An Old Schooler's Rant and Observations

Hands up on the WC3 remaster - that was so bad I genuinely forgot they'd even made it.

It's nice that (most) people are at least discussing this respectfully.

Of course, volunteer balance team =/= professional fully-funded dev studio. Nothing we can do or say can change this.

But, we are still very thankful to them and they're doing a great job. It's probably correct to say that there have been some QA misses, and maybe even... some weird balance decisions that miss the big picture. But I do think the game is in the best state that it's ever been in, and I say thank you very much to the volunteers.

BTW, with regards to "big picture" vision and balance. Firstly I'm surprised to hear Sander93 say that "true asymmetric" balance is impossible... I actually don't know if I agree with that. For one example, take the Brits before Sapper snare.

Brits were actually fine without a snare IMHO, because they had lots of other stuff: extra-accurate AT guns (with a fast-move special ability), very powerful (if manually-aimed) PIATs, the Sniper snare, the AEC snare, FF Tulips, and the doctrinal AT-Tommies (in emergency). A totally unique approach; it was totally different to regular snare-play, interesting, and hard to master.

OK, the Sniper snare, Tulips and the AT-Tommies definitely needed adjusments (sniper and Tulip too stong, AT-Tommies too weak). But I think that with some tuning the original vision could have worked.

Instead... PIATs were cloned into Zooks, 6-Pdr cloned into Pak, Sappers given a faust clone, and AEC / Tulips / Sniper Snare all nerfed extremely hard. Worst, these changes happened one-by-one over the course of years, so for large stretches the whole faction's AT made no sense...


Of course, I'm not on the balance team and people like Sander93 probably have a much deeper understanding than me of what it takes to balance the game (and work much harder than us forum warriors!). In this one particular example though, I think the game lost a lot of flavour and challenge for the sake of balance.

BTW, with regards to "big picture" vision and balance. Firstly I'm surprised to hear Sander93 say that "true asymmetric" balance is impossible... I actually don't know if I agree with that. For one example, take the Brits before Sapper snare.

Brits were actually fine without a snare IMHO, because they had lots of other stuff: extra-accurate AT guns (with a fast-move special ability), very powerful (if manually-aimed) PIATs, the Sniper snare, the AEC snare, FF Tulips, and the doctrinal AT-Tommies (in emergency). A totally unique approach; it was totally different to regular snare-play, interesting, and hard to master.

And all of that was gradually nerfed to the ground or removed from the game.
You can't build a faction on crutch, then remove it because its too strong and expect it to stand on its own.
Unique solutions for the sake of uniqueness is pointless, especially if it means you are stripped of certain common tools only to have some gimmicky ones cranked up to 11.

OK, the Sniper snare, Tulips and the AT-Tommies definitely needed adjusments (sniper and Tulip too stong, AT-Tommies too weak). But I think that with some tuning the original vision could have worked.

History of balancing coh2 proves otherwise.

And all of that was gradually nerfed to the ground or removed from the game.
You can't build a faction on crutch, then remove it because its too strong and expect it to stand on its own.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. :-)

Unique solutions for the sake of uniqueness is pointless, especially if it means you are stripped of certain common tools only to have some gimmicky ones cranked up to 11.

I don't agree, uniqueness is important for fun, flavour, and interesting strategies. Nobody would have bought the game if every army was a reskin of each other.

History of balancing coh2 proves otherwise.

Yeah maybe, but the meta is always evolving, even without patches. People have not always been given enough time to adjust and learn. Look at T-70 for example - that thing's an infantry murder machine, almost more effective than an Ostwind or Centaur, at a light-tank tier & price. Yet, most people don't complain, because it fits in to the faction, and Sov have other weaknesses that can still be exploited.

You can label everything as "crutch" or "gimmicks", some things are it's true, but it's more interesting to try and balance and keep things, instead of gradually turning everything into a reskinned Ostheer

"almost more effective than an Ostwind" ?

Ostwind has more splash dmg resulting in more health damage but who needs that if you can just snipe infantrny with a t70 without having to reload for 10 years in between salvos

"almost more effective than an Ostwind" ?

