UKF in ML so far...

Wow that is quite a bit of work you put into there. It is a lot more visual that way. Thanks for doing that!

I personally wouldn't nerf the AI of Panther put I do think Comet could get a small AI buff that is not depended on the use of WP or grenade which cost munition and micro each time you use it. Obviously this gets worse in bigger games with multiple units where the AI value of Comet is bound to your micro skills in the outcome. Something like a MG upgrade for munition (you pay only once of course) or a small AOE buff that brings it main gun AI performance closer to PZIV/T34 for example. This would reflect the 18 population a lot better.

thanks a lot!

with respect to the main gun AI, you'd probably be surprised that the Comet's gun is pretty much on par with that of other generalist mediums, if not even better. it has lower scatter and deals quite a bit more AoE damage per shot than, for example, the Pz.IV-H's 75 mm cannon (even after the last patch), although the OHK radius is a bit smaller. so it kills a bit less on average with the first shot, but overtakes the main gun of the Pz.IV after a couple more shots fired, in particular vs clumped squads.
the reason why the Pz.IV seems to perform better overall is that it has more MG DPS, but that advantage shrinks quickly against targets with low received acc. only vs squads in heavy cover the Comet is strictly inferior, since there the AoE(n) distance and damage of 0 and 120, respectively, make it take ages to kill anything in comparison with other mediums.

therefore i'm not sure if more main gun AI would be a good choice for the Comet, as that might make it too efficient at wiping squads in the late game. a slight buff to its MGs would be better imho, although i'd refrain from increasing accuracy and buff damage per bullet instead. otherwise the Comet would easily be able to mow down low-HP models weakened by WP shell damage with impunity.

thanks a lot!

with respect to the main gun AI, you'd probably be surprised that the Comet's gun is pretty much on par with that of other generalist mediums, if not even better. it has lower scatter and deals quite a bit more AoE damage per shot than, for example, the Pz.IV-H's 75 mm cannon (even after the last patch), although the OHK radius is a bit smaller. so it kills a bit less on average with the first shot, but overtakes the main gun of the Pz.IV after a couple more shots fired, in particular vs clumped squads.
the reason why the Pz.IV seems to perform better overall is that it has more MG DPS, but that advantage shrinks quickly against targets with low received acc. only vs squads in heavy cover the Comet is strictly inferior, since there the AoE(n) distance and damage of 0 and 120, respectively, make it take ages to kill anything in comparison with other mediums.

I looked into the stats by myself and yeah you are right about that. Comet deals more damage in its outer AOE while having a smaller 80 damage kill distance. Thus resulting in Comets main gun beeing better in the long run especially vs blobs in the open, PZIV/T34 beeing better versus small units, especially if they are clumped in cover. I do think part of the perception of PZIV/T34 beeing better at AI as a Comet is generated by the higher chance of PZIV/T34 wiping a high health squad (if soldiers get close to each other). We all experienced that multiple times, since there are always situations were soldiers move too close to each other. Loosing a squad completely feels more punishing.

therefore i'm not sure if more main gun AI would be a good choice for the Comet, as that might make it too efficient at wiping squads in the late game. a slight buff to its MGs would be better imho, although i'd refrain from increasing accuracy and buff damage per bullet instead. otherwise the Comet would easily be able to mow down low-HP models weakened by WP shell damage with impunity.

After reading your statements I have to admit I do think this seems reasonable to me. A small AOE buff could get quickly out of hand, while a small MG buff is controllable. Maybe the best way to go. That way Comet would retain higher AI than Panther in all frontal combat situations. This should be true for a Vet0 Comet without WP too.

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That's some top class analysis right there!

Is that all in the new ScatterThis? I have to admit I have not tried it in some time.

That's some top class analysis right there!

Is that all in the new ScatterThis? I have to admit I have not tried it in some time.

thanks!

yeah for the most part everything used for these graphs is included in the most recent release. though meanwhile i've updated the MG damage approximation to simulate variance as it would occur ingame (before it just used a flat average DPS between main gun shots) and fixed a handful of bugs/errors here and there. i was actually planning to release an update with the correct unit stats for the current patch once the mod tools are up to date... but that hasn't happened yet unfortunately.

