This post is very long, my apologies.
TL:DR -
Notify players better of map boundary changes, such as by coloring changing areas on the minimap and adding a timer of when it will change. Also increase the duration you can be out of bounds when it is a boundary change to prevent double penalty to aggressive players.
Early game needs more anti tank, badly. You can’t buy more Explosion Packs until several several games in, the AT weapons are very underwhelming, and some of the starter vehicles needs buffs to engage their heavier lategame counterparts.
Explosion hit registration. Its a buggy mess. Some tanks can hit you through a city block’s worth of buildings, sometimes you can direct hit a tank with a grenade launcher and not even register as a hit.
Radio Operator more artillery strike options/buff. An artillery strike should be able to penetrate smaller tanks, especially since top armor is the second weakest. Adding incendiary shells for area denial (with limitations to prevent certain abusive practices) and railway artillery as an AT solution would be very beneficial.
Dynamic map boundaries
Having the map boundaries change throughout the game is fine, but please make the minimap show what is going to be off limits before it is off limits. Having a small line of text that says “Move to the next zone, soldier!” tells me nothing about how far I have to move inwards. On top of that, the game only gives you a handful of seconds to move before you get killed by the game itself, which is total bullcrap because chances are you are being shot at while retreating anyways, so you get to choose between dying to the environment or dying to another player, with your only hope being that you don’t get notice or your enemy misses. Seeing as the default weapons are oneshots at many ranges and very very accurate, its extremely unlikely unless the player is just not trying to aim, and if you stop to shoot back, you die from time out.
On top of this, some maps squeeze the playable areas into chokes that are so tight that flanking simply cannot exist. I was trying to flank a sherman not even an hour ago when the map boundary got pushed back around 40 meters, and upon making the drive I got oneshot because I couldn’t get a stable shot while moving back into the playable area. Not only did I get punished for flanking but I also got punished for uneven terrain, which isn’t even something I can do anything about. I know that this is for realism and I totally understand why its there, but thats ridiculous that I lost a perfectly good flank, could not secure a kill, and also lost my own tank crew, all because the game said f— me.
Please make the minimap show such areas in a different color, and give a timer on the HUD so I can know how long I have before I have to run. Its not fair nor realistic to have a lone soldier simply cease to exist for being in enemy territory for 20 seconds with or without being attacked.
Early game Anti-tank
I’m not very far into the game, and I see tons of ways that players with experience and such can deal with tanks easily. Stacking a triple grenade pouch with all Explosion Packs works wonders on anything. Meanwhile a new player can only use the 3-4 Explosion Packs that they start the game with, and until you learn where you want to hit with those, they seem to do nothing to tanks. Unless you land within half a meter of the treads, you will not do anything to a tank of any kind. I’m sure this is realistic, because tanks were, you know, tanks. But like, a single tank on the enemy team can literally win a game because it seems like no one has any idea how to use Explosive Packs and treat the Sd.Kfz as something that can withstand one tank shell. On top of that, the first and only designated AT weapon I have so far, the Sturmpistole, most of the time does literally nothing but give away my location and cost a hefty reload time. If I shoot under the tank, between the treads, it deals no significant damage and 95% of the time the 1-2 shrapnel go at an angle that completely miss crews and ammunitions. If I shoot right where the base of the tank head is, at best I get 2 crews killed, at worst I get no damage, and I don’t think it should be like that. Perhaps this is also for realism, but if your Explosion Pack is just a straight upgrade to your AT weapon in all but ammo count, what is the point of an AT trooper.
My issue is that every single time I get into a game, the only vehicle used by my team is the Sd.Kfz, which is not even a tank, its an armored car with a tank’s weapon, that is always getting oneshot by so much as a grazing explosion, while the Allies’ first vehicle is an actual tank, just a small one. The Sd.Kfz has a really hard time killing other vehicles before it gets killed itself, because the vehicles have similar caliber weapons but the Sd has very little armor in comparison. Its hard to know where the weakpoints are when you don’t have the options of X-ray on vehicles you don’t have, so typically I’m firing 2-3 shots before someone marks me and the tank turns its barrel only to hit me in the wheel as I retreat and oneshot my Sd via fragments blasting up and killing my whole crew. I know the Sd is supposed to be a hit and run or sniper role, but its very hard to get away with that currently.
