BK improvements

[Warhawks97]

US 57mm gun:
Accuracy: 1/0.9/0.65/0.65
Accuracy vs "puma" type of vehicles: x1, when moving: 0.8
Penetration: 1.25/0.92/0.8/0.7
Pen.modifier against StuG: x0.65 (81%/59.8%/52%/45.5%)
Pen.bonus from camo: x1.25
Pen.bonus from AP ammo: x1.3
Chance to pen. PIV H: 57.9%/42.6%/37%/32.4%

Axis 50mm gun:
Accuracy: 1/0.9/0.65/0.65
Accuracy vs "greyhound" type of vehicles: x1, when moving: 0.8
Penetration: 1.25/0.9/0.85/0.75
Chance to penetrate 76mm Sherman: 65%/46.8%/44.2%/39%

The "evasion bonus" against puma-type vehicles was removed some time ago. A comparable situation (Axis mid-tied AT gun vs US armored car) has same chance to miss/hit.

Tanks still suffer that heavy accuracy penalty even when Puma is not moving. You fixed it for AT guns but not tanks. Thus M10 ambushes can be relatively easy triggered by Pumas with good chance to survive.

A comparable situation of attacking a medium tank by these guns. As you can see, when 50mm attacks Sherman, it has a penetration advantage but it is about 7% more penetration than what 57mm has against PIV H. On the other hand the 57mm has damage of 50-90 (final damage per shot vs PIV H is 250-450) but the Axis 50mm has damage of 50-80 (250-400 vs Sherman) so the average penetration is slightly higher, but average damage is slightly lower for Axis 50mm and on top of that PIV H has 636HP while Sherman has 700. So in case of attacking medium vehicles, the guns are pretty similar in performance.

It does matter. Adding ambush pen and Ap boosts and this 7% difference becomes 12,27942188% difference

Also:

1. The 50 mm fires much faster. Even the axis 75 mm reloads faster as the US 57 mm. So in terms of dps the 50 mm is better at the end.
2. The P IV H/J from TH doc still has 650 HP for whatever reason.
3. You deliberately ignore the 25% damage boost on all axis and cw guns while US has that 25% boost only for their 57 mm. Fun fact:The 57 mm with AP can thus bypass the 90 mm canon in terms of damage when these uses AP rounds. The max damage for 57 mm with AP goes up to 562,5 damage while 90 mm min damage with AP drops to 552,5 damage.

I could make a comparison of 57mm vs StuG and 50mm vs some US unit but US don't have a TD comparable StuG...M10 probably but there are some major differences, most notably the tradeoff of less armor for more mobility so it doesn't make much sense to put into comparison such different units.

Stug is 0 CP, M10 costs 2 CP unless you go specific doc. And activating flank speed costs 35 ammo which means that you pay something for mobility.

But all in all, is that 7% more penetration really such a huge advantage that one can say that for Axis this gun is "reliable" but for Allies their gun is "useless"?

The 57 mm seems "fair" at the moment even though i dont get why the 50 mm has to keep any advantage over the 57 when it comes to countering mediums. The 50 mm became obsolete when T-34, shermans and heavier armored churchills showed up towards end of 41/42. The 57 mm could beat any axis armor except tiger untill the arrival of Panthers and new tank destroyers mid 43 or actually till 44 when panthers got build in larger numbers.

Anyway.

Isn't that the case for every faction? I mean, people simply go for units that have high-performance for as little effort as possible. Why people play Luft so much? Is it by any chance because of the very strong infantry that can survive relatively easily (compared to other infantry units in the game) and comes with strongest weapons in the game? Why people don't use PIV F2 that often? Isn't it because in their arsenal is usually something that can do the same for either less price (L48 HTs or Marder/Geschutzwagen) or has better chance of surviving hits (usually JPIV/StuG)? Or actually why are there so few Stubby PIVs seen (exept for F1 in TH doc)? Isn't because they are mostly anti-infantry units and Axis have a lot of more effective (and often cheaper) infantry counters ("puma" with 20mm cannon, or actually most of their infantry)?

So we gonna fix it?
it also raises the question: Why dont axis need any sort of HE rounds to shred inf while allis need special anti inf units like HE shermans, AA tanks with HE rounds, scotts etc?
is it bc allis bullet based weapons are crap (eg top mounts cal 50)? Is it bc axis inf is too boosted (healthy, heavy cover bonuses etc)? Are axis bullet based weapons too good? Just saying that what you say itself raises new questions.

Why was it that WM players, when facing US, used to rush for Panthers and Tigers before the 90mm cannons got a buff? Wasn't it because they knew that these tanks had very little counters from the side of US no matter what doctrine so they knew they would get the job done? And isn't also the reason why after buffing the 90mm cannons, these tanks were not rushed for so often because suddenly there was a really good chance that opponent has Armor doc and so the chance of losing the Tiger/Panther was a lot higher? Wasn't it after the buff of the 90mm guns that the Armor doctrine was played a lot more often and people started to rush for Pershings? Why was that? Because suddenly they could get things done better than most other units in the arsenal. I would say that on both sides you would units that are used almost in every game and units that used very rarely or not at all (Bren carrier, M20, several types of Axis HTs are rarely seen, Gepard, already mentioned stubby PIVs, MG teams in general because people rather go for MG-mounted vehicles because of better mobility, several reward units are rarely picked etc.).

90 mm used to bounce off from Tank IV´s. Now it doesnt anymore. Perhaps players dont rush for Pershings and 90 mm guns bc its soo good and cost effective and instead they rush for it bc its the only gun in your arsenal that allows you to effectively engage silly (stubby) Tank tank IV´s?. I mean the 76 mm gun has like 67,5% to pen a stubby tank IV E/F1. Under harsh conditions that nothing i could call reliable when the time to kill matters most. I dont trust into M10 to counter large waves of Tank IV´s and rush for jacksons instead. I dont want to but i have to. The 90 mm is even more mandatory when you try to engage these mini tigers and when you have no ambush boosts.
And remember the fun fact: 57 mm with AP can at times deal more damage as 90mm with AP rounds active.

So as people spoke here about giving a Jackson to Infantry doctrine - won't that be the case too? Suddenly it will be the best AT unit you have, reliably killing PIV/JPIV and other medium stuff, also reliable counter to Panther/Tiger and with camo and AP at about 50% chance at max range to penetrate KTs, which is not god-knows-how superb but still would be the best chance you've got.

