Commander Update Beta 2021 - USF Feedback

Yeah and he literally ignored the entirety of my comment except for that one line so he can try and act like we're not credible. Typed all that up to give feedback and its just like "NOPE"

If you want your feedback to be credible, then put some effort into it. Your post is full of bias, errors and assumptions. That doesn't exactly make it inviting to respond to.

For example, if you had bothered to do a 2 minute test, you would've known that the damage reduction modifier does nothing to reduce the Pershing's durability against abilities that increase damage.

The amount of effort put into a post has no discernable difference in credibility.

250mm Barrage is light years away from where it needs to be. They Greyhound coming out 3 minutes later than a Luchs is ridiculous. The problems with Rifle Company is not a 15 munitions Sprint coming out a CP too late or a -10% RA on a Flamethrower. Long Range Rangers aren't bad per say, but the unit itself is incredibly boring for Elite Infantry. Raid Tactics remains pointless. If Calliope is going to be nerfed to the levels of Axis Rocket arty then it needs a timing and cost similar to Axis Rocket Arty. P-47 Rocket Run is more expensive than JU-87s and can't track moving targets as well. There are 0 ability swaps for commanders, many of whom are only a change or two away from being excellent.

Yes, there is some good here. The P-47 Strafe needed that fix. The Smoke Barrage is closer to where it should be. I don't know if the 105 is good yet but it is at least interesting. Even the nerfs are about what I expected. (IR Pathfinder calldown, Mechanized, and Rifle Grenade) But there is a lot of wiffs on the buffs.

Mostly pretty terrible changes imo

Just to begin: There are no entries under "commander changes" for AEF, why? Why is USF the only faction to not get a different ability slotted in or something swapped around in a commander update? Secondly, all the changes you made to commander abilities (outside of Rifle Company and protip: its still going to be garbage) are nerfs. W H Y ???? USF is not overperforming anything. Rear Echlon rifle grenades SURELY werent overperforming anything. All of this reads so arbitrary, its really saddening.
1. Why are you gutting RE Rifle nades? Theyve been nerfed twice already and now theyre a point and click ability adding more micro tax to the heaviest taxed faction already? Seriously, who thought this was balancing anything? Theyre already the lowest lethal grenade in the entire game. You guy cant remove CB from all static howitzers but a 30 range autofiring grenade every 10 seconds is too much? Wow

2. If youre going to gut the survivability of Calliope for literally no reason other than "its not fair it doesnt die in one hit" than for the love of god lower its cost. The only reason its costs that much is because of the survivability.

3. Youve effectively made the Pershing worse. Im not sure how you made changes to a unit in all the irrelevant spots. The pershing does nothing for your army when its on the field, thats the issue, not repair speed jesus christ.

4. The bulldozer needs a cost reduction as well. Like someone said up thread, this is a DOCTRINAL equivalent to a brumbar or assault weapon and its pure garbage and over-priced. Fix at least ONE of those people. With these changes, its both still garbage and over-priced.

5. You've gutted combined arms. This was one of the most unique commander abilities the USF had that synergized with the playstyle and you just gutted it.

6. Why the IR PF changes? Seriously, how was the barrage overpowered in anyway? It was one of the only reliable off maps the USF has. You REALLY just want a 3 model, squishy ass squad have to call down a worse artillery barrage.

So those are the absolute bonkers, what are you thinking changes, below is the obvious "mail it in, we need to get some changes for these units on paper but we don't really want to actually try anything"

1. M8 Greyhound Canister Shot - 5 muni decrease lmao. Thats what you think is wrong with this unit, canister shot price? Lol

2. Pershing - Just lol, repair speed help? Really?

3. "The dozer blade has been removed from Reserve Armor due to the effectiveness of the 76mm Sherman." - Lol, who in balance team just enjoys nerfing the hell out of every commander and unit. Seriously, why was this necessary at all lol.

+1 on this

I rarely think balance patches require frustrated response but USF I argue is the faction that needs a commander rework the most, so this USF change definitely warrants a frustrated response.

USF had a lot of dead commanders for a faction with the least # of commanders. Anyone correct me on this? OKW and Brits have more commanders than USF.

These are commanders that either are dead or barely used:
Rifle company
Heavy cav
Armor company
Mech assault for team games
Recon is mediocre but used here and there

Look onto vehicle crews for armor company. And Rifle company should give something to Rifles like how it was originally designed. Not a flare that nobody uses. Something good like smoke grenades or sprint or something.

Received damage is multiplicative, not additive.

If you have 800 HP tank with 0.84 received damage modifier, it has effectively aprox. 941 HP.
There is an ability that makes target takes 20% extra damage, which means that it gives the target 1.2 received damage modifier.

For a tank that has 800 HP and 0.84 received damage modifier you get:
800/(0.84 * 1.2) = 793 effective HP (aprox.) when targeted by said ability.

