Fall Balance Preview

I disagree having used and especially fought the new kubel. Its essentially worthless in combat (though i haven't used brits to face it, I doubt they would suffer uniquely) vs anything but builder squads in the open. I wouldn't sacrifice a considerable amount of presence for marginal cap speed advantage that quickly vanishes once the enemy squadcount overwhelms your own.

Definitely something that would benefit from more testing, for sure.

2vs2: me brit. I had IS, wickers, UC. I was not able to kill the kübel. He drives back , has his sturmpio to repair and vs my UC he can have a fast raktenwerfer. And then i have 1 unit less.

Kübel spam works great in livepatch and are too strong. I really like it how the kübel is now.

I mean don't forget you can cap faster+ still can kill 1-2 model from a good squad and then you drive back.

Also if 1 Unit is in cover. You can attack with kübel and stumpio together in early. So will allies attack the kübel or the stumpio? The kübel can kick you out of cover.

But yes you have to mirco the kübel now more i agree.

Now that I think about it...Why not just delete Soviets from the game?

Lend Lease has become useless now since T34/76 are much more cost efficient than M4C Shermans. Who will ever get a M4C now? Dshk nerfed.

Conscripts are still useless. Maxims are somewhat ok but still worse than MG42.

IS2, KV2 not buffed despite being being useless ressource sinks for months now.

No other significant buffs.

RIP Soviet faction

It´s amazing how much this "balance-team" hates soviets. It´s been going on for a while now. First Penals stripped of FT, then Maxim made useless, then DSHK and Penal nerf and M4C tied to T4. What´s next??

Are you guys just stupidly glaring over the patch notes? Play the mod, then post replays, then give feedback.

I dont understand why Bulldozer was buffed? Makes no sense. According to this patch preview it is because you need Major for it or pay a higher price but this applies to every call in tank now. So what´s the point?

Furthermore, it was/is already good in live, GCS showed that.

Alright. So, I expect to see a replay from you two where Major was teched (before either M10 or a Bulldozer is fielded, btw), Bulldozer hit vet2, and that the Bulldozer was actually worth the manpower and fuel needed to field it (which is equal to the Brummbar, by the way).

Even the shittiest tanks in the game (e.g., KV1, which also costs the same as a Brummbar, btw) can become amazing if you could get them by completely skipping teching costs and getting 2 free squads in the process.

Can you imagine tech-free Anvil Churchills for instance? Those would break the game.

The technique was used by 88 flak crew in WW II often. There are even reference in "Band of bother" series (that comes from the experiences of USF paratroopers)during the Baston encirclement.

Yeah because when you're face down in a foxhole, you are really able to accurately gauge the timers on artillery shells.

Alright. So, I expect to see a replay from you two where Major was teched (before either M10 or a Bulldozer is fielded, btw), Bulldozer hit vet2, and that the Bulldozer was actually worth the manpower and fuel needed to field it (which is equal to the Brummbar, by the way).

Even the shittiest tanks in the game can become amazing if you could get them by completely skipping teching costs and getting 2 free squads in the process.

Can you imagine tech-free Anvil Churchills for instance? Those would break the game.

why you requires a replay from those guys but not for others in this thread??? you don´t have arguments and have to choose this response asking for replays??? lol

why then you don´t provide replays to support any and all of your changes in the two patches you are involved????



and now, they ask reasons why you buffed dozer and you anwser about why you tied dozer call-in to tech.....lol again.

Modders want feedback from players, they don't have to provide replays AND mod the game, AND get acknowledgement from the community, AND defend their balance changes in lengthy discussions, aruging with people whose replies contain more mention of the term "lol" than any logic or sense. Stop lazying and pointing fingers at others, and get some games and replays going. If you disagree with a change, just show off in a game why this is the case. Plenty of lobbies out there, if not, ask in the shoutbox.

Modders want feedback from players, they don't have to provide replays AND mod the game, AND get acknowledgement from the community, AND defend their balance changes in lengthy discussions, with replies that contain more mention of the term "lol" than any logic or sense. Stop lazying and pointing fingers at others, and get some games and replays going. If you disagree with a change, just show off in a game why this is the case. Plenty of lobbies out there, if not, ask in the shoutbox.

yeah, nice defence, good work.....but,

1. They are not modders as others, they are in charge of the future of this game, that´s why other modders don´t get same feedback that those guys...you should know this.

