Appealing and imbalances of 4v4

I'll do you a favour and start a new thread to focus on another direction the discussion around the chaotic world of 4v4.
I will try to divide this into: appealing (why you choose to play 4v4) and imbalance.

Appealing:
Please give me an answer besides i'm playing with 2-3 other friends. I'm specially more interested for those who decide to search random 4v4.

A-Is is due to not having to focus on caping?
B-You like too see/play with a huge amount of units on screen?
C-While maps are bigger, you actually finish playing on a really small portion of the map most of the time, so you can focus mostly on that, is that what you like? (Besides some huge YOLO push on late game)
D-You enjoy being able to have plenty/steady amount of resources (caches) to be able to use any ability or field vehicles?

Imbalance:
Now the nasty thing.

1-
First of all, I would consider that anything that is remotely imbalanced on 2v2, exponentially grows on 4v4. You mostly don't have to worry about any weakness a big opportunity reward unit might give you since by either map design or sheer amount of suppport from your teammates, you can overcome it.

Early game: name it maxim spam, M3 (up to some degree due to not being able to focus most of the time on lone squads), dodge (nerfed), sniper spam, Kubel spam, truck push.
Midgame: pretty non existent but here we can see blobs develop.
Late: doctrinal medium tanks have a small window of opportunity to shine (by a snowball effect) till call ins and heavy tanks arrive.

IMHO: If the game on 1v1 and specially 2v2 is on a better state, this should generally translate to the other modes.

2-
WFA:
I'm gonna put it simply. OKW gets all the benefits by being supported by OH and at the same time complement it with useful trucks, which due to how the game plays (slow push through the map) synergizes perfectly.
On the other hand we have USF which it's tricky to use, requires methodical and finesse micro late game, and almost bring nothing new to the table (USF blob is countered by OKW blob and ease of use of Stuka).

IMHO: it's hard doing redesign on factions. USF will remain hard to play when the characteristics thats make it good can't be use for good on this mode. Add micro requirements and we have a problem.


3-
Maps:
Gonna put it simply. Clusterfuck maps makes Stuka and JT people happy. Sorry Scheldt, turtle style guys. If you want something remotely balance, allow for open routes and flanks.


4-
What you like may be what it is neccesarily imbalanced:

Have you answered or considered my ABCD points?

I'm not gonna overextend here and just let you discuss but i'm gonna say:
-On the REMOTE CHANCE IT WAS POSSIBLE, what would you choose to "sacrifice" to make the game more balanced?
A- Volume of units (cap): make it so that each players have access to a lesser amount of units. Make it feel like you are playing a 2v2 (0.5 per player)(you can't deny that most of the time you are just playing 2 2v2 on the map).

B- Volume of tanks: make it so that it harder to spam tanks late game. Each tank now is more important.

C- Amount of resources: so you can spam less offmaps/abilities. You could start by eliminating, reducing or changing how caches work. Trying to slow tech by artificially reducing fuel income leads to problems on teching timings (being able to field counters)

4v4's imo have the possibility to be he most fun when a good group of players are present.

Axis get nearly all advantages. Better, infantry, better tanks, better off-map.

Give usf the freaking pershing already.make it balanced. they could Disable the crew for it.

Give usf some good non-doc arty. Priets is perfect. its not too op to rape OKW buildings but it can be effective.

Latsly usf need some better elite infantry. paras are fine. i would like to either see them in more commanders. Or for relic to add rangers.

Thats it for usf, pershing, non-doc arty, and more infantry options.

For Wermach. re-work t4.

OKW is the most power faction ATM. they need no adjustments. Either give kubel fuel cost or nurf it.

Soviets are fine i think. choose the correct commander for 4v4's and you can compete in a 4v4.


