Commissars House, what were they thinking?

[justme2024]

This ^ It's a good map though, it's just only good for people who know what they're actually doing and/or are willing to listen. I believe that the map will have a way of balancing itself without actually being altered when the game gets a bit older, but you can't really know for sure. Sometimes it's the players' and not the game's fault, you know.

gotta disagree. TWI should understand how people play on pub servers, or in general for that matter. Its pulling teeth sometimes to get people into a cap. Make a map that absolutely requires that kinda teamwork, and it will fail miserably.

The reality is its a horribly designed map. How you dont start firing people for these types of mistakes, let alone the whole launch, is beyond me.

 

[Blahman]

gotta disagree. TWI should understand how people play on pub servers, or in general for that matter. Its pulling teeth sometimes to get people into a cap. Make a map that absolutely requires that kinda teamwork, and it will fail miserably.

The reality is its a horribly designed map. How you dont start firing people for these types of mistakes, let alone the whole launch, is beyond me.

You are so hopelessly wrong, my only consolation is I am glad that no developer would ever take your opinion seriously.

 

[Nenjin]

The issue with this map to me is that, for the most part, flanking is nigh impossible against a coordinated defense. Objectives are literally in a line from each other surrounded by wide tracks of emptiness. If you're not getting killed by defenders camping these open spots from the objective buildings, you're getting killed by defenders lying prone against a wall to shoot you as you run past.

Basically all the advance gets channeled into a frontal assault on this map and it's agony. You're guaranteed to have to make a run through 30+ meters of exposed terrain to reach any of the objectives.

Compare that to, say, Grain Elevator, where the German Team has a whole network of buildings and cover to flank the objective FROM BEHIND if they so wish.....and yeah. Balance on this map is rough.

All it really needs is some more cover objects in a few places so the Russians can at least move cover-to-cover. Trying to get from Building 81 to the foot of Commissar's North, you're exposed at least 5 times to shooters from the back of Building 81 all the way up to the bottom of Commissar's North. If you made it at all, it's because there weren't enough defenders there. Which, against a decent team of defenders, there always will be. Not to mention up to 5 people sniping from the Park Area, and the Panzers locking down either side of the objective as well, for good measure.

 

[killuh]

i kind of like commisars house because you get a lot of ranged fire and chance.

 

[hockeywarrior]

Don't Forget German Tank at the first Russian spawn exit, with bots instant kill you

Yeah the tank spawn camping is a huge problem, especially given the complete and utter supremacy of the PZ4 in a head-on battle with a T34. As with all of the other combined arms maps, there's basically no room for tanks to maneuver, and the infantry are forced to slog it up the center of the map because there are no viable flanking routes that aren't suicidal.

It's very poorly designed, for sure.

 

[Westernesse]

All it really needs is some more cover objects in a few places so the Russians can at least move cover-to-cover. Trying to get from Building 81 to the foot of Commissar's North, you're exposed at least 5 times to shooters from the back of Building 81 all the way up to the bottom of Commissar's North. If you made it at all, it's because there weren't enough defenders there. Which, against a decent team of defenders, there always will be. Not to mention up to 5 people sniping from the Park Area, and the Panzers locking down either side of the objective as well, for good measure.

This is why I like to play Russian Commander, 2 smokes and then resupply in B1 and unleash 2 more smokes on the other side of the wall going into C gets you smoke cover going into C on 2 different areas and the entire way up there except on your side of the B1 wall. This will let you make it there at least 90% of the time or better is SL pitch in an extra 2 smokes each. Attacking C really needs to be combined with an art either on one of the two german spawns in no mans land or at least on the route back. If tanks go into that area with that much smoke a good engi can easily sneak up behind them and plop 2 ATG on the engine and the panzer is down. Also get a guy in D sniping west. Pref a MG too. They can cover the whole area you just mentioned and all the south facing C windows in addition to a lot of B along with the gap between C and E. Most of those decent defenders should be dead or ineffective by now.

I'm not saying the map doesn't need changes like more cover, but in my experience a good Russian team will usually get to objective F no man's land before running into problems or they will win. Its not a 90/10 win split for me on 64 man servers its more like 65% GE, 35% RU and could be higher, but that's counting bad RU teams I've been on. The maps also a lot easier with vehicles turned off, but I usually play on a server that has them on.