2. I´m not arguing about wrong changes, but wrong behaviour of Mr. Smith. His last reply to those guys is a great example of this.

3. lol.

And they still provide YOU guys the opportunity to have your input on these changes. Don't waste it; the patch is not set in stone. Yet you guys overreact because some replies are not 'standard' to your tastes.

Play the mod, spam stugs, get the ostwind (which murders infantry now), and spam anything you want, try out the mod, get feedback, don't just suck it all in.

Alright. So, I expect to see a replay from you two where Major was teched (before either M10 or a Bulldozer is fielded, btw), Bulldozer hit vet2, and that the Bulldozer was actually worth the manpower and fuel needed to field it (which is equal to the Brummbar, by the way).

Before I go, i will get that replay for you.

Now we have that out of the way, why do I need to tech mayor? The point of the call-in is to by-pass tech and as such, you balance it around it.

If the bulldozer current buff is jusitfied because of the mayor tech making it cost equal to a brumbar, you need to tie it to that tech.

If the mayor is not accounted for in the justification, than the dozer is far cheaper to field than a brumbar (tech cost inculded, without mentioning the viability of ost t4).

Now on to some smaller questions:
Did the current dozer not perform well in GCS in your opinion?
Why does vet 2 matter? if i can get the cost out before that, it is enterily irrelevant to the subject at hand.
Lastly, do you want a replay of the live dozer (which i argued is fine) or the mod one?

You saw that Kübel survive now a mine

And 1 Kübel is still ok. You make caporder with it and cap your whole side very fast. So you can focus on other units.

Or you still use it in attack. On open ground it still working. Just not vs green cover anymore!

how is this guy a lead strategist kubel cant beat a squad in green cover in the live game mate.

really sucks tho, the repair changes never made it in and some of the changes for OKW. Alot of people need to stop moaning and go play the mod

Move stuka to T4 of OKW please. It make no sense for its arrival time and make no room for ally already late arrival team weapon play in team game.

I hate demos they are one wipe wondwrs that shouldnt be in game. You literaly start with -1 squad as a is if you look at it from long perspectivd because no matter how much you try you must get eithet 2 sweeper squads (less mp for fighting squads) or lose at least 1 squad to demos thorough whole match. Thats a poor desing, demos shouldntbe there, not in this demonstration.

Adding a tweak to demo's this patch would make my day complete!

the downside of smaller scale patches is that you have to plan ahead for how the future changes are gonna affect the small changes youre making now, because the game isnt a vacuum and everything is supposed to work together to balance everything. for example a faction can have weak infantry if they can make up for it another area, and this leads to asymetrical balance and imo more interesting dynamics. but if you just have a small patch that focuses around infantry balance, then the tendency is for infantry to become homogenized so that they are balanced when fighting each other without taking into account other factors because they are 'out of scope' or because they may not be as obvious. and as you say, smaller patches are ok if theres a higher frequency, but the reality seems to be that relic doesnt want to have frequent patches.

It's not possible to have high-frequency patches due to certain technicalities involved. At the same time, it's not necessary to have to wait 6 months before starting the new patch. This delay was uncharacteristically long due to a setback caused by Ardennes Assault breaking.

With respect to how to choose the scope. I think that we can have more interesting results if we are allowed to focus on one faction at a time, fixing the most pressing issues of that faction, and also addressing the immediate knock-on effects in other factions.

At the same time, the game is rife with an enormous backlog of broken stuff that will have to be addressed first before we can assess and reached a reasonable and non-biased conclusion. E.g., tying call-ins to teching is such an obvious change to include in the game. However, without it we don't have a clear indication about faction relative strength in the early-to-mid stages in the game.

Call-ins that allow people to skip tech allow factions to keep their foot on the pedal, apply pressure, and then apply the finishing blow with a call-in. For instance, Armor company enabled USF to stay afloat simply because they could get 2 free squads out of their teching, continue to apply pressure and still get their vehicles. Without Armour company meta, but with a purpose-fit Jackson USF players will have to make radical adjustments to their playstyles and that will help us better identify which parts of the faction to fix.