Perhaps. But the same goes for the jumbo. Isnt this unit the best weapon infantry doc has to deal with axis elite infantry? Thing is inf doc does have (now) tools to deal with inf and with defenses. 7 men rifle squad, Rangers can actually hit something at range, calli jeep to clear at guns etc. But what is a huge pain are tanks. The best thing you can do is to bunker in with tons of AT emplacments, Td´s and throw arty at them hoping a shot will immobilize them.

Recently Figree blaimed me and erich for playing sim city. We won the early game and axis team started to build up heavy defenses with Hetzer, JP/70, AT guns etc. I lacked ammo for long tom (used it extensively on calli jeep for winning mid game and to prevent any bigger defensive build up). Our armor mate was rather poor (3 played games in total) and me and erich with inf and RE doc could do nothing else as to try to lock down enemies with tons of AT emplacments and throwing arty once the KT arrived. Our extensive arty use helped preventing that KT got a defensive back up but the KT on the other hand was a one unit army that smashed several of our tanks.

Bottom line: Inf doc could perhaps have jackson A and losing jumbo at the other hand. M10 become non-doc td and AB gets M18 unlock.

So wouldn't that just add to the "only few useful units, rest is not used"?

The jacks A is a defensive weapon. It does cost something and is fragile. Inf doc would still need their AT squads and stuff to engage many of the TD´s and for the offense. Currently every doc that has a panther has either superb infantry as support to deal with AT emplacments or good arty to kill AT guns and crews. The Maultier is just epic vs soft targets and emplacments now due to the ammount of missiles, the very good AoE and the flames it causes to burn the area. Also arty isnt the "ultimate tool" to counter tanks. Inf doc thus stuggles a lot when facing panthers backed by missile arty as ultimate inf killers and elite infantry. If you have map controle you can try to lock down the enemie forces untill they cant afford more arty. Else you bleed out slowly by wasting lots of res for arty and infantry hoping to somehow take out a single panther.

[Shanks]

hawks, you talk a lot about the axis, but you do not know how to use it ... maybe I should upload some repetitions where you played with axis, and you cant nothing, that you are talking about, USA is weak etc etc, panzer IV too strong etc etc..you lost very badly, more than once with the Germans ... I have a second account in steam..you know?

[Warhawks97]

hawks, you talk a lot about the axis, but you do not know how to use it ... maybe I should upload some repetitions where you played with axis, and you cant nothing, that you are talking about, USA is weak etc etc, panzer IV too strong etc etc..you lost very badly, more than once with the Germans ... I have a second account in steam..you know?

cant rememmber when i played against you last. I had 12 win streak untill one game that i lost. Perhaps it was that 4 vs 4 with chase with total chaos on our side with two guys going luft despite being called that one at least goes TH as we fought vs Tiger who always goes armor.

So we had no arty, no heavy tank destroyers, nothing. Only silly Luft Meta players and three enemies hammering me with three snipers, 105 arty bc you guys picked two inf docs, 105 sherman, calli barrages nonstop.... if you talk about that game?

Still the short time my stormtrooper squads kept alive they did some massacre. A single suppression squad in a trench whiped out an assault of three rifle squads and rangers within seconds reaching instantly vet 3 or 4.

My only Panther in game got rear flanked by a M10 and survived and then got attacked at real point blank my an m10 and bounced all 3-4 shots.
And at the very end, when we had nothing lef due to insane arty barrages, we killed the SP and a single Panther G from Erich caused a huge massacre reaching max vet within a short time.

So yeah, it was dust and stones, a map i hate in general and effectively three guys spamming snipers and arty against my side at which i was sometimes totally alone bc chase randomly dropped his fallis accross the map.

I can upload the game if you want to show the "new achilles" bouncing all shots at point blank from panther, SP still dying although we had nothing but henschels and Tiger making almost 100 kills only with his two calli shermans.

[MarKr]

Thompsons are useless and it told so by whole community, because they are simply worse by same tier MP-40, making volks killings for example, rangers 101 and 82nd unit (which you ignored again!). If reload so high, maybe lowering it as well?

1) What have I ignored? You asked about Thompsons and their cooldown and I reacted to it.

2) So you want to make them exactly the same effective as MP40?

Also the reload time of Thompson is similar to other SMGs, if it gets lowered people will ask why it has such unfair advantage over other SMGs.

As with 57mm, why a medium AT gun could be having such bad penetration against vehicles its supposed to counter, forcing players to not even build them?

Because when you give them 80% penetration chance at max range against medium tanks then:
1) you will have a 300MP unit that can easily kill tanks which cost way more MP and also fuel which will lead to a lot more camping because people will be affraid to risk move their tank around the map because a hidden AT gun can be pretty much anywhere
2) you will need to apply the same changes to Puma, M3 T48 and 6 pounder Churchills because they have the same guns, which will significantly buff these vehicles and that will need further changes (price adjustments and in general rebalance of vehicles)
3) 76mm and 75mm L48 PaKs will be sort of pointless because the 57mm and 50mm version will be able to effectively destroy medium tanks and so the 76mm and 75mm AT guns would need to get a general buff so that it makes some sense to build them. Because the "medium tier" AT guns would have 80% pen. chance these bigger guns would need to have 100% penetration against medium tanks (so that the difference between 57mm and 76mm is big enough to justify buying it) and it would still need a lot better penetration against bigger tanks because it does not make much sense to have 57mm gun against medium tanks and 76mm also against medium tanks. This means that 76mm guns would need to be stronger against Tigers and Panthers (but also the 75mm against Pershings and Churchills). This means that these heavy tanks will start dieing a lot more often and people will complain that these tanks are too weak and not worth their price. Not to mention that these guns are also mounted on Shermans, Hellcats and very similar guns is on Wolverine too - they would all need to get the same stats because it does not make sense to have the same gun perform differently. On the other hand all Axis vehicles with 75mm L48 would also need to get the bonuses applied to the PaK (again, same gun) and Axis have the L48 mounted on almost everything (MarderIII, Geschutz, JPIV, PIV F2/H/J/Beobactung, HTs, Pumas) so that would be same nerf for heavy tanks of Allies and also the same problem (start dieing a lot more, not worth their cost). This would mean that we would need to rework the heavy units too to make them viable again and to that is again connected a ton of other problems.

