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To be honest, mass based hp pool mechanics is simply not a good thing. I get the idea behind it, but it’s not performing well. Mass can be some indicator of “structural ” strenght, but it’s not as simple as more mass = more thoughness, Much more depend on mass allocation, exposition of crucial components, organisation of crew compartment, used materials, spacial organisation etc. Current mechanics causes many unwanted things, like ridiculously low damage output from light at guns when shooting to heavy vehicles. It causes many troubles with balancing things, when some weapons cannot do realistic damage to heavy vehicles without being too deadly to lighter ones. I think that vehicle hp pool differences should be “flatten”.
The other thing is that in fact, projectile diameter/amount of explosives is not as important as it may look. (I mean relatively small differences ofcourse) If projectile did penetrate vehicle armour it is pretty much done, much more depends on where it will detonate/what would be hit, than whats the diamater of a projectile. Ofcourse it is also a factor, but it shoud not be overrated. Moreover damage output should be influenced by RNG. Consistent damage output is not a realistic thing at all. Because it is impossible to create a realistic structural, and “module” damage model representing hits taken by the vehicle ,RNG is best(or easiest) way to simulate that. More than that, it makes calculation way harder, because u shouldn’t be sure if u need one or two hits to kill something or be killed.
The most annoying thing is that they constantly loose their panzerschreck. I would gladly trade that additional 50mp for Panzerfaust.
Hi, i do have the same feelings about some german squads, for example Grenadiers and Urban Assault Grenadiers (which are not useful tbh) in Defence seems to be far less resistant than regular Volksgrenadiers.
Newly redone Panzerjaeger are fun to play and have serious potential but i think that Jaeger squad is a little bit to plain. They could have a passive infiltration ( like 502 SS jaegers ) at least. That will match with their light infantry characteristics. They could be also limited to 2, or max 3 squads and upgunned with rifle grenade upgrade. The semi-elite Volksturm Squad should offer something more for its price. At least some interesting ability, or “non raw firepower” upgrade. It costs 2,5x much than regular volksturm squad, got 30mp replacement cost instead of 12 like in regular volksturm squad.
In the case of flamethrower halftrack i think the only acceptable nerf is by increasing its cost (it’s dirt cheap now), and maybe increasing building time by several seconds. Changing tiers is bad option, because that halftrack is loosing it’s usefulness very quickly. To be honest countering that halftrack is not particularly difficult, but it demands some early at investments.
50cals are way to powerful against armor. They got Armor Piercing round penetration values as a standard ball value. They are penetrating targets that should be absolutely invulnerable to them, like Puma’s frontal armor, or Luchs frontal armor.
I agree, it;s a good idea, but not all infantry, and definitely not booby traps, it would be way to powerful. Regular land mines would be great on Freiwillige infantry for example.
Ok guys, first of all thanks for all the work u did with that doctrine. I played several games with new mech, so my impressions in some aspects may change to some degree.
First of all it is probably the most historically accurate doctrine so far. It looks indeed like a coherent fighting force, not like a patchwork of ideas. There is a good choice of icons, terms and models (well maybe the 1939 look of panzergrenadiers is a little bit dissapointing). It has also interesting and quite uniqe playstile and i think it’s a capable doc which gives a player set of tools for high initiative, aggressive play.
Like the previous mech(which i take for the reference for obvious reasons) it suffers highly in the late game, but the case is a little bit more complicated than before the patch. Old mech was practically a plain “direct combat” doctrine, free of artillery support (only with relatively weak stuka bomb – often unable to knock down a single tank, great against infantry blobs though). New mech has quite powerful set of tools to deal with enemy indirectly, which in my opinion is rather a good change. Also i appreciate removal of “ammo for manpower” ability which was too powerful and situational at the same time, it also didn;t match with doctrine character imho.
As i mentioned before new mech, like the old one, struggle in the late game, it has some new tools, but in the other hand it lost some powerful stuff. Lost of Panthers is painful, but it is somehow compensated by cheap and much more versatile than ever PZ4. However in the current mod state there is no way to deal with soviet heavy armor with such set of instruments.
Countering soviet heavy vehicles requires much higher skills than those of the opponent to be effective. All soviet doctrines have vehicles able to oneshot all but the heaviest of tanks(its the biggest mod unbalance currentlym thats the reason i made a separate topic about that case).
