Garand Changes (5.1.8 beta)

[kwok]

Topic to talk about the garand changes.

[mofetagalactica]

Garands has been a problem for the macro of the game, i know how much warhakws like this weapon and he speaks true on why such weapons where good.
We had problems about balancing core weapons and we can't neither talk about it in singular since we're supposed to be commanding a mixed arm warfare.
A core weapon that excels at all fields was a lot of problem when mixed with the new 50 cals, smoke, flamethrowers and at grenades.

Nerfed MG42, Nerfed rifle AT grenade, puma turret speed rotation fixed, and the comeback of jeep flanking since pak 37 is easily flankable, was some of the *whys* the garands where changed to excel at closer ranges or have some kind of fall off on one aspect.

So far i think we have balanced core weapons with both having almost equal chances to kill each other at mid distance.

Things that could be done for the next patch after having in mind other discussions about it:


- Buffing accuracy of Riflemen Garands at distant ranges to 0.17 (from 0.114)
- Buffing damage and accuracy of the bar cost rises to 50 ammo (from 45) Cost changes to 25 after weapon reduction cost cp unlock.

----
Experimental:

We also had discussions about trying to search a way to make rifle's still viable late game, something i came up with would be something like after:

-After building supply yard and upgrade it to:
LVL 1 : All rifles get vet 1.
LVL 2: Riflemen MP price reduction to 200MP (from 255)

-Getting rid of the increased mobilitation that the infantry doc has for some short of artillery smoke call in hability or something like that up for ideas about it.

[CGarr]

Again Figree is pretty much reading my mind on what i'd prefer to see done with garands, and his ideas for the supply yard further improving riflemen late game rather than just making the garands laser guns again is a lot better way of handling the issue. As long as rifles have some late game utility (in this case through still being combat capable due to the slightly improved stats that come with vet 1), I think the core inf will be balanced by implementing this change and the current Kar fix.

Will edit my comment on the Kar topic to point towards this thread, as this is a good way of implementing the sort of core inf balance I had suggested in the other thread.

A smoke drop call-in or wide area blanket arty call-in with pack howi sized arty would be nice to fill the gap, increased mobilization would be kinda out of place if this change was made but it probably wouldn't be missed if it got replaced.

[Warhawks97]

Nerfed MG42, Nerfed rifle AT grenade, puma turret speed rotation fixed, and the comeback of jeep flanking since pak 37 is easily flankable

- Buffing accuracy of Riflemen Garands at distant ranges to 0.17 (from 0.114)
- Buffing damage and accuracy of the bar cost rises to 50 ammo (from 45) Cost changes to 25 after weapon reduction cost cp unlock.

I agree with Figree as well.

I think our goal should be to have the Garands to be the best default rifle in terms of overall utility and thus the best weapon among core units. The Rifle squad is the only basic inf on US side and thus needs to keep somewhere between Volksgren and Grens in terms of overall strenght and performance. The counter balance to that is the higher initial cost compared to volks. Volks do not need to be equal to Rifles bc they are just starting unit, not core throughout the entire game. They fill more a meatshield/gap filler role untill better T2 inf arrives.

And the other downside for having the best default equipment (best in terms of being best in most, not all combat situations and thus in overall utility) would be that US has a less effective cost-performance ration for its upgrades. The BAR can, in exchange for slight buffs in terms of damage, easily cost up to 70 ammo while axis lmgs with better rof and bigger magazin/longer bursts have the overall better performance for same cost.

Weapons like lmg42 and stg were just pressed steel metal parts and very cheap. The G43 was also quite cheap.

The HMG42 would get cheaper as well.

----

Experimental:

We also had discussions about trying to search a way to make rifle's still viable late game, something i came up with would be something like after:

-After building supply yard and upgrade it to:
LVL 1 : All rifles get vet 1.
LVL 2: Riflemen MP price reduction to 200MP (from 255)

-Getting rid of the increased mobilitation that the infantry doc has for some short of artillery smoke call in hability or something like that up for ideas about it.

