Heroes & Generals (H&G) is a game I have a very much love-hate affair with. Despite everything (and all the problems I will talk about below) I do keep coming back to it, and often, I find myself having great fun. There is, in many ways, a depth to the game seldom achieved by other first person shooters.

H&G is essentially a Battlefield-Planetside cross-between that is supposed to be a hybrid of FPS and RTS. You fight and contribute to an overall war effort – that is, the Generals are the ones playing the RTS side of the game, while the Heroes are the soldiers on the ground fighting it out. You can also choose not to involve yourself in trivial matters such as an all-out war for Europe, and just fight in ‘Skirmish’ mode, with no stakes beyond each self-contained match.

Now I intend for this post to be constructive. That is, for every problem, I will hopefully indicate a solution. I am also fairly most of the things I point out will or have been addressed by developers, the players, or both. That is not stopping me from pointing out the things I noticed that do not seem to exactly work as intended – or things that simply need to be improved upon. Hopefully they prove thought-provoking.

If you were wondering, yes this is a long post. In fact, it has become literally dissertation length. If you needed any more indication of my need for better things to do with my time, here you have it. I most probably should have done this over a series, instead of one super-post. Ah well. At any rate, I have experimented a little bit with the general layout of the post. I have tried to use images in a sightly different way to normal.

“How the hell,” must you ask, “do you still play this game if there are that many problems?” Well the answer is that it is still a fun game. Most of the issues I point out are admittedly minor ones. Cooperating with a team, communicating to spot enemies and focusing on objectives are all very rewarding. As I say, this post is focused on what needs to be addressed in the game. While I am sure it would be nice to list all the things I like, it would not be as useful as constructive criticisms.

So my intention for this post is to highlight the issues with the game. So it may sound like I am being one-sided. That is because I am purposely leaving out most of the things I like in favour of pointing out the flaws. If you want some form of TL:DR, look to the end of the post – there I outline the four or so most important problems with the game as it stands right now. The problems that would have the greatest impact if they were to go away.

The post is arranged into subheadings, because you’d probably get lost if it wasn’t. Use CTRL + F to navigate.

Generals



A Sidenote about F2P

Main Menu/UI

Graphics

Player Models

Factions

Vehicles

Tank Appearance



Tank Gameplay

Matchmaking

Weapons/Modifications/Credits

Conclusion

Generals

This is where the game’s first problem appears. I have played nearly three hundred hours in total over the course of a number of years, and I have yet to experience the ‘Generals’ side of the game. I understand that the game is free-to-play, and therefore actions need to be taken by the developers to make the game profitable, but to lock off what is assumedly half the game to 95% of all players seems counter-intuitive, as well as inefficient.

This issue is a very minor one in the scale of things. The RTS side of the game is accessible (albeit in a limited manner) from rank 12 onwards. The developers also focus most of their attention in updates to the FPS side of the game, which is probably for the best. Still, it seems weird that what is supposedly half the game consists of what is in actuality only 10-20%.

In a recent devstream, the developers (reto.moto) said they were thinking about making actual Generals more accessible (especially to new players). I think this would be good, although I am not fully sure how it will be done. Given the fact I have not actually played the Generals mode, (and so have an extremely limited knowledge of how it works) I shall reserve any suggestions. The main point I am trying to make here is that the mode should be accessible to more people. If the developers have put work into it, I do not see why not.

A Sidenote about F2P

The whole issue of free to play games and their tendency towards self-limitation is one that could have an entire post about it. I touched on it on my lengthly and inordinate post about Microtransactions in general (though I feel the post is somewhat out of date now, given recent controversies and unseemly actions by certain large publishers with large and popular IPs).

The dilemma of free to play is one with no easy answer. How does a game be free and still profitable to the developer? Is there a way beyond artifically extending grinds to make free to play viable economically? H&G does have its issues, but I feel it is one of the better games in terms of business model. Everything is available to unlock with the non-premium currency (even ‘premium’ membership) which, once you have a relatively high ranked soldier, is not too taxing to earn. What’s more, the system of having different soldier branches means that what could be a massive grind is condensed – you load up an infantry soldier and work towards specifically infantry unlocks. Same for Tanker, Pilot, and so on. In a game like War Thunder, you are forced to grind through every mortal thing imaginable to finally unlock what you want. When I say everything is earnable, it still takes a lot to unlock things like new soldiers and Veteran membership. Veteran also grants a significant amount of benefits. So there are still things to spend your money on.

I do not agree that only Veteran players should have access to two badges. It is too blatant in giving advantages to players who pay money. I believe this should be available to all players. Instead, perhaps there could be a system where, once you got a badge to gold, it would show on your character like a medal of honour. Perhaps this privilege could be reserved only for players with veteran membership. This would have to be done well, because from my experience of playing Killing Floor 2, having obnoxious gold things on my character is less than appealing. What I think would be best would be physical ribbons. Perhaps even the maxed out Ribbons you earn could show on your character as well as badges.

Main Menu/UI



Over the years, they have improved greatly. There is a definite improvement in aesthetic, and it is generally much easier than before to navigate. One thing I like is that you can choose what menu music plays (between the themes of the three nations available.)

