OKW Elite Infantry and some other Issues

The Main Issue:

I realise there have been quite a few threads regarding OKW balance lately, but I feel as though a lot of them have been missing the core issue. There is generally a lot of complaints concerning OKW about volksblobbing and strats revoling around 2 leIGs, although leIG (aswell as pakhowie) needs a nerf. However, the main reason why OKW play is often so unimaginative and predictable is that the faction has very little other alternatives. What I am about to say has mainly been drawn from 1v1 experience, I don’t know the state of OKW in team games from 2v2+. I am not making any balance statements about the wider game, this simply concerns OKW elite infantry.

Having played around a lot with Panzerfusils, Sturm Offizier, Obers and Falls recently, I found it very difficult to properly incorporate them into my strategy. Although the units performed ok, Obers and possibly Falls should probably have their cost reduced a bit, they scale really badly thanks to their incredibly slow veteran gain. Once these units reach vet 5 they become pretty strong, but this is similarly the case with elite allied infantry that hit vet 3. The latter is much stronger however, simply because it is so much easier to achieve.

Clearly OKW elite infantry take ages to vet up compared to any allied unit. Commandos, shocks, guards etc. that are mostly on par with OKW elites level up at a much faster rate. It is often very difficult to even get a squad of Obers, Sturms or Falls to vet 2, which is (afaik) where they begin to gain a noticeable increase in their performance. I had a 2v2 game yesterday where I had a Falls squad that had 50 kills (albeit mostly conflicts) and was still not quite vet 5. If ranking up to vet 5 is so difficult, then what is the point of introducing this vet system in the first place?

The result of this is that OKW elite infantry falls behind very quickly, even falling behind core allied infantry that vets up far quicker. Obers, for instance, have considerable difficulty in dealing with upgraded rifles, infantry sections etc:

- If they hit the field early (ie. when a player decides to rush them) this is not so noticeable, but will happen once infantry sections etc. start having higher vet. This is esp. the case with elite rifles. Regardless, Obers in an even game will inevitably drop behind in vet, and thus substantially lose effectiveness.
- If they are a later game purchase (if OKW decide to get t2 and t3 before t4) it is very unlikely that theys be able to catch up with their vet and become incredibly cost inefficient. This should not be the case for a 400 mp unit.

Considering a player is only able to legitimately have a maximum of two of any expensive late infantry units, I think they should be performing somewhat better for their price.
This similarly applies to Panzerfusils, who perform fairly well once they hit the field, drop off extremely quickly because they simply cannot keep up in veterancy with allied stock infantry. I am not advocating that these units, especially Obers, should be able to solo the 4-5 rifle squads the allies can field, but as it currently stands, once the vet discrepancy kicks in they cannot really hold their own against high vet allied units. Seeing Obers have no AT capabilities, it stands to reason that they are meant to counter allied infantry, which they are simply not effective enough at with their current rate of vet.

Furthermore this problem is exasperated by the fact that it is difficult to keep the small elite squads on the field. They are extremely vulnerable to vehicles, artillery of any sort and off maps. Allied players have a number of options to deal with Obers, and currently they cannot even properly stand against allied infantry they are supposedly able to counter. This is one of the reasons why leIGs are so popular- OKW have no other effective alternatives to effectively deal with allied infantry.

Additionally, all OKW elites are often prone to be wiped fairly easily by artillery, off maps and tanks. This makes it incredibly frustrating when a squad of high vet Falls, Sturms or Obers is wiped, getting them there in the first place is difficult enough already. This in conjunction with units underperforming really stack the odds against OKW elites.

A Proposed Solution:

Thus, in order to somewhat forgo these problems my solution to this issue would be, as previously alluded to, to increase the vet gain of OKW and thus the scaling of elite infantry units. This would look as follows:

A) Rework the vet system for OKW entirely, and probably get rid of the vet 5 system.

B) Make it so that a selection of units gain vet 20% quicker. I don’t really know what would be an appropriate number here, but 20-25% increased rate of vet sounds reasonable enough. There are several units which should benefit from this, which are (off the top of my head): Sturms, Obers, Falls, Pfusils, and also the flack halftrack which suffers from a similar problem.

