Diminished value of elite infantry

[Sukin-kot (SVT)]

So I was searching for a powerful meta in elite infantry oriented docs and found out that there is none that actually has infantry in its core.

Two things happened - huge buff of all vehicles (working HE + coaxial mgs) and nerf of elite infantry (mainly AB and Luft). That resulted in vehicles being gods of war, regardless of the doc you choose it is always more beneficial to unlock vehicles and abilities rather than sticking to the infantry branch. Simply because they are more versatile and score more kills.

Investing CP's in the infantry is always a strategic failure, at the beginning, they aren't better than rifles/panzer grenadiers/inf sections but cost much more to reinforce, so you actually waste your CP's and drain MP at the same time whereas your opponents invest in tanks and off-map abilities that will wipe your infantry in a blink of an eye.

These changes led to a meta when the best strategy of inf docs is actually not to build any elite inf until very late game when they become cost-effective with all the upgrades.

AB meta - unlock airstrike to score kills, then Hellcat\Sherman because otherwise single panzer might force to retreat your entire army, then ammo drop and more airstrikes. Think about investing 6 CP in the paratroopers (101s, 82nd, training), you leave you ass naked against vehicles whereas paratroopers still have a hard time against volks with mg34 and require tons of ammo for weapons without which they are good only in killing engineers.

Luft meta - Panzer, airstrike, Panther, pioneers. If you go for reg.5 and try to play proactively you are dead, 45 mp to reinforce + 150 ammo for FG-42 but British inf section and even rifles will still beat them if they have a bit better position.

Raf meta - the same thing, it's not worth building expensive commando unless they have training not to die with single HE shells.

To sum up - going for the infantry branch is always a mistake as they don't perform better than normal inf, at the same time you let yourself behind in terms of armor and off-map abilities that run the party nowadays.

My suggestion here is - elite infantry should be available as soon as you choose the doctrine (101s, reg.5, rangers, commando with rifles) as now they arent basically elite when they start. Secondly, they should cost less to reinforce and have that number increased with every CP upgrade. That will make them more competitive in the early game and less OP in the late game.

[MarKr]

My suggestion here is - elite infantry should be available as soon as you choose the doctrine (101s, reg.5, rangers, commando with rifles) as now they arent basically elite when they start.

Any doctrine with "elite" infantry has some number of unlocks dedicated to unlocking the infantry. If the infantry becomes available from the start, what should fill the current unlocks then?

Secondly, they should cost less to reinforce and have that number increased with every CP upgrade. That will make them more competitive in the early game and less OP in the late game.

We were thinking about this some time ago but we didn't go for it as we thought people would be bitching that infantry unlocks have some downsides and all other unlocks are without any downsides. But if others don't mind...

[kwok]

i disagree in the why. we hardly "nerfed" elite. what we've done with a lot of elite infantry is that we've changed their potency curve (like you mentioned. weaker early but net stronger late)
if i were to guess the WHY it feels like elite inf are weaker early it's because regular inf got mega buffed. ever since garand changes which lead to k98 changes (and haha judging by the other topic soon lee enfield changes.....) regular inf just started being able to perform at "eilte" levels. in essence, there is no "buffs" or "nerfs". everything is relative. the concept of "if everything is buffed then nothing is buffed" couldn't apply here more...

frankly these were changes that devs were against at first but through constant communal pressure we accepted the changes. the funny thing is this was predicted... when the k98 changes were asked to be changed, the next thing would be lee enfields and smgs.

so the question is, what do we do about it now that the buffed garands and k98s are engrained in the community strats?
the idea to make elite inf more available sounds counter intuitive to me. the cost of a lot of the infantry and their non-elite counterparts is not too far. if it's the difference between infantry costs 50 mp with one that scales late game and the other doesnt, i feel like elite inf will just completely overtake regular infantry. the savings you get from getting regular infantry need to be enough to warrant their utility. having their reinforce cost scale is also a difficult thing to balance because what markr said. overall people like to see things get stronger as the game goes on, not weaker.

so what else? what another predictable suggestion that was made before was to buff the elite soldier. but then non-elite are too weak and need buffs... this cycle will never effing end until everything becomes a sniper.

[CGarr]

I agree that elite inf aren't really the centerpiece of any doctrine's meta, as they are simply outshined by vehicles and come late enough that players will likely already have a force of non-elite inf, thus not really being able to fit much of their elite counterparts without incurring heavy MP bleed from having too much inf in general.

