Balance Redefining shotgunners and Volkov

[Pushwall]

So there's a bit of a thing involving shotgun units right now.

First off, the $200 shotgunners in general.
They are far better at mid-range than intended due to the strong afterburn damage that was meant to make it so they don't have to rely on headshots at close range so much.
Sergeant's slug barely even matters anymore since you can easily whittle someone down at max range with burn damage if you hit at least one pellet per shot. But even then the slug is boring anyway because it's just M16 trishot++.

Second, Starshina's secondary being in a weird place.
In buildings it is pretty much just the dragonsbreath but better, and completely unnecessary because Soviets have so many other ways to kill someone in CQC already - the AK-47 sprayshot, the PKM's sheer dakka, the flamethrower's flamethrowerness, Volkov with his shotgun AND his nades, AP mines that prevent Soviets from having to deal with CQC situations in the first place, and even the PRIMARY fire of the starshina. And if I ever see a need to add attack dogs to the game, well, that'll be ANOTHER thing for the Soviet CQC pile. The TOZ secondary has been nerfed many many times, down from its original Beta/Gamma-era state of doing more than twice as much damage as the dragonsbreath, down to now where it only does about 20% more (when you factor in the dragonsbreath's burn), and it's STILL ridiculous.

And lastly, Volkov's role just rendering so much of the rest of the Soviet infantry roster obsolete.
He's not meant to be an anti-building unit, more of a "field commando" whereas Tanya is the "urban commando" - but his Kovtillery firing mode that has been hanging around since I think Beta, combined with his sheer longevity from 100 health and CQC dominance from having a shotgun and a flamethrower, is likely why he's still considered a superior choice for base assault and base invasion even when compared to the Shock Trooper and Flamethrower who have the highest MCT destruction speed of any non-C4 infantry in the game (Shock Trooper being stronger than Flamethrower but less capable of defending himself in CQC). This is all on top of the intended field dominance from his improved regeneration, having a strong alpha strike against any vehicle that he can ambush, and being able to take full advantage of cover during his 8 second reload.

I'm considering tweaking the $200 shotgunners by combining the Starshina's dragonsbreath/buckshot into one "not-buckshot" firing mode that behaves identically to the dragonsbreath but without the burn, and replacing the Sergeant's firing modes with something new that Allies sorely need: a strong armour-stripper, who whether he's defending a building or getting the drop on an annoying field shocky/volkov, will be able to rapidly shred the enemy's armour to nothing - meaning even if he fails to finish the job by himself, his allies can easily pick up the pieces against enemy soldiers who've been rendered much more vulnerable to M16s, pistols, snipers and splash. And of course, like the Starshina, losing the mid-range presence that was afforded by the ability to apply burn damage.

However, I am very unsure on how to make Volkov more unique, balanced and fit for purpose without taking too much from him, stepping too much on the toes of other Soviet units, or deviating even further from his intended field control role. The first step in my opinion is getting rid of Kovtillery entirely, and tweaking his AP weapons to be more fit for long-range combat than short-range (like making the AP primary more of a rifle than a shotgun) - but what else? If this much is taken away from him will he even be worth his $1500 price tag? His AT primary clearly doesn't need to be any stronger as there is already no vehicle that can stand up to him except a Phase Tank that gets lucky with tracking (or a Longbow but that's not always available), but I certainly can't make it any weaker if he's going to be losing things elsewhere.

Is there anything Soviets lack he'd be able to pick up the slack in to maintain some uniqueness and even out the loss of Kovtillery - obviously excluding a C4-bot who would be OP against Allies' lack of AP mines (as he was in Gamma)? I'd rather not go the Reborn routes of making him one-per-team or unable to use vehicles; the former leads to fighting over it, and the latter is something not communicated very well in the engine (I've lost count of the amount of "why can't I use the vehicle i bought?" "because you bought a cyborg/jumpjet/commando afterwards..." chat from Reborn). Maybe Tesla Tank's phase tank detection could be moved over to him with the reasoning being AUGMENTED *snort snort*, but then he just becomes even more of a vehicle hound and one that phase tanks have a harder time of noticing and avoiding, and kinda kills phase tanks being an intended counter to him. A hard shift to pure anti-tank combat with very poor anti-personnel ability doesn't seem that befitting of a commando.

[Ice]

Regarding shotguns, I always found having the Dragon's Breath rounds as the primary fire to be rather odd and, IMO, not really appropriate for the "standard" fire-mode. My initial thoughts were to essentially switch the roles of the Starshina's ammo types; have the normal, standard buckshot (basically the current DB but without the burn, like you described) as the primary fire, with the more exotic Dragon's Breath functioning as a shorter-range but higher-damage secondary fire (basically the current buckshot secondary but with burn damage and some projectile-drop) and probably having some kind of speciality bonus like extra MCT damage, but there are probably also some other options that could be explored as well.

Regarding Volkov, it would be nice to tweak his role to be more of a field-commando type, and this could be a good opportunity to change his weapons to something not only more suitable to such a role, but also more plausible; replacing his rather far-fetched arm cannon with more conventional, but equally effective weapons (hand-held grenade launcher, anti-material rifle, etc.), giving him unique abilities that really set him apart from other units, etc. The tricky part will be in designing him in such a way that he's very effective in his intended roles without overshadowing other infantry units too much, while also not being cripplingly overspecialized.

