Axis heavy armor needs nerf or Allied AT needs buffs

buffing the su-85 would be terrible because we'd be back to the days of Vs or nothing

Back? We are there. OKW has no IV's, only V's. And Ostheer cannot use IV's if there is a USF player, so he goes for V's too.

Off topic: Sorry, but Rugby was my game. You respect the ref, or take consequences. It's that easy.

Following a gentleman's game I see.

IS2 has about as much armor as KT fyi. 2nd most heavily armored unit in the game and 2nd most penetration. (leaving out elefant, isu, and jagdtiger.)

Well, reality did have a Soviet bias.


Despite weighing barely more than the Panther the IS-2 had an all around better gun and was better in every conceivable way at protecting its crew.


So yes, it makes sense that the only tank in the game that's better armored is a King Tiger.


The actual issue is the fact that while German players get tanks core doctrine that are competitive threats to anything the allies can field, including doctrine unique tanks, the allies simply do not. The M4 Sherman is not an adequate answer to the Panther, and does not have the survivability of a panzer 4 when you factor in abilities. The T-34's a fucking joke. Why 76mm Shermans or T-34-85's are locked behind commanders while any Wehraboo can build panthers is beyond me. Never mind the fact that Relic's unwillingness to build an actual model for their tanks, instead saying that 180 degrees in front of the tank constitutes frontal armor, while 180 degrees behind it constitutes rear is heavily biased toward German tank design. Suddenly flanking isn't adequate enough, you need to get behind enemy tanks even though the flanks, historically, were completely vulnerable.


Just don't use the word, "history" on Relic forums, that'll get your thread locked.

One flaw on the design of COH2-WFA is the late game design concept.

3 factions have a late game capability while one, USF, hasn't.

So comparing Panthers vs M36 with Panther vs IS2 is like comparing beetroots with salads...
When you field a Panther, you are not in your late game stage with your faction. But when you field a M36, it is actually your ultimate asset to deal with the late game design.
Whenever there is an IS2 or an ISU on the field you can have a Tiger or a King Tiger to support your panther to counter it. This is not true for USF faction.

vCoh
Looking back at Coh, the Relic team, at that time, understood that concept (obviously they designed it as an asymmetrical concept, very well done).


Commanders:
1 US commander had an attrition ability to "spam" mid game stock units to compensate your late game lake of heavy capabilities + really good arty barrage.
1 US commander had a really strong mid game elite AT infantry. By the time the tiger or the tiger ace hit the field, you should had vetted it + useful strafing run and bombing run.
1 US commander had the Pershing and another kind of attrition ability to replace any tank loss for a cost of 200 ammo in a period of time. Really good for a tank rush.

Upgrades
Supply Depot upgrades. So your units would cost less in term of upkeep.

COH2
Looking at COH2 USF faction, non of that exists. The game design with it asymmetrical concept is pretty much the same, USF design concept hasn't been touch that much as well. But what have been removed is it total capability to perform late game.


No Upgrades
The combative value of a new rifle squad decrease with time but it cost the same to produce at min1 or min50 and cost the same to maintain. And since it is the only stock infantry, you cannot replace it with something better. Losing a Vet3 rifle cost lot more than losing a vet5 volks, simply because you can replace the volk squad with an elite squad while you'll have to equip and vet you rifle to perform barely enough vs them.


No Commander abilities
There is basically no USF commander design to improve your medium units.
This is probably the biggest flaw in COH2 USF design. Having only medium tanks and units is an interesting design but only if your different commanders give you different capabilities to drastically improve them.
So far I can only see one improvement ability, the 1919 upgrade for rifles.
All the rest are sort of optional units to deal with a particular aspect of the game. Only one elite AI infantry, no AT.
No abilities or capabilities to improve your usage of your medium tanks or simply to multiply them by attrition.

The attrition concept has been remove in fact. If we link the game to the reality of what the ww2 was.
Relic vCOH original team took the idea of Allied winning the war by attrition (air and field superiority by attrition, more planes, more men, more tanks) vs Axis relying on heavy but kind of lonely units.

