The direction of balance.

Hi all. I wanted to start a discussion about the future of the game given that it's already living on borrowed time as far as patch support goes.

Since we are tweaking based on the graces of our community balance team and not Relic itself I think a community consensus to the priority of what needs it's primary attention.

I understand it's presumptuous of me to make this kind of thread but I feel now is a good a time as any.

Personally, I feel there are 2 priorities.

First and foremost, that each faction can, to some degree, manage to face any and all threat another faction can field without picking a doctrine.

I believe this because I feel that commanders should be entirely extra and absolutely not necessary. Furthermore should a commander not be "necessary" it makes them easier to balance as there is none of those "x faction needs Y unit to be OP because otherwise they are finished". Doctrinal crutches should not exist.

Seconedly, doctrines themselves. This, in my opinion is something the balance team has done a great job of. The state of some doctrines has been abysmal, many, primarily vanilla factions, have never seen the light of day (fuck me rogh? The stupid bastard that bought them all pre war spoils to support the game..) anyways... The commanders the balance team have reworked are not only fresh and refined, but in multiple case have done good for commanders other than the focus based on reworked abilities. This, imo would, ", assuming part one was prioritized, be the best way to make the most content relevant. Hell not just relevant but exciting.

Personally, if at all possible and Relic willing, I'd like to see the balance focus on a faction at a time, as well as a few commanders at a time (a faction an 1 commander each? Maybe 1 per non focus faction?)
. The idea of such a discussion primarily is to maximize the amount focus and priority in case support is pulled. IN THEORY with this kind of focus, 5 more patches. Obviously more fine tuning would be needed but with a proper cycle including a nice testing phase I have faith...


Id like to hear how you, the community feel about my proposition for priorities as well as your own.

I think this is a good discussion to have.
However I feel the next patch should clean up the dirt that has piled up over the patches: Some normalization, fixing text strings, adding missing ones. So much of the game's text and information to the player is misleading at the moment and will confuse new players since it is the only thing that they can cling on to.

I assume CoH2 loses quite some potential players to these problems which makes the game worse overall.

As far as actual gameplay content goes:
I don't know about the state of CoH2 from Relic's or the balance team's side, but 5 patches is a VERY long way to go. By the rate we got them so far, about 1,5 years if not even more. Plus I think doing one faction at a time is the wrong way to go, since it assumes there were no inter-dependency between the factions.

Heal some bad combos in heavyTD commanders: recon + bomb strikes shouldn't be with heavy TD. Then heavy TD could be counter by howitzers.
I hope, will be changed flags on points. Now they just obstacle for vehicles and work for OKW and UKF as cheese place to build sandbags (their sandbags short and don't give cover for enemy). It will be good if when you use flag to cap point, capturing will be faster compare to be just inside of point area, but squad will be vulnerable (like enges while repairing). High risk-high reward.

Heal some bad combos in heavyTD commanders: recon + bomb strikes shouldn't be with heavy TD. Then heavy TD could be counter by howitzers.
I hope, will be changed flags on points. Now they just obstacle for vehicles and work for OKW and UKF as cheese place to build sandbags (their sandbags short and don't give cover for enemy). It will be good if when you use flag to cap point, capturing will be faster compare to be just inside of point area, but squad will be vulnerable (like enges while repairing). High risk-high reward.

Then everybody will go smoke+flag cap - no risk & high reward.

Then everybody will go smoke+flag cap - no risk & high reward.

One mortar/grenade or tank shot and hello dead squad.

UFS: All AT being concentrated in Jackson leading to TD without drawbacks, while other AT options and somewhat lacklaster compare to counterparts.

UKF: Tommies being way to go. With even bigger powerspike with bolster. They are by far best mainline inf atm.

Ost: Somewhat out of place grenadiers. They are support inf but you can go double pios\double MG with T1 skip which is cheaper and will provide counters to LV faster.

OKW: Lack of early snares, fast flame nades, messed up and punishing tech.

Sov: General powerspike in 1 unit - T70. Meaning win\loss of the faction, might depend only on how you played it.

In my opinion this are fundamentual problems right now that can be seen in any gamemode, leading to everything else.

Also on a side note, I'm not really a fan of 5 men grens and svt cons. Ideas themself were good in both commanders, but this two abilities, change faction way too much creating some abusable combos and potentually hiding some faction problems.

Well the patches have created more problems than they've solved over the last two years that's for sure.

Panzergrens come out eay too soon, Ost shouldn't be guaranteed their availability either.

Fallschrimjagers come out way too soon.

Supposedly Allied infanry are better but that gets negated when you're giving the Axis factions their elite infantry right off the bat.

USF still has that atrocious tech tree no one wants to fix.

This is one of those die hard communities that enjoy stroking each other's beards in a dark corner of the internet.

Carry on.

I think this is a good discussion to have.
However I feel the next patch should clean up the dirt that has piled up over the patches: Some normalization, fixing text strings, adding missing ones. So much of the game's text and information to the player is misleading at the moment and will confuse new players since it is the only thing that they can cling on to.

I assume CoH2 loses quite some potential players to these problems which makes the game worse overall.

As far as actual gameplay content goes:
I don't know about the state of CoH2 from Relic's or the balance team's side, but 5 patches is a VERY long way to go. By the rate we got them so far, about 1,5 years if not even more. Plus I think doing one faction at a time is the wrong way to go, since it assumes there were no inter-dependency between the factions.

