Sniper Balance

Oh wow, someone actually noticed this by now? I'm impressed...

Edit: Just to clarify it once more.

You cannot balance snipers if

a) you have no recon vehicles (cheap jeeps/bikes/whatever) and
b) squad sizes allow one sniper to kill the other while he can't be killed off in 1 shot
c) soviet snipers can actually be driven around in earlygame halftracks while the other doesn't.

So, as it stands, coh 2 snipers are broken.

You only have 2 options:

- match stats of Ostheer sniper and soviet sniper and make both a 2man team
- match stats of both snipers and make them 1 man squads
edit: I actually could think of a 3rd option:
- make snipers only drain health until the squads have less than 50% life. However, stats still need to be completely remade for them

Everything else will not work. You can try to bandaid this whole mess (just like relic did with nerfing clowncar/soviet sniper offensive power into oblivion). This doesn't change the fact that the unit design is broken. It only makes the unit so unattractive that nobody uses it anymore (so, they cover up the broken mess by making the units useless).

We spent 4 months trying to balance a 2man sniper team for soviets against Wehrmacht during 1.400 in Eastern Front mod, and still we could not come up with a working solution without changing either unit's design. So, in the end we adopted the working 1-man squad vCoH system to the soviet sniper - voilá, problem solved.

That's not a coincidence.

+1000

People have complained about sniper mechanics since the early alpha stages of the game. Relic seems to love it somehow...why is truly beyond me.

In the end I like the idea that the soviet team is more survivable while the german sniper has camouflage capabilities but...there is no real sniper vs sniper gameplay and having to rely on a munition hungry vet 1 ability to countersniper isnt a proper gameplay mechanic in my opinion.

The only thing I can think of is adding a "sniper shock" effect to soviet snipers >when one guy of the squad gets killed by an enemy sniper<, which should prevent the remaining sniper from shooting back (and maybe recloaking) for x seconds.

That would ensure that counter sniping is a valid tactic while the soviet sniper team still has the upper hand in survivability because youre still able to retreat in a situation like this.

This really is a 2 V 2+ issue more than anything as its an exploit that simply can not be easily countered when one of the 2 team players is spamming snipers - get 3 or 4 snipers up and that's essentially GG for any form of infantry based unit - the other races to get up some armor and it's over.

The upcoming 2 v 2 tournament will be a landslide Soviet win and will also expose a lot of the short comings of the "balance" we currently see now with Soviet exploits in team games.

Then again - this game seems to think over powering one faction for say T1 and then having the other faction over powering in the later portion of the game as "balance" - basically ensuing that a "typical" soviet team will control the beginning of the game and then the Wehrmacht team will "come back" with their dominant Panthers etc with only 20 on the VP clock - trying to artificially create "cliff hanger" type games.

It doesn't work.

It's not fun.

It's not balance.

an easy way to defeat soviets snipers, is using osttruppen spam, believe me, they will retreat all the time, unless they work together with maxim or cons spam, but your partner can help you with mg42 and mortar

This thread starts to resemble ever going debate on SM scout sniper vs eldar pathfinders.

+1000

People have complained about sniper mechanics since the early alpha stages of the game. Relic seems to love it somehow...why is truly beyond me.

In the end I like the idea that the soviet team is more survivable while the german sniper has camouflage capabilities but...there is no real sniper vs sniper gameplay and having to rely on a munition hungry vet 1 ability to countersniper isnt a proper gameplay mechanic in my opinion.

The only thing I can think of is adding a "sniper shock" effect to soviet snipers >when one guy of the squad gets killed by an enemy sniper<, which should prevent the remaining sniper from shooting back (and maybe recloaking) for x seconds.

That would ensure that counter sniping is a valid tactic while the soviet sniper team still has the upper hand in survivability because youre still able to retreat in a situation like this.

This is only a 1v1 solution at most or 1 sniper vs 1 sniper situation. I still have to see someone going double snipers as germans, which in contraposition, you see lots of double snipers as soviets. On the best case you might kill 1 of the soviet snipers and get countersniper by the other squad. It´s still too risky IMO.

an easy way to defeat soviets snipers, is using osttruppen spam, believe me, they will retreat all the time, unless they work together with maxim or cons spam, but your partner can help you with mg42 and mortar

Unfortunately that requires you to have purchased a DLC - Ostrupen can't be obtained in any other way.

