Rocket artillery pricing

Hey, before I start this I wanna say I'm an experienced player, with 2,500 hours before I get the inevitable "REEEEE L2P NUB".

Lately I've noticed that, particularly in team games, rocket artillery has become rather too cost effective in my eyes and as such much more prevalent. From all sides that is, however I'd note that as all axis factions have rocket artillery stock, it favours them slightly.

The balancing factor for rocket artillery has been that if attacked it dies easily, one shot from any medium tank will kill it. So the counter to rocket artillery in the game, bar the odd lucky hit from a priest or LefH, is to charge around the map and dive it. However, particularly in team games this is not always a valid strategy, it is very easy to lock down vast swathes of the map with not a lot of units, especially using bunkers/fighting positions and mines, particularly Tellermines which don't detonate for infantry so often lie dormant for half the game, whilst very difficult to find a hole to squeeze a medium tank though 4 players to counter.

For some factions this can be an inconvenience and for others extremely punishing, Russia and OKW can happily throw a t34 or puma to its death in the hope of countering the rocket artillery however UKF,USF and OST this often requires sending a much more expensive unit to it's death to kill something with a much lower price tag. In a lot of cases, sweeping will not be possible either.

This means most rocket artillery will ALWAYS trade up for value, even if killed before killing anything as in most cases the tank that is sent to kill it will be killed trying to escape.

Particularly with the low price tag of panzerwerfers/Katyushas, often in team games I'll see a player build up to 4 of these units with the responsibility fall to me to try to kill them. A decent Player will force you to chase the rocket artillery to the back of their base between barrages whilst surrounding them with most of their units when firing leaving a dive virtually useless.

I don't think rocket artillery needs a nerf, I think it's an important unit for wiping late game High veterancy infantry units. However I think it is far too cost effective for it's price, notably the panzerwerfer and Katyusha and possibly the land mattress.

I think all rocket artillery should be bumped up to 100 fuel minimum, The stuka is fine for price imo but the fact that it can often be abandoned needs to go and could possibly be nerfed in speed/acceleration. The land mattress is inherently vulnerable and wipes less but is easily spammable so could go up to 60 fuel and still remain cost effective, Callope price is already sufficient. Pop cap of all of these units could be raised to make them more punishing to build 4 of.

The fact that axis have stock rocket artillery that is so cost-effective results in axis being able to virtually always render allied anti tank guns useless. AT guns being a fairly critical part of AT for allies against panthers. I can often find myself unable to sustain a single anti tank gun as allies in the late game whilst fighting against 3-4 PaKs or Raketens myself.

I would argue that when fielding a glass cannon unit such as rocket artillery with the potential to safely wipe critical late game verterancy from infantry, it should be down to the player to protect their powerful egg rather than down to their opponent to try and deal with it. I think with mines it currently rewards your own passive play too much whilst heavily penalising the enemy for theirs. Especially seeing as the absolutely foolproof solution for a dive is to always just reverse the thing into your base. People need a reason to not just build 9 of them and hide behind their allies.

TL;DR - All rocket arty needs to be at least 100 fuel, it's not my fault you didn't put mines down if it dies.

I wonder if its programmable to get a certain sum of fuel and MP for killing a rocket arty piece and muni for howitzer

I reckon the idea of "outtrading" an arty piece is that if you dodge enough times, the upkeep will weight him down enough to make it a bad investment, but that just doesnt work

Fuel is not necessarily a limiting factor for teamgames, which will make the change pointless and affect 1v1 the most.

It's just a side effect of having 800 worth of popcap available while fighting over the same/similar amount of points as 1v1, which makes artillery good.

I agree fuel isn't necessarily a limiting factor in team games, perhaps a manpower increase is in order too then. However the extra fuel attrition from losing them would help and make them less spammable. Especially in a close game, the extra loss of resources even minor can be a deciding factor.

If the enemy is spamming rocket arty it isn't a close game. If it was a close game the fuel THEY are putting into rockets YOU could be putting into much more durable tanks to counter them.

100 fuel for RNG arty that can die in one hit is trash. The only reason the Stuka is even so expensive is because it comes sooner and is more reliable.

No tank in the game is durable enough to take a hit by a mine and not get snared, that's the issue any competent player will plant mines etc. Diving is not a valid strategy. However if your point is that I could be fielding tanks to fight the rest of their army that is true, but hardly a counter. Any amount of fuel to strip the enemy of vet even once in 6 salvos is incredible for any price. Like I said though, I don't want a counter or a nerf, I want a cost adjustment.