And even if the penetration of the 57mm/50mm was not 80% but 70% (I presume less makes no sense because then you would not consider it "reliable" again) the situation remains pretty much the same because the 76mm/75mm would still need to change so that THEY don't become obsolete instead.

What I wrote about Hotchkiss, I meant that when my first feedback came, it was negative and you described me with calculations and corsix numbers, that I was wrong, I believed it, untill worker's masses came and prooved it wrong, so devs had to make a changes for that, lul.

If I remember correctly your first feedback on Hotchkiss was that it "deals too much damage after the arty damage changes". You said that it suddenly deals more damage than before so I checked the damage and the stats I gave you are true, including the damage reduction against cover etc. But it proved that you complained about damage but the issue was in reduced range - before the change people fired it at about 50% bigger range and that meant more scatter for the rockets, now you cannot shoot that far and the scatter is lower, but the fact remains that it was possible to use Hotchkiss in the exactly same way and with same strength even before (you just had to shoot it at shorter range, which almost nobody did). I told you that the damage per rocket was almost the same and you did not believe me and then people proved I was right, "lul".

US hospital is costs 300 mp, after nerf it needed 18 soldiers, while whole US faction is deeply affected by MP consumption of units, which need to fix time by time with the supply yard upgrades. Why basic stuff need to be so expensive, why not getting MP cost lower just by exchanging it with ammunition or fuel ammount, just like axis or PE has?

Because this is US, not WM or PE.

Also 101 m1 carbine's damage looks pretty weird

In the whole time I've been in the dev team I don't remember anyone ever say that M1 carbine "is a good gun". It always had lower damage than Garands, it always had poor accuracy and it always suffered from the long aim times (same as it used to be for Riflemen Garands).

101nd itself looking weird without upgrades, since a typical volk squad working a pretty effective against them, making them usefull only just in flanking landing, right when you deploy them, after that - pretty useless without investments of ammunition

And again, this has been the case with AB infantry for as long as I can remember - basic weapons were crap and they only became good after investing into weapon upgrades. Which is also the reason why they got upgrade that lowers costs of guns for the 101st. They didn't have a year or two years ago.

[Shanks]

@hawks...i do not think it's the game i was talking about, but i see that you lose more games than I thought, with axis

[Warhawks97]

@hawks...i do not think it's the game i was talking about, but i see that you lose more games than I thought, with axis

it was the only recently

and i never said i never lose a game. Nobody never lose a game.

i also doesnt contribute to the debate at all. You are not always winning with allis so what?

[Mr. FeministDonut]

You, Markr, Ignored the topic of 82nd unit for fourth time. You said, this unit's job is to take out tanks, but as we can see after AT rocket launcher aim time were implemented, you replied to this that AT crews should play more by defence and we look to the 82 unit again that has no any camo nor crawl that allows them to use their bazookas properly, only being huge MP sink.

Because this is US, not WM or PE.

Great answer, no words *clap* *clap* *clap*

I guess if summarizing your post it would look like: Yes, I agree to you MrFeministDonut, this unit is BS and must be deleted, because we can't really do anything else with it.

[MarKr]

You, Markr, Ignored the topic of 82nd unit for fourth time.

In this topic you mention it, I answer to it HERE and you say this:

rangers 101 and 82nd unit (which you ignored again!)

So now I replied to you and you say that I ignored it AGAIN. What sort of logic is this? You already said that I did not pay attention to it in the past. But now I react to it directly and you say that I ignore it again. So I had to ask, because
1) you either mention again that it has been ignored in the past - but I don't know why you mention it again when it has been already said 3x in your 3 previous posts probably to grab my attention to it. My attention IS on it now so why repeat it?
2) or you're saying that I am ignoring it again (asi in "now") and that is obviously not true

Great answer, no words *clap* *clap* *clap*

Thanks for the applaus, it is appreaciated

I guess if summarizing your post it would look like: Yes, I agree to you MrFeministDonut, this unit is BS and must be deleted, because we can't really do anything else with it.

I wouldn't say I agree to it completely. But in general yes, I would say that it is quite obsolete. But have a look at my answer to your question of "why 57mm has such bad penetration?" (those 3 points) and tell where I am wrong.

[Mr. FeministDonut]

You said, this unit's job is to take out tanks, but as we can see after AT rocket launcher aim time were implemented, you replied to this that AT crews should play more by defence and we look to the 82 unit again that has no any camo nor crawl that allows them to use their bazookas properly, only being huge MP sink.

You ignored this for...fith time already in this topic! Ha-ha. Proof me wrong.
Any by the way, warhawks would agree, Thompson are BS comparing the greace or MP-40 gun, while being same tier with Grenadiers option

[MarKr]

Oh, this...well, hard to keep track of all your points when you start with this:

Also, why 82 airborn unit is too sucking much?
Devs told us, that unit has AT capabilities, so it won't get any buffs. After AT fixes and adding aiming time, they told us, that they have a camo ability and should play by defense. What about 82nd airborne unit? With its shitty thompsons (by the way that you guys keep ignorning), it can only sprint to the enemy tanks getting a lot of casualties, while it does not have any camo and also a 45mp reinforce!

Where you start talking about "82nd sucks" as a general point, then you start saying something about AT teams and the changes to AT weapons in general and finish your topic again with 82nd, this time complaining about about Thompsons.
Then in your next topic you say this:

I repeat about 82 unit that being litteraly useless or too pricely to use. They have two bazookas, but after bazooka aim time nerf, you say that they have ambush mode and must use by that, but 82nd don't have that, while other weapons we are look at - thompsons, has shitty cooldown time, making it worst SMG in the game.

Where you agains start speaking about 82nd in general, then mentioning general changes to AT weapons, and end the post with complaining about Thompsons again.
Follows your next post where you say this:

But again you took a part of my text and ignored 82nd, why? Why is it so hard to answer about thompsons? Is it kinda pandora box you afraid of?

Where you focus your point SPECIFICALLY to thompsons.
And then your next post says this:

Thompsons are useless and it told so by whole community, because they are simply worse by same tier MP-40, making volks killings for example, rangers 101 and 82nd unit (which you ignored again!). If reload so high, maybe lowering it as well?

Again focusing exlusively on Thompsons...Then you returned to AT again.

So yeah, I "ignored" this for 5 times on purpose and definately NOT because I got lost in your points due to your incoherent point building and writing.

But to answer your ques...well it is not a question but rather a declarative sentence, so to comment on that - yeah, they suck at the moment.