I can support this idea as well. It would also already help when the build cost drop down to 235 MP or so while reinforce cost drop from 60% to 50% of the build cost.

[Black Panther]

You'd better make a riflemen better with upgrades, to keep them in line with a upgraded Grenadiers, like getting vet faster or some evasion bonus.
Price reduction is not a really good idea. Playing by meatshield tactics (which it could be the only way), also need a good micro skills, where most of the players lacking of. So better make it more effective, than cheapier

[mofetagalactica]

You'd better make a riflemen better with upgrades, to keep them in line with a upgraded Grenadiers, like getting vet faster or some evasion bonus.
Price reduction is not a really good idea. Playing by meatshield tactics (which it could be the only way), also need a good micro skills, where most of the players lacking of. So better make it more effective, than cheapier

Well one of the ideas that is on the kar post(check it out) pretty much was to make the greens to be recruited later in-game, we're discussing about making them available after *battle phase or *assault phase. This way we could make more space for riflemens so they don't get completely useless when greens comes at the first phases with current kar stats.

.
**
battle phase = first hq wh upgrade
assault phase = second hq wh upgrade (pretty much when puma50mm and stugs are availables)

[Redgaarden]

Dont think it's possible to make rifles viable lategame. And there currently is no need since; Infantry has Rangers, Airborne has airborne, Armor gets combat engineers.

Riflement current troubles in lategame is that
1:Dont get any combat buff from any doctrine or upgrade.
2:Usually dont get a chance to fire and dies instantly due to HIgh explosives or lmg42. (Low Health Pool meaning most explosives kill some extra men)
3:Veterancy is the same as other units (Not True since they get CD instead of accuracy) But still neglible veterancy and no real survivbility vet.
4:Expensive to reinforce if anything else than Infantry doctrine.
5:No effective anti tank, Riflemen can't figure out how to throw at something that is moving. They get a brain malfunction and run under the tank tracks. And sticky bomb sharing same hotkey as sprint which makes it harder to make them run (They become lazy).
6:Bars can't compete with axis machineguns.

Pros
1:They do a lot of dmg for how cheap they are. When they actually get to shoot something that isn't made out of steel.
2:They only give 1xp per model killed
3:They cap fast
4:They do well in trenches when con 2 is negated.

[MenciusMoldbug]

Since BAR got brought up; I took a look at this weapon again and found out some particularly odd things:

- It is still using the VCoH moving accuracy modifier, which is just a 50% cut in accuracy while running around (FG42 has this too but they are being used by elite infantry so they have that excuse). There's a reason they used this thing with a bipod and I can't imagine having to fire this thing on the move and having half my shots hit the target.

- Piss poor damage values: Same damage as a grease gun in game except 1 minimum damage higher (11-17 vs 12-17). Outside the accuracy differences on range; the difference between this automatic rifle and a SMG is a blur.

- It's got the highest suppression value per bullet for any LMG in the game (do people even think of the current BAR as an LMG?).

I didn't like how suppressive fire got removed tbh. It provided the necessary tactical flexibility for the US to push around axis hard points where a 30cal HMG would have a hard time finding good firing positions/openings to do so. I've been thinking it can come back on a squad dedicated to using the BAR for fire support. Like the 4-man double LMG42 Stormtrooper team. It could be a 4-man Rifle team with 2 BAR's who's sole purpose is to provide covering fire for other units. Maybe it could be the replacement for the Captain Call-In or something buildable in the barracks.

BAR should also be a joke to fire with on the move; and maybe it can be turned into it's proper role as an automatic rifle which was to serve as a mobile fire support weapon in a rifle team.

[kwok]

I can actually provide some context for the last values mentioned.

