Profile of ferwiner

Budwise overview is a pretty accurate description of strategic concepts behind the Tier. Making guards non-doctrinal is also a welcome suggestion, if not a bit intrusive.

We could always swap penals and guards so that penals were doctrinal and guards in T1. Then we could give guard PTRS to penals. This is intrusive but it solves some problems:

1. The problem of guard drop weapon pinata
2. The problem of guard doctrines being the only ones in meta
3. The problem of viability of T1
4. The problem of non-doc late game infantry for soviets.

And it doesnt give T1 AT apart from maybe the button.

Still some other problems may show up so I think long range weapon upgrade for penals is simpler, just as good or better and most importantly, in the scope of patch.

I think it would help us the most, we split the options of the poll into 4 groups. So that we know how people perceive Penals.

First group should focus on T1, and the self-sustainability options. For instance:
- Keep Penals OP, as they are (so that a T1 investment is worth it)
- Give T1 access to some AT options (so that they can hold off until T3)
- Make T1 free/ultra-cheap (that way, a T1 will be less of a costly detour)
- None of the above

(That way, we also know how much percentage of the votes we should disregard)

Second group should focus on the AI utility of Penals and scaling (sans Flamers).
Compared to the WBP v1.3

WBP v1.3 UNUPGRADED Penals early game is:
- Too weak - they need a buff
- OK - it's the right spot
- Too strong - they need a nerf somewhere

WBP v1.3 UNUPGRADED Penals late game is:
- Too weak - they need some buff somewhere (scaling/upgrade)
- OK - it's the right spot
- Too strong - nerf something; what?

The third group should focus on flamers, and whether people want Flamer Penals:
- Penals require no flamers at all
- WBP v1.3 version flamers (sprinkled with PPSh) (no received accuracy/no oorah)
- WBP v1.3 version, but with some received accuracy/oorah, so that Penals can close in
- Current version flamer Penals are OK.

(This should also give us a second indication about how much of the poll to take seriously)

The fourth and final group should focus on the AT utility of the tier:
- 2x PTRS/satchel (WBP v1.2) -- homing satchel though; skillshot satchel was a failure
- 2x PTRS/satchel with the ability to upgrade to 3rd PTRS (WBP v1.3)
- 3x PTRS/satchel (all-or-nothing)
- No PTRS - yes satchel
- M-42 at T1
- Zis-3 at T0
- Zis-3 at T3
- No AT options needed

(even if you add conscript PTRS, they are out of scope, so that won't help at all)

Finally, an opinion poll. If you ever built a T1, which one of the following units would be the LEAST likely for you to ever build:
- M3A1
- Sniper
- Penal Battalion

The problem with such poll is that the results may be flawed. Some people may vote for one thing to be strong in one question and something else to be weak in another question to keep it ballanced. Then another set of people votes completely the other way round, but still ballanced and we loose the information on who wanted what with something else. Then it's enough for some fanboys to come by and it would look like the best option is for example OP penals + good AT in T1 or weak penals with no point to exist.

That is why I decided it is better to split that into multiple options and take only the ones that were metioned in WBP discussions. That way we know exactly what community members like to be matched with what.

I would say: let community vote for now and if it happens to be undecisive or last option will be picked more than any other, then the poll made your way may solve that problem.

why give penals their flamethrower back if you already gave them molotovs for them to deal with greencover?

Molotovs are an upgrade that is very rarely used due to its long windup and low damage. It is usually simply too costly to be useful. So if penals were to be short range AI squad, the flamer is a better idea.

On the other hand, making penal a short range squad sounds only well historically speaking. From design perspective it just means they will complement guard doctrines even better than before and will make shock doctrines even more redundant.

This is obviously really bad, as shocks have not been seen on the battlefield since they were nerfed into ballanced position, just becouse guards work too well with each and every other soviet squad even today.

I think T1 is never going to be in a good position if it is only build to complement guard doctrines. The problem we are solving is not only the availability of T1 but also tonns of unused soviet doctrines that are forgotten only becouse there is no guards in them. Soviets need something that would make them work without guards (or guards in tech). Penals are good candidates, even if that would mean these units somewhat overlap.

I like Barton's ideas, and I think it could work. Tbh, though, I don't think that an upgrade is really necessary to achieve this balance between early-game OK-ness and late-game scalability.

I mean, if they do get an upgrade, that will allow them to scale. Though, the question is what kind of upgrade to give them to prevent role overlaps:
- Guards have long-range DPS covered
- Shocks should, in theory, be the goto squad for short-range DPS

There are ways of letting Penals scale with their SVT rifles, with bonuses alone, without turning the unit into death-gods of they pick up weapons.

e.g. Suppose you want to make Penals 15% weaker at Vet0 and 30% stronger than what they are, at Vet3:
- Take WBP current Penals
- Apply a +30% accuracy buff to Penal SVTs (the weapon)
- Apply a -34% accuracy nerf to the squad (the models)
- Progressively, apply a 52% buff to the squad, as they vet up (according to how fast you want them to scale)

Finally, the reason we are fixated on fixing the Penals is because out of all possible openings, we deem that Soviet T1 to be the most problematic tier of all. Since we have the tournament coming up for Sunday, we wanted to make sure people would feel invited to try all possible tier openings, so that we can gather better quality feedback.

I wanted to give them late game long range upgrade becouse the mid range tends to not be that useful in the late game when the amount of firepower becomes bigger and its hard to close in. Also, the guards have good long range dps but still they mainly are a combination of AI and AT, I wanted to create a squad that would excell on AI only, but would be easily counterable by vehicles or short range infantry. This is the other thing, I don't think they should recive strigt off late game bonus. Every bonus they get should make them stronger in most situations, but weaker in some specific ones. The opponent should be able to exploit such weaknesses to defeat them if he can think of it and micro it well.

The upgrade is also a way of dumping some of soviet munition reserves, lowering the amount of late game demos. Late game infantry will be worth it for the soviets whatever the cost.

The second option is obviously the only sensible way to go. I must say I liked the 1.2 iteration of penals, but the m-42 solution always seemed more elegant from design perspective. And definitely much less clustered and complicated than what 1.3 does to the poor T1.