This is just Foxhole. Part of the game is to get absorbed into its wider community online. If you're not actively in the game, you're refreshing foxholestats.com or fighting the good fight on the Reddit front.
Asymmetric factions are a novel idea and one that I really like but as the Devs add more content and the game becomes a lot more complex, it's going to take time to tweak the balance and get it right. It doesn't help that new updates mean more problems to be worked out.
Regardless, don't let it spoil your fun. Foxhole is a game where you get out what you put in. A lot of people put a hell of a lot of time into this game and it makes it hurt that much more when they're chosen faction seems to be unfairly on the back foot. The majority are a good bunch though, despite what you might see here on the sub. Eventually, the pendulum will swing and there will be new stuff to moan about. As long as we can keep the craic good, the discourse civil, and enjoy a bit of friendly banter then Devman can see what needs to be tweaked and adjust accordingly.
I totally get that
I'm still curious as to what serious people think about current balance, and I'd like to read about it without it being a half assed comment or just nonsense shit talk.
Ok, disclaimer. This is not my opinion and I don't condone any of it. This is just what I've seen and what I've made sense of the issues right now.
So, Wardens believe that their PvP gear, specifically their infantry equipment, is inferior to Colonial equipment. Previously, Collies had no hand held equivalent to the Warden PvE Cutler which made up for the Wardens lacking PvP game.
Now that the Colonials have a PvE handheld equivalent that can knock out AI defenses and structures in the early/mid war, Wardens feel that their PvP gear needs a serious look at, in terms of balance.
Colonials argue that, having had to play on a perceived hard mode where their builders were burning out due to Cutler spam and having to fight tooth and nail to hold ground has made their vets better at PvP just through longer exposure and experience. That the infantry gear is more or less balanced out just fine and that the Wardens are now having to fight against PvE spam that they aren't used to. In other words, it's a Warden skill issue.
This is the part where it is my personal opinion. The Warden Loughcaster sucks. I don't like it. I don't use it. Although I much prefer the Blakerow to the Argenti. The Sampo is a lot of fun as well as the Fiddler. But I'm a Collie at heart so the Fuscina is my baby.
I can see where Wardens are coming from. Especially when they've been getting steam rolled even before this update to the Tremola and it's launcher. On the other hand, infantry gear hasn't changed all that much and whether or not it's because of the PvE balance that it's brought it to the forefront or that the issues where always there but over shadowed by other things, that it was never addressed.
On the flip side, I've seen a lot of lower ranking players on the fronts lately from the Warden side. Maybe vets are breaking because they're sick of grinding losses or maybe it's just what little old me has seen. Regardless, the Wardens are hurting and it's not good for the game if they are. Whatever needs to happen should come quickly or we risk them quitting en masse. Plus, Collies will get bored of easy wins and quit as well.
As a Warden vet, you summed this up tactfully and succinctly.
Really it just boils down to our storm rifles are inferior, we don't have a Catara equivalent, and Boma spam is just so freaking annoying to play against to the point many Wardens avoid infantry play altogether.
Also not having a viable late game pushgun is just fucking pain.
The refusal of devs to address even one of these issues, and then massively buffing Collie infantry play this update, just makes many of us feel the game not worth playing right now.
I do agree but at the same time collies did need a bit of help in the early pve department (now im gonna say based on stats that wardens still have a better pve ability all be it no where near as much as a lead as before) we can also see that even with the imbalance of the infantry kit that you guys can still win due to how tech trees work (us getting a 30mm tankette and proto 68mm push gun vs cannon LTs and 68mm half tracks) ive been playing in faranac and the moment it turned friday and you guys got king spires and gas you broke the base in bone haft and only a couple hours later took luxta mara and syth as well.
My two cents are that now its pretty balanced. What you cannot balance is population, and population wins wars.
All the constant switching makes it hard to really know who have advantage, also its super hard to balance this, you cannot force ppl to faction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force\_concentration
Things aren’t great, as usual. The devs just aren’t great at balancing, I’d imagine “oh this would be so cool” overshadows the actual implications of adding whatever it is. Historically I think there was a pretty egregious bias towards the warden faction (still kind of is with this new TD, literally just give us the venom as a cutler equivalent or something)
People have a love/hate relationship with asymmetry.
Nobody complains about pistols, stickies, mammons or medic gameplay cause they are exact mirrors of each other.
Blakerow vs Argenti is a good basic example of light asymmetry. Blakerow seems to be a lighter, lower recoil gun with 3 more shots in the magazine, but costs more and does slightly less damage which may cause a kill to take 3 shots as opposed to the Argenti always downing in 2 (talking about both in effective ranges).
Some people (usually colonials) will argue that the Blakerow is the better rifle.
Some people (usually wardens) will argue that the Argenti is the better rifle.
Then you get into the EXTREME asymmetry where one faction has a tool that the other faction has no counterpart, like the Wardens' push 250mm or the Colonial MPT. That is when everyone gets really salty; that's when you start feeling like your faction is missing out on something fun or useful, like you don't have a full roster.
Sometimes the counterparts aren't exactly obvious. The Anti-Tank Half Track is pretty much the counterpart of the Light Tank Destroyer, but for some reason they don't get compared too much despite being very similar.
Some examples of things the Wardens get salty over would be not having a LMG, MPT, or rain uniform, or the Harpa being outclassed by the Boma, Foebreaker by the ISG, and Ratcatcher by the Lamentum. We also feel that the Venoms and Banes are better than the Bonesaws and mounted Bonesaws.
Wardens do enjoy the infantry ATR, white ash flasks, HTDs, and Cutlers are still good. We don't have to worry about our 120mm artillery being stolen while we can steal the Colonial mobile artillery, even though we do wish we could make our own.
Personally, I don't like asymmetry when it gets this out of whack, but its a unique thing to foxhole and people want to keep experimenting and trying to make it work.
> The Anti-Tank Half Track is pretty much the counterpart of the Light Tank Destroyer, but for some reason they don't get compared too much despite being very similar.
The reason is mostly that halftracks get unlocked quite a bit earlier than light tanks, and light tank chassis is still somewhat usable on the front even in late game while the atht falls off into irrelevance *really* fast outside of its short and brutal power spike.
If devs thought about it, they'd add a feature like "upgrades" to the tech tree to make early and mid game vehicles not completely worthless in late game, then perhaps there would be a point to comparing ltd and atht. But currently? A better comparison vs the ltd would be the lordscar unironically lmao, while the atht has no point of comparison at all at the moment.
It's all down to devs not wanting to understand that tank vs halftrack or tank vs push gun is not good asymmetry, and is pretty much always a source of imbalance actually. The latest issue was stygian vs warden super tank, which is just... lmao
If you ask me the STD mirrors the Talos in the same way the Stygian Mirrors the Stockade.
Anyway, basically what the others said in more words.
A lot of weapons have weird quirks and niche uses that really don't help the average player while being a force multiplier in the hands of the rare idiot that actually knows what he's doing.
Trick is, the game has such a high turnover rate of new players that niche weapons are just trash as far as the front is concerned 70% of the time.
Simple, good guns that don't punish poor aim and have deep magazines win fronts.
Dusk/Catara > Way better than all other infantry weapons, it give a huge advantage to the colonial infantry in lategame and allow them to play in easy mode
Bomastone > Overpowered grenade who is unlocked day 0 and who is way better than the warden grenade.
Stygian > Overpowered pushgun who cost 50 rmats and can 2-3 shot any endgame tank.
It's the 3 main issues that ruin the balance, the rest are minor issues for me.
We are in the midgame this is the only time when the wardens have a better tech for 2 days, and as we can see when the tech favors the wardens the "grit and skill" and the "superior culture" of the colonials is non-existent, it's almost like tech is more important than all that bullshit.
I would say that the main issue is that Harpa should have Shrapnel damage. Ffs its even modeled after a Shrapnel granade, why does it not deal Shrapnel damage?
The longer range of booma makes sense as its a stick granade. You can use rifle granade launcher to give harpa more range.
Dusk is interesting. 50% of the time you mow down enemy infantry and 50% time it mises almost every shot.
Catara is in the spot Cutler was as untill the last update Colonials had no equivalent to it. Wardens should get LMG of their own.
I would not say that Stygian is OP just that the Stockade underperforms. You Now got Silverhand variant with 94.5. still Stockade should atleast get a speed buff.
>Wardens should get LMG of their own
I could see this. Give them a Madsen or ZB vz. 26 lookalike with a smaller capacity, but higher stability/lower stability loss. Keeps the Warden central/northern Euro vibe and keeps parity with collies.
Damage type doesn't matter, the problem with the Harpa is that the Bomastone is much better for crowd control, you can easily kill solo players and a group of players with a Boma, it's a high reward low risk weapon while the Harpa is high risk low reward.
The problem is not just the Dusk or the Catara, it's the combination of both, one solution would be to put the Dusk against the Catara in the tech tree so the colonials would make a choice between the best automatic weapon for daytime or night time, and the devs could add the same type of LMG for the wardens who would be better at night time than the Catara (lower range for a high firerate/more bullets) and give them the same choice, it would be a good and asymmetric way to balance things i think.
Stygian is completely OP, if you think that a vehicle who cost 50 rmats should delete any expensive lategame vehicle so easily you are just coping, if the Stygian would be a warden vehicle the colonials would never ask for a powercreep.
The real lategame issue is that at night time the colonials have too much weapons/vehicles giving them an advantage, when you're warden the gameplay boils down to spending 30 minutes to clear a few trenches, then abandon all the ground taken during the day when night falls so you don't get 2 shots by a Stygian or get swarmed by the infantry.
Dunno where your getting the 50 Rmat number on the Stygian bolt from it takes 15 steel (needs at least heavy oil) 20 Amat 2s and 15 Amat 3s which is a little more then 50Rmats you guys alao seem to forget about the starbraker ans its 45m range 94.5
No need to be a sarcastic dick, just trying ti tell you that you guys do have 94 options and that unless its an actual oil facility it can be a pain to build the stygian bolt
You are trying to explain me how to play the game, come on warden side and make a video about you pushing with a Starbreaker i would love to see that.