At the same point, with call-ins fixed, and some of the late-game wunderwaffe reigned in, I don't think that there is any other change that needs to happen across factions at the same time. e.g., we couldn't fix Call-ins just for one faction; that's because all factions were abusing the call-in system, and that would disrupt the equilibrium. Certain obvious fixes, such as repair speed normalization, can easily be fixed on a per-faction basis. The repair speed system is already completely broken; thus, even if we do incremental updates to it we are not in risk of breaking it even further.

So, hopefully, in some of the upcoming patches we will be allowed to focus on one faction at a time, fix the unit synergy for that faction and leave it at a level that it is no-more-broken vs other factions than it was before.

Before I go, i will get that replay for you.

Now we have that out of the way, why do I need to tech mayor? The point of the call-in is to by-pass tech and as such, you balance it around it.

If the bulldozer current buff is jusitfied because of the mayor tech making it cost equal to a brumbar, you need to tie it to that tech.

If the mayor is not accounted for in the justification, than the dozer is far cheaper to field than a brumbar (tech cost inculded, without mentioning the viability of ost t4).

The goal for this patch is to make call-in meta less dominant and/or disappear. The goal of this patch is not to lengthen the already long list of useless units in the game. We want the formerly-call-in units to remain viable; just not be call-ins anymore.

If you've teched Major, and you have the option to build a 110FU Sherman, a 80FU Scott or a 145FU live-version Dozer, would you ever seriously consider buying the live-version dozer?

Not a chance in hell. For 1v1 you would always get a Sherman that can also help you deal with tanks. That's because odds are that you probably skipped Lieutenant or Captain to get the Sherman in time, which means you are missing access to some team weapons. In 2v2+ you would most likely get a Scott; longer range; way more reliable, way faster and way cheaper.

Now on to some smaller questions:
Did the current dozer not perform well in GCS in your opinion?
Why does vet 2 matter? if i can get the cost out before that, it is enterily irrelevant to the subject at hand.
Lastly, do you want a replay of the live dozer (which i argued is fine) or the mod one?

The Bulldozer is an ultimate RNG cannon; it's way squisher and way more inaccurate than the Brummbar that costs the same.

The only reasons the Bulldozer performed the way it did was:
- USF gets 2 free squads while teching
- You don't have to pay Major teching costs
- You get access to both MGs and AT guns while teching both Lieutenant/Captain
- You still get access to the Bulldozer way faster than the enemy can get their tanks out, despite the fact that you got 2 free squads, access to MG and access to AT

Finally:
- Most of the buffs are about making Bulldozer vet actually meaningful (Vet2+)
- None of the GCS Bulldozers ever reached further than Vet1

Outside hardcore 1v1 call-in meta, you would never EVER buy a bulldozer (unless you want a troll unit).

I like the patch overall, but with the calliope overnerf(judging by the twitch video), it didn't look like worth the 130 or so fuel worth at all, because the barrage is too small for it to be any area denial tool and the recharge is too long for such small barrages, there's only 1 good commander left for usf which is armor doc now for team games

I had a quick game and tried out the Ostwind, it does murder infantry to effectively. More importantly, my AI expert had 5 M4C shermans at 6:30 minutes which...makes them challenging for once?

I yet to try the other factions and the tiger with blitz yet (cant wait for that).

the bulldozer is actually pretty good at the moment as long as you use attack ground to manually target where you want the shell to go. the main problem with the autoattack is that squads are usually moving around and the shell has a long flight time.

i also dont really understand why you want to "eliminate" call in doctrines that let you skip tech. thats the whole purpose of those doctrines, to give you an alternate way to play rather than always forcing you to tech the same way.

AA time fuses are very accurate because the need to be able to detonated at the altitude the planes are flying. So it does not have to howitzer gun.

The technique was used by 88 flak crew in WW II often. There are even reference in "Band of bother" series (that comes from the experiences of USF paratroopers)during the Baston encirclement.

not arguing the AA piece. i'm saying that direct fire weapons systems don't use time fuses. the concept of an Elefant having an airbust shell does not exist.

if this still doesn't make sense to you, let me know.

For teamgame purpose imho we need 3rd axis faction which must be somewhat defensive like brits with emplacements etc.