Balance Overview

[CerealKiller]

Instead of everyone creating their own posts about imbalance, we should have a common thread about the current balance and what we want to be done in upcoming patches. If you think something is wrong and needs changing just post a reply and i will edit my post.

"Read 1337 times"


Soviet Wrecks - Should be run over like normal wrecks.

The Red Tide - Upgraded strelky remains unaffected and maybe more infantry.

At gun - Crew replenish cost reduced (it's 94)

Conscripts - The men without guns have a bad habit of running out of cover into the crossfire.

KV-2 - Increased armor.

T-90 - The motor sound is still on when the tank is destroyed.

Tank Riders - Tank riders should take damage when the tank is destroyed.

Su-85 - Quieter sounds for Su-85 in the fow (you can hear them the second they spawn)

Outpost - Reduced manpower cost to 200.

[Capt. Malashenko]

I like it, just would`nt agree on pop costs and upgrading buildings to reinforcement points, outposts are one of the things that make Soviets unique, other then that - nice observation.
And capping speed should`nt be too decreased (or at all), after all Soviets can`t secure resources.

[thebomb]

I don't agree with your sniper change. Soviet snipers can't walk around cloaked so they need that second guy.

[bastex]

Heavy mortar - increased cost and reduced range to match American mortars.  no smaller

Katyusha - a maximum of 3.

AT squad - At rifle damage to buildings lowered. its 0

Popcap costs - Changed to match other armies. its the same ><

Healing truck - should be an alternative to a more stable healing like the ami healing station. Or give outpost a healing upgrade for some manpower and ammo.
it can heal just hold it still

and force retreat should work

[CerealKiller]

Malashenko: Capping speed is really one of the things that makes the soviets overpowered and they don't need to build OPs because they have very little use for lategame munitions.

bastex: Force retreat does not work on the red army.

As for Katyusha it's also one of major imbalance problems, it costs only 300 manpower with the destruction of a calliope barrage and it has nearly half as long cooldown.

Well nevermind the healing thingie then i guess it's just a minor annoyance.

con_chulio: I've already written about Commissar Arty.

LaughingSam, i can't see what your post has to do with balance, keep it in the suggestion forum.

[bastex]

it doesnt need to set up

[firefree]

I think the most OP unit in the Russian army is the sniper team.  They are very cheap, you get them right away and when paired with a eng unit you can walk around killing inf all day.  I had pair of snipers in one grouped unit of inf and each team got around 50 kills by the end of the game!

[con_chulio]

Commissar Arty - needs a change

I just destroyed a whole building with a mg42 in it. It was an 1vs1 game and I think my opponent had no fun at all. That kind of Arty is way too strong in the early game.

[Saavedra]

You all try playing Panzer Elite instead of Wehr. You will be pleasantly surprised.

[LaughingSam]

Hello all.  In the interests of trying to keep related feedback in a single thread, I picked this one, hope its close to where it wants to be. 

Firstly, I'd like to say thank you to the developers of this mod.  You've done an amazing job with the russians, and boy do they look great.  Your hard work is greatly appreciated.  Now, some 'first impression' gameplay feedback... I apologize for the volume of text, I seem to have carried away, and let me reiterate that I think you guys are doing amazing work here.  Please don't let my rambling convince you I have anything less than total respect for your work, and for your desire to make your mod what YOU want it to be.

A couple of things sort of jump out at me about the course of the few games I've played.  The first is that the soviets have a major advantage in map control from the start line so to speak, which seems out of place given the course of the early war in the east.  The advantages in massive and inexpensive tank and troop production were the result of a relatively slow process of moving men forward toward the front from much farther east, and moving industry back and away from territory that couldn't be held, or could be threatened from the air.  To me it seems that these advantages should be developed in the first few stages of russian teching rather than straight off, to reflect the unprepared and defensive nature of the early war.  Stalin did after all order his front line troops at the very start of barbarossa not to 'yield to any provocation' from advancing german forces, so to take a game as a microcosm of the war, millions of peasants being hurled into German territory from early in the conflict is quite a reversal.  Especially considering that the russian army at the time was, if underequipped by comparison to a fully modern german army, still a proffessional fighting force.  Would it completely throw everything off if the first available unit to the soviets was Strelky rather than conscripts?  I'm thinking that an early fuel-based upgrade could start the troop trains from siberia and the urals rolling.  This would limit the huge territory gains the russians seem to make in map control, which cripples the german ability to tech and bring motorised/armoured units in the early-middle game.  The russians pay little enough for their forces (especially in fuel) that I doubt it would slow them down too much, but the germans are dead in the water without that early fuel flow.  This would also mean that the russians are paying SOME upkeep before later tiers, rather than throwing their initial manpower into a staggeringly large army pouring onto the front off the bat when they should (again, taken as a microcosm of the conflict) be rocked back on their heels.  The red army at the early stages of the war was after all very short on the armaments they

needed, and had lost a staggering number of tanks in the first few days of the invasion, so actually needing to contest some (defended) territory before fielding swarms of t34s doesn't seem out of place, and I'm guessing it wouldn't throw balance off too badly.  Possibly soviet tanks could be significantly more expensive by default, and then cheaper with a series of two upgrades to decrease their cost?  Call it something like 'Tractor Plants to Tank Production' and 'Factories Reassembled in the Urals', and have these being manpower intensive upgrades, with some small fuel cost.  It takes a  lot of people after all, to move entire industrial complexes.  My thinking is that this way the russians would have to do at least some holding on with infantry and AT guns before the tankovy battalions start steamrolling on the counteroffensive.  Lastly, perhaps a hefty (say 50?) munitions cost added to the russian mortars could reflect the difficulty of keeping heavy weapons supplied for the russians early on, as late in the game I don't think the munitions are too hard to come by for them given that they spend it on one-time upgrades (unless hard pressed of course, when you ought to be short ammunition).