1. BAR moving accuracy is probably an oversight

2. Will come back to this as I have an opinion here that I want to keep separate.

3. BAR suppression was added because the suppression ability was removed. We wanted to either give all Lmg weapons (which we classified BARs as) a similar role. So it was either remove the ability from bars or add to all others. We chose to remove from bars because of UI constraints on other units that can get lmgs. So to keep the “suppress” aspect of the weapon itself we have it a bump in suppression. This can be tweaked for all lmgs as balance updates, I am just telling the core idea. We also don’t have to stick with that core idea. So you can discuss that in a different topic.

[Warhawks97]

- It is still using the VCoH moving accuracy modifier, which is just a 50% cut in accuracy while running around (FG42 has this too but they are being used by elite infantry so they have that excuse). There's a reason they used this thing with a bipod and I can't imagine having to fire this thing on the move and having half my shots hit the target.

ok, i thought it was intentional bc the FG42 was the same. But thinking about it i would say there should be a difference for mentioned reason.

- Piss poor damage values: Same damage as a grease gun in game except 1 minimum damage higher (11-17 vs 12-17). Outside the accuracy differences on range; the difference between this automatic rifle and a SMG is a blur.

Old ranger cal.30 suffered same untill wolf took controle over BK.
You can find that for CW bren as well (12-17) damage. You find such things for vehicles as well. CW vehicle mounted weapons on Dingo and bren carrier also have such poor damage values (iirc 12-17 as well) while german bikes have 20-25 (which is almost the damage of cal 50´s btw)...
Even in coaxial weapons you find usually 15-20 damage for allied and 20-25 for axis. Its all over the place.
Only lmg34 and the rangers lmg cal.30 share the same damage (16-20). And there is no such thing like "counter balance" since accuracy is often similiar and rof clearly in axis advantage for realistic reasons (weapons in BK usually have their original/realistic rof).

Such unneccessary inconsistencies should be removed.

- It's got the highest suppression value per bullet for any LMG in the game (do people even think of the current BAR as an LMG?).

I didn't like how suppressive fire got removed tbh. It provided the necessary tactical flexibility for the US to push around axis hard points where a 30cal HMG would have a hard time finding good firing positions/openings to do so. I've been thinking it can come back on a squad dedicated to using the BAR for fire support. Like the 4-man double LMG42 Stormtrooper team. It could be a 4-man Rifle team with 2 BAR's who's sole purpose is to provide covering fire for other units. Maybe it could be the replacement for the Captain Call-In or something buildable in the barracks.

BAR should also be a joke to fire with on the move; and maybe it can be turned into it's proper role as an automatic rifle which was to serve as a mobile fire support weapon in a rifle team.

Summarizing the damage part and this part i would say that axis would hold their more realistic advantage which is rate of fire and thus suppression capabilties. They would be better in defensive usage with their high rate of fire and large magazins which can unleash a deadly bullet storm esspecially from middle distances with their lmgs and also, when combined with other weapons, can bring good suppressive effects into bear. Their lmgs would also be quite cheap.
Meanwhile allied LMG type of weapons would be more flexible and more focused on continues fire with larger reloads. Their magazins are (much) smaller and their rof much shorter. Axis would have the clear edge when it comes to "first effects" in the initial combat.

3. BAR suppression was added because the suppression ability was removed. We wanted to either give all Lmg weapons (which we classified BARs as) a similar role. So it was either remove the ability from bars or add to all others. We chose to remove from bars because of UI constraints on other units that can get lmgs. So to keep the “suppress” aspect of the weapon itself we have it a bump in suppression. This can be tweaked for all lmgs as balance updates, I am just telling the core idea. We also don’t have to stick with that core idea. So you can discuss that in a different topic.

I like it. That would fit perfectly into the fighting philosophy i just wrote above.

