AT weapons for OKW

Hi there,

I am here for one little thing I want to share and ask. When the OKW will be a normal faction in mean of AT weapons, non cheeky blobing and others? inb4 blobing is not about faction, then why cons are not blobable?
You can't balance a faction which was designed in 2014 and you keep almost all their ideas till now. I won't write here about truck system etc. but AT guns. You know why these Raketens are so bad? Propably beacuse Volks had PzS's and they weren't to be primary AT weapons. They are rather supporting role to your blobs. I mean they are really cheesy since you can camo them but in normal term and usage of AT gun they are bad due their:

1. Pathetic range - the problem is enemy vehicle can shoot you at the same time as you start. Same thing if you want to defend your trucks or whatever you do and you have to close up with them in range of enemy's MG's and other stuff. It wouldn't be such a problem if:

2. Raketens unlike rest doesn't have green cover. Crew memembers die to a hiss of bullets above their heads. But in most cases they die one shooted by mediums and heavies, just like 3 guys dies after they fired. It doesn't happens to rest because they have heavy cover for their crews. Mostly you have to flank them to kill them but not in case of raketens.

3.Accuracy it's propably the lowest even compare to "old factions AT guns" like ZiS-3 and PaK40. They keep hitting the ground even if target is straight on. Don't tell me it's only my luck and RNG because other people will say that again if you don't believe.

The only thing which those guns do have is their really good aim time and their camo but this last one is necessary if you want to keep their bad range and no cover for crew. We all know how it's really annoying and how it lost many games. I suggest to give OKW normal AT gun like PaK40 or change all his stats to match normal AT gun but only keep Raketen model.

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  [L2P]Frost z żelaza

  RuberGruber

  Raketens doesn't do job

  by: Frost map: Arnhem Checkpoint

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Hell, panzerfusiliers were OKWs only access to snares originally too.

The raketen kinda works because there's a snare to support now. Volks having a snaring faust turned OKW AT on its head.

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Factions can afford to have gimmicky stuff for flavor, as long as basic utility is covered for elsewhere by other, reliable units.

When OKW had schreckblobs, they had the AT defence department covered. Raketens had the niche of being good at ambushing stuff, but were completely crap at anything else pre-buffs; they had a normal arc of fire and very crappy aiming times.

When schreckblobs got replaced by the current Volks, the raketenwerfer suddenly had to fill the void of covering for the entire AT department. The mistake so far is trying to rely on release-time raketens to fill a normal AT role. The resulting buffs to the Raketenwerfer made the thing despicable by everyone:
- People hate using that thing, because it's so completely unreliable. The squad formation (which we cannot further improve) and short range means it can get one-shot wiped by the tanks it is supposed to defend against (because its role is no longer ambushing stuff)
- People also hate having to fight vs raketens because stealth counters are generally absent in CoH2 (the only things that can detect stealth, allied-side are M3, M20 and UC; and guess what Raketenwerfer should protect OKW against...), and Raketenwerfer also has retreat which makes infantry flanks futile

Instead, OKW needs a normal AT gun that doesn't get wiped by tanks, but can be threatened by infantry to cover the AT department. If preserving raketenwerfer design is desirable for whatever reason, there are options to do so:
- Completely replace raketen with pak40 non-doc, and move raketenwerfer to, e.g., overwatch
- replicate current raketen design to soviet m42 gun (Soviets have a normal AT gun that gets the job done, and m42 could finally find a niche as a gimmick gun)
- Reconstruct raketen as a pak40 clone (i.e., worse reload, worse arc, no retreat, but 60 range and better accuracy) and only carry over the safe gimmicks (e.g., Soviet AT gun-grade camouflage and garrisoning). However, retreat needs to go.

Which of those do you think Relic would be likely to allow into a future patch?

Factions can afford to have gimmicky stuff for flavor, as long as basic utility is covered for elsewhere by other, reliable units.

