Some ideas for balance changes

[Complex Strategy]

So I don't think it's unfair to say that among the hundreds of units within Panzer Corps 2 that some of them have been left behind. Often being minor stat differences to other units or being quickly outclassed by simply better options. I wanted to just throw out some ideas for some changes to make various units stand out more among their counterparts.

I should note before this post that I'm not gonna consider things like general perks, heroes, or special challenges. Those just are to variable and can very easily make any unit brokenly powerful. Instead this would look at units in their most basic form.

One other note is that this isn't a complete list of ideas I have. There's a lot I've thought of these are just some of the ones I feel are more impactful.

So to start out one unit type that has bothered me for a while is Flame Tanks. In their current form they struggle a lot with actually fighting infantry. Their lack of close defense means they take massive damage and trade poorly against 15 strength infantry units. They are quite powerful against soft targets that aren't infantry so it could be difficult to buff them. Personally I think the simplest buff could be to give them the Butcher trait as a standard effect. The Butcher trait gives a unit +5 attack against infantry which would give flame tanks a stronger punch against enemy infantry without affecting anything else.

A second one is actually the German tank destroyers in 1943-45. So many different models come out yet they all pretty much are the same with the only difference really being some having like +1 defense or +1 hard attack over other versions. I don't have an entire list but my general ideas are this.
To start off I think units like the Elefant, Jagdpanther, and Jagdtiger need to be nerfed in some regard. Upping the core slot cost of each by 1 would make them less efficient compared to their high power. Following that we now have a little more room for stuff like the Hetzer, Jagdpanzer IVs, and others.
The Hetzer could receive the unique trait of camouflage which would hide it from the enemy making it powerful because it could more reliably ambush and bait enemy units. You might need to lower it's stats to compensate but it would give the Hetzer a unique use.
The Jagdpanzer IVs would probably just need a slight buff to their stats to make them the bigger StuGs they are meant to be. Combined with the Heavy TD slot increase they should hopefully be that nice middle road in the later war.
There's others but I think this would be a decent start for diversifying the TDs.

So the final suggestion I'll make is actually to the Grenadier (Heavy Infantry) unit. This unit in Panzer Corps 2 has just always failed to find a specific niche for it. So how about making it an actual bigger infantry? Give it +1 core slot and then give it like +1 soft attack, +1 hard attack, +1 ground defense, and +1 air defense. That could possibly make it an actual heavy infantry style unit that has an actual niche.

[Black_Hole]

Flame tanks don't need really more soft target attack strength, it wouldn't have any impact as soon as their value is like 10 points higher than the infantry's defense value. The solution here is to really give them maybe 4 close defense. That way it would increase their close combat effectivness drastically.

Heavy infantry just needs 4 close defense value so they then were a good defensive counter to every enemy infantry including combat engineers.

[Kerensky]

As the DLC progress, it puts a much needed spotlight on the overwhelming total amount of units in the game's roster.

My personal annoyance is how too many mid and late war tanks universally have 20 Soft Attack. A lot of them need lower SA, and units especially designed for anti-infantry like flamethrower or CS tanks like the Panzer IIIN need to be the stand outs for high SA so they have their niche.

Point is, unit stat balance is a very good topic to bring up, so by all means input on unit stat improvements is good. The most effective feedback is where the content is arriving for.

It's one thing to balance a unit in a vaccuum, but it's much much effective to balance it because of where it fits, or doesn't fit, in a precise piece of content.

[Arcticgrizzlebear]

There is no perfect solution, but this is an area that games will always struggle in, because we're not bound by real world constraints.

The Hetzer (for example) in WW2 was not a good tank destroyer, when stacked up against other tank destroyers. If you asked a Hetzer crew if they'd prefer a Jagdpanther, or even a Stug, they'd all say "yes!" to a man.

But the Hetzer was much better than having no tank destroyer, which was the major production issue Germany was facing by the time it was introduced. And to be sure, it does have advantages over other TD's: light weight, maneuverability, etc... But to implement those advantages in a game where we a playing at the Division/Corp level would be difficult.

[Boredflak]

Originally posted by Arcticgrizzlebear:

There is no perfect solution, but this is an area that games will always struggle in, because we're not bound by real world constraints.

The Hetzer (for example) in WW2 was not a good tank destroyer, when stacked up against other tank destroyers. If you asked a Hetzer crew if they'd prefer a Jagdpanther, or even a Stug, they'd all say "yes!" to a man.

But the Hetzer was much better than having no tank destroyer, which was the major production issue Germany was facing by the time it was introduced. And to be sure, it does have advantages over other TD's: light weight, maneuverability, etc... But to implement those advantages in a game where we a playing at the Division/Corp level would be difficult.

You forgot that the visibility in the Hetzer was total crap. That is why any crewman would choose any other AT type over it.

