Sander's personal balance changes

Like them

My 2 cents:

- T-34 Ram: Like the change, but nothing mentioned about the effects on the T-34? Perahps in return for only stunning a vehicle, could the T-34 gun destroyed/immobilization be reduced to gun destroyed/engine damaged when rammed a light/medium vehicle. Then immobilized when rammed a heavy.

- OKW Stuka changes: Thoughts on effectiveness of using it to kill USF TDs?

- Just throwing it out there: Seems the different in models in different factions' infantry creates balancing challenges - Could Grens be re-balanced as a 5-man squad to ease the issue?

- Now that UKF medics have AoE heal, I think we could remove tommies' medical supplies upgrade.

- Add a flare-volley to Tommies' pyro and rework the smoke call-in to a a volley of smoke rounds from the base guns. I like the unique mechanic for the faction, it would be nice to see it applied more. Once this is done, can remove flare coverage from the Royal Arty commander and replace with a flare-version of coordinated fire (like the OKW special operations one but within a defined radius of the casting section, just two rounds with some spread). Less OP

- In return for longer sandbag build times, could their resistance to explosives be increased? And vehicle pathing . . .Just see units spending ages building then having it instantly undone, not gonna be worth the micro-time.

- M20: Make side-skirts stock

- Can you elaborate on if rifles would still get Vet1 anti-tank rifle-nades?
Either way, I have an alternative:

• Form a standardized rifle-grenade ability package of AI (from grenadiers), AT (from rifles) and smoke (from officers) for USF
  
• Give the package by default to LT, CAP, MAJ & Rear Echelon troops (doesn't lock out sweeper). Every officer and RET now has a snare, smoke and HE rifle-nades. RET's are now supportive grenadiers for rifle squads. Utility in early game through rifle-nade before pineapple upgrade, utility late from snare and all through with smoke as now. But obviously these all require muni now, no free RET nades like with UA - might stop the RET nade meme opener
  
• Remove RET rifle nade package from UA commander and replace with something else. Depending on if this many snares are enough in practice or not, can retain the snare with VET1 for rifles. Officer squads obviously loose their pineapples.
  

I perfer this because I think giving snares to rifles would only reinforce the rifle-blob with Jackson problem in larger games and punish unit variety even more. Also the spread of rifle nades accross officers & RE's gives a moderate anti-garrison boost

- Can weapon crates be added to the Major's command post on deploy? Micro-ing rifles back to base on large maps late game to BAR-up is a chore.

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Just gonna labour my biggest gripe again - lack of structure for USF armour line-up

https://www.coh2.org/topic/105224/winter-patch-current-state-of-doctrinal-armour/page/1#post_id838551

Unrelated to anything else: But would it be possible to give Riflemen and Panzerfusiliers the grenadier Rifle Grenade animation for firing their snares? Its always felt a bit displeasing that neither really have a tell for their snares, other than the squad stopping moving.

Im not sure if the Rifle Grenade animation is significantly slower than the current "Animation" though. If so i suppose it would be a nerf.

Snip

I don't think giving RET, or any USF squad for that matter, Grenadier's rifle grenade is a good idea. Grenadiers have that instead of a "real" grenade due to their intended role of "long range firepower". USF having both regular grenades and the powerful Rifle Grenade (Especially against OST smaller squad sizes making wipes more likely) might be giving them too much. USF infantry is already very good, other than the vet1 snare issue.

The already suggested change of the current RE rifle grenade (Timed, lower damage) being a cast ability would be better. Not as a standard though, as part of Urban Assault.

Im also not sure I like the idea of a 200mp squad having passive suppression.

EDIT: Also, removing Riflemen's snare entirely and giving it to two not-riflemen, and the squishier RET squad is not really so great either, honestly. Rifles should keep it, it just shouldn't be a Vet ability.

Im still advocating for considering making Medics an HQ upgrade, and allowing you to them move the medics to your Battlegroup if you build one (While also making them heal more effectively once the BG is built)

Though without shuffling units around all this would do is make the BG even less attractive.

+1 on this.. i feel this is the simplest and easiest solution without creating all those messy balance issues...

+1 on this.. i feel this is the simplest and easiest solution without creating all those messy balance issues...

Ironically this will create greater balance issues because OKW will have it all. Some of the strongest light vehicles with Mechanized HQ and healing at the base. This is a bad idea.

