OKW design and gameplay outdated

Right now I feel the okw seem to be an awkward and underwhelming faction, judging win statistics, stream watching, and personal play. They rely on an extremely awkward fuel mechanic that butchers their economy for the reason have having access to 2 extra levels of vet and a quick tech tree.

Currently you can afford one tank a little bit earlier than the rest, and then you spend the rest of the game hoping every vehicle you make makes it to at least vet 4 otherwise its just pointless premium. Should you spend fuel on early vehicles, such as a puma you are now ~105 (assuming no fuel conversion) fuel behind, all for purchasing a light tank hunter with almost zero anti infantry capability.

The British however have access to a late game that is completely on par with OKW. Very well scaling vet (albeit buggy for some, tommies), Upgradable lmgs, the meatiest tanks in the game, and a great cheap medium tank. The cromwell costs half the fuel of the okw pz4!

Not that they don't have their drawbacks, but the British seem to be what the okw should have been.

OKW right now feel completely bottle necked for outdated ideology. They just feel so poorly designed, and its absurdly frustrating having such a high premium on so many units that will realistically never hit vet 5 due to high vet levels or purpose of the units. The only thing going for them is the single early tank, should they forsake everything else, and gimmicky dual le.igs

How do others feel?

And FYI this is more about the design of the faction, less so about the balance.

Wait 2 days until patch lands. Theyre getting better.

The new patch does nothing to address the design issues of the okw. If anythings it exacerbates the problem by making them more relying on an already oddly designed and frustrating to fight unit, the ISG.

IMO they need a large rework

The cromwell costs half the fuel of the okw pz4!

Whole thing with "special resource system" and vet 5 idea was bad design from the start, especially with resources. That is why we have problems with CAS, that is why industry was broken, you don't mess with resource system in strategy game.

What's holding OKW back is lack of proper team weapons and very weird infantry.

granted this is the entire point in the faction.

I think that making ir Halftrack doctrinal and giving the bhq an MG or buffed Volks something would be great or something

Vet 5 should have never been a thing. Brits Veterancy is extremely potent without 2 extra levels, they just have a lot crammed into 3 which is how OKW should have been designed. Increase the cost of vet by a small amount but cram more bonus's into each level so you have goods scaling in the time frame of an average game rather than hoping you drag out into a 1 hour match.

Honestly If I would to point out specific problems I would say it's simply the same reason USF has issues, except we know USF is getting 3 new commanders to help fix this problem and OKW is only getting one.

1. Lack of a effective mainline infantry, now you might say Shrek'd Volks, and well you'd be right the Shrek sure is good but the infantry wielding it are just bad. And with the recent rackten buffs there isn't much to sell Volks on other than he incendiary nade, and then you just need 2 really. I would raise their price up to 250 and make them the middle ground between Riflemen and Grens, also give em a bonus to accuracy/ROF in cover so they won't be blobbed but can still stand up to enemy infantry without falling apart. Currently even Conscripts walk all over Volks until Volks hit vet 5 and now with the Conscript scaling buffs even that won't be the case.

2. Lack of diversity in upgrades and automatic weaponry. Paradoxically OKW has the MOST amount of rifle/kar98k units in the game when the real OKW (well, equivalent anyway) used massive amounts of automatic fire to make up for reduced quality in soldiers and numbers. Almost all OKW units either don't have an upgrade or just have 1 you almost always automatically take. Volks should have at least 2 upgrades to chose from, StG's or LMG34 should be a choice on Obers without a doctrine (IR which ignore cover remaining doctrinal of course), Sturms should have a flamethrower (that locks out the repair one), ect.

3. No real heavy indirect fire outside of the Stuka Zu Fuss. Yeah the Stuka is very effective but it's also horrifyingly expensive which is a non-starter in 1v1 and 2v2. The ease at which you can avoid the rockets has made it relegated to being a building counter which won't be necessary with incendiary nades. Other than countering buildings it's good for countering heavy support weapon play (although you can still avoid the barrages), but still OKW should have some sort of Howitzer commander to give a MP only artillery option.