Sukin is right that we should make elite inf available for 0 CP, I've brought this up before. Having to wait for elite inf is dumb now that normal inf aren't helpless against them. They serve as an alternative to non-elites with better scaling but at the cost of having less capping power early on. As such, there is no point in a delay. There are already examples of 0 CP inf that could be considered elite, and I don't see them completely replacing basic inf. Just look at PE's barracks inf, grenadiers on def doc, RAF marines/commandos, and the combat engineers on armor doc and RE doc. None of these units have flat out replaced their basic inf counterparts, they compliment them quite well in the early game by providing additional firepower early on without having to commit to using static units like MG's. Basic inf are still better for tasks like capping and defending, as they have similar firepower and their weaker defense stats aren't as relevant when they're sitting in a trench or green cover. As such, they perform about the same in a defensive role but are cheaper, meaning you can hold more ground with a mixed comp than you could with just all elite inf.

With that being said, 0 CP would be fair for the following units:
Fallshcrimjagers
Gebirgs
Luft pios
101st
AB engineers
stormtroopers
barracks rangers

For the 4 units on this list that can parachute, have them be buildable in the barracks (while maintaining their parachute reinforce) and have the CP unlock allow the full squad to be called in via parachute. This CP upgrade would also unlock the AT weapon upgrade options for 101st and falls. For storms, make them buildable in the barracks but have their bundled grenade and panzershreck be locked until after the CP unlock. For Gebirgs, have the LMG and faust be locked behind their CP upgrade but keep them as a call-in so that they have the advantage over fallshcrimjagers of being fielded faster (and through building infiltration if that is a thing, I keep forgetting to try it). For barracks rangers, the CQB squad unlock they currently require already comes with it's own squad, so there's no need to delay any of their abilities or weapon upgrades if they are made a 0 CP unit. That being said, I think it'd be fair to lock their bazooka behind the CQB squad unlock for the sake of consistency in terms of AT weapons requiring CP unlocks.

Secondly, they should cost less to reinforce and have that number increased with every CP upgrade. That will make them more competitive in the early game and less OP in the late game.

We were thinking about this some time ago but we didn't go for it as we thought people would be bitching that infantry unlocks have some downsides and all other unlocks are without any downsides. But if others don't mind...

I'd be on board with the reinforce cost change. If you are worried about people complaining, just frame it as "elite inf buffed to have cheaper reinforce cost, reinforce cost get closer to the original value as their CP upgrades are unlocked". With that framing, you can easily refute any complaints by stating that this was a flat buff, as their reinforce cost wouldn't get any higher than what it originally was.

The issue isn't their performance against inf, they perform fine currently. SAS could probably use some loadout changes, but aside from that, elite inf still perform fine against other inf for their cost. The buffs to non-elite inf were to prevent people from using elites like they are terminators, as being "elite" doesn't mean basic inf like riflemen and volks should be helpless against these units if they charge across a field with no cover. If a player expects to be able to do that dumb shit with elite inf, then they are going to be disappointed, and I don't think elite inf should be buffed in a way that will allow them to do do that kind of thing again, as it would render the buffs to the non-elites pointless and would make this dumb buff loop that Kwok keeps bringing up a reality.

Inf AT in general needs a buff in order for the meta to not entirely revolve around vehicles. They simply aren't capable of handling heavies on their own, and the late game often revolves around the usage of heavies. Snares have such short range and are so inconsistent in terms of whether or not they get any sort of mobility crit that using them against a heavy with elite inf is just plain stupid. If stickies, fausts, AT grenades, and PIATs could consistently crit armor, they would be infinitely more useful. Fausts should be cheaper to equip squads with. Stickies and AT nades should cost more to throw, but have a 100% chance to crit, as you have to get extremely close to a tank to use them. A well micro'd tank with support will never get hit with a sticky grenade, even by a horde of inf, so complaints about this change would come from the same group that whine about not being able to drop fallschrimjagers straight onto an AA emplacement and capture it. PIATS should fire slower and do less damage, but have a much stronger chance to crit, and really high pen since they are hitting from such a high angle that they would either hit the thin top armor or negate the advantages of sloped armor. PIATs should only be available to CW elite inf (canadians, RE sappers, and PIAT commandos), the standard AT squads should be equipped with bazookas instead as these buffs would make the PIAT a far more powerful snare, rather than the inconsistent, gimmicky piece of trash it is currently. Recoilless rifles should also have that extremely high chance to pen or crit. They still fail to do much against Axis heavies because you are not only still gambling that it will pen, but also gambling that it will crit. My entire point in making the initial suggestion to have them focus on crits instead of damage is that they would be more consistent, but currently they don't feel much different since you are still making big gambles whenever you use them. AT inf can't exactly just sit in the range of a tank and shoot at it all day (fast moving target, risk of HE insta-wipe), so these gambles are just plain stupid.

