Relic Winter Balance Preview v1.4 Update

Reinforce cost lowered from 28 to 26
Grenade Assault munitions cost lowered from 45 to 30.
Grenade Assault aim-time and ready-aim time reduced by half to allow faster throwing.
Squad leader armour reduced from 1.5 to 1.
Medical kits removed.
Veterancy 1 now Grants -10% received accuracy and reduces recharge on sprint by 25%.

don't see how that would make them desirable at all late game, their muni cost or grenade ability was NEVER the problem. More that they are squishy as hell and barely win actually ill say they lose vs bar riflemen even in close combat so why invest in them? They are just popcap draining your manpower income past mid game.

don't see how that would make them desirable at all late game, their muni cost or grenade ability was NEVER the problem. More that they are squishy as hell and barely win actually ill say they lose vs bar riflemen even in close combat so why invest in them? They are just popcap draining your manpower income past mid game.

You want them on urban maps. With proper micro you can outplay riflemans/tomies with no problem (conscripts dont have chance agains them).
Ass grens are otions on some maps, to take early game advantage.

Remove PTRS from penals the changes and complicated system you implemented with it is absurd.
Leaving it at an AT satchel upgrade seems fine to me.

don't see how that would make them desirable at all late game, their muni cost or grenade ability was NEVER the problem. More that they are squishy as hell and barely win actually ill say they lose vs bar riflemen even in close combat so why invest in them? They are just popcap draining your manpower income past mid game.

We can't make assgrens super good because that will affext a powerhouse doctrine and only that doctrine. It's also the fact that they rush out at 0cp.

Regardless, judgong from your comment I fail to see how the changes don't improve assgrens scaling.

Lower mp cost and sprint allow you to close in ehile bleeding less.

Thr goal of assgrens is not to take lategame closerange allied infantry head on. It is to flank tean weapons and dispose of them.

Finally assgrens already cost only 5 popcap, which is the lowwst in the game for any infantry squad.

Remove PTRS from penals the changes and complicated system you implemented with it is absurd.
Leaving it at an AT satchel upgrade seems fine to me.

Can you elaboratw which part of the system you find too complicated?

You hit upgrade once, which costs 80 munitions and gets you 3 ptrs.
Do you also find pgrens confusing?

I didn't say it is confusing, it is complicating things for a design that should be simple : Penals = AI unit.
Sorry but all this story about percentage of hit chance, and damage depending on what type of vehicle you target and a possible 3rd PTRS you get once you upgrade to tier 4... this is just non sense.

There is no need for AT tools in Tier 1, simple as that, and even there is such need, at least add a viable option.

As Australian Magic and many others said, it's only making conscripts even worse than they already are, there is absolutely no reason to pick them other than time saving and a vehicle snare you need to upgrade to as well.

What I do find confusing is that they let somebody who has barely any 1v1 experience be in charge of balancing the game.

Hello, I have few QoL suggestions as well.

Can you change The Ping(alert) sound as well? It's very annoying sound, which triggers -some low tolerant threshold- people and making them flame.


It would be neat to have this: Paratroopers who acquired team weapons, can reinforce from beacon. Also does Beecon bonus works correctly?

That whole penal circlejerk is getting really absurd at this point.

Have you actually tried to leave penals as they are in live, and just remove from them flamer upgrade?

It is really clear that community is divided about your meddling with that squad. Why do you insist on putting the whole soviet T1 on its head with some potentially highly volitare changes, while a simple adjust might have been all that it takes? Why the fuck during the last year all I saw on that forum when somebody got flattened by overperforming Stuart, T-70 or SU AA truck , all I've read is "just build pak noob, l2p" now really, the Axis lights are nowhwere as flexible and deadly as Allied ones, but apperently, SU just needs a AT counter from get go.

You circlejerk about build variety for soviets all the time, If you would be fair in that point for all factions, you would at least consider opening the option for grens to get G43's without a doctrine choice.
It perplexes me how much time is wasted on this issue while other things remain unadressed, I wont be starting with pziv or panther, since i'll get the "out of scope" answer.



