Miragefla's General Gamplay Suggestions and Balances Changes

So I've been thinking what could be changed in the game for all factions and general ideas that would apply to all factions but OKW given they're going to be completely changed next patch. Note these are my ideas so feel free to disagree with them, but don't turn this into a balance war or focus on a single subject not related to the suggestions found below. I'm looking more for feedback on if these sort of things were changed.

This is focused more on 1v1 and 2v2 game modes than the larger ones as that's where most of my experience is from and focus on non-doctrinal items/general gameplay. Do note I will only lightly cover OKW with one suggestion as they're being changed and the meta will be shaken to its very foundations when that happens.

General Changes

General-Purpose Mines vs Vehicles: Remove the chance to inflict heavy engine damage. These are cheap 30 munition general-purpose mines that also explode infantry, not dedicated AT mines. This critical should be exclusive to Riegals and M20 AT Mines. Should probably also remove the chance off the teller since it inflicts a lot of damage in addition to engine damage. Also makes the game more consistent rather than RNG utterly crippling a fresh tank for no reason.

Heavy Tank Rear Armour: Reduce the rear armour of all heavies.medium heavies. This includes Comets, Churchills, IS-2, Tigers, King Tigers and anything else with rear armour that matches a medium tank's frontal armour. This would make them more vulnerable to flanking attacks and make massed mediums more ideal against these targets as they would not be able to consistently penetrate the armour of these vehicles which should have an advantage when flanking. There should be minimal or zero chance of heavies deflecting rear armour shots from other mediums.

Weapon Crews and the 25% Received Accuracy: Maybe not for Soviets with their 6 man crews, but the original crews for all other factions should have this modifier removed. It's a leftover from when infantry did poorly against each other and could rush past each other. Would also make more incentives to keep the original crew as they're very vulnerable to anything shooting at them.

If we want to make team weapons vulnerable, make the 25% received accuracy apply to the entire squad like it was before all the stats were merged into the models.

Holding Facing Button for Mortars: Mortars should be allowed to auto-face their targets, but they should have no auto-face on hold-fire or when you don't want them to. Mortars get stuck in a long rotation animation when turning and it often gets them killed if you hit the retreat key a second to late if an enemy outside of their arc comes into their range. This would allow mortars to do what you want them to do and not lose control when mortars don't retreat when you order them to.

Allowing mortars to interrupt their rotation animation or break-down/set-up would also work.

Planes: Changes planes being shotdown from being a random deflection chance from AA weapon to giving them a dedicated health and armour pool, say 40 armour and 320-400 health. This would making downing planes more consistent where they can go down instantly or just not get shot down in general.

For the loiter planes, make them do a single pass where they fly over the area before they attack to also allow AA to have more counterplay, but allow loiter planes to pick their targets in the radius to allow players to decide what is attacked in the area. So no AT run attacking the scout car when you need it to take out the tank.

For single passes, not really sure what you can do, but they are a lot more dodgeable than the loiters.

Eastern Front Army Non-Doctrinal Repairs: Allow the Sweeper upgrade to improve the repairs on Pios and Combat Engineers as it's difficult to get these units to vet 2 where their repair bonus lies. Yes you can generally buy more of them, but these two factions get nothing to supplement their repairs like the Mechanized Truck, Upgraded Sturms, Anvil Sappers, Vehicle Crews, etc. You'd still need 2 of these units to perform efficient repairs, but it allows the combat ineffective sweepers be better in the support role without needing that vet.

Adding 0.5 to their base repair rate of 1.6 would be ideal.

Non-Timed Demo Charges: Regardless of what people say, I think the idea of one shot wiping squad weapons is dumb, especially when you can decide when to detonate it. Demos should have their profile made to be ideal against structure, but their one hitting AOE lessened to not act as super mines. Sweepers can't be everywhere and it punishes lone capping squads as much as it punishes blobbing. Make them cheaper to then compensate. If we really don't want them to be ideal against mobile units, add a short timer before it detonates like paratrooper demo charges. Heck, make the charges like paratrooper demos if we really want these to be used vs structures than anything on legs.

Abandoned: If it's going to remain, make abandon crits also cause a special main gun destroyed and destroyed engine critical that can only be restored once the vehicle reaches 100% health so an abandoned vehicle can't run away if recrewed.

Veterancy: Make veterancy gains spread through a unit's rank rather than the large boosts we have now. It makes earlier stages of veterancy more potent and we'd gain less giant power spikes when a unit hits Vet 2. Veteran 1 abilities for the EFA are another matter.

