[1.4.0.0] Sturmmovie

[Blackbishop]

I will always thought Ingenery should have demo charges and Sturmovies satchel charges.

Demo charges like US engineers instead of satchels, same cooldown time than the latter.

[Chancellor]

For satchels / demo, either a muni cost or a global cooldown is fine.  However one must take into consideration that it takes two satchels to kill a Wehr bunker, so I think munis cost is a better solution.

For combat effectiveness, perhaps leaving their suppression values is OK, since they need to be a specialist assault unit after all, but reenforce cost, upkeep cost, and health need to be toned, because they're not supposed to be a cost-effective to spam unit as they are right now.

Ideally, Soviets should "spam" strelky as their main infantry, like USA spams rifles, Wehr spams Grens, and PE spams PGs.  Right now I feel strelky are not versatile enough in their abilities to justify them being used as mainline infantry, but at the same time their veterancy becomes too rampant later on, and they literally rape more face than vet3 rifles.

[RedGuard]

dont touch their suppression, increase their upkeep, increase reinforce to 40mp each, lower muni reinforce to 2-3 each, and of course add 35 muni cost to satchel

objections?

on the subject of strelky RBS research needs to be lowered my poll in balance section shows nobody uses strelky anymore because the crazy price nerf it got. lower it to 50FU and strelky will be back

[Chancellor]

Their current reenforce cost is 35 I believe.  If there' not going to be a nerf to their combat strength, they need to be upped to 47ish reenforce cost.  Most of the other specialist assault troops also have 40+ reenforce cost.  PGs have 45 for example.

RBS definately needs to have its price lowered by a lot, but also the weapons need to be slightly nerfed.  Global veterancy or strelky veterancy also need another nerf, and they need to recieve normal suppression like BAR rifles.  However, I think RBS upgrade should give strelky more goodies, like grenades and AT grenades for example.

That way, during late game, the strelky won't become point, click, and kill machines that take no skill to use, but at the same time they also get new useful abilities to help them stay competitive and versatile late game.

[Alexander 'ApeMen' J.]

i think that makes sense
conscripts (before upgrade nothing) after upgrade -> molotovs
strelky (before upgrade nothing) after upgrade -> grenades
guards (before upgrade grenades) after upgrade -> additional at grenades

[RedGuard]

47 reinforce cost is just crazy so no, and global vet shouldnt be touched again its been nerfed so many times, its hard enough to get vet on CS vs a good player

[Paciat]

47 reinforce cost is just crazy so no

Yep. They have too little HP to be called elite.
Im not sure of it but I checked stats of SU stsapper in the Corsix and sturmovie have same HP and armor an normal SU engineers (40HP).
Do they have some kind of bonuses?

[RedGuard]

yes they have damage reduction modifier and a penetration modifier, my changes i believe are fair. check above for my proposition

they dont need their stats tweaked, what they really need is their upkeep doubled, add a muni cost to satchel, and lower their muni reinforce cost.

[Chancellor]

Red, lets Dennis review both of our versions of proposed decisions and then decide.  His judgement is usually fair.

Also please justify your arguments further in the future.  When I say Sturmovies need a MP reenforce cost increase for example, I clearly explain that this is what makes them spammable, when they are really only supposed to be a specialist unit.  When I say they need a stat decrease, I give an example of the Sturmovies against vet2 grens.

Now for the global I'll admit that its pretty hard to get vet early on for the command squad.  However, once the command squad gets the SMGs, the vet just starts rolling in.

You say Sturmovies and Global Vet / Strelkies don't need a stat nerf, and you may or may not be right.  But please give some backing with reasoning.

[RedGuard]

deniss is a fair balancer yes I have much respect for him as long as im apart of the balance team my judgment carrys weight, I dont understand what you're implying really
 ever since the crazy price increase to RBS im making sure from now on no more crazy stuff like that happens again. thats wasnt fair at all it threw the entire meta game for a loop.
it seems like theres lines of people on this forum that have rather radical views on balance changes, im more conservative. you know change a little, and if you made a mistake it will be small. change a lot and things will be broken

obviously when i say increase upkeep its so that they arent spammable, if they had a increase here it would make them not spammable. its easy, its not complicated and it doesnt require changing a bunch of other things that could potentially impact other areas of the game thats why i suggest that. thats self explanatory


and when i say decrease muni reinforce, its because sturmovie tech with a pay for satchel now will basically be your entire muni income, your armoury tech will crippled signifigantly if you throw a few satchels at 35 muni each. so their muni reinforce must be reduced if satchel now is to cost.

logic behind global CS vet is that, its been nerfed like 4 times already, and I explaind already that when playing a skilled opponent its a priority to deny CS vet, i played a game the other day IS3 and panther battle group hit the field before any vet at all on CS was ever obtained. and this happens alot in higher level play

anymore questons id be glad to answer them

[Walentin 'Walki' L.]