[Black_Hole]

Still the Hetzer worked out quite ok for his small size. Due to its low profile it was hard to see and to hit.

[Green Knight]

Originally posted by Kerensky:

As the DLC progress, it puts a much needed spotlight on the overwhelming total amount of units in the game's roster.

My personal annoyance is how too many mid and late war tanks universally have 20 Soft Attack. A lot of them need lower SA, and units especially designed for anti-infantry like flamethrower or CS tanks like the Panzer IIIN need to be the stand outs for high SA so they have their niche.

Point is, unit stat balance is a very good topic to bring up, so by all means input on unit stat improvements is good. The most effective feedback is where the content is arriving for.

It's one thing to balance a unit in a vaccuum, but it's much much effective to balance it because of where it fits, or doesn't fit, in a precise piece of content.

+1

Why does the Panther have such good SA, for example?

High-velocity 75mm gun optimized for the anti-armor role.

[Complex Strategy]

So maybe here's some ideas for balance changes. This would only be the start of the changes and just covers a handful of German units throughout the war. And these are just ideas, I tried to give decent changes but this has 0 founding in terms of actual balance. Take the numbers with a grain of salt and just mostly focus on the intention.

Grenadier (and all Heavy Infantry) +90 Prestige, +1 core slot, +1 Soft Attack, +1 Hard Attack, +2 Ground Defense, +4 Close Defense
Fallschirmjager (and all Paratroopers) +30 Prestige, +2 Soft Attack, -2 Hard Attack
Gren changes are to make it a truly powerful infantry but it suffers from higher core slots/prestige costs and it's slow two movements.
Fallshrimjager become a very powerful infantry combat unit but would more greatly suffer from enemy armor attacks. Similar to how actual paratroopers were often elite units that lacked meaningful AT capacity.

Panzer IIC -1 core slot
Panzer 35t -1 core slot, slight stat nerfs (try to give this a unique upside to the 38t)
Panzer 38t -1 core slot, slight stat nerfs
Panzer IV F2 through Panzer IVJ -5 Soft Attack
Panther G through D -10 Soft Attack
Tiger I -10 Soft Attack
Tiger II -4 Soft Attack
The 3 light tanks getting a core slot reduction would be meant to give them a greater purpose to be used after the medium tanks start coming around. Currently once you unlock the Panzer III and IV you just drop the light tanks as they mostly preform worse. This does hurt the Panzer IA and IB but those tanks are also useless anyway so I don't think the loss does much.
The Medium and Heavy Tank changes are largely aimed at the complaint that the regular tanks are way to effective at handling anything they run into. By nerfing the hard attack in various amounts, you greatly increase the need for things with high soft attack like the Panzer IIIN, Flame tanks, and even just more infantry. The Panzer IV loses less hard attack overall so it can still remain a decently effect all rounder tank and give it a unique niche of being that jack of all trades tank. The Panther and Tiger clearly lose the most but this is intentional as they are incredibly powerful units up until very late into the war. They become your tank brawlers but would struggle to deal that much damage to infantry. The Tiger II could probably afford to lose less soft attack becuase it has it's own downsides of being so expensive overall mainly in core slots. The Maus and E75 are also so late in the war they shouldn't need any changes.

Jagdpazner IV 48 -20 Prestige, +1 Hard Attack
Jagdpanzer IV 70 -20 Prestige, +1 Hard Attack
Hetzer -2 Ground Defense, Now has camouflage (hides from enemy units)
Elefant -1 Movement
Jagdpanther +1 core slot
Jagdtiger +1 core slot
So this is a first attempt to make the German tank destroyers a bit more appealing to use. Atm I think the German tank destroyer class has some of the worst smearing of units. Most of them are just like +1 hard attack or +1 ground defense over each other. This is just a start but by giving some nerfs to the Heavy Tank Destroyers and a couple buffs to the medium ones you hopefully could make them more appealing. The Jagdpanzers should be overall bit more appealing to use as your main TD unit while the Hetzer becomes a sneaky ambush unit that is fragile if caught out in the open. The Elefant becomes a bit slower to compensate it's insane power for it's time (1943) and even until the late war. The Jagdpanther and Jagdtiger go up a core slot to make other options more appealing as they are more core slot friendly in comparison.

7.5cm FK +1 Movement, Alpine movement, Alpine Trait
10.5 cm LeFh +1 Movement
The 7.5 change is meant to give this unit an actual purpose as it would now be an incredibly unique alpine artillery piece. The 10.5 becomes a bit more unique as it can now better keep pace with infantry while still offer fire support.

3.7cm Flak +1 movement
I find it weird this AA gun didn't get 2 movement points like the other small AA guns. I would say this should make it a more interesting choice over something like an 88 flak or other AA options.