Soviets

Penals: Improve Penal mid-long range profiles to be similar to USF Riflemen or even better at range. Gives Penals a more distinct role other than being Cons with no utility aside from bunker-busting.

Also, I think their flamethrower should be changed to a package. Add 2-3 PPSH SMGs on top of the Flamethrower and move cost up to anywhere between 70-90 munitions to suit the role of short-range assault where the new SVT would not be ideal.

This changes Penals back to what they sort of were before the March Deployment, glasscannons where Conscripts serve the meatshield role and utility. Cost is undecided for the squad if they were to get these buffs.

SU-85 and SU-76: Change its stats to be more focused on destroying heavy armour, but less ideal against mediums which is covered by the SU-76. Increase penetration, accuracy to match other TDs, rate of fire lowered and veterancy is more about penetration and accuracy rather than rate of fire. I think it should also get an armour boost along with a cost increase to make it closer to the Jagdpanzer than being a soft vehicle like most Allied TDs.

SU-76 could then get a slight penetration nerf to keep it effective against medium armour , but less ideal very heavies, though it has the number advantage when compared to the SU-85 when attempting to attack heavies. Barrage could then be boosted to make it better as its lost some of its AT power or make its veterancy give more boosts to the barrage as well.

T-34/76: Boost up its machine guns to give it more consistent AI power to make it better at guarding the support weapons and SU-76 and/or SU-85 against incoming infantry well the main gun deals with soft vehicles.

Or

Give T-34/76 tanks a bonus when fighting near each other to make them a pack tank where they are weak alone, but very effective in groups. It'd be like USF Radio Net, but the bonuses would be more noticeable. Probably limited it up to 3 tanks in terms of stacking the bonuses.

Ostheer

Tech Costs of Ostheer T4: Reduce the cost of reaching T4. There are plenty of ways to do this that have been suggested such as making BP 2 more expensive, but the building of T3 and T4 cheaper. A general cost reduction to the T4 structure, etc, etc.

Why reduce the cost? Well, some say it's a luxury tier, but people need to know that's it's an expensive tech option that houses expensive units. Each unit produced aside from the werfer is above the cost of the the tech so you really can't spam them and some of the changes listed would boost Allied AT power to deal with heavy armour that can now be fielded sooner. T4 should be a viable option as all thing should be.

Brummbar: Reduce its costs. It's not worth 470mp and 160 fuel for a vehicle that has no heavy crush, no turret, poor mobility and rotation speed, unideal accuracy when not using attack ground. Sure it has good armour and above-average HP, but I don't think it should be that costly for what is an AI vehicle that can occasionally hurt armour. 400-420mp and 145-150 fuel would fit its price better.

Also, change its lines to use Ostheer medium tanks which actually refers to its as Stupa. This thing is clearly not a heavy panzer. The crew is so confused.

Panther:Boost the Ostheer Panther's moving accuracy to make it more inline as a mobile tank hunter. Misses are very punishing with this tank, but it also generally needs to keep moving to be used to be used effectively and is one of its major advantages.

251 Flame Track: Give this thing an armour boost when upgraded to make it more resilient and reduce its cost from 120 munitions to 90 munitions. It's worse than the Quad in almost every way except for its ability to drop DOT and its ability to instant-wipe garrisons which probably should be looked at. Yes the Quad comes later, but not that much later. Furthermore the 251 loses its reinforce, can't suppress, can't shoot down aircraft, and must close in compared to the Quad. It could do with being cheaper and more durable.

USF

Major and Major Tech: Make his barrage more effective or even make it free so he can act as the USF's pseudo artillery unit they lack and be an interesting take on it. Furthermore, I think the Major's fuel cost could go down to 100-110 from 120. Not a large reduction by any means, but it does allow USF to field tanks sooner.

Pack Howitzer: Increase its scatter. Even though it's losing its suppression, it's still armed with laser-guided warheads. In exchange, all the Pack Howitzer's barrages get an increase in the number of shells it can fire and maybe a reduction in barrage cooldowns. Standard HE and WP to 6 shells, HEAT to 4-5 shells per barrage. Veterancy changes as suggested above would also help this unit to get lower cooldowns throughout its vet.

Riflemen: Slight reduction on their Vet 3 survivability boost. Make it 13-15% rather than 20%.

57mm ATG: Slight boost to its base penetration stats to 140/125/115 to 150/140/130 which also affects AP rounds as that's a modifier applied to the base weapon

or

Improve AP rounds and make their duration longer

or radical idea

AP rounds is an ammo toggle where the gun will fire slower, but have as much penetration as Paks and better accuracy. It's rate of fire would be somewhere between the ZiS and Pak/6pdr. Regular fire against light armour and some mediums, AP for heavy armour.

