Grenadiers - Not for the faint of micro

Attention: Alex and other people discussing win loss ratios in this thread.

Show Spoiler

I feel grenadiers are under priced (volksgrenadiers too but that's another topic)

They might be easy to wipe with explosives but thats a global issue with explosives not so much with the grenadiers themselves.

They might be easy to wipe with explosives but thats a global issue with explosives not so much with the grenadiers themselves.

Nothing to do with 4 model vs 5 & 6 model squads eh?

Attention: Alex and other people discussing win loss ratios in this thread.

Show Spoiler

He's right. Please open a separate thread for the w/l discussion as it doesn't contribute to this. And the reason why is doesn't is because w/l data only provides a global picture of balance. Grens are a local problem, not global.

So please, lets try to keep this thread On Topic, not Off Topic.

Wall of text below. Summary: standardize squad sizes to 5 man axis and 6 man allies

Expanding on my previous post: I think rng is a big factor in gren performance. And this is due to their squad size and weapons. With 4 men, they present 4 entities for any opposing squad to shoot at, while they shoot at 5 or 6. Trouble is, this leads to a higher probability of 'unlikely' events, both favourable and unfavourable. Take cons/rifles for example. Lets say probability to hit an entity with k98 is x and for garand is y, and remember both x and y are less than 1. (Idk the actual stats, just follow the math here).

So: probability of all 4 grens getting hit by garands is y^4 but probability of all rifles getting hit by k98 is x^5 (smaller).

Hence for grens, generally, taking or dishing out extreme amounts of dmg is more probable than it is for rifles. Similar issue with cons. The probability for extreme events in the opposite direction (all grens evading their shots etc.) also becomes higher. THIS plus the fact that they have high dmg, low RoF bolt-actions, compounds the issue.

The smaller squad sizes make these RNG blips more important for grens than any other infantry (except early game tommies). Losing a squad member means 25% less dmg AND 25% less health (technically even less health than 25%, cause now the opposing entities have more enemy entities they can focus on which skews the 'to-hit' probabilities more, but I'm trying to keep it simple here). This of-course affects all squads as they lose entities, but grens more so due to their small size.

Which is why I argue for squad size standardization. 5 men for axis. 6 men for allies. We'll retain the element of flavour this way too. [I'd argue for 6 axis/7 allies or higher, law of large numbers and all that, but maps will then be need to be redesigned so no point] Adjust dps and Received Accuracy accordingly to retain current damage profiles. It'll enable better balance of snipers and explosives too.

Also, I am of the opinion that fausts need an animation speedup in exchange for lower stats. I'd prefer they mirror it to the conscript AT grenade. I mean, infantry snares aren't meant for solo critting mediums and heavies anymore, makes no sense that faust should retain its high pen.

you improve the pathing logic so members don't clump up so much and make explosives do reliable damage but not enough to one shot and you will have a massive improvement and the squad size becomes irrelevant. (mortars having a good aoe radius but always doing 16 damage for example, which means you know a squad will die to five hits to the mortar alone so you can accommodate for the aoe better instead of being one shot.)

The first point is a bit tricker to achieve since pathing is voodoo magic, the second point can be done by sitting in AE for a day maybe and adjusting all the aoe profiles.

...make explosives do reliable damage but not enough to one shot and you will have a massive improvement and the squad size becomes irrelevant...

I'm not so certain. I mean, squad size will affect the small-arms combat regardless, and that creates probability issues I outlined.

And although I can kinda see this idea working for larger explosives, I don't think it could be done for mortars. I mean, mortars rarely do direct, or close hits unless target infantry is static. To make them reliably do only 16dmg every shot would mean flat 16-dmg profile with either massive AoE or higher RoF adjustments. Which will make mortar spam the king. Theory-crafting here, I could be wrong.

AOE units wipe inf, that's their role and the sole reason for building them.