4. Lack of defensive options. This one is a big hitter since right now OKW's defensive options are limited only to the Flak Truck. The proliferation of indirect fire and the heavy reliance on trucks for OKW has made it so playing defensively like Brits can is basically impossible because if the game drags on to long you will just drown in artillery and off maps. The MG34 can't do it's job; and while it's cheap as chips I would rather have a MG that does it's job instead of just being a piece of shit you can spam. It needs it's old damage back + a little suppression increase and a price raise. The Flak Emplacement needs to not be decrewable and just have it's gun mirrored to that of the Flak Track. A brace type option for OKW trucks (that disabled constructing units and healing/repairing/firing) would also go a long way towards stopping the whole "wait till you can just blow up all his trucks and sweep him off the map" thing.

5. To little fuel and to much MP. The fact OKW cannot spend popcap on high pop cap units (vehicles) means that OKW floats an insane amount of MP because it's never spending it or having to pay the popcap price of having vehicle. A good fix to this would be reducing the fuel cost of OKW vehicles by 20% and increase the MP cost by 50%.

6. To little to late phenomenon. I bring this up because the often "hold out for vehicles" strat OKW is shoe horned into most games simply doesn't pan out unless you hold superior map control to your opponent. A single Panther can't stop an entire armored advance (especially a British one using super high health tanks); a single OKW Panther is worth more than an IS2 due to the fuel penalty but is worse than it's Ostheer counterpart. There is also a snowball effect with the low ROF + high vet requirements meaning getting it up to 2-3-4-5 can take a while because it doesn't deal damage often.

7. Reliance on gimmicks. The reason why OKW remains powerful despite a lot of these things is very powerful gimmicks like going very heavy with Fuss and ignoring T4 by getting a JPIV. Using JLI to essentially replace any other elite infantry. Simply spamming so much infantry you break an opponent because they can't micro faster than you can and get map controlled to death.

Just my take from being a very long time OKW player.

The new patch does nothing to address the design issues of the okw. If anythings it exacerbates the problem by making them more relying on an already oddly designed and frustrating to fight unit, the ISG.

IMO they need a large rework

this, 10% reduction on reinforce on falls/obers is hardly going to change much when USF/Sov mainline infantry gets even stronger.

Volks need some attention

Vet 5 should have never been a thing. Brits Veterancy is extremely potent without 2 extra levels, they just have a lot crammed into 3 which is how OKW should have been designed. Increase the cost of vet by a small amount but cram more bonus's into each level so you have goods scaling in the time from of an average game rather than hoping you drag out into a 1 hour match.

Honestly If I would to point out specific problems I would say it's simply the same reason USF has issues, except we know USF is getting 3 new commanders to help fix this problem and OKW is only getting one.

1. Lack of a effective mainline infantry, now you might say Shrek'd Volks, and well you'd be right the Shrek sure is good but the infantry wielding it are just bad. And with the recent rackten buffs there isn't much to sell Volks on other than he incendiary nade, and then you just need 2 really. I would raise their price up to 250 and make them the middle ground between Riflemen and Grens, also give em a bonus to accuracy/ROF in cover so they won't be blobbed but can still stand up to enemy infantry without falling apart. Currently even Conscripts walk all over Volks until Volks hit vet 5 and now with the Conscript scaling buffs even that won't be the case.

2. Lack of diversity in upgrades and automatic weaponry. Paradoxically OKW has the MOST amount of rifle/kar98k units in the game when the real OKW (well, equivalent anyway) used massive amounts of automatic fire to make up for reduced quality in soldiers and numbers. Almost all OKW units either don't have an upgrade or just have 1 you almost always automatically take. Volks should have at least 2 upgrades to chose from, StG's or LMG34 should be a choice on Obers without a doctrine (IR which ignore cover remaining doctrinal of course), Sturms should have a flamethrower (that locks out the repair one), ect.

3. No real heavy indirect fire outside of the Stuka Zu Fuss. Yeah the Stuka is very effective but it's also horrifyingly expensive which is a non-starter in 1v1 and 2v2. The ease at which you can avoid the rockets has made it relegated to being a building counter which won't be necessary with incendiary nades. Other than countering buildings it's good for countering heavy support weapon play (although you can still avoid the barrages), but still OKW should have some sort of Howitzer commander to give a MP only artillery option.

