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The off map problem

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Cherrybomb

Corporal
Sep 9, 2017
43
0
We all know them and we all hate them, the off map artilleries. You have pushed your enemy back and want regroup your units to continue the attack, but one moment later your entire front will be blow up and you have no chance to react. That's have nothing to do with skill and it is just annoying. So here is my suggestion to fix this balance issue.

First of all the off map arty should be more restricted, espicially for the 101. Airborne and 6. Airborne. The mechanic of the observer has to been changed. Currently you need no skill to use them effectilvely. So whats my idea to fix it? In my opinion the OP shall be in line of sight with his target, so it is no longer possible to destroy the enemy flak or towered artillery behind a treeline or block of houses. If you set your marker on the map to call the off map artillery, the enemy should get a message that the supreme command intercepted a radio signal of enemy artillery support. In addition an area should be marked on the map where the enemy fire might hit. So he can react and has the chance to escape the barrage.

With this changes the off map is still very powerful, but you need more micro managment to use it effectively and the enemy has still a chance to react.

Your thoughts?
 
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I think german infantry decks like 3Fjs, 352nd 716th or 91st luftlande you have good chance to take to handle towns have their own big offmaps to give them back a taste of their own medecine. It is not one-sided.
And offmap vehicles are often easy killed with direct arty hit or planes if you're able to find their locations. They always have to be very close to the frontline to call for strike.

I feel you though, offmap turns me mad too but it is in the game when you use and face infantry decks in towns, it is costly (140-180 points) and may barely makes for its cost unless you're able to hit multiple targets on each strike with them. Plus and maybe it is the more important, it becomes useless once the 3-strikes are made, turns to be a pointless unit to have on the field (except maybe one or two offmaps armor).
The point of offmap is precisely to call hits to disable behind the lines batteries, it is good cause you don't know where it will hit, please don't change that, hidden units are a very fun mechanic :)
 
Offmap will punish people who aren't positioning their units to expect this. Having too dense a front and engaging while bunched up in a location will usually see bombers or offmap hit you. You also have to keep using the C key to check the distances between what you can see with recon and keeping that distance at least 1100m from your support units. Offmap is important for a comeback mechanic or creating the ability for an infantry deck lacking a spearhead to create momentum. It's expensive and usually requires a deck slot per vehicle, which is usually a bad trade off. Since even the planes with the longest reload time are roughly about the same price and can be used at least 4 times if you buy them when C phase starts.

Offmap is needed and is easy to counter, keep recon watching and light/medium attack aircraft hit the vehicle will destroy it. Without offmap the game would become static and snowballing players would be impossible to stop.
 
I love the offmap! Its a big trade off, big investments and if you don't use it correctly you have a useless 180 pt unit. I always picture a front falling, men retreating, and an officer calling in emergency artillery to stem the tide. That's how I use it a lot, gives me the immersion willys.
 
I'd personally be in favour of a bit of a rework on offmap in the flavour of removing charges, much increased cooldown and being wildly inaccurate to start, with dispersion becoming more concentrated if the OP is able to have LOS to call in shot correction. No more calling in unexpected pinpoint strikes from behind a hedgerow, you now have a warning somethings coming (in the form of inaccurate barrage before shot correction is called in) and units can react by preventing the OP calling in said shot correction.
 
Conduction said:
I'd personally be in favour of a bit of a rework on offmap in the flavour of removing charges, much increased cooldown and being wildly inaccurate to start, with dispersion becoming more concentrated if the OP is able to have LOS to call in shot correction. No more calling in unexpected pinpoint strikes from behind a hedgerow, you now have a warning somethings coming (in the form of inaccurate barrage before shot correction is called in) and units can react by preventing the OP calling in said shot correction.
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I often argue offmap doesn't win a game and worse huge users of offmaps often loose due to them, to ask for this kind of change will make offmap very useless imo and create boring offmaped areas. Why bring offmaps in the first place if you canno't surprise your opponent with it. Regular arty is more precise and deadly then...
What do you mean by removing charges ? Illimited ability to fire ? If offmaps have no charge anymore and just cooldowns, in this case we'll soon see people bitching about the perpetual offmaps on towns preventing people to advance any infantry at all. After all, there are often 3 or 4 offmaps being thrown by one opponent and it's worse when there is teamplay. I if you manage to keep your offmaps alive, you could have almost illimited barrage on areas.
 