Grens problem is not this 'vulnerability'. You just can't rely on them to send them for capping points as they lose engagements almost to all of their counterparts. Therefore they need either DPS buff (cooldown, dmg, accuracy reload etc) or increased Survivability.

I didn't ignore them at all though? Because the argument that grens are designed to function only with support weapon help, then why do other factions get to skip on using combined arms themselves?

It makes no logical sense why basic infantry should just be "better" for the same or similar cost for no reason when options are equally available to both sides. Nothing is stopping USF players from supporting their riflemen with .50 cal's, nothing is stopping a Soviet player from supporting Conscripts with Maxims.



The price increase on the HMG42 and nerf to the Ostheer mortars ROF seem to point that Relic cares more about things being appropriately balanced based on price rather than faction exclusivity. The Soviet and Ost mortars are about equal now, and the maxim has it's place as the most dirt cheap non-doc HMG.

Really this entire argument that Grens are fine totally hinges on the idea that A. They are very easy to just a-move and always win or B. That they aren't mean to not be able to fight enemy infantry alone.

A is incorrect as I previously demonstrated and B is incorrect because every other faction has just as much opportunity to support their units just like Ostheer does.

In and so far the logical conclusion we can draw from this is either Cons and Rifles need their new premium vet scaled down, or Grens need a boost up.

Every faction has a different playstyle. If just by looking at teching and stats you can't tell that the Ostheer is the "support weapons faction", just like the USF are the "infantry faction" and soviets are the "spam" faction then I just don't know anymore.

When Grens are available, so are hmg42s, mortars, pios, and snipers. No other faction gets this flexibility with combined arms. The purpose? Use individually sometimes inferior units to support each other and win. Because of assymetric balance, the other factions are in fact designed differently.

U.S. Forces .50 cal requires going to an otherwise light vehicle tier; it comes very late, doesn't synergize with a sniper and mortar, and isn't even viable in rifle centric builds because of the necessity of the M20 and MP bleed. The Americans don't even have a sniper or mortar to use it with either.

Soviets choose between crappy, durable support weapons they can spam or snipers and light vehicle cheese. At no point in most games will a Soviet player even have the opportunity to have a sniper and AT gun out at the same time, as one example.

Looking at the above its really clear what relic intended for each faction; it's also really clear why Grens should ultimately be beat by Rifles at all game stages. If you want to buff the infantry fighting ability of Ost lategame, then campaign for hmg42 buffs in lategame, Pzgren buffs, and things of that nature.

Can we get a mod in here to come clean this off topic shit up? Thanks.

While I would love to see grens turned into a 5-man squad, this change would actually require a NERF to overall grenadier squad DPS to keep balance. Currently the only reason conscripts can beat grenadiers is because of the fact that they have more men. At close range, a grenadier model has higher DPS than conscript DPS by quite an amount. Increasing gren squad size to 5 and spreading the DPS across all the models will make it impossible for a 5-man conscript squad to win the fight (losses taken from closing). Even a 6-man squad would have considerable troubles.

If you add a 5-th man, the grens need to have an overall lower DPS than than they had 4-men to make sure that the increased TTK (time to kill) for allied squads doesn't give the grens a much higher advantage, since they have better DPS.

We could and would increase con and rifle dps to compensate. Indeed, it would be necessary.

Adjust all the dps stats across the board to maintain current performance. Hell, I say all axis/allied squads ought to be balanced around 5 man/6 man squads with required dps/received accuracy adjustments

Riflemen grenades should cost 350 MP to throw? Besides not making any sense

When each rifleman grenade toss = an entire squad wipe (up to 440MP in the case of OKW FJs) guaranteed, then yes, which makes absolutely perfect sense for balance. I'd still suggest that IMBA advantaging USF, as the time out of field loss and subsequent force imbalance whilst that squad were replaced still isn't balanced with just approx. MP parity cost.

Of course, I was deploying hyperbole. The obvious answer is to fix USF tactical nuclear nades, but I don't think Relic is capable of it, and even were they, SEGA certainly won't want to disenfranchise the USF fanbois.