Buff Beutepanzer

I know they are previously wrecked tanks but come on, its like they are significantly weaker than their normal counter parts. Seriously, why would you revive a t34 when you could get much more out of a panther, tiger, and even a panzer 4 compared to having 2-3 beute panzers. I know manpower wise they are beneficial but seriously several dozens of fuel and munitions along with TIME (its not free folks and isn't instant, almost as if it were built from a factory at base) just to revive the friggin tank. And if you accidentally move your famo OR it is interrupted and has to retreat due to enemy, you just lost a bunch of munitions and fuel for nothing (EVEN WORSE when it gets crushed). That is why I think it needs some redoing to the ability. Maybe make it have an upgrade every 3 minutes to allow the ability to be possible, free of cost of resources (this way a person doesn't get punished if they accidentally order the famo to move or something) Also make the beute panzers WORTH getting, atm they are pretty bad.

Interesting. I have not seen this ability in ages since the FAMO is so fragile and one vanguard tank can basically blast it to kingdom come. I surmise Darc could take a look it. In my opinion, FAMO is not even needed( only perhaps if you heavy tanks, but a few sturmpios do the same thing to me). I have never really seen it being that useful anyway. I don't know about Beutepanzers, they should be exactly like their original status unit. If not, once again, we shall verify.

Finally, could you please take some more time to structure your post and take formalities into consideration?
It would give me less the impression that you are 'raging' or yelling at us. While we try to look at as much suggestions as possible, it would be nice indeed if it wasn't in such an obtrusive manner.

I would like to thank you in advance and keep the posts coming!

Last edited December 4, 2014 at 3:24 AM by chaosval3

You didn't even talk about what my point was or even close to the topic. Did you read, It's not the famo itself and repair abilities, its the ability dude.

Actually, I did. In the second sentence already. I also said that Darc might take a look at it.

It is quite interesting though, if I recall correctly, they are supposed to use the same stats as the OH's panzer iv. Perhaps they were forgotten. But if the ability is expensive regardless beutepanzer tanks have these stats, perhaps we could look at some different approach... perhaps lowering the cost of the ability.

What if we make it free just like it was in the beta? And as countermeasure perhaps we could limit the max. amount of units revived at a given time... e.g. if you revive three of your own you won't be able to "revive/zombify/salvage" something else unless one or more of these recently adquired beute panzers die.

Well, I am sure we could, but it basically defeats the point of going for your 'MBT' Stug III since you can get a turreted one for a much cheaper cost if you get the FAMO. Also, I think it would discourage people from getting T-34's in general since they can then be recovered and it is again safer to go for the IS-2. Limiting is always an option. I have been thinking that it could actually be part of Fortress doctrine again(LHS 1st ability?) or perhaps of Army Support Doctrine (RHS 1st ability?) somewhere and it could then be a call-in instead. That way, it would have a pretty neat window of opportunity. Since OH soldiers can get repair vet and the sturmpio repair has been buffed, the FAMO has lost a lot of worth imo. The ability being buggy doesn't help either. Maybe it could be in T3 (I find it to come really late for it being so vulnerable) and allow salvaging of the P3 and Stug III as well, but only 2-3 scavenged units at max. It's a strange little unit indeed :P.

Well, the Famo looks viable when you lose your sturmpios as it has a better repair to pop ratio, but the unit itself may need some extra utility to make it more supportive outside these duties.

About the topic itself, yeah, the ability itself is quite punishing for its fixed price  each time you activate the ability. I can think of making the ability to have instead a munitions and fuel upkeep, so when you repair a low health wreck it actually cost you more and you can interrupt it when needed without been a complete waste. While it seems better in my head, it'd share the problems related to the old soviet mechanic regarding abilities, maybe having a manpower upkeep higher than repair would be better. What do you think?

The Beutepanzers share all the stats from their counterparts, the only differences IIRC are the veterancy (OH vet with engine) and the armour type, Panzer IV armour for Shermans, and Panzer III for Cromwells and T-34s, so that's why some Beutepanzers seem more squishy.