So that 10% scatter nerf seemed like really hurt comet, huh. I used to view Comet as the best battle tank, now I don't know what to say. Played around 25 2v2 matches this patch and lost a lot of places to a point of getting negative win-rate. At some point I was getting afraid that my skill is degrading, tried my luck with SOV and OST and calmed down a bit, even though SOV got nerfed substantially as well.
On paper the nerfs were deserved, but in practice it made faction weak, could be possible that I have no idea how to play the faction in current patch.

Probably won't touch UKF this patch.

In CoH1 USF was early game Wermacht were late. It was usually up to the USF player to be offensive and attempt to shut out the game before it was too late. That was the "theme" of the game and I think plenty of people were fine with that.

I completely agree with you in that the base factions are not deprived but have "themes". CoH2 Soviets and Ostheer are pretty closely matched and commander choices allow you to decide what niche you end up wanting to fulfill. Such as Assault Grenadiers if you wanted early offensive power, or T85's if you wanted a heftier tank. Did Ostheer have a better late game? They did, but that doesn't mean Soviets couldn't compete.

In CoH2, USF were similarly designed around shutting out the game on a razors edge. They were on an invisible timer to lose the game. They lack units in their core army because Riflemen were designed to do everything. As you said when they removed smoke on rifles, this core design began compounding on itself until they turned into this weird faction we have now. We have units that constantly compete against itself or just "slight" variants of existing units.

as for OKW I think the idea was they were mimicking their "Battle of the Buldge" concept of striking hard and fast early on, then teetering out to retaliation, but if they COULD hold they finally get their big guns out, the ultimate late game if you will.

I protested a lot of the USF changes that turned into the current iteration we have today and I was not the only USF player to do so. I prefer the theme they were originally presented with, and instead of changing it would prefer reducing the impact of it. If the issue was "Well, USF didn't have a late game" that was a choice you made when you locked the faction. I'm not a fan of factions being slightly different flavors of ice cream.

I appreciate the long write up but I just can't agree to go back to the era of "if you cant win in 15 minutes as USF you deserve to lose" that this community and design had for atleast 2 years of the game. that was cancer.

I appreciate the long write up but I just can't agree to go back to the era of "if you cant win in 15 minutes as USF you deserve to lose" that this community and design had for atleast 2 years of the game. that was cancer.

I think the idea was that each faction is vastly different so that they didn't feel samey. The argument is "well people will just pick soviets because it's the most viable/less gimmicky then.", well people do that anyways because soviets still have tools and a good tech structure vs USF. If you pick USF now you are basically picking them for the crew repairs and a few outlying strategies which can be similar to soviets.

Ignoring top end play, factions are pretty samey with USF/Brit/Soviet skins thrown onto them.

As far as that playstyle being bad for the game, I look at fighting games and each character is an arch-type that plays differently. So if I'm a zoner and I'm up against a rushdown character, I need to be even more cautious then I normally am about defense. In this context it seems like every faction is a Ryu/Shoto clones with slightly different things. So people just pick Akuma because he has a gross kit compared to Ryu.

I think "healthy for the game" is up to personal opinion because at that point what is? Would come down to the underlying vision of the game that I don't think had ever been openly discussed.

I think the idea was that each faction is vastly different so that they didn't feel samey. The argument is "well people will just pick soviets because it's the most viable/less gimmicky then.", well people do that anyways because soviets still have tools and a good tech structure vs USF. If you pick USF now you are basically picking them for the crew repairs and a few outlying strategies which can be similar to soviets.

Ignoring top end play, factions are pretty samey with USF/Brit/Soviet skins thrown onto them.

As far as that playstyle being bad for the game, I look at fighting games and each character is an arch-type that plays differently. So if I'm a zoner and I'm up against a rushdown character, I need to be even more cautious then I normally am about defense. In this context it seems like every faction is a Ryu/Shoto clones with slightly different things. So people just pick Akuma because he has a gross kit compared to Ryu.

I think "healthy for the game" is up to personal opinion because at that point what is? Would come down to the underlying vision of the game that I don't think had ever been openly discussed.

I keep seeing this 'every faction is the same' argument, but I'm not really buying it. Riflemen and Conscripts play nothing alike, USF LV pressure is decidedly different in role and timing from a T-70. Lategame is night and day, with the decisive push of USF infantry and TDs style contrasting with the slow manpower grind of Soviets hidden behind a million mines, sandbags, 6 man setup teams, and rocket arty.