So the main menus are fine. In-game, the only issues I find are with objective markers and the timers. It is never really clear how much time is left in a match, only a somewhat vague looking bar. I feel this should be replaced with a timer (or have one alongside the bars). The other issue I have is with the objective markers that do not really want to go away when you look towards them. This makes assaulting points difficult in certain situations, especially when approaching a building from 100-200 metres. Sometimes the marker covers an entire building or window. I’ve included a few shots where I personally have experienced these issues. I am not sure how big they have come out, but you can click on them for full-sized images (as I am sure you already know). It may not seem like much, but in a game where a player could be hiding behind that icon (without knowing it) or when it lurks just in front of a building, it can get irksome.

There are a couple of issues that stem from the menus as well. Firstly is the way you play with friends. In order to squad up with teammates, you must be the same nation (which makes sense) but also the same type of soldier. In order to have different soldier types in a squad, one must unlock squad upgrade points. If you have a friend who is a high level Recon, and you are an Infantryman, you must have that unlocked or you will not be able to play together. Alternatively, you would need to switch to Recon (or he to Infantry). Even then, should you load into a match that does not have Recon resources available, you will both be stuck as infantry.

Infantry squads have only three slots. This is less with other soldier types. What I do like is the system of experience bonuses for squad play. However, for a free-to-play game, a game whose main goal is to draw new players and keep them playing, this seems massively counter-intuitive. The whole point of F2P is a couple of friends saying oh that looks intriuging, and its free lads, lets check it out! Or a friend who is already a fan and says this game is free and good, I reccomend it. You should be able to all group up and play with ease. This squad system does not allow that. This fact is made even more apparent when you look at the way H&G plays. You require some degree of coordination with your team – for instance, a tank requires machine-gunners and infantry close-by to support it. A pilot needs people on the ground to mark out targets. Why shouldn’t these people be in a single squad?

As I mentioned, I like how you can customise your squad (by adding things like extra slots and enabling you to switch soldier type mid-battle). You can name it as well. In order to improve the situation, I believe all soldier types should be able to squad together regardless. Granted this would increase queue times, but I think players would be able to live with that. Squad points could then be spent on enabling each man to switch soldier type mid-battle. So the way I would have it is that, for instance, an Infantryman can squad up with his Tanker friend with no prior requirements. Then, if the squad leader has enough points, he can upgrade his squad so that, during the course of the battle, he could switch to a tanker himself. Or the tanker could switch to infantry. I also feel that the limit should be upped to four players (with more available with upgrade points as it is now), and perhaps the squad XP bonuses dropped by a percentage to compensate.

So basically, it would be similar to the current system, but you do not have to be the same type of soldier to squad up.

I feel the choice to make the squad system like this was to instigate another facet of the grind, and therefore a reason to pay money. As much as I have tried, I do not mean that to sound vindicitve or spiteful. As already said, I am acutely aware that the game needs to make money. It needs to be profitable at some places. Given the nature of the game’s business model as it is, it is perfectly understandable. Most of my suggestions in this post will probably reduce the overall grind, and perhaps seem demandy. I want to experience the whole game right now and I do not want to pay a penny for it! No, as I said, I am trying to be constructive. I hope that some of my ideas will not compromise the game’s ability to be profitable.

Next issue with the menu is that once you join a battle, you cannot change your loadout. You have to physically leave to do so (which also takes far too many button presses). Curiously, you can’t even view things like your modifications or stats of the weapon you have equipped – yet you can with those that are not on your character. The image below has more details of this.

As you play, your soldier will accumulate a varied array of equipment (there is a variety of weapons available that are seldom matched in other games, with more being added over the course of time). For instance, you will gain access to light machine guns, semi-automatic and bolt action rifles, as well as sub-machine guns and explosives. Ingame, you choose a weapon and you are stuck with it. Even in games like Call of Duty, you create a group of loadouts that you take with you into the battle. In Battlefield you can rebuild your loadout entirely when you die. I think a system similar to Call of Duty’s would do well.

I recently read that the developers are planning on implementing a ‘depot’ in the future. This would enable you to transfer equipment between soldiers. This would be a great solution to the problem – one that I would accept a rise in the cost of weapons for gladly. This solution is probably better than the one I had thought of, which was a sort of loadout system. I envisaged a system where a soldier could purchase a “loadout slot” with, say, 100,000 credits. You could then equip any equipment not being used on other loadouts to change between mid-battle. I also thought of a “depot” where you could pay credits to make weapons available to other soldiers.

In the solution proposed by the developers, the limitation would be that the other soldier would need to ‘unlock’ the weapon first (via ribbons), before being able to use it. I suppose that is fair enough. The ‘depot’ system solves the problem of not having to buy weapons and equipment twice. You still have to unlock it again, though.

Graphics

Let’s move on to the game itself.

Firstly, I will tackle the appearance and everything pertaining to that. With graphics, My main issue is the aliasing. It is impossible to spot enemy soldiers hiding in bushes or standing still because at a distance, the jagged edges merge into each other. I understand it is difficult to fix, but H&G is the only game I have ever had this problem with. No other game am I seemingly blind to a man in a bush even right in my face (this is not helped by the fact that both bushes and player models remain absolutely static when not moving). If somebody did the same in, say, Battlefield or Planetside, they would be spotted a short while after scanning the hedgerow.)

I am not saying remove the bushes. Fixing this aliasing (which, I can only imagine is difficult) would deter the constant spam of snipers with one-shot rifles hiding in them across the map, because you will actually be able to see them properly. This issue is only increased by every map having an inordinate amount of trees and foliage. The worst maps for this are Mountain Town, Airfield and Factory (which all have huge open spaces that take you an age to cross, all the while being vulnerable to a man sitting in a bush on a hill 1km away). Something else that contributes to the whole bush situation is the fact they lie perfectly static. Pair that with the player models that also lie perfectly static, and you have an extreme difficulty in spotting enemies when in some situations, there really shouldn’t be.

