[Winter Balance Update] General Discussion

Nerfing sandbags is a good change. What about removing them from mainline infantry and give only to engineers? Because the fact that mainline infantry got sandbags doesn't make sense. You get your enemy's fuel for example which is already an advantage and put there green cover to make it even harder for your opponent to take fuel back.

Nerfing sandbags is a good change. What about removing them from mainline infantry and give only to engineers? Because the fact that mainline infantry got sandbags doesn't make sense. You get your enemy's fuel for example which is already an advantage and put there green cover to make it even harder for your opponent to take fuel back.

I agree.

All Snipers
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How about making the extra vision of snipers a timed ability or to kick in after staying immobile for 5 secs allowing to operate vs HMG but not infatry?

All Mortar Teams
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Suggest that greatly reduce set up times/flight time in smoke barrage so that smoke is delivered faster


Trenches
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Suggested changes:
Can now be dismantle by engineers process similar to build.

Now cost 50 manpower and can not only used by owner. Can now be captured changing owner.

Infantry-Based Flamethrowers
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Replace by the in game ability


Sherman M2HB (All Variants)
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Since you are standardizing Shermans bring the vet bonuses of the 76mm in line with other versions since it get superior vet bonuses than other Shermans (closer to very strong T-3476 bonuses).


Sandbags
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Suggestions:
Include conscripts (at least 7 men conscripts) and Ostturppen

Increase build time for tank traps, change cover to yellow, increase HP or add resistance to ballistic weapons, decrease target size.

All Snipers
Increase build time for tank traps, change cover to yellow, increase HP or add resistance to ballistic weapons, decrease target size.

+1

But all over, it is stupid US build german defense structures... yes germans put this things on the beach to give cover... (was also stupid in CoH1 xD)

I checked in live version and it seemed to work correctly, unless I missed something.

Can you elaborate?

You're right about the repair- seems like that got fixed without me noticing. It was accidentally applied to the USF Assault Engineer, though.

Volley Fire is supposed to gain small amounts of accuracy as the ability continues, but accuracy is multiplied by .03 and .04 instead of 1.03 and 1.04. Also, the modifier that starts at 5 seconds ends at 10 seconds instead of 15. These issues make the ability much weaker than intended.

You're right about the repair- seems like that got fixed without me noticing. It was accidentally applied to the USF Assault Engineer, though.

Volley Fire is supposed to gain small amounts of accuracy as the ability continues, but accuracy is multiplied by .03 and .04 instead of 1.03 and 1.04. Also, the modifier that starts at 5 seconds ends at 10 seconds instead of 15. These issues make the ability much weaker than intended.

Lel, noted for volley fire.

When do get Assault Engineers get that repair bonus, vet 0?

Is it just missing from the notes, or did conscript sandbags get left alone while all other mainline sandbags got build time nerfs?

Is it just missing from the notes, or did conscript sandbags get left alone while all other mainline sandbags got build time nerfs?

Intended at the start. Conscript are a bit more reliant on sandbags early game to hold territory and their sandbags are easier to steal and use against the Soviet player due to their size.

Intended at the start. Conscript are a bit more reliant on sandbags early game to hold territory and their sandbags are easier to steal and use against the Soviet player due to their size.

In 2v2 they're spammed more than any other buildable cover in my experience. Flamer pretty much shuts down any stealing of cover which is standard with conscript builds.

Can't say I agree with soviets getting a free pass.

In 2v2 they're spammed more than any other buildable cover in my experience. Flamer pretty much shuts down any stealing of cover which is standard with conscript builds.

Can't say I agree with soviets getting a free pass.

Soviet arnt getting a free pass, sandbags are integral for conscripts to make it to their very late weapon upgrade what's more is that it's key to their role as support units.

''
All Allied Transport Half-Tracks (M5 Half-track and M3 Half-track)
A feature update to encourage the usage of non-upgraded transport half-tracks by acting as an alternative source of healing for the player, similar to the 251.
- USF M3 and M5, and Soviet M5 Half-tracks can now heal infantry in their hold when out of combat.
- M3 Medical Crate ability removed
''

I don't see the use in giving USF healing halftracks considering that they have the ambulance, which provides far superior healing while arriving earlier. It's unnecessary. Same goes for british halftracks which aren't mentioned.