[Sukin-kot (SVT)]

i disagree in the why. we hardly "nerfed" elite. what we've done with a lot of elite infantry is that we've changed their potency curve (like you mentioned. weaker early but net stronger late)
if i were to guess the WHY it feels like elite inf are weaker early it's because regular inf got mega buffed. ever since garand changes which lead to k98 changes (and haha judging by the other topic soon lee enfield changes.....) regular inf just started being able to perform at "eilte" levels. in essence, there is no "buffs" or "nerfs". everything is relative. the concept of "if everything is buffed then nothing is buffed" couldn't apply here more...

frankly these were changes that devs were against at first but through constant communal pressure we accepted the changes. the funny thing is this was predicted... when the k98 changes were asked to be changed, the next thing would be lee enfields and smgs.

so the question is, what do we do about it now that the buffed garands and k98s are engrained in the community strats?
the idea to make elite inf more available sounds counter intuitive to me. the cost of a lot of the infantry and their non-elite counterparts is not too far. if it's the difference between infantry costs 50 mp with one that scales late game and the other doesnt, i feel like elite inf will just completely overtake regular infantry. the savings you get from getting regular infantry need to be enough to warrant their utility. having their reinforce cost scale is also a difficult thing to balance because what markr said. overall people like to see things get stronger as the game goes on, not weaker.

so what else? what another predictable suggestion that was made before was to buff the elite soldier. but then non-elite are too weak and need buffs... this cycle will never effing end until everything becomes a sniper.

I disagree with your disagreement

101s:
1) 10 less HP
2) No second recolilles in the crate
3) Shitty recoilless damage and penetration
4) No flame nades
5) Weaker loadout (could be x2Johnsons + Bar)
6) Indirect nerf - idiotic HQ squad that now has to sit behind instead of fighting along with paratroopers

Falls:
1) Much much much less HP
2) No weapons

Gebirgs:
1) No weapons
2) No defense training at the beginning
3) No air reinforcement

Indirect nerf to all inf - nuke HE’s.

Are you joking, how are those not nerfs for the early game?

In late game they are still good, but that was exactly my point. The best strategy is not to use any elite infantry until you acquire all the upgrades, because you pay much higher reinforcement costs for something that isn’t better than normal inf.

Anyways, I am okay with their performance, it’s just that at the first place you had to drop their reinforcement cost when introducing this changes. Each soldier costs like it’s still can frontally rush any tank and infantry unit, but now they are just infantry in fact. Imagine, for 5 reinforcements of reg. 5 you pay 275 MP, it’s a fresh volks squad or almost a tank. There is no way to play aggressive infantry style with such costs, it is a certain way to defeat.

@MarkR

Regarding the unlocks there are so many options actually. I like what Warhawks suggested in the topic above (non cp non doc units) it is a shame that regardless of the doc players unlock the same units first.

[Warhawks97]

I would at first make storms, rangers etc. available after unlock pick in the barracks but leave reinforce cost. They would come earlier before any vehicle aor HE hits the field and are able to eat basic inf earlier which gives them already a few exp. So being available earlier perhaps makes them already better and usefull since most players currently decide to spent CP into tanks and vehicles and paying two CP for a unit that might just get eaten up by 0 CP tanks and inf is too much for some players.

About the 101st squad that would be build from barracks. What if they just come with Garands and two BAR at default, thus being different from air dropped once?
The Normal storms are different from urban squad and the cqc different from regular once. So having an 101st coming from the barracks with Ranger Garands and BAR´s would be quite something.

