Tempus reprehendi venit

Greetings,

most people know me as the writer of the most constructive critique in this forum (beside lolcake). Even though I was really allies-biased, I spend most of my playtime in the last weeks to pay axis. I didn't buy the Western Front Armies add-on because I was a bit disappointed of the last patch. So, in order to improve myself I went to the battlefield as a proud member of ze Ostheer! I really enjoyed playing the other side and slowly I started to dislike the allies due to their spammy playstyle (which is caused by the bad faction design on ally side).

Beside of some issues (like the one shotting monster ISuckU 152) I found balance was in a "mediocre" status. The ostheer needed (and it still does) some love because obvious things like the unbelievable expensive teching to get a panther (just to get swarmed by T 34 and killed) were in need of a change. Mostly I play CoH2 with my mates so I'm not a 1vs1 player. I know, most of you are happy when 1vs1 is well balanced but I think a game with such pussibilities like CoH 2 needs to pursue higher aspirations and also offer good team games.

Yesterday I felt really excited when I heard the patch came out (like I do every time CoH gets a patch). I read the patch notes and immediately wanted to play a game with ze Ostheer to check the new features. Though I really felt disappointed. In 9/11 games you face a huge blob of allied infantry. Especially the USF one is tremendous strong so that you can't beat them alone with your Grenadiers on most maps due to the lack of long range fighting pussibilities. The average RTS player sees "Okay, my enemy has a lot of infantry so I build 1 or 2 MG's to pin them!". This is also what I see. But what I'm really angry about is that such a strong infantry like the riflemen get the smoke grenade in order to counter their hardcounter! I mean you need at least 1 MG AND your main infantry which get absolutely destroyed by flanking riflemen. Thus I'm pretty disappointed about the new infantry combat. Why the hell have the riflemen a "Slightly advantage" at long range as it is written in the patch notes??? I thought every unit should have it's ad - and disadvantages? I don't see the disadvantages of US infantry as long as they are in cover.

Next point is the huge nerf for the Stormpioneers. As mentioned above I don't play OKW, so my team mates fill this gap to have more pussibilities in our team games. I was shocked about what I saw. Allied infantry absolutely denied the Stormpioneers, even at mid - close range. You hop from cover to cover to charge them... futile, because only 2 men are left! Okay... But what I absolutely can't understand is the LMG nerf for the Ostheer! Even before the patch it was hard against US infantry, but now you just get raped by the masses... I really believe the balance guys watched Inglorious Basterds 10 times in a row and I wonder why there is no "Engrave swastikas into the krauts forehead - 2 munition" ability...

Even though I was happy about the things Relic took care about: The priority function for Paks and tanks, the conscript dps buff etc.
But when I saw Cruzz's thread about the ninja changes I almost puked.

How do you guys feel about it? I look forward to your opinions and experiences!

Eh, sic transit gloria mundi? You are a bit of an enigma to me dude. Just a few weeks ago you would denounce random people as Nazis for disagreeing with you on the state of balance in a video game, and now your avatar sports an SS-Uniform....soll einer draus schlau werden.

Glad to see you read the first part of my text! Now please go on

@Frikadelle - Gsus man, if you're serious about it, you just proved the fact that the human race can evolve .
I'm still waiting the same trend from VonIvan and Cruzz... hahaha

Sturmpios got nerfed alright, but that seems reasoneable, because having a unit armed with StGs on early game was something really disturbing, unless you had your first encounter with them on an open field, you always have to retreat until you get more units to outnumber them.

But, in this state I think they need a reduction on cost, something like 290 MP would be nice. The long reinforcement time should be maintained.

About the ostheer part, I think the faction balance is heading in the right direction, panther now has more frontal armor than the Tiger, the panzerwerfer is still quite good, and the brummbar is still useful.

Now I dont get it when you say allied troops are more spammable and unstoppable, it's quite EASY to spam grenadiers armed with G43 or LMG42 (although I havent tested them with the new lmg42), but the way I see it, blobbing power is the same for all factions, I dont think allied infantry should get nerfed, that is not the problem, the problem is blobbing with ALL the four factions.

Have you ever tried the 8 volks armed with schreks "strat" ? it's terrible in 1v1s, but on team games works very well.

yes he is a strange guy well back to topic:

here my thoughts about the changes for 1vs1

i think the lmg changes are fine, lets be honest all lmg overperformed no mattter which, how they now perform we will see with time

but the core Infanty changes are bad:

1: Sturmpios
well when playing russsians i never had problems with them you had afterall enough things to stop them like maxim, sniper, scoutcar or flamethrowers, if the enemy spammed them better for you he now drains himself a lot mp only annoying in city maps but hey then you can get schocks and support them with At guns and flamers so i think the changes here are extremely unnecesary

2: Conscripts
dmg buff is okay but the received acc is a bit unnecesary i think in relics case i woul have left it out and see how the new dmg gets the job done and rebalance if needed, but i think the acc modifier is there for the gren changes

3: Grenadiers
well overlooking the notes it seems like "hey we nerfed your damage for that you now get less damage", in my opinion useless for the grens afterall they are a long range unit so their job is to kill enough enemys on longrange to then fight the charging enemy off in close range more "health" wont help them doing that afterall for that you place them in cover and that health wont help them when of 6 enemys now 5 reach CQC when before it were 3-4 when the grens could win the fight most times and now they wont

4: Volks
more damage when staying but less when moving seems okay


5: Riflemen

performing on all ranges better then grens, really relic as far as i know that was the biggest problem Ost had beside from the need for an pak as fast as possible (aa HT), i mean before wfa as ost you could play diffrent tactics now you face mostly US and only can do one thing build a maginot line (quite ironic as a german especially without sandbags) at your fuel and pray you survive till you get a Tiger or P4 out and make your comeback nearly no diffrence in tactic allowed and you also have to cut short on a lot of units becasue you are forced to an extremely early pak while the US can decide the gameplay until said tanks and then its a matter of his creativity how to deal with them if he is not creative you win easily if he is, well prepare for verdun or in short not really fun to play (thats what i liked in vcoh all factions had diffrent tactics to use)

Vehicle changes are ok, lets see how they perform now over time, only the T-34 the M20 worrys me here but lets see how it works ingame for the m20 and the T-34 changes no, just no not necessary