Profile of Mr.Smith

so soviet snipers get huge buff due to 10 seconds camo cooldown.

Is the machine behind this? Why did they ruin the possible perfect patch?

Just to clarify. If you use snipers as intended, and have them fire from camo, they will still return to stealth after 4 seconds (Soviets) or 6 seconds (UKF and OST), as was always intended.

The 10 second cooldown applies only if you fire from outside camouflage. Previously (in the live version), firing from outside cover means that you can stealth instantly. We consider this an abuse of the stealth mechanics in the game, thus we have fixed it.

10 seconds was a reasonable compromise, considering that you do not trigger stealth diminishing cooldowns when firing from outside camouflage.

If you have never abused the stealth bug, or don't even know what the stealth bug is, you will not notice any performance drop on the snipers.

why can't we have grenadiers a 5 man upgrade in Tier4? It would solve the easy squad wipes and actually make T4 interesting as a tech choice.

Cause if we do anything to buff the Grenadiers, we would also have to buff all the following squads, which would underperform in relation to them:


LMG Grenadiers (call-in infantry)
Panzergrenadiers
Stormtroopers
Assault Grenadiers (more)
Revert some of the nerfs to Guards
Revert some of the nerfs to Penals
Conscripts
Shock troops
Assault guards
Anti-infantry Partisans
Tommies
Commandos
Airborne Paratroopers
Recon Paratroopers
Pathfinders
Recon Pathfinders
Lieutenant
Captain
Volksgrenadiers
Obersoldaten Vet0-Vet3

Finally, with every single infantry squad buffed to insane levels, we might realise later on that HMGs are no longer doing their jobs. Thus we would also have to buff the following HMG teams to compensate:

Maxim
Dshk
MG42
Vickers
MG34
50cal

That's a ton of squads we would have to change if we wanted to change Grenadiers. Don't you agree? Instead, we just nerfed the 3-or-so squad types that truly overperformed in relation to Grenadiers in terms of killing firepower and utility

I'm not familiar with modding of this game, can't 'For Mother Russia' commander ability icon be used? Or are assets tied to their units and abilities?

That's an excellent idea. UI icons can be reused at will.

Was out in the open squad spacing even an issue? I always thought bunching behind cover was the deal.

Out-in the open formation also affects how fast the squad will spread WHILE leaving cover.

As it has already been mentioned, we can only change out-in-the-open formation, and formation-inside craters. For Axis infantry, in particular, their formation when sitting on craters is noticeably more spread.

Also OST halftrack doesn't gain vet from nearby units and the luchs uses the wrong Icon. The cost could go down further as well.

Thx for the heads up!

Note that the USF mortar is a more expensive shorter-ranged precise-copy of the OST mortar. There is also no longer the vet3 +33% range bonus for any mortar in the game.

The big overarching vision behind light vehicle changes are:
- You can still go ahead and play vehicle-vs-vehicle stuff, but now, hopefully, it will be more fair
- However, with the changes, you can also hopefully have a chance of playing with a vehicle-free build, and not having to outskill your opponent.

The latter point is extremely crucial, since we have 2 factions (UKF and OST) that can field no light vehicle of their own. Having no options meant that all build orders converged to exactly the same thing. And that kills strategic diversity there on the cradle

- Stuff that wasn't buffed, or even touched (e.g., M3 HT) might become stronger due to the nerfs/later-arrival of their counters

Ok here we go:

Reinforcing halftracks
M3 HT(UKF): gets nothing on vet 2 and vet 3 Rip Copy paste other HT veterancy
Is the 251 HT the only one which can move support weapons mortars?
Why not the other 3? The 250 HT? In case the 251 HT is the only one able to, it can transport stolen mortars ?

The 251 can carry all mortars in its hold (even stolen ones. No, ISG's do not count as mortars).

We could also allow other halftracks to carry just about anything around (HMG/Mortars/etc). However one issue with that is that the mortar/MG-carrying models will not show up on the open-topped HT. Thus, it might be possible for a player to trick the enemy as to the status of their cargo.

Note that the 251 HT is also the most fragile of the lot (doctrinal HT's excepted).

Sniper cloak
I do think that the 10s recloak time after shooting OUTSIDE cover it's fine (deals with finicky issues).
I do think it's excessive the 3s after combat cloak time. I believe the micro games moving around sniper through cover is a fine mechanic (only for snipers) giving the fragility of them and considering the latest nerfs to it (adding detection and target tables on other units).

IF there are issues, i only think that this is the case for the OH sniper vs USF match up and UKF vs OKW. Till they change a bit the SU sniper (problematic for been 2 models but having crap cloaking) i don't think it's an issue.
For the OH vs USF: the addition of mortar + M20 change + 222 change makes more than enough to deal with OH sniper.
UKF/SU vs OKW: they have slower RoF. OKW has 5man based main infantry. Aimed shot nerf hurts against UKF.

IF snipers would be overperforming, then why not improve and add counters?
Brainstorming:
Show Spoiler

Note: all other changes to other cloak units are fine.

The sniper changes we did were limited in scope, since they are meant to act as a guard vs light-vehicles losing some of their AI power.

