Teamgame dominant meta

It should. Walking Stuka however should receive a rework, tbh. The unit is OP in 4v4 but near-completely useless in 1v1.

What makes Walking Stuka so OP is the pinpoint accuracy. What makes it garbage is also its pinpoint accuracy (move 5 steps -> no damage taken).

We could maybe make it more even if:
- The barrage became more inaccurate but maybe did less damage
- (A nerfed version of) incendiary barrage was already available at Vet0 (that way MechHQ gets garrison clearing when ISG also receives changes)
- Cheaper but more fragile

This goes into OKW-rework and emplacement-rework territory, though.

Reduce the default range and remove the range buff from veterancy. The biggest problem is how it can wipe units with high precision behind the frontline. Reduce the range and it will become an actual interesting risk-reward choice.

It's more of an issue of teammates able to cover for USF's weakness of having no infantry-placed mines, especially in that doctrine. In 1v1, unless you go for Lieu you don't have any source of mines and have to make up for it by having to go Sherman+Jackson first before commiting to Callis. For Lieu+Cap builds the USF player will have no tanks whatsoever and are heavily reliant on RE zooks and AT guns, easily overrun by Axis infantry.

Good stuff, I agree with everything. And if you maybe change the howitzers so that they can't be destroyed by a single ability would be great, they should survive with a slither of health so they can be repaired and recrewed.

Also if you nerf the mortar pit you have to give the brits some replacement. I personally hope for a mobile mortar, but otherwise (for the sake of army diversity) buffing the base arty, so that it can act as a solid and powerful mortar replacement would be good. Maybe lower the damage and change the accuracy, so that it will land in a predictable circle independent from the range. Also, improve the time it takes to land and the recharge time, it shouldn't be much longer than the recharge of the pack Howie barrage and maybe shorten with vet. That way you could reliable force MGs to reposition without wiping stuff too much. Finally, a smoke barrage would be perfect, but that's maybe a bit too much.

If you want to fix TWP also fix Pak one.

Currently anything shot by Pak is ded, especially in teamgames

Emplacement/ISG rework

- Mortar pit/ISG auto-attack range needs to go down (to at most 80)
- Barrage recharge could happen faster for Mortar Pits
- ISGs need anti-garrison upgrade for sure
- Brace needs rework (at the very least, it should disable repairs while active)

ISG and Packhowitzers could get a vet0 ability to fire timed shells similiar to those of the USF mortar halftrack. - or incendiary.

Is there, by any means, any chance to switch the brit Mortar Pit with a mobile mortar?

you could use the US mortar model and give it the OST mortar stats (i think nobody would be against). then the mortar pit could be doctrinal in, let's say the Royal Artillery Doc.

That would lead to so much more dynamic gameplay...

My own personal taste would be remove emplacements altogether and rework them into trenches, etc.

However the following buzzwords are too sexy, and it would be -really- difficult to convince the powers that be to do that kind of rework:
- Asymmetric balance
- Non-linear tecnhing

Good stuff, I agree with everything. And if you maybe change the howitzers so that they can't be destroyed by a single ability would be great, they should survive with a slither of health so they can be repaired and recrewed.

Also if you nerf the mortar pit you have to give the brits some replacement. I personally hope for a mobile mortar, but otherwise (for the sake of army diversity) buffing the base arty, so that it can act as a solid and powerful mortar replacement would be good. Maybe lower the damage and change the accuracy, so that it will land in a predictable circle independent from the range. Also, improve the time it takes to land and the recharge time, it shouldn't be much longer than the recharge of the pack Howie barrage and maybe shorten with vet. That way you could reliable force MGs to reposition without wiping stuff too much. Finally, a smoke barrage would be perfect, but that's maybe a bit too much.

Buffing base arty is our original plan, due to asymmetric balance.

From my scratchpad:
Show Spoiler

ISG and Packhowitzers could get a vet0 ability to fire timed shells similiar to those of the USF mortar halftrack. - or incendiary.

Delayed fuse shells were actually our first idea for USF mortar Vet1. The reason we didn't proceed with that was because we found them out to be OP as fuck.

I'm making this post give a glimpse about how we (the balance team) feel teamgame dominant meta could be changed to be more fun and more diverse.

Part of the reason I'm making this post is to openly declare our intentions to the community and get some feedback.