Edit: I just reread Sander's 4 different versions. The one you're talking about where OKW gets all that stuff for 20 fuel is V4. I am against Sander's V4 changes. I rather prefer his alternate V4 Battlegroup HQ change that doesn't do the tech split but only swaps forward reinforcement and healing so that healing is unlocked automatically and forward reinforcement requires an upgrade (and Battlegroup HQ still requires 25 fuel to set up).

I don't think giving RET, or any USF squad for that matter, Grenadier's rifle grenade is a good idea. Grenadiers have that instead of a "real" grenade due to their intended role of "long range firepower". USF having both regular grenades and the powerful Rifle Grenade (Especially against OST smaller squad sizes making wipes more likely) might be giving them too much. USF infantry is already very good, other than the vet1 snare issue.

The already suggested change of the current RE rifle grenade (Timed, lower damage) being a cast ability would be better. Not as a standard though, as part of Urban Assault.

Im also not sure I like the idea of a 200mp squad having passive suppression.

EDIT: Also, removing Riflemen's snare entirely and giving it to two not-riflemen, and the squishier RET squad is not really so great either, honestly. Rifles should keep it, it just shouldn't be a Vet ability.

hmm ok,
I hear your point about the Gren-nades. Kinda obvious now you say it. If the HE nade was removed so that specific grenade type was the benefit of UA would that work it out?
It just really feel likes Riflemen are do-all squad! More reasons to have a mix would be nice. Even if it meant hardening RETs a bit.

Sander, are you going to release mod ?

Ironically this will create greater balance issues because OKW will have it all. Some of the strongest light vehicles with Mechanized HQ and healing at the base. This is a bad idea.

Edit: I just reread Sander's 4 different versions. The one you're talking about where OKW gets all that stuff for 20 fuel is V4. I am against Sander's V4 changes. I rather prefer his V3 Battlegroup HQ change.

Agreed, that's the major problem with my suggestion. It' just not particularly "fair" if the OKW tech structure remains as it is. I think it would be a good solution, as i said in my previous post, the BG and Mech HQ offerings were shuffled around. I'm suggesting that the initial HQ medic upgrade would only give, say, one-two medics, and the third would be a bonus from the BG existing though.

Having to unit-tech in a certain way just to get healing is unpleasant, especially if you can then lose that healing along with access to units, if your BGHQ is destroyed. Admittedly you perhaps shouldnt have your BGHQ outside of your base sector, but no other faction (Bar Soviets, who have no nondoc out-of-base healing) loses so much from their healing solution being destroyed.

Ironically this will create greater balance issues because OKW will have it all. Some of the strongest light vehicles with Mechanized HQ and healing at the base. This is a bad idea.

id guess it would render the BGHQ redundant... hmmm what if medics were moved to base then luchs and FHT were switched?

Edit: I just reread Sander's 4 different versions. The one you're talking about where OKW gets all that stuff for 20 fuel is V4. I am against Sander's V4 changes. I rather prefer his V3 Battlegroup HQ change.

glad youve read it... its preposterous isnt it?

id guess it would render the BGHQ redundant... hmmm what if medics were moved to base then luchs and FHT were switched?



glad youve read it... its preposterous isnt it?

Perhaps the Luchs and Stuka could be switched for the UHU and FHT? Indirect options all being in the BGHQ might make it more appealing? The UHU is kind of a meme unit now to a degree in any case.

Perhaps the Luchs and Stuka could be switched for the UHU and FHT? Indirect options all being in the BGHQ might make it more appealing? The UHU is kind of a meme unit now to a degree in any case.

UHU is actually bad in current implementation and imo should become doctrinal and moved to a commander and have added utility like mark target.

What could work would be to get different version of the opel truck with the "siphon" ability already in game. This ability would be timed and work increase resources production by "stealing" them from enemy sectors.

UHU is actually bad in current implementation and imo should become doctrinal and moved to a commander and have added utility like mark target.

What could work would be to get different version of the opel truck with the "siphon" ability already in game. This ability would be timed and work increase resources production by "stealing" them from enemy sectors.

So the Vampire half track from CoH1? Also, it would be nice if someone tried to mod the idea you had earlier with the Uhu minesweeper team.

USF changes

Rear Echelon Grenades

Remove the ability and replace it with a copy paste of the Ostheer Grenadier rifle grenade. Another very very poor design that should have never been implemented.