I find it pretty laughable that all it takes to nerf flame halftrack is a single rage post on forums, but when it comes to current sorry state of OST armour, nobody bats an eye. I remember the massive outcry about OKW volksblobs with shreks, but right now USF bazooka blobs are doing the very same thing, but apperently "this is fine".

You are losing the focus guys. No offence.


About QoL changes:

Would it be possible to add HP bar for deployed OKW trucks? sometimes I lost my schwer there because I was busy microing on the other side of the map, and I wasnt even aware it is getting pounded by force-attacking Tank destroyers/ AT guns.

Why do you insist on putting the whole soviet T1 on its head with some potentially highly volitare changes

But I agree with the post.

My Question:

Why do u think need sovjet one more unit with handheld AT?
they are really good vs armor....if u play vs a good sovjet player..u cant move ur light and medium tanks without a destroyed engine...t70, SU, and all the other tanks and hunters from sovjet...do the rest...

why do u think sthat such a great AI unit need AT?
cause then u need only spam one unit? is this your combine army argument??

zook and piats spam are the most metas in much games...why now a new spamable unit?

every sovjet play how decide to spam penal...must know that he will strugle vs armor...but every faction has this (except USF and UKF...their mainline infantery can deal with ervythink)

PTRS Penals lose at all ranges and all vet levels to PTRS Conscripts. Tric seems to have misunderstood your question about which one has more powerful AT.

Why don't you run the tests for yourself?

Also, why the hell should we care about preserving the viability of 1 single doctrine, if we can make multiple other doctrines viable?

ANd you think that PTRS on Penals will give more options?

Answer is: NO.

Why would I go for panic PTRS Penals if I can simply go for... Guards?

Plus, if Penals would have PTRS and PPSH upgrade, you kill right away tank hunter and all ppsh cons doctrines.

Penals don´t get any survablity bonuses like riflemen. Riflemen were too dorable with flamers. Penals are as dorable as 6 man enginner squad.

Also ppsh are best on the move, rifles at long range and flamer at medium while standing, so you get jack of all trades squad that fail its job at anything except at clearing garrisons. Its not like rifles with flamer and bar.

BTW also sturmpioneers with 3 STGs and beter recieved acc can get flamer and no one is crying about.

Also 5 men enginners can get flamer and BREN, no one is crying about. They are also full close range squad apart from current penals

Thanks for the answer Hector, i will test them more.

ANd you think that PTRS on Penals will give more options?

Answer is: NO.

Why would I go for panic PTRS Penals if I can simply go for... Guards?

You wouldn't. PTRS Penals are weaker than each of these options. Thus they won't negatively affect balance. (Except for AT satchel + button).

The strategic diversity comes from the fact that you can combine T1 with other doctrines which you would normally never consider. As a bonus, you could also upgrade PTRS to protect an early sniper. We are aware that shocks kind of suck, but given that shocks completely lack in the AT department, having a squad that provides just that would be a boon.

PS: Soviet sniper is the big winner of the stealth fixes

When firing from cloak for the first time, the Soviet sniper recloaks in 1.5 seconds, as opposed to 6 seconds for UKF/OST sniper. This was always the case. However, people would never notice this due to the re-stealth abuse.

Plus, if Penals would have PTRS and PPSH upgrade, you kill right away tank hunter and all ppsh cons doctrines.

PPSh Penals wouldn't kill PPSh Cons for the following reasons;
- PPSh Cons still have oorah
- PPSh Cons still have a better snare
- PPSh Cons still scale better than Flamer Penals (This is no joke; RA is more important than accuracy for units that try to close in)

Thus, unless we've done something wrong, Flamer Penals should be the inferior choice here. If they are the superior choice people need to let us know so that we can adjust their strength.

As for the reason why Penals have so many upgrades available to them, that also has to do with patch logistics, and has to do with the following:

I just wanted to note that I have yet to upgrade penals with PTRS in a match where my explicit goal wasn't "upgrade PTRS on penals and test it."

