Login

russian armor

Rear Armour needs to be nerfed - Across the board

8 Aug 2014, 10:05 AM
#1
avatar of MarcoRossolini

Posts: 1042

I've been arguing for this since the game released, yet still nothing has been done nor has there been much notice taken of this, which I regard as one of the most glaring issues in CoH2 today.

Currently rear armour is too strong. This is particularly prevalent amongst heavy call in tanks.

One of the few ways it should be possible for an inferior tank to destroy a larger heavier tank is to flank it. But the superior effort, micro and skill required to pull this off goes entirely unrewarded. Often, be it a Panzer IV or T-34 or Sherman, getting around the flank is rewarded by nothing more than a few bounces, whilst the rest of the enemy's support destroys those tanks with ease. The happens all the time, be it if it is an ISU, IS, Elefant or Tiger series.

Let's look at a classic example: The T-34/76 vs Tiger.

The Tiger's rear armour is 180

The T-34's penetration is 120

I'm not exactly familiar with the way penetration is work out, but those odds don't look good. (+/- 25% chance to pen I guess...) In the time that is required for a T-34 to flank effectively, it is easy for the Tiger to turn and knock it out (particularly given the state of CoH2's pathfinding). The problem here is that the skill required to flank a Tiger simply isn't rewarded. A player's (at times heroic) attempts to flank a Tiger go unrewarded and useless and almost invariably would result in the loss of a T-34 for next to no gain.

I've noticed similar situations where Panzer IVs have flanked an IS only to find their shots bounce off enough for the IS-2, slow and heavy as it is, to knock out even 2 flanking panzer IVs, this shouldn't happen, that IS-2 should be dead.

The situation worsens in the case of Heavy Tank Destroyers.

Take the classic case of an outflanking Pz4 taking on an ISU-152. The Panzer IV in this situation has not only had to try to flank the enemy's support (be it cons, AT guns etc) but also has to be mindful of the ISU's 75 (iirc) range, not to say the sheer power of the ISU's gun.

The statistics are more favourable here (120 pen v 155 rear armour) but the fact remains that that a significant amount of the Panzer IV's will be bouncing off and the effort that is required to flank simply goes to waste. An even worse situation follows with units such as the T-34 versus the elefant or Jagdtiger, both of which have even harder front armour. The Sherman obviously falls in the same category.

So what's to be done? It's clear that for all sides medium tanks, flanking goes unrewarded. Whilst it does provide a better chance of penetration, the amount of shots that will bounce are still offensively high (offensive to the player's skill in pulling off the flank).


So what needs to be done?

Simple.

Lower the rear armour of all tanks across the board.
Certainly below the penetration of non-doctrinal medium tanks. With the skill involved in flanking, RNG should not come into play at all. A personal recommendation from me would be roughly 90 for all heavier tanks. ISU, Tiger, all of them. Make it almost a guaranteed penetration for flanking. That's why you flank.

This change should make flanking more rewarding whilst at the same time not damaging heavy armour too much in other categories. The damage done to them when those shots do penetrate are fine. What isn't okay is when planning and skill are unrewarded. Granted, it's a nerf for heavy tanks, but what were you doing showing your tanks rear to the enemy in the first place?

Reward player skill, not player stupidity.


[disclaimer: I apologise if my stats are incorrect, but long games trying to flank still make my views valid.
8 Aug 2014, 10:14 AM
#2
avatar of spam.r33k

Posts: 503

its penetration/armor = chance to penetrate
120/180 = 2/3 of the shots will penetrate
8 Aug 2014, 10:19 AM
#3
avatar of MarcoRossolini

Posts: 1042

bollocks, that's a bit of my argument out of the window. Fact remains that the way rear armour works is unfair.
8 Aug 2014, 12:31 PM
#4
avatar of CookiezNcreem
Senior Strategist Badge
Donator 11

Posts: 3052 | Subs: 15

I understand where you're coming from OP. And i Agree. Its totally illogical for a medium tanks gun to bounce off the ass of any of these heavy tanks from any faction. The only tanks that should bounce off the rear of heavies are the Luchs,T70,and stuart.

There are times where my sherman assault group pen the rear of a badly placed jagdtgier every shot and end up killing it in under 10 secs.