And you still have not reacted to this:

But have a look at my answer to your question of "why 57mm has such bad penetration?" (those 3 points) and tell where I am wrong.

I mean, it seems that the current state of the 57mm gun troubles you so give me a possible solution...or your proposed solution is to "remove it" ?

[Warhawks97]

You said, this unit's job is to take out tanks, but as we can see after AT rocket launcher aim time were implemented, you replied to this that AT crews should play more by defence and we look to the 82 unit again that has no any camo nor crawl that allows them to use their bazookas properly, only being huge MP sink.

You ignored this for...fith time already in this topic! Ha-ha. Proof me wrong.
Any by the way, warhawks would agree, Thompson are BS comparing the greace or MP-40 gun, while being same tier with Grenadiers option

Well, yeah, i stopped using Thompsons. They failed to often in close range combat situations compared to any other smg or the stg.

When you go vs stgs you shouldnt get into close range at all. Stgs shreds you at about 30 range already, most smgs become dangerous at grenade range.

I am going better with Garands currently which provide long range power (rangers) but also good rate of fire for mid and close range engagments.
So i dont use rangers as AB or armor doc (dont know why i should) and as AB i dont use the 82nd bc its a bullshit unit.
As inf doc i keep my rangers with Garands and lmg and use thompson only with this infiltation unit. Its the only unit that can effectively use it during ambush or when crawling towards the enemie.


So Thompsons are:

1. used by crap squads: 82nd
2. Not available on current basic unit which is the rifle squad. AB and armor dont use rangers most of the time and even less with thompson.
3. Weak compared to other smgs due to long cooldown/reloads.
4. STG´s are so overpresent from mid to late game that there is no point at all using allied inf with smgs to counter them. The only effective thompson user is the infiltation squad currently.


I dont want to make the thompson to be used by more squads (i think we all now i want rangers only for inf doc) or docs. But it should at least be competetive with other smgs like grease or mp40.

And the 82nd does need something, passive camo or whatever.

[Mr. FeministDonut]

What I did was trying to make a picture of whole problem and in several posts I show the each problem of 82nd - small arms and AT. It is more like capability of doing 1+1, Mark, sorry.

Watch my last replay, why 57mm gun can't penetrate stug and at the same time can't score a hit on puma that is lower tier vehicle, just because it has evasion bonus? No one building US 57mm gun to counter medium vehicles, because it's litterally useless, while axis can rely on that cheaper gun.
I didn't mean questions like puma and stubby Pz4, but a really things that are game-breakers.
I repeat about 82 unit that being litteraly useless or too pricely to use. They have two bazookas, but after bazooka aim time nerf, you say that they have ambush mode and must use by that, but 82nd don't have that, while other weapons we are look at - thompsons, has shitty cooldown time, making it worst SMG in the game. And you keep ignoring that question many times

I wrote everything I concern about and you rip only one subject, speaking only about 57mm and second time ripping the thompsons of mine post, which included two subjects, making me to repeat each time again and again. What was wrong to make simple 1+1 and include everything in a big one post?

[MarKr]

It is more like capability of doing 1+1, Mark, sorry.

My point was that you mention several problems in one topic, then you zone it down to a one specific problem and when I answer that one specific thing you suddenly bring back up the other things too and start accusing people of ignoring stuff. So maybe I can work on my arythemtics skills, but you could work on coherency when you make a statement or question.

You dedicated portion of your time to complaints about the state of 57mm AT gun, I gave you some reaction and you still seemed unhappy about it. I would be sincerely interested in hearing from you some constructive suggestion about solving it (no sarcasm here, I would really like to hear your ideas of fixing it). I asked you about it twice already, but ignoring it is fine too.

Your questions/statements have been
1) why 82nd sucks so much (both with SMGs and zookas)
2) M1 Carbines suck now
3) US have few units they use a lot of units they don't use (though later you zoned it down to "57mm sucks")
4) US triage center cost
5) "I was right about Hotchkiss the first time"
At this point I believe I gave you an answer or reaction to each of them, thus, unless you have more stuff to discuss, I don't know what else to tell you.

[Shanks]

maybe he wants the 57mm does the damage of a 90mm

[MarKr]

@Shanks, I doubt that. I think he simply wants the 57mm guns more effective against medium tanks. I would like that too, but I would like to avoid changing 76mm AT, 75mm AT, Shermans, PIVs, JPIVs, Marders, Geschutzwagens, HTs, Tigers, Panthers, Churchills, Pershings and probably tons of other things (so basically reworking entire mid-to-late game balance) only to make 57mm more useful.

[Death_Kitty]

Yup. It only makes running by only few units in US arsenal in the game, while mostly others are just useless.

Isn't that the case for every faction? I mean, people simply go for units that have high-performance for as little effort as possible. Why people play Luft so much? Is it by any chance because of the very strong infantry that can survive relatively easily (compared to other infantry units in the game) and comes with strongest weapons in the game? Why people don't use PIV F2 that often? Isn't it because in their arsenal is usually something that can do the same for either less price (L48 HTs or Marder/Geschutzwagen) or has better chance of surviving hits (usually JPIV/StuG)? Or actually why are there so few Stubby PIVs seen (exept for F1 in TH doc)? Isn't because they are mostly anti-infantry units and Axis have a lot of more effective (and often cheaper) infantry counters ("puma" with 20mm cannon, or actually most of their infantry)? Why was it that WM players, when facing US, used to rush for Panthers and Tigers before the 90mm cannons got a buff? Wasn't it because they knew that these tanks had very little counters from the side of US no matter what doctrine so they knew they would get the job done? And isn't also the reason why after buffing the 90mm cannons, these tanks were not rushed for so often because suddenly there was a really good chance that opponent has Armor doc and so the chance of losing the Tiger/Panther was a lot higher? Wasn't it after the buff of the 90mm guns that the Armor doctrine was played a lot more often and people started to rush for Pershings? Why was that? Because suddenly they could get things done better than most other units in the arsenal. I would say that on both sides you would units that are used almost in every game and units that used very rarely or not at all (Bren carrier, M20, several types of Axis HTs are rarely seen, Gepard, already mentioned stubby PIVs, MG teams in general because people rather go for MG-mounted vehicles because of better mobility, several reward units are rarely picked etc.).

