My real problem with COH3

Most of the balance team shittalk and conspiracies are a great example of this.

While a lot of people seem to blame balance team for the problems game has, without acknowledging the fact that with rotten foundation layed by relic its really hard to build something solid.

Balance team over-all did a good job into bringing the game into more or less balanced state, but the path to it is very subjective.

As an example, we can at the whole situation with the TDs in the game. Are the TDs right now balanced? Yes they are balanced. But they ultimatly made game less fun and spammy (at least outside 1v1). Because the aproach of TD balance was strate-forward in other words giving them insane penetration, since they needed it in order to fight heavy tanks. But in proccess of doing so, TDs become supper effective against all vehicles. The same way TDs could have had lower ROF, but increased damage making them less deadly against mediums, but better against heavy tanks. In theory at least.

Other stuff balance team had fixed was pretty much shit stains from old relic design, which were objectively bad choses. I mean, its cool that ISU\CB\2 model sniper and so on were fixed, but I'm pretty sure it took longer to get those in Relic "scope" rather then finding the solution. Still its good to have them fixed non the less. But again we dont know how much times "scope" thing was just a convenient excuse and I am pretty sure it was used in that way at least ones during CoH2 life.

But again balance team are far from being saints themselfs and they are known to ignore even resonable feedback about their ideas. The most recent example is B4\ST changes, even before fist changes were made to mentioned units, majority is good players have said that it will be broken\OP but it was ignored, just to be nerfed later. And we have plenty of such examples like VSL, penals and so on. I mean sure, its good that it took less time for balance team to accept that their idea is not working (unlike relic back in the day), but yet it still takes more then a week to fix. And it doesnt really makes players happy that they will be forced to play god knows how long with VSL\Penal\Cons blobs, ST\B4 nukes, Osttroopen LMG hordes and so on, especially considering the outcome was predictable from the beggining.

Also the whole situation with "bandaids". When there is no easy solution to address the problem balance team rather nerf this thing into the oblivion for it never to be used again or be super lackluster.

Personally my own and single complain, is that balance team are kinda lacked "creative approach" and "out of the box" thinking about some problem solving. But again, we dont know what relic allowed to change or to add to the game, but at least for some problems which relic allowed balance team to adress much better solutions could have been found. Some of the units\abilities after such changes became merely "side options" being marginally better in something so specific that they are not even woth picking if they are not part of the meta.

Glad you like it. I hope it makes up for all the times I had to call you out on your ranting

Edit: Also, go make some more great maps instead of reading this trainwreck of a thread pls.

It does! Clean slate.

I came into Coh2 around the Flamer Penal time frame. So I like to hear about the original faction designs and their gradual changes.

Since you are a mostly 1v1 player you should be glad I am not making any maps. All my 1v1 maps are meh at best

All my 1v1 maps are meh at best

I did quite enjoy Novgorod tbh

OKW is the perfect example. A very very stylish and interesting faction on paper with a "desperate" aesthetic (literally, the perfect thing for the time period) who got absolutely devastated by the continuous nerfs of "balance team" without any real direction to them. They didn't even bother to adjust the tools or the playstyle. They just straight up downplayed some stats and overplayed some others. They did that to the other factions too. That is not balancing, that is a band aid solution at best. Half the updates from the release of WFA until roughly 2017 were nerfing and upping and nerfing and upping okw units.

This is just blatantly false. Relic released a total disfunctional faction and eventually they had to do a major/total rework of the faction themselves to make it even remotely balanced/playable. The community balance teams have only been putting out the leftover fires ever since, because without full dev tools there isn't much to work with except for some stat tuning and minor changes.

While a lot of people seem to blame balance team for the problems game has, without acknowledging the fact that with rotten foundation layed by relic its really hard to build something solid.

Balance team over-all did a good job into bringing the game into more or less balanced state, but the path to it is very subjective.

As an example, we can at the whole situation with the TDs in the game. Are the TDs right now balanced? Yes they are balanced. But they ultimatly made game less fun and spammy (at least outside 1v1). Because the aproach of TD balance was strate-forward in other words giving them insane penetration, since they needed it in order to fight heavy tanks. But in proccess of doing so, TDs become supper effective against all vehicles. The same way TDs could have had lower ROF, but increased damage making them less deadly against mediums, but better against heavy tanks. In theory at least.