[mofetagalactica]

Summary :

1- Buffing accuracy of Riflemen Garands at distant ranges to 0.17 (from 0.114)
2- Reworking the behavior, price and stats of weapon upgrades such as BAR and 30cal for riflemens and rangers (BAR stats being the most needed)
3- Reeplacing Mobilization upgrade from inf doc for another hability such as a big smoke artillery call in.
4- Making riflemens more attractive in late game by:
A* After building supply yard and upgrade it to:
B* LVL 1: All rifles get vet 1 and faster vet.
C* LVL 2: Riflemen upkeep and price reduction to 225MP (from 255).
D* LVL 3: Lowers upkeep of tanks.
5- Changing how vet works for riflemens by giving survavility buffs and accuracy instead of more rate of fire.
6- Giving a little more range or shortening the animation for sticky bomb so they don't get brain damage when trying to trow sticky nades at something that is slowly moving in their face.


If i missed somethig please add or modify, i hope this a mix of what everyone has been talking here, detailed stats and price for bars and 30cal could be added on this post too.

Edit: Just replied something that also has relation and could get mixed with this post on the Kar98 post please check.

[CGarr]

Was going to add that the ranger should be available for inf sooner if the grenadiers are going to be available immediately but if the grenadiers are being pushed back to assault then the volks and rifles are fine as is. If grens are being moved it'd probably be better to push them to assault phase to be more in line with the timing rangers would come out since they're both elite inf and the grens have gotten the Kar buff. If they're going to be available sooner than assault phase, rangers should be adjusted accordingly (remove CP wall for the normal rangers, infil rangers are fine as is regardless of what happens).

While this would help keep rifles and volks from getting phased out too fast, I think the full solution to the issue would be to implement this alongside the changes that Figree had mentioned (exactly as he wrote them, no more or less. The changes he suggested would mostly affect the late game utility of the unit excluding the bar changes and range upgrade, and those alone would be a pretty significant but welcome change). Rifle's don't neccesarily have the close range advantage that they have in vanilla, so ti'd make sense for garands to have better performance at range than they currently do especially if the bars get changed so that they are worse on the move but better overall. SMG's are still an option for both volks and rifles if they want to try their luck in closing the gap to melt non-upgraded counterparts so the aspect of asymmetry would still be there but we hopefully wouldn't have this back and forth of nerfs and buffs to rifles anymore and would be able to focus on working out other more pressing issues.

[kwok]

Okay, this isn’t an opinion of mine this is more of a warning/caution. The nature of suggestions from this post and the other weapon related post is adding general buffs to basic infantry and fully available weaponry. In effect this is buffing base units and devaluing elite units. I’m not saying this is wrong but it’s a major design change of how tiering works. Is this something not just you all but the community is comfortable with? We are talking about situations where volks are starting to become comparable to rangers and riflemen starting to become comparable to stormtroopers. Have you thought about THOSE balances? the devs have definitely made poor choices in balance changes before. And those changes are very slight changes where one value is tweaked. Learn from those mistakes when thinking of changes. This thread is proposing MANY changes... the volatility of these suggestions is huge, potentially more than doctrine changes because these are actually unit performance changes rather than structural. Players will expect a particular behavior of units after years of experience and you’re proposing to change that.

This is just advice coming from people who have dealt with a community of complainers before.

[CGarr]

This thread is proposing MANY changes... the volatility of these suggestions is huge, potentially more than doctrine changes because these are actually unit performance changes rather than structural. Players will expect a particular behavior of units after years of experience and you’re proposing to change that.

I'm pretty sure the changes to garands (for a long time they were squirtguns, then lasers) and Kars (If what I've read in the Kar topic is accurate, they've already reached gebirgs level performance but the only complaints I've heard have been the timing at which they come out) have kicked the hornets' nest already, so we might as well finish the job. Either way people are going to complain but this is the first time in a while I've seen everyone that commented come to the same (seemingly pretty reasonable and tame) conclusion. We could always take it slowly and just implement certain parts seperately (garand range, then weapon upgrade changes from here and the Kar topic, then the supply yard changes if deemed neccesary) so people have time to adjust and don't panic.