[Pushwall]

9 hours ago, Ice said:

and probably having some kind of speciality bonus like extra MCT damage,

I really want to avoid different fire modes that are simply "different damage vs X target compared to the other mode despite using identical or similar projectiles that don't communicate the difference at all" wherever I can as players have historically been very confused by them. Gamma and Reborn have shown such fire modes to be a mistake:

• when the phase tank's rockets were split into AT and AP, some would continue to use the AT against infantry. Which is part of why it now only fires a combined AT/AP rocket. Bear in mind this was when we had a manual that pointed out there was a difference between the fire modes too.
• when the AK-47 secondary fire had a pistol-esque warhead that didn't damage buildings, some would keep using it against buildings because it's faster so it must be better right?... even though they can clearly see it not budging the building's health bar at all. Which is why the secondary now deals roughly equal DPS to buildings compared to the primary fire.
• when the Remington slug and TOZ buckshot didn't have specialised warheads, the same thing happened. Some would use the slug against MCTs because they don't want to miss and some would use the buckshot because it does more damage to infantry right so it must do more to MCTs! Except the slug was noticeably weaker against MCTs and the buckshot did nothing like the AK secondary. Which is why they now have warheads set to make sure all shotgun fire modes kill buildings at the same speed.
• when the Strela didn't exist (or even the Redeye placeholder for it), the RPG-7 had an AA rocket as a secondary fire. Guess how many people didn't even know it existed since it wasn't on a separate weapon like the Redeye was?
• Reborn's disc thrower has separate AT and AP fire modes, like the old phase tank. I am still confused on which is supposed to be which as they look identical - again, like the old phase tank.
• the same issue with the RPG-7 happens with Reborn's Nod rocket soldier who also has his AT/AA on the same weapon, when the officer has AP/AA on separate weapons.

Even now, some people unfamiliar with Volkov strictly use the AT primary against buildings when the trishot does more damage, and stuff like this is also why the depth charges got changed to deal just as much damage to surfaced subs as they do to submerged ones.

[Raptor29aa]

I thought the purpose of the allied shotgun secondary was for armor (as in attacking soviet tank armor or bouncing Volkov s).

speaking of single slugs what if volkov’s secondary weapon was a single slug or regular grenade? (I always thought the burn was a little too much that and I’ve seen new players try to use the dragon’s breathe against tanks, lol)

as for the Soviet shotgunner I am not sure ?. In order to get away from CQC the projectile would need to not be a wide spray nor a slug (allied copy). It was mentioned earlier bullet fall (a good start) I know flak is too far fetched so would lightning, I Lack imagination for specialty ammo. (Maybe the secondary consumes 2 ammo but burns?)

[Pushwall]

32 minutes ago, Raptor29aa said:

I thought the purpose of the allied shotgun secondary was for armor (as in attacking soviet tank armor or bouncing Volkov s).

It deals identical damage to the dragonsbreath against everything but infantry (where its total stopping power is worse to compensate for ranged headshot potential), so it is preferred for fighting against vehicles yes. In prior versions it had different vehicle health/shield behaviour to the dragonsbreath (a little better against shield and a little worse against health) but it's been simplified to just equal dragonsbreath now.

32 minutes ago, Raptor29aa said:

as for the Soviet shotgunner I am not sure ?. In order to get away from CQC the projectile would need to not be a wide spray nor a slug (allied copy). It was mentioned earlier bullet fall (a good start) I know flak is too far fetched so would lightning, I Lack imagination for specialty ammo. (Maybe the secondary consumes 2 ammo but burns?)

Bear in mind that Starshina's overall role may not even need to be changed if Volkov becomes worse at CQC. If Allied shotgun will only have one fire mode, it stands to reason that the Soviet one should too. There is sadly not much room for thought in coming up with shotgun rounds that have some grounding in reality that don't also step on the toes of other units or cover too many roles; in the Delta prerelease, one of the considered replacements for the Remington's slug shot was a fragmentation round - which basically turned the sergeant into a combined grenadier and shotgunner. Needless to say this was shut down pretty quickly.

[Ice]

I'd be fine with shotguns only having 1 firemode (standard buckshot) if a plausible secondary firemode can't be found; The best I could come up with so far was a shorter-range and gravity-affected version of Dragon's Breath, possibly also using more ammo per shot, although I don't really want both sides' shotguners to be identical either if it can be avoided.

Hmmm... another route I thought of was differentiating the two sides' shotguns (Allies keep their pump-action while Soviets get a double-barrel, unloading all damage at once but more frequent reloading?), but this might be hard to balance.

Also, how exactly should Volkov function if his current incarnation overshadows too many other units? Making him worse at CQB might help him not overshadow CQB-oriented units, but then would his ranged combat have to be enhanced to compensate, and how would this affect long-range units? Basically we need to define precisely what his exact role should be in relation to other units, and then go into the finer details of what his weapons, abilities, etc. should be.

[Pushwall]

3 hours ago, Ice said:

 although I don't really want both sides' shotguners to be identical either if it can be avoided.

The plan I initially put forward for them, where Allied shotgun is an armour-grinder and the Soviet shotgun is a meat-grinder, should differentiate them a fair bit in combat - more than their current identical dragonsbreaths do at least. They'll just look pretty similar.

3 hours ago, Ice said:

Hmmm... another route I thought of was differentiating the two sides' shotguns (Allies keep their pump-action while Soviets get a double-barrel, unloading all damage at once but more frequent reloading?), but this might be hard to balance.