Every time I've been met with 222s or flak HTs I've just... Gone T2 for an AT gun, gone Guard Motor doc, or used conscripts. (Well not cons against the flak HT.) But still, as much as I love AT Satchels, behind a PTRS upgrade is not where it should be locked.

Ever since v1.0 Penals were found out to be a failure, we realised we need to give something back to them. Since we are not all-knowing and wanted to explore multiple options, we gave all of these options to see which ones (if any) could work.

Thus, without having to wait for the patch to update (every week), both the players and the balance team could try out different configurations.

Thus, as a result of Penals having access to this smörgåsbord of upgrades/options, we were able to address bugs and refine all 3 options: PPSh/Flamers, PTRS and AT satchel. We could do all of this within 2 weeks, as opposed to the 6+ weeks that swapping upgrades in/out would require.

I didn't say it is confusing, it is complicating things for a design that should be simple : Penals = AI unit.

PTRS Penals is an AT unit with crap AI.
No-upgrade Penals is an AI unit with no AT.

Panzerschreck PGrens is an AT unit with some hints of AI.
Unupgraded PGrens is an AI unit with no AT.

Why are Panzergrenadiers so straightforward, yet PTRS Penals is "confusing". Help us understand, and we will further improve the interface.

As it stands, there is no longer a 3rd PTRS option, etc, etc. That was WBPv1.3. Please install WBP and upgrade to WBPv1.4.

Yes, multi-layered PTRS upgrades were confusing, and that's why we fixed it. Now there's no 2xPTRS + 1xPTRS @ T4, etc. That was bad design.

In WBPv1.4 there is only one single upgrade. That's the 3xPTRS upgrade.

If you don't care about stats, you don't need to read stat-related things. That's for the people who have a clue about stats to help them provide better feedback. This was a preemptive FAQ to the "with 3 PTRS aren't light vehicles RIP, now?".

You could have just stopped reading at "Penals sacrifice 50% of their AI to get 3 PTRS".

There's 3 different versions of Mosins, and 4 different versions of PPSh in the game. Do you need to know the precise stats for each one of them to know what you should do with them?

That whole penal circlejerk is getting really absurd at this point.

Have you actually tried to leave penals as they are in live, and just remove from them flamer upgrade?

We already tried this in WBP1.0. Penals were so bad that they sucked and T1 became a high-risk, no-reward tier. If simply removing the flamer would have fixed Penals, we would have stopped bothering with tweaking them at v1.0, already.

The side-reason we bother about T1 so much is because want people to be able to play the game without facing Maxim-spam strats all the time.

It is really clear that community is divided about your meddling with that squad. Why do you insist on putting the whole soviet T1 on its head with some potentially highly volitare changes, while a simple adjust might have been all that it takes? Why the fuck during the last year all I saw on that forum when somebody got flattened by overperforming Stuart, T-70 or SU AA truck , all I've read is "just build pak noob, l2p" now really, the Axis lights are nowhwere as flexible and deadly as Allied ones, but apperently, SU just needs a AT counter from get go.

All factions, and all tiers now get appropriate counters for every single possible light vehicle. If you believe that any single vehicle/strat can shut down a particular opening tier, please let us know.

This is the first community-balance patch we do. We don't care about what notion of justice you happen to have for the past. We are here to make things right for the future.

All this weeks-long argument among the community (and potentially two more months of it) could've been avoided by making Penals a doctrinal unit.

Conscripts would work in their intended role of backbone Soviet infantry (similarly to Rifles for USF), while players would call in Shocks, Penals or Guards for specific roles depending on situation. Then we would only need to find a specific role for Penals that doesn't overlap with those of Shocks/Guards.

We already tried this in WBP1.0. Penals were so bad that they sucked and T1 became a high-risk, no-reward tier. If simply removing the flamer would have fixed Penals, we would have stopped bothering with tweaking them at v1.0, already.

The side-reason we bother about T1 so much is because want people to be able to play the game without facing Maxim-spam strats all the time.



All factions, and all tiers now get appropriate counters for every single possible light vehicle. If you believe that any single vehicle/strat can shut down a particular opening tier, please let us know.

