Map Balance

Can it be fixed? I dunno if its even on the table but I feel like the asymmetrical maps are responsible for more of my "unfair" feeling losses than balance this patch.

I had already been thinking about this, and a post by Porygon in another thread inspired me to make a separate topic. While I don't find Kharkov as unbalanced as most people, Kolohdny, Moscow Outskirts, and rails and metal all stand out to me as favoring one side pretty heavily. Maybe someone from relic can pop in here and say whether or not its in the realm of possibility for the maps to be addressed... perhaps by some of the community map-makers even?

I think it would be beneficial for you to go into details. Which maps are imba for which side and why? Pictures help too

I think south rails and metal is bad. That house makes that fuel very easy to attack (LOS, cover, etc) and there is cover from the trench and tank wrecks.

The top fuel is an open field, the trench isn't so near the fuel and easier to defend with wire+MGs.

the North hate the south. Anyone else find this?

I saw porygons post too, he had points there!

Langres is a true $hit.

Cant this be an individual problem? I just remember I struggled like hell on Beaux lowlands south before I started doing a fast P4 strat. That made me like the map more as I always lost before.

Yes, many of the maps are imbalanced and Relic is doing nothing about it. I think there were some people that made their case about it but it doesn't seem like anyone did. If you are going to talk about map imbalance you should give a good description and some pictures to why the map is imbalanced. You should also make sure Relic see's it, but I don't think they even bother looking into coh2.org anymore. If you don't all efforts would have gone to waste.

Langreskaya north position is still too easy to cut off.

Yea I know I should take some pics etc... I'll do it later how bout. Don't think anything major like changing map balance will occur until at least a few Western Fronts patches anyway, so no rush. Mostly just wanted to open the discussion up.

Langreskaya north position is still too easy to cut off.

It wasn't really that easy to cutoff in vcoh though. WM was heavily favored but that was mainly because of obvious chokepoints for good mines and lots of open ground for MGs to cover without being obstructed, but US could still hold out on their cutoff pretty well. So I think this is just as much a faction issue as it is a map issue.

Thanks for bringing this up, Daniel. I think most of us agree that there are a number of things that could be addressed as far as map balance goes.

Regarding 2v2:
Semoisky, Crossing, and Kharkov feel too small, maybe not in terms of total map size, but maneuverability between points of interest. Semoisky stands out as a map that frequently leads to stalemates if one side decides to go heavy support weapons. This eventually leads to the long range killing machines(starting with the ISU, which forces the ost to counter w/ elefant). I think the issues with these long range units could be alleviated to an extent with bigger maps that allow for more fluid late game armor movement, similar to what Steppes provides in 4v4 settings.

Moscow - The north side base exits are extremely congested and easily pressured. The concentration of buildings, espicially near the cutoff, make it extremely easy to get pinned if the opposing player can gain position here. The south side buildings seemed to be positioned with a defensive advantage. For example, the set of buildings directly to the north of the base are protected by a high fence that blocks LOS to the base from the buildings behind it.

Regarding 1v1:

Many of the issues I see here have been brought up plenty of times, specifically by porygon in the thread you mentioned. I'll just go over some of the really obvious ones and we maybe we can break down the specifics as the discussion opens up.

Langres - The north side cutoff is easier to cut off than the south side, and as pory pointed out, strongly favors soviet T1-T4 gameplay, to an extent that it is almost uncounterable in the hands of a good player.

Kholodny - East side is brutal. The cutoff is much easier to access and hold, and the cover on the north munition point favors the west side.

Kharkov - South side is great, your native fuel is positioned well, the cutoff is placed fairly and can be harassed, but gives the south side a reasonable chance of defending. I love south side kharkov. The north side just feels terrible to play on. A huge chunk of the cutoffs LOS is blocked by a giant block of foilage, and there is a durable building with many windows sitting right on top of it. This makes it extremely hard to defend with MGs, and germans players, who don't have easy access to flames early in the game, can get punished extremely hard in the first few minutes simply by a conscript hopping in the house.

I think lots of people really forgot about the point of strategy games. Its about adapting and using the terrain to your advantage, I'm glad company of heroes isnt completely fair in every situation its what makes the game great and gives great players the ability to shine and show why they are great. there is no such thing as perfect balance and there never will be that being said as in real life war in game you can use tactics and superior thinking and terrain to either make or break your match. No map is so unfair that it decides whether or not you win. You do that with how you play and utilize the terrain and what you do to prevent your opponent from using the terrain agianst you. Its a strategy game guys stop spending so much time complaining about this are that and start using in game tactics and strategy to over come and turn around that is why I have always played strategy games. I didnt know we all played this game to Cry nonstop if everything is not exactly the same for all and if it was it would be completely faky and well very boring and not fun.

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned Moscow before, but I agree.

North cutoff is congested, with the fences creating horrible retreat pathing, and terrible LOS from the bushes. If south cutoff has a nice open area and a building, why can't north? Or give south the same horrible configuration of buildings and hedges to make it fair .

Kharkov 2v2 is just an attack move blob fest, it's so narrow you can just forget ambushing or a surprise flank. Kharkov north is horrible for Ostheer in 1v1.

Langres north is still just silly.

I think lots of people really forgot about the point of strategy games. Its about adapting and using the terrain to your advantage, I'm glad company of heroes isnt completely fair in every situation its what makes the game great and gives great players the ability to shine and show why they are great. there is no such thing as perfect balance and there never will be that being said as in real life war in game you can use tactics and superior thinking and terrain to either make or break your match. No map is so unfair that it decides whether or not you win. You do that with how you play and utilize the terrain and what you do to prevent your opponent from using the terrain agianst you. Its a strategy game guys stop spending so much time complaining about this are that and start using in game tactics and strategy to over come and turn around that is why I have always played strategy games. I didnt know we all played this game to Cry nonstop if everything is not exactly the same for all and if it was it would be completely faky and well very boring and not fun.