4. Lack of defensive options. This one is a big hitter since right now OKW's defensive options are limited only to the Flak Truck. The proliferation of indirect fire and the heavy reliance on trucks for OKW has made it so playing defensively like Brits can is basically impossible because if the game drags on to long you will just drown in artillery and off maps. The MG34 can't do it's job; and while it's cheap as chips I would rather have a MG that does it's job instead of just being a piece of shit you can spam. It needs it's old damage back + a little suppression increase and a price raise. The Flak Emplacement needs to not be decrewable and just have it's gun mirrored to that of the Flak Track. A brace type option for OKW trucks (that disabled constructing units and healing/repairing/firing) would also go a long way towards stopping the whole "wait till you can just blow up all his trucks and sweep him off the map" thing.

5. To little fuel and to much MP. The fact OKW cannot spend popcap on high pop cap units (vehicles) means that OKW floats an insane amount of MP because it's never spending it or having to pay the popcap price of having vehicle. A good fix to this would be reducing the cost of OKW vehicles by 20% and increase the MP cost by 50%.

6. To little to late phenomenon. I bring this up because the often "hold out for vehicles" strat OKW is shoe horned into most games simply doesn't pan out unless you hold superior map control to your opponent. A single Panther can't stop an entire armored advance (especially a British one using super high health tanks); a single OKW Panther is worth more than an IS2 due to the fuel penalty but is worse than it's Ostheer counterpart. There is also a snowball effect with the low ROF + high vet requirements meaning getting it up to 2-3-4-5 can take a while because it doesn't deal damage often.

7. Reliance on gimmicks. The reason why OKW remains powerful despite a lot of these things is very powerful gimmicks like going very heavy with Fuss and ignoring T4 by getting a JPIV. Using JLI to essentially replace any other elite infantry. Simply spamming so much infantry you break an opponent because they can't micro faster than you can and get map controlled to death.

Just my take from being a very long time OKW player.

I agree with pretty much everything here. Gimmicky gameplay, poor synergy, weak massy blobs and lack of choices. Even when the OKW performs well they don't feel good. Poor design overall.

And it's so very frustrating spending ~50% more fuel on units that will hardly ever reach high levels of vet. Extra fuel for nothing

I should also point out OKW's weakness to indirect fire comes from more than just a reliance on trucks.

The only infantry AT-gun-esque unit OKW has is the rackten, but it has very tight crew spacing meaning wiping it with Mortars/Support Guns/Tanks/General Artillery isn't hard to do. Meaning constructing defensive lines with entrenched guns is hard because your MP based AT is prone to being 1 shot (or just instantly force retreated).

The lack of vehicles makes OKW extremely reliant on infantry heavy play. As vehicles are a lot less vulnerable to indirect fire this means the OKW player is already at a disadvantage since he/she simply cannot rely on tanks to help keep the line held while the Katyusha's sing and the Priests fire.

The reliance on keeping Vetted squads alive also makes it so when RNG artillery bullshit fire-on-HQ stuff happens you lose a lot more and a lucky priest shell on your HQ can easily kill half your army and the basic units you can make simply don't work later into the game unless they have 2-3 levels of vet.

I should also point out OKW's weakness to indirect fire comes from more than just a reliance on trucks.

The only infantry AT-gun-esque unit OKW has is the rackten, but it has very tight crew spacing meaning wiping it with Mortars/Support Guns/Tanks/General Artillery isn't hard to do. Meaning constructing defensive lines with entrenched guns is hard because your MP based AT is prone to being 1 shot (or just instantly force retreated).

The lack of vehicles makes OKW extremely reliant on infantry heavy play. As vehicles are a lot less vulnerable to indirect fire this means the OKW player is already at a disadvantage since he/she simply cannot rely on tanks to help keep the line held while the Katyusha's sing and the Priests fire.

The reliance on keeping Vetted squads alive also makes it so when RNG artillery bullshit fire-on-HQ stuff happens you lose a lot more and a lucky priest shell on your HQ can easily kill half your army and the basic units you can make simply don't work later into the game unless they have 2-3 levels of vet.