Compare that to, say, Grain Elevator, where the German Team has a whole network of buildings and cover to flank the objective FROM BEHIND if they so wish.....and yeah. Balance on this map is rough.

It's funny that you mention Grain Elevator as that's the only map that is more imbalanced than Commisioners House. 32v32 I haven't seen Germans win it in the last 15 matches. Usually Germans get camped coming out of the 4 routes of spawn point 1 or the 2 main routes out of spawn 2. They flip A a few times, but then die and it gets flipped back. Valid sniper points include floors 2-5 of GE, all the east/northward windows of A and 5 good spots on top of A and the garage. Germans manage to flip A a few times, but usually die and it gets flipped back. The other problem is SL can just sit in the furthest east building and respawn their whole squad right outside the point. The rest of the team can pile in that same building and hold the point, then the germans wander around to clear it and end up going out the west side and being vulnerable to sniper/MG fire which gets them killed. Combined with clearing the other buildings out by the RU assault classes and you can hold the point the whole match.

 

[Nenjin]

I've seen Russians lose it too, there's no magic trick to it. More often than not this map is a win for the Allies because the Germans never try to attack B in force, they're always split between the B attackers, and just about everyone else who wants to get into the Elevator to "get those damn snipers."

When the Germans actually try for the objectives, it's pretty much over after B unless the Russians severely bled them prior to that.

As one of those 3rd floor snipers, I can tell you there are times B has fallen and I've seen maybe 2 Germans out in the open. It's not impossible. It's just after getting shot twice by Snipers, the reaction of most Axis team members is to say **** it to the points and either counter snipe the rest of the game, or try to get into the Elevator for revenge.

When I see B fall, the Allies' odds of winning the battle are about 50/50. The same logic you apply to Commissar's basically applies to GE as well. Three smoke grenades out the front of the Gate House and the Axis can make a direct move toward Conveyor Tower not having to worry about the GE snipers at all. Combined with artillery suppression on the GE, and there are plenty of ways a frontal assault can succeed.

The pieces are rarely put in place by German players though, and I guess the same can be said of Commissar's. Still, I think there's WAY more opportunity to pick off runners as Germans on Commissar than there is on Grain Elevator.

 

[CrossTrain]

Seeing as our server runs 24/7 COUNTDOWN, this map is pretty good with one glaring exception --- the second objective.

After the Russians/attackers cap the first objective (Building 81) which coincidentally is usually a great fight, the next spawn point for the attackers is in the water refinery while the defenders spawn behind the Commissars house itself. The only way to POSSIBLY get out of spawn for the attackers is to smoke the snot out of the territory between the refinery and the house itself. Unfortunately, if you wait until the smoke blooms to provide cover, you've allowed the defenders time to get to the second and main floor windows with a perfect look DOWN over the smoke and into the spawn. If you don't cap that second objective on the first spawn it is a near impossibility.

A better spawn placement would have been spawning the attackers near the Building 81 objective. However, other than that, this map is a great CQC fight in CD mode...

 

[Frostedfire]

Yeah the tank spawn camping is a huge problem, especially given the complete and utter supremacy of the PZ4 in a head-on battle with a T34. As with all of the other combined arms maps, there's basically no room for tanks to maneuver, and the infantry are forced to slog it up the center of the map because there are no viable flanking routes that aren't suicidal.

It's very poorly designed, for sure.

a bit like dh-raids then

 

[Westernesse]

When I see B fall, the Allies' odds of winning the battle are about 50/50. The same logic you apply to Commissar's basically applies to GE as well. Three smoke grenades out the front of the Gate House and the Axis can make a direct move toward Conveyor Tower not having to worry about the GE snipers at all. Combined with artillery suppression on the GE, and there are plenty of ways a frontal assault can succeed.

The pieces are rarely put in place by German players though, and I guess the same can be said of Commissar's. Still, I think there's WAY more opportunity to pick off runners as Germans on Commissar than there is on Grain Elevator.

I don't know Germans used to win 64 man GE, but it feels like for the last week or so at least on DuckSoup Seattle server, Russians have just figured out how to defend it. I've won it when the servers winding down and its 20v20 or 10v10, then you can get away with flanking since there is less people to protect the flanks. GE is a case of the germans running shorting distances, but having less ways to go and one fixed objective. Which means you can count on about 20-25 members of a 32 man Russian on the point. One third to a half of which will die going to A. So it takes multiple reinforcements to get sufficient numbers there. Less die with smokes, but for some reasons when I've applied smoke to both situations its a lot more effective on CH then GE.

