Easy USF fix

It'd be a huge help to the USF-OST matchup if the M20 lost its bazooka. USF has plenty of AT tools in Lieutenant now: the M20 killing its own counter (the 222) is a bit much.

IMO M20 is totally overboard because of all the stuff it's got (non doctrine smoke, crew with repairs, crit repairs, a bazooka, teller mine that stops vehicles, ability to upgrade its armour, immunity to small arms, very fast, oh and of course the bazooka is for free - just crazy, and the ability to cap of course - best while repairing) Maybe it is a "combined arms" approach in a nutshell?

Making them not free's been ruled out by Relic, but I quite like the idea of diversing them like this.

Do you know this for a fact or are you speculating? Also, if we're stuck with the current structure then they should change the cost to 280/25 or the powerspike will continue to cause a problem.

Do you know this for a fact or are you speculating? Also, if we're stuck with the current structure then they should change the cost to 280/25 or the powerspike will continue to cause a problem.

IIRC Sander stated it further up the thread, and he's on the patch team.

IMO M20 is totally overboard because of all the stuff it's got (non doctrine smoke, crew with repairs, crit repairs, a bazooka, teller mine that stops vehicles, ability to upgrade its armour, immunity to small arms, very fast, oh and of course the bazooka is for free - just crazy, and the ability to cap of course - best while repairing) Maybe it is a "combined arms" approach in a nutshell?

The M20 was designed for a Lieutenant tier with no AP ammo on the .50 cal, no Lieutenant bazooka and the AAHT instead of the Stuart. It had the bazooka because it needed it.

Lieutenant now has so much soft AT that the M20 bazooka tips it overboard.

So... Doctrinal call-in, doctrinal call-in, doctrinal call-in, and... doctrinal call-in.

I'm of the opinion that basic gameplay elements should be included in all factions without needing a doctrine. Same reason Soviets got a stock "elite" unit, penals, despite having a bunch of elite call-ins.

They should be, but not all factions have it. Giving USF a 5th Assault unit would be boring and uninspired, and dampen the need for any of the other options. I'd rather have Assault Engineers come to the faction stock than to have another Assault unit added. Even with OKW having the same number of assault units, they aren't all just using MP 40's, they have 4 different weapons and squads. US's all use the same 2 guns, the Grease Gun and the Thompson, and so would this theoretical 5th squad as well.

The M20 was designed for a Lieutenant tier with no AP ammo on the .50 cal, no Lieutenant bazooka and the AAHT instead of the Stuart. It had the bazooka because it needed it.

Lieutenant now has so much soft AT that the M20 bazooka tips it overboard.

I know and remember quite well. I was against it then and still am even more now (still not sure if removing it will solve the problem with so many other abilities it has - but a step in the right direction)

IIRC Sander stated it further up the thread, and he's on the patch team.

I didn't notice it but he'd know better than any of the rest of us. They should at least adjust the cost up to 280mp and lower the fuel down to 25. If you want access to grenades, weapon racks and both an AT gun and mg then USF is always about 20-30 fuel behind Ost or OKW to get armor out. Some people might be able to use the power spike to even it out but in some ways that's just as bad.

They should be, but not all factions have it. Giving USF a 5th Assault unit would be boring and uninspired, and dampen the need for any of the other options. I'd rather have Assault Engineers come to the faction stock than to have another Assault unit added. Even with OKW having the same number of assault units, they aren't all just using MP 40's, they have 4 different weapons and squads. US's all use the same 2 guns, the Grease Gun and the Thompson, and so would this theoretical 5th squad as well.

You say that like the Lt isn't already a riflemen with some abilities. How about something that isn't just a ton of garrands on a 5 man squad?

IMO M20 is totally overboard because of all the stuff it's got (non doctrine smoke, crew with repairs, crit repairs, a bazooka, teller mine that stops vehicles, ability to upgrade its armour, immunity to small arms, very fast, oh and of course the bazooka is for free - just crazy, and the ability to cap of course - best while repairing) Maybe it is a "combined arms" approach in a nutshell?

The M20 isn't immune to small arms, the bazooka requires exiting the vehicle, and the gun is basically worthless versus any other light vehicle, and not even all that great versus infantry. (222/luchs are obviously better, but the 221 pintle MG and WC51 truck MG are also better)

The fact so many axis players bitch about the mine is hilarious considering how often the shoe is on the other foot with teller mines, and how rarely these mines are actually laid down in 1v1s considering the million other things USF needs to spend munitions on (including the armor(hp) upgrade you so mention)

Basically, the M20 is overboard with utility because it's literally called a utility car and it's not particularly great at anything else, even chasing down snipers after the USF tech patch lowered axed its near main gun accuracy. That said, ditching the bazooka would probably be fine since 9 times out of 10 its a death sentence to try and fend off a 222 with them anyway, and ends with a destroyed or stolen M20 instead of a dead 222.