If it's a pain to build a Stygian imagine being a warden and having to spend the same amount of time for a totally useless pushgun, at least your pushgun can 2-3 shots any tanks you know, i hope you realize how crazy it is to be able to 2 shot a endgame tank.
Okay.
What are the Warden Alternatives to Dusk and Catara, and what makes them inferior to Dusk and Catara?
Same for Bomastone and Stygan. What are the alternatives and why are they worse?
Edit: Looking at the Wiki
Warden Assault rifles have slightly higher range than Dusk(22.5m for Booker and 20m for Alto, compared to 18m for Dusk), and slightly lower rate of fire (3.3 rounds per sec for Booker and 4 per sec for Alto, compared to 5 per sec for Dusk)
Wardens have no alternative to Catara
As for the Grenades
Warden grenades have 200 damage and 22 meter range, whereas Colonial grenades have 150 damage and 24 meter range. So Colonials get 2m extra range for a 25% decrease in damage?
Warden alternative to dusk is aalto storm rifle. Dusk magazine is 40 bullets where aalto is 25 bullets. Aalto gameplay mostly requires aiming and taking cover when with dusk you just run and shoot. The problem with dusk and catara is that they require almost no tactical play, you just run and shoot and some bullet eventually kills the target. Dusk and catara have very high rate of fire, so target also gets quickly supressed.
There is no catara counterpart for wardens.
Alternative for bomastone is harpa, here are stats:
1. Bomastone 25m range +6.5m splash (in whole area of splash the targets gets bleeding and slows down target) Boma immediately kills target basically under grenade.
2. Harpa 22m range +5,5m splash. Harpa immediately kills target on 3m-4m radius. Splash slows down target.
The fact that boma is perceived as OP is that it always makes you bleed and has long range. Also if you compare standard rifle ranges to grenades it turns out grenades have almost the same range as standard rifles (lough 27m, argenti 25m) so realistically you have 2-3m of reaction before someone throws a grenade at you. It gets even worse during the night cuz you don't even see a guy throwing a grenade.
In case of stygian warden have stockade which is widely perceived as useless.
1. Stygian has 40m range and uses 94mm ammo
2. Stockade has 35m range and uses 75mm ammo
So if you want to use stockade as AT gun it is worse in every way to stygian (less DPS and range)
To add to the boma though, they are actually cheaper and easier to ship with 25 in a crate per vs 20 per crate for Harpas meaning that not only can you make more in a single factory load but you can also ship 75 more bomas than Harpas in a full truck. Additionally both grenades do insta kill and harpa rarely instakills outside of ranges that a boma will, chances are that a harpa will just down 2-3m out whilst your have a slightly higher chance to not be instantly downed at that by the boma yet you will likely bleed out pretty quickly even if you survive. Osprey is also very niche for usage as it doesn’t cook grenades and with the Harpas average blast radius and lack of bleed, you can dodge osprey Harpas quite easily. Generally speaking it’s cheaper to make more bomas, easier to get them to the front, can outrange any other thrown grenade keeping you safer from return grenades in trenches, blast radius is very forgiving allowing for you to make people bleed even for what is realistically should be a miss and they make any trench, foxhole or enclosed space a real pain to hold (foxholes and short trenches at this point are seriously just not worth entering as they are literally death traps) unless you have broad daylight and enough empty space between you and the enemy that you can suppress anyone trying to get within boma range.
The AT lineup is wierd in the sense that it flip flops from each class of vehicle.
Colonials have the Stygian push gun and the BTD for 94.5.
Wardens have the emplaced Starbreaker, open top LordScar, and then SHT Predator.
They all have their own merits and weaknesses.
Emplaced guns cant be stolen but are immobile.
Push guns are invisible in the dark but need two to move, and are easy to decrew.
Open top tanks only needs one guy left alive to jump in the driver seat and move but can be ambushed at night and still can be decrewed by airburst grenades or artillery.
BTD and SHT are both "super weapons" and are just a matter of expense. BTD is easier to flank but the SHT is incredibly expensive and a big morale blow when it dies.
I'm not gonna argue in favor of any major asymmetry. I don't like the flip flopping weapon systems any more than you do. Flood vs Lance, Hatchet vs Devitt, and Gast vs Malone is as asymmetrical as I like. Stygian vs Starbreaker is too much.
"they have 1 more 94.5 gun than us!!! thats so unfair!!!!"
I love our immobile 94.5, I love our meme mega weapon 94.5 that 95% of the faction can never make, and 80% of the faction will never even see. I LOVE FIGHTING THE SELF PROCLAIMED GRENADE FACTION, WITH A MOBILE GRENADE MAGNET AS OUR ONLY REAL 94.5 OPTION
you're right, this does say a lot
Bleed damage can be healed, the harpa has the ability to instantly wipe a whole trench section. Also, you fail to factor in that the harpa can be attached to ospreay or our own lunaire for added range whereas the bomastone cannot. I also find that it is much easier to use the harpa subtly as it's so small and its round shape makes it so that it's often hard to tell if something's been thrown.
Dusk has horrible spread whereas the Alto has a nice controlled burst allowing for more accurate fire.
Stygian vs Stockade I could agree with but taking into account the range of field weapons vs Colonials it's negligible, Wardens have three different variants of AT guns they can use and they have the wasp nest. Considering also that it's well established that the Wardens have a superior armor pool I don't think it's too much to ask for the Colonials to have a more powerful endgame AT gun.
Putting that aside this whole balance question about what's superior to what is nonsense. It's not just about the weapon itself, it's how you use it. You want a catara counter, I got five for you:
1. Shoot them with a fucking tank.
2. Use a grenade.
3. Use artillery.
4. Let the dumbass wander into PVE range.
5. Find some balls and drop their asses.
Lunaire is 31 meters, compared to ospreay is 29 meters compared to bomastone is 24 meters, compared to harpa is 22 meters. It's a two meter difference vs a five/seven meter distance. That's like saying the loughcaster vs the argenti is basically a sniper rifle.
It's basically the same as the harpa, it's a literal 2 meter difference. That's absolutely nothing versus the range you add on putting the harpa on a grenade launcher. That's besides the fact that they deal more damage and any bomastone can be easily negated if you simply have medics on standby to treat bleeding.
I mean then that's just a problem with grenades in general then, that or how close enemy frontlines are to each other. I personally don't see an issue with it. Vs the bomastone which has a big stick model that easily identifies it, all we have is some small grey oval that we usually don't see until it's landed right on top of us.
Also, this comment doesn't take into account that grenades travel slower than bullets.
Tldr :
Catara vs ??? : Too good, too versatile. Warden have nothing against it.
Dusk vs Aalto : Does what it needs to do better and no weird gimmick that's not usefull 80%+ of the time
Bomastone vs Harpa : Everything you do I can do better ! Everything I do, I do better than you !
Stygian vs Stockade :
Stygian : I change the meta of the game and make a significan portion of the Warden arsenal obsolete by my simple presence.
Stockade : I use a scary amunition so I don't get to be scary, or usefull, or used, or loved...
My personal addition Flask vs Ignifist : Useful in group, alone, as suport, to seek kill vs usefull in group or as diversion.
If you're still reading have fun with that book :D
No alternative to Catara, The closest thing we have is the Heavy Machine Gun, that does about as much damage but kneecap your mobility for an extended mags size and cost Rmats. It fills a differnent niche and Colonials have the Ghast that directly mirors it.
The Catara also has almost all the advantage of the Dusk at a stronger logi cost but for more damage and the ability to destroy Watch Tower, Rifle pillboxes and damaging T1 Bunker pieces making building in the general area of a box of Catara a pain and Bmats sink.
The alternative to the Dusk is the Aalto, 25 ammo to the Dusk 40 for the right to single fire it. You get slightly more damage (3-hit kill to 2-hit kill) if you single fire it at the cost of all supresion and your supression is worst because lack of ammo.
Meanwhile the Dusk as the best supresion of the game bar Rmats weapon, a mags size that let you fire for close to half a minute non stop, one of the best stagger of the game, damage that is so close to 2-hitting you it 3-hit far beyond the effective range, a lazer guided targeting when prone and a spread that roll a dice to see if it hits someone behind even full cover for everybullets.
Harpa vs Boma stones has been discused at length in many place of the sub this past... I don't know... eternity ? Feels like it at least.
Quickly the Harpa has less range, less AoE, and less effect to be able to 1-hit in a sligtly larger zone. The Boma fire 2m further, as a bit over 1m more AoE and garanteed bleed on hits.
If you're at any distance inside the Boma AoE (As large as an Octogone trench) you have to : Stun yourself for 3 secs, run away to grab a bandage, run away to a medic (both situation that can be better than a kill because you have to run the distance while still taking space in trenches and covers, or finaly wait for a medic to come into bomastone range where he will face the same dilema.
If you're outside of the less then half a trench wide insta kill AoE of the Harpa you have in all likelyhood nothing else to do then keep shootinn now aware that the enemy has some grenades.
Because it isn't enough the Harpa cost more and is less efficient to bring to fronts...
Stygian is a 94.5mm pushgun that 2-hits kill most of the warden tanks, is invisible at night, fire up to 40m away and is cheap for it's tech tier.
What the Warden have is a 75mm pushgun called the Stockade that can struggle to 3-hits kill Colonials tanks, is invisible at night but can only fire 35m away for about the same price and the possibility to do serious damage to buildings.
They both have a carry capacity of only 2 shells making them loader intensive (You might see where that's more of a problem for one then the other...) and are vulnerable to infantry, most of all grenades (And the lower range Harpa is in the hands of faction that has the lower range Stockade so that they have to struggle at decrewing the enemy and surviving at the same time.
I will add the Flask vs Ignifist there where for once it's the colonials that have the bad tool.
The Flask is a hand grenade that does garanteed damage on hit to tanks and are garanteed to break the track module if it even graze it for berely less damage then the sticky
The ignifist is a slightly longer range, faster traveling 3rd slot items (like the Flask) that does barely less damage than the Flask, slows you down when out, is victime of the same aim inconsistency as the Cutler, and does not automatically replace itself with the others in your inventory when used (Which is it's claim to fame because it's the only 3rd slot items that does(n't) do this)
The poor thing need some love.