In team games, spamming rocket artillery is easy as it's so cheap. If your allies field tanks you can. Regardless, spamming them isn't really my issue, I agree if they're spamming it they don't have a lot of anything else. But that doesn't change the fact that they are extremely cost efficient for their price at the moment. A few games ago I got 100 kills with 2 panzerwerfers. If that's not cost efficiency I don't know what is.

So combined arms OP? Damned enemy taking measures to guard their flanks! It should be mines and strategy that should be nerfed not rocket arty. Maybe at the very least, could maybe engineers get some manner to detect and remove the mines other engineers place? Or maybe a mechanic that detected mines won't blow incase you don't have time to clear them but still want to dive?

2 pwerfers is 170 fuel if i recall right. So basicly a Panther worth of fuel that can die in 2 shots assuming you do anything about it. That's 2 t34s nearly, or a single of any allied stock vehicle... If the enemy is exploiting the enemies ability to not do anything about it why should they be punished?

Dude... solid sattire but like I said, I don't think anything should be nerfed. Rocket artillery is extremely cost effective rn, it's not difficult to see, I've been on both ends of it. Sweeping only goes so far. you have to dive into the back of their base to get at them normally, how are you supposed to sweep that? A cost increase is not a big ask but would go a long way, only Russia get the t34 and okw get the puma, the other 3 factions you're asking them to regularly trade a 110 fuel (minimum) for an 85 fuel unit or no unit.

The comparison of the panther to the pwerfer is kind of null though, you're not buying the panzerwerfer on it's ability to take hits. It's like comparing a brummbar to a grenadier squad on it's ability to capture points. They serve different roles that aren't comparable. Compare the panther to panzerwerfer on it's ability to kill infantry and you could argue that the panther should cost half the price of a panzerwerfer no?

Again, I don't think rocket artillery should be nerfed, it serves a critical role, especially in the late game, I just don't think certain rocket artillery is punishing enough to lose considering it's killing potential, it's an extremely safe way to kill A LOT of stuff. Like I said, I recently got over 100 kills in a game from a panzerwerfer, also probably 5 tanks with mines that tried to dive me? That's some serious unit efficiency right there. No other unit (bar rocket artillery) can do that and it's one of the cheapest vehicles to field.

Increasing their price IS a nerf.

You know what I mean bud, a nerf to their combat stats. Scatter etc.

I'm interested in how the game would look like in 4v4 if we were to reduce the max popcap by say 30 or more.

Axis definitely have a significant advantage in rocket artillery due to having superior options which are also standard, although OKW's is a bit risky in 1v1 but domineering in 2v2 and up. I'd personally rate rocket artillery as:

• Stuka Zu Fuß aka Wipe Machine
  
• Panzerwerfer a close second due to high damage and suppression
  
• Katyusha is third due to low cost and tolerable performance
  
• Calliope is fourth due to high cost and limited availability
  
• Land Mattress last because it's crewed (which makes it victim to #1 and #2)
  

The Panzerwerfer's tight rapid fire and tight spread combined with lethality and suppression make it a very reliable unit. The Katyusha is less of a shock weapon and more of an area denial weapon, which means you won't be getting the same mileage out of it as you do with a Panzerwerfer.

Blobbing should be punished severely with as many tools as possible, while combined arms and proper positioning should be rewarded. It's bad enough as it is, blobbers don't need buffs.

The Panzerwerfer's tight rapid fire and tight spread combined with lethality and suppression make it a very reliable unit. The Katyusha is less of a shock weapon and more of an area denial weapon, which means you won't be getting the same mileage out of it as you do with a Panzerwerfer.

Katyushas often fire against slow, 4-man weapon teams and 4-man infantry part of the most static faction in the game. It's also great against structures. I wouldn't underestimate it so. It's the best rocket artillery in my book. On the other hand, the Panzerwerfer is there to fight powerful allied infantry that if blobbed should rightly be wiped out.

If spamming is a problem, then POP increase is the best way to balance. Cost changes usually just screw up balance for all modes, POP is usually not that much of a big factor in smaller modes when spamming one unit is not viable.

But then again I think we should not balance the game to 4v4. There is so much variability in these games and they depend more on how competent your team mates are (also at blobbing together) than on how good a single unit is. The game is a weird arty-blob party in this mode, and if you don't want that you're probably better off just playing 2v2 or 3v3.

If opponent can field multiple rocket arty pieces, the game was not equal and you were losing long before 1st one arrived most likely.

I'm interested in how the game would look like in 4v4 if we were to reduce the max popcap by say 30 or more.

Shared popcap for teamgames, each extra player puts in a +50 maxpop.