Ah, it seems we have found our culprit for the beutepanzer squishiness. I thought it had already been taken care of. About The FAMO itself, hmmm. I don't know. I never really get it( 1v1, in teamgames they are pretty useful) I find it quite pointless to get it really unless your opponent has T-34/85 and you have PIVs. I suppose what Bish said ( you too ATL :P) could be a good step to make it more useful. And yes, anything to make it less buggy.

Last edited December 5, 2014 at 12:17 AM by chaosval3

ATL wrote:
[...]

About the topic itself, yeah, the ability itself is quite punishing for its fixed price  each time you activate the ability. I can think of making the ability to have instead a munitions and fuel upkeep, so when you repair a low health wreck it actually cost you more and you can interrupt it when needed without been a complete waste. While it seems better in my head, it'd share the problems related to the old soviet mechanic regarding abilities, maybe having a manpower upkeep higher than repair would be better. What do you think?
[...]

It is a good idea, do you know all the repair abilities have a manpower upkeep while being active? So, the more units using the ability at the same time means less manpower available for producing tanks or infantry squads.

It would be completely different than the old muni/fuel upkeep from the old Soviets so, don't worry about it.

There is no way that the beute panzers have the same stats as a panzer 4. If they did, they wouldn't have trouble against their selves in a combat scenario (OH t34 loses against SU t34, and so on). In fact, I DO remeber in the patch notes that the health WAS reduced and I think that is a terrible idea. The tanks gain veterancy rather quickly compared to the other vehicles (Soviet vet i think)

132 wrote:
There is no way that the beute panzers have the same stats as a panzer 4. If they did, they wouldn't have trouble against their selves in a combat scenario (OH t34 loses against SU t34, and so on). In fact, I DO remeber in the patch notes that the health WAS reduced and I think that is a terrible idea. The tanks gain veterancy rather quickly compared to the other vehicles (Soviet vet i think)

They have a received damage modifier which makes them take higher damage from enemy tanks. The Advantage is that they share the "real" allied weapon, which means for Shermans/cromwells that they have the insane splash damage against infantry Units.

The whole Feature has been reworked several times in the past, because parts of the competitive community complained that the Feature to recover enemy tanks for free is broken, because it allows you to destroy enemy tanks while keeping your own tank alive, recover the enemy tank and suddenly you have 2 tanks and he has None. The fact that allied tanks are pretty mobile didn't help the course much, either.

That's why the ability got reworked to the Version we have right now. Revive enemy main battle tanks for a set amount of resources, or recover a selection of your own vehicles, although I don't know which vehicles are affected. Afair correctly, it was limited to PIII, PIV, Panther and Tiger tanks (the doctrinal AT and the main battle tank from Ostheer). Maybe it also works on PE/Wehr PIV tanks, also. But I can't say that for sure.

I also agree that the usage is pretty limited because of the time restrictions and the cost, and I've already thought about solutions for this ability. I'm not sure what's best yet. However, we'll see what we can do on the issue.

What bothers me in this ability is the fact that I can revive my tiger again and again but enemy must collect all the resources for his new IS-2.

I saw some nice suggestions here already. And I also want the cost to go away.
And to avoid the point I started with I have a few suggestions.
I was gonna give some of them and a lot of explanation yesterday but I wanted to test the famo again and this crashed my computer so my comment was lost :(

SO...
1st idea - Make it doctrinal. But not like the internal ideas from before... a bit different. Make it doctrinal to revive own tanks (tigers and panters) if you dont go this doctrine you can revive only enemy tanks, PzIV and PzIII if it is in the list. Atm  this doctrine is Army Fortress - giving it even more team play edge with the ability to revive your partners panther or tiger.

2nd idea was to make it revive smaller tanks. I was thinking of BergeTiger and how huge it is and how smoller Famo is and was like..."this vehicle is too weak to revive the big cats and T4 tanks at all". So give it the ability to revive "T3" tanks  and maybe, just maybe made some upgrade or even unique doctrinal ability where Famo can revive T4 tanks. This can go even further. Lets say there is a "Anti Americans" doctrine in the feature - if you choose it or Famo will be able to revive shermans.
(this was generally a really bad one)

3th idea was to move the Famo in different tier building ... like T3 and keep it for only "early war/game" tanks. No big cats, no PzIVs. 

