FBP Update v1.2

If you want we can discuss this more in the jackson thread. But not here!

Man dont waste your time, I mean, look at this....

This guy just plays OKW 24/7, lmao he isnt even attempting to play any other faction in order to be able to look at this topic from different directions. Almost 3500 OKW games, and 70 allies games in 2v2 (and still stuck at top 100+ lol)

Not fixing the Ostheer Panther or Ostheer Tier 4 in general because it's out of scope is a silly argument.

Then adjust the scope... multiple people are complaining about the cost efficiency of that unit/ tier in this very thread.

If the developers trust communtiy members with their patches they will also consider your advice. This scope "argument" is a very lazy excuse for not doing anything with the Panther. The effect is Tier 3 meta and no viability of Ostheer lategame. Thus a decline in choices and quality of the game.

You can of course keep the status quo and not fix the game completely... that would be the worse option with the according consequences.

While it is pretty clear the Ost Panther needs help, it is a low priority since it has such painful impacts on team games.

It needs a little more to bring it in line with the cost/tech but apparently that is not going to happen. We don't set the scope Relic does. So for the moment please focus on units we can change.

This is not me saying that the Panther should not be in scope, only that it isn't so we need to move on.

Wow, never thought it will be fixed changed because relic ignored this for years.

So wait, does this affect putting a tm-35 on top of a demo? So the demo won't do increased damage anymore when combined with the other mine?

I never thought it much of a balance problem, you're sinking 120 muni into one spot, and plus the combo doesn't oneshot a p4, barely leaves it alive, you still would need some real AT to finish it off.

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Soviet howitzer (ML20) didn't need AOE buffs
It was already good when you could get it, just that you weren't normally in a position to do so because of manpower costs. Perhaps a new meta might emerge if unchanged. Teamgames will likely be even more heavily affected than 1s.

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  Patch game, Arty fest.

  by: Finndeed map: Kholodny Ferma

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^wherein a single ML20 outduels two LEFHs with a little bit of vet.

Luchs meta vs soviets is even stronger now that you can push right past penals without upgrade. Makes T1-T2 builds easy to run rings around.

Tbh I think the ML-20 is fine and could have used a buff, it's still not really relevant in 1v1 and in teamgames is easily countered with offmaps like any other howitzer. The only time I see howitzers do work is in automatch where teammates are not as coordinated so maybe none of them will get a commander with recon, protecting my howitzer, or sometimes they just completely ignore your howitzer/don't realise it's firing on them. Otherwise you can expect it to be annilihated easily, either with Recon+Stuka/any decent offmap. Assault Artillery also often kills it without even requiring sight, just click on the sector the howitzer is in and pray for RNG to destroy it.

Also I agree that playing as Soviet against Luchs can be painful. In vanilla, Soviet AT was balanced around not having to deal with light tanks, only they had the t-70 which is part of why Grens get faust without having to pay a separate tech cost. The sheer amount of automatics OKW has means going for a Con-centered build to have access to AT nades can screw you over in other ways, Cons just can't stand up to Volks at all once they get their STG's rolling, whether at long, mid, or short range.

Mortar Pit Report:

The Mortar Pit is quite viable in 1v1 due to reduced Mp cost, however range is still astoundingly massive. You can cover pretty much an entire 1v1 map if you put it anywhere near the center (e.g. Langres, Kholodny, Glider)

It is reliably countered by infantry with automatic weapons, which is great. Some of the strongest are Sturmpioneers, Panzergrenadiers, Fallschirmjagers, Assault Grenadiers. Grenades and even anti-tank abilities (Panzerfaust, AT grenade) are quite effective too.

Howitzers (leFH) still reliably counter them, however all other artillery do not. Panzerwerfer and Stuka zu Fuss are quite useless against it, as are G.W. 34s and leIG 18s. AT guns (Pak 40, Raketen) and Tank Destroyers (StuG III G all the way through Jadgtiger) are also quite useless.

However, there is one type of weapon that should hard-counter it, yet does not. Flamethrowers are woefully ineffective against it, despite the Mortar Pit being a building. Pioneer and Sturmpioneer Flamers are incredibly useless, and even the Flammpanzer 38(t) Hetzer and Sdkfz. 251/16 Flammpanzerwagen with their vehicle-mounted flamers (with damage-over-time) are absolutely worthless.

TL;DR, my main concerns are:
- Massive range is worrying
- Flamers are utterly useless

Suggestions:
Is it possible to increase the hitbox size to 3 or 5? First off, it will be easier to target with infantry, increases vulnerability to indirect fire (what should counter static play), while still being small enough to avoid being sniped by units like AT guns and Tank Destroyers.