This gives the USF some better AT options outside of the Jackson that is infantry-based. Bazookas are already getting better in the next patch with an accuracy boost which also helps USF AT needs.

Rear Echelon: If the balance previews says anything, I will say move their cost to 180 from their current 200 which is there. They don't have the sight like pioneers and their DPS still isn't that good outside of the shortest ranges until they get weapons.

.50cal: Boost its penetration from 3/2/1 to 4/3/2 to make it a sort of soft counter to very light armour at range, not point blank. Even the MG-42 has good penetration sitting at 2.2/1.8/1.4 base.

British:

25 Pounder, Sexton and Tommy Flares: Improve the AOE distances of the 25pdrs to be more effective against ground targets and allow 25pdrs to be preemptively faced rather than waiting for them to turn when called upon. Furthermore, increase the rate of fire for the 25pdrs. I think these guns should fire the quickest of the howitzer, but be the least deadly per shell.

The Sexton I'm adding here as well as it's a crappy 25pdrs on tracks, give it similar AOE changes and increased firing speed and probably increase the number of shells it fires. The Priest hits hard while the Sexton would fire a lot.

As for Tommy Flares, increase the range they can be tossed so it can be used on the attack or defense without being in the thick of it. All of these would help the British dislodge units without resorting to typical brute force.

Firefly Reduce reload from 10 to 8 seconds. Make Tulips cost less to fire to around 60-75 from 90 munitions and have the rockets deal 120-160 damage and maybe cause a blind critical. It'll still make the Firefly a burst tank destroyer, but it means it can't instant nuke medium tanks. If losing squads to 90 munitions is bad, so is losing a tank to 90 munitions after initial purchase is just as wrong, especially since tanks need to turn to rotate unlike infantry who can do it on a dime. Tulips recharge could possibly also be reduced.

17pdrs/Comet 77mm: Give them a projectile and edit the projectile speeds and attributes to match the fancy tracer they had before, done.

Tank Smoke, Grenade Toss and WP: Make them less buggy and work while moving if you have to. Reduce Comet smoke and WP range to its regular range.

Also, make British WP not kill as they can currently cause criticals unlike USF WP. And I mean the DoT, not the initial explosion.

17Pdr Emplacement: As I don't play Brits a lot, I'm not sure on the cost, but it could probably use a reduction give how easy it is to siege and unlike the Bofors or mortars, it's can't fire back. When was the last time did you see a 17pdr? Rather than making it more durable and unbearably difficult to kill, make it easier to set-up similar and afford. It's a big ATG that can't move.

OKW

Obersoldaten Veterancy 4: Make Vet 4 suppression an ability similar to USF M1919 Suppression where's it's an ability over a passive. Passive suppression on a mobile, durable unit is dumb. I say durable as Obers get a lot of received accuracy reductions over their vet and also dish out tons of pain at veterancy 2. Having them just blast things into suppression is over the top.

+1

No Ty.

All good points. I think a lot of the vet and vet abilities for soviets and Ost needs to be looked at as well.

So a timer when Goliath detonates right?

The High Velocity British shells are just useless with attack ground in smoke and routinely "hit" an enemy vehicle but somehow miss anyway. It's frustrating as heck.

I can generally agree. A few points:
-Prefer the Major's barrage's effectiveness being improved, also pretty sure free barrages could be a problem against OKW trucks, which is one of the only things it actually can hit and do lasting damage upon. Could be pretty cheesy.

-I'd prefer the accuracy of Pack Howi's staying but the AoE damage being reduced. It's pretty expensive, and so I think garrison/weapon team clearing with it should remain fairly reliable.

-I'm personally suspecting Rifle vet 3 would need to go down all the way to -10%, but that's just a silly "feel" I think about it.

-Dunno if the AP shell toggle you propose for 57mms won't work like you're hoping. ZiS-3s have like slightly less DPS that 57mms at max range against a 20-size target - 57mms going from that and bouncing a third of the time against mediums to always penning, being more accurate, and still firing faster than a ZiS-3 would easily be worth using against pretty much any TD/turreted tank save for Ostwinds and maybe StuGs, could even be worth it against StuGs too since the target size of it is 2 smaller than PIV and if the AP shells only give 0.05 more accuracy at max range, that's a 10% higher change to hit and StuGs'll have a 18% chance of bouncing normal 57mm shells at max range.

-Buff 45mm AT gun scaling and Stormtroopers' upgrade costs too please.

Abandoned: The tank should always be immobilized!

+1 good changes, fully support

Almost agree with you about everything. Good post!

No, thanks.

