[WM/CW/US] Medium Tanks

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[XIIcorps]

[WM/CW/US] Medium Tanks

Seems pretty open to discussion on that part.
irregardless of whether the comet is a reward or not, its still a CW medium.

Can you narrow down why the upper echelon players aren't using them ?
Cost ?
lack of buffs ?

or is it you guys have just found a new gimmick of LV spam ?

considering the distinct lack of heavies like the Tiger, KT And JP, mediums should be running amok.

[TheWindCriesMary]

[WM/CW/US] Medium Tanks

Seems pretty open to discussion on that part.
irregardless of whether the comet is a reward or not, its still a CW medium.

Dear spaghetti monster in the sky.... give me strength. I JUST quoted the original post for you up there:

I think many have noticed that, in the current metagame, traditional medium tanks are not well represented nor very effective for their cost or intended purpose.

By these I mean:
P4
Sherman (upgun and normal)
Cromwell

Also the Comet is a REWARD unit. There is 1 of them in the game atm.  I can't facepalm hard enough right now.

Can you narrow down why the upper echelon players aren't using them ?
Cost ?
lack of buffs ?

Literally this entire thread has been multiple people effectively narrowing down why upper echelon players don't use them. From day 1. Literally. No joke.

 Read the thread for the love of Jesus' frying pan.

[XIIcorps]

What im getting at is that on one page your argueing mediums suck, on another its lvs are too good.
now if we adress this wont it just flip flop and reverse the problem ?


The comet im using as a bench mark

given its cost, what else does it have that allows it to be effective in the current meta that regular faction mediums are lacking ?

[Smokaz]

This "upper echelon" and indirect snide remarks just take up space in the posts and tires out any hapless reader unbraining himself by popping up in this thread. Calm down.

http://forums.europeinruins.com/index.php?topic=28370.0

This is in effect. Try to be civil and to the point. And maybe even let other posters chime in if you are arriving at a standstill with another person.

ON TOPIC:

I thought Burn's post was pretty good. One thing I could think of is to allow mediums to have better rear penetration vs heavy armor, and added damage. This allows them to be sacrificed or used aggressively to hurt heavy tanks.

Like the zook has a good rear modifier. Right now a sherman 75mm or a cromwell can bounce off the back of a tiger etc.

[XIIcorps]

Better rear pen would see the cromwell go a long way, one medium that effectively relies on flanking tactics.
nothing worse then getting behind a panther, tiger or kt on low hp only to bounce 3-4 shots.

[TheWindCriesMary]

I thought Burn's post was pretty good. One thing I could think of is to allow mediums to have better rear penetration vs heavy armor, and added damage. This allows them to be sacrificed or used aggressively to hurt heavy tanks.

I think it's a good idea. Although to be honest I also think survivability is a big problem for medium tanks. As some have mentioned here, like Hicks, mediums are interestingly the worst affected by the way attrition works in the mod. Heavies have more resilience, and LV's have the mobility, both which help them stay viable in a heavily attrition based mod... but mediums are meant to be hit and yet also not have much resilience.

As hicks pointed out that's because in Vcoh they're numerous, but in EiR that just isn't going to be the case. I think making them either a bit quicker or a bit tougher (still not close to heavies) would potentially help.

[CrazyWR]

making them tougher through a slight HP raise along with a damage increase would help I agree.  I would also argue for a raise in fuel costs for LV's along with a small increase in fuel resources(at the very least)

[Tachibana]

Give free extra repair. Fixed, Heya, dire for balance.

[NightRain]

I think most people prefer not to use medium tanks because of their high cost. With 5 Mediums with double repairs you reap around half of your munitions into 5 to 6 tanks. From all of these tanks the most gimped is the Cromwell but even it becomes decent with a Command tank. However as far as fighting goes it isn't specially great against enemy vehicles because that's what the OTHER medium is for. The firefly.

Sherman is a tank with two alternatives. The upgun and non upgun. The other has bigger splash and is better versus infantry while the other sacrifices splash for a higher penetration value versus vehicles(No really, the boost it gets is quite significant). It gets a good MG on top as well. While its armor is not on the highest spot where the Armor list goes it isn't a bad tank, especially good when fighting infantry focused companies.

