Balance thoughts?

You completely missed the point.

No, I didn't, I was correcting you making an erroneous claim

Which was, in case you forgot:

There is no counter play.

Which I have proven is not the case.

I already agreed with you in that it's bad game design, but the simple fact of the matter is that there *IS* counterplay, and it's actually very easy to do it. So why do you keep posting here about something we agree about?

If anyone here still thinks that DAK AT loiter is OP/uncounterable, then you need to watch this video:



The only factions I see *actually* struggling against planes is *maybe* axis. But flak 88s actually shoot down planes so it's pretty even.

That AA is so crazy insane, i had to drop my Falls in my base because it would shoot the plane down befor could even jump out.

Maybe change it that if a plane with Paras/Falls get shot down, they drop where it was shot down and they loose 50% of their men.

Maybe change it that if a plane with Paras/Falls get shot down, they drop where it was shot down and they loose 50% of their men.

+1

However I've seen a paratrooper plane get shot down and the paras still dropped. Did the Axis players just not shoot it down fast enough? I know for a fact that falls do get instakilled by AA if in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I've just never seen it happen to paratroopers.

please, Nerf the Fallpios spam VP and Weh abuse Rak8. There broken as shit.
Also howw the hell Rocket arty has shoter range than pak 88, doctrine and more expensive than non doc SPG ?.

+1

However I've seen a paratrooper plane get shot down and the paras still dropped. Did the Axis players just not shoot it down fast enough? I know for a fact that falls do get instakilled by AA if in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I've just never seen it happen to paratroopers.

Yeah the paras still drop because i think the plane doesnt get shot down instantly.

AA would kill para drop if you drop them close to AA position, so.you should them in the base or first capture point

It seems that Brit AA is trash compared to the US M16 halftrack.

I was thinking that relic balanced each faction to have a similarly effective counter to planes.

Apparently 2 centaurs struggle to shoot down even 1 plane.

I guess that's one thing that the US does better than brits at least.

On a more serious note, that's even worse gameplay design than I thought. If there's no US player, then the brits are seemingly shit out of luck for AA.

It seems that Brit AA is trash compared to the US M16 halftrack.

I was thinking that relic balanced each faction to have a similarly effective counter to planes.

Apparently 2 centaurs struggle to shoot down even 1 plane.

I guess that's one thing that the US does better than brits at least.

On a more serious note, that's even worse gameplay design than I thought. If there's no US player, then the brits are seemingly shit out of luck for AA.

It is a bit odd actually. All aircraft in CoH3 have the following durability stats:

Health	280
Armour (Front/Side/Rear)	10/5/1
Target Size	20

Here are the stats for some common AA weapons:

Weapon	Crusader AA	CWT Truck AA	Flak 36	US AA Halftrack	Wirbelwind
AA Range (Max/Far/Mid/Near)	240/240/120/60	240/240/150/60	420/420/270/120	270/270/120/60	240/240/120/60
Penetration Chance	100%	100%	100%	15%-100%	100%
Tentative (In Magazine) DPS	54.78	80.00	91.42	132	38.91

Note that all of these weapons have a 100% chance to hit out to range 270 with the Flak 36 dropping down to an 80% chance to hit at range 420.

The Wirbelwind is the most interesting here - it does 180 damage to aeroplanes per burst (over 3 seconds with a 1.5 second gap between bursts) so will kill an aeroplane within its range in ~6.3 seconds but this drops to ~10.5 seconds if it needs to reload between bursts. One would expect this to be the worst AA option but it seems quite effective in game.

The US AA halftrack is also interesting in that it will tear aeroplanes apart against the rear (100% penetration chance) or side armour (30%-50% penetration chance) but is substantially worse against the front armour (15%-25% penetration chance).

I'm not sure these stats fully capture the units' AA performance though.

game is so bad

game is so bad

Agreed, they needed to delay the game for another 2 years with the state it is currently in.

The US AA halftrack is also interesting in that it will tear aeroplanes apart against the rear (100% penetration chance) or side armour (30%-50% penetration chance) but is substantially worse against the front armour (15%-25% penetration chance).

Ahh. Welp.. I bet its the same situation as the Panther/Tiger where it does the maximum penetration value no matter what because they input the numbers incorrectly.

Calling it now that the M16 gets nerfed next patch. As long as they nerf the AT loiters in return, I have no issues with that.