Lastly the maps. We need greater variety in 4v4 maps.


the JT, im going to be blunt with.... Why the FUCK can this thing shoot through buildings?!?!?

germans have imbalance IMBA infantry and too strong late game armor. before relic cant fix disbalance by infatry its game never be balanced by 3-3 and 4-4 mode. And get nerfed germans shoot mg radius

i am not sure about the random 4v4 but when i play a good game of 4v4, it feels really great and perhaps greater than when i have a really good 2v2 game.

it feels really great to coordinate with 2-3 other guys to launch a fantastic and grand attack or defend against a brutal push. its just that really. simple but a really great experience every time. there is nothing like scrambling all of allies vehicle to go all the way around to take out a pesky JT. One time, we did that and and on the way to JT, we destroyed many axis armor and by the time we got to the JT and a panther, we had only my two shermdogs and a stewie left. all died 'cept JT with like 5% health and my teammate's katusha finished it off. it is great

well, the problem is a well coordinated cheese strats are such a pain in the ass, a lot of maps are eh, most times you get a noob stomping or stomped and only rarely a matched game. not to mention JT and ISU, KT etc etc.

Appealing

1. Can play with many friends
2. Bigger maps
3. I enjoy the scale of the battles. There are lots of units and tanks everywhere which makes it seem like a real battle is going on
4. It is chaotic and full of action
5. Pulling off a good strategy/tactic with your teammates is satisfying.

Imbalanced

1. Axis are favored in lategame, and usually games go to late game. Their heavy tanks (along with nondoc Panther and KT are a pain to deal with). They have very strong infantry who have access to potent AT weapons as well.
2. Allies have a better early game (might be imbalanced), but if the Axis hold at least 40-50 percent of the map, they can still pull out at least one superheavy tank that could turn the tide fast.
3. I can go more into why Axis is favored but there are many posts throughout the forum that say the same thing. Message me if you want ot know my opinion.
4. Allies do not have the AT/support weapons that can turn back Axis heavies. Soviets are limited to only commander-specific units to reliably deal with Axis heavies

Maps

1. Some of the maps are way to big. Losing the first engagement is very punishing because the retreat distances are very long. By the time you return to the battle zone, the enemy will have already fortified it
2. Some of the maps like Ettelbruck and Rostov are really too small. There are units al over the place and not much room to maneuver. This makes flanking and outmaneuver warfare difficult and pointless
3. Most of the maps have a lot of choke points or devolve into 2 2v2s. Players usually go straight for the fuel and it becomes battle to control the fuel point and nothing else.
4. Maps favor defensive play around VPs and fuel points. This favors Axis because Ostheer can build defensive fortifications and OKW can lockdown a sector with the flaktruck and the short reinforce medic truck thing


What i can Give up to Make Balance Better

1. Allies losing early game advantage and Axis losing late game advantage. Basically an evening of the extremes
2. Perhaps changing the resource rates
3. Shorter wait times as Allies (lol)

A. It's much less stressful to play 4v4 than 1v1,the pressure isn't just on you and the action is going to be more condensed and less chaotic than in a 1v1. Also you can pull off really big plays in fights when you go help a teammate and you can really feel like you made a massive impact when you do

B. Obviously Axis OP, they win every game, primarily because they win the first couple engagements and snowball into the mid/late game here are some of the reasons why

1.The USF can only build infantry initially which can be shut down easily by a kubel or 1/2 well placed mgs. Putting them in a hole which exponentially expands as their units fail to scale into the late game.

2. Additionally sturmpios will be able to push the Axis front line and cap the contested points first giving an early lead.

3. Soviets are restricted to going snipers or maxims, conscripts are an instant loss especially with a USF teammate. Their infantry is just subpar to their axis counterparts but lategame they can still compete with their effective tanks and shock troops.

4. The USF midgame still struggles against campy play due to their lack of effective indirect fire. Pack howitzer is a large risk unreliable and also countered easily by a stuka with its crazy reinforce cost. Then late game you can get priests which are effective but this is at the cost of a tank force.

5. In short the axis seem to have a distinct early game advantage in this mode nowdays for whatever reason just an observation This is ridicuolous because they also have a late game advantage(at least true when vsing the USF) Also the USF lacks the firepower to dislodge campy play in the midgame.

C. Lots of maps are too cramped to flank and too punishing to retreat on, it takes a long time to go back to base then get back into the fight on large 4v4 maps. This hurts the USF especially who rely on brute force rather than support weapons.

