Action Items: Balance Feedback Required!

Hey Guys,

Design Team is currently reviewing a few key balance complaints in the game and we would like your feedback

Disclaimer: Everything you read below is work in progress and not guaranteed to go into the game.

Elite Rifleman:
At the moment this ability provides no real downfall to its usage except for its long recharge time. We implemented slight cost increase as well as starting it on a cool down. However we are currently exploring possible redesigns of the ability such as increasing the rate in which rifleman will accumulate Veterancy.

Soviet Weapon Team:
This has been a hot topic for a while but we are experimenting with 4 men Soviet Weapon Teams. Issue being they are too durable. If a 4 men team loses 2 men, chances of losing that whole squad would go up exponentially. When a 6 men squad loses 2 men the chances of losing that squad still remain fairly low. If overall performances needs to be compensated for reduced durability that is something we could also explore.

Long Range Combat:
With our change to lethality in a previous update to make cover more important. A side effect of that change was that it made long range weapons extremely effective, especially LMGs. The combination of cover, lethality, and long range has resulted in medium to short range units being overall less effective. In most situation, units that require closer range will lose too many men on approach resulting in a significant drop in offensive performance.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated and thank you!

Hi,

This is great news, are you looking for feedback on these topics only or other areas as well?

Veteran Riflemen: Aside from the opening 3 minutes, that 20MP is a trivial cost for the end result of quicker vet on rifle squads. The changes helped avoid the massive imbalance, but the decision is still a no brainer. The investment of a conscript for the XP of killing two dozen? Why would anyone ever say no?

As an idea, perhaps you could actually make Elite Riflemen into a separate, distinct unit. Something at much higher CP and some armour, heavy weapons and support abilities. Slap a fuel cost on them to really drive home the point.

Would sort of eat into the OKW's 'theme', but nothing wrong with that. Ostruppen waves have been cutting into soviet turf for a long time.

Soviet Weapon Teams: If you do, they need major, major buffs. Massive ones. A 4 man maxim is nothing but rifle nade fodder. They already have a good chance of being wiped by a pair of rifle nades at 6 men.

Long Range Combat: WHY ARE LMG'S MORE DAMAGING AT LONG RANGE WHAT NONSENSE LOGIC IS THIS.

That aside, cutting down long range DPS wholesele would help keep infantry alive, but would seem like a step backwards. Yes, Assault Engineers need to be close, but running them through an open field of fire should get them murdered.

Not every type of unit should be appropriate for every map. Mid to close range infantry should be for tight maps, and long range for open fields. Stands to reason.

wat about OH?

Elite Riflemen:
The current changes are great. I don't think changing them any further is necessary.

Soviet Weapon Teams:
A successful flank with sturmpios already wrecks a maxim no problem. Reducing squad size to four could make it impossible to retreat in time. You need to find a way to make it more vulnerable to indirect fire and snipers (which are still useless) without making it any more vulnerable to assault troops... somehow...

Long Range Combat:
Not all short range units are suffering as a result. Sturmpioneers and shock troops are just right for the point they arrive on the field. Panzergrenadiers and any US troops with thompsons are weak. I would say reduce M1919 damage a little bit, but obersoldaten and upgraded grenadiers are fine.

I can't provide feedback on the riflemen issue. I haven't used them at all and haven't fought much of them either.

4 man weapon teams are fine, but I've always thought that the 6 man team was the crutch used to justify fairly bad performance overall. Although the changes to long range combat are likely partly to blame for poor performance...

So long range combat, I've been against what was done with lmg's from the start. It really seemed dumb to me that these weapons which are heavy for someone to hold when not firing, could be of any use at long range compare to a rifle. I think there should be a significant accuracy drop-off going from mid to far. Also, the aim time for these weapons could be a bit less robotic. I think this was something in coh1 as well, where the guy firing the mg could rapidly switch between the entities in an enemy squad very quickly. This results in frequent squad wipes on retreaters with low health, even in chance encounters. If your squad happens to retreat and during that time pass through a squads lmg range, they were done with. Most other weapons would maybe kill a man or two, but not all. It has felt really cheap to me.

i dont see how increased veterancy rate would solve the problem. thats still not a drawback. it would still always be better to use the call in rather than building them. i really liked your solution you had in alpha with increased build times, but you guys seem to be against implementing that again. increasing the cost could work, but its going to have to be more than just 20 mp. its still a no brainer

not sure soviet weapon teams need a nerf though. german small arms dps typically offsets this advantage, but i do find them stronger against other damage types.

i agree long range weapons need to be looked at. lmg is often much more attractive than g43s for this reason, even though g43 are doctrinal.

Elite Rifleman: Agreed it is a no-brainer atm. No real downsides except that you have to shift around the initial build order a bit.