Agreed, they needed to delay the game for another 2 years with the state it is currently in.

You do realize no amount of in-house balancing will survive first week of release for an RTS game?
Developers have only so many brains, when you suddenly drop the game on 100k more, you'll see things that were overlooked earlier because of reasons.

What does not make any sense tho is how all the spams, emplacements and anti-all infantry come out of the woodworks now despite the fact that apparently there were top player illuminati giving feedback for years.

What does not make any sense tho is how all the spams, emplacements and anti-all infantry come out of the woodworks now despite the fact that apparently there were top player illuminati giving feedback for years.

Hahahaha. Well, in my opinion, that's just a factor of the common man coming in to slap some sense into the "pros".

Oh? You have a really cool build order with a rechie, two brens and an AT rifle squad plus an MG? Well ooga booga I upgrade my engineer with flamer and drive all over your face and blob panzergrens all over you.

Then "pros" who had considered themselves above such play find out it's actually really effective in the current state of balance, and start to adopt and adapt those strategies.

EDIT: Not that I like that the balance is currently like this. I'm just saying, more experienced people tend to fall into certain tracks of thinking that newbies don't necessarily also fall into. Same reason why "beginner's luck" is a thing.

After binging DAK games (1v1) last night my current balance musing is "Do Pathfinders REALLY need Rifle Nades?" Paths are 200 MP so it's very easy to shit out a ton of them and as a result they are VERY efficient against 270 MP Grens and 300 MP PZ Grens in the early game. It makes it very easy to snowball into M3 and Paratrooper spam. You combine it with free smoke and flares (yes long cooldown but when you have 3-4 Paths its not an issue) and HMGs get completely negated. Rifle nades just means they definitely win engagements that are 50-50 and map control goes in the toilet.

At the very least Rifle nades should be locked behind Grenade tech.

Rifle nades just means they definitely win engagements that are 50-50 and map control goes in the toilet.

I'm not here to speak on the efficacy of rifle grenades or anything, but in coh3, the rifle grenade animation is clearly visible and the rifle grenade almost has a smoke tracer attached to it while it flies through the air..

Are squad response times just too slow to avoid this, even with such a large amount of telegraphing?

Are squad response times just too slow to avoid this, even with such a large amount of telegraphing?

I'm not saying the Rifle Nade itself is undodgeable or itself the problem but when you have to worry about them from minute 0 from 3-4 squads often at different angles of attack I at least find myself often just retreating to be safe because of the added mirco burden. It's more of the rifle grenade on top of everything else...

You do realize no amount of in-house balancing will survive first week of release for an RTS game?
Developers have only so many brains, when you suddenly drop the game on 100k more, you'll see things that were overlooked earlier because of reasons.

I agree with you. However the smarter approach would have been to launch the game as early access which is essentially what it is at this point and as people play it online adjust the game as necessary to be ready for release.

If I am paying $70 for a brand new game, I expect the game to be complete and finished. Look at Elden Ring for example. Complete game, no nonsense or drama and because of that it sold for 20+ million.


Releasing a game broken on release (Coh2/COH3) only generates negative feedback which is hard to come back from and damages the brand.

After this I will probably never purchase a Relic game again (My first being Homeworld back when it was first launched)

For me personally it isn't even about the money. I will happily drop $400 on cosmetic skins in Path of Exile every league/season that comes out to support the game since they always improve the game and treat their customers with respect.

Literally the most basic things like tooltips not being correct and take less than 30 seconds to fix just won't get fixed by Relic. They have a fuck it mentality then never bother to fix it and I will respond in kind with how they treat their customers.


COH2 got a pass from me for its terrible launch due to a lack of publisher. They have had 10 years since COH2 dropped to make something decent, instead we get some half ass garbage that is essentially a recycled mod of COH1/2 yet again with no effort at all being put into the game.

It only took Relic 20 years to figure out how to add rebindable hotkeys.

Counterplay = M18 AA halftrack

Shoots down AT loiter planes before they even fire a single shot. Even just ONE vet 0 halftrack.

Now, for Axis, I don't know if they can shoot planes down THAT fast, but I know flak 88 actually shoots down planes very well.

What about Brits? Their AA is seriously lacking. The neat thing about German emplacement spam is that they will also kill any plane (or air drop) basically instantly, negating most of the counterplay as well!