Overall the OH changed soo much that the Famo's ability fall off too hard. With the design from around 2 years ago it was like a must be in the game ability but now... it doesnt.

I do concur with Dreamer here. I know it's not very typical to revert some things after extensive testing, but I mean, from a realistic point of view, one FAMO was designed to tow up to 28 long tons, which is sufficient for a vehicle up to the Panzer IV. However, for everything heavier multiple were needed. The only unit to compare with is the Bergetiger, but why does PE have it? They have the fewest tanks of all and instead it is mostly used to make one-time call in units become available again. I think that the FAMO should revive only medium tanks and lighter vehicles. Still, I never really see the need to get this unit. If you keep your vehicles alive, you wouldn't need a FAMO at all. I only like to get it in a teamgame as it usually leads to a death zone for vehicles.

Proposals:
1. No ability cost, only revive PIII, Stug III and PIV and perhaps as an early, doctrinal call-in again in Fortress

2. Only revive HT, PIII, Stug III and in T3 with ability cost

3. Get rid of it lol

This unit could be useful as a mid game call in to add extended lifetime to your more vulnerable mark III vehicles, since they die fast. Perhaps it could also work as the constructing unit and salvager of doctrinal bunkers and howies in Fortress? Remember that suggestion about making the defensive positions from Fortress salvageable? We can't really including towing into EF, but atleast we could reflect by being them being salvageable. Maybe this unit could do that?

Again, lets keep this thing on topic. We are discussing the BEUTEPANZER and how their stats make them not worth getting. We are NOT talking about the famo itself, getting rid of the famo is NOT the solution to buffing the beutepanzer. Reread the title guys.

Uhh... You clearly stated that the FAMO ability was also heavy on the resources and if you move, you waste those resources AND the ability needs redoing in your very first post. If fixing the Beutepanzers is now the only issue, to me, the answer seems quite clear. Simply mirror them to their originals. Why would they have received damage modifiers? It's illogical imo.

That said, the actual occassion for someone to have room and time to revive a tank with the fragile FAMO is extremely rare. It's got no combat value at all either. Atleast the Bergetiger has damage sponge potential with its large health pool and a coaxial mg that can do something, not much, but atleast something. I don't even know if the FAMO can crush lol.

Well part of the problem is that the cost to benefit ratio for the BEUTEPANZERS is outrageous, which is why I am disappointed in the unit itself. Now, if the unit was much less expensive, I wouldn't have a problem with the tank. Really what needs to be done is to simply BUFF it to ATLEAST be the exact same stats as their regular counter parts (T34 from OH should = SU T34, and so on). Keep in mind, I am getting T4 building to build a light vehicle that will risk its life to REVIVE a tank (taking time), using additional resources to revive, and overall if I am not getting the benefit after investing in so much, it means that there must be a buff to the beutepanzers. Usually you only revive the tanks that are nearby on friendly, secured territory (atleast that is HOW U USE IT SMART). I mean, you can throw the berger tiger on the front lines, but it goes down extremely quickly when repairing things so it is not much different. Again, you don't compare the two because they are much different than eachother (speed vs armor/health, ability to revive own vehicles free or reviving enemy tanks).

Actually, you should compare the two because they share the same task. Balancing them in comparison is a different story as always. Aye, I do agree that Beutepanzer should be the same as the originals.

Bergetiger has the health of a Tiger I, which you can cunningly use to your advantage. The FAMO gets blasted by AT rifles and anything bigger. Bergetiger isn't actually half bad of a unit. It's underrated as hell and can be used for multiple strategies such as spearheading, crushing, distracting your opponent and damage sponging. The FAMO has none of these advantages( perhaps a distraction yes, but it can't defend itself). It's cheap, that's all. But you shouldn't have need for the ability in the first place if you keep your stuff alive :P.

If we remove the cost of the ability, we should probably increase the initial price of the FAMO slightly and perhaps buff its health slightly to make it more resilient. Treat balance like a balance(scale), give and take.