[kwok]

i disagree in the why. we hardly "nerfed" elite. what we've done with a lot of elite infantry is that we've changed their potency curve (like you mentioned. weaker early but net stronger late)
if i were to guess the WHY it feels like elite inf are weaker early it's because regular inf got mega buffed. ever since garand changes which lead to k98 changes (and haha judging by the other topic soon lee enfield changes.....) regular inf just started being able to perform at "eilte" levels. in essence, there is no "buffs" or "nerfs". everything is relative. the concept of "if everything is buffed then nothing is buffed" couldn't apply here more...

frankly these were changes that devs were against at first but through constant communal pressure we accepted the changes. the funny thing is this was predicted... when the k98 changes were asked to be changed, the next thing would be lee enfields and smgs.

so the question is, what do we do about it now that the buffed garands and k98s are engrained in the community strats?
the idea to make elite inf more available sounds counter intuitive to me. the cost of a lot of the infantry and their non-elite counterparts is not too far. if it's the difference between infantry costs 50 mp with one that scales late game and the other doesnt, i feel like elite inf will just completely overtake regular infantry. the savings you get from getting regular infantry need to be enough to warrant their utility. having their reinforce cost scale is also a difficult thing to balance because what markr said. overall people like to see things get stronger as the game goes on, not weaker.

so what else? what another predictable suggestion that was made before was to buff the elite soldier. but then non-elite are too weak and need buffs... this cycle will never effing end until everything becomes a sniper.

I disagree with your disagreement

101s:
1) 10 less HP
2) No second recolilles in the crate
3) Shitty recoilless damage and penetration
4) No flame nades
5) Weaker loadout (could be x2Johnsons + Bar)
6) Indirect nerf - idiotic HQ squad that now has to sit behind instead of fighting along with paratroopers

Falls:
1) Much much much less HP
2) No weapons

Gebirgs:
1) No weapons
2) No defense training at the beginning
3) No air reinforcement

Indirect nerf to all inf - nuke HE’s.

Are you joking, how are those not nerfs for the early game?

In late game they are still good, but that was exactly my point. The best strategy is not to use any elite infantry until you acquire all the upgrades, because you pay much higher reinforcement costs for something that isn’t better than normal inf.

Anyways, I am okay with their performance, it’s just that at the first place you had to drop their reinforcement cost when introducing this changes. Each soldier costs like it’s still can frontally rush any tank and infantry unit, but now they are just infantry in fact. Imagine, for 5 reinforcements of reg. 5 you pay 275 MP, it’s a fresh volks squad or almost a tank. There is no way to play aggressive infantry style with such costs, it is a certain way to defeat.

Regarding the 101st, it was often said and eventually agreed on that the 101st are "not elite" so they got the heaviest "nerf" to make them more like regular core infantry. Meanwhile 82nd got buffed to represent the "elite" paratroopers.

Regarding the Fallsj and Gebirgs, yes they were targeted nerfs because they were overly "elite" in the sense that people were literally dropping them on top of quad AA guns and eliminating the AA guns with still enough power to pillage back lines. So yeah... I guess you're right in that they were nerfed... but not because they were elite but because they were just flat out too strong. In response they've also gotten really really big price drops (but then balanced back up because we dropped them too low at first).

But if you look at other elite infantry, don't they feel lacking as well? Like does anyone use rangers... (not the infiltration ones with the bullshit whackamole right in your face camo. i'm talking about the "real" rangers with garands)? How many people use stormtroopers beyond popping out of buildings suddenly and dying a couple minutes later? Who even uses royal engineers anymore except to suicide squad paraglide drop in to kill an AT gun? Does anyone use the RAF infantry anymore? The RAF strat seems to be unlock airstrikes and cromwells to farm late game CP buffs and then using only SAS (which I agree is your point and am also not happy about). I haven't seen regular commandos for the longest time. For all those squads we've either not touched them or buffed them but they got the same if not LESS attention than the "elite" infatry you've mentioned.