This makes the gameplay so awkward for okw. Most units in the army are just horribly innerecient performance to price, so losIng stuff late game is insanely impactfulnagainst the okw.

They designed the okw to be weak with the most potential later on, but it's just too much, it's too gimmicky and doesn't feel rewarding, it just feels stressful and annoying that all your units suck until you keep them alive for 30 minutes. And now they have contenders with no fuel penalty (pseudo manpower though considering the difference in infantry upkeep of okw vs Brits )

I think that the okw should have more automatic weapons.

This would increase mp bleed because it would force squads to take more casualties while doing more damage. It would also make OKW game play more about killing event units with firepower than turtling into a giant death blob of 6 volks with elite infantry support and one vehicle.

one thing that makes me really confused is why doesn't OKW have ANY smoke ability. it would help a lot with sturm pioniers assaults

I don't play the faction enough to go into a big list of specifics like Alex but I don't agree that OKW is conceptually poorly designed. The original outline of the faction seems to be of this fuel-starved, late-war western front fighting force scrapping to get by while simultaneously switching between very aggressive offensives and constantly being pushed back further and further into Germany.

In practice however some of the design choices are questionable at best. I'd much rather do away with the resource income penalty and instead increase costs of units and upgrades to make up for it. I think that would actually give the player the option to either go on the offensive or turtle for the big units instead of relying on cheesy infantry blobs and/or a single game-changing ST/Panther/KT. The 5 vet system is also pretty dumb. I can see what they were going for (young/untrained forces losing out early eventually become grizzled/fanatical defenders,) but in practice it pretty much means you have to stall the game to get most out of your units.

There seems to be a huge disconnect between what the faction is suppose to be with the reality of the gameplay, highlighted most recently by that ridiculous "know your faction" infograph.

I like OKW They only need smoke on the ISG at vet 1 instead of this range buff.

with the new patch there might be some breathing room for a few okw buffs but i wouldnt rly expect any big overhaul anytime soom if even

How about giving volks sturmgewehrs at vet3 or 4

kay.........?

Ok......

1. Lack of effective mainline infantry, that's a half truth. You gain access to the best handheld AT weapon in coh2. Sturms are too strong for volks to be equal to a unit like rifles or penals, hell! even grens. They perform the way they cost, keep them in cover and watch them keep up with infantry that cost more than them. You also neglect the entire picture, that picture being, OKW has the most cost effective and BEST... wait i dont think you heard me. BEST CALLIN INFANTRY IN THE ENITIRE GAME. Say it with me now; THE BEST....CALL-IN.....INFANTRY ...... IN COH2.

2. LAck of automatic weapons? this is not only a lie, but devoid from reality. Sturms get assult rifles, obers get lmg34's, falls get fg42's. You wanna talk about lack of weapon upgrades related to automatic weaponry? Pls take another look at soviets. Not to mention, ober are the best long ranged infantry in-game thanks to all thier dps being focused on one bullshit weapon. WAIT! I DONT think YOU HEARD ME. OK SAY IT WITH ME NOW! OBERS, YEA THEM, ARE THHHHEEEEEEE BEEEESSSSSSTTT NOON-DOCCCC INNNNNNFAAAANTTTRRRRRYYYYY IIIIIINNNN COOOOOOOHHHHHHH2222222!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. LAck of heavy indirect fire options? Thats a lie. USF has nothing. So get over it.

4. Lack of defensive options? This is so misleading its pissing me off. Lets take a look. OKW get garrisoned AT at t1 that can retreat and cloak. they get 2 commanders with the best defensive arty in COH2. Mines, you know, the shit usf has to get a light vehicle to have a chance of getting. Jp4, which can cloak. Buildings that can lock ddown important sections of the map. Again, look at the bigger picture. how the hell can you say okw lack defensive options when USF gets almost noting in the realm of defensive options, and soviets get literally nothing besides mines and demos. No bunkers, NOTHING. Like do you even play coh2?

5. Too much mp? Hell yea they do. this is a HUGE advantage and you can replenish losses better than any other faction.

6. This isnt true at all. AA ht comes out before usf can get an m15. Puma comes at nearly the same time as the m20. kubel was the earliest light vehicle for over a year now. Shit even a panther hits the field earlier than a sherman can.

