Sensible USF Changes

This list is not an exhaustive change log suggestion for the next patch. Merely a suggestion for changes I would like to see within USF - mainly aimed at improving lackluster commander abilities in the already limited USF commander lineup. I expect these changes to be paired with various buffs and nerfs for other factions. I have made some of these suggestions since the Alpha for WFA - namely #1. Change comes slow with Relic but I hope you will agree these would be positive changes.

USF List of Changes

1. Elite Vehicle Crews (USF armored commander) 2 CP/90MU PER CREW. This ability grants vehicle crews 4x Thompsons for 90MU. This is almost completely useless. I think relic’s idea here was that if you manage to bail a crew out you can send them back into the fray with Thompsons. First, I would never blow 90 MU on a fragile as hell squad for CQC fighting with smgs with no grenades, second it’s entirely duplicate since this is commander already has excellent CQC infantry in the form of combat engineers. This ability is expensive and virtually useless. Needs to be overhauled.

Simple suggestion: Make elite vehicle crew a passive ability that grants your vehicle crews a 50% chance of bailing out of a vehicle once that vehicle is destroyed. Whereby you could start cultivating some veteran crews that could ultimately be manning lvl 2-3 tanks late in the game. Exceptions to this would be M20 and Ambulance – since neither of these are manned by typical vehicle crews.


2. Forward Observers (USF Recon Commander) 1CP passive ability granted to rifleman. I’m still not 100% the exact stats on this ability. I think it increases rifleman vision by 5-10% while they are garrisoned/in cover. Great so you can see like +3 range? It is not even noticeable.

Simple suggestion: It should be a base vision increase of +10. Especially considering this only applies while the unit is in cover/garrisoned. Perhaps add a timer to this so that it would take 5 sec or so while in cover/garrison before the bonus kicks in.


3. Air Dropped Combat Group (USF Recon Commander) 7 CP 900MP. Drops two paratrooper squads with random weapons. These paratroopers do not have any of the combat abilities associated with airborne company paratroopers but have light AT mines instead. Also drops unmanned AT gun. Ok there’s a lot going on here. The biggest issue is dropping an unmanned AT gun. Dropping an unmanned weapon behind enemy lines is just ludicrous. And why do these paratroopers have to be different from the others? I mean what’s the point of the light AT mines that late in the game??

Simple Suggestion: Lower MP to 700. Drop two paratrooper squads with a random amount of experience, they will be just like the airborne commander paratrooper and can upgrade weapons. They do not have light AT mines.


4. WC51 Truck (USF Mechanized Commander) 0CP 240MP/20FU. This is a fairly effective unit but I still think it just a tiny tad underpowered mainly because it dies quite easily to gunfire from frontal shots – especially when considering its high fuel cost for a scout car.

Simple suggestion: Increase HP from 180 to 200.


5. M3 Halftrack (USF Mechanized Commander) 3 CP 520MP/35 FU. Given the cost and timing this halftrack is surprisingly incredibly weak. In fact its stats are on par or less than nearly all scout cars and definitely all half-tracks. One other part of this is that I find that the CE deployed are somewhat irrelevant at this timing – demo is nice sometimes but on the whole a single CE squad is a tad lackluster.

Simple suggestion: Increase frontal armor from 5.4 to 11 and increase HP from 200 to 240 or possibly even 320. Also, considering that it currently doesn't have an upgrade why not allow it to upgrade armor plates similar M8/M20, which would further increase armor/HP.
Dream suggestion: Deploys with cavalry rifleman instead of combat engineer. I mean come on those guys were awesome in the campaign! And they would fit well in this commander.


6. 75mm Pak Howitzer. Here’s a unit that under the right circumstance can be pretty handy. However, its base cost of 480 MP is FAR too high. The barrage function is also rather lackluster. There is also a bug with the reinforce cost that doubles the reinforce cost of the unit manning the weapon – so if a RE squad re-crews the weapon reinforce cost will be 40MP, when it should only cost 20.

Simple suggestion: decrease MP cost from 480 to 380. Increase barrage shells from 3 to 4. Fix reinforce cost bug.


