December Balance Preview

No they don't. Doing .05 more DPS at long range does not give or allow volks to beat riflemen at long range reliably.

DPS doesn't tell everything about a weapon, I will say. The Volk rifle has the advantage of superior accuracy and burst damage vs the M1 Garand which deals 50% less per shot and its nature as ROF weapon makes it worse in those cover duels. Burst damage is also king for getting those model drops.

The Volk rifle has the advantage of superior accuracy and burst damage vs the M1 Garand which deals 50% less per shot and its nature as ROF weapon makes it worse in those cover duels

Im quite sure that the M1 Garand does 8 and the Kar98 does 12, is that 50% less per shot?

Its nature as ROF weapon makes it worse in those cover duels

Not that I particularly doubt you, but can you show me the math behind that?

The fact of the matter is that every other infantry squad is allowed to pick up dropped weapons, why Volks are not, why would they follow an entire different set of rules?

Volks are mediocre at best, even with the Stg upgrade. The Stg upgrade just makes the unit a bit more viable which otherwise plainly s*cks. They are only an issue when spammed (and spamming infantry gets a big fat nerf with the FRP changes), but the same applies to every infantry even more so. G43 Grenadier blobs, 15 second Penal spam, IS spam, Riflemen spam they all seem to punch above their weight when in fact it is the blob itself.

There is simply no rational arguement as to why Volks should be unable to pick up weapons when everyone else can.

Not that I particularly doubt you, but can you show me the math behind that?

Well, I don't have the math, but from my observations over the course of the game's life and my familiarity with the USF early game, the game favours weapons with higher damage models to quickly burst down other models/vehicles unless your name is Conscript Mosins which is neither accurate enough or fires fast enough to compensate for bad rolls. Dead units and models don't contribute to DPS so even if the Garand has the ability to quickly rack up damage when given time, whether you will have those models in actuality is something else entirely given a volley from a Volks squad can deal anywhere from 12 to 60 while a full volley from an M1 Garand deals 8 to 40 and in a game of fluid movement, whether you have time to actually get that many number of shots off is another question depending on the situation.

The DPS between the two rifles aren't incredibly different on paper, but the Kar98k's ability to deal significantly more damage in a shorter span of time allows it kill off the models that quickly expose themselves out of cover for those short periods. Higher accuracy might be a placebo effect on me, but I find Volks generally do better vs units in cover.

Volks Kar 98k Accuracy

0/25/35

0.748/713/0.679

Riflemen Accuracy

0/16/35

0.713/0.667/0.5175

Mid accuracy isn't the greatest difference when you have things like cooldown, ROF, etc which allows Rifles to somewhat compensate for their range profile. When you look at where both rifles reach their mid range, you need to be closer with Rifles to reach that 66% at 16m vs the Volks 71% at 25m.

TLDR: Burst damage is generally far better to have those sudden spikes, particularly during infantry combat where your DPS drops as models get lost unless it's late game and both sides have upgrades. You want to drop those models ASAP to kill off the other side's DPS rather than chipping their health steadily overtime. Higher damage and accuracy rifles do the sniping models thing better than the M1 Garand.

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Volksgrenadiers will likely have their weapon slots looked. Of course more commander stuff is also on the way, and hopefully, that big adjustment to friendly-fire AOE which is all over the place.

No they don't. Doing .05 more DPS at long range does not give or allow volks to beat riflemen at long range reliably.

even if they dont, all you have to do with riflemen is close the distance then u'll win the engagement anyway

Use the reverse button

I'd prefer to use Stug as USF, can I?

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Volksgrenadiers will likely have their weapon slots looked. Of course more commander stuff is also on the way, and hopefully, that big adjustment to friendly-fire AOE which is all over the place.

Great news!

If the balance team was adamant about not allowing 2 stgs plus a dropped lmg they could always implement a way to have a pickup replace a STG.

Or they could have the # of stgs scale with the number of trucks deployed. That would somewhat lessen the shock of suddenly having 3 x 2 stgs hit the field.

why is double vickers on IS ok??
and to drop a vickers from truck is really op...cons/ penals with double vickers...wtf

why is double vickers on IS ok??
and to drop a vickers from truck is really op...cons/ penals with double vickers...wtf

Τhe UKF truck dropping weapons is simply broken.

On the other hand Cons can pick up a single weapon in DBP, not 2. (not that it solves the problems)

So i have read that commander revamp of british forces, with commandoes and all that.

Quick question, why would you do it like this

Stand Fast
* The player now must target an emplacement they would like the ability to affect

Vehicle Repair
* The player now must target a vehicle they would like the ability to affect

If you could just give a Hotkey to use it, like soviets have with Self Repairs.