Highest priority changes

Elefant/Jagdtiger

2-shots -> medium tank/TD dead

Damage needs to go down from 320 to 280 to:
- Prevent these tanks from wiping veterancy left and right
- Keep them relevant vs advanced mediums/heavies
- Reworked to keep remotely relevant for smaller modes (e.g., cheaper, barrage at vet0, etc)

First off: You say "our [the balance team] intentions". How.many people in the balance team care about larger team games?
I respect your input greatly however I feel like you should consider your own bias a bit here as you obviously dislike these units.

Second: you want feedback from the community regarding these issues. Could you add a poll and see what every thinks as opposed to just those who reply to posts? More feedback from the community eliminates the bias of single individuals ( myself included ).

Third: you say both the jagdtiger and elephant are over powered in team games.

I disagree and here's why:
They are purely AT units with zero anti infantry capabilities. All three allied factions have very reliable infantry with tools to deal heavy damage to vehicles including satchels, AT nades, gammon bombs, flares, piats, and zooks.

Other notably useful abilities against these heavy TDs include: mark target, IL2 bomb strike, AEC tread shot, smoke, tulip rockets, most off map artillery units (due to horrible mobility to dodge it), ISU AP rounds (really need to start being used again), calliope actually does good dmg to it and wipes repairing squads, RAM.

Have you considered units with high HP and armor which have huge survivability as is (namely the Churchill's and IS2s).

These are all tools the Allies can use if they are trying to counter these tanks many of which don't require vehicles.

The other option Allies can take is to negate the effectiveness of these vehicles. How? Invest in indirect fire which will wipe infantry and supporting weapons. These units are a huge investment and if the enemy plays their cards right, they can use tanks without ever having to fear these slow moving beasts that can't react to more mobile units.

One reason the axis need these unjts especially ostheer, is because without them they have an even harder time dealing withied tank destroyers which all out range the low health stug and less range panther. Plus they are far more mobile than the heavy TDs.

My final questions to OP are these:
-do the Allies have the tools necessary for taking out heavy TDs?

-must the Allies engage the TDs with TDs of there own or can they play around them on other parts of the map before deciding to attack them outright?

- what's the specific problem with these tank destroyers? Too much dmg? Too much range? Too.much health or armor?

-do you propose straight nerfs or simply changes (ex. Less dmg more ROF or less range but more LOS?).

-are heavy TDs still OP on maps like Lienne forest, Lorch Assault, Montargis Region, La Gleize, Essen Steelworks, ettelbruck station, and many other 2v2 and 3v3 maps? If something is only very effective in specific scenarios then I don't think it's fair to call it OP in general.

I hope you consider my arguments and find some common ground !
I'm open to discussion.

Teamgame balance? FeelsGoodMan

But on the topic:
(2v2 perspective)
Heavy TDs: In my eyes these units are fine, they're a huge investment that only work against armor and making them take 3 shots to kill a medium tank just doesn't make any sense, they're never used against medium tanks anyways, apart from Comets and Pershing.

JU87 Loiter: Removing the chance to cause crits should be fine, it's not that strong in 2v2 atleast since there's almost always some sort of anti air to deal with it

FireFly: Theres no issue with this vehicle, it's low rate of fire makes it so that you can easily kill it with StuGs etc, poor turret traverse makes it easily flankable. It's also slow so it can be dealt with hand held AT quite easily

Howitzers: The 600mp price tag is quite harsh in most cases, forcing you to save usually for a long time while you can't really produce any new units, let alone reinforce your squads especially when you really need the howitzer to be able to do anything, a price tag of around 350/75 should do the trick, making it be a hefty investment but not being too expensive.

Pak43: No real need for a cost change in my eyes, especially for OKW since they're manpower rich anyways, but ostheer is another story. No counters? For USF maybe, pack howitzer is your best bet but brits can deal with it with a mortar pit unless the Pak43 is build really far back in which case you don't even need to deal with it most of the times. And it's a teamgame anyways, there should be a counter for it in your teammates arsenal

Aura Effects: None of the aura effects should work with your teammate(s), just creates annoyingly strong combinations that make no sense.

Mark target: Should have a reduced effectiveness for teammates, maybe reduce the effectiveness to 25-50% so it can still be used to support your teammates.

as much as i hate to agree with many axis only players here, as an allied main player, i would have to agree most are just unneeded.

stuka dive bomb, calliope i agree.

can you also add command tanks aura affecting allies? it shouldn't
----

ele,jagd, crocs etc etc they are a problem of "critical massing" in teamgames.

when totally even game, getting ele, jagd, they are a huge investment and it does mean that your team can very much be lacking 2-3 tanks just because of that unit. What makes those two super heavies problem is when the axis side is winning and when you are winning, those purchases 'risk v. reward' calculation changes drastically to where risk becomes minimal and reward, exponential.

same with croc. same with brit emplacements.

the problem of critical mass if rooted in maps, maps maps. and yes i know it will probably never be fixed even half way but when, to me, a clear deeper issue causes the plague that is on 3v3+, i feel trying to bandage around this tumor is almost pointless.

