OKW sdkfz 251/17 Flak Halftrack

LeYawn is right, which is why Ostheer infantry needs a buff... but what about Russians?

Yet again the common denominator is... (ta-dah!) OKW. It would be easier to scale back some OKW superiority rather than tweak the rest.

Flak halfie is meant to be an early counter infantry blobbing and light armour interdiction unit, right?

A half track with HMGs and a small muni cost AP shell ability does that. Make it cheap-ish. Think of it as a halfway house between a kubel and a luchs.

Job done.

If you only nerf OKW and do not buff Wehr, then there is absolutely no change for Wehr poor current state. It might solve some Allies issues, for sure, but not everything is OKW-related, or maybe i misunderstood what you said.

Yes, but why only OKW has exciting units? Flak truck, Stuka zu fuss, Luchs, Sturmtiger, Jadgtiger, King Tiger... All of these are amazing units, very rare, very powerful and they give you a lot of fun when using them. They are different, highly specialized, sometimes OP as garden but the joy is unmeasurable.
On the other hand US Forces have boring Sherman, boring Scott, boring Stuart... Shermans, Shermans all day long.
Where is Pershing? Super Pershing(), Hellcat, Calliope?

Funny fact: Only 12 game verions of flak truck were made, 18 Sturmtiger, 137 Luchs, wonder about stuka zu fuss.. Can't find... 79 Jadgtiger, 44 Ostwinds. Only one of them is doctrinal (Ostwind is non doc for Ost).
On the other hand we have over 2000 Pershings, 25 Super Pershings and 27 M26E5 Pershing with 102-279mm armor. I guess Calliope and Pershing would provide a lot of fun like OKW units.



320HP. AA truck, T70 and Stuart also have 320 but hey! They don't have smoke.

For God's sake then go play OKW or Ostheer! What's holding you back?

More call-ins? You do know that they are a big part of the current boring meta/balance issue right?

Once more;

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its a pretty strong unit with the added late game utility that it really effectively shoots down p47s and il2s, but is basically hard countered by AT guns and most light armor. hell, you can kill it with 3 AT nades if you charge at it from different directions.

Turning any aircraft your opponent calls in into a bomb that will potentially fall on your own units with zero warning isn't a perk, its a flaw.


This is like back in COH1 how the Panzer Elite Henshel loiter was broken against the British because if you built a Vickers AA gun, the Henshel was guaranteed to crash into it.

they just need to fix the bug where it can move while setting up and its fine.

I still remember when this unit was ninja "nerfed"

Setup time increased from 3-4
Cost increased from 45 to 55 fuel
(tear down time was reduced tho)

Everyone was QQing about how useless you just made the truck because nothing would ever sit there for 4 seconds while you set it up.


I also remember how everyone was complaining about how underpowered OKW was because it had no medium tank

I have an issue with the near instant suppression. It really negates any infantry only based counters. I still don't have much of an issue with it though as I always build a USF AA half track.

Just why, oh why, did they abandon target tables? The use of which for balancing purposes should be overwhelmingly obvious? Me no comprendre.

Late but they said they removed target tables because they were overly complex. Not only was it difficult to gauge the reliability of your units due to performance being different vs every unit, but it also meant when they wanted to introduce a new unit they had to individually set the performance against every other unit in the game. Instead of setting up the stats for one unit, they had to do it for 30+, for each new unit they added.

As a game designer you want to think of unit roles first,and then build the unit around the role. You don't want to overlap same units from the existing german faction, so you're probably gonna have to use some of the more obscure unit designs that weren't as massed produced.

Sad thing is I think OKW was originally designed with Panzer IV's and StuG III's but they went with lolheavytanks instead. There are voice lines for the StuG III arriving, and screenshots / splash screens feature the Panzer IV a lot.

Maybe if they stopped making every alternate Axis faction "The other Germans" they could avoid some of these issues.




Asymmetrical balance should be something to give flavour when appropriate, not a religious dogma that forces you to design stupid gimmick factions that lack basic core units and compensate in strange ways.

Maybe if they stopped making every alternate Axis faction "The other Germans" they could avoid some of these issues.

Problem is Germany didn't have any worthwhile allies after 1943, and even in 1943 their allies' technology was obsolete compared to the US, Britain, and Russia. "The other Germans" is really the only way to go if you want the faction to be competitive past the 15 minute mark. Imagine a faction that is stuck with only light tanks for late-game, maybe the ability to trade fuel to his German teammate so he can make more Tanks because he does not have his own. Silly right?

If they can design a faction like USF that is entirely lacking heavies, there's no conceptual reason why a faction with only light and (relatively rare) mediums like Italy couldn't be balanced with the rest of the game. Even if they had to use a couple of "borrowed" German units for doctrinal support and unit variety. It could work in the context of CoH2.

For CoH3 they could actually break the mould and have the game be themed around 1942 with 1943 being the absolute upper limit. If they were REALLY bold they could have a 1940-1941 setting, permitting maybe even a French faction! It's only their own utter hard on for Tigers and Axis late war equipment that seems to be forcing them into this mindset where Germans are the only worthwhile axis factions.

