Any particular reason you ignore rifles(you know, the only unit in game penals can be directly compared to in relation to scaling) vanila and with dual bar every single time when you make this kind of comparison?
If it because it makes your post completely random and pointless?
How are Riflemen the only unit directly comparable to Penals? |
if we're looking at this in a broad axis vs allies point then I couldn't disagree more, allies have the best anti aircraft in the game, a range of non doc recon, a whole slew of granted mostly doctrinal but good mobile and immobile arty and the longest ranged TD's in the game.
I still don't get the talk about removing scope as well, it's basically a must take for late game otherwise it's an ez gg in team games
Depends on your game mode. In 3v3+ it is easier to sequeeze a dedicated AA vehicle into the build, especially Soviets. In smaller modes it is just not viable to have AA unless you are playing UKF.
Axis on the other hand can field AA with pintles in all modes. They will not be good enough if it needs to shoot the plane down asap, but they are usually good enough to make recon loiters not worthwhile |
I'm still pushing for caps on the numbers of specific units one can field. Ergo: One arty unit, a limited number of TDs, etc. This would help deal with some of the "Spam" that can happen in teamgames.
I still like the idea of team-wide caps on certain things, but this is very unlikely due to players likely being unhappy that they can't get their doctrinal IS2, for example, due to another player having a Pershing.
It would be a way better approach to promote proper counters instead of limiting units and forcefully "promoting" combined arms. If an Axis players wants 3 Panthers he should be free to do so, as long as Allies have the ability to either counter Panthers or mitigate their effectiveness by focusing down the infantry. Limiting units would heavily limit team play as well since players could not "specialize". And sometimes outright kill it, mixed Allied factions could then - your suggestion - only have 1 Katy per Soviet player on the field OR force USF and UKF players into a fistful of doctrines.
Apart from that, there are also a LOT of practical considerations: What do we limit? Only high tier tanks (like currenty heavies)? ALL vehicles? How do we deal with overlapping units, e.g. both Axis tank destroyers? Do they share a common counter? Do Panthers and StuGs count the same? What about mediums: are 3 mediums already too much or considered an acceptable build? Do we limit infantry as well? Maximum of 4 main lines? Do PGrens/Obers count? USF officers? Is USF not allowed to back tech if they already have 4 mainlines out? What do we do with doctrinal infantry in general? Maximum of 2 support weapons per type? If so, what is the exact reason that I need to 2 ATGs plus StuG and mortar instead of 3 ATGs and Ostwind if I want that?
We'd either have to set these caps high enough so they would probably not matter at all or so low that there will be only a couple of viable builds by default (not even talking about the meta here).
There is no reason for that. If someone wants to pull off a surprisal weird ass strategy, let him do it. The only question is if the opponent not only has the skill, but also the tools to set up a counter-strategy in time. As long as he has the tools available, there will be no need for any unit caps. |
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To be honest I think these are mostly bad ideas.
Unicorns like the Sturmtiger must be made very cheap to buy then if you constantly pay for them to do anything at all. Why should those be the only unit that need mun to use them? Calliope is not a unicorn, it is a normal rocket arty albeit a strong one.
I assume you count the Panther towards the semi-heavy tanks. But the unit is a necessary part of Axis AT builds, especially if Allies call in heavy tanks. Why should building one reduce fuel income?
Overall I think your post fails to explain why these unit types cannot be balanced around their cost like any other unit. |
Before this gets out of hand:
I am not really arguing for removing repair from pioneers.
decrewed weapon teams aswell...
You could always take them and then repair. Or just salvage. To be honest I have never seen someone repairing a decrewed gun on the field. Only an abandoned vehicle.
Opel Blitz.
I'll give you that one. Open Blitz is a sacrifice I am willing to make. |
There is literally no more space available on their ability UI.
Remove the repair button 
For real though, OKW does not have transport vehicles anyway and that's the only reason this button exists. Everything else can be repaired by just clicking on it.
I don't think they'd need a smoke nade though. The stun nade is a nice change from the usual nades and adds to their "raw power" design. |
I believe the problem stems from mid game lack of scaling.
You just can not have mainline inf that is reliable and relevant across whole game without weapon upgrade.
We've strolled this road for years with conscripts, now we're going for a 2nd lap with penals and their mid and late game viability.
