Big Balance Thread.

The 37mm US halftrack does need a nerf, and volley fire can be brought into a more reasonable state. However if that's the only thing you change, USA as a faction will become incredibly weak in a competitive sense. They also need buffs to their weaker stuff right now. The 75mm howitzer is pure anus, for example. OP's suggestions of stripping out weapons from officer squads is just... wow.

The stripping of weapons from officer squads is not a bad idea at all. Currently the USF pay a reasonable amount of resources for their officers, but that cost also includes a tier unlock. Compared to Ostheer and Soviet teching structures, this is incredibly powerful.

In 1v1 vs ostheer you can easily overwhelm the ostheer with your extra squad, superior rifle men and the AA halftrack. After that you get so many munitions and fuel that can just snowball the enemy with tanks and weapon upgrades.

Edit: Making RET volley fire a vet 1 ability and removing free officer weapons would be a good way to make the OST vs USF forces matchup a lot more balanced and interesting. Right now the USF holds all the early game cards and the OST can only play extremely defensively and hope for the opponent to screw up.

If they remove weapons from Officers, then I'd like at least for weapons to unlock when the corresponding officer arrives.

ISU152: it must be the new factions, but haven´t seen it in a while (after being used on everysingle 2v2 match). A brumbar with 10 more range that a pak40. For the moment it APPEARS barely fine.

120mm: against OKW it´s giving me AWESOME results in comparison to before.

T70:*1 i would rather bring in line with it, the other light tanks/vehicles of US/OKW, rather than making it show up earlier.

Su85: hmmm dunno. Maybe.

T3485: that´s the "discount" you get for waiting for double rather than going with the singular call in.

Maxim:*2 statwise is fine. I don´t think you want to face a MG42 clone as OH/OKW. Theres other problem i will mention at the end.
______

PG: fine as they are now. Other units/weapons are overperforming for cost/reinforce/dps/dps lost on model.

Sniper: health, maybe, not armor.

Blitz: take out speed and reduce cost. Reduce speed, mantain cost.

P4: fine.
360mp 125f vs 400mp 140f
Spd Size Armor Health Reload
6.5 22.0 180.0 90.0 640.0 5.3-5.7
vs
6.3 22.0 160.0 80.0 800.0 6-6.3

Scatter AoE AoEN AoEF Pen
6.4 2.5 0.75 1.875 120.0/110.0/100. (75%-68%-62%)
vs
5.0 2.5 0.625 1.875 160.0/140.0/120. (88%-77%-66%)

P4 also has MG upgrade which increases AI.

S mines: if signpost are removed theres others nerf which should apply. Damage, buildtime or possibility of placing 15muni patches.

MG42:*2
FHT:*1
______

Volks: they seem fine. COULD see them getting an AI weapon but not in combination with AT. In that CASE, conscripts should get the same possibility.

HT: US need nerf not the other way round.

Puma: think about a mobile Stug.

JP4: it seems you were talking through a bad RNG exp.

Fixes for FHQ: nope. Risk-reward.
_____

RET: Volley fire should take more in account, range and cover. It should also target a lone squad and not involve reload modifiers.

HT:*1 + maybe other nerfs

Officers: hmmm maybe.

Sherman 105 dozer: feels just like a brumbear.


*2 For an extended version of this point see my thread about MGs.

Stop whine!

Please take your own advise already.

What is up with all the hypocrites recently?

It is in fact not using the incendiary rounds ability until after everything retreats.

The MG42 suppression rate is just fine, and is kinda OP at higher vet levels.

After having the Cruzz Experience 2.0, I realized the fault was with my decision making in not attempting to counter his vet 3 MG42s with a mortar doc or some sort of artillery. While vet 2-3 MG42s are freaken strong, it is your responsibility to get the right counters out when needed.

I love how everyone becomes a balance/design expert on the forums and has the ultimate balance idea.
+1 Cruzz. Guys; he is the man who knows who to play the game and knows what he's talking about, you should listen to him.

Also +3 to Cruzz being a wise old sage(No, not SageOfTheSix, don't interpret it as this please Cruzz OpieOP). Listening to him will all be in your best interests. /VonOut

all of these suggestions are terrible except maybe the t-70 and blitzkrieg one, but even those are fairly questionable.


The most retarded one is the PIV health buff. The panzer IV already fires alot faster, if they get indentical health, then a PIV would win vs a t-34/85 most of the times.

If you nerf t-34 health, then buff it's armor up to 200 for the t-34/76 and 240 for the t-34/85.

