5.1.8 beta (Doctrine rework, update 3)
Posted: 08 Jul 2019, 21:23
Hello to all of you!
Within the next few hours we'll be bringing you another update for the beta. This one does not contain the doctrinal rework of Terror doctrine yet (we're still working on that) but it brings fixes and adjustments based on the feedback you provided. Without any further adue:
Early Game Infantry Balance
- HEAT rifle grenades will no longer deal too much damage to Geschützwagen and Marder III (damage modifier changed from x5 to x2)
- Removed Suppression ability from Riflemen squad
- Riflemen squad can upgrade BAR only once
- Lowered accuracy of Riflemen Garands at distant ranges to 0.114 (from 0.17)
- 7 men Riflemen squad is no longer available (this is temporal and will be re-introduced when we get to adjusting commander infantry)
- Changed accuracy values for Volksgrenadier's Kar98 to 0.7/0.55/0.4/0.4 (from 0.7/0.55/0.35/0.35)
- Changed accuracy values for Grenadier's Kar98 to 0.8/0.65/0.5/0.5 (from 0.8/0.65/0.45/0.45)
- Changed damage of Volksgrenadier's and Grenadier's Kar98 to 30-30 (from 23-33)
- Def doc Pioneers and BK doc Grenadiers can now buy MP40 upgrades for 25 ammunition but get only 2xMP40 (possible to upgrade 2x)
A large disclaimer to mention before going into the details of changes is that many of the following are EXTREMELY EXPERIMENTAL. Balance changes to the early game have snowballing effects to the mid/late game, therefore we expect these changes to cause a huge volatile shift in meta. Please try to keep that in mind when testing and we look forward to hearing your thoughts.
A little history as to why these changes were made. Multiple patches ago, we improved the power of garands as a way to make riflemen more than just meat shield units. The original intent of the garand fixes was to make riflemen more suppression oriented while rangers are the true killer marksmen. The unintended effects was the riflemen became easily spammable and extremely lethal units at all ranges with a roughly 80-90% “win chance” against a comparable unit like volks at close and medium range and a 45% “win chance” at long range. Upon feedback from the community, we didn’t want to revert back to the original intent but keep the idea that garands SHOULD be lethal but balanced in such a way that they would not be so dominant against Kar98s. Tweaks were made to each weapon in order to have a better “50-50% chance to win” at the med-long range with the volks doing better at the long range while rifles maintain their dominance at medium-short range.
In addition to weapon adjustments, we removed the 7man rifle squad temporarily because of its overwhelming impact on the early game. It is a unit that forgoes build time and order requirements, giving USA huge advantages in timing and opening unit choice which often heavily tips the chances of US players of winning the game within the first 5 minutes of a game. The squad won’t go away; as further reworks are done we will try to find a new home for the unique unit where it does not power spike US players at such a critical moment of the game.
Given the changes to Riflemen's Garands and Kar98 rifles, we decided to keep the MP40 upgrade for Grenadiers in Blitzkrieg doctrine. Gren's basic weapons are more effective at longer ranges, can be further supported by LMG which provides solid buff at any range and for fending off rushing infantry you can buy the MP40 which provides good short range firepower.
We look forward to hearing how players adapt to these changes and we will be open to hearing your endless wave of complai-...aherm sorry...feedback.
Def Doc Emplacements
- Bunker cost reduced to 350MP (from 550MP)
- Cost of Pantherturm lowered to 450MP 45F (from 500MP 60F)
- 75mm PaK40 and 88mm PaK43 emplacements removed
- Defensive Doctrine can now build an "empty" emplacement which can be garrisoned by different types of guns from the 28mm Halftrack
In attempts to make defenses require more skill to use instead of “build and forget”, we previously made it so defenses appeared neutral on build. Given this is a net nerf, price adjustments were made to keep up the emplacements viable.
An additional very experimental feature is the ability to create blank emplacements and fill them with a unit of your choice. To use this, use your pioneers to build the emplacement and the defense doc specific 28mm halftrack to place an AT gun or support gun into the emplacement. The micro added to building emplacements will be rewarded with flexibility and speed.
Tank Destroyer Changes
- Changed Jagdpanzer IV L48 armor type to "tp_armour_axis_jagdpanzeriv" (from Hetzer type)
- Removed Received Accuracy and Received Penetration modifiers from Jagdpanzer IV L48
- Changed Jagdpanzer IV L70(A) armor type to "tp_armour_axis_jagdpanzeriv_l70" (from Hetzer type)
- Removed Received Accuracy and Received Penetration modifiers from Jagdpanzer IV L70
The Axis tank destroyers always had unusual and disorganized properties. Most of these changes are clean up but naturally have some slight performance impacts. Please test the general durability and viability of the tank destroyers post these changes. It is a net slight nerf, but should not be significantly noticeable. These changes will most likely impact PE down the road.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug which made Weapon Mass Production upgrade unavailable for Infantry Company
- Naked 88mm Flak36 in Defensive Doctrine can now be properly built when you get the corresponding unlock
- Added a missing teardown time to emplaced 75mm PaK40
- When Elefant uses its ALRS it needs to turn to face the target now
- Corrected wrong description on Elefant's ALRS, now correctly states it requires Veterancy Level 2
- Corrected Hummel Offmap Barrage Ability description (used descriptions of a different ability)
- 28mm Halftrack in Defensive Doctrine now mentions in its description that it provides a construction speed buff to Pioneers when near them
- 28mm Halftrack crew now consists of Pioneers (only a visual change)
- Fortify Perimeter will only allow to base buildings fire their MGs when the buildings are fully built
- 105mm field howitzers no longer have unit limit of 2
There were more suggestions and requests for changes and not all of them are in here but they are still considered and may come later down the road.
