Artillery effectiveness

[Solifuge2]

Hi guys,

I personally dislike the amount and destructiveness of the artillery alot. For me getting sent back to the timeout screen repeatedly 5 seconds after you spawn gets old really fast. While it does provide atmosphere and is needed to break through defenses on certain locations, some maps (Brest, PHL, Meuse River, etc) go overboard. It's an enemy you can't fight and you are forced to deal with it to cap the flags. If someone shoots you you weren't as fast as him or he was in a better, anyway it's your fault. It adds to the gameplay because it rewards your skill. When you get killed by the artillery you just die randomly because some guy on the other side of the map has god vision of an entire area. You get punished with the timeout screen over and over again.

Therefore the artillery's fire rate, accuracy, power or the number of artillery pieces should be reduced on these maps.

Please vote and share your opinion on the artillery, i really wonder if I'm the only one here 

[ajappat]

Only thing I would change about arty, is wurfgerat reload time. That thing is just too powerfull. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with arty.

Howizers shoot too slow to become frustrating. Mortars are better, but still not too OP, just don't repeatedly run where it shoots. Nebel is too inaccurate to become too great thread. Getting killed by StukaZuFuss or calliope is just bad luck  .

[LuckyOne]

I usually just deal with it... I'm sure the soldiers IRL were crying for a nerf too! 

On larger maps it's easy to avoid... On smaller ones/maps with a lot of bottlenecks (or "encouragements for players to teamwork more" according to some people  ) it can get annoying.

The thing is the artillery itself is not OP but the God view could be, as it doesn't represent a realistic "view" of a target... In reality you would only have coordinates and some feedback from the spotter to work with.

One way to combat it is to keep a lookout for enemy spotters, but I believe it would be better if the "bird's eye view" was only available while the spotter is looking directly at the target.

[Flyboy1942]

Lucky, that's one of the things from the bf1942 engine I preferred. The way the spotter view was tied to the location of the spotter at the time, and the way it "tracked" the arty shells made it a more balanced system to use. A long range spot wouldnt give as clear a view as a close range spot, and neither would be top down.

But I understand it's an engine limitation, and the current system does a fine job. I do like the dials on the side much more than the vague bf1942 system.

More casualties were inflicted by artillery than anything else during the war, so I'm happy to see it's (strong) presence in the game. : )

[Slayer]

It's an enemy you can't fight

Kill the spotter. Job done.

Can't kill the spotter? Go a different route. You can't tell me that on for example Meuse there aren't any other possibilities/locations to go to except for the one under shellfire. Adjust, and you won't be frustrated so much

[CHRISTIEFRONTDRIVE]

This is a tough one, because you don't want to write just out of frustration if you're anti-arty, but at the same time you need to remember how frustrating it is to be on the receiving end of it.

I've never been a mortar guy/on arty/commander so I don't know how hard or easy it is to be effective, but there are times where I quit in the middle of a map because there is just no fun left in it. The problem we have here is that the usual response ('Well, go spawn at a flag that isn't being arty'd') is a legitimate one, but at the same time, not spawning at Navy HQ on Brest because of it just being mortared to shit all round is very different from telling someone not to spawn there because the Panzer IV's got it covered, or a good German squad is about to lock it down and we need to regroup. Mortars and arty are no less legitimate ways of fighting than anything else, but they aren't enemies that can be fought. You can't send a squad to deal with an enemy mortar battery in the way you can send one to take out a tank, or wipe out another squad.

When I first got to play FH2, after many years of FH1, I expected mortars to be just a little more than background noise. That I'd be attacking a town with my team, and a few guys in another field would be mortared here and there, and occasionally a mortar would get me. That there'd be lucky rounds where I never got it, and unlucky ones where I got it four or five times. In reality, the average infantryman is mortared very, very often on most maps, and indeed on maps like Brest, is often nothing but mortared. Mortars don't need to be less powerful, but I think they should be less often. Whether this is done through removing ammo kits from mains, limiting some respawn time, or whatever, I don't think mortars should be a constant threat. Whether they were in real life or not doesn't matter to anyone who spends half the round staring at the respawn screen. If you hear mortars going off, I think it would be much more enjoyable to think 'Sit tight for a few minutes, and then the coast is clear for a little while until they get more ammo'.