So as people spoke here about giving a Jackson to Infantry doctrine - won't that be the case too? Suddenly it will be the best AT unit you have, reliably killing PIV/JPIV and other medium stuff, also reliable counter to Panther/Tiger and with camo and AP at about 50% chance at max range to penetrate KTs, which is not god-knows-how superb but still would be the best chance you've got.

So wouldn't that just add to the "only few useful units, rest is not used"?

First im going to address something you said earlier, about 7% really separating 2 AT guns from 2 factions. Once again you miss the point. It not the AT guns, it the AT guns and everything else. The german AT gun comes with excellent support, in the form of Arty, Mortars, Infantry, Tanks, Offmap, Defense. Every part of the german arsenal outstrips its allied counterpart.

First time Im going to blame devs for anything: this would indicate poor balance job. It indicates that the upgrades and vehicles available to OKW infantry are too strong (which they are. Automatic weapons everywhere, AT rockets everywhere, Air support, THE 88, Panther, Jagdpanzer... I mean come on! What is this docs weakness?) And that armor has the only good option to counter any german heavy (which is also true. Only 90mm really can pose a threat to the big cats.) (Oh btw, ever see luft infantry vs AB infantry? I have seen less one sided fights in the Anglo-Zulu wars). At this point, the tools to balance the game are here, but I honestly doubt the devs have the vision/will/commitment to fixing the problem. You are right, you cant add 90mm everywhere. Your tried that with ranger. It didn't work, and also kinda took away from the identity of the squad. Here is what you do (more of general guidelines, something along these lines):

Fix the game economy: if you want the axis to be as superior as they are now, then they should hurt a lot every time they lose a unit. Also make it possible for them to lose units (that's a big one). to wit:

Fix infantry upgrades: StG's, infantry AT, MG and G43 are everywhere on german side. German infantry need to lose A LOT of their upgrades so they don't become 1 man death squads that can take on anything. Take the PE assault grens. They should be able to have G43 w volley, StG with AT nade, or MG with supressive fire BUT NOT ALL 3 AT ONCE. Have volks and grens from wher lose their AT rockets. Especially shrecks. Have fausts cost more.
Also, why is it that sticky bombs de-track targets less that german thrown AT nades? Tracked german tanks are very vulnerable, it would help with balance, especially german TD's. (oh wait, answered my own question. We cant have vulnerable german tanks! God forbid!)

Fix accuracy stats: Fun fact, stuart had gyro-stabilized main guns. Shermans, and pershings had stabilizers to allow them to fire accurately on the move. So why does every american tank shoot like it is blind. I feel like flipping a coin to hit a tank would give me better odds than I have now. American infantry did have eyes you know. Maybe let them shoot better (also then should own german infantry without automatic weapons b/c garand). And why StG are considered Medium range weapons I have no idea. Maybe its the guided bullets they seem to use that PE never had in real life. Either way, weapons stats, especially infantry weapons, need a long, hard look.

Fix light vehicles and the 50 cal. Sdkfz 250 and 251 halftracks were able to be penned by 50 cal and were open topped. Maybe make them more vulnerable to grenades and supressive fire (if say, rifles have the BAR). Make AT halftracks less prevalent overall.

Fix tank stats: Sherman were designed to deal with pz4 and stug. That should be reflected in the game. Pz4 (even H) should be inferior to a Sherman 76. Buff the sherman in general. Allow american TD's to actually be a foil to german TD's: Germans rely on ambush and accurate first shot, American rely on accurate fire on the move and flanking speed. (or in the case of a jackson a REALLY big gun)

Fix off map: Why luft has a stuka patrol in 1944 is beyond me (something tells me realism isnt a huge issue here. Otherwise I would have asked how germany lost ww2. Those soviets must have been supermen). Make it cheaper, deadlier, and hit sooner than german counterparts. You want to keep you monster tanks? Fine, but I should have access to a THUNDERBOLT patrol that will eat your tank alive. Or a long tom barrage that can accually stun the tank, or outright destroy it if it cant move.

This is just some stuff that I can think of. Sorry about the sarcasm, I tried playing BK mod this weekend, and ended up reminding myself why I left for mods like wikinger or even spearhead (And i do not like spearhead). Judging the your post Markr, you are aware of the issue! The answer is easy; nerf what is being overused in the german side, buff everything that isn't being overused on the US side. Adjustments can be made, we would not want Wher/PE too weak, oh no! (And I know you don't want to rework lategame balance. But you can only rework something that already exists.)

[Jalis]

So why does every american tank shoot like it is blind.

It is an old question. It was the answer I proposed to Markr, in a prv msg, years ago, when he wasn't even part of bk team.

Click to enlarge.

[Shanks]

@Death_kitty...two questions for you...What is your nickname in steam?..and...Could you upload a repetition of pvp, where you show the poor armament of USA vs WM?

[Warhawks97]

First im going to address something you said earlier, about 7% really separating 2 AT guns from 2 factions. Once again you miss the point. It not the AT guns, it the AT guns and everything else. The german AT gun comes with excellent support, in the form of Arty, Mortars, Infantry, Tanks, Offmap, Defense. Every part of the german arsenal outstrips its allied counterpart.

As i said, that 7 % difference ends up to 12,27942188% difference when AP boosts and ambush gets anded. Thats the good thing in percantage boosts: Already good stuff gets even more boosted the more additional boosts you add.

First time Im going to blame devs for anything: this would indicate poor balance job. It indicates that the upgrades and vehicles available to OKW infantry are too strong (which they are. Automatic weapons everywhere, AT rockets everywhere, Air support, THE 88, Panther, Jagdpanzer... I mean come on! What is this docs weakness?) And that armor has the only good option to counter any german heavy (which is also true. Only 90mm really can pose a threat to the big cats.) (Oh btw, ever see luft infantry vs AB infantry? I have seen less one sided fights in the Anglo-Zulu wars). At this point, the tools to balance the game are here, but I honestly doubt the devs have the vision/will/commitment to fixing the problem. You are right, you cant add 90mm everywhere. Your tried that with ranger. It didn't work, and also kinda took away from the identity of the squad. Here is what you do (more of general guidelines, something along these lines).

Fix infantry upgrades: StG's, infantry AT, MG and G43 are everywhere on german side. German infantry need to lose A LOT of their upgrades so they don't become 1 man death squads that can take on anything. Take the PE assault grens. They should be able to have G43 w volley, StG with AT nade, or MG with supressive fire BUT NOT ALL 3 AT ONCE. Have volks and grens from wher lose their AT rockets. Especially shrecks. Have fausts cost more.
Also, why is it that sticky bombs de-track targets less that german thrown AT nades? Tracked german tanks are very vulnerable, it would help with balance, especially german TD's. (oh wait, answered my own question. We cant have vulnerable german tanks! God forbid!)