Lack of upgrade to keep infantry scaling through early mid game and extreme over reliance on T-70 to jump back into the game once everyone else starts rolling out infantry weapon upgrades is a direct reason why T1 feels bad on the long run as even if SU-76 might be a good option right now, as long as there is no infantry scaling to fend of the pressure, it will always be T-70 and in turn, T1 lack of AT reliability and AI scaling.
They can work without weapon upgrades, Penals did for ages (better to say a year but they were still meta). They were even so good that they had to be nerfed. However even old Conscripts were not as bad as people made them out to be. The main issue is that units without weapon upgrade are harder to replace once you loose them. Penals start out strong, don't necessarily need an upgrade. Conscripts on the other hand start quite weak like other infantry, but previously their only way to get stronger was veterancy. That is okay for the initially build Conscripts, but not for replacement units. Hence why Conscripts get their late game upgrade. Mobilized reserves did not change the first 10-12 minutes of the game at all, still Conscripts have become the new meta over Penals.
T1 is an additional strain on Penals. But I think with the fact that LVs are way more popular compared to two years ago and the SU76 being nerfed, the way to T4 has just become too long and Penal builds have become more risky. |
That is in the context of PTRS or general penal performance?
Because in context of PTRS, I'd expect them to be as efficient as shreck pios, not shreck PFs/zook RETs, 3 PTRS is an improvement, but I wouldn't relay on just 70 muni upgrade to counter any med armor without support from 1 other AT source as well.
And in context of penal spam BO, you can get by for the early game with the punishment of inferior map control, but you pretty much always need to supplement them with doctrinal inf or baby ATG if you want to forego T2.
In context of general Penal performance.
The Soviet tech order makes T1/Penal and Conscript/T2 builds virtually exclusive at least until after the beginning of the mid game. Back teching T2 before the first tank is only done when you're already knees deep into trouble. So until that point, Penals need to fill a lot of holes or at least make up for them because the current AT options of Soviets are not viable until the SU85. Soviet T1 builds in the current version are quite tricky to play, and as you say they usually need support by commander units. Two mainline infantry units in the same faction are not bad design by default, but I think Vipper is right that at least the current implementation of those two has just been causing issues for the last years.
I am quite interested what the current changes will bring. Maybe those slight buffs to AT Penals and the SU76 are enough to bridge the gap for T1 builds, maybe they are not... But in the end I the weird spot of Penals/T1 in general still remains unsolved. |
Literally no one expects them to work independently and spamming either alone is a sure way to lose the game - they were independent exclusively when they were op and, that clearly was not intended given how they no longer are.
It was always about paying for their own cost and scaling into late game for both and both sucked hard until they started getting mandatory changes. To not see that is to be in denial about state of these units.
Penals are expected to work on their own, and at the very least independently from T2. You can throw a Con into a Penal build but it does not fix the actual issue. |
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As much as I appreciate your theoretic work, I am not sure that these calculations yield usable data in this case.
The first issue is that the gun damage is calculated with a 6 model squad (you maybe know the formation/spacing style), which only approximates for Soviets, but 4 men grenadiers might behave differently. However I have a vague memory of you also saying that formation and spacing would matter more than the number of models, which also makes sense but I don't know to which extend this is true between Conscripts and Grenadiers for example. Back when I did my alpha damage calculations (basically answering how much damage the first shot does), I even saw a difference between Volks and Riflemen, but maybe this effect nullifies over multiple shots.
What will also happen though is that your approximation of the main gun damage yields a lower value than in the game, because from my understanding the original data includes also the shots at the last model(s), where main gun damage is less effective. There will be multiple instances of tanks trying to finish off a low health model but missing or dealing marginal damage, while in game an MG would solve this quickly. Also, squads with few members will usually be retreated from tanks and not participate. Maybe this could be solved by taking only the damage that the first (arbitrary number) 5 shots do and then calculate it on a per shot basis.
And one last note because I already see people tearing these numbers out of context:
In the end the MG serves a quite important task: It finishes off models. Shooting a full squad down to 20% health is nice, but if you don't kill anyone you have won only map presence. Shooting it down to 40% health but killing half the models is usually worth more.
EDIT: small addition
On the other hand moving should affect the MG less worse than the gun. The MG damage should get halved approximately, while both angular and horizontal scatter get doubled. Doubling the angular scatter alone already doubles the scatter area (or halving the hit chance so to say), so the horizontal scatter further reduces that. |
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