Like the idea about reducing the experience income of elite riflemen but then again, would they not still get more kills early because of superior initial veterancy? So that all we are doing is pushing their eventual maxlevel back by a minute or three?
It would still be pretty much a no-brainer with little to no drawbacks.

Soviet Weapon Team: I take it this is Maxims, since Mortar and Zis do their intended duties, support the rest of the army.
Maxims seem to have the same problem like MG-42 had like a year back.
They function not as support-weapons but instead can be used equally well as frontline units, replacing the units they are meant to support.
Question is, how to limit the effectiveness of the Maxim-spam without completely destroying its as a support-weapon. As it still needs to function as an integral part of a "proper" soviet build.

I've always seen the Maxim as an offensive unit, as opposed to the MG-42. (Maxims are better in supporting a push, and MG-42s can be a good fallback point, giving time to regroup and stop your army from having to retreat.)
Why aren't MG-42s spammed nearly as often as Maxims? Well much slower set-up time. So perhaps that is the way to go, but it must then be done in a manner that doesn't remove its capability to perform it's role as an offensive unit. (If Im wrong about the offensive part then that's the way to go IMO. )
But it is a tough nut to crack, how to remove the viability to spam Maxims, without making them useless.

Long Range Combat:
Don't think this would be much of an issue if it weren't for the obvious that one side have units that mostly excel in long range and the other side have units that are mostly mid-short.
Napalm had a good idea for a fix in his thread about the Soviet faction:
Make Penals excel in the long-range. Two birds with one stone, Penals get to be more distinct from Conscripts and Grens would have something that does damage to them from afar.
That being said just a buff to Penal long-range will ofc make them the go-to unit for Sovs against OH and thats not intended, so make them worse than cons at short-range.
Meaning a flank from lets say Pios or AssGrens would reduce their viability.
I think that would also make the PzGrens more used today, now Grens-LMGgrens are a no-brainer. This all being said, no I don't think a Penalsquad vs a Grensquad (especially LMGGrens) on open ground should give a victory to Penals all of the time, but right now LMG-grens in the open attacking Penals or cons in green cover means the soviets will have to attack and close in.

I know I know, that was perhaps way to faction specific for what the OP intended. Overall I think long range combat is more or less fine, Long-range should be defensive but since allies lack in this department.

Disclaimer: cut short, gotto go play

Elite Rifleman:
At the moment this ability provides no real downfall to its usage except for its long recharge time. We implemented slight cost increase as well as starting it on a cool down. However we are currently exploring possible redesigns of the ability such as increasing the rate in which rifleman will accumulate Veterancy.

I do not like any abilities that give free exp. This includes both the Elite rifle callin as well as the Ostheer Elite troops doctrine. I think they fundamentally break the game balance by giving easy, guaranteed access to abilities that are gated behind exp for a reason. I'd rather see them both changed to things like increased exp gain for units, even if that would be a passive ability that is fairly boring gameplay wise.

Soviet Weapon Team:
This has been a hot topic for a while but we are experimenting with 4 men Soviet Weapon Teams. Issue being they are too durable. If a 4 men team loses 2 men, chances of losing that whole squad would go up exponentially. When a 6 men squad loses 2 men the chances of losing that squad still remain fairly low. If overall performances needs to be compensated for reduced durability that is something we could also explore.

They don't overperform in 1vs1, period. Anyone complaining about them based on 1vs1 just needs to learn to play against them. Meanwhile in team games, all of the possible soviet early game infantry choices (penals and conscripts and combat engineers) just scale badly, maxims and snipers are the only things that can remain relevant throughout the game so you end up seeing them every single time with more organized teams. Before any sweeping changes to maxims, the long-term performance of conscripts and penals should be looked into to give more actual options for team game soviets.

If you were to reduce the durability of these squads, the performance of the guns would have to go up by quite a bit, which would create a whole boatload of new balance problems and would likely lead to just as many complaints from the anti-soviet crowd.

Long Range Combat:
With our change to lethality in a previous update to make cover more important. A side effect of that change was that it made long range weapons extremely effective, especially LMGs. The combination of cover, lethality, and long range has resulted in medium to short range units being overall less effective. In most situation, units that require closer range will lose too many men on approach resulting in a significant drop in offensive performance.

While there are some minor performance issues with short range firearms, the fundamental issue is just ease of use. With how the system is setup right now, you get very good performance just by selecting all your LMG armed long-range infantry, and amoving towards the enemy. By contrast trying to use short range troops generally involves much more roundabout maneuvering to setup flanks, use of smoke, and so on, yet the cost performance of these short range units is generally not THAT much better than the LMG blob.

While just reducing long range damage somewhat is an option, I do think it could be interesting if the LMG damage was made to spread damage on the entire enemy squad instead of focused on a single model. Right now a big part of the power of LMGs is that they will very quickly snipe off members from the enemy squad, forcing shorter range troops to just run away because having half a squad in melee doesn't really help them. Spread the damage out and you'll instead have a much larger though lower health squad coming into melee instead, which could actually do something. It would also make MGs a bit more efficient against LMG blobbing, because right now the gunner just gets instakilled in a row because all the fire is focused on him due to him being the most forward member of the MG squad.