What bugs me most here is not that they have too many tanks or good tanks. What bugs me is as you said the infantry stuff. I think the Panzerfaust and the G43 are underused although having been (far) more common than schrecks and stgs. The Fausts shouldnt cost more since their upgrade costs 50 ammo already.

Why does def doc has stgs? Combined with their defensive training they become top class assault infantry. Generally units with this "defensive training" stuff should be more defensive orientated and not using boosts supposed to bolster the defense suddenly boosting the offense.

The stg in def doc could for exmaple be replaced by G43 upgrades or the ability to upgrade two lmgs. I recently used as def doc three gren squads with K98 and lmg42 and it worked excellent.

I mean just throwing ideas arround now. We barely see Fausts, Mp40 and other stuff that was main armament but we see all these rather "exotic" elite weapons.

WH grens could be different in terms of upgrades depending on doctrine.

For instance:
BK doc: MP40´s, LMG, two STG.
Terror: MP 40, LMG, Flamethrower (flamethrowers would be buffed of course, infantry flamethrower suck)
Def doc: G43, LMG (perhaps even two), Panzerschreck or simply an AT package that gives them a schreck and the ability to use Panzerfaust. Or Panzerfaust right at default or after upgrade or whatever. Kronoz gave us nice ideas to work with. Btw, what happend with his ideas for def doc?


As for PE:
Perhaps the basic grens could have G43 and LMG42? So more back up orientated
The Assault grens would have stgs (one at default like stormtroopers or even two like assault pios) and lmg available. In Tank Hunter doctrine the AT nade would be replaced by Panzerfaust after the upgrade that provides second schreck to AT squad or simply added. I think they have free ui slots bc SE can also get flame nades without losing AT nades.

Just ideas here. Iirc terror grens once had flamethrowers.

Fix accuracy stats: Fun fact, stuart had gyro-stabilized main guns. Shermans, and pershings had stabilizers to allow them to fire accurately on the move. So why does every american tank shoot like it is blind. I feel like flipping a coin to hit a tank would give me better odds than I have now. American infantry did have eyes you know. Maybe let them shoot better (also then should own german infantry without automatic weapons b/c garand). And why StG are considered Medium range weapons I have no idea. Maybe its the guided bullets they seem to use that PE never had in real life. Either way, weapons stats, especially infantry weapons, need a long, hard look.

One thing that would be good. It got mentioned along the flanking debate and sherman buffs but hasnt been introduced. Once again percantage and mulitplying is the issue. Like e8 loses only 25% accuracy but bc it has lower basic accuracy stats it is just as accurate as a panther while moving.

So here for example US tanks could lose just 40% accuracy (0.6 modifier) and e8 just 20% (0.8 modifier) while moving while other factions would lose 60% accuracy (0.4 modifier) to make up for the weaker guns.

Fix light vehicles and the 50 cal. Sdkfz 250 and 251 halftracks were able to be penned by 50 cal and were open topped. Maybe make them more vulnerable to grenades and supressive fire (if say, rifles have the BAR). Make AT halftracks less prevalent overall.

A cal 50 debate was already underway elsewhere. An idea was to make them as upgrade on shermans and greyhounds etc. but in return becoming real cal 50 just as 20 mm guns are real 20 mm guns (except the quad versions).

Fix off map: Why luft has a stuka patrol in 1944 is beyond me (something tells me realism isnt a huge issue here. Otherwise I would have asked how germany lost ww2. Those soviets must have been supermen). Make it cheaper, deadlier, and hit sooner than german counterparts. You want to keep you monster tanks? Fine, but I should have access to a THUNDERBOLT patrol that will eat your tank alive. Or a long tom barrage that can accually stun the tank, or outright destroy it if it cant move.

That stun thing isnt a bad idea but i think hummels at least or also all 105 guns would have similiar effects. idk if we would go too far with it.
AB has currently full command pannel. So adding any sort of rocket raids/patrole would require a removal of something else.
One thing could be to make the 101st HQ being dropped from AB HQ instead of being a global ability and unlocking it with 101st unlock. That way AB in general could earlier operate properly instead of waiting for HQ squad till late game. The sniper could be removed out of the squad and make it instead able to hide passively. That would make space for air strike unlocks. But i dont think devs would be willing to do that. It would also be nice if the current raid would aim buildings with the bombers.


Ideas are available.
That idea about doctrinal infantry upgrades had been discussed in 2012 already when i joined the forum. Somehow it got always thrown away.

maybe he wants the 57mm does the damage of a 90mm

57 mm max damage with AP: 562,5
90 mm min damage with AP: 552,5

I dont even have to use sarcasm here.

[Jalis]

poor armament of USA vs WM?

It is usually more cheated WM armenent vs normal USA one.

First G43 and STG 44 were very rare.
2) FG 42 were completly unsuitable to full auto and would be treated as garand with a 20 ammo clip.
3) German AT 37 mm and 50 mm were very poor and completely overhelmed by 37 and 57 mm AT gun.
4) PIV F2 was 50 mm frontal armor 30 for rear and side ; what means vastly inferior to Sherman … even inferior to a crowmell (64 mm and 32) Is it like that at bk ? certainly not.
I can give you 5 6 7 and probably 24 and 25 at risk to make a post as long as Warhawk can does.

Markr cant simply solve all problem because it take a lot of time to remove and rebalance all little cheat and unfairness the mod contain. It also have to deal with a large part of axis fan boys, and a very conservative PVP community who dislike change. If a lot of progress have been made it lets a lot of problem inherited from the german(ist) era conception.

Just an exemple He recently harmonised camo bonus for to TD. Before that Axis had additional advantage over allies. It just took ten years to correct it, but things can only be make slowly and step by step, for reason explained above.
There is plently of little bias hidden everywhere in the mod. Next time I dont know what it will be sorrected but it will probably take years before all bias will be removed.

If you want I can propose one. Motorpool repair pioneer/engineer. Axis pay no upkeep for them, allies pay. Like you see I m reasonable. I dont ask to give Sherman its real armour value, nor I propose to ajust allies ballistic value to true value.