When OKW had schreckblobs, they had the AT defence department covered. Raketens had the niche of being good at ambushing stuff, but were completely crap at anything else pre-buffs; they had a normal arc of fire and very crappy aiming times.

When schreckblobs got replaced by the current Volks, the raketenwerfer suddenly had to fill the void of covering for the entire AT department. The mistake so far is trying to rely on release-time raketens to fill a normal AT role. The resulting buffs to the Raketenwerfer made the thing despicable by everyone:
- People hate using that thing, because it's so completely unreliable. The squad formation (which we cannot further improve) and short range means it can get one-shot wiped by the tanks it is supposed to defend against (because its role is no longer ambushing stuff)
- People also hate having to fight vs raketens because stealth counters are generally absent in CoH2 (the only things that can detect stealth, allied-side are M3, M20 and UC; and guess what Raketenwerfer should protect OKW against...), and Raketenwerfer also has retreat which makes infantry flanks futile

Instead, OKW needs a normal AT gun that doesn't get wiped by tanks, but can be threatened by infantry to cover the AT department. If preserving raketenwerfer design is desirable for whatever reason, there are options to do so:
- Completely replace raketen with pak40 non-doc, and move raketenwerfer to, e.g., overwatch
- replicate current raketen design to soviet m42 gun (Soviets have a normal AT gun that gets the job done, and m42 could finally find a niche as a gimmick gun)
- Reconstruct raketen as a pak40 clone (i.e., worse reload, worse arc, no retreat, but 60 range and better accuracy) and only carry over the safe gimmicks (e.g., Soviet AT gun-grade camouflage and garrisoning). However, retreat needs to go.

This post perfectly summed up what I've to said.

...
- replicate current raketen design to soviet m42 gun (Soviets have a normal AT gun that gets the job done, and m42 could finally find a niche as a gimmick gun)
...

There is no reason for such a change.
M42 AT gun should simply become a light vehicle counter.
It can get very wide arc, high accuracy, low angel scatter and low aim times so that it can hit high speed small size vehicles.

- People also hate having to fight vs raketens because stealth counters are generally absent in CoH2 ....

Since fighting vs stealth units is frustrating, why did the last patch had so many buffs to stealth units?

Wait, but why dont write PRO of raketen, camo, retreut ?

Just in case for people who bring the green cover as an excuse/reason:

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Wait, but why dont write PRO of raketen, camo, retreut ?

I wrote that. But I don't want to play PRO game but CASUAL and prefer normal AT gun over this piece.

snip

Definitely good thing to know to our balance team for fixing it.

I vote for replace raketen with m42 little AT gun 4Head

- Completely replace raketen with pak40 non-doc, and move raketenwerfer to, e.g., overwatch

And nobody will see raketen ever since. It's just Soviet ver2, instead of Zig and M42 we have pak and raketen.

- replicate current raketen design to soviet m42 gun (Soviets have a normal AT gun that gets the job done, and m42 could finally find a niche as a gimmick gun)

Honestly, have you ever encountered m42? Below panzer, it work barely. And anything above that, it's useless. I'd rather having current raketen than another m42 clone

- Reconstruct raketen as a pak40 clone (i.e., worse reload, worse arc, no retreat, but 60 range and better accuracy) and only carry over the safe gimmicks (e.g., Soviet AT gun-grade camouflage and garrisoning). However, retreat needs to go.

Or the coh1 pak38 clone. The gun does not have much damage or penetration, and relies to its first (three) shots out of ambush.
And while balancing gun, please remove camouflage while moving, I really hate stealth capping from raketen.

Just in case for people who bring the green cover as an excuse/reason:

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I think it comes to a weapon size more than a green cover. Normal AT guns have bigger size and thus shells often land on them when they scatter, thus not killing infantry in 1 shot.