A quick and dirty polish patch would actually do a lot I think for the general professionalism of the game. And I hear what you are saying about the isolated faction patches. Perhaps a broader focus on a key component with a minor in a certain faction? I feel like the wide net patches change too much generally to fix things right proper. With many changes going on at the same time it's difficult to properly test it all and things get lost and other things ignored.

I like the idea of faction exclusive patches. Might be too late just cause I feel like we'll be very lucky if we get 5 more significant patches in this game. If we do that's a good way to approach them

Always thought a commander veto would go a long way. Probably can't be implemented now but I think it would've been an easy solution to the "meta" commander problem. Instead of waiting for the patch to come in for Elite Troops/Industry/Spec Ops/Heavy Cav/Adv Emplacement you have the ability to veto it

And the neta commanders should still get nerfed, but the veto serves as a temporary fix and is there to reduce frustration more than anything else

My request for CoH3 is different balances for 1v1 and team games. That way we don't always have to rely on 1v1 for balance.

Honestly the problem I think should be address in the next patch would be:

- Remove IL2 bombing from both ISU commanders & Remove Stuka bomb drop from Elefant commander.

P/S: Just lost another game of ISU wiping my infantry from max range, moving elefant up to counter ISU, T34 ram then IL2 bombming

Pure bullshit ( If you managed to damage the T34 engine when its in ramming animation the tank will still ramming. Best way right now is to move another tank to block the ramming path )

Whoever doing the next patch, please for the love of god think about this ideal, stop this ISU rampage my god.

I disagree that everything should be fully hard counterable without doctrines. After all the game is designed that loads of stuff is OP when used correctly in the correct circumstances.

If everything is counterable stock, that frees people to brainlessly pick whatever is the most OP commander.

When you pick a commander, you can help to force enemy to need to try counter what you are doing, often with their commander choice, this is an important mechanic which adds loads of depth of thinking and strats.

Its how the vanilla game was designed with Ost / Soviet...

Honestly the problem I think should be address in the next patch would be:

- Remove IL2 bombing from both ISU commanders & Remove Stuka bomb drop from Elefant commander.

P/S: Just lost another game of ISU wiping my infantry from max range, moving elefant up to counter ISU, T34 ram then IL2 bombming

Pure bullshit ( If you managed to damage the T34 engine when its in ramming animation the tank will still ramming. Best way right now is to move another tank to block the ramming path )

Whoever doing the next patch, please for the love of god think about this ideal, stop this ISU rampage my god.

Ask OKW to put kubel between you at t34

Ask OKW to put kubel between you at t34

Hey I actually did that! Not a Kubel but an Ostwind though: At least losing Ostwind not an Elefant hehe.

I think a part of me being instict: When I see A t34 going forward, I instict press U on all my vehicles. Now I need to stop that and move my Ostwind up to block the ramming path or I WILL lose the Elefant.

P/S: If you use another vehicles to block the T34 ramming ( when it's already in ramming animation ), the blocking vehicles will take full blow damage from that ram!

I disagree that everything should be fully hard counterable without doctrines. After all the game is designed that loads of stuff is OP when used correctly in the correct circumstances.

If everything is counterable stock, that frees people to brainlessly pick whatever is the most OP commander.

When you pick a commander, you can help to force enemy to need to try counter what you are doing, often with their commander choice, this is an important mechanic which adds loads of depth of thinking and strats.

Its how the vanilla game was designed with Ost / Soviet...

I didn't say hard countered, i said manage to face. And you are looking in the right direction but at the wrong thing. You say if core armies have everything they need people will pick OP commanders. My thinking is that if core armies can deal with everything there will be no OP commanders because they can be isolated and fixed without worry of how it's going to ruin to core army.

Commanders should be a way to open up new options and keep things exciting not to Crack fill. If you feel the need to keep a certain commander on your card not because you like it but because you need it the balance has failed us and it's no better than people picking the most OP commander. We should have the freedom to chose what commanders we want without shooting our chance at victory in the foot.

The main consideration picking a commander should not be what you want to do, but rather what is your opponent doing.

It ma

The main consideration picking a commander should not be what you want to do, but rather what is your opponent doing.

It ma

No, if your stock army can't deal with whatever opponent is throwing at you, you have bad balance.

This is how soviets played for 4 years.
It was horrible, it forced you into tiny number of very specific doctrines regardless of what was meta(guards were completely mandatory pick for at least 3 years).

Doctrines should supplement or enhance your playstyle, not be a reactive counter to what opponent does.

The main consideration picking a commander should not be what you want to do, but rather what is your opponent doing.

It ma

That shouldn't be the case. Picking the wrong commander should not sink you, especially when it's possible to not only not have the commander in your chit, but possibly not even own it.

Commanders are much more difficult to balance if they are tying up lose ends. If each faction can stand on its own any and all commanders are flavor for play style and adding new units not making balance work

Honestly the problem I think should be address in the next patch would be:

- Remove IL2 bombing from both ISU commanders & Remove Stuka bomb drop from Elefant commander.

P/S: Just lost another game of ISU wiping my infantry from max range, moving elefant up to counter ISU, T34 ram then IL2 bombming

Pure bullshit ( If you managed to damage the T34 engine when its in ramming animation the tank will still ramming. Best way right now is to move another tank to block the ramming path )

Whoever doing the next patch, please for the love of god think about this ideal, stop this ISU rampage my god.

To be fair, the T-34 ram + IL2 is a very high risk, high reward combo. Its going to be a huge swing either way.