Balance Preview Patchnotes

Please tell me, how much fuel you need as USF to make first tech?

Assuming you make a beeline for lieutenant, 35.

Less than current preview OKW, if you're wondering.

And yes, getting grenades or weapon racks in the early game is an option.

Personally, I've done strats that involved getting all three upgrades early in the game.

I'm surprised that they didn't make any change on sexton.

http://www.coh2.org/topic/44942/i-m-surprised-they-didn-t-buff-trash-sexton

Assuming you make a beeline for lieutenant, 35.

Less than current preview OKW, if you're wondering.

And yes, getting grenades or weapon racks in the early game is an option.

Personally, I've done strats that involved getting all three upgrades early in the game.

Ok, explain me why would you get 1-2mins weapon racks and slow down second/third rifle squad if you even don't have ammo for bars and you are forced to move back rifles squad to get it (losing map presence) + how it does save you from HMG since no smoke. Not to mention your strat with 1-2min ambulance

New version of the mod
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=557952243

OKW:
Starting fuel reduced from 40 to 0
Panzershrecks cost back to 90
Volks cost increase from 235 to 250

Volks change are good, they are much stronger now in early game.

About starting fuel. 0 is too low, it makes the Flak come out later than it comes out now and pretty much leaves the Luchs where it is right now timing wise (too late to do a significant impact).
I recommend to leave the starting fuel at 15 fuel. In that way you can do a tech decision (sws truck) and it makes the flak & luchs come out a minute earlier. So the luchs comes pretty much at the same time as stuart, T70 and AEC.

Ok, explain me why would you get 1-2mins weapon racks and slow down second/third rifle squad if you even don't have ammo for bars and you are forced to move back rifles squad to get it (losing map presence) + how it does save you from HMG since no smoke. Not to mention your strat with 1-2min ambulance

Rear echelon --> riflemen --> WC51 --> Riflemen --> Bars. Second riflemen picks up bars, get in wc51. Zoom zoom kaboom. Maybe a bit later than 2 minutes but not much. Certainly well before I get lieutenant or captain.


Ambulance I used to get after a rear echelon and a riflemen and send it to cap close strat point with medic, then use as forward reinforcement point on the edge of my territory. Works well through hedges etc like on kholodny.



Used to even use medic in combat for his baller pistol action.

I recommend to leave the starting fuel at 15 fuel. In that way you can do a tech decision (sws truck)

You can build a truck that doesn't do anything! Hurray!

Bonus points for preventing you from building infantry for 45 seconds or whatever the build time is.

Volks change are good, they are much stronger now in early game.

About starting fuel. 0 is too low, it makes the Flak come out later than it comes out now and pretty much leaves the Luchs where it is right now timing wise (too late to do a significant impact).
I recommend to leave the starting fuel at 15 fuel. In that way you can do a tech decision (sws truck) and it makes the flak & luchs come out a minute earlier. So the luchs comes pretty much at the same time as stuart, T70 and AEC.

OKW has to collect 120 fuel (with 0 from start) for fast luchs. USF has to collect 115 fuel. Soviets need 155 fuel. Don't see a problem there. It also fixes the OKW T1+Kübel rush on 3v3 and 4v4 that has been cancer since release.

wow, What a list of great changes!

no more call in vet, no more frontline flamers, no more OP skillplanes!

Too early to call on the OKW changes without playing but a very POSITIVE pre-patch set of changes.

there was an issue trying to rebuild the first mod so we had to make another version.

These changes are looking great Brad,

This is going to be a fun patch. The fun never ceases!

I would make the starting fuel 20, so the delay is in between what it is now. Now its too extreme with zero.

Quite a promising patch, fixes a lot of issues with OKW and some others too. However I have a problem with it:
The infantry section nerf is probably heavier than relic realizes (vet nerf is fine though), since they have next to no cooldown (most of the time between shots is winddown). This means that decreasing the out-of-cover penalty barely does anything (0.2 DPS at close range), while the other nerfs are massive. Playtesting IS (4 man) vs Grens:
-IS is slightly better than grens out of cover
-IS is better when both in cover
-IS is worse than lmg grens out of cover
-IS is slightly worse than lmg grens when both in cover
The biggest offender is lmg grens actually winning when both are in cover. This makes infantry sections obsolete without 5 man upgrade or brens since they don't have the utility of grens or the fighting power of riflemen. The changes need to be reverted except vet nerf.