D.
Many of the issues are with the USF being too weak. They don't have any variety of units at all in the start, so the Axis can just hard counter riflemen to win.

The Soviets also have to rely on somewhat "cheesy" strats which limit their mobility and restrict them from aiding teammates.

These complaints are similar to the 1v1 balance problems that currently exist so i feel that just balancing 1v1 and 2v2 will sufice to fix this mode of play. As i understand it OKW only wins slightly more 4v4s than they win 2v2s so even if their a little OP thats ok,but right now the mode is strait up unplayable.

One thing i will qualify is that the fewer allied players may result in more noobs being on allied teams and them losing more b/c of it. But there may be few allied players b/c they are underpowered in the first place.

Wach what you're asking for. Last time they wanted to balance the 4v4 games, they nerfed Panther into oblivion and it took a half a year to make it again a viable unit.
I guess - but it's only my opinion, that you CAN'T balance 3v3 or 4v4. Not whithout unbalancing 1v1 and 2v2.
Overall, I don't think soviets have something to complain about in 4v4. They got heavies too and they can spam tanks like it's no tomorrow unlike Axis. Now for USF maybe they should receive their Pershing, doctrinal or not. But I disagree related to Priest. While playing americans (in 2v2 mostly) I feel that the Priest is very strong, if you build more than one. With offmap arty and major's arty next to your priest(s), you can bring an artillery nightmare on the battlefield, meaning endless arty barrages untill the end of the game. I achieved this many times. Of course no chance for opponents. Arty strike in base, arty strike on the battlefield. Your opponent willb e smashed if he doesn't rage quit.

Wach what you're asking for. Last time they wanted to balance the 4v4 games, they nerfed Panther into oblivion and it took a half a year to make it again a viable unit.
I guess - but it's only my opinion, that you CAN'T balance 3v3 or 4v4. Not whithout unbalancing 1v1 and 2v2.
Overall, I don't think soviets have something to complain about in 4v4. They got heavies too and they can spam tanks like it's no tomorrow unlike Axis. Now for USF maybe they should receive their Pershing, doctrinal or not. But I disagree related to Priest. While playing americans (in 2v2 mostly) I feel that the Priest is very strong, if you build more than one. With offmap arty and major's arty next to your priest(s), you can bring an artillery nightmare on the battlefield, meaning endless arty barrages untill the end of the game. I achieved this many times. Of course no chance for opponents. Arty strike in base, arty strike on the battlefield. Your opponent willb e smashed if he doesn't rage quit.

Oh great, here comes relics forum army. here to defend their poor design choices.

Can we stop making excuses, they can easily set different profiles for each game mode. they can lower resources, or change the way a unit will perform in a 4v4. (without effecting 1v1 balance)

I believe the most simple fix, is to change the resource rate in 4v4's.

Pretty often I got 4vs4 completely alone. That's because I can afford 1-2 games on a week and some at the weekend and it's hard to catch friends at that.
But most important (I have vetoed steppes and that second large forest map I rarely got)if I spawn close to the town, I can take partisan commander and have fun. Sure it will be uphill battle, maybe I will lose, but moments when you manage to take our a tiger/actually push OKW to the base area, destroying their forward trucks.
Yeah, it's sad to see them underperforming but it's always worth to see when they actually do something

Dear Relic team and Coh 2 community !

Have you noticed that topics concerning balance problems in 3 vs 3 , 4 vs 4 modes have being emerging increasingly ?

What does it mean ?

The limited group of pro players again will say “ a lot of noobs play this fun-modes. A whole balance is about 1 vs 1 mode, etc”. It is A LIMITED GROUP. ( with fully respect to you and your skills )

But at lager scale it means that people nowadays are more interested in team modes rather than in 1 vs 1 in all games, and COH2 is not an exception.

Dear Quinn Daffy , maybe I am mistaken but once answering about a suggestion to create difference balances for different modes You said: “ I am not creating two different games” .

In some respect you are both right and wrong.

I hope that personally you and dev team consider that the Game needs some redesigning and taking into greater consideration the team modes, otherwise the game will lose a huge chunk of the audience in the further and will not gain a new player base.

