Allies Need More Appeal

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[Tymathee]

This is stupid. 5 battles waiting, all full of Axis players and only 2 allies among them (3v3, 1v2, and 3 2v2's 10 total Axis)

Either the Axis need to be less appealing or the allies need to be more appealing because it's difficult to one get a game and 2 to win a game as allies. You pretty much expect to lose as allies or to win by the skin of your teeth.

It seems the lose of appeal to EIR isn't so much that it's no fun, its that its no fun as allies so there are never any games.

[smurfORnot]

Either the Axis need to be less appealing or the allies need to be more appealing

no need in taking fun from axis,just need to add it to allies ...somehow?!

[Tymathee]

no need in taking fun from axis,just need to add it to allies ...somehow?!

not the fun of axis but the fact is that it's so much easier to win as axis than it is as allies.

Some proof is in my records.

RCA #1 53-38
RCA #2 14-13
Cmdo - 19-16
Inf - 43-34
Armor - 25-16
AB - 13-14

Defensive - 32-18
Blitz - 23-9
SE - 15-16

As you can see, i play axis significantly less, yet i boast a much better record except in SE, which is only because that's my screw around account, same as airborne.

[AmPM]

not the fun of axis but the fact is that it's so much easier to win as axis than it is as allies.

Some proof is in my records.

RCA #1 53-38
RCA #2 14-13
Cmdo - 19-16
Inf - 43-34
Armor - 25-16
AB - 13-14

Defensive - 32-18
Blitz - 23-9
SE - 15-16

As you can see, i play axis significantly less, yet i boast a much better record except in SE, which is only because that's my screw around account, same as airborne.

Ummm...where is the proof? Give replays, the quality of the other players, how well they are doing, builds on both sides, etc has everything to do with w/l, doctrine abilities don't make you win.

If I only play stomps with AB and have a 30-3 w/l is it overpowered? Is axis underpowered? Congrats Tym on posting useless data.

[PonySlaystation]

Axis are OP because AMPM plays them.

[TheVolskinator]

The allies lack appeal because of the lack of survivability among the majority of their units. Ergo, if you dick around with a riflemen squad its going to get buttraped pretty quickly. A gren squad dicking around has a better chance of escaping (discounting bar suppression).

Its also in the doctrines. Look at the American ones specifically, and then their axis counterparts. This is considering that the general rule is that Infantry = Defensive, Armor = Blitz, and AB = Terror in their intended roles (or at least their assumed roles).

Infantry gets Overlord, reducing the reload time on your shermans and buffing your officers (the two most powerful buffs in the T4); Tank Reapers, boosting the penetration of your ATGs to respectable levels, or Locked and Loaded--an honestly useless T4 (IMO), as all I really get out of it is a moving howitzer.

Now compare this to Defensive's T4s: Fatherland Defense *doubles* the HP of all of your defenses, grants elite armor to your weapons crews, and (when its fixed) adds a fully functioning extra man to pioneers, volks, and all support crews. Camoflauge Equiptment (in line with one of the T2s that grants Stugs a hetzer ambush) allows your Stug Ambush to rotate, your nebels can cloak and escape counter battery fire as well as cloak your 88, pak40, and leig, and your volks, grens, and kch can camo in cover and receive a 33% accuracy bonus--far superior to the 25% accuracy bonus Fals got from their camo in vcoh.

The allied doctrines tend to directly buff a unit's speed, damage, HP, or accuracy, whilst the axis doctrines tend to do the same on a smaller level, but also give the targeted units some ingenious abilities that can be used to a far greater effect then any allied player could dream of if some proper thought is put into the development of a particular strategy. (Lets also take into acount things like the Luft T4 that lets you sprint forever in your own territory--rup up, shreck volley a tank, and flee with no penalties).

So where the allies have to use their units in really creative ways and try to outwit their opponents outright, the axis players can use already ingenious units in more direct (or equally devious) roles and acheive a greater effect, even in the face of 'superior' buffs.

[PonySlaystation]

I'd say heavy tanks plays a large role in this or rather: doctrines. If you go armor doctrine then you sacrifice the infantry buffs that you would otherwise get. Because armor doctrine dont have any infantry buffs. They just have armor buffs, and not really that great. It makes the Pershing slightly better against tanks but Tiger has buffs which makes it better against infantry so it's really not better. Whats more is that Terror and Blitzkrieg doctrines which have these units also have infantry buffs.