Even tanks take to the tactic (however they do this for other reasons as well, which I shall get into). If this were fixed, this game would be improved tenfold. I have actually used Nvidia settings to force anti aliasing, which helped a bit (but not much!). Other players have used their own settings to force supersampling. This is something I will most certainly try. One should be warned about trying other third party programs, because certain ones are considered cheating and will result in being banned. This is the reason I have not delved too much into external anti-aliasing techniques.

(Strangely enough, the settings menu for graphics can only be accessed in-game. I think an improvement would be to make this so for the main menu as well.)

The overall graphics of the game are somewhat dated. They are not bad by any stretch of the imagination, however. Sometimes with the lighting, it actually looks quite good (the new weather presets coming in 1.10 also look very nice). It is on par with games from around 2011-2013. But this is not really a problem – not a pressing one anyway. I am sure most players will take the average graphics in exchange for an actually fun game.

The more overarching problem is the seeming lack of optimisation. I do believe it has improved over the years, but there is still some distance to go. Once again, coming from an individual who has absolutely no clue about game design, it is easy for me to say that. I am just saying what I have experienced with the game. It always uses a disproportionate amount of processing power, considering what is being produced. People with less powerful computers than me may suffer for it.

Player Appearance



Player models themselves are decent. The problem (I say problem, but this is something that with the game would be improved, but without, it would not be the end of the world – more of a lack than a definitive problem that is detrimental to the overall experience.) is that all soldiers have the same facial model. The exact same. H&G features a war fought by clones of the same blood-thirsty cosplayer, who has an inexhaustible supply of original World War II memorabilia. I have recently noticed that this cosplayer looks kind of like Chris Evans, the actor responsible for portraying Captain America in the MCU. It is deeply troubling to think hundreds of Captain Americas are fighting World War II re-enactments, killing thousands and causing millions in damages.

I understand the developers have been working towards more cosmetic options in recent months. I suggest expanding this to the appearance of the physical soldiers as well. Planetside 2 simply has a choice between three or four set faces. I believe this would be fine.

The choice of uniform colours for infantry (and some select other army branches) are good. The helmet paints are okay. I was hoping for helmet covers that were so often used in the day, but the paints are a decent change, and have a lot of potential. The issue with them is that there is no preview in the menu. When you change camouflage, you can see how it looks on your soldier before you buy. With helmet paints, there is no such thing.

Turns out they are adding helmet covers soon. They will be based on the regular infantry camouflage, so there will be a fair amount to choose from. They also look very good.



On another sidenote, something that a lot of players seem to want is the shoulder epaulettes displaying rank on your character. It would be nice, but I feel it would not be all that noticeable in the battle itself. Especially if you play like me and madly rush from objective to objective on a stolen civillian bicycle.

One thing that bugs me (being the cosmetic aficionado) is that the player models stay the same, regardless of what equipment you have. A German soldier always carries a Seitengeweher98, and a couple of hand-grenades (even if the player carries none of those things in his loadout). An American soldier has two hand-grenades strapped to his chest and a combat knife on his belt – even if you do not have any equipped. I think that the model should change slightly depending on whatever equipment you have. This would be a great touch to add a little to the game’s immersion. Some do it well (Ghost Recon: Wildlands has a nice system that changes your combat vest depending on what weapon type you have equipped), and many others do too. It does not even have to be nuanced, just something as simple as – does he have bombs equipped? If yes, show some kind of bomb on the model (like the faction-specific hand-grenades).

Failing that, what I feel is desperately needed is weapon holsters (I believe the American soldier has a pistol visible on his person). Say I have my rifle and a medikit. If I draw out my medkit, my rifle vanishes into thin air until I draw it out again. I think it would be great if the rifle would be holstered on my back. Again, fancy animations aren’t required. Many games have the weapon sort of teleport to its slot on the back or holster. This would be enough.

Factions

The subject of factions has been a common one for players of the game. I believe we are overdue for a new one (I think the developers do intend to add them in the future. Granted it is probably a lot of work to do so). Much like the Soviets using a lot of US kit on lend-lease, I would not be opposed to some Allied factions in a similar vein. For example, the British could use the American tanks (most notably the Shermans, Stuarts and M3 Grants), the Jeep and motorcycle, including American weapons like the Thompson, M1911, BAR and revolver. You could easily then create Canada and Australia given that the Allies shared a lot of U.S weapons and equipment with each other through lend-lease. Same goes for a faction like the Italians. This opens the door to the British tanks and their ‘lend-lease’ with Russia. Soviet Churchills, Valentines and Matildas are all very enticing prospects.

I read a good idea that in the future, if enough new factions were added, that the three we have now (US, Germany and Russia) would become the Allies, Axis, and the Warsaw Pact. Maybe instead of adding the aforementioned nations separately, you could do just that. Convert the US into Allies, Germany in Axis and Russia into Warsaw Pact, then let players choose specific uniforms of whatever nation they wanted to play in each of those factions. Weapons and vehicles would be shared, and I think that would give a stable base of content for each faction to build from. There may be problems with Warsaw Pact, however, given that the body came into fruition post-war. You could perhaps call it the USSR and at least add the Polish or Czechs.