Do you hold shares in Relic or something? Or are you got such a blind love for Coh2 you can't see what a majority of players can see? How about you jump off that high horse that you are riding and perhaps try and understand where other players are coming from for once?

Perhaps Relic could create a new league just for you because you're so pro? Seriously dude, I don't mean to offend you, but this is how you come across, like you're pro and everyone else is a noob, which couldn't be further from the truth.

I do not want to turn this into a flame war, but Daniel has raised some very good points. You can't possibly think Kharkov North is a balanced position to start from when compared to the south? What about North Langreskaya? You mean to tell me that position is completely balanced when it can be easily cut off.

I think lots of people really forgot about the point of strategy games. Its about adapting and using the terrain to your advantage, I'm glad company of heroes isnt completely fair in every situation its what makes the game great and gives great players the ability to shine and show why they are great. there is no such thing as perfect balance and there never will be that being said as in real life war in game you can use tactics and superior thinking and terrain to either make or break your match. No map is so unfair that it decides whether or not you win. You do that with how you play and utilize the terrain and what you do to prevent your opponent from using the terrain agianst you. Its a strategy game guys stop spending so much time complaining about this are that and start using in game tactics and strategy to over come and turn around that is why I have always played strategy games. I didnt know we all played this game to Cry nonstop if everything is not exactly the same for all and if it was it would be completely faky and well very boring and not fun.

Not perfect, but good or even better excellent balance, that's what most experienced players are asking for. Keep in mind most of the people who commented play both factions, so they know what they are talking about.

Also the things that were pointed out, are very obvious problems with those maps.

...langres north.

Do you hold shares in Relic or something? Or are you got such a blind love for Coh2 you can't see what a majority of players can see? How about you jump off that high horse that you are riding and perhaps try and understand where other players are coming from for once?

Perhaps Relic could create a new league just for you because you're so pro? Seriously dude, I don't mean to offend you, but this is how you come across, like you're pro and everyone else is a noob, which couldn't be further from the truth.

I do not want to turn this into a flame war, but Daniel has raised some very good points. You can't possibly think Kharkov North is a balanced position to start from when compared to the south? What about North Langreskaya? You mean to tell me that position is completely balanced when it can be easily cut off.

He probably does not, but I just checked his stream and he was using 3 snipers, against his opponent on langers. Talk about exploiting a balance problem; grens being only 4 soldiers and sniper being 2 soliders. He eventually lost the game and was complaining about panzer tactician smoke, lol.

I saw porygons post too, he had points there!

Map imbalance is a bigger problem.

Kholodny Ferma, absolutely favouring the west.
Stalingrad, Soviet auto win map.
Langres, highly favouring Soviet snipers and SU play, north is too easy to be cut off.
Kharkov, North is a death sentence, the cut off point shot blocking crap around is a joke.
Moscow, same as above.
Semois, muni are too easy to be cut off so Ostheer have a hard time, support weapon spam is also a big problem.
Crossing woods, even worse than Langres.
Rehev, fuck off to 3v3 please.

Here is it.

Thanks for bringing this up, Daniel. I think most of us agree that there are a number of things that could be addressed as far as map balance goes.

Regarding 2v2:
Semoisky, Crossing, and Kharkov feel too small, maybe not in terms of total map size, but maneuverability between points of interest. Semoisky stands out as a map that frequently leads to stalemates if one side decides to go heavy support weapons. This eventually leads to the long range killing machines(starting with the ISU, which forces the ost to counter w/ elefant). I think the issues with these long range units could be alleviated to an extent with bigger maps that allow for more fluid late game armor movement, similar to what Steppes provides in 4v4 settings.

Moscow - The north side base exits are extremely congested and easily pressured. The concentration of buildings, espicially near the cutoff, make it extremely easy to get pinned if the opposing player can gain position here. The south side buildings seemed to be positioned with a defensive advantage. For example, the set of buildings directly to the north of the base are protected by a high fence that blocks LOS to the base from the buildings behind it.

Regarding 1v1:

Many of the issues I see here have been brought up plenty of times, specifically by porygon in the thread you mentioned. I'll just go over some of the really obvious ones and we maybe we can break down the specifics as the discussion opens up.

Langres - The north side cutoff is easier to cut off than the south side, and as pory pointed out, strongly favors soviet T1-T4 gameplay, to an extent that it is almost uncounterable in the hands of a good player.

Kholodny - East side is brutal. The cutoff is much easier to access and hold, and the cover on the north munition point favors the west side.

Kharkov - South side is great, your native fuel is positioned well, the cutoff is placed fairly and can be harassed, but gives the south side a reasonable chance of defending. I love south side kharkov. The north side just feels terrible to play on. A huge chunk of the cutoffs LOS is blocked by a giant block of foilage, and there is a durable building with many windows sitting right on top of it. This makes it extremely hard to defend with MGs, and germans players, who don't have easy access to flames early in the game, can get punished extremely hard in the first few minutes simply by a conscript hopping in the house.

+ 9001

I believe PQ has said in a few casts/on twitch that some maps may favor one faction more then another or that some cut off's are brutal, so it's a known issue i'd say for some time. (I think Langre was the last map adjustment, way back when).

I can live with some of the above, it forces an adjustment of build/tactics but some of the worse one's, like e.g. Kholodny Easts starting point really need a look at. You can concentrate on the north instead of your naturals, but that is an uphill battle.