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Cherrybomb said:
We all know them and we all hate them, the off map artilleries. You have pushed your enemy back and want regroup your units to continue the attack, but one moment later your entire front will be blow up and you have no chance to react. That's have nothing to do with skill and it is just annoying. So here is my suggestion to fix this balance issue.

First of all the off map arty should be more restricted, espicially for the 101. Airborne and 6. Airborne. The mechanic of the observer has to been changed. Currently you need no skill to use them effectilvely. So whats my idea to fix it? In my opinion the OP shall be in line of sight with his target, so it is no longer possible to destroy the enemy flak or towered artillery behind a treeline or block of houses. If you set your marker on the map to call the off map artillery, the enemy should get a message that the supreme command intercepted a radio signal of enemy artillery support. In addition an area should be marked on the map where the enemy fire might hit. So he can react and has the chance to escape the barrage.

With this changes the off map is still very powerful, but you need more micro managment to use it effectively and the enemy has still a chance to react.

Your thoughts?
Click to expand...

Off map is a huge investment, and it has to be well used, you have to position your vehicle quite close now to the enemy, you have to predicte the moves of the enemy and you have to hold him there for half a minute or more with out loosing. Also off map nearly never destroys as much points as it costs, yeah its good zone control but its time is limited, the big off mpas come for divisions that lag in firepower somewhere else. And people already hate how much micro thsi game has. you wanna give them even more? no thanks!.
 
Protosszocker said:
Off map is a huge investment, and it has to be well used, you have to position your vehicle quite close now to the enemy, you have to predicte the moves of the enemy and you have to hold him there for half a minute or more with out loosing. Also off map nearly never destroys as much points as it costs, yeah its good zone control but its time is limited, the big off mpas come for divisions that lag in firepower somewhere else. And people already hate how much micro thsi game has. you wanna give them even more? no thanks!.
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I don't use off map to kill off units, instead I use it for mass suppression then charge in with a fast light vehicle and mass surrender. If the other player doesn't have a CMD nearby you can make a lot of units surrender at one time, which would offset its cost pretty well.
 
Keep in mind that you have to either kill or contribute to the killing of alot of units to benefit from the off map artillery. Most players fail to do this. In my opinion it's usually more worthwhile to micromanage mortars or artillery pieces. But off map is a problem if you are playing on a too small map size (most 10v10 games, and to a smaller extent some of the 2v2-3v3 maps that are not wide enough for 3v3 play, such as St Mere Eglise).
 
Herr_Robert said:
Keep in mind that you have to either kill or contribute to the killing of alot of units to benefit from the off map artillery. Most players fail to do this. In my opinion it's usually more worthwhile to micromanage mortars or artillery pieces. But off map is a problem if you are playing on a too small map size (most 10v10 games, and to a smaller extent some of the 2v2-3v3 maps that are not wide enough for 3v3 play, such as St Mere Eglise).
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off map is probably the best when being pushed out of town fights and you need to swing the fight back into your favor rather quickly
 
Ehh, off map being super expensive with the best ones (the 356mm and 380mm artillery) being limited to three uses imo make it very hard to find good use out of them that's worth 60 points of stuff each shot, or the lower caliber brethren in its fight with howitzers for a slot which have access to smoke and can be changed and reloaded rapidly and of course come in more availability.

I actually like putting in 203mm, 170mm, and 210mm offmap in occasionally as iirc unlike the 380mm they have unlimited use, and they often can smack a general area for stunning purposes better then normal art if they aren't moving. I can't however ever justify myself in putting any of the 140mm offmaps against their alternatives >_> tho idk maybe their reload is lightning but I can't say as I've never used them.
 
DarkCruor said:
Ehh, off map being super expensive with the best ones (the 356mm and 380mm artillery) being limited to three uses imo make it very hard to find good use out of them that's worth 60 points of stuff each shot, or the lower caliber brethren in its fight with howitzers for a slot which have access to smoke and can be changed and reloaded rapidly and of course come in more availability.

I actually like putting in 203mm, 170mm, and 210mm offmap in occasionally as iirc unlike the 380mm they have unlimited use, and they often can smack a general area for stunning purposes better then normal art if they aren't moving. I can't however ever justify myself in putting any of the 140mm offmaps against their alternatives >_> tho idk maybe their reload is lightning but I can't say as I've never used them.
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Yep big offmaps are whorty cause they actually kill infantry. But buy a thing the price of a tank to hope having surrenders 3 times in a row and be done with it, it is not what i call op.
 
Nah they are fine, also now with their limited range, a good reco net can see them coming miles away. You can blast them with artillery or brace yourself for the incoming barrage.
 
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