...

A slightly related note: I can't miss the opportunity to express my wishes that mortars be removed from 16-sized maps. No one ever agrees with me on this but I will be a very happy guy if these get the boot in some future patch, and if they do, good riddance.

[0utlaw]

i luv artillery.   

[Solifuge2]

It's an enemy you can't fight

Kill the spotter. Job done.

Can't kill the spotter? Go a different route. You can't tell me that on for example Meuse there aren't any other possibilities/locations to go to except for the one under shellfire. Adjust, and you won't be frustrated so much

Ofcourse you can avoid the arty at times, no one is going to run directly into it happily. Killing the spotter is not always an option since on maps like brest there will be 10 more and he will respawn in 15 seconds anyway. If you always had to "spawn somewhere else" when there is arty on a flag the only thing you would be doing is running around aimlessly. Right now 2 arty pieces can almost completely lock down 2 flags.

Arty on big maps with lots of place to maneuver arty isn't a problem. On a map like brest i just feel that it isn't necessary since the defense for the axis is not too hard in the first place.

I usually just deal with it... I'm sure the soldiers IRL were crying for a nerf too!

Why don't we die of dysentery every 5 spawns, well, it's still a game and it needs to be balanced I'm happy that you and the rest seem to deal better with it though. But like some have said small balance fixes like a slower reload for the werfer would be nice. I agree with Andrew, artillery barrages should come more in volleys, with pauses in between. 

[djinn]

Never change. You need to 'move like you have a purpose'. I realize that howitzer don't lobe too good, so I stick to the inside of their attack arc, so I may only get hit by a lucky shot or burst above.

Mortar is more scary in some cases, but when it gets really bad, stay indoors, or better yet, realize that you are zeroed and kill the spotter - or get out of the zone.

Its the real adrenaline rush ingame -

NEVER CHANGE  A THING

[Norman Rockwell]

Is it possible to use your own artillery to take out the opposing team's arty (counter-artillery fire)?

[djinn]

Depends on the map -  Not possible on El Alamein where arty can't elevate high enough to fire that far.

Actually, I think you're better of doing that with deployable mortar. If I know the devs well, then no single howitzer can fire far enough to kill another howitzer.

You CAN however bomb them quite easily from the air - or basic strafe would suffice.

[Dukat]

Arti is a teethless tiger. You need both a good gun operator and a good spotter. If those 2 guys find each other on the battlefield, then kudos, I want them to carry on.

Arti usually hits a single spot, often easy to walk around. Otherwise there must be a spotter constantly correcting the coordinates, being an easy target.

But if somebody wants to argue for quad batteries, I'm all in.

[VonMudra]

Arty is great ingame, and if anything, I'd up reload speed for field pieces....  Artillery was the cause of between 60 and 70% of casualties in WW1 and WW2, so it's nowhere near as deadly in FH2 as it was IRL.

[Ts4EVER]

According to my stats I was killed 14 times by artillery, compared to 778 times by rifle. So in conclusion, I don't think it has that big of an effect.

[Surfbird]

I think this artillery in the stats only contains the commander artillery maybe, I dunno ? But my stats say I got killed by artillery 5 times, which can not be right.

You still get killed by a rifle more often and artillery is part of the atmosphere. But on brest, the mortar turns out to be really annoying.

I stated this in the Brest-Thread before. The mortar guys shoot so close between the lines hat it results in a lot of teamkills and if you try to advance, make it over the street right to the enemy positions without dying to the enemy mortar and mg fire, you can be to 75 % assured your own teams mortar will take care of you.

Seriously. I have no problem with mortaring enemy positions. But shooting that close to your own guys is so annyoing. And mortar guys do not have to care, because they got so many points. Some teamkills here and there mean nothing to them.

I'd just punish mortar team kill with -8 instead of -4. So those guys have to be careful not shooting the own units, have to use it more tactically and got to watch the minimap

On Brest mortars make the game static, so it's hard enough to make progress. Due to your own teams mortar it's often impossible.