You go armor and you get armor buffs but no infantry buffs
You go airborne and you get AT but no AI
You go infantry and you get infantry buffs but no heavy armor

You go terror and you get infantry buffs and heavy armor
You go blitzkrieg and you get infantry buffs and heavy armor
You go defensive and you get AI and AT

What doctrine buffs riflemen AND M10s? No doctrine.
What doctrine buffs grenadiers and tigers/88? EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DOCTRINE.

[EliteGren]

I'd say heavy tanks plays a large role in this or rather: doctrines. If you go armor doctrine then you sacrifice the infantry buffs that you would otherwise get. Because armor doctrine dont have any infantry buffs. They just have armor buffs, and not really that great. It makes the Pershing slightly better against tanks but Tiger has buffs which makes it better against infantry so it's really not better. Whats more is that Terror and Blitzkrieg doctrines which have these units also have infantry buffs.

You go armor and you get armor buffs but no infantry buffs
You go airborne and you get AT but no AI
You go infantry and you get infantry buffs but no heavy armor

You go terror and you get infantry buffs and heavy armor
You go blitzkrieg and you get infantry buffs and heavy armor
You go defensive and you get AI and AT

What doctrine buffs riflemen AND M10s? No doctrine.
What doctrine buffs grenadiers and tigers/88? EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DOCTRINE.

Sorry can't agree here.

You go armor and you get armor buffs which buff your infantry aswell. You also have access to some of the strongest assault infantry in the game.

You go airborne you got excellent AT, also have the option for great AI (a better copy of blitzkriegs assault, LMG, SR)

You go Infantry you get infantry buffs and no heavy armor? Ever heard of the jumbo lol? It has some of the best armour in the game.

[MorkaandBorka]

sorry, id have to agree with pony.  You get MANY more buffs and better ones with the axis doctrine.

[Malgoroth]

Coercion isn't a positive or effective means of change.
Suggesting that the Axis need to be made 'less appealing' because there's no allies on only makes you look bad.

Any argument you try to start about how the Axis are 'OP' or 'easy' is also counterproductive. I would suggest putting an end to that line of thought since it boils down to basically the same logic as above.

The axis will always have the better tanks. Players won't accept anything otherwise. Tiger/KT > all. End of story. Asking for tanks that are essentially American/British tigers is a silly gesture (before anyone suggests such a thing. Had to get that out there). The way things are now is that Allied tanks are equal to if not better than their axis COUNTERPARTS. Shermans/buffed croms > P4s. Axis of course get Tigers/panthers. The Americans do get the Pershing... it's not better than or worse than a Tiger... it's just good in different ways (speed and mobility). To help with heavy tanks the allies have M10's/M18's/Fireflies which do their job admirably. You can't buff Shermans and croms to the point where a Tiger can't go one on one with them and then have to go repair afterwards because its health got so low. That's not what they're designed for. And you can't really go buffing their AI outright either since the Axis have less infantry per company on average anyway and having tanks that can cut through infantry even better than they do now (which most allied light vehicles are capable of already) is bad for balance. I will say that the geschutzwagon doesn't belong in the Wehrmachts arsenal. It covers the heavy TD role that the Wehrmacht is supposed to lack. They have the stug for that.
In short... if you want diversity for the allies, it'll have to come from their infantry and infantry upgrades.

If you want the Americans to be more appealing then you have to be prepared to drastically re-think how that faction is designed. Any significant change to how the faction works has to start with a major nerf to BAR suppression fire. Giving mainline infantry a weapon that nullifies most enemy infantry and has no downside is a bad idea to begin with and keeps the devs from adding new infantry to the faction short of reward units. If you keep BAR suppression how it is then you can't add more powerful infantry because they two would be an unbeatable pair, you can't add weaker infantry because riflemen are weak enough to begin with, and you can't buff riflemen to be grenadier powerful because BAR suppression would make them into steamrolling monsters. Riflemen are trapped in this limbo of 'more powerful than volks, but less powerful than grens' and as it is - BARs are their only defense against other infantry. So what do you do?  

You may think I'm being biased and using this thread as a soap box cry to nerf BARs... but you know my words ring true.  

British don't have a problem with appeal. That faction is just a train wreck of stupid and I really hope that whoever was in charge of designing them at relic was fired.

[PonySlaystation]

You go armor and you get armor buffs which buff your infantry aswell. You also have access to some of the strongest assault infantry in the game.

