BALANCE FEEDBACK - USF 1v1 Post 100 Games of Automatch

Dear Relic,

SO i made a semi-raging thread after my first 50 games. After some posts that im not proud of in hindsight, i took aboard the feedback from the thread and played another 50.

My win is still exactly 50%. That may be a fair measure of my skill and maybe im a 65-70% win player who is playing a disadvantaged faction.

Anyhow, rather than the usual wailing and balance gaps that are littered across the forums, here are some peculiar balance points that i would like to focus on. Now i understand the design goal of ASYMMETRIC factions. Starcraft series does it best. I dont think the current state of 1v1 is way off.

Someone posted a stat regarding win%s of the top200 players. While for 1v1 they were frankly as balanced as one can expect, i would love for Relic to make public the win% for the entire 1v1 automatch pool of players, not just top200. The 'micro/skill tax' on USF players is undeniable. For every unit a OKW/Osth makes and plonks down to passively control map points, USF players need to individually micro 2-3 units to counter it. Classic example is the Panther/Tiger v/s Sherman/Jackson/E8s situation. Or a typical camp of MG+Mortar+AT holding down a key fuel/ammo/VP.

Anyhow, some undeniable imbalances i find, seemingly in the name of Asymmetric design:

- USF Med Armor takes engine hit majority of the time its pfausted by Fallschrim/Grens. The entire 'thing' about Shermans/Jacksons is mobility. If a single unavoidable hit from OKW/Osth infantry squad cripples your Med Armor, how are you supposed to flank those far superior Tigers/Panthers?
[SUGGESTION: Can we please half or significantly lower the chance of engine damage on this ability? Its not like the German army is lacking AT power that this is needed.]

- USF base has ZERO anti-armor capability. Ive had games in which opponent has ceded control of 80%+ of the map and then a 9 min rushed P2 'Luch' slams my entire army. It can walk into the base, completely immune to base defenses and murder all retreated squads. A Sherman walking into a T4 OKW truck, leave apart the base cant do the same.
[SUGGESTION: Can we please reduce the penetration of the T4 Truck Gun, so it cant penetrate Stuarts/Shermans/Jacksons so easily? If the OKW wants to lock down forward points, there needs to be risk involved for the huge advantage it provides. Also please add SOME AT static defense to the US Base, its so vulnerable to Armor rushing]

- Volks with PSchreks, it cant be said enough, how absurd a blob of 3-4 Vet 4-5 Volks are. And really, its only a matter of time before they are Vet 4-5. They hard counter EVERY single USF Armor unit AND 2/3shot USF bunkers/fuel-ammo caches. Ive had games where ive destroyed the entire OKW army, including all but the base truck and lost to Volks+PSchrek spam, amplified by the eventual off-map Tiger/Panther variant.
[SUGGESTION: Can we please relook at Volks veteran-rank benefits. If upgraded with PSchrek their anti-infantry power needs a nerf, maybe remove grenade ability from squad once upped with Pschrek?]

- Certain maps, like Semios, its absurd to play against a competent OKW/Ostheer player due to the nature of the single choke territories on either side. In vCOH USF could make their own MG/Mortar/Snipers/Jeep, but against competent players its near impossible to win on Semios as USF. Ostheer will lock down that choke territory with the unbreakable MG+Mortar+AT combo. OKW will slam down forward T2 and T4 trucks and then use the balance of his blob to hit on other parts of the map. TLDR - No USF non-commander Mortar unit, OKW T4 truck gun is too good, Osth camping is near impossible to breach for USF. Charging down German positions i have nearly always lost a game. The German player sits pretty on two VPs, further fortifying his camps and when i eventually assault him, its a near 'unwinnable' fight.
[SUGGESTION: Certain maps need a redesign in the context of USF design of COH2]

- 'Win All' units. So the game is one of hard counters we are told. However,
a) What is the hard counter to early 2-3 Stug IIIs? (within 12 mins)
b) What is the hard counter to an early Luch? (8-9 mins)
c) What is the hard counter to a Panther? Im not talking about games when i have 6 Infantry squads half with zookas and 3 E8s, ofcourse i win those. Im talking about the well fought games, and the Panther enters the field. Apparently allowing him to make the Panther was 'my fault'. Its absurd to think that ALL games USF can dominate to the point where german wont get a SINGLE Panther/Tiger, from buildings or off-map. They eventually WILL always get one. And v/s decent opponents, what is one supposed to counter a Panther with?
d) What is the hard counter to a Tiger Ace or Panther V? (It isnt Airborne strafe, even with an AT and a Sherman or 2 E8s hitting the panther, the airstrike wont kill it, since the player with just one mega unit to control just backs it all the way to his base/near Anti air defenses and will 99% live at 5-10% HP despite ALL you throw at them)

Ive watched many replays and live games of 'top players' and they too seem to suffering to the same above issues.