(PIV having more armor than t-34 makes absolutely zero sense)

And please, if you don't like panzer IV, make some stug. Just some stug. Stug is good. They work wonders vs t-34/85s, most people will disagree with me, because you can't a-move stugs, but stugs work nicely.


Cruzz explained everything very well.

If volks will got buffed in any way, a price increase will probably follow. No... better they stay this way.
PZIV and JagdPz are fine. Where I disagree is the fuel cost increase for PZIV. So what if its scatter ratio got reduced? This is not a reason to increase its fuel cost skyhigh.
Pzgrens are ok like this I guess. That's the maximum buff anyone would accept for them even if it's not enough so why bother? Let them be as they currently are.
That KV8 it's a mess again.
FHT in current conditions - useless.
S-mines - signs are stupid. Increase build time, remove signs ffs.
HMGs are to disputed, no one will ever reach an agreement related to them. I wouldn't bother with them anymore, this is life.

I'm DaDokisinX and I agree with that wall post from Cruzz on page two.
Head over to Vindi's thread for more relevant 1v1 balance discussion: http://www.coh2.org/topic/19575/the-balance-list

As it stands the USF vs OKW match up is quite largely unbalanced.

I agree with Corsin about US officers being given heavy weapons when they come onto the field is over powered. If the US infantry wasn't already super strong with instant suppression from the Rear Ech troops and rifleman being good at all ranges then maybe it would be fair. However as it stands this is not the case.

The USF can also field the M20 or the AA-HT track around the 5-6 minute mark and they are incredibly strong for how cheap they are. The fact that the M20 crew has a bazooka just makes the unit even more ridiculous. In my opinion it's armor should be the same as an Ostheer 222 scout car even with the skirts. As for the AA-HT it absolutely tears apart all light vehicles and infantry with no set up time at all compared to the OKW Flak HT which comes around the same time. Even the puma has to be wise around it as it does so much damage. Maybe a solution to this problem is add a set up time to the AA-HT and or make it weaker or perhaps slower.

Another suggestion to fix the balance could be putting the panzer 2 into tier 3 instead of tier 4. It seems incredibly strange to have such an average T-70 like tank in such a late tier where only the elite units should be.

Some serious adjustments need to be made to the flak-ht at any rate. It's setup time just makes it useless and will end up being the reason it gets destroyed. As soon as any armor or at gun gets eyes on it it's dead. This is because it will always get two 'shotted' as it can never pack up and run away in time. It's smoke ability will not do it any good against decent players either as they know how to use attack ground.

Cruzz is a pro soviet attack move queen and doesnt want to have to work for his wins hence his flawed replies. Corsin spelled out the correct reply with fact. While cruzzn makes no argument without bitching with no facts

Cruzz is one of the most respected players in this community. Not because he spits biased bullshit, its because he wants proper balance, for both sides. He doesnt come into threads and tells German players to stop playing their faction because their faction is "easy" or a "attack move" faction.
I didnt see a single post of you trying to achieve reasonable discussions with players disagreeing with you. You must really like telling everyone disagreeing with you to stop the "soviet whining". It may be funny at first, but its getting really annoying.

I just want to say that making a "big balance thread" one week after release where you change a lot of important things is counterproductive. I am not saying there should not be a discussion, but this is a little bit ridiculous. Aaaaand also what cruzzi said, pls listen to this guy, he has great game knowledge stat and skill wise.

WoW just wow i will sum up posts in this topic: Nerf US/Russia + buff Germans. Why this shitty post is not closed yet ? There is nothing constructive here.
Where are replays to give hard evidence ?

As it stands the USF vs OKW match up is quite largely unbalanced.

I agree with Corsin about US officers being given heavy weapons when they come onto the field is over powered. If the US infantry wasn't already super strong with instant suppression from the Rear Ech troops and rifleman being good at all ranges then maybe it would be fair. However as it stands this is not the case.

The USF can also field the M20 or the AA-HT track around the 5-6 minute mark and they are incredibly strong for how cheap they are. The fact that the M20 crew has a bazooka just makes the unit even more ridiculous. In my opinion it's armor should be the same as an Ostheer 222 scout car even with the skirts. As for the AA-HT it absolutely tears apart all light vehicles and infantry with no set up time at all compared to the OKW Flak HT which comes around the same time. Even the puma has to be wise around it as it does so much damage. Maybe a solution to this problem is add a set up time to the AA-HT and or make it weaker or perhaps slower.

Another suggestion to fix the balance could be putting the panzer 2 into tier 3 instead of tier 4. It seems incredibly strange to have such an average T-70 like tank in such a late tier where only the elite units should be.

