moving their plasma to T1.

Just a few thoughts.

[Chris]

You can't just give accuracy back to SM/CSM. What about ork? Using shootas is basically useless now because;

1. Attempting to mass shootas is useless, your opponent just moves around until you're forced to spend req on banner(s), then they will outnumber you + stop moving. At this point you best move your arse back to base.

2. Sluggas/shoota combination is useless because the sluggas will force the enemy to move and a moving enemy is an invulnerable enemy.

Scouts with no ranged movement penalty would be a massive, massive step backwards in terms of balance. Scouts have been specifically balanced since (I think) DoW 1.3 so that they can't just mass + gun down fleeing troops with their superior movement speed.

[forinax]

Afaik Scouts stopped being useful in 1.5, or 1.51 when they got a further (and totally uneccessary) HP and accuracy nerf, thus leaving SM much more vulnerable (Chaos and their Rap harrass just being one example). I tried to find a use for them in DC, but with 10% FOMA they are just fast-moving cap-the-point-and-go-die meatbags. Don't even talk about infiltration, which costs a ridiculous amount of money, too much for a t1 econ (more than Chaos' I believe, who can cloak tacs). Tau's main capping unit has something to compensate for it's weak power/health - free cloak.

On the other side, try to survive a good 2/3 x 4 scout or Rapta harrass. Good luck.

[mlai]

Damn straight it's a system shock. I've currently switched to SM because it's the underdog race now and Orkz are not anymore. Scouts and Tacs do **** against a CC rush, so it's up to the FC and ASM.

Problem is ASM, unlike Kroots/Raps, need Barracks and Armory. Skulls need Armory too. So SM is stuck with a huge expense requirement to be competitive at minute 1.

Yeah, I can "dance around LP2." One LP2 is not enough without accompanying FOTM that is good!

I went to DOWSanc where Laserflip supposedly showed how SM dancing still works vs CC in replays. I watched the first one of two vs Ork on BR. The rep showed nothing except 3 tac plasma squads dancing a Warboss to death - in other words it showed nothing. The ork was rusty to put it mildly (shooting at a dread with FGz).

Maybe the 2nd rep will actually show what it claims.

[Heartcutter]

1. Attempting to mass shootas is useless, your opponent just moves around until you're forced to spend req on banner(s), then they will outnumber you + stop moving. At this point you best move your arse back to base.

2. Sluggas/shoota combination is useless because the sluggas will force the enemy to move and a moving enemy is an invulnerable enemy.

Shootas are not useless at all. Of the Hammer/Anvil strategy, they are most definitely the Hammer.

Sluggas are useless, save for capping and dying. I thought all Ork players knew this? Also, if the enemy is moving, he's not dealing damage. If your shootas are not moving, they're dealing damage (even if the enemy is moving). So the obvious tactic is to position your shootas so that they're not moving, and make sure your opponent's shooters are moving.


Command buffering in Street Fighter 2 was originally an unintended game bug, but Capcom had the foresight to realize it works as a game mechanic, and it made SF2 the deepest and most popular fighting game of its time. The best one was SFII Hyper Fighting, and you can see my name there when the credits scroll (Supercheap Joe). I'm very proud that I helped balance that game. Honda buttsplash FTW!

[mlai]

Hell I'd be proud too if my name scrolled past the screen of a ****ing Street Fighter II game. It's better than a "Senior Member" tag with blinking neon lights on every forum you go to.

Sluggas are no longer useless. I skipped the last WA patch so it was nice to see them fight SM tacs and win. Fight Kroots and win. Fight Raps and win. Holy ****.

(With attached BM of course. But still. They had trouble vs Cults in WA 1.0 FFS.)

Yes, nowadays dancing involves moving your squads somewhere where they can stand still before firing. This is such a step backwards in terms of gameplay...

[DukeRustfield]

Necrons don't need to scout in tier 1.
Yes that's true. Most players are sympathetic and will tell the Necron player, "hey, don't come up the right side because I have all my troops there and if you try and flee your pitiful movement will leave you dead."

Good point. /sarcasm /sarcasm /sarcasm

Everyone needs scouts.


Yes, nowadays dancing involves moving your squads somewhere where they can stand still before firing. This is such a step backwards in terms of gameplay...
If backwards means fun and realistic, I agree. Running around in circles for 20 years was about as fun as picking the lint out of a fat chick's ass.

[Carl]

@Chris:

First, why's your oponnent running, why isn't he using his own CC units to tie up your slugga's?

Second, I he hasn't got any then he's going to have to keep running until he hits a Turret LP2. Thus why arn't you using his lack of CC units to keep him hemmed in, he can't possibly LP2/Turret all his SP's, barring QS he won't have the recources. So you should now be able to get map control of him suerly. If this isn't the case, why not? I mean you've got a whole army at your disposal, whilst your enemy is terrified to come out from behind his Turrets/LP2's because he's no CC units to keep your Slugga's occupied with. Yet most of his SP's are vulnrable to attack, and if he tries to stop you he'll run into those Slugga's he's so terified of.

In affect, if he's running all the time you can get map control suerly.

The issue here of course is that SM are the only race apart from Necrons without Acess to early and cheap CC units. Necrons get round it by not needing so many points early gamae and the fact that they CAN dance, thier slow move stops them raping retreating forces so badly. SM have issues here and i'm not sure what the anwser is, evryone else though really can afford a mixed CC/Shooty force.

It dosen't help matter that most CC units STILL move faster than most ranged units and have a higher CC DPS than said ranged units ranged DPS. Thats a holdover from when they didn't get many blows in, now they get plenty in there's problems.


If backwards means fun and realistic, I agree. Running around in circles for 20 years was about as fun as picking the lint out of a fat chick's ass.

I have to agree here, CC units are there to get stuck in and rip chunks out of your oponnent, not chase them in circles. The trouble is, CC units DPS and HP values where balanced for when they could be danced and this hasn't changed, which creates a lot of issues TBH.

[Chris]

Running around in circles for 20 years was about as fun as picking the lint out of a fat chick's ass.

I find this ironic because that is exactly what the game is like now unless you're necron. :p

[Carl]

I find this ironic because that is exactly what the game is like now unless you're necron. :p

Since the game hasn't arrived here yet i'll take your word on that:p.

[Kratos]

I pretty much like that, dancing was jus stupid, placing your troops in a good manner is more important!

[[eX]Xerxes]

This change doesn't discourage dancing it just makes it go on for longer.

[Chris]

I pretty much like that, dancing was jus stupid, placing your troops in a good manner is more important!

Yeah man units moving around is gay they should just stand and shoot eachother I like it when they use plasma my favourite colour is blue.

[xhaan]

I was shocked when I found out about the 10% accuracy thing, and I fail to see any good reasoning behind it. A reduction I could understand, but why 10%? 10% accuracy may as well be 0% accuracy.

I could say it isn't realistic but since when is anything realistic in this game? :p

If a squad is running from you and you're chasing them and directing enough firepower their way, something is bound to get hit, but of course in this game we don't have projectiles except for rockets and such, so it's about magic numbers instead of how many bullets are in the air... I never did like that and I like it even less now.

[DukeRustfield]

The trouble is, CC units DPS and HP values where balanced for when they could be danced and this hasn't changed, which creates a lot of issues TBH.
You know, this might be the case and maybe it should be addressed like that.

But really, I don't see any running in circles at all (except for stupid necrons and then it's more glide past them). The troop movements now are attack and retreat and that "feels" more right to me.

[[eX]Xerxes]

This doesn't encourage running around in circles because then mixed forces can actually do damage as they can stop and fire while you dance into them.

It encourages running away completely i.e. select all right click at base gg micro.

[mlai]

Duke, Necrons do not need to scout in tier 1.

At any rate, lack of dancing disrupts the balance DOW/WA has spent years "perfecting." The Relic balance team is not good enough to just change the most fundamental interaction between CC and range and balance it. After 2 expansions, this fact should be obvious. I don't care how many patches.


This change doesn't discourage dancing it just makes it go on for longer.
This is time the dancer does not have. He expends more micro than the CC rusher, at the cost of his econ macro. Also, this allows the CC rusher to reinforce and also gradually send in more squads to help. And if things go wrong, the rusher can run away across the river with a few nicks and scratches.

[[eX]Xerxes]

Not if that rusher is Ork. Banner system ftl (i.e. when I hit the 25/25 wall or the 35/35 wall). FOM Stalling means you just have to run around till you have sufficient forces to take on the Ork.

SM and Chaos can now get a turret and hero without a gen if they want something to dance around... not that it's strictly necessary.

Don't believe me? Have someone of equal skill shoota rush you, and just keep in mind to run away till you have enough troops to fight. You'll win every game unless you're heavily out-microed.

[White_Pointer]

You know, at first, I didn't think this was going to be a huge problem. I figured most people whining about it were just upset they needed to change their strategies.

Then I played a game where I chased the Tau Commander, who was down to about 70 HP when I started, with my BM from one end of blood river to the other. He didn't jump away, he just ran away. I figured I'd keep up the pursuit...70 HP left, surely even with the accuracy penalty it wouldn't take long for the BM to knock him down.

The Tau Commander had 100+ HP by the time the BM had chased him back to his base then my BM was killed by a squad of firewarriors.

That just backs up n0z's earlier point when he mentioned the invincible commisar. When a commander (any commander) can actually gain health faster than they lose it when they are being chased by another commander, something's definitely wrong.


It dosen't help matter that most CC units STILL move faster than most ranged units and have a higher CC DPS than said ranged units ranged DPS.

Apart from upgraded PSM's and fof banshees, all CC units move at the same speed as ranged units, with the exception of necrons, so I don't know where you got that from. You can technically run away from a CC squad all day and they'll never really do any significant damage to you.

White_Pointer

[DukeRustfield]

Duke, Necrons do not need to scout in tier 1.
Why does the slowest race in the game not need scouts? Where if they send troops to the wrong area it can cost them the game?


When a commander (any commander) can actually gain health faster than they lose it when they are being chased by another commander, something's definitely wrong.

I don't know, otherwise, it's pointless to run. And the Tau Commanders/BM/NL/FS who have movement powers are the only commanders who can't get killed. A FC/CL will never be able to get out of combat alive unless they take off when they're at 50% health.

But you could make it no regen while moving.

[White_Pointer]

I don't know, otherwise, it's pointless to run. And the Tau Commanders/BM/NL/FS who have movement powers are the only commanders who can't get killed. A FC/CL will never be able to get out of combat alive unless they take off when they're at 50% health.

If the Tau Commander and a Commisar can run away from another commander and actually gain health in the process, then any commander can do it.

White_Pointer

[CptStrombosis]

If the TC ran away then the Tau player was a noob :) Jump jets ftw.

[SKUSHON]

Well,

It seems like a major modification needs to be made.

Perhaps the designers need to revamp ranged DPS so that it might be a reasonable tactic to allow ranged based units to have greater resilience to close combat. More damage dealing in CC for ranged units?.

Alternatively allow firing on the move. However, prevent firing against units that are in close combat, like in table top. . . so you don't hit your own units.

[Hiroshi_Tea]

if ranged units are tougher against cc, then what's the point of cc anyway?
that idea just removes the wonderful strategic needs for the melee system

[Chris]

If the TC ran away then the Tau player was a noob :)

You'd think with a 'fragile' commander that is supposed to rely on his jump jets, running on foot would punish the tau player. Guess not.

I don't get where this "there's no point running in DoW/WA" business has come from. If that were true every game would end in the first skirmish cuz both forces would just clash and slug it out to the death there and then. There are plenty of things which make running useful, the most obviously is that its impossible for your opponent to properly focus on your units on the move.

[mlai]

Well tonight I had just about enough of losing to Tau as SM in auto. I built turrets, I tried to mass tacs, I tried to tech... it doesn't matter, Kroots stream into my base at minute 1 and you can't do **** with scouts and tacs that early in the game.

So I switched back to Orkz and kicked the next Tau auto player's ass. I wasn't very nice either, which wasn't very mature of me. But I was really mad at Relic, FOTM nerf, and Tau rather than the player.

I'd really like to see a SM beat a Tau kroot user of equal skill in 1v1. It's not a matter of skill, I just don't have the tools to beat kroots during SM tier 1. What's the knowledge I'm missing?

Edit:
And for all the "dancing is stupid I like the nerf" folks... please, do what I did and spend a week autoing with SM. Have fun when you face Tau autos.

[auApex_01]

This change heavily penalises all ranged units and thus greatly increases the effectiveness of CC squads and CC focused factions such as Orks.

A huge problem with this shoot-on-the-move reduction is that dancing CC sqauds on overwatch will very quickly reach their max at which point, more squads come out and before you know it, you hit critical mass and steam roll the non-cc based army. This change heavily favours the army with the most squads. If CC units out-squad ranged units there is pretty much nothing the ranged army can do about it. In the previous patch, if you were outnumbered by CC squads (say, SM v. Ork), with micro. you stood a chance due to the toughness and high damage output of upgraded ranged squads (i.e. Tacs with Plasma). In DC it would seem that if you can keep the squads running from CC they are effectively little more than squads of Servitors that can do nothing but soak up fire. :\

[Deathscythe61]

It hurts CC-oriented armies that HAS ranged attacks, too, though, like Khorne and Orks. It hurts them too.

[auApex_01]

It hurts CC-oriented armies that HAS ranged attacks, too, though, like Khorne and Orks. It hurts them too.
Yes, but not as much as it hurts races like SM and Eldar. That's the point. The CC heavy races have all received a huge buff by this change and the ranged heavy races have received nothing. Unless the ranged are gifted something to compensate, the net effect is that ranged armies are disadvantaged.

[Xanthian]

I personally don't see the difference between 10% accuracy while firing on the move, and a cc squad that keeps trying to get into cc (due to assault stance) refusing to shoot while it repeatedly charges the last two steps and hits nothing but air.

I also don't see how this "problem" comes into the equation against mixed arms forces.

(Yes, space marines can use combined arms, they just get their melee units (ASM, grey knights) later than chaos or orks. You are completely ignoring the fact that tacs are better in melee than cultists or sluggas, also. The firing on the move nerf means that if a space marine player is engaged by a combined arms force without having combined arms him/herself, they can run away from the ranged and melee damage until they can themselves respond.)

Let's say you have n squads vs n+1 squads all engaged in perpetual motion preventing damage from happening, assuming your n+1th squad is melee, it is just as unable to deal damage when everything else is moving as ever. The solution? Run one of your ranged squads into the melee squad, and then have the melee squad AND the ranged squad fight in melee; then you have n+2 squads... and so on. Assuming your n+1th squad is ranged, how hard is it to treat your extra squad as a turret, and simply dance one of their CC squads in circles around it?

The real differences that I see in this change are that assuming I manage to engage a full force in melee, and have the upper hand, that full force will retreat, and I won't take losses while they're retreating. The other big change is that I actually have a chance to retreat my units now also, unless heavy bolters have been dug in close to the fray, and will mow me down before I can get far away enough. These, I would say, are positive changes.

[Carl]

Apart from upgraded PSM's and fof banshees, all CC units move at the same speed as ranged units, with the exception of necrons, so I don't know where you got that from.

ASM, Wraith, Kroot, and Raptors are faster too. Every race out there has a T1.5/2 CC unit that moves faster than 16 ATM.

I agree however that expecting to change somthing thats been so fundemental to DoW and expecting it to remain balanced was dumb. Yes, it's pretty clear from the change that they didn'ty like having CC units chase ranged units all over the place, they obviously want them to get stuck in and kill them, (the addition of so many new CC units with high speed/leap abilities shows this IMHO). However, such a fundemental change requires a LOT of other changes before it balances out.

[Chris]

I personally don't see the difference between 10% accuracy while firing on the move, and a cc squad that keeps trying to get into cc (due to assault stance) refusing to shoot while it repeatedly charges the last two steps and hits nothing but air.


Even if a CC unit isn't killing it is still useful because they FORCE RANGED UNITS TO MOVE;

A moving ranged unit cannot focus fire
A moving ranged unit cannot choose targets manually
A moving ranged unit with setup time cannot fire at all

A CC unit dealing no damage is still strategically useful. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot, a newbie, or a newbie idiot.

A ranged unit dealing no damage is simply a waste of space.

[Carl]

A CC unit dealing no damage is still strategically useful. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot, a newbie, or a newbie idiot.

Okay, this next line is only an educated guess based on comments in one of the VOD's and what they've changed, so try not to take my head off.

The changes and comments lead me to belive that the lead guy, (i've forgoten his name ATM, but he was in a VOD saying he didn't like the way the CC system worked), dosen't want CC to be about making your opponnent move his units, but rather about actually killing the enemy off.

Now I won't disagree that dancing added somthing to the game, but, (IMHO), it was more demanding in terms of APM rate than it was in terms of actual thought required. Thus i'm not too fussed about it going from that point of veiw.

Unfortunatly, what does bother me is that nothing was added back into the game, (effectivly dumming it down), and the balancing looks poorly done even from where i'm sitting, (i.e. without anything but the demo in front of me). That is a problem. ATM CC units are probebly a littile too good and ranged units a littile too weak, plus SM/IG have issues with getting a mixed CC/Ranged force early on. IG can bunker and use cheap turrets. SM can't. That is creating a lot of issues for SM in the early game and IG in the late game. Eldar and Ork's probebly have it best ATM as they have good CC and range from the off, that also lasts till late game.

p.s. please, lets not turn this into a Micro is good/bad argument, we both have our opinions and reasons, lets leave it at that for now.

[SCtenth]

Yeah man units moving around is gay they should just stand and shoot eachother I like it when they use plasma my favourite colour is blue.

Hahahahahahahaha. Go Chris. lawl@people who think DOW should be Stronghold Crusader 40k.