In the recent dev Q&A, it was suggested that a new faction starts as a sort of ‘sub-faction’ – attached to one of the major nations. Britain, for instance, would start as attached to America until enough new weapons and equipment had been added for it to stand alone. This is similar to what I suggested, and a great starting point. I think you would be hard-pressed to find a player not happy with this arrangement.

Vehicles

Vehicles form a rather important part of the video game. Their appearance is mostly good. I like the jeeps, however the machine-guns on the back of the Willys jeep and Kubelwagen are particularly useless. This is because the aforementioned aliasing making it impossible to see at the ranges you engage at (this is made worse on certain lighting presets). The gun’s characteristics also make it hard to use (especially on the move). This leads to a few players trying to park some distance from the battle and switching to the machine-gun. Being that vulnerable leads to being sniped more or less immediately.

To improve it, I think that giving the machine-gun a full 360 degree traverse would be good. Not to mention doing something about how utterly futile it is to aim down the sights. The amount of smoke means you will be instantly blinded – I suggest the level of smoke be reduced. To counteract these improvements, I would reduce its accuracy. As it stands the weapons are very much laser-beams — especially when you compare them to the infantry-portable versions! Recoil could be taken into consideration as well. perhaps you could make them similar to the infantry versions, but with less recoil and more accuracy (but not too much, of course). One should not really be able to snipe so well with the machine-guns as you can now.

I have problems with the physics of fast-moving cars as well. At lot of the time you will skid out for absolutely no reason at high-speed. Sometimes you will hit a fence and be brought to an absolute standstill (even tanks sometimes cannot smash them). Sometimes you will kill someone while driving at around 5mph (most likely a teammate). Once I killed a man with a bicycle ( that is not intended as a brag. I literally killed a teammate by carelessly clattering into him with a bicycle). Other times, someone behind the car can get killed when it moves off. Getting air will almost always end up with you spinning out uncontrollably.

When these things aren’t happening, cars and motorcycles can be incredibly fun to just cruise around the battlefield in, especially when you pick up a group of friendly soldiers and transport them to the next objective.

While they have taken steps to fix the issue, the fact that the player character physically teleports a foot or so when exiting a vehicle is also particularly frustrating. The animation plays of the soldier climbing out the vehicle, then he pops out beside it in a completely different place. It has gotten to the point where I physically cannot shoot at someone as they exit a vehicle, because I know they are about to pop a few steps sideways. Alot of times, this phenomenon has given the enemy the edge to kill me.

I hear tell there is a vehicle update coming – it will seemingly fix the dodgy vehicle physics. I hope so. I also hope they do not nerf my precious bicycle.

Another question regarding vehicles is the strange “startup” time. Even when the engine is running, the vehicle takes a few seconds to actually move once you press the go key. The civillian truck jolts forward a foot, stops for a few seconds then finally gets going – even when the engine is turned on.

This is incredibly frustrating, especially when the car’s engine is already running. This needs to stop – I believe that enabling the player to turn on and turn off their engine would be a big benefit to the game (including tanks) – especially when the sound of the engine is so apparent. Starting up the car would obviously give the delay, but once the engine was running it would go the minute you put your foot down. This would be important for tankers as well. I will talk about how that mechanic might work when I get to the tanks.

If you are wondering why I revere the heavenly two-wheeled civillian vehicle so much (I am talking about the bicycle, of course) well, it is for a plethora of reasons. The main ones are: it’s quiet, it’s readily availabe near spawns, and it is relatively quick. Another reason the it is my favourite is that you can sail off the minute you hop on. What’s more, it does not cost you a single credit to operate or spawn. The bicycle is above such pitiful concerns as credits.

Even the humble two-wheeled machine is not immune from random spins, however.

Tank Appearance



I decided to make tanks separate from the rest of the Vehicles section, because firstly: I like tanks a lot, and secondly: I feel there is a lot to talk about.

The models of the cars are mostly good. As for the tanks, a select few of them are a bit off. The main culprits I found were the Pershing, whose turret and mantlet are too small, and the M4A1 Sherman, which has a turret that is a bit too angled and flat. I have included pictures below to demonstrate more clearly what I mean.

The colours are also a bit off – some tanks are very discoloured to the point of being grey. While I am at it, in a recent devstream, (when they were discussing the possibility of adding anti-tank emplacements) one of the H&G community guys claimed a Flak 88 would not be used as anti-aircraft, and thus should be named a Pak 88. This is wrong. The 88mm anti-tank gun was known as the Pak 43 (as a modified version of the KwK43), while the Flak 88 was designed as an anti-aircraft gun. That was because it could fire 88mm airburst shells which, on a timer, would explode at the same altitude the enemy planes would fly, destroying them. PAK stands for Panzerabwehrkannone, by the way. It roughly translates as anti-tank cannon. The Flak 88 was used for both purposes, because it was very powerful.

On another separate note, there is a very annoying bug with the KV-85. When I placed my H3 bomb on its engine deck (on the very back, where a metal place angles down) this classes the explosive as hitting the tank at an angle and therefore ricocheting. Even though the armour there is weakest. Curious.

Tanks that actually look quite nice include the M10, the Tiger I and II, and the T-34-85 (while I have not seen many T-34-85s so I have not had the chance to really scrutinise them like some of the other tanks). Granted the Tigers need to be painted in Dunkelgelb or Ambush camouflage first. Panthers are fine, save for one little problem. By little, I mean huge. This brings me to the incontinent rage I feel every time I look upon most of the German tanks in their default Dunkelgrau paint scheme.