Commissioners house taking B,C and D usually means germans are going to go with like 12 on B, 5 on D and 6 on C with the other 9 just around the map. You've got 32 on Russians and you can count on 20-25 of them going for the point your telling them to in voice chat which means you can lose half along the way and still take any point since the numbers are in your favor.

 

[mr.sev]

This map is one of my favourites, and I play almost exclusively as Russian.

For it to be fun and winnable however, you need to cap and hold 81 quickly, and ideally no tanks.

Yes there are lots of open spaces to cover, but that's what smoke is for. Choose an open SL or TL position and make use of it. You can also use those open spaces to take down German rushers. An example is if you move to Water Refinery at beginning while teammates cap 81. You can snipe rushers to 81 and blunt their attack (and get a lead on capping Water Refinery too).

Some of my most enjoyable moments are the battles in and around Commisar's North and South.

I will admit that most times I play the tanks dont spawnrape, so I don't have to worry about that.

 

[Nenjin]

I don't know Germans used to win 64 man GE, but it feels like for the last week or so at least on DuckSoup Seattle server, Russians have just figured out how to defend it. I've won it when the servers winding down and its 20v20 or 10v10, then you can get away with flanking since there is less people to protect the flanks. GE is a case of the germans running shorting distances, but having less ways to go and one fixed objective. Which means you can count on about 20-25 members of a 32 man Russian on the point. One third to a half of which will die going to A. So it takes multiple reinforcements to get sufficient numbers there. Less die with smokes, but for some reasons when I've applied smoke to both situations its a lot more effective on CH then GE.

Well, you and I are playing on the same server so I think we're seeing the same thing. My experience on DS:S on GE is that the Russians get so far up in the German grill at A, the Germans spend the majority of reinforcements and attention just trying to keep it. They have no will left for assaulting B after that, and just die in heaps on the flank or out in the open.

On other servers NOT Ducksoup, however, it all comes down to B and generally Russians aren't as motivated to hold A. If you poll Russian players of GE, many of them will say you should just let A go and concentrate on B. Ducksoup has shown you can do far more than that and totally paralyze the Axis.

 

[Sensemann]

Oh yeah, I had the honor to play Commissar's house on saturday with 2 clan-guys being machinegunners on the axis team. Each wave of spawned soldiers was decimated to half within 5 seconds. I stopped counting the number of times I spawned and got insta-killed. I left after like 5 minutes, because this was just awful.

The map design should be modified making it impossible to shoot into the spawn. Because once the russians capture the first objective, I think Commissar's house is actually very fun.

 

[flavin420]

I go german on every map but this one in order to help out the russians, and i must say sometimes it seems so hopeless for us, simply no communication what so ever. But we have been triumphant many times over the souless germans.

Anyways i have a turtle beach mic i plan on ordering tomorrow so hopefully i can rally some troops with me once i get a headset.

 

[Pertsa]

The easiest, most obvious and best way to balance maps like Commissars or Grain Elevator, would be to IMBALANCE the teams.

In reality, military would not plan to attack unless they have numerical superiority. 3 to 1 at least, even more on urban terrain. Without numbers the attack is doomed to fail. It is that much easier to guard a doorway than breach it.
Also the generals would concentrate their resources to get material advantage. That would mean well equipped men for the task, air superiority, extra tank battalion and more indirect fire support designated for the sector.

Now in game you got two generic, standard and identical platoons fighting it off in every map. That is just wrong. In certain maps team sizes and weapon loadouts should be varied.

For example 64 player Grain might be well balanced this way:

-24 players on Russian side, 2 MG's, 2 semi-autos, 6 ppsh and 14 bolt actions.
- Germans would have 40 players, two more machine guns, few more submachineguns and semi autos. Extra grenade for assault class.

Same idea applies to Commissars: Tweak the team sizes, give Germans only one panzer and limit or even take away their artillery entirely.

Even with these numbers I suppose defenders would still have advantage with equally skilled teams.

In this game defense is most intense, fun and exiting when it's hard against superior numbers. While defending you want to have lots of targets coming into your sights, without it becoming target practice.
While attacking it's totally opposite. When it's too hard, it becomes so frustrating. Run to capzone, spam a frag, shoot once & die. Repeat till win/lose. Attacking should be smooth, organised "roll" and defence should be more hectic "fight for your life" experience.