The only annoying thing about the Stummovie is that they don't get suppresd... in the game yesterday they just ran past a MG bunker...

[GodlikeDennis]

The cost increase of the RBS was justified by the buff to DP-28s (and not nerfing PPShs despite them being awesome) and the fact that it was supposed to also reduce reinforcement cost. If the cost is reduced below 60FU I will leave the balance team. It is still an excellent upgrade, it's just that many other Soviet options at the moment (there are lots of them) are better because the majority of the Soviet faction is OP.

Many people seem to believe that the Soviets should get all techs in every game. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Learn to choose your teching path, as the other factions have to. Walki summed it up in a game I played against him the other day. "That's the thing, Soviets have something against everything". Every Soviet unit is extremely easy to access. Powerful assault squads 25FU into the game, a host of T2 units 35FU in or various multi-purpose callin units. This is one of the strengths of the Soviets, however this unit versatility should come at the cost of quality. If you want to upgrade your units to be better, you must choose a couple to suit your strategy. Soviets have the greatest versatility in the game, and versatility is power, but those few upgrades that make your units better than comparable enemy troops (RBS > grens, T-34/85 > P4) should cost you since you gain select better troops but also have more options to counter anything the enemy throws at you.

RBS is equivalent (in fact better but not global) to BARs and vet2 grens. It is intended to make your mainline infantry more powerful. The cost reflects this and is roughly the same to balance it. The issue is that conscripts are OP at the moment with their molotovs the way they are, sturmovie are too spammable (thus OP) and guards do everything strelky can do + have AT. However, since Soviets have access to AT no matter the teching path they take (back to the versatility again) their powerful mainline infantry only needs anti-infantry power which they excel at.

Guards should be a breakthrough unit, specialising in utility and neutralising weapons teams rather than being your main fighting force. At the moment people seem to be using guards for their main infantry which is not how they were intended. For this reason I have proposed new changes to the way the Guard unit works in the beta forum.

CS vet is down to 6% per level and is fine IMO.

Sturmovie should not have suppression resistance. It is part of what makes them easy to blob because you don't have to fear suppression sources. It should be set only slightly higher than normal troops so if they are just caught by an MG they have a little better chance of pushing through it. Give them piospam negative zeal.

Either health nerf to 30 or MP reinforce cost to 47. Choose one. MU reinforce cost removed. Instead add a small MU upkeep cost. Increase MP upkeep to around 9-10 per minute for the squad.

Satchels cost to 35. The bunker example is exactly why I preferred the munitions cost to the global cooldown. Also global cooldown still allows you to use satchels constantly without any regard for saving. This is a problem with the no munitions model of the Soviets.

I'm getting somewhat tired of the resistance to change around here. At the snails pace we're going it took us over a year to balance the early game and several key problem units like snipers and T90s. Without the drastic strelky change last patch (which was my idea) we wouldn't even be aware of all these new OP aspects of the faction because the game would be the same stale old strat, strelkyspam. The only people here who actually realised the usefulness of molotovs seemed to be myself and funnily enough IJoe because everyone else was content with spamming RBS every game. Now the little fireballs are immensely OP despite in fact being NERFED by an increased FU cost.

Change has to happen or the Soviets will never be balanced.

[Paciat]

I cant see the point of people wanting to decrease muni reinforce cost but incrise satchel charge at the same time. I find it interesting that people should keep all their Sturmovie alive and protect them behind the main blob for most of the time.
Also, isnt muni reinforce cost connected to the build cost of the unit? (If reinforce will cost more MP, it will also cost more ammo.)

[GodlikeDennis]

Also, isnt muni reinforce cost connected to the build cost of the unit? (If reinforce will cost more MP, it will also cost more ammo.)

This is true actually. The reinforce is set to a specific percentage of the original purchase price.

[Alexander 'ApeMen' J.]

i think the cs are good as they are.
but what do you think abbout otional upgrade for every cs squad to get all weapons?
i mean not changing the vet system of the cs!
more like the mp40 upgrade of the volks but a bit cheaper^^ maybe 35-40mun