WINTER PATCH v1.1

Think you are still missing the point:
1) Any faction can used as the benchmark
2) If that faction is wins more game vs other you buff the other faction
3) If that faction loses more games vs other you nerf the other faction


Finally the just because a faction is balanced it does not mean that some of components can not be up or op if it part of the design of the faction. And this is how ostheer were designed. Less cost efficient infatry more cost efficient support weapon. Weaker light vehicles more powerful medium tanks.



Again it does not matter what you use as your benchmark as long at it stay the same.

What I actually tried to explain is that using a faction as benchmark is the wrong approach. It multiplies workload, cannot account for non-comparable units and also hardly for skill gaps.
I agree with your second part, ehich also feeds into my point about benchmark factions: it does not work very well. If a faction is supposed to have certain power spikes. How do you balance for that since you cannot directly compare unit stats to make them roughly equal? What do we do if MGs work well against mid and close range squads but get frontally wiped by a single long range squad while all long range squads are roughly similarly strong? Benchmarking this would find no issue at all, since similar units perform similarly.

That's why I said that you need to balance according to their available counters. Of course you can balance and compare to similar units, but for this you assume that the other unit is decently balanced and that you can take this unit's performance out of faction context.

What I actually tried to explain is that using a faction as benchmark is the wrong approach. It multiplies workload, cannot account for non-comparable units and also hardly for skill gaps.
I agree with your second part, ehich also feeds into my point about benchmark factions: it does not work very well. If a faction is supposed to have certain power spikes. How do you balance for that since you cannot directly compare unit stats to make them roughly equal? What do we do if MGs work well against mid and close range squads but get frontally wiped by a single long range squad while all long range squads are roughly similarly strong? Benchmarking this would find no issue at all, since similar units perform similarly.

That's why I said that you need to balance according to their available counters. Of course you can balance and compare to similar units, but for this you assume that the other unit is decently balanced and that you can take this unit's performance out of faction context.

Again it does not matter if their are power spikes in faction by design. If one use the grenadier as benchmark one might choose to say that other infatry should be 15% more cost efficient than grenadier since grenadier are support by 15% more cost efficient support weapons.

Trying to balance this with a faction can be equally problematic since unit might be equally balanced but other factor have a major impact like tech cost and timing.

My point is simply if all mainlines infantries are buffed then one is not solving the balance issue on the same power level but one is creating a power creep.

actually a gren must often retreat after losing the first model...since most mediums shell/ indirect fire / close combat unit / long retreat would wipe them, if you wait longer.

give them standard 5 models. (maybe with upgrade.)

Or learn to play the faction finally and start using that early 251 if you can't keep field presence.

If you still need 5th man, boy do I have a good news for you: there is a doctrine for that.

Again it does not matter if their are power spikes in faction by design. If one use the grenadier as benchmark one might choose to say that other infatry should be 15% more cost efficient than grenadier since grenadier are support by 15% more cost efficient support weapons.

This doesn't include costs disparity.
Or, should Maxim be stronger then HMG42? Because its supported by weaker infantry and can't access sniper support and can't have very early reinforcement vehicle supporting it - you could argue conscript merge, but it doesn't increase field presence, it keeps it at the same level, just at the cost of cons field presence itself.
Examples can go on and on.
Its not as simple as you believe.

My point is simply if all mainlines infantries are buffed then one is not solving the balance issue on the same power level but one is creating a power creep.

What if all mainlines become balanced after these buffs?

Or learn to play the faction finally and start using that early 251 if you can't keep field presence.

If you still need 5th man, boy do I have a good news for you: there is a doctrine for that.

sounds good, doesnt work in reality ... unless u play only 1v1 and 2v2...where is all thsi indirect fire, fast LV and mass AT on the field--- and not even a chance in lategame for that

sounds good, doesnt work in reality ... unless u play only 1v1 and 2v2...where is all thsi indirect fire, fast LV and mass AT on the field--- and not even a chance in lategame for that

Oh, you're talking about 4v4 - blob more then.

Oh, you're talking about 4v4 - blob more then.

yeah....you know the war wastn only a fight between 2 tanks, one mg and some grenadiers..vs some t34 and some cons.

Again it does not matter if their are power spikes in faction by design. If one use the grenadier as benchmark one might choose to say that other infatry should be 15% more cost efficient than grenadier since grenadier are support by 15% more cost efficient support weapons.

Trying to balance this with a faction can be equally problematic since unit might be equally balanced but other factor have a major impact like tech cost and timing.

My point is simply if all mainlines infantries are buffed then one is not solving the balance issue on the same power level but one is creating a power creep.

At this point I actually think that we mostly agree but had phrasing differences.

One note on the mainline infantry: If all (or at least most) mainlines are buffed it could also mean that they are too weak vs mainline counters.

To the point though: I think I also agreed on the general sentiment of mainline power creep. However thinking more about it there's probably not too much to it. The buffed units (correct me if I'm wrong) are Riflemen, Conscripts (which were UP at the time and now get nerfed again, so that's alright) and Grens (late game buff because they were weak late game). Then Panzerfüsiliere, Assault pioneers (the latter in an quite old patch; both were basically never used before that) which were also pretty UP at the time and are now in an okayish state. On the other hand IS got quite a nerf (they were OP, now apparently slightly UP and get a small buff). Volks got a mini nerf. Penals did not get touched.