Dunkelgrau (dark grey) was replaced by Dunkelgelb (dark yellow) as the standard camouflage colour for German vehicles from 1943 onwards. This means that vehicles that did not enter production until after this date would not be grey. This includes tanks such as the Panther, Hetzer, Panzer IV H, and Tiger II. Even the Stug III (Ausf. G in the game) would have been most commonly seen in the dark yellow. All of these tanks entered service during 1944 (with the exception of the Stug and I believe the Panther as well, which came in 1943). I recommend making the default colour of these vehicles yellow, with the more advanced ambush schemes available later on. Panthers would never have been grey. Neither would the King Tiger or Hetzer.

Obviously, the average player will not care about this. But a general audience of the game (people who like WWII) may well notice. Or not. Perhaps I am nitpicking.

Another point of note for some players is the unit markings on the side of some tanks. These do not change, leading to an inordinate amount of, say, Panzer IIIs marked with ‘131’, or Hanomags marked ‘808’. I actually read someone’s post online who thought 131 meant 131st Panzer Division. (This naturally made me weep, but that’s a story for another time). In truth, the three numbers correspond simply to company – platoon – vehicle. So 131 is 1st company, 3rd platoon, 1st vehicle. I could not see a marking for a specific division. This is probably for the best.

The numbering would suggest that the Panzer III in H&G is actually the command vehicle of its platoon. Obviously I am required to suspend my disbelief (however difficult that is) and accept that not every Panzer III I blow up would literally be the 1st company, 3rd platoon, 1st vehicle. I accept that the developers have not yet been able to implement, say, a number randomiser. There does exist potential here to have unit numbers based on whatever squad you are in during the match – naturally, my limited knowledge of game design means I can suggest what could prove to be monumental changes with relative impunity.

Tank Gameplay

Let us move on from what I assume you feel is the one of the most trivial and nonsensical things to point out. I have not played many tanks, and so I cannot attest to being massively experienced in that department. What I do know, however, is what it is like to face them as an infantryman.

The way tank mechanics work in H&G are on the right lines. I much prefer them used in a manner closer to reality (slower, in a more supportive role) rather than the go-kart insta-death machines you have in say, Battlefield (these are fun in itself, but not fitting the kind of slower-paced game H&G is).

What I will say, is that the way tanks are used could be improved. At least in skirmish, the majority of tankers choose to sit on one end of the map and camp (usually for the duration of the match). This is due to two main reasons. First, the slow turret traverse that every tank suffers with. Even those that had a mechanical turret drive hooked up to the engine historically suffer through extremely slow turret traverse in-game. Second, you have an extremely narrow field of vision when inside the tank. You can poke out, but this leaves you incredibly vulnerable. Too vulnerable, I’d say. This means that they are useless without close-infantry support at anything other than extreme range. It is all too common a sight to see tanks sitting at a distance trying to avoid the dangers of the battlefield. A sound tactic for SPGs, but not for heavy-tanks or mediums, whose existence is for charging, flanking, or meeting the enemy head on. Their loud engines make it ridiculously easy to find the enemy tank, flank it (because he can’t see around him at all) and sneak up on the poor bugger with my bicycle and set of H3 bombs. I suggested previously the ability to turn off your engine. I think this would be great.

I feel at the moment, tanks are far too vulnerable to infantry. Perhaps more cupola mounted machine-guns would help remedy this. In addition, showing less of the vehicle’s commander when he turns out the hatch might also help. Perhaps something else to consider would be to give the tanker full three-sixty view while inside. Most commanders’ cupolas have this functionality (through viewports or periscopes), and so it would be logical to have tankers in-game benefit from it as well. You could do it in a manner similar to Red Orchestra 2.

Realistically, inside the tank, the gunner would not have his face pressed to his viewport at all times. Tanks are usually designed with a plethora of means to see outside – periscopes, viewports, and the like. So I do not think one’s view would be so funneled as it is in H&G.

So what I am saying give tanks a degree of anti-infantry buffs. Well, not buffs perhaps, but rather, alterations. If you go too far, they become unstoppable death-machines. They need to be slow and clunky in some ways, so they are in many ways dependent on infantry for support. At the moment, however, I feel they are too dependent.

I believe that each tank should be able to move its turret as fast as it could in reality. Other real-life stats are abided by, like armour and gun, so why not this as well? This would mean much faster traverse for pretty much every tank in the game, save for a few specific examples. You could balance this by making their coaxial machineguns less accurate, or by adding something like a cheap molotov cocktail for infantry to fling on the tank’s engine deck. In real life, that would be instant-death for the vehicle. Perhaps in-game, it could do some damage over time. In addition, the option to turn off one’s engine could then disable the mechanical turret traverse, and reduce the traverse speed – you gain stealth in return (the tank’s engine is nearly always I how find it lurking in a bush somewhere).

The way tanks fight each other also needs to be improved upon. I think they should be able to one-shot each other if hit in the right place. Or perhaps they should be improved by the remedy I shall suggest in a section below. A modular damage system similar to War Thunder would be difficult to implement effectively, but could do the trick. Maybe even a system of one-shotting the enemy. I believe there needs to be much more significant advantages to getting the first shot on target in a tank battle. This is, after all, what it depended on in reality. Perhaps a means to disable the opponent’s weapons or mobility. Then again, much like the dreaded headshot system, I am not sure this would be good, just getting done in by what would assumedly be RNG a lot. I suppose at least being disabled or one-shotted would be preventable by simply not getting flanked.