Other stuff balance team had fixed was pretty much shit stains from old relic design, which were objectively bad choses. I mean, its cool that ISU\CB\2 model sniper and so on were fixed, but I'm pretty sure it took longer to get those in Relic "scope" rather then finding the solution. Still its good to have them fixed non the less. But again we dont know how much times "scope" thing was just a convenient excuse and I am pretty sure it was used in that way at least ones during CoH2 life.

But again balance team are far from being saints themselfs and they are known to ignore even resonable feedback about their ideas. The most recent example is B4\ST changes, even before fist changes were made to mentioned units, majority is good players have said that it will be broken\OP but it was ignored, just to be nerfed later. And we have plenty of such examples like VSL, penals and so on. I mean sure, its good that it took less time for balance team to accept that their idea is not working (unlike relic back in the day), but yet it still takes more then a week to fix. And it doesnt really makes players happy that they will be forced to play god knows how long with VSL\Penal\Cons blobs, ST\B4 nukes, Osttroopen LMG hordes and so on, especially considering the outcome was predictable from the beggining.

Also the whole situation with "bandaids". When there is no easy solution to address the problem balance team rather nerf this thing into the oblivion for it never to be used again or be super lackluster.

Personally my own and single complain, is that balance team are kinda lacked "creative approach" and "out of the box" thinking about some problem solving. But again, we dont know what relic allowed to change or to add to the game, but at least for some problems which relic allowed balance team to adress much better solutions could have been found. Some of the units\abilities after such changes became merely "side options" being marginally better in something so specific that they are not even woth picking if they are not part of the meta.

I agree with your final point there although I am one that looks back at the 'problems' and 'shit stains' as you mentioned as part of Relic faction design. The normalization that the balance team has suggested and changed made the game overall more tasteless and predictable. All for the sake of better 1v1 games. Team games have suffered over the past 2 years, made more boring and predictable because of the suggested changes.

WFA faction design was that USF/OKW was missing X tool but did Y better. There was a flavour to them that made up for their vulnerabilities. Now over the years, the balance team has normalized everything so these two factions are just missing certain tools without doing anything else better.

I enjoyed the asymmetrical faction design more than I do the normalized factions. Perhaps I'm looking at the past through rose coloured lenses but back then, every faction had something powerful they could do. It didn't matter if E8s were strong because OKW had strong heavy panzers and cheap volk/shrek blobs to deal with them. Team games were a lot more fun back then too because there were a lot more usable units. Compared to now where we have many units that are only useable in 1v1s. These units don't get buffs they need to compete in team games which leads to less unit choices in team games. The balance team has essentially locked some units to 1v1 which I really don't like. Even then, these units aren't all that good in 1v1 (talking specifically about doctrinal Shermans).

Team games have changed a lot since it was 3-4 years ago. Before, 4x of a single faction used to be very strong since you were missing X tool but did something else stronger. So say a team of 4x USF would have very strong mainline infantry, good pack howie and thus a strong early game but would be vulnerable to snipers, have a weak ATG, and would not have rocket artillery. Now, 4x USF is similar to any other game with any other faction except they are vulnerable to snipers, no rocket artillery, weak ATG, and without the benefit of having more powerful mainline infantry or the strong pack howie. The normalization of factions has made it so that if you're missing a faction on your team, you become vulnerable as a result.

I think its important to understand while the balance team has good intentions, 1v1s is not all of Coh and simply balancing for it and leaving the leftovers for team games has ruined part of the game. Its a pipe dream to have a hyper balanced 1v1 game without ruining team games and that's exactly what they've done. Ruined team games chasing a pipe dream.

Players show up here on Coh2.org and in this thread complaining because they love this game. Not because its more fun to post about Coh2 than to play it. In all of my games that I play, the players that are still around, still playing are max prestige 3 players. They are staying around because they love this game.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Coh would be a lot better if there were separate balance patch notes for 1v1s and then team games. It would also be better if the hyper focused balance/normalization of factions was done in a mod so that the minority wanting hyper balanced 1v1s can download the mod and play their competitive games on the mod. Leaving patch notes to balance for team games for the majority of players.