7. +25% received accuracy penalty for weapon crews. Now I understand that all weapon crews have this de-buff. The problem is just that it hits the USF hardest for several reasons. – First USF weapon teams arrive much later than their counterparts due to tech structure so they have no chance to get any bet before the heavy stuff hits the field. Axis tend to have better long range DPS so it is fairly simple for them to de-crew USF weapon team (soviets don’t have this problem as bad because their teams are 6 men).

Simple Suggestion(s): Remove the +25% received accuracy penalty from USF weapon teams OR Add a 5th man to the weapon team OR reduce it by 15% at the very least.


8. M9 Bazooka. This weapon is pretty lackluster. Against certain tanks (namely PIV) and in enough numbers it can be effective. However, in most cases they are just a waste of MU. For one thing the neither have enough accuracy nor do enough damage to effectively counter fast light vehicles – Luchs in particular. They also do not have enough penetration/damage to really threaten heavy tanks.

Simple suggestion(s): Increase damage to 120 OR reduce MU cost to 50.


Thanks for reading!

Zooks should be bundled in with BAR's for the upgrade, but their actual performance and price is fine.

I agree on everything. Really nice changes

Regarding the penalty for weapon crews: It still applies to the initial crew but if you re-crew a support weapon, the crew will have the same rec. acc. as the re-crewing unit.

2. Forward Observers (USF Recon Commander) 1CP passive ability granted to rifleman. I’m still not 100% the exact stats on this ability. I think it increases rifleman vision by 5-10% while they are garrisoned/in cover. Great so you can see like +3 range? It is not even noticeable.

Simple suggestion: It should be a base vision increase of +10. Especially considering this only applies while the unit is in cover/garrisoned. Perhaps add a timer to this so that it would take 5 sec or so while in cover/garrison before the bonus kicks in.

This ability is way worse and restrictive than most realise. It only activates when in cover, not moving and not incombat. All three conditions need to be fulfilled. Rifles are completely inappropriate for this since they should be moving and fighting.
Then comes the bonus which is negligible on a unit that doesn't have a good line of sight to begin with and last but not least, the ability is bugged. Every entity of the original squad is able to cast it however as the game progresses you'll lose all members of the original squad which you then replace by reinforcing, since reinforced entities do not get the ability you'll eventually indefinitely lose the ability on that squad.

What should be done:
1) fix the ability
2) make it just a bonus to los of rifles without any conditions that prevent it from triggering. 5-10 sight would be good.

3. Air Dropped Combat Group (USF Recon Commander) 7 CP 900MP. Drops two paratrooper squads with random weapons. These paratroopers do not have any of the combat abilities associated with airborne company paratroopers but have light AT mines instead. Also drops unmanned AT gun. Ok there’s a lot going on here. The biggest issue is dropping an unmanned AT gun. Dropping an unmanned weapon behind enemy lines is just ludicrous. And why do these paratroopers have to be different from the others? I mean what’s the point of the light AT mines that late in the game??

Simple Suggestion: Lower MP to 700. Drop two paratrooper squads with a random amount of experience, they will be just like the airborne commander paratrooper and can upgrade weapons. They do not have light AT mines.

I don't like the random experience thingy. Experience should always be gained by doing something other than rolling a dice.

My suggestion would be to make it a single airborne with even chances of getting thompsons, 1919s or bazookas for 400 (since you get the upgrade for free) and make them the same as the other airborne. At the moment the chances are 50% zooks and 25% thompsons or 1919.

As it is now, the units are also bugged. They should receive passive healing at vet 2 like the other airborne which they do not. They also have 1 weapon less than normal airborne (3 thompsons, 1 1919), the thompson squad also doesn't get the tactical assault ability that normal paras get.

Before relic changed the recon paras to be the same in vet as the normal paras they used to have better stats (accuaracy) and had a better formation (line instead of triangle). They removed the things that made them an interesting alternative and forgot to give them healing when giving them the same stats and vet.

There is however something interesting about the thompson squad, although it only has 3 thompsons instead of 4 and no "tactical assault" the squad can equip an aditional 2 weapons like bars, which makes it a fairly potent squad.