Paratroopers

I recently got into the art of paratrooping in-game. There are not many games that allow you to deploy with a parachute as a dedicated paratrooper like H&G can. Since they removed the backpacks, however, the German and Russian paratroopers look kind of silly. I believe they should at least keep the straps when the backpack is gone, because without them, they look, well, strange. My first instinct was that they looked like regular civilians who had picked up some military headgear.

The paradrop system works by having a cargo plane fly about in fixed patterns. You spawn into this plane, and then choose when to jump out – literally whenever you like. Then, you open your parachute and land (usually where the enemy least expects).

There are issues with this system. Specifically, in the fixed patterns and jumping out department. The AI routes are quite easy to learn, making shooting down the cargo planes a simple task for a player with any smidge of experience. Some will even sit on the AA guns at base and plink at cargo planes all day long, just to make life that extra bit miserable. Until recently, I did not know the suffering of having cargo planes focused by aircraft and other AA. I think a player should be able to fly the plane, perhaps a paratrooper guiding it to his drop site before he hops out, or even a pilot. This may be prone to griefing, however, and so careful consideration would need to be done before implementing. I think it should be the paratrooper that controls it, so they are less likely to grief. Having said that, griefing would not be a problem if there was a mutual gain for both pilot and paratroopers.

The next issue is actually jumping out. If there is more than one paratrooper trying to jump out at once, you will have to form a queue. Rather frustratingly, when you press jump out , your character does the animation – he puts his hands on the doors and flings himself out. Even the camera changes. Only instead, you go right back to the seat in the aircraft’s inner compartment. This repeats until the jump out window is clear. It is intensely frustrating to watch your desired drop zone fly by as you are zipped back and to because other people are jumping at the same time as you.

It actually makes me drop far earlier than I normally would, if there are others in the aircraft. To fix this, perhaps there could be two windows in the aircraft. Or increase the rate at which paratroopers can drop. When you watch things like Band of Brothers (perhaps not the most historically accurate in other areas, but a good visual example of jumping from an aircraft), you see airborne troops dropping out of a plane faster than one man per second. I think this would be good in H&G. Perhaps the queue could form and you all jump out in quite succession like the scene from my favourite episode of the miniseries, Day of days.

Planes

Now my physical experience of aircraft is limited. Much like with the tanks, what I know is what it is like to fight them on the ground.

At the moment, I feel anti-aircraft is too weak to deal with fighters and heavy fighters, yet far too strong for scout planes. One can sit in, say, the American quad 50.cal and destroy scout planes with ease. This also grants an inordinate level of experience.

Whereas if you try to use one on a fighter, they will zip off at light speed, circle back and strafe you (usually with bombs). You are dead before you even do a quarter of their health.

While AA trucks exist, they are far too rare to be of use. I barely see one every ten matches. Let alone one where aircraft are in as well.

I believe that regular infantry weapons should be significantly damaging to aircraft. Or if they are already (I never want to waste ammo and precious credits trying) make it clearer what damage you are doing to the aircraft. At the moment, fighters and heavy fighters have seeming absolute freedom to swoop and destroy ground forces. Add common matchmaking imbalance (there will always be more planes on one side than the other) and you have issues that potentially ruin some matches.

Matchmaking

The next issue is one I always see with aircraft – the matchmaking imbalance. Unfortunately, this problem is not just limited to planes. Nearly always, the quality of the match you will have is directly tied to chance. If you are placed against enemies with objectively superior equipment, you will suffer (I will speak about balancing in its own section). Basically, due to the gap in quality between most vehicles – for instance, the Panzer I being a Tier 1, the M3 Stuart being Tier 2 and the T-70 being Tier 3 – if you queue for a match in tanks, I in my Panzer I may well end up fighting the infinitely superior T-70s. I have seen gameplay with T-28s going up against Tiger IIs.

In a lot of cases during matches, the compositions of each side is different. Even if the matchmaker places a few too many, say, Recon squads on one team, the ability for squads to have auxiliary seats means that imbalance would be worsened.

While this is not really an issue with the infantry-based soldier types (Recon and Infantry), the real issues arise when this occurs with vehicles. Yes, you may end up fighting superior machines, but the main and larger issue comes when they outnumber you. In this instance, you have almost no hope of succeeding (unless, of course, it’s a group of Tier 1 vs a single Tier 3).

The most common occurrence of this is for aircraft. Nearly always, one team has more out in the field than the other. This rapidly leads to one side gaining complete air superiority. This is absolute nightmare and potentially ruins games, because of the lack of ways to deal with them. The credit cost of ammunition and weapon maintenance mean no players will shoot up at them, and the flimsy nature of AA will get you strafed and killed before you take a chunk of a Tier 2 or 3 aircraft’s health.

How would I solve this problem? I understand it is not easy. I would limit the amount of vehicles that could spawn to a specific amount – for instance, if the match starts with three tankers, then only three tanks can spawn each side.

This opens up the issue of one team not being able to fill these three spaces, for whatever reason (if one of the tankers leaves or switches). This puts us back to square one. Perhaps there would be a system to detect this, and change the spawn limit accordingly.

I grant this would not be the best way to deal with it. Players may not want to wait in the spawn screen for someone else to die so they can spawn, especially when tanks tend to have a long lifetime as they skirt the edges of the map (and are eventually chased down by the fated bravado-men dubbed ‘AT Rambos’ by the H&G players). Either way, matchmaking imbalance continues to be an occasional problem.