There are more 2v2/3v3/4v4 games than there are 1v1 games and in the team games there are more players playing 2v2/3v3/4v4 games so it doesn't make sense to me to balance strictly for 1v1s and leaving the scraps for team games.

Many words, much text, wow.

That would have probably been the best course of action, the 1v1 balance mod.
Otherwise, yes, not a lot of new people and it's the same thing really. New players that want to play allies in teamgames come to a sudden realization of a great truth... that allies are harder to play in 3v3 and 4v4. You can often see comparisons of MG42 and Maxim. "Why do they cost the same when MG42 has such a wide arc and insta suppresses?" And that wide arc can be extremely troublesome and require low micro input in teamgame maps, hence you see the usual double pio double mg42 opening on most 3v3+ maps. Such an opening would spell death in 1v1s.

Truth be told, the balance team could have done a better job even with the one-patch-fits-all.
I won't comment on other factions, just the faction I play the most:

1) Pak howi right now won't bleed for s***, and actually loses to a single mortar/leig in teamgames
Instead of the large AOE nerf they could have nerfed the autofire and buff the barrage. Instead we get a howitzer that costs 340 MP that will damage infantry at most without killing models unless they are already low.
2) Rework scott into an autofire mobile arty. Right now it's a lessened pak howi on wheels, so the roles are overlapped.
3) E8 could have been a true teamgame brawler that costs a bit less than a comet (so 1v1 won't be rushed). Veterancy 1 is radionet. No gunnery BS. Rifle commander swaps the halftrack for the mortar halftrack and you have a good teamgame commander right there.
4)50 cal could have had a fast setup time but less suppression than the MG42 and a bit longer tracking (right now it's just a bit retarded mg42 with narrower arc). Fits around the "mobility" part of USF.
5)The greyhound could have been buffed in the AT department, nerfed in the main cannon AI department and reworked the AI ability. The recon commander is good in 1v1s, no doubt, but this rework could possibly allow it to go into teamgames as you wouldn't fear luchs/puma/flak as much and you would get a doctrinal "stuart" in some sense. Mechanized nerfs were too large. There was a better rework being discussed, but they decided to straight up nerf it across the board.

If there weren't so many good replies on these forums, good rework ideas, etc. then I'd understand, but why even ask the community if you just do your own thing.

That would have probably been the best course of action, the 1v1 balance mod.
Otherwise, yes, not a lot of new people and it's the same thing really. New players that want to play allies in teamgames come to a sudden realization of a great truth... that allies are harder to play in 3v3 and 4v4. You can often see comparisons of MG42 and Maxim. "Why do they cost the same when MG42 has such a wide arc and insta suppresses?" And that wide arc can be extremely troublesome and require low micro input in teamgame maps, hence you see the usual double pio double mg42 opening on most 3v3+ maps. Such an opening would spell death in 1v1s.

Truth be told, the balance team could have done a better job even with the one-patch-fits-all.
I won't comment on other factions, just the faction I play the most:

1) Pak howi right now won't bleed for s***, and actually loses to a single mortar/leig in teamgames
Instead of the large AOE nerf they could have nerfed the autofire and buff the barrage. Instead we get a howitzer that costs 340 MP that will damage infantry at most without killing models unless they are already low.
2) Rework scott into an autofire mobile arty. Right now it's a lessened pak howi on wheels, so the roles are overlapped.
3) E8 could have been a true teamgame brawler that costs a bit less than a comet (so 1v1 won't be rushed). Veterancy 1 is radionet. No gunnery BS. Rifle commander swaps the halftrack for the mortar halftrack and you have a good teamgame commander right there.
4)50 cal could have had a fast setup time but less suppression than the MG42 and a bit longer tracking (right now it's just a bit retarded mg42 with narrower arc). Fits around the "mobility" part of USF.
5)The greyhound could have been buffed in the AT department, nerfed in the main cannon AI department and reworked the AI ability. The recon commander is good in 1v1s, no doubt, but this rework could possibly allow it to go into teamgames as you wouldn't fear luchs/puma/flak as much and you would get a doctrinal "stuart" in some sense. Mechanized nerfs were too large. There was a better rework being discussed, but they decided to straight up nerf it across the board.

If there weren't so many good replies on these forums, good rework ideas, etc. then I'd understand, but why even ask the community if you just do your own thing.