Also, the increased hitbox size should solve the problem of flamers being utterly useless against them. Flamers have 1.0 accuracy, but they also have scatter and a 0.5 accuracy multiplier against emplacements.

With the sticky satchel removed from regular penals soviet T1 is no longer a viable option versus OKW.

If you upgrade a penal squad with PTRS you loose to the horde of STG volks (Even in live version where you are not forced to upgrade penals with PTRS it's almost impossible to contain volks without dshk)

If you don't upgrade at least 2 penals with PTRS you loose to luchs spam.

Not to mention that when your first T70 came out there is already a luchs and a puma on the field.

Also I am convinced that penals squad are not fit to endorse the role of AT squad, they are really too squishy and die like flies.

Mortar Pit Report:

Cheers for taking the time for testing this to us! I hope the adjustments to AA make those platforms feel ok now?

The Mortar Pit is quite viable in 1v1 due to reduced Mp cost, however range is still astoundingly massive. You can cover pretty much an entire 1v1 map if you put it anywhere near the center (e.g. Langres, Kholodny, Glider)

It's true that you can harass pretty remote points with barrage. However, the whole point for this is that the enemy has all the opportunity in the world to side-step the barrage area. After doing that, the enemy is safe from your mortar pit fro 40-60 seconds (depending on the upgrade).

If necessary, we can leave the recharge time for the mortars to 60 seconds, and let the pit mostly operate on smoke barrage for support.

It is reliably countered by infantry with automatic weapons, which is great. Some of the strongest are Sturmpioneers, Panzergrenadiers, Fallschirmjagers, Assault Grenadiers. Grenades and even anti-tank abilities (Panzerfaust, AT grenade) are quite effective too.

That's good; just remember that you need to aim grenades dead-center, due to the new hitbox. LMG grens should also be doing a number on them.

Howitzers (leFH) still reliably counter them, however all other artillery do not. Panzerwerfer and Stuka zu Fuss are quite useless against it, as are G.W. 34s and leIG 18s. AT guns (Pak 40, Raketen) and Tank Destroyers (StuG III G all the way through Jadgtiger) are also quite useless.

Howitzers apply a fixed amount of bonus damage to emplacements, even if they barely touch them. Since we can't touch sim-city stuff, I think it's ok for howitzers to be a safe pair of hands to wipe sim city off the floor, for now. However, if we were allowed to do a proper rebalance of all emplacements, that bonus damage would be have been snapped off.

Indirect fire is meant to be inefficient and unreliable vs mortar pits. That's because we want to desgin around the retardedness of artillery-spam which the current design promotes. Nevertheless, if we reduce the HP of the pit sufficiently, indirect fire could remain some sort of a soft-counter.

Do note that due to the decreased hitbox size, it will now pay off to get line of sight on the mortar pit (for fog of war) and move your indirect fire closer to be more accurate. In the live version, you could barrage mortar pits from max range like it was nobody's business.

Tank destroyers and AT guns are meant to be completely useless.

However, there is one type of weapon that should hard-counter it, yet does not. Flamethrowers are woefully ineffective against it, despite the Mortar Pit being a building. Pioneer and Sturmpioneer Flamers are incredibly useless, and even the Flammpanzer 38(t) Hetzer and Sdkfz. 251/16 Flammpanzerwagen with their vehicle-mounted flamers (with damage-over-time) are absolutely worthless.

Target tables, yaaaaay! Before you mentioned that, I had absolutely no idea that an accuracy modifier vs emplacements existed (all I knew was that a lot of flamer weapons were dealing additional damage vs them).

I'll have a look at the flamer weapons and see to that their accuracy and dot size are big enough to threaten the pits.

TL;DR, my main concerns are:
- Massive range is worrying
- Flamers are utterly useless

Suggestions:
Is it possible to increase the hitbox size to 3 or 5? First off, it will be easier to target with infantry, increases vulnerability to indirect fire (what should counter static play), while still being small enough to avoid being sniped by units like AT guns and Tank Destroyers.

If the pit is too durable to all kinds of threats, then it's good news. We can trivially fix this by reducing the raw amount of HP. The fun begins when we make the pit becomes uneven to different kinds of threats.

I haven't tested the pits enough. However, my original impressions are that even without brace, the pit seems too durable. (the only reason the pit might require brace now is fallschirmjagers and lava nades, tbh).

Now, hitbox size and target size are two completely different parameters.

Target size is what balistic weapons use in their calculations to attack. Ideally, the values should stay within 0.8 and 1.2. Anything higher than target size of 2 and bolt actions become completely obsolete, whereas short-range automatics will start sniping the pit from max range, which is less than ideal.

Hitbox size is what affects the size of the mortar pit and determines vulnerability to AoE. We can't change it at will, and can only reuse hitboxes from other entities (in this case, we had to use the TM-35 mine, as it's the only entity that seemed to be able to get overshot by AT guns).