This would go a great deal to ensure the viability of infantry outside of Volksgrenadiere.

Some other Matters:


MG 34:

This is a suggestion only, but I really think that OKW’s early game would be far better with this unit and the Kubelwagen swapped out. Kubelwagen is pretty iffy, great on some maps, useless on others. It feels much more like a situational doctrinal unit. If the MG34 is made non doctrinal, it would be fun to see its interaction with the officer, Panzerfusiliers etc. I think this would bolster OKWs early
game a lot and make the faction much more interesting.

It also seems kind of weird for a German faction not to make extensive use of MGs.

Sturm Offizier:

Currently he is a huge risk medium reward unit. Pray to RNG that your officier does not take all the damage and be the first model to drop, or a whole engangement will be lost. I have been playing around with this guy quite a bit, but he really drops off lategame where he can just be gibbed so easily by arty or tanks. Maybe replace the retreat thing with a debuff aura when he dies or something. You also cannot get him unless you get the medic HQ. If he cannot heal and enters combat with lower HP he becomes incredibly risky to use.

Also this man takes ages to reinforce. If I recall a few patches ago this was the case with a lot of the OKW infantry, so the time should be brought down too. Probably reduce the reinforcement price, because currently he costs 50 mp to reinforce, which is kinda steep. Maybe compensate with these changes by somewhat nerfing the Ober body guards he has if he is overperforming, but I don’t think this is necessary seeing he has no vet gain.

Panzerfusiliers:

Reduce their G43 package to 60 munis. There is no real reason why this should be 90.

Flak Halftrack:

Maybe increase its survivability a little and nerf its damage? I have been using this unit a bit recently, and although requiring a lot of babysitting, it actually performs quite well. The only issue I have found is that often after 1 AT gun shot it is affected by the yellow engine critical (forgot what it was called). I assume it is a bug because no other unit has this, but if it’s not it should really be changed because I haven’t noticed it happen to any other halftrack unit.


TL;DR:
- Buff OKW elite inf (Sturms, Falls, Obers and Pfusils) vet gain so that they can scale better into the late game.
- Make MG34 buildable from HQ and move Kubel to doctrine.
- Change Storm Offizier a bit
- Buff Flak Halftrack a bit

Bane of OKW elite infantry is their susceptibility to random squad wipes. Vet5 or vet0, they die to RNG BS all the same. So why pay more for less? Just get volks or fusilier blob going and mix some support weapons, at least with those kind of builds you can be certain that hard-microed vet5 squads would play their role in the battle.

Bane of OKW elite infantry is their susceptibility to random squad wipes. Vet5 or vet0, they die to RNG BS all the same. So why pay more for less? Just get volks or fusilier blob going and mix some support weapons, at least with those kind of builds you can be certain that hard-microed vet5 squads would play their role in the battle.

This pretty much sums up why we have the cancerous OKW spam that we have now. There is to much risk to justify the reward of elite infantry.

Rather spam volks and support weapons and get out some tanks. This is not a player problem, this is the problem that results from OKW's poor faction design.

The only thing I purely agree on is the mg34 matter

But about the veterancys you were talking about: That's the whole point of them, they vet slowly and once they get the vet going, they're gonna eat everything that comes at them, also for okw they have some kind of a vet boost so they can vet faster on on high vets, so you get vet 0-2 slower than vet 3-5

TBH you just have to get to vet2 when most get accuracy bonus, then it goes quickly.

It's not that allied infantery vets quicker, but they got only 3 vetand they are elite while okw needs two more vets and you get experience when a model dies in the squad, bigger = more experience

Pazerfuzilier don't need a buff to scale to late game, they come early so you can make them vet 5, same for Falls, i thinked about something like if you deploy falls not in a building they are 50 MP cheaper (apply this to all units spawning into buildings )

Sturm offizer don't need to be touched, it's a risk you take, you need to assume the consequence

MG34 need a buff so badly

again and again the same issue i have beent telling that okw doesn thave good late game a.i infantry the elites dont perform well even for their dedicated role and like jadasme said they get wiped vet 5 or vet 0 and they cost a ton and the late game units also take a lot of time to vet up they should tone down thier vet requirment also.........the leig and pack howie actually rised from this lack of other alternatives u dont see much pack howie compared to leig becasue usf have now terminaot rifles late game

I wouldn't get rid of the 5 vet levels. But what I do think will increase the usability of these units is the increasing of the vetthat hese units get. Or reduce the vet requirements. I'm totaly with you on all points.

