[Winter Balance Update] OKW Feedback

Since the crew should not be affected by change of the rak-GUN this might change nothing. just like the patch notes say.
Gonna try that out.
Comps are perfect for watching a rak getting destroyed by a sherman HE shell, lets see if its gotten worse.

Unless you use forbidden techniques, the size change is meant for decrewed raketens.

Unless you use forbidden techniques, the size change is meant for decrewed raketens.

It just makes loss of a Rak take the same effort as any other AT gun to make permanent. Seems fine.

Why does a single USF BAR do more damage than both Volks StGs combined at almost all ranges? At least, that seems to be the case when I look at the stats on https://coh2.serealia.ca/, although I could be wrong.

They don't...

MP44:
05: 7.52 damage (x2 = 15.02)
10: 6.897 (13.794)
15: 5.57 (11.14)
20: 4.759 (9.518)
25: 3.861 (7.722)
30: 2.894 (5.788)
35: 1.446 (2.892)

BAR:
05: 13.204
10: 7.701
15: 6.502
20: 5.881
25: 5.29
30: 4.202
35: 3.939

The paired MP44s comfortably outperform the single BAR until after the 30 range mark. Combine this with Volks earlier access to combat buffs from vet 1 and 2, and you should be able to hold your own against Rifles until Obers show up.

Why there are 10 posts of rationalizations rather than people double checking your math remains a mystery though.

snip

Hmmm...my apologies. I may have been looking at the stats for Vet 3 BARs, or maybe I was just focusing on the long range stats. Thanks for the correction.

Hmmm...my apologies. I may have been looking at the stats for Vet 3 BARs, or maybe I was just focusing on the long range stats. Thanks for the correction.

Nah your good, its an honest mistake and the stats in this game are confusing enough that people make mistakes with them all the time. (I know I do)

V4 changes

OKW

Thank the lord that for the new fuel cost on the universal carrier! But now how about balancing that for the OKW 221?

It costs 15 fuel vs 5 fuel for the UC, but only about matches performance of the UC until you spend another 15 fuel (30 total). And you need a deployed truck to get access to it, so it arrives pretty late and with a minimum of 40 fuel already spent (for BGHQ). At the moment, that lockdown upgrade is only really useful for fuel given the 30 fuel investment. It would be great to see it more viably used for munitions, but 30 fuel is a bit costly for low-fuel OKW. I get that OKW's thing is to be fuel constrained, and have to pay a lot of fuel just to boost fuel, but given OKW can't build caches and they end up having a huge influence over the course of longer 3v3/4v4 games, it feels like a more fair change would be 10 fuel to build, 10 to upgrade. It maintains the mechanic but the initial cost for performance is more in line with the UC changes, and the lower cost of the upgrade allows more flexibility for locking down munitions without too majorly impacting teching timings.

What do you think?

Nice changes. however I think IR HT need shared veterancy, this unit is the only unit that couldn't fight at all, it is rarely used, and in 1v1 it never used, and if OKW player go for BG, he only has two fighting units and he needs to spend 45 fuel whith the truck cost to have them, also
The SU-85's "Focused Sight" ability give a huge sight
and it is a fighting unit, maybe some veterancies for IR HT ,that grant more armor,speed, abilities costs reduction, vision and maybe other abilities unlocked by veterancy will make it more worth buying.

Nice changes. however I think IR HT need shared veterancy, this unit is the only unit that couldn't fight at all, it is rarely used, and in 1v1 it never used, and if OKW player go for BG, he only has two fighting units and he needs to spend 35 fuel whith the truck cost to have them, also
The SU-85's "Focused Sight" ability give a huge sight
and it is a fighting unit, maybe some veterancies for IR HT ,that grant more armor,speed, abilities costs reduction, vision and maybe other abilities unlocked by veterancy will make it more worth buying.

Its Recon Plane could be locked behind veterancy too.

I would suggest to replace the new Recon Plane with the flares ability from Spec Ops, so IR HT could perform as a mobile spotting unit like the Wehr halftrack from Strategic Reserves. This would also balance those flares because of its limited range and the need of building an IR HT.

In addition, Spec Ops would have 1 commander slot free.

Its Recon Plane could be locked behind veterancy too.

Yes indeed.

I would suggest to replace the new Recon Plane with the flares ability from Spec Ops, so IR HT could perform as a mobile spotting unit like the Wehr halftrack from Strategic Reserves. This would also balance those flares because of its limited range and the need of building an IR HT.

In addition, Spec Ops would have 1 commander slot free.

it could have both of them, like one in vet 1 or two and the other in vet 3 or 4.

OKW Ver 4

Raketenwerfer
Show Spoiler
--Maybe 18 would be a better size for all ATGs.


Le.IG 18
Show Spoiler
--Decent change

Panzer II Luchs

Show Spoiler
--Part of luch problem is it horrible moving accuracy, glide shots are not a realistic option and imo a light vehicle like the luch should not be expected to stand still to inflict damage.

So it might be a good idea to split the difference of this change half the bonus going into moving accuracy 0.3->0.4 and the other half going to modifiers 0.4 instead of 0.5.

Hetzer

Show Spoiler
--Increase rear/side armor the unit exposes rear/side armor due to case mate sorter range.