As far as making normal units perform closer to elites, I think it'd line up with the philosophy of having horizontal upgrades rather than vertical ones that make some units obsolete late game. The elite units still have plenty of advantages over the others in terms of vet and survivability (and if you're including the weapon changes in the Kar topic, they'd be getting buffed somewhat too), but their biggest advantages often come from their unique abilities (parachuting in, model snipes, special grenades and explosives, snares/vehicle harrassing abilities, crawling/ambush). Bringing the mainline inf closer to elites would mainly just mean that it'd take a little more time (accumulating vet) and/or micro for the elites to really shine in comparison to core inf.

[Warhawks97]

Okay, this isn’t an opinion of mine this is more of a warning/caution. The nature of suggestions from this post and the other weapon related post is adding general buffs to basic infantry and fully available weaponry. In effect this is buffing base units and devaluing elite units. I’m not saying this is wrong but it’s a major design change of how tiering works. Is this something not just you all but the community is comfortable with? We are talking about situations where volks are starting to become comparable to rangers and riflemen starting to become comparable to stormtroopers. Have you thought about THOSE balances? the devs have definitely made poor choices in balance changes before. And those changes are very slight changes where one value is tweaked. Learn from those mistakes when thinking of changes. This thread is proposing MANY changes... the volatility of these suggestions is huge, potentially more than doctrine changes because these are actually unit performance changes rather than structural. Players will expect a particular behavior of units after years of experience and you’re proposing to change that.

This is just advice coming from people who have dealt with a community of complainers before.

What can be worse than Volks with Elite rifle stats (i mean they are technically as good as Storms/grens with K98 before) and later on lmg34 and massive doctrinal buffs. I am trying to prevent the scenario you described. I try to prevent Elite K98 on basic inf by giving them their lmg34 earlier so that they can stand better vs M1 Garand Rifle squads.
So i dont get your post at all. You are the guys who just enabled Volks to shred elites with these core stats. Untill AB units and rangers show up they will have their lmg34 anyways, no matter if we make it avaialble this soon or later.

And having single STG in certain docs for volks available wouldnt we worse than laser K98 that can literally snipe or laser down enemies before they can get close, just like Gebis do.

It would also help to keep core inf viable till late game instead of a phasing them out gradually towards late game by replacing them by elites only which will afterall be powerfull enough.

[Redgaarden]

- It is still using the VCoH moving accuracy modifier, which is just a 50% cut in accuracy while running around (FG42 has this too but they are being used by elite infantry so they have that excuse). There's a reason they used this thing with a bipod and I can't imagine having to fire this thing on the move and having half my shots hit the target.

I think FG42 has a 0.75 modifier, not a 0.5. FG42 is shooting like the smgs on the move.

And the BAR was designed to be shot on the move in ww1. They wanted a more stable and consistant lmg in ww2 and that is why they added the 300RPM mode, Handle to carry the gun, and bipod.

- Piss poor damage values: Same damage as a grease gun in game except 1 minimum damage higher (11-17 vs 12-17). Outside the accuracy differences on range; the difference between this automatic rifle and a SMG is a blur.

Grease gun all they way!!!

[kwok]

Okay, this isn’t an opinion of mine this is more of a warning/caution. The nature of suggestions from this post and the other weapon related post is adding general buffs to basic infantry and fully available weaponry. In effect this is buffing base units and devaluing elite units. I’m not saying this is wrong but it’s a major design change of how tiering works. Is this something not just you all but the community is comfortable with? We are talking about situations where volks are starting to become comparable to rangers and riflemen starting to become comparable to stormtroopers. Have you thought about THOSE balances? the devs have definitely made poor choices in balance changes before. And those changes are very slight changes where one value is tweaked. Learn from those mistakes when thinking of changes. This thread is proposing MANY changes... the volatility of these suggestions is huge, potentially more than doctrine changes because these are actually unit performance changes rather than structural. Players will expect a particular behavior of units after years of experience and you’re proposing to change that.

This is just advice coming from people who have dealt with a community of complainers before.

What can be worse than Volks with Elite rifle stats (i mean they are technically as good as Storms/grens with K98 before) and later on lmg34 and massive doctrinal buffs. I am trying to prevent the scenario you described. I try to prevent Elite K98 on basic inf by giving them their lmg34 earlier so that they can stand better vs M1 Garand Rifle squads.
So i dont get your post at all.