My problem is that people seem to define factions having the tools needed to play the game as turning everything into the same faction. But the game requires that you have that toolset to work within its framework. Every faction needs some form of suppression to control blobs, AT Guns and snares to control vehicle pressure, Artillery to break setup team and emplacement spam, Vehicles, and a variety of specific counters to things like Mines and Snipers.

It makes far more sense to me to define asymmetry around faction specific mechanics (OKW Trucks, vet 5, and Salvage, Soviet 6 man teams and merge, etc) or equally strong, but different weapons (50 cal vs MG42) that fill the same role rather than trying to compensate for missing tools with broken units. (Brits..)

The expansion armies all started out as an attempt to do the latter, and while you can do this to a limited extent, (Ex: USF having lots of Zooks to compensate for AT Gun on only one side of tech tree) it tends to make the factions increasingly one dimensional in how they play. (I don't entirely agree that USF has to win in 15 mins or less, but going LT in 1v1 you *need* to do damage to be in the game late)

The end result though was they were unable to make the game work this way. OKW was more or less completely walked back and turned into a more traditional army, while USF is close to one while missing a few tools, and Brits remain the big outlier.

The TL;DR: version is that I agree the lack of toolkit is the problem here, but I don't think any of the Allied factions play in a similar manner, and any further patches should focus on adding more tools to their stock rosters while further emphasizing their different factional traits.

The TL;DR: version is that I agree the lack of toolkit is the problem here, but I don't think any of the Allied factions play in a similar manner, and any further patches should focus on adding more tools to their stock rosters while further emphasizing their different factional traits.

You have a point but let me sort of elaborate in my example. A Ryu has all of the basic tools to be a functional character. An Akuma not only has those basic tools but more, making it a far more attractive choice for experienced players.

If CoH2 were to fit in that, You'd argue old USF/OKW was a different character entirely (Some characters don't have Wake up options for example to make up for it elsewhere). Good or bad that got changed dramatically so USF and OKW had those tools, but lost their strengths. Ostheer/Soviets never lost their tools and I'd argue have only gotten more. So you are left with a basic somewhat functioning faction vs a completely realized one.

As far as similarities, to be honest all factions follow pretty same rules. Light vehicles of 05-30 fuel are for super early harassment, 50 fuel would "counter" that unit and can harass, and 70 fuel counters all light vehicles + more. All infantry fight over good pieces of cover more so then their effective ranges(Heavy cover op). In my opinion it becomes about what tools you want to use or moreso what you have access to.

Personal opinion here I find usf/soviets very similar, except as soviets you have plenty of tools that are not restricted by commander choice or faction.


Edit: I guess to put it in one way, soviets/ostheer are 100% of a fully realized faction (Maybe okw now to some extent). USF/Brits were 50% north, but 50% east. So realistically all this time spent "fixing and removing" removed 40% of the east, and added 20% of the north. So all of this time is spent just trying to make them closer and closer to a "functional faction".

You have a point but let me sort of elaborate in my example. A Ryu has all of the basic tools to be a functional character. An Akuma not only has those basic tools but more, making it a far more attractive choice for experienced players.

I think we agree on this point, I just don't feel like having the required tools means the factions play the same. Conscripts, Riflemen, and Sections may all be mainline infantry, but they get used in very different ways. Further emphasis of faction traits and their different playstyles should be the goal for asymmetrical balance imo, not different toolkits. (The ZiS and Raketen are good examples of a standard tool that got their own spin put on them and play differently from the other AT Guns)

So that 10% scatter nerf seemed like really hurt comet, huh. I used to view Comet as the best battle tank, now I don't know what to say. Played around 25 2v2 matches this patch and lost a lot of places to a point of getting negative win-rate. At some point I was getting afraid that my skill is degrading, tried my luck with SOV and OST and calmed down a bit, even though SOV got nerfed substantially as well.
On paper the nerfs were deserved, but in practice it made faction weak, could be possible that I have no idea how to play the faction in current patch.