"Strategic unit placement and formations". Well, considering squads group into perfect squares and rectangles, I'd pretty much eliminate the "formation" part and stick with strategic unit placement.

But yeah, that's good and all, and has its places in gameplay. No doubt or argument there by any means. Especially with stationary heavy weapons and such. Unfortunately though, not everyone has legions of knights and spearmen to protect their tac squads when they get bumrushed, much less dirt cheap ones, and have to move their units around to keep from being totally annihilated. Maybe if they had the range of, say, the Ethereal's elite guard FWs, then 10% on the move would be fine. Because currently, a tac's shooting distance is about the same distance he could throw a rock, and as such they're forced to be moving while shooting 90% of the time, whether it be chasing or retreating. Standing still...well...leave that to the Ishmallah armies.

I realize some don't want to turn this into a "micro war discussion". And that others are "casual gamers" who feel like they should be able to defeat a more skilled opponent even if they don't have the 1337 cl1ck skillz of us nerds who pump a lot more hours into the game because we have more time. Although I must say the answer to that is HELL NO. More effort and skill should definitely = more winning. And as far as I'm concerned, "dancing" IS micro, or atleast, a PART of it. If you ain't got enough time to play to get good at the game, hey I'm sorry bud but you're just SOL. Play world of warcraft instead. There is NO excuse for dumbing the game down to teletubby levels just so your average joe can make it to the top 100 and feel like a winnar.

And I thought RTS was all about micro, and of course being able to macro while microing. IG anyone? Maybe I was just a retard all along. Fire on the move was certainly something I valued highly in DOW and was a feature that made it special to me. And I definitely think different units/weapons should have different FOTM values. If my shooty units got rushed I could still win the fight by putting forth extra effort and trying to out-micro the other guy. Though of course, not all maps are 1200 acre Iraqi deserts, and if I didn't dance in the right direction, I'd still get pinned and killed. And there's always something called flanking. It wasn't /autowin, but it sure as hell wasn't /autolose like it is now. And shift-clicking is simply out of the question.

Oh, I also valued reconnaissance as well. Thought that was an integral part in all military strategy. Now I can just run my whole army in, and if I might lose, I can just run back out with no harm done. Unless of course my army is mostly shooty and his is mostly CC. Now if only they'd implement a godmode command so I could be invincible while I attack, too, like Alt+F4. I definitely stand behind the fact that there should be severe consequences for engaging in a battle you can't win. Much less turning your back to the enemy.

If they'd turn morale into more than just a blue bar (hey I like the color blue too!) next to the green one by my troops, the "retreat and you automatically lose your army problem" wouldn't be an issue, and hey, morale would have its place again outside of spamming flayed!


but, (IMHO), it was more demanding in terms of APM rate than it was in terms of actual thought required.

If that was ever even true, I'd counter it with this-how much more "thought requiring" is overwatch + attack move CC units while you tier up?

[DukeRustfield]

If the Tau Commander and a Commisar can run away from another commander and actually gain health in the process, then any commander can do it.
Well Commissars have mega heal. But the point I was making was IF shoot/move penalty was removed, the slowbie commanders can't flee and the Necron Lords and BM's of the world can.


for all the "dancing is stupid I like the nerf" folks... please, do what I did and spend a week autoing with SM. Have fun when you face Tau autos.
Welcome to Necron land, where you get a vespid attack, you have one building that can make your men/builders/commander, and your buildings are made of paper. Kroot pwn the shit out of Necrons. This is why I think there are more issues with some CC units as opposed to the whole game mechanic.

I mean it was called "dancing," for fuck's sake. Since when is John Travolta the model for efficient combat :p

[Carl]

Although I must say the answer to that is HELL NO. More effort and skill should definitely = more winning.

The problem for me is that i don't consider being able to click fast and accuratly a skill in RTS's. I would in an FPS becuase fast acurate weapons fire is what FPS's are all about, and the mouse is currently the best input method for this.

In RTS what should matter is out-thinking your oponnent. Fast clicking should just means you can implemet your orders faster, not that you can implement them at all. T

hats why i tend to complain about click-rates being so high, it's got to the point where you need such a high click rate to play an RTS that your ability to out-think your oponnent no longer matters. Even if you can outhink him, if you don't have a better APM rate you'll never be able to make use of that better thinking ability.

On the issues of retreats. I agree it's daft that you can't shoot down retreating forces, and it messes up reconicance. However, ATM the issue is that eventually you will have a big fight where evrything slugs it out. In this situation, with the high game pace, a single mistake will probebly lose you your army. As a result it's probably game over at this point as you'll never replace your losses soon enough, (unless it's a really recource intensive match and you can affod lots of barracks). This mehchanic now means one mistake won't cost you the game. The better anwser would have been to allow CC on the move and to buff defences so that if the battle between amies is a close fought afair that decimates both sides, the remanants of the surviving army won't be able to just roll over your base.

You'd actually have to win the battle on the feilds by a significant amount (and thuis have a big chunk of army left) before you could get through those defences, and even then they could delay you enough for a good player to stage a comeback.

The FOM penalty change is a quick fix to eliminate dancing and reduce the incedance of 1 mistake losses you the game. However, like most quick fixes, it's brought more issues than it's solved. Not least of which is that despite my dislike of dancing, it takes somthing away from the game without giving anything back. It's also true that dealing with insane morale values would have helped the retreat problem a lot too, (only just spotted that line BTW).


If that was ever even true, I'd counter it with this-how much more "thought requiring" is overwatch + attack move CC units while you tier up?

Well first dancing does not, (for me anyway), require any real thought, so long as you follow 3 basic rules it's normally just a test of fast accurrate clicking.

the Rules are:

1.) If anything is atempting to CC the unit, it should be moving.

2.) If a unit is not being chased, it should be stood still, and it should be firing on a unit that is chasing another unit.

3.) Any units that are moving should be moved in such a way as to make them shoot at a unit that is chasing another unit, (they can only raerly shoot units that are chasing them), a circle is the easiest in theory. But the actual terrain will determine how this is done.

The only time dancing ever requires me to engage my brain is when i'm doing it in terrain thats bad for dancing, (mixed cover and/or tight spaces), other than that, if i can keep up with the required click rate, (which i can if i set the speed to slow:p), it dosen't actually require much thought.

Frankly, IMHO, the level of brainpower needed for dancing is what i'd expect from a rank novice RTS player.

On the other hand, ATM dancing is probebly one of the more thought intensive aspects of DoW. thus before they removed it they needed to re-do the entire game from top to bottom.

Now i could go on but i'm trying not to take this thread of track by turning it into a Micro vs. X discussion, (what X is varies from person to person, it's typicly grouped under the headings of Strategy and Tactics, but they're fairly broad things, subject to interpretation). Thus i've given my opinions on why i dislike the idea that fast clicking is a skill. I've also given my reasons for thinking Dancing dosen't require much thought. Lets leave it at that shall we, we all have our opinions on Micro, and where all probably to entrenched, (myself included), in our postions to be moved.

So lets avoid pointless bickering and the thread wondering off topic shall we?

We are discussing weather the nerf was too big, and, IMHO, without other changes as well, it was too big.

[4Servant]

fom back to normal percentage and play test it a bit with no skilled for live can't play rts for shit and think im good necron race, mb give them a buff or something.
Oh and if ur using a fully cc army learn to damm micro cc units so you make them do damage against ranged untis who dancing instead of right click on them and start whining that they don't do any damage boohooo.

[psychodil]

They have probably just noticed that races that dominate the ladder are because of their strong/imbalanced ranged units. Even orks in 1.2 were imba not because of their CC units, but because of their ranged units.

When fleeing plasma squads do more damage than attacking jump troops, there is something wrong IMO, although bad pathing was mainly to blame for this.

I think the change had the right idea to try and balance the CC/ranged dynamic a bit more (specifically for tier 1), but they have gone far too far with it. 10% (if it has been confirmed) is far too low.

[Carl]

no skilled for live can't play rts for shit and think im good necron race, mb give them a buff or something.

Could you translate that please, I suspect it was aimed at my post, but I can't make sense of it.

@psychodil:Thats what i've been saying too, they didn't like the way units could negate CC damage by running away, so they tried to fix it, but went too far and created the opposite situation (OP CC).

[tygereye]

The problem I see with this change is that it not only nerfed dancing (which get nerfed too much IMO) but also :

1- Your ability to hurt anything that is running from you. This is the MAJOR issue I think. So whenever you think that your oponenent will win the fight start running and he won't hurt you anymore. This can lead to endless running from one base to another : quite boring IMO.

2- That makes early harass too good. The main risk with early harass is that you can loose an entire squad if it failes. Now as soon as you can keep enemy squad(s) running after yours you won't loose it. This definitly is the second major problem.

These are the 2 main problems I can think for now but there are surely more. I strongly agree that the best solution would have been to allow hitting on the move for CC units (which would mean that dmgs would be made at the begining of the CC animation and not at the end) then if dancing was still too effective nerf A BIT the accuracy. Now if Relic can't make CC on the move we can think of a bit more important nerf on accuracy on the move but 10% surely is too much of a nerf.

Finally I think that the nerf to 10% for everything was made in hurry with a blinded eye. FDs withg their short range at 10% accuracy on the move??

[Carl]

Actually FD's have 0% accurracy on the move.

[4Servant]

Could you translate that please, I suspect it was aimed at my post, but I can't make sense of it.
aka nercon players when fom is back to normal they might need an buff.

[Carl]

Ahh, thanks, sorry, now I know that it makes a lot more sense, but I just couldn't make sense of it at first.

Thanks.

[Shujaa]

This is all well and good.

But why does this penalty affect vehicles too? They can't get stuck in CC if they don't want to anyway, so that reasoning doesn't make sense for things like Hellhounds to be magically missing their stream of fire unless they stand still.

What's the point of getting the autocannon upgrade on a Dreadnaught if it's going to do almost NO damage while it closes the distance for CC? It used to be able to do some hurt on a retreating target, but now it's pointless.

[Tadatsune]

What's the point of getting the autocannon upgrade on a Dreadnaught if it's going to do almost NO damage while it closes the distance for CC? It used to be able to do some hurt on a retreating target, but now it's pointless.

Aaaarrrg! Infuriating! Is not the only thing, either. How about CC units' pistols? Or the other walker guns? All useless now, unless you set them on range stance, which is advisable only in certain and very specific circumstances.

10% across the board is proof in itself that these decisions were made with haste and without much thought as to consequences. Vehicle FotM penalties are just baffling.

[psychodil]

Vehicles shouldnt suffer this penalty.

[Carl]

Agree about vehicles, they didn't need such a big nerf, Walkers in paticular.

[Thelron]

While vehicles/walkers didn't need to get smacked down with the rest of the troops,


All useless now, unless you set them on range stance, which is advisable only in certain and very specific circumstances.

Would it not be advisable to set them on range/stand stance to blast the enemy troops that are running away? Sure, the CC guys with pistols won't do much, but most of them are jump troops that can hop in front of the retreating units and hold them in range of the rest of your army longer. No, you can't chase down and eradicate every last man that tries to run away from you, but you can certainly finish off a squad or two with your whole frickin' army firing.

Ok, ranged units can't kill CC units while they run, so CC units can chase ranged units off. This isn't entirely unintuitive. CC units can't kill the ranged units their chasing because of bad accuracy. Have you tried to shoot at anything while running (over open ground, no less)? These guys aren't "moving around" taking quick shots every so often. That isn't modeled in the game (the way it is for FPSs when you get different accuracies for moving/hustling/crouch-walking etc.), they have "moving" and "not moving." It works pretty well, because pretty much any situation in DoW where there's "moving" and "shooting" at the same time, the moving is being done as quickly as possible. A nice slow march is a nice micro-intensive series of short move orders with a pause to fire in between (see? if you like micro, instaed of dancing just give yourself the necron "full move accuracy" ability by, err, moving about as fast as a necron). "Dancing" was two groups of people running pretty much as hard as they could because group A wanted to kill group B with lots of sharp and/or blunt objects (rust optional) and group B doesn't exactly find that to be a very good idea. NEITHER group is going to be able to shoot with any real accuracy.

So, now your ranged units can't CC the CC units so you have to actually run, not just drag them around, and your CC units will likely only chase off the enemy ranged units. If you're the ranged player and you have to run, find something to run to that'll even up the odds, turn around, and shoot 'em up as best you can before you have to come to blows. If you're the CC player... They ran away. The position you wanted to take is yours. Quit gaping at the enemy's backsides, move your support up, get whatever you wanted to put there in place, and move on. This is only *really* a problem for "pure" armies anyway, because a mixed force will throw the CC units at each other, shoot the melee up, and whoever has CC troops left goes for the ranged guys while their shooters move up to help. If they start to run away and are faster than you need to be to keep them locked, stop and add whatever firepower you DO have to try to kill a squad off. Re-form, and start moving again.

The only real problem is with early-game antics if you *can't* get a mixed force very well *and also* aren't resiliant enough (or expendible enough) to tie up a CC raid with some units while the rest of whatever you have kills them off. Of course, you can drag the CC units around as long as you have even one extra unit, so its only really armies with slow starts involving limited troop versatility that are stuck. In other words, Necrons (though their ability to prep for a rush really varies on who you ask), and to a lesser extent Marines (what with scouts not really being the best "tie 'em up" unit and tac marines not being all that stellar out of the box themselves, but again if you account for a rush it should be able to hold out).

Does it require a fundimental change in how things work? Yep! CC units arent about reducing other units' ranged firepower to their ranged firepower level while you chase them around, and fighting CC units isn't about limiting how badly your firepower is reduced while being chased around. CC is now about forcing people off of positions, and fighting CC is now about knowing when to stand, when to fall back, when to keep different units around, and when to blast away because your opponent didn't send enough to do the job.

Is this a bad change? If you want the game to be about a clickfest, maybe, though as I said you can just click elsewhere for different effects (sure, GMs aren't NWs, but then again grenades fly a lot further than a gauss flayer will fire. Firewarriors creeping forward will out-shoot any force of warriors moving at a similar speed because of their huge range. If you have to run your heavy bolter tac squads back to base because some sluggas managed to overwhelm their fire? Run 'em back. Right through a flamer squad, or assault marines, or a dreadnaught. Then hose 'em down.

Yes, having the wrong force makeup can royally screw you whereas it was micro-able away to a decent extent before. So, play a more planned out game. If you're caught without anything to screen you from CC troops as a shooty army, let the map screen you until you can get skirmish troops trained up. If you're a CC army stuck on the other side of a chokepoint from all manner of shooty death, make sure *they* can't get out of the chokepoint, either, while you either bring up some shooters, or find a way around and go pound their base instead of their troops.

Every army HAS squads that can be used in CC, and every army HAS squads that can shoot, figure out a good combination for your playstyle and opponent, keep tabs on their base, and don't expect "jiggle your units around a bit" to be the end-all be-all answer to dealing with CC.

That said, do CC units need some careful scrutiny? Definately. Carl's right, current CC numbers are based on CC attacks that didn't happen until everyone was up to having those same CC numbers, so units that should be able to tie up the enemy for a good long while (tac marines) get shredded, and units that are meant to be light CC/tie-down troops (kroot) kick the crap out of things. A GM unit can still last long enough against most CC to tie up a chokepoint for the other billion GMs and vehicles to shoot the hell out of whatever makes the mistake of being spawned that day well enough given the proper support (priest, nearby sacrificial squad for the commissar), so "all is not lost," so entirely pooh-pooing a system that's different because you can't use things the same way as you used to and CC seems favored over ranged at the moment (but mainly if you're relying on ranged fire only or are up against some of the more noticably imbalanced CC units with generalists) is a bit short sighted I think.

[mlai]

OK Thelron. Done with your theorycraft manifesto? Let me drag out a real example.

Go to DOWsanc and view Laserflip SM vs Xerxes Ork replay on BR. The BR game #2. At the end, 3 Stormboy squads are chasing 3 SM squads around in the SM base. Laserflip only has one outlying LP2, so his entire stationary shooting was 1 FC and 2 Scout squads. He had a HQ and a Barracks at this point, and his Serv just began making an Armory (I'd assume to get some plasma).

Laser, trying to prove his point that SM is not dead vs Orkz just because of FOTM nerf: "Wow, this is so hard... yawn. So I walk around, and you can't hit me. I lose 2 or 3. I tech to tier 2, you die."

At this point Xerxes drops, because I assume he got intimidated by Laser and decided Laser was right.

Sorry but I disagree. AFAIC it was anybody's game. Laser had no real advantage over dealing damage at that point. 1 FC + 2 Scout squads shooting isn't going to kill 3 NLed Storm squads anytime soon. Marines will drop dead periodically due to bad pathing, no matter how quick your micro is. If this was DOW/WA, Laser would've been right. This is DC, just came out 2 weeks ago, and there is no way Xerxes could have predicted Laser is right from "experience."

Orkz was not poor econ wise. If Laser wanted to stay in the game, either he had to build turrets, or make his LP1s into LP2s, or make more tacs while reinforcing his current squads who are slowly dying off. Xerxes could have matched that, except without the constant distraction of having to juggle 3 dancing squads. AFAIC this is DC, and Xerxes was winning. He could have easily added more ork squads into the mix. With more crowding -> more pathing problems -> SM will drop dead even faster even if they do keep up with matching orkz squad for squad. Xerxes also has a BM.

So let's say my assessment is correct, that Laser is in fact the one who might lose. What's my point?

My point is, in a high level DC game, SM in this situation loses. Even with a clear advantage of having 1 LP2 + present commander + more squads + home base reinforcements. Because they don't have the TOOLS to kill the chasing CC squads fast enough before ork reinforcements arrive and turn into an undanceable base-crushing wave. Even with Laser's level of micro, SM didn't the tools. Meaning, skill doesn't make a difference.