Then there are times where the the jagdtgier is at >10% health and none of my shermans/jacksons penetrate the damn rear at that crucial moment and they all end up dead with the jagdtiger walking away with a slither of health and vet 3(True story)


This is kinda alleviated with Guards motor and other docs with Mark vehicle. But since the Mericans dont have that...meh.
8 Aug 2014, 12:51 PM
#5
avatar of Hirmetrium
Patrion 14

Posts: 179

I actually think that Stuart shot should be very good against rear armour - after all, it does have engine disable.
8 Aug 2014, 14:13 PM
#6
avatar of Warthrone

Posts: 205

Permanently Banned
Its all about penetration
8 Aug 2014, 14:22 PM
#7
avatar of astro_zombie

Posts: 123

In my opinion, the single biggest design failure in this game was not adding real "side armor." For those of you who do not know, the tank is cut in half, the front half, including sides, gets "front armor", the back half, again including sides, gets "rear." That is why they will probably not nerf rear armor, because it's also the faux "side" armor and the consequences of doing it are large. I said it in beta, they have their excuses for not implementing it, none of which swayed my opinion.

Now they are limited their in balancing to only two armor variables as opposed to at least 3 (sides, front, fear) that it should have. It's the main reason why flanking is not rewarded for the effort you put into it.

IMHO, them gutting the doctrine concept and not implementing this are two really unfortunate flaws in this game.
8 Aug 2014, 14:27 PM
#8
avatar of hallolinski

Posts: 76

Its all about penetration


giggle
8 Aug 2014, 15:15 PM
#9
avatar of korgoth

Posts: 170

In my opinion, the single biggest design failure in this game was not adding real "side armor." For those of you who do not know, the tank is cut in half, the front half, including sides, gets "front armor", the back half, again including sides, gets "rear." That is why they will probably not nerf rear armor, because it's also the faux "side" armor and the consequences of doing it are large. I said it in beta, they have their excuses for not implementing it, none of which swayed my opinion.

Now they are limited their in balancing to only two armor variables as opposed to at least 3 (sides, front, fear) that it should have. It's the main reason why flanking is not rewarded for the effort you put into it.

IMHO, them gutting the doctrine concept and not implementing this are two really unfortunate flaws in this game.


THIS, a million time this!
8 Aug 2014, 15:29 PM
#10
avatar of MilkaCow

Posts: 577

I'm sorry, but this is hilarious. Flanking is not rewarded? Most of the tanks have half the rear armor compared to their frontal armor, so you have almost always a 100% chance to penetrate. There are a few exceptions in both directions.
The heavy assault guns / tank destroyers tend to have far more frontal armor compared to their rear armor, examples would be:
Jagdtiger: 525 front, 150 rear (29%)
Panther: 290 / 110 (38%)
Elefant: 400 / 150 (38%)
...
There are like I said also exceptions in the other direction, units that have more than 50% of their frontal armor as rear armor. Those ones are they heavy tanks:
King Tiger: 425 / 225 (53%)
Tiger: 300 / 180 (60%)
IS-2: 375 / 205 (55)

Why is that? Because these tanks are extremely slow and easy to flank, but also need to be directly in the center of the action. The support guns listed previously need to stay at range and their armor reinforces that role - flanking is super efficient vs those since it's hard to do and creates an interesting gameplay where a player needs to protect those. Flanking against something like a Tiger on the other hand is far easier to do - it can't stay on range and it is not really mobile (less mobile than IS-2 unless it's blitzing, FYI). So I'm fine with the concept and I honestly don't think that rear armor would change that much. If you fight a heavy tank and you can flank in most cases you drive right behind him to block his escape route. Even with side+rear armor that would make those tanks too susceptible to flanks and too punishing, so the design in the end would stay similar I guess.
8 Aug 2014, 15:50 PM
#11
avatar of Aerohank

Posts: 2693 | Subs: 1

Only the short range heavy tanks have high rear armor. The king tiger as much as 225.
Other vehicles don't have that much rear armor. Even the mighty Jagdtiger, with his frontal armor of 525 (LOL, that even has a chance to block the 500PEN (LOL) shot of another jagdtiger) only has 150 rear armor.
8 Aug 2014, 18:20 PM
#12
avatar of wongtp

Posts: 647

I'm sorry, but this is hilarious. Flanking is not rewarded? Most of the tanks have half the rear armor compared to their frontal armor, so you have almost always a 100% chance to penetrate. There are a few exceptions in both directions.
The heavy assault guns / tank destroyers tend to have far more frontal armor compared to their rear armor, examples would be:
Jagdtiger: 525 front, 150 rear (29%)
Panther: 290 / 110 (38%)
Elefant: 400 / 150 (38%)
...
There are like I said also exceptions in the other direction, units that have more than 50% of their frontal armor as rear armor. Those ones are they heavy tanks:
King Tiger: 425 / 225 (53%)
Tiger: 300 / 180 (60%)
IS-2: 375 / 205 (55)

