Some thoughts on OKW and their issues.

So i'm making this thread for a few particular reasons, (mainly the okw struggle in all of its matchups.) and what the main causes are, there are three main ones really.

-The poor teching
-Lack of good starting units
-The awful scaling.

So let's start with the first one, the expensive and not particularly useful teching. Currently t1 is a decent choice for timings, but will ultimatetly arrive late, this is becaus of light vehicles being a neccessity to survive. Now this wouldn't be an issue if the army scaled well, but on average in my experience the usual arriving of a p4 is around the 17~~ minute mark, if not later. Now don't get me wrong the p4 is an excellent unit, amongst the best even. But when it comes out far later and has to deal with vehicles which can outexcell it in a lot of departments, whilist having a worse supporting frontline (hence why the p4j for WEHR is probably the best medium in the axis arsenal, competing with the likes of the 76mm for best medium in the game.) Makes going for it almost redunant, why would i want to get it, when i can instead get a panther which will come a few minutes later but still atleast hold the frontline against enemy vehicles and be able to trade well enough.

But nontheless this makes your techings extremely dangerous and risky, while still being mandatory units to stay relevant in the mid game. This mainly hinges on the puma to shut down the light vehicles, of which you cannot make any mistakes, if you do such as losing it, you've lost the game. It is that much of a crutch.

Honestly i could write about how awful the teching is. But instead of prattling on about it, i'll give some suggestions to help with the teching without breaking the game.

-Decrease the tech cost of t2, by about 20 odd fuel, now this would make the luchs have absurdly strong timings, so it would of course get a fuel increase with a slight boost to performance. This allows a strong luchs+puma build, while still leaving a single puma build viable without breaking your own p4 timings.
I'm sure there are better suggestions, but its that or making p4 cheaper/making t3 cheaper which would open up alot of abuse for ostwind/flame hetzer builds which is no bueno.


Now moving on to the second point. The lack of good starting units, this might be a bit controversial, but i think sturmpios might as well not be there, they're an overly expensive unit that lacks firepower at mid to long range, now this would be fine and dandy...if they could consistently trade well. This is however something they do not do. The things a sturmpio does well is the following
Ambushes
Killing units on the retreat.
These are the two key pieces that only sturmpioneers can do, but there's a problem that you might see almost immiedatly. It's only good if you constantly pierce through your opponents lines and abuse sight blockers. What happens if you can't do that? Well you lose your engagements or trade poorly enough you won't win. And as the game goes on, this becomes less and less likely to happen. An good example of this issue is for example a map like Nexus.

It's about 1-2 minutes in, you're up against an usf player, let's say you push the southern fuel. two problems become apparent.
-If there is more than one squad covering the fuel, i will have no way to take it.
-If there is a squad behind green cover i will not be able to push the fuel and i cannot enter the line of sight without being pushed away and bleeding hp and models.

Now, Nexus is a map where okw has to gamble with the sturmpioneers. either fuel North or fuel south, if you encounter more than 1 squad that happens to be a combat one (conscripts execpt, but yuu can still lose to those due them being able to field more squads quicker early on)

Your 300 manpower squad, which costs 30 to reinforce, has a zone of engagement that is pointblank, requires 1v1s. So now your actually instead of looking for fights, are hoping to *avoid* any sort of engagements in the hope you can set up an ambush once you've taken your key territory points.

So my proposed solution for sturmpios, might be a bit controversial again. Give them a 60 munition upgrade that grants them 3 kar98s and a g43. Replacing their stg44s, this would give you the choice of keeping a semi-playable assault squad and capacitiy for wiping, whilist giving you the choice of playing at range and losing your close quarters firepower, this could also open up a more variety in strategy. Alongside this i would reduce the cost of sturmpios to 280.
So now you could play multiple openings, such as 2x sturmpios, 3x sturms, fussi+sturm rifle starts, standard volks, ect. I think it would make it alot more interesting.

Moving on to volks, the issue is quite obvious, they scale *extremely* poorly, while having a poor early game, this is matchup dependent, but to make it short.