Not to mention model issues (in more than one sense). Who's going to make us a double-barreled shotgun? Do any Russian or eastern European double-barreled shotguns even exist? Even if there is an answer to both of these, it is not worth the time investment of any of our modelers unless it is absolutely necessary for us to follow through on this particular design choice.

3 hours ago, Ice said:

but then would his ranged combat have to be enhanced to compensate, and how would this affect long-range units?

Volkov actually doesn't tread that much on the toes of the other Soviet ranged fighters IMO, and there aren't that many of them anyway:

• Sniper fills a role Volkov obviously will never be able to fill and shouldn't
• Kapitan is primarily an earlygame/no-barracks dude just like the Captain.
• RPG Trooper... well Volkov completely knocks him out of the park at handling ground vehicles, but he's still not heavily overshadowed by Volkov on air maps at least because he can snipe longbows and is harder for said longbows to get direct hits on. Whatever improvements occur to Volkov's intended role, it's pretty unlikely he'll completely replace the RPG. In fact, if Volkov loses his Kovtillery, the RPG will become more relevant on all non-infantry maps due to their ability to outrange pillboxes and having the safest and strongest external building damage of any Soviet infantry (a spot formerly taken by Kovtillery which was very safe and not that much worse than the RPG). So for base assault, the tradeoff between RPG's power/safety and Volkov's survivability should be a bit less of a no-brainer in that case. No Kovtillery means the RPG will always have a purpose even if Volkov gets improvements somewhere compensate for no Kovtillery. Where does this leave the mid/short-range Shock Troopers, though? Perhaps their Mechanic-countering gimmick isn't strong enough?

[Raptor29aa]

Kovtillery gives volkov the range to kill artillery... rpgs can’t get close enough fast enough neither can Shock infantry. Also He is a great artillery counter because his ark shot can hit artillery behind cover. Without it mechanics + artillery would be harder to kill. 

A compromise would be have kovtillery be single shot and thus giving no extra damage bonus.

I will admit it would be easier to kite a kov in a Light tank if it didn’t have the range. 

[Pushwall]

21 minutes ago, Raptor29aa said:

Kovtillery gives volkov the range to kill artillery... rpgs can’t get close enough fast enough neither can Shock infantry. Also He is a great artillery counter because his ark shot can hit artillery behind cover. Without it mechanics + artillery would be harder to kill. 

A compromise would be have kovtillery be single shot and thus giving no extra damage bonus.

I will admit it would be easier to kite a kov in a Light tank if it didn’t have the range. 

In Delta I have almost never seen kovtillery used to fight artillery, or vehicles in general. The few times I see it used against vehicles, it's usually out of desperation to try to finish an apc/light/phase tank in red health that has escaped out of AT range, weak enough that you only need to land 1 or 2 kovtillery shells to finish the job. It simply doesn't have the damage to reliably snipe fresh artillery - each shell does half the damage of a primary shell so you would need 9 hits out of 12 ammo to kill an arty, good luck doing that with kovtillery's accuracy that was designed for mainly hitting buildings and not one of the smallest vehicles in the game. Oh and that's against a non-mech arty. A mech arty is going to laugh all over the slow anti-vehicle DPS of the kovtillery whether it magically lands all of its inaccurate shots from 150m away or not. Now if you're talking Gamma/Beta where the kovtillery had insane damage against vehicles too and not just buildings, then yes.

Hitting artillery behind cover? I highly doubt that given that kovtillery is much, much less affected by gravity than the arty/V2 projectile is. Unless you mean an arty barrel poking out from behind cover, a scenario that's pretty common and in that scenario I find the primary to be a much more reliable option because it hits exactly where you aim it - which is exactly what you need against a target that is barely much wider than an infantry unit.

Good point about the kiting though. Maybe if kovtillery goes the AT shot could probably get like 5m more range and solve that problem somewhat, without again opening it up to the point of outranging pillboxes.

[Raptor29aa]

Ok you have me beat... but I will say this when kovtillery is gone the only unit with anti destroyer range will be the rpg trooper.

[Pushwall]

55 minutes ago, Raptor29aa said:

Ok you have me beat... but I will say this when kovtillery is gone the only unit with anti destroyer range will be the rpg trooper.

Okay, that is something I legitimately hadn't considered. Then again, kovtillery vs boats is nowhere near as prominent as it used to be, likely on account of it being heavily nerfed against vehicles and also the fact that Volkovs are very vulnerable to eating direct Destroyer rocket hits whereas RPG troopers are a little less so. And possibly also the fact that it's a scenario constricted to one map (Coastal Influence). It's another thing that has very little presence (though it's certainly not as uncommon as this odd scenario of trying to snipe artillery). V2s are the premier land-based method of dealing with boats, and if you can't get subs, then destroyers are sticking around to hit non-Sub Pen buildings, forcing them to get close enough to shore that Kov AT, shock troopers, HTs and the like can also pitch in against them. Destroyer/missub range has been gradually tweaked down and down over the patches making rocket/RPG less of a requirement for dealing with ones that have to close in.

I guess an alternate option is making kovtillery not hurt buildings at all so it can still be a viable boat-sniper, but, well, I've already pointed out how well people adapt to arbitrary damage differences between fire modes on the same weapon... Not to mention the fact that it makes a lot less sense than, say, his flak spray not hurting buildings.

[Raap]

Volkov has been cornered into this jack-of-all style ever since he was given a hand cannon.