The Air Commander P47 is kinda useless now in the mod. 260 ammo, and it needs manual sight to actually have a tiny chance to hit things? Removing sight was quite a nerf to it, it is certainly not worth 260 ammo at all.

100% income but still free flak on the T3 truck locking 1/3 of any 1vs1 map.
100% income but still fuel/amo free healing retreat point truck anywhere you want on the map + free repairing station T2 truck.

- Its not that each truck cost fuel/MP to deploy with some risks.
- They removed the munition/fuel transfer.
- The forward retreat point cost also MP.

OKW has to collect 120 fuel (with 0 from start) for fast luchs. USF has to collect 115 fuel. Soviets need 155 fuel. Don't see a problem there. It also fixes the OKW T1+Kübel rush on 3v3 and 4v4 that has been cancer since release.

You are right, I stand corrected. Still have to get used to that new pacing.

My opinion OKW Changes:


Volksgrenadiers

Running a high risk of Volk blobs reduce the number of members to 4 when upgrading with Shreck...

Allow some sort of weapon upgrade for volks, either 2 g43 or 2 St44 the will mutually disallow the shreck upgrade, unit will have scaling problems without shrecks...

Raktenwerfer43

This unit veterancy bonus are bonus must be looked at these changes are not helpful at all.

the units is extremely fragile can be killed very easily by explosions, Centaur does full damage even if in heavy cover, retreat end up with dead unit because of the turn it does before retreat.
The unit take to long to fire and can be circle strafed when in garrison, while it has blind spots when in trench.
The units performs very inconsistently. Vets slow with the vet penalty but becomes extremely potent if it ever reaches vet 3
Unit get vet bonus mostly for cloak and non for garrison. It should either be allowed to cloak in garrison or have veterancy bonus for garrison.

My suggestion would be:

vet1 No movement penalty when in camoflauge and 30% faster time for first shot when in garrison or allow cloak in garrison.
vet2 25 less damage from explosion when in camo, +25% penetration and 25% less reload when in garrison
vet3 +15% speed +10% range (swap with vet 4) and 20% range when in garrison
vet4 12 sight range, -10% reload
vet5 For first shot fired out of camouflage +100 penetration & +25% damage and 25% when firing out of garrison

Fix the retreat...

HMG34

The HMG34 is almost impossible to get to vet 4-5 for a number of reasons.

Although it is cheaper than HMG42 it has higher manpower cost per model and the XP value does not reflect the difference in cost.
It has extremely low DPS the crew has more DPS than the gun it self and combined with the fact that pinned units take less damage it needs more than minute to kill an entity at max range.
Even with AP wounds the DPS is lower than HMG42

There is little point to nerf vet bonuses when the unit can gain veterancy...

Suggestions:
Fix entity cost
XP value
increase DPS or or reduce XP for veterancy
revert veterancy bonus changes

JP4

JP4 had its tech cost increased from 40 to 160 which is allot even with the removal of penalty it also serves as medium tank counter so it should have it fuel cost and pop cost reduced.

Else it should be completely redesigned as a heavy armor counter with higher penetration...

The thing that should be changed with it veterancy is the Bonus damage at Vet 5 which is rather problematic especially if combined with AP a rounds.

The unit should re-cloak slower.

Hetzer

The unit vet way too slow, has high XP value while it can only damage low XP value units and thus should have a bonus in vetting.

SWS Truck

Since it now costs resources it should have its prepatch speed and maybe armor/HP..

"Luchs"

Luchs need a XP bonuses gain. Basically you get a units with less penetration than 222 and with XP value around 3 times more making the unit rather difficult to vet since it can mostly harm soft targets.

My opinion Soviet changes Changes:

KV-2

KV-2 is still weaker than IS-2 and ISU-152 so I would suggest the following changes:

Reduced CP requirements to be lower than IS-2 or ISU-152 (weaker unit)

increase limit to 2 or remove completely (weaker than most heavy call-ins), limited to 1 does not suit a doctrine called industry...

Remove damage penalty for changing modes, makes unit unable to react to flanks...

Reduce the vision penalty or remove completely, too vulnerable to flanks...

Soviet Industry

Allow faster vehicles built with "repair station" ability it suites the theme...(maybe requires to have one built?)

My opinion USF changes Changes:


Rear Echelon

The accuracy and vet 1 bonus should probably be blended abit reducing the vet 1 bonus while increasing the starting accuracy, with the new cost RE without weapons will vet slower while ones with flamer will vet too fast.