The scope of the stealth changes was broadened to cover other stealth units, given Tightrope's recent reboot of the JP4-wondercannon bug that you know very well.

Our goal for this patch is to find the sweet spot where light vehicle performance should go. Ideally, we want to do this without overnerfing the sniper, or giving him complete rein over the battlefield.

At a later patch, we could rework the sniper/sniper-counter system, and those suggestions could prove handy. However, it's important to keep the scope of the patch as narrow as possible, so the stuff that we do change gets properly tested.

Raketenwerfer might need some responsiveness buffs.

I think it's a healthier compromise to have an AT gun that can hold its ground vs tanks, rather than have one that's crap vs tanks and unkillable by infantry.

Puma: is it really needed the nerf? I guess consistency but i don't think the current perf excels at AI and it's fine.

The thought process behind the Puma nerf has to do with the AEC, and OST. The AEC had to take a bit of an AI nerf to accommodate OST not having to go 222 every single game.

Then, we had to make a choice about what stuff the AEC should do better than the Puma (given that the Puma is massively better at AT), so that the AEC doesn't become a worse Puma. At the same time, the Puma should remain considerably better at AT than the AEC, given that it is a considerably bigger investment for the OKW player to build a puma, than for the UKF player to get an AEC.

Thus, the only reasonable option we found was to reduce Puma AI so that AEC at least has an area it is better at than the Puma.

Yes, the Aimed shot nerf will hurt OKW anti-sniper capabilities. However, our gamble is that the stealth nerf on the snipers will more than compensate for this.

Penals: fine with the nerfs.
Instead of removing the flamethrower, why not replace the SVT with PPSH when upgraded so actually sacrifice mid/long range DPS? Or add PPSH/DP upgrade? Or reduce satchel cost ?

We tried that. Then we decided that with Penals being able to switch from long-ranged-AI role to close ranged specialists:
- Nobody would ever, ever build Shocks (who actually really badly need a buff)
- We had no idea how such a lethal close-ranged squad would play in some of the city maps. Thus we didn't want to introduce anything potentially gamebraking.

Guards: i think there are TOO MANY nerfs at the same time.
Keep the nerfs to vet, nade and AI PTRS but keep the current cost ?
Is there any issue adding been able to rebuy PTRS ? (What comes to my mind is that them been piñatas would give PTRS to everyone XD)

Bingo. Guards would, then, become the unofficial weapon rack of the Soviets, kitting out everyone. Thus Guards would become an auto-pick, further shoving Shocks further down into oblivion.

IMO, a better solution would be to prevent PTRS rifles from dropping altogether.

The cost is an one-time thing. Guards have decent reinforcement cost. We have to see how things play out with the Vet5 faction, though.

M17 Quad
Doesn't it arrive way later than others suppressing HT (both USF and OKW). Muni cost could go down or not (90-100) after those nerfs?
PD: you know you have crap AA when they have to buff it by x100. Although this isn't too much and should be 3% per shot instead of 30% ? Other AA sources to same levels ?

If I recall correctly, the USF M15 has a 17% chance per hit, and it has 3 guns.

IMO, the M17 quad should be the most efficient unit at killing planes. That's because it's the most expensive AA platform to get, and also the most vulnerable to airplanes (which it has to shoot down). Thus, the Quad should, really, really shut planes down very reliably on the first pass.

OH Medkit
Self healing ?

It could be an option.

G43 on PG/ST
I still think it's not enough to be useful on them (specialy on PG in comparison to their STG). JLI G43 crit chance?

On paper, the damage output per G43 is quite decent. The problem is that PGrens only get 2 of them, and that hardly qualifies as a role change.

In our early tests, we gave PGrens the ability to buy a single JLI G43 sniper rifle. The thing was beyond broken. All squads would fold to sniper-G43 at all ranges, all veterancy levels, and all upgrades.

I think that the only way to make this upgrade salvageable is one of the following:
- Award more G43 rifles
- Allow PGrens to choose which part of the DPS they want to shed (e.g., lose your G43's as your models die when closing in)

Nevertheless, the stealth detection idea you mentioned is pretty good.

However, since we want people to really focus on the stock options, and see how the light vehicle meta will evolve, it would be too distracting to have all the doctrinal options popping up at the same time.

Stuart
Now that stun shots no longer disables movement, what about been able to use it with engine shot (does it still bugs?)

We are not aware of a bug to the Engine Shot. Perhaps it's because the range is too short? Now that the two abilities are non-overlapping people will actually get to use the Engine Shot.

Aimed shot
Can you still target support weapons ?

Vehicles only.

"Due to interference with UKF teching, it will be no longer possible to call Gliders or Air Resupply operation in the base sector"
Explain?

Realpolitik.

Landing gliders and/or supply drops too close to the UKF T3 before you researched the upgrade would prevent the Brit player from teching. That's because the UKF building would have nowhere to spawn.

Since we have no way of figuring out what causes the bug to trigger in the first place, and since there are more important bugs to go after, we figured that eliminating the most common causes of the bug would at least make it go away.