Without adding more to this discussion I will say this: What if the hand cannon goes away? Just like that, you then are back to just giving him one specialized weapon, that in turn will be much easier to balance.

Something to think about. I personally would not shed a tear for him losing the hand cannon, it's been a source of problems since it was created all those years ago.

Edit: In the ancient days, Volkov used an anti-material rifle (essentially the Renegade n00b cannon). I'm not going to suggest to return an overpowered hitscan weapon, but perhaps you could draw inspiration from this old concept of Volkov being a specialized marksman unit.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Raap

[Mojoman]

Reduce Kovs walking / running speed?

If he becomes easier to kite by all units, that's a nerf without having to change too much right? Turns him into sort of an infantry-tank, which seems good for battlefield control. Even if he does get into a building, he'll be easier to kill by defenders and could inflict less damage from inside.

[des1206]

Why don't we just give Volkov a medium range, super accurate, specially modified AKM machine gun (assume you have the model somehow) like the Ra2 Boris?  Vs. infantry its DPS can be like an accurate PKM, and vs vehicles it can have the current handcannon DPS, but the gun does next to nothing versus buildings. 

Edited March 19, 2018 by des1206

[OWA]

I think the primary fires are in a good place mechanically; the AP cannon could do with something akin to the dragon's breath for visibility (since it's hard to see currently), but the primary fire on the AT cannon is just fine to be fair. 

I've got a couple of suggestions to make the alt-fires feel a bit more intuitive though. I haven't got much time to flesh out a ton of description, so I'll just throw them up.

AT Cannon Secondary - Ranged RocketGiving Volk a rocket on his secondary fire that is longer range than his primary fire, but deals less damage would help him to hit things like boats and aircraft that are far out, whilst providing a visual distinction that's easy enough for players to understand. When we were talking about this the other day @Pushwall, I agreed with you in saying that secondary fire modes that do different types of damage are really hard to communicate, but I feel that they can work if the visual look of the projectile is different enough.

Perhaps even keep the tri-shot for more distinction from the primary and do something like this:

AP Cannon Secondary - Flak BallVolk's AP cannon works much like the Unreal Tournament Flak Cannon right now, but the secondary fire is unreliable and tricky to aim (at least from my perspective). We could try altering the secondary to act more like the UT Flak Ball which would make it more tactile and reliable to use. Obviously liberties need to be taken on the splash damage to prevent Volk from becoming the go-to-guy for all your corridor clearing needs, but I think it could help to tighten up that secondary fire so that it isn't haphazard to use.

Reference:

 

Anyway, just a couple of ideas. Lemme know what you think.

[Pushwall]

26 minutes ago, OWA said:

I think the primary fires are in a good place mechanically; the AP cannon could do with something akin to the dragon's breath for visibility (since it's hard to see currently), but the primary fire on the AT cannon is just fine to be fair. 

I've got a couple of suggestions to make the alt-fires feel a bit more intuitive though. I haven't got much time to flesh out a ton of description, so I'll just throw them up.

AT Cannon Secondary - Ranged RocketGiving Volk a rocket on his secondary fire that is longer range than his primary fire, but deals less damage would help him to hit things like boats and aircraft that are far out, whilst providing a visual distinction that's easy enough for players to understand. When we were talking about this the other day @Pushwall, I agreed with you in saying that secondary fire modes that do different types of damage are really hard to communicate, but I feel that they can work if the visual look of the projectile is different enough.

Perhaps even keep the tri-shot for more distinction from the primary and do something like this:

AP Cannon Secondary - Flak BallVolk's AP cannon works much like the Unreal Tournament Flak Cannon right now, but the secondary fire is unreliable and tricky to aim (at least from my perspective). We could try altering the secondary to act more like the UT Flak Ball which would make it more tactile and reliable to use. Obviously liberties need to be taken on the splash damage to prevent Volk from becoming the go-to-guy for all your corridor clearing needs, but I think it could help to tighten up that secondary fire so that it isn't haphazard to use.

I don't see how that AT secondary would solve the "can siege base defenses/buildings" problem. Unless it does no damage to buildings despite being a rocket-propelled explosive, but then that falls back into the "not well communicated" problem, especially since the secondary fire travels beyond the primary's targeting range so people wouldn't be able to see that they're not damaging the buildings that they're trying to snipe. Oh, and of course, if it's a tracking rocket-propelled explosive, you get the same drunk-fire problem that every single AA weapon in Reborn has making it completely useless for engaging units at the range it's meant for.

And making the AP secondary act like that would basically just mean taking the kovnades and removing the burn damage. Don't see how that would make it any easier to use. Can't do the "explosion is actually a 180 degree spray of bullets" thing in this engine either.

As for the AT/AP primary comments, if I went through with the changes to the $200 shotgunners, I agree that moving dragonsbreath to Volkov could be a good move - we might as well continue to make use of that asset somewhere, and it's exotic enough to fit a cyborg commando project. Plus the burn would help its mid-range viability, making him better in the field even if its raw stopping power goes down (which would nerf him in CQC).

[OWA]

2 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

I don't see how that AT secondary would solve the "can siege base defenses/buildings" problem. Unless it does no damage to buildings despite being a rocket-propelled explosive, but then that falls back into the "not well communicated" problem, especially since the secondary fire travels beyond the primary's targeting range so people wouldn't be able to see that they're not damaging the buildings that they're trying to snipe. Oh, and of course, if it's a tracking rocket-propelled explosive, you get the same drunk-fire problem that every single AA weapon in Reborn has making it completely useless for engaging at the range it's meant for.

