Volks mp40 vs stg44 vs no update

Other factions aren't incentivised to backtech with a super heavy stock tank nor their alternative tech offer much, contrary to OKW.

Other than an MG or ATG, and a free utility squad in the case of USF, I suppose? Or literally any type of support weapon for a tier-1 SOV? Being forced to back-tech really isnt the same as being "incentivised" to.

In fact, OKW was never designed with intent of NOT getting all 3 trucks.
1v1 meta allowed skipping one truck, but they always were supposed to eventually deploy all 3 and faction is balanced around that.

Brits were designed around having to choose between various units (AEC/Bofors) and Infantry sections only being able to fight defensively from behind cover, too. Just because this is the "intended" design doesn't mean that it's good design, and that it shouldn't be somewhat changed.

Remember back when the USF Platoon Command pretty much couldn't fight vehicles, and the Company Command pretty much couldn't fight infantry? That was how that was designed, too, but it was terrible, and why it was changed to allow both tiers to cope.

Protip:
If you go straight for BGHQ, you don't need to backtech for it.
Face reality, you never had micro needed to keep that LV alife long enough for it to pay for itself anyway, so you don't need it.

Do you have an allergy to constructive posting?

This is also why you are supposed to deploy ALL trucks before you can call-in heavy, while everyone else only needs last tech.

If you need LVs and repairs more then indirect and infantry healing is 100% up to your own priorities.

Alternatively: You need LVs because LVs are OKW's strongest opening option. I somehow doubt you'd be making this absurd "argument" if Sov had to choose between the T-70 and healing.

It would totally be possible if the options of setting up the repair and medic stations without any unit unlocked was given, like I had proposed before sturmpios receieved their overexpensive medkits.


Other factions also aren't designed to need to backtech like OKW does, which is why still linking the medis to BTG HQ is a stupid idea

It would work even better if BTG itself was reworked to be a cheaper support weapons tier with medics and the tech structure was made linear, always requiring both Mechanized and BTG, since BTG was never an equal option to Mechanized like LT is to Captain.

The options are already there, it's just that the time for reworks is over

I'm pretty much in agreement here. At the very least; The BGHQ should be buildable for a fairly nominal price, providing only the medics until further upgraded. I really don't see any reason that OKW should be without healing unless they go down a certain tech path.

Linear teching for all factions would probably improve the game/make balance rather a lot easier, incidentally. "Real" non-linear teching just isnt all that viable due to a fairly limited number of options available down any given "path".

While I disagree that BG and Mech aren't side grades to each other (I think they're actually quite balanced relative to each other at the moment in spite of OKW's flaws) the real pants kicker is that even if you go Battlegroup, you're probably going to need to use the 45 Muni Medkit ability before you can even get medics if you want to maintain field presence and I think that could be improved on.

I'd like to see the Medic upgrade on Battlegroup decreased in time by a significant amount and as necessary have the secondary Battlegroup tech timing increased to make up for it if total tech timing becomes an issue. OKW has the latest natural healing source of all the factions and it's incredibly rough to be out 45 Muni most games because you needed to heal once before your medics come up in order to maintain field presence.

I'd also be willing to argue for cheaper Sturmpio Medikits since if you do go Mechanized you go from the least Muni starved faction to the most having to spend about 180-270 Muni on healing alone before it's reasonable from a timing perspective to backtech medics, which is kind of ridiculous. Drop that to 30-35 per kit and you're still spending more than any other faction for healing as you should given your tech choice, but it doesn't eat your whole muni bank attempting to sustain your infantry throughout the match.

Just drop the medkit ability from Sturms entirely, and make a healing-only BGHQ buildable. It's a bandaid solution rather similar to Brits getting a Medic squad rather than just being able to build a Forward Assembly sooner, or getting Base Medics like SOV.

I agree that the BGHQ and Mech are rather more balanced against one another now, though. There's really just a couple of niggles here, and some other changes I'd make to OKW and I think they'd be a pretty good/balanced faction. Next step is to try and untangle Brits.

Just drop the medkit ability from Sturms entirely, and make a healing-only BGHQ buildable. It's a bandaid solution rather similar to Brits getting a Medic squad rather than just being able to build a Forward Assembly sooner, or getting Base Medics like SOV.

I agree that the BGHQ and Mech are rather more balanced against one another now, though. There's really just a couple of niggles here, and some other changes I'd make to OKW and I think they'd be a pretty good/balanced faction. Next step is to try and untangle Brits.