In 2v2 they're spammed more than any other buildable cover in my experience. Flamer pretty much shuts down any stealing of cover which is standard with conscript builds.

Can't say I agree with soviets getting a free pass.

Contrary to EVERY OTHER MAINLINE INFANTRY, conscripts do not get early game weapon upgrade that performs well at far range, nor their very own DPS is anything to be jealous of.

Conscripts do not benefit from sandbags even remotely as much as remaining 4 factions and that is why theirs stay.

Well, this patch seems going on a good direction, but there are things that need to be pointed out now because they can cause major problems.


The T34 ram delayed to vet 1
This idea is bad and here is why:
The T34 is a trash tank, good only for being sacrificed either on ramming a heavy or by rushing arty. Some build it because they desperately need some tank support, but I think everyone agrees that is not a viable medium tank like the Panzer 4 or the Sherman.
No one is going to build one, then vet it, then ram it.
You can easily avoid a T34 ram in fact, if you see a T34 appearing in very late game, you know he's being here for ramming and I don't think you should have trouble avoiding it with axis armors.
There was never an issue with T34 rams, that was never OP, and yeah if sometimes the ram succeed and was supported, you were able to kill a big cat, so I think if being able to kill an axis heavy with actual sacrifices, team play or commander abilities are such a problem, then just straight up make axis heavies immortal.

The new walking stuka
Well, the new napalm seems good, nothing to say with it for the moment, but why buff it against tanks? The walking stuka is already god tier rocket arty (without saying that is the only one coming from the T2), and is already something to be nerfed because on the long run it ruins team games.
Now it can also deal decent damages against vehicles, why?
The OKW is an axis faction, having the best not doctrinal tanks in the game and even better doctrinal ones, without talking about all the AT infantry/support allowing OKW to blob AT guns or infantry without being punished that hard, so why would you need to make the rocket arty a way to decently damage vehicles?
In game this doesn't affect the medium or heavies that much, but it kills the su-85 since it's the only AT tank needed to be played on a line to be effective.
This change is going to weaken the soviets, already weak.
Just remove them from the game at this point, or maybe you need an easy to kill faction to bully as axis?


Penetration nerfs on allies & accuracy buff on Panther.
-I don't know why-, but this feels like people balacing the game are a bit axis only players.
Penetration was never an issue on an axis side. You are literally making the AT tanks, the tanks that only purpose is to kill tanks, not being able to do it.
Even if an axis late tank gets penetrated, it has a lot of health so 1 more or less bounce won't change anything in the outcome of the battle, since the Panther or other heavies are virtually able to kill any AT the allies have to offer.
This "buff axis armor" and "nerf allied armor" mentality is going too far, we need to draw a line and we have to draw it here. In the actual meta, the axis late heavies are always dominating and are an almost perfect way of ensuring the victory.
If someone is having difficulties playing axis heavies, the problem is the person, not the game.

Sniper sight nerf
This will make the engaging of support weapons harder, and making more players rely on arty, where the axis always end up winning because of the "counter barrage" ability, effectively making units that play themselves more reliable than units that need to be babysitted like snipers.
Why would you make an already hard style of playing harder? Is not like the sniper is so hard to kill. Also, why removing double tap on ost sniper? Double tap is micro intensive and rare enough to work, so why would you remove a "skilled" way of wiping?

Allies HT healing
This looks like a bad idea since it will only encourage people to camp on the map and spam mortars or other team weapons, and in a game where the point is to micro everything and always go back and forward, I don't think this is very coh spirited change.

Pack howitzer nerf
I am not going to blame this change, but even put the idea that almost every arty on the game needs that kind of nerf. Same range, less range for auto attacks.
Apply it on mortas, iegs and pack howitzers, please.
Arty clusterf*ck games were never fun to play.

Calioppe nerf
Every rocket arty needs a realaoding nerf, especially the walking stuka.
But not the calioppe, and here is why;
The OKW infantry vet status allows it to heal passively, making it faster for OKW on late game to join the front line (some units even sprint), so in order to push back the always faster to heal/reinforce infantry you need an always faster to reload rocket arty.
Yes, calioppe is OP, but so is every rocket arty. The calioppe is a rare doctrinal unit and an expensive one, so why would you nerf it when it does what it is supposed to do?