Balancing

This potential matchmaking imbalance obviously creates a huge problem, especially for new players. What is a separate (and perhaps closely linked) concern is the overall balancing of the game. Getting matched against people who have objectively better guns than you (say, Germans with MP40s and STG-44s when I have my measly PPD-40 which, even with mods, is barely on even the same page, let alone level) is frustrating.

I find it a huge problem that the longer you play, the more objectively better equipment and weapons you have access to. You start with a standard semi-automatic rifle for each faction. This is actually a decent weapon, but requires significant usage in order to get the right modifications to make it a standard two shot kill, instead of three.

Badges also share in this issue. Not only do veteran players get two (meaning double the bonus, which can literally give them more health than others), but the same logic from before applies. The more you play, the better your badges get. That means a new player, without veteran, with very low tier badges, will not have a chance against a high ranked experience player with his tier 3 weapon and two gold badges.On the subject, I also feel some of the badges are fairly useless. The hip-fire improvement one (I forget its name) is, in my opinion, useless compared to say, Tight Grip or fast reload.

This logic extends to vehicles as well. Starting out as a tank crewman was frustrating and unrewarding, because the majority of the time in my dinky M2A2, I would be killed by Panzer 38s, Panzer II Ls, T-26s and T-70s. All of these vehicles are capable of killing you in a matter of seconds. Yet the gun of the M2A2 was barely capable of penetrating their armour.

I think that if you are in a Tier 1 vehicle, you should not be facing Tier 3. Tier 2 is perhaps acceptable in a large match, but Tier 3 is not. I believe matchmaking should be adjusted to account for this. I am sure many players would accept slightly longer wait times In exchange for not getting slaughtered and being helpless to do anything about it. I know I would. It happens with aircraft (A recon plane will not face a P-38) so why not tanks as well?

In terms of infantry, I believe that all guns should be more or less equal – or at least every weapon in the game should be made viable to use against the others. Other games do this just fine. In Planetside 2, Team Fortress 2 and a plethora of other shooters, you will find that the default kit is the one of the best to use. I am not saying the starter weapons should be the best in the whole game because that would obviously invalidate working towards the higher tier ones. They need to be on equal footing, while still retaining a reason to work and unlock the others.

(I actually think the proper way to fix the whole balance issue, is to sort out the headshot system in the game. I will speak about this in the next section.)

In addition, I feel that the way players fight against aircraft should be altered. Planes should not have a free rein to bomb, limited only by the recharge of their munition. They should be at risk every time they swoop down. They need to add better infantry damage against aircraft and even lightly armoured vehicles. All firearms have some degree of penetration capabilities, and I think this should be reflected in-game.

I think that there should be a credit reward for damaging aircraft. Much like the ‘AA Defended’ points bonus that you get on AA Guns, I think doing damage with anything should give you a bit of credits, to at least make plinking at enemy planes worth it. At the moment, the free rein they have is not conducive to good gameplay.

I think this is an important one to change – balancing on the whole, that is. A free to play game means lots of new players, and, while I am aware of the intricate tutorial process, the fact I do far worse on a lower-levelled soldier than I do with a higher levelled one should be altered. The game, in my opinion, is most fun once you have a decent silver badge or two, along with a good gun. This is earned by the time you roughly reach level 8. That is a long time for a new player to have to stick it out for.

I am not saying remove the grind for these items – I mean that the starter items should be more viable against the higher tier ones. I am aware that they added a bronze/silver/gold matchmaking system, but this does not seem to have any bearing on what I am put up against that I have noticed. I am very willing to admit if I am wrong about this, however.

Weapons/Modifications

The situation in H&G is that each faction’s weapons are ‘equally unbalanced’, meaning that, in a way, it is actually balanced. Each faction has their inferior weapons (which unfortunately you start with), their mid-range decent weapons (which you can do well with) and the top-tier excellent weapons (that will make you extremely powerful). I do say, that the weapon variety in H&G is very nice. There are weapons rarely seen before in WWII games, like the Johnson LMG, M2 Carbine or the PTRD-41, and a plethora of others. It is a shame that some are objectively better than others.

Of course, there exists the system of modification that allows you to add and change some parts of your weapon, to alter its characteristics. In an attempt to make the PPD-40 (the Soviet starter SMG) viable, I added a spring and trigger to make it fire faster. This of course increases the maintenance costs. In fact, I am fairly certain it doubled them. There are also a range of internal mods to choose from, from barrels, springs, triggers and even a couple of scopes.

This may suggest that there is a plethora of ways to change and mod your weapon. In truth, for each gun, there is always the objectively best way to set up. For semi-autos, you want a bit more damage to make it capable of two-shotting enemies. For bolt-actions, modding it to ‘OHK’ status is preferable (one shot kill). For all automatic weapons, increased firerate is best. In addition, most mods do not seem to have the biggest effect on weapons – at least that is noticeable. Things like accuracy and recoil, that is. I think the effects (bar damage) should be more pronounced.

The two main issues with the weapons and how difficult the balancing situation is comes down to two factors – headshots, and credits.

The fact that any weapon can one-shot with a headshot. Yes, any. Even the dinky starter handguns (like the German Model 1934) will instantly kill you if hit there. This immediately creates a nightmare for balancing. Weapons with higher fire rate will always be best because they have more chances to hit the head. The off-chance of taking a stray shot in that area means you could get randomly killed across the map (it has happened to me a few times) by someone taking potshots at you. The recoil of SMGs means a wayward spray in your direction could net you a bullet in the skull – then, death.