Honestly I don't hate how the OKW tech structure has evolved. You're basically choosing between Strong LV's and expensive healing, or strong healing and weaker LV's. You're not necessarily trading away the ability to do things by picking one or the other, you're trading away the ability to be stronger at one thing compared to the other. That's how non-linear teching should work.

This is one of the main differences with USF teching that makes it awful. You're not trading strength for weakness, you're trading strength for essentially nothing still. AT Guns and MG's are just too important at the role they fulfill to not have them and your compensation isn't enough to not get both of them anyway, Unlike healing and LV's these aren't some minor gameplay interaction you can play around, you aren't given the answer to fight the option you chose against. (Nevermind the litany of other things USF is missing on top of that.)

It's crazy, but I'd like to see a Maxim clone as the 30Cal become a significantly weaker Machine Gun for USF in Captain, while the current AT gun is moved to LT (Maybe nerfed in this case) and the Pack Howie turned into a powerful AT gun while keeping it's indirect capability. That way you've got your tech choice between infantry focus or vehicle focus with a weaker supplemental option without having to completely sacrifice one or the other. You could even get rid of the awful clunky dual teching system too if this is done.

Do you have an allergy to constructive posting?

It's just that @Katitof is so cocky because he is too good for us mere mortals. He's such a mastermind and strategist he stopped playing years ago to give us all a chance!
https://youtu.be/XA5cQBdthF4

Linear teching for all factions would probably improve the game/make balance rather a lot easier, incidentally. "Real" non-linear teching just isnt all that viable due to a fairly limited number of options available down any given "path".

It would also fix crippling issues that affect OKW

Next step is to try and untangle Brits.

There's no next step because the mod team won't give another rework. USF receieved substantial tech changes and now competes against Ostheer at the ML5, OKW was neglected and given bandaids for its shortcomings and it's a dead faction.

Honestly I don't hate how the OKW tech structure has evolved. You're basically choosing between Strong LV's and expensive healing, or strong healing and weaker LV's.

You are choosing between light vehicles that have their strenght and weaknesses as any other light vehicles, and getting a tool needed to avoid massive manpower and munitions bleed, that all other factions can get regardless.

This is one of the main differences with USF teching that makes it awful. You're not trading strength for weakness, you're trading strength for essentially nothing still. AT Guns and MG's are just too important at the role they fulfill to not have them and your compensation isn't enough to not get both of them anyway
AT guns and HMGs are not indispensable, and far from needed, especially when USF has several alternatives

Unlike healing and LV's these aren't some minor gameplay interaction you can play around, you aren't given the answer to fight the option you chose against. (Nevermind the litany of other things USF is missing on top of that.)

Calling LVs and healing minor gameplay interactions is really BOLD considering that light vehicles have been meta since EVER

It's crazy, but I'd like to see a Maxim clone as the 30Cal become a significantly weaker Machine Gun for USF in Captain

Yeah, it's crazy, since when does USF even need HMGs? 50cal and ATG are in a binary tech structure because USF has a plethora of counters to vehicles and infantry, including the best mainline in game, best AI tank in game, the best tank destroyer in game and an engineer bazooka squad that might as well never bother repairing. How does that have anything to do to paying 45 fuel to not have your squads run around with low hp models?

USF tech choices trade the most powerful support weapons in the game, Pack Howitzer, 50cal and M1 57mm.

i don't know, this might be a pretty unpopular view but for me the better solution to the healing conundrum wouldn't be to make okw medics even more accessible (for the n-th time) but to make general in-base healing more restrictive across all factions instead. currently hp damage dealt to infantry doesn't really have any impact as healing at base is fast and so universally and cheaply available without any real downside. it would be more interesting if going for a med bunker or base medics actually had a noticable impact on tech timings rather than just being a minor mp/mu expenditure along the way for most factions. as a side effect this would also make stop gap solutions, such as the variety of med packs or troop transport healing a bit more attractive.

It would totally be possible if the options of setting up the repair and medic stations without any unit unlocked was given, like I had proposed before sturmpios receieved their overexpensive medkits.


Other factions also aren't designed to need to backtech like OKW does, which is why still linking the medis to BTG HQ is a stupid idea

It would work even better if BTG itself was reworked to be a cheaper support weapons tier with medics and the tech structure was made linear, always requiring both Mechanized and BTG, since BTG was never an equal option to Mechanized like LT is to Captain.