Missing

I don't like sprinting tripple elite zook 5 man high survivability Rangers rendering my vehicles useless without any activated braincells from my opponent. Why was this implemented? Double Schreck Pgrens are balanced because of their vulnerability of getting wiped but the same can't be said about Rangers and on top of that 3 elite zooks pack a way harder punch than 2 Pschrecks. Make it so the Rangers can only pick up two elite zooks and not three.

I know I'm quoting a really old post but I've just mentioned some similar stuff and while I love using rangers for AT, they do promote bad gameplay. I don't have a suggestion to fix it though.

Thinking out my ass: maybe make RET's more durable (don't give weapon buffs), if they're harder to kill could they get used more as combat utility squads with their abilities as I suggested above and weapon rack slots. Perhaps buffed zook handling with Vet, I dunno

I know I'm quoting a really old post but I've just mentioned some similar stuff and while I love using rangers for AT, they do promote bad gameplay. I don't have a suggestion to fix it though.

Thinking out my ass: maybe making RET's more durable (don't give M1 buffs), but if they're harder to kill could they get used more as combat support squads with their nades as I suggested above and weapon rack slots. Perhaps buffed zook handling with Vet too.

Do RET really need a buff, though? They've got the lightest workload of any engineer unit, provide okish DPS, and are already quite good Zook carriers. Volley Fire is also really not that terrible of an ability, I've seen it used effectively multiple times. Its not exactly the most high-impact ability sure, but its not exactly necessary.

Do RET really need a buff, though? They've got the lightest workload of any engineer unit, provide okish DPS, and are already quite good Zook carriers. Volley Fire is also really not that terrible of an ability, I've seen it used effectively multiple times. Its not exactly the most high-impact ability sure, but its not exactly necessary.

Volley fire is a meme ability. It works, but it's so silly, and volley fire with M1 carbines? I think REs are fine, they can be equipped with minesweeper and double zook.

Do RET really need a buff, though? They've got the lightest workload of any engineer unit, provide okish DPS, and are already quite good Zook carriers. Volley Fire is also really not that terrible of an ability, I've seen it used effectively multiple times. Its not exactly the most high-impact ability sure, but its not exactly necessary.

No I guess not, was only suggesting it because was looking for a brainstorm about how to get away from ranger zooks anyway. I think the direction I'm getting at is give them so more workload and buff them to match it so the rifleman reliance can be broken down a bit.

Are they still good zook carriers? I used to use them for it all the time but when I returned this summer I heard they were only good vs LVs and need ranger stats to be significant in the late game.

No I guess not, was only suggesting it because was looking for a brainstorm about how to get away from ranger zooks anyway. I think the direction I'm getting at is give them so more workload and buff them to match it so the rifleman reliance can be broken down a bit.

Are they still good zook carriers? I used to use them for it all the time but when I returned this summer I heard they were only good vs LVs and need ranger stats to be significant in the late game.

I mean, you can't expect them to solo tigers or Panthers, but they do an alright job of providing screening and damage to your other AT solutions.

Getting away from Ranger Zooks is what getting a Jackson or two does, honestly. Ranger Zooks are like better doctrinal Pgrens, and you do the same thing OST does: Get vehicular AT.

True, but again the Incendiary grenade is simply OKW's only option against cover early on. Cons, again, have access to Oorah, giving them significantly better mobility than Volks. The fact the Molotov is 33% cheaper than the Incendiary grenade should imply that it ought to have some downsides, as well.

The molitov is slower to throw and has less range. This combo means that cons will take more damage using it. The later is also a massive boon because it's much easier to get a lava made off when charging an Mg frontally. This is especially problematic for both Maxims and vickers who struggle to suppress. Another boon to the extra range is the ability to deny cover from cover, something that usually won't happen with the molitov.
Another HUGE thing is that the molitov costs 80mp and 10 fuel which more than offsets the 10mu extra the lava made costs.

For no extra tech cost and increased range and faster throw perhaps the lava nade should have more of a downside than 10mu.
Matter of fact not being able to frontally burn down mgs would be a more than welcome change...

Matter of fact not being able to frontally burn down mgs would be a more than welcome change...

Like others have said, nerf the throw range when the squad is suppressed.

Like others have said, nerf the throw range when the squad is suppressed.

thing is, its already nerfed, same as the others. the problem is that the range and speed of throw allow it to be thrown BEFORE that penalty is applied when facing the maxim and the vickers. you could make it so the lava nade couldnt throw at all when suppressed and it wouldnt make much difference because its usually airborne before the suppression starts suppressing.