[Death_Kitty]

@Death_kitty...two questions for you...What is your nickname in steam?..and...Could you upload a repetition of pvp, where you show the poor armament of USA vs WM?

My Answers:
You need a replay to see how good an upgraded gren squad with MG-42 and StG is vs US rifles? I'm sorry but if you have not caught on by now, I don't think a replay will help.
And no, I wont upload my steam user so you can check my hours to try and invalidate my opinion. If you don't agree with what I say, then go with warhawk if that makes you feel better. Rest assured my hours in bk are plenty (over 100), and my hours in Coh are also very good (over 500, 350 in wikinger). Do I think I have enough hours in BK mod to balance it? Hell no. Do I think I have enough hours in BK mod to know what is wrong with it. YES.

[Shanks]

1-the repetition is for see how good you are
2-100 hours of game in bk is very little, I tell you more, there are people who played bk more than 1500 hours, and still do not know how to kill a stug, it's funny ... so I do not care about you hours of game, not much. I know there are good players who do not need much time to learn to play (I have 1600 hours in bk, accumulated for 3 years, although lately I do not play much) ... it would be really interesting to see a game of yours in pvp,i also wanted to play with you, from your side a pvp, but I see that you do not like to reveal your identity ... I'm Ling Yao in steam, if you want to play with me sometime, so you know

[Death_Kitty]

1-the repetition is for see how good you are
2-100 hours of game in bk is very little, I tell you more, there are people who played bk more than 1500 hours, and still do not know how to kill a stug, it's funny ... so I do not care about you hours of game, not much. I know there are good players who do not need much time to learn to play (I have 1600 hours in bk, accumulated for 3 years, although lately I do not play much) ... it would be really interesting to see a game of yours in pvp,i also wanted to play with you, from your side a pvp, but I see that you do not like to reveal your identity ... I'm Ling Yao in steam, if you want to play with me sometime, so you know

I mean, ill be honest. Thank you for the offer. I appreciate it. If you have CoH2, and want to play wikinger, ill extend you the same offer. But I've played bk for this length of time, and I've decided I don't like it. Once in a while I pop up to say why. I see what you are saying here; that maybe I think US sucks because I don't know how to play. (Kinda insulting, but whatever) But listen, I cannot believe that after 1500 hours there are players who "dont know how to kill a stug" Have you considered the possibility that the stug is that hard to kill? Not necessary because of the stug, but because of the stuff on the field with it?

Honestly your post makes you come off kinda elitist (a reason I left in the first place) and more experienced players who have been taking my side in this thread, like warhawk, kinda validate my opinion.

Now ill admit, you would 99% beat me in a game of bk... you have more hours in this mod than I have in the whole coh franchise, so our game would not be indicative of balance... But for me, I can clearly see when I play germans vs US how hard/easy the game gets. Sure winning with germany can be a challenges vs a really good US or a cw player, but its made easier by their excellent docs and just how quality their units are. I mean, its obvious.

So ill ask you a question; out of those 1600 hours in bk, how many have been spent playing US? How many of those US hours have been spent playing the 3 docs? Do you really enjoy US as much as the other 3 options when you do play? Do you really think there is no balance issue here?

[Shanks]

my favorite army is USA, and i play with all the doctrines, and it does not seem too hard to beat WM, i think it's almost balanced

[MarKr]

First im going to address something you said earlier, about 7% really separating 2 AT guns from 2 factions. Once again you miss the point. It not the AT guns, it the AT guns and everything else. The german AT gun comes with excellent support, in the form of Arty, Mortars, Infantry, Tanks, Offmap, Defense. Every part of the german arsenal outstrips its allied counterpart.

I wouldn't say I missed any point. If you take a look, my post with the AT gun stats was a reaction to a post which basically said "Axis can rely on their 50mm AT but US 57mm is completely useless". The post was comparing just the two guns, so I provided stats only on the two guns that were mentioned. Of course the game is not just about that but about unit combinations but if someone says that one unit is "utterly useless" and a same tier unit of the opposite side is "reliable" then I run the stats to see how much that is true, then I post the results - in this case it shows it was not the way the original poster claimed.

Fix the game economy: if you want the axis to be as superior as they are now, then they should hurt a lot every time they lose a unit. Also make it possible for them to lose units (that's a big one). to wit:

About "defeating with wit": that would mean mostly flanking and because of that there are the latest changes to rear penetration. But it doesn't change anything when people (despite we discourage people from this for ages) play on small, narrow maps where flanking is sort of impossible or at least a lot harder.
About "economy": This is problematic. Such "economy" change has a huge potential to set the Axis on an economic disadvantage that keeps snowballing and from which they simply don't recover. This means that one lost strong unit will basically mean "gg" for Axis and that in turn means that Axis will be camping a lot more and start artying everything again, simply because it is less risky.

This used to be the case before (and still for some time after) I joined the dev team - Axis units were stronger, Allies (especially US) were weak - Jeep had still stats from vCoH so it couldn't do anything to Axis infantry while Bike/Schwim were shredding every US infantry. US HMG took forever to suppress or kill even Volks, while HMG42 was insta-pinning everything. 90mm guns strugled against PIV H, Churchills could be easily penetrated fontally by Puma and thus were totally useless in pretty much any situation, there were tons of things like that.As a consequence, to win you had to outnumber them like 3-4:1 - this was also problematic, especially because the US were waaaay more micro-heavy. We tried to keep the "fight with numbers" tactics for the US faction but lower the outnumber ratio to 2:1 instead of 3-4:1 and it worked (before anyone starts to catch on this - US Riflemen are able to win vs Axis infantry even in 1v1 with some luck, with 2v1 (no upgrades) they win for sure, medium tanks can also destroy heavies in 2:1 so even if it does not work ALWAYS, it works in general). But with the changes that happened over time on the side of Allies and Axis, the Allies became stronger and Axis kept old prices and the economic snowballing became an issue - even before the heavy tanks got a chance to enter the field, often a lost key unit in early or mid game meant for Axis such economic loss that they kept struggling till the end of the game.

Fix infantry upgrades: StG's, infantry AT, MG and G43 are everywhere on german side. German infantry need to lose A LOT of their upgrades so they don't become 1 man death squads that can take on anything. Take the PE assault grens. They should be able to have G43 w volley, StG with AT nade, or MG with supressive fire BUT NOT ALL 3 AT ONCE. Have volks and grens from wher lose their AT rockets. Especially shrecks. Have fausts cost more.