Unlike Sherman, P4 is practically decent in all categories, the difference is that it gets damage reduction skirts as a optional purchase (more or less a must purchase). Like Sherman its primary duty is to engage infantry. It can engage vehicles quite decently as well, gets a decent top MG.

While the mediums are good their cost goes high with number. On top of that they are harder to pull off than random Light vehicles or cheaper alternatives. They don't get fancy RNG armor versus other tanks and anti tank guns like the light vehicles and they aren't a shrug-off-call-another type of a vehicle either. Heavy tanks are more attractive because in-comparison they are absolutely a bargain in terms of resources.

That is why for instance a panther is more attractive compared to a Panzer 4 because Panther not only carries a heavier armor, is more maneuverable it also has longer range and a better cannon versus other vehicles it is also cheaper to run and all the other resources can be poured on support. With common mediums your support will be quite straight forward, like in common builds but you ain't going to get as many as you would like. It'd forces players to choose whether they want to boost their infantry or their anti tank ability. Which ever they go may cost them the game. This applies to every doctrine with medium tank build.

So conclusion: Expensive to run, hard to use, there are cheaper alternatives that one can use, why go with mediums?

Anything one decides to do to them. Improve firepower, improve health, armor(wut) etc won't accomplish anything. They'll still perform mostly the same regardless with a chance that they outperform tanks they weren't meant to outperform or perform as in the first place. Imagine if P4 was better against vehicles, it'd out shadow StuG and come close to a panther. Imagine Cromwell being plainly a better alternative to anti tank than firefly, by being faster and capable of doing pain to both soft and hard. Or sherman becoming closely as good as M10 in terms of anti tank. Naturally then mediums would be used if they were better than alternatives but do we really want to do that?

--
The only faction that really does not give a fuck is Panzer elite. Since most of their things run on fuel, building a panther company is not even a bad thing to do. No you get to pour all that munition and resources on infantry and snipers (the only things you CAN get after 3 panther build) giving plenty of screening and infantry that is capable of harming everything.  But this is offtopic.

[XIIcorps]

Slight hole in your argument there nightrain

Both the Panther and Firefly have been and always will be classified as Tank Destroyers.

So their relevance is non existant.

[aeroblade56]

Panther snipes way more than a firefly.

[NightRain]

Slight hole in your argument there nightrain

Both the Panther and Firefly have been and always will be classified as Tank Destroyers.

So their relevance is non existant.

It is a POV discussion. Firefly is a medium with a role of being a tank destroyer, the brits are different in that regard that they got 2 tanks for their own roles: cromwell to be workhorse and anti infantry and light vehicle and firefly being the tank destroyer vs heavier vehicles. If cromwell's firepower was to be increased it might become a BETTER alternative compared to a firefly (price wise) and become too cost effective for its 200 fuel price. It is cheapest of all the mediums out there and has most of the potential of earning its cost back.

While Panther is indeed a heavy tank, I used it as a other reference as the axis tree(without doctrines) has 3 proper tanks. StuG, P4 and Panther. If P4 becomes better at anti tank then it will outshine StuG in performance versus infantry and vehicles and becomes closer to a panther in effectiveness, and might even potentially exceed it because of its anti infantry capabilities.

[aeroblade56]

maybe ppl forgot about that rape machine P4 IST

[TheWindCriesMary]

Both the Panther and Firefly have been and always will be classified as Tank Destroyers.

This is straight up not a given. A lot of debate still ranges about whether the Panther is a medium, heavy or tank destroyer. I'd say it's a hybrid of medium and heavy. Others would say its one or the other. Still others say it's neither and is a tank destroyer.

But fortunately this thread isn't about Panthers so we don't need to worry about that uncertainty.

As for Nightrain, I had not expected you to write a generally praiseful post about P4's as you've made it your mission on these forums to almost exclusively talk about how bad you think they are. What has changed your mind? I'd say their worse now than they ever have been.

[TheWindCriesMary]

One thing that might also be interesting for us to consider would be making medium tanks much more effective at countering light vehicles. That way LVs are the best at AI, heavies are the best at AT and mediums are decent at both but excel at countering LVs? Perhaps improving their kill crits versus them would be a moderate improvement to start with?