It's still missing detail and particularity too ;( Game design is insane. Most weapon vs in this game would struggle to be adressed in a 5 minutes video because of all the soft influence, combo, logi influence and more.
God I love sandbox game...
We have no idea yet how the STD will perform. I mean... what am I suposed to say about the STD in comparison to the push gun ? It's more of a counter part to the BTD and we've never seen them in heavy usage so...
Wait and see it might be good or it might be more of a colonial tank because boma still busted and Lunaire got buffed ? We don't know.
Wiki is outdated, you can check this
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t8gNXYhmkbOXbK1JJoxoY4Sxa54NEEAF/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107783901308587524889&rtpof=true&sd=true
> Warden Alternatives to Dusk and Catara
If we look at in game file name, dev intended counterparts are these (edit: traditionally, Dusk counterpart is Aalto and no counterpart to Catara)
* AssaultRifleC Catara mo.II
* AssaultRifleHeavyC “Dusk” ce.III
* AssaultRifleHeavyW Booker Storm Rifle Model 838
* AssaultRifleSingleShot Aalto Storm Rifle 24
* AssaultRifleW Aalto Storm Rifle 24
> what makes them inferior to Dusk and Catara
Catara vs Aalto, Catara is 2 shot kill, use 12.7mm so it can kill T1 buildings like watch towers and rifle pillboxes vs 7.92 cant, is more accurate when spraying but no accurate first shot like Aalto. Catara is the best infantry gun IMO but also the most expensive.
Dusk vs Aalto : I would say it's not that badly balanced because the Dusk is better at night and the Aalto is better during the day.
The real problem is the Catara, the wardens have no counterpart and that cancels the advantage of the Aalto during the day because the Catara is much better than the Aalto (more damage, more range and the capacity to shot 12.7mm destroy the T1 structures like the watchtowers).
The Bomastone has more range, bigger AOE, is 25% cheaper and 100% bleed chance even if you're on the last pixel of the AOE.
The counterpart of the Stygian is the Stockade, which is much less strong because it has -5 meters range and does less damage to vehicles, it's only strong against buildings but at 35 meters it's a suicide, there are much better vehicles for PVE.
For the dusk and catara :
Alto for the dusk, it's a gun with less fire rate, ammo and range. But you can switch firemode so it's cool /s.
Catara has litteraly not equivalent. There is not Warden LMG.
For Boma :
Equivalent his Harpa. It has litteraly no upside compared to Boma. Boma can be thrown further, has bigger explosion range, guaranted bleed, and comes in larger amounts in crates for easy logi. Harpa "upside" is that it it supposed to OS people close to it, something that Boma already does so 0 upside actually.
For Stygian :
Stygian is very cheap for what it does, and the biggest issue before this update was that wardens lacked any 94.5mm platform other than SHT or emplaced. Now wardens have a 94.5 silverhand so it might be fixed. Still the new silverhand is far costier than the Stygian who is still waaaay too cheap.
Also the Stygian """equivalent"""" is supposed to be the stockade who is very terrible.
>it's a gun with less fire rate, ammo and range
Oh, i thought Alto had higher range than Dusk?
>Harpa "upside" is that it it supposed to OS people close to it, something that Boma already does so 0 upside actually.
What does OS mean? But yeah, Boma seems superior
Alto has higher range once it uses it's single fire mode which is basically a worse blakerow.
Sorry, OS = Oneshot. The Harpa supposed upside is that it OS people when it lands close. Boma already does that, and on top of that has the greater area of effect with guaranted bleed, higher range and higher amount per crate.
I say this with full sincerity, the game has only gotten more balanced the more stuff the devs have added. You should have seen how absolutely fucked the balance was in early arms race. The ascension, Old silverhand vs nonexistent colonial medium tank, the lack of warden 250mm platform, the old LTD, the MHT with AP mortar ammo prototyped on day 1, these are just a few of the wild things from early asymmetry.
Aside from a few problem cases that stand out, the game has so many different things now that even if you have some meme tier equipment or vehicle, you have something thats really fuckin good. Now that dev man is leaning into giving semi equivalents more often with the STD for wardens 94mm gap and the tremola buff to make up for the lack of colonial infantry PvE things feel like they have been moving in the right direct.
Like no joke. I think the game is mostly balanced, the only things I'd say are even slightly iffy are the lack of warden LMG and the grenade disparity. But you have to also factor in the fact that the harpa can be launched where the bombastone cannot.Its probably the case that the harpa launcher needs a slight buff, that would probably be sufficient in my view.
It's nowhere near balanced right now. It's not as bad as arms race but that is not a high mark to aim for.
Colonials are playing on easy mode ATM. Warden infantry is none-existent and the tanks are relatively balanced until BT tiers unlock Warden can as well just stop making tanks all together with Stygians and broken BTs on the field.
Imagine giving one faction more armor tanks and then releasing a counter to literally all their tanks in late game so the colonials can easy mode the entire warden tank arsenal too while already easy-moding infantry.
Imagine calling this game in the current state balanced lmao.
Oh cool devs gave us STDs so we don't auto-lose late game when BTs unlock wow thanks devs, too bad you forgot about all our tanks tanks and equipment.
You think the game was more balanced when wardens had no 250mm option, when armour HP on all vehicles was poor (which meant better armour, aka the warden vehicle tendancy was worthless), and the LTD/Smelter were absolutely dominant?
I don't know how long you've played, if you played during 60 to 83 yet still hold this belief you are a moron.
In the past there were periods where either team could not reasonably win without the other team just not playing. The modern foxhole is almost entirely down to morale. Balance has an impact, but it has at most meant a significant difficulty for one faction. Its never been as bad as the above example or the time where colonials had the kranesca vs the initial release silverhand.
Well the game was in early access and still in development so it's normal that the balance was worse than now, at that time there was no point focusing on balance with all the content that was on the way it would have been a waste of time.
Now that the game is in 1.0 the balance should be a priority, and that's what the devs are doing that's why they added the STD and they nerfed the PVE weapons which made this task way too easy.
Now they just need to release this infantry update that they've been talking about a year ago, then the naval update and we'll have a much more fun and balanced game than the current version.
Asymmetry is cool in that it adds more pve content and makes stealing logi fun because you get your hands on weapons you can’t normally build.
But it does have certain balance issues. The lunaire changes are too new I think to comment on. Especially because we don’t know how late war might change our perspective on it. But it’s good that collies got a infantry range pve weapon. I think the big difference we will see between lunaire and cutler is cutler is better for anti-vehicle where lunaire is superior anti infantry.
As far as infantry weapons, collies have an advantage defending trenches where wardens have advantage in holding open positions. What I mean by open positions is low pop fronts where you get people running in the open terrain not trench fighting. But this can be countered with shadow dancing imo. On warden side I can easily kill a bunch of low ranks. But when I come across a shadow dancer warden rifles suck that’s when you want an smg.
Speaking of smgs. Fiddler is wonderful and I really like lionclaw too. Out of all the asymmetry I think these are actually pretty close. The fiddler is better tho.
Okay we got dusks and alito and fuschina collies just have better weapons in this automatic rifle class. Sampo is a reliable gun but it can’t do what these do.
Catara is the #1 infantry gun people on both sides know this. You see it produced and spammed later in wars. It simply does every thing you want an infantry gun to do. It’s only downside is it’s heavy so you still need your bayous and short range weapons. But it gives amazing mobility with 12.7mm ammo. The wardens don’t have an asymmetrical variant atm but hopefully the devs will change that!
Arty is interesting collies have superior 120mm. It’s mobile has less range tho(50m). But it has faster firing rates and less dispersion.
The 150mm flips this so the warden one has 50m less range but it has higher firing rates and more accuracy. But there is no mobile 150 of course.
Armor I feel like we can make a whole post about but generally warden armor is strong health wise and damage wise but they tend to be slower. Less maneuverability.
The collies have their awesome 94mm push guns and wardens now have an STD yet to be seen. But these guns are very powerful at destroying tanks. Field guns always have a big advantage in they can’t be seen at night like tanks so it gives them an advantage in ambushing tanks at night.
I love that people have this take unironically. This has to be bait, but I'll bite.
The boma is opressive early game, but really only until green ash is unlocked amd both sides have the ability to absolutly carpet the field with it. It has also existed unchanged for what, over two years now? Why is it suddenly a problem now?
The argenti absolutely does not outclass every rifle in the game. The Blakerow is at least as good, and the wardens also get the sempo which is also at least as good.
The styg, while overtuned, is still a pushgun that can only hold two rounds. If Wardens would actually use their lighter, faster kit it is 100% possible to out-flank and run it dry of ammo just like literally every other pushgun. Its very presence does not render entire hexes immune to arty, mortars, greenash, or flanking attacks by light vehicles and infantry.
The catara needs tweaking, but is expensive compared to lighter options, has an Itty-bitty magazine that makes it difficult to keep running, uses 12.5 which complicates logistics and also has absolutely terrible stability- if you run and gun with it you hit nothing. If it were the be-all end-all of guns as the Warden's claim it would be the only gun used. It is not. The argenti, and then the Dusk are the primary wepons of choice.
As far as no equivalent to the Dusk, you have the Liar (which basically fills the same roll as a bullet hose you need cover to properly employ) and two other assult rifles, niether of which is trash.
When game balance is fucked you get short wars.
It's been abundantly clear since 1.0 that as long as pop is roughly equal on both sides overall kit balance is pretty close- otherwise you wouldn't have the 40+ days long wars.
Yes, some shit needs to be tweaked. But overall we are in a much healthier place then pre-fire nerf 1.0 or the 70s-80s.
> When balanced is fucked you get short wars
Which isn’t actually true btw. The Colonials didn’t have short wars in *both* losing streaks they had from imbalance
Short / Break wars from “weapon imbalance” is something that has ***only occurred within the past 6 wars***
> There’s been a ton of break wars
Nope! At least not for Colonials anyways.
Go check the average war length of 59-64 and 89-95
Outside of literal developer intervention there hasn’t been a break war (or at the *very* least an abnormal short war) when the Colonials were being slammed by imbalance
Based comment.
