Riflemen need a buff or Volks need a nerf?

generally volks will lose to cons if they assault a position too, hannibal

it's the advantage of defending with cover

Yes, Volks are equal long range. That's what I said, and that's what makes it hard for Riflemen as I explained in an earlier post and quickly covered in the one you're quoting.

So volks equalling long range vs riflemen but weaker in mid and close range, makes it hard for riflemen???, man im really scratching my head with that one how the hell is the harder for riflemen

I also said that IS need a nerf.

Let's see what balance team will patch into the live game and how this will effect Volks performance and spammability.

And yes, engagements are not usually at exactly 35 range, but Rifle only gain a significant advantage in DPS below ~15 range. So if you need to cross 20 meters against Volks in cover (often sandbags), you're going to lose 1-2 models and a lot of health while probably killing none, which is going to lose you the fight.

Yes volks have sand bags, you people seem to think volks stay stationary the whole game or something? volks are not always sitting behind green cover, especially in early when OKW has to go aggressive. Volks sitting behind green cover vs riflemen closing from long range is ofc an ideal engagement for volks which they have to win, if they couldn't even win that they would lose every encounter with riflemen

It is unfair to straight up compare Volksgrenadiers to Conscripts or Grenadiers.

OKW has been designed with worse support weapons, so Volksgrenadiers are meant to be able to fight better independently than their counterparts. They are meant to be slightly more cost effective than other infantry.

Conscripts and especially Grenadiers however, are designed to be supplemented by support weapons.

Worse support weapons? Is the mg34 (which is given no matter tech path, unlike Soviet and usf) suddenly worse than the maxim now? If conscripts are to be supported by team weapons why is it possible to tech up without access to them when it's not possible to do the same for OKW? They are "forced" access to both an AT gun and an MG. Seems weird that with all the similarities between volks and cons (snare, sand bags, flame nade area denial) that the one that is supposed to be independent has guaranteed access to 2/3 support weapons and the one that is supposed to be supported can bypass them entirely.

Volks are strong because they were an easy solution to literally any and all problems with okw design, not because of any design decision to shape them that way.
They need a price increase at the very least. Especially when compared to Conscripts who they will eat with no mercy at all points of the game for a negligible 10mp more. The favoritism over flashy okw and the Soviet is even more apparent when you look at their upgrades.... - ah you built your first truck, here, go burn that building out! Oh that truck is placed? Take a Faust and some stgs and that hmg34 there and be on your Mery way...
Vs
"you need more men to be useful!?! You will wait until we don't need men to research your entire tech structure! Upgrades? Who needs upgrades when you have strong Soviet backs? No no you are thinking of a different communist models, you will need to BUY your upgrades. We don't have the economy of late war Germany that we can hand them out just because you showed up... "

Designed to be independent..... Sheesh.

Edit:even though I went off about cons... This thread is about rifles, which also show the design issue in volks as rifles TRUELY were designed to be independent. You pay more per squad, and don't even get the luxury of having everything you could ever want handed to you when you tech to your first building. A TRUELY independent squad that could full well lack any MG support due to inaccessibility instead of "why spend that on an MG when another volks squad would be better in every way?"
Volks are a better design for the way rifles were supposed to be than rifles were.... Cheap, durable, no extra costs, utility, strong enough that elites are a bonus not a requirement (even though stock line up contains not one but 2 expensive high impact squads....)
Volks are independent because they can be, not because they need to be. They have all they need to be supported except the necessity. Enemy garrison? Volks. Need cover? Volks. Keep the threat of snare on the front? Volks. Assault a position? Volks.
Can you apply the PROPERLY independent infantry to that? Garrisons? Here's a mortar cause you can't possibly tackle that with just your 280mp rifles.... Cover? RE can build tank traps. Snare? Are you vetted? Assault a position? Pick a tech delaying side grade. Raw firepower that you need to go to base for or an explosive the enemy could dodge?

Lock Volksgrenadier sandbags behind veterancy, that would be a good start to reduce OKW's early game strength.

Why even let them have it at all? I'd say the same about section sandbags and trenches too. IMO no mainlines should be able to build green cover except for conscripts; leave that stuff to engineers.

still waiting for anyone to validate the volks vs cons argument...