Rakketen size is small and the we see all those nasty wipes left and right

As allied player I would love to see PAK40 instead of Rakketten.
Coz in this case life of mediums Shermans, t34s in team games would be much easier.
Using light vehicals would be more attractive as well.
More over in 1 vs 1 there would be not passble to sneak into base sector and kill Katy or ambulance


So i vote for PAK40 for OKW

I think okw is already way too similar to ostheer. Giving them pak40 like gun goes a long way into breaking uniqueness of factions even more. Honestly, I would definitely rather come back to shreck blobs with no snare than give okw another ostheer copy paste. There is no point in ballance if all that differs factions is their name.

I think okw is already way too similar to ostheer. Giving them pak40 like gun goes a long way into breaking uniqueness of factions even more. Honestly, I would definitely rather come back to shreck blobs with no snare than give okw another ostheer copy paste. There is no point in ballance if all that differs factions is their name.

I cannot believe this, you prefer unbalanced things (like schreckblobs) over making factions slightly more alike?

This is the Rak we're talking about, the singular unit in coh2 thats hated by everyone.

No one enjoys using the raks. No one enjoys fighting them. No one wants it's primary use to be shooting arty and retreating to base.

Uniqueness can be maintained without turning atguns into the abomination that is the rak.

This sums up my view of the rak, and the "uniqueness" argument:

The performance of the unit is inconstant, but it does not have to be replaced.
There are many issues with the Rakketen that should be fixed:

1) Moving when cloaked. It seems to me that in game the idea of "ambush" is twisted. Instead of laying in waiting many units can actually "hunt" while cloaked.

That ability to move when cloaked should be removed from most units (accept snipers and other recon squads) and especially for units with explosive grenades or off map arty. For some units it could become high veterancy bonus.

Unit could have vision bonus when cloaked in order to fire before it can be circle strafed.

2) One has to keep in mind that RW is a rocket launcher and not an ATG. That in game could be translated in a ATW that has lower range but is hard to circle-strafe. Changes could include lower penetration, deflection damage (like bazooka/shreck)and much higher accuracy so it becomes reliable.

3) When garrison the unit if possible the unit should behave like hand held weapon and not team weapon allowing to fire fast at all direction.

4) If possible one could go even go feather having the unit set up and then behave more like AA emplacement with 360 arc. (one can try making work more like an AT infantry than a team weapon)

5) vet bonuses should not be focused on the cloak mechanism but benefit the weapon in all situations (even when cloaked)

6)Since the crew is too bunched up it could get some resistant to ballistic (even to explosive weapons if needed). When capture by soviet it should have a crew of 4.

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The assymetric design can be good or bad and I think most people agree that in this case it is the bad one. The symmetric design is always bad. It greatly limits number of viable strategies, is boring and repetitive. That is why if you want to search for new design of okw AT, you need to think of some new ideas, instead of copying ostheer.

Mind that in assymetrically designed games like coh2, ballance has very little to do with design. You can have almost any design we have or had ballanced, with a correct series or iterative stat changes. That is why when we talk about design, we should not use the word "ballance" at all. First you redesign so the game is fun to play, then you can fine tune the ballance.

Okw raketten might be the worst at gun, but the sturms have an amazing schreck.
5 man volks and their faust.
They have a non doctrinal puma, and not even talking about the monster called jagdpanzer 4.
Every faction has a different way of dealing with tanks, if your idea is "build AT gun" when you see a tank you are on the right way but think about the rest of your arsenal aswell.

Okw raketten might be the worst at gun, but the sturms have an amazing schreck.
5 man volks and their faust.
They have a non doctrinal puma, and not even talking about the monster called jagdpanzer 4.
Every faction has a different way of dealing with tanks, if your idea is "build AT gun" when you see a tank you are on the right way but think about the rest of your arsenal aswell.

so soviet are better by your logic

I think they should have some sort of normal AT gun as well.
Important think: BOTH should be in the core army, one in the starting HQ, one in the medical HQ
PLS, dont even think about locking raketten behind a doctrine