Soviets - A core faction discussion

All these units are supposed to work as combined arms army. And they work great in that role

Problem is someone decided to put variety of super tanks, extremely effective long range weapons and bunch of super cool click of a button, death from above call in abilities.

Combined with maps that are very large and many ways to flank army that is highly demanding with babysitting units to keep them well positioned, Very micro intensive army composition, you get situation that going combined army is liability compared to more mobile or durable units.

Starting from 1v1 going up, this just becomes increasingly easier for opposition to exploit and harder for combined arms player to keep his forces from breaking apart.

Su85 is useless without conscript support (at nade) and it becomes useless even with conscripts when heavy or highly mobile armor hits the field (not very high engine damage rate)

Simple armor flank with straffe breaks combined army and leaves awkward SU85 and supporting weapons highly vulnerable and largely ineffective vs mobile army that can take some punishment (Panther or two supported by infantry)

If you make conscripts, SU85, etc more powerful you get problem of combined arms becoming OP in 1v1, leave them like this and they become irrelevant because combined army is to much of a liability.
Inherit faction design that cannot be changed without major rework of units roles and performance. For example, giving SU85 turret so its not so awkward.
Can't see it happening

honestly i don't think the jadgpanzer 4 needs a nerf but the su85 i feel needs a buff.

Please note that no where in this thread I've mentioned nerfing other factions. The Jadgpanzer fills a much needed role for the OKW and fills it well. The SU85 should perform in a similar fashion.

I don't think it would make any sense to switch T-34/76 and SU-76, if so no one will build T3 anymore. There's no place in the frontline late game for M5 and T-70, Su-76 obviously can't do anything on its own.

The point of SU-76 in T4 is when you need a somewhat all round unit (AI and AT) you can get one right away, it can be supported by SU-85 and vice versa. Those two are more of a defensive unit and therefore not supposed to work alone.

Also Su-85 is a turretless, medium tank destroyer. It needs to be at the back of your army and punching enemy armor from there, NOT to lead an attacking force against more mobile tanks.

I don't think it would make any sense to switch T-34/76 and SU-76, if so no one will build T3 anymore. There's no place in the frontline late game for M5 and T-70, Su-76 obviously can't do anything on its own.

The point of SU-76 in T4 is when you need a somewhat all round unit (AI and AT) you can get one right away, it can be supported by SU-85 and vice versa. Those two are more of a defensive unit and therefore not supposed to work alone.

Actually, Relic devs have been quoted as saying they wanted to force Soviet players to make a choice between T3 and T4 and that is why the T70 and T34 are essentially the same role, as are the SU76 and SU85. Frankly, it was a stupid idea and for whatever reason they are unwilling to admit they made a mistake.

I was, for a time a fan of moving the T34 to T4 and moving the SU76 to T3. Since then I have been convinced that a stronger change could be done by simply swapping the T70 with the SU76. Soviets lack combined arms (a term many players use regularly here, but still seem to fail to understand what it means), especially so in T3 and T4. By providing T3 with a mobile gun with light AT and short ranged artillery you have two units which can work in tandem and fill in each other's weaknesses; same with T4, by putting the T70 in T4 you have a mobile vehicle to counter light vehicles and infantry and spot/sight targets, while the SU85 can sit back and kill from range. It's the perfect fix imo, and gives new purpose and value to both the T70 and SU76 beyond each being the "little brother" of the vehicle they occupy their respective building with.

As for everything else, yes, Conscripts and Penals both need a role adjustment.

Swapping the T70 with SU76? Now that's a good idea!

Still, i find Soviet faction's play style is interesting. Conscripts, Maxim and ATG each has its clear role on the battlefield and have to rely on each other to survive especially in late game. The Soviet non-doc army therefore would never have a tendency to become a mindless big blob like all other factions that's what i like about them. Maybe if Relic can just change veterancy level of cons and engi to make them more survivable late game then i would be satisfied.

I agree with Napalm. I have for the last 8 games as Soviets tried to use a conscript based army against OKW. Its just a bad bad idea. Its even worse if you try Penals. You either need Dual snipers or Maxims to deal with that level of firepower. You need to debuff it so to speak by either suppression or sniping.

Milka you always have good points of course. Talking about Penals and Scripts Volks and Sturms. But one thing you left out of the equation is the first Sturmpio is Free.