Worse support weapons? Is the mg34 (which is given no matter tech path, unlike Soviet and usf) suddenly worse than the maxim now? If conscripts are to be supported by team weapons why is it possible to tech up without access to them when it's not possible to do the same for OKW? They are "forced" access to both an AT gun and an MG. Seems weird that with all the similarities between volks and cons (snare, sand bags, flame nade area denial) that the one that is supposed to be independent has guaranteed access to 2/3 support weapons and the one that is supposed to be supported can bypass them entirely.

Volks are strong because they were an easy solution to literally any and all problems with okw design, not because of any design decision to shape them that way.
They need a price increase at the very least. Especially when compared to Conscripts who they will eat with no mercy at all points of the game for a negligible 10mp more. The favoritism over flashy okw and the Soviet is even more apparent when you look at their upgrades.... - ah you built your first truck, here, go burn that building out! Oh that truck is placed? Take a Faust and some stgs and that hmg34 there and be on your Mery way...
Vs
"you need more men to be useful!?! You will wait until we don't need men to research your entire tech structure! Upgrades? Who needs upgrades when you have strong Soviet backs? No no you are thinking of a different communist models, you will need to BUY your upgrades. We don't have the economy of late war Germany that we can hand them out just because you showed up... "

Designed to be independent..... Sheesh.

Edit:even though I went off about cons... This thread is about rifles, which also show the design issue in volks as rifles TRUELY were designed to be independent. You pay more per squad, and don't even get the luxury of having everything you could ever want handed to you when you tech to your first building. A TRUELY independent squad that could full well lack any MG support due to inaccessibility instead of "why spend that on an MG when another volks squad would be better in every way?"
Volks are a better design for the way rifles were supposed to be than rifles were.... Cheap, durable, no extra costs, utility, strong enough that elites are a bonus not a requirement (even though stock line up contains not one but 2 expensive high impact squads....)
Volks are independent because they can be, not because they need to be. They have all they need to be supported except the necessity. Enemy garrison? Volks. Need cover? Volks. Keep the threat of snare on the front? Volks. Assault a position? Volks.
Can you apply the PROPERLY independent infantry to that? Garrisons? Here's a mortar cause you can't possibly tackle that with just your 280mp rifles.... Cover? RE can build tank traps. Snare? Are you vetted? Assault a position? Pick a tech delaying side grade. Raw firepower that you need to go to base for or an explosive the enemy could dodge?

Once again, TheDarkArmadillo provides the most salient comment in the thread. Volks are the way they are because it was easy for relic to paper over cracks like that. Now OKW players that have been suckling at the blob teat don't want it to go away. I hope Sanders93 and the balance team won't be so confrontational when it comes time to make the right decisions about this unit.

Also, Stug Life, you wrote a 3 paragraph post with only two commas and no periods. PLEASE use punctuation because a lot of your posts are simply undecipherable as they are. And when youre trying to drag the whole thread widely off topic per usual, it makes it hard to follow you. Idk maybe thats your point lol.

Once again, TheDarkArmadillo provides the most salient comment in the thread. Volks are the way they are because it was easy for relic to paper over cracks like that. Now OKW players that have been suckling at the blob teat don't want it to go away. I hope Sanders93 and the balance team won't be so confrontational when it comes time to make the right decisions about this unit.

Also, Stug Life, you wrote a 3 paragraph post with only two commas and no periods. PLEASE use punctuation because a lot of your posts are simply undecipherable as they are. And when youre trying to drag the whole thread widely off topic per usual, it makes it hard to follow you. Idk maybe thats your point lol.

Actually... there was a day and age where volks WERE designed to be independent.... an age where the MG34 was restricted to the luftwaffe doctrine and barely did any suppression... and the maxim was the most feared and overpowered mg ingame...

Those days conscripts being made of cheese compared to grens and volks was irrelevant since the maxim was the undeniable dominant force in the battlefield...

Everything changed when the maxim was nerfed... as expected soviet winrates went below 45%... they became the worst faction bar none... and although OKW also lost its shreck blob it also gained the STG blob and a nondoc MG...

Somehow the balance team forgot to adjust volk pricing when they gave OKW an MG far superior to the once vaunted maxim ????

But of course instead of fixing cons volks or the maxim the balance team decided to come up with the penal bullrush...

