USF and potential suggestions for its Design

Jump back to quoted post21 Aug 2015, 23:08 PMspaz

My biggest gripe with the US is that the over-all faction design is (for the lack of better terms) boring. Yes there are scaling issues and issues with its late game, but frankly they just aren't as fun to play as the other factions.

For instance, I want openings that dont always start with 3 rifles into lieutenant or 4 rifles into captain. I know that some higher level players are able to *somehow* able to make RE spam work, but seriously, it would be nice to have the ability to diversify the openings.

Jump back to quoted post21 Aug 2015, 23:12 PMBeefSurge

Commanders

Jump back to quoted post21 Aug 2015, 22:45 PM__deleted__

At gun to t1? That is a tad to much in my opinion.

Jump back to quoted post21 Aug 2015, 23:57 PMCabreza

Add a "76mm barrel" upgrade to the Major Tier that gives all Sherman tanks a 76mm barrel (similar to lend lease) in exchange for removing the ability to use HE shells.

Jump back to quoted post21 Aug 2015, 23:46 PMmiragefla

Things USF Needs for its Core

-Riflemen Veterancy:
-Make the accuracy bonus to their weapons that they receive the same as the other faction: 40%. Possibly split it between vet 2-3.
-Received Accuracy bonus to 27-28% from 23%. Possibly split between vet 2-3 if accuracy bonus was also split.


-Bazooka:
-Decrease price to 50 munitions to allow it to be more available as a soft counter/deterant to vehicles.
-increase its accuracy at range to make it more reliable at chipping health.
-Maybe make its penetration flat so not drop-off at range to make it more consistent.

-.50cal: -Increase .50cal penetration from 3.0/2.0/1.0 to 4.5/3.0/2.5, would allow the USF LT tier to have a soft counter to light armour when supported with rifle AT grenades.
-Fix issues/bugs with .50cal such as the overpriced crew, gun health/armour and its vet 2 weapon not having the same bonuses that all MGs got in the June/July patch which Cruzz has stated. Removed received accuracy penalty on the crew.
-Maybe drop cost to 260.

Ambulance: Lowers is population cap from 4 to 2. Yes it can reinforce, but the moment it steps out of the base it's at risk of being on shotted by everything.
-Give it a slow passive healing ability when in the base sector and stationary.

Pack Howitzer: Increase the number of shells on all barrages to make these better at area denial. -Standard HE and WP is 6 rounds, no longer losses standard HE from vet.
-HEAT fires 4 rounds.
-Remove cost on WP to give more incentive on using it over the regular barrage.

57mm ATG:
-Increase its base penetration to 165/150/135 to make it more reliable vs mediums.
-Possibly move to T1 and require any officer.

Major: Major model population from 3 to 1. Makes the whole squad only 3 pop cap.
-Revamp his barrage ability and fix the timer on the drop-time between shells that is currently inversed. Make it have a long cooldown and shorter range a tad, but make it much cheaper/free. Not effective, but it would give more incentive to push him forth and be the heavy indirect-fire unit the USF lacks to force weapon teams to move without mass smoke and be an interesting take on artillery.

Tank .50cals: Cost dropped to 50-60 munitions form the hefty 70.

Add a Mortar:
-Fast rate of fire, good accuracy, access to smoke, lower OHK radius compared to other mortars and less range that is meant to operate right behind the rifles and give them the fire support they need and force weapon teams to move if not from damage, then from sheer ROF.
-Found in T0

M20:
-Manpower from 340 to 260/280 to reduce that hefty MP price.

Jump back to quoted post22 Aug 2015, 01:11 AMBeefSurge

The USF only have two things to research in their T0 while the UKF and Soviets have 3. Giving the USF something to research that solves their MP bleed and reliance on munitions is also a really good idea. One of the below upgrades in the U.S.F. would help the Americans scale with the British power creep.

Motorize Logistics Upgrade
-Reinforcment of infantry requires 20% less Manpower and occurs 35% faster
-costs 250 MP and 50 fuel

Prioritize Supplies Upgrade
-weapon rack upgrades cost 25% less, abilities 30% less
-250 MP and 50 fuel

Defensive Tactics Upgrade
-Owner's territory takes 25% longer to be uncaptured by the enemy
-150 MP and 25 fuel

Offensive Tactics Upgrade
-enemy territory is uncaptured 25% faster
-150 MP and 15 fuel

Jump back to quoted post21 Aug 2015, 23:46 PMmiragefla

Things USF Needs for its Core

-Riflemen Veterancy:
-Make the accuracy bonus to their weapons that they receive the same as the other faction: 40%. Possibly split it between vet 2-3.
-Received Accuracy bonus to 27-28% from 23%. Possibly split between vet 2-3 if accuracy bonus was also split.