We hope you all enjoy your summer time and will still find some time to test these changes
Within the next few hours we'll be bringing you another update for the beta. This one does not contain the doctrinal rework of Terror doctrine yet (we're still working on that) but it brings fixes and adjustments based on the feedback you provided. Without any further adue:
Early Game Infantry Balance
- HEAT rifle grenades will no longer deal too much damage to Geschützwagen and Marder III (damage modifier changed from x5 to x2)
- Removed Suppression ability from Riflemen squad
- Riflemen squad can upgrade BAR only once
- Lowered accuracy of Riflemen Garands at distant ranges to 0.114 (from 0.17)
- 7 men Riflemen squad is no longer available (this is temporal and will be re-introduced when we get to adjusting commander infantry)
- Changed accuracy values for Volksgrenadier's Kar98 to 0.7/0.55/0.4/0.4 (from 0.7/0.55/0.35/0.35)
- Changed accuracy values for Grenadier's Kar98 to 0.8/0.65/0.5/0.5 (from 0.8/0.65/0.45/0.45)
- Changed damage of Volksgrenadier's and Grenadier's Kar98 to 30-30 (from 23-33)
- Def doc Pioneers and BK doc Grenadiers can now buy MP40 upgrades for 25 ammunition but get only 2xMP40 (possible to upgrade 2x)
A large disclaimer to mention before going into the details of changes is that many of the following are EXTREMELY EXPERIMENTAL. Balance changes to the early game have snowballing effects to the mid/late game, therefore we expect these changes to cause a huge volatile shift in meta. Please try to keep that in mind when testing and we look forward to hearing your thoughts.
A little history as to why these changes were made. Multiple patches ago, we improved the power of garands as a way to make riflemen more than just meat shield units. The original intent of the garand fixes was to make riflemen more suppression oriented while rangers are the true killer marksmen. The unintended effects was the riflemen became easily spammable and extremely lethal units at all ranges with a roughly 80-90% “win chance” against a comparable unit like volks at close and medium range and a 45% “win chance” at long range. Upon feedback from the community, we didn’t want to revert back to the original intent but keep the idea that garands SHOULD be lethal but balanced in such a way that they would not be so dominant against Kar98s. Tweaks were made to each weapon in order to have a better “50-50% chance to win” at the med-long range with the volks doing better at the long range while rifles maintain their dominance at medium-short range.
In addition to weapon adjustments, we removed the 7man rifle squad temporarily because of its overwhelming impact on the early game. It is a unit that forgoes build time and order requirements, giving USA huge advantages in timing and opening unit choice which often heavily tips the chances of US players of winning the game within the first 5 minutes of a game. The squad won’t go away; as further reworks are done we will try to find a new home for the unique unit where it does not power spike US players at such a critical moment of the game.
Given the changes to Riflemen's Garands and Kar98 rifles, we decided to keep the MP40 upgrade for Grenadiers in Blitzkrieg doctrine. Gren's basic weapons are more effective at longer ranges, can be further supported by LMG which provides solid buff at any range and for fending off rushing infantry you can buy the MP40 which provides good short range firepower.
We look forward to hearing how players adapt to these changes and we will be open to hearing your endless wave of complai-...aherm sorry...feedback.
Def Doc Emplacements
- Bunker cost reduced to 350MP (from 550MP)
- Cost of Pantherturm lowered to 450MP 45F (from 500MP 60F)
- 75mm PaK40 and 88mm PaK43 emplacements removed
- Defensive Doctrine can now build an "empty" emplacement which can be garrisoned by different types of guns from the 28mm Halftrack
In attempts to make defenses require more skill to use instead of “build and forget”, we previously made it so defenses appeared neutral on build. Given this is a net nerf, price adjustments were made to keep up the emplacements viable.
An additional very experimental feature is the ability to create blank emplacements and fill them with a unit of your choice. To use this, use your pioneers to build the emplacement and the defense doc specific 28mm halftrack to place an AT gun or support gun into the emplacement. The micro added to building emplacements will be rewarded with flexibility and speed.
Tank Destroyer Changes
- Changed Jagdpanzer IV L48 armor type to "tp_armour_axis_jagdpanzeriv" (from Hetzer type)
- Removed Received Accuracy and Received Penetration modifiers from Jagdpanzer IV L48
- Changed Jagdpanzer IV L70(A) armor type to "tp_armour_axis_jagdpanzeriv_l70" (from Hetzer type)
- Removed Received Accuracy and Received Penetration modifiers from Jagdpanzer IV L70
The Axis tank destroyers always had unusual and disorganized properties. Most of these changes are clean up but naturally have some slight performance impacts. Please test the general durability and viability of the tank destroyers post these changes. It is a net slight nerf, but should not be significantly noticeable. These changes will most likely impact PE down the road.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug which made Weapon Mass Production upgrade unavailable for Infantry Company
- Naked 88mm Flak36 in Defensive Doctrine can now be properly built when you get the corresponding unlock
- Added a missing teardown time to emplaced 75mm PaK40
- When Elefant uses its ALRS it needs to turn to face the target now
- Corrected wrong description on Elefant's ALRS, now correctly states it requires Veterancy Level 2
- Corrected Hummel Offmap Barrage Ability description (used descriptions of a different ability)
- 28mm Halftrack in Defensive Doctrine now mentions in its description that it provides a construction speed buff to Pioneers when near them
- 28mm Halftrack crew now consists of Pioneers (only a visual change)
- Fortify Perimeter will only allow to base buildings fire their MGs when the buildings are fully built
- 105mm field howitzers no longer have unit limit of 2
There were more suggestions and requests for changes and not all of them are in here but they are still considered and may come later down the road.
We hope you all enjoy your summer time and will still find some time to test these changes