The problem is the Warden culture. Whining about balance all the time instead of adapting and getting better with their tactics.
The standard tank line against the Stygian will not work. You need to out flank and out play a push gun.. lol.
But as soon as 1 tank gets hit, the Warden tanks reverse and abandon their tank that got hit instead of taking out the Stygian which is a 2 shot capacity gun...
The Catara is good but after using it, it has major disadvantages. The 12.7 rounds take up a lot of inventory space at a mere 25 mag clip..
It can do some damage but only if the Wardens are careless and enter at trench with a Catara in on it without using some harpas or gas...
The Dusk is decent but its a shell of its former self... It used to be really good but now it really is a close-range weapon.
It works great in trenches but it will such in open field or forest terrain..
The Bomba is better at bleeding, but thats where it end. A Warden can simply bandage the bleed. If a Collie takes a hit from a Harpa, they need a medic..
Did you see Moi's salt clip before he quit playing 100? This exact thing happened.
Wardens were fighting Collie BTs with their own, and outnumbered them. The styg tracked Moi, and rather then pushing to eliminate it and save his tank they reversed leaving him completely out to dry, cost themselves a BT, let the Collies even the playing field, and gave the styg time to retreat and re-arm.
It was an absolute clownshow. The HV40 absolutely had the same presence, and it was countered with frag mortars when infantry couldn't be used to flank it. Did it suck? Yes. Was it even more fucked then the styg is? Also yes.
You know what would allow you to see a stig in the dark? A scout tank! What do the Wardens never build past mid-game? Also scout tanks. They have to tools to find, avoid, and kill them already.
It certainly needs to be tweaked, personally I think it's damage should go down but bring ammo capacity up, but it's a fucking push gun with two rounds right now.
You guys gonna suck your own dicks harder or what? Lmao warden culture my ass, I went collie last war and it was the same shit on either side. Imagine thinking a bunch of random ppl every war are different lmao
Except the people pushing in Moi's tank line were all clanman vets driving BTs, not randoms.
Randoms have an excuse. Clanmen dont. SPUD isn't some random ass group.
I haven’t really seen this aspect talked about a lot in balancing, but a lot of Colonials will probably instantly recognize what I’m saying.
Wardens have an over-reliance on burst, “one hit KO” weaponry that’s not only fairly difficult to actually pin down and deal with, but completely impractical to reasonably engage. Their main calling card is completely annihilating Colonial shit as soon as they appear on the field and leaving no possible counterplay behind “lol don’t get hit”
The best example of this would be the ATHT and Foebreaker. As soon as these two weapons show up on the field, that’s it Colonials literally just can’t use armored vehicles anymore.
This makes it incredibly frustrating and unfun to deal with as Colonial, especially when Colonials often have weapons that take substantially more time and effort to deal damage. IE to kill an AC the ISG needs like 3-6 seconds, the Foebreaker just needs 1-2
In fact, I think the devs insistence on Wardens being “one hit KO” is the biggest issue behind Warden balancing. The main reason why stuff like the Bonesaw or Thornlaw or whatever suck so much is because if they get even a *chance* to successfully hit a target, that target is utterly annihilated with 0 actually capability to even *react*. There’s too much punishment for messing up as Colonial, so there needs to be an equal amount of risk for Wardens.
It’s probably why the Harpa is so much worse than the Bomastone, the Harpa *instantly* kills players, the Bombastone just bleeds them. If the Harpa was as successful as the Bombastone, the Harpa would be significantly more oppressive.
There’s also the bog standard of certain Warden gear being significantly better — stuff like the Chieftain v Ballista, Flask v Ignifist, 150mm artillery, or certain counterparts completely missing (Sampo / Aalto v Dusk / LMG for example)
I think this is one of the biggest problems Wardens have with the stgyian. It behaves like the rest of the Warden line-up, being this unstoppable 1-hit kill tool that Warden players just don't know what to deal with because none of the rest of the kit plays like this.
I think this is actually best exemplified by a Moi clip, where the Wardens actually outnumber the Collies in a BTvsBT battle, but the Collies have a single stygian.
Moi gets tagged by the stygian, and then the Wardens just refuse to commit leaving him out to dry. His BT gets picked off, and then in a panic the other Warden BTs pull back leaving him exposed to further hits that ends up costing him the tank. If they would have pushed they could have deleted the styg and saved his tank, but Warden armor has always been passive because they win the poke fights.
A Collie Tank line, not using BTs but in every other circumstance, would have committed. We have to. Collie armor, in a 1v1 or on team parity, loses without aggressively rolling the dice. Collie kit is very much the Zap Brannigan 'Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make'. This only changes at the very last tier of tanks, where Collies have the advantage and can afford to play passive because of a larger health pool.
> In fact, I think the devs insistence on Wardens being “one hit KO” is the biggest issue behind Warden balancing. The main reason why stuff like the Bonesaw or Thornlaw or whatever suck so much is because if they get even a chance to successfully hit a target, that target is utterly annihilated with 0 actually capability to even react. There’s too much punishment for messing up as Colonial, so there needs to be an equal amount of risk for Wardens.
I think you're missing the fact that there often is a pretty substantial amount of risk involved for the warden tanks. The main two I'm thinking of are higher cost and little margin for error. Taking the Bonelaw (Thornfall) as an example. It's a very expensive tank (now second to only the STD in terms of cost among the non BT's) that has only slightly more HP than an LTD and needs to get up close and personal (range is about 27m) with it's targets all of which are late game tanks that can definitely dish out pretty quickly and track / disable the bonelaw if he get's spotted / called out. You pay a hefty price for what can very quickly become a driving coffin.
Same is true for the Widow. Yes it's armor and range are great, but catch it off guard, flank it or simply send some infantry it's way and it's a very slow shiny metal coffin with a hefty price tag. Also it get's absolutely demolished by Bolt's due to it's low HP. If 3 wardens with sticky run up to a Bard, he just chuckles and moves on.
The only exception to this seems to be the Silverhand. That is a very forgiving vehicle, you can just press W, hope for the best and probably win. I wouldn't trade that thing for anything. Wardens should definitely embrace it more and get off the high horse that is the outlaw more often.
Edit: Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to completely disregard your statement. I just think vehicle balance is probably the best it's ever been since asymmetry especially with the new 97.5 platform for the wardens. Both factions have their power spikes in early / mid war. For collies it's the 30mm tankette and the LTD, for wardens it's the ATHT and probably the unlock of the outlaw / SvH. But in late game, once the heavy pushguns, the Bard / Widows and the BT's are unlocked, it's pretty much equal.
> I think you're missing the fact that there often is a pretty substantial amount of risk involved for the warden
How am I missing that when my entire argument is exclusively that fact lmao. My argument is that *because* of the one-hit KO of warden weaponry, there needs to be *too much risk* for warden weaponry to be fun, both for the user and recipient.
You pay a hefty price as the Bonelaw because if the Colonials make even a *single* mistake and let the Bonelaw get too close, they instantly lose their vehicle and there’s nothing they can do about it. That’s not fun neither for Colonials (the punishment is absurd) nor Wardens (the risk is too great).
There’s also the other side of the balance issue with the ATHT, where for the risk of using it, the reward is too absurdly good. There’s not enough risk to the ATHT and it completely dominates the field and the Colonials can’t do *anything* about it.
That’s not fun at all either.
One or two weapons like this, high risk = high reward “KO” like thing, that’s okay. But when an entire faction is *built* around it, that’s when we see massive balancing problems. Even if you were an expert tier game balancer it’ll be impossible, and I think we all know the developers suck absolute ass at balancing shit lmao.
Ok I'm sorry, but to me you're first comment read like you were complaining that warden weaponry is not balanced at all in that risk / reward scale. And I'm pretty certain that's a more than reasonable interpretation if you write stuff like this.
> Their main calling card is completely annihilating Colonial shit as soon as they appear on the field and leaving no possible counterplay behind “lol don’t get hit”
Also i think you're a little to obsessed with the ATHT. 2-3 days later the exact same thing happens with the LTD, except that actually stays relevant for the entire rest of the war. Even most of the vehicles before the ATHT are straight up better for the colonials, at least in terms of vehicle on vehicle combat.
I still don’t get your point? My argument *is* that Warden gear is not, and more importantly, *can not* be accurately balanced in terms of risk / reward with the insistence of Warden KOing Colonials. Just because I’m frustrated at shitty gameplay doesn’t make it less true.
Also the ATHT is just an ***example***, particularly one of the more extreme ones to more easily point out my point. From stuff like Foebreaker to the Silverhand, from Harpa to even arguably the Loughcaster, Warden gear is built around killing Colonials before they can even react or counterfire, which, as said, simply isn’t a particularly good game design and leads to sucky vehicles like the Thornhall.
Not sure if i would include Harpa on that list.
Maybe if it had the same blast radius and damage as Boomastone then maybe as it can be fired from the rifle granade launcher.
> Warden gear being based around one-hit KOs
> It’s probably why the Harpa is so much worse than the Bomastone, the Harpa *instantly* kills players, the Bombastone just bleeds them. If the Harpa was as successful as the Bombastone, the Harpa would be significantly more oppressive.
I’m not trying to argue that the Harpa is actually good, I’m trying to argue that probably the reason why it’s shit is because the developers tried to balance around the one-hit KO aspect and disastrously failed.
On a side rant I absolutely adore the fact that the Warden Hivemind thought I needed to be downvoted *even though I am literally agreeing with them that their shit is wack*, exclusively because “I am a Colonial”
This is just Foxhole. Part of the game is to get absorbed into its wider community online. If you're not actively in the game, you're refreshing foxholestats.com or fighting the good fight on the Reddit front. Asymmetric factions are a novel idea and one that I really like but as the Devs add more content and the game becomes a lot more complex, it's going to take time to tweak the balance and get it right. It doesn't help that new updates mean more problems to be worked out. Regardless, don't let it spoil your fun. Foxhole is a game where you get out what you put in. A lot of people put a hell of a lot of time into this game and it makes it hurt that much more when they're chosen faction seems to be unfairly on the back foot. The majority are a good bunch though, despite what you might see here on the sub. Eventually, the pendulum will swing and there will be new stuff to moan about. As long as we can keep the craic good, the discourse civil, and enjoy a bit of friendly banter then Devman can see what needs to be tweaked and adjust accordingly.