And yes, I think micro is skill. REAL TIME strategy. If your fingers can't hack it, go play Heroes of Might & Magic 5. It's really fun, I loved it.

[[eX]Xerxes]

It was Pureball not Lazer, and I don't agree with your assement of the game, but it's not really relevant to the topic at hand imo.

[mlai]

Ah it was Pureball, got names mixed up.

So you're saying after 2 weeks of playing DC, you could tell, at that point, that you've lost? The man just started building his armory. If my memory serves, your BM was still alive, and your econ was fine. How did you lose (besides quitting)?

My next to last paragraph explains why it's relevant. The entire game was played to supposedly show why it's relevant.

Chew me out if you believe you have the facts.

[Heartcutter]

So stormies with Nobs against a guy with no armory? I mean WTF?

The Ork had 3x Banners, POG, and build Nobs on them and the Marine was still building his Armory?

If that's the case, I think the SM should have lost.

[mlai]

Right, because skill shouldn't matter. You should right-click and autowin because you have higher tech troops.

You should be able to spam CC troops only, jump into his base, and pwn. Because needing mixed troops is too much dumb micro.

Anyways, watch the rep for yourself and go from there. I only watched the rep once maybe I missed something. I can't get to my computer again until Sunday, tho.

[Oishii]

The 10% nerf was too large. Gives range units a huge disadvantage. Also there is no penalty for making a mistake wandering into an enemy base. I mean really if they are aiming so that they don't want any micro in the game and its all about the units you build, i suggest just giving you 2 buttons during the whole game. Tech and Build Unit, your units automatically run blindly into the enemy base when you build them.

[Thelron]

Even with a clear advantage of having 1 LP2 + present commander + more squads + home base reinforcements. Because they don't have the TOOLS to kill the chasing CC squads fast enough before ork reinforcements arrive and turn into an undanceable base-crushing wave. Even with Laser's level of micro, SM didn't the tools. Meaning, skill doesn't make a difference.

Ok, pureball makes some lousy decisions and the fact that he can keep his units running around can't save him. This proves that the skill of clicking paths for his marines didn't appear to save him. Sure, I'll agree the "dancing" wasn't going to work. That's sort of the whole point of the ranged nerf, wasn't it? I'll even agree that the scouts weren't going to save him. Can I have a cookie?

I don't, however, think the game should have ended in anything other than a complete drubbing for Xerxes (especially if pureball knew what was coming??? At least, that's what I gather from the commentary in the replay thread) except for the fact that the victory was being handed to him on a silver plattar.

Early game running around he decided to throw away resources replacing scouts he didn't need to lose if he had such super micro skills. A couple of the CP exchanges should have seen him bugging the scouts out until he could bring another group over. If he can stand and shoot at the sluggas when they go to cap, all the better. Don't let them sit there getting pounded and doing 0 return damage when you *still* won't get anything out of the point, start shooting him up right away. There *was* another squad nearby so now his slugga squad is either bashing scouts that are fighting back, and getting shot up, or is getting shot up by 2 squads while capping.

The group the mek was able to knock off near the relic was just silly, at least one should have managed to run and once the mek was there they were useless at their position. They'd have been handy later on though.

when the stormboyz first showed up, there were two marine squads, the FC, and 2 scout squads in the general area (should have been 3. oh well). There were more tac marines than stormboyz, and while the mek puts out better DPS the FC would have been chucking him around a good bit, or could have just ploughed into the stormboyz.

Local numerical superiority, pretty sure tacs have more hp than stormboyz, they have better CC dps ratings (on the panel at least, but its by a decent margin even if its somehow not full strength vs. infantry), he had scouts nearby he could have either shot into combat with, or sent into combat and pulled a tac squad back a couple times until the jumps were used up, and both had a commander unit there. What possible reason does he have to retreat, other than "I feel like having a couple guys chopped up on the way back to base?"

So, he goes home. Ok, he's got an LP upgrading, still has some scouts around, and still has his FC. Oh, wait. The FC is off in la-la land for a good bit of the dancing time. But, he finally comes back, and kills the mek. Marine vs. Stormboyz numbers are still pretty close once you add the scout fire in, and he has a guy with a big frickin' hammer standing around shooting with a bolter. Stop the tac squads, have the commander dive into one group of stormboyz, once they're reduced that tac squad goes and helps shoot up the next group, etc. The tacs aren't going to die THAT fast, and he can always just stop *one* group if he wants.

What's with constantly making the covering LP change targets? Park one of the tac squads the FC isn't working on there and bring the scouts over. Now you have to tac squads in overwatch and are in control of one, plenty of time to keep going elsewhere and he wasn't irrevocably out of map control, though he didn't do a great job of making sure he could take an LP out if he had to.

By the end both had actually pulled in the same amount of req, and pure was ahead in spending pretty much because of the never-finished armory at 6:45. If you've waited that long, just drop the damn turret you should have dropped when you decided to drag a bunch of orks through your base in the first place, or get the armory *before* almost 7 minutes have gone by so your scouts that are standing around can hose down the SBs with flamers, and possibly even have an HB standing around. Or a damn turret.

Sorry, but all the replay shows me is someone outplaying themselves because they have an idea that turns out doesn't work the way they thought it worked and let themselves waste a bunch of clicks. If Xerxes wanted to actually cause problems, he'd have stopped off to wax the servitors every so often to slow the armory down, and would have done a bit better job to preserve the sluggas (who could go tear things up while the SBs play tag with the marines).

So, no convincing from that, sorry. A bunch of CC troops went in and were badly handled by badly equipped marines (hut, 3 banners, and a PoG, vs. a barracks, generator and 1 LP upgrade. Weak sauce). If pureball had actually committed to a fight and been trounced (not beat out, they ARE tier2 units against un-upgraded tier1 units. No, that shouldn't automatically = win but does mean the guy with the T1 units has to play it smart, not just run in circles. Oh, wait) then you'd have something to show for "this makes CC units OP and range units are DOOOOOMED!" Here... he was in the process of throwing the game (I agree that the "green tide" SHOULD have showed up in time the way he was handling things), knowingly or not. Put an earlier armory up, slap flamers on those scouts, and suddenly you have some nice broken stormboyz for the marines to slice up. You can get sargeants, too, which means if you have to fight with one less tac squad for a little, it doesn't hurt nearly as much especially with broken enemies. You can drop a heavy bolter turret near where you want to draw the enemy (why THROUGH your base? That's just asking to have the generator munched) so between tac melee damage, LP damage, turret damage, scouts damage, and FC damage, you *will* kill off the SBs. You can make your first squad after the armory comes up an assault squad, so you have a CC unit to throw at his CC units, between that and the scouts one of the tac squads should have been freed and they do a lot more firing damage than scouts, especially if you put the FC into their fight. LOTS of ways for the marine to largely knock the SBs aside and roll things back, but he did the old standby that doesn't work so well anymore and paid for it.

No sarge/HBs, forgot they're linked to monastary. Still, they'd hardly be required given something to let you stand up to the SB's and force them out (like a flamer. One piddly flamer and the whole rush is at risk of going up in smoke when the SBs break).

[gradea]

Urg, bad memories of two squads chasing a single Mad Doc across the length of an entire 8 player map (The name escapes me at the moment), and not inflicting a single point of damage on it. I guess the Imperium takes anyone these days...

I never had a problem with the earlier set up, now I've seen almost obscene numbers of misses, I'm not sure if the fact I play primarily IG and SM factors into it.

The rules say you should post a problem, proof and a suggestion. Problem is moving units can't hit squat, this makes certain tactics unbelivable successful, leading to mono-tactic games. I claim as proof numerious examples I have seen today alone, which unfortunitly I don't have recordings of to show here (Not exactly concrete evidence but I hope even my word as a forum newbie has some weight). And I have a simple suggestion. Undo the change you just made.

[mlai]

@ Thelron:

I can't re-watch the rep ATM so I'll assume your analysis is correct. Sounds correct from my memory. However, the conclusion you reached was "played differently, even at that late point, SM can beat back the SB invasion using something other than old dancing."

The conclusion I reached was "Old dancing, which involves lots of micro and quick thinking (it's not always a flat plain for you to run around in circles in), is dead, and player is forced to try other things. Often, though, other things are not available."

I don't see dancing as any less of a viable alternative. But the game designer felt it was bad and so made it a dead alternative. But now ranged troops have one less tactic in many situations. If dancing always had a better alternative (such as what you described), it wouldn't be so prevalent. The fact is that dancing is often the best chance the player had, if he had the reaction speed. Now that's gone.

Not to mention the ridiculous risk-free harassment following the FOTM nerf. That's an even bigger problem because it doesn't affect just "pros" who can dance.

[Thelron]

Ranged troops have one less tactic, true, but the idea was to promote using more than just ranged troops running in circles as the basis of your army. Dancing's prevalence was less a matter of other options and more a matter of people leaning far too heavily on single troop types that weren't meant to be relied on to that extent. The 10% accuracy is an attempt to force running battles to be a matter of leapfrogging rather than literally just running, and to give incentive for people to stand against CC units (since they can now chase you all over creation if you let them).

As for "risk-free harassment," to achieve anything other than actual harassment (chase units around a bit, maybe kill one or two guys, leave) you have to stop and beat on something for a while. That means you can get smacked yourself (whatever you're killing, it usually takes long enough to kill that an equivalent unit can kill your target's cost of your troops. Vespids' shred means they can knock some things over quick but it can be held off, and if the other armies get their meltabombs or equivalent for jump troops you should have enough advancement of your own in place to make them pay for that, too.

Do build orders need to change? Probably. Will some of the CC units have to have their DPS (especially vs. buildings I expect) looked at? Definately, but that's already become apparent with the new mega-knockdown values on some units. Does it guarantee free rein to CC units to run around wherever they want? No, not if the other player wants to stop them. Being able to retreat from a raid or battle (hard to kill troops who want to leave) isn't a bad thing, and means players have to think about stopping raids, or deciding to chase a fleeing force all the way back to its base or kill off as many as possible before they're out of range to avoid getting sucked into a trap.

[mlai]

@ Thelron:
That is pure theorycraft. But I'll give another example.

In WA retail version. I had a dread and 1 squad of plasma marines encountering 2 zerk squads. At retail, zerks are good anti-all. So 1 zerk squad fought the dread while 1 squad chased my plasmarines. I ran circles around the dread, using it as a disruptive meatshield/damage output while making sure my marines fired into the zerks at a 90 angle at all times. It wasn't easy; I basically had to play hide n' seek vs 2 zerk squads around a tree. But in the end I danced the bastards to death.

In DC, it means I'd have to retreat my plasmarines back to base because it'll do the damage of 1-2 marines OTM (in other words, nothing). And my dread will be abandoned to its fate. One zerk squad will chase my marines all the way back to base, knowing full well that when it turns around to join its buddies in trashing my dread, my chasing fire will maybe tickle it.

This is what happens to a mixed force (shooty, CC) vs a CC-only force (CC, CC).

[Deaths Abyss]

The 10% is just overkill, make it 25-30% and ill be happy.

[GRIM Ripper]

even though overall i like the change, i would say more like 15% for normal troops, with a select few units/weapons having good fire on the move acc (plasma, big shootas, flamers, warp spiders, upgraded stealth suits, kasrkin, etc). the average on the move acc in WA was somewhere around 30-35% i believe.

btw, any flamer weapon does full damage on the move if im not mistaken... ie SM flamers are still doing 20dps while chasing. raptors can do around 12dps i think, and burnas can do around 6-7. upgraded stealth suits should be doing around 6-8 dps also i think. at least there are SOME options still for fire on the move, even if you dont want to use them.

and i would still like to totally disagree that cc only is the best route now. the biggest problem with all cc is that they are horrible at assaulting bases once you throw lp2s or turrets in the mix especially. if they are outsquadded (easy to do more often then not) then they are screwed. watch small big shoota squads, or plasma scouts pwn berzerkers or nobz as long as youve got the micro to keep them out of melee for ex. then throw in abilities like chains of torment, entangle, frag grenades, ensnare, etc and pure cc gets owned even harder.

[forinax]

the average on the move acc in WA was somewhere around 30-35% i believe.

0.5 ~ 0.6 for most units.


and i would still like to totally disagree that cc only is the best route now. the biggest problem with all cc is that they are horrible at assaulting bases once you throw lp2s or turrets in the mix especially. if they are outsquadded (easy to do more often then not) then they are screwed. watch small big shoota squads, or plasma scouts pwn berzerkers or nobz as long as youve got the micro to keep them out of melee for ex. then throw in abilities like chains of torment, entangle, frag grenades, ensnare, etc and pure cc gets owned even harder.

Well those are valid points, but as we know games begin at t1, when only sucky equipment is available. Teching to higher levels is difficult in a 1v1, as you need to maintain a strong army and build your economy in the meantime. In this t1, where ranged sux balls, melee troops can perform good... if not too good.

[Alien_Invader]

It seems that the 10% penality (althougt rather unspectacular) is becoming a big issue in DC. Speaking as one who hasn`t got his copy of DC Crusade yet, I still can forsee the problem that comes with it.

Whats the point of plasma weapons now? As someone pointed out before in this thread, plasma weapons are assault weapons, meant for rushing into enemy lines and chasing down fleeing units. I always prefered plasma over heavy bolters (which actually do a better job at killing things) back in DoW and WA, because the element of suprise and the abilty to run and shoot could turn the outcome of a battle. As firefights now become stationary, why just not using the stronger heavy bolters (unless they changed damage values, I dunno)?

[CheeseThief]

I think it would be best to work up in two 10% incriments with the fire on the move.

First of all a flat increase from 10% accuracy while moving to 20% for those which have been limited to 10%.

Secondly a further 10% bonus, bringing it up to 30% for the following item.
All Guard Infantry and Vehicles
- They don't have plentiful melee squads like Slugga Boyz, Cultists/Raptors, Assault Marines, Banshees, Kroot or Flayed Ones. They are forced to dance and so should get a bonus to make them a touch more friendly.
Fast Vehicles
- Give them a bit of micro with a drive by type thing. The Russ Sponsons could probably be brought up to 30% as well.
Super Units
- They need to be super'er. I can't see a pot holl messing up to much in a Land Raider or Baneblade, same with the Monolith.
Plasma Gun Upgrades
- Is supposed to be the assault weapon while heavy bolters sit back and shoot things.
Eldar Guardians
- Make them more useful outside of detection. Rangers hurt moral, banshees are melee, Reapers are ranged attack, Guardians would help to be defined a bit more and perhaps a bit more useful.
Commanders
- Dunno, just feel they should get a 30% fire on the move accuracy.

Thoughts?

[mlai]

Secondly a further 10% bonus, bringing it up to 30% for the following item.
All Guard Infantry and Vehicles
Um, heheh, how about "NO"?

(1) Undo all FOTM nerfs of DC.

(2) Multiply all of DOW/WA's FOTM accuracy reduction modifiers by 1.20. This is a small FOTM nerf. For example:

DOW unit X: (Stationary acc 0.80) x (FOTM acc modifier 0.30) = FOTM acc 0.56, or 56%

DC unit X: (Stationary acc 0.80) x (FOTM acc modifier 0.30 [x 1.20]) = FOTM acc 0.512, or 51.2%

Small nerfs are what's needed to balance out a fundamental design paradigm shift. Not Relic's heavy-handed pan-nerfs. And not an excuse to make it everyone's personal sandbox for their fav race.

[Tadatsune]

Ha ha!

When some of the anti-fotm crowd suggested I switch my CC units to stationary ranged inorder to hit enemies running away from them I though: "Thats dumb, you want my melee units - which are now supposed to be more powerful - to stop chasing fleeing enemies to use their wussy ranged attacks?"

But after fooling around with it, I have actually found it to be somewhat fun and effective. It is definately not "less micro" than before, but I am finding for one of the first time in DoW that I actually have to think about what stance my troops should be on.

Thats not saying the 10% across the board nerf was a good idea (esp. for vehicles), but it definately lends support to the idea that a stronger FotM penalty opens strategic possibilities... (happy medium!)

[Cabbage]

Mlai speaks a great deal, but has little concrete evidence to back up his arguments.
All I hear is someone being upset because dancing doesn't work anymore.

As you said, this is an RTS. Sure, there is Real-Time in it, but what happened to Strategy? Is having a squad run around foes strategic? What thought is involved in dancing?
Close to nothing.

In any case, I fail to see how is it imbalanced (except in regards to Necrons maybe...), since all races suffer from this and all races have some means to stop assaults anyway, be it cannon fodder squads or resilient troops.

Finally, have you ever considered that Relic know what they are doing? The fire on the move penalty was implemented to refine gameplay. Granted, 10% is a bit too low, because chasing a fleeing force and doing no damage is not fun, but the change does seems reasonable.

[4Servant]

what though is involved in right clicking a melee sqaud on a ranged sqaud??

[Cabbage]

Heh.



Well, the thought of building that squad in the first place to counter that ranged squad. Telling your CC squad to attack is a consequence of building that CC squad. The right unit choice and planning your attacks should be the factor for winning, not ridiculous hide and seek moves. With good dancing you could win an engagement even if you made big strategical mistakes.

I am not against microing in general, but only when it has nothing to do with tactics.



You should have some reflexes to play this game, but it should not be what determines the outcome.

[Alien_Invader]

You should have some reflexes to play this game, but it should not be what determines the outcome.

Then I doubt DoW is the right game for you. The lightning fast combat is what makes DoW so addictive and special for a RTS game. In order to defend your base from your opponents attack force, keep you income streaming and increase you tech level, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, you have to be damn fast. Any single mistake may cause you to lose. And if I can archieve any advantage over my enemy by dancing his units, I would be better off to master this technique.

