Profile of Mirdarion

What actually needs to be done is to rework the vet1 abilities of Soviet vehicles. Giving them something useful would be as much necessary as it is for Ostheer infantry - but that is preaching to the choir, as Relic doesn't care and doesn't care that we want them to fix it. At this point there is no excuse for them not spending the thirty minutes of coding time necessary to implement appropriate vet1 abilities.

Their reaction time to the USF mortar bugs with that "hotfix" showed us how much time they still want to invest in this game, and apparently that isn't much. So I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Since the game is balanced enough to have fun, what we need is more content.

I actually did chuckle upon reading this.

It's principally the same thing - and while not as problematic and t70 or stuart, it still has quite good infantry killing with its Coxial MG. And once again, this lets allies mindlessly get these super light vechs as a anti-everything unit.

Anti-everything units (aside from Heavy tanks - late game tech) are pretty anti-fun in this game.

Relic considers the 222's MG to be fixed, they explicitly stated it to be fixed in the patch notes a long time ago (despite being proven upon the release of the patch that it wasn't true). So we won't get anything in that regard, ever.

Now, considering that especially USF can now heartily laugh at grenade teching and the resulting ammo investment due to the existence of their still ridiculous mortar, I don't see why putting an ammo tax elsewhere would be a bad idea: Simply have the Stuart (and the T-70, since Soviets lack most ammo investments in the first place, the same argument applies) have an upgrade to deal out its currently massive damage against infantry. That both delays it a little bit, and incidentally slows down the BAR acquisition (and thus double-BAR Riflemen).

And what's is RANDOM wipe? Seeing that part of the map is under heavy fire and despite that going there with infantry just to get wiped?

Standing in front of tank?

Watching flying nade without trying to dodge it?

That's not random wipe. That's stupidity or being out-microed.

What is X actually?

Option A (unrelated)?

Option B (unrelated)?

Option C (unrelated)?

That's not X!

And that, my friends, is a straw man. Regardless of whether the topic in question has any merit to it or not, that non-argument above is such a beautiful textbook version of a straw man, that I can almost taste the straw it is made of.

It sounds like the Mortar is doing it's job, harrashing and forcing people to reposition, open points where USF can attack the enemy.
What's wrong with that?

The fact that one specific faction's entire infantry design relies on not being mobile. Before the mortar, this was countered by having the usage of grenades cost ammunition, thus effectively limiting the number of grenades and weapon upgrades that could be used by the USF player.

The mortar doesn't have that constriction, its only downside being a comparatively small amount of field presence being lost, which has never been a problem for USF in the first place and isn't one now.
In turn, this results in ever more double-BAR Riflemen down the line, which more than just laugh at LMG Grens, especially as the BAR works like an Assault Rifle in the game (with it being able to fire on the move) in all aspects. That would be okay, if there was some sort of trade-off available to deal with that newly found power.

And here comes the crux: Ostheer doesn't have that capability. There is no unit that allows you to take over initiative (in the "Kriegsspiel"-meaning) from your enemy. Or better worded, there are such units, but getting them is basically impossible at the time you need them.
I once discussed this in an earlier post, so I will go straight to the result: It is pretty easy to force Ostheer down a particular path, to dictate all their possible moves by assuming control during the early stages of a match. Sure, a good player won't let himself be forced to make a specific move at a specific time, so the spacial rules differ each match. But what kind of move is taken at what time is not up to the Ostheer player anymore, and that's why Ostheer feels so constrained.

The problem is, that the mortar is only a symptom here. This is nothing new, and it is nothing we haven't seen before (unless we didn't want to see it). This problem has existed from the beginning, and against the Soviets it was balanced through sheer DPS calculations. That worked rather worse-than-good, but it worked. In come the Americans, who further solidified on the Soviet idea in terms of execution (which is why USF feels more fun to play as, compared to Soviets, despite the Soviets being the better fleshed out faction), and the Tommies, which are Ostheer all over again, except without most of their weaknesses - most importantly the lack of a German faction that could capitalise on British weaknesses, a German USF faction so to speak.

Fixing the mortar, properly fixing it I mean, not Relic's idea of adjusting a few values, won't do anything against the basic problem. What happens next time USF gains a unit (through a new commander, just as a gedankenexperiment) that offers similar capabilities?