[Sukin-kot (SVT)]

i disagree in the why. we hardly "nerfed" elite. what we've done with a lot of elite infantry is that we've changed their potency curve (like you mentioned. weaker early but net stronger late)
if i were to guess the WHY it feels like elite inf are weaker early it's because regular inf got mega buffed. ever since garand changes which lead to k98 changes (and haha judging by the other topic soon lee enfield changes.....) regular inf just started being able to perform at "eilte" levels. in essence, there is no "buffs" or "nerfs". everything is relative. the concept of "if everything is buffed then nothing is buffed" couldn't apply here more...

frankly these were changes that devs were against at first but through constant communal pressure we accepted the changes. the funny thing is this was predicted... when the k98 changes were asked to be changed, the next thing would be lee enfields and smgs.

so the question is, what do we do about it now that the buffed garands and k98s are engrained in the community strats?
the idea to make elite inf more available sounds counter intuitive to me. the cost of a lot of the infantry and their non-elite counterparts is not too far. if it's the difference between infantry costs 50 mp with one that scales late game and the other doesnt, i feel like elite inf will just completely overtake regular infantry. the savings you get from getting regular infantry need to be enough to warrant their utility. having their reinforce cost scale is also a difficult thing to balance because what markr said. overall people like to see things get stronger as the game goes on, not weaker.

so what else? what another predictable suggestion that was made before was to buff the elite soldier. but then non-elite are too weak and need buffs... this cycle will never effing end until everything becomes a sniper.

I disagree with your disagreement

101s:
1) 10 less HP
2) No second recolilles in the crate
3) Shitty recoilless damage and penetration
4) No flame nades
5) Weaker loadout (could be x2Johnsons + Bar)
6) Indirect nerf - idiotic HQ squad that now has to sit behind instead of fighting along with paratroopers

Falls:
1) Much much much less HP
2) No weapons

Gebirgs:
1) No weapons
2) No defense training at the beginning
3) No air reinforcement

Indirect nerf to all inf - nuke HE’s.

Are you joking, how are those not nerfs for the early game?

In late game they are still good, but that was exactly my point. The best strategy is not to use any elite infantry until you acquire all the upgrades, because you pay much higher reinforcement costs for something that isn’t better than normal inf.

Anyways, I am okay with their performance, it’s just that at the first place you had to drop their reinforcement cost when introducing this changes. Each soldier costs like it’s still can frontally rush any tank and infantry unit, but now they are just infantry in fact. Imagine, for 5 reinforcements of reg. 5 you pay 275 MP, it’s a fresh volks squad or almost a tank. There is no way to play aggressive infantry style with such costs, it is a certain way to defeat.

But if you look at other elite infantry, don't they feel lacking as well? Like does anyone use rangers... (not the infiltration ones with the bullshit whackamole right in your face camo. i'm talking about the "real" rangers with garands)? How many people use stormtroopers beyond popping out of buildings suddenly and dying a couple minutes later? Who even uses royal engineers anymore except to suicide squad paraglide drop in to kill an AT gun? Does anyone use the RAF infantry anymore? The RAF strat seems to be unlock airstrikes and cromwells to farm late game CP buffs and then using only SAS (which I agree is your point and am also not happy about). I haven't seen regular commandos for the longest time. For all those squads we've either not touched them or buffed them but they got the same if not LESS attention than the "elite" infatry you've mentioned.

Yeah, all the units you mentioned have the same problem that I described in the opening post.

[Warhawks97]

Thats why having some of them available right away might make them appealing since you dont have to think about investing CP that might be used for something more usefull at first (m10, stugs *cough*). And you can scale them right from the opening instead of 20 mins into the game already.

[kwok]

Which is why I suspect it doesn't directly have to do with the "nerfs" we applied to certain elite units. It wouldn't make sense that a nerf applied to 101st somehow caused rangers and stormtroopers to feel lacking.

@warhawks & @cgar
Making units available earlier in the barracks earlier doesn't really address the problem I think because a premise of your argument is that the elite unit can do better against basic inf thus start to scale earlier. But sukin says that elite inf can't even do that against basic inf. Also, let's say that elite inf CAN do that, then the early availability will just drive everyone to open with elite inf and the net impact is basically obsolete core inf which is what lead to the base weapon buffs that (in my opinion) started this spiral. It's more "if you buff everything then nothing is buffed". Everything is relative. What we've learned in the rework process over the year is that making things available earlier does the opposite of making units viable. The only reason medium tanks are new to the meta now isn't because we made medium tanks come earlier but because we made late tanks come later. Making things come earlier just makes earlier units more obsolete. Warhawks, your idea of "all things available earlier" only works for games where tiering and unit quality don't go so closely hand-in-hand and that's just not what people expect in BK. This entire post embodies that... "why are core inf units so on part with elite units"? If we take a different design philosophy where each unit serves a very specific role, then it makes sense. But frankly, as much as I personally prefer that philosophy I do NOT want to deal with the community when they screech about "NERFS TO TIGERS" because the "quality" of the tiger tank is just so engrained in the "WW2 culture".