[4Servant]

dow aint that damm fast tbh multitasking is some times important the army vs army fights are quite slow tbh lots of time to get advantage and mistakes can be made good fairly easy. But I agree dow is quite fast compared to aom/aoe/bfme/ron but not as fast compared to blizzard's games build an conquer forumula.

[mlai]

Mlai speaks a great deal, but has little concrete evidence to back up his arguments.
Exactly what type of evidence are you looking for?
It's already established that everyone except Necrons/Tau deals any damage to fleeing enemies. Necrons because they have no penalty. Tau because they have uber range.
FOTM nerf ala Relic doesn't just kill dancing, it also kills all FOTM, including vehicles and assault-oriented weapons.
Remaking FOTM requires a fine comb not a sledgehammer. It's obvious both you and Relic have no concept of this.

[Cabbage]

I was criticising the mindlessness of dancing, not the difficulty of performing it.


Then I doubt DoW is the right game for you.
How is this relevent to the issue? :P

We can assume the guys at Relic decided that dancing was not good, maybe to make it more friendly to the masses. It is a change to gameplay. Therefore, unless it is truely unbalancing, what reason is there to restore the old penalty?

Anyway, it may be a bit early to judge clearly on this matter. A big part of the world still hasn't DC.

Mlai:
Have you read the rest of my post? Because I did state that 10% is too much. ^^

[GRIM Ripper]

i thought standard ranged acc (for most weapons anyway) was around .65 to start off, with about a 50% penalty on the move? thats like 30% acc on the move in WA... not 50 or 60.

i still think the best solution is a happy medium. buff fire on the move for vehicles and certain other assault weapons such as plasma and big shootas, but leave the low acc on the move for standard weapons. maybe a SLIGHT buff is in order, but only like up to 15% or so would be my suggestion.

[forinax]

I think we could use a hotfix for the FOTM, nothing more, so we can check out what would the current DC be like if the value was increased/restored.

[tygereye]

still think the best solution is a happy medium. buff fire on the move for vehicles and certain other assault weapons such as plasma and big shootas, but leave the low acc on the move for standard weapons. maybe a SLIGHT buff is in order, but only like up to 15% or so would be my suggestion.

Add horrors and FDs to your list, don't forget AV squads that have drowbacks from FOTM (unable to reinforce and low range) but can't FOTM anymore. About vehicules I am not sure if they should have any nerf at all for FOTM from WA.

[auApex_01]

There are some head-ache inducing, circular logic posts in this thread that really struggle to actually get to a point in about a million words. :| Hopefully this isn't one of them!

Anyway, one brief observation - this change doesn't necessarily kill off dancing completely, particularly when there are several squads involved. In WA dancing was effective in two ways:

1 -It allowed ranged squads who were being engaged in CC to run around and avoid CC while shooting on the move and doing good damage.

2 - When there was more than one squad being engaged in CC, it allowed ranged squads to move around until at least one was able to stand still and focus fire.

In DC, dancing point 1 is obviously now not a very effective tactic. However, dancing point 2 can still be used to good effect.

If three Slugga squads are chasing about three Tac squads there is nothing to stop either of the Tac squads from periodically standing still and dealing out their standard damage level.

[auApex_01]

Finally, have you ever considered that Relic know what they are doing? The fire on the move penalty was implemented to refine gameplay. Granted, 10% is a bit too low, because chasing a fleeing force and doing no damage is not fun, but the change does seems reasonable.
Unfortunately Relic have demonstrated time and time again that they are unable to balance the game.

Things steadily improved up to the final WA patch but the sweeping changes of DC and two new races have almost certainly put the game several steps back (I say 'almost' because it is still too early to tell).

As others have said, as an SM player I'm at a loss as to how to interpret the FOTM nerf. I can see almost no point in giving Tacs plasma when they will only do damage standing still. Surely this makes plasma almost completely redundant in comparison to heavy bolters?

p.s. For the love of god, it's "Morale" not "Moral". A moral refers to a disctinction between right and wrong, ethics etc. It has nothing to do with the willingness of soldiers to fight!

[Tadatsune]

plasma has no set up time

[grendizer]

FOTM penalty is the best thing ever. Don't touch it.

[CheeseThief]

You really do need something to define the difference between fire on the move and setup time, because presently its one and the same since fire on the move is worthless.

I like the steep penalty because it makes the game more thinking based and less clicky. Dancing still exists but isn't the own all strategy any more. 10% increase to bring the lowest rating up to 20% accuracy and an extra bit to 'define' units and cover weaknesses. Still keeps it low and stops useless idiots running around a listening post with two squads as their sole T1 strategy but it keeps it in the game as a useful feature and not some cosmetic upgrade, which is basically what it is now.

I disagree with Mlai's plan of keeping the high levels of 50-60% from Winter Assault because I don't like losing my entire army when I lose a simple skirmish and then have to run all the way back to my base losing troops all the way. I also don't want to see it remain so low because presently it is useless. A happy medium where you don’t butcher enemy retreating units but will still be able to kill a few, I recon a happy medium of a basic 20% with key units defined with 30% to emphasise their usefulness and cover weaknesses.

Low fire on the move accuracy is good because it extends games past the first skirmish or two, having it so low it is useless is not.

[frenchjesus]

Some units/upgrades were creadted to enhance/counter dancing strategies...this change make them just plain useless.

Strange, with each patch there is always a major and totally fucked-up change...

[Thelron]

The lightning fast combat is what makes DoW so addictive and special for a RTS game. In order to defend your base from your opponents attack force, keep you income streaming and increase you tech level, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, you have to be damn fast. Any single mistake may cause you to lose. And if I can archieve any advantage over my enemy by dancing his units, I would be better off to master this technique.

Yes, you have to be quick with the thinking to keep pace with the game, but just because there's a technique that can be used to get an advantage over the other player doesn't mean that technique should be either required to be able to play, or should be considered beneficial to the game in the first place. Troops being highly accurate on the move (even 50% would be insanely accurate, marines/eldar I can see being a bit more accurate on the move than guardsmen and orks, but there's only so much you can even attribute to fictional super-armor) largely negated an aspect of the game that was supposed to be pretty prominent until things got to a point of critical mass. Unimmersive + circumvents an intended strong consideration, this doesn't exactly add up to a surprise when it leads to a mega-change like this. Anyway, most of the assaulty stuff (i.e. flamers) still works fine, really all I'd change is to up pistol and tank accuracy *slightly* (more for tanks, but nowhere near prior levels) and up walker accuracy (these a bit more). Rifle fire while running isn't the easiest thing in the world, nor is mostly-manual aiming of a weapon on a moving platform (and as far as the background goes, a LOT of this stuff is all but manually aimed).

Why buy plasma for marines? I'd expect for the same reason anyone gets plasma... it melts marines. If heavy bolters are plunking the real heavy infantry better than plasma rifles, that's a problem between heavy bolters and plasma rifles, not FOTM accuracy. Flamers still flame just fine, so if you want to do moving damage, buy some of them.

[Kwon]

I'd like the old FOM back as well! :)

[NeoHunter]

The fire-on-the-move penalties now make firing while running totally useless. I once watched a group of Space Marines chasing after a retreating Necron Lord. the Necron Lord's hitpoints were already below 200 and he did not have that self-repairing bugs thingy with him. My Space Marines were chasing him and firing at the same time. Amazingly, none of the Space Marines' shots seemed to be hitting him as the Necron Lord was regenerating hitpoints, not losing them! In the end, I was thinking "What a waste of my time!" and promptly pulled back my Space Marines to regroup for another assault.

Seriously, you would think that in the 41st Millenium, a Space Marine could hit something larger than your average human while running and firing on auto right?!

[mlai]

Obviously not, because many players like the fact that they can charge in their inferior army without one iota of scouting now, and if they find a larger army is waiting for them, "okay I guess we can't beat them we'll trudge along back home now cya."

It seems having consequences to being routed on the battlefield is considered unfair.

[frenchjesus]

If dancing cant (soft) counter melee, what counters melee ? "strategy" ? I fail to see the point tbh.

[tygereye]

Well I don't want to flame relic here but that nerf to 10% accuracy on the move really seems to have been done with the overnerf and lazy stick. It seems like something they decided at the last moment and didn't really test. What makes say that is that such a nerf would have required a lot of game balance changes (CC units having more life and/or dealing more dmgs for cost than ranged for example).

I would have understood a nerf to 35-40% of the stand still accuracy while on the move for infantry units without any other balance chance. But anyway making nearly all units have 10% accuracy on the move regardless of their standing still accuracy seems a bit harsh to me.

Also walkers with 10% accuracy on the move?? Why would I buy ranged wapons for my walkers then since the first job of the walker is to walk (I know I am cleaver :p) into melee. I don't say that all vehicules should have full accuracy on the move (well I would prefer that than the 10% accuracy they have now) but I think that vehicules should have a better accuracy on the move than infantry.

Edit : Threlon you would be right about HB and plasma in the hard counters system of vanilla dow. But since WA and its soft counter system plasma became the FOTM weapon. Using a flamer that should be for moral dmgs instead of a plasma for FOTM dmgs seems a bit strange to me. Not to mention that all races aren't SM and that other races flamers DPS suck (if you except the buggy crisis flamer).

[Thelron]

Sure a lot of the flamer DPSs suck but probably not as much as the other options while running, and the consequence to being routed is, well, being routed. You either stay and die, or you run, take further losses until you're out of range, and whatever position you were defending is now in the hands of the other player, or whatever position you were attacking is now in the hands of the other player and since they've just mauled your army they can push forward.

EDIT- Not saying "Flamers pwn OMG!" or anything like that, just that if you want an FOTM option they're your best be at the moment in many cases.

Also, I'm fairly sure plasma still out-damages HBs vs. heavy infantry even if they both do more damage outside their "target" targets, and a flamer has the *perk* of doing high morale damage in addition to its DPS (which it seems they've kept low in the case of standard flamers to make up for the fact that breaking a squad isn't dependant on inflicting heavy casualties and broken squad + whole thing hosed down is incredibly powerful). While there are many better options to stand and shoot with than a flamer, being engulfed in fire tends to be detrimental to one's health and since they're not picky about being aimed if you want something to cause pain while moving...

No point in strategy countering melee.

So, you can't be arsed to think ahead when you're buying those units to consider how much you might have to worry about CC troops and plan accordingly, thus a change which makes it more important to do this planning (because you can't have your ranged units play follow-the-leader with CC troops *and* have them kill stuff at the same time now) is pointless? I think you just brought up one of the biggest points of this change, which is to make people who want to survive entirely on reaction and throw consideration out the window start thinking ahead a bit more and start thinking how to use units they always ignored because they didn't need them when they could just click a bunch of times instead of figuring out a real way to avoid a loss due to a one-trick-army.

[frenchjesus]

No point in strategy countering melee.

So, you can't be arsed to think ahead when you're buying those units to consider how much you might have to worry about CC troops and plan accordingly, thus a change which makes it more important to do this planning (because you can't have your ranged units play follow-the-leader with CC troops *and* have them kill stuff at the same time now) is pointless? I think you just brought up one of the biggest points of this change, which is to make people who want to survive entirely on reaction and throw consideration out the window start thinking ahead a bit more and start thinking how to use units they always ignored because they didn't need them when they could just click a bunch of times instead of figuring out a real way to avoid a loss due to a one-trick-army.

Good luck with your think-tank when your army is all about mass range, ie like Tau or SM. By your reasoning, all i should do is mass ASM because the reason for those ranged SM to exist is to be killed ?

I dont need to figure a real way to avoid a loss due to a one-trick-army ? Exactly, because all i need to do is mass CC and attack-move. Exactly, because i can flee without a single loss. Oh wait, not a single piece of strategy here.

There is strategy in this game, quite a lot. I can dance all i want, my cultists are not gonna obliterate this fire prism of yours.

You seem to ignore dancing was never a perfect counter to melee. You could avoid to be destroyed, but not to be damaged, and at a cost of a lot of concentration/micro. On top of that squad concept, armor types and terrible pathfinding made things even harder.

Why CC units have ranged weapons ? To damage ranged units before entering melee and counter dancing. Whats the point of those weapons now ? the point of those upgrades ?
Whats the point of using Defiler's autocannon, or equipping a dreadnought with ranged weaponry ? Maybe this one click was considering too much micro, and then, a blasphemy for the strategy part of the game ?

In fact using non-static vehicules (which means all except dedicaceted artillery) was a proof of a game way too much oriented micro-wise game ?

This change make most vehicules much less effective, tone down a lot of upgrades/units, promotes camping, deny the very notion of skill-related wins (even strategy-wise, because you can flee with no losses).

[Chris]

Dancing was only a 'perfect' counter to melee if it was a PURE ranged army vs a PURE melee army, which should only really happy in theoretical/vacuum situations.

For an example of a 'real' game, Ork players using nobz/stormboyz to chase marines around would be backed up by shoota boyz and wartrukks.

THAT was good strategy, THAT was good planning. But oh no, looks like the wank 10% accuracy just made that useless too.

[4Servant]

hmmm atleast the nobz/truck nightmare for my poor marines is over then every retarded disadvantage has it advantage ^^.

[nemarsde]

I get downhearted when I read stuff like this. In fact, I really shouldn't. ;)

You see, all I want is for what I'm seeing onscreen, in-game, to make some sense to me. A sort of consistent logic pervading the game world.

Why wouldn't a Space Marine's bolter be accurate on the move? Not as accurate as stationary, but not completely inaccurate. 7 feet of genetically-engineered transhuman in power armour with advanced targeting optics, trained, experienced and firing a weapon designed to absorb recoil.

This isn't just some WWII conscript slogging up the beach with a BAR.

Same applies elsewhere, for other races/units. I want what I perceive as the reality of the game world (in this case W40K), to be represented in the mechanics of the game. Otherwise something just seems wrong.

[GRIM Ripper]

no it doesnt make combined arms less effective, it just makes strategic manouvers more rewarding. for example bringing your trukks around the OTHER side so they dance into them, or if they turn around they hit a wall of shootas that were chasing them; using transports to zoom past them, unload and fire away for a few seconds; generally FORCING the player into your ranged fire... this in my opinion takes more skill and planning and is more rewarding, but STILL can be just as effective and damaging.

the only way a dancer will take NO ranged fire is if they dance a perfect straight line away from the ranged units...

[[eX]Xerxes]

hmmm atleast the nobz/truck nightmare for my poor marines is over then every retarded disadvantage has it advantage ^^.
Afraid not. Trukk speed means I can easily move ahead, stop, fire.

All that's changed really is you can't spam skull probes now to stop me (75 req), and good luck killing my nobs with no fire on the move.

[W0lf]

hehehe ^^

dont forget u get 3 tier 3 squads (nobz) 2 his petty 2 termie squads.

[Thelron]

Good luck with your think-tank when your army is all about mass range, ie like Tau or SM. By your reasoning, all i should do is mass ASM because the reason for those ranged SM to exist is to be killed ?

...

You seem to ignore dancing was never a perfect counter to melee.

...

Exactly, because i can flee without a single loss.

Order changed around a little.

I'm not ignoring that dancing wasn't a "perfect no-damage" counter to melee, but it was a counter that prevented the melee units from doing most of their damage while allowing ranged units to still do most of their damage. So, the CC user needed shooty backup more than the shooty user needed either CC or shooty backup? Right...

If you can flee without a single loss... why are you fleeing? If you mean you can lead them on a merry chase, then yes you can do that, but you aren't going to be getting out of range of any force you'd need to run from unless the other player doesn't care about killing your units.

As for those poor "worthless" tac marines and firewarriors... uhhm, tac marines have assault marines, dreadnaughts, and ATs as backup for a reason. Sure it takes a dread FOREVER to *kill* an infantry unit but the reverse is also usually true. Turn the tac marines off of "cease fire" and maybe they'll help a bit more. FWs... if you can't keep CC units off your lines as Tau, how did you ever manage to dance anything? Huge range, troops that slow down enemy movement, your commander throws snares around that slow down enemy movement, disgusting ranged damage (someone was complaining about not being able to get berserkers *to* the FWs. Yes, they were just charging in but that's some serious damage output all the same), oh, and some of the best CC in the game (anyone want to buy a krootox?).

Chris- Grim has it on the wartrukk bit... stormboyz can make them run out of CC towards *you* and your trukks are faster than his grunts (shootas are out of the running if they start running, but you can dump 'em in the trukk, drive ahead of the other guy (who is by this point a bit disorganized), dump 'em out, and open fire. If they *hit* the sluggas, whatever they were running from gets to join the fun so they're still screwed. If there's a reason this doesn't work (apart from stuff like "if I jump the stormboyz over and he has an HB squad waiting for 'em they get wiped," because that's one way to deal with this sort of thing... but its also one less front-line squad) let me know, but I still think a lot of the problems people are having because of this are because they're trying to keep thinking that they'll chew the enemy up during the chase when they need to either find ways to drive them into waiting troops, or bring along some ranged firepower that will let them knock down units while they run.

Even the CC heavy (well, orks... and chaos I guess) armies have ranged options, and they also have plenty of ways to move around quickly (jump packs, teleportation, and deep strike) so that they can trap a fleeing force, or at least a good chunk of it.

[Chris]

no it doesnt make combined arms less effective, it just makes strategic manouvers more rewarding. for example bringing your trukks around the OTHER side so they dance into them, or if they turn around they hit a wall of shootas that were chasing them; using transports to zoom past them, unload and fire away for a few seconds; generally FORCING the player into your ranged fire... this in my opinion takes more skill and planning and is more rewarding, but STILL can be just as effective and damaging.