Now while I do not agree with all of the choices made, I think infantry vs support weapons (early game) is in a better state than basically ever and will even improve with the slight changes for IS, Grens and Cons. Infantry vs light vehicles (early-mid) is also in a good state and infantry vs tanks (mid onwards) is also probably in it's best state for a long time if not ever. Heavy AI capabilities is the only thing that might need to be looked at but is not in a completely broken state. Apart from some minor tweaking all current mainlines are doing fairly well in terms of balance.

...
To the point though: I think I also agreed on the general sentiment of mainline power creep. However thinking more about it there's probably not too much to it...

The current patch just makes commando strength units available available 2 CP earlier. And this is just a typical example. More and more powerful units become available early in the game. That imo is step in the wrong direction.

actually a gren must often retreat after losing the first model...since most mediums shell/ indirect fire / close combat unit / long retreat would wipe them, if you wait longer.

give them standard 5 models. (maybe with upgrade.)

That is what people wish since years... I think the hole forum became useless, the patch-team will make their own version of game, the hole community and diskussions are only delusions.

...The game design balance methodologies have clearly moved onwards towards a more agile and reactive approach which has had several major successes as undoubtedly demonstrated by the current mod team. Hanging on words from patch notes and blog posts from years ago is antique schematics as endless points tried in the past have been made void with recent and ongoing changes.

In simpler words... no one has a clue on how to balance a game and please a mob so its better to not take risks and just post a few changes here and there. (as an abstract of what i quoted)

A more agile patch system is not because you just push all the buttons and call it balance, its because the community feedback is strong enough to have an actual impact on the frequency of the patches, otherwise people just leave the game and its simply dies. A more agile patching means more changes, either because the game is still broken or people playing it are aswell.

I really dislike that you say so little with so many words, i understand that the game currently is holding on because of this patching system, but it has flaws, denying them for no reason is simply a bias. If you let go the game history then you are not playing CoH2 anymore, just some community driven mod pack.

Every game has a design, its not a game without it, even minesweeper has an intended way to play and risk mechanic that rewards good plays, Because 100k people say that its unfair to die clicking on a mine in it doent mean the game is bad, its just rather the user is not understanding the game as it should be.

Final words.
A good game attracts new players and keeps the ones playing already. It is not up to the players to make the game more 'likeable' and a game that loses its core design has lost its identity, thus changing into a rather different game. History is as much as important as frequent patches when neccesary.

The current patch just makes commando strength units available available 2 CP earlier. And this is just a typical example. More and more powerful units become available early in the game. That imo is step in the wrong direction.

What do you mean by "Commando Strength units"?
The airlanding officer?

Sorry I'm a bit confused here, but that's the only thing I could find on a quick search.

What do you mean by "Commando Strength units"?
The airlanding officer?

Sorry I'm a bit confused here, but that's the only thing I could find on a quick search.

Yes am taking about assault officer which currently in live is available (as an airlanding officer) at CP 3 while one has to invest 540 MP to have access to it and in the patch it is available at at CP 0.5-1 for 320.

...

Several OKW call in infantry were actually used quite a lot, pre OKW rework, mostly due to scaling.
-Falls were niche but the epitome of glasscannon (merit on them for been able to rival Obers)
-JLI was favoured by certain top players in some metas
-PF were basically 7man Conscripts with SVT for OKW

SP has been the only one who was always in a weird spot as it mostly cause issue by been strong as an opening unit but seeing later diminishing results.

OKW rework basically threw everything out of the windows by reducing scaling and every single one of them saw rework later on.

When you consider "main line power creep" is because you are missing the whole forest behind it.

Cons late game were always bad (except whenever PPSH was OP) because everything else would pick up the slack. You can have "BAD" conscripts because everything else in the game will wipe. Remove everything that wipes and now you have "bad conscripts". Also free/5 muni oorah, cheaper molos, indestructible sandbag spam and flares.

Grens could be "glascannons" because they were facing SU only. Bring USF and UKF into the mix and you have issues. Specially after you remove the equivalent cheese they had when facing SU initially.

Saying Rifles were buffed because they got a slight DPS increase at close range while they also lost something as powerful as smoke on main line infantry (which also debuffed vehicles). As well as Officers no longer starting with BAR and Zook (for all that it matters, they remain to be another Rifle squad).

snip

The issue is not remembering history, it's trying to apply the same design when the context and variables are completely different. More so if you only focus on a single aspect of it, ignoring the rest.
What is important of history is knowing WHY a change was apply, WHAT it accomplish and WHY it did so.

A somehow agile system is ideal, because that means you can apply smaller changes and correct them if necessary. Getting 1/2 patches a year means that you have to be extremely careful on what you release and the scope has to be smaller in order to not completely destroy the game for a long period of time.

PD: people who complain about minesweeper don't know that you are not supposed to win every game. On most cases it ends up been RNG.

