Tiger1996 wrote:
Wouldn't it have been much more organized to have Mass Production beneath Sherman unlock.. and AP Ammo unlock right next to it? While re-placing the crew veterancy unlock(s) all in a single line together with War Machinery unlock?? Do i also have to make a picture to demonstrate that or you can already imagine what is in my head?
Therefore, i have to agree with anyone saying that mass production unlocks should always be linked with their original unit unlock.. so, the Sherman unlock should LEAD you to the mass production, and not the contrary.
Well, i think the current unlock line in armor doc does make sense. The standard sherman does not require CP´s so now you dont need to unlock 76 first before using 75 mm sherman mass-production. As long as there is a default unit affected, mass-productions can stay independent.
Mass-production and and war machinery have the same goal: Quickly replacing losses. Thus i think that was a good idea.
And the veterancy or rather the faster exp gain rate down below shermans affects only sherman crews. So basically you first improve more or less regular shermans by unlocking the 76 version of it. Then you help them through combat by giving their sherman crews the ability to vet up faster (and if needed unlock veterancy 1 level among all tanks). Then you boost the sherman again by unlocking the jumbo version of it. And Ultimately, the sherman isnt enough anymore, no matter how much you boost the crew, and go for a whole new tank: The Pershing.
So for armor doc i do like it really as it is now. One line improves your standard tank and gives a better one in the end, the other branch helps you to replace losses faster.
One thing i would like to add here: With sherman mass production unlock the cost of stuart should drop in cost as well. So its not just a Sherman mass production unlock with quicker production speed, but also gives you lots of light tanks. At the end, with tank depot upgrade and this unlock the stuart would cost less than 300 MP. Why else would anyone in armor doc use 340-310 MP stuart when he gets shermans for 350 MP.
Also, the rule of the thumb is supposedly as follows:
First, you unlock something.. then you make it cheaper or mass produce it, not the opposite! You don't FIRST mass produce something THEN unlock it afterwards... I mean, what if the player chooses to unlock mass production first actually before unlocking Shermans? it's not wrong, but very odd indeed.
As said above, regular shermans dont need an unlock, so mass production can be a sperate one, esspecially when light tanks would get affected as well.
For Bk doc its indeed a bit weird. Before beta the mass production dropped the cost of tank IV D and Ostwind, now both are gone and Tank III is probably not affected.
But still, i would keep the H version earlier available over the J. Simply bc why else would anyone use H when one can just spam J right away. The J should remain the later stage meatshield of tank IV versions and unlocked ammong the Tank IV mass production as we were and still are used to. The J does not need a sperate unlock. That it gets unlocked by mass production makes sense as this tank is the definition of Tank IV mass production.
Thus i do like to have the Tank III->Tank IV H unlock. But the mass production could be put down below the H version and unlocking the J. Having this unlock independent makes only sense when it would drop the cost of any default unit (like tank IV D and Ostwind in the past).
One thing i could think off is to have the Tank IV F2 (or G version) as a default unit for Bk doc that gets a bit cheaper by mass-production.
CGarr made a very good post in general. I will break it down and respond:
CGarr wrote:Having read through the posts on the 5th page of this topic, I wouldn't mind seeing both panzer 4's (H and J) at 4 cp and maybe even giving blitz the pz4 F2 where tiger had put the H in his last proposed tree arrangement. Given the arrangement he provided, I think setting the pz4 H/J unlock to 2 cp and the mass production upgrade to 1 cp would be ideal, alongside reducing panther to 2 cp so it is at 6 total again. All of these changes together would mean early panzer 4's in the form of the F2 (2 cp for upgraded production) would be available, while pushing the strong pz4 models to 4 cp would mean light tanks would still have more time on the field before they have to worry about being smacked by the big boys (H/J and upwards).
Good one, i would even go as far as to make the F2 a default tank (for BK doc at least) in perhaps the compensation of giving the stug IV some sort of unlock, at best together with the the H unlock. This doc is meant to be aggressive but i am sure most will hide behind walls of cheap 0 CP ambushed Stug IV´s through mid to late stage and teching for panthers.
Thus the default part of this doc should be Tank III N with 75 mm HE gun for anti infantry/emplacment, Tank IV F2 (or G) for firepower against shermans and stuff and stug III as multirole cheap infantry support weapon. The F2 (rename it G version pls) would get cheaper by Tank IV unlock.
The Tank IV H would afterall require 4 CP and J 5 CP in total. This way the tank IV massproduction line can stay as it is bc it drops cost of an default unit. Thus no need to link it with anything anymore.
On a similar note, I think people would actually be more willing to build 76 shermans if their pen was buffed, as 76 guns across the board perform terribly against these absurdly beefy medium tanks which is a shame considering they're meant to be able to deal with heavies.
They were designed in 42 to combat future Tank IV improvments, not to deal with tigers and Panthers. Both were believed to occure in small numbers only. They were right concerning the Tiger, but Panther numbers caught them by surprise.
