December Balance Preview

>pak43 is easily destroyable...while a doc unit
>17punder is not easily destroyable and is nondoch unit

>AA eplacment from OKW is doc unit and REALLY REALLY easy destroyable/ decrewable
>bofors is a nondoc unit and heavily armed and heavy to destroy in early / midgame..


see what i want to say...?

pls dont cry

and why okw non doc heavy is stonger than pershing in doctrine ??

I've noticed sever

al abilities that were previously keyed to H are now on Q. Why? It's a little obnoxious and unnecessary.

You are going to get used to the new hotkeys for abilities in 2-3 days of playing, depending on how fast you pick things up.

If we bound hold fire to non-standard hotkeys, you would keep missclickimg it forever. That's because you probably wont use tank hunters every time, and also because all other infantry units have hold fire bound to H.

pls dont cry

and why okw non doc heavy is stonger than pershing in doctrine ??

KT is much expansiver, comes only if u spent a tone of ressources and has a other concept than the pershing which is fast, has fast reload, and is a hit and run unit...while the KT is slow, slow reload and is make for breakthrough or shot spoonge


while a pershing can operate alone effecitve, the KT is a victime without support

pls dont cry

and why okw non doc heavy is stonger than pershing in doctrine ??

Hmm...now lets compare the different strongness from KT vs Pershing..and bofors vs OKW AA emplacment.

a pershing can destroy a kt with little bit rng
a OKW AA cant win vs a bofors ....not 10 could win...and the performanche from both units are from different worlds...while pershing is not that weak which do you want to tell us here..

pls dont cry

and why okw non doc heavy is stonger than pershing in doctrine ??

Because the pershing isnt a heavy, its a Comet/Panther

and why okw non doc heavy is stonger than pershing in doctrine ??

A better question is, why Heavy Cavarly has both the Pershing and Rangers? Better tank options and better infantry options in the same doctrine, where is this headed - apart from being an OP PTW DLC?

The Rangers are really oddball choice there and they would fit in far better into a light infantry centered doctrine like Recon support while Heavy Cavarly armored doctrine would benefit from something more armor/combined arms-related, like M5 HT or M10 call ins.

pls dont cry

and why okw non doc heavy is stonger than pershing in doctrine ??

The real (non-moronic) question is why pershing, unlike tiger 2, has no teching requirement, why shoot like a stug and is faster than a jackson despite having no tech requirement, same armor as tiger, can throw free grenades at atg and infantry on top of being extremely cheap compared to other heavies ?

Why can double bar yoloblobber faction that was supposed to have such powerful stuff like compensation for armor weaknesses get an heavy as armored as ost heavy, which is doctrinal nontheless in a faction supposed to rely on armor...for some reason.

Why can sherman have as much penetration as panzer 4, be cheaper than panzer 4, have nondoc smoke deployable anywhere, have he shells and self repair for free if armor shouldn't be usf strenght ?

Why axis have no sniper of infantry with TD range like m8 motor carriage ?

Why can riflemen equip 2 lmg but grenadiers only 1 ?

Why can usf fill ALL holes in their roster but ost can't have a yolo "spam cuz most cost efficient-all ranges + smoke mainline, who cares about skill and correct placement" doctrinal ?

Why only usf has a nondoc offmap and a nondoc recon ?

Why usf can still popcap hack ?

Why aren't usf upgrades fixed, but any unit can pick any weapon, including elites ?

Why usf get the ONLY non doc officer ability,aka ON ME ?

Why only usf get nondoctrinal immobilized crit mine ?

Why only usf has a vehicle that can suppress on the move ?

Why usf hmg has no vet requirement for AP and can sprint and set up in no time ?

Really tired of snowflakes....

-tier locking upgrades for them is a nice concept
-concern regarding osttruppen balance not within osttruppen commander but from lightning war- reserve army spamming (though there is quite a lot of opportunity cost unless muni control is substantial - mass upgrading LMGs + nonstop reserve army precludes the use of stuka CAS). need closer games to see if this is an issue.
-opinion -try out different weapon packages rather than lmg42. lmg42 osttruppen are more or less grenadier v0.75 and fill the same niche. (6x?) mp40s would be far more interesting, less problematic balance-wise, and round out the ostheer complement more. If it doesn't clutter gameplay too much, mp40s could be unlocked at BP2 and LMG42 (or something else) at BP3.