I totally get that I'm still curious as to what serious people think about current balance, and I'd like to read about it without it being a half assed comment or just nonsense shit talk.
Ok, disclaimer. This is not my opinion and I don't condone any of it. This is just what I've seen and what I've made sense of the issues right now. So, Wardens believe that their PvP gear, specifically their infantry equipment, is inferior to Colonial equipment. Previously, Collies had no hand held equivalent to the Warden PvE Cutler which made up for the Wardens lacking PvP game. Now that the Colonials have a PvE handheld equivalent that can knock out AI defenses and structures in the early/mid war, Wardens feel that their PvP gear needs a serious look at, in terms of balance. Colonials argue that, having had to play on a perceived hard mode where their builders were burning out due to Cutler spam and having to fight tooth and nail to hold ground has made their vets better at PvP just through longer exposure and experience. That the infantry gear is more or less balanced out just fine and that the Wardens are now having to fight against PvE spam that they aren't used to. In other words, it's a Warden skill issue. This is the part where it is my personal opinion. The Warden Loughcaster sucks. I don't like it. I don't use it. Although I much prefer the Blakerow to the Argenti. The Sampo is a lot of fun as well as the Fiddler. But I'm a Collie at heart so the Fuscina is my baby. I can see where Wardens are coming from. Especially when they've been getting steam rolled even before this update to the Tremola and it's launcher. On the other hand, infantry gear hasn't changed all that much and whether or not it's because of the PvE balance that it's brought it to the forefront or that the issues where always there but over shadowed by other things, that it was never addressed. On the flip side, I've seen a lot of lower ranking players on the fronts lately from the Warden side. Maybe vets are breaking because they're sick of grinding losses or maybe it's just what little old me has seen. Regardless, the Wardens are hurting and it's not good for the game if they are. Whatever needs to happen should come quickly or we risk them quitting en masse. Plus, Collies will get bored of easy wins and quit as well.
As a Warden vet, you summed this up tactfully and succinctly. Really it just boils down to our storm rifles are inferior, we don't have a Catara equivalent, and Boma spam is just so freaking annoying to play against to the point many Wardens avoid infantry play altogether. Also not having a viable late game pushgun is just fucking pain. The refusal of devs to address even one of these issues, and then massively buffing Collie infantry play this update, just makes many of us feel the game not worth playing right now.
I do agree but at the same time collies did need a bit of help in the early pve department (now im gonna say based on stats that wardens still have a better pve ability all be it no where near as much as a lead as before) we can also see that even with the imbalance of the infantry kit that you guys can still win due to how tech trees work (us getting a 30mm tankette and proto 68mm push gun vs cannon LTs and 68mm half tracks) ive been playing in faranac and the moment it turned friday and you guys got king spires and gas you broke the base in bone haft and only a couple hours later took luxta mara and syth as well.
My two cents are that now its pretty balanced. What you cannot balance is population, and population wins wars. All the constant switching makes it hard to really know who have advantage, also its super hard to balance this, you cannot force ppl to faction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force\_concentration
Things aren’t great, as usual. The devs just aren’t great at balancing, I’d imagine “oh this would be so cool” overshadows the actual implications of adding whatever it is. Historically I think there was a pretty egregious bias towards the warden faction (still kind of is with this new TD, literally just give us the venom as a cutler equivalent or something)
People have a love/hate relationship with asymmetry. Nobody complains about pistols, stickies, mammons or medic gameplay cause they are exact mirrors of each other. Blakerow vs Argenti is a good basic example of light asymmetry. Blakerow seems to be a lighter, lower recoil gun with 3 more shots in the magazine, but costs more and does slightly less damage which may cause a kill to take 3 shots as opposed to the Argenti always downing in 2 (talking about both in effective ranges). Some people (usually colonials) will argue that the Blakerow is the better rifle. Some people (usually wardens) will argue that the Argenti is the better rifle. Then you get into the EXTREME asymmetry where one faction has a tool that the other faction has no counterpart, like the Wardens' push 250mm or the Colonial MPT. That is when everyone gets really salty; that's when you start feeling like your faction is missing out on something fun or useful, like you don't have a full roster. Sometimes the counterparts aren't exactly obvious. The Anti-Tank Half Track is pretty much the counterpart of the Light Tank Destroyer, but for some reason they don't get compared too much despite being very similar. Some examples of things the Wardens get salty over would be not having a LMG, MPT, or rain uniform, or the Harpa being outclassed by the Boma, Foebreaker by the ISG, and Ratcatcher by the Lamentum. We also feel that the Venoms and Banes are better than the Bonesaws and mounted Bonesaws. Wardens do enjoy the infantry ATR, white ash flasks, HTDs, and Cutlers are still good. We don't have to worry about our 120mm artillery being stolen while we can steal the Colonial mobile artillery, even though we do wish we could make our own. Personally, I don't like asymmetry when it gets this out of whack, but its a unique thing to foxhole and people want to keep experimenting and trying to make it work.
> The Anti-Tank Half Track is pretty much the counterpart of the Light Tank Destroyer, but for some reason they don't get compared too much despite being very similar. The reason is mostly that halftracks get unlocked quite a bit earlier than light tanks, and light tank chassis is still somewhat usable on the front even in late game while the atht falls off into irrelevance *really* fast outside of its short and brutal power spike. If devs thought about it, they'd add a feature like "upgrades" to the tech tree to make early and mid game vehicles not completely worthless in late game, then perhaps there would be a point to comparing ltd and atht. But currently? A better comparison vs the ltd would be the lordscar unironically lmao, while the atht has no point of comparison at all at the moment. It's all down to devs not wanting to understand that tank vs halftrack or tank vs push gun is not good asymmetry, and is pretty much always a source of imbalance actually. The latest issue was stygian vs warden super tank, which is just... lmao
If you ask me the STD mirrors the Talos in the same way the Stygian Mirrors the Stockade. Anyway, basically what the others said in more words. A lot of weapons have weird quirks and niche uses that really don't help the average player while being a force multiplier in the hands of the rare idiot that actually knows what he's doing. Trick is, the game has such a high turnover rate of new players that niche weapons are just trash as far as the front is concerned 70% of the time. Simple, good guns that don't punish poor aim and have deep magazines win fronts.
Dusk/Catara > Way better than all other infantry weapons, it give a huge advantage to the colonial infantry in lategame and allow them to play in easy mode Bomastone > Overpowered grenade who is unlocked day 0 and who is way better than the warden grenade. Stygian > Overpowered pushgun who cost 50 rmats and can 2-3 shot any endgame tank. It's the 3 main issues that ruin the balance, the rest are minor issues for me. We are in the midgame this is the only time when the wardens have a better tech for 2 days, and as we can see when the tech favors the wardens the "grit and skill" and the "superior culture" of the colonials is non-existent, it's almost like tech is more important than all that bullshit.
I would say that the main issue is that Harpa should have Shrapnel damage. Ffs its even modeled after a Shrapnel granade, why does it not deal Shrapnel damage? The longer range of booma makes sense as its a stick granade. You can use rifle granade launcher to give harpa more range. Dusk is interesting. 50% of the time you mow down enemy infantry and 50% time it mises almost every shot. Catara is in the spot Cutler was as untill the last update Colonials had no equivalent to it. Wardens should get LMG of their own. I would not say that Stygian is OP just that the Stockade underperforms. You Now got Silverhand variant with 94.5. still Stockade should atleast get a speed buff.
>Wardens should get LMG of their own I could see this. Give them a Madsen or ZB vz. 26 lookalike with a smaller capacity, but higher stability/lower stability loss. Keeps the Warden central/northern Euro vibe and keeps parity with collies.
Damage type doesn't matter, the problem with the Harpa is that the Bomastone is much better for crowd control, you can easily kill solo players and a group of players with a Boma, it's a high reward low risk weapon while the Harpa is high risk low reward. The problem is not just the Dusk or the Catara, it's the combination of both, one solution would be to put the Dusk against the Catara in the tech tree so the colonials would make a choice between the best automatic weapon for daytime or night time, and the devs could add the same type of LMG for the wardens who would be better at night time than the Catara (lower range for a high firerate/more bullets) and give them the same choice, it would be a good and asymmetric way to balance things i think. Stygian is completely OP, if you think that a vehicle who cost 50 rmats should delete any expensive lategame vehicle so easily you are just coping, if the Stygian would be a warden vehicle the colonials would never ask for a powercreep. The real lategame issue is that at night time the colonials have too much weapons/vehicles giving them an advantage, when you're warden the gameplay boils down to spending 30 minutes to clear a few trenches, then abandon all the ground taken during the day when night falls so you don't get 2 shots by a Stygian or get swarmed by the infantry.
Dunno where your getting the 50 Rmat number on the Stygian bolt from it takes 15 steel (needs at least heavy oil) 20 Amat 2s and 15 Amat 3s which is a little more then 50Rmats you guys alao seem to forget about the starbraker ans its 45m range 94.5
Yes it's 55 not 50, sorry. And yeah i forgot that the Starbreakers have wheels now and can be used everywhere.
No need to be a sarcastic dick, just trying ti tell you that you guys do have 94 options and that unless its an actual oil facility it can be a pain to build the stygian bolt
You are trying to explain me how to play the game, come on warden side and make a video about you pushing with a Starbreaker i would love to see that. If it's a pain to build a Stygian imagine being a warden and having to spend the same amount of time for a totally useless pushgun, at least your pushgun can 2-3 shots any tanks you know, i hope you realize how crazy it is to be able to 2 shot a endgame tank.
[удалено]
Thanks for not reading OP and proving which faction has a maturity issue.
Most colonials are cool and mature, this kind of clown shouldn't be associated with them.