You say that like the Lt isn't already a riflemen with some abilities. How about something that isn't just a ton of garrands on a 5 man squad?

I'm in favor of diversifying the Officers too, that's why I suggested above that at least one of the Officers could have a marksman in the squad. The other could be something special too, maybe a flamethrower team, a Bazooka team (with Bazooka Expert), an M1919 with the ability to go prone and become like a Machine Gun (good for if you don't get M2's), or maybe something fancy like a squad that will fire Rifle Grenades when fighting from cover. There are a lot of possibilities that aren't just more SMG's in a faction that has 4 SMG units.

My idea would be one 5 man squad that can gain Rifle Grenades or an M1C, and one 4 man squad that can gain either 2 Bazookas with 'Bazooka Expert', or an M1919 with a new ability called 'Deploy' which puts the gunner in a prone position facing forward and grants MG-like suppression.

The M20 isn't immune to small arms, the bazooka requires exiting the vehicle, and the gun is basically worthless versus any other light vehicle, and not even all that great versus infantry. (222/luchs are obviously better, but the 221 pintle MG and WC51 truck MG are also better)

You are right - but 2 things:
1. Given the vehicle's price that is hell of utility for free as all these abilitities (whether you think they are good or not) come basically for free and that tips the balance.
2. You compare it to OKW and that is a good comparison and a rather balanced match up - the problem is with ostheer where 222 is much more voulnerable to small arms and lacks those abilities . The solution may be to give some of similar utilities to 222 (smoke, maybe a possiblility to cap territory or just make it immune to small arms) and then paradoxically USF will be fixed against ost.

The fact so many axis players bitch about the mine is hilarious considering how often the shoe is on the other foot with teller mines, and how rarely these mines are actually laid down in 1v1s considering the million other things USF needs to spend munitions on (including the armor(hp) upgrade you so mention)

It's no axis platyers' bitching. I'd say it is allies bitching about tellers not really realising they have their own tellers. Good players lie them just like axis tellers and they can be deadly as axis lack crit repairs (with the exception of tiger ace).

Each factions requires munitions and trust me axis need them too, for ost you must often decide between a teller, healing, infantry upgrades, sweepers etc. and usually for me it is harder than when I'm playing USF.

Basically, the M20 is overboard with utility because it's literally called a utility car and it's not particularly great at anything else, even chasing down snipers after the USF tech patch lowered axed its near main gun accuracy. That said, ditching the bazooka would probably be fine since 9 times out of 10 its a death sentence to try and fend off a 222 with them anyway, and ends with a destroyed or stolen M20 instead of a dead 222.

Well, not really true as many players replace crew with rear echelons and have a free bazooka squad early, which has huge impact on 222 and halftacks early game. Again it is more overboard than you seem to realise. Also the ability to absorb a faust shot and quickly come back with crew repairs can drain your opponents of munitions without giving them any breathing room.

IMO M20 is totally overboard because of all the stuff it's got (non doctrine smoke, crew with repairs, crit repairs, a bazooka, teller mine that stops vehicles, ability to upgrade its armour, immunity to small arms, very fast, oh and of course the bazooka is for free - just crazy, and the ability to cap of course - best while repairing) Maybe it is a "combined arms" approach in a nutshell?

And it got all these things since forever and it never was a problem.
Also, its getting hard countered by 222.

And it got all these things since forever and it never was a problem.
Also, its getting hard countered by 222.

222 is not a hard counter. 222 will almost never kill the m20 without dying itself because there's way too much soft AT around. I still don't get why all the good players suddenly consider USF overpowered. Sometimes I feel like there might be a certain Vanilla faction bias that makes them get away with more overpowered shit than the others. Like the T70 has been op for essentially the entire lifespan of the game and barely anyone complains.

222 is not a hard counter. 222 will almost never kill the m20 without dying itself because there's way too much soft AT around. I still don't get why all the good players suddenly consider USF overpowered. Sometimes I feel like there might be a certain Vanilla faction bias that makes them get away with more overpowered shit than the others. Like the T70 has been op for essentially the entire lifespan of the game and barely anyone complains.

Then we should consider the Stuart to not be the hardcounter to anything as well. Oh and we should also consider USF has 0 hard counter to sniper by the same logic.