I agree 110% and I really wish the game could be that cool but I think we both know that kind of manouvering isn't reliable with the current engine/ai/pathing/map issues. I'm not saying it's completely impossible mind you.

[sCa|Balllaman]

i have the game 3 days now and i can nearly totally agree with foree...this change on fire-on-the-move just totally sets CC units in advance and u arent able to micro 1 squad out while running and lets you run and run and run..the best units u can see that are asm and especially zerkers, which totally destroy any infantry now and especially zerks or way too cheap for this ability /damage

maybe make it 40% or 50%, from former WAs 60% while moving but not 10%
u also have to think that when u do such a nerf on the accuracy that u have to make the really strong CC units like zerks,shees (cow upgrade) and maybe asm much more expensive

[tygereye]

Also, I'm fairly sure plasma still out-damages HBs vs. heavy infantry even if they both do more damage outside their "target" targets

Well you are wrong HB now outrange AND outdamage plasma against all infantry even if their DPS are closer concerning heavy infantry. The thing that plasma had over HB was FOTM. But now that FOTM is gone I don't see the point of taking plasma over HB as SM. You should kill as much CC troops as you can before they reach your ranged troops. BTW we are talking of SM weapons here for chaos it's the other way around : plasma outdamages HB.

[Deaths Abyss]

How about using rhinos as blockades for your SM HB's?

[Thelron]

I agree 110% and I really wish the game could be that cool but I think we both know that kind of manouvering isn't reliable with the current engine/ai/pathing/map issues. I'm not saying it's completely impossible mind you.

While its partly a cop out, "then its the pathing/ai/map/engine that needs to be changed." I only consider it partly a cop out though, because if this is indeed the gameplay they'd like to see (which is a large part of what they're basing the game on, and what a lot of their changes look like, and its much more interesting than "smash armies together, watch dust settle, repeat").


BTW we are talking of SM weapons here for chaos it's the other way around

Its my understanding that chaos plasma outdamages, well, everything vs. everything. SM HBs out-doing plasma against heavy infantry though is again itself a dodgy condition and is more likely a better problem to address than reversing the FOTM changes. If chaos plasma is, as I suspect, better against infantry than chaos HBs, that should also change, allowing each to be effective against the other but maintaining definate advantages.

Though, currently, plasma *is* easier to use in a running fight than HBs as there is no setup time, so you can pause to shoot much more easily and effectively when it is the plasma squad's turn to provide fire. So, if you're planning to keep the squads moving quickly (a few shots between moves) plasma is still better than heavy bolters, which will have just started to fire when you move them again.

[SCtenth]

Emporerrrrrrr Akbarrr!!!
EMPORER AKBAR ISHMALLAH AL JIHAD!
*tac squad empties their mags into the air*

*clicks all over the screen really fast and froths at the mouth*

I took adderall but I don't have ADD so now I'm an instant WA god! The FOTM nerf advocates prove it with their thought requiring logic strategy taktiks!

I wonder if the people who talk in the lobby/forums about how lame and dishonorable rushing is in dow are kin to the people who cry about dancing being EEEEEEEEMBAAAAAAAAAA.

[your_neighbour]

I don't think the accuracy during moving should be increased further, otherwise CC will just lose its meaning because all the shooter squads are running around like rabbits on drugs.

[forinax]

Anyone who played vanilla and WA (especially this one..) can tell know that melee troops were already pretty good. What? You had to learn how to use them properly? Well, that's your problem.

FOtMA must be increased. CC units are too good with the high penalty.

[RedDevil]

I play Tau, and don't use the Kroot Ox as even I feel it's a little off right now. I also have been playing since the first DoW. The change came in, and I adapted. I really believe that all of you are having the problems you describe, but I am using one of the most shooty armies out there, and I am having no difficulty with the Accuracy reduction.

Dunno why, I never even realised it was an issue for so many people till this thread. Maybe I'm just that good?

[mlai]

Maybe because you're playing Tau??

I'm not even gonna bother explaining.

Try SM.

[Thelron]

FOtMA must be increased. CC units are too good with the high penalty.

Um, no? I'd agree with the second bit, if you take it to the logical conclusion that CC units need to be re-evaluated in light of the FOTM change, but "CC units are too good" does not automatically mean "FOTM is too inaccurate." It could just simply mean "CC units are too good." In some cases, you're right, several of the CC units are showing signs of being either too hard-hitting, or too numerous. So, take a look at those units and see what it is about them that's making them so much better than it seems that they should be, don't complain about the change that simply made those things more apparent.

[Chris]

Well the way I see it, if there's some half decent moving accuracy, strong CC units become much less an issue. I don't have a problem with CC unit X owning my plasma marines if I get sloppy and stand still for too long or plan my dancing route poorly. I've always figured that CC units were balanced with dancing damage factored in.

[W0lf]

Current fotm = cc > ranged
old fotm = cc < GOOD-have-100%-more-skill-then-you ranged.

ether find a happy medium r go back to the old one... cc unit beating ranged units by clicking right as opposed to ranged beating cc using micro and attention is just retarded.

[mlai]

Nevermind the fact that Tau has been balanced with old FOTM values in mind for the other races.

There, I said it.

Point is, Relic doesn't have the time/manpower/resources/capability to balance something as drastic as a FOTM value change. Playing the game, it's pretty obvious that the only change was the FOTM value, without any other changes made to balance this paradigm shift. So, the easiest way for Relic and everyone is to just revert the values back to pre-DC. Asking Relic to try to balance everything around the new FOTM value is just asking for trouble.

[Thelron]

cc unit beating ranged units by clicking right as opposed to ranged beating cc using micro and attention is just retarded.

And CC units are supposed to beat ranged units under the old system (without a huge mob, that is) how, exactly? Plinking away with their "just so we can shoot if we have to" pistols while chasing them around taking fairly accurate rifle fire from people *fleeing for their lives?*

Sure, you can still negate CC units by running away from them, but you have to run away from them now. It doesn't matter how much attention it took to shoot up a couple squads of CC troops you were leading on a merry chase, it made them pretty much a lost squad because your guns *would* do more than theirs, and if they stop you just turn around and shoot them until they run away or let you lead them around. Now at least if you want to lead them around you can't just run circles in one place and rely on the units that are running to kill them off... you have to fall back to something that can shoot so at least the CC troops force you to give up ground and can get a kill in every so often.

Also, current FOTM > ranged that have been left out in the cold... an all CC army is going to get screwed up by someone who is good at using bottlenecks and screens (especially as the really stellar CC troops tend to take up a fair amount of pop, so the other guy will at least match their squad numbers), and an all shooting army better have a damned good plan to deal with jump troops. Most of the real impact is early-game anyway, and your average early/mid-game big scary CC bugbear melts to an LP + turret or a couple turrets, especially if you have an extra squad to help add more firepower. The CC units have some high damage values from being so easy to circumvent, but even so you'd think a bit of adaptation would go a long way to reduce the sting. These things aren't exactly NWs here...

[your_neighbour]

Emporerrrrrrr Akbarrr!!!
EMPORER AKBAR ISHMALLAH AL JIHAD!
*tac squad empties their mags into the air*

*clicks all over the screen really fast and froths at the mouth*
lol you that's funny, but acutally Tau will fit better. :up:

GREEEATEEER GOOD!!!
FOR THE GRRREATTTER GOOD!!

Lower your hands before the greater good! Infidels!

*Tau squad empties their mags into the air*

Well all races are like that, like Marines (Basically the Imperium of Men) is kinda of a protrait of Christian extremism.

[W0lf]

tau are communists.
sm are nazis.
and chaos are the liberal democrats.

its pretty obvious and is taken as fact.

[Listoric]

I just read the first two pages, but i think this nerf is a good one, still it`s to much.

FOTM acc should be around 20-30%, while 30% is the total maximum that should ever be reached again. 60% was way to much and not only erased a CC army while fleeing O_o, which absolutely made NO sense at all. It was even worse than FoF, because FoF needed at least some skill to activate, flee to a good spot and then attack the following units. I can't recall how many battles i've lost with a huge horde of CowShees getting slaughtered by fleeing Plasma Rines.

Every race got more than enough options to stop or slow down CC units to position their Range units again. Grenadelauncher, Grenades, Vehicle Guns like the Panzabike or the Defiler, not to speak of Artillery and stuff like that. On every tier you got more than enough stuff to stop CC units.

So, as alrady said, if it would be around 20%, i'd be happy. 10% seems to be really to few, just because even if you focus a squad, you often don't erase it, as it is way easier to safe a squad now. 20% would need more skill to safe the squad, and still enough skill to take it down.

[forinax]

If that was to occure (I mean they increased FOTM to that in-between value of 30-40%) then only to regular infantry.

Commander units should have the old one restored, and personally I think it should be even a bit higher (I just think both CL, FC and BM are as good as heavy cannon fodder atm, with FC beign the worst damage-wise and with zero, none, null t1 abilities (not even a goddamn "Rally"); FS and CS are are disrupters while the Nec and Tau commanders are almost one-man armies).

[Kratos]

I like the penalty!!!
Its a brilliant idea for infantry!
(Perhaps lower the penaltiy to 15-20% accuracy)
For vehicles?
Predator penatly change to 80% accuracy!
All tier 4 tanks 80%!

Land Speeders and such don't need a accuracy buff?
Why?
They are a) freaking fast!
or b) would own melee to hard!

[GRIM Ripper]

old fotm acc was NOT 60%, i dont know where people are getting this from. it used to be around 30-40% for most units (.65 acc standing, -.30 while moving usually).

[Tadatsune]

What we need to start doing - those of us who thought the FotM nerf was too large/arbitrary - is to determine which units should have good FotM accuracies and which should not.

Let us assume that the old FotM values were around .30, and that the new ones are around .10. Thus, the happy medium would be somewhere around .20 for most units. What units should deviate from this?

Lets start with the SM.

Infantry:

Tacs, COs and AssMarines should have decent (avg) FotM given they carry auto/semi-auto weapons (fluff) and are standard issue, standard mobility infantry (practical).

Exceptions:

Scouts - These guys should have lower FotM capability. For one thing, they cary the same bolter as the average Tac, but lack the power armor to give them a stable firing platform. Recoil on those bolters has to be a bitch, even if they are 7-8 ft tall. (fluff) Also, alowing a fast moving unit like scouts to shoot well on the move produces a lot of serious run-and-gun damage issues (as seen in the scout rushes of olde). (practical).

Terminators - These guys should have higher FotM capability. That tac dread armor makes them extremely stable, and they don't really run anyware anyway - the just kind of plod along slowly. Plus, they are elite, so they should kick ass. (fluff) Since they are slow (like necrons) and are limited to one squad only, I don't see this causing any problems. (practical)

Vehicles:

My general feeling on vehicles is that they should have good FotM capabilites, though not 100% of their original values. This is especially true of tanks (pred and landraider) which offer a very stable firing platform and are no doubt equiped with all sorts of targeting systems and stabilizers. Walkers (dreads) might take a bit of a decrease while moving, but at the very least should have values equal to that of infantry.

Exceptions:

Landspeeder - The speeder should have low FotM accuracy - it simply moves way too fast to target stuff! (fluff) Allowing landspeeders to FotM well would raise the same issues as scouts, only x10. Plus, the nerf wont hurt them much given how easy it is to re-position them (speed & jumps). (practical).

[SvK]

Let us assume that the old FotM values were around .30, and that the new ones are around .10. Thus, the happy medium would be somewhere around .20 for most units. What units should deviate from this?
Instead of making assumptions, look up the old numbers from Winter Assault.

[Tadatsune]

They actual numbers aren't really that relevant to my post, because it only deals in realitives. That is, whether a unit should have higher or lower accuracy than the average.

I make no claim as to what those values should be; that is a balance issue and needs to be tested. It is also highly subjective. The .20 estimate was merely an example designed to illustrate the "happy medium" approach.

[Jaimas]

In one game I was playing using IG (my best race), I was facing a Necron player. I have no less than 5 fully kitted-out guardsman squads with a mix of commies, Psykers, and priests attached. My foe, a Necron player, sends a warrior squad and a destroyer. I take down the warrior squad in a split second, but the Destroyer, after taking some Lasgun fire, starts to flee. My squad of guardsmen were in "attack" stance (Had a ton of Lord harassings by now) so they persued the Destroyer.

.....Picture, if you will, a single destroyer being chased by about 70 or so guardsmen who are shelling the crap out of it, and doing minimal damage despite opening up full-bore. I eventually got pissed and wound up having them melee the damn thing JUST to get it to die.

Retarded. Magnificently retarded. The only thing I can say about it. Whoever decided that the nerf was necessary to the point where nothing on the move can hit ANYTHING deserves to be shot. With a duck.

...At any rate.

A huge problem I have with the new system is that it assumes that everyone used dancing as a counter to CC units. It was effective, but damnit, it sure the hell wasn't the only option. I play IG, and my usual counterpoint to a closing CC unit was a counterstrike.

You have a priest in that squad? Let the CCers come, damnit. Kick in Fanatacism and melee your enemies first. Surprise the HELL out of those people and let your squads behind the squad rushing to CQC range deal with the problem in a more indirect manner.

God, I am sick of the stupid "OMG, DANCING WAS IMBAAAA!!!11~111twelve"" arguement. The only time I ever had any issues with dancing was when I tried catching some fuggin' Eldar unit with Fleet of Foot active, and my usual method for stopping that crap was to ambush it with Raptors when playing Chaos, or, when using IG (as I do more commonly these days), use an artillery strike from a Basilisk or Baneblade.

*BOOSHA*

"Fleet of foot THAT, you long-eared hippies!"

[SirNick]

Instead of making assumptions, look up the old numbers from Winter Assault.
Listen to this man. His advice is made of win.

No, really -- there's a lot of numbers being thrown around here without very much context.

Here's some easy, hard data to chew on circa the days of Winter Assault and easily checked through Excedrin's site, linked in my signature.

1) Most basic weapons on foot units had ~60% accuracy when standing, and ~30% accuracy when moving. This means that they still hit 1 out of 3 shots or so on the run, and since most foot unit guns reload twice a second or so, that's plenty of chances to hit. This 30% margin is where you'd still see significant mowing down of troops on the run. Same thing with Commanders and our friends Bolt and Plasma Pistols.

2) Most vehicles would have something like 70% or 80% accuracy, and lose absolutely no accuracy on the move. This is what leads to Trukks and Predators mowing down fleeing troops and their being unable to run away, or the "shoot and scoot" Fire Prisms that we all know and love, which had 100% accuracy every time, all the time.

3) Weapons renowned for fire-on-the-move (Plasma, Big Shootas) would only lose about 25% of their -total- accuracy when on the move. E.g., Big Shootas started at 40% and dropped to 30% on the move, while Plasma started at 80% and dropped to 50%. Still lots of massive dancing effectiveness.

4) There was lots of discussion of trouble with Jump Troops and Berzerkers and their pistols because they had 85% accuracy and only dropped to something like 55% on the run, meaning that they consistently would chip away at fleeing enemies.

5) A big, big problem in 1.4 and 1.41 was that Imperial Guardsmen had 50% standing and lost no accuracy on the move, keeping that 50%. This led to the unstoppable flashlights mowing down all who stood or all that fleed, combined with the durable 120% armor that Guardsmen had and Commisar regen + morale immunity. There is a similar problem being discussed right now with Necron Warriors having 80% accuracy, no accuracy loss on the move, 530 HP apiece before buffs, 715 and 1145 HP after, and being free / cheap / super morale.

The accuracy loss thing certainly changes dynamics of the game, like vehicles mowing down troops all the way across the map and unstoppable Plasma / Jump Troop mayhem that many complained about.

I think that it might be a good idea that Tactical and Chaos Marines have better fire on the move accuracy with their Bolters, so as to have something to dance with against all these new Tier 1 horrors like Kroot and Fire Warriors. I don't know how that'd pan out, but it's definately showing that Marines of both flavors just are outshot and outranged and outmeleed by a whole lot of different things now in DC.

[a1ph4riu5]

The assumption being drawn is that they nerfed fire on the move because they didn't like how CC worked, in that you could dance it forever. The funny thing is, now you really can dance it *forever*, because the units chasing you can't even hurt you by shooting on the move. In smaller games, without lots of allies around to cut the enemy off, you can run run in circles around the map, taking zero losses. At least before, the player being chased would eventually get whittled down by shots to the back.

So much for stand up fights... the dancing is still here but it lasts much longer now. What were they thinking when they tried to encourage people to stay in melee more often, without making changes to the existing melee units? Like all the hitpoints they got to somewhat counter dancing? They do much more damage to your ranged troops, have way more hitpoints and you're meant to stay there and get chopped up? If even bigger changes to the game aren't gonna be made, like a total rethink of all melee units, let's just call this experiment a failure and revert to the old system with a few tweaks here and there.

[Jaimas]

The FOTM thing is made of stupid, though I gots to agree with you, my penguin avatar'd friend.

[OmNiExiZt]

Does the FoF penalty stack with the FoM penalty? If so, that would put you at like -40%. I haven't tried it out yet, but I'm wondering if the game might be glithced and you only suffer the 50% FoF penalty. Of course since the only guys that could make use of it are Gaurdians and FD, it would still make it fairly weak.

*ONEZ*

[Carl]

FoF reduces the accurracy to 50% of what it would be if FoF isn't on. So on the move it's 5% accurracy. Also for referance, FD have 0% accurracy on the move and thus do no damage whatsoever.

[Tuidjy]

I'm probably going to show my ignorance here, but it seems that everyone agrees
that the one big problem with the low Fire on the Move (FotM) accuracy is that
there is no chance to ever kill a flying squad. On the other hand, no one seems
to want a return of the days when ranged squads could run away while decimating
those who pursue them.