The combat group, not just airborne, is also affected by a bug. The combat group requires 18 pop cap, if you have anything qued that hits field and brings you over 82 pop cap, you'll get 1 at gun for 900 manpower and no squads.

4. WC51 Truck (USF Mechanized Commander) 0CP 240MP/20FU. This is a fairly effective unit but I still think it just a tiny tad underpowered mainly because it dies quite easily to gunfire from frontal shots – especially when considering its high fuel cost for a scout car.

Simple suggestion: Increase HP from 180 to 200.

They should also fix that the "withdraw and refit" ability which doesn't return the 75% of resources it should for the WC51 truck.

I also would have at least 4 additions to the list which I can think of right now:

9. Fix the major artillery "rapid artillery" (one of the most amusing names in the game)
For some reason they confused min with max. It would still terribly underperform for it's cost even if it was fixed, but at least we would know what it would be like as it was intended.


10. Fix the usf nade (rifles and paras) wind-up
Not only is it not a multiple of 0.125 as it should be it's also more than twice as long as any other thrown nade (0.25)


11. Fix crew weapon reinforce for the 50cal and the pack-howitzer.
The 50cal has a reinforce of 35 manpower (for comparison the mg42 22). The same goes for the pack-howie, which has a reinforce of 40.

The population requirement for the pack-howie is also very high at 11 popcap. Reduce it to 9 like the isg. The pack howie also needs 3 crews to be moved.

12. Fix the 50cal.
The 50cal has 300 hp as opposed to the 350 of any other mg and only has 10 armour instead of the 70 (the dshk also suffers from this). This has the effect that the gun is destroyed a lot faster due to the fact that nades (25 penetration) will penetrate. This has been somewhat remedied by the last crew weapon change.

13. Why was the m8 greyhound's rate of fire ninja nerfed by 25% last patch?
Cruzzi uncovered this amongst other things: http://pastebin.com/d3ST0xr8

What if Elite Vehicle crews were changed to be similar to Elite Troop training where it was an active ability that you could use to trade MP and/or fuel to give a vehicle crew EXP.

The Air Dropped Combat group definitely needs reworked although I think your suggested price of 700 for 2 squads might be a little too low seeing as how a single Vet 0 squad in Airborne is 380. Maybe around 800 is a better price? Or I wouldn't mind 1 Random Vet Para Squad + a Manned AT Gun. Regardless, I think Random Vet is much preferable to random weapons, because honestly who wants bazookas on their Paratroopers or Thompsons on a wide open map?

Yep, it's been for a long time that USF need some bugfixes and balancing on several units and abilities.

@ Sherlock

Those are some interesting findings. I had no idea about all those other bugs. Its clear the recon commander was slapped together at the last moment before WFA release and promptly forgotten about.

I disagree with you suggestion about airdropped combat. They are really only useful if they have atleast vet1 that late in the game. It makes sense to right - I think the idea is kinda that these are vet troops jumping in behind the lines in force. At least that's the way I see it.

I agree with you in terms of the fact that veterancy should always be EARNED, however since there are already several other abilities/callins(elite troops, ostruppen reserve, elite rifleman, vet PIV etc) that grant vetted units there's no sense in limiting one ability for a value that has already been compromised. I'm not saying your wrong, just that practically the Relic will not make that change. I'm suggesting things that I hope will actually be put in the game.

Sherlock have you forwarded that information to Relic?

These are certainly issues with USF. I think these changes are good.

Instead of buffing USF team weapons I would rather just see Ost skill nade nerfed. They shouldn't be able to walk straight into a .50 and then wipe it or force a retreat. That is just bad game design and promotes blobbing since anything carefully setup will just get naded in two clicks. I've also noticed today that the animation for the skill nade is still bugged where the guy doesn't take a knee.

Many parts of the recon commander suck. The air dropped combat group needs to not be stupid. I also never notice the garrison sight increase.

I think the Mech commander is okay but the M3 does suck for its cost and time it hits the field, a buff would be nice. I think Assault Engineers are still fine in that thing. Being able to get the best opening in the game is pretty handy.

