Preliminary post 3.1.8 balance feedback

ITS RELEVANT NOW! . And a disclaimer: this will be a LONG post. Like uber long. You have been warned. No TL;DR either.

So with this post Ill start with what is see as general faction wide issues, then move on to specific docs. Some content might be familiar to you, and I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but there are some things i feel i must put in cohesive topic, so here we go. (I will also assume the sniper and mortar reworks are a success, and will not mention them here. I will also not mention anything that has not yet been reworked at all, so no wher/sov/brit stuff)

GENERAL ISSUES(in order of mention): Arty-Infantry interaction, manpower rates and the .50 cal

1.) Arty has become something of an issue in wikinger, between the need to keep it feeling relevant and powerful, while at the same time giving infantry a fighting chance, and I for one, don’t think nerfing arty is the answer; instead lets look towards histories answer: a hole in the ground. The humble foxhole and trench was dug by infantry of all faction to protect from shrapnel and concussion, and were for the most part, reasonably effective. I think giving most squads the ability to dig a quick foxhole would do a reasonable job of keeping them safe. To balance this, their damage while in said hole should be very low, meaning that you cant just dig a foxhole put your squads in and forget about them; you have to order them out to fight. The foxholes should also be susceptible to nades, and flamers to further stress this is for arty protection only. Its some extra rewarding micro that can protect infantry, while not being OP. (IMHO). German defensive docs could even get concrete dugouts that store 3 squads, but without any firing ports, and if a satchel charge, tank or flamer comes your way… death. And maybe have a lower combat effectiveness after coming out to stimulate shell shock.

2.) Manpower is an issues that I don’t think is brought up nearly as often as it should be, particularly for armor, infantry and iron will. These are ironically, what I consider the 3 “weak men” of the mod, and I believe this issue is the LARGEST source of their issues. All 3 of these docs focus on building large amounts of “low quality” troops, plus restrictive and unorthodox tech trees. There is a problem (IMHO) with these docs in that tier early game is very strong (infantry get early BAR, armor has the cav call in and mortar truck, and iron will deployed fast and inf are not half bad) but frequently run into the problem of having there manpower trickle gimped b/c they need to produce a lot of units to be effective, these units inevitable rely on numbers more than veterancy, and so inevitable take casualties/ get wiped and need to be replaced. This leads to the issue of having a lot of units, losing a lot in an engagement while taking out key enemy units, then losing the game b/c your units drained your manpower trickle, so lack manpower to replace your units, while the other factions save for their infamous Tiger/Panther/arty/fall deathball. It’s an issue that has let axis come back from games they should have lost. The solution, I think is giving these factions a late game building, like how arty is getting a fire control center, so that they get the manpower later in the game that they need, while not being able to do some ridiculous rushes early game. From a historical POV, armor and infantry represent the US WAR MACHINE! and iron will represents many other axis countries, justifying higher manpower.

3.) The .50 cal will be the focus here, and by extension, the 57mm. So how are these related? Simple: anything the 57 can penetrate from the front without having to use special ammo and also do reasonable damage against, the 50 kills it faster (from front), from a trench or building, and its cheaper. Literally: up until and the lucks and puma, the 50 kill more effectively than the 57, and once panzers and stugs start rolling out, you want bazookas. The 50 cal should be limited like the mg 42 at least, to teir 2 and maybe limited to infantry and airborne (as a drop) doc. The 57 has no role in the early game b/c the 50 cal is far superior, and can’t compete with the armor of heavier tanks in any way that matters (does little damage/has to use special ammo). Maybe give it canister? Also fixing this issue would make axis early game vehicles a lot more practical and put the m-57 into a good role.

PART 2: WEAK FACTION DOCS (in order of mention): ARMOR, INFANTRY, IRON WILL.