I'm going to second the idea of an MP40 upgrade at BP2, simply because then the squad retains a somewhat unique identity. Give them some kind of Tactical Advance or Hit the Dirt or whatever ability fits best (maybe make it variable based on what weapons they have equipped, like how paratroopers work) at BP3 to compensate rather than simply giving them a different weapon choice and you'd have a unit that can actually scale into the late game on a clean and coherent theme without feeling cluttered or like there are redundant upgrades.

Another idea: Give them Merge at BP1. This would fit with them basically being Conscripts thematically (and I think even mechanically, if they still get the conscript half of the grens+cons bulletins), and tie into the "Osttruppen gain a new ability each battle phase" theme for scaling. It even fits on a historical level.

The real (non-moronic) question is why pershing, unlike tiger 2, has no teching requirement, why shoot like a stug and is faster than a jackson despite having no tech requirement, same armor as tiger, can throw free grenades at atg and infantry on top of being extremely cheap compared to other heavies ?

Why can double bar yoloblobber faction that was supposed to have such powerful stuff like compensation for armor weaknesses get an heavy as armored as ost heavy, which is doctrinal nontheless in a faction supposed to rely on armor...for some reason.

Why can sherman have as much penetration as panzer 4, be cheaper than panzer 4, have nondoc smoke deployable anywhere, have he shells and self repair for free if armor shouldn't be usf strenght ?

Why axis have no sniper of infantry with TD range like m8 motor carriage ?

Why can riflemen equip 2 lmg but grenadiers only 1 ?

Why can usf fill ALL holes in their roster but ost can't have a yolo "spam cuz most cost efficient-all ranges + smoke mainline, who cares about skill and correct placement" doctrinal ?

Why only usf has a nondoc offmap and a nondoc recon ?

Why usf can still popcap hack ?

Why aren't usf upgrades fixed, but any unit can pick any weapon, including elites ?

Why usf get the ONLY non doc officer ability,aka ON ME ?

Why only usf get nondoctrinal immobilized crit mine ?

Why only usf has a vehicle that can suppress on the move ?

Why usf hmg has no vet requirement for AP and can sprint and set up in no time ?

u dont know ? USF is op as hell, okw has no chance in 4v4 mode

A better question is, why Heavy Cavarly has both the Pershing and Rangers? Better tank options and better infantry options in the same doctrine, where is this headed - apart from being an OP PTW DLC?

The Rangers are really oddball choice there and they would fit in far better into a light infantry centered doctrine like Recon support while Heavy Cavarly armored doctrine would benefit from something more armor/combined arms-related, like M5 HT or M10 call ins.

orrr better question why okw has lefh and pak43 in one commander AND they still have akcess to KT hmm weird

i want pershing and priest in one doctrine pls

Hmm...now lets compare the different strongness from KT vs Pershing..and bofors vs OKW AA emplacment.

a pershing can destroy a kt with little bit rng
a OKW AA cant win vs a bofors ....not 10 could win...and the performanche from both units are from different worlds...while pershing is not that weak which do you want to tell us here..

dont bullshit pls
pershing is just comet on drags but no heavy tank that can 1vs1 with KT u mad ?

USF still blobs with double BARs very effectively but somehow it ain't a balance issue to be addressed, in fact, they just received an indirect buff to their infantry with faction-wide WA and RA Veterancy nerfs to OKW units, and even the poor MG 34 got hit by the nerf hammer.

Panther lost armor and firing on the move while the Jackson received a 33% durability buff with a DPS decrease a fire on the move accuracy that was ninja-buffed pretty much back to the same moving accuracy and DPS. It just deals less damage per shot, but shoots and penetrates more often. When does it sink in that a TD that is fast, has a fast turret does not deserve high moving accuracy AND 60 range to boot? It is entirely understandable with casemate TDs - they need to make the first shot and make that count. A TD that engages and disengages at will, and is largely uneffected by movingor flanking? Not so much.

At least the UKF issues were dealt with more or less. Brace is less overpowering, Sim Cities are less build-and-forget.

Some of the core balance issues remain however.