Is it impossible with this engine to make so that the FotM accuracy is different
depending on the direction of fire? I.e. when firing within -/+ 45% of your
heading, you have decent accuracy, but unless you have a turret, firing backwards
has an accuracy near zero.

This would solve most of the problems. The forward FotM accuracy would have to be
fine tuned so that retreating from combat is not impossible, and units would get
diffrent values depending on how well they should be able to shoot while moving.
I.e. a light machine pistol stabilized by power armour should be more accurate than
a rocket launcher carried by a regular human.

If this engine can't do it, at least we can hope for the next one.

[GRIM Ripper]

i just want to see specific "specialty" weapons/units have good fotm acc. for example, big shootas, flamer weapons, plasma weapons, warp spiders, etc...

[[eX]Xerxes]

That was the intention I believe, but it simply wasn't done for w/e reason. Cultist nades appear to fire on the move though with the WA penalty.

And Tac/Scout Plasma may or may not. I'm n00b are reading luas, but they don't appear to to me.

[mlai]

I want the exact old FOTM values to return. I also would like CC squads to have chop-on-the-move animations, now that the DC code is robust enough to support chop-on-the-move properties.

Of course, this leads to the "this sucks because trying to retreat after defeat means your stragglers will ALL die. I like how I can retreat now without massive losses." My answer to that is tough ****.

But of course, that's my personal opinion on game design. If you fully engage in a battle you can't win, and resort to your entire army dropping their guns and routing across the map, you deserve to lose your force and lose the game. I played that way for years with DOW/WA and I had no problem with it.

[Jaimas]

My biggest issue with the new system is that it unfairly penalizes units that utilize slow-firing weapons that - god forbid - the rest of the squad may still be moving when they squeeze a shot off of, as well has vehicles with already-long reload times, which really take it on the chin from this errata.

I think the whole broadside missile thing has been bashed to death with a claw hammer by now, so I'll leave that little example alone.

Please, by all means, someone tell me how what I witnessed last replay I saw, in which a squad of my friend's SM Tac Squads (with Flamers and an attached Skull Probe) were chasing a squad of Grots opening fire through the river on Deadman's Crossing - and only killing 1, maybe two Gretchin until the other player foolishly backed the little green snotballs into a corner - is supposed to be a step in the right direction for the metagame.

mlai's arguments regarding in-game mechanics have been invariably sound as I've followed. As it stands, close combat reigns supreme, which means you either have to bunker down, charge like an idiot, or try something crazy.

Whilst the former suits the IG (which I play most commonly) well, the latter do not.

I have had it. Every damn time I've gotten a Kasrkin squad, which is chasing something low-level like a group of cultists or such, trying to finish it off before it reinforces back up, I have 2 choices. I can either wing a Krak Grenade (which isn't likely to have full impact on a moving target and are usually better saved for priority targets) or chase the unit and PRAY I get lucky.

IG gets no jumping, teleporting, or infilitrating units (aside from the Assassin). Our big "aces in the hole" are vehicles which by all accounts should have no trouble killing things on the move, (Hellhounds, Baneblade, Leman Russ), yet for some reason apparently have people with a variant of Parkinson's disease that only kicks in when the vehicle moves on the guns. We can sometimes head off a unit with a Basilisk, but firing blind is horrendously inaccurate as well. Our only unit that can melee worth a damn that isn't a sergeant, specialist, or commander is the Ogryns, which are a goddamn tier-3 unit.

By the very nature of the FotM nerf, it unfairly penalizes the IG.

[GRIM Ripper]

thats only if you think cc is vastly superior to ranged... which i tend to disagree with (for example why do you think the new ork strat is to hard tech T3 and get FLASH GITZ, a ranged unit instead of just spamming nobz?). every race has cc counters, mainly lp2s and turrets (since you can run back to them without getting shot down on the retreat) or simply outsquadding the cc units, which against the stronger cc units (nobz, flayed ones and berzkers for ex) it is easy to do bc of their higher pop cost. right now i think its pretty balanced actually, and as long as youre not seriously outnumbered by melee units and you micro your units well, it will be an even battle. lets not forget all those anti cc abilities also, ie frag grenades, chaplain shout, entangle, chains of torment, snare traps etc. IG may not have any of these abililites, but good combinations of units and vehicles will assure that they can counter cc just as easily as anyone else.

i dont know, everyone keeps screaming cc>ranged now but i havent really seen it. in fact as orks for ex i focus mainly on a ranged army of big shootas, and RARELY get nobz or stormboyz out, if ever. i play IG also with one of my accounts, and when im chaos i rarely, if ever, get more then 2 squads of berzerkers and no raptors.

[Akathrielah]

thats only if you think cc is vastly superior to ranged... which i tend to disagree with (for example why do you think the new ork strat is to hard tech T3 and get FLASH GITZ, a ranged unit instead of just spamming nobz?


Cause Flash Gitz are ridiculously strong and justify a nerf? Cause orks can throw at ridiculously large amount of cheap CC units (key thing here) to tie up the enemy while your Gitz blows them to oblivion ? Its basically an upgraded version of the slugga/shoota rush. Except these guys mulch enemy infantry (and buildings =/) so quickly its retarded.

And one the counters you claim that are for CC units are outsquading them?

Um... Ok... can't you say the same for ranged units too? If you take out quality then the only deciding factor will be quantity.

CC>Ranged by the simple virtue that if you stop you lose, if you continue to move you are devoting your attention to dancing, while (now) doing absoutely no damage, so techinically you lose still.

Meanwhile its attack move for the guy with the CC units.

[Jaimas]

Here's a little Satan experience everyone's had by now when playing DC, and sums up nicely why people saying the Fire on the Move issue helps close-combat are only blowing smoke.

You're playing any race you can think of (except Necrons, argh), and doing a nice job. You're setting up your defenses, or offenses, or what the hell ever.

Your enemy proceeds to send CC units against one of your weaker units that you accidentally left out in the cold for some reason (probably missed it being produced or something), such as Scouts, or Stealthsuits the comp managed to reveal somehow, or an undermanned guardsman squad, or a group of Gretchin. Whatever. The general idea is they get attacked. And are likely in for a beating.

You have your units run away. Because they broke morale, they are now going infinitely faster than the enemy are, and because of the Fire on the Move accuracy nerf, your units aren't hitting jack as they flee. However, because of the new mechanics and your units scurrying for cover like Rabites, the CC units firing on them aren't hitting either, in melee or at a range.

So what would've been a kind of stupid moment in dancing has now become an even stupider moment, flying squarely into the area of "dance recital" territory. No one is hitting anyone. Your squad has already reinforced by this point, and probably has built a special weapon or two to turn the tide (such as Burnas or Fusion Blasters or Plasma Guns or Flamers or Big Shootas).

So, thusly, a mechanic designed to eliminate dancing has actually made the problem far worse than it was before. That's brilliant.

[Compeador]

I like the fire on the move change just fine. Then again, I play eldar, I don't like being cut down slowly by jump troops as they chase me.

[Jaimas]

Yeah, but see, there's the difference. You have FoF so it's not nearly as big a hindrance for you. Even your non-FoF units are quite agile and manuverable.

Compare now, to say, the Space Marines or Tau, whose primaries run rather pokey, and you see the problem more clearly.

[Macca]

Overall its a good change I believe and I'll explain why. Previously shooting units performed the falling back dance while firing quite effectively and close combat units couldn't land a single blow on them. Now if you do the whole dancing thing you'll avoid combat for only so long till you're boxed in or your opponents support units wipe out your dancing troops. You don't achieve any damage unless you stand and fight.
Also it makes retreat a viable option because you won't be chased down to your base and wipped out by advancing shooty units....if they follow you by the time you regroup your squads will have more men to fight.
I do however thing every army needs a unit or two(1 vehicle and 1 infantry) that can fire effectively on the move.

[Akathrielah]

Overall its a good change I believe and I'll explain why. Previously shooting units performed the falling back dance while firing quite effectively and close combat units couldn't land a single blow on them. Now if you do the whole dancing thing you'll avoid combat for only so long till you're boxed in or your opponents support units wipe out your dancing troops. You don't achieve any damage unless you stand and fight.
Also it makes retreat a viable option because you won't be chased down to your base and wipped out by advancing shooty units....if they follow you by the time you regroup your squads will have more men to fight.
I do however thing every army needs a unit or two(1 vehicle and 1 infantry) that can fire effectively on the move.


Of course, the amount of of micro required to properly dance off a bunch of CC units meant that you couldn't do much of anything else, and if you slipped, that meant major pain. That's nothing to say of course, that your enemy could even bring a single ranged unit (or bring a mixed force, whodathunkit?) and just pound your troops as they try and dance his CC units.

Dancing is the exact opposite now, with everyone trying (and failing) to kill each other cause no damage each other. Dancing can technically last forever now. Stop and fire (<3 "Q") seems to be only effective against slower units (basically if the SM squads tries and melee you) . So this "you're boxed in or your support units wipe out your dancing troops" doesn't really happen. Everyone just keeps dancing. My CC units chase your ranged units, while your chasing my ranged units with yours. Ad infinitum.

[Macca]

It may 'technicaly' last forever but its far from an effective/good gameplay(cause you're dancing not killing) which means it should become unpopular. As long as units move people will try the who dancing thing you can't avoid it. This just gives you areason not to do it as far as I'm concerned

[LoRd KoRn]

This change made the game look buggy. A whole army chasing a Scout, throwing hundrets of bullets at him that simply go through him or big Prism beams that end nowhere. The firerate and fireanimation rate could have been reduced. That would have looked reasonable but now it looks like in a alpha version of some unknown mod.

[Chris]

This just gives you areason not to do it as far as I'm concerned

Yeah so... like... I'll just keep my marines in close combat with some khorne berzerkers then shall I? Oh no wait wait wait I know I'll set up an elaborate system of abushes and kill zones where I can draw each CC squad into multiple cross fires.... shit wait while I was trying to perfectly position my troops I got rushed. =/


Of course, the amount of of micro required to properly dance off a bunch of CC units meant that you couldn't do much of anything else, and if you slipped, that meant major pain. That's nothing to say of course, that your enemy could even bring a single ranged unit (or bring a mixed force, whodathunkit?) and just pound your troops as they try and dance his CC units.


This is a very good point but it will get ignored, which is a shame. The problem is that nerfing dancing panders to the skill level of most of the people who post on this forum, so as far as they're concerned it's brilliant because they don't get beaten by "mindless clicking" :rolleyes:.

AFAIK dancing has been an important part of any RTS game that combines melee units and ranged units.

OK, so in Age Of Mythology my archers can't shoot at the spearmen chasing them while they're moving. BUT the big difference is that if I chose too, I can stop the archers and have them shoot at point blank range. If I have enough archers I can focus fire at point blank range and bring the spearmen down. Is that 'unrealistic'. Well yeah, but no less unrealistic than a 8ft genetically engineered super soldier being unable to shoot the broad side of a barn as soon as he moves.

[Diachi]

This nerf it too shocky... It should be rather 33% than 10% from 60...imho...

[W0lf]

10% fotm is just one of these things that made dc 'easy to play by a something with half a brain cell and easy to master by anything with half a brain and a right hand'

[Jaimas]

The stupid part of the argument that this helps CC troops is that it doesn't. My usual response to CCing is dancing for a while whilst my Guardsman reinforce, counter in close-combat, then run away if they take too many losses. Rinse, repeat.

Stupid. Utterly stupid.

[Macca]

1)RTS is not meant to be a realistic simulation so any such refrences are really a irrelevant(aww look that bloodthirster is not doing realistic damage :slow:).

2)Your dancing troops still avoid combat which is the main point of dancing around, however their ranged ability is suitably nerfed while they perform the 'dance'.
It would be fair not to nerf the fire on the move if the CC units with short ranged pistols had even much smaller penalties for firing on the move or if you couldn't disengage from combat as easily.And CC units can't land blows on the move. The closest reference to the combat system is 40k...and in 40k if a ranged unit gets caught up by a CC unit it's stuffed! You just want to be able to avoid combat and still decimate the opponent with ranged fire which totally puts CC units in too much of a disadvantage. In fact it makes you wonder what the point of CC units is if your opponent can simply avoid it while decimating you.And no, that slight 'extra' micro managment does not balance out the fact your opponents CC units can't reach you reguardless of how much micro management your opponent does with his Cc units!

3)The time they may be dancing and reinforcing but so does the CC unit after them.

One way to make it better...would be if once in Cc you can't run away unless broken(aka suffered the worse)

[Tadatsune]

So, no one wants to take a stab at discussing which units should have good fire on the move, and which don't?

You'd rather just post hundreds of "FotM nerf sucks/rocks!" posts, recycling the same arguments?

Sigh.

[frenchjesus]

Units required high FotM accuracy :

- commanders
- walkers
- others vehicules

[Akathrielah]

2)Your dancing troops still avoid combat which is the main point of dancing around, however their ranged ability is suitably nerfed while they perform the 'dance'.
It would be fair not to nerf the fire on the move if the CC units with short ranged pistols had even much smaller penalties for firing on the move or if you couldn't disengage from combat as easily.And CC units can't land blows on the move. The closest reference to the combat system is 40k...and in 40k if a ranged unit gets caught up by a CC unit it's stuffed! You just want to be able to avoid combat and still decimate the opponent with ranged fire which totally puts CC units in too much of a disadvantage. In fact it makes you wonder what the point of CC units is if your opponent can simply avoid it while decimating you.And no, that slight 'extra' micro managment does not balance out the fact your opponents CC units can't reach you reguardless of how much micro management your opponent does with his Cc units!


This isn't TT, and it doesn't need to be. The point of CC units is to be a threat, "move or else" and then "keep moving or else". If units couldn't disengage from CC, then this game would be a even bigger mess than it already is, building ranged units would be entirely pointless, since a flurry of Jump/Teleporting/FoFing melee units will auto-mince everything. That would make this accuracy nerf (which has questionable value) look rather tame in comparison. You seem to forget that in TT, most units had the very real possibility of getting gunned down relatively quickly. DoW, not so much.

That extra micro does balance it, because while you are dancing your ranged units, I (if I was lazy), just simply hit attack move and then go on elsewhere to tech, cap and harass other parts of your base/map. At the very least I could take a squad or two anti building units and go popping your LPs. Meanwhile your desperately trying to dance off my CC units.

And you really can't avoid CC units unless you put an extra amount of effort into it. Which is the point of them to begin with, to force your opponent to commit extra time and resources to nullifying your units, much more so than other units. Nevermind the fact that if you built a mixed force the amount of micro that your opponent will have to pull off even if all you did was attack move all of your cc and ranged units, is substantial, simply because he would have to dance around whatever ranged units that were being engaged by CC units to prevent them from being minced. While desperately trying to figure out how to keep the rest of his units alive while your ranged units are firing away, untouched.

Of course there is a lot more to it and you definately won't win higher rating automatch games simply by building a mixed force and using attack move, but that's where individual skill plays a factor rather than force compsition or overall strategy/build order.




So, no one wants to take a stab at discussing which units should have good fire on the move, and which don't?

You'd rather just post hundreds of "FotM nerf sucks/rocks!" posts, recycling the same arguments?

Sigh.


Except for Eldar, most races have 1 or 2 staple ranged infantry units (Tac Marines, CSMs, Shootas (Well Flash Gitz now, but thats for another topic), Guardsman, FWs, NWs.

So unless you want to say "X race will have good FoM while Y race doesn't", deciding which units will have good FoM will be kind of moot.

It also would make the game even more complicated, which with what Relic can already work with, doesn't need to be. I personally feel that relic would probably be better off working on what is already there, rather than creating yet another category/type of unit that they will have to balance as well.

[OmNiExiZt]

I think what Macca said is a good idea. But what if you want to get away from an area that's getting shelled by artillary? You shouldn't have to wait until your squad is broken just so you can make a run for it. The whirlwind is innacurate, so once you see the first explosion, you should be able to retreat because the next shot is going to inflict massive casualties. How about CC vs CC can't retreat at all? Make this rule apply strictly to infantry and not infantry vs walker. CC vs ranged can retreat once morale is broken. I think that could work.

[Jaimas]

Yeah, but you're assuming Dancing takes actual effort. It isn't hard to futz around using the Minimaps. You might think it consumes all my attention to do it, but it doesn't.

It's stupid to say that dancing is ineffective, since, as it stands, as long as your units aren't dying or doing something dumb like charging into the enemy base when running away, you really don't have to micro that much if you even remotely know the map.

[Tadatsune]

Except for Eldar, most races have 1 or 2 staple ranged infantry units (Tac Marines, CSMs, Shootas (Well Flash Gitz now, but thats for another topic), Guardsman, FWs, NWs.

So unless you want to say "X race will have good FoM while Y race doesn't", deciding which units will have good FoM will be kind of moot.

Ah, not so! For A) it is not only ranged units which need be considered, and B) said units often have multiple weapon upgrades, which must also be considered.

Finaly, should some races have better FotM than others? Not overpoweringly so, obviously, but a valid question.

[Viq]

"Finaly, should some races have better FotM than others? Not overpoweringly so, obviously, but a valid question."

I think it would be better to standardise FotM for every race, otherwise you may end up with a situation where against some races, you can retreat without casualties, but against others, you will lose a chunk of your army. Why is this bad? It totally gives an advantage to the races who can take down units on the run, and it would be very hard to counter-balance this with a weakness. Just my tuppence.

[a1ph4riu5]

Yeah, agreed with Viq on this point. That would be basically describing the advantage Eldar had over everyone else, before the fire on the move changes came into effect. It just wasn't fair that they were the only race capable of full-on assaults, with little risk factor if it went wrong.