While it is pretty clear the Ost Panther needs help, it is a low priority since it has such painful impacts on team games.

It needs a little more to bring it in line with the cost/tech but apparently that is not going to happen. We don't set the scope Relic does. So for the moment please focus on units we can change.

This is not me saying that the Panther should not be in scope, only that it isn't so we need to move on.

The fact that is not in scope is really strange since according to patch notes:

"The prioritized scope for the team game related balance changes has been focused around Tank Destroyers & On-Map Artillery."

and Panther is actually a TD. In addition since Tds are rebalanced the SU-76 and Su-85 should also be in scope.

Read again : It's low priority. They won't change their priorities and unit focus because you argue schematics and the way things are worded in the patch notes. There's other important things than the su76.

Tbh I think the ML-20 is fine and could have used a buff, it's still not really relevant in 1v1

It used not to be relevant in 1v1 and not very much in teamgames, much like prebuff penals, dushkas, etc. Those units turned out to be a problem as everyone knows. Overbuffing would be undesirable, probably even moreso than underbuffing.

and in teamgames is easily countered with offmaps like any other howitzer.

Playing commander roulette where if you don't have an offmap you lose vs howitzer is not ideal. That's how it was when the B4 was too strong where jaeger armor was absolutely necessary. You should be rewarded for punishing a poor enemy doctrine loadout / pick but not to the extent that the old B4 and the new ML20 does.

The forward retreat point cooldowns are counterproductive and I hate them, especially the inability to toggle it off. Terrible, terrible idea. Please revert. I can live with the FRPs coming later, but not this cooldown BS.

Also, I'm going to suggest a new change that really needs to happen. The British Royal Artillery ability should require line of sight to work. I'm so sick and tired of endless flares and anvil arty on my medbay and howitzer that has literally zero counter. I cannot believe this hasn't be fixed in all the time the British have been out.

Cheers for taking the time for testing this to us! I hope the adjustments to AA make those platforms feel ok now?

The Ostwind, Flak Emplacement, M15A1 seem much more in line. Schwerer is practically useless as an AA tool. Centuar is better, but still a little underpowered from my perspective. However, the Soviet Quad is ludicrously effective, as are pintle-mounted DshK-38s (e.g. those found on IS-2s).

Perhaps 50% damage vs aircraft for the Quad, and for the DshK-38 25% damage?

USF's pintle M2HBs and WM/OKW's pintle MG42s are still completely useless as an AA tool.

Howitzers apply a fixed amount of bonus damage to emplacements, even if they barely touch them. Since we can't touch sim-city stuff, I think it's ok for howitzers to be a safe pair of hands to wipe sim city off the floor, for now. However, if we were allowed to do a proper rebalance of all emplacements, that bonus damage would be have been snapped off.

Indirect fire is meant to be inefficient and unreliable vs mortar pits. That's because we want to design around the retardedness of artillery-spam which the current design promotes. Nevertheless, if we reduce the HP of the pit sufficiently, indirect fire could remain some sort of a soft-counter.

I'd like to see indirect fire remain a soft counter to emplacements. After all, artillery can reliably damage each other on the battlefield (e.g. mortar duels), so I'd like to have the option of brute-forcing down a mortar pit with mortars and infantry support guns.

In FBP v1.2 the fight is extremely one-sided: the pit is so accurate that it reliably damages even Sdkfz. 250/7 Mortar HTs.

If the pit is too durable to all kinds of threats, then it's good news. We can trivially fix this by reducing the raw amount of HP. The fun begins when we make the pit becomes uneven to different kinds of threats.

I haven't tested the pits enough. However, my original impressions are that even without brace, the pit seems too durable. (the only reason the pit might require brace now is fallschirmjagers and lava nades, tbh).

Don't forget the Sdkfz. 250/7 Incendiary Mortar Shell and the mighty Goliath!

Yes, the Pit seems a little too strong. Based on its current durability, I'd like to see 500HP stock and 750HP advanced, then see how that goes and adjust from there.

Edit: Pit survivability seems okay now. Quite vulnerable to infantry flanks, especially when it has not yet been upgraded.

Now, hitbox size and target size are two completely different parameters.

Target size is what balistic weapons use in their calculations to attack. Ideally, the values should stay within 0.8 and 1.2. Anything higher than target size of 2 and bolt actions become completely obsolete, whereas short-range automatics will start sniping the pit from max range, which is less than ideal.

Hitbox size is what affects the size of the mortar pit and determines vulnerability to AoE. We can't change it at will, and can only reuse hitboxes from other entities (in this case, we had to use the TM-35 mine, as it's the only entity that seemed to be able to get overshot by AT guns).