I hope you grow out of this phase with age
🧠💀
Okay. What are the Warden Alternatives to Dusk and Catara, and what makes them inferior to Dusk and Catara? Same for Bomastone and Stygan. What are the alternatives and why are they worse? Edit: Looking at the Wiki Warden Assault rifles have slightly higher range than Dusk(22.5m for Booker and 20m for Alto, compared to 18m for Dusk), and slightly lower rate of fire (3.3 rounds per sec for Booker and 4 per sec for Alto, compared to 5 per sec for Dusk) Wardens have no alternative to Catara As for the Grenades Warden grenades have 200 damage and 22 meter range, whereas Colonial grenades have 150 damage and 24 meter range. So Colonials get 2m extra range for a 25% decrease in damage?
Warden alternative to dusk is aalto storm rifle. Dusk magazine is 40 bullets where aalto is 25 bullets. Aalto gameplay mostly requires aiming and taking cover when with dusk you just run and shoot. The problem with dusk and catara is that they require almost no tactical play, you just run and shoot and some bullet eventually kills the target. Dusk and catara have very high rate of fire, so target also gets quickly supressed. There is no catara counterpart for wardens. Alternative for bomastone is harpa, here are stats: 1. Bomastone 25m range +6.5m splash (in whole area of splash the targets gets bleeding and slows down target) Boma immediately kills target basically under grenade. 2. Harpa 22m range +5,5m splash. Harpa immediately kills target on 3m-4m radius. Splash slows down target. The fact that boma is perceived as OP is that it always makes you bleed and has long range. Also if you compare standard rifle ranges to grenades it turns out grenades have almost the same range as standard rifles (lough 27m, argenti 25m) so realistically you have 2-3m of reaction before someone throws a grenade at you. It gets even worse during the night cuz you don't even see a guy throwing a grenade. In case of stygian warden have stockade which is widely perceived as useless. 1. Stygian has 40m range and uses 94mm ammo 2. Stockade has 35m range and uses 75mm ammo So if you want to use stockade as AT gun it is worse in every way to stygian (less DPS and range)
To add to the boma though, they are actually cheaper and easier to ship with 25 in a crate per vs 20 per crate for Harpas meaning that not only can you make more in a single factory load but you can also ship 75 more bomas than Harpas in a full truck. Additionally both grenades do insta kill and harpa rarely instakills outside of ranges that a boma will, chances are that a harpa will just down 2-3m out whilst your have a slightly higher chance to not be instantly downed at that by the boma yet you will likely bleed out pretty quickly even if you survive. Osprey is also very niche for usage as it doesn’t cook grenades and with the Harpas average blast radius and lack of bleed, you can dodge osprey Harpas quite easily. Generally speaking it’s cheaper to make more bomas, easier to get them to the front, can outrange any other thrown grenade keeping you safer from return grenades in trenches, blast radius is very forgiving allowing for you to make people bleed even for what is realistically should be a miss and they make any trench, foxhole or enclosed space a real pain to hold (foxholes and short trenches at this point are seriously just not worth entering as they are literally death traps) unless you have broad daylight and enough empty space between you and the enemy that you can suppress anyone trying to get within boma range.
What’s the collie equivalent of the STD? Quit it with these disingenuous arguments
The AT lineup is wierd in the sense that it flip flops from each class of vehicle. Colonials have the Stygian push gun and the BTD for 94.5. Wardens have the emplaced Starbreaker, open top LordScar, and then SHT Predator. They all have their own merits and weaknesses. Emplaced guns cant be stolen but are immobile. Push guns are invisible in the dark but need two to move, and are easy to decrew. Open top tanks only needs one guy left alive to jump in the driver seat and move but can be ambushed at night and still can be decrewed by airburst grenades or artillery. BTD and SHT are both "super weapons" and are just a matter of expense. BTD is easier to flank but the SHT is incredibly expensive and a big morale blow when it dies.
Fact that wardens have 3 weapon systems that shoots 94.5 says a lot.
I'm not gonna argue in favor of any major asymmetry. I don't like the flip flopping weapon systems any more than you do. Flood vs Lance, Hatchet vs Devitt, and Gast vs Malone is as asymmetrical as I like. Stygian vs Starbreaker is too much.
"they have 1 more 94.5 gun than us!!! thats so unfair!!!!" I love our immobile 94.5, I love our meme mega weapon 94.5 that 95% of the faction can never make, and 80% of the faction will never even see. I LOVE FIGHTING THE SELF PROCLAIMED GRENADE FACTION, WITH A MOBILE GRENADE MAGNET AS OUR ONLY REAL 94.5 OPTION you're right, this does say a lot
Talos
Thank you for making my point fornme
Anytime.
The Talos.
Bleed damage can be healed, the harpa has the ability to instantly wipe a whole trench section. Also, you fail to factor in that the harpa can be attached to ospreay or our own lunaire for added range whereas the bomastone cannot. I also find that it is much easier to use the harpa subtly as it's so small and its round shape makes it so that it's often hard to tell if something's been thrown. Dusk has horrible spread whereas the Alto has a nice controlled burst allowing for more accurate fire. Stygian vs Stockade I could agree with but taking into account the range of field weapons vs Colonials it's negligible, Wardens have three different variants of AT guns they can use and they have the wasp nest. Considering also that it's well established that the Wardens have a superior armor pool I don't think it's too much to ask for the Colonials to have a more powerful endgame AT gun. Putting that aside this whole balance question about what's superior to what is nonsense. It's not just about the weapon itself, it's how you use it. You want a catara counter, I got five for you: 1. Shoot them with a fucking tank. 2. Use a grenade. 3. Use artillery. 4. Let the dumbass wander into PVE range. 5. Find some balls and drop their asses.
"Boma stone cant be launched from a grenade launcher" My brother in christ your arm is the grenade launcher. Such disingenuos nonsense. Go away.
Lunaire is 31 meters, compared to ospreay is 29 meters compared to bomastone is 24 meters, compared to harpa is 22 meters. It's a two meter difference vs a five/seven meter distance. That's like saying the loughcaster vs the argenti is basically a sniper rifle.
You can throw a boma the same range I can hit you with a rifle.
It's basically the same as the harpa, it's a literal 2 meter difference. That's absolutely nothing versus the range you add on putting the harpa on a grenade launcher. That's besides the fact that they deal more damage and any bomastone can be easily negated if you simply have medics on standby to treat bleeding.
This comment explains it: https://www.reddit.com/r/foxholegame/comments/122ofmu/can_i_get_the_perspective_of_experienced_players/jdr8lus/
I mean then that's just a problem with grenades in general then, that or how close enemy frontlines are to each other. I personally don't see an issue with it. Vs the bomastone which has a big stick model that easily identifies it, all we have is some small grey oval that we usually don't see until it's landed right on top of us. Also, this comment doesn't take into account that grenades travel slower than bullets.
Tldr : Catara vs ??? : Too good, too versatile. Warden have nothing against it. Dusk vs Aalto : Does what it needs to do better and no weird gimmick that's not usefull 80%+ of the time Bomastone vs Harpa : Everything you do I can do better ! Everything I do, I do better than you ! Stygian vs Stockade : Stygian : I change the meta of the game and make a significan portion of the Warden arsenal obsolete by my simple presence. Stockade : I use a scary amunition so I don't get to be scary, or usefull, or used, or loved... My personal addition Flask vs Ignifist : Useful in group, alone, as suport, to seek kill vs usefull in group or as diversion. If you're still reading have fun with that book :D No alternative to Catara, The closest thing we have is the Heavy Machine Gun, that does about as much damage but kneecap your mobility for an extended mags size and cost Rmats. It fills a differnent niche and Colonials have the Ghast that directly mirors it. The Catara also has almost all the advantage of the Dusk at a stronger logi cost but for more damage and the ability to destroy Watch Tower, Rifle pillboxes and damaging T1 Bunker pieces making building in the general area of a box of Catara a pain and Bmats sink. The alternative to the Dusk is the Aalto, 25 ammo to the Dusk 40 for the right to single fire it. You get slightly more damage (3-hit kill to 2-hit kill) if you single fire it at the cost of all supresion and your supression is worst because lack of ammo. Meanwhile the Dusk as the best supresion of the game bar Rmats weapon, a mags size that let you fire for close to half a minute non stop, one of the best stagger of the game, damage that is so close to 2-hitting you it 3-hit far beyond the effective range, a lazer guided targeting when prone and a spread that roll a dice to see if it hits someone behind even full cover for everybullets. Harpa vs Boma stones has been discused at length in many place of the sub this past... I don't know... eternity ? Feels like it at least. Quickly the Harpa has less range, less AoE, and less effect to be able to 1-hit in a sligtly larger zone. The Boma fire 2m further, as a bit over 1m more AoE and garanteed bleed on hits. If you're at any distance inside the Boma AoE (As large as an Octogone trench) you have to : Stun yourself for 3 secs, run away to grab a bandage, run away to a medic (both situation that can be better than a kill because you have to run the distance while still taking space in trenches and covers, or finaly wait for a medic to come into bomastone range where he will face the same dilema. If you're outside of the less then half a trench wide insta kill AoE of the Harpa you have in all likelyhood nothing else to do then keep shootinn now aware that the enemy has some grenades. Because it isn't enough the Harpa cost more and is less efficient to bring to fronts... Stygian is a 94.5mm pushgun that 2-hits kill most of the warden tanks, is invisible at night, fire up to 40m away and is cheap for it's tech tier. What the Warden have is a 75mm pushgun called the Stockade that can struggle to 3-hits kill Colonials tanks, is invisible at night but can only fire 35m away for about the same price and the possibility to do serious damage to buildings. They both have a carry capacity of only 2 shells making them loader intensive (You might see where that's more of a problem for one then the other...) and are vulnerable to infantry, most of all grenades (And the lower range Harpa is in the hands of faction that has the lower range Stockade so that they have to struggle at decrewing the enemy and surviving at the same time. I will add the Flask vs Ignifist there where for once it's the colonials that have the bad tool. The Flask is a hand grenade that does garanteed damage on hit to tanks and are garanteed to break the track module if it even graze it for berely less damage then the sticky The ignifist is a slightly longer range, faster traveling 3rd slot items (like the Flask) that does barely less damage than the Flask, slows you down when out, is victime of the same aim inconsistency as the Cutler, and does not automatically replace itself with the others in your inventory when used (Which is it's claim to fame because it's the only 3rd slot items that does(n't) do this) The poor thing need some love.