You do a great job by being always in close touch with community which offers different ways to solve this problems. This does not include just “ buff or nerf something”, it includes more significant measures .

There are measures to settle properly balance in team games not abusing 1 vs 1 modes! It is only question of wish and hard work. Let’s do it together.

Please discuss with us possible solutions. Do not neglect problems. The game has done a lot of stepforwards but with the current state of balance all achievements can be eliminated.

Thanks

Can we get some stats about numbers of players in 1x1-2x2 and 4x4 modes? To see that group is more or less limited?

OKW germans infantry - rembo squads. if they have some vet stats i havent idiea how its counters. if its blobing - omfg it no sens. and this big problem in late games when all germans troops never lose squads and have 3-5 vet stars. soviet shooktroops sucked always esspechially obercommando. all this things need rebalance vet stat for all factions and infantry. before its not be fixing we see 90-100% axis players in searching. 2-3-4 modes.
we was play by germans with 1 ai in our team and 4 enemy cant do nothing (2 soviet with isu and 2 USF)....

Guys: giving Pershing to USF won't solve any problem. Everyone will just play 1 commander (we don't need Soviets 2.0 meta style).

Making USF be able to field something early besides Rifles/AE is going to be tricky. You'll need to do a restructure of units, tiers and cost.
On the other hand, separating smoke/frag as different tech choices while mantaining price, could give them a more flexibility early game with MG/Kubel.


And as i said before:
"Trying to slow tech by artificially reducing fuel income leads to problems on teching timings (being able to field counters)"

Wach what you're asking for. Last time they wanted to balance the 4v4 games, they nerfed Panther into oblivion and it took a half a year to make it again a viable unit.
I guess - but it's only my opinion, that you CAN'T balance 3v3 or 4v4. Not whithout unbalancing 1v1 and 2v2.

Little secret: 2v2 Panther wasn't balanced either (not overpowered level but neither balance).
You can balance the game by altering things directly related to 4v4 and not changing unit values at all.

________________________________________

Proposal: what happen to that idea of making an open beta just to test different builds and give incentives to those who participate (call it warspoils) after x numbers of games on "automatch" (so you can't farm).

Guys: giving Pershing to USF won't solve any problem. Everyone will just play 1 commander (we don't need Soviets 2.0 meta style).

Then make few commanders with Pershing. You re going to say that this will change nothing cause usf still will be using Pershing commanders. Im saying that its on relic to make non-pershing commanders more attractive. Sorry but most commanders (especially recon) are so shitty that they never should be added to the game. Who the hell figured out ability to give crew thompsons? Such commanders/abilities wont help if Pershing will arrive.

Why cant the Perishing be NON Doctrinal?

If OKW can build KT's regardless of Commander - why couldn't this be the same for USF?

Not as if they have anything besides a single AT unit currently....

Nondoc pershing? nondoc KT? I WANT NONDOC IS2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nondoc pershing? nondoc KT? I WANT NONDOC IS2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Non-doc no, but more commanders with IS? Yes. Right now if you have bulletins for IS, enemy knows that you will have shock, kv8,etc while ost have same many doctrine with Tiger that you can not predict which one he s gonna use.

Non-doc late heavy tanks for all sides will help ballance team games.

This thread seems to have quickly devolved into the usual I want this unit because they have that unit and which mode should be balanced flame war.

My idea is instead of giving the USF Pershing is making a non-doc armor upgrade for the Shermans that give them "Jumbo" Sherman armor. Leave their damage the same, but the model gets fatter and they can absorb more damage to allow Jacksons to safely shoot from behind. This way Relic doesn't have to add more units or commanders that will just skew the meta and can add one little upgrade that works in what is a history based, but not defined game.

Soviets are fine though, L2P all around .

Because there is a limit to what 2v2 tactics permit. In 4v4 you can do some crazy shit like building four B4 and dont get completely steam rolled by the enemy because you are backed up by allies.

Also 4vs4 is chaotic game mode where you have engagements on multiple fronts against multiple players. You can basically pick and choose which flank you want to fight.