Yup all part of the issue with hyper balanced 1v1s. Nothing can be strong or else it would unbalance 1v1s. Everything must be weak to lower win rates in 1v1 to an acceptable and even level. In turn, this ruins team games because missing a tool or counter makes it a lot more difficult than simply having something else stronger in exchange for missing a tool or counter. It goes against the faction design and all factions suffer as a result.

Even if we can't have a hyper focused 1v1 competitive mod. I would have preferred it if patch changes were based on all game modes instead of simply 1v1. I like the solution of having the competitive players win on both factions (1 axis, 1 allies) to proceed. That is a much better solution than weakening most units so win rates can become even. Its been proven that Axis have an excessively strong win rate advantage in random team games because everything strong has been nerfed to the ground.

My good man that is what I have been saying all along.

Is it? Cause I'm blaming Relics initial design, whereas you seem to be dumping more blame on the community balance

Relic regularly restricted what the balance team were allowed to touch. Once you know that I don't understand how anyone can really blame modteam

Relic basically asked for communities help but then tied one of their hand behind their back while they helped. At least that's how it appeared to me

I respect your opinion and looking forward to counter arguments. Forgive me for completely disregarding your blatant adhominemism.

I speak only with arguments. Naturally, I respond only to them.

The community cannot balance shit, because this is normally a job reserved for real professionals who have in-depth knowledge of what "balance" means in the context of the game to be made. The players should only be there to give opinion on closed environments. Something like what all good RTS companies have done since the dawn of time. AoE and AoEII had 200 ppl closed betas that met more like pals for a nice evening than gamers.

1. CoH2 designers never had a good understanding of CoH multiplayer gameplay, maybe with the exception of Peter Qumsieh. I don't think any of them would even make such a claim. Most balance team members throughout CoH2 history on the other hand had great game understanding as proven by their records as players and contributions in forums.

The community cannot balance shit, because the players want their own faction to win. As they are not designers, they don't realize the scale of balance and also the model which seeks to be adopted. Most players, myself included, act emotionally to some things. I can't even get a grip on the number of times when many people lost to a specific unit, calling it OP and demanding its nerf.

2. Most balance team members do not have faction bias. Faction bias is an idea that gets thrown around by forum warriors but doesn't really exist among top players nor most balance team members.

I guess I'm kinda nostalgic, seeing that COH 1 didn't really have that many updates (leaving aside expansion packs). It was a game. You liked it, you played it as it was. You didn't like it, you didn't play it again. It was simple. I realize it was horribly unbalanced in many departments (too USF friendly in some aspects, particularly PE vs USF)

3. There were plenty of patches throughout CoH1 history.

4. CoH1 in its final and most enduring form (2.602) is anything but US favored. There is a vast consensus that Wehrmacht is clearly overpowered both against Brits and against US. US vs PE is considered fairly balanced. PE vs Brits is considered pro brits iirc.

RTS is slowly dying, let's not kid ourselves. I hope Relic won't fuck this up. AOE4 seems decent and its numbers are healthy. I can see there still is a demand.

5. There is no indication that RTS are slowly dying other than Starcraft doing poorly, which is in large part due to Blizzards demise. AoE4 is doing well, AoE2 has been growing recently, CoH2 has had a consistent playerbase for years and even went through several periods of small growth.

What I meant in depth was that there are more ways to balance a mechanic rather than a straight up numbers game.

6. CoH2 literally consists of numbers. Any process of changing the game is a "numbers game" as you call it. You make no alternative suggestions.

Maybe if there is a new system in place. Who knows. Asymmetrical balance is not and should not be a stats game.

7. Meaningless sentence.

They took the foundation of an assymetrically balanced RTS game with excellent flavor and maybe not so great mechanics and they made it into a bland 5 faction reskin game.

8. Factions losing their flavor through redesign is not the balance team's fault. It happened at a time when relic was still in full control.

I still enjoy it because I consider myself pretty good at it

9. Proof?

Take the original game: SOV vs OST was the perfect example of the asymmetrical balance in the devs' vision. Both factions had the basic tools (MG, AT, Snares) but with very different capacities. P4s were generally more expensive but more sturdy while T34s were shit piles that cost nothing and were reliable generalists. That's what I mean.