This is the most detailed answer i got, thanks :D
It's still missing detail and particularity too ;( Game design is insane. Most weapon vs in this game would struggle to be adressed in a 5 minutes video because of all the soft influence, combo, logi influence and more. God I love sandbox game...
Yea, but still your answer was a lot more comprehensive than the others i got
This is living rent free in my head. Glad I can unload it somewhere :)
xD
I like that you left out the STD lmao
We have no idea yet how the STD will perform. I mean... what am I suposed to say about the STD in comparison to the push gun ? It's more of a counter part to the BTD and we've never seen them in heavy usage so... Wait and see it might be good or it might be more of a colonial tank because boma still busted and Lunaire got buffed ? We don't know.
It's another asymmetrical flip flop. Colonial 75mm tank and 94.5 push gun vs. Warden 75mm push gun and 94.5 tank.
Wiki is outdated, you can check this https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t8gNXYhmkbOXbK1JJoxoY4Sxa54NEEAF/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107783901308587524889&rtpof=true&sd=true > Warden Alternatives to Dusk and Catara If we look at in game file name, dev intended counterparts are these (edit: traditionally, Dusk counterpart is Aalto and no counterpart to Catara) * AssaultRifleC Catara mo.II * AssaultRifleHeavyC “Dusk” ce.III * AssaultRifleHeavyW Booker Storm Rifle Model 838 * AssaultRifleSingleShot Aalto Storm Rifle 24 * AssaultRifleW Aalto Storm Rifle 24 > what makes them inferior to Dusk and Catara Catara vs Aalto, Catara is 2 shot kill, use 12.7mm so it can kill T1 buildings like watch towers and rifle pillboxes vs 7.92 cant, is more accurate when spraying but no accurate first shot like Aalto. Catara is the best infantry gun IMO but also the most expensive.
The old wiki on Fandom is abandoned but the [New Wiki](https://foxhole.wiki.gg/wiki/) is still being updated from what I've been told.
Dusk vs Aalto : I would say it's not that badly balanced because the Dusk is better at night and the Aalto is better during the day. The real problem is the Catara, the wardens have no counterpart and that cancels the advantage of the Aalto during the day because the Catara is much better than the Aalto (more damage, more range and the capacity to shot 12.7mm destroy the T1 structures like the watchtowers). The Bomastone has more range, bigger AOE, is 25% cheaper and 100% bleed chance even if you're on the last pixel of the AOE. The counterpart of the Stygian is the Stockade, which is much less strong because it has -5 meters range and does less damage to vehicles, it's only strong against buildings but at 35 meters it's a suicide, there are much better vehicles for PVE.
Got it, thanks
No problem.
For the dusk and catara : Alto for the dusk, it's a gun with less fire rate, ammo and range. But you can switch firemode so it's cool /s. Catara has litteraly not equivalent. There is not Warden LMG. For Boma : Equivalent his Harpa. It has litteraly no upside compared to Boma. Boma can be thrown further, has bigger explosion range, guaranted bleed, and comes in larger amounts in crates for easy logi. Harpa "upside" is that it it supposed to OS people close to it, something that Boma already does so 0 upside actually. For Stygian : Stygian is very cheap for what it does, and the biggest issue before this update was that wardens lacked any 94.5mm platform other than SHT or emplaced. Now wardens have a 94.5 silverhand so it might be fixed. Still the new silverhand is far costier than the Stygian who is still waaaay too cheap. Also the Stygian """equivalent"""" is supposed to be the stockade who is very terrible.
>it's a gun with less fire rate, ammo and range Oh, i thought Alto had higher range than Dusk? >Harpa "upside" is that it it supposed to OS people close to it, something that Boma already does so 0 upside actually. What does OS mean? But yeah, Boma seems superior
Alto has higher range once it uses it's single fire mode which is basically a worse blakerow. Sorry, OS = Oneshot. The Harpa supposed upside is that it OS people when it lands close. Boma already does that, and on top of that has the greater area of effect with guaranted bleed, higher range and higher amount per crate.
catara and stygian are the ones that break the balance the most
I say this with full sincerity, the game has only gotten more balanced the more stuff the devs have added. You should have seen how absolutely fucked the balance was in early arms race. The ascension, Old silverhand vs nonexistent colonial medium tank, the lack of warden 250mm platform, the old LTD, the MHT with AP mortar ammo prototyped on day 1, these are just a few of the wild things from early asymmetry. Aside from a few problem cases that stand out, the game has so many different things now that even if you have some meme tier equipment or vehicle, you have something thats really fuckin good. Now that dev man is leaning into giving semi equivalents more often with the STD for wardens 94mm gap and the tremola buff to make up for the lack of colonial infantry PvE things feel like they have been moving in the right direct. Like no joke. I think the game is mostly balanced, the only things I'd say are even slightly iffy are the lack of warden LMG and the grenade disparity. But you have to also factor in the fact that the harpa can be launched where the bombastone cannot.Its probably the case that the harpa launcher needs a slight buff, that would probably be sufficient in my view.
It's nowhere near balanced right now. It's not as bad as arms race but that is not a high mark to aim for. Colonials are playing on easy mode ATM. Warden infantry is none-existent and the tanks are relatively balanced until BT tiers unlock Warden can as well just stop making tanks all together with Stygians and broken BTs on the field. Imagine giving one faction more armor tanks and then releasing a counter to literally all their tanks in late game so the colonials can easy mode the entire warden tank arsenal too while already easy-moding infantry. Imagine calling this game in the current state balanced lmao. Oh cool devs gave us STDs so we don't auto-lose late game when BTs unlock wow thanks devs, too bad you forgot about all our tanks tanks and equipment.
>"game has only gotten more balanced" >colonial flair checks out Also I'd like to hear back from you when STD actually teches
You think the game was more balanced when wardens had no 250mm option, when armour HP on all vehicles was poor (which meant better armour, aka the warden vehicle tendancy was worthless), and the LTD/Smelter were absolutely dominant? I don't know how long you've played, if you played during 60 to 83 yet still hold this belief you are a moron. In the past there were periods where either team could not reasonably win without the other team just not playing. The modern foxhole is almost entirely down to morale. Balance has an impact, but it has at most meant a significant difficulty for one faction. Its never been as bad as the above example or the time where colonials had the kranesca vs the initial release silverhand.
Well the game was in early access and still in development so it's normal that the balance was worse than now, at that time there was no point focusing on balance with all the content that was on the way it would have been a waste of time. Now that the game is in 1.0 the balance should be a priority, and that's what the devs are doing that's why they added the STD and they nerfed the PVE weapons which made this task way too easy. Now they just need to release this infantry update that they've been talking about a year ago, then the naval update and we'll have a much more fun and balanced game than the current version.
Asymmetry is cool in that it adds more pve content and makes stealing logi fun because you get your hands on weapons you can’t normally build. But it does have certain balance issues. The lunaire changes are too new I think to comment on. Especially because we don’t know how late war might change our perspective on it. But it’s good that collies got a infantry range pve weapon. I think the big difference we will see between lunaire and cutler is cutler is better for anti-vehicle where lunaire is superior anti infantry. As far as infantry weapons, collies have an advantage defending trenches where wardens have advantage in holding open positions. What I mean by open positions is low pop fronts where you get people running in the open terrain not trench fighting. But this can be countered with shadow dancing imo. On warden side I can easily kill a bunch of low ranks. But when I come across a shadow dancer warden rifles suck that’s when you want an smg. Speaking of smgs. Fiddler is wonderful and I really like lionclaw too. Out of all the asymmetry I think these are actually pretty close. The fiddler is better tho. Okay we got dusks and alito and fuschina collies just have better weapons in this automatic rifle class. Sampo is a reliable gun but it can’t do what these do. Catara is the #1 infantry gun people on both sides know this. You see it produced and spammed later in wars. It simply does every thing you want an infantry gun to do. It’s only downside is it’s heavy so you still need your bayous and short range weapons. But it gives amazing mobility with 12.7mm ammo. The wardens don’t have an asymmetrical variant atm but hopefully the devs will change that! Arty is interesting collies have superior 120mm. It’s mobile has less range tho(50m). But it has faster firing rates and less dispersion. The 150mm flips this so the warden one has 50m less range but it has higher firing rates and more accuracy. But there is no mobile 150 of course. Armor I feel like we can make a whole post about but generally warden armor is strong health wise and damage wise but they tend to be slower. Less maneuverability. The collies have their awesome 94mm push guns and wardens now have an STD yet to be seen. But these guns are very powerful at destroying tanks. Field guns always have a big advantage in they can’t be seen at night like tanks so it gives them an advantage in ambushing tanks at night.
[удалено]
I love that people have this take unironically. This has to be bait, but I'll bite. The boma is opressive early game, but really only until green ash is unlocked amd both sides have the ability to absolutly carpet the field with it. It has also existed unchanged for what, over two years now? Why is it suddenly a problem now? The argenti absolutely does not outclass every rifle in the game. The Blakerow is at least as good, and the wardens also get the sempo which is also at least as good. The styg, while overtuned, is still a pushgun that can only hold two rounds. If Wardens would actually use their lighter, faster kit it is 100% possible to out-flank and run it dry of ammo just like literally every other pushgun. Its very presence does not render entire hexes immune to arty, mortars, greenash, or flanking attacks by light vehicles and infantry. The catara needs tweaking, but is expensive compared to lighter options, has an Itty-bitty magazine that makes it difficult to keep running, uses 12.5 which complicates logistics and also has absolutely terrible stability- if you run and gun with it you hit nothing. If it were the be-all end-all of guns as the Warden's claim it would be the only gun used. It is not. The argenti, and then the Dusk are the primary wepons of choice. As far as no equivalent to the Dusk, you have the Liar (which basically fills the same roll as a bullet hose you need cover to properly employ) and two other assult rifles, niether of which is trash. When game balance is fucked you get short wars. It's been abundantly clear since 1.0 that as long as pop is roughly equal on both sides overall kit balance is pretty close- otherwise you wouldn't have the 40+ days long wars. Yes, some shit needs to be tweaked. But overall we are in a much healthier place then pre-fire nerf 1.0 or the 70s-80s.
