Worthless Wasp

[Beast Slayer]

Is there any plan to make this unit more useful in the future? I come to a conclusion from several pvp games I played recently that its complete waste of resources. Its cost of 400mp 15f is set way too high for what this unit can actually do in combat. When you compare it with the multipurpose daimler car which can cap points/scout and cost 240mp 10f and later on 170mp 5f after captain hit the field its a very unattractive choice in the early game ( cost ) and late game ( survivability ). Description of this unit also states that it have "heavy flame thrower" which is not true at all because Im struggling to kill any unit before its one shoted by nearly anything. AT grenades, 37mm AT guns, light AT rifle squad and scout car equipped with heavy AT rifle all rape this unit so bad its not even funny. I really doubt that in this current version its worthy to delay teching up for this unit. I will rather buy sappers ( you do not even need to because you already start the game with one squad of sappers anyway ) which have access to FT upgrade and are more versatile because they can also build, repair and fight infantry reliably enough. Their survivability is also higher because of retreat option. All that just for 315mp and 65mun if you go for FT. The only solution to this would be to considerably drop the price of wasp to at least 250mp 10f or to give it the exact same "heavy flame thrower" as the churchill crocodile use. This would not make it op at all considering the range of the FT is pretty abysmal and any AT unit can one shot it without problem.

Are you even using this unit and what do you think about this change?

[Beast Slayer]

Am I asking for something outrageous here when there is no response? I remember very well when this unit was introduced into the mod some years ago it had the same exact FT as Churchill Crocodile but then probably someone complained that its too strong ( what a joke ) and it was nerfed into the peashooter we have today which is unable to kill anything in reasonable time and therefore nobody is using it. You should seriously consider to review this unit and give it appropriate cost and damage to make it as a viable choice. Right now its a complete waste of resources.

[Warhawks97]

Thing with the community is that they prefer to stick with what is, even if it means to have units being usless.

We had and still have many of such units. But if you think one post will change something, it wont.... It needs several topics.


It took ages and debates for me to make jeeps actually killing something instead of being peashooter that couldnt deal damage to inf in the open terrain. It took topics of endless pages to make m1 Garand actually becoming a weapon instead of a "water pistol" with piss poor rof and accuracy.


Or Dingo, or bren carrier in general, cal 50´s, Rangers... omg when i just think about it. People here usually prefer to leave things as they are, no matter how broken something is, just bc they are used to it. Like omg a new unit shows up that changes metas and overthrows everything.


As much as i agree with you, its all i can do. I hope for you that you have the patience for discussing this issue for a year over like 10 pages.

I mean i play BK since 2011 (sometimes daily, sometimes once in week or month). And its the first time ever since then that i actually saw flamethrowers (besides croc churchill one) that actually kill stuff, even if only garrionised units.



Since flamethrowers always have to get dangerous close it makes it hard to make good use of it bc untill you can use them you have to pass mg, rifle, smg fire, nades and what else. In case of this poor little Bren carrier its very hard bc you also have to manage your retreat (no retreat button). It gets outranged by all guns and AT rifles and also by schrecks/faust and even AT grenades/molotov.

I would drop the cost of course (400 MP is a real joke and valuable fuel). I am glad flamethrowers do kill at least garionised units, i will see how long it will take to see them dealing damage also to normal units.


If AT nades wouldnt be available right at start (fun fact: even in vcoh they required an upgrade) and would require an upgrade like sticky bombs, it could also help the Wasp. Right now its hard to use it vs WH bc of the AT rifle squad Meta. And PE can simply throw a nade on it.

[kwok]

There is only partial truth to what warhawks says.

Firstly, the wasp and other flame units were only recently adjusted and this was because there was a high volume and near unanimous complaints. Now there are fewer but still many complaints flames are too strong.

Change decisions mostly lean on the conservative side of things, preferring to do nothing, this is to allow let the community find in game solutions first and exhaust their options before concluding that change is needed. This doesn’t mean having all the votes will ensure the balance update or that balance updates won’t unless there are a large amount of votes... sometimes there are exception cases. But for the most part, warhawks is kind of right in that you need a large amount of support from the community to feel like something will be balanced in the mod. The fact is also most of the devs don’t play pvp so they really dependent on this pseudo-unstructured-democracy to work. So as warhawks suggests, don’t let the silence discourage you from posting.

Flames have been discussed on this forum along the community recently as well as by the devs privately, but most the feedback heard so far is that flames including the wasp are too strong. The community’s silence may or may not be their disagreement with you. Check out the other posts about the wasps, read it through, check how you feel then and post on that thread to talk with others who might agree or disagree with you.

Edit: this is one of the recent threads. I’ve heard other opinions on the discord community as well.
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3115

[Beast Slayer]

Thanks for your time to reply. I appreciate it.

Flames have been discussed on this forum along the community recently as well as by the devs privately, but most the feedback heard so far is that flames including the wasp are too strong. The community’s silence may or may not be their disagreement with you. Check out the other posts about the wasps, read it through, check how you feel then and post on that thread to talk with others who might agree or disagree with you.