So he goes 4x Cons I go 3x Volks I just spent less and have a much stronger fighting force. Then I start to call in Falls or hard tech to obers and LOL.

The unfortunate reality is that with the release of WFA the already problematic unclear role of penals and conscripts which lead to spam only got exaggerated against OKW. You pretty much need Guards or shocks to really help deal with OKW infantry because beyond volks you will just get bled by cons and penals inability to do well. Like Napalm pointed out, this leads to the forced hand of cheese unit comps such as maxim spam or sniper/ M3 heavy use. It is not unlike 2 months after this games release where Soviet weapons teams were all nerfed into the ground and mg42s insta pinned forcing players to abuse snipers and clown cars to even get pasted the early game only to be forced into SU-85 spam because the T34s (both) were absolutely terrible.

Milka you always have good points of course. Talking about Penals and Scripts Volks and Sturms. But one thing you left out of the equation is the first Sturmpio is Free.

No it isn't. All factions have exactly the same amount of manpower + starting unit cost.

Oberkommando: 240 MP + 320 MP Sturmpio = 560 MP
USF: 400 MP + 160 MP Rear Echelon = 560 MP
Soviet: 390 MP + 170 MP Combat Engineer = 560 MP
Ostheer: 360 MP + 200 MP Pio = 560 MP

It saves build time, but it is not free.

So I've read through about 3 pages of this and it's funny because I felt like there was something I wasn't seeing. I haven't bought WFA yet, and although I played a lot of Axis in CoH1 I don't find them as attractive here in coh2. 1v1 isn't much fun to me, so I don't play much of it. So I'm playing team games as Soviet and it is hard as hell. I've noticed that it isn't a skill issue, good and bad players get lazy with Axis design, OKW more than Ostheer.

Here's the thing though. I stated they get lazy with Axis design, but I think it's really more that they are not challenged by Soviet design. This is why players will just resort to liberally attack moving blobs around the map and winning. Usually with LMG units, which Soviet units can't handle with or without cover. For now, I'm just talking about infantry.

I don't see a need to nerf Axis as much as I see a need for buffs and changes to Soviet

The problems I see are that while most of the infantry in the game are on equal footing with health after the removal of most armor, the piss poor accuracy of almost every Soviet infantry holds them down and is likely a spit in the face to many of the real soldiers who fought. The other issue I see is that the unit selection is pretty bad. There are game assets that are not used in multiplayer, but could help change things for the better. Here is a short list of assets I think should be added and how they can help:

• Frontovik squad is not used at all. This should be a really cheap, really shit squad, like the current cons are and should be tier 0 instead of the current cons.
  
• Gaurds armed only with rifles, would make a good t3 addition considering their improved mosin accuracy in the profiles. These non-doctrine units should not be upgradeable to hold ptrs, but maybe replace some SVT's. Squad number could potentially be reduced to 5 or 4 as well.
  
• Shock Troops armed with rifles like we used to have before they were equipped with ppsh-41 standard. Facing off against units like Obersoldaten with the extreme close range of the ppsh-41 is usually a suicide mission or a waste of MP and pop-cap as they sit around while the player looks for an opportunity to get in close. Even up close, the doctrinal storms still run a high risk of losing to this long range oriented expensive unit. A rifle variant would allow them to make use cover positions and still challenge units like Obersoldaten (likely still without being better than them). These Storms would be placed in T4.
  
• T34/85 could be made non-doctrinal without causing a detriment to the value of the commander call-ins, by simply making a variant that manifests itself through a lower health value. It can have the same health as the t34 for example, as opposed to the 800 or so it comes through the call-in. This would give the commander call-in a benefit of same cost but more health, yet still allow base soviet army to have this iconic weapon.
  
• The KV-1 is a call-in right now and it shouldn't be. It should be in T4 right now. I don't have any ideas right now on how to differentiate it from the commander call-in, maybe do something dumb like what was done with the panther command tank.
  
  

I think I mentioned this in another post, but I think global changes to cover over-all would do wonders for a lot of the balance problems in this game concerning blobs. Regardless of the faction, if cover was more important, the importance of tactics in this game would increase. Currently cover is offering fairly mild defensive bonuses and no offensive bonuses. Adding in offensive bonuses and buffing defensive bonuses would allow Relic to create a more natural and dynamic balance between infantry, without having to resort to retarded global accuracy values on some units (Looking squarely at you, Obersoldaten!). If I'm not mistaken, they should even be able to tweak these on a per squad basis as well.