As I understand it, buffing their pen would mean that these guns would also perform better against heavies, but I don't see this as an issue considering they are the heaviest field guns available to the US faction and even the movable version is used more like an emplaced gun in the beta due to the new packing times. If it is possible to just buff the 76 gun on the shermans alone, I think this would be ideal, but if not it shouldn't be too much of an issue.
The 76 was bad vs heavy armor, esspecially panther front armor. Vs Tiger its hard to say since they actually never or barely encountered each other till 45.
But what the 76 needs is a buff vs all that medium armor stuff like tank IV´s and Tank III´s. It had no issues going through 50 mm of armor.
It should be buffed vs all axis mediums below panther
To compensate for this buff I think the 76 sherman unlock should be 3 cp and locked behind upgraded production like the jackson, as at that point the gun would perform more in line with tanks at that level of teching. Additionally, if their guns are buffed, then the sandbag upgrades should make the 76 shermans cost increase with each level of upgrade to justify their more panther-like performance after the upgrades and alongside their new guns. I don't want to see these tanks spammed to a ridiculous degree, but I think these buffs and cost increases would make the 76 shermans more respectable units, as right now they feel out of place seeing as how a 75mm sherman and TD combo works better in most situations.
I've got replays demonstrating how difficult it currently is to win head on engagements with even pz4's when you don't have the muni to spend on AP shots (which is not often considering how much muni US has to use to stay competitive mid to late game with their relatively weak stock units). I think the upgrades in teching and cost would justify the performance increases, especially considering the sandbag upgrade would actually have trade offs aside from the initial cost and a slight speed debuff.
A US player reaching the stage at which they could rely on upgraded sherman 76's to kill pz4's reliably and possibly contend with tigers and panthers without having to spend a large sum of muni every encounter would mark the transition into the late game in the same way that a blitz player reaching the stage at which they can use panthers to reliably smack down every tank allied tank except pershings and even have a strong fighting chance against the pershings once one factors in the blitz doc buffs given by the command tank and blitz ability.
That the 76 sherman should cost 3 CP in exchange for better 76 gun against axis mediums and perhaps a sherman armor buff against 50 mm AT guns should be out of question at that time.
And AB doc could have its 76 sherman unlock replaced by a Jackson B unlock which is then limited to one unit at a time (max 2).
Armor and inf doc would pay 3 CP for 76 shermans (with buffed gun stats), armor doc gets squishy Jacks A, inf doc the Jacks B and armor doc a single Jacks B as well for the loss of 76 sherman.
About the sandbags increasing build cost wouldnt make sense. We could then make it like skirts where you upgrade each tank individually. But this is where US and and Axis have their fundamental differences. US gonna pay once a lot into something (supply yard, sandbags, cheaper weapons, smoke) but from then on no exta payment anymore. The more you build the less you have payed for each tank. If you build just one sherman but unlock all sandbags, you then payed 600 MP in upgrade for one tank. But the costs of sandbags gets divided among all build shermans. If we change that we could just as well introduce the "axis model" where upgrade each tank which is good for low production rates, but bad if you produce more.
As a final note it seems necessary to overhaul the tank IV (Tank III) armor and allied guns.
If the Tank F2 keeps and F2 its armor wasnt thicker than 50 mm. All 76 shermans should have no trouble going through it, even the 75 mm should have the pen stats the current 76 gun has against it (67,5% pen max range). If it becomes a G model it would have the standard Panzer IV J armor. The difference would be that the J is vastly cheaper.
That means:
Tank IV E, F1, F2 would have Tank IV armor type (50 mm armor) and allied 57 mm, 75 mm would receive a buff against them, in particluar the 76 would make a short job of them.
Tank III N, Tank IV J (and In case F2 turns into G) they would use Tank IV armor type but with that reduced received pen modifier the H/J use it to reflect the 80 mm thick armor. The G and N perhaps less decent modifier as it was just an added plate. The 76 guns would receive a buff against them.
The best armor would be the Tank IV_skirt_type. However the 76 gun would receive some buffs here as well.
I can imagine now that BK doc would have Tank IV F2, Tank III N and Stug III in their default arsenal. The Tank III N would be against inf and having best armor, making it the spearhead. The Tank IV F2 would be against tanks. The F2 and basic sherman would meet each other at equal terms. The sherman with better armor and slightly better rof, the tank IV F2 with better gun and damage. Pen chance against each other would be quite equal.
The stug III would be the back up allrounder with support abilties for nearby inf.
Edit: Forgot to add, I agree with Figree in that no matter the case of what should be done, future changes that take these new opinions into account should be postponed until the balance updates. Right now, the dev team is working on just getting the groundwork for all the doctrine reworks into place. As such, they might not all be completely balanced until the reworks are done, after which balancing fixes can begin again. To save everyone from the headache, I think we should take this into mind when discussing these proposed changes and recognize the fact that our balancing ideas might be taken into consideration but not implemented until after the doctrine reworks.
thats true. Cant await to see the remaining docs being reworked, in particular def, terror and luft.