[Sukin-kot (SVT)]

There are lots of indirect reasons why it’s like this atm.

1) Nerfs to elites
2) Buffs to basic inf
3) HE and coaxials - the biggest impact in my opinion.

And none of these changes is bad (besides terrible 101s)

I think there is a relatively easy solution. You can make elite inf cost 1 CP instead of 2. That will include storms, 101s, reg.5. Rangers and Enfield commando should be available in the barracks right after choosing the doctrine. And I really like the idea about cheaper reinforcement costs, 7-6 manpower drop for all the elite units with the old price coming after the training upgrades.

[MarKr]

I am going to say right away that we're not going to make the special infantry squads available the way it is requested here. Sukin in his first post said "elite infantry should be available as soon as you choose the doctrine (101s, reg.5, rangers, commando with rifles) as now they arent basically elite when they start." which is what was intended. They are not "terminators" as soon as you unlock them but become a lot stronger later with all available unlocks and someone mentioned in this thread that it actually is the case.

Elite infantry still is per-stats better than basic infantry (they have more HP and better stats on their weapons). We were, however, thinking about some possible changes to make elite infantry more different from the basic infantry. We've had this idea that works with changing veterancy bonuses on infantry.

So the idea here was that "basic" infantry would get their veterancy bonuses lowered by 50% compared to what they have now, "semi-elites" would keep their veterancy bonuses as they are now and "elites" would get veterancy bonuses improved by 50%. (or some other number if not 50%)

This means that higher-tier infantry would scale a lot beter with veterancy and even one vet level would make more distinct difference between basic and elite infantry, most docs with elite infantry also have some unlocks that give them a veterancy by default so that would make these unlocks a bit more potent.

We are also planning to tweak the HE ammunition on tanks so that if it misses a squad, it has a higher chance that the shot lands farther away and so doesn't inflinct any damage on the squad (which is one of the reasons why HE is so potent right now - even "missed" shots often deal some damage).

The veterancy change would probably need more tweaking because the HE change would allow elites to survive longer and so gather veterancy and with stronger vet bonuses + unlock bonuses they could become really strong so maybe some higher vet levels would require more XP or something but we would get more into figuring out the details if we see that this idea has some support.

btw: each veterancy level currently gives approximately +5% accuracy and the squad takes 5% less suppression and are 5% harder to hit so at vet 5 they are roughly 27% more accurate and 25% harder to hit and suppress.

[Diablo]

Very interesting idea. So the soldiers of various unit tiers would have different learning curves.

My two cents about basic grunt and special forces distinction? I'd say higher tier units could be universally useful or simply more flexible than lower tiers.

Basics like riflemen are for capping points, defending positions and engaging other basics or non combat units. They generally can hold their own against other inf, but have very little options against vehicles besides standard hand grenades. Yes, that means moving rifle grenades to higher tiers like rangers, which might be a good reason to have them actually do something. Same with sticky bombs, rifles just aren't made to ambush or run towards vehicles. Which is my last point about basics; they can't take a lot of incoming fire when not in cover.

Heavy infantry like the grenadiers shine in general infantry combat, especially from cover. It's possible to attack defensive positions with them, but that can quickly go sideways. They have solid, reliable abilities.
Depending on loadout choice, they are fairly capable in fighting infantry or vehicles (tanks less effectively). Classic upgrade options like a potent LMG, an antitank weapon of some type or an overall improvement to their stock weapons.

Elites like the SAS are for setting deadly ambushes, breaking stalemates by unexpected entry (spawn from houses / by air), assault defense positions. In short, shock and awe. Fancy & niche abilities like boobytraps or smoke have their home here.
They have some capabilities to engage all kinds of targets, but as a rule of thumb counter infantry. They aren't quite as dependent on external support (by using medikits, parachute reinforcement, demo charges) and can therefore work on their own to a degree.