Combat flamers will win in 1v1s against volks consistently.
Usf once they have bars or any sort of elite infantry will make them bordering on incapable of winning fights without a hefty amount of mg34s or sandbags to hide behind. Now an arguement you might hear is that obers are meant to take over the lategame. But problems pop up really quick with that line of reasoning. Obers firstly need vet 2, then an 80 muni upgrade, and then on top of that, having more than one will eat up too much of your popcap to the point where it isnt really sustainable to fight lategame with even 2x obers. Thus volks *have* to be able to carry their weight at the very minimum at the late game, even if it means suffering mid game.

Okay i just noticed i rambled on about the 2nd and 3rd point at once there so i guess there's that said.
That covers pretty much all my issues with the faction, but to counterbalance the negative i've said about them, there's a quite a few positive factors with the faction.

-Strong mediums
-Strong light vehicles (puma primarily)
-Good elite infantry (though falters due to poor mainline)
-Strong artillery.
-Extremely strong commanders (Barring fortifications i think all of them are viable and strong)

TLDRrange is a crybaby l2p noob

I don't think Spios are bad, even with their limited engagement options, but it does feel extremely restrictive when you fight soviets with their 170mp CEs who can easily get 2 and spam mines while your one Spio has to minesweep, repair, protect the flak HT with its shrek and wire off cover.

I think I've gotten a pretty good understanding of OKW after getting to top 20 a week ago. If it were up to me to make some OKW changes, here's how I would approach it.

Sturmpioneers: I would buff their wire building speed. Currently it's way too slow, which makes them completely unable to wire off cover early game and makes it hard to wire off sandbags from enemy units. About 75% of current wire build time would be good.

Volksgrenadiers: I really don't like this unit whatsoever but I also see how oppressive its upgrade timing is. In general this unit suffers hard lategame, losing badly to every mainline and being unable to trade at any range, especially vs Guards who genocide them. Contrast Volks to Fusiliers who have an extra man, are much better on the move and have a real grenade. I think it would be fair to remove its ability to upgrade STGs in enemy territory, but I would absolutely add some combat veterancy buff at vet 4 or 5, either some RA or Accuracy to help them in the late game.

Mechanized HQ: Kind of an odd request, but I would like to see the repair pioneers made cheaper or even free. With how absurdly expensive and overworked Spios are, they're a necessity.

Raketenwerfer: This is the only anti tank gun without a gunshield and thus its survivability is quite abhorrent. I would absolutely add an RA bonus to balance it out, as it's way too easy to kill/injure its crew.

Obers/Hetzer: No reason why they should arrive without a full Schwerer tech. In my personal opinion it's absolute nonsense, they should require full T3 to be built.

Schwerer HQ: For the love of god, reduce the range of its main gun. It's game breaking. Game breaking. Why the fuck is OKW able to place that thing on their cutoff with 2 Leigs and just lock down a third of the map? It slows down the game so much and creates and oppressive safe zone for OKW. Super toxic that this can be done by a tier structure. Not a unit, a tier structure. Awful.

I probably will post more later about your other points, but one quick question regarding the teching:

Why should OKW need quicker timings?
They get their LV out at about ~120 fuel gain depending on tech choice. Soviets at ~140 (without AT nade), USF at ~110 (with ambo), UKF at ~120 as well (with bolster). OKW also can generate a lot of map control/fuel advantage through aggressiveness in the early game.
T2 has not been changes for ages and it was the meta choice beforehand, and only Soviets have recently seen a slight rebalance to their T3 timing and units. But those I would not call a buff.
I don't see how all of this indicates that OKW LVs arrive too late. Some further explanation would be good.

Second, just came to my mind:
If you say OKW had problems in their infantry department (Volks too weak), why do you want to nerf Obersoldaten? They are an important supplement for OKW to trade well in the late game.

I probably will post more later about your other points, but one quick question regarding the teching:

Why should OKW need quicker timings?
They get their LV out at about ~120 fuel gain depending on tech choice. Soviets at ~140 (without AT nade), USF at ~110 (with ambo), UKF at ~120 as well (with bolster). OKW also can generate a lot of map control/fuel advantage through aggressiveness in the early game.
T2 has not been changes for ages and it was the meta choice beforehand, and only Soviets have recently seen a slight rebalance to their T3 timing and units. But those I would not call a buff.
I don't see how all of this indicates that OKW LVs arrive too late. Some further explanation would be good.