What? So you're telling me that I am unreasonable for asking for a patch to fix the aforementioned issues?

In the context of this thread about a balance preview mod? Yes. Yes, I am.

My opinion UKF changes Changes:

AT Infantry sections

CP 2 is bit late to call basic infantry so I would suggest the following changes:

Reduced CP to 1 or make it a weapon upgrade.

If call in make the squad come with 5 members even if the upgrade is not purchased, it already cost 300 and it need 5 member to fight light vehicles.

Make their armor detection either a vet ability or a free ability with cooldown so that it is not always on, currently it is performing allot better than the soviet ostheer and OKW counterparts.

Valentine

Could probably go down to 5 similar to Puma...

Also replace vet 1 ability Concentrated Sexton Barrage with a barrage for both sexton and base howizs since the ability is useless until one actually get a sexton...

Heavy Engineers

The real problem with anvil Churchills is that they can be repaired and return to the field way too fast. R.E. have very fast repair speed that is further boosted by the heavy engineers upgrade that addition allows them to reach vet 2 and repair even faster.

My suggestions:
Heavy engineers turns Ro.E. to a fighting oriented unit.

The no longer repair faster, the move a bit faster when under fire so they can dodge grenades and especially rifle grenadiers easier, armor reduced to 1,5, vet 2 bonuses repair speed replaced by +0,5 armor and /or 20% less damage from explosives (due to slower speed penalty)

When anvil chosen the minesweepers becomes mutually exclusive with heavy engineer but increases repair speed as Heavy E. currently does.

So ones can have both the repair bonuses and fighting abilities but not in the same unit...

Churchill

No need to further nerf this unit. Imo the issues from the units come mostly from little out time this unit has due to high repair time as explained in heavy engineer section and from its abilities.

The grenade is extremely powerful and should become a vet 1 ability.

Smoke is rather useless for infantries since they will still get pinned from HMGs, instead it work fine a cover mechanism for Churchill...
Imo it should be redesigned. My suggestion churchill smoke does not block vision instead work a bit like the commando smoke providing light cover (or light cover affect without the bonuses) so that following infantries can use their cover bonuses and provided immunity to suppression. With these changes smoke will beneficial to infantry and not the actual tank.

War speed bonuses. All Churchills can receive war (anvil ones from allies hammer engineers) churchills should either not be allowed to have War speed bonuses or should have smaller bonuses similar to axis heavy tanks...

My opinion Ostheer changes Changes:

Jaeger Light Infantry Upgrade

G43 should have its 35 range DPS increased abit so it is not such massive a downgrade for grenadiers and its DPS improved for P.G. (similarly to Thompson and PPsh)

Alternatively it could be completely removed from P.G. and given to pioneers (mutely exclusive with flamers ), this would allow new strategies and openings for Ostheer.

Yet another option PG cost 280 start with 2 ST 44 2 K98 and can either upgrade with 2 ST44 2 G43 (doctrinal) or 2 Shecks.

Osttruppen Reserves

Reduce cost as most units when buying in bulk or increase chance for weapon upgrades (maybe replacing lmg42 with DP-28), to counter weight the loss of XP.

Increase reinforcement time for Osttruppen (as I have explained in another thread cost and reinforcement time should not linear related).


Elite Troops/Stormtroopers

The only thing that make stormtroopers worth it is currently the ability to allow the use of "close the pocket" commander ability. There is little point in using them since gren and PG with camo are more cost efficient. They should be looked at before this change takes place.

My suggestions:
Allow unit to be build-able from HQ for normal cost (as any other spawn building unit).

Starting weapons include 2 ST44 one being replaced by shreck if that upgrade is chosen, reduce ST44 upgrade cost to 50. This unit gets some DPS when spawning and has a DPS more suited for a 270 unit, even the lower cost Partisan outperform this unit when it comes to shock affect...,keep the unit viable with a shreck upgrade with 1 ST44 and 2 Kar98.

Armor detection vehicle ability becomes vet 1 ability and free. Either always on similar to AT tommies or with duration and cooldown.

Some sort ambush attack bonus (damage or stun) maybe as vet ability similar to other elite infantries like commandos.

Replace the gren with Stormtroopers in 250 call in. this will add some utility to 250 call in giving access to something that else is not available to the doctrine.