Profile of Mr.Smith

MG-42 fired a burst...maxim gets suppressed and sets up...2nd burst, maxim still suppressed and suppresses MG in 1 burst. (Ty for ignoring the fact that the SUPPRESSED maxim pinned the MG-42)

If you think its right that a soviet player A-moves his maxim into your MG-42 (which is in a superior position), and beats it I hope you'll be the next balance manager my friend.

I'm not going to be picking sides here.

However, Necrophagist is right to point that the example posted is flawed
- This has nothing to do about the Maxim being OP
- This has nothing to do about MG-42 being UP
- This has to do with the positioning of MG-42 and how AoE suppression works in the game (it's bugged as hell)

To give you an example:
- If your MG is firing at a model that is outside cover, all nearby squads will become suppressed/pinned very fast
- This is because AoE suppression only takes into account the cover of the targeted model.

This gets even worse. In the following example I managed to pin a Volksgrenadier behind green cover in 3 bursts. How? By aiming at the King Tiger, of course (high target size, no cover = loads of suppression)



PS: I don't think that ANY MG in the game can pin stuff behind green cover if all models are behind green cover.
PS2: In this example the maxim won because it was behind Yellow cover, while the MG-42 was behind (effectively) no cover.

Broken? Not really. (has REs spam become a thing, now, and I missed the memo?)

Overperforming for their cost? Definitely. However we need to make the following distinction:
- Their call-in cost is cheap for a 4-man squad, and dirt-cheap for a 5-man squad
- Their reinforcement cost is OK-ish (compare to other line infantry for instance)
- They cost the same-or-more popcap as other line infantry

However, before we go ahead and balance the only non-underperforming infantry of the Brits let's have a look at the bigger picture.

Spamming Tommies doesn't work; Tommies are a bit meh for their cost, and you will bleed heavily.

Spamming Sappers doesn't work either; sure, on 1v1 with other infantry, they are cost efficient. However, they have a very low range and can be cattle-prodded with MGs very easily.

You are meant to use both of them at the same time so that each unit's advantages covers the other unit's disadvantages.

Tommies

Tommies cost 280MP, and are probably priced with their 5-man version in mind.

For a 4-man squad, Tommies are extremely overpriced at 280MP. Part of that call-in premium goes towards:
- Tommies' received accuracy at Vet0 (-20%)
- Is probably meant to be recuperated by more cost-efficient units (Sappers).

Tommies, however, suffer from the following:
- Cover penalty
- Severe moving accuracy penalty
- Their Vet3 penalty bug (weapon pinatas)
- They scale well, but not as well as other infantry in the game (if you compare the bonuses)
- Part of the reason behind this scalability lag is that they already get some of the benefits at Vet0
- Unless you plan on blobbing your entire army, the faction design forces UKF to have at least 2 Tommies so that they get access to healing

I will leave it up to you to decide whether 280MP is a fair price for a 5-man Tommy squad.

Sappers

Sappers are very generously priced for a 4-man unit. Of course, this cost becomes insanely low considering that Sappers can become 5-man squads.

Their Vet0 reinforcement cost is not that bad. They cost 7/8 popcap and are meant to act as line infantry to cover up for Tommies' weaknesses.

The combat bonuses they get are at:
- Vet0 (0.8 reinforcement cost)
- Vet1 (Stens fire faster when in cover -- currently it's bugged and affects ALL weapons)
- Vet3 (Additional received accuracy bonus, Halved reinforcement cost)

Now:
1. Sappers cost equal/more popcap than other line infantry.
2. The Vet3 Reinforcement cost bonus is outright OP and needs to be thrown out immediately IMO (or moved to Conscripts)
3. The call-in cost could be adjusted to be fair. However, it would also be fair to adjust the Tommies' callin cost at the same time.
4. I don't know if one of the received accuracy bonuses needs to be reduced.
5. Alternatively, their Vet0 received accuracy bonus could be tied to a specific Veterancy tier.
6. However, this unit receives no offensive vet bonuses at all (apart from the recent bug).

Overall, as a line-infantry, Sappers get very tanky-kind-of veterancy. That, coupled with the Heavy Engineer upgrade makes them extremely difficult to eradicate. That is, until you figure out that you should be using grenades against them.

(Excluding the recent bug), none of the bonuses affects their offensive capability with equipped weapons. This means that you need Tommies to dish out the damage, and it probably makes sense to have Sappers to soak up the damage.

That's right. No matter how much munitions you sink into Sappers, Tommies will still be able to deal more damage with equal (or less) amount of munitions invested.

Provided that this is balanced, I think that's good design (as opposed to spamming Rifle-Rifle-Rifle or Volks-Volks-Volks)

Weapon teams

If we nerf Sappers, UKF will lack a low-reinforcement utility-only unit to reman weapon teams.

