4v4 win rates disparity

The purpose of this post is to figure out what changes need to be made to balance 4v4s without affecting 1v1 balance.

I saw an interesting post mentioning Axis win rates and how they are skewed in team games such as 3v3/4v4 since the last patch. It cited this webpage for statistics: https://coh2stats.com/stats/week/1616976000/4v4/wermacht

Unfortunately the stats don't go far back but it shows Axis have a clear win rate advantage over Allies at a high level. Heavy tank destroyers such as the elefant and jagdtiger are dominating team games at the moment. Elefant/Jagdtiger (e/j) commanders are by far the most represented along with artillery commanders and I think I can figure out why.

1. T-34 ram nerf and removal of IL-2 bombing runs. The most popular counter to heavy tanks was the t34 and IL-2 bombing combo. The removal of the stun from the t-34 ram and the removal of IL-2 bombing runs from some commanders without offering any good alternative options has had the unintended side effect of increasing the potency of heavy tanks and to an extent, heavy tank destroyers. Lightly armoured allied tank destroyers are unable to counter e/j in a direct confrontation without taking major damage and more often than not, being unable to penetrate the armour due to the vet 2 nerf on most tank destroyers. A heavy armour push onto e/j is a huge risk and investment that rarely pays off especially if the area around e/j has been mined. The intended counter (artillery) is easily dodged by e/j's by moving and more often than not, a waste of a cooldown on the artillery piece. There is no effective counter to e/j's at the moment and it is clear.

Suggested change: Revert T-34 ram nerf and reimplement IL-2 bombing run on the commanders missing them.

Alternate suggested change: Remove spotting scope from elefant commander and remove artillery barrage from jagdtiger (which helps it counter anti-tank guns). There needs to be more counters to heavy tank destroyers.

2. Artillery over-representation. Again, the removal of IL-2 bombing run on some commanders has removed the ability of those same commanders to counter artillery. The need to use artillery on heavy tank destroyers also means that Axis artillery does not get countered barraged as often. There are less counters to static artillery. It was already an expensive option to counter them before, now its rare and expensive.

its undeniable: Axis static emplacements and artillery has become more powerful with last patches changes.

Suggested change: Reintroduce IL-2 bombing runs to more commanders (the same amount as the ones removed) or lower the potency of Axis static arty which is mainly used in 4v4s anyway. There needs to be more counters to static arty.


3. Pack howie & ISU-152 HE nerf. The pack howie nerf has completely neutered this unit. This unit is now, no longer able to counter barrage an enemy IG due to its high scatter and low damage. All the while the IG has now become supreme on the battlefield with its better accuracy and no longer countered. The ISU-152 HE nerf was not needed and has made this unit countered by j/e by exposing itself even more to use HE rounds.

With the nerf of these two tools to deal with Axis blobs, Axis blobbing has become more durable and thus more powerful. Gren/Ober blobs with non-doctrine high long range damage are becoming too dominant in 4v4s.

Suggested change: Revert Pack howie changes or lower scatter and revert ISU-152 HE range back to normal.

Alternate suggested change: Increase potency of default Allied grenades (Rifleman grenade, IS grenade and cons molotov). There needs to be more counters to Axis blobs. I think the change to land mattress in the 2021 commander update patch is a step in the right direction however.

On the topic of blobbing. Both Axis factions have a non-doctrinal tool to deal with blobbing (Stuka/Werfer) however only Soviets have a non-doctrine tool to deal with blobbing (Katy). Lowering the power of anti-blobbing tools and offering nothing in exchange has made blobbing more powerful.

4. Lowering Allied tank destroyer vet pen. While I do not have the numbers infront of me right now. I'm not a fan of lowering pen on all tank destroyers across the board. This effectively means Axis heavy tanks are more durable. If the pen bonuses are absurb or unnecessarily then they did not have to be changed. This is a blatant buff for all Axis armour. Its already fairly easy to keep Panthers alive, making it even easier to keep them alive helps Axis snowball late game with their superior number of panthers. Feel free to prove me wrong on this one though.

The fact that all Allies factions must rely on tank destroyers to deal with panthers and heavy armour means tank destroyers are over represented yes but a nerf without giving any alternative option is not good or fun. The reason why all allied factions rely on tank destroyers is because there are no alternatives. They have no non-doctrinal heavy tanks for 4v4s. The balance team is nerfing the only playstyle available.

Suggested change: Revert all previous TD vet pen changes back to previous values.

tl;dr. Axis have become very effective at controlling the battlefield in 4v4s while most/all Allied counters have been neutered in some way or another. Its easier to blob as Axis since there are less counters to them now.