I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams where exactly could the Wasp be "too strong". Its "too strong" on paper but when you will try to actually use this unit in combat you will find out its underperforming badly for the cost which is set for it. When Im going to invest 400mp 15f for a unit in the early game ( early game is the only stage of the game where this unit is at least semi-useful but barrely ) then I want it to be a good investment but unfortunately thats not the case. Because of the slow speed on uneven terrain and pathfinding issues when there are obstacles in the way its usually spotted long before it can reach garrisoned building or trench and is destroyed by one single hit from nearly anything. Another big problem besides of the cost is the weak damage of its FT which is unable to kill anything outside of garrison therefore its very easy to destroy this unit even with AT grenades with barrely any loses. If the FT was on par with the CH.Croc then that would not be the case because that FT roasts whole squads within few seconds before they can even chuck any grenades.

Edit: this is one of the recent threads. I’ve heard other opinions on the discord community as well.
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3115

I already contributed to that thread so I would just repeat myself and most of the people complain about the effect of the FTs in general and not about specific units anyway. People just do not like the fact that FTs can one hit kill their entire squads in split second while garrisoned. I was also in shock at first but at the end I got used to that. This have nothing to do with Wasp being overpriced and its low damage against targets out of garrisons. If this mod is going for the more realistic damage system then I do not see a problem with ramping up the damage of FTs to make them more useful against units outside of buildings. HE shots fired from tanks can also kill whole squads for very cheap if you are not careful and are much more convenient to use so why there is a problem with FTs being "too strong" is beyond me.

I think some change to the Wasp is needed to make it more useful. If anybody disagree then please share your opinion and explain why.

[kwok]

Ah yep sorry forgot you did post on there. Lol well I’ll leave you to it.

[winterflaw]

Change decisions mostly lean on the conservative side of things, preferring to do nothing, this is to allow let the community find in game solutions first and exhaust their options before concluding that change is needed.

My approval or disapproval is neither here nor there, but I fully and deeply approve of this approach.

[Beast Slayer]

Unbelievable...when I thought this goddamn unit cannot be possibly any worse then it already is I was proven wrong yet again. Pioneers one of the weakest unit in the game which is not even considered as a combat unit but rather builder/support can beat Wasp 1 vs 1 in flamethrower fight. I wish I was making this up. Every burst of the FT on pioneer squad is doing damage equal to the 1/4 of Wasps max health. Go test it out if you do not believe me. Yeah thats right one of the weakest and cheapest units ( 180mp and 45mun for FT ) can destroy overpriced Wasp ( 400mp 15f ) in flamethrower fight. This poor little bugger have no other purpose than burning infantry squads but is abysmal even at that. What a farce. If this do not prove that there is some kind of problem with balance then I do not know what will.

[kwok]

lol okay, that's unusual. will look into the FT stats for the wasp.

[Beast Slayer]

lol okay, that's unusual. will look into the FT stats for the wasp.

Well Im glad that there is at least some progress in this matter but as I said before besides of the weak FT there is also problem with the cost so unless you will give this unit the exact same FT used by CH.Croc ( or close to it ) you should also lower its price to at least 250-300mp and 10f. I do not think this is unreasonable request considering other much more useful units cost way less like Stuart Recce ( 300mp 20f ), Scout Car ( 300mp 10f ) and many more. If you do not agree with me about the price then please explain to me what is exactly justifying the 400mp cost. I think its set way to high. Also none of these changes will make Wasp OP at all because every german faction have access to the early and cheap AT options so the counterplay is there.

Another thing I want to discuss is the weird graphical effect of the Wasps FT which is not behaving in the same way as other FTs. It seems that half of the effect is not visible/transparent. You can see it on this screenshot:

All other FTs in the game look as they should. For example this is graphic FX of the FT belonging to Sappers:

This always bothered me. Is this some kind of glitch? In any case it makes the FT mounted on Wasp look very weak. Can you please look into this?

Thanks.

[MarKr]

I am not sure if the visual thing is fixable. As far as I know these flame animations for each flame tank/vehicle/weapon are part of the model (I am not 100% sure but I think it is the case because when I tried to make a Sherman with a flamethrower instead of hull MG by adding same weapon as the Croc Churchill has, it created the flame spots on the ground but there was no flame stream and there was no way to add it because the model did not have the animation) so if the model creator did not include the full animation we cannot fix it unless we edit the model which is something I have never done so I have no idea how to do it.

[Beast Slayer]

I am not sure if the visual thing is fixable. As far as I know these flame animations for each flame tank/vehicle/weapon are part of the model (I am not 100% sure but I think it is the case because when I tried to make a Sherman with a flamethrower instead of hull MG by adding same weapon as the Croc Churchill has, it created the flame spots on the ground but there was no flame stream and there was no way to add it because the model did not have the animation) so if the model creator did not include the full animation we cannot fix it unless we edit the model which is something I have never done so I have no idea how to do it.

I remember when Wasp was first introduced into this mod some years ago it had the same exact graphical effect and power as the FT of Ch. Croc. I remember it because I liked to use Wasp a lot before they nerfed it and the FX become like the one you can see on the screenshot. Maybe they tweaked the model to change the FX. I dont know but Im sure it didnt look like this. If you do not know how to change this effect then its not the end of the world. I can live with that. The underperforming Wasp is the real problem.

[Panzerblitz1]

Visual flamme fx of the Wasp like the Churchill croco isn’t fixable. ( or we need a new flamme fx model )