And yes penals may exist... but theyre really only for earlygame bullrushes and the real supplement to the lack of core infantry for the soviets are guards.... take those away and the age of sub 45% winrate soviets will return yet again...

and its soo dumb that.. just to compete with other factions... the soviets are the only faction ingame shoehorned into doctrines else risk being outcompeted hard by axis counterparts...

Also, Stug Life, you wrote a 3 paragraph post with only two commas and no periods. PLEASE use punctuation because a lot of your posts are simply undecipherable as they are. And when youre trying to drag the whole thread widely off topic per usual, it makes it hard to follow you. Idk maybe thats your point lol.

i didn't bring gren to the conversation, u can actually check who it was

btw can u point the post ?

Somehow the balance team forgot to adjust volk pricing when they gave OKW an MG far superior to the once vaunted maxim ????

wait people actually use mg 34 ? last tourney i saw maybe 1 or 2

btw u can't just a move the mg 34 like the old maxim, saying the mg 34 is better than maxim spam pre patch is an absurdity and show a little bias

Why even let them have it at all? I'd say the same about section sandbags and trenches too. IMO no mainlines should be able to build green cover except for conscripts; leave that stuff to engineers.

+1 for this idea. Mainline infantry shouldn't be able to build stuff unless it's granted via doc choice.

Yes, that does end up giving SturmPios another thing to do, but I think it would help the overall balance.

Somehow the balance team forgot to adjust volk pricing

DECEMBER 3 UPDATE

...

Volksgrenadiers

* Manpower cost increased from 235 to 250
* Kark 98k Rifle Damage increased from 10 to 12
* Veterancy Rank 4 Squad Sight Radius buff decreased from 1.4 to 1.2
* Veterancy Rank 4 Weapon Accuracy buff decreased from 1.3 to 1.15
* Veterancy Rank 5 Weapon Cooldown buff increased from 0.7 to 0.8

lol k

lol k

why dont you put a timestamp on that and shove your bias up yours?


the first maxim nerf came at 2016 april 20 and the volks changes came earlier at 2015 dec 3...

meaning the pre and post conditions of the maxim nerf/OKW recieving an MG remain unchanged

hence my statement remains true
Somehow the balance team forgot to adjust volk pricing when they gave OKW an MG far superior to the once vaunted maxim...

wait people actually use mg 34 ? last tourney i saw maybe 1 or 2

btw u can't just a move the mg 34 like the old maxim, saying the mg 34 is better than maxim spam pre patch is an absurdity and show a little bias

i didnt say it was better than the maxim spam... but it is superior to the current maxim contrary to what some biased individuals here proclaim...

So volks equalling long range vs riflemen but weaker in mid and close range, makes it hard for riflemen???, man im really scratching my head with that one how the hell is the harder for riflemen



Yes volks have sand bags, you people seem to think volks stay stationary the whole game or something? volks are not always sitting behind green cover, especially in early when OKW has to go aggressive. Volks sitting behind green cover vs riflemen closing from long range is ofc an ideal engagement for volks which they have to win, if they couldn't even win that they would lose every encounter with riflemen

The problem is that the range at which the DPS curves diverge is too close. So if you encounter an enemy Volksgrenadier in some cover, you cannot fight on long range since Volks will be more cost efficient. So you need to close in which is very risky since loosing a model while closing in will likely mean the loss of the complete fight.
The early Gren/Con-balance had a similar thing - Cons had to close in. But Cons are dirt cheap to reinforce, and they could take a model loss and still trade efficiently on close range. Also they cost the same, so no one got a real map presence advantage. These were the most interesting matchups in the game.
But Riflemen are not cheap to reinforce, Volks have an extremly potent Sturmpioneer at their side to help in early game and until USF getsthe officer out, they lack behind in map presence.

I really don't get your second point. It makes no sense. You can spam sandbags while capping a point from early to late game. So your infantry is always close to green cover. USF has literally no non-doc options to create green cover. Of course open field encounters happen, still most fights and especially the important ones are fought from cover. Taking away sandbags from Volks would go a long way to bring them back to normal cost efficiency.

The early Gren/Con-balance had a similar thing - Cons had to close in. But Cons are dirt cheap to reinforce, and they could take a model loss and still trade efficiently on close range. Also they cost the same, so no one got a real map presence advantage. These were the most interesting matchups in the game.

early cons also used to deal more close range damage... they seem to do a bit less cqc damage than earlier cons did tome time ago...

now however u need 2 cons in order to reliably close against grens even with oorah... and this is aggravated by the prevalence of panzergrenadiers that are being spammed now like no tmrw since pgrens are now available without T2...