This corresponds with my personal experience. Despite having played a lot more allied factions than axis factions my winrate with OKW (that i usually play if playing Axis) is higher in bigger gamemodes. My winrate is pretty similar at 2vs2, but going to 3vs3 and 4vs4 I tend to loose more with Allies and tend to win more with Axis. One thing is map design and ressource inflation just in bigger game modes which gives Axis an advantage in comparison to 1vs1. The other mechanic that kicks in is the unit population count. At some point of the game when you are reaching 100 popcap it is way easier to control two Panther than it is to control 3-4 M10. You end up loosing one of that M10 in the engagement, while Panther escape with low health. That is a typical scenario, simply because micro skills are limited and more bundled survivability (health+armor+speed) will lead to a higher chance to escape in that situations. At some point of the game in a 3v3 and especially 4vs4 it gets hard to beat that 2-3 Panther backed up by Brummbär.

I do think this is strange. It seems to me especially Soviet and AEF are winning more than 50% overall in 1vs1, so why allied late game units than don't play a big role in 1vs1 get nerfed in last/current patches? This heavily impacts the late game in 3v3 and 4vs4 but doesn't change a thing in 1vs1 where Allies should get nerfed.

Shouldn't allied early units like T0/T1 infantry and light vehicles getting a nerf but late game units get a buff?

- why nerf Calliope without giving AEF other late game buffs that make up for that?
- why not giving Pershing or IS-2 some more punch?
- why nerfing ISU-152 range without buffing other soviet late game tanks?
- why not making E8 and KW-1 more expensive but turn into real late game alternatives which can take on Panthers in a situation with multiple tanks on both sides?
- why not limiting Comet and Churchill to 1 tank, increasing cost and turn into a real powerful tank (sharing limit with Avre/Croc)?

Most of this are doctrinal units, making that commanders interesting for 3vs3/4vs4 picks, having no impact at 1vs1 at all. Churchill/Comet would give UKF a nondoctrinal late game choice like OKW Kingtiger. Which would be okay since UKF misses crucial units in their nondoc roster.

At the moment KW-2 is the only real powerful allied late game tank if you ask me. The only one which really annoys axis opponents (it annoys me at least if I have to play against it).

The ISU-152 HE nerf was not needed.

I disagree.

This corresponds with my personal experience. Despite having played a lot more allied factions than axis factions my winrate with OKW (that i usually play if playing Axis) is higher in bigger gamemodes. My winrate is pretty similar at 2vs2, but going to 3vs3 and 4vs4 I tend to loose more with Allies and tend to win more with Axis. One thing is map design and ressource inflation just in bigger game modes which gives Axis an advantage in comparison to 1vs1. The other mechanic that kicks in is the unit population count. At some point of the game when you are reaching 100 popcap it is way easier to control two Panther than it is to control 3-4 M10. You end up loosing one of that M10 in the engagement, while Panther escape with low health. That is a typical scenario, simply because micro skills are limited and more bundled survivability (health+armor+speed) will lead to a higher chance to escape in that situations. At some point of the game in a 3v3 and especially 4vs4 it gets hard to beat that 2-3 Panther backed up by Brummbär.

I do think this is strange. It seems to me especially Soviet and AEF are winning more than 50% overall in 1vs1, so why allied late game units than don't play a big role in 1vs1 get nerfed in last/current patches? This heavily impacts the late game in 3v3 and 4vs4 but doesn't change a thing in 1vs1 where Allies should get nerfed.

Shouldn't allied early units like T0/T1 infantry and light vehicles getting a nerf but late game units get a buff?

- why nerf Calliope without giving AEF other late game buffs that make up for that?
- why not giving Pershing or IS-2 some more punch?
- why nerfing ISU-152 range without buffing other soviet late game tanks?
- why not making E8 and KW-1 more expensive but turn into real late game alternatives which can take on Panthers in a situation with multiple tanks on both sides?
- why not limiting Comet and Churchill to 1 tank, increasing cost and turn into a real powerful tank (sharing limit with Avre/Croc)?

Most of this are doctrinal units, making that commanders interesting for 3vs3/4vs4 picks, having no impact at 1vs1 at all. Churchill/Comet would give UKF a nondoctrinal late game choice like OKW Kingtiger. Which would be okay since UKF misses crucial units in their nondoc roster.

At the moment KW-2 is the only real powerful allied late game tank if you ask me. The only one which really annoys axis opponents (it annoys me at least if I have to play against it).

Great post.