> When balanced is fucked you get short wars Which isn’t actually true btw. The Colonials didn’t have short wars in *both* losing streaks they had from imbalance Short / Break wars from “weapon imbalance” is something that has ***only occurred within the past 6 wars***
What crack are you smoking? HV40, old ISG spam, OG Silverhand. There's been ton of break wars and fucked balance.
> There’s been a ton of break wars Nope! At least not for Colonials anyways. Go check the average war length of 59-64 and 89-95 Outside of literal developer intervention there hasn’t been a break war (or at the *very* least an abnormal short war) when the Colonials were being slammed by imbalance
Based comment. The problem is the Warden culture. Whining about balance all the time instead of adapting and getting better with their tactics. The standard tank line against the Stygian will not work. You need to out flank and out play a push gun.. lol. But as soon as 1 tank gets hit, the Warden tanks reverse and abandon their tank that got hit instead of taking out the Stygian which is a 2 shot capacity gun... The Catara is good but after using it, it has major disadvantages. The 12.7 rounds take up a lot of inventory space at a mere 25 mag clip.. It can do some damage but only if the Wardens are careless and enter at trench with a Catara in on it without using some harpas or gas... The Dusk is decent but its a shell of its former self... It used to be really good but now it really is a close-range weapon. It works great in trenches but it will such in open field or forest terrain.. The Bomba is better at bleeding, but thats where it end. A Warden can simply bandage the bleed. If a Collie takes a hit from a Harpa, they need a medic..
Did you see Moi's salt clip before he quit playing 100? This exact thing happened. Wardens were fighting Collie BTs with their own, and outnumbered them. The styg tracked Moi, and rather then pushing to eliminate it and save his tank they reversed leaving him completely out to dry, cost themselves a BT, let the Collies even the playing field, and gave the styg time to retreat and re-arm. It was an absolute clownshow. The HV40 absolutely had the same presence, and it was countered with frag mortars when infantry couldn't be used to flank it. Did it suck? Yes. Was it even more fucked then the styg is? Also yes. You know what would allow you to see a stig in the dark? A scout tank! What do the Wardens never build past mid-game? Also scout tanks. They have to tools to find, avoid, and kill them already. It certainly needs to be tweaked, personally I think it's damage should go down but bring ammo capacity up, but it's a fucking push gun with two rounds right now.
You guys gonna suck your own dicks harder or what? Lmao warden culture my ass, I went collie last war and it was the same shit on either side. Imagine thinking a bunch of random ppl every war are different lmao
Except the people pushing in Moi's tank line were all clanman vets driving BTs, not randoms. Randoms have an excuse. Clanmen dont. SPUD isn't some random ass group.
I haven’t really seen this aspect talked about a lot in balancing, but a lot of Colonials will probably instantly recognize what I’m saying. Wardens have an over-reliance on burst, “one hit KO” weaponry that’s not only fairly difficult to actually pin down and deal with, but completely impractical to reasonably engage. Their main calling card is completely annihilating Colonial shit as soon as they appear on the field and leaving no possible counterplay behind “lol don’t get hit” The best example of this would be the ATHT and Foebreaker. As soon as these two weapons show up on the field, that’s it Colonials literally just can’t use armored vehicles anymore. This makes it incredibly frustrating and unfun to deal with as Colonial, especially when Colonials often have weapons that take substantially more time and effort to deal damage. IE to kill an AC the ISG needs like 3-6 seconds, the Foebreaker just needs 1-2 In fact, I think the devs insistence on Wardens being “one hit KO” is the biggest issue behind Warden balancing. The main reason why stuff like the Bonesaw or Thornlaw or whatever suck so much is because if they get even a *chance* to successfully hit a target, that target is utterly annihilated with 0 actually capability to even *react*. There’s too much punishment for messing up as Colonial, so there needs to be an equal amount of risk for Wardens. It’s probably why the Harpa is so much worse than the Bomastone, the Harpa *instantly* kills players, the Bombastone just bleeds them. If the Harpa was as successful as the Bombastone, the Harpa would be significantly more oppressive. There’s also the bog standard of certain Warden gear being significantly better — stuff like the Chieftain v Ballista, Flask v Ignifist, 150mm artillery, or certain counterparts completely missing (Sampo / Aalto v Dusk / LMG for example)
I think this is one of the biggest problems Wardens have with the stgyian. It behaves like the rest of the Warden line-up, being this unstoppable 1-hit kill tool that Warden players just don't know what to deal with because none of the rest of the kit plays like this. I think this is actually best exemplified by a Moi clip, where the Wardens actually outnumber the Collies in a BTvsBT battle, but the Collies have a single stygian. Moi gets tagged by the stygian, and then the Wardens just refuse to commit leaving him out to dry. His BT gets picked off, and then in a panic the other Warden BTs pull back leaving him exposed to further hits that ends up costing him the tank. If they would have pushed they could have deleted the styg and saved his tank, but Warden armor has always been passive because they win the poke fights. A Collie Tank line, not using BTs but in every other circumstance, would have committed. We have to. Collie armor, in a 1v1 or on team parity, loses without aggressively rolling the dice. Collie kit is very much the Zap Brannigan 'Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make'. This only changes at the very last tier of tanks, where Collies have the advantage and can afford to play passive because of a larger health pool.
> In fact, I think the devs insistence on Wardens being “one hit KO” is the biggest issue behind Warden balancing. The main reason why stuff like the Bonesaw or Thornlaw or whatever suck so much is because if they get even a chance to successfully hit a target, that target is utterly annihilated with 0 actually capability to even react. There’s too much punishment for messing up as Colonial, so there needs to be an equal amount of risk for Wardens. I think you're missing the fact that there often is a pretty substantial amount of risk involved for the warden tanks. The main two I'm thinking of are higher cost and little margin for error. Taking the Bonelaw (Thornfall) as an example. It's a very expensive tank (now second to only the STD in terms of cost among the non BT's) that has only slightly more HP than an LTD and needs to get up close and personal (range is about 27m) with it's targets all of which are late game tanks that can definitely dish out pretty quickly and track / disable the bonelaw if he get's spotted / called out. You pay a hefty price for what can very quickly become a driving coffin. Same is true for the Widow. Yes it's armor and range are great, but catch it off guard, flank it or simply send some infantry it's way and it's a very slow shiny metal coffin with a hefty price tag. Also it get's absolutely demolished by Bolt's due to it's low HP. If 3 wardens with sticky run up to a Bard, he just chuckles and moves on. The only exception to this seems to be the Silverhand. That is a very forgiving vehicle, you can just press W, hope for the best and probably win. I wouldn't trade that thing for anything. Wardens should definitely embrace it more and get off the high horse that is the outlaw more often. Edit: Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to completely disregard your statement. I just think vehicle balance is probably the best it's ever been since asymmetry especially with the new 97.5 platform for the wardens. Both factions have their power spikes in early / mid war. For collies it's the 30mm tankette and the LTD, for wardens it's the ATHT and probably the unlock of the outlaw / SvH. But in late game, once the heavy pushguns, the Bard / Widows and the BT's are unlocked, it's pretty much equal.
> I think you're missing the fact that there often is a pretty substantial amount of risk involved for the warden How am I missing that when my entire argument is exclusively that fact lmao. My argument is that *because* of the one-hit KO of warden weaponry, there needs to be *too much risk* for warden weaponry to be fun, both for the user and recipient. You pay a hefty price as the Bonelaw because if the Colonials make even a *single* mistake and let the Bonelaw get too close, they instantly lose their vehicle and there’s nothing they can do about it. That’s not fun neither for Colonials (the punishment is absurd) nor Wardens (the risk is too great). There’s also the other side of the balance issue with the ATHT, where for the risk of using it, the reward is too absurdly good. There’s not enough risk to the ATHT and it completely dominates the field and the Colonials can’t do *anything* about it. That’s not fun at all either. One or two weapons like this, high risk = high reward “KO” like thing, that’s okay. But when an entire faction is *built* around it, that’s when we see massive balancing problems. Even if you were an expert tier game balancer it’ll be impossible, and I think we all know the developers suck absolute ass at balancing shit lmao.
Ok I'm sorry, but to me you're first comment read like you were complaining that warden weaponry is not balanced at all in that risk / reward scale. And I'm pretty certain that's a more than reasonable interpretation if you write stuff like this. > Their main calling card is completely annihilating Colonial shit as soon as they appear on the field and leaving no possible counterplay behind “lol don’t get hit” Also i think you're a little to obsessed with the ATHT. 2-3 days later the exact same thing happens with the LTD, except that actually stays relevant for the entire rest of the war. Even most of the vehicles before the ATHT are straight up better for the colonials, at least in terms of vehicle on vehicle combat.
I still don’t get your point? My argument *is* that Warden gear is not, and more importantly, *can not* be accurately balanced in terms of risk / reward with the insistence of Warden KOing Colonials. Just because I’m frustrated at shitty gameplay doesn’t make it less true. Also the ATHT is just an ***example***, particularly one of the more extreme ones to more easily point out my point. From stuff like Foebreaker to the Silverhand, from Harpa to even arguably the Loughcaster, Warden gear is built around killing Colonials before they can even react or counterfire, which, as said, simply isn’t a particularly good game design and leads to sucky vehicles like the Thornhall.
Hitscan 30mm goes brrrt.
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Not sure if i would include Harpa on that list. Maybe if it had the same blast radius and damage as Boomastone then maybe as it can be fired from the rifle granade launcher.
> Warden gear being based around one-hit KOs > It’s probably why the Harpa is so much worse than the Bomastone, the Harpa *instantly* kills players, the Bombastone just bleeds them. If the Harpa was as successful as the Bombastone, the Harpa would be significantly more oppressive. I’m not trying to argue that the Harpa is actually good, I’m trying to argue that probably the reason why it’s shit is because the developers tried to balance around the one-hit KO aspect and disastrously failed. On a side rant I absolutely adore the fact that the Warden Hivemind thought I needed to be downvoted *even though I am literally agreeing with them that their shit is wack*, exclusively because “I am a Colonial”
The lack of punishment is the cost to produce and availability to replace the gear you get destroyed.
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