Because it was none our suggestions. It was a suggestion brought up by the secret club that you’re not a part of because you don’t test. We only take suggestions from testers seriously, not walls of text from community members who don’t test.

[Warhawks97]

Well, i am sorry for blaming you then when it wasnt devs idea to activate "beast mode" on K98.

Anyway, i have still no idea why my PC isnt starting anymore. I did a series of testings trying to figure out what is broken. As it seems i got issues with my main board. And since this is going to be costly it might take a while before i get my pc running again since a new mainboard will force me to buy also other parts which are not compatible with current mainboards anymore. So i feel sorry for that.

But my very simple point is: I use(d) Volks since i started BK in 2011 and very little got changed on this unit (basically nothing untill now). There have never been issues or anyone complaining about them that they are weak. They always were my and other players core unit (i rarely got normal grens at all) and i (as well as often seen by others) managed to get high kill records against any kind of target. In close combat with mp 40 they shred commandos more often than not (untill commandos got their training boosts) and could shred any approaching inf, let it be rangers or sas. The 101st was or is most of the time hopeless with their basic carabines. With vet and esspecially officer nearby the volks even more so. They were and perhaps still are the most cost effective core/starting unit in game, maintaining value throughout the game. They managed to beat CW Enfield squads in ranged combat under fair even conditions (now they do for sure). With def doc bonuses they became also as zombie like as most elite inf. And compared to rifle squads they were far superior over 90% of BK timeline. Now that favour got touched a bit and they lost parts of their unrivalled supremacy since Garand buff. And out of nothing we have boosted its power by like 30% or so. How was that justified. Barely any other basic starting inf squad was so versatile with good long range, short range and anti tank capabilties. No other received so much support and buffs from doctrines. And yet you simply threw it all over so lightly. That is my entire point. And then i just listed alternative solutions.

And we have collected plenty of ideas how the issue could be fixed.

[CGarr]

Hawks, I don't know if you have gotten to play much with the new changes in the beta to the Kar's, but volks aren't really OP. They still die to rangers and other elites pretty easily if the elites aren't caught in bad positions (negative cover, coming around a corner 1 by 1, etc). Sure, they can get a little more damage out now but they still drop like flies, they're in a pretty good spot right now. The unit that needs to change is riflemen, I'm not really sure why the garand's effectiveness was dropped, especially considering they die as quickly as the volks. The changes in Figree's summary should bring back their killing power, which would put them back in line with volks. Again, the line that seperates these units should be their staying power and abilities, the basic units shouldn't be helpless in terms of damage output just to make the elites feel stronger because the elites will still outlast them the majority of the time (unless maybe caught in a really bad position).

I understand your sentiments with the changes you have suggested for US inf and I am on your side in terms of not wanting rifles to be outmatched by volks (a unit of similar cost) until the weapon upgrades start to come out and range begins to determine the fights, but the Kar changes really aren't that bad. As such, the summary of changes that Figree has above covers pretty much everything that should be done to bring these core units more in line with eachother. If we can agree on this then I'd assume it would be more likely that the changes will be implemented. If I'm not mistaken, the changes to volks are/were being summed up on the Kar thread, so while I do agree with what you were saying about the weapon changes for volks, for this thread we should focus on figuring out what to do with US inf. Obviously we should be keeping the current and projected future performance of axis inf in mind when brainstorming, but to make our feedback more useful (and therefore hopefully influential) we should consolidate thoughts on volks to their respective thread (Kar changes).

@Kwok, it seems like the people that have commented on this thread so far are all in agreement and most of us have put in a good amount of time on the beta with the current changes, so unless someone else can bring anything else to the table I think Figree's summary reflects our suggestions for US inf pretty well. Assuming the dev team doesn't have any objections, I think it's reasonable to use to use that summary as a guideline for any soon to come changes to US inf.