Tank balance overhaul

I still believe some aspects of the current CoH tank fights balance is flawed, but i think i got a solution. There will be room for a lot of discussion, please keep track of constructive comments rather repetitive or troll post.

The current CoH state is mostly based on the following details:
*Axis get default premium turreted medium tanks/ Allied get sub-par mediums, at least for direct combat.
*Axis tanks cost more, but are mostly the only option, LV on axis are not as reliable as medium rush/Mediums for allied are not as reliable as light armor pressure into tank destroyers.
*TD for the same fuel cost, deny the enemy fuel investment in tanks by greater range+pen
*Axis TD are capped to fight allied mediums (and their premium doctrinal variants) / allied TD are able to fight from mediums (with snares) all the way up to heavies and superheavies.
*Rear armor values are hardly exploited, they are mostly useful in medium/medium scenarios and for flanking attacks.
*RNG involved poses a lot of difficulty for players to understand when and where to fight.
*Heavy tanks and doctrinal elites that enable players to skip a tank tier to outclass the enemy unit, sometimes as a proactive desition or maybe as a reactive one.

When talking about 1v1s and teamgames strategies can vary a lot, but the prior mentioned aspects still remain.
The whole scenario is pretty hard to balance, each stat number counts, but the game balance and the enjoyment of it pretty much depends on the availability of options to choose and the opportunity to win fights and more importantly it not depending on some lucky RNGesus hit. Not all options should lead to winning scenarios but there should be a little room for play with it. I dont mean that T70 should kill panthers but its no fun to encourage unit preservation and then realizing that they are useless against a natural evolution of the game.

Based on the forums topics, some in-game experience and hopefully some insight of the tank battle design i see the arise of the following issues.

*Between tank tiers there is little time for tanks to open breaches, fight others of the same tier or leverage the rest of the units already fielded.
*M36s are so worth their FU cost compared to shermans. (Barely 35Fu, its like a min ingame).
*Panthers dominate mediums by sheer durability,But also are able to chase rapidly and kill any other tank / TD
*T34-76 are not suited for tank combat but rather infantry combat, that role is already covered by T70. At best T34 is a lategame variation of T70.
*Cromwells have little AI power, because centaurs are ment to cover that area, but UKF is simply unable to field both at the same time.
*Sherman doctrinal variations offer options that USF does not need, the most important is already covered by stock M36.
*OKW has great early game and is the only one faction having stock Heavy tank, the KT is a sturdier and slower panther.
*Tank immobilization is critical to secure kills, but only mainline inf at close range can achieve that.

To summarize i want to suggest a couple of possible solutions, that should not demand too much time for devs to accomplish. Some might be more radical, but as a whole i imagine the game balance could be improved.

New TD Role
Show Spoiler

Heavy Tank Role
Show Spoiler

Between a Pak and a wall
Show Spoiler

M36 and the M10
Show Spoiler

Mother russia is sad about T34
Show Spoiler

Panthers tamed
Show Spoiler

For queen and country
Show Spoiler

My expectations upon the suggested ideas are:
*Reduce TD spams in teamgames and diversify tank counterplay.
*Heavy tanks balanced through utility and not because commander meta or unit costs
*More medium tank play, more room for shermans and T34s.
*A solid TD design that players can learn quickly and find useful to their games.
*A clear distinction between mediums and their performance, no more endless stat wars
*Better infantry-tank interactions, more strategic value to mines

If you reached this far, well thanks for reading and i will keep the OP updated with the thread suggestions and corrections.
Some ideas are taken from other forum users, if you found yours be free to tell me and i will add your name to it and the list of collaborators

First thing is the timing with the Tier. For Ost HT comes at 5min is necessary because Soviet Light comes at 10min.

But then West armies Light comes at 7min. Cause Ost HT near useless when they have roughly 2min advantage. Which 222 is rarely used

And even that Soviet Light comes at 10min is possible 3min earlier than Ost Pz4 if they decide to completely skip Tier2. Which SU76 is rarely used
- - -
Except Cromwell; both Sher & T34 come later but weaker than Pz4. Which cause USF skip Sherman and go for TDs (T34 still on screen because they're cheap for the same health pool). For Pz4 can not match TDs except out number them. They have to go for Panther.

And that lead to the game today: Panthers vs TDs

TDs should be nerfed, come with limit Premium medium like Pan/Comet/T3485/E8.
- - -
I want a match that I DARE to build a Sherman to armor combined arm with Jackson that stay behind to keep Panther away. Rather than "if I build a Sherman, there is no fuel to get a Jackson to fight against Panther.

Especially there is no limited build for Panther that come together with Tiger/King.
Image a single Allies faction that build a pack of Comet come together with an IS2. If you feel its stupidly OP, its the same to what Allies think on Axis, specially OKW.