ARMOR

1.) Its no secret I have a lot of issues with armor doc, but I have been playing it a lot over the past 2 months and to wit, its many issues:

A.) Poor ramp up: what I mean is this: armor seems to have a couple of distinct paths that seem to mesh very badly. There is the early game path with the cav recon and command car abilities, then the main line: one that goes to Sherman spam with the easy 8 and abrams call in that goes very well with american war machine, and one “elite” path that takes you to the calliope, Jackson and Pershing. The issues here is that the elite path takes a stupid amount to unlock units that are not worth it: looking at you Pershing: takes 4 cp to unlock the base tank, which is, as I have said in a recent post, an overgrown Jackson with a 50 cal and that can survive 2 tiger shots from the front with no upgrade in penetration. It also focus on units that draw a lot of manpower and are hard to replace. To wit here is what I propose; fleshing out these 2 paths and buffing some needlessly gimmicky units.

a.) change the production tech tree to something like: Tank Support depo unlock > fuel dispatch > american war machine (combines the reduced time and cheaper tank upgrades). The depo will act similar to the coh supply depo, raising manpower rates and lowering the cost of units with upgrades. Not sure how cost will work, but the sherman path should be able to quickly pick up the entire tree be skipping the Jackson and m-20 ordinance upgrade, while the heavy path can just pick up the depo to lower the manpower drain of the Pershings and Jacksons. For further balance you can have some manpower locked to AWM. This would solve a lot I think.

b.) *deleted not necessary*

c.) let M-10 in tank destroyer call in upgrade to m-36 like with arty doc.

d.) change command car ability that involves locking onto an enemy tank into an aura. just a QoL change to help with using the command car in Coh: tanks a clunky and require micro, and you will have a lot of tanks as US armor doc, so let this be a simple aura that increases range accuracy, reload and maybe penetration? Or you could do bk mod style auras.

e.) maybe add in wet storage as an upgrade to the tank depot: Americans were well known for being the first to use this, and it could increase the health of tanks, as well as make tanks have a greater chance of not exploding when kill and merely vacated (so you can reclaim them).

B.) Lack of recon options: I’ve been beating this dead horse for a while, but Im still going to push for better recon from the m-20 utility car. it needs to be able to deploy and deploy, maybe even rotate just like the spotters from other factions. its just a simple fact that  Armor doc recon needs to be on par with other factions. You bring up the recon flight from the command car, but that is on a cooldown, and armor doc needs to constantly keep tabs about where anti tank units are, particularly tigers and worse.

INFANTRY

2.) The issue with infantry doc its actually the heavy mortar, and riflemen; the doc required the mortar emplacement for its strong mid-game, but with that now nerfed I think some restructuring could be in order, along with adding some meat to the ever anemic rifleman path.

A.) CP hungry rangers and useless rifles: the issue here is the massive disparity between rangers and riflemen, which is what this doc focuses on. getting rangers, then the assault squad, then vest and MoH takes, what around 11 cp? That’s assuming you skipped the mortar, which almost no one does, so lets bump that up to 13. The rifle part of the doc (repple-depple, rapid deploy, bet. commission) take ~6 including the mortar. This leads to 2 things:

-assault rangers and the abilities are usually skipped b/c getting xylophone and tanks is more important. Also Assault rangers don’t do much against tanks. And it’s a shame b/c the abilities that unlock are rally quite fun.

-no one picks the riflemen unlocks because they are, lets be honest, of questionable use at best. Add to this the manpower issue already mention and these unlocks become useless. their greatest failing is that they don’t solve the 3 issues of using non-elite infantry as your key unit:

-replacing lost units

-scaling the units to compete with vetted elite infantry, arty and tanks

-dealing with the manpower strain of having so many units

Your probably think, at this point: “but kitty, aren’t all 3 of the rifle abilities dedicated to replacing losses and even veterancy?” I would answer yes, but they miss the point of what the doc needs. repple depple is useless because it, on top of not helping when you use it, actually hurts you. Repple Depple has exactly 1 purpose: being a panic button for when you unexpectedly lose a ton of units in a very short time. When does this happen… arty, a problem I’ve already addressed. And even then it’s so situational… It also consumes munitions that you need to:

a.) re-equip the units that you just made

b.) launch 105mm and mortar barrages that are essential for this doc.

rapid deployment is a problem because its just bland. Wikinger is rarely so rapid that would need units this quickly or resupply this quickly. On top of the fact it doesn’t work properly half the time. (only works with units you have produced after the unlock)

battlefield commission is faulty b/c it is on such a long cool-down, so its effect is negligible.