Ostwind has more splash dmg resulting in more health damage but who needs that if you can just snipe infantrny with a t70 without having to reload for 10 years in between salvos

The numbers should be:

AOE Radius
Ostwind 2
T-70 2

Near/mid/far
Ostwind 0.5/1.5/2
T-70 2 1.25/1.5/1.75

Damage
Ostwind 32/8/4 limited to 2 entities per squad.
T-70 32/14/6

So T-70 has better AOE.

Nice. tell me do you feel cool copy pasting some numbers that aint nothing to do whith what im talking about?
have you ever build an ostwind and seen it firing?

Nice. tell me do you feel cool copy pasting some numbers that aint nothing to do whith what im talking about?
have you ever build an ostwind and seen it firing?

This thread is not about the T-70 vs. the Ostwind... honestly I tried to choose my words carefully because I knew someone would come out either saying "lulz shut up T70 is way better than Ostwind" or "lulz shut up Ostwind is way better than T70".

I'm only trying to make an example with T-70, a unit that is very strong and good value, but is nonetheless not seen as a "crutch" or "gimmick", because it is seen as an integral part of a balanced faction.

Nice. tell me do you feel cool copy pasting some numbers that aint nothing to do whith what im talking about?

I simply provided the stat that prove that Ostwind does not have "more splash dmg resulting in more health damage" as you claimed. Do I cool about it? no actually I feel you could had spear me trouble of providing them if you have checked your facts before posting.

have you ever build an ostwind and seen it firing?

Plenty of times

the t70 has better ai than the ostwind at close range and for clumped target formations. however, at max range and against a wide formation where the ostwind's 2-models-hit-restriction doesn't play that great of a role, the t70 is inferior by quite a large margin.

This thread is not about the T-70 vs. the Ostwind... honestly I tried to choose my words carefully because I knew someone would come out either saying "lulz shut up T70 is way better than Ostwind" or "lulz shut up Ostwind is way better than T70".

I'm only trying to make an example with T-70, a unit that is very strong and good value, but is nonetheless not seen as a "crutch" or "gimmick", because it is seen as an integral part of a balanced faction.

Actually, T-70 is a dictionary example of crutch unit.
Early game soviets do fine or are slightly behind, T-70 levels up early mid game and allows you to bounce back.

You can label everything as "crutch" or "gimmicks", some things are it's true, but it's more interesting to try and balance and keep things...

Agree wholeheartedly.

I liked that Piat were attack ground. Saving up the distances, is like removing the effectiveness of Stupa on attack ground while making it slightly better with normal attack orders. In the case of the PIATs, it was expected (but failed) that the change would be enough to solve Brits issue with vehicles.

Same thing happened to SU snipers. OKW mechanised resource conversion.

It's easier, faster and more reliable to just scrap it. It's also probably better in the short term. It's just that it's a shame having to sacrifice that potential uniqueness.

I think you are making an intelligent point. But I dont fully agree with your math. Mirror matches can't be counted since those are never a balance issue

I included the mirrors as an optional matchup because developers do sometimes spend time on them. They often devolve into who can mass more of a single type of unit, so occasionally tweaks are made to the faction to open up a bit more variety.

But before we go into a detailed and very random analysis, how about we agree that CoH2 is just a very well balanced RTS in comparison to the majority of titles out there.

Sure.

No one on in this community mod team, or Relic (whatever remains of Relic) has the big picture vision to understand asymmetric balance and strategic, vs, by-the-numbers, unit-vs-unit balance.

100 % agree.

I have played coh2 from its release to now, and I played coh1 for 3 - 4 years before that. From my perspective as a 1v1 player (who exclusively plays OSt & Usf) I would say the game is now beyond saving due to community patching philosophy. Every faction now is almost identical and plays the same way unless you include a few meme strats like ostruppen etc. The other problem is the game has become dull as fuck, because every faction just builds a defensive wall of mgs and double at guns and the game just degenerates into each side probing until the other player gets caught out of position or rng determines a wipe. Then indirect fire just shits all over everything and often makes unit positioning a pointless exercise because often the first strike wipes half the squad and half its health meaning auto retreat.

