Rifles overperforming?

Why you are always comparing RM vs Volks?
What about RM vs Grens?
RM vs Grens prepatch difference was big, but now in this patch is even worst. They absolute rape Grens.

Grens should rely on HMG42 to stop riflemen. IMO its fine if grens cant stand their ground against RM

Seriously I think moving the flames from volks to sturms would fix cons and make maxims use able again.

This was considered once and declined. Sturmpioneers are already charged with assaulting (StG, Concussion Grenade), fortifying (Pioneer), repairing (Pioneer), and anti-tank (Panzerschreck). Being made anti-cover / anti-building would mean this one unit occupies 5 roles in OKW.

I'm kind of at a loss for words at this point, as where rifelmen go, so does the faction.
Wher relies on weapons teams, USF relies on riflemen, OKW relies on elite units and armor (on paper, at least), brits rely on cover, and soviets rely on cheese.

The USF was never a faction that was in a sweet spot due to glitches(I remember the sherman rapid fire glitch well) and controversial design philosophy (vehicle crews are the core engineer unit, riflemen are both supposed to be line infantry and non-doc elite with upgrades and vet.)
At some point I remember people complaining about riflemen spam so their smokes were moved from them to REs to make REs seem more viable. This failed miserably and only managed to decrease riflemen utility and survivability.
Then Riflemen were just slowly losing games by MP bleed as they failed to not trade effectively with other core infantry.
I may have to try playing axis more but I seem to be losing engagements where my rifles charge anyone in green cover (as they should), and am now handily winning fights where okw players rush my riflemen early game like it's pre-patch.
I don't think it's so much a riflemen problem as maybe just an issue with the tech.
The m20 and stuart had to come out early to prevent pre-patch rifles from getting flayed too much by early OKW and breaking up MGs from wher, which I understand, though now maybe we can look at their timing and adjust it as USF doesn't have to rely on them too much anymore.

Side note, forgive me as I don't play OKW often, but I would like to humbly ask why it's so difficult to deal with USF light vehicle play when you have access to a t0 AT gun? does it just really mess up the teching or is it an issue of not being able to properly defend an AT gun at that stage of the game? I'm being genuine, most replays I see of better players seem to have USF light vehicles fausted to death or just fausted and ignored. It's odd to see such a change where prior it was the OKW light vehicles that were terrorizing USF infantry.

if we wanted to revert the changes could we please look at maybe not have the rifle AT nade behind vet1 and giving RM their smokes back? I admit I wasn't lurking here when that decision was made so I haven't seen the argument for doing it but it seemed to really hurt the USF idea of flanking and causing chaos. REs just don't seem have a place outside of being light AT infantry and mine clearers.

Also I'm really tired of this crabs in the bucket mentality of "USF doesn't have to get strong against OKW because then they'll be better than wher" that plagues every discussion of adjusting the faction. We can discuss wher but it doesn't change the fact that USF was struggling against OKW beforehand.

I'm kind of a fan of being able to win engagements where I out-maneuver the guy with long range stationary infantry now. OKW still has sturms and ost still has mg42 so it's not like it's always a straight fight between rifles and volks/grens anyway and they have to sidetech for all their upgrades.

Should probably look at the officers now. They should be a little more expensive.

Should probably look at the officers now. They should be a little more expensive.

I agree that's the best solution if "free officers" can't be changed. Costing more manpower is fair but delaying teching would be a negative impact.

You could offset this by making the usual build order rifle rifle officer where the officer has a normal build time and the light vehicle upgrade is the one that takes forever compared to the current long officer research. This would also require some careful changes to starting fuel and or fuel costs to make it all come together smoothly.

I agree that's the best solution if "free officers" can't be changed. Costing more manpower is fair but delaying teching would be a negative impact.

You could offset this by making the usual build order rifle rifle officer where the officer has a normal build time and the light vehicle upgrade is the one that takes forever compared to the current long officer research. This would also require some careful changes to starting fuel and or fuel costs to make it all come together smoothly.

This in my opinion is the best option. USF feels encouraged to field a ton of infantry just because there's nothing else they can do that early, and ontop of that you get the free officer squads. I'd be in favour of the tech being expensive but available a bit sooner so you can get an officer instead of another riflemen.

This was considered once and declined. Sturmpioneers are already charged with assaulting (StG, Concussion Grenade), fortifying (Pioneer), repairing (Pioneer), and anti-tank (Panzerschreck). Being made anti-cover / anti-building would mean this one unit occupies 5 roles in OKW.

So that’s kinda the point of the faction.

Let me explain, the OKW faction is supposed to represent extreme late war Germany (winter of 1944 and on).

During this time period, more than ever before, Germany was faced with a military that was becoming more and more polarized between the two ends of the spectrum of experience and training as well as equipment. On one end you have new units being rushed to the fight with almost no training due to necessity and often equipped poorly with just basic rifles and panzerfaust if you were lucky. On the other end you also have those units that had fought and gained experience over years and years of hard fighting on all fronts and some very advanced weapons as well, but only in small numbers.

Commanders of these forces had forces that had the experience and training and equipment to do any mission, and the manpower to back it up with the fresh troops. Unfortunately for them all of the experience, training and skill was all in the same place, the veterans. The new troops may have been ready and willing, but they didn’t have the training or skill to use the advanced weapons, that are in short supply anyways. So you do the obvious thing. You give the best weapons and hardest and most complicated missions to the veterans because you can’t rely on the new guys yet and are you really going to trust your best equipment to your worst troops?