Seems like a little bit unhandy

So i have read that commander revamp of british forces, with commandoes and all that.

Quick question, why would you do it like this

Stand Fast
* The player now must target an emplacement they would like the ability to affect

Vehicle Repair
* The player now must target a vehicle they would like the ability to affect

If you could just give a Hotkey to use it, like soviets have with Self Repairs.

Seems like a little bit unhandy

That's the plan for the live version.

However due to Brit commander design and modding tools limitations, the only way to implement such changes in a mod is to force the player to trigger those abilities the first time using the commander ability.

For mod-feedback purposes we could make those abilities unlock unit-specific abilities separately when triggered for the first time.

Well, I don't have the math, but from my observations over the course of the game's life and my familiarity with the USF early game, the game favours weapons with higher damage models to quickly burst down other models/vehicles unless your name is Conscript Mosins which is neither accurate enough or fires fast enough to compensate for bad rolls. Dead units and models don't contribute to DPS so even if the Garand has the ability to quickly rack up damage when given time, whether you will have those models in actuality is something else entirely given a volley from a Volks squad can deal anywhere from 12 to 60 while a full volley from an M1 Garand deals 8 to 40 and in a game of fluid movement, whether you have time to actually get that many number of shots off is another question depending on the situation.

The DPS between the two rifles aren't incredibly different on paper, but the Kar98k's ability to deal significantly more damage in a shorter span of time allows it kill off the models that quickly expose themselves out of cover for those short periods. Higher accuracy might be a placebo effect on me, but I find Volks generally do better vs units in cover.

Volks Kar 98k Accuracy

0/25/35

0.748/713/0.679

Riflemen Accuracy

0/16/35

0.713/0.667/0.5175

Mid accuracy isn't the greatest difference when you have things like cooldown, ROF, etc which allows Rifles to somewhat compensate for their range profile. When you look at where both rifles reach their mid range, you need to be closer with Rifles to reach that 66% at 16m vs the Volks 71% at 25m.

TLDR: Burst damage is generally far better to have those sudden spikes, particularly during infantry combat where your DPS drops as models get lost unless it's late game and both sides have upgrades. You want to drop those models ASAP to kill off the other side's DPS rather than chipping their health steadily overtime. Higher damage and accuracy rifles do the sniping models thing better than the M1 Garand.

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Volksgrenadiers will likely have their weapon slots looked. Of course more commander stuff is also on the way, and hopefully, that big adjustment to friendly-fire AOE which is all over the place.

That seems to be generally my experience for whatever that counts for. Another good example is how infantry sections are king of cover fights in pretty much any situation (out of the mainline inf anyway).

Do you mean "looked" as in "looked at" or locked? Because those could mean very different things.

Also, is WASP ever gonna get some love? It has about 1 minute before paks and 22s arrive and it gets countered by the units its supposed to counter half the time, anyway.

If pack-up ever makes it this patch, it would probably be only to suicide your emplacements, but with no refund.

YES!!! I'll take that in a heart beat! No, I'm not being sarcastic.

That's the plan for the live version.

However due to Brit commander design and modding tools limitations, the only way to implement such changes in a mod is to force the player to trigger those abilities the first time using the commander ability.

For mod-feedback purposes we could make those abilities unlock unit-specific abilities separately when triggered for the first time.

This is just me spit balling an idea. Would it not be possible to make the ability an "always on" (which it would not display) that adds a player upgrade which unlocks an alternate commander passive and the unit's ability.

USF
-RE troops volley fire is still not very effective, probably not worth it, I cant see a reason not to just save that munitions and buy a bar later. Its not going to help 1v1 unless they would win anyways and 2v1 (squads) shifting targets from your opponent will still allow them to perform better.

-RE mine: Seems to do about 50? damage and slowing the vehicle down it doesn't seem worth 15 munitions, Probably should cost as much as the soviet stun mine since they seem to do about as much. 100 damage and 2 slows isn't even close to damaging an engine in terms of value. Especially if it's a specialist Anti tank mine Not worthless but certainly could be cheaper or made more effective.

-Smoke Changes: It seems like your just nerfing rifles, You can't afford to not get 3 rifles as your starting units and compete for map presence against a good player in 1v1 so no matter what your first 3 units don't scale as well anymore. May encourage more usage of the Heavy cav commander. If rifle smoke is OP and not easy to counter or too cost effective this change is ok. If you want to increase build diversity as stated this is not going to help IMO.

Officer changes will definatley help alot with MP bleed for USF, probably allow the major to be used on the front lines more.

Brits
Was the hotkey on standard changed for british medkits form H to q?