For the all changes, lost of Stormtroopers is the most painful to me. It was a uniqe unit, which offered ability to “deepstrike” the enemy cutting of crucial defence points with speed and precision. These new Panzergrenadiers are a powerful unit, but they are no match for the old Stormtroopers. The case is no raw firepower, but ability to be deployed behind enemy lines, and combination of evasive action and bundle grenade, which made them extremely effective, but micro, and planning demanding also. Moreover in linear tech tree their unlock was less painful than currently.
Generally speaking new infantry is very good, maybe regular Grossdeutschland Fusiliers could have a little bit more firepower( one more slot to pick some weapon at least, or not exclusive rifle grenade upgrade)
The new panzerpionieren with flamers don’t offer very much imho, they are leading to kv1 unlock wich is useless early on, so they will be rather deployed later in the game, when flamer halftrack will struggle to reach enemy lines. Moreover they don’t even have smoke grenade to cover their’s advance. 700mp cost is unacceptable.
I would also mention the fact, that new mech has no light armor available in the main building. I think that it would be nice to introduce some light vehicles in the similar way like in the Waffen SS.
I dont want to repeat something what is wellknown but, light vehicles needs to be buffed to some degree. I made a topic about a Puma once before so i don;t want to take all the issues out again.
I think that’s the good occasion to mention(i think that i made a topic about that too) that anti tank rifles are dealing way to high damage, they are more powerful than small antitank guns. They should do more critical damage, but less hp. Soviet at rifle can even pen front of Pz4J.
That was a bunch of my reflections connected with the new doc 🙂 Again thnx for all the work u have done
Im glad someone is interested in that issue. I find it the biggest balance flaw in all mod currently.
All soviet docs have very powerfull vehicles that can be matched only by stuff like King Tiger, Jagdtiger or Elefant. All other vehicles are just oneshoted without a question when they appear in range. Soviet heavies are not only cheaper, easier available, often more numerous, but also more versatile, they are not only tank killers, but “allstuff” killers as well. I like the idea of brutal, crude force of high caliber cannons/howitzers, but they cant be agile snipers at the same time. As “the” said soviets can steamroll battlefield, additionaly they have plenty of support, artillery weapons in all docs (katyushas. heavy mortars, best airforce, etc).
I’m not particularly excited about the idea of reducing grenade range, and strongly against increasing range of smg, which is currently ridiculously overextended in comparison to rifle range. If smgies would get increased range than rifles should get similar buff too, it can make a snowball effect (what about hmg than, and what about at guns with range shorter than rifles’hmgs etc). Moreover, ww2 era smg were able to shoot effectively in ranges about 100m, but not with fully automatic fire, while in game mechanics makes no difference. Models wont switch fire to short burst/ “semi” automatic. In the other hand short range combat was performed at distances similar to 50m (which is at range affected by hand grenades) . Personally i feel squads equipped with smg;s way overperforming at medium/long ranges, especially guys with thompsons which should be less effective (with fully automatic fire ) than m3.
Maybe a short reduction of grenade range (15-20% ) would be a good move. Personally i dont feel the need, but its my private preference. What about reduction of grenade range for inexperienced units, and giving them buff to current values at level 3 for example ?
I personally agree with almost everything you wrote Death_Kitty. It’s definitely better when at squads come later but it’s not enough to make light and medium tanks fully useful. In my opinion in current mod’s condition infantry is generally ridiculously oversatureted with AT weapons. It leads to “go for bigger cats” pattern of behaviour. In the other hand infantry AT weapons were never used as a primary at measuers and its simply unrealistic to make AT defence so highly infantry based.
There are several factors contributing to this issue:
-widespread of lethal AT weapons – easly available, effective and relatively cheap.
– very fragile axis medium tanks – pz 4 (in all versions) is way more susceptible to at infantry weapons than sherman (pz4 is killed by single salvo of bazooka at squad while sherman isn’t)
-not particularly attractive at guns – (personally i’m a fan of at guns, but that’s rather unpopular choice) – while some at guns can be truly effective counters to enemy tank there are several issues that should be changed – most important of them is that crews are dying way to fast from infantry weapons and tank machinegun fire – all in all crew is covered from small arms bfire by armor shield and should be more resistant to fire coming from front( sides and back should work exactly like it is now, but it would be great if frontal hemisphare could be better.protected).
45mm guns are almost uselles nowadays. They are dealing less damage than at rifles or machinguns. They are only useful when u want to stop early stuart rush.