I couldn't have described it better myself in regards to the Panther.

The Panther is such a durable and easy unit to keep alive. They trade so well in 4v4s as they're hard to kill compared to lightly armoured allied tanks. As I've said earlier, the nerf to allied tank destroyer vet pen has indirectly made Panthers more durable and thus they trade much better in team games.

I have so many team games where the game was lost simply because the enemy team traded better with their panthers than we could with our tank destroyers. By building up their Panthers, it snowballs to where Allied players cannot counter the mass Panthers on the field with their low number of tank destroyers. They are able to dive easily and not suffer any losses.

Panthers have the added bonus of being slightly effective vs infantry compared to tank destroyers which is a dedicated anti-tank unit. Being effective vs infantry and their high armour means infantry anti-tank weapons are less effective against them. Another reason for Axis dominance in team games.

Great post.

I couldn't have described it better myself in regards to the Panther.

I play about 90% arranged team, so I don't loose to random teammates with idotic behaviour or missing arrangements. Our three typical allied loose scenarios are:

1. We loose ground early because walking stuka made some good wiping hits at crowded 4vs4 maps. Walking Stuka really comes way to early in 4vs4 when it is no disadvantage for one axis player to go directly for it (this thing needs more consistent damage over a wider area and less wipes). I play this a lot by myself to be honest, but thats no excuse ;-)

2. We get grinded to death slowly by LefH in midgame, because we can't manage to kill all of them (last patch made it harder by removing some of the IL-2 bombing runs).

3. We get snowballed to death in lategame by multiple Panthers once the critical mass is reached and partly vetted.

From my experience the only way to win team games as Allies is to rush their fuel and in general.

The longer the match goes, the more veteran heavy tanks come out for the Axis and thus it turns into a snowball.

Doesn't matter if you nerf the heavy tank destroyers, they have a lot other heavies at their disposal which the Allies cannot contend with toe to toe.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, I'm just saying how it's been since 2006.

I don't think they even take team game context in consideration when they do the balance patches. Even though 90% of coh players are team game players(2s,3s,4s).

I don't think they even take team game context in consideration when they do the balance patches. Even though 90% of players are team game players(2s,3s,4s).

Yep.

Only the top 10% of people get to call the shots since they're in the very small competitive minority but since they stream 1v1 and so forth matches they rake in all of the money so the game is focused around them.

Been like this for years now.

When I try teamgames, the biggest problem I have with Allies are the size of the maps, and the depth of their toolkit.

4v4 maps just aren't large enough, and it makes MG spam shockingly hard to break with anything but indirect. This in turn makes it easy to safely put up caches and then just drown the Allied TDs in armor and Artillery.

The toolkits likewise remain a major problem. Rocket Artillery is mandatory in this mode, period. You just cannot keep up in squad wipes any other way. Its also the only good way to punish lines of AT guns. Additionally, you need something to fight off multiple LeFHs, and only a few docs have a tool that can.

...The longer the match goes, the more veteran heavy tanks come out for the Axis and thus it turns into a snowball...
I'm not saying this is good or bad, I'm just saying how it's been since 2006.

Absolutely, but I think it doesn't have to be like that. There are a lot of commanders that will never be competitive in 1vs1 at all and there are a lot of doctrinal tank choices for Allies in these commanders. Why not giving up the illusion that all have to be somehow competitive in 1vs1? Why not turning some of them with some choosen doctrinal tanks into late game options for fighting axis tanks?

We had the most epic tank battles at steppes shortly before OKW/AEF hit the field. IS-2 got a long deserved buff, overperforming Panther was finally toned down and Opel Blitz was finally changed to give its ressource bonus only to the player it belongs to. Multiple IS-2 with support dueling with multiple Tigers and Panthers with support (since none had a limit of 1). I wish this tank battles would come back, never again we had such epic tank battles... :-/

One thing is map design and ressource inflation just in bigger game modes which gives Axis an advantage in comparison to 1vs1.

This is the biggest one. An MG42 is manageable in lower game modes. However the way the maps are designed in higher team modes mixed with the amount of players make the weapon insane. Most 4v4 maps tend to just turn into choke points. As USF or UKF good luck countering it with the indirect fire you are given.

That and germans are just designed to have a better late game, that's how it goes. If you can't stop a faction designed for late game from getting there, it's sort of a predictable result.

I don't think they even take team game context in consideration when they do the balance patches. Even though 90% of coh players are team game players(2s,3s,4s).