It's up to me mates Darcie and Bish. I can't access EF currently.

132 wrote:
Again, lets keep this thing on topic. We are discussing the BEUTEPANZER and how their stats make them not worth getting. We are NOT talking about the famo itself, getting rid of the famo is NOT the solution to buffing the beutepanzer. Reread the title guys.

Beutepanzers share the same guns that the original tank has, the original speed and health. The difference is that every tank has an additional rec. damage modifier (15% more to be precise).
I won't buff beutepanzer stats to any significant amount. Allied tank weapons deal ridiculous amounts of splash damage and it doesnt make sense to make them as sturdy as the allied counterpart for 2 reasons:

1) Beutepanzers have huge "aim at me" Wehrmacht crosses on their chassis
2) they're double efficient against the enemy, you get 1 tank more while the other enemy gets one less

I rather go with removing the ability cost and changing beutepanzers to affect pIV, pIII, halftracks, panzerwerfer, Kugelblitz, Stug III/IV and Kübels (:D). Also we can make it a bit more resililient to weapons.

Last edited December 6, 2014 at 3:28 PM by Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.

Hendrik wrote:
1) Beutepanzers have huge "aim at me" Wehrmacht crosses on their chassis

Why does a change in the paint-job have anything to do of how strong the armor or health of a tank is?

Hendrik wrote:
2) they're double efficient against the enemy, you get 1 tank more while the other enemy gets one less

Keep in mind that this doesn't always apply when you get a new beutepanzer. I mean, you could decide to build another Panzer IV in production every time you kill a T-34 tank. This is an alternative compared to going through the HASSLE of getting a Famo unit on the battlefield and risking its life 50/50 (depending where the wreck is) in order to revive the enemy tank.

Also note that enemy wrecks are extremely fragile, and many times they would simply be crushed or destroyed late game due to things such as artillery and stuff, so this is NOT ALWAYS the case. Think economically, is it worst investing a lot of time and resources and luck in X when I could simply produce Y? As of right now, it is not worth getting building Famo on the field, spending a minute or two trying to revive it under risky conditions (it could be bombarded by artillery, crushed by a vehicle, etc), and there isn't always wrecks on the field that you can safely recover. And think, if you manage to revive one, you now need to repair it AGAIN (taking even more time), and the end result is a sub-par tank that goes down very quickly. Why go through ALL this TROUBLE when you could just simply build a Panzer IV, Tiger, or a Panther out of your base risk-free that is much less of a HASSLE and much more efficient and reliable?

Last edited December 6, 2014 at 4:44 PM by 132

Easier to spot compared to regular camo.

No/counter arguments to response to #2 (Good sign)

But your reasoning for #1 has horrendous logic. Mostly all vehicles have their army symbol/logo on some part of their vehicles. So according to your logic, removing the Wehrmacht cross out of all wehr vehicles, the Russian text out of the KV-2, and the american stars out of the Sherman, it will make the unit more take less damage? Lol, an arrangement of different painting colors (symbols) on a tank makes it weaker. So even a bazooka will be able to destroy the tank somehow because the someone wanted to put their army's logo on the tank to prevent friendly fire.

Last edited December 6, 2014 at 6:10 PM by 132

Well, it may not sound logical, but I do think the reason for it is a decent one.

1. It's more spammable (lower cost) compared to getting any new tank out.
&
2. Allies have weaker infantry in general, which means splash damage is very effective against them.

I would like to present an alternative. Perhaps the Beutepanzers could fire the German Pzgr.39? That way, we can remove their 15% received damage and reduce their splash damage, but increase their AP slightly?

So, they become like their originals in durability, but have less damage output against infantry, and slightly better AT output compared to their originals.

132 wrote:
No/counter arguments to response to #2 (Good sign)

But your reasoning for #1 has horrendous logic. Mostly all vehicles have their army symbol/logo on some part of their vehicles. So according to your logic, removing the Wehrmacht cross out of all wehr vehicles, the Russian text out of the KV-2, and the american stars out of the Sherman, it will make the unit more take less damage? Lol, an arrangement of different painting colors (symbols) on a tank makes it weaker. So even a bazooka will be able to destroy the tank somehow because the someone wanted to put their army's logo on the tank to prevent friendly fire.