- medium armor is unviable because sniper TDs that still hit them with 88% hit probability at max range. At Vet 0.
- in connection arty fest behind TD wall meta
- penal meta still viable
- riflemen blobbing still very viable
- OST overhaul, including
-- Sdkfz 251 base variant being useless
-- OST's infantry scaling, or the lack of it
-- Panther in general. Now missing just the same, but more frequently.
-- OST still does not have a 60 range TD, that Panther could be (with veterancy for example)

dont bullshit pls
pershing is just comet on drags but no heavy tank that can 1vs1 with KT u mad ?

its not my fault when you cant sourround a faustet KT with a pershing...the kt wouldnt be able to deal 1 dmg to pershing..

its not my fault when you cant sourround a faustet KT with a pershing...the kt wouldnt be able to deal 1 dmg to pershing..

Thats a pretty specific scenario, speed/rotation are the big weaknesses of the KT and thats good.
Also if he fausts your KT and you dont have support for it then thats your own mistake.

Reasons why Pershing loses against OKW heavy tanks is simply because Pershing is effective against all targets (unlike Panther) and doesnt need teching. It is a little more expensive than a OKW Panther, but keep in mind that the Pershing is call-in, and thus requires no build-time.

Some general thoughts after today's test session:
- RE Volley Fire, ever since they were adjusted so that BAR and LMG REs didn't instasupress (which I agree on, because that was broken), has faded back into relative uselessness. I'd almost always save the munitions for a weapon upgrade that would actually turn the battle.
- Riflemen without Smoke Grenades is rather prohibitive. The M1 Mortar can successfully fulfill the role of the smoke dispenser in early game, when 90% of players don't tech grenades anyways, but later in the game the range of it limits the pushing power of USF. The M1 Pack Howitzer is probably the next unit capable of firing smoke, followed by the Scott and M4 Sherman, all locked behind Veterancy or expensive Major tech.
- M8A1 Scott still extremely, if not brokenly powerful against infantry. A pair of Scotts can reliably wipe axis infantry squads on a whim during an engagement.
- OKW Elite Infantry such as Fallschirmjagers and Obersoldaten are a lot more viable, the former by being more durable and the latter by being more affordable.
- 25-prd Artillery is quite viable now, it is more responsive, does decent damage in the vicinity of the target, also works as an anti-garrison tool.
- Churchill Mk. VII using its smoke ability is a lot more viable and can be used as an effective tool. However I found a possible bug that it does not dispense smoke if you activate the ability while reversing; if you activate the ability then reverse smoke continues to be emitted.

played a couple games-

-command pgren squad uses arty officer icon on command bar + named jaeger light inf
-reinforce at 37 is a bit of a hidden knife. not sure if it's too high, it does bleed a lot.
-but they can turn into a 5 man sprinting, stealth double shreck squad, which is also quite nuts. have yet to try this ingame though.

Implementing EFA revamp changes turned out to be an even greater hassle than originally anticipated. Hours turned into days, and we figured it would be more productive to get a first, working version out for players to try, while we hammer out UI. The same goes for British Revamp.

-osttruppen LMGs don't seem as weak as the 50% penalty would imply (ingame they were ripping through vetted USF inf)
-suspect that the 50% acc penalty doesn't translate to 50% lower dps, probably something along the lines of base acc with vet being high enough at some ranges

We'll investigate. It's possible that the penalty doesn't apply properly.

-tier locking upgrades for them is a nice concept
-concern regarding osttruppen balance not within osttruppen commander but from lightning war- reserve army spamming (though there is quite a lot of opportunity cost unless muni control is substantial - mass upgrading LMGs + nonstop reserve army precludes the use of stuka CAS). need closer games to see if this is an issue.

Both Relief Infantry and Rapid Conscription are possibly broken OP in DBP. Nobody cared about conscripts in live; now they're better. Relief Infantry requires too few losses to spawn ostruppen. Both also last way too long. They force the enemy player to either cede complete map control or have to face 2-3 new squads.

-opinion -try out different weapon packages rather than lmg42. lmg42 osttruppen are more or less grenadier v0.75 and fill the same niche. (6x?) mp40s would be far more interesting, less problematic balance-wise, and round out the ostheer complement more. If it doesn't clutter gameplay too much, mp40s could be unlocked at BP2 and LMG42 (or something else) at BP3.

Ideally the officer should be there to cover basic close-combat needs. MP40 sounds like an interesting proposition. The problem, though, is that Ostruppen drop like flies out of cover, so moving aggressively won't help them.