The M20 isn't immune to small arms, the bazooka requires exiting the vehicle, and the gun is basically worthless versus any other light vehicle, and not even all that great versus infantry. (222/luchs are obviously better, but the 221 pintle MG and WC51 truck MG are also better)

The fact so many axis players bitch about the mine is hilarious considering how often the shoe is on the other foot with teller mines, and how rarely these mines are actually laid down in 1v1s considering the million other things USF needs to spend munitions on (including the armor(hp) upgrade you so mention)

Basically, the M20 is overboard with utility because it's literally called a utility car and it's not particularly great at anything else, even chasing down snipers after the USF tech patch lowered axed its near main gun accuracy. That said, ditching the bazooka would probably be fine since 9 times out of 10 its a death sentence to try and fend off a 222 with them anyway, and ends with a destroyed or stolen M20 instead of a dead 222.

The m20 is great vs infatry.

As for DPS it has range 40 (up to 45) and it gets an accuracy buff for every vet level.

When upgrade with skirt it is not immune to small arms but they only have 6% chance of penetrating. It will hardly die to small arm fire.

The gun is hardly worthless vs armored cars, it has enough penetration to kill kubels/221-223 and get more penetration at vet 3.

222 is not a hard counter. 222 will almost never kill the m20 without dying itself because there's way too much soft AT around. I still don't get why all the good players suddenly consider USF overpowered. Sometimes I feel like there might be a certain Vanilla faction bias that makes them get away with more overpowered shit than the others. Like the T70 has been op for essentially the entire lifespan of the game and barely anyone complains.

T70 isn't OP though. It comes way after any other LV and is better because of it. If you rush Ost T3 you get an Ostwind shortly after the T70 arrives. And if the T70 wasn't good you might as well delete Soviets from competitive play and just play OKW/Ost vs USF every game. USF is considered OP because of M20 timing, Pershing overall performance, strong support weapons, vehicle crews, free officer squad and overall lack of any weakness. USF has great infantry, great support weapons, great indirect fire, great medium tank, best TD.

And it got all these things since forever and it never was a problem.
Also, its getting hard countered by 222.

Extra utilities you don't pay for have always been a balance problem. They have never been addressed so far as most players don't seem to realise how much they affect the gameplay. Players mostly analyse raw killing power usually forgetting about the softer aspercts of given units (repair speeds have been addrressed recently to some extend though, healing a bit too).

The game is really well balanced for an assymetrical rts - now it is time to polish up such details (free bazooka crew, for example) to make it even better. USF basically has many useful non directly combat related abilities that are overlooked by many players but they are there and are very useful) To "fix", as sb suggested in the title of the post, the faction maight mean analysing thoroughly how much they affect gameplay. My opinion in that, for example, sherman is the best medium in the game (cost/performance/utility ratio perspective), especially in 1v1.

Remove m20 vehicle crew and self repair ability. No more bully axis until you overreach, get fausted and then 20s and you are back on the field! This super early light vehicle already has early initiative, smoke and mine abilities making it earn its price. This way damaging it would be rewarded with decreasing USFs field presence and capping power for a moment instead of feeling like winning the coh2 r-tard olympics for wasting munis before 222 hits the field.

Remove m20 vehicle crew and self repair ability. No more bully axis until you overreach, get fausted and then 20s and you are back on the field! This super early light vehicle already has early initiative, smoke and mine abilities making it earn its price. This way damaging it would be rewarded with decreasing USFs field presence and capping power for a moment instead of feeling like winning the coh2 r-tard olympics for wasting munis before 222 hits the field.

Yeah the M20 definitely needs to be changed. I would keep the vehicle crew because it would be odd for it not to have it, unlike every other USF non-doctrinal vehicle.

What could be done is make the build time slightly longer (10seconds) and make the smoke + mine utility abilities part of the veterancy. That way it will be harder to mine up key roads that you can later bait the charging 222 or Luchs into. So maybe make smoke vet 1 and mine vet 2. On top of that remove the bazooka from the vehicle crew.

So maybe make smoke vet 1 and mine vet 2. On top of that remove the bazooka from the vehicle crew.

Ah yes the vehicle crew zooks. The honeypot ability that turns the predator into the pray. If you got bamboozled into thinking that 222 was hardcounter to m20 think again! If the crew jumps out at the sight of 222 they have enough time to chace after and get in 2 shots and kill the 222 if it decides to try and stay in to destroy the m20. And this is without the side skirts btw. BALANCE!