Maybe if it had some camoflauge you could throw over it, that you could swap out mid battle by having crew get out and put it on or something, that makes it both so it becomes harder to see but also makes it so you cannot mark it until you are within 50-60m of it so it can be a little safer from other tanks and get those needed shots off.
Explosive Hit registration
This one, oh boy, I’ve seen so much bull whenever any tank, Explosion Pack, or Sturmpistole grenade is involved. I have directly hit tanks with Sturm on several occasions only to not even get a hitmarker (sometimes so much is going on that hitmarkers don’t register but kills still show up in feed, these were not those times). I have been hit by tanks that fired through multiple buildings at once. Current record for me was 4 buildings and a single wall. To emphasize, that is 9 walls at various angles that the tank penetrated and hit me through, while aiming perfectly straight at me. Was he cheating with wallhacks? I have no idea. I assume he shot someone that he could see between me and him, but idk I was on the other side of the d— neighborhood when it happened, how would I know. Meanwhile my little Sd.Kfz cannot penetrate a singular squad car with APC rounds to hit a prone soldier on the other side. Not even the whole car, mind you. Just from the steering wheel through the top of the hood. If an APC round is supposed to penetrate 40mm of metal, it should be able to penetrate 8mm of metal. I have similar issues with enemy anti-air turrets, but thats a lot more reasonable than a squad car.
Radio Operator Artillery Strike buff
The artillery strike is really quite balanced where it is, but theres some things that could use a bit of tweaking. The artillery cannot damage tanks at all, despite armor being second thinnest on the top, and on top of that, 100% of the time (at least, when I have used it), it has bounced off of every tank, which not only caused zero damage to said tank, but also denying the explosion from killing any infantry nearby. Any tank can actually ferry multiple infantry safely through an artillery strike, and thats not only unrealistic thats also just insulting to any Ops trying to do their job. Maybe 1 or 2 will die from a direct hit but the other 8 sitting on top will get through just fine and capture points during the strike. I’ve seen it happen like 12 times now, and the lack of AT just makes it more insulting and infuriating because I can’t do anything except chuck a Explosion Pack and pray at my current level.
Not only that, but the artillery strike, is quite a contained area, that it sometimes can’t do its job properly, and since only 1 strike can be active at a time per side, it can’t really work as an area suppression nor area denial that they were often used for. It works wonders as a way of clearing out a clustered area, but that isn’t the only role of artillery. The smoke shells upgrade is pretty helpful, but its also a major hinderance because of how sporadic the shells can get in the area.
I would like it if there was a wider radius strike that used incendiary shells, to leave scattered pools of fire for a about a minute, as a way of restricting access but not making it impossible to traverse on foot. Someone watching the floor could walk through but then they risk getting shot. Someone could try to shoot while traversing, but risk catching on fire. A trade off type restraint. And like normal fire, standing in it would catch anything on fire, friend or foe. But to prevent abuse, I’d like it if the incendiary version could not be called in within 100m of objectives, as that would chew through AI controlled soldiers way too easily if called near an objective. Another thing I’d like to see is a railway artillery shot as a counter to tanks that are hard to deal with. I would prefer that this be something that you can target up to 3 locations for one individual shell, fired in the order you choose the targets. Aka, the first place you target gets hit first, last gets hit last. I would also prefer that this would not have a minimap marker, as the sound of railway artillery firing could be heard for miles. Instead, you would have to listen for the audio cue of it being fired and also the shell as it screeches on its decent. This would instill a bit of panic into an attentive tanker, that would have to guess where the shell was going to hit and try to avoid it, which may cause them to fumble into a lethal attack or lose a tactical position, or face immediate death of tank and crew. The opening would allow opposing vehicles freedom to push an offensive charge, and help deal with those tanks that sit way far back and snipe without fear of danger.
Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.