-tank hunter conscripts are pretty fun to use
-loss of molotovs is pretty major, since they basically can't fight anything once upgraded now. i understand the logic (not good to mass upgrade, just grab one or two as specialized squads) but it's a little annoying

In order to add hold fire (for camo), AT assault and detection we had to drop an equal amount of abilities. If you believe some of them are redundant, we can keep them out and re-add molotovs.

-loss of regular AT nades is strange since the AT volley is not a straight upgrade
-AT volley is very strong with cloak though.

We can probably fix the downgrade aspect by giving a lower minimum aim time for AT nade assault. That way you deal equal-or-greater damage than normal nades before the tank can run out of range.

Currently, conscripts have a crappy version of cloak with detection radius equal to 10 (live version JP4). Snipers et al have a detection radius of 5.

-would be nice to give ptrs penals with that doctrine something so they aren't eclipsed entirely- maybe the same cloak, or maybe even moving cloak (!)

We're open for suggestions!

Penals should probably be given a role to keep more options open for the doctrine. Currently the doctrine nudges you rather strongly to go for T2 (for camo AT guns). So, it would be nice to have a counter-point.

-hulldown cloaking tanks
-the bushes are visible by enemy through FOW, which is probably unintentional but something i think should stay
-don't think the +20% damage should stay- it just makes the first shot very RNG (two t34s can burst almost 400 damage, or bounce and do nothing which they still do a lot even with the +20% pen). i suggest either deflection dmg for shot out of cloak (if possible) or more pen instead to make it more consistent
-time to cloak after firing seems a bit janky. sometimes it cloaks really fast, sometimes it seems to take forever. Possibly linked to firing as it enters hulldown.

The ability spawns a small hull down deformation where the tank is planted. The longer the match goes, the more difficult it becomes to spot options. Bushes-in-FoW we can fix. I've only tried ambushing once vs Ulare, but that probably doesn't count, since I didn't warn him that any of this was part of the doctrine changes. Maybe he'll be more careful next time!

We can also alternatively make bushes appear at a distance further than the tank itself.

We're already planning on removing damage. It turns out that tanks deal a crapton of damage vs advancing infantry too, and that could be frustrating to play against.

The requirements for cloaking are 10 seconds out of combat, iirc. Detection radius for cloaked tanks is 20 (equal to live-version luchs).

Hull/coaxial MGs will automatically cease firing the moment the tank becomes stealthed.

-manpower + fuel emplacements
-manpower being the more valuable resource, this is a pretty big buff
-ML20 was OP as hell with the new costing in FBP. suspect same here in DBP with the buff-nerf to more shells / better mid AOE

There's also the scatter in-fow aspect. One of the primary reasons howitzers became obnoxious in FBP was because you could always reliably aim them at the enemy's base to score some low-effort wipes on retreating units.

-ISU
-reliable now, maybe too reliable? needs more testing probably
-consistent 120 dmg deflect on HE shots is a very big buff

The deflect damage is only on AP rounds; the tank can't fire while moving/rotating.

-guards
-i'm not sure how useful hit the dirt is- same issue as cons hit the dirt, you just eat rifle nades / flame nades. real utility here seems to grab a few extra shots with the ptrs using the bonus range to secure light vehicle kills

Guards can break hit the dirt almost instantly; so it's not as much of a double-edged sword as the conscript version. At the same time, they need to lay down for sometime before they gain the bonuses too.

Any chance to decrease 20 pop cap for 17-pounder? Becasue this thing is eating 20% of you army while it's not worth it.

Any chance to decrease 20 pop cap for 17-pounder? Becasue this thing is eating 20% of you army while it's not worth it.

They already did in 1.4:

17-pounder
* Popcap reduced from 20 to 14
* Arc indicator added
* No longer possible to garrison the 17-pounder
* Reload speed normalized from 5 - 7 to 5.5
* Flares from garrison bonus to veterancy 1.
* Piercing rounds moved from Vet 1 to Vet 0

Bundle Grenade

Meanwhile the Guards' nade sucks pudding

They already did in 1.4:

17-pounder
* Popcap reduced from 20 to 14
* Arc indicator added
* No longer possible to garrison the 17-pounder
* Reload speed normalized from 5 - 7 to 5.5
* Flares from garrison bonus to veterancy 1.
* Piercing rounds moved from Vet 1 to Vet 0

Damn, my bad. I was looking at the notes and didn't notice.