Why is that? Because these tanks are extremely slow and easy to flank, but also need to be directly in the center of the action. The support guns listed previously need to stay at range and their armor reinforces that role - flanking is super efficient vs those since it's hard to do and creates an interesting gameplay where a player needs to protect those. Flanking against something like a Tiger on the other hand is far easier to do - it can't stay on range and it is not really mobile (less mobile than IS-2 unless it's blitzing, FYI). So I'm fine with the concept and I honestly don't think that rear armor would change that much. If you fight a heavy tank and you can flank in most cases you drive right behind him to block his escape route. Even with side+rear armor that would make those tanks too susceptible to flanks and too punishing, so the design in the end would stay similar I guess.


regardless, showing rear armour is an obvious tactical blunder. even the greyhound in vcoh could pen a tiger in its rear. this only promotes easier play for heavy tanks, where they can be relatively safe from flanking mediums tanks despite overextending itself.

old vcoh heavy tank playstyle dicates heavies must be supported, if not they would be completely chewed up by flanking tanks or infantry AT. even in vcoh, these tanks are slow, yet on the upside, they are given very good front armour and are effective against all targets. they are kings of peekaboo tactics and soaking up fire, there isnt much difference in coh2 either. their only Achilles heel is their weak rear armour, which gives flanking mediums are fighting chance if they can catch heavies that are overextended and with their rear shown.

a nerf across all rear armour will do nothing to the current meta, heavies will still be counted on for their firepower and front armour. the only change is that things will be more consistent, using medium tanks to flank will be alot more reliable. taking out a heavy tank is usually a game changer. these kind of events should be least effected by rng as much as possible.
8 Aug 2014, 19:08 PM
#13
avatar of elchino7
Senior Moderator Badge

Posts: 8154 | Subs: 2

In my opinion, the single biggest design failure in this game was not adding real "side armor." For those of you who do not know, the tank is cut in half, the front half, including sides, gets "front armor", the back half, again including sides, gets "rear." That is why they will probably not nerf rear armor, because it's also the faux "side" armor and the consequences of doing it are large. I said it in beta, they have their excuses for not implementing it, none of which swayed my opinion.

Now they are limited their in balancing to only two armor variables as opposed to at least 3 (sides, front, fear) that it should have. It's the main reason why flanking is not rewarded for the effort you put into it.


8 Aug 2014, 19:11 PM
#14
avatar of thefonz

Posts: 35

its penetration/armor = chance to penetrate
120/180 = 2/3 of the shots will penetrate


I think range also affect penetration. yes/no? Formula?
8 Aug 2014, 20:44 PM
#15
avatar of DarthBong420

Posts: 381

Only the short range heavy tanks have high rear armor. The king tiger as much as 225.
Other vehicles don't have that much rear armor. Even the mighty Jagdtiger, with his frontal armor of 525 (LOL, that even has a chance to block the 500PEN (LOL) shot of another jagdtiger) only has 150 rear armor.


we need to have FAR better pathfinding and target priority on the kt before we talk about nerfing anything on it. if it is nerfed in anyway atm, it would be useless. its impossible to micro 2, let alone 1 of these properly, the commanders are spinning the turret in circles fighting your commands, they start turning around when you tell them to reverse because of a tiny hole or a twig, while their jacksons /isu/is2 are hammering away.
Vaz
8 Aug 2014, 20:56 PM
#16
avatar of Vaz

Posts: 1158

yes range does now have an effect on penetration. The formula is a little complex, it's using linear interpolation (I think that's the right name). LERP for short. It's very good for this game and used in several aspects.
8 Aug 2014, 23:34 PM
#17
avatar of Warthrone

Posts: 205

Permanently Banned
8 Nov 2015, 16:54 PM
#18
avatar of Kranox

Posts: 25

I've been arguing for this since the game released, yet still nothing has been done nor has there been much notice taken of this, which I regard as one of the most glaring issues in CoH2 today.

Currently rear armour is too strong. This is particularly prevalent amongst heavy call in tanks.