This would potentially allow them to do something like give all infantry in the game of a specific profile the same accuracy value while not in cover and make increases based on cover type. Taking grenadiers and cons as an example, this would mean that if cons engaged grenadiers in open ground, their numbers advantage would shine through profoundly resulting in a clear win for cons. In light cover it would be a close battle, where distance and rng decide. In heavy cover, we would see the grens take some losses, but ultimately win every time 1:1. So someone with a blob of 4 lmg grens coming to attack a some con squads behind stone walls would have significant difficulty winning and would likely have to rely on the Soviet player failing to dodge rifle grenades.

With all that said, I want to see the return of armor values to infantry. I think relic set the values too high initially and that created a bad experience for a lot of us. Some units that maybe should have had armor (like penals) didn't, even though they cost as much as armored units. Units like Panzer Grenadiers became really dumb and frustrating to use. I think giving units like PG a value of 1.25 instead of 1.5 would be nice to try and smaller values like 1.1 or 1.05 for units like penals would be helpful to increase the durability and separate their role from other infantry.

I have long hated the "simple logic" of the argument that Axis units need vastly improved performance due to squad count. This game does not operate on a simple logic, it is very complex and there are a lot of compounding returns and losses. There are many instances were in the grenadier vs conscript battle, the cons lose a man from the squad before that man even does any damage at all. So how can a calculation be run to show the firepower of 6 men on 4 when it's common for it to end up as a 5 on 4 before the grenadiers even take the damage from 6 men? There is a lot of rng at play, but my experience has shown that given proper micro and planning, grenadiers are often able to come out on top in battles against cons without losing a single man (usually when armed with lmg, but not always). This issue is then increased even further when considering the extreme lethality of OKW. Although I do feel that smaller Axis squads should perform better than larger Soviet squads, I think the gap right now is too large. CoH1 likely proved that Relic had the values too high, as 6 man American rifle squads would tear through grenadiers before vet came into play, but there was a giant reduction in accuracy going from riflemen to cons. Even worse is the fact that riflemen and grenadiers had costs differences in coh1, with grens costing a little more. Even considering that, I felt that the infantry battles were far more satisfying in CoH1 regardless of the faction I played as.

Some of these suggestions have the potential to disturb 1v1 quite a bit, most noticeably with the Ostheer, who is having a similar issue struggling against the USA. Obviously there are going to be some similar changes that would be good on that front as well, changes that could be implemented without disturbing the fairly decent balance that currently exists between Eastern armies. Giving Axis access to a more general purpose and cheaper mine like the tm-35 would go a long way, I'm sure there were a billion different mines they deployed irl. That would make it easier to deal with stupid spam strats like what Molo does or did with scout cars. I think a lot of the weakness put into the soviet army is at the root cause of why relic feels the need to hide higher cost vehicles in OKW with a gimped economy, which I think is a balance issue itself. Players should be on equal footing based on territory they hold, not chosen faction.

Im gonna try soviets again. The best way to play them at the moment seems to be to go conscripts to t2 to a call in?

I find that, against OKW, back-teching to T1 only to get snipers is worth it in case of Obers spam. Starting with T1 is weaker than I first thought, since indeed Penals get crushed underfoot by anything meaner than Volks. But if I ever see I have some amount of manpower, and I don't suspect a vehicle coming soon, grabbing a sniper can greatly help to bleed elite OKW infantry and even the playing field for Guards, Shocks, or even conscripts. Vet 2 conscripts can beat any infantry with sniper support.

About Guards, I do find they need some love. Nobody gets them because their AI is average, especially against OKW, and their AT sucks apart from gimmicky button. For a 360 MP doctrinal unit that needs ammo spent on it to be good, in the WFA meta, that's just not enough. I think they could use an optional SVT40 upgrade that makes the whole squad grab upgraded versions of them to become a deadly AI platform while ditching the PTRS which is useless against anything bigger than a halftrack.

Penals ditch their SVT40s for good old Mosins, and get both a cost reduction and a role change to short-range DPS only. They should be fragile, but have excellent DPS at their range if the can get in close. Conscripts should in turn get something that differentiates them. Some historical higher-quality Soviet weapon that's not in the game yet, or give them some sort of AT option. These two units are just too similar.

About the penals: I am under the impression that they are around the same as conscripts in far/medium but do double damage with SVTs up close. So the penals plus flamer have a strong close range attack and are around the same as conscripts from long range.