And making the AP secondary act like that would basically just mean taking the kovnades and removing the burn damage. Don't see how that would make it any easier to use. Can't do the "explosion is actually a 180 degree spray of bullets" thing in this engine either.

The suggestion for the AT cannon was offered pretty much as a clear alternative to what we have now (1 shell/3 shells) since a rocket projectile would be different enough for players to understand the difference. The point of range is a fair one though as well as one that I hadn't considered.

The suggestion for the AP secondary is technically the same as what it is now but without the burn damage I guess. Although, something that really bugs me currently is how fiddly that weapon is to aim (as previously mentioned). Making the projectile nice and big as well as slowing it down a bit and reducing the velocity/altering the trajectory might help the secondary become a bit easier to fire. Currently it's quite tricky to judge.

[Pushwall]

9 hours ago, Raap said:

Volkov has been cornered into this jack-of-all style ever since he was given a hand cannon.

Without adding more to this discussion I will say this: What if the hand cannon goes away? Just like that, you then are back to just giving him one specialized weapon, that in turn will be much easier to balance.

Something to think about. I personally would not shed a tear for him losing the hand cannon, it's been a source of problems since it was created all those years ago.

Edit: In the ancient days, Volkov used an anti-material rifle (essentially the Renegade n00b cannon). I'm not going to suggest to return an overpowered hitscan weapon, but perhaps you could draw inspiration from this old concept of Volkov being a specialized marksman unit.

Interesting thought, though we'd have to be careful about range. If he can still safely snipe base defenses for noticeably more than a CY repairs and safely snipe buildings for enough damage that even two of them can come close to the damage output of a V2, then that's a problem. But then there's another problem if his damage to buildings is too little and then he pretty much just becomes a killwhore, or a counter unit that you buy to defend against tanks/infantry approaching your base, or sprinkle around the field to prevent Allies from having any hope of making any forwards, especially if his range gets bumped up to the point that doing either of those things is even easier than it already is. I think the AT primary's current building damage is the sweet spot for that, but even that level of damage would become too good when given say 30-50% more range than it currently has.

[Pushwall]

9 hours ago, Mojoman said:

Reduce Kovs walking / running speed?

If he becomes easier to kite by all units, that's a nerf without having to change too much right? Turns him into sort of an infantry-tank, which seems good for battlefield control. Even if he does get into a building, he'll be easier to kill by defenders and could inflict less damage from inside.

A big part of his intended role is his ability to keep surviving. While less speed would definitely discourage him from being a base-invading rambo, it'd also make it harder for him to pick his battles in the field. That might be a bit much in combination with no kovtillery, though a 5-10m range increase and a more viable ranged anti-infantry option could help with that. Also, every other expensive Soviet infantry is slow, Volkov is the only fast one besides Starshina and Grenadier. Maybe if his speed goes down, the Shock could go up to help him in his intended role - but how to justify that given how bulky his equipment looks? (Besides renaming him to "Shocky Gonzales")

[Pushwall]

8 hours ago, des1206 said:

Why don't we just give Volkov a medium range, super accurate, specially modified AKM machine gun (assume you have the model somehow) like the Ra2 Boris?  Vs. infantry its DPS can be like an accurate PKM, and vs vehicles it can have the current handcannon DPS, but the gun does next to nothing versus buildings. 

Soviet rifle soldier already has that model. "Next to nothing" is bad as mentioned above. A rapid fire weapon is too good for CQC. One assault rifle melting tanks in 10 seconds is too dumb even for the bullet mechanics of this game. Keep that to the game with the cheesy tone it was made for.

[Raptor29aa]

I have an idea how about the AT secondary bounces like a grenade and the AP secondary is a single slug

[Pushwall]

34 minutes ago, Raptor29aa said:

bounces like a grenade

There's a reason we don't use this engine's bouncing logic. It is broken to hell and back. When the napalm grenades had it, they were incredibly luck-based weapons that more often than not would either fall through the terrain if it was 100% flat (like a building interior), or jump 50 feet into the air upon hitting the terrain if it wasn't 100% flat. Either way, it then exploded uselessly far away from any unit (I guess the quirk of hitting non-flat terrain could be useful if Reborn jumpjets ever invaded APB...)

I'll do some tests with the slug and see how it plays out.

[Pushwall]

Perhaps an alternate option (something close to Raap's) could be to take a bit of a different direction from my original plan, and make him specialise in siege just like the "mid-Delta" bionic arm grenadier - make Kovtillery his defining feature and more suited to vehicle-sniping, but make him worse at close-range AT somehow. Like axe the AT primary entirely (so there are hardly any vehicles he can take out in one magazine due to kovtillery's lower damage per projectile) and tanking down his speed so he can't so easily get away from engagements he doesn't like. Want to take down a vehicle that's already at your base ASAP? Well that sidebar option right above the volkov one isn't just there for show. (Shocks can probably get a slight speed up to further emphasise this, and Volkov go down to $1200 since an infantry unit that can't do everything doesn't really deserve to be as expensive as the current one, and if he's not a generalist Soviets are going to end up switching infantry more frequently anyway)

Thinking over my original plans, I realise there's a specific set of things infantry can do to be useful on the front lines:

• fight infantry effectively in CQC (Volkov, Flamethrower, Tanya, Medic, and the no-barracks small-arms dream team)
• fight heavy vehicles effectively (Rocket/RPG, Shocky, Volkov, Grenadier. Handling light vehicles effectively is nothing special as literally everyone who isn't stuck with a pistol/sniper rifle can do that.)
• kill buildings at a reasonable speed (anyone with C4, or Kovtillery+ exterior damage, or captain+ MCT damage, or just capable of outranging base defenses. This is probably the most important one since you normally have a vehicle to fill role 1 or 2 on your way to the enemy base.)
• repair units (Mechanic, and Medic on maps with a heavy infantry focus)
• special scripted stuff (like engineer mine detection and spy infiltration)

If Volkov lost kovtillery/kovnades, he would be reduced from points 1/2/3 (no other infantry unit can claim to fill 3 of these points - some come close but no cigar, and they have poor survivability compared to Volkov. He's so good not only because he can do so much but also because he's hard to kill while he does it) to just point 2 (let's be real here: his shotgun isn't that great outside of ladder-camping, his real CQC powerhouse nature mostly comes from the nades) which means he'd just be a shock trooper that is tankier but worse at handling mechanics and ceases to contribute much once the Allies are pushed back into their base. Worth $1500? Ehhh no. And pretty boring because oh hey how many anti-tank infantry do the Soviets have now? RPG Trooper, Shock Trooper, Volkov, Grenadier for no-barracks situations, and then there's the Flamethrower who does it the best of all units that aren't designed for it but it's not what you buy him for... And those first 3, the actual anti-tank units, not having much to distinguish them from one another.

So if he retains kovtillery, becoming a siege specialist, Volkov would definitely continue to fill point 3 by outranging all base defenses, sniping main buildings from a safe distance, and still having his current "modest" exterior DPS rating (or possibly even very slightly more). He may be easier to outrepair than an RPG/grenadier/flamer/shock hitting a building from outside but also much harder to deal with because he's hitting from a safer distance and is much more durable - you don't want him to keep hitting your buildings because then you keep hemorrhaging points, and he has an easier time switching targets than Allied repairmen or shorter-ranged Soviet infantry do. On top of this he'd need to be able to deal with some kinds of units that come after him though. Thing is, if he can deal with anti-infantry vehicles up close, then he mostly obsoletes the shock trooper. If he can deal with anti-infantry infantry close-up instead, then he might just remain the competent infiltrator that he currently is instead of being a siege specialist. Then again, if he's slower than the other slow infantry, that may not be a big issue. If he can't kite the Allies around their own base, he shouldn't be that great of an infiltrator even if he keeps his current AP weapons, right?

Another issue I foresee with siege-specialist Volkov however, with a more accurate long-range weapon, is that he'd be more capable of countering Allied Artillery - thus weakening a unit that is already pretty weak in tech level 5 (but certainly not on lower ends). I guess people will just have to go arty-mech more in this case (as mentioned before, kovtillery is poor in the anti-vehicle DPS department).

[OWA]

Wouldn't pushing Volkov into more of a siege role de-value the V2 Launcher? Having a unit that is fairly well armoured, more mobile (can strafe and use infantry tunnels) and can out-range base defences would surely make players choose the much more fragile V2 Launcher less if they can simply Kov+Heavy or Kov+Supply Truck for roughly the same results. Granted that Kov is more expensive, but I don't believe this to be as much of an issue when compared to encroaching on the V2's siege role.

It worked with the Grenadier because he was cheaper than the V2 and wasn't as good, meaning that the V2 was still viable, but when you have a high tier unit like Volkov potentially stepping into that role, that's when the V2 would probably start to see less games played at high tiers. Just my 2 cents anyway.

[Pushwall]

I'm not too sure on that. V2 already isn't devalued by Kovtillery - likely because it kills buildings twice as fast, can reliably snipe vehicles and base defenses from afar due to its accuracy, can also one-shot arties (so a mech arty that laughs at ranged Kovtillery attack gets hard countered by this), has much more range (225m vs Kovtillery's 170m which also isn't reflected by the target box), and also puts pressure on infantry from that range. I see a lot of V2 use on Camos Canyon, Coastal Influence, KOTG, Pipeline, Siege, Stormy Valley and Zama despite the dominance of Volkov on those maps.

Bear in mind Kovtillery itself wouldn't gain that much out of this specialisation change under my current plan for him - like 5-10% more DPS (I mentioned before that this is a problem but really it's the combination of his original siege prowess combined with annihilating any unit that gets within his range), being a bit more accurate and thus not so unreliable at sniping unmeched vehicles (but definitely not V2 tier), and his target box actually properly reflecting his range, in exchange for firing one shot at a time with 3x the ROF (both a blessing and a curse, misses are less punishing but he has less time to hide behind cover against arties/snipers) and possibly a little less range (150m or so) to compensate for his target box not being a lie anymore - I was surprised when I did a test just now and found out how insanely long Kovtillery range is. It probably would devalue V2 somewhat if the target box revealed how far it could actually shoot while retaining its current range.

It would probably be more likely to make Volkov+V2 a more common combo than what you suggested because it means that when someone shows up to kill your V2 when you're one shot away from killing a building, you now know how close you really need to get for Volkov to finish it off, or at least keep applying pressure if it does get repaired.