Second, just came to my mind:
If you say OKW had problems in their infantry department (Volks too weak), why do you want to nerf Obersoldaten? They are an important supplement for OKW to trade well in the late game.

1- The tech timings is more or less related to p4 timing, the light vehicles (puma execpted) aren't very good, and making luchs come a bit later at the cost of being able to choose between a stronger early LV game (with luchs having increased cost+ performance) or an earlier medium is far more interesting than the binary of either going puma,luchs or puma but ultimatetly regardaless of having picked between either choice your medium/heavy (ie p4 or cmd panther) will still arrive extremely late.

I have nowhere indicated that obers need to be nerfed. Rather that volks need to be buffed because obers while decent enough, require a lot of investments to be worthwhile and having more than 1 is more of a detriment than a boon in my experience.

Edit: The soviet change was also an extreme buff, having t70 come out at 7 minutes consistently while retaining a very large part of its firepower makes its an auto pick no matter what and combined with certain doctrines (guards or svt cons) becomes oppressive as all hell.

Edit edit: Also just realized the rifle nade AT change for usf and decreased timing of m20 has also made it busted.

1- The tech timings is more or less related to p4 timing, the light vehicles (puma execpted) aren't very good, and making luchs come a bit later at the cost of being able to choose between a stronger early LV game (with luchs having increased cost+ performance) or an earlier medium is far more interesting than the binary of either going puma,luchs or puma but ultimatetly regardaless of having picked between either choice your medium/heavy (ie p4 or cmd panther) will still arrive extremely late.

I have nowhere indicated that obers need to be nerfed. Rather that volks need to be buffed because obers while decent enough, require a lot of investments to be worthwhile and having more than 1 is more of a detriment than a boon in my experience.

Edit: The soviet change was also an extreme buff, having t70 come out at 7 minutes consistently while retaining a very large part of its firepower makes its an auto pick no matter what and combined with certain doctrines (guards or svt cons) becomes oppressive as all hell.

1- T3 tech timings for OKW are not off by far as well. Iirc, OKW T2 builds need to gain ~10 fuel more than USF and Soviets (UKF is cheaper depending on the side techs chosen) to tech to the "tank tier". T1 builds even out. Therefore, the P4J comes 1-1,5 minutes later than other tanks because it costs 30 fuel more. But as you said it is the best tank, so that should be fine I guess? Unless your point is about its timing, but I don't think this should be sped up without nerfing the unit.

2- My bad, I scrolled to the wrong post while writing this part and was reading Stormjagers suggestion of tying Obers to T3.

1- The tech timings is more or less related to p4 timing, the light vehicles (puma execpted) aren't very good, and making luchs come a bit later at the cost of being able to choose between a stronger early LV game (with luchs having increased cost+ performance) or an earlier medium is far more interesting than the binary of either going puma,luchs or puma but ultimatetly regardaless of having picked between either choice your medium/heavy (ie p4 or cmd panther) will still arrive extremely late.

I have nowhere indicated that obers need to be nerfed. Rather that volks need to be buffed because obers while decent enough, require a lot of investments to be worthwhile and having more than 1 is more of a detriment than a boon in my experience.

Edit: The soviet change was also an extreme buff, having t70 come out at 7 minutes consistently while retaining a very large part of its firepower makes its an auto pick no matter what and combined with certain doctrines (guards or svt cons) becomes oppressive as all hell.

Edit edit: Also just realized the rifle nade AT change for usf and decreased timing of m20 has also made it busted.

Imo the problem has to do with how early light vehicles/light tanks arrive and not the timing of OKW vehicles. It is time to stop buffing and make unit arrive earlier and delay/nerf thing instead.

A problem with T2 timing imo has more to do with the delayed faust if one chooses T2 than anything else. That can easily be solved by making T1-T2 truck fuel cost the same and adding a second unlock for vehicles in T2 with the added bonus of allowing more tools to balance OKW vehicles timing.

I think that volks just need an ability which would just punish cocky play against them, when they have StGs.

Somesort of focus fire, or steady aim, something to just prevent USF\UKF murderfucking them ignoring cover, range and pretty much everything if volks arent babysitted by something with AI capabilities or outmatching them at least 2 to 1.

Hell even, lock it behind battlegroup HQ.

I mean sure, more expensive inf, side grades and bla bla, but volks are the only inf in the game, who can be just bullied that bad and who dont even have their niche they are good at.