I like penals and had used them as the core infantry with conscripted reserved for merging mostly.

I don't like guards, too expensive. It can do everything but nothing cost effectively or particularly well.

"I don't see a need to nerf Axis as much as I see a need for buffs and changes to Soviet"
versus
"fairly decent balance that currently exists between Eastern armies."

So are they balanced or do they need a buff

Now regarding the post in general:
Axis need a higher performance on the guns due to smaller squad sizes. This was not needed in prior versions of the game (when armor was still used), as the armor basically meant that Grens and cons had the same effective HP. The problem with that is, that it looks weird and causes problems with veterancy.
Seeing shots impact on an entity, but not taking damage looks confusing, that's why it was replaced with decreased incoming accuracy modifiers in a lot of cases. For others it was replaced with higher damage dealt. This accuracy decrease helps to counteract some of the other vet bonuses. Some weapons + vetted squads reached 100% accuracy, but their performance did not increase much, since the opponent had armor. So effectively, their vet was less valuable than it should've been.

I'm really against the reintroduction of armor, as it causes problems with unit performance, looks bad and dumbs down the gameplay. Lower HP, more damage squads need more careful micro (see current Panzergrenadiers). If you want to differentiate squads, give them decreased incoming accuracy modifiers. Not sure if penals needs that though, the unit in general needs a complete overhaul I think and not just some tweaks.

Edit:
Regarding Shocks - Have you tried them recently? Their PPSh41 profile was changed and they actually do not need to get that close anymore. Besides that when using them I find they win rather reliably against Obers.

^^

True- 1-2 Shock Squads are a big problem for OKW as they lack of suppressing weapon and by the time you get any reliable AI those guys will have vet. I had a game where 2 vet 3 shocks just ran aroud the map, sending all OKW units home, while taking minor losses.

"I don't see a need to nerf Axis as much as I see a need for buffs and changes to Soviet"
versus
"fairly decent balance that currently exists between Eastern armies."

It's true that the Ost vs Sov was decently balanced, but let's avoid overbuffing and overnerfing units on both sides, it would cause more problem.

Yup Shocks work fine vs OKW, I don't know for others, but I cannot make penals/guards/conscripts work. In any combination without shocks and maxims

Fairly doesn't mean perfect, a 4 squad LMG gren blob vs 4 of any other soviet squad other than maybe shocks is always going to win and I doubt cover would matter. Not win by a little bit, but win like with all 4 squads intact, perhaps without even losing a man, Especially with vet. With first strike, I don't think any infantry stand a chance, I've done some dirty things to blobers with first strike and lmg.

The armor thing, I get your point, but some units are actually wearing armor that would stop a bullet (like shocks). So to see a round hit and not do anything is ok. I would actually have some weapons slightly tweaked for greater than 1 penetration but maybe less than 2. TBH though, I wasn't fully aware that received accuracy modifiers were added, I'll have to read up on that more.

I have felt the difference with shocks, but more towards ost than okw. Against obers only 1 survives. If shocks have to retreat, they won't get home. So it turns into this all or nothing attack, for the soviet player of course, the okw can retreat without penalty but I guess that's what the high price gets you.

Smoke is very useful, and especially since Americans can practically shoot it anywhere. Shooting smoke at yourself or shooting smoke at your enemy is a great way to cover you retreat when you realize your infantry are doomed (at least you get a second chance to retaliate). Shock troopers still prove really great, even against uber obersoldaten, and i usually throw a random smoke at the ground if im forced to retreat to cover my retreating soldiers.

Penals do need an overhaul, since i find it very discouraging to build a unit that are better than conscripts... when they should serve a somewhat different role than conscripts, but still excel at it. Im comparing this to grenadier - panzergrenadier. Its useful to build both as they are strategically different from each other.

Switching t-70 with the su-76m seems to me like a very recommended action in terms of slight changes since: the t-70 would probably be used more as it would be in a tier where it wouldnt be dominated by a tank considered superior, and T3 would get ranged support, which could be useful, and imo, t34's supported by su-76's seems like a pretty natural thing that should have already been there to begin with.

I really, REALLY hate that T3 and T4 are designed to be OR tiers, not AND (as in flexible to build both), and you can only build one of them, realistically. Both tiers need some leg room within themselves as to have all their units be useful and viable 100% of the time.