The pack howitzer can be a beast with good micro and vet. I don't think the cost should be decreased too much. The expensive reinforcement is annoying though. How it has taken this long to fix is beyond me.

Zooks need to get gud.

@Sherlock

Just on the grenade, while obviously that number's not a multiple, but I'm pretty sure that's to tie the grenade with the long throwing animation USF has. I've edited those sort of numbers in the editor and it can led to desyncing of the firing and animation. Giving something like the Panther wind-up will cause the main gun to fire before the projectile actually spawns in a few miliseconds after which looks strange.

They should also fix that the "withdraw and refit" ability which doesn't return the 75% of resources it should for the WC51 truck.

Whaaaaaaat?! o_o

You can give recon support paratroopers BARs. 3 Thompsons and two BARs= best anti infantry squad in the game.

Zooks should be bundled in with BAR's for the upgrade, but their actual performance and price is fine.

+1

Sherlock have you forwarded that information to Relic?

I have reported these and a lot of other bugs during the alpha but I haven't seen them resolved until the end of the alpha.

If I recall correctly I forgot to report the WC51 truck bug. Instead reported the priest bug, which I didn't mention here (forgot until now) (stops firing when it destroys a unit regardless of how many shots the salvo still has) and some other bugs.

If you have any channels you can use to get this to Relic please feel free to copy everything. I could list quite a few other bugs which aren't exclusive to usf. If I asked Cruzzi we'd probably end up with quite an extensive list you could hand over to relic

Talking about further bugs or oddities, I forgot to add the following when discussing the 50cal:

The 50cal has 300 hp as opposed to the 350 of any other mg and only has 10 armour instead of the 70 (the dshk also suffers from this). This has the effect that the gun is destroyed a lot faster due to the fact that nades (25 penetration) will penetrate. This has been somewhat remedied by the last crew weapon change.

@ Sherlock
I disagree with you suggestion about airdropped combat. They are really only useful if they have atleast vet1 that late in the game. It makes sense to right - I think the idea is kinda that these are vet troops jumping in behind the lines in force. At least that's the way I see it.

The "free" weapons will help them to cope far better in the mid to late game than vet 1 ever would (-25% ability recharge, which is basically the nade). I should have added however that the cp requirement should be lowered to 5.

@Sherlock

Just on the grenade, while obviously that number's not a multiple, but I'm pretty sure that's to tie the grenade with the long throwing animation USF has. I've edited those sort of numbers in the editor and it can led to desyncing of the firing and animation. Giving something like the Panther wind-up will cause the main gun to fire before the projectile actually spawns in a few miliseconds after which looks strange.

I've edited it as well and it looked ok. If there really is a problem with the speed of the animation then the animation should be fixed as well.
There is no reason why a volk nade should have 0.25 wind-up and a usf nade 0.615 (more than double).

Could Forward Observers just become a Riflemen ability for like 15 munitions that increases sight range by 20 for 15 seconds? That seems the best.

Add mortar to T0.
Increase the health of the M5 so it can take 3 hits.
Reduce the cost of Zooks.
Reduce the cost of the Pack Howie.

Remove tank crew thompsons and replace it with defensive smoke

Could Forward Observers just become a Riflemen ability for like 15 munitions that increases sight range by 20 for 15 seconds? That seems the best.

I think it should remain a passive. The whole commander is centered around the concept of recon, so giving rifles 7 to 10 more sight range wouldn't impact their combat effectiveness but provide you more battlefield awareness which is the point of the commander. Also adding 7 more sight range isn't as good as it sounds, it would give rifles the same sight range that pios have, the mg42s range is 3 more, so they would be able to just about spot an unsupported mg42 but would be suppressed by a supported mg42 before seing it, which seems a good mix. Maybe one could tie it to a munition upgrade (for example 30 munition to buy the recon equipment).

It shouldn't become an active ability for the simple reason that it would defeat the entire point of a passive ability that allows you more map intel.

The way I look at it if you want recon through MP you have pathfinders and vet 1 light vehicles. You can never have too much free recon, but I'm just trying to bring some more diversity.

oh edit button, why do you have to be right next to reply :\