For the germans, stylistically speaking, it would be nice if their early armour was more reflective of the invasion force (I know it looks like work on the jerries is forthcoming), possibly with things like panzer II's and III's replacing puma variants and at halftracks.  These were early, and very fragile designs replaced by the germans with more well-known PIV, panther and tiger designs which were all brought into service to address the superiority of early
soviet tanks (mainly the t34) in armour and firepower, but were manned by far more experienced crews, and were still capable of engaging russian tanks in the disadvantageous close quarters capacity.  Just seems a bit odd for the german at guns to be their most effective anti-armour measure at the early points of their invasion when that sort of equipment was still struggling to the front behind panzer divisions and self-propelled guns.  On the side of infantry,
another alternative to semi-balancing out the conscripts would be to make grenadiers the starting infantry, with Volksgrenadiers (an undertrained, later-war defensive type of troops as I understand it) being a highly inexpensive stopgap to fill the lines when the russian juggernaut gets rolling and the conscripts are everywhere.  Perhaps they could pop out of medic bunkers regardless of tier, reversing the trend of cheap troops dying and better ones returning to the front, which doesn't seem to have been the way things worked on the ostfront.  The axis invasion force was after all highly trained, likely to a standard not held again in the german forces, and most of the units at the outset of war with Russia had already seen combat in France, Africa, or wherever.  Maybe it's not practical for balance, but it's a thought.  Particularly the volks respawning from dead grenadiers would encourage the crafty german player to minimize his casualties to preserve the quality of his troops, which would have been a major concern of german field commanders in Russia from what I've read.  Lastly, the panzer elite seem to need help.  I would suggest at least one extra man per squad, with a corresponding increase in training cost.  They have no viable suppression that works against the russian horde, and trying to fight 14 conscripts, regardless of how many rifles they have, with three or six men is woeful.
 
  Thanks again for all your great work, and please keep it up!

[Nimitz]

tl;dr

[groundfire]

Disagree with the sniper change.

It's a unique concept, lets work with it.

They need a Price increase to match other snipers (350mp mby 400 considering you dont need munitions)

Decrease health on the squad. Make them more fragile considering we have to wade into the human waves to get at them. Bikes should be a counter to these teams.

Give them the sniper tracer round so they are easier to find and identify at the first shot. (with no tracer, squad members just die and untill i see the squad, i dont know im under fire by snipers. If your not paying attention, half a squad is gone before you know it or have a chance to retreat)

Also, add in there that ingenery build wayyy too fast, and to decrease the Russian starting manpower. That way you cant get 4 ingenery out and on the field by minute 1, where all they have to fight are pios, and soon after, mby a volk.

[vewt]

This is hilarious. Russians are stronger that their Axis counterparts at every point in the game, except a tiny window when PE have halftracks before Russians have PTRDs.

I sincerely have to wonder what the balanced testers did the entire time this was in development. This mod has incredible content, but the balance is worse than a joke.

[Saavedra]

I still think the problem is having the possibility of training an unlimited number of ingenery at the start. Conscripts seem to be worse, somehow, since even though they are more men, they are also more expensive.

I reiterate my opinion that the best way of stopping the "improper spam" (spamming ingenery instead of conscripts), would be limiting the number of ingenery you can train until you have purchased the SN-42 armour, which makes ingenery into frontline troops.

Let´s say that you could train four ingenery squads at the start of the game. This forces you to build the Infantry Tent and then go for conscripts, since you can´t fight back only with Ingenery.

Then, after buying the SN-42 body armor upgrade, you can train as many Ingenery as you need to do what you want them to do (assault, normally).



Then again, there is no real reason to remove the limit on how many Ingenery can be built once the upgrade is purchased. I mean, the Ingenery with PPSH and/or flamethrowers are pretty damn resilient and powerful, while still being cheap on the mp department.

[vewt]

No, the correct solution to that problem is to nerf Ingenery through the fucking floor. You don't see unvetted Engies or Pios used as frontline troops ever, so I dont see why unupgraded Ingenery should be able to trade blows with frontline infantry.

Take two of their rifles off them, lower their suppression threshhold.

The SN-42 upgrade is a little bit too strong as well. It basically turns them into something even stronger than piospam, which was already too strong. While I like the idea of double flamethrowers, tying everything the USSR player needs to turn his already too strong builders into assault troops on crack to the one upgrade is sloppy balance.


At which point the dev team decided that their "Weak early game" faction's builders should be on crack and stronger than the other factions' builders is beyond me.