Sadly, now we are all Eldar with regards to escaping unharmed, except that we don't even need to micro the FoF button. As bad as Eldar used to be, at least they needed some skill and quick reflexes to use properly.

[SLDFKnight]

Wait, this might be a crazy idea, but in TT there are distinctions between weapon types. I know a lot of things in TT don't translate well into an RTS, but what would happen if assault/pistol weapons had good FOTM accuracy, rapid fire weapons had poor FOTM accuracy, and heavy weapons had set up times? Then ranged units that are supposed to be good at dancing could do it, cc units could shoot at stuff they were chasing, and stuff that's not supposed to dance well wouldn't be doing it.

[SirNick]

That's pretty much how it was in Dawn of War and Winter Assault.

Problem that the developers said in the chat, was that your entire army would get gunned down in a retreat, which is why they changed it.

[Deathscythe61]

Well, you SHOULD be penalized for retreating. I can see a decrease in accuracy, but 10%? There were better reductions...

[Jaimas]

10% is retarded and unfairly penalizes races with normally superb accuracy, such as Tau, Space Marines, and Eldar.

It benefits only Orks, who have crappy accuracy to begin with.

[Yoli]

10% = 2 high... That is all.

[Nobunaga]

Well clearly the developers had no idea what they were talking about since they then added NW who punish you for retreating far more than I ever was in WA. I don't mind being punished for retreatng but losing 2/3 or more of your forces is a bit much.

[Jaimas]

10% = 2 high... That is all.

.....

I'm going to say this as nicely as I possibly can.

NO.

The change has done nothing to balance the game. The only thing it's done is make combat stupider by basically saying that nothing can hit jack shit whilst moving.

It's ridiculous, and the sheer number of people screaming this change is dumb should give a general indication of its implications.

But you know what? I'll humor you. I'm going to punch holes in this issue once and for all so you can see how dumb it is.

Ignoring the obvious fact that this nerf penalizes every race except the one with the most balance cries against it (yes, Necrons, I am looking at you), let's look at some facts:

1. Dancing Continues Unabated
This nerf was to prevent dancing from being too viable, at least in theory. Now, it is quite possible to Dance FOREVER. The tactic continues unabated and is even buffed somewhat by the fact that attackers chasing the unit can't possibly hope to take it out.

2. The accuracy penalty affects vehicles
The accuracy penalty affects vehicles, including ones for which firing on the move is a fuggin' way of life, like dreadnaughts, tanks, and other heavies.

3. No compelling counterargument
this isn't so much a reason as a pet peeve, but I have yet to see a single convincing counter-argument for why the retardedly bad FOTM nerf should not be rolled back or eliminated entirely - at least one that doesn't devolve into a "this isnt TT" or "the original values were imba" argument that proceeds to go nowhere

4. This is going to be changed
The accuracy values will be fixed. People at relic already said so. So continuing to bitch about how the current values are fair (they aren't) isn't helping anyone.

5. I can't think of anymore
I need a drink. Goodnight.

http://209.85.48.8/2727/137/emo/tas.gif

[Rocsflight]

If i've noticed it correctly, your units are worse than not being able to hit the broad side of a barn while moving, you can't hit the broad side of a command center. Maybe Relic could add another stance, assault march or something, that would slow you down but grant some accuracy, indicative of the units aiming and shooting while moving instead of firing wildly into the air and hoping gravity causes rounds to hit the enemy while running full out.

[DukeRustfield]

10% is retarded and unfairly penalizes races with normally superb accuracy, such as Tau, Space Marines, and Eldar.

It benefits only Orks, who have crappy accuracy to begin with.
No, no. You do not GET 10% accuracy, your base accuracy is multiplied by .1. So if you're an Ork who had a 50% chance to hit someone, you now have a 5% chance to hit someone. If you were a super duper Tau with a laser sight and had 100% accuracy, you now have a 10% chance. It effects everyone exactly the same.

It wasn't to prevent dancing, it was to make retreating a viable option. In WA if you started to get outgunned, TOUGH LUCK. Your best bet was to stay and fight until you died, because if you ran, he would just attack move after you. And unless you happened to have a shitload of turrets or support nearby (and why weren't you fighting there to begin with?), he can follow you all the way back to your base, back to his base, back to your friend's base and then around again, shooting you in the butt as you go.

What it did was destroy the low morale races and massively reward the high morale races and/or the speedy ones who had jump troops and such.

[Garumsh-Zott]

Well then they just should make shooting units slower moving.Problem gone(But on the other hand that would actually require people to MICRO their units into cease fire mode).

[DukeRustfield]

Well then they just should make shooting units slower moving.Problem gone(But on the other hand that would actually require people to MICRO their units into cease fire mode).
My post got eaten but that would then mean you'd do about the same dmg as your enemies quickly fled out of range. But since troops are constantly in battle mode, whenever you passed an enemy LP your troops would slow movement as they tried to fire on the move. What's worse, the enemy could drive over a land speeder or something and laugh as you went into slow motion.

You would have to then explicitly set combat or non-combat mode depending on if you wanted to move or shoot. That's just an unnecessary amount of micro that I don't think buys the game anything.

[kornuletz]

maybe you could do it that way: when on cease fire, units move FASTER.

+ bring back accurracies of WA.

that way, everything is fine and dandy, and when you want to retreat you have the "cease-fire-turbo-mode". to prevent abusing, this would have a cooldown and allow only short bursts of more speed.

[crimtonic]

This is my least favorite change from WA to DC, right now it not only nerfs general ranged combat options and anti-CC for shooty races, but makes my race pathetic. Eldar always required high levels of micro and a swift mind, a good dancer made or broke the game for Eldar. Now Eldar are forced to stand and fight, somthing they are not designed for.

However i would say that Tau definatly do not need FoM, their set up time is about all that makes their FWs (ranged Banshees) fair.

And necron, whell necron is just wrong.

I'd say that we should get a %50 FoM, %60 is a bit to high in my oppinion for balance sake (but not realism).

[DukeRustfield]

It doesn't make sense to say you are forced to stay and fight. You mean as opposed to running around in circles like a retard, making CC units completely pointless? Yeah, I guess.

[GRIM Ripper]

they said they were going to change it, but i was under the impression that they were only going to slightly modify the existing low acc on the move as opposed to a rollback.

i for one think it was a move in the positive direction... granted its a bit extreme for almost EVERYTHING to have 10% acc on the move, but still its better then the "turn around and die" WA syndrome... one miscalculation before and you were guaranteed to lose your whole army, either in a stand out fight or while retreating... that was LAAAAAAME.

now like i said perhaps the penalty isnt enough right now, but its definately closer to perfect then it was before. they just need to buff a few special weapons accuracy on the move to give races options, such as plasma, big shootas, etc...

[ImmortalChaos]

Just... bring... fotm... back...

We don't care why you made it this way in DC, but unless it is back to the other games standards in a soon coming patch, expect some most unpleasant things to occur.

[GRIM Ripper]

how... about... no...

there are quite a bit of players who LIKE the change, so please stop using "we" as if you represent the general public's opinion.

[Jaimas]

Amen to that, Brother ImmortalChaos.

[ImmortalChaos]

I agree with you ripper in that WA and DOW were a bit harsh when it came to retreating from a fight, but to do so is a tactical screw-up and you SHOULD be penalized for it. 100% accuracy on the move is definately wrong, but so is 10%. WA and DOW definately had a mid ground that I for one liked, and so did most of the player base.

Though if we absolutely MUST be holding the hands of any player making an error in his tactics and be as forgicing as possible on losing engagements, the aim on the move must STILL be upped from what it is now... I mean, go grab a flashlight (no jokes intended IG players :p) and point it at a point on the wall. Then try moving around, and oh look! you can keep it in the same general area, much unlike any troop in DC who starts moving and decides to point his gun in the air.

Perhaps a midground between DC and DOW/WA might be in orfer, but god damn, it is much to forgiving now.

[DukeRustfield]

Some races exist by retreating. IG and Tau (FW) will be butchered if FoTM was rolled back. It's not an error, it's how the races are played. They have to retreat because they have no health/morale or they have no CC ability whatsoever and don't have the luxury of FoF. What will be the point of awesome and expensive fire warriors who get off a few shots and then are tied up and chased around until they die?

[KotCR]

FotM needs to be returned to how it was.

Right now because of awful 10% accuracy on the move all melee units are way overpowered, which makes melee heavy races such as Orks and Chaos ridiculously strong and hard to deal with once their T2 melee units come out.

Melee units already had superior DPS/HP-for-cost ratio compared to ranged units, to make up for the fact that before having to close to ranged units was a significant disadvantage. But for the most part, after initially closing the gap, this is no longer a problem and with the extra toughness of melee units, and the inability for ranged units to damage them once they've closed, melee units have become far too powerful.

Unless you critically outmass your opponent, once a unit like Nobz or Zerkers now gets stuck in, it's now incredibly hard to kill them faster than they can reinforce.

Decent fire on the move needs to come back, period.
Failing that all melee units need to recieve extremely heavy nerfs, to bring their cost-effectiveness in-line with that of ranged units, and I'm sure players who make heavy use of melee units would hate that...

[Jaimas]

All right, that's it.

First, Duke, you say that dancing was the reason for the instatement of this ridiculous overnerf. Fair enough.

The caveat in that argument is that it is now literally for units to dance CC units truly forever now. More than a few playbacks exist with a completely stupid bit in which some Eldar or Chaos player ran one of his units halfway across a map with enemy CC units in hot-pursuit.

So that would mean it's done nothing to stop dancing, and has actually gone so far as to exacerbate the problem.

Then, you go on to claim that removing the FOTM nerf would endanger Tau and Imperial Guard, since "they need to retreat."

Using Tau Fire Warriors is a stupid example. They CAN'T fire on the move, and that's due to their exceptional range and firepower. The bigger problem with this argument is exactly what I mentioned above. They can run away, and won't take much damage for it, because the persuing squad can't hit them either.

But the IG "exists by retreating" and "needs this nerf?"

No. No no, NO.

That is it. It's on now.

I draw the line in the sand here, on that statement.

As board vets will no doubt tell you, I play IG and have since Winter Assault came out and the Imperial Guard began to appeal to me. The ridiculous FOTM nerf F'ed the Imperial Guard easily as hard as any other race.

This nerf affects every facet of the Imperial Guard, and it does a big hit-job on it.

Guardsmen:
Guardsman Squads used to be able to fire on the move, which was nice (and essential) because they could quickly secure areas, suffering a nominal penalty for being on the move.
An enemy who would go after 6 GM squads could expect a beating. Now, that no longer is an issue. If those squads are moving, they won't hit jack shit, so you're basically forced to bunker down each time you want to actually do damage. That means no setting up in a fight, no repositioning units, and no moving a unit from one hotspot to another. It also means making your forces cannon fodder for artillery strikes and CC units, because you can't fire on the move with any degree of accuracy. Whee.

Kasrkin:
Ditto. They hit more because they fire faster, but aside from this, they suffer the same problem the GMs do. Only more so, because they're hardcapped at one.

Ogryns:
Did you know there is officially no point whatsoever in those Ripper Guns now? Ogryns had shit accuracy BEFORE the nerf, and now they have even shittier shit accuracy when moving, which is when Ogryns shoot.

Sentinels:
IG vehicles, even. Goddamnit. Sentinels were great for harassing because of their speed and relatively good mobile accuracy. They can't hit jack shit on the move now, which is made even more painful by how slowly they fire.

Hellhound:
Hahaha. HAHAHAHAHA. Oh, lord.

In conclusion, IG wound up JUST as screwed up by this ridiculous nerf as the other races, and you're simply refusing to see reason if you're believing otherwise at this point.

[GRIM Ripper]

thats why i said id like a middle ground... i want to see vehicles and CERTAIN, limited units have their fotm acc upped... but not accross the board back to WA levels. i think MOST people agree there should be some sort of compromise, not just a complete rollback.

and HA! melee units are NOT WAY overpowered... is that a joke?

first of all, melee units ARE good damage dealers for cost STRICTLY by the numbers bc they dont do damage as often as ranged units... looking at the numbers by themselves is stupid. ranged units are guaranteed to hit anything in their range, while melee units doing damage depends highly on the micro of the OTHER player. they BETTER do good damage bc they get so few amt of hits in... and sometimes will do NOTHING vs a well microed army, crap fotm or not. it was so dumb in WA to have the train line of units chasing units and getting blown apart by plasma, etc... it defeated the whole purpose of melee disrupting ranged units bc they ended up taking more damage then dishing it out!

and try getting into the fray vs a decked out tac mass or running into some FWs or chaos HBs with melee... ONLY heavy melee units (which are very limited to the cc races only before t3, ie nobz and zerks) stand any chance of getting into combat vs powerful ranged weaponry, and its usually harder to outsquad ranged units bc melee units tend to use more cap (zerks 3 cap, nobz the equivalent of 4 cap, etc... jump troops are generally "feeble" also). and on top of that youve got PLENTY of abilities to stop melee units for all races... frag grenades, chap shout, snare traps, farseer disruption, entangle, etc... and then the big one of dancing around LPs and turrets, which is guaranteed death to a melee race.

thats why you dont see ASM spam all the time, or kroot spam every game, or banshee spam often... if melee was so OPed you WOULD see these every game, but you dont.

[KotCR]

and HA! melee units are NOT WAY overpowered... is that a joke?
No, it isn't.


first of all ... *snip*
Exactly. Now both ranged units and melee units don't do damage often, because both don't get too hit often. Melee units have more HP for cost still though. Melee units are better.


and try getting into the fray vs a decked out tac mass or running into some FWs or chaos HBs with melee... *snip*
No problem. I'll use transports, jump troops, or disruption. Problem solved. You'll have a somewhat hard-time cutting down 2x Nobz squads, for example, with a Heavy Bolter wall, before they can close the gap, anyway. Wait a minute...Nobz and Zerkers both come out early T2 before I can get a Heavy Bolter wall anywho...so that's not an issue.


frag grenades, chap shout, snare traps, farseer disruption, entangle, etc...
Of which all have cool downs except Snare Traps. Sorry, for the most part these are one shot affairs.


thats why you dont see ASM spam all the time, or kroot spam every game, or banshee spam often... if melee was so OPed you WOULD see these every game, but you dont.
It's on the rise then, I assure you - because I see plenty of it. More and more often I'm seeing huge masses of assault troops supported by only one or two ranged units (to actually do the damage from behind the impenetrable melee screen). Thanks to how often you can use Snare Traps, Tau are the only race that can handle this reliably often. A well-microed FoF Eldar can too. But Space Marine and Imperial Guard armies right now are completely screwed against this tactic most of the time, as they just don't have enough snares or stuns at their disposal.

[GRIM Ripper]

well i auto a lot and DONT see this melee unit spam very often at all. and besides, you just admitted yourself melee units are doing exactly what theyre supposed to do -- DISRUPT bc you still need ranged support to do DAMAGE. if they were so vastly OPed as you state you wouldnt need ranged unit support. big whoop, youre seeing well balanced attack forces of both melee and ranged. whats your point?


Exactly. Now both ranged units and melee units don't do damage often, because both don't get too hit often. Melee units have more HP for cost still though. Melee units are better.


no, bc melee units still have to charge into cc, taking massive fire before they do so, hence melee units are worse.

and yes those abilities are one shot, but when youve got weapons such as SM heavy bolters dishing out 50-60 dps EACH, 3 seconds of stun (PER squad mind you) can spell death for an entire squad. throw in chaplain shout and youve got another incapacitated squad. and since when do nobz come out before HBs?

i find it laughable to mention SM as having a problem with cc units. bc if you want to bust out trasports as reliable sources of getting into melee (ha), then likewise i will cite rhinos as a reliable way to escape melee, redeploy and open fire, load up, rinse and repeat. oh and then youve got things like smite (disruption plus 1/3 of nob HPs gone) and psychic inquisition (cast in the charging lanes of melee units) to make things even worse. did i mention hellfires are one of the best disruption units in the game? get real man, you mustve never fought a competant SM player before.

eldar has vypers and FoF, IG has basilisks and heavy weapons teams. EVERYONES got their ways of dealing with melee.

[KotCR]

and since when do nobz come out before HBs?
They come out at roughly he same time. But two Heavy Bolters isn't even going to kill 5 Nobz before they can get to you. You'll be lucky to kill one - as SM you won't have Target Finders yet, and certainly not Weapon Specialization - unless you forgoed Bionics (which you should never do...).

bc if you want to bust out trasports as reliable sources of getting into melee (ha), then likewise i will cite rhinos as a reliable way to escape melee, redeploy and open fire, load up, rinse and repeat.
So you both end-up mindlessly chasing each other? The melee mass still have the superior HP though.


oh and then youve got things like smite (disruption plus 1/3 of nob HPs gone) and psychic inquisition (cast in the charging lanes of melee units) to make things even worse. did i mention hellfires are one of the best disruption units in the game? get real man, you mustve never fought a competant SM player before.
And you've clearly never played Space Marines. So I've somehow magically got the requisition and power for the Librarian, Grey Knights, Tactical mass, Heavy Bolter mass, and Hellfire Dreads - not to mention having managed to build both the Sacred Artifact and the Machine Shop. Seriously, get real.


eldar has vypers and FoF, IG has basilisks and heavy weapons teams. EVERYONES got their ways of dealing with melee.
Alot of these 'ways of dealing' with melee aren't very pratical without fire on the move. I'm telling this from personal experience - for example I played a game and had two squads of Nobz and the MANz running round in an Imperial Guard base - and my opponent tried Kasrkin, Heavy Weapon teams, Basilisks, and Ogryns. Nothing could dislodge them. The Basilisks simply didn't get a chance to fire, and the Heavy Weapon teams failed to cause any serious casualties before I could close to them.
The rest of his army was away from home too busy duking it out with my Kans, Gitz, and other infantry.