This has always been an issue in Relic games. DoW2 the most popular game modes were 2v2+, yet the game was entirely balanced around 1v1. To be real 1v1 just plays dramatically different from 2v2+ they feel like you're playing a different game.

If all factions had access to a T4(sort of like king tiger tier) that all factions could achieve, that would really only ever be felt in 2v2+ since 1v1 barely ever gets it that far if the game is close. Though that's just not how it's been designed. To fully fix 3v3/4v4 the maps just need drastic reworks....or you just release the game super busted, everyone's viable now in the chaos.

Like A. Soldier said - this is the way it has been for 15 years. It was never addressed and never will be.
I'm sure that if CoH3 ever comes out, it will be the same.

Like A. Soldier said - this is the way it has been for 15 years. It was never addressed and never will be.
I'm sure that if CoH3 ever comes out, it will be the same.

No, there was like a 3 month timed window before release of OKW / AEF where you could play Soviet lategame tanks on eye level with Ostheer lategame tanks, sadly the addition of OKW / AEF screwed it totally.

No, there was like a 3 month timed window before release of OKW / AEF where you could play Soviet lategame tanks on eye level with Ostheer lategame tanks, sadly the addition of OKW / AEF screwed it totally.

Originally, it felt like Ostheer vs Soviets could be close at all stages of the game. IS-2 or the ISU being incredibly dangerous vs a Tiger or Elephant. They seemed to push this concept away as USF was "hyper early game" and okw was "hyper late game" designed which probably bled to the other factions.

Ignoring balance, UKF was originally designed too to compete with late game.

Originally, it felt like Ostheer vs Soviets could be close at all stages of the game. IS-2 or the ISU being incredibly dangerous vs a Tiger or Elephant. They seemed to push this concept away as USF was "hyper early game" and okw was "hyper late game" designed which probably bled to the other factions.

It is sad but the DLC cash cow screwed the balance in multiplayer.

Ignoring balance, UKF was originally designed too to compete with late game.

Instead of adjusting these units in price/population/timing and by introducing limits, they decided to just nerf them until they were no match on an eye level anymore. Failed chance to save allied lategame.

Remove spotting scopes and recon overflight from Jager armour that shit is stupid in combo with the Elephant

Remove maps like Angrymundy, Ettleturd station, Hamburger port, Redcumstain express...
Focus on maps like Steppes, Whiteball express, Winnekendonk....

Maps play a big role. One MG42 can lock out a good portion of the lane-y maps while a Maxim won't even lock out a VP in it's arc. God forbid that one model in your infantry squad is not in green cover. Insta pin and goodbye.

I don't mind ISU 152 HE Nerf. Soviets have the Katy. But as I play USF the most, I know what goes and what doesn't go and what weaknesses I have to exploit in order to not go late game vs axis... and hence the pak howi nerf I do not get. If a nerf was to be given to the howi, it should have been autofire accuracy in terms of scatter (basically the autofiring pak will be viable against blobs but not so much vs static infantry behind cover, you'd need a barrage for it).

Calliope needs a nerf but again, USF is getting nothing in return.
I've been playing with pak howi for the past week, in quite a leisure tone. Standard custom games you'd find in ranked but without all the ranked fuss. And I have to say that it's felt. Many a time have the shells landed (I always play 2x pak) on top of a blobbed up squad and reduced HP to low. You'd expect that ignoring your squads would be punished by a good barrage. But nope, a couple of shells land, HP goes to 10% and the retreat ensues. You wasted a barrage. This might be my rant but I don't think I'm far from the truth about the hard nerfs the USF indirects are getting.

Originally, it felt like Ostheer vs Soviets could be close at all stages of the game. IS-2 or the ISU being incredibly dangerous vs a Tiger or Elephant. They seemed to push this concept away as USF was "hyper early game" and okw was "hyper late game" designed which probably bled to the other factions.

Ignoring balance, UKF was originally designed too to compete with late game.

UKF definitely sounds like a late game faction.
290 armour premium stock generalist tank OR a damage sponge
Long range 200+ dmg TD that can be supported by other tanks easily.
Base arty drops on VPs in case you need to lock down, also stock
Encampments which can force dangerous plays from the enemy to destroy them
Good infantry with a stock upgrade which buffs long range combat (you want long range in late game, not close and risk an out of sight brummbar or sturm or KT)

It's quite perplexing how brits have such low winrates. Of course, the pick rate is low. You could sooner expect to get hit in the ballsack with a flail, swung from a headless chicken, then to see a brit in game... but still, low winrates

Yep. High armor, highly pop efficient units and an uncounterable that protects them is extremely problematic.