I think that volks just need an ability which would just punish cocky play against them, when they have StGs.

Somesort of focus fire, or steady aim, something to just prevent USF\UKF murderfucking them ignoring cover, range and pretty much everything if volks arent babysitted by something with AI capabilities or outmatching them at least 2 to 1.

Hell even, lock it behind battlegroup HQ.

I mean sure, more expensive inf, side grades and bla bla, but volks are the only inf in the game, who can be just bullied that bad and who dont even have their niche they are good at.

One could start with making ST44 taking up one weapon slot instead of 2.


I would also test adding a timed ability that allowed them to use their ST44 in full adding mid/close DPS at the expense of far DPS.

Your 300 manpower squad, which costs 30 to reinforce, has a zone of engagement that is pointblank, requires 1v1s. So now your actually instead of looking for fights, are hoping to *avoid* any sort of engagements in the hope you can set up an ambush once you've taken your key territory points.

So my proposed solution for sturmpios, might be a bit controversial again. Give them a 60 munition upgrade that grants them 3 kar98s and a g43. Replacing their stg44s, this would give you the choice of keeping a semi-playable assault squad and capacitiy for wiping, whilist giving you the choice of playing at range and losing your close quarters firepower, this could also open up a more variety in strategy. Alongside this i would reduce the cost of sturmpios to 280.
So now you could play multiple openings, such as 2x sturmpios, 3x sturms, fussi+sturm rifle starts, standard volks, ect. I think it would make it alot more interesting.

If u give RE Garand or Thompson upgrade, Sapper with 4 Lee Endfield or Commando sten upgrade, then im fine with ur suggestion

The Sturmpio suggestion sounds like a bit too big of a change...

Too much text, make a powerpoint presentation pls

What if Sturmpioneers were changed to start as a 5 men squad with mp40, and after Tier 2/3 (BG or Mech) they would be able to upgrade to have the 4 stg 44 but with Panzergrenadier STG stats (they are less powerful at very close range but more mid range oriented thus should ultimately scale better as AI unit) + unremovable minesweeper (the minesweeper passes through each model so the lost combat efficiency per model lost remains the same thus you would be effectively still having a standard 4 stg sturmpioneer in terms of firepower).
Having the same "combat" squad members but one more member with no DPS that increases survivability in mid-late game without affecting the squad efficiency can mean a player is more willing to use sturms as combat unit.
To reflect the change, the reinforce cost would go down at the start, and increase to the current one after their upgrade

This could probably also open up several different build orders for OKW and alternatives to 3 Volks openings

I still say sturmpios should get vet0 smoke nades instead of vet1 stun nades (or both, with shared cooldown), cuz okw, apart from flanking and unlike other factions, has no way to deal with early hmgs until they get an infantry support gun. Smoke nades would also help spios to get into their effective range without losing models on open maps.

I still say sturmpios should get vet0 smoke nades instead of vet1 stun nades (or both, with shared cooldown), cuz okw, apart from flanking and unlike other factions, has no way to deal with early hmgs until they get an infantry support gun. Smoke nades would also help spios to get into their effective range without losing models on open maps.

I assume you're talking from a team game perspective, MGs aren't that bad in 1v1s honestly. There's quite a bit of room to flank in 1v1 maps and with Sturmpios you already have to hit from weird angles anyway so it's kind of easy to do once you're used to it. Trying to use smoke grenades to close in on non-MG units just seems like a waste of munitions.

I still say sturmpios should get vet0 smoke nades instead of vet1 stun nades (or both, with shared cooldown), cuz okw, apart from flanking and unlike other factions, has no way to deal with early hmgs until they get an infantry support gun. Smoke nades would also help spios to get into their effective range without losing models on open maps.

Even if they had it, and OKW had unlimited munitions, the field presence of sturmpioeers in early game is not enough for that to make a difference
The counter for mg will still remain the volks and flame nades

Imo the biggest problem with OKWs tech is that you need both leig+heal and puma(+stuka in teamgames) but you cant really afford (manpower and fuel) both before t4 cause it delays Obers and P4/P5 too much. I would rather have a linear tech like other factions and put the Kt in Elite armor or some other commander. Ofc you have to put Flak Ht into Mech and Stuka into Schwerer and rebalance the tech costs, but the current system feels weird and somewhat lackluster. Similar to the old USF teching. I dont think that reducing cost of tech structures only is the way to go.