I mean look at OKW's first tiers.

One has the IR halftrack, the Jagdpanzer IV, and the Infantry Gun. With the complaints of the luchs' arrival, switching the luchs with the IR halftrack would give the tier AI, AT, and artillery.

The other has the puma, the stuka zu fuss, and the flak halftrack 251/17. Thats already AI, AT, and artillery.

You are practically NOT screwed over if you pick one over the other, and the final tier is always viable, or sometimes you can build the other tier as well - or even all of them!

Soviets never have tier luxury, except t2 which is why its the most used tier - mainly for the maxim, but it also has AT, AI, and artillery. See this pattern?

T1 is where this gets screwed up, first of all. Its loosely based off of vCoH American tiering. Thats a no go. T1 is not self sufficient, unlike T2. It has the scout car (which i think its stupid, and in the long run, becomes obsolete and non-essential), the sniper - which i consider a temporary counter to infantry, not a direct counter, and then the penals - a tryhard improvement of conscripts - but has a very similar role, anyways.

The soviet faction is looking for a lot of adjustments and changes. Ostheer techs differently and has practically all useful units (not the sniper, at least im not a sniper person) until t4 - where the problem is the price to tech to tier 4 which makes it unwise to tech at all as everything you need is in t3. The panther could be 10 fuel less, but my main gripe is the cost of teching to tier 4 making buying units in t4 an invest that pays off too late.

Soviet units are apparently supposed to he depicted as cheaper and more numerous, but they still have to have their own values and uses.

I think there should be a way for guards to be nondoctrinal, but be in smaller squads - but i want this to be in a specially equipped soviet Guards faction - the OKW of Soviets. Practically all lend lease equipment and tanks - heavier and newer tanks as well were given to Guards divisions. To show the elite and well-equipped portion of the Soviets, as they really did have some form of their own elite. Current Soviet faction is shown as overall bad - which is very unappealing.

I think there should be a way for guards to be nondoctrinal, but be in smaller squads - but i want this to be in a specially equipped soviet Guards faction - the OKW of Soviets. Practically all lend lease equipment and tanks

As far as I understand, Soviets barely used any of the Land Lease Weaponry in the land combat other than shitloads of trucks and vehicles for logistics and troop transport.

Most of the Tanks/armored vehicles were used for training and reserve forces. Very limited number being used in actual combat.

Don't know how exactly could you make Land Lease faction, most of land lease equipment is already in default Soviet tier buildings. (most of the trucks, Katyusha truck for example, etc)

Other than that I like your idea

Shocktroops still have armor ingame, but I think besides Obers (who have it for whatever reasons, I'd remove it) there is no other squad with armor.

Regarding Gren 4 Grens with LMGs.
240*4 + 60*1.66*4 = 1340 MP
That's almost 6 Conscript squads. Upgrades greatly improve the strength of a squad. 240MP Grens perform for roughly the value of 340MP due to it. That's why I am not a fan of upgrades, they are really problematic to balance.
And if you want 4 Soviet squads that could beat that:
4 * Snipers should beat that and at 1440MP is not much more expensive
2 Shocks and a mortar should also beat that. Or using a 120mm and some cons (more as recon / distraction, than actual dmg dealing). Against a 120mm he can't really stand still and use his LMGs as he will risk getting hit.

I agree with Napalm. I have for the last 8 games as Soviets tried to use a conscript based army against OKW. Its just a bad bad idea. Its even worse if you try Penals. You either need Dual snipers or Maxims to deal with that level of firepower. You need to debuff it so to speak by either suppression or sniping.

Milka you always have good points of course. Talking about Penals and Scripts Volks and Sturms. But one thing you left out of the equation is the first Sturmpio is Free.

So he goes 4x Cons I go 3x Volks I just spent less and have a much stronger fighting force. Then I start to call in Falls or hard tech to obers and LOL.

i believe the problem is not the sturm's cost or whether it is free, i believe the problem is that it is available immediately. they can remove sturms as a starting unit and give okw a more versatile start. refund them the mp, let okw start with 560mp without a starting unit.

this way they can delay sturm's relative early game power and let okw players experience with newer strats.

to be fair, USF starts with a crappy starting unit that deals virtually no damage, both ostheer and soviets need their engie for building construction. there is no reason why okw can have supremacy over everyone by hitting the field faster, going for key cut offs and garrison buildings faster than allied armies or even ostheer.