Grenadier "wasn't as good"? Huh? He was actually better in the siege role than current Volkov is (but obviously worse at everything else). All he suffered in was durability, but he had more anti-building damage (in fact more than the RPG), was harder to detect due to his trailless projectile, had a laser-accurate projectile, had a usable target box, and cost less than the V2. And V2s were still viable with him around.

[Raap]

Let's take a look at the advanced Soviet infantry roster.

Unit:                               Purpose:

Grenadier	Anti-infantry and moderate anti-structure, minor anti-vehicle
RPG Trooper	Anti-vehicle and moderate anti-structure
Sniper	Anti-infantry
Flamethrower	Anti-infantry and moderate anti structure, minor anti-vehicle
Shock Trooper	Anti-vehicle and moderate anti-structure, minor anti-infantry
Volkov (current)	Moderate anti-everything

So in terms of anti-infantry the Soviet roster has 3 dedicated units, two dedicated anti-vehicle units, zero dedicated anti-structure units if you exclude Engineers.

So just based on that information alone you more or less confirm the need for Volkov 3.0 to at least have a powerful anti-structure ability, and the only thing I can think of - if you exclude completely new weapons - would be C4 or a cinematic attack, as that is the only weapons currently in APB/W3D with building destructive power without also giving effective power to destroy vehicles.

Perhaps the one twist on C4 here could be a revised remote C4 that has a minimum activation delay of ~20 seconds and requires a few charges to do the same job of one timed C4 charge (This requires Volkov to remain alive for this duration), but that requires a code change I'm not sure can be achieved at this time. Hell, maybe even do something interesting with proximity logic and give him something on top of remote C4 so he can be 100% anti-structure focused and also more akin to an infiltrator/saboteur. 

But whether his remaining focus is anti-infantry or anti-vehicle, make sure it is only one of those things. Perhaps you could make him that advanced marksman unit that he was in the early days, or perhaps you strip down his hand cannon to just one function, either way the end result should be a more easy to balance unit, and also a more easily playable unit. The current 4 firing modes are complicated for new users to get a grip on, its a bit of a play-style overload, and perhaps the focus should be more towards simply mirroring him from Tanya (and possibly spies and thieves in terms of being nasty to have inside your buildings).

It's not an easy choice because his concept was never accurately defined in the original Red Alert, and APB is infinitely more layered than a simple top down RTS game. Ultimately I personally never thought that the hand cannon was what defined APB's Volkov, but rather the fact he was a tall, fast moving cyborg experiment wearing a bloody trench coat and hat that would make a Nazi shit himself.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Raap

[Pushwall]

I wouldn't even say current Volkov is moderate anti-vehicle; definitely dedicated. He has just enough firepower to take out a Medium Tank in one magazine and then spend his 8 second reload laughing it up. On top of his pre-reload DPS making even the shock trooper shit himself, he is harder for vehicles to escape from due to moving faster and having more range. All the shock really has over him in this department is hindering mechanics that are trying to repair mid-combat. RPG Trooper is more of the moderate anti-vehicle here I'd say since his slow projectile makes it hard to hit a good portion of the Allied vehicle roster from long range and he dies very easily in close range - his dedication really is anti-air/anti-boat which the other units can't really do.

Flamer and Shock Trooper aren't quite supposed to be "moderate" anti-structure either. I certainly wouldn't call the flamer that, but the Shock Trooper is a bit more questionable here - if he manages to infiltrate he can take out buildings at the MCT almost as fast as a tesla tank can from outside; the problem is infiltrating with that speed and not being overrun by defending infantry. Current Volkov just manages to perform comparably enough in infiltrations to count as "moderate" because while his MCT damage is mediocre he laughs so hard at most defending infantry due to his durability + kiting ability + better flamethrower that it doesn't matter. Perhaps Flamer/Shock need a bit of a look - flamer works fine on lower tech levels and his previous OP nature was more annihilating infantry than taking out buildings, and on higher levels both really only work for anti-building during chinook rushes (or earlygame supply truck for flamer since he can be afforded at that point). They'd still be different enough from siegekov since they need to infiltrate to work, which is more high risk high reward.

With regard to his remaining focus - considering that kovtillery is already anti-vehicle to a degree (but definitely not to the shocky's degree), perhaps he can just have the one firing mode, but with some more splash damage and/or radius so he can still be somewhere between a minor/moderate anti-inf, but at a greater danger to himself in close quarters than the kovnades, so he stops being an infiltration god. Possibly given a special warhead that does extra damage to himself. I had considered removing his armour entirely (instead of baking it into his health like before) in exchange for more health, so he fears splash damage in general which would also discourage that, but that is certainly not fitting for a cyborg and would mean he can't be whittled down to a weaker state and thus survives in enemy bases too well if he can pick his engagements, so it'll probably just have to be special splash warhead that hurts himself more.

Basically, making him the mid-Delta artynader, but better at persisting when detected and applying pressure in exchange for not being near impossible to detect.

[Pushwall]

Or maybe instead of extra-splashifying the artillery mode, we could look back to very old versions of volkov and give him a Makarov pistol as his backup against infantry. Except limited ammo this time around.

[OWA]

2 hours ago, Pushwall said:

I'm not too sure on that. V2 already isn't devalued by Kovtillery - likely because it kills buildings twice as fast, can reliably snipe vehicles and base defenses from afar due to its accuracy, can also one-shot arties (so a mech arty that laughs at ranged Kovtillery attack gets hard countered by this), has much more range (225m vs Kovtillery's 170m which also isn't reflected by the target box), and also puts pressure on infantry from that range. I see a lot of V2 use on Camos Canyon, Coastal Influence, KOTG, Pipeline, Siege, Stormy Valley and Zama despite the dominance of Volkov on those maps.