The options are already there, it's just that the time for reworks is over

PS: even in a strict cost comparison ignoring cost of truck and BTG setup, 10 fuel for a stationary medic station is overly expensive compared to every single faction in the game. It's not JUST the backteching, the medics themselves are overpriced beyond what should be considered justifiable

OKW's design is to have a split tech system with either weaker LVs and more infantry based play style or no healing and stronger LVs. That's the only reason why OKW has healing on their engineer starting unit. Does it work? Well, so-so. Well enough for T2 having been the meta for ages, but also not good enough that the change for easier medic access was necessary. Your suggestion might work as well, however it would make the faction closer to all others design-wise.
What would go a long way would be to reduce the price of Sturmpio medkits at vet 2-3 by 5-10 mun.

Apsrt from that, you're doing the wrong comparison regarding medic price as well: if OKW medics did not cost fuel, the price of the main tech would need to be raised to compensate. But even when applying that logic, the medics themselves are cheap as hell. 50MP and 10 FU are probably the cheapest of any faction. Compared to Soviets, you trade 10 FU for 150MP, or 100MP/60MUN/build time when comparing to OST.

OKW's design is to have a split tech system with either weaker LVs and more infantry based play style or no healing and stronger LVs. That's the only reason why OKW has healing on their engineer starting unit.

OST has medkits on all their mainline infantry that can be used on any squad but that doesn't change that it can also have one of the most inexpensive healing bunker. OKW light vehicles aren't any better than T-70, Stuart or M20.
Sturmpioneers medkits used to be unlocked with veterancy, and passive healing for volksgrenadiers used to be unlocked way before than vet 5 so whatever the original design was it doesn't really matter. USF was designed to not have a tier 0 mortar

Does it work? Well, so-so.

It really doesn't

Well enough for T2 having been the meta for ages, but also not good enough that the change for easier medic access was necessary.

Claiming that it worked because Mechanized used to be meta ignores the fact that LVs are ALWAYS the meta for all factions, that the Battlegroup started seeing use because the flak ht was improved after being useless for a lot, as well as several key changes that OKW went through
Mechanized builds were nerfed, and so were Volksgrenadiers, which made Mechanized builds much less powerful. Ultimately there's no "meta" for OKW because the faction is competitively dead with 3 picks and 0% winrate in the last ML5, volksgreandiers late game bleed and inefficient trading being great part of it, which is only made worse by the lack of healing without backtech

Your suggestion might work as well, however it would make the faction closer to all others design-wise.

The only faction in game that has a fully linear teching is Ostheer, because the mod team went out of their way to force a fully linear teching and disincentivize Tier 0 into Tier 2 builds, and still, OST can ignore the Tier 4 if not accessible. UKF has several side techs and Anvil + Hammer. No faction would be similar. Even OKW itself wouldn't change since its bad design basically always accounted for the player fully teching anyway, which works in resource inflated teamgames but gets absolutely stomped in 1vs1

What would go a long way would be to reduce the price of Sturmpio medkits at vet 2-3 by 5-10 mun.

It would still be a ridicolous munition sink. The only good med crate is the 221 because it can be dropped as single one to heal whenever you want field presence, which is a good tradeoff and a useful ability. Healing an entire match off sturmpios med crate *3 in your base costs simply too much and is far from what Relic probably originally designed med crates dropped by infantry for.

OST has medkits on all their mainline infantry that can be used on any squad but that doesn't change that it can also have one of the most inexpensive healing bunker. OKW light vehicles aren't any better than T-70, Stuart or M20.

This will be a shock for life for you, but Ost is not OKW and it does not follow exact same balance principles as OKW does.

Sturmpioneers medkits used to be unlocked with veterancy, and passive healing for volksgrenadiers used to be unlocked way before than vet 5 so whatever the original design was it doesn't really matter. USF was designed to not have a tier 0 mortar

USF lost the options that compensated for lack of that mortar.
OKW didn't lose anything, only timings were changed and accessibility was increased.