Fuel to battle phase 1 on Ost
Make pgrens recruitable from t2 again plz, pgrens are supposed to be rare infantry and yet nowdays it's played like an alternative to grenadiers. This is the first step towards it, keep it up!


S-Mines
I have nothing to say about this, except that what you did here is pure genius and should be your way of thinking every change. You passively nerfed and buffed S-Mines at the same times, allowing absurd wiped for allies to disappear and gave the axis an alternative to the bunker for securing a flank. This is what every change should be about; quality of life improvement for both side at the same time.

Soviet nerf
The T70 and katyusha are the only thing making soviets a viable faction.
Soviets don't need a nerf on the only thing keeping them alive.
(also plz, don't remove reload boost from katyusha, it's the only current way of wiping dirty blobs in team games, so please let it be or people will blob more).

UKF having bofors and AEC
Sound good and bad at the same time.
In 1v1's, UKF will be too strong and versatile, and in team games UKF will have too many thing to be countered when played against. UFK is already one of the most versatile factions, it doesn't need more things to build.

Comet
The +20 fuels feels excessive, before upgrading to hammer you have to spend 50 fuels, the Ostheer has to pay only 35 to build tanks of the same tier (and both tier upgrades give passives).

OKW Doctrinal armor
As said before, OKW has the best doctrinal and not doctrinal tanks of the whole game.
The only way of preventing them to appear is constantly destroying the T4.
Why would you give them more possibilities to call tanks when they already have so many?
Can we talk about the fact that sometimes you intensionally let a T4 alive in order to prevent the OKW to panic and wait for a KT?
That was done before with the hetzer, and it was cancer, so please, remove this change.


Shoutout to the very good ideas
-Reloading ability
-No tank MG firing in FOW
-Planes crash nerfed
-Light tanks crushing light
-Sandbags build speed nerf
-...

Also pack 43's can still fire trough walls, it is op and nonsense, remove it once for all plz.

Quote from Sander's balance patch:
Calculations show the Tiger was slightly more affected by the AOE adjustments compared to the other heavy tanks. Reinstating the veterancy scatter bonus (although in a reduced form) should compensate this.
• Vet 2 now gives -10% scatter (was -20% previously)

Why was this buff not implemented in the 1.0 version? TigerI could really use this buff.

Quote from Sander's balance patch:
Calculations show the Tiger was slightly more affected by the AOE adjustments compared to the other heavy tanks. Reinstating the veterancy scatter bonus (although in a reduced form) should compensate this.
• Vet 2 now gives -10% scatter (was -20% previously)

Why was this buff not implemented in the 1.0 version? TigerI could really use this buff.

Because focus is on core armies and most problematic meta dominating units and tiger is neither.

I'm really liking these changes very much! the manual reload on MGs and AA is something that was very much needed.

I just don't understand why the Ram on the T34-76/85 is now locked behing vet and nerfed, nobody is going to vet a vehicle to then destroy it.

I don't understand either why even the 85 has that ability aswell.

Damage of certain weapon vs ambient buildings need to be looked at that includes: Ostwind, zis/Su-76 barrage, Pack howizter

So i've played a few games, mainly wehr vs usf/sovw, haven't tried much else. My main thing i drew away from it was that the meta will remain exactly the same for wehr and even more stale now than before, with 5man grens being nerfed there isn't really any value to sacrificing your early game with shitty grens when you could simply just get ostruppen, and if you nerf ostruppen the faction becomes nigh unplayable now.

Like the incentive before with 5man grens was that you'd get a really overpowered squad but you would smash asunder your early game, now that that's gone there's no point in going 5man because you're destroying your early game for a mid-level squad at best. And honestly why would anyone even wanna bother? Just go ostruppen.

I feel like these changes are trying to do magic here more than anything, you can't decide to make the meta less stale by ignoring the glaring issues a faction has. grens aren't good mainline and haven't been. And this refusal to buff them to make them usable will always force people into alternatives that avoid them, Assgren/ostruppen. If you want the 1v1 meta to stop being stale, then you simply have to buff them. There isn't any other solution that really exists for it.