Mortar pit seemed good vs Ost on Kholodny

USF
-RE troops volley fire is still not very effective, probably not worth it, I cant see a reason not to just save that munitions and buy a bar later. Its not going to help 1v1 unless they would win anyways and 2v1 (squads) shifting targets from your opponent will still allow them to perform better.

-RE mine: Seems to do about 50? damage and slowing the vehicle down it doesn't seem worth 15 munitions, Probably should cost as much as the soviet stun mine since they seem to do about as much. 100 damage and 2 slows isn't even close to damaging an engine in terms of value. Especially if it's a specialist Anti tank mine Not worthless but certainly could be cheaper or made more effective.

-Smoke Changes: It seems like your just nerfing rifles, You can't afford to not get 3 rifles as your starting units and compete for map presence against a good player in 1v1 so no matter what your first 3 units don't scale as well anymore. May encourage more usage of the Heavy cav commander. If rifle smoke is OP and not easy to counter or too cost effective this change is ok. If you want to increase build diversity as stated this is not going to help IMO.

Officer changes will definatley help alot with MP bleed for USF, probably allow the major to be used on the front lines more.

USF Infantry changes are subject to a change. The most important question we want answered is whether the changes make the faction more interesting to play as (and counter). If the answer is that it makes the game more boring, we revert changes and balance from there.

Brits
Was the hotkey on standard changed for british medkits form H to q?

Yeah. The rationale is that when you use Smoke Raid, all units receive hold fire (which is on H). We could have given hold fire a non-standard hotkey, but trust us, it would feel awkward.

Now as the accuracy and received accuracy Vet bonuses have been removed from OKW stock infatry (the nerf to Obers vet 4 RA vetarancy is excessive IMO) received such a resuffered , how about doing the same for Penals?

Volks and Sturmpios also lost +15% accuracy bonus to deal with Penals effectively, albeit the final +40 bonus comes earlier.

Penals however still get 0.85 received accuracy bonus at Vet 3, which just encourages spamming them since they can scale to late game just as well as Conscripts.

Removing the Vet 3 Received accuracy bonuses from Penals would fix them as a damage dealing unit that is to be used with tankier steady DPS Conscripts and not in place of them, thus preventing benefitting from early penal spam builds on the long run which results that you can have an all-in-one unit with strong AT and AI.

Give them an additional weapon slot instead at Vet 3 so if properly played and pick up the right weapons, they can become a squad with a lot of firepower, but has a weakness of still dropping models easily (but with fewer weapons drops).

Now as the received accuracy Vet bonuses have been removed from OKW stock infatry (the nerf to Obers vet 4 vetarancy is excessive IMO) received such a resuffered , how about doing the same for Penals?

Penals get 0.85 received accuracy bonus at Vet 3, which just encourages spamming them since they can scale to late game just as well as Conscripts.

Removing the Vet 3 Received accuracy bonuses from Penals would fix them as a damage dealing unit that is to be used with tankier steady DPS Conscripts, preventing penal spam builds which results that you can have an all-in-one unit with strong AT and AI.

The changes in OKW veterancy systems half measure and as such simply wrong.

For instance vet 3 conscripts have better vet bonuses than vet 3 VG while vet 3 Penals have better vet bonuses than vet 3 PF.

The vet 4 and 5 need too much XP to be reached and give bonus that are available to other units earlier.

For instance the VG sight bonus is available in better version to IS at vet 1, while the heal bonus is available to commandos at vet1 .

Finally although OKW do not get fighting bonuses for vet 4 and vet 5 they award enemy units more XP for damaging allowing them to vet faster and gain better combat bonuses.

Either a completely overhaul of the OKW vet system is need where vet3=vet5, or make changes to clearly op staff like Ober ability to suppress always.

Personally I don't even see OKW vet system as priority since when it comes to the vet systems bringing EFA vet bonus and abilities is up to speed is of greater priority. EFA armies need different vet 1 abilities and bonuses that fit each units specific role.

As an example the T-34/76 and the KV-1 should not get similar bonus and abilities.

I would not touch OKW's VET to much either and I especially dislike the idea of other's VET 3 = OKW VET 5. Veterancy is OKW's core design and removing it in all but name would break the foundamentals of the game design.

Again, I especially dislike Obers loosing their high Vet Received Accuracy. Its a fragile 4 man squad that is hard countered by any vehicle. They are anti blob tools which looses its purpose if it starts to melt to big enough blob even at high VET as soon as it gets fired at. Removing passive suprression is OK, removing their survivability is not IMO, especially as all Allied units maintain their high Vet RA bonuses which were supposedly given because they need to face late OKW elite infantry units which are... increasingly non existent.