7. Gimmicks? beside the Strumtiger they dont have any. Reliance? Thats the definition of stretching a word. USF is built on gimmicks not OKW, so again, get oover it.

Still waiting to see them "pro" 1v1 skillzzzzzzz.

They designed the okw to be weak with the most potential later on

Apparently they didn't.

Ok......

1. Lack of effective mainline infantry, that's a half truth. You gain access to the best handheld AT weapon in coh2. Sturms are too strong for volks to be equal to a unit like rifles or penals, hell! even grens. They perform the way they cost, keep them in cover and watch them keep up with infantry that cost more than them. You also neglect the entire picture, that picture being, OKW has the most cost effective and BEST... wait i dont think you heard me. BEST CALLIN INFANTRY IN THE ENITIRE GAME. Say it with me now; THE BEST....CALL-IN.....INFANTRY ...... IN COH2.

What? That would be Soviets. Currently OKW has two effective call in infantry units; JLI and Fuss. I don't see how they are any more or less powerful than other factions call in infantry. The fact OKW relies on them just highlights poor design and OKW doesn't have nearly as many commanders as Soviets do to pick from.

Hand held AT is great and all, but Volks are really easy to kill with tanks via crushing and just kiting so it's not like dumping endless muni into them is worthwhile versus just using AT guns.

As I said on the MG34, I would rather have something cost more and be effective than be cheap and shitty.

2. LAck of automatic weapons? this is not only a lie, but devoid from reality. Sturms get assult rifles, obers get lmg34's, falls get fg42's. You wanna talk about lack of weapon upgrades related to automatic weaponry? Pls take another look at soviets. Not to mention, ober are the best long ranged infantry in-game thanks to all thier dps being focused on one bullshit weapon. WAIT! I DONT think YOU HEARD ME. OK SAY IT WITH ME NOW! OBERS, YEA THEM, ARE THHHHEEEEEEE BEEEESSSSSSTTT NOON-DOCCCC INNNNNNFAAAANTTTRRRRRYYYYY IIIIIINNNN COOOOOOOHHHHHHH2222222!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah 3 whole units lol. OKW has the most bolt action rifle units (slowest firing) of any faction in the game. Soviets have the second most, but for a late war German faction there seems to be a dire shortage of the things that exemplified late war German infantry such as a high saturation of automatic weapons.

Obers are un-versatile and that fact is why call in infantry is so popular. They are good at what they do, but still stiff.

3. LAck of heavy indirect fire options? Thats a lie. USF has nothing. So get over it.

It's almost as if both WFA factions have the same problems, something I literally said ITT!

4. Lack of defensive options? This is so misleading its pissing me off. Lets take a look. OKW get garrisoned AT at t1 that can retreat and cloak. they get 2 commanders with the best defensive arty in COH2. Mines, you know, the shit usf has to get a light vehicle to have a chance of getting. Jp4, which can cloak. Buildings that can lock ddown important sections of the map. Again, look at the bigger picture. how the hell can you say okw lack defensive options when USF gets almost noting in the realm of defensive options, and soviets get literally nothing besides mines and demos. No bunkers, NOTHING. Like do you even play coh2?

But the thing is, nobody wants to use OKW bunkers because why pay so many munitions for something that's so easily killed? Your better off building a bunker and putting an MG34 in it. Because it will impact you less. And USF is getting Schu mines in tomorrow.

And garrisoning racktens is a fucking awful idea. Like yeah give up the best thing about the Rackten (retreat and camo) so you can have focus fire turned off.

5. Too much mp? Hell yea they do. this is a HUGE advantage and you can replenish losses better than any other faction.

I would rather play a faction that didn't have to just spam infantry. It's dumb and idk why you support it

6. This isnt true at all. AA ht comes out before usf can get an m15. Puma comes at nearly the same time as the m20. kubel was the earliest light vehicle for over a year now. Shit even a panther hits the field earlier than a sherman can.

Except why you get those vehicles minus the Kubel you won't be getting another for a long long time. To little to late phenomenon is characterized mainly by the "little" part of the statement.

Still waiting to see them "pro" 1v1 skillzzzzzzz.

lol, just lol