Can someone please advise, should i just play OKW till the USF is balanced or im still missing a few things? (I played a few, won vs US and lost all the games vs Russia, lol, still learning about Russian faction, frankly no idea what theyre about)

EDIT: As many in this thread have pointed out, as well as reading through the above, its clear the major issues with 1v1 balance for USF are v/s OKW. The USF v/s OSTHEER is fairly balanced, barring the obnoxious heavy armor in late game id say, and near guaranteed engine hit on the panzerfaust

only thing i agree with is the pzfaust. on ettlebrook station i saw a gren squad begin the animation of loading a pfaust. ok, so i reverse around a corner and pop smoke in my m20 but lol... the rocket rounded the corner and homed in on my m20 another 20-30 feet.

ridiculous.

You overemphasize the weakness of USF a little bit, there are some strats that can really kill the axis such as early rifles and AA HTs vs Ostheer, the m20 rush + sherman rush vs OKW

I feel like most of your points are well established problems and i can agree with most of them.

The counters for the situations you describe imo are
a) Jacksons/m10s (jackson for spam m10 for 1)

b) Stuart, sometimes Sherman rush

c/d) Hubris

Everybody hates OKW even the OKW players At least USF is super fun

Show Spoiler

only thing i agree with is the pzfaust. on ettlebrook station i saw a gren squad begin the animation of loading a pfaust. ok, so i reverse around a corner and pop smoke in my m20 but lol... the rocket rounded the corner and homed in on my m20 another 20-30 feet.

ridiculous.

It's not like American Rifles with their AT grenades and Soviet Conscripts with their homing AT grenades can do it as well, oh wait....

The only thing i dont like about USF is their AT capabilities. USF can handle the light vehicles, the medium tanks, and even the enemy elite's infantry if USF micros LMG wielding stuff well enough, but once the panthers, Tigers, and King Tigers roll out, then USF can only cower. USF has to spend boatloads of munitions, manpower, and fuel that oftentimes ends up being much more expensive than the armor the enemy has called in. Micro-ing units only goes so far until you start falling apart. Once you start your AT investments, then suddenly you have to balance your AT and AI capabilities, and falling behind in one department makes you fail in the other, as eventually your forces get crushed. When AP rounds bounce off of a tank when using a high vet Jackson or AT gun,... You feel like you want to cry. Also, bazookas are... Pretty WORTHLESS when it comes to anything with at least 200 frontal armor. Fortunately, schrecks 100% penetrate all your armor at max range, so you can feel even more bad about not winning when you had the chance early game. USF has... For me, the best early game with great stuff that pushes Axis back, but then your enemy calls in the big guns and better infantry, you look around for your own badass tanks, but find none at your disposal .

USF vs. Ostheer is... Certainly much better than USF vs OKW. I dont think USF needs to be any better vs. ostheer, so i would call a lot of the complaints a problem with OKW.

Have you tried using Rifle AT grenade on any German med vehicle good sir?

USF vs. Ostheer is... Certainly much better than USF vs OKW. I dont think USF needs to be any better vs. ostheer, so i would call a lot of the complaints a problem with OKW.

I think thats a fairly accurate summation - Ostheer is frustrating and drags out the game, but doesnt seem pointless and imbalance. Rifle company with vetted Rifles, some flamers thrown in and E8s is my usual go-to strat.

vs OKW USF is really throwing as many Rifles as you can and hope you can control enough of the map to deny late game units. Ive been trying Airborne with a rushed Lt + M20, then going Major and Shermans, but with very poor results.

My overall win% is 50% but im certain im 70%+ vs Ostheer, meaning im horrible vs OKW. Im glad to see im not the only one with this view.

>9 minutes
>No AT

Look at your builds, here is a weakness that the enemy will exploit. Since the days of the awesome flamer halftrack coming in early I've never goon more than 5 mins without some form of dedicated AT.
Sure about the panthers and KTs they can be a bitch to knock with just AT-guns and zooks. But it isn't impossible.