It is realistic perhaps, yes. But if H&G wanted full realism, they would make you collapse and be forced to crawl if you were shot in the leg or foot. You would drop your weapon and cradle a broken arm if that were hit. You would die slowly if hit in the stomach. No, getting shot anywhere else only costs you in hit points. Getting shot in the heart does not even kill you instantly.

In my opinion, instant-headshots should be removed. They should only exist for the more precise weapons like the semi and bolt-action rifles.

The reason the headshot system makes the game so hard to balance is that, even the handguns that in some cases do less than twenty damage, have a decent rate of fire which will nearly always land a headshot mid-battle.

Anyway, the developers are supposedly working on a system to fix this. It will apparently take more skill to headshot. I am not fully sure how they intend to do this bar removing the headshot system entirely. We shall see. Perhaps I can write thousands of words about that when it is realised as well!

Credits

The majority of the game’s balancing is done through credits. The more powerful a weapon (and the more heavily modded it is), the more it will cost to maintain. Thus, you will earn less credits per match. While it seems strange that in any army a soldier pay for his own equipment and ammunition, the system in itself is mildly acceptable for a free to play game. I would prefer, however, the overall earning from each match to be reduced in favour of removing the upkeep costs (say, 25%, which is roughly the average earnings of mine gone to upkeep). I say mildly acceptable, because it is in some way rewarding to be efficient, to use as little ammunition and mods as possible in order to maximise credit earning.

However, having to constantly think of upkeep makes me deeply conscious of it. The system discourages experimentation with different mods and weapons, because of the sheer cost. What I do is mount as little mods as possible (just the scout barrel on an M1 Garand, and nothing on the MP40) to keep costs down. The scopes are perhaps the most expensive, because they grant the highest advantage (being able to see your enemies far better in the aliased environment). I think the exact cost of maintenance should be clearly displayed. (Say, per 10 shots or so). In addition, it should be clearer the effects on damage and range, instead of a graph.

The credit system induces in the game what I call ‘arbitrary balancing’. That is, taking an extremely powerful weapon (such as the Bazooka, or one-shot bolt-action rifle) and instead of balancing it, simply increasing the credit cost of upkeep. It is similar to what I have discussed in other games – giving a player an extremely powerful ability, and instead of balancing the ability, giving it a 20 second or so cooldown. As such, it is absolutely pointless to use some weapons to their maximum potential, or at all. It is very upsetting to see a game physically discourage you from playing it like this. Bazookas cost as much as 2000 credits per match of use. Anti-tank H3 mines are around 300 credits per use. As such, you cannot waste them.

There needs to be a serious rejig. First, make bazookas and AT equipment cheaper. By implementing some of the changes I suggested to tanks earlier, it would be harder to destroy them anyway. That way, as much of the game as possible is available to players. In terms of economics, it seems a waste of time to spend resources creating something (like the Bazooka) only to forcefully limit its usage in-game. I cannot see even high-ranking players (with high incomes) wanting to use it.

In the case of the Bazooka, other ways to balance it include reducing its pinpoint accuracy or increasing the reload time. Not just jacking up the credit cost.

Conclusion

I said before I would tote up all the problems I’ve mentioned and give my top picks. That is, the handful of problems that, in my opinion, are the most important to fix. Disagree? let me know in the comments. Other than that, I shall leave the post here. I will not tell you the total word count of this post, because it would probably make you shudder. You may think I hate this game. I do not. I decided that I would turn my frustration with these problems into productivity. And so, perhaps, if even one person thinks oh yeah that is probably something they need to fix at any point during this post, then it will be considered successful. If not then it is still an extra post for my page – so win-win.

4. Matchmaking imbalance.

Sometimes, an abundance of enemy vehicles can make a match unplayable. It gets to a point where you cannot do a damn thing about it, because there are so many planes or tanks blasting you into oblivion. The fact there are extremely limited ways for infantry to fight aircraft of tier 2 and above galvanises this issue.

3. Headshot system.

Discussed in Weapons/Modifications. A headshot from any weapon instantly kills, making balancing a nightmare and generally creating un-fun situations where a jammy shot instantly kills you. My suggestion was to remove this entirely and replace with a damage multiplier (so semi auto and bolt-action weapons still can, because those guns require a degree of aim).

2. Credits system.

Discussed in Credits. Credits mean that overpowered weapons do not necessarily need to be balanced, only increased in credit cost. Generally overpriced weapon modifications mean that experimentation is discouraged. Possible solutions include having mods change the weight of the weapon, or removing upkeep costs in favour of a generally lower income entirely.

1. Aliasing.

Discussed in Graphics, the hard edges and low-res bushes make it a nightmare to spot enemies hidden among them – this makes it unbelievably easy for snipers to hide and generally ruin all fun. It also makes actually being able to see far more difficult than it needs to be. At longer ranges, everything blurs into each other and you are basically blind. This is especially the case on certain weather presets. I believe fixing this would rejuevenate the game completely.

I have enjoyed writing this post (if perhaps a little tired of it towards the end. I have been slowly putting it together over the course of a week or so). It was, shall I say, an experiment in style. We shall see how it works out for me. It is of inordinate length, and therefore exceedingly difficult to proofread. That is, at least, my excuse when there is inevitably 1,200 mistakes in the post. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the post. Feel free to comment any feedback.

LCR