So its not exactly fair that one of very few possible counters requires you to not only PAY more - it also restricts you to a relatively poor commander.

How about we give Soviet reliable Anti vehicle unit by changing guards?
They will start with their machine guns (no anti vehicle capabilities whatsoever, you got AT nade to deal with light vehicles) and T3/T4 upgrade that will give them anti tank rifles. Of course damage of these will have to be buffed to be in pair with PGrens.
This would create room for light vehicles in early game, making them more viable Sniper counter and fixed somehow questionable usage of scout cars as well.
Not to forget Soviets would get some AV infantry but they would have to change button ability as well I guess.

How about we give Soviet reliable Anti vehicle unit by changing guards?
They will start with their machine guns (no anti vehicle capabilities whatsoever, you got AT nade to deal with light vehicles) and T3/T4 upgrade that will give them anti tank rifles. Of course damage of these will have to be buffed to be in pair with PGrens.
This would create room for light vehicles in early game, making them more viable Sniper counter and fixed somehow questionable usage of scout cars as well.
Not to forget Soviets would get some AV infantry but they would have to change button ability as well I guess.

But it doesn't make sense, how can a AT rifle match the efficiency of the best WW2 hand held AT weapon? Isn't SU85 deadly enough to pop panzers?

Just make the Guards come without any special gun and require to upgrade will be fine.

asymmetrical warfare ruined the rising storm expansion for red orchestra 2.

i understand of the factions were too similar in a game in coh2 it'd be bland... but...

if things work when they're the same for both teams, why bother making them different when it requires more work, and just creates more argument.

snipers should both be 1 man squads. kill every shot against non retreating troops, 75% against retreating...

But it doesn't make sense, how can a AT rifle match the efficiency of the best WW2 hand held AT weapon? Isn't SU85 deadly enough to pop panzers?

Just make the Guards come without any special gun and require to upgrade will be fine.

Believe it or not but these rifles were pretty effective against tanks.
You need to know how the Panzershreck/ Panzerfaust where build and worked to be able to see some similarities.

Why not just lock the amount of snipers youre able to have on the field to 1 per player(like with tigers in vcoh)? That will certainly help with sniper spam on both sides and balance the entire situation out on its own(except for clowncar snipers maybe, but that remains to be seen).

1 soviet snipers cant force an instant retreat but can still inflict a mp bleed on germans and force turn the tide of a battle cons vs grens or even cons vs pgrens.

And while less survivable, 1 german sniper can easily turn the tide of a battle aswell by sniping an mg or causing massive mp bleed on shocks if microed well enough.

Having more than 1 of those units at the same time will just make the game ridiculous. That is the case for both factions. And while this is less true for the german sniper than the russian one, due to survivability and the soviets massive AI capabilities, its still true on both sides to a certain degree.

Just limiting it to 1 per player will work wonders.

Unfortunately that requires you to have purchased a DLC - Ostrupen can't be obtained in any other way.

So its not exactly fair that one of very few possible counters requires you to not only PAY more - it also restricts you to a relatively poor commander.

I love this kind of arguments. "Just get this high tier unit/shitty call in unit from DLC commander/expensive upgrade that arrives 10 minutes later and you can kill that unit easily!!!"

a) a counter is available either in a reasonable timeframe of - let's say 2-3 minutes or
b)less expensive than the unit that it's supposed to counter. I.e. sniper costs 340 mp, jeep costs 220mp. Jeep > Sniper, and jeep costs less than a sniper. So that one works

For all the counters that have been suggested yet they all come well later into the game than the snipers themselves or are no hard counters at all. How are grens with lmg/g43, pgrens, tanks, artillery cheaper than the snipers? Fact is they aren't. Also, the same counts for axis snipers also. Soviets can't counter them properly, too.

Another point:
Snipers are a hard counter to ALL infantry units. They kill each soldier with only 1 shot, and if you have some decent micro your enemy should not be able to kill your snipers at all.

But a specialized hard counter ALWAYS has to have a hard counter to itself.

In vCoH this were bikes and other snipers + the usual soft counters like arty, strafes, tank guns, mines. So, you have HARD counters and SOFT counters in coh 1.

