Profile of Jae For Jett

On 1. The issue is how much that limits the design space. G43s are a close range + moving performance upgrade for grens. How would you handle something similar without a weapon switch? Id imagine with that approach you either intentionally limit variety, or you run out of weapons to use. Also, I dont think its unimaginable that one unit performs 5 times better with the same rifle. Osttruppen are (to my limited understanding) the conscripted people of axis conquered nations, and obers are the literal best trained infantry in the game. Im pretty sure a trained marksman could fire a bolt action rifle over twice as fast and twice as accurately as I could. Not to mention the, apparently, fairly well documented phenomenon where most soldiers didnt even shoot to kill (which i imagine wouldnt include the hardened veterans like obers), and that 5x performance gap is easily believable to me. My point is not that the performance gap is unrealistic, but that in order to replicate that effect without damage differences will probably lead to a unit that is unsatisfying to use (a low acc, low rof unit). That said, I do agree with you. With the performance gap being that big, obers probably could have done with using a different weapon.

On 2. I think you said it yourself, coh2 has way too many different types of infantry units for this model to work. My issue is that this seems to imply you think coh3 should have less variety. I like how certain weapons (in game unique, not irl unique) perform well on the move, some perform well at close, or mid, or long with some quirks in what ranges they spike at. I do think there should be more reason to these things, but I like that level of variety and complexity. As you kind of implied (or maybe you didnt mean to...), this system probably cant offer that, and thats my main issue with it.

Your example of Obers vs Ostuppen, you bring up another point I’d like to mention. You are right that it’s absurd that a unit performs up to 5 times as well as another while armed with the same exact rifle.

I... never said that at all...?

This is not only confusing to the player who might notice the performance disparity in spite of the identical equipment, but is also easily solved. Just give them different guns. If Obers need to be so vastly better than another unit, then give them a different gun to help show that.

Like which gun? Im not that well versed in ww2 firearms or firearms in general, so im not sure what other options are out there that could fit.

For example, you make all K98s do the same damage and have veteran units get a higher rate of fire and accuracy, but elite units get LMGs or StG44s or G43s that have even higher rates of fire and comparable accuracy. This faster fire rate easily tells the player that they are dealing more damage and further delineates performance from unit to unit based on equipment.

Regardless, I think it’s a topic that could use further discussion dedicated to it. Cheers.

But about rates of fire, do you know what coh2 weapon has the highest rate of fire? If it really were that well communicated to the player (since a high rate of fire "easily tells" the player a weapon has high damage output), then I imagine you would be able to tell me.

And while I do think it's a discussion worth having, it's hard for it to be a productive one since realism vs. workable/malleable mechanics is essentially about preference/opinion.

Show Spoiler

Penals get a total of 60% bonus to accuracy by vet 3, plus a marginal benefit with 'to the last man', they will do more damage with their ppshes than shocks

The bonuses are multiplicative with the previous ones, so it's 130%*130% = 169%.

I'm just really confused by your suggestions then.

So my first issue is your vet rearrangement for volks. You're suggesting nerfing volks' vet 2 accuracy bonus to 15%? Or are you adding on another 15% so that they get 45%? Either of the two kind of seems like a bad idea...

My next issue is that you suggest removing 160 manpower worth of combat power from OKWs first ~4 minutes. I know OKW's early game is strong, but 160 is simply absurd. I can't see this going any other way except them getting absolutely dominated every single game in the first few minutes.

I also don't like the rak change (not conceptually, but just in the overall context). Raks then become worse for countering super light vehicles (m3/uc) meaning OKW loses even harder against these. Combine that with the other early manpower nerfs, and the early game probably becomes miserable. But then the AT gun itself becomes (presumably) the best in the game. The change just seems confused, taking away power where it's actually needed.

And then there are obers, which you probably won't even want since you're unlikely to be able to afford an expensive, high bleed squad since you're likely on the back foot at this point. You've probably been dominated for most of the early game, and now that you have your tier structure up, you probably want your overpowered AT gun to counter the allied light tanks, not an ATless, high bleed squad.

Finally, you claim the intent is to give units more specialized and defined roles, but you're actually doing the opposite. Instead of having sturms as the close range specialist, volks as the all rounder, and obers as the long range elite... you have sturms as the close range specialist, volks as the close range specialist, and obers as a high performing all rounder (until they get their lmgs). There's just more overlap in OKW infantry roles now. In fact, why wouldn't people just spam sturms since they can relatively cost efficiently take on tanks (with the schrecks), or be a cheap 240 manpower assault squad with faster repairs than current sturms?

...I know Jae43 uses the upgrade quite extensively with T1 skip...

And now I make my entrance (saw this post before but finally got around to replying).

So everyone here, especially DerbyHat, did a good job of outlining the raw positives and negatives of the upgrade, so now I can focus purely on WHY you get the upgrade.

Something you'll notice about the panzergrenadier stg curve is that is scales up really quickly but consistently with no large DPS falloffs or spikes anywhere - it looks like it has good DPS curve. The issue here though is that while the DPS curve has a good slope, it has deceptively low far range values. Even riflemen (which have modest far DPS compared to IS and penals) have a higher DPS than panzergrenadiers from ranges 32+. It's a 3 range window, but it's there and it's actually very important, especially at Aimstrong's level of play. To get to what I mean, think about how this can manifest in a defensive situation.

If you have panzergrenadiers set up behind cover and your opponent decides to attack it, they can just attack move it. They set up a 35 range fight where panzergrenadiers have surprisingly low DPS and win with their concentration of force. This puts you into a lose-lose situation. Stay in that engagement where your panzergrenadiers perform suboptimally (but last a while since they're behind cover), or get to a range where your panzergrenadiers perform well...but give up your cover position. The key here is that you are forced into a set of bad choices.

Try the same with g43s. I should preface this next statement by letting you know that at range 35, the DPS of a g43 squad vs stg squad is 10.7 vs. 4.2. With 10.7 far DPS, your opponent can't win by a-moving into you and taking a max range fight, but they also can't win by closing in because g43s still perform well at mid and close range. You then force your opponent into a set of bad choices.

While a simple look at the positives and negatives make the stgs seem almost universally better, that kind of analysis misses a lot of the context. The g43 upgrade takes a lot of DPS from the ranges where you DON'T need it (stgs will probably beat most squads at ranges under 25 anyway) and transfers it over to the ranges where you DO need it. You'll still probably win all of those close range engagements that you would have won anyway, but now you also get to win the max range engagements that your opponent would have tried to force in order to exploit panzergrenadiers weakness. It makes your ranges less exploitable and makes it difficult for your opponent to win an engagement against your panzergrenadiers at ANY range - important at Aimstrong's level because most opponents can exploit that kind of weakness, that 30-35 range.

And yes, the increase in moving performance makes for a surprisingly wipe-y squad, and the extra 7 sight range is good for being able to pick your engagements.