[tank130]

This is straight up not a given. A lot of debate still ranges about whether the Panther is a medium, heavy or tank destroyer.

This is EiR:R and in this mod, the Panther is currently not classified as a medium. For the purpose of good balance discussions, we should refrain from mudding the waters with personal preferences on how to use the unit.

For example: You can use the Panther to crush TT & hedges, but we do not balance the unit versus a Sherman with dozer upgrade do we?

Wind: there is no positive reason to continue a debate or to rebute this post in this thread. Feel free to start a debate thread about the Panther in another place, but for this great balance discussion, the Panther is a Heavy.


Let get back on topic please gents.

[Shabtajus]

I think all is needed is just adding a higher splash or accuracy  so it wil start killing infantry properly. It suck when you investing so much resources and your investment can't hit shit. When medium tank becomes a real deal killing infantry it will start showing up on the field. Correct me if i am wrong but mediums ment to be inf killer / supporter right? Why nerfing lvs is an option here? Tone down a bit penetration lv vs tank and all will be cool.

Wanna be fast and annoying go for lvs. Wanna be frontliner go for mediums. Simple as that.

[TheWindCriesMary]

Thanks for helping me bring things back on topic Shab. I agree with you: mediums should be better front line fighters and LVs should be more about harassing flanks, taking out back cappers, etc. Right now LVs, especialy a stag or T17, can do both far better than mediums.

I think you're right too that nerfing LVs across the board isn't the right way to go. I like the idea of reducing pen of LVs and improving the ai capability of shermans/P4s/Croms a lot.

[NightRain]

I never praised P4, it is decent at its task but not exactly the best one at it. It only gets damage reduction skirts which might save its life versus stickybombs and bazookas. Even against RRs.

Improving Mediums ability to become a frontline warrior is hard because medium HAS to compete with a heavy tank in that role. The reason why Lights are so fun is because they are cheap and fast units that get around the battlefield (like shab referenced a medium tank needs a circus to follow it) where as mediums have to be used entirely different. Cautiously as if they were made of glass. Sure they can crack a hole to enemy front line but you either lose it or have to pull back and repair as a result. Breaking a ATG wall isn't medium's job either way. Their overall role is questionable to me. They aren't great in every role but are decent at everything (with exception of Sherman being either better vs inf OR vehicle and cromwell being better at AI than AT while P4 is average in both).

There's two proper alternative. Pricewise the vehicles are sort of fine(in my personal opinion they are expensive to run). Make heavy tanks more expensive munition and manpower wise so that they can field less support than they currently can. With LVs? Remove capping, entirely. They can't cap, then spamming them and using them to backcap becomes a problem to them and their effectiveness shrivels

[Shabtajus]

why you guys want price changes so much? Instead of ''boring balance'' like changing price we should move on and do some real changes and make an impact in unit's role. What you will get with mediums roaming around and killing infantry properly?

my theory craft:

Medium tank user is easy to be pushed of the front line with proper atack. Just grab atg/pak move in inf for LOS. Most of the time inf used for LOS will not get hit since medium tank is forced to move. And if it will get hit via lame splash it will not deal a bigger problems to and inf squad. So medium tank user is pushed back and lost a sector. What he got for it? Luckily killed a men or 2. Meh. Now imagine how it looks push with medium tank... My point here is if you lose something you must get something in trades. Keep in mind i am talking about guys with equal skills not random stompage

honestly tell me who had hard times killing medium tanks? nobody. too much counters right? so if counters will stay in place so whats the problem will be to kill mediums? no problems. increasing accuracy / spalsh will make mediums have a role they lack atm. add slight modifier vs handled AT inf so they were not insta gibbed so fast

whats the point in nerfing heavy tanks? they are not widely used and it takes skills to make them epic. fair trade i gues? better player does better job with certain units. I don't see any big problem here. If you want have a bigger gap between heavy tanks and mediums buff JP,pershing and tiger and allow to have just 1 per coy (price increase)

i feel like its time to wake up and finally understand that we need different class tanks actually doing a job they ment to do. LV as slim fighter on flanks, mediums as a common (not rare) tank  properly holding front line and heavy tanks who caries a huge power and huge investment to break a front line.