In coh 2 there is none. ONLY! soft counters (arty, mortars, Gewehr rifles (<- lol? why do ordinary rifles counter snipers anyways?). So, a hardcounter that can only be countered by chance - gj rly.

Sure, countersniping mechanics were also not optimal. But there are different options to improve the mechanic. Throwing the mechanic itself out of the window was not.

Why not just lock the amount of snipers youre able to have on the field to 1 per player(like with tigers in vcoh)? That will certainly help with sniper spam on both sides and balance the entire situation out on its own(except for clowncar snipers maybe, but that remains to be seen).

1 soviet snipers cant force an instant retreat but can still inflict a mp bleed on germans and force turn the tide of a battle cons vs grens or even cons vs pgrens.

And while less survivable, 1 german sniper can easily turn the tide of a battle aswell by sniping an mg or causing massive mp bleed on shocks if microed well enough.

Having more than 1 of those units at the same time will just make the game ridiculous. That is the case for both factions. And while this is less true for the german sniper than the russian one, due to survivability and the soviets massive AI capabilities, its still true on both sides to a certain degree.

Just limiting it to 1 per player will work wonders.

Limiting player options is not a good solution from a design perspective. The game should favor a diverse army composition but not enforce it.

Limiting player options is not a good solution from a design perspective. The game should favor a diverse army composition but not enforce it.

Unfortunately this seems to be the COH2 design philosophy - limit your basic options and expand them through "DLC".

All the things we considered to be basic options in vCOH are now DLC exclusives:

- Forward HQ's
- Tank Traps
- Trenches
- etc....

To make matters worse the lack of an early game hard counter to snipers - i.e. jeeps/mb's - just makes this game that much more frustrating.

Currently - as a Wehrmacht player - your only effective hard counter to sniper spam is a T3 Ostwind/Panzer 4....I mean, that's a joke right?

Russian Tier 1 vs Ostheer Tier 1:
There's no unit in Ostheer Tier that counters soviet sniper. you are forced to charge with your infantry.

At least in Coh1 you had bikes.

Bring back MGBikes!

I forgot all about that shit, remembering now, they were guys in ranked who started off with 2 bikes.

I wanted to make this note since I have not seen it placed here yet.

The 2nd man of the soviet sniper team can also get crits on inf I believe, he is just much less accurate and has a shorter range. This adds an unnecessary RNG element in the game.

I wanted to make this note since I have not seen it placed here yet.

The 2nd man of the soviet sniper team can also get crits on inf I believe, he is just much less accurate and has a shorter range. This adds an unnecessary RNG element in the game.

No, I'm pretty sure he just has a normal mosin.

I wanted to make this note since I have not seen it placed here yet.

The 2nd man of the soviet sniper team can also get crits on inf I believe, he is just much less accurate and has a shorter range. This adds an unnecessary RNG element in the game.

There is no such thing as small arms crits in coh2.

Bring back MGBikes!

I forgot all about that shit, remembering now, they were guys in ranked who started off with 2 bikes.

Like I suggested before, T0 GAZ-67 for SU, TO Kübelwagen for OH. Maybe make them immune to Engine Damage from Infantry AT units.

There is no such thing as small arms crits in coh2.

Technically there is, but it only determines type of death; injured or dead.

Why dont we just decrease the Sniper Squad Size to 1 while giving the Second Man as a Vet 2 Bonus?
Would in my opinion allow for counter-play, making the Sniper more expensive (both man at together at 540) while also giving better scaling to the Unit (could receive buff as exchange for only being one man, and the second one gives late Game scaling).

Why dont we just decrease the Sniper Squad Size to 1 while giving the Second Man as a Vet 2 Bonus?
Would in my opinion allow for counter-play, making the Sniper more expensive (both man at together at 540) while also giving better scaling to the Unit (could receive buff as exchange for only being one man, and the second one gives late Game scaling).

This.

And more cheap but specialized hard counters like bikes.

Easiest solution would be reducing both snipers to 1 man squads and balance them with their general stats like firerate etc. But Relic apparently loves the idea to give 1 faction a practically uncounterable unit assuming the player who is using it isnt half braindead or unaware of the situation. Get 2 or the ideal number of 3 and the match is decided. Especially in 2v2+ . And its sad for me to say that, because im a very soviet heavy kind of player who likes to do both 1v1's and 2v2's with my mate.