-Bazooka:
-Decrease price to 50 munitions to allow it to be more available as a soft counter/deterant to vehicles.
-increase its accuracy at range to make it more reliable at chipping health.
-Maybe make its penetration flat so not drop-off at range to make it more consistent.

-.50cal: -Increase .50cal penetration from 3.0/2.0/1.0 to 4.5/3.0/2.5, would allow the USF LT tier to have a soft counter to light armour when supported with rifle AT grenades.
-Fix issues/bugs with .50cal such as the overpriced crew, gun health/armour and its vet 2 weapon not having the same bonuses that all MGs got in the June/July patch which Cruzz has stated. Removed received accuracy penalty on the crew.
-Maybe drop cost to 260.

Ambulance: Lowers is population cap from 4 to 2. Yes it can reinforce, but the moment it steps out of the base it's at risk of being on shotted by everything.
-Give it a slow passive healing ability when in the base sector and stationary.

Pack Howitzer: Increase the number of shells on all barrages to make these better at area denial. -Standard HE and WP is 6 rounds, no longer losses standard HE from vet.
-HEAT fires 4 rounds.
-Remove cost on WP to give more incentive on using it over the regular barrage.

57mm ATG:
-Increase its base penetration to 165/150/135 to make it more reliable vs mediums.
-Possibly move to T1 and require any officer.

Major: Major model population from 3 to 1. Makes the whole squad only 3 pop cap.
-Revamp his barrage ability and fix the timer on the drop-time between shells that is currently inversed. Make it have a long cooldown and shorter range a tad, but make it much cheaper/free. Not effective, but it would give more incentive to push him forth and be the heavy indirect-fire unit the USF lacks to force weapon teams to move without mass smoke and be an interesting take on artillery.

Tank .50cals: Cost dropped to 50-60 munitions form the hefty 70.

Add a Mortar:
-Fast rate of fire, good accuracy, access to smoke, lower OHK radius compared to other mortars and less range that is meant to operate right behind the rifles and give them the fire support they need and force weapon teams to move if not from damage, then from sheer ROF.
-Found in T0

Lieutenant: Change to a long-range combat support unit (Modified M1 Garand profile similar to Pathfinder rather than a BAR) with various abilities rather than Riflemen 1.25 like possible auras similar to the artillery officer. Would help him later in the game in toughening nearby USF units while making him not this shock unit that would be followed up by various light armour.
-Starts at four man to emphasize support role. Goes back to five at vet 2-3.

M20:
-Manpower from 340 to 260/280 to reduce that hefty MP price.

AA HT:
-Similar to M20, lower its MP cost to 300 from 360(?). It already pays by having a high fuel cost.

Things that Need to be Fixed

Crew Crit Repair: Increased time before it repairs the crit. Not by much, but not fixing the engine the moment they bail out and the game allows you to get back in.

Defensive Stance: Actually defensive stance. Cannot be used in combat.

Veteran Riflemen: Only ever start at vet 1 with no more experience over.

Other doctrinal items can be talked about later.

• Americans were masters of artillery in WW2, so their lack of reliable arty in-game is out of place. Their lack of non-doctrinal heavy artillery needs remedy, because the pack howitzer just does not cut it. Either the Priest or a Calliope need to be in the American arsenal by default. Perhaps the standard Sherman could have a munitions upgrade for a Calliope attachment?
  
• The major is worthless as anything but a retreat point and the occasional arty barrage. Allow the ambulance to act as a retreat point by itself once the tank tier is unlocked. Either remove the major or completely change his role.
  
• Rear echelon troops need mines. Why isn't this in the game already? I can't believe they can't build them. And not those crappy 5-muni mines. Good ones. They should be able to build sandbags, too.
  
• Ambulance should heal passively if in base sector
  
• Americans need a tier 0 mortar.
  
• Put the 57mm in the tier 0 building but make it require either captain or lieutenant. Captain tier then gets a more expensive, higher damaging and higher-penetrating M5 3" AT gun. This is basically the same as having the mortar in tier 0, with the pack howitzer being an "upgrade" in the Captain tier.
  
• Please add rangers and/or a Thompson weapon rack
  
• Armor company's worthless Thompson vehicle crew upgrade could instead be changed to a Thompson weapon rack in place of the M1919
  
• M20 manpower cost is too high. AA halftrack manpower and fuel cost is also debatable, but understandable.
  
• When I pop out vehicles crews, I like to shift click them back into the vehicle so they'll re-embark when finished repairing. However, it takes a over a full second before you can do this. Fix that pudding!
  
• Increase the Sherman's penetration slightly. Not too much, just enough so it doesn't bounce off Panzer IV's all the time.
  
• Weapon crews need a received accuracy reduction, or 5 men. As of now, they get torn to ribbons too fast.
  