You go airborne you got excellent AT, also have the option for great AI (a better copy of blitzkriegs assault, LMG, SR)

You go Infantry you get infantry buffs and no heavy armor? Ever heard of the jumbo lol? It has some of the best armour in the game.

Armor buffs infantry? wtf are you talking about? they dont have a single one.

Yes, now that airborne has been fixed LMGs are actually useful. But the new doctrine is shit.

How is the Jumbo going to help me against heavy armor?

What is the best way to counter heavy armor? Well, AP round ATGs and M10s are probably your best choice. Problem is there aren't any abilities that buff the M10 and also the Tiger you're facing will have vet 3 and that lowers you chances even more. ATGs are limited now with the new cost and what not and they're not exactly reliable AT. Taking out a Tiger with those things is a challenge to say the least.

@Malgoroth: I refrain from my earlier statement. It's not the units that are fucked up, it's the doctrines.

[Malgoroth]

You can only have 2 Tigers. How easy do you expect them to be killed? AP ATG's, stickies, M10s/M18's, mines, whatever handheld AT is in your doctrine should be more than enough. I've seen many a Tiger and KT get butt-slammed with ~10 kills to its name.

As for armor, he may be referring to assault engies.

[EliteGren]

They don't have a single one? It is a T2 so basically every armor player has it except he went with top or bottom T4.

+20% Accuracy in a 35m Aura
-75% Grenade Recharge
-50% Sticky Recharge
-10% SF Recharge

All these bonuses are granted by vehicles around you. So that is that.

Yes the new AB doctrine is shit. It's just a sad, sad doctrine but you still have some great AI options, which is what you were saying they were lacking.

And the Jumbos role is not to combat heavy armor by itself. There is no need for that when allies have cheap-ass super effective fast tank hunters and 57mms in their arsenal. The Jumbo is a great tank still, almost every infantry player has one due to its unique durability, something allied tanks are missing.

[PonySlaystation]

Which is basically what other doctrines get without having to stand next to tank. It's not as easy as it sounds to be that close to a tank all the time. I know it's supposed to make people want to use combined arms but I have never really seen it being used with success.

[Malgoroth]

keep it moving 

[MorkaandBorka]

Yes but keep it moving is one of the best abilities in this game tbh.  Let me have an aura like that I can turn on for my m10 or sherman. 

[EliteGren]

Brits have it on their churchills tbh

[AmPM]

Ok, to correct a few things...

"allies dont have the AT to deal with heavy tanks without buffs" FALSE!

My infantry coy has NO BUFFS to ATGs or Hellcats. But I assure you 5 ATGs and 6 Hellcats are enough AT to deal with any armor in the game. On top of that, 2 Triage, howi, more bars than you can shake a stick at, mortars, etc.

"Armor and Infantry have no buffs for other units" Umm...yea, they don't need any. You may not have cross unit buffs but a 76mm Sherman is already > Doctrine P4, and M10/Hellcat ENDS anything but a KT/Panther/Jadg. Infantry has the BEST AI unit in the game, the Rifleman with BAR.

I play Allies, a lot. I hate playing with most Allied players because they don't understand what is good in their Docs.

Also, HVAP Hellcat trolls all tanks.

[Malgoroth]

What AmPM said underscores the main point of my post. If you want variety and appeal for Americans, you have to radically redesign how the faction works. BARs need to be nerfed is the number one thing that needs to happen before you can add any sort of variety to them and their tanks are good enough as it is.

If BARs lost their suppression fire, you could conceivably give assault weapons like grease guns to AB, you could add another basic infantry squad available to all American doctrines, you could give ami MGs a suppression burst that affects a small area (you would click the ability then click the area is suppresses, similar to how you would use a mortar barrage), you could give BARs to rangers or something. You could make the ami LMG available to riflemen. Shit, you could do a lot of things. But you can't do any of those right now because BARs are basically all you need.

Having the best suppression weapon in the game located on a mainline infantry squad as weak as riflemen severely limits what you can do as far as 'additions' go. That shit has to change before anything can be done. 

[TheVolskinator]

I wouldnt mind losing SF if it wasnt the only thing standing between my infantry living and dying when faced with an insane blob of charging enemy infantry. If nilla rifles were any good Id use BARs less altogether as well...

Tbh, lose SF, let rangers grab BARs at some point, AB can unlock Grease Guns with one of the T4s, and throw Trenchguns x2 in for rifles in inf doc. A tougher mainline squad (non doctrinal) might be nice too. Not dealing more DPS, but at the very least as survivable as Marines/Grens.