Bear in mind Kovtillery itself wouldn't gain that much out of this specialisation change under my current plan for him - like 5-10% more DPS (I mentioned before that this is a problem but really it's the combination of his original siege prowess combined with annihilating any unit that gets within his range), being a bit more accurate and thus not so unreliable at sniping unmeched vehicles (but definitely not V2 tier), and his target box actually properly reflecting his range, in exchange for firing one shot at a time with 3x the ROF (both a blessing and a curse, misses are less punishing but he has less time to hide behind cover against arties/snipers) and possibly a little less range (150m or so) to compensate for his target box not being a lie anymore - I was surprised when I did a test just now and found out how insanely long Kovtillery range is. It probably would devalue V2 somewhat if the target box revealed how far it could actually shoot while retaining its current range.

It would probably be more likely to make Volkov+V2 a more common combo than what you suggested because it means that when someone shows up to kill your V2 when you're one shot away from killing a building, you now know how close you really need to get for Volkov to finish it off, or at least keep applying pressure if it does get repaired.

Grenadier "wasn't as good"? Huh? He was actually better in the siege role than current Volkov is (but obviously worse at everything else). All he suffered in was durability, but he had more anti-building damage (in fact more than the RPG), was harder to detect due to his trailless projectile, had a laser-accurate projectile, had a usable target box, and cost less than the V2. And V2s were still viable with him around.

The V2 isn't devalued by Kovtillery currently because artillery isn't Kov's primary role. The Kovtillery also takes a large amount of ammo to fire and has a pretty long reload time. If artillery becomes more of a primary purpose for Kov, then I can see the V2 being devalued.

When I say the Grenadier "wasn't as good", I'm talking about in relation to the V2, not to Volkov. The alpha damage that the V2 deals along with the decent splash radius makes up for the fact that it's got papier-mâché for armour. Putting Kov in the position of the old Grenadier devalues the V2 because Kov is basically a walking tank. It's almost like saying "hey, you know what would be great is if we crossed characteristics from the heavy tank and artillery into one unit that has super range and the armour of a tank".

After reading Raap's post and seeing him mention cinematic attacks, maybe giving Kov something a bit more interesting like an Airstrike/Parabomb beacon would serve to be a neat anti-building tool as well as allowing him to keep his weaponry somewhat similar to what it is now.

I guess you have to ask yourself whether it's worth drastically changing 10+ years of Kov-gameplay consistency to give him a more defined artillery role, rather than just let him be what he is and tune him based on how he's doing. I personally wouldn't mind seeing the Flamer or Shocky get brought up to be premier building killing units for the Soviets. The Flamer seems like the obvious choice because of his role in the original Red Alert.

[Pushwall]

7 hours ago, OWA said:

Putting Kov in the position of the old Grenadier devalues the V2 because Kov is basically a walking tank.

Fair enough. Though price is a factor here. Old Grenadier was 300 and then ramped up to 500 because it's such a good role. Artykov would be somewhere between 1200-1800 (1800 only being likely if he becomes considerably better in this role). With these prices, you can spam V2s, and you could spam old grenadiers, but you can't spam Volkov - though currently it doesn't matter that you can't "spam" Volkov because he's so easy to keep alive. This is not just because he's a walking tank, but also because of his speed that lets him pick and choose engagements and retreat with ease. Perhaps if he was a little slower than the other slow infantry, instead of being tied for fastest, that would be less of a concern - he'd have to commit to any fight he gets into, kind of like the Reborn cyborgs. If you put them into a situation where tib healing doesn't exist, they certainly wouldn't have an easy time surviving despite having so much more health than the rest of the Reborn infantry. Regen exists but if the plan for the "armour shredder" Allied shotgunner goes through (Voe also suggested letting the APC shred armour better as well), regen can only get him so far.

If he was worse at handling units close-up (restricted to using kovtillery vs vehicles, not having his current kovnades or even the Nerf Blaster shotgun for CQC) on top of being slow, I feel that tankiness would mainly serve to make him harder for snipers/arties to pick off - he'd still fold up close against the likes of sergeant/Medic/Tanya/APC/phase tank.

7 hours ago, OWA said:

I guess you have to ask yourself whether it's worth drastically changing 10+ years of Kov-gameplay consistency to give him a more defined artillery role, rather than just let him be what he is and tune him based on how he's doing.

In those 10+ years, I believe the only time Volkov was balanced was in Beta when everything else was unbalanced. When reload-on-exit and instant mech repair meant med mechs could laugh at him and almost everything else in close quarters combat. When hitscan snipers could one-shot him from across the map without even revealing their position to counter-snipers. When he didn't have C4 combined with a building-damaging weapon which basically made him a Tanya who doesn't have to worry about AP mines or suicidal flamethrowers.

If he continues to be a super-generalist I don't think he can be much weaker at his many roles than he currently is without suddenly tipping over the line into complete uselessness. I've been tweaking his power down many times throughout Delta and Volkov clones still comprise at least 80% of the Soviet team on tech level 5 maps, and then when you dip to lower tech levels suddenly every Soviet infantry sees a good amount of use and Soviets somehow still manage to have a good win rate on most T1-4 maps without needing to rely on a team comprised almost entirely of god-soldiers.