All of them are nice changes, though of course there is a lot more little issues to fix.

I'm doing a similar thread but rather separate it for each faction. More or less agreeing.

Well put. I only disagree with the flame HT buff. It is fairly good as is, I don't think it needs to be more durable. Cost reduction I can agree with though.

So a timer when Goliath detonates right?

Who knows. Depends on how the Goliath even works. For all we know, it could hit as hard as a rifle grenade and have KT movement speed.

I can generally agree. A few points:
-Prefer the Major's barrage's effectiveness being improved, also pretty sure free barrages could be a problem against OKW trucks, which is one of the only things it actually can hit and do lasting damage upon. Could be pretty cheesy.

-I'd prefer the accuracy of Pack Howi's staying but the AoE damage being reduced. It's pretty expensive, and so I think garrison/weapon team clearing with it should remain fairly reliable.

-Argument against radical 57mm ATG and its AP rounds

1. Even if the barrage was improved, it'd still generally be only ideal vs stationary/slow targets like weapon teams and OKW trucks and USF still lacks any real non-doctrinal indirect fire which the Major could fill. If we gave it a long cooldown that got better as he vetted, easy given how officers get shared xp, he'd be the USF's unique take on artillery. Also would mean the Major would be seen closer to the front and be more than a glorified retreat point. Do you want artillery for an assault or a retreat point? Range adjustments might be needed.

And any artillery is generally bad news for OKW trucks or British emplacements, but that's why you bump up the cooldown to give pios time to repair if it was free.

2. I guess that's another way of doing it, though I dislike how even at max range that the leig and pack howitzer can land shots right into the lap of opposing infantry and weapon teams.

3. Guess it could be too good. Might as well go back to finding why for the timed AP shells to be better unless it just becomes a ZiS 3 when using AP ammo.

Abandoned: The tank should always be immobilized!

Engine Destroyed is pretty much the same effect, though immobilize could also work.

Well put. I only disagree with the flame HT buff. It is fairly good as is, I don't think it needs to be more durable. Cost reduction I can agree with though.

I don't think an armour boost would make it too good against anything except the Quad which already rips the 251 apart and even with a boost, it would still be forced back. I'm not asking for Quad levels of armour, but maybe a boost from 9 armour to 12-15 so it's a little more bullet proof.

Yeah I can agree with like 95% of all of this they are great suggestions that would improve gameplay maybe a few slight adjustments here and there
I'd like to add that the Pershing should be able to survive just 1 more hit cause I think its a little too squishy
and regarding the flamethrower halftrack if your changes go through then I think its DPS should be reduced by 15-25% cause it has 2 flamethrowers

1. Even if the barrage was improved, it'd still generally be only ideal vs stationary/slow targets like weapon teams and OKW trucks and USF still lacks any real non-doctrinal indirect fire which the Major could fill. If we gave it a long cooldown that got better as he vetted, easy given how officers get shared xp, he'd be the USF's unique take on artillery. Also would mean the Major would be seen closer to the front and be more than a glorified retreat point. Do you want artillery for an assault or a retreat point? Range adjustments might be needed.

And any artillery is generally bad news for OKW trucks or British emplacements, but that's why you bump up the cooldown to give pios time to repair if it was free.

2. I guess that's another way of doing it, though I dislike how even at max range that the leig and pack howitzer can land shots right into the lap of opposing infantry and weapon teams.

3. Guess it could be too good. Might as well go back to finding why for the timed AP shells to be better unless it just becomes a ZiS 3 when using AP ammo.

Not if the barrage gets to land a lot faster (A factor I had in mind for "effectiveness")! Following your concept though, an option would be the barrage getting cheaper from vet to aid more usage as well. I still think the barrage now, as is, has a performance completely uninteresting (free but bad non-doctrinal indirect fire is still you know, bad indirect fire) that I'd rather see that bumped up even just a bit and then whatever else needs to be done to make the Major more than a glorified retreat point can still be done.

Well, the higher cost of those things still make them deserve some sort distinct advantage over mortars. Definitely could still use tweaks, but I'd think it'd be definitely strange for these higher cost indirects to be generally less threatening to static units than a simple mortar's saturation of rounds so I'd prefer the accuracy at least mostly stay.

Well, I still think the concept is worth considering, since AP shells for the 57mm don't have all that much decision-making right now anyway (if tank, then AP shells. Hope you have munitions. Don't get flanked!). I'm just trying to lay out what I figure the numbers would be if your words were followed pretty exactly. Nerfing the 57mm's vet 1 would definitely be necessary were it given the ability to have at least average pen at all times though, if we don't just increase the thing's price.