Not a feedback, but I just want the M26 back(like many other US fan(boy)s)

And yes, the lovely hetzer I still want to see her,

These two babies will brings back my good memories in the past 7 years.

Vet riflemen: give them a fuel cost, maybe 10. Vet ability for wher costs fuel so it makes sense to carry over that theme.

6 man weapon teams: don't change, they are fine. It would take away from the flavor of the soviet army.

Long ranger dps: perhaps some slight changes to mg dps, but I think diverting too much from the current system will revert gameplay to the nonsense that was pre- infantry patch combat mechanics. Use of cover needs to be rewarded, and short range units need to utilize cover in their approaches. Blobbing has already become a problem and should not be exacerbated by making blobs more effective at charging into fortified positions.

It's really great to see Relic coming to the community and looking to work with it on these issues. So a huge thank you for taking this approach, it's a great display of Relic and the community working together for the good of the game.

Perhaps a beta server could be set up, to test out some of the possible changes, with a mix of pro and casual players taking part - and a beta forum for feedback/discussions.

Vet Riflemen, change to 280 mp + 5 fuel. Counts more early on, means a delayed Lt+halftrack. Soviets should be kept at 6 men.

If soviet s get 4 man weapon teams they NEed massive buffs.

I wuold be fine with this as it wuold make the red army seem like an actual army instead of a band of civilians.

But then it wuold require a complete faction redesign

Also posted it in the official forums:

1. Replace the Elite Riflemen call in with a Mun Ability that costs 30-50 Mun and will temporarily double the amount of experience Rifles gain. (1minute?)

2. From a 1v1 perspective I can say that maxims don't need any major nerfs. Slightly decreasing the suppression values should be enough. Do not render soviet support weapons useless by making them a 4 men squad. Unlike most people say the german sniper is an extremely strong unit and if you reduce weapon teams to 4 men he will become OP against soviet t2.

3. Slightly lower the damage output of LMG42, M1919 and maybe some others. Right now it's extremely hard to make good use of close range units like PGs or Shocks becaue they get shredded by all those high DPS lmgs.

Elite Riflemen need to cost 5 or 10 fuel, delayed tech would help counter the early vet. Thats all i can say on these "Action Items"

VET riflemen: Many people disagree with the elite troops, but even this has been included. It will put more VET units? oh yeah. Look at the consequences of the past, guys. Tiger ace, SovIndustr...ect

Maxim: Only good in large quantities. I think you should start here. When arrive the first engineer or conscript to capture there are a sturmpio, the only thing to do is dodge or retreat. From there the maxims, maxims, maxim to infinity.

Long range: Right now in coh2 not have a good implementation. Try to sight the units are cut at certain times.

4 man soviet weapon teams? How will they ever stand up to the German firepower?
Things like mortar rate of fire, sniper rate of fire, small arms fire DPS are all much better on the axis side because soviet squads are bigger. So.. how are soviets going to compete? Mandatory guards/shock doctrines? That sounds fun..

For Riflemen Elite:

Stop giving Americans a huge bonus for free. They want more veterancy, let them pay for it. Why should they get passive bonus when every other commander ability costs usually munition, significant manpower and/or fuel? Waiting for a short cooldown is no drawback, and 20 manpower means nothing in this game.

You could turn the ability into something like the Wehrmacht Troop Training ability, just that it is only targetable at Riflemen. In return they don't have to make it just as expensive as Troop Training.

Soviet weapon team:

Yes, reducing amount of men has been required since ages. You can rebalance their weapon teams otherwise, but I don't see currently why most of them would require a huge change. Russian mortars don't seem to be any worse than Germans even though they have more men, Maxims already have a huge advantage of extremely low setup and desetup times. ZiS-3 is a bit worse than Pak40 against vehicles and may need a change the most, but it already has an ability that the Pak40 lacks already, so don't just put it on same level against tanks as Pak40.

Long Range Combat:

Not sure about that yet, but I think it just applies to a few units. The thing with long range units is, if they cannot kill melee units when shooting at them from long range, those units can just blindly rush in and kill your units and you only have a chance if you outnumber them then. This situation gets exponentially worse then if the user of the melee units actually uses the units as intended by drawing fire with other squads first or flanking or hiding behind corners; long range units will be even more outclassed then.

Don't do too big changes here and just target the biggest offenders first.

Respect long range combat, I think that all infantry units should have their long range DPS halved while on the move, and at mid range should be 1/3 if they're moving. No penalties at short range.

That way close quarters units remain powerful at close range meanwhile long range units must stay still to be effective and they can't chase retreating units as easily as until now.