Currently, we have:
- USF has RE for 25MP-a-pop (a bit overnerfed) -- no special utility
- Soviets have Conscripts for 20-a-pop -- no special utility
- OKW has Volks for 25-a-pop -- no special utility
- OST has Pioneers (25-a-pop) or Osttruppen (20-a-pop) -- Pioneers have a passive sight bonus. Osttruppen reinforce very very very fast
- UKF has Sappers for 26-a-pop -- Sappers have a 0.8 received accuracy

(Btw, Vickers is also overpriced at 280MP. Shouldn't we also fix that too?)

Conclusions

1. The Sappers Vet3 reinforcement cost bonus (13MP) is ridiculously OP and needs to go.
2. Don't fix Sappers further unless you also plan on fixing Tommies too.
3. Otherwise, don't come here to complain when UKF starts spamming nothing but snipers and emplacements as their line infantry.

Actually, with only a few rare exceptions, OKW gets a pretty good deal out of their vehicles.

Here, I'm not even going to consider the Vet4/Vet5 bonuses some of these vehicles get.

I am also not going to account for the zanny OKW tier structure which allows certain units to appear earlier than their similar-tier counterparts.

The Dirt-Cheap tier

Jagtiger
- This unit is strictly better than the Elefant
- It is very map-dependent, but scales way too good in larger teammodes
- How can this cost (slightly) less than the Elefant?

Sturmtiger
-

Panther Command Tank
- No tech required
- Has aura that benefits allied units
- Has an insane damage-dealing debuff that makes Panzer IV's behave like Tigers
- How can this unit only cost 200 Fuel?
- That vet3/4/5 aura...

The very-cost-effective tier

Jagpanzer IV
- Even at Vet0, this tank can seal-club any tank destroyer vehicle that the opposition can field; even the more expensive ones
- This is without even considering the bugs in the Vet1 ability which make this unit effectively uncounterable

The OK-price tier

Panzer IV (compared to OST Panzer IV)
(You must be thinking: "wtf? This unit costs 20% more fuel")
(without accounting for vet4/vet5)
- This unit gets the OST vet2 armour bonus at vet0
- Furthermore, it absolutely murders infantry at vet2 (scatter affects AI performance mostly)
- OKW "Combat Blitz" > OST "Blitzkrieg" (-50% rec acc, +100% accuracy +40% speed vs -25% rec acc, +15% speed)
- This unit definitely needs a Popcap cost increase

The slightly-overpriced tier

Panther
(without comparing Vet4 and Vet5)
- 50% more accurate on the move than the OST Panther
- Better MGs than the OST Panther
- OKW "Combat Blitz" > OST "Blitzkrieg" (check above)

The super-expensive tier

King tiger
- Fuel-wise it is very inefficient to replace
- No clue about the MP cost (too high or too low)

Yes, the argument regarding the high fuel cost for the KT is to delay the time it takes to field the first KT. However, wouldn't it be better to tie that cost down to a side-upgrade/CPs etc?

PS: Don't bring up the price-efficiency of the Cromwell. Everybody knows that the Cromwell is too efficient for its cost.

<snip>

Also anvil in general just sucks, if 25pdr's get a buff and the movement penalty on engies gets scrapped or at least reduced I might invest in it.

Actually, the (Anvil) Airburst shells got a decent buff last patch (listed under bugfixes). I don't have access to the precise stats right now. However when I did the calculation some weeks ago, their potency felt like this:
- Airburst shells one-shot-kill models on the same radius as the lethal radius of the light gammon bomb
- They also deal a tiny bit of damage (16?) on the furthest reaches of the visual effect (7-10 radius)
- This means that Airburst shells will also blind tanks (i.e., can move but can't shoot) at a significantly increased radius.

(Previously it used to be that Airburst AoE = HE shell AoE; i.e., they sucked)

Yes. The ability is still highly situational. However, when you need it, you now, at least, get your munitions' worth of fireworks.

PS: Airburst shells have an instant travel time almost (unlike HE shells). The delay is only due to waiting for the howies to face the right direction.

Guys,

1) Let's assume for instance that Relic had somebody else instead of Brad as the lead balance developer in the past couple of months:
- Is there anybody in this thread, seriously thinking that the lead balance developer would have enough power to veto/tone-down the OP DLC stuff before release (Brits, Commanders etc)
- Or do you think that the higher ups would just try to force those things into the game anyway to pump money out (so that the game and the company could keep running)
- Why are we crucifying Brad for stuff he most likely had absolutely no say about anyway?

2) Regarding patches. Before Brad:
- How often did this game get to be patched (bugfixes, rebalancing, etc)?
- What happened between these patches? (Broken meta for months? Tiger Ace/Windustry, anyone?)
- What was the communication between Relic devs and the community like?