Sure, the balancing was never good. I accept that or rather, I just grew to it.

10. The balancing of Ost vs Soviet in the vanilla game was really good pre WFA release. The gameplay on the other hand was extremely stale.

SOV vs OST was the perfect example of the asymmetrical balance in the devs' vision. Both factions had the basic tools (MG, AT, Snares) but with very different capacities.

11. That is ltierally the one balance philosophy the balance team has followed throughout all these years. And you see it as the original vision that the balance team has betrayed?

What we have today is a desperate attempt to make all factions play the same, because the only real base the COH2 game has (and I am including myself in those) are the hardcore factionists. That means that balancing has become an impartial job (I think most of balance team is axis players, correct me if I'm wrong). Normies have long given up on COH2 for exactly that reason.

12. The only axis player in the balance team was Sander. All other players played all factions.

Normies have long given up on COH2 for exactly that reason.

13. They have not. Playernumbers have not declined during the last 5 years. If anything they have gone up. So unless there is a group of "non-normies" that has joined the game while the "normies" left, which makes no sense, your statement is false.

Just look at all the build orders for COH2.
3 line inf -> T1 -> MG -> AT -> Mortar -> T3 -> Elite Inf -> T4 -> Tanks.

14. As previously said, this build order makes no sense regardless of time, gamemode or faction.

They didn't even bother to adjust the tools or the playstyle. They just straight up downplayed some stats and overplayed some others. They did that to the other factions too. That is not balancing, that is a band aid solution at best. Half the updates from the release of WFA until roughly 2017 were nerfing and upping and nerfing and upping okw units.

15. You described the process of balancing in vague terms and then say that it's not balancing. Meaningless.

The community cannot balance shit

Because the only available option to balance the game from the players' perspective is:
1. Find the meta (units or abilities or whatever using EVERY game by EVERYONE)
2. Nerf the meta
3. Repeat

Because the only available option to balance the game from the players' perspective is:
1. Find the meta (units or abilities or whatever using EVERY game by EVERYONE)
2. Nerf the meta
3. Repeat

Yeah, the dota2 approach.
Recipe:
1) One player finds a good build/strategy that leads to easier than usual wins
2) The community does not bother finding a strategy against it
3) Cry on forums about "that" being "meta" and "OP"
4) Nerf hammer to the ground

Not to say that some strategies have been downright OP. ISU152 HE shell, Ostruppen, Tiger rush without tech, Calliope spam in teamgames, just to name a few.

My real problem with COH 3 is the dog shite UI. It is literally hot garbage with its mobile friendly taint littered all over it.

Age of Empires 4 has a good UI, not sure why Relic failed so hard in this area with COH 3.

Age of Empires 4 has a good UI, not sure why Relic failed so hard in this area with COH 3.

Could it have anything to do with the fact that it's a pre-alpha and that the UI is still a massive WIP??

My real problem with COH 3 is the dog shite UI. It is literally hot garbage with its mobile friendly taint littered all over it.

Age of Empires 4 has a good UI, not sure why Relic failed so hard in this area with COH 3.

I expect them to change it tbh. Nobody seems to like it. Especially the fact that UI from the unit is on the far right.

I hope relic has learnt there lesson of making lackluster factions with alot of key elements and units in there tech tree by playing it off and saying it makes the faction unique, we don't want uniqueness. They should just take the tech tree from the eastern front factions as a template. It makes it alot easier to balance instead of releasing damn commanders to balance a faction.

Could it have anything to do with the fact that it's a pre-alpha and that the UI is still a massive WIP??

COH 2 has the same UI on live as it did during its Pre-Alpha period. That is not an excuse.

COH 2 has the same UI on live as it did during its Pre-Alpha period. That is not an excuse.

Pretty sure when CoH2 was first shown it was already in alpha and not pre-alpha, there's a pretty big difference and looking back the UI has indeed changed since then you could look at the frontline network casts for that. Either way every criticism is of course valid I just wouldn't worry too much at this stage.

COH 2 has the same UI on live as it did during its Pre-Alpha period. That is not an excuse.

Don't think there was a pre-alpha. And the alpha that we did get didn't come out over a year before the game like this one

Shouldn't be a concern