Yes am taking about assault officer which currently in live is available (as an airlanding officer) at CP 3 while one has to invest 540 MP to have access to it and in the patch it is available at at CP 0.5-1 for 320.

I do not own that commander and did not see it on twitch, so to be honest I don't have much of an idea what to expect.
Can the officer camo? Because honestly that's what makes them so strong.
Also it's one man less (according to the patch preview notes) and I'm not sure which weapon the officer has. If it's not a sten gun then it's 60% (+DPS of the officer's weapon) strength of a commando squad.

But as I said I'm by far not the best person to discuss about this special topic because I do not have experience with the commander. Hard to say for me if this is problematic. A real commando squad at that time point would cause issues though.

I do not own that commander and did not see it on twitch, so to be honest I don't have much of an idea what to expect.
Can the officer camo? Because honestly that's what makes them so strong.
Also it's one man less (according to the patch preview notes) and I'm not sure which weapon the officer has. If it's not a sten gun then it's 60% (+DPS of the officer's weapon) strength of a commando squad.

But as I said I'm by far not the best person to discuss about this special topic because I do not have experience with the commander. Hard to say for me if this is problematic. A real commando squad at that time point would cause issues though.

Vanguard Officer saw use when the "Charge" ability was OP. Outside of that, the unit itself, was not popular. The commander is another story.

I do not own that commander and did not see it on twitch, so to be honest I don't have much of an idea what to expect.
Can the officer camo? Because honestly that's what makes them so strong.
Also it's one man less (according to the patch preview notes) and I'm not sure which weapon the officer has. If it's not a sten gun then it's 60% (+DPS of the officer's weapon) strength of a commando squad.

But as I said I'm by far not the best person to discuss about this special topic because I do not have experience with the commander. Hard to say for me if this is problematic. A real commando squad at that time point would cause issues though.

The air landing officer and assault officer are basically the same at vet 0. The assault officer simply does not have the broken aura ability, but a less potent version of it. On the other hand AO scales better with an extra model at vet 2.

Several OKW call in infantry were actually used quite a lot, pre OKW rework, mostly due to scaling.
-Falls were niche but the epitome of glasscannon (merit on them for been able to rival Obers)
-JLI was favoured by certain top players in some metas
-PF were basically 7man Conscripts with SVT for OKW

SP has been the only one who was always in a weird spot as it mostly cause issue by been strong as an opening unit but seeing later diminishing results.

OKW rework basically threw everything out of the windows by reducing scaling and every single one of them saw rework later on.

When you consider "main line power creep" is because you are missing the whole forest behind it.

Cons late game were always bad (except whenever PPSH was OP) because everything else would pick up the slack. You can have "BAD" conscripts because everything else in the game will wipe. Remove everything that wipes and now you have "bad conscripts". Also free/5 muni oorah, cheaper molos, indestructible sandbag spam and flares.

Grens could be "glascannons" because they were facing SU only. Bring USF and UKF into the mix and you have issues. Specially after you remove the equivalent cheese they had when facing SU initially.

Saying Rifles were buffed because they got a slight DPS increase at close range while they also lost something as powerful as smoke on main line infantry (which also debuffed vehicles). As well as Officers no longer starting with BAR and Zook (for all that it matters, they remain to be another Rifle squad).
...

I agree. Still some points:
-I started playing competitive multiplayer late 2017. The time before that I mostly played against bots with intervals of not playing CoH2 at all in between. I remember Oorah being free at some point, but I do not have a coherent memory of the meta and general state of the game at that time because against bots you can still win if you're a total scrub and have no idea about the units and abilities. So whatever I say starts from very late 2017/early 2018 onwards.
-Falls, SP and JLI are not mainline infantry. When JLI became OP and 3 squads could wipe anything off the field they were nerfed out of this role again. PF as far as I remember did not work very well, but then again I did not play them that much.

-If something is considered a power creep or not is basically completely arbitrary. Most units were OP and UP at some point of the game and got nerfed and buffed. Set your reference point before the buff and you suddenly get "power creep".
I don't think it makes much sense anymore to compare the game now to the CoH2 close to release. The game was quite different back then from what I remember, even against bots. I think a 1-2 year span comparison makes sense, since the general game style has not changed drastically, yet we have enough patches in between to see the game develop and potential overbuffs or -nerfs corrected with future updates.

I'm stating that specifically the 3 OKW call infantry that got reworked, "buffed" and made OP had to be changed because they were nerfed in the first place and now part of a completely different faction.

I would say that SP were up to some point PURPOSELY UP because the whole rest of the faction was OP and they had "free" engineers on mechanised. The faction was extremely mp efficient. Basically the same situation pre 7 man conscript.

Correct me if i wrong, but you basically started post OKW rework (either the first one or the 2nd) or close to it.
PF started seeing less use once JT was nerfed and post OKW reworks.


I disagree about the timeframe. It's because it's not realistic to expect to have several patches with wide scopes that talking about power creep is futile.
There's really few units that got better or worst when they were in a perfect state.

And units don't operate in their vacuum category.
For example: Dane complains about AT guns, which are fine but they might facilitate the current heavy meta due to the nerf on indirect fire requiring more human input.