I'm simply too lazy to discuss/argue about stuff that's irrelevant when I know that most of the part of the argumentation is based on something void (recovery resource costs in this case which will get removed).But yes, my personal opinion is that a captured beutepanzer should be weaker than the original tank. Simply because you steal something from the enemy and get a benefit from it for free (in the next patch). Edit: ofcourse you're right in your argumentation based on this patch. but that's not really that helpful at all.

Right now the ability is useless (in 2.300). And I think it's pointless to discuss about the current ability, instead discuss on the stuff based on what I've written in another post:

QuoteI rather go with removing the ability cost and changing beutepanzers to affect pIV, pIII, halftracks, panzerwerfer, Kugelblitz, Stug III/IV and Kübels (:D). Also we can make it a bit more resililient to weapons.

chaosval3 wrote:
Well, it may not sound logical, but I do think the reason for it is a decent one.

1. It's more spammable (lower cost) compared to getting any new tank out.
&
2. Allies have weaker infantry in general, which means splash damage is very effective against them.

I would like to present an alternative. Perhaps the Beutepanzers could fire the German Pzgr.39? That way, we can remove their 15% received damage and reduce their splash damage, but increase their AP slightly?

So, they become like their originals in durability, but have less damage output against infantry, and slightly better AT output compared to their originals.

Dunno, I think we should leave them as they are, so they're predictable to use and to play against.

Last edited December 6, 2014 at 7:49 PM by Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.

Darc, why not make it that those tanks have same stats to their originals but  they are worse in accuracy and reload time or some shit.
I mean OK , there is no logic behind explanation based on painted stuff on the vehicle but  a logical explanation is to say OH crew is worse so it cant use the full potential of the tank since they are not trained to use such tanks  ;D

Actually the OH crews should be more skilled and trained than an allied conscript tank crew since there are obviously more of them for allies.

132 wrote:
Actually the OH crews should be more skilled and trained than an allied conscript tank crew since there are obviously more of them for allies.

Errrm, I'm sorry to pop in unannounced into some other people's discussion, but in my opinion even if the German crews are more experienced, the Beutepanzers should get some combat penalties (- acc., or -speed, or smth) just like DreamerBg said.
Just imagine, you are part of a german tank crew, trained to drive a PzIV, and the orders come through that you should man a repaired T-34. And here's where the trouble starts. If it's a T-34-76 you would have to leave one of your man behind and the commander would have to do gunner's job too, and that cannot contribute to your tank's battle efficiency. Secondly, all your tank's controls are in Cyrillics, the ammunition is marked differenly and is stored differently, the optics are different and have to be accustomed with and overall the tank is much more cramped and uncomfortable (especially after being knocked out and repaired). All this would cause some difficulties in combat for your crew, trained to drive another tank.
Of course, after getting veterancy and learning how to deal with all this over the course of the battle, the penalties should go away or become smaller.

got to agree with a lot of points here, the beautepanzer and hence famo is pretty useless and yet could be a wonderful addition, the way i see the problems

1. Cost, you use the factory to produce this at cost sacrificing one tank build,  famo also accumulates cost in repair and recovery procedure so enemy will have built another tank by then.

2. time, it takes ages to recover then repair, you could have built a tank or two back at base and the enemy most certainly will have.

3. practicality, as 132 said most wrecks are flattened before the famo can get there,IME its rare to get more than one (or two against a noob who single tank rushes) recoveries before death of unit, and considering cost of build, recovery and repair the unpredictable nature of the process(ie are any wrecks going to be able to be recovered?) its a bit of a waste of build space so far.

The only practical solution is make sure total cost of build of famo,recovery of beautepanzer and repair is less than production of new tank to compensate for reduced speed/damagepoints/hitpoints etc the reasons above make it necessary to implement those reductions( maybe 10%?)

maddogb wrote:
got to agree with a lot of points here, the beautepanzer and hence famo is pretty useless and yet could be a wonderful addition, the way i see the problems

1. Cost, you use the factory to produce this at cost sacrificing one tank build,  famo also accumulates cost in repair and recovery procedure so enemy will have built another tank by then.