Point is, it's stupid that you need a ridiculous huge mass of ranged firepower to even rid yourself of just a few melee squads at the moment, because your troops spend too long trying to keep themselves out of melee with them otherwise.

You can say what you like, but if you need a huge mass of ranged units to be able to take down just a few melee units, then something is very wrong - making all your 'Heavy Bolter' wall stuff, a rather moot point.

You've also obviously never played a competant player, because a competant player will never give you the chance to reach such critical mass of troops - without you also having such a large critical mass of troops - in a well played game they'll generally be fighting around the clock.

But a fight between say, a player using (assuming each players squads are comparable) 4 melee squads and 1 ranged squad, against a player using 2 melee squads and a 3 ranged squads is not uncommon (and is also a fairly standard type of engagement pre-vehicles in T2) - and the person with the most melee squads will win that engagement (yes even if those 3 ranged squads are each toting 2x Heavy Bolters - infact especially so if they are).

This is very unfourtunate for Imperial Guard, seems they actually don't have any proper melee squads.

[crimtonic]

I have a problem with the fact that my twenty first centaury M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank can hit a target while moving 30+ miles per hour at around two miles away and my fifty first centaury highly advanced alien race main battle tank that is not effected by gravity can't effectively shoot a target that is ten feet in front of it while moving.



Realism and fluff aside, the FotM penalty is ridiculous. You either run, taking massive damage while retreating from stationary ranged units, or get a buttsecks party going with the melee units. More over units who rely on flee and shoot tactics, haven’t a chance any more. Namely Eldar and IG.





I for one think it was a move in the positive direction... granted its a bit extreme for almost EVERYTHING to have 10% acc on the move, but still its better then the "turn around and die" WA syndrome... one miscalculation before and you were guaranteed to lose your whole army, either in a stand out fight or while retreating... that was LAAAAAAME.


Man I miss those days! That was such a good thing. Now while you say that a miscalculation costing your entire army was lame, I say it was perfect! Why you ask? Because, and take heed of what I say, this is a real time STRATEGY game. That’s the whole point right there; the guy who makes the most strategic errors is the guy who should lose.

This is what has kept me playing Home World 2 online for three years, its all about who’s the player with the best head on his/her shoulders.



Some races exist by retreating. IG and Tau (FW) will be butchered if FoTM was rolled back. It's not an error, it's how the races are played. They have to retreat because they have no health/morale or they have no CC ability whatsoever and don't have the luxury of FoF. What will be the point of awesome and expensive fire warriors who get off a few shots and then are tied up and chased around until they die?

Don’t forget, Broken Squads get a speed bonus. Meaning unless you are a banshee squad with FoF or can jump, you can’t catch them. And lets be honest here, the Tau Fire Warrior has the capability to annihilate most enemy CC units that attempt to close with it, before they even get in shooter range.


They are supposed to die hard and fast in CC, that’s their weakness. Also, IG would benefit by a FotM so I am not entirely sure which side you are arguing for.


Here is what I would like to see:

For infantry: %30-40 depending on the infantry squad, Fire on the Move accuracy.

For Vehicles: %50-60 depending on the vehicle, FotM accuracy.

This means that squads of infantry can just dance you to all hell, but can still be used for tactical maneuvers. And vehicles can actually shoot something when not just sitting there.

[SvK]

No, no. You do not GET 10% accuracy, your base accuracy is multiplied by .1. So if you're an Ork who had a 50% chance to hit someone, you now have a 5% chance to hit someone. If you were a super duper Tau with a laser sight and had 100% accuracy, you now have a 10% chance. It effects everyone exactly the same.

Weapons are reduced to 10% accuracy when firing. That means they will hit 1 out of 10 shots.

Hammerhead Railgun
[code]
GameData["accuracy"] = 1.000000
GameData["accuracy_reduction_when_moving"] = 0.900000[/quote]

Ork Big Shoota
[code]GameData["accuracy"] = 0.400000
GameData["accuracy_reduction_when_moving"] = 0.300000[/quote]

[GRIM Ripper]

And you've clearly never played Space Marines. So I've somehow magically got the requisition and power for the Librarian, Grey Knights, Tactical mass, Heavy Bolter mass, and Hellfire Dreads - not to mention having managed to build both the Sacred Artifact and the Machine Shop. Seriously, get real.

dont take what i said out of context. first of all, i have played all the races over the entire span of the games existence... im sure i have MUCH more experience then you. second, i didnt say you must combine all of those things to be effective, i was just listing out things that can AID you against melee units; take one, take a few... point is SM has plenty of anti cc options. btw SM also has the easiest time outsquadding melee units with 1 cap plasma scouts and tri heros w/plasma pistols.

besides, not every melee unit is the t3 beasts that you list. nobs are hardcapped at 2 squads (EASY to outsquad). zerks are 3 pop each... the lesser melee units such as slugga boyz, cultists, raptors, unupgraded banshees etc were the ones that suffered from the high fotm acc in WA bc they actually were the ones being damaged while chasing other units, not the other way around. it made using them worthless bc they couldnt even fullfill their one simple role -- to disrupt, bc they would EASILY get mowed down while being danced (if they even survived the charge). it was counterproductive and lame. now in DC it promotes more of a mixed bag army instead of pure ranged unit spam which used to be able to dance melee to death (literally) and chase fleeing enemies to death.

but the biggest issue is the ability to retreat. of course you need to pay a price for misjudging the situation or losing a battle, and maybe the 10% IS too low, but in WA (35% fotm for most units) one mistake was enough to whipe out your ENTIRE army -- you cant be expected to send a kamikazi scout in everytime you want to take a step forward.

[Jaimas]

I play IG. I see Spam of melee units (and ranged units moonlighting as melee units) constantly.

Common spams I've seen for each race:

Space Marines: Assault Marines
Chaos: Raptors, Berserkers, Chaos Space Marines set to melee
Eldar: Banshees
Tau: Kroot Carnivores, backed with Vespids
Necrons: Warriors, followed by Flayed Ones
Orks: Stormboyz and Nobz
IG: Guardsman Squads

Noticing a pattern yet?

[GRIM Ripper]

well i tend to see...

tac spam.
fw spam.
infiltrated CSM
warrior spam (especially after 2nd upgrade)
gitz
guardsmen
dark reapers followed by warp spiders

see a pattern?

i mean yes of course i see melee units -- zerks, nobz, (havent seen shees in ANY autos yet actually), asm, etc... but i definately dont see some sort of OPed melee spam at all. and btw i play chaos and IG a lot in addition to ork.

[grendizer]

The only problem I see with the fotm change is with horrors. They had 100% fotm accuracy and was one of their strengths and what made them stand with other AV infantry. FOTM change affects them a lot.

[Nobunaga]

As an IG player I've noticed a fair bit of all sorts of spam. Most CC units are easy to deal with however. It's just not feasible to outsquad IG with CC and ranged troops due to GMs being so cheap. Not only that with execute they can stand up to most tier 2 ranged units squad for squad anyway.

Probably the most dangerous spam I've seen though is a zerk spam backed with a sorceror. Due to CoT and Doombolt he can inflict masses of damage and he's fairly cheap.

Anyway my point is that most CC spam (like Kroot for example) is very easy to beat for IG currently. It would probably be even easier without the FoTM penalty. In my opinion they have gotten stronger but generally CC spam is pretty useless. I don't think the FoTM nerf has a huge amount of bearing on CC units tbh. Most CC units sucked so much at range that it wasn't noticeable. Dancing was never all that effective without outsquadding your opponent anyway.

The major ramifications are in retreating where it was a horribly bad move. I've only played IG either in WA or DC. I certainly never remember losing my whole army in a retreat (except... of course the Necrons). You might lose 10 or so guys but for it certainly wasn't unreasonable. With Necrons however it is. 80% accuracy and 100% of that on the move? I have no idea what relic were smoking but I really hope that gets fixed.

So in conclusion roll-back the nerf on FoTM not because it massively effects dancing but because a battle without risks is retarded (harrassing in particular is too hard to stop now) especially when they go in the total other direction for one team.

[War-Reborn]

Standard ranged troopers, should have 50% FOM, upgraded heavy weapons that can be fired on the move (i'e Plamsa) should be 30% FOM, Comanders should be 50%, if they sport high powered heavy ranged weapons (warboss, tau commander) an 70% if they sport small pistols (SM Commander etc) on a note the standard damage on the commanders basic pistol, might need to be reduced a tad due to this, but that would then make upgrading to plasma pistols a more worthwhile upgrade later, CC units with pistol type weapons should also be 70%

this would be similar to the old values, while addressing the damage on the more for more contenious items like plasma, its also more realistic, as small light pistol would always have a better fire move accuracy than a big lumbering machine gun, an would be provide a boost for cc squads that are being danced, only exceptions would be necrons, who would retain there no penalty, due to slow speed, shoota termies an Obilterators would also have no penalty as like warriors there very slow

Tanks an slow walkers would be 50%, faster walkers (i'e sents, elder walkers) 40% an fast veicles i'e LS, wartruk, chimera 30%

[ForgottenSpirit]

Your on the right track war, but not 50%, thats insane.

It was about 30% in winter assault, and that was MORE than enough to cut down troops that were running away, but not so much that it would hamper them completely.

50% on the move would mean if you lose a fight, running would be pointless, as you would get cut down.

I understand where your coming from for your values, but in practice (and we have had 2 full games and many patches with FOTM) those values are far too high.

[nemarsde]

I'm not sure what pc of base accuracy I'd go for. Maybe 25% With some high tier units having even better (since they're mostly hard capped now anyway)?

My problem with this 10% of base for FotM is that it just seems to have created Benny Hill gameplay, with units chasing after each other around the map while not actually achieving anything on either side. You know, you've got a Guardian squad being chased by Raptors, left, right, up and down the map, the Benny Hill music playing in the background...

[DukeRustfield]

First, Duke, you say that dancing was the reason for the instatement of this ridiculous overnerf. Fair enough.
No, I didn't. I said (and the game developers said) that FoTM penalty was put in to MAKE RETREATING A TACTICAL POSSIBILITY. As opposed to how it was in WA, which was useless.


As an IG player I've noticed a fair bit of all sorts of spam. Most CC units are easy to deal with however. It's just not feasible to outsquad IG with CC and ranged troops due to GMs being so cheap. Not only that with execute they can stand up to most tier 2 ranged units squad for squad anyway.

Probably the most dangerous spam I've seen though is a zerk spam backed with a sorceror. Due to CoT and Doombolt he can inflict masses of damage and he's fairly cheap.

Anyway my point is that most CC spam (like Kroot for example) is very easy to beat for IG currently. It would probably be even easier without the FoTM penalty.
What the hell are you talking about???

First of all, GM are insanely expensive. You will get outsquaded by just about anything. Because you're never going to have a basic 5 man GM squad unless you want to flush your req down the toilet. However, other races can have basic 4 man squads and make your range troops useless.

Second, the current FoTM helped IG probably more than any race in the game. With their ease of breaking (you mentioned execute, but that's T2 with Commissars), IG have always had to run. If running meant death until T2 Commies, IG would be back to getting smeared in T1 and losing map control which snowballs into them getting out-teched and ultimately losing the game. WE ALREADY DID THIS! IT DIDN'T WORK!

EDIT: I was told that they weren't reduced to 10% accuracy but were multiplied by .1. If it's reduced to 10% across the board then that is silly as it doesn't affect units equally. It should be multiplicative. But maybe they can't do that.

As for IG: Hellhounds are AE. AE is not affected by accuracy.

Your guardsmen example means nothing. If the enemy moves they face the same penalties. Except the enemy does more dmg, has more health, more morale, etc.

There was almost never a point in ripper guns unless you set them on ranged. I remember watching some Ogryns run around shooting with a Priest (in WA) and they did jack shit. They are a CC unit.

Sentinels pwn. They got a huge advantage from this. Because they are so much faster than everyone, they can afford to run away, and STOP. Suffering no fotm penalty as their target tries to close in and suffers the penalty. Like if a Defiler is chasing a Sent. As long as you don't get into CC you'll suffer almost no dmg while ripping it apart. Whereas in WA you'd be sucking down that autocannon.

[Tadatsune]

While I don't like the FotM penalty so much, I certainly must say it has opened up all kinds of doors regarding play; I never used to think about what firing stance the units should be on, now I do it all the time. Its kinda cool.

I think that this whole FotM thing has benifited my play, and will continue to even if FotM accuracy is raised.

I am still hoping for my "happy medium."

[Jaimas]

First of all, GM are insanely expensive. You will get outsquaded by just about anything. Because you're never going to have a basic 5 man GM squad unless you want to flush your req down the toilet. However, other races can have basic 4 man squads and make your range troops useless.
Despite having the lowest cost-efficiency of any basic troop choice, Guardsmen are still the cheapest and most numerous tier-1 troop choice, bar none. The FOTM nerf is stupid on this particular unit because there's no ability to back off, firing as you retreat. IG don't get damage sponge units or melee combat units until Tier 3, and considering that an IG player has to devote most of his squad cap to Guardsman Squads (as they get no other choices), you're stuck with an Infantry unit which was hit ridiculously hard by the FotM nerf.


Second, the current FoTM helped IG probably more than any race in the game. With their ease of breaking (you mentioned execute, but that's T2 with Commissars), IG have always had to run. If running meant death until T2 Commies, IG would be back to getting smeared in T1 and losing map control which snowballs into them getting out-teched and ultimately losing the game. WE ALREADY DID THIS! IT DIDN'T WORK!
A compelling argument, until you bear in mind the fact that Guardsmen used to be able to actually hit when they were firing at on the move. Now, if they get outgunned, there really IS nothing you can do about it, because if you run, the enemy will just chase them in a gargantuan, Benny Hill-esque chase scene, whilst your own units aren't going to so much as mess up the hair of their enemies because they can't hit jack shit. Running is death until T2 Commies, and a stand-up fight isn't to the IG's advantage until said Commies either.
And that's with the Nerf. Your point is thus moot.

BONUS EXTRA POST!

I've come upon a way to fix the accuracy values, using the accuracy values from TT as a comparison.

In TT, different units have different accuracies ratings, covered by a BS (Ballistic Skill) Rating:
Orks: 2 (Approx. 37%)
Imperial Guard: 3 (Approx 50%)
Space Marines: 4 (Approx. 66.6%)

And so on.

In addition, different weapons have different classes for how they can fire:

Rapid Fire Weapons (such as Lasguns or Bolters)
Assault Weapons (Weapons such as Ripper Guns or Flamers, which are so indiscriminate that they don't need much aiming and can be fired on the move)
Pistols (Such as Bolt, Las, and Hellpistols)
Heavy Weapons (Cannot fire on the move unless on a vehicle)

The general idea is to work the weapon classes and accuracy values along the lines of their TT Equivilents.

For example, we can easily place Rapid Fire Weapons as having simply half accuracy on the move (which makes sense). As such, a Guardsman (BS3, so 50% accuracy) with a Lasgun (a Rapid Fire Weapon), would hit 25% of the time when firing on the move (Half of the 50%).

For Assault Weapons, it's simple: Don't change the accuracy values much, if at all. An Ork with a Burna, for example, probably doesn't need to aim that much when he's directing a fuggin' flamethrower blast at an enemy. So his accuracy would be fine if he was moving or not.

For Pistols, you use the rapid-fire rule, but somewhat reduced. So a Space Marine Sergeant (BS4, so 66%) with a Bolt Pistol (a Pistol Weapon) would hit 49.5% of the time when on the move (suffering a 25% reduction from 66%).

For heavy weapons, nothing needs be changed for infantry, since they cannot be fired on the move. However, Vehicle FOTM penalties for these weapons must be cut dramatically if vehicles are to remain viable. I say handle each weapon differently as needed, on a case-by-case basis.

And there you have an oversimplified solution. Again, this is all theoretical, but I feel it makes a damn good centerpiece for the sake of comparison and is a solid start for how to fix the ungodly broken FotM nerf.

[Deaths Abyss]

Why are rapid fire weapons aka machine guns being granted a higher accuracy bonus than a pistol???

[Jaimas]

Other way around. They're suffering a higher accuracy cut. "Rapid Fire" in TT refers to weapons with select-fire settings, like modern assault rifles.

Bolters, Pulse Rifles, Plasma Guns, and Lasguns all fall into this catagory, as do others.

And also, the comparison was for a Guardsman and a Space Marine, which have different base accuracy ratings (50% and 66%, respectively).

[DukeRustfield]

Don't care about TT whatsoever.


The FOTM nerf is stupid on this particular unit because there's no ability to back off, firing as you retreat.
This doesn't make sense. NO unit has ever had the ability to retreat and fire except Dark Reapers with an Exarch. When you're retreating, it's because you're broken and/or about to die. You don't want to stop and trade shots, you want to get out of fire ASAP.


Now, if they get outgunned, there really IS nothing you can do about it, because if you run, the enemy will just chase them in a gargantuan, Benny Hill-esque chase scene, whilst your own units aren't going to so much as mess up the hair of their enemies because they can't hit jack shit.
No, no. You get broken or start dying, you run. While running, you overwatch. If you get away with 3 guys in 3 squads, all broken, in short order that can be 3 full squads at full morale who then stop and shoot the shit out of the Benny Hill chasing them. That is a massive bonus to IG as opposed to run-and-die.

Get Troubleshooter and Das Capn and other IG zealots in here and ask them if FoTM hurts or helps IG. It really is what made them able to compete this build. It certainly wasn't ONE free guy in GM squads...