– to fragile halftrack, light armor – however these by definition are not particularly strong vehicles, they should be able to withdraw while encountering enemy units at least. Moreover some of them are quite expensive while relatively useless – vide Puma – Puma is almost unable to penatrate Sherman’s rear armor, she deals ridiculously tiny damage on hit while she can be killed be mg fire in few seconds, oneshoted by any tank, and she is more expansive than stug or pz 4 f
overepresantation of heavy vehicles – especially in SS and US armor doc.
In current mod condition almost all infantry squad have acces to some at weapons. I understand the idea behind that, but problem is that these are way to effective measures. I think that a few changes could make wikinger way deeper and more realistic than it is now.
My suggestion would be as follows:
1 . Making infantry squads more specialized than it is now (especially some elite infantry squads like wunderwaffe jaegers, schwarze katzen, us paratroopers) there should be no “perfect against all threats” infantry units. I have some precise suggestions here, but that requires more place for explanations.
2. replacing some lethal AT measures with non lethal – giving infantry oportunity to counter enemy vehicles by making them blind, slowing them down or immobilizing – more weapons like sticky bombs, brandflasches/molotovs, or even at mines( available to some regular squads) less weapons like panzerfaust/bazooka
3. Changing bazookas and schrecks (available to regular infantry squads) into ammunition based abilities. It would make countering vehicles more micro demanding and less frequently used.
4. Making AT squads only squads capable of cost free use of Panzerschrecks and Bazookas. (I think that ideally these at weapons should be more powerful, but reduced to one in squad only, however there could be also some upgrades or abilities available, like at granade, or panzerfaust or at mine – depanding on faction).
5. Increasing number of critical hits done by infantry AT weapons – making some weapons like magnetic mine, or at granades more focused on getting enemy tank incapable of effective combat than killing it.
6. Decreasing heavy vehicles numbers ( this would require some serious changes however ) – not by making them more expansive – it’s not a solution. Currently we see some powerful AFV rolling in huge numbers. Some docs – like SS Wunderwaffe, SS Luftwaffe, US Armor have simply to many heavy tanks available. For instance Wunderwaffe can deploy several Tigers, Panthers and one King Tiger. Overall its simply to many. moreover these are all elite crew tanks. It should no be balanced by nerfing them, or introducing more of powerful allied tanks, but by desaturation/reduction of availability of these vehicles. 4 Panthers available to light infantry doc like Luftwaffe is not good at all. Same thing with US Pershings – these vehicles had absolutely no impact on war at all, they almost didn;t see combat, only 20 were delivered to Europe, but still they are available in significant numbers( i would reduce them to one call in ace only).
In fact in current game condition most us tanks/tank destroyers have better gun performance then they did in reality. It’s mostly due to availability of hvap rounds that is high beyond the factual level. Moreover in upcoming patch there will be three pershings available to the player which makes about 1 out of 7 parts of all american pershing tanks that actually seen combat in Europe.
Sure, i don’t deny that at all. Brummbaer can be very useful and dangerous vehicle indeed. It is just ratio between cost and suvivability that is not particulary good. It is well protected at the front, but it is still a turretless vehicle which makes it vulnerable to flanking infantry attacks. For a vehicle of that cost it could be just a little bit more able to absorb some hit (one more bazooka hit required to kill the brummbaer, just like a sherman tank), becouse now it is often profitable to make a semi suicidal bazooka charge.
Well, im sure that m2hb can penatrate Puma’s front(even normal bullets). I specially made a test to confirm this. While most bullets are deflected some of them are actually penetrating and dealing damage.
Honestly i also feel that .30 cal is doing a little bit better against infantry then m2, but im strongly supportive to Sean’s idea. There are several reasons to withrdraw M2 from T1.
First and most important of all is that it was never a basic US machine gun during whole WW2 period. M1917 and m1919 surely were. Current game composition shows something opposite M2 as a standard mg and .30 cal like some kind of a rare optional thing.
Secondly M2 truly makes early vehicles almost unplayable. It is ridiculously strong against lightly armored. It makes all mg covered areas an instakill zones for light vehs. The problem is not that the .50 cal can kill them, but that it requires completely no micro(u dont even need to activate the ability), and that it cannot be dodged anyhow. U enter the zone – u got killed. Wide firing arc make it even more problematic.
Thirdly M2 has much to high penetration values. As far as i know WW2 period armor piercing ammunition was capable of punching through 22 mm of an armor plate. Im saying about AP/API etc, rounds, not standard ball. In game it is easily going through Puma’s highly sloped 30 mm frontal armor.
I think that M2 should ba available as a T2 weapon in infantry docs and airborne(but only via airdrop ability. M1917 with AP belt is good enough to perform a sufficient av capibilities in early game.