Hi everyone.
Can we have Veterancy in the flak emplacements ?, they are units like any other units and they cost popcap, also the other emplacments have veterancy, so I don't know why this doesn't has.

Note: maybe this suggestion should target the next commanders patch, not this patch.

...yea, sure. Seems fine, just dont give it to the OKW base emplacements.

Otherwise, might be too much time for little gain.

...yea, sure. Seems fine, just dont give it to the OKW base emplacements.

Otherwise, might be too much time for little gain.

yeah, for sure, I think they separate them, so any changes in the commanders flak emplacements won't affect the emplacments in the base.

So I think this was previously talked about a little bit but is there any merit to maybe doing a different change to Strumpioneers? Namely changes that would encourage building a second one early game. Double Strum could be a possible way to diversify early okw builds beyond 4 volks.

Something like reducing the manpower cost by like 20 (so to 280) and making them 6 pop (from 7) could possibly be something. Making the shreck and sweeper mutually exclusive would need to come back for sure and it even kinda encourages double strums early game while not making the upgrades just auto pick (which the strums now just always get the shreck and sweeper). Beyond that it also makes losing a strum less punishing which would be nice to see later in the game where they are some of the only repair you have.

Idk probably some issues with this idea but thought it could be interesting to just throw the idea out there.

2 sturm is interesting, but a TON of OKWs tools exist to enable and incentivize 1 Sturm play, from the 0 pop engineers of the Mechanized truck, to their sheathable minesweeper, their 8 pop (the elite inf standard), upgrade for better healing (on a unit that can consistently get vet 2) and their miserable late game.
Not enabling Sturm spam allows OKW to start with the highest value starting unit.

2 sturm is interesting, but a TON of OKWs tools exist to enable and incentivize 1 Sturm play, from the 0 pop engineers of the Mechanized truck, to their sheathable minesweeper, their 8 pop (the elite inf standard), upgrade for better healing (on a unit that can consistently get vet 2) and their miserable late game.
Not enabling Sturm spam allows OKW to start with the highest value starting unit.

Strums would very likely need more nerfs to have their costs reduced further but the upsides to making a second strum actually worthwhile could outweigh those nerfs. Some issues with OKW actually lie within how they only ever really have a single engineer unit kicking around for the entire game and how if you lose that starting one it sets you back in a pretty massive way. Making 2 strums starts viable would make it a lot more forgiving in general if a strum gets wiped.

Probably the 2 biggest things is that a second strum means you actually have 2 squads to repair no matter how you tech up. Currently if you go BGHQ you pretty much only have a single repair unit for the entire game and even with mechanized you end up with 2 squads but 1 of them is immobile leading to less flexible repairs overall (and not to mention they cost 15 fuel and I think it's 200 manpower to get).

Then the other big upside as before is a greater build diversity in the early game. Right now the meta is mostly based around 4 volks and the only variation is the occasional kubel which doesn't offer much diversity in how you can open. If it was viable to get a second strums suddenly you could consider replacing a volks squad with a strum which could lead to different ways the OKW player has to play.

If it's done correctly you could open potentially a lot of doors for the OKW by making it easier to get a second strum as tools that might be otherwise be a bit lackluster suddenly become more appealing when you can have 2 strum. Like for example maybe more aggressive vehicle plays since repairs are more likely to be close to them or things like maybe skipping an AT gun for a faster tech up and using double shreck to deter LV (not great examples but those things do become better with double strums among the bigger benefits listed above).

So I think this was previously talked about a little bit but is there any merit to maybe doing a different change to Strumpioneers? Namely changes that would encourage building a second one early game. Double Strum could be a possible way to diversify early okw builds beyond 4 volks.

Something like reducing the manpower cost by like 20 (so to 280) and making them 6 pop (from 7) could possibly be something. Making the shreck and sweeper mutually exclusive would need to come back for sure and it even kinda encourages double strums early game while not making the upgrades just auto pick (which the strums now just always get the shreck and sweeper). Beyond that it also makes losing a strum less punishing which would be nice to see later in the game where they are some of the only repair you have.

Idk probably some issues with this idea but thought it could be interesting to just throw the idea out there.

I agree ,making Sturms more viable and affordable is a good thing even if they get nerfed, also still the other factions has more options ,for example:
Wehrmacht has mgs and more affordable pioneers and also can go for snipers and mortars in the beginning.

Soviet can go for 2 different building from the start, each one with different units (snipers/penals/mgs/ect)

British has MG from the beginning and now has their engineers in T0 too and can go for UC.

American has mortar from the beginning and I think their tech is less costly because they have side tech for each tier so they may have more options (I don't play with them, I don't really know alot about them, but still they are more diverse than OKW).

even with latest BG changes (which are great and fixed alot), but still the BG take alot of time to come because of the truck cost and its build time , so basically OKW still has volks as their only unit in the beginning, and maybe a kubel, thats it.

for Sturms right now they are actually only good in the first one or two engagements, after that, mgs and more infantry came , and the Sturms became just a highly costly repair unit that it also take alot of popcap,
and if u loss it you should spend 300 manpower for a repair unit.

Note: don't understand me wrong, in general OKW looks much better right now, the ability to go for support weapons and healing earlier is really a big deal, even if it takes them more time than the other factions to have them, in the end this is an asymmetric game, and each faction should has its advantages/disadvantages.