And yes you have to be sure to balance your AT and AI capabilities, Ost and Soviets do the same.
OKW does it to in a way but they are a much more flexible faction with all the Elite infantry that they can often go get really heavy hitting infantry aswell as very strong (but few) tanks, or quickly change from one to the other.

What about you just shut the garden up and play 100 games as Axis and prove the rest of the world how you are "a 65-70% win player who is playing a disadvantaged faction" when playing Allies ?

Thanks, bye.

PS: since you admitted you have a 70% win rate vs Wehrmacht, why do you STILL cry for a nerf to faust ? 70 aint enough for such a leet player like you ?

What about you just shut the garden up and play 100 games as Axis and prove the rest of the world how you are "a 65-70% win player who is playing a disadvantaged faction" when playing Allies ?

You mad brah?

Jokes apart, firstly, i claimed not 'Allies', but USF only. I already said i have no idea how Soviets are playing in the game right now, as opponent or as my faction - since i dont own Soviets and have no immediate plans to buy them But rest assured i will play OKW 100 games and post my findings! So far 7 played, 2 wins vs USF and 5 losses vs Soviets.

Im overall 50% as USF, does that mean its a perfectly balanced game or im a typical average player? The overall 50% is a moot stat. One needs to look at v/s OKW and v/s OSTH separately. Since RELIC doesnt provide me that data point, im just going with my anecdotal number of 65-70% win v/s OSTH, maybe its 60% maybe its 55%, i cant say for sure. If there is a way to find this out, please do tell me.

Try and contribute constructively, you just seem like barking garbage.

You mad brah?

Jokes apart, firstly, i claimed not 'Allies', but USF only. I already said i have no idea how Soviets are playing in the game right now, as opponent or as my faction - since i dont own Soviets and have no immediate plans to buy them But rest assured i will play OKW 100 games and post my findings! So far 7 played, 2 wins vs USF and 5 losses vs Soviets.

Im overall 50% as USF, does that mean its a perfectly balanced game or im a typical average player? The overall 50% is a moot stat. One needs to look at v/s OKW and v/s OSTH separately. Since RELIC doesnt provide me that data point, im just going with my anecdotal number of 65-70% win v/s OSTH, maybe its 60% maybe its 55%, i cant say for sure. If there is a way to find this out, please do tell me.

Try and contribute constructively, you just seem like barking garbage.

Like i said, you just seem to blame whole Axis when the only problem is OKW. Wehrmacht is probably the faction sitting in the middle of balance right now. Asking for nerfs to that faction in particular doesn't make sense, at all. As i said, you seem eager to prove the rest of the world how bad USF is. I'll tell you something: Wehr is in the same position atm. Each time i see an Allies player crying for nerfs because they lose some 3v3 or 4v4 makes me mad, indeed (not your case, agreed since you play 1v1s, but that's the bread and butter of this forum, sadly).

But how brave you are, you will play the overpowered faction of the Axis side for 100 games, let us all know how OP the faction is when you are done (FYI: nothing new, we all know the issue is there).

Until then, please let Ostheer untouched. Thanks.

But how brave you are, you will play the overpowered faction of the Axis side for 100 games

Er lol, i just spent 19$ for Wester armies, so i can only play USF or OKW. If as you sarcastically point out, i indeed wanted to just ride the 'OP' faction, why would i have played 100 1v1 games on USF?

Anyhow - Ostheer balance maybe tweaks requiring a scalpel, while OKW requires a hammer and major changes - but both require changes.

In fact base Ostheer is fairly balanced in 1v1, its some of the Commander units/powers that are absurd.

Your point about Panzerfausts i can really get behind. Its a problem due to the "easy use" nature, and can be a simple bale out tool.

I think that AT infantry abilties never crit an engine unless it is below 50% health, that way if a properly placed tank rush happens, you have the upper hand, and a few Conscripts or Grens or PanzerFusi's sitting 3 meters from your tank or At gun wont turn the whole engage into his/her favour

Tank combat would really improve if this was implemented

My bad

Dear fellows I don't think the problem is OKW or Axis as a whole or whatever, but the shitty way in which USF is built. Paper armor, paper units overall, no mines (WTF?) not enough air power, not one single heavy, etc. Riflemen don't scale as well as volks, they are no match for elite infantry not even with double BAR. I know, I know, if we give them more strength they probably will be blobbed. Then USF must be fixed in other ways. Change RE, change that mg, make it more resilient, give them ground mortar, give them an AT emplacement (like maybe 17 Powder or something similar - british in vCoh), give them more air strikes.