I see why target size shouldn't be touched. Assault Grenadiers wiping Mortar Pits from 30m range would be very bad. However in my experience LMG42 Grens and even LMG34 Obers aren't too effective because the total DPS of the squad is rather low compared to squads completely armed with automatic weaponry (especially at range).


A few thoughts on other units that might need tweaking:

Kubelwagens are so useless as combat units that on most 1v1s I'd go 4 Volks every time instead. They might see use in team games with larger maps though.

If I could tweak Kubelwagens, I'd revert the unit to its original state (strong early-game combatant) but remove its capping ability, or lock it behind an ability akin to SOV Secure Mode (that also requires 3-5 seconds to toggle). This makes the Kubelwagen an early-game combatant, capable of causing decent MP bleed and help infantry win fights, but the OKW player sacrifices capping power (at least the ability to contest points and fight enemy infantry at the same time).

Alternately, because the FBP Kubelwagen is all about capping, increase the rate that it caps points even more (150% capping rate?). This would make it a very strong capping unit, and would also make it much more viable as a point-harrasing unit.

leIG 18s are much, much stronger against infantry. However, the HE barrage is a bit lackluster, and the Hollow Charge ability confounds me (its damage is negligable).

I would say their performance in FBP v1.2 might warrant a cost increase back to its original cost, and throw in a bigger HE barrage (perhaps 6 shells?) and/or a vehicle critical (blind sounds pretty good) for the Hollow Charge (increase cost accordingly too).

#makeleIGgreatagain

M36 Jacksons are strong, very, very strong. Reliably counters all Axis heavy armor, and wrecks mediums reliably as well (even at max range). The only units that reliably outgun it are heavies (Tiger I, Tiger II) and casemate TDs (Elefant, Jagdtiger, StuG III G, Jagdpanzer IV-70) provided they aren't flanked.

I think their performance in FBP v1.2 might warrant a cost increase to around 420MP 155FU (Firefly territory). Either that or reduce it's HP down to 560HP and make it a glass cannon again.

Imo you can't adjust the Jackson (a lategame unit) without adjusting the Wehr Panther (lategame unit of the weakest faction). The patch is deemed to fail thanks to the so called scope. I can't imagine that not at least a single person of the people responsible for the scope are reading this thread. The issue is well known.

The issue with the Soviet howitzer is the guaranteed payoff on base bombardment picking up retreating squads, moreso than actually targeting units on the map. It was always extremely effective at this but with the AOE increase and the ability to fit it into a composition with much greater ease due to cost changes it's even better now.

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  [FBP] Soviet T3+ Howitzers

  by: Strummingbird map: Faymonville Approach

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I'm not sure about the Mortar Pit - the way it's set up now, its probably even more untouchable when ahead due to higher HP and reduced vulnerability to AT weapons, but when playing from behind and fighting takes place near your base it basically cannot stay alive. I doubt this is a good thing.

Ostwind is not nearly as potent as it was in FBP1.0. Effectiveness is probably about right, but the Wehr faction has plenty of very strong anti-infantry tools and I suspect the Ostwind will not find a niche. I'd suggest a 10 fuel drop in price, perhaps with corresponding manpower reduction, to allow players to fit it into a T3 based composition more easily

If you'd like a replay to demonstrate the last two points I'll gladly upload.

As great as the ostwind is for killing infantry, it's kind of a trap for ostheer to invest its fuel in something that can't hurt enemy tanks. It's pretty much bait for USF, but can be effective against T1 heavy Soviets since Ostwinds can actually survive Soviet T3. (Note the same weakness of Soviets v Luchs.)

But the ostheer StuGs are, and still are, a crutch: meaning Ostheer can't really deviate from relying on them without collapsing.

I'm not sure about the Mortar Pit - the way it's set up now, its probably even more untouchable when ahead due to higher HP and reduced vulnerability to AT weapons, but when playing from behind and fighting takes place near your base it basically cannot stay alive. I doubt this is a good thing.

Ostwind is not nearly as potent as it was in FBP1.0. Effectiveness is probably about right, but the Wehr faction has plenty of very strong anti-infantry tools and I suspect the Ostwind will not find a niche. I'd suggest a 10 fuel drop in price, perhaps with corresponding manpower reduction, to allow players to fit it into a T3 based composition more easily

If you'd like a replay to demonstrate the last two points I'll gladly upload.

I think that'll always be an inherent problem with the mortar pit, since it's a static emplacement. It sounds like automatic weapons will melt it from close range though right?

The problem with ostwind is that it is that or a p4, which can fight tanks (which will be out at around the same time) and scales better with vet. It's like centaur for brits or sherman croc in coh1.