This is something I could agree to. The versatility of Axis infantry is a huge advantage and I also agree that the StG44 is vastly over-represented in the mod.

Also, why is it that sticky bombs de-track targets less that german thrown AT nades? Tracked german tanks are very vulnerable, it would help with balance, especially german TD's. (oh wait, answered my own question. We cant have vulnerable german tanks! God forbid!)

I am not 100% sure but I think that some time ago I had a conversation with Wolf about Stickies not detracking enough and he gave some reason for it, not sure what it was, though...

Fix accuracy stats: Fun fact, stuart had gyro-stabilized main guns. Shermans, and pershings had stabilizers to allow them to fire accurately on the move. So why does every american tank shoot like it is blind.
(...)
Fix light vehicles and the 50 cal. Sdkfz 250 and 251 halftracks were able to be penned by 50 cal and were open topped. Maybe make them more vulnerable to grenades and supressive fire (if say, rifles have the BAR). Make AT halftracks less prevalent overall.
(...)
Fix tank stats: Sherman were designed to deal with pz4 and stug. That should be reflected in the game. Pz4 (even H) should be inferior to a Sherman 76. Buff the sherman in general. Allow american TD's to actually be a foil to german TD's: Germans rely on ambush and accurate first shot, American rely on accurate fire on the move and flanking speed. (or in the case of a jackson a REALLY big gun)
(...)
Fix off map: Why luft has a stuka patrol in 1944 is beyond me (something tells me realism isnt a huge issue here. Otherwise I would have asked how germany lost ww2. Those soviets must have been supermen). Make it cheaper, deadlier, and hit sooner than german counterparts. You want to keep you monster tanks? Fine, but I should have access to a THUNDERBOLT patrol that will eat your tank alive. Or a long tom barrage that can accually stun the tank, or outright destroy it if it cant move.

I keep saying this over and over - argumenting with "realism" as a main argument isn't a the best thing. People always mention realism as a reason for buffing something but rarely demand also applying nerfs to the same unit to keep it "realistic". I call it "selective realism" - wanting realism but only where it suits me. Realistically speaking, every tank had positives and negatives. If only the positives are applied, then the unit is not really more realistic than it was before, it becomes more of a sci-fi unit with tons of pros and little-to-none cons. At the same time there are aspects that were a huge positives for a unit and we cannot implement them simply because of gameplay. An example would be Tigers - their advantage over Shermans was in reach of their guns. I am not 100% sure if I remember this correctly but I think that a 76mm Sherman could penetrate a Tiger at about 700m while a Tiger could penetrate Shermans at about 2000m. So Tigers could knock out Shermans at almost 3x the range. We cannot do this in the game because Tigers would be able to shoot across half of most maps. Now the Sherman attack range is 60, for Tigers that would need to be about 180 and that is the unupgraded range of Priest/Wespe/Hummel in the current build. So a person would be able to build a Tiger, park it in base and snipe tanks across half of the map, especially when people keep playin the small maps where 180 range gives you reach almost to enemy base.

So the biggest advantage of these heavy tanks is something we cannot really implement in the game. So that is why the 76mm guns have relatively small chance against Tigers even when "realisitcally" at shorter ranges they would have no problem penetrating them - simply to at least somehow make up for the lack of options to simulte the real advantage the heavy tank would have.

But even if we neglect this range factor, OK, so Shermans were designed to go after PIV and StuGs and objectively the Shermans were better. Realistically speaking (and also according to the "economy" argument), a Sherman cost back then (when converted to USD; at least if this source is to be trusted) about the same as PIV (cca 46 000 USD), StuGs were cheaper (cca 33 000 USD) so Axis would have their main medium tanks as expensive as US theirs, but noticeably weaker - who will ever build PIVs? They will fall prey to the Shermans which are available to every US doctrine, not to mention that M10s and M18s would do short work with them too. So the Axis would simply go for TDs over PIVs every time. Realistic? Sure. Good for gameplay? Not so much because it would intentionally make a unit pointless. On the same note, Tigers were about 120 000 USD so almost 3x as expensive as Sherman while 3 Shermans will destroy a Tiger like nothing. Not to mention the KT which cost about 320 000 USD which is almost 7x the cost of a Sherman.

So the realism factor can play a role but should not be the main point of any change because you either want realism which means both positives and negatives or you want only positives and then it is not realism. The "as realistic as possible where it can be achieved" does not really work either, an example would be the fact that simulating the frequent engine breaks of Tigers WOULD be possible by giving to Tigers a random chance for "engine damage/destroyed" any time they move, but then nobody will build them. "Realism" is often a good thing as an inspiration or base when thinking of possible abilities for units or changes e.g. "it doesn't make much sense that Luft has so many plane abilities because back then their airforce was very limited so they could have less planes in their raids or they could have some airstrikes removed, but Luftwaffe was famous for (something) so they could get an ability that would do (something based on the previous something) instead.". But simply saying that the Luft Stuka raid is historically nonsense and should not be there is not really a valid gameplay reason for its removal. From gameplay perspective it is there as a counter to heavy-camper players (as it used to be the case with RE) who build tons of emplacements very quickly and you had no real way of breaking through. Simply put - gameplay goes before realism.

Some of the things that were mentioned here could be changed, some of them are actually planned or already present in the second 5.1.6 beta but it is not as easy as "make these 10 changes and everyone will be happy". It is more like "make these 10 changes and I will be happy". If we change the stuff you asked for, then you and some people with similar views as you might be happy but people who like the current set up will be angry and start shouting crap like "Allies fanboy patch", if it is kept as it is, people like you will keep saying the mod is "Axis biased" even though many players keep saying that Axis are now weak. What I noticed sofar is that if you change something, people are pissed, if you change nothing people are pissed, if you change something only a little people are pissed and if you change it a lot people are pissed, people will always be pissed . As a dev I believe that if you write a long post, explaining your ideas, it does not make your point of view more important than a point of view of another player who believes in completely opposite approach (and of course his poin of view is not more important than yours). So what we're trying to do is to have a look at what each side wants and look for a solution that as many people as possible from both sides would be happy with (or at least OK with) and as little people as possible would be pissed about it. At the same time we try to think of possible problematic outcomes of the changes, because there are always some...especially when you think "this is a small thing, there will be no trouble if we do this" - happened more often than I'd like to admit