[MarKr]

Well, making "basic" infantry really "basic" in terms of possible loadouts would be another way but I think that people will cry like crazy if we remove functionality from these units. It is worth noting that this would need to apply to all factions (otherwise there will be an outcry that only faction X received early game nerfs), so if Riflemen lose their riflenades and stickies (AT options), then Volks should lose their panzerfaust, PGrens their AT grenades etc.

I would rather avoid the complaints like "if allies lost X, then Axis should lose Y" followed by "axis now lost Y so allies should lose Z" and so on. The vet system changes could make more noticeable differences in infantry types as they gain experience and since the HE shots will be tweaked, it should be possible to actually vet the infantry to get the benefits of the stronger vet system of elite units.

[Warhawks97]

Basic inf does not mean they have only rifles. They fullfill a variety of basic tasks, that includes also fight with various threats.

Nerfing basic inf to shit wont make elites more usefull.

[MarKr]

Nerfing basic inf to shit wont make elites more usefull.

How so? Elites became less useful when basic infantry got buffed out of their shit-level.

[CGarr]

@warhawks & @cgar
Making units available earlier in the barracks earlier doesn't really address the problem I think because a premise of your argument is that the elite unit can do better against basic inf thus start to scale earlier. But sukin says that elite inf can't even do that against basic inf. Also, let's say that elite inf CAN do that, then the early availability will just drive everyone to open with elite inf and the net impact is basically obsolete core inf which is what lead to the base weapon buffs that (in my opinion) started this spiral. It's more "if you buff everything then nothing is buffed". Everything is relative. What we've learned in the rework process over the year is that making things available earlier does the opposite of making units viable. The only reason medium tanks are new to the meta now isn't because we made medium tanks come earlier but because we made late tanks come later. Making things come earlier just makes earlier units more obsolete. Warhawks, your idea of "all things available earlier" only works for games where tiering and unit quality don't go so closely hand-in-hand and that's just not what people expect in BK. This entire post embodies that... "why are core inf units so on part with elite units"? If we take a different design philosophy where each unit serves a very specific role, then it makes sense. But frankly, as much as I personally prefer that philosophy I do NOT want to deal with the community when they screech about "NERFS TO TIGERS" because the "quality" of the tiger tank is just so engrained in the "WW2 culture".

Again, there are already some docs with "elite" level inf available from the start, so I don't know what the issue is. Grenadiers on def doc, combat engies on armor and RE, and assault pgrens on PE are all 0 CP but can easily perform at the same level as the 2 CP inf. Even with that being the case though, I don't see basic inf simply being replaced by these units in most peoples unit comps. Basic inf have a separate role, there's some overlap but they're still distinct enough in their purpose that they are often built even when these "better" options are available. So no, I strongly disagree that making these 2 CP inf come earlier will just render all basic inf elite. If that were the case, every PE player would exclusively use assault pgrens and never build any extra basic pgrens, every def doc player would exclusively use grenadiers over volks, and every armor or RE doc player would exclusively use combat engineers over riflemen. That simply isn't the case. If you guys are so worried about units becoming obsolete, then why aren't vehicles being reworked so they actually have some value when tanks hit the field? Currently, I see no reason to get something like a 50mm Puma or stuart/chaffee when I can just get a tank, as these vehicles generally don't have much in the way of special abilities to set them apart from tanks, so the only factor to consider is firepower and durability (especially now that terrain can fuck up vehicle mobility so heavily).

Nerfing basic inf to shit wont make elites more usefull.

How so? Elites became less useful when basic infantry got buffed out of their shit-level.

You say that like that was a bad thing, the old elites legitimately did make basic inf obsolete. Now they don't, the two have different roles and they cant just sweep basic inf off the map anymore, so I don't see why they wouldn't be able to coexist at earlier stages of the game.

[Walderschmidt]

I really like idea of elite inf vet being more potent than normal inf but I would prefer their vet make them more deadly than survivable.

So a high vet elite unit should wipe the floor with basic inf unless said inf is behind green cover.

Wald

Wald

[Consti255]

But just a stupid question. isnt it the reason why you pick elite-Inf heavy Docs to make them obsolete?
For my impression i cannot stress it enough how powerful this vehicle Unlocks and the permanent swaps of HE ammo for tanks are.
The first one with such a tank just dominates the ground. And as mentioned, there are docs with elites unlocked from the start and i cannot see an issue with it.
Sure they are in a tier wall. (Combate Pioneers behind motorpool, Sappers behind Infantry truck and so on)
I agree on it for: Baracks Rangers, Stormtroops, Gebirgs . Beeing able to vet them early on would make them more of a viable unit which scales into the late game in terms of reinforcement cost over time. Be aware that the CP unlocks still be pricy to make them really an elite unit!
Fallschirmjäger and 101 excluded.
As mentioned there is no reason to unlock them with 2CP before any Amor. --> nuke HE + 50cal.