I am not saying "its ded gaem, ded gaem mode, just let it die". but there is only so much bandages can do and at some point, it will do nothing, maybe even more harm than good. i feel we reached that point with the big team gamemodes.

but there are still big things to fix like one shot wipers, command aura, emplacements...

The first one has to do to bring balance to larger team-games is economy.
Everything else comes later.

If the economy is different the game will different in different modes and thus impossible to balance.

Resources and CP need to be adjusted across the game mod I one hopes to balanced games across the modes.

My suggestion for stuka dive bomb would be to make it less lethal vs infantry and very Lethal vs emplacements serving as a doctrinal counter to sim city.

I'm open to discussion.

No offense man, but you are obviously quite biased here - I suggest you start playing allies for a bit. You are already quite familiar with 3v3+ teamgames judging from your playercard so it shouldn't be too troublesome to get into the game.

Unfortunately the vast amount of people here argueing have never stood on the receiving side or play mainly 1v1 and 2v2 where HeavyTDs are either useless or significant weaker.

UKF base barrage that actually has no counter should be used to provide smoke and light damage or DOT damage than anything else.

UKF base barrage that actually has no counter should be used to provide smoke and light damage or DOT damage than anything else.

That's exactly what Mister Smith is suggesting. Damage of Sexton is really bad, so with his proposed changes it acts like a mortar, only you have to pay ammunition instead of manpower. Also, you can counter it, just move away, you have more than enough time, first IS needs to charge in, then the flare goes down, then another 5-10 sec before the shells are coming down. If you didn't move your units till then you deserve to loose them.

I do not want to deviate with this topic, but the danger of the artyfest in teamgames is due to the flares, laser scan, planes, because:

To throw any artillery always there is a previous recon either with flares, laser scan, planes. It is now very easy to see behind the enemy lines, 80MP and you have your rear visible to the enemy,
and with it creates a predisposition to artillery

Should be the recognition of units or own of that unit (as flare), in this way rewards the team that risks those units to obtain that reconnaissance of enemy units.

Following this, I would suggest move recons of commanders and give it to officers (pass recon).

In this way many slots that could be occupied by units or abilities would be released. Sov and Wehr has many overlap but other factions is very complicated rework commanders.

This of working commanders and I suppose it surpasses any scope of relic, but that I think a good idea or at least one should look for something close to him.

Why Am I not surprise to ready the same usual people agreeing on nerfing the Calliope cuz it wipes too much but not the Ele/JTiger cuz its a huge investment. Biais argumenation is still strong on this forum

Those units are overperforming in their area. Being fully dedicated to kill tank or infantry doesn't mean the unit is balanced.

@Mr.Smith, is it possible to forbid a unit to shot a unit in grey? I think what is mostly a problem with the JT and Elephant is that you can't even hit and run vs them because shooting at them or somewhere else make them shooting at you even out of sight.
Those units could simply be allowed to shoot at true sight so it would need a spotter to maximize their 85 range. Of course the player could still fire on the ground but that's a smart move and need to stay in the game.

I'm really concerned with the Calliope, I have played a lot of USF 2vs2 recently and I have to admit, after 15 minutes the only commander I could pick is this tactical support because I needed a Calliope. Not because it is OP, just because I couldn't do anything else to force off my opponent.
My last 2vs2 game as Ostheer gave me the same feeling, the USF guy (which was good) took the para doctrine and couldn't do shit with on the late game, he clearly needed an arty dealer to unlock the situation vs me and my partner.

Nerfing the Calliope is required but at the same time USF need an Arty dealer late game. I'm afraid that nerfing it would make the USF faction completely helpless on teamgame.

Do you think moving the Priest stock would be possible? it could be nerfed a bit, disabling the crew option, it could also requires all officers to be bought before being unlocked. And that would make any other USF doctrine much more interesting.

As long as a particular strategy (or commander) completely trashes all late-tech options of a particular faction, this is an abusive strategy and needs to be corrected.

Call-in meta does that indirectly in 1v1, as it completely prevents players from even investing resources in teching up. Call-in meta is abusive and, sooner or later, is going to be corrected.