About Volks:
I see 2 solutions. Either rework the weapon upgrade or rebalance the veterancy. The second option is easier for sure. Swap vet 1 with vet 4 and buff vet 4 considerable. So they match the values (received acc not effective hp pool) of other mainline inf.

About Sturms:
I think they are actually fine for the most part. I dont see much benefit of adding another weapon upgrade. They already have 3. Ofc they dont add much combat value later on, but if you give them a potent late game upgrade people are going to spam them over volks 100%. The only shit thing about them is that they are too expensive for minesweeping and repairing. Giving volks a minesweeper upgrade, which lets them repair tanks similar to Conscript repair kit, could solve both problems.

It is generally agreed that Volks scale rather badly, but, as you say, this is ostensibly due to Obersoldaten existing. The major problem with Obers in my mind is their timing. Other "Elite" choices for OKW come soon enough that they can conceivably replace one/two volksgrenadiers of the standard "4Volk" opening. Coming at an early timing both means that the population hit of these Elite Infantry options is not as crippling (They replace a Volk, rather than supplementing a full roster of Volks), and it also means they have much more time to reach veterancy (And are not made to fight quite such highly vetted opposing squads)

My suggestion, though it would be a big change, is that Volks are somewhat reworked; Rather than upgrading with STGs in the way that they do now, I suggest that Volksgrenadiers instead be given an upgrade that somewhat parallels the Soviet Mobilise Reserves system.

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Honestly this sort of rework is likely far out of scope for the Balance Team, but I still like to think about this sort of thing. It's fun.


Also: I agree that Sturms are a problematic unit as well. My issue is that they're such a Lynchpin unit for OKW that major changes to them would necessitate a LOT of changes to many other aspects of the faction, due to how vital they are to the OKW early-game, and this would be a huge undertaking... I think changes to them have the potential to cause a lot more side-effects than changes to Volks, as strange as that sounds.

Feels like OKWs entire gameplan is to spam infantry until they outnumber you and win with overwhelming map control from it, that or cheese you to death with 2x rak retreats and stuka zu fuss or 2x leig by schwer etc. It's so snowbally that is feels painful to play against, and playing any other way as them just ends up getting murdered by 2x BARs/brens.

While I think volks need help, I can't think of a way to have their own range adv vs both brits and USF because brits club at max and USF clubs at medium or lower. You could buff volks to their level but you'd get RNG based engagements. Also any major buff to volks should come with the removal of sandbags. Volks are really squishy without them, but they're super annoying with them having bags everywhere.

I like the idea for sturms, probably need some more fine tuning but sounds good atm. My only concern is that we'd get a new variant of the Kar98

Also OKW sim city needs to go. It's so bad nowadays because of how strong LeFHs have become with the ISU doctrine nerfs.

Feels like OKWs entire gameplan is to spam infantry until they outnumber you and win with overwhelming map control from it, that or cheese you to death with 2x rak retreats and stuka zu fuss or 2x leig by schwer etc. It's so snowbally that is feels painful to play against, and playing any other way as them just ends up getting murdered by 2x BARs/brens.

While I think volks need help, I can't think of a way to have their own range adv vs both brits and USF because brits club at max and USF clubs at medium or lower. You could buff volks to their level but you'd get RNG based engagements. Also any major buff to volks should come with the removal of sandbags. Volks are really squishy without them, but they're super annoying with them having bags everywhere.

I like the idea for sturms, probably need some more fine tuning but sounds good atm. My only concern is that we'd get a new variant of the Kar98

Also OKW sim city needs to go. It's so bad nowadays because of how strong LeFHs have become with the ISU doctrine nerfs.

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Volks losing Sandbags is fine, all mainlines should lose them. I maintain that OKW would either need a supplemental unit that could place them, or that Sturms place a special sort of "sandbag" with unique benefits to make up for the fact OKW would have abysmal access to them compared to the other four factions.

A supplemental unit would be best, but OKW already have population issues, so unless we're getting a 3-pop pistol-wielding engineer that exits almost solely to build and repair, I don't think they'd be all that viable.

Reducing the mp cost for Volks back to 250 would be a start.