For a that has 960 HP and no modifiers to received damage, you get:
960/1.2 = 800 effective HP when targeted by said ability.

From what I know, in Company of Heroes 2 there's nothing that ignores received damage modifiers. It's a straight buff that makes the tank just as durable, but 16% faster to repair.

Thats great to have clarification on, thanks. But now we're back to asking why of all things pershing had its repair speed buffed like that was what was causing it to underperform? And further, I'd like to see balance team comment on anything else that has been brought up multiple times in this thread thats not a slam dunk comment about pershing.

Wait... you can't be serious. April Fools joke? LOLOLOLOL

I'll only take you somewhat seriously if you say:

"I have a hard time countering rear echelons with rifle nades."

Say it!

I don't have to say it for you to know I'm being serious.

I don't have to say it for you to know I'm being serious.

So you seriously don't know how to counter a rear Echelon with rifle nades?

So you seriously don't know how to counter a rear Echelon with rifle nades?

Of course I do, does that mean it's not absolutely retarded for him to deny all cover when using Riflemen in sync without requiring any input? At least incendiary grenades cost munitions each time you use it.

At this point just make Rifle grenades a one time use ability mirroring Grenadiers rifle grenade and be done with it

I can understand that micro-free constant grenade threat for the whole game just for 60 munitions can be annoying and cheap, but on the other hand nobody will bother using rifle grenades like that

If you want your feedback to be credible, then put some effort into it. Your post is full of bias, errors and assumptions. That doesn't exactly make it inviting to respond to.

For example, if you had bothered to do a 2 minute test, you would've known that the damage reduction modifier does nothing to reduce the Pershing's durability against abilities that increase damage.

Dude you know exactly what youre doing. You cherrypicking one single comment that you know you can dunk on me with and then not responding to anything else. Other people, not named pvtgooner, have made the exact same comments I have made. I mean seriously, REAR ECHLON NADES??? What is dripping with Bias in my comments? You actually take vipper suggestions word for word when it is known as the day is long he is completely biased towards axis. Please, respond to the rest of my comment that other people have also +1'd and stop saying its full of errors and assumptions. I want you to defend a fucking 5 muni decrease on a greyhound canister shot like that makes the unit viable?

Please, quote my thread and go line by line and tell me whats bias and full of assumptions, and then do the same for greyshot, exsile and others that have all agreed with the post.

Of course I do, does that mean it's not absolutely retarded for him to deny all cover when using Riflemen in sync without requiring any input? At least incendiary grenades cost munitions each time you use it.

If it is absolutely retarded for a weapon to deny all cover in sync with mainline infantry with no manual input, then it is also absolutely retarded to deny all cover with flamethrower in sync with mainline infantry with no input, because both weapons are anti-cover weapons. This opens up a much larger conversation regarding flamethrower and riflenades. A similar statement can be said about IR STG44s.

If anti-cover weapons should require munitions for every use, then munitions should be required for RE rifle nade shots, flamethrower bursts, and Ober IR STG44 bursts as all three weapons are upgradeable, do not require munitions per use, do not require manual targeting, and are in a similar anti-cover category.

A unit or weapon should be nerfed if it creates a frustrating un-fun experience for players due to it overperforming. A weapon overperforms if it cannot be countered, is too cheap, or squad wipes too frequently.

The RE rifle nade in fact can be countered easily because
1. It has a long and obvious animation
2. It makes a loud sound
3. Upon impact, it has a long enough time to fuse for a unit to clear its aoe radius
4. Unsupported Rear echelons have low hp, low dps, and are fielded less than other infantry squads and therefore most infantry squads should be able to engage a nade equipped RE.
5. Supported rear echelons are as strong as their support, but this argument does not hold much weight because all support units are strong when supported including snipers pathfinder JLI MGs.

A RE riflenade is not too cheap because it has a similar price tag to flamethrower which serves a similar role in anti-cover. It also has a similar price to BARS and Volks STGs despite not providing nearly as much dps.

A RE riflegrenade also does not have a high frequency to wipe as it can be countered easily as mentioned before.

So the RE rifle nade should not be nerfed and should remain the same.

There are other weapons that fall under this category, but not the RE rifle nade.

people in this thread should seriously calm the fuck down a bit. i can understand the frustration about changes seemingly going in the wrong direction and there's nothing wrong with making that clear. but, here's the catch: if you want to be taken seriously or get a response then phrase your posts accordingly and get your facts straight. i don't know what kind of upbringing you've all had but how can it be so difficult to voice your opinion in a way that is not overly condescending or outright insulting? it's also just the first iteration of the balance preview and it was already made clear that not all intended changes made it in just yet. pretty sure there's still some stuff in the works for USF in particular, as it seems to be the faction with the least overall tweaks so far.

in any case, i agree the riflenade change leaves a bit of a sour taste as the added micro tax didn't get compensated by improved performance. there should at least be a cost reduction if other stat changes are out of the question, but i'd rather see the grenade improved a bit (e.g. higher fire rate or lower fuse timer).

the e8 changes also go not far enough in my opinion. the +5 range is nice to have but as others already pointed out that won't change the lack of AI the unit suffers from, nor will it compensate for the low fire rate.
some sort of AI skillshot, be it a fragmentation round akin to that of the IS-2 or simply a WP shell might be a good addition to help out in that department. otherwise i'm afraid the only aspect where the E8 will be on par with the comet is its cost.