 

[Mekhazzio]

The root problem with Commissar's House is that you're forced to go right up the center for most of the map. To the left is an open area ending in multiple layers of quality cover, going that way is suicide until you've taken Commisar's North and the layers of cover switch to Russian turf. To the right are the vast flat fields of the two Park cap zones: those are suicide through the entire game.

This means that the Germans never have to pay attention to their sides, which has multiple other effects, not the least of which is that T34s and AT soldiers can't do anything to the Pz4s without killed the moment they pop up, which would be bad enough even without the Pz4's near invulnerability. It's virtually impossible to move up without a complete and constant covering of smoke grenades, but there's so much ground to cover with smoke that you have to milk the resupply point to do it. There's only one resupply point, inside Building 81, so you're further forced into the center with that.

The map needs a lot of help, starting with the disparity between the tanks. The map is so open and channelized that tanks play a large role, and right now there's a vast performance difference between the Pz4 and T-34. If this was a Russian defense and German attack map, it'd probably go completely differently.

 

[Icey_Pain]

You are so hopelessly wrong, my only consolation is I am glad that no developer would ever take your opinion seriously.

You kind of forgot to put the arguments in your post that made you so right.

The issue with this map to me is that, for the most part, flanking is nigh impossible against a coordinated defense. Objectives are literally in a line from each other surrounded by wide tracks of emptiness. If you're not getting killed by defenders camping these open spots from the objective buildings, you're getting killed by defenders lying prone against a wall to shoot you as you run past.

This is the exact issue I run into as well. If an equally skilled team of Russians would battle a team of Germans on that map, they would simply lose.
If you are 2x more organised, then it's easy to win. But the odds of that happening are quite low, and the map should be balanced around an equal chance of winning for both sides.

 

[NoxNoctum]

I've won it most of the times I've played it as Russians.

Try a dif server maybe.

It's based on a real location so they can't (and shouldn't) just "change it". Only thing I could think of would be to open the sides up a bit more.

I dunno why people keep complaining about the PZIV owning the T-34 either, just aim for the right spot (hull MG from front) and you can kill the PZIV in one shot.

RO1 had plenty of "unbalanced" maps but they were fun, so what if one side has an edge. I'd rather see an interesting unique map than a boring one with symmetrical features.

Anyways it's pretty much impossible to really call any map "unbalanced" at this point because the game is still brand new. Always takes people at least a few months to figure out all the "tricks" on a map.

I would like to see the sides opened up a bit more, but that's pretty much it.

 

[Terviz]

At this point in the game, part of the problem might also be that the Russian side might more or less have given up before the game even begins.

One other thing is the usage of the smoke grenades. Many times in a game where the attackers are losing (this applies to all the maps, even Spartanovka on German side) the main complain is that the Squad Leaders are not using smoke grenades.

In my opinion, I'd say it is not neccesarily because the SL's are not using the smoke grenades but most of the time they are not really used effectively. The thing about the smoke nades is that a a well placed smoke really helps your team and a badly placed smoke can actually play for the enemy's favor. I mean the first instinct might be to throw the smoke nade in the middle of an open space to allow for advancing but once you come clear of the smoke screen you are right up on the face of the defending team who have a clear shot at people rushing blind through the smoke screen.

In most cases I'd think it would be better to lob the smoke nades AT the enemy positions rather than in between. This of course means that the SL's need to get close enough to do so. Also it means that at these positions also the attackers are also blinded while taking the objective but at least it paves for a some sort of a chance to move people up to the positions.

Not to mention that most of the time the smokes place out in the open are actually cutting off your own support weapons since they cannot see past it.

But this is just my thinking and I might be wrong but this is my impression of most of the situations.

 

[Cat_in_da_Hat]

I like maps that are more difficult on one side or imbalanced as some would say.

Makes it way more satisfying if you win from the underdog side.

If the game designers is trying to re-create an historical battle, there is going to be an imbalance because that is how life is.

Obviously there needs to be a tweak here or there to make an 'entertainment product' but overall i like things imbalanced.

Goes with my imbalanced personality.

So next time don't whine about it being imbalanced, just go pick the easy side and go shoot fish in a barrel.

But if you're a hard bastard, go the underdog side and I'll see you in the trench ! Just look for the guy with the funny hat and a twisted look on his face.