I mean, look, I found myself working in late game double time as USF that as OKW for instance. Because you have to micro that paper armor so hard in order to keep it alive not talking about infantry. I almost understand the existence of skillplane in such conditions.
I don't experience such difficulties while playing with soviets, not by far.
Take for instance 2v2 mode:what is more powerfull on Allied side, double USF, USF plus Soviet, or double Soviet. I would bet all my money on double soviet without a thought.

So again, I think the problem relies simply in USF faction that needs some work to make it viable for real.

Dear fellows I don't think the problem is OKW or Axis as a whole or whatever, but the shitty way in which USF is built. Paper armor, paper units overall, no mines (WTF?) not enough air power, not one single heavy, etc. Riflemen don't scale as well as volks, they are no match for elite infantry not even with double BAR. I know, I know, if we give them more strength they probably will be blobbed. Then USF must be fixed in other ways. Change RE, change that mg, make it more resilient, give them ground mortar, give them an AT emplacement (like maybe 17 Powder or something similar - british in vCoh), give them more air strikes.

I mean, look, I found myself working in late game double time as USF that as OKW for instance. Because you have to micro that paper armor so hard in order to keep it alive not talking about infantry. I almost understand the existence of skillplane in such conditions.
I don't experience such difficulties while playing with soviets, not by far.
Take for instance 2v2 mode:what is more powerfull on Allied side, double USF, USF plus Soviet, or double Soviet. I would bet all my money on double soviet without a thought.

So again, I think the problem relies simply in USF faction that needs some work to make it viable for real.

I kind of agree with you. Don't fix what's not broken, if we can trust Legend's stats, the game is currently sitting in a relatively balanced state. Any more nerfs to either Ost or USF would completely destroy them. While slight changes to Sovs and OKW would probably be good. And i insist on the word slight, nothing major needs to change, except probably the resource issues in 3v3 + and a big revision of the call-in system (for everyone).

PS: i would say that USF needs slight buffs, and in that regard Wehr too (in one case up the lategame presence, and the other case, the early game presence). This is a bit too polarized as it is right now, the two "worst" factions are the ones sitting at each end of the game timeframe, and the the "best" are the ones with strong midgame. It seems weird to me.

Some good points here.

I dislike the crippling power of hand held/ thrown AT weapons in this game. I think CoH skill shot mechanics were much better.

Shreks are too effective, especially against allied armour. Two Volks with shreks are able to scare your T34/ Sherman away, unless you want to risk its lost to PaK/ Racketenwerfer.

I don't think Volks should be able to reach V5, especially that with Shreks they're doing it too fast.

Like the idea of reduced penetration on AA tree truck. Right now it's able to threaten single Sherman/T34 so there is really no point of attacking unless you have at least 2. AT guns are much better, especially Soviet one.

Thinking about it I don't think I had a single game against OKW in which I was able to utilize medium armour.

Also Kubel into cut off point is too rewarding on some maps.

Take for instance 2v2 mode:what is more powerfull on Allied side, double USF, USF plus Soviet, or double Soviet. I would bet all my money on double soviet without a thought.

That is also caused by soviet design. Designed for 1v1 where you start with T1 or T2, in everything beyond 1v1 you can have both (e.g. player 1 goes for T1, player 2 goes for T2) for a massive early game advantage. That is why double soviet on 2v2 is better than mixed or double US (double US early game is exactly the same as in 1v1 contrary to double sov)

Problem with OSTH 1v1 is how campy it gets. The entire game is about the USF forcing his way through a mega camp of MGs + ATs + Grens + Mortars. Even their P4s and eventual Tigers arent used as 'Tanks' rather much more semi-mobile immortal units of death, sitting behind passive camps that require MINIMAL micro.

- MG planted with arc covering sector, check
- AT gun just behind the MG covering the entry point, check
- Mortar behind the AT, bombarding any attempts to flip VP/Fuel/Ammo, check
- 1-2 Grens, now with LMGs, to rip charging/flanking infantry, along with insta engine hit fausts, check
- P4s or CP based Tiger/Panther, sitting behind it all, check

In any other RTS, you would be labelled a mega-trash newb for camping like 99% Osth players do in 1v1s. Just squat on 1 fuel/ammo/VP with 4 units, then send the blob to take the other. GG.

You lose cause youre bad, you win cause youre a camping git and the game isnt balanced - Fact