Jump back to quoted post22 Aug 2015, 09:11 AMKothre

• Americans were masters of artillery in WW2, so their lack of reliable arty in-game is out of place. Their lack of non-doctrinal heavy artillery needs remedy, because the pack howitzer just does not cut it. Either the Priest or a Calliope need to be in the American arsenal by default. Perhaps the standard Sherman could have a munitions upgrade for a Calliope attachment?
  
• The major is worthless as anything but a retreat point and the occasional arty barrage. Allow the ambulance to act as a retreat point by itself once the tank tier is unlocked. Either remove the major or completely change his role.
  
• Rear echelon troops need mines. Why isn't this in the game already? I can't believe they can't build them. And not those crappy 5-muni mines. Good ones. They should be able to build sandbags, too.
  
• Ambulance should heal passively if in base sector
  
• Americans need a tier 0 mortar.
  
• Put the 57mm in the tier 0 building but make it require either captain or lieutenant. Captain tier then gets a more expensive, higher damaging and higher-penetrating M5 3" AT gun. This is basically the same as having the mortar in tier 0, with the pack howitzer being an "upgrade" in the Captain tier.
  
• Please add rangers and/or a Thompson weapon rack
  
• Armor company's worthless Thompson vehicle crew upgrade could instead be changed to a Thompson weapon rack in place of the M1919
  
• M20 manpower cost is too high. AA halftrack manpower and fuel cost is also debatable, but understandable.
  
• When I pop out vehicles crews, I like to shift click them back into the vehicle so they'll re-embark when finished repairing. However, it takes a over a full second before you can do this. Fix that pudding!
  
• Increase the Sherman's penetration slightly. Not too much, just enough so it doesn't bounce off Panzer IV's all the time.
  
• Weapon crews need a received accuracy reduction, or 5 men. As of now, they get torn to ribbons too fast.
  

Jump back to quoted post22 Aug 2015, 09:17 AM__deleted__

Great! How do you envision the upgrade to the calliope? I think it should also require a fuel upgrade beforehand. How about 250 mp and 50 fuel? This will be followed by a 150 munition upgrade to the Calliope? So they can't be spammed that easy. Perhaps a limit on the calliope upgrade of 1?

Jump back to quoted post22 Aug 2015, 09:27 AMKothre

You know another one I thought of? Popping Sherman smoke bombs shouldn't stop your vehicle. That drives me nuts and makes me not use it a lot, because I feel like the extra second of movement could potentially allow me to get away, while stopping for even a second would mean death.

Jump back to quoted post22 Aug 2015, 09:27 AMKothre

Yes, a fuel upgrade seems reasonable. I would agree that having a horde of Shermans all with their standard guns with Calliopes on top would be crazy OP, though I don't really like the idea of hard caps on any unit except call-in heavies. Perhaps one solution would be to give Shermans the Calliope with vet, or restrict the buying of the Calliope upgrade to Shermans vet 2 or above. But even that could get potentially hectic in team games especially, so it's hard to say.

I'd be fine with the Calliope just being its own unit if this weren't feasible balance-wise.

• HQ upgrade
  The Calliope feature requires an upgrade at the USF HQ sector. To my believe a 250 mp and 50 fuel upgrade will suffice. Available after captain tier upgrade (not totally sure to what tier it should be tied)
  
  
• Munitions upgrade
  After the HQ upgrade, a 150 munitions upgrade on a sherman of the player's choosing must be completed.
  
  
• Restrictions and possibilities
  Once the Calliope upgrade has been installed, the player can no longer upgrade it with a .50 cal machine gun, if there was an existing .50 cal upgrade, it has been removed by the Calliope upgrade.
  
  
• The Calliope Sherman can use it's main gun, but only when the Barrage ability is not active.
  
  
• The Calliope Sherman can still use smoke, but at a smaller effective range
  
  
• The Calliope Sherman upgrade is limited to one Sherman at a time. The Calliope Sherman's crew can't pop out, ensuring that there can only be one Sherman Calliope at a time (nothing like the priest pop cap debacle).
  
  
• The Calliope Sherman can use its main gun and has the enormous Rocket installation on its chassis, it's movement speed should be reduced slightly, so it can't haul ass out of every situation. This will make it a unit that has to be micro'ed well and will require thought as to where and when you move it in closer for a barrage.
  
  
• The barrage ability should have the same range as the katyusha, Veterancy levels adding to the barrage's range. A number of 20-25 of rockets per barrage should suffice. Damage should be slightly lower than the katyusha's rocket damage.
  
  

• HQ: Riflemen, Rear Echelon, Ambulance, M26 Pershing (after all tiers unlocked)
  
  
• Lieutenant (25 fuel): HMG, Mortar (or pak howitzer), M20 Utility Car
  
  
• Captain (70 fuel): Stuart, AA Halftrack, AT gun.
  
  
• Major stays the same, but Shermans can upgrade to a slightly better gun with more penetration, but lose ability to use HE shells.