If spamming is a problem, then POP increase is the best way to balance. Cost changes usually just screw up balance for all modes, POP is usually not that much of a big factor in smaller modes when spamming one unit is not viable.

But then again I think we should not balance the game to 4v4. There is so much variability in these games and they depend more on how competent your team mates are (also at blobbing together) than on how good a single unit is. The game is a weird arty-blob party in this mode, and if you don't want that you're probably better off just playing 2v2 or 3v3.

If opponent can field multiple rocket arty pieces, the game was not equal and you were losing long before 1st one arrived most likely.

I disagree, as OST my first vehicle bar a 222 is often a pwerfer. I'm definitely not usually winning before that. Like I said though, I have no issue with spamming, nor it's wipe potential, it's extremely important to have that to wipe infantry veterancy late game, If you want to put all your eggs in one very fragile basket be my guest but if your very potent basket crumbles, I'm not sure the repercussions are particularly serious at the moment as @thedarkarmadillo said, you can buy 2 for less than the same price as a panther. My point about spamming is that it's frequent at the moment because the unit is extremely rewarding as it's a very safe way of killing a lot of units. As such I think it should cost more to make it worth a dive with a medium tank which is what you often end up trading for it.

Sorry I've been a bit confusing, I mentioned spamming a lot originally to make a different point about the units validity, that really isn't the problem I was trying to point out.

The increase in cost isn't particularly severe on a personal basis, 15 fuel is what, less than 30 seconds usually? but it goes a long way to evening the score to your opponent in the likely case that they lose their diving medium tank afterwards.

As Tetranet said, Blobbing should be punished severely with as many tools as possible, I agree, why should rocket artillery be any different in that regard, if I Blob infantry I can expect them to die to AoE, If I blob tanks I can expect them to both be snared by the same mine et cetera.

I think the unit is overperforming in team games, the thing isn't particularly relevant in 1v1s anyway so a price change won't really affect the balance there and 2v2 maps are more often than not pretty narrow so the same thing persists.

Like you guys have basically said, the game MUST be balanced around High level play, I think currently, this is rewarding to low level play, it's a low micro unit that often requires a lot of micro to deal with, which I don't mind, providing I get my moneyswworth when I do it.

If opponent can field multiple rocket arty pieces, the game was not equal and you were losing long before 1st one arrived most likely.

This is not true for teamgames in which AT saturation can be high enough that building just another tank gives no real benefit. Then you build rocket arty, wipe AT and inf and even though the enemy has 400FU in the back, he has no MP to build new squads or reinforce. Rzhev winter in 3v3 or Crossing in the Woods in 2v2 are perfect examples of maps in which rocket arty dominates. This forces western allied factions to go Royal Arty (Sexton) or Infantry Company (Priest doc) 4/5 times on these maps, just as SOV and OST are 4/5 times expected to field ISU and Elefant on them. Imho map design doesn't match the gamemode. Crossing in the Woods should not be a 2v2 map and Rzhev Winter could be a 2v2 map instead of 3v3, it would be far from great, but still better than Rails and Metal, etc.

A lot of maps are designed poorly for the game mode they are in.
Eg. Port of Hamburg is a terrible map. Angermunde as well... Rzhev winter. Ettelbruck station. That 4v4 map I once played and never again that is industrial and has that one hill in the middle with VP (also some station). IMHO, a lot of "imbalance" in this game comes from terrible map design with lack of flanking, easy encampment areas, OP building positions etc. I honestly find that every faction has it's merits and weaknesses and as such is quite well balanced. Neither OP nor UP.
The thing that amplifies the merits and weaknesses is a map. Some map amplify the "pros" too much while some amplify the "cons".

Some maps favor encampment and arty spam, others punish arty spam by having a lot of room to navigate and flank and low number of chokepoints for mines.
If you removed the hills from steppes map, it would be a really good example of a really really good map. The hills on that map can really f*** with the engine. I've seen tanks miss by a mile while one was on hill, other was at the base of the hill (both static and quite close to one-another).
IMHO, the maps are the biggest culprit in potential imbalances the game can exhibit.

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100% agree.

An example of a decent 3v3, 4v4 map would be Whiteball Express imho. There is enough room to allow flanks against enemy rocket arty and enough room so that howitzers and rocket arty barrages have to be aimed a bit more thoughtfully and not just in a general high traffic area. Sadly the base sectors are a bit too far from the VPs which makes forward HQ a must-have and the map lacks cutoffs which limits tactical depth. Other than that this is one of the few teamgame maps on which indirect fire is not OP.