2. time, it takes ages to recover then repair, you could have built a tank or two back at base and the enemy most certainly will have.

3. practicality, as 132 said most wrecks are flattened before the famo can get there,IME its rare to get more than one (or two against a noob who single tank rushes) recoveries before death of unit, and considering cost of build, recovery and repair the unpredictable nature of the process(ie are any wrecks going to be able to be recovered?) its a bit of a waste of build space so far.

The only practical solution is make sure total cost of build of famo,recovery of beautepanzer and repair is less than production of new tank to compensate for reduced speed/damagepoints/hitpoints etc the reasons above make it necessary to implement those reductions( maybe 10%?)

So, we pretty much all agree that theere should be no cost for the Beutepanzer, amirite?

Dreamerbg wrote:
Darc, why not make it that those tanks have same stats to their originals but  they are worse in accuracy and reload time or some shit.
I mean OK , there is no logic behind explanation based on painted stuff on the vehicle but  a logical explanation is to say OH crew is worse so it cant use the full potential of the tank since they are not trained to use such tanks  ;D

Gold ideal actually... the penalty could bei removed by receiving vet 1 with the Tank then.

Last edited December 7, 2014 at 2:14 PM by Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.

Still trying to explain why the recovered tanks have a worse performance? The way I see it is that you can't repair a wrecked tank to functional state and hope it's just like brand new, new crew to the tank wouldn't help either.

Back to topic, well, talking about a competitive aspect, the problem I think of is actually trying to recover the enemy tanks, the enemy will know where their tanks were destroyed, and they can destroy the wreck beforehand unless lets say a mass retreat after a defeat in a confrontation, and even then, IIRC the enemy can see in the fog of war not only the wrecks, but also if the enemy is actually repairing it. So I think the ability should be performed faster to leave less reaction time, but with the tank itself having less impact and being more expendable.

So my idea is to have the Famo recover wrecks like 50% faster than its repair ability (if that can actually be done) with a heavier manpower upkeep (so you're actually paying for the recovery of the tank, but in an indirect way), but when recovered one of the following:

1. The recovered tank spawns with both heavy crits, main gun destroyed and engine damaged to make up for the faster recovery and you can still punish reckless recovering with a fast response attack, wasting all the manpower the OH player invested.

2. The recovered tanks are weaker versions of their former beings, so it punish the actual loss of the unit, this one however can be quite confusing if applied to axis recovered tanks, but looks fitting for Beutepanzers.

Going along with the concept of weaker Beutepanzers I think it should be paired with less pop usage than its allied counterparts, this way also helps to prevent going over popcap limit.

This is sort of what I was considering for the rework. Also, I think the tank already spawns with multiple crits enabled in the current version.

But yea. Faster recovery, no cost apart from some manpower drain and then it's fine. But it's not really possibel to make the drain really "cost" the player. A huge mp upkeep would require you to halve your mp income or make it even less, and even then its only ~130 mp if your recovery takes a whole minute (which it won't).

@Grand Duke / @ATL
From that perspective both of you are accurate and it would work better that way in EF. Now, I also would add one more tweak if the ability is free: we can make the tank be recovered and damaged as we like. And with that we could make the tanks have the recovered tanks to get the minimum health so Famo task doesn't end as fast as in the current version, but also to spend more time repairing them.

Right now, these tanks spawn with a decent amount of HP and also depending of luck/roll dice/randomness you can get it "healthy", damaged main gun or damaged engine. So in an emergency two of these can be considered more or less "battle-ready" right off the bat. That might not be fine if the ability is free.

So, now you would need to salvage the tank, extract it to a safe zone and repair it there. Also, we can control the salvaged tanks' weapons, so beutepanzers can have some tweaks while Axis ones remain the same. And just for the record, Famo can resurrect all types of Panzer IV, Panthers and Tigers from Axis factions.