Bane of OKW elite infantry is their susceptibility to random squad wipes. Vet5 or vet0, they die to RNG BS all the same. So why pay more for less? Just get volks or fusilier blob going and mix some support weapons, at least with those kind of builds you can be certain that hard-microed vet5 squads would play their role in the battle.

This is true, but its a pretty hard thing to fix. The problem is ofc in the 4 man squad design, and that is probs not gonna be changed. Maybe relic should rework unit spacing or something. Or they nerf artilery and the AI capability of allied tanks, but that would screw over balance completely obv.

Its just really stupid that a 440 mp squad vet 5 squad can get wiped by a 30 muni mine. Makes no sense to me.

I'm happy that people agree about the MG34 thing, that change would make OKW so much better and more fun to play.

This is true, but its a pretty hard thing to fix. The problem is ofc in the 4 man squad design, and that is probs not gonna be changed. Maybe relic should rework unit spacing or something. Or they nerf artilery and the AI capability of allied tanks, but that would screw over balance completely obv.

Its just really stupid that a 440 mp squad vet 5 squad can get wiped by a 30 muni mine. Makes no sense to me.

I'm happy that people agree about the MG34 thing, that change would make OKW so much better and more fun to play.

ally mines are so dangerous i lost 2x squads of vetted grens and 2x vetted fallis to one single mine(so 2 mines=4 units wiped) on the way to the front in my last 10 or 15sh games. if it occurs early midgame its pretty much GG and u can surrender at this point.

I completely agree with the vet problem. Basically the okw gets a major fuel and ammo penalty for nothing as reaching vet 5 is nearly impossible. and obers needing and fsj's needing 40-50 kills to get to that point is unreasonable.

okw vet 5 should be as easy to reach as its for the usf brits and soviets to reach vet 5 other wise their is no point of having a fuel and ammo penalty.

this needs to be done as the allies have better vet on their mainline infantry then the okw's vg's vet.

as for the FT-HT it needs a 2 second set up time and not 4.

I agree, they should just fold Vet 5 into Vet 3. I really don't see the point in arbitrarily extending it out. That way each level for OKW units is more significant and would provide better scaling in the context of a normal game.

The more I read through these forums, its getting harder and harder to tell if people are trolling or not.

This is a very well written argument, and as I have been playing a lot more OKW as of late, I'm inclined to agree. There just isn't the same benefit to sacrificing your fuel and ammo anymore. OKW are not in a good place at the moment.

Vet 5 elite units still get raped by core infantry Kappa

I totally agree with most posts in this thread, OKW vet 5 infantry has no chance against other factions infantry.

to improve the game i would say, okw infantry should be more supported by vehicles and since okw lacks fuel to bring those on the field, okw should get a vehicle with each SWS-Truck deployed to the battlefield.

First truck should also bring in a Obersoldatensquad in a kewbal.
Second truck comes with a panzer 4
and third truck comes with kingtiger

so okw would have at least a small chance to compete with allies.

I am also of the opinion the Vet 5 system should be re-done into Vet 3, it'd be much easier to balance units from there. I'd also much rather see some more light vehicle options and use from the faction to promote some combined arms instead of tunneling people into mass infantry (elite or otherwise.) Relic keeps saying they want combined arms and that OKW is designed as an early-game faction (LOL) so any changes towards those goals would be welcomed.

If OKW lost the VET5 system, it will lost one of his greatest avantage :/

If OKW lost the VET5 system, it will lost one of his greatest avantage :/

Not necessarily, they could just consolidate the power of vet 5 into 3 vets. Vet requirements aren't symmetrical anyway so they could be the exact same buffs/requirements.

+1 on stock HMG, this will give okw enough reason to not rely on ISG for blob countering

I honestly have no problem with ober and fallschirm AI performance, the issue in my experience are RNG explosive weapons.