Probably won't touch UKF this patch.

honestly the scatter nerf didn't really impact the Comet's performance at all. as a rule of thumb, changes to angular scatter (which was nerfed here slightly) have less impact than changes to scatter distance due to the shape of the scatter cone. the more important nerf imo was the 'bug fix' of the AoE near damage, which was reduced to 120 as previously intended. however, this also has little impact in 90% of all cases and basically only reduced the damage and chance to kill vs units in green cover (OHK chance essentially went down to zero).

hence, i'd argue the Comet nerfs are hardly noticeable in-game except in fringe cases and if it used to be a great tank before the patch, it still is now.

the more important nerf imo was the 'bug fix' of the AoE near damage, which was reduced to 120 as previously intended. however, this also has little impact in 90% of all cases and basically only reduced the damage and chance to kill vs units in green cover (OHK chance essentially went down to zero).

Didn't it reduced 80dmg radius by around 15%? This is similar 80dmg distance difference of old comet vs any medium tank like t34-76 or P4.

Didn't it reduced 80dmg radius by around 15%? This is similar 80dmg distance difference of old comet vs any medium tank like t34-76 or P4.

true. however the actual difference is a bit smaller as infantry models have a hitbox as well (though i don't know the exact size and shape a circle with a radius of 0.5 m around the unit is a good approximation). if you add that the difference drops from a 16.7% to a 10.4% smaller OHK radius.

in-game this difference should only be noticeable for the 1st shot and if my calculations are correct you should get around 20% less OHKs against a full-health squad.
but since the portion the AoE nerf cut off from the overall AoE damage cone (the volume you get by rotating the area under the AoE damage curve around thy y-axis) is very small, the average AoE damage dealt per shot doesn't change much. that means, after 2 and more shots fired both the old and new Comet kill almost the same number of models on average with every shell. obviously this will be different if you look at units with some form of DR (e.g. vet3 grens or units behind heavy cover) as here the AoE curves are quite different.

so to sum up; if you look at OHKs of full-health models or damage against units with DR then, yes, the AoE changes made the Comet quite a bit worse. but in all other cases i'd argue the changes are barely noticeable.

so to sum up; if you look at OHKs of full-health models or damage against units with DR then, yes, the AoE changes made the Comet quite a bit worse. but in all other cases i'd argue the changes are barely noticeable.

If I understood you right, this is about a squad out of cover. But what if squad is clumped up in yellow cover and you just want to attack ground it, or you are rotating around squad in green cover and then shooting at it, so shells won't overshoot and just hit against green cover? There are a lot of instances where infantry can be clumped up and good OHK can be pretty useful, the question is how much it is the case thought?

If I understood you right, this is about a squad out of cover. But what if squad is clumped up in yellow cover and you just want to attack ground it, or you are rotating around squad in green cover and then shooting at it, so shells won't overshoot and just hit against green cover? There are a lot of instances where infantry can be clumped up and good OHK can be pretty useful, the question is how much it is the case thought?

yeah, OHK capability is undoubtedly very important. you can easily see this, for example, if you compare the cromwell with other mediums. even though the crom deals more AoE damage per shot to a squad than the Pz.IV, it doesn't kill as many models in the same time frame but instead spreads out that superior AoE damage more evenly over multiple squad members. for the same reason heavies tend to feel a bit underwhelming, even though after only 2 shots fired on average they already perform better (i.e. more kills) than any medium or premium med.

but to come back to this case; the OHK radius reduction for the comet means that the OHK area is around 20% smaller. this applies in every case - in yellow cover, in the open, bunched up in a crater or spread out as wide as possible (but not in green or negative cover, as the damage reduction would shift the OHK threshold up or down in this case). so at best, you're now 20% less likely to kill a model in one shot. and this also doesn't depend on distance to the target, how clumped a squad is or the presence of shot blockers as everything else stayed mostly the same for the Comet prior to after the nerf (yes the scatter angle is a tad bit higher, but this doesn't have such a drastic effect as the scatter distance).

now i do agree that 20% is quite substantial. but you have to keep in mind that this performance difference already shrinks to about 5% within two shots (a 2HK ?) and gets rather negligible from there onwards.

If it isn't dead it isn't bled, and that is REALLY FELT when a shot connects and a full model squad just retreats away. 20% less really hammers that 1 shot consistency. The P4's large OHK radius is why its a real shock tank that AT infantry cant rush. 2 shots means AT rocket infantry can rush a vehicle, snap a shot, and retreat out before bleeding.

The UKF roster has consistently either lost or never had great bleed tools, with the Comet as the one real exception.