[MarKr]

You say that like that was a bad thing, the old elites legitimately did make basic inf obsolete. Now they don't, the two have different roles and they cant just sweep basic inf off the map anymore, so I don't see why they wouldn't be able to coexist at earlier stages of the game.

I didn't say it is a bad thing, I just pointed at the weird premise that Hawks expressed there.

(...)I would prefer their vet make them more deadly than survivable.

This is a bit tricky. Not every elite infantry is there purely to fight infantry. Some of them have AT weapons, some flamethrowers, some SMGs and in order to use them better, they need to be able to survive the close-in maneuver so I would say that a combo of offense and defense bonuses is better than just offense. But if the basic infantry gets vet bonuses lowered and elites get them increased, that alone should make make enough difference to make elites stand out over basics.

[Warhawks97]

You say that like that was a bad thing, the old elites legitimately did make basic inf obsolete. Now they don't, the two have different roles and they cant just sweep basic inf off the map anymore, so I don't see why they wouldn't be able to coexist at earlier stages of the game.

I didn't say it is a bad thing, I just pointed at the weird premise that Hawks expressed there.

I think, and as sukin said, the biggest thing are HE rounds atm that always hit. And the one who gets out HE tanks first rules the infantry engagments.

Not long ago i had a stupid match at red ball express. My had inf and AB docs. At some point all three pushed my side with rangers and 101st while i rushed for the urban assault force. The first HE Tank III took out a 101st in the first shot, then a ranger squad almost and killing a 57 mm AT gun.

Only with these stubbies and an F2 i managed to push them back till their base and destroying their howitzers using Blitzkrieg ability (since i had tons of ammo). My enemies had unlocked 101st, 82nd, lots of arty, Rangers, airstrikes. But non of that really helped them against my cheap armor that steamroled all their inf like they were bowling pins. They started very late to realize that they had to field M10´s. They didnt unlock them nor did they got the building at the time i rushed into their base.

I managed to fight against three players that went for rangers, 101st and 82nd and other, planes and arty....
They just slowly started to unlock/use M10 and hellcat which started killing my Tank III´s but only when mass deploying them against my stugs and Tank III´s they managed to push me back.

One of them dropped out when i rolled over them. It was then their AI with chaffe spam, the use of M10´s, HE shermans and inf doc emplacment spam and the inability of my mates to field anything helpfull since they rushed straight for Hummels and Tiger ace that lost us the game.



Idk whether we played 5.25 or the previous version. But perhaps you can watch the replay by yourself and see how pointless it was for them to got for 101st AB, 105 mm howitzers and starfe runs when i could just get Tank III call ins that totally destroyed all their inf.

[MarKr]

Yeah, as I said:

We are also planning to tweak the HE ammunition on tanks so that if it misses a squad, it has a higher chance that the shot lands farther away and so doesn't inflinct any damage on the squad (which is one of the reasons why HE is so potent right now - even "missed" shots often deal some damage).

[Consti255]

i dont think missed shots are that much of an issue. i am fine with that.
More like the frequency of one shots or in general the AOE of the HE rounds when hitting.
Lowering that would adress the missed shots aswell. Lowering upgrade cost as well to like 50-60 ammo on this P3,P4,Shermans and Cromwells.
My personal opinion.

[MarKr]

Lower AoE would be an option but there is only so much you can actually do with lowering the AoE. If you lower it too much, then a hit will rarely kill anything, lower it too little and it wil still feel the same. Moreover, the current max AoE is "7" and "5" is already what some hand grenades have so there isn't much space to lower it to.

The missed shots, however, are a problem because currently missed shots usually land so close to the target squad, that they often still take damage from AoE so in a way the shots "hit" more often than they should. If this also doesn't help, we can look at tweaking the AoE values.

[Consti255]

fair enough.
It is just questionable that tanks are nowdays the counter to AT troops. Is there space to lower it for example to 5,8 or 6,2?