This is the first community-balance patch we do. We don't care about what notion of justice you happen to have for the past. We are here to make things right for the future.

Thank you for the answer. I have over 800 h in multiplayer games over my belt, and even if I play mostly axis I tend to play other factions from time to time,(and soviets used to be my favourite amongst them)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but T1 in SU rooster was always a bet on agressive play with specialized, superior units, at the cost of limited access to AI. Can you explain why are have decided to change that? Isn't it a little bit too drastic?

Also, I you could adress my previous points, I would be great.

See below:

Build and Strategic Variety:

If you would be fair in that point for all factions, you would at least consider opening the option for grens to get G43's without a doctrine choice?

About QoL changes:

Would it be possible to add HP bar for deployed OKW trucks? sometimes I lost my schwer there because I was busy microing on the other side of the map, and I wasnt even aware it is getting pounded by force-attacking Tank destroyers/ AT guns.

Thank you for the answer. I have over 800 h in multiplayer games over my belt, and even if I play mostly axis I tend to play other factions from time to time,(and soviets used to be my favourite amongst them)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but T1 in SU rooster was always a bet on agressive play with specialized, superior units, at the cost of limited access to AI. Can you explain why are have decided to change that? Isn't it a little bit too drastic?

It might be drastic. That's why we also want to try an alternative design for Penals down the road.

If you would be fair in that point for all factions, you would at least consider opening the option for grens to get G43's without a doctrine choice?

This is definitely a good idea to consider. We hadn't thought about it. However, before we dig in to refine G43's anymore, we first want to clean up the mess that is UKF.

For instance, if we keep Tommies a long-range a-moving unit, we could tweak G43 grenadiers to be the aggressive answer to Tommies. If we find a more interesting solution for Tommies, then G43 could have a different role.

However, trying to fix too much, too early (G43) would only add too many constraints for us to respect.

Part of the reason we have been so apprehensive to make G43 PGrens too strong has to do with UKF. Another part of that has to do with the fact that 2 out of the 3 doctrines that have G43 rifles are already strong enough on their own. It's the other doctrines that need help.

Would it be possible to add HP bar for deployed OKW trucks? sometimes I lost my schwer there because I was busy microing on the other side of the map, and I wasnt even aware it is getting pounded by force-attacking Tank destroyers/ AT guns.

That would be a very good idea. I have to look up to see if it's possible though.

Even if Schwerer gets added as a UI shield, I think also adding MedHQ and MechHQ would be too much clutter.

Pls give grenadriers a 5. model, and lets make them less dmg pro model, to the lvl from a 4 model squad.

why 5. model?

-u must often run back after lose the first model...cause in many situation u get a wipe if u wait till next model die

- u cant pick up team weopans with 4 models in fight...the last will killed /// u have only 3 models...u can`t pick up the weopan ..cause u will lose ur squad



why not follow solution: if you build tier 4/5 your get the 5. model like UKF get a 5. model with tech??

Pls give grenadriers a 5. model, and lets make them less dmg pro model, to the lvl from a 4 model squad.

why 5. model?

-u must often run back after lose the first model...cause in many situation u get a wipe if u wait till next model die

- u cant pick up team weopans with 4 models in fight...the last will killed /// u have only 3 models...u can`t pick up the weopan ..cause u will lose ur squad



why not follow solution: if you build tier 4/5 your get the 5. model like UKF get a 5. model with tech??

Buy a 251 reinforcement halftrack and keep it safe. That will solve both of the issues you are raising.

Buy a 251 reinforcement halftrack and keep it safe. That will solve both of the issues you are raising.

ok...than why should sovjet gets penals with AT? send a 76mm gun with them or guards and all is fine.

same argument i guess.

Buy a 251 reinforcement halftrack and keep it safe. That will solve both of the issues you are raising.

in german we say: "Scherzkeks" to such argument.

If u give penals at posibilty u need now a pio with the grenadiers and the halftrack, for armor u need a stug or pak40...now u have a combine army...which do other faction with spam from one unit??

really?