The ISU used to murder infantry out from under the SHTD's protection, now it gets power slapped. The SU-85 used to be able to spot SHTDs, but the vision change means it has vision equal to SHTD, so it can be popped accordingly.

The upcoming B-4 nerf limits a remaing tool for controlling that late game super armor. Ive won games otherwise consigned to SHTD+Panther death via a little prayer and a big gun. That is no more with slow firing 300 damage shells.

The Panther is too easily spammed in big teams, more than the Churchill ever was. And it murders infantry reasonably well. Crank up that pop cost, its too efficient when spammed. Maybe remove its pintle outright. We can nerf allied TDs when p5 is less prevalent.

Who on the mod team is the SHTD player? We've seen direct nerfs to every consistent strat to counter them for the past year or so. T-34 rush no longer holds the target long enough. Bombs are mostly gone. Rockets are losing huge pen specifically to make them worse vs heavys. B-4 is losing its teeth. Non-doc options are already non-existent. Most maps are not flankable and the fleet of P5s/Pak wall/schrecks prevents the dive.

Suggestions: increase pop cost of P5 and SHTDs, they should not be spammable. I think 2-3 more, it worked to control Churchill spam. Crank up pop on TDs if necessary. Remove pintle on P5, it has too much effective damage on an inf immune AT platform. Get a medium tank for inf control.

With those changes, the B-4 is no longer needed as a last ditch mega AT gun. Medium tanks become universally more pop efficient than those big lads, as do doctrinal heavies (unspammable!). More risky medium armor the better. A round or 2 of infantry balancing might be needed, but the game seems to flow fine till P5 spam begins, as shown in 1v1 which ends before that point.

Also, maybe outright remove caches.

It's quite perplexing how brits have such low winrates. Of course, the pick rate is low. You could sooner expect to get hit in the ballsack with a flail, swung from a headless chicken, then to see a brit in game... but still, low winrates

It's more like their core design doesn't work if they aren't overpowered. A mortar pit that fires twice as fast as a regular mortar! Then, you can add an engie squad to fire even faster!.....until it gets nerfed. Now you have a stationary mortar waiting to get killed. A sniper that could snare vehicles and damage tanks? That's insane!....until it gets nerfed into the ground because obviously. Am I saying the above is balanced? No not at all.

But doing changes like that ignores that the faction was strictly designed with weird stuff in mind (same with usf) so now you get Frankenstein factions with contradictions/holes/wasted units. Some factions were designed in a linear way, and trying to make curves in that gets you weird Digital signals, not Analog signals.

It's quite perplexing how brits have such low winrates. Of course, the pick rate is low. You could sooner expect to get hit in the ballsack with a flail, swung from a headless chicken, then to see a brit in game... but still, low winrates

I've been playing a lot of UKF in 4s lately and I can answer this one.

UKF lack a lot of tools that are basically required in 4s. Rocket artillery and a mobile mortar for smoke for one. They are completely shut down when going against an MG. Smoke from the mortar pit helps as its fast to land and has a fast cooldown but emplacements in general are easily countered in 4s. Especially by the new buff from stuka napalm. I do enjoy the Cromwell smoke round to counter MGs but that doesn't come early enough for it to be effective. Perhaps adding it to the AEC might help.

They also lack a solid anti-blob rocket arty. Land matress is doctrinal, slow to setup and turn compared to rocket arty vehicles. There's a new buff on the way and it can't come soon enough.

The firefly is easily supported yes but it shoots slow, moves slow, turns slow, turret turns slow, and overall is SUPER slow. Its not ideal for the fast engagements that tend to happen most of the times. Also not to mention that Panther has fairly high HP and good armour in the front so it can shrug off a single firefly fairly easily. The alternative is a 320MP ATG which is great at what it does but is vastly more expensive to say, the USF atg which is comfortably at 270MP and has an muni ability to boost pen values. Brits are already fairly MP starved because of the expendable nature of emplacements.

Comet is comparable to the Panther. The frontal armour is the same and it has better AI properties but that doesn't mean much against heavy armour that Axis are packing late game. Both late game UKF tanks fail to pen most frontal heavy armour making them mostly sidelined in the late game role while Axis heavy armour remain dominant. They don't trade well in a front-to-front engagement which tends to happen the most.

You use a comet the same way you would use an Ostwind or Brumbar. It really isn't that great for its cost and it can't trade with the similarly priced Panther which sucks. Churchill can only soak damage too which really sucks for its cost. Compared to Panther which is the generalist medium tank god of the battlefield and only continues to receive (indirect) buffs.