IMO, the way the late game design is today, USF cannot field more units at the same time simply because there is already too much of them to manage at the same time. So if something need to be look at is a way, not to improve late game Allied AT stuff on their own, but to make them more available with cost and build time reduction behind commanders late abilities or stock late upgrade linked to T4.

I think Relic should've kept most of the important features for US from vCoh. First, the supply depot from COH1 actually helped late game as it reduce the upkeep cost of infantry and kept the infantry combat alive. Second, the option to upgrade the gun on Sherman was GREAT feature, as "Ezy 8" Shermans were able to fight late game against Panthers and Tigers. Lastly, the US commander from vCoh were superb especially the "pershing" call in commander. I also loved the idea of 1 heavy tank per player!

Never mind the fact that Relic's unwillingness to build an actual model for their tanks, instead saying that 180 degrees in front of the tank constitutes frontal armor, while 180 degrees behind it constitutes rear .

Except thats not all armor. Alot of it is 80% front and 20% rear...making the matter even..better...

Good analysis Esxile!

The lack of side armour is truly mind boggling. In a game where they waste precious cycles simulating blizzards that people hate, they neglect basic principles of armoured engagement.

The lack of side armour is truly mind boggling. In a game where they waste precious cycles simulating blizzards that people hate, they neglect basic principles of armoured engagement.

Absolutely agreed. Said it in beta, deserves to be said again and again and again, until it finally gets driven into Relic's head.

The lack of side armour is truly mind boggling. In a game where they waste precious cycles simulating blizzards that people hate, they neglect basic principles of armoured engagement.

We still might see it implemented. Relic has shown that they are more then willing to make large game mechanic changes.

The lack of side armour is truly mind boggling. In a game where they waste precious cycles simulating blizzards that people hate, they neglect basic principles of armoured engagement.

Yeah. Nine, ten years ago it made sense when Dawn of War first came out because this shit was new.


Now ironically despite being one of the first companies to release a title that could justify such a system, even if it's just generic and adds side armor, Relic's got the worst hit detection and damage models of any developer who deals with tanks.


World of tanks has it. War Thunder has it to the absurd. Men of War has it.


Why can't Relic?

Yeah. Nine, ten years ago it made sense when Dawn of War first came out because this shit was new.


Now ironically despite being one of the first companies to release a title that could justify such a system, even if it's just generic and adds side armor, Relic's got the worst hit detection and damage models of any developer who deals with tanks.


World of tanks has it. War Thunder has it to the absurd. Men of War has it.


Why can't Relic?

Blitzkrieg 2 from 2005 has it as well

Blitzkrieg 2 from 2005 has it as well

Even blitzkrieg 1 had it as well to some extent!

and Total Annihilation from 1997 had heightmap based sight. even CoH2's so called truesight doesn't do that, it just deals with LoS blockers. i'm sure we could dig up lots of examples, particularly if we get into unsuccessful games.

I really do feel like USF tanks and T34 for soviets would be a lot more effective if you only had to get a side angle shot to reduce the pen requirements, instead of basically up their tailpipe. Jackson would actually feasibly be able to deal with heavies if side armor was thinner. Flanking wouldn't always be a suicidal charge, lol. Even PZIV would be more effective as a counter to Sov heavies like the IS2 if they want to stall for that.

I really do feel like USF tanks and T34 for soviets would be a lot more effective if you only had to get a side angle shot to reduce the pen requirements, instead of basically up their tailpipe. Jackson would actually feasibly be able to deal with heavies if side armor was thinner. Flanking wouldn't always be a suicidal charge, lol. Even PZIV would be more effective as a counter to Sov heavies like the IS2 if they want to stall for that.

Oh man, the t34 is so crappy.it is good for the crush but not much else. Schreck blobs lower its effectiveness by a ton

and Total Annihilation from 1997 had heightmap based sight. even CoH2's so called truesight doesn't