If they can design a faction like USF that is entirely lacking heavies, there's no conceptual reason why a faction with only light and (relatively rare) mediums like Italy couldn't be balanced with the rest of the game. Even if they had to use a couple of "borrowed" German units for doctrinal support and unit variety. It could work in the context of CoH2.

For CoH3 they could actually break the mould and have the game be themed around 1942 with 1943 being the absolute upper limit. If they were REALLY bold they could have a 1940-1941 setting, permitting maybe even a French faction! It's only their own utter hard on for Tigers and Axis late war equipment that seems to be forcing them into this mindset where Germans are the only worthwhile axis factions.

95% of the people who play these games have the same hard on. Think about it most people play axis and most people play 3v3 or 4v4 too which they always boil down to late game armor spam fest. I honestly dont believe USF will be "heavyless" forever as I see too much potential to $$$$ given the demand for a Pershing commander. Dont get me wrong yes the game is over saturated with heavy armor and its too no brainer but thats not going to change.

Fun and $$$ leads game design, not balance and well, thought out ideas...

Sadly.

So more terrible imbalance and BS is on its way.

If they can design a faction like USF that is entirely lacking heavies, there's no conceptual reason why a faction with only light and (relatively rare) mediums like Italy couldn't be balanced with the rest of the game. Even if they had to use a couple of "borrowed" German units for doctrinal support and unit variety. It could work in the context of CoH2.

For CoH3 they could actually break the mould and have the game be themed around 1942 with 1943 being the absolute upper limit. If they were REALLY bold they could have a 1940-1941 setting, permitting maybe even a French faction! It's only their own utter hard on for Tigers and Axis late war equipment that seems to be forcing them into this mindset where Germans are the only worthwhile axis factions.

Well like I said, Germany's allies didn't have anything worthwhile in the time frame presented. They could do without if it wasn't for the fact that IS-2's would be unstoppable juggernauts and M36's would 2-shot everything they own. Germany's allies relied on Germany to supply them with vehicles rather than make their own designs, and were never far from Germany's lines. With the exception of Japan of course, which also used light tanks, but because they did a lot of island hopping and rarely fought anything larger. WW2 was a weird kind of arms race where several countries didn't bother improving their forces until they ran into something they had no answer to.

I don't see Jacksons as much of an issue because they are themselves so fragile, however the IS2 would represent a major threat. Even so, it is as always a matter of balancing, it's entirely possible that despite those two being serious threats it's still a viable faction competitively, even in team games. At worst it could be a faction that is balanced in 1v1 and to some extent 2v2, but outclassed by the opposition in 3v3 and 4v4 (again, pretty much like USF and arguably allies as a whole!). I'm not convinced they wouldn't have units capable of dealing with them though. Even without OH / OKW allies.

Ita has medium tanks with 47mm and long barrelled 75mm guns available for the time period. Few that ever saw combat prior to the Armastice, but some that kept on fighting under German command later on. It has a 75mm AT gun it could theoretically use. It even has a 90mm tank destroyer that was produced in highly limited quantities. And a 105 as well. A static 90mm AT gun / AA gun that was actually used existed also.

Combined with various kinds of infantry, mortars, mgs etc, there is certainly the potential to actually have a faction that would be interesting to use and competitive. Let's not pretend like they've ever let the complete obscurity or lack of historical use ever stop them from including units in the game before anyway, so there's definitely room to use some of those "tanks that got delivered 2 months before the armistice then got used by Germans in Italy from then on". And units that were poor in RL but awesome in CoH, or vice versa.

Naturally the best we could hope for from Relic is "Africa Korps, featuring one commander who uses some Italian ostruppen style useless idiot infantry!"

they could just have a single axis faction with a huge number of options; think soviets but with 8 tiers instead of four and you pick 3 or 4 of them. there would be overlap in unit roles but it wouldn't matter a whole lot because different units would have different costs and be in different tiers.

they could just have a single axis faction with a huge number of options; think soviets but with 8 tiers instead of four and you pick 3 or 4 of them. there would be overlap in unit roles but it wouldn't matter a whole lot because different units would have different costs and be in different tiers.

this would actualy sound like an amazing idea. sure there might be overlap, but the amount of mix and match would be awesome.

the fact that this thing came out at 1 cp before my shock troops could even hit the field is just dumb....

no doubt it is a powerful unit

If you only nerf OKW and do not buff Wehr, then there is absolutely no change for Wehr poor current state. It might solve some Allies issues, for sure, but not everything is OKW-related, or maybe i misunderstood what you said.

Except I don't think Whermaht is in such a dire sate as everyone seems to think. Even against US. Play defensively at the beginning, don't over stretch, use combined arms, MG + Mortar work wonders and you'll be fine.

Apart from the bug while a-moving, I think unit could use a slight reduction in either supression or damage. Right now it does both extremely well making it far more deadly than an ostwind. These problems combined with the fact that it can be on the field as early as the five minute mark makes it broken and abusive. Yes, it usually dies from two Zis rounds (unless the soviet or usf player gets pissed in the face by the RNG gods and the flak track gets a destroyed maingun crit), but it's just too damn potent in its current state. Same goes for vet 5 volks btw... seriously, OKW needs an overhaul. Spammy, abusive and their teching makes no sense.