Just my opinion but maybe vehicles like the Pershing and Calliope without a crew can have a self-repair ability instead of buffs to their health.

Just my opinion but maybe vehicles like the Pershing and Calliope without a crew can have a self-repair ability instead of buffs to their health.

This is a fantastic idea. Brilliant brilliant. Idk why I didn't think of this but this solves the vehicle crew issues for Calliope, Priest, and Pershing.

Since USF vehicles are supposed to be mobile and aggressive, and because vehicle crews could be exploited for powerful units such as these 3, these units should've had self repairs as compensation for removing vehicle crews from the beginning.

QoL suggestion for USF: An Ambulance deployed in the USF base sector can be designated as an "F"RP. As others have mentioned, USF retreats are rather inconsistent. Being able to direct your troops straight to the Ambulance seems like a relatively decent solution, and would solve this issue. The Ambulance already has different functionality when deployed in the base sector, gaining DR, after all.

Alternatively, if this is considered to cause a small balance concern (Slightly shortening retreats by deploying your ambulance RIGHT on the edge of your base sector), then perhaps two/three invulnerable structures (Model: The Beacon currently used for the Major FRP/Pathfinder Beacon/a few other uses) could be placed around the USF base stamp perimeter. One of these should be designated as the "retreat" point by default, with the USF player being able to switch the "retreat" point between them if necessary.

This is a fantastic idea. Brilliant brilliant. Idk why I didn't think of this but this solves the vehicle crew issues for Calliope, Priest, and Pershing.

Since USF vehicles are supposed to be mobile and aggressive, and because vehicle crews could be exploited for powerful units such as these 3, these units should've had self repairs as compensation for removing vehicle crews from the beginning.

Yes?

I mean it makes sense at least to me since it's somewhat of a basic functionality of the USF to be able to quickly and easily repair in the field.

Just my opinion but maybe vehicles like the Pershing and Calliope without a crew can have a self-repair ability instead of buffs to their health.

When you say "Buffs to their Health" for the Calliope, do you mean up from the current 320HP, or from a standard HP of 100/160? If the latter, Crew Repairs would hardly matter, as you'd generally be oneshot anyway.

When you say "Buffs to their Health" for the Calliope, do you mean up from the current 320HP, or from a standard HP of 100/160? If the latter, Crew Repairs would hardly matter, as you'd generally be oneshot anyway.

I was more talking about the Pershing since it's specifically mentioned in the patch notes, and I quote:

"M26 Pershing
Pershing is being adjusted to be repaired faster due to its reliance on Rear Echelon squads to repair it. The Pershing is also receiving a slight speed buff once it has received veterancy to retain its role as a mobile heavy tank.

Health from 960 to 800
15% damage reduction to retain 6 shot kill but faster repair times
Veterancy 2 provides +10% speed bonus
CP requirement from 12 to 11".

I only mentioned the Calliope, and as NorthWeapon said the Priest, since those are pretty much the only USF vehicles without a crew that can't self-repair.

I was more talking about the Pershing since it's specifically mentioned in the patch notes, and I quote:

"M26 Pershing
Pershing is being adjusted to be repaired faster due to its reliance on Rear Echelon squads to repair it. The Pershing is also receiving a slight speed buff once it has received veterancy to retain its role as a mobile heavy tank.

Health from 960 to 800
15% damage reduction to retain 6 shot kill but faster repair times
Veterancy 2 provides +10% speed bonus
CP requirement from 12 to 11".

I only mentioned the Calliope, and as NorthWeapon said the Priest, since those are pretty much the only USF vehicles without a crew that can't self-repair.

This is fair, though it seems like the lack of self-sufficiency is the primary intention behind their lacking crews, which would be countered by having crew repairs (Even though they'd cost Muni). It seems like they're /intentionally/ designed to require RE support.

This is fair, though it seems like the lack of self-sufficiency is the primary intention behind their lacking crews, which would be countered by having crew repairs (Even though they'd cost Muni). It seems like they're /intentionally/ designed to require RE support.

Uhhh I can't say exactly for the Calliope or Priest since I don't remember there being a limit on these units in this game, but I think it was made so for the Pershing since it's limited to only 1 in the field at any given time so if you can just decrew it you could call in another one lol.