Heavy-TDs do exactly the same for USF and Soviets. OK, Soviets can build Katyshas, so they are not completely useless.

USF is completely fucked, however as, by the time of heavy TDs, there's also King Tigers and Brummbars around, which also hardcounter their infantry. This forces USF players to almost always go for an artillery doctrine. This leads to stale meta.

Due to the choice of late-game options for Soviets/USF, there is absolutely no amount of changes we can do to either faction to overcome this difficulty, unless we start adding bullshit.

Third: you say both the jagdtiger and elephant are over powered in team games.

I disagree and here's why:
They are purely AT units with zero anti infantry capabilities. All three allied factions have very reliable infantry with tools to deal heavy damage to vehicles including satchels, AT nades, gammon bombs, flares, piats, and zooks.

That's why both units will be given either a cost decrease and/or some anti-infantry capabilities.

Sure, if you always play Brits (because, fuck Soviets/USF) and you always go Hammer (because, fuck Anvil), then, yes. Perhaps you have the right tools to play keep-up with Super-TDs (not 100% sure after Hammer nerfs, though).

So, I'm curious. When you play as Soviets or USF, and you encounter either the Elefant or the JT in 4v4, and somebody else in the team has fielded either a Brummbar or a King Tiger, how do you counter that?

If your only answer is "oh, I don't have to deal with that, because I pick doctrine X", then this proves my point.

If the only counter-pick to a strategy is forcing a particular commander choice, then you have a self-reinforcing dominant meta.

I have nothing against you, if you are OK with using Jaeger Armor Commander, day-in, day-out. However, what's not OK is to expect it's OK to limit other people's choices when they have to face Jaeger Armor.

I do not want to deviate with this topic, but the danger of the artyfest in teamgames is due to the flares, laser scan, planes, because:

Infrared halftrack doesn't belong to non-doc OKW because it is so situational. A better idea would be to move it to the Overwatch commander (and merge the passive abilities), or swap it with the Goliath.

Nerfing the Calliope is required but at the same time USF need an Arty dealer late game. I'm afraid that nerfing it would make the USF faction completely helpless on teamgame.

Do you think moving the Priest stock would be possible? it could be nerfed a bit, disabling the crew option, it could also requires all officers to be bought before being unlocked. And that would make any other USF doctrine much more interesting.

USF have pack howitzer, the M8 scott and the Major for that role. USF late-game is its own can of worms, and needs to be fixed in relation to 1v1.

Nerfing Elefant/JT means that the only non-doc scout unit of USF (M20) will no longer get oneshot. This already means that there's something that can provide vision for the delicate Jacksons.

Even though that won't solve all problems, that could be a start.

Added some emplacement ideas.

Mortar Pit needs nerfs (coupled with ISG nerfs). That's because Mortar Pits force OST/OKW to always go LeFH leading to stale meta.

The idea here is that 25-pounder flares will have to see some buff at some point to provide long-range indirect fire support. This will allow Brits to have a counter to Pak43 paving the way for Pak43 buffs.

17 pounder definitely needs help, but not before we've figured out what to do with Brace. e.g.,:
- Popcap decrease
- Target size decrease (from 40 to 18?)
- Piercing shot trades places with Flares as garrison bonus/Vet1 bonus

you are speaking a lot about what you would like to do but did you get any authorization from relic to keep balancing their game ?

just asking because i still remember last patch scope when they removed like 1/3 of it.

Mostly agree with Heavy_Gamer.

The only thing that needs immediate fix is brace/mortar pit. I'd agree that Demo's are also a pretty lame mechanic that should be fixed.

You can't nerf Stuka DB without also nerfing the allied equivalents.

Cant nerf Ele or JT without nerfing T34/85 and Mark Target.

Calli and ST can both be dealt with, both are powerful but don't need to be messed with. Especially st considering the rest of the doc is trash.

Sure, fix repair rate inconsistencies, but honestly most of these definitely seem to be a personal opinion.

If stuka dive is OK but demos are bad its something wrong with u mate, pure bias i guess

JT and ele are too strong in 4vs4 mode and there's nothing to discuss here

No offense man, but you are obviously quite biased here - I suggest you start playing allies for a bit. You are already quite familiar with 3v3+ teamgames judging from your playercard so it shouldn't be too troublesome to get into the game.

Unfortunately the vast amount of people here argueing have never stood on the receiving side or play mainly 1v1 and 2v2 where HeavyTDs are either useless or significant weaker.

The playcard only shows your top ranked team faction and mode. I play Allies as much as I play axis dude