Power creep

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I see your point of view. Game had broken-strong units in the beginning and now majority of units/abilities are significantly less leathal than they used to be in the past. There is however a mild trend of infantry units getting buffed or arriving earlier for last 2 years. These buffs are mostly NOT at an alarming level, but they happened.

PPSH arrived at 3CP for years, they were always coming up against PGs, due to own stats and ability combinations, they were also much stronger in the past.

While I agree that Ppsh timing was always later than PG timing, you usually were building more Grens because you needed infantry and could not afford to wait for PGs much. You had 1 PG group maybe, because that's all you had room for in your roster. At the same time SOV always had bunch of Con squads that could later be upgraded with Ppsh which resulted in more con vs gren engagements 2 years ago. Per my understanding, it also made gren G43s more attractive to deal with Ppsh Cons, due to G43s performing better up close than the LMG upgrade.

This is a very subtle game dynamic change that compared to past power levels may seem negligible. I started playing coh2 a bit over 2 years ago, so I never played myself against AT-satchel Penals without PTRS, flamer Riflemen or super-Obersoldaten. I started playing not long after KT frontal armour nerf I think. This is possibly why I am more sensitive to these minor gameplay changes.

I wanted to thank you again for your detailed response. I know that you and Vipper have been playing this game longer than me so both of you remember the old-time opness, but possibly Vipper's point of view is more similar to mine about this topic and he might be reluctant to further continuation of this mild infantry buff trend. I am also aware this has not always been just buffs. Not that long ago UC and IS got hit by some nerfs, LT and CPT cost more MP now, M20 lost zook and got increased build time, 251 flamer got hit by much needed veterancy nerf, pak howie auto-attack got significant scatter nerf and is mostly used as barrage tool nowadays and remains efficient in that role, Stug lost some ROF, SU76 lost ROF and has muni cost on barrage. All of these were nerfs, but at the same time, they were good changes. I am also aware that many of these units got some sort of compensation bonuses like lower target size and increased rotation rate for Stug. This proves that both buffing and nerfing can be used to achieve balance. I am almost certain that Vipper has mostly recent infantry changes on his mind when talking about powercreep as vehicles have been maintaining decent asymmetrical balance receiving both buffs and nerfs for a while now with exception of heavy tank changes.

This is literally a semantics thread. It provides little to no benefit of the playerbase currently.

/locked

EDIT:

Just keep it clean of flame and actually talk about power creep.

/unlocked

Psst, let me in you on a little secret: Unit arrives faster now, because it is not as strong as it used to be.

Did you come up with this 'secret' before or after you realized you could replace a single shrek on pgrens?


Since a lot of us have actually turned the game on since 2014, you might be surprised to know that pgrens have mostly only been buffed besides a constant reshuffling of their g43 profile.

Did you come up with this 'secret' before or after you realized you could replace a single shrek on pgrens?

Since a lot of us have actually turned the game on since 2014, you might be surprised to know that pgrens have mostly only been buffed besides a constant reshuffling of their g43 profile.

2013 here. PG were stronger during beta/release, specially pre veterancy rework. Not the defacto unit for 1v1 games but for anything higher, you would just spam and blob them with Shrecks. Once you got vet 2 from easy AT XP farming, you were golden. All the AI you needed was MG42 with bulletins and Strafing run. All the munition came from Opel Blitz.

IMO: Present G43 PG > Release PG > Current PG > Pre timing rework PG > Post vet buff PG > Longest Iteration of PG

This is a very subtle game dynamic change that compared to past power levels may seem negligible. I started playing coh2 a bit over 2 years ago, so I never played myself against AT-satchel Penals without PTRS, flamer Riflemen or super-Obersoldaten. I started playing not long after KT frontal armour nerf I think. This is possibly why I am more sensitive to these minor gameplay changes.

You started playing once basically most shit had been nerfed already or mostly at peak UKF performance IIRC (rounding to 3 years).
Most cheese abilities (which are a part of the power budget of units) had been removed.

It's egregious to single out single pieces of a faction when as a whole, all factions were far stronger at release than what he have now.
If you tell me to play with ANY faction against certain release faction/commanders, you would have a real bad time. It was like telling a rank 1000 noob to win a best of 5 against Luvnest/Noggano.

There are also specific units/abilities which were not as strong early on but had been buffed at certain point to the point of been OP. Then nerfed. And i don't think any buff suggested nowadays would put them at that level ever again.

With all this been said, i have a hard time buying that we have power creep in this game. If you want some examples i can give you plenty. At some point there was a plan to release an article about it a couple of years ago.
IF you want a taste:

Show Spoiler

Anyway, there's really FEW units in the game right now that are at there strongest peak.

Show Spoiler

That was wild.

When it comes to small arms fire anything before Weapons profiles is totally irrelevant.

Weapons profiles/relative positioning completely reformed the weapons systems. It become basically a new game.

Personally when I talk about power creep I mean with the new system.

That was wild.

Would you like to know more?

Show Spoiler

Remember that the only good bug, is a dead bug.

Remember that the only good bug, is a dead bug.

I must say, seeing all these is amazing as I started playing in late 2017.

If I had to describe the crazy shit I came across I'd say

- God emplacements bracing and taking 0 damage
- December 18 Overwatch Rework (Cheap JLI Gods, flares and Sector Assault which was more like Imperial Star Destroyer Assault)
- December 18 Recon Support with Paratroopers and AT gun drop.
- January 19 Recon Support when people realized how broken butterfly bombs were.
- I remember in Jan 19 when the Pak Howitzer was nerfed every single USF player was crying that a horrible unit was being unfairly nerfed by 1 crew man. A month later every single person was playing Recon Support and abusing the Pak Howitzer.
- Beta May Patch 7 man cons with 50% rof bonus just pwning everything.

When it comes to small arms fire anything before Weapons profiles is totally irrelevant.

Weapons profiles/relative positioning completely reformed the weapons systems. It become basically a new game.

Personally when I talk about power creep I mean with the new system.

"I am going to completely ignore certain, long time period, where the power creep was real, because I have made artificial line in the sand, because what happened before that time doesn't suit my argument"

Power creep is when Valentine gets buffed and rekts my nerfed command panzer tank

When it comes to small arms fire anything before Weapons profiles is totally irrelevant.

Weapons profiles/relative positioning completely reformed the weapons systems. It become basically a new game.

Personally when I talk about power creep I mean with the new system.

That's like an year and a half of balance patches applied to the game and several reworks on the base game as well.

If you make the cut when some things are weak, it's obvious that you would consider something as powercreep.

Even then, i would be surprised if 20% of the current roster of units and abilities are now stronger than they were at their peak (basically before nerfing them). POST that period of time. Meaning that "power creep" actually stayed and was not nerfed.

Yeah Jackson is strong now, but it doesn't hold a candle from what we left behind.

I must say, seeing all these is amazing as I started playing in late 2017.

Well...

Show Spoiler

That's like an year and a half of balance patches applied to the game and several reworks on the base game as well.

If you make the cut when some things are weak, it's obvious that you would consider something as powercreep.
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Once more the small arm system was creates with weapons profiles. Anything before that can easily be considered a different coming form different. I am simply explaining what I am comparing when I talk about power creep.

If you want to talk about that time Elephant was a stock unit it is fine by me but to the current system it is rather irrelevant.

I guess if one look at patch notes and choose a specific moment in time he can claim that a units has become OP or completely UP. But I am not talking about that.