Anyway just some ideas I had. There would surely be more if something like this was (like the Allies would need similar changes).

[Arcticgrizzlebear]

Originally posted by !Alien!:

Still the Hetzer worked out quite ok for his small size. Due to its low profile it was hard to see and to hit.

Agree. It wasn't a bad TD in certain roles, and by the time it was introduced, the fighting on the Ukrainian plains was largely a thing of the past (Hetzer saw first combat at the Warsaw uprising). Being able to KO T-34's and IS-2's at 1500-2000 meters is irrelevant, if you never actually engage one at that distance. For the terrain and the situation Germany was in at the time, it was a fine TD. Not a perfect one, as Boredflak points out, but better than nothing.

Still, if Germany could produce Jagpanther's and Stugs without constraint, the Hetzer is likely never fielded. PC2 at least tries to compensate by having the Jagpanther cost slightly more slots, but we can purchase an unlimited quantity of Jagpanthers if we want. In a perfect production environment, certain vehicles simply don't have a place, and the Hetzer is likely one of them under the way the game is currently constructed.

[Kerensky]

If no one will want to buy a Hetzer because the Jagdpanther has been available for quite some time already, the answer isn't to make the Hetzer artificially stronger to make it competitive.

That would be like making King Kong (100 Feet) the size of Godzilla (100 Meters) just so they can have a movie together. Oh wait, that is what they just showed in that new trailer, isnt it? Bad example.

The Hetzer should be the economic pick, which means a very low slot cost. It's still a tough buy, because a campaign environment naturally promotes high quality not bulk quantity... but at least it's something.

I think Late War needs two branches of equipment. There are the mega units, your Tiger II and IS2 and Pershings, that have ridiculous stats and equally high slot costs. But the Late War medium and light tanks need to built for economy. Don't even try to give their stats competitive, but make their prestige and slot costs crazy low.

Best example is the Panzer IVJ. It should have a lower slot cost than the Panzer IVH, because it is the 'economy' version of the same tank. Not a more expensive to build upgrade.

[Kerensky]

And my concerns are primarily revolving around soft attack values still stands. There is not enough variety in this field, and it hurts special purpose anti soft vehicles (FT tanks) much harder than already top of the line fighting vehicles (Panthers).

Too many mid war units reach 20 Soft Attack, and stay there, removing all stat growth from mid and late war in this regard.

German tanks on 20 SA

Panzer IVD
Pz IVE
Pz IVF
Pz IVF2
Pz IVG
Pz IVH
Pz IVJ
Panzer IIIN
251/16 FT halftrack

Germans on 22 SA

Panther A
Panther D
Panther G
Tiger I
Tiger II
Maus
E 75
Flamepanzer 38t

Soviets on 20 SA

T28
KV2
T34 40
T34 41
T34 42
OT34 flame
M3 Lee
M4 Sherman
T34 43

Soviets on 22 SA

Kv85
IS1
IS2
IS3
T34 85
OT34 85



These numbers are too copy paste, and will be harmful to unit and game balance now that the DLC are approaching mid war where more of these units are making their debut.

My suggestions:

20 SA Plateau needs to be more exclusive to vehicles with purposely built SA roles. Panzer IIIN and various FlameThrower vehicles can raise to to 22 SA.

Main Battle Tanks need to have their SA values obliterated. A long barrel Panzer IV is already the go to tank of 1942 for anti-hard duties, it doesn't also need to be the anti-soft duty champion.

Panzer IVD through Panzer IVF reduced from 20 SA to 14 or 15
Panzer IVF2 through IVJ reduced to 16
Panthers should all be around 15 SA at most
Tiger I and II can maybe go to 17 or 18 SA
Maus can keep 22 SA, because its so fat and slow.
E75 down to 19 or 20 SA

On the Soviet side
No way the very first T34 40 model needs to max out at 20 SA. Slash that down to 12.
Then as T34 models increase, slowly raise their SA.
T34 40 SA12. T34 41 SA14. T34 42 SA14. T34 43 SA16. T34 85 SA16.
OT34 85 can keep 22 SA
KV2 can keep 20 SA, because of its anti soft Nature

IS Series of tanks can hover around 16, with the IS-3 maybe getting to 19 because its practically a post war design.
KV85 down to 17 SA, a marginal increase in SA over KV1/42


Net result: Tanks with excellent anti-hard values become much worse at soft attacking, making them less all purpose designs. Special anti soft vehicles are undisputed kings of anti-soft duties, but retain their weaknesses of low ammo total and terrible HA values (thats a good thing to have drawbacks!)

[Complex Strategy]

Originally posted by Kerensky:

Net result: Tanks with excellent anti-hard values become much worse at soft attacking, making them less all purpose designs. Special anti soft vehicles are undisputed kings of anti-soft duties, but retain their weaknesses of low ammo total and terrible HA values (thats a good thing to have drawbacks!)