The problem is that the range at which the DPS curves diverge is too close. So if you encounter an enemy Volksgrenadier in some cover, you cannot fight on long range since Volks will be more cost efficient. So you need to close in which is very risky since loosing a model while closing in will likely mean the loss of the complete fight.
The early Gren/Con-balance had a similar thing - Cons had to close in. But Cons are dirt cheap to reinforce, and they could take a model loss and still trade efficiently on close range. Also they cost the same, so no one got a real map presence advantage. These were the most interesting matchups in the game.
But Riflemen are not cheap to reinforce, Volks have an extremly potent Sturmpioneer at their side to help in early game and until USF getsthe officer out, they lack behind in map presence.

I really don't get your second point. It makes no sense. You can spam sandbags while capping a point from early to late game. So your infantry is always close to green cover. USF has literally no non-doc options to create green cover. Of course open field encounters happen, still most fights and especially the important ones are fought from cover. Taking away sandbags from Volks would go a long way to bring them back to normal cost efficiency.

1 cons did not have the same problem, they could not win at long range that's it 2 RE tanks trap give green cover

1 cons did not have the same problem, they could not win at long range that's it 2 RE tanks trap give green cover

"reliably"... rifles lose to volks at long range... and yes REs have tank traps... so why arent sandbags present on sturmpioneers isntead of volks?

1 cons did not have the same problem, they could not win at long range that's it 2 RE tanks trap give green cover

1. The Conscript example was obviously to make the point how a matchup can be balanced even if one squad has to close in.
2. You're right here, I forgot the tank trap. But that makes them still way less prevalent ingame, especially since the tank traps often don't fit to an object blocker, so you need to additionally barb wire them that your opponent can't use them against you.

"reliably"... rifles lose to volks at long range... and yes REs have tank traps... so why arent sandbags present on sturmpioneers isntead of volks?

no they are the same stop spreading misinformation i already posted the dps chart

sturm don't have sand bag cause they are over burned with roles, i tried to address this with a rework hopefully the mod team does something similar

The problem is that the range at which the DPS curves diverge is too close. So if you encounter an enemy Volksgrenadier in some cover, you cannot fight on long range since Volks will be more cost efficient. So you need to close in which is very risky since loosing a model while closing in will likely mean the loss of the complete fight.
The early Gren/Con-balance had a similar thing - Cons had to close in. But Cons are dirt cheap to reinforce, and they could take a model loss and still trade efficiently on close range. Also they cost the same, so no one got a real map presence advantage. These were the most interesting matchups in the game.
But Riflemen are not cheap to reinforce, Volks have an extremly potent Sturmpioneer at their side to help in early game and until USF getsthe officer out, they lack behind in map presence.

I really don't get your second point. It makes no sense. You can spam sandbags while capping a point from early to late game. So your infantry is always close to green cover. USF has literally no non-doc options to create green cover. Of course open field encounters happen, still most fights and especially the important ones are fought from cover. Taking away sandbags from Volks would go a long way to bring them back to normal cost efficiency.

If you want to look at another comparable unit, Rifles do less damage than Penal models at every range above 9(where cover works) but cost 1 mp more for 3% better RA. Even with BAR upgrades and at vet 3 Rifles do less dps than a penal squad without an upgrade until they are at ~5 range, despite the 120 muni investment of bars. This is Similar to their comparison with grens who also do more damage per man until they are at range 10 where rifles to the exact same damage as 1 gren, who has .9 RA to rifles .97 at vet 0.

Rifles seem to be decent at every range except super cqb compared to other units like grens and penals, which doesn't help to trade cost effectively. Man for man or cost for cost they trade worse as a result of the dps curve and upgrades that are not as cost effective. It seems like rifles are a bigger issue than volks. They can win the fights but seem less efficient than other similar units, who can be more effective at normal cover to cover engagement ranges.

Edit: Holy fk: rifles go from doing 39 DPS at range 10 to 64 damage at range 0 vet 3 full upgrades. Their power spike is insane when face hugging, Penals only go from like 41 to 45 dps. That's kinda useless most of the time though, Shocks don't even do any extra damage closer than 10 range b/c yoruw hole squad never gets that close.