One of the few ways it should be possible for an inferior tank to destroy a larger heavier tank is to flank it. But the superior effort, micro and skill required to pull this off goes entirely unrewarded. Often, be it a Panzer IV or T-34 or Sherman, getting around the flank is rewarded by nothing more than a few bounces, whilst the rest of the enemy's support destroys those tanks with ease. The happens all the time, be it if it is an ISU, IS, Elefant or Tiger series.

Let's look at a classic example: The T-34/76 vs Tiger.

The Tiger's rear armour is 180

The T-34's penetration is 120

I'm not exactly familiar with the way penetration is work out, but those odds don't look good. (+/- 25% chance to pen I guess...) In the time that is required for a T-34 to flank effectively, it is easy for the Tiger to turn and knock it out (particularly given the state of CoH2's pathfinding). The problem here is that the skill required to flank a Tiger simply isn't rewarded. A player's (at times heroic) attempts to flank a Tiger go unrewarded and useless and almost invariably would result in the loss of a T-34 for next to no gain.

I've noticed similar situations where Panzer IVs have flanked an IS only to find their shots bounce off enough for the IS-2, slow and heavy as it is, to knock out even 2 flanking panzer IVs, this shouldn't happen, that IS-2 should be dead.

The situation worsens in the case of Heavy Tank Destroyers.

Take the classic case of an outflanking Pz4 taking on an ISU-152. The Panzer IV in this situation has not only had to try to flank the enemy's support (be it cons, AT guns etc) but also has to be mindful of the ISU's 75 (iirc) range, not to say the sheer power of the ISU's gun.

The statistics are more favourable here (120 pen v 155 rear armour) but the fact remains that that a significant amount of the Panzer IV's will be bouncing off and the effort that is required to flank simply goes to waste. An even worse situation follows with units such as the T-34 versus the elefant or Jagdtiger, both of which have even harder front armour. The Sherman obviously falls in the same category.

So what's to be done? It's clear that for all sides medium tanks, flanking goes unrewarded. Whilst it does provide a better chance of penetration, the amount of shots that will bounce are still offensively high (offensive to the player's skill in pulling off the flank).


So what needs to be done?

Simple.

Lower the rear armour of all tanks across the board.
Certainly below the penetration of non-doctrinal medium tanks. With the skill involved in flanking, RNG should not come into play at all. A personal recommendation from me would be roughly 90 for all heavier tanks. ISU, Tiger, all of them. Make it almost a guaranteed penetration for flanking. That's why you flank.

This change should make flanking more rewarding whilst at the same time not damaging heavy armour too much in other categories. The damage done to them when those shots do penetrate are fine. What isn't okay is when planning and skill are unrewarded. Granted, it's a nerf for heavy tanks, but what were you doing showing your tanks rear to the enemy in the first place?

Reward player skill, not player stupidity.


[disclaimer: I apologise if my stats are incorrect, but long games trying to flank still make my views valid.
8 Nov 2015, 16:58 PM
#19
avatar of Kranox

Posts: 25

Yeah it's a big problem in coh 2 because if you have a commander with no heavy you must be able to fight them. Last game was a pretty good one but I lost because I had a t34/76 and 2 t34/85 I blocked a king tiger into a building he couldn't move my 76 was on his back armor and my 2 85 were on his rear and I lost my 3 tanks in 1 min 30 sec I did not even kill him with at least 40 rear armor shot by the best medium tank of the soviets and the king just wiped me out and it was gg. So lower the rear armor of heavies would be perfect
8 Nov 2015, 17:05 PM
#20
avatar of Dullahan

Posts: 1384

Flanking is rewarded. Increased damage and chance of penetration is factually true. (Also the benefit of cutting off your opponents retreat.)

Suicide runs to get behind a Tiger with supporting units is not.

There's all this talk about "I put in X amount of micro and my opponent didn't have to micro so hard, therefore I should have an advantage!" on these forums. You need to divorce input from tactics.

1 user is browsing this thread: 1 guest

Livestreams

United States 26
Russian Federation 7
Peru 2

Ladders Top 10

  • #
    Steam Alias
    W
    L
    %
    Streak
Data provided by Relic Relic Entertainment

Replay highlight

VS
  • U.S. Forces flag cblanco ★
  • The British Forces flag 보드카 중대
  • Oberkommando West flag VonManteuffel
  • Ostheer flag Heartless Jäger
uploaded by XXxxHeartlessxxXX

Board Info

884 users are online: 884 guests
1 post in the last 24h
9 posts in the last week
27 posts in the last month
Registered members: 50009
Welcome our newest member, qq801com
Most online: 2043 users on 29 Oct 2023, 01:04 AM