Some serious adjustments need to be made to the flak-ht at any rate. It's setup time just makes it useless and will end up being the reason it gets destroyed. As soon as any armor or at gun gets eyes on it it's dead. This is because it will always get two 'shotted' as it can never pack up and run away in time. It's smoke ability will not do it any good against decent players either as they know how to use attack ground.

While I agree with the issues you listed, I think your approach to fixing / balancing them is not good (On a personal sidenote, I think OKW vs USF is probably still easier to win than OH vs USF).

The officers start with weapon upgrades, but are also more expensive than a normal riflemen squad. More popcap, more value, more reinforce cost.

M20 and 221/222 are pretty in line. With 11 / 5.5 armor and 240 HP for the M20 and 9 / 4.5 armor and 200 HP for the 221. Their guns are similar, though the M20 can tackle light vehicles better at short range due to higher penetration. The price 340 / 20 for the M20 and 210 / 15 for the 221 in my eyes makes those differences acceptable. My only current problem with the unit is the sideskirts upgrade, as it improves survivability a bit too much. The bazooka crew is good, but also risky - losing a M20 means it can drop a bazooka.

AA-HT is definitely a problem. I don't think their timing is a problem, as you can get the Oberkommando FlaK HT shortly earlier or a puma shortly after. They just vastly overperform for their cost. Suppression on HMGs as well as on the main gun, better DPS than an Ostwind and a good enough penetration to fight off even light tanks. I'd primarily nerf that unit, as I think it is one of the main causes why the USF are so strong right now.

Pz II in any other Tier buy T4 is a bad idea. Putting it in the medic truck would make this building far more appealing, putting it into the repair truck would create a really bad situation for USF or T1 Soviets. Right now a ~4 to 4:30 FlaK HT is no problem for Oberkommando and people hated it until they found out how easily the M15 AA HT counters it. Now imagine a 5 minute Panzer II that can fire on the move, kite perfectly and has a place where it can afterwards just drive to get repaired. Mediocre micro requirement, low chance of losing the unit (only Vet1 riflemen get rifle AT-nade, no AT on the field, can already beat the M15 AA HT right now, even more assuming that gets nerfed) and no need to bind another squad to repair. I think the PII has some timing issues at T4, but that's literally the only tier you can put it in :/

Regarding Riflemen and Rear Echelon. The latter definitely need a nerf / rework of their volley fire, while the first are really hard to balance I guess. They need to be able to deal some long range damage to fight Sturmpios, but not too much because Gren / Volksgren should outperform them on range in my opinion. You cannot buff their short range damage too much, as Sturmpios should win against them at that range. I think most nerfs to the Riflemen should be indirect nerfs, even if they do not fit the weapon profiles so much. Decrease Sturmpio mid/long damage, but increase short. Slightly decrease rifle long range damage. Then if needed, more nerfs. I'd first go with a worse moving modifier making them deal less damage on charges.

Besides those points to Hans I have to say I almost completely disagree with OP. 3/4 of the posted things are outright wrong or problematic. Since OP did not put the time into actually researching a lot of the prices or designs of the unit I don't see a reason to argue.

Besides those points to Hans I have to say I almost completely disagree with OP. 3/4 of the posted things are outright wrong or problematic. Since OP did not put the time into actually researching a lot of the prices or designs of the unit I don't see a reason to argue.

I didn't get any of the prices wrong? o.O at least not that im aware. if i did point em out for me so i can correct them .


And for all the Bias accusations...

You're not gonna get an unbias balance post... on an unbalanced game.

Personal bias however, everyone who knows me knows i play all factions equally...

Most people dont want to see a faction nerfed unless something in the other faction is nerfed too... this isnt how you achieve game balance, this is how you only shift the Meta.

Not a nerf on Obersoldaten? really?
I think Obersoldaten (nor any unit) should not be as effective long range as it is right now.

Ok Ok... its expensive
Ok Ok.. 50 mp to reinforce and long reinf time.

But setting them into a green cover you need 3 squads to assault it, and by the time you reach the distance to launch a grenade, you had to retreat 2 squads because of damage received.

Your summary may be: Allies: Nerf Nerf Nerf. Axis: Buff Buff Buff

Are you serious? The expense and reinforce time for Obersoldaten notwithstanding, you are forced to get them mid game because of the second halftrack call-in time and the set up time thereafter.

By the time Obersoldaten come out, you have vehicles and fairly large sized army to counter them and whatever OKW has. So much whine.

As the OP on the Obersoldaten thread said: If you can get Obersoldaten out in 1v1 or 2v2 then you deserve to kill some rifles.