In my opinion thing would be allot easier to balance if the trend of making powerful units early was simply reverted.

Allot of the units have been buffed thru the roof simply because the window of opportunity has simply become smaller.

Increasing the window of opportunity for units would make far better investments.

The best solution in my opinion would be to give mediums lower target size and a larger window of opportunity by delaying heavy tank deployment.

Agreed with all of you.
I just want to add with the little time i have now that i imagined some examples of core midgame units compositions.

OST: Stug + P4 + Pios / 2 Stugs + Pgren
USF: Sherman (any) + M10 / M10 + Rangers w zooks
SU: 2 T34 + SU76 / T70 + T34 + Su76
UKF: Valentine + Cromwell + RE / Cromwell + IS + RE
OKW: Puma + Volks + raketen / JP4 + AT pfusies

The Su-85 or M36 can deny all axis tanks.

The Su-85 or M36 can deny all axis tanks.

Axis Heavy TD can deny all alli tanks and TD.

I’d discuss but I have to study for finals. Too bad that troll post took all the attention from a post with actual thought behind it. Oh well

The best solution in my opinion would be to give mediums lower target size and a larger window of opportunity by delaying heavy tank deployment.

So allies can dominate the early game with infantry then proceed to dominate the mid game with LV and support weapons and then proceed to dominate the mid-late game with mediums until the axis heavy arrives at super late game with barely any army to work with. Seem good. I'd like to win easy with my multiple t34/85's.

@ZeroZeroNi

T34/85 is considered as Premuim Med, not Med
Are you thinking Soviet builds a T70 and still able to get a T34 earlier than Pz4?

It is too late to make many changes. But also tanks performance are generally fine now. Outside of 2 portion.

First is heavies can be delayed 1 or 2 cp. That is good enough.

Second is more crucial one, that axis t4 perf/cost just need a slight improvement.

Did you watch the latest tightrope cast, a panther misses 3 times chasing a katsuya and got itself killed. This is the bug bear we facing.

A simple vet bonus on panther moving accuracy here. A cheaper pwafer there. A better armor vet to brumbar. A faster vet for jp4. Some examples to make t4 worth the cost.

Or we can not do vet buff, a reduction in their cost and pop, or a decrease in 60td max range effectiveness or lower their sweet sweet vet bonus.

And tank combat will be better from start to late games.

Did you watch the latest tightrope cast, a panther misses 3 times chasing a katsuya and got itself killed. This is the bug bear we facing.

That's just bad luck, not a balance concern...

That's just bad luck, not a balance concern...

Sure it is. The game is full of such scenarios, never had a game without something like that. PaKs missing 4 shots over and over, Faust hits ground, Grenade hits magic walls, etc.

Sure it is. The game is full of such scenarios, never had a game without something like that. PaKs missing 4 shots over and over, Faust hits ground, Grenade hits magic walls, etc.

Yeah and it happens to all 5 factions. So it's not a balance concern....

You would realize this if you played all 5 of course....

Sure it is. The game is full of such scenarios, never had a game without something like that. PaKs missing 4 shots over and over, Faust hits ground, Grenade hits magic walls, etc.

That's still RNG, because your "test sample" is not even a fraction of margain error here.

Sure it is. The game is full of such scenarios, never had a game without something like that. PaKs missing 4 shots over and over, Faust hits ground, Grenade hits magic walls, etc.

Not trying to be an asshole, but there's a calculation associated with every action. Its a dice roll. Even IRL, sometimes you crap out. That's how Vegas manages to swindle me out of my money...

Rng is rng i like.
But i honestly believe those play enough panthers will know it is unreliable for its cost and purposes.

The triple misses is a nice illustration

Panther accuracy is 0.6
T34/85 is 0.5

On the move, the acc dropped by 50%
Panther will be 0.3
T34/85 is 0.25

Panther still have better acc.
Its just really unlucky.

I remember a HelpingHans vid (or so?) where he pushed a T34/76 full health to chase finish off a Pz4 160hp engine damaged. And that T34 miss/bounce 8 times.
Or a match I had long time ago where a Pz4 chase my 160hp Jackson that miss 4time and bounce 1time then died by my Jack. I felt bad for him that wasnt about me out play him but fullly bad RNG

That's still RNG, because your "test sample" is not even a fraction of margain error here.

RNG is allways baised on numbers, bad stats bad RNG. -> bad stats bad balance.

RNG is allways baised on numbers, bad stats bad RNG. -> bad stats bad balance.

10 tries can give you whatever result you are looking for to "prove" your point, regardless how biased it is.

1000 or 10000 will give you accurate result according to balance.
Game is balanced with big data, not irrelevant handful of repeats.

Please don't talk about numbers if you don't understand how they work.

Alternatively, if you don't like that solution, SC2 multiplayer is free for terrans and there always is AoE2.