What about Brits? Their AA is seriously lacking.

I did mention this in post #107. I was a bit naive about Brits AA and had just assumed that theirs was as effective as the US' AA was.

I just did some testing, and here's what I found:

If you saw my video with the M16 AA halftrack, I put pretty much everything in the same spot, but switched out the US vehicles for a Churchill, Churchill Black Prince, 15Cwt, and a Crusader II, all equidistant from each other, and then I switched out the M16 AA halftrack for two 15Cwt (yes, two, not one. ) AA halftracks. I also tried with one 15Cwt and a Crusader AA tank. It produced pretty similar results.

It ended up being that the Axis planes were shot down *after* the first strafe. ((It also seemed that the planes didn't choose the same target, and instead opted to spread the damage across multiple targets. The "counterplay" is similar to soviet AT overwatch, except if it was insane.))

Better than the planes being able to loiter the sky for 60 seconds (if there was no AA), but certainly not ideal for the kind of damage that the strafe can do so soon after the flares drop.

I would like to point out the fact that the callin is 225 muni and that the brits have access to high HP tanks that can actually take a pass from a stuka strafe and survive, so I think it makes logical sense that the brits have AA that isn't as effective as the US's is.

However, the ability in its current state is really too much.

If it is to stay this deadly, then it had ought to come out much slower and be more of an area denial tool, maybe with more planes that do less damage individually but are harder to shoot down because there are more of them. (And obviously the fact that TWO AA halftracks are needed to actually shoot down the planes within a reasonable timeframe.)

If its to continue to come out that fast after flares, then I think it needs to be less deadly.

The neat thing about German emplacement spam is that they will also kill any plane (or air drop) basically instantly, negating most of the counterplay as well!

Yep.

P.S. - if you were wondering, a single 15Cwt AA halftrack shoots down one plane after a single strafe, but seemingly struggles to shoot down the second before it's able to make a second strafe.

I did mention this in post #107. I was a bit naive about Brits AA and had just assumed that theirs was as effective as the US' AA was.

I just did some testing, and here's what I found:

If you saw my video with the M16 AA halftrack, I put pretty much everything in the same spot, but switched out the US vehicles for a Churchill, Churchill Black Prince, 15Cwt, and a Crusader II, all equidistant from each other, and then I switched out the M16 AA halftrack for two 15Cwt (yes, two, not one. ) AA halftracks. I also tried with one 15Cwt and a Crusader AA tank. It produced pretty similar results.

It ended up being that the Axis planes were shot down *after* the first strafe. ((It also seemed that the planes didn't choose the same target, and instead opted to spread the damage across multiple targets. The "counterplay" is similar to soviet AT overwatch, except if it was insane.))

Better than the planes being able to loiter the sky for 60 seconds (if there was no AA), but certainly not ideal for the kind of damage that the strafe can do so soon after the flares drop.

I would like to point out the fact that the callin is 225 muni and that the brits have access to high HP tanks that can actually take a pass from a stuka strafe and survive, so I think it makes logical sense that the brits have AA that isn't as effective as the US's is.

However, the ability in its current state is really too much.

If it is to stay this deadly, then it had ought to come out much slower and be more of an area denial tool, maybe with more planes that do less damage individually but are harder to shoot down because there are more of them. (And obviously the fact that TWO AA halftracks are needed to actually shoot down the planes within a reasonable timeframe.)

If its to continue to come out that fast after flares, then I think it needs to be less deadly.



Yep.

P.S. - if you were wondering, a single 15Cwt AA halftrack shoots down one plane after a single strafe, but seemingly struggles to shoot down the second before it's able to make a second strafe.

That's good info, thanks for testing. The US HT seems to be the best AA in the game hands down, but Germans can compensate with their dual use units (Flak emplacements, 88s, Flakpanzers, etc.). One of the problems with the allied AA, particular the Brit truck, is that it gets one-shot by the planes itself. SO if you are unlucky, it won't even be alive to shoot something down.

I think AA and loiters need adjustments. First of all, drops like Paras or AT guns shouldn't be able to be shot down before the drop. The massive amount of axis AA makes like 50% of US abilities useless. I would like to see loiters being toned down and AA on all sides as well. I don't really like these "you are forced to build that one unit or you insta lose because the enemy presses a button once" ideas...