New Terror/Propaganda Doc: Volkssturm

[kwok]

From Boba because he is banned so I'll copy paste for him:


jeep is too fucking OP, folks if not a the early stage, but at least at first squad upgrade, should also have an ability for building sandbags.
since early game w/o high res it might be dependable on map, amount of key buildings on map and green cover, which folks really rely on, so that does not exatcly feels under conception of doctrine, that capable a little bit of everything.
and with high res, situation could go really undercontrol as enemy player can field any .50 call from the start, or in short time (.50jeep/greyhounds) and what is only avaiable to terror player is pak36, which looses to a mobile forces, pak38, which can one shot light vehicle, but can be backfired since of breaktear time and 20mm halftrack, that is a bit of upgrade of 37mm PE truck, which can be really be no threat in case of rushing greyhound. So every counter-mesure has a high-chance of backfiring the user...
The only way to play this out - playing defensively, which lacks a major ability - building a bag with filled sand in it.

Doctrine could be really good if maps allows it, but if not, cancer ahead
if not 5-men sturms, but at least 6-men sturms should has this ability
just for clarification, this is about 1v1 gameplay
2v2 will have less space to manouver

[CGarr]

From Boba because he is banned so I'll copy paste for him:


jeep is too fucking OP, folks if not a the early stage, but at least at first squad upgrade, should also have an ability for building sandbags.
since early game w/o high res it might be dependable on map, amount of key buildings on map and green cover, which folks really rely on, so that does not exatcly feels under conception of doctrine, that capable a little bit of everything.
and with high res, situation could go really undercontrol as enemy player can field any .50 call from the start, or in short time (.50jeep/greyhounds) and what is only avaiable to terror player is pak36, which looses to a mobile forces, pak38, which can one shot light vehicle, but can be backfired since of breaktear time and 20mm halftrack, that is a bit of upgrade of 37mm PE truck, which can be really be no threat in case of rushing greyhound. So every counter-mesure has a high-chance of backfiring the user...
The only way to play this out - playing defensively, which lacks a major ability - building a bag with filled sand in it.

Doctrine could be really good if maps allows it, but if not, cancer ahead
if not 5-men sturms, but at least 6-men sturms should has this ability
just for clarification, this is about 1v1 gameplay
2v2 will have less space to manouver

Being able to build trenches would be nice, I don't think sandbags on their own would help much since the jeep could just go around. He makes a good point though in that the doctrine's balance is heavily dependent on the number of players (currently it isn't amazing in 1v1 but in team games it can get stupid strong if someone helps the terror player survive into late game with a reasonable amount of resource income to work towards the Ace Tiger or KT. In 1v1 the doctrine isnt awful on more urban maps although heavies aren't really ideal in a city so the late game kind of suffers there, especially with the lack of any sort of good combat inf relative to allied options. In other words, unless a stronger combat inf option is presented the doc is going to continue to be lacking, its not impossible to win with but it is inherently worse than the others on urban maps just by design, yet it also isn't great on open maps due to the lack of cover to put the Vsturms in.

Currently there's been 2 options suggested to deal with this, either could work if implemented well:

1. Give the doctrine combat inf that is actually of some use late game
No other doctrine in the game has such weak inf options, and while the tigerphobia unlock makes the doc's armor somewhat intimidating, AB and RAF shouldn't have any issues with the doc at any stage of the game since it lacks options to deal with strong inf that can KO light vehicles with ease and Airstrikes will mop up the tigers like they always do (especially once AB is fixed). As such, the only thing the doctrine has going for it currently is strong arty, and even then defensive has good arty options and blitz doesn't need anything stronger than their rocket HT. Giving this doc good mainline inf would help it fight off those AB squads but people would probably just stop using Vsturms altogether if the doc had something like grens. I've suggested multiple times for this reason that a second, stronger (in terms of raw firepower and durability) command squad would be a good addition to solve this issue, as it would complement Vsturms rather than rendering Vsturms obsolete or reducing them to the role of capping and maybe building cover.

2. Changing veterancy for inf in the doc as a whole
Walder suggested this and I meant to comment on it earlier but I really like this idea as an alternative to my suggestion, possibly even more than mine if implemented correctly. Reworked values for either how quickly the inf in this doc gets vet or improving the bonuses would solve the issue probably help assuming the terror player doesnt get steamrolled early in the game. It would make sense with the theme, given how the propaganda machine strongly pushed the idea of german war heroes that represented the actions of the common soldiers of the wehrmacht. The doctrine could even keep the current roster of troops if this is implemented, as vetted volks would be close enough in strength to unvetted grens and the Vsturms would quickly become less useless. My only suggestion is that any additional vet bonuses that may be added in the future if this approach is taken should be offensive bonuses, as the doctrine doesn't need a horde of zombies so much as just inf that can actually deal some damage despite their relatively low durability late game. The current durability related stats in the beta should be the upper limit, I would personally lower their default stats back down a bit if vet requirements are lowered as getting that vet shouldn't be easy if its actually worth something. Their killing power, however, should increase far more quickly with vet either through raw stats or through abilities and weapons becoming available (minor suppression increase with their rifles that would become noticeable with multiple vet squads firing on one enemy squad, maybe double-faust or double-nades at later vet) or their current abilities becoming cheaper/more spammable.

For option 2 I would just make vet requirements significantly lower for Terror doc and see how strong it is from there. If it is too strong we could possibly even get rid of Vgrens on terror and actually have the vsturms be the doctrine's only inf. Even with vet they'd still be paper late game so anti inf vehicles of any kind would still be scary even at that stage, but non-elite allied inf wouldn't be able to just walk all over them without fear of losing models. And all this would be dependent on if the terror player is able to survive into the late game, given the inf strength would be primarily dependent on vet and their late game armor options take a very long time to get.

[MenciusMoldbug]

I'm bringing this thread back because from the replays I've seen nobody gets the MP40's for the volkstrumm. What if we give it the same treatment that the fausts for volkstrumm got? Like they automatically get 2 MP40's when you unlock the ability. I remember Terror grenadiers automatically got 3 STG44's unlocking an ability. I don't see a reason why the volkstrumm should have to pay for MP40's if that itself is the unlock you get in a doctrine tree.

[mofetagalactica]

I would suggest to wait more time until it sets, sturms are at the verge of being stupidly op on good hands, even in 1v1's.

[kwok]

I agree with figree for now. I’ve been watching people’s style with volks evolve, I think one thing that hasn’t been tried yet was more urban focused maps with propaganda. People still go for blitz on those maps and haven’t tried using propaganda.