Back to the game, we see this as the Sturmpioneers as the veterans who are over worked with repairing, fighting, anti building work and anti tank work. They’re expensive to show their relative rarity and are over taxed because they represent some of the overtaxed and overworked veterans. This can also apply to many other OKW units, but Volks vs Sturms is the easiest and best example.

Putting even more roles on Sturmpioneers is good for the factions theme and may actually be good for forcing diverse build orders instead of just Volk spam. If Volks can’t counter cover then they need to be backed up by Sturmpioneers. You can still maneuver and fight from cover defensively with Volks against some enemies but you’ll need your Sturms if you want to assault. (Hence the name “Sturm” pioneers.) The problem of Volks losing to Riflemen is also partially solved by just using less Volks and getting more Sturms. Say instead of going Sturms into four Volks try going for only two or three squads of Volks plus another squad of Sturms. Now that you’ve got two squads of Sturms maybe you can afford to put a Shreck on one of them instead of a sweeper. OKW is a faction that has the most options and can do it all, if you can afford it. Cost is your limiting factor for them even more than other factions. Maybe this is a design flaw in the faction as a whole, so I guess if you want a more typical German faction you can always just play Wehrmacht/Ostheer.

You mean making every usf unit better than their counterparts AND giving them free squads makes them overperform?

Woah

Yes, every single unit USF has is better than their counterparts. Like how Rear Echeleons outpreform strums, M20s out preform Luchs, Stuarts outpreform Pumas, Rangers outpreform Fallschrimjagers (LOL!)

Riflemen are NOT overpreforming I can think of like 5 hard counters to Riflemen in this patch:

MG42s
Fallschrimjagers
Obersoldaten
Grenadiers
Sniper

Yes, every single unit USF has is better than their counterparts. Like how Rear Echeleons outpreform strums, M20s out preform Luchs, Stuarts outpreform Pumas, Rangers outpreform Fallschrimjagers (LOL!)

Riflemen are NOT overpreforming I can think of like 5 hard counters to Riflemen in this patch:

MG42s
Fallschrimjagers
Obersoldaten
Grenadiers
Sniper

Grenadiers..?

Grenadiers..?

They wipe Riflemen easy with the easy to get MG42 upgrade

They wipe Riflemen easy with the easy to get MG42 upgrade

ah...and i though rifles (ad all other USF squads) have Access to upgrades too...sorry..my mistake.

They wipe Riflemen easy with the easy to get MG42 upgrade

While it does give them a considerable boost in firepower, as far as contemporary machine guns go (MG 34, M1919, Vickers K), it's not all that impressive. Any of the ones I listed are generally more powerful due to raw power or the squad they're on.

While it does give them a considerable boost in firepower, as far as contemporary machine guns go (MG 34, M1919, Vickers K), it's not all that impressive. Any of the ones I listed are generally more powerful due to raw power or the squad they're on.

Grens have 3 specific things that make them very potent against Riflemen:

1) Very low cost

2) Very good accuracy

3) Very good damage output with the MG42

This may not make them "better" than Riflemen on an individual basis but as a massed blob of 3-4 units they seem to be more effective than the same number of Riflemen.

This may not make them "better" than Riflemen on an individual basis but as a massed blob of 3-4 units they seem to be more effective than the same number of Riflemen.

Gren blob is the easiest to punish with heavier weapons though. Tanks, artillery, whatever you wanna hit it with, a gren blob will be hurt most by it since they're 4 men. Easiest to wipe those squads, especially if they're clumping themselves for you

They are annoyingly good against MGs with their rifle nade and lmg42. But same can be said for many lmg squads

Should probably look at the officers now. They should be a little more expensive.

I'd rather they removed the free officers (you can still buy them separately) and reduced/removed the side teching instead. Half the time the LT and Cpt make your army feel bloated with units that don't really contribute that much in the grand scheme.

Major is the only officer I use regularly and rebuild instantly when they die.

Or make it so that you can upgrade a rifle squad with a LT/Cpt for a vet bonus etc. So you have a more valuable unit rather than a forcing a blob on the player.

I'd rather they removed the free officers (you can still buy them separately) and reduced/removed the side teching instead. Half the time the LT and Cpt make your army feel bloated with units that don't really contribute that much in the grand scheme.

Major is the only officer I use regularly and rebuild instantly when they die.

Or make it so that you can upgrade a rifle squad with a LT/Cpt for a vet bonus etc. So you have a more valuable unit rather than a forcing a blob on the player.

It would be neat but According to members of the balance team they asked about removing free officers directly and relic said no during the USF tech revamp

One thing the team can do since they can’t remove free officers is to reduce their combat capabilities and increase their utility capabilities.

I agree that's the best solution if "free officers" can't be changed. Costing more manpower is fair but delaying teching would be a negative impact.

You could offset this by making the usual build order rifle rifle officer where the officer has a normal build time and the light vehicle upgrade is the one that takes forever compared to the current long officer research. This would also require some careful changes to starting fuel and or fuel costs to make it all come together smoothly.

+1

That'd be a great way to smooth out both officer power spike and the awkwardly long build time they have. Would definitely allow officer as a third unit that way.

I smell a lot of L2P here...

But apart from that, IMO free officers should stay, they make USF a little more unique when it comes to teching. I see a lot of scrambling with faction powespikes in the latest patches, OST got a new one at T2, OKM delayed, cons and IS adjusted and so on.

If officers build time is reduced and the units in the same tier delayed it can give the player the feel of a strong opening with a more conservative mindset towards midrange and lategame