Well put and it would be awesome to see those changes come around. Although I had an idea to keep the Allied Tanks to be a bit better with SA than their German counterparts but then compensate bu making their hard attack worse. Like for the Panzer IVF2 would be the best HA but worst SA, the T34 would be decent at both, and the Sherman would be the best at SA but suffers in terms of HA.

So it's like The American tanks are very potent SA but in tank v tank combat suffer the most. AT guns could become way more important to holding back against the German Panzers.
I thought it would be a way to make the various nations a bit more stand out from each other and possibly make those other tanks more interesting to either capture or eventually use when we get to allied campaigns.

[Black_Hole]

Reducing the SA of these and other tanks is basically a good idea. But we need to be cautious with such changes. If we reduce the SA of Panzer IVD, E or F to much they then become useless compared to the early Panzer III series. The high SA is the only good thing these early Panzer IVs have.

Another potential issue could become that if we reduce the SA of the high end tanks to much than those would lose their attraction over high end tank destroyers (SP anti-tanks), which have almost equal high HA and armour but only low SA but are cheapier slot- and prestige-wise.

[Breca]

Lots of good ideas here, and while the details may differ, they belie the fundamental recognition that "something" ought to be rebalanced.

Nerfing late game Tank SA: I like it. Tanks become too all-purpose steamrollers. The long guns should still respect infantry in close terrain.

Economy vs. SuperTank lines: Kerensky's suggestion that German production basically follow these late-game lines makes a lot of sense. Hetzer could potentially be 4 core slots, with lower Soft/Hard Attack to mirror its 7.5 Pak 39 gun.

Hetzer Camo (and towed AT): While they did represent a more economical late-war solution, the Hetzer's low profile and small size was also conducive to ambush. A Camo trait would offer neat gameplay for this little "baiter/chaser." That said, the same logic could also be applied to even smaller/lower-profiled AT, such as towed AT units, which could also be nice.

Open canopy AT vulnerability: The open canopy frontal armor AT like Marders offer great offense with lower defense, but they could also suffer from a special vulnerability to Air, Artillery and Infantry attacks. Perhaps something like this: +1 GD, -2 AD, Trait: Open Canopy -5 GD vs Infantry and Artillery.

Elefant: Big lumbering hard-hitting beast...but proved vulnerable to infantry. Might add a special bonus to any infantry attacks against vehicles of this type that were purely long gun and did not have some kind of MG secondary gun. +1 GD, Trait: Single Gun, -5 GD vs Infantry. This trait could be removed in Jan '44 when upgraded with MG.

[Magni]

I do think the best way to buff flame tanks would be to give them a sizeable increase in close defense. It's not that they're lacking in SA, it's that they tend to take way too high losses doing what they should be made for: Burning out entrenched infantry. Buffing their close defense would actually meaningfully adress that problem - and incidentally still leave them vulnerable to AT support, so they still won't exactly be able to burn through a proper defense line all by themselves.

[Arcticgrizzlebear]

Originally posted by !Alien!:

Reducing the SA of these and other tanks is basically a good idea. But we need to be cautious with such changes. If we reduce the SA of Panzer IVD, E or F to much they then become useless compared to the early Panzer III series. The high SA is the only good thing these early Panzer IVs have.

Another potential issue could become that if we reduce the SA of the high end tanks to much than those would lose their attraction over high end tank destroyers (SP anti-tanks), which have almost equal high HA and armour but only low SA but are cheapier slot- and prestige-wise.

Fair points, and while some of the suggestions are valid, asking for what is tantamount to a wholesale change in force composition is asking a casual player to make a huge adjustment. I respect the opinion of those who wish to see a niche use for every unit, but you risk alienating a large user base that doesn't want to put *that* much thought into making sure every unit is used properly. Not to mention if these changes would require any reconstruction to scenario design. I'm guessing maybe not much in the Base Campaign, but in the AO DLC?

There's only so much that can be done for certain units if the game is to be played at the Division/Corp level. Yes, a flame tank would benefit from close defense, and I think that's a realistic change. But other than maybe the Stalingrad/inner city missions, how often are you going to devote whole units to flame tanks, that would still have one purpose vs. carrying artillery that would help accomplish the same thing and remain more operationally flexible? And while we've talked about the Hetzer much, even the more iconic Panthers really struggle to find value in the game as designed, given that the Tiger 1 arrives first, and has better stats for the same slots (G model is a bit better by the time it comes around, but still...).

All of the changes listed in this thread are made from valid arguments, I'm just not sure how they could all be best implemented. And the reality of a game with this many units, is there are bound to be some "losers" in the bunch, same as in the real war.