I feel like Infantry Section is fine after the patch. Dangerous stage they reach after vet3 5men with 2 brens and that could be ajusted by making 5-men an upgrade that takes 1 weapon slot (or make that with medic upgrade).
The issue lies more in faction design in general than in Tommies.
As i wrote above new stuff should be added, stuff that already in game and needs only small implementation. Artillery officer as CQC elite infantry. phosphorus granade could work as a sight blocker for mg and clearning units in houses and USF M5 HT that can be upgraded into mortar HT - that would solve the issue with lack of tools vs mg spam. AEC and bofors no longer exclusive could be interesting combo in certain situations.
It needs a big revamp of a faction but finally UKF had every tool they need. Buffing emplacement would end up with old story - SIMCITY. They already got buffed by adding ability of removing it with 100mp compensation. It's just this model of gameplay isn't 1v1 friendly and on maps that require mobility - no buff will change that. Everyone knows it's an old game and hard to say if more changes will be possible to do.
It's simple, faction needs more units. New more elite infantry squad with CQC upgrade would be highly welcome. I get they don't want to add a mortar team but what's the problem of adding a USF mortar HT in T1?
Honestly speaking if they add completely new side tech in T1 with a mortar HT and artillery officer (add smoke nade and snare) that would solve a lot of UKF issues (lack of good, elite, CQC infantry squad and indirect unit).
We can try to change Tommies but it's impossible to make a perfectly balance unit vs all axis infantry units without making it overpowered/underpowered in some point. This requires all overall revamp of a faction or Infantry Sections
There should be a small balance patch coming out this week, minor tweaks to IS for now are planned to be a cost decrease from 280 to 270 and an increase of their vet 3 accuracy bonus from 20% to 25%.
Sound good. Cost decrease is a reasonable move. Does it also include reduce reinforcing cost?
In your opinion Tommies mainly require the buff in late game. I would say the bigger issue is in the moment when they still haven't reached vet3, 5-men upgrade and bren upgrade - so around vet1-2 stage.
So what's the conclusion? Are you planning to make some small changes to Tommies? If so what could it be and what direction are you most likely choose? Of course i'm not asking for a numbers.
Informations from you guys would allow us to give some personal feedbacks that could be helpful in future and certainly they shouldn't harm.
Personally what i think would make UKF more attractive and less boring:
- additional infantry squad, more elite lvl compare to obers, pgrens or penals
- mobile indirect platform, simple mortar or mortar ht,
- commander that has 0 CP buildable infantry like pathfinders, panzerfuzzilier or ostroopen
- late game basic artillery, ost has panzerwerfer, okw has stuka, soviets has katiusha even US has scott
- more diverse commander abilities. You have tank repair ability and churchill crocodile in 3 commanders,
- revamp 5th men upgrade
Like Barton said, the main issue here is that Tommies are the only basic infantry UKF has. They had to be good early, mid and late game. They have to face spam of volks, grens and more elite infantry like obers or panzergrens. Lack on any form of diversity force to make them overperforming vs axis mainline infantry. If UKF tech would allow to build more elite form of infantry similar to obers, panzergrens, jeagers etc would give more options to balance team more directly for a early/mid and weaker in later stage of a game.
Similar thing we can notice in USF tech. All factions should have at least 2 infantry unit that they can build (expect of engineers squad), one weaker and more spammable, second more elite and better in the longer term.
Conclusion of this tread is that IS should have their 5th man upgrade should be also move individualy to a squad and take 1 weapon slot. Then we can buff there early game - 4 men squad.
Perfect scenario would be that Tommies with costly upgrades can scale from early game (equal vs volks/grens but not overperforming vs them) into late game where they can fight vs obers/pgrens/falls but avoiding deadly blobs that we had before.
Replace TWP ability with something more useful.
Add direct fire MOD.
Someone suggested option to change ammunition AI/AT just like sherman has it. Vet1 would allow you to change into AT rounds with better penetration, diffrent AoE and faster projectile.
TWP ability for stug III E is kinda boring becouse basic version of this unit - Stug III G already has it where it suits much more.
Reduce slots to 1 and add a second at vet 3. You still get the flexibility of racks without the blob potential and have to EARN superb firepower instead of buy it outright..
Or simply lock the possiblity to get 2 bars like Royal Engineers cannot pick 2 brens even though they have 2 weapon slots
RE DPS is fine. They also get many veterancy fighting bonuses:
+20% accuracy
-23% received accuracy, -20% weapon cooldown
Increases the squad's size to 5
In addition they can get rack weapons and carry weapons and minesweepers. The units is cost efficient.
Any serious buff to the unit should end up with reducing it's weapon slot to 1. In history of CoH2 we already had a Rears Echelons blobs equipt with 2x bar. Eventhough upgrade costs 120 ammo, such a cheap unit shouldn't be able to use it. Same thing was already done with RoyalEngineers
If that happens increase of his performance wouldn't hurt anyone
We decided to throw in some Jagdtiger changes. They are quite extensive but there will be no more updates to the balance mod, so I'll post the preliminary changes here to discuss.
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Relic Entertainment
