Something needs to be done about blobbing.

Company of blobs is back with WFA.

I was hoping that the recent balance patch would do something to address that, but no.

As per usual we see unkillable blobs of obers, sturm pios and volks or Grens charging against US blobs of rifles armed with bazookas and bars/LMGs. Its boring, difficult to counter and frankly stupid. Company of Heroes is built upon this idea of tactical RTS where you use cover and positioning to gain the upper hand.
Blobs ignore all of this in favour of A-move silliness that we've all come to know and love with maxim spamming.

I'm frankly sick of it and I intend to take an extended leave until something is done about the myriad of things that this balance patch ruined are corrected.

I'm a heavy Soviet player and despise Maxim spamming so as you can guess, I'm doomed to remain at the bottom of the ladder for a very long time. I'd like to think I use my units in a tactical manner, positioning them along cover, preparing ambushes and the like. All of this goes to piece when the friendly local OKW blob charges in, Obersoldaten chewing up my guards and Cons, whilst all I can do is chuck molotovs back which take off a tiny sliver of health whilst an Volks Grenade wipes away 2/3rds of my squads.

I'm not asking for an OKW nerf (though I'd be tempted to push for it so far) but there needs to be mechanics in place that makes blobbing a last resort and extremely unprofitable.

My thinking is along the lines of the old vCoH group zeal for PE, but instead of it being a buff it is a debuff, with rising received accuracy the more squads are within say 10 minutes of one another. The accuracy bonus for the unit firing at the blob needs to be drastic and extremely punishing, so that you are forced to spread out your units like you're actually fighting a modern war.

Dare I say it, but Hearts of Iron III has a similar mechanic where if you put too many units in an area, the bonuses for it are progressively lower.

Blobing is an easy thing to do and (especially for noobs like me) extremely easy to pull off effectively and much more difficult to crush effectively. Its needs to be punished heavily.

Wow, the heavy Soviet player is complaining about blobs. The irony.... "The only faction that should be allowed to blob is my faction!".
Let's get this straight. Supposing you could not blob anymore with soviets you would still have your tanks. Aside infantry, what should okw rely on? But if you don't play with it, you can't understand. It's like asking from Bill Gates to imagine he is a poor Africa inhabitant with a small wage and a lots of mouths to feed.

The tools to beat blobs are already in the game. Blobbing may prevail at certain levels of play because it is very easy, but I promise you that with good micro, tactical use of cover is absolutely more effective. I recommend things like Mortars, Mines, Demo Charges, Flamethrowers, Zis barrage for the mid game, and heavy artillery and armour for the late game. If you provide a replay, I'd be happy to give some more specific advice.

I think the "anti-zeal" mechanic many people suggest is an extremely bad idea. Firstly, its very unintuitive. But more importantly, it will lead to absurd and stupid situations in-game. There are valid reasons for keeping, say, 2 or 3 squads behind the same piece of cover, but this would be punished along with regular blobbing. A player could end up losing an otherwise even engagement because his units wandered too close together and got debuffed. Players should be focused on how best to beat their opponent, not on microing to keep their units an arbitrary distance apart.

Wow, the heavy Soviet player is complaining about blobs. The irony.... "The only faction that should be allowed to blob is my faction!".
Let's get this straight. Supposing you could not blob anymore with soviets you would still have your tanks. Aside infantry, what should okw rely on? But if you don't play with it, you can't understand. It's like asking from Bill Gates to imagine he is a poor Africa inhabitant with a small wage and a lots of mouths to feed.

Yes those unbeatable Soviet blobs.....

Really dude?

OKW can rely on infantry without them running around in a blob. And use your light vehicles.

Not that I agree with his proposal, you're just being dumb sweeping in here saying that OKW can only blob to win.

JohnnyB, you're pretty hard to understand, please tone down the rhetoric and actually engage with the OP.

As has been stated, though blobbing can be pretty strong, the game still provides heavy risks to blobbers. OKW blobs are no stronger this patch than they were (apart from those with JLI in support).

Simple blobs hit more mines, suffer more mortar and artillery hits, get suppressed more easily and can't take advantage of cover modifier as opposed to carefully positioned squads. What's more, if the enemy is just blobbing units they're not capping around the map. Setting up mines, creating sandbag defenses for your maxims, getting a mortar, saving some muni for zis barrages and investing in an early katyusha all goes a long way to counter OKW blobbing.

they'd need to lower the long range dps more and increase the penalty for being in no cover

well, there could be made group penalty zeal (like it was done to pios in CoH1) each blob (starting with 2 squads) that are in radius of 10 metres gain penalty zeal that these squads gets 5% received accuracy penalty and 5% more for each squad nearby, up to 5 stacks. I think that would be nice idea

Yes those unbeatable Soviet blobs.....

Really dude?

OKW can rely on infantry without them running around in a blob. And use your light vehicles.

Not that I agree with his proposal, you're just being dumb sweeping in here saying that OKW can only blob to win.

Dat 3x Shocktroop blob tho.

Dat 3x Shocktroop blob tho.

Damn, interesting strats are on the low rank level.

Yes those unbeatable Soviet blobs.....

Really dude?

OKW can rely on infantry without them running around in a blob. And use your light vehicles.

Not that I agree with his proposal, you're just being dumb sweeping in here saying that OKW can only blob to win.

That's not what I've said. Plese point out the phrase or word where I said OKW can only win through bobbing.
I said that OKW rely on infantry, and please tell me why is this wrong if speaking of a faction that can build alot of infantry and 2-3 vehicles.
For OKW bobbing is a strategy that can work best with breaktrough doctrine and that's about it.
But complaining about okw blobs, that feels a little unrealistic.