The problem stems from trying to make every unit and every game mode viable which like it or not pushes the game towards mirror factions. Once everyone starts build double mgs and defensive lines then the game just becomes a slugfest of boredom.

The other issue is the balance team gave into every fanboy that cried about not having the same "tools" as other factions, eg suppression, cq units etc etc. Once upon a time if you wanted to play a particular style you would pick the faction that favored that style. Now everything is just the mirror image with each side having it own flavor of cancer.

IMO I find the problem so bad that I don't even find watching the game interesting unless its a tournament semi final and even then I am more entertained by AE casting than actual gameplay.

This is not a balance issue for me, rather just disappointment with the direction the game has taken and really just how extremely frustrating the game is to play now.

100 % agree.

I have played coh2 from its release to now, and I played coh1 for 3 - 4 years before that. From my perspective as a 1v1 player (who exclusively plays OSt & Usf) I would say the game is now beyond saving due to community patching philosophy. Every faction now is almost identical and plays the same way unless you include a few meme strats like ostruppen etc. The other problem is the game has become dull as fuck, because every faction just builds a defensive wall of mgs and double at guns and the game just degenerates into each side probing until the other player gets caught out of position or rng determines a wipe. Then indirect fire just shits all over everything and often makes unit positioning a pointless exercise because often the first strike wipes half the squad and half its health meaning auto retreat.

The problem stems from trying to make every unit and every game mode viable which like it or not pushes the game towards mirror factions. Once everyone starts build double mgs and defensive lines then the game just becomes a slugfest of boredom.

The other issue is the balance team gave into every fanboy that cried about not having the same "tools" as other factions, eg suppression, cq units etc etc. Once upon a time if you wanted to play a particular style you would pick the faction that favored that style. Now everything is just the mirror image with each side having it own flavor of cancer.

IMO I find the problem so bad that I don't even find watching the game interesting unless its a tournament semi final and even then I am more entertained by AE casting than actual gameplay.

This is not a balance issue for me, rather just disappointment with the direction the game has taken and really just how extremely frustrating the game is to play now.

Completely agree, but unfortunately our opinions will fall on deaf ears here.

a few meme strats like ostruppen etc.

Osttruppen a meme strat?
I guess we had alot of players "memeing" around in the last 1v1 Tourneys...

Osttruppen a meme strat?
I guess we had alot of players "memeing" around in the last 1v1 Tourneys...

Of course it's a meme strat; it always has been. It's a meme unit.

They're shit infantry you spam and are only effective in cover. They didn't even used to be able to fire on the move.

Do you remember the original design for that commander? Spam Osttruppen and railway arty with munitions conversion. Now they have weapon drops which you crew with your spam infantry.

Of course it's a meme strat; it always has been. It's a meme unit.

They're shit infantry you spam and are only effective in cover. They didn't even used to be able to fire on the move.

Do you remember the original design for that commander? Spam Osttruppen and railway arty with munitions conversion. Now they have weapon drops which you crew with your spam infantry.

Its complete top level META 1v1 strat that emerged with last tech adjustments.
The sole fact you do not understand why its meta speaks that you shouldn't really talk about balance at all.

It isn't meta for their combat potential, but for their ultimate map control no other faction can contest, leading to fast tech and very quick more advanced units that can lead to even more map control through LVs and PGs if opponent doesn't react instantly and adapts.

Of course it's a meme strat; it always has been. It's a meme unit.

They're shit infantry you spam and are only effective in cover. They didn't even used to be able to fire on the move.

Do you remember the original design for that commander? Spam Osttruppen and railway arty with munitions conversion. Now they have weapon drops which you crew with your spam infantry.

I completely agree with you on every point you’ve made.

In order to further support your point, here’s a video from MLNZ where this meme strat gets absolutely obliterated by a comptetent player. Have a look at G1 of DevM and Asiamint and how absolutely pathetic these Osttruppen strats are against competent players.