On top of the fact all of this incentives you to lose units which only hurts you in the end: you lose equipment, veterancy, time, presence! TO WIT:

medal of honor and assault vest are combined into 1 unlock for 2 points, and assault rangers go from 3 to 2, and rangers go from 4 to 3, just to have these available in the late mid-game if you want to go rangers…and to give me an unlock slot for… btw if you actually have read this far, wow; type mrp in your feedback as an easter egg for some instant respect

Rifleman-tree rework!!: Rifleman ingenuity > supply cache > repple depple > leadership

Rifleman ingenuity: Allows riflemen to build basic field fortification: foxholes, some barricades made of logs (Not enough to stop a tank, but some green cover) and with company/battalion command post unlock, wooden bunkers and even improvised tank traps. Riles are squishy and because rifle vet is not as good as say… any German vet, they tend to lose models when not in defensive positions… this is what this designed to help. by letting rifles from this doc scale in terms of ground they can lock down, it makes being offensive early game much more rewarding. It also will unlock BIG RED 1 SPOTTERS because spotters should not just be for rangers. this can be ~2-3 cp

Repple depple stays as an ability… yeah in know, but I’m going to make it useful: it appears as a building, having manpower upgrades like the tank support depo. And arty is still arty, so a panic button may not be a bad idea.

leadership turns a support unit into an actual support aura buffer, allowing rifles to scale  further. Battlefield commission can stay, with a shorter cool-down, and maybe both rifles and the captain can gain an extra squad member.

Supply depot opens the door to expand the scrounging system, and give rifles some new loadout for, you know, scaling. One idea have is shotguns and grease guns for a close range loadout. Go wild.

There done. Last rework, I promise.

IRON WILL

The issue with iron will is it gets crippled by man power…

make the roadblock free, take the pak 40 to 400 manpower and not 480, put the manpower boost on a shorter cooldown and turn bunker into manpower building, make SU-76 cheaper and this doc is perfect. playing it for a month straight, and apart from its weak early game, its perfectly usable.

 

LAST PART: THE STRONG/ BALANCED DOCS I.E THE REST

This is just some minor tweaks and ideas for the rest of the docs, some of which i’m going to gloss over b/c lets be honest this is probably the longest forum post ever and does not need to be longer. also time for another easter egg, so if you want more point type out shammy, name of one of my favorite youtubers. Also i’m just tired of writing out

• tone down the vet on some high vet units. the tankiness of them can bit a bit ridiculous at time. I think received accuracy should not go down as much as it does is the main issue. high vet units avoid so much damage. I mean falshirmjager/AB become: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYzRRNR0Vzo: go about 45 sec in, and watch for 15 sec. you’ll get my point)
• *deleted; was a BAD idea*
  • Mongalong proposed only being able to drop paras within the radius of a pathfinder beacon, an idea which i kinda like, and would balance faster stealth out. I suppose you could also drop paras in you HQ sector too in case your pathfinders die.
• Remove pak from luft: this have been suggested and i hope not to many people object (because i am getting really tired)
• Have the mg42 have to scope in or something similar for when its gets its increased range in wunder doc. It just feels incredibly oppressive ATM, and it gets rushed a lot.

There DONE. Never thought I’d see the hour. Anyway, all of this is a suggestion, and apart from the reworks, I’m ok with a lot of stuff staying the way it is if the majority disagree. If you don’t like the re-works, play some armor or rifle spam infantry doc against me or some other player. (NOT YOU SEAN!) There are some flaws that make these docs (or parts of them) very much hard to use. I tried making these abilities using stuff already in the mod: manpower upgrades found in the commonwealth hq truck, custom buildings like we will see in arty, so as to put as little stress on our artists and programmers as possible. I know its still a lot, but i think with these revamps, these docs will be in the perfect place. Starbuck, Olhause, MeatShield, Mongalong, Lorarius. They will decide if this implementation is possible and worth the work. We the community will decide the pressure we put on them ;). Hope it goes well. ANYWAY:

COMMENT, GIVE FEEDBACK, SHRED MY HOPES AND DREAMS IN THE SECTIONS BELOW!!!!

P.S. IF you read the whole thing, bravo. Hope you found the Easter eggs! (easter eggs in a forum post. I need a life… and a drink… and some sleep.)

EDIT NOTES:

(2/10/18)  Pershing ace should get an ability, just to make it worth getting. Also have removed the idea about giving the Jackson and Pershing more health. On reflection, it is not necessary.

• This topic was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Death_Kitty.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Death_Kitty.