Claiming that it worked because Mechanized used to be meta ignores the fact that LVs are ALWAYS the meta for all factions, that the Battlegroup started seeing use because the flak ht was improved after being useless for a lot, as well as several key changes that OKW went through
Mechanized builds were nerfed, and so were Volksgrenadiers, which made Mechanized builds much less powerful. Ultimately there's no "meta" for OKW because the faction is competitively dead with 3 picks and 0% winrate in the last ML5, volksgreandiers late game bleed and inefficient trading being great part of it, which is only made worse by the lack of healing without backtech

The only faction in game that has a fully linear teching is Ostheer, because the mod team went out of their way to force a fully linear teching and disincentivize Tier 0 into Tier 2 builds, and still, OST can ignore the Tier 4 if not accessible. UKF has several side techs and Anvil + Hammer. No faction would be similar. Even OKW itself wouldn't change since its bad design basically always accounted for the player fully teching anyway, which works in resource inflated teamgames but gets absolutely stomped in 1vs1

May I present you UKF?
And Ost ALWAYS had linear tech, from day 1 of alpha.
It was NEVER meant to skip a tier, the fact it could in the past is a testament to bad balancing, which was mostly fixed now. Ost T4 was also made accessible easily, so that argument is out of the window as well.

It would still be a ridicolous munition sink. The only good med crate is the 221 because it can be dropped as single one to heal whenever you want field presence, which is a good tradeoff and a useful ability. Healing an entire match off sturmpios med crate *3 in your base costs simply too much and is far from what Relic probably originally designed med crates dropped by infantry for.

Spio med crates are not meant to be the only healing source.
Eventually self healing vet kicks in or you back tech, if you don't, that's on you, not on faction design, which screams at you to backtech to truck you've skipped regardless of path you took.

[...]

for a pretty long time sturm med crates worked totally fine in conjunction with mechanized builds, which iirc was pretty much the 1v1 okw meta just about one year ago. i'm not aware of any groundbreaking changes to either the luchs/puma or volks that would have changed this so dramatically that a mechanized build with med crates is totally not viable anymore.

for a pretty long time sturm med crates worked totally fine in conjunction with mechanized builds, which iirc was pretty much the 1v1 okw meta just about one year ago. i'm not aware of any groundbreaking changes to either the luchs/puma or volks that would have changed this so dramatically that a mechanized build with med crates is totally not viable anymore.

Cause there was always something to abuse. First there was techless CommandPanther. Just go Puma+Stuka into Panther while you have to pay no fuel for T4. Then there was the owerpowered CommandTiger (timing, performance and price). But since both things got adjusted OKW has not much to abuse (besides maybe Radio Silence vs Tac map player) and you see the flaws they had since the rework. Having costly healing is no problem as long you have other positive things that overshadow this.

Currently both tech paths are equally viable, but it feels kind of lacking like the old USf tech structure. If you want to go puma for lights or stuka vs support weapons you have to do without indirect fire and healing. If you want healing and indirect fire you have to neglect rocket arty and a (more or less) secured light vehicle phase.

This on top of weak mainline, no groundbreaking commander and a strong counterpart (Ost) makes OKW kinda negligible. But the question is if you want to put every faction on OST/Sov level or just nerf the eastern factions.

Cause there was always something to abuse. First there was techless CommandPanther. Just go Puma+Stuka into Panther while you have to pay no fuel for T4. Then there was the owerpowered CommandTiger (timing, performance and price). But since both things got adjusted OKW has not much to abuse (besides maybe Radio Silence vs Tac map player) and you see the flaws they had since the rework. Having costly healing is no problem as long you have other positive things that overshadow this.

Currently both tech paths are equally viable, but it feels kind of lacking like the old USf tech structure. If you want to go puma for lights or stuka vs support weapons you have to do without indirect fire and healing. If you want healing and indirect fire you have to neglect rocket arty and a (more or less) secured light vehicle phase.

This on top of weak mainline, no groundbreaking commander and a strong counterpart (Ost) makes OKW kinda negligible. But the question is if you want to put every faction on OST/Sov level or just nerf the eastern factions.

Or in addition OKW has been powercreeped by the buffs to allied factions.

Patches tend to buff things more than nerf them.

for a pretty long time sturm med crates worked totally fine in conjunction with mechanized builds, which iirc was pretty much the 1v1 okw meta just about one year ago. i'm not aware of any groundbreaking changes to either the luchs/puma or volks that would have changed this so dramatically that a mechanized build with med crates is totally not viable anymore.

You can't use puma to stall for Command Panther anymore, Volksgrenadiers have been increased in cost, raketenwerfer has been substantially nerfed and can't move in camo anymore.
The issue of faction homogenization apparently didn't exist back when every potent OKW clutch was being removed

Snip

East factions need no nerf. USF got the rework it needed and now competes against the vanilla factions well enough. OKW needs some further restructuring that eliminates this "fake" non linear teching that simply lacks enough units to be supported

Cause there was always something to abuse. First there was techless CommandPanther. Just go Puma+Stuka into Panther while you have to pay no fuel for T4. Then there was the owerpowered CommandTiger (timing, performance and price). But since both things got adjusted OKW has not much to abuse (besides maybe Radio Silence vs Tac map player) and you see the flaws they had since the rework. Having costly healing is no problem as long you have other positive things that overshadow this.

Currently both tech paths are equally viable, but it feels kind of lacking like the old USf tech structure. If you want to go puma for lights or stuka vs support weapons you have to do without indirect fire and healing. If you want healing and indirect fire you have to neglect rocket arty and a (more or less) secured light vehicle phase.

This on top of weak mainline, no groundbreaking commander and a strong counterpart (Ost) makes OKW kinda negligible. But the question is if you want to put every faction on OST/Sov level or just nerf the eastern factions.

you're right that things like a techless heavy or cmnd panther skewed the tech choice heavily in favor of mechanized. though even when these were already a thing of the past going mechanized still remained viable.
the analogy to usf prior to their revamp feels certainly true as well; if you want light vehicle dominance (i.e. both luchs and puma), you have to skip readily available healing, indirect fire and an early t3 - and vice versa. i'd say this isn't necessarily a bad thing and with now cheaper back tech to medics in the late game also a lot less punishing than it used to be.

You can't use puma to stall for Command Panther anymore, Volksgrenadiers have been increased in cost, raketenwerfer has been substantially nerfed and can't move in camo anymore.
The issue of faction homogenization apparently didn't exist back when every potent OKW clutch was being removed

again, all these nerfs date back way earlier than last year, and even with all these mechanized was very popular and very much viable back then.
in any case, guess what i want to say is that
even if okw needs something to get more competitive it's not yet another reduction to the battlegroup + medics back tech.

again, all these nerfs date back way earlier than last year, and even with all these mechanized was very popular and very much viable back then.

No, it wasn't
Ostheer has always been prevalent for years in tournaments at this point. Now it's just even worse with the improved Ost Tier 4 and grens damage reduction veterancy bonus as OKW just became even more irrelevant, effectively becoming a worse version of Ostheer at everything

No, it wasn't
Ostheer has always been prevalent for years in tournaments at this point. Now it's just even worse with the improved Ost Tier 4 and grens damage reduction veterancy bonus as OKW just became even more irrelevant, effectively becoming a worse version of Ostheer at everything

i'd say the tourney pick rate is always more of a player preference thing anyway. but since you mention it, asiamint did pretty well with OKW in the CoHrona cup last year if memory serves me right

the tourney pick rate is always more of a player preference thing. but since you mention it

It really isn't, which is why OKW and UKF disappeared long ago. Are you trying to claim that OKW was completely absent from 1vs1 tournaments 2 or 3 years ago?

asiamint did pretty well in the CoHrona cup last year with OKW if memory serves me right

OKW had a 50% winrate and played most of its matches against UKF in the COHrona cup

you're right that things like a techless heavy or cmnd panther skewed the tech choice heavily in favor of mechanized. though even when these were already a thing of the past going mechanized still remained viable.
the analogy to usf prior to their revamp feels certainly true as well; if you want light vehicle dominance (i.e. both luchs and puma), you have to skip readily available healing, indirect fire and an early t3 - and vice versa. i'd say this isn't necessarily a bad thing and with now cheaper back tech to medics in the late game also a lot less punishing than it used to be.

270 (370 full) manpower is quite high for just getting healing (leig and flak ht dont offer much later in the game). That could be a mg, a raketen or most of an obers squad. So i dont think the fuel is the problem. Going all 3 tech structures is very manpower draining though.

And that for a faction who has mediocre mainline (Cons get 6,26 HP per manpower at vet3, Volks get 4,1 HP per manpower at vet 5; from that point Cons are 50% more efficient than Volks), expensive elite (cost compared to timing window),and just a few mediocre ways to deal with infantry later on. Imo the faction has major manpower problems later on in the game (atleast compared to SOV/Ost; Usf bleed the same but atleast their inf isnt shit)

OKW had a 50% winrate and played most of its matches against UKF in the COHrona cup

So.... OKW is balanced then.
50% win rate is literally an indicator of perfect balance.

So.... OKW is balanced then.
50% win rate is literally an indicator of perfect balance.

Against a faction that has almost zero chances to win vs Ost (while Sov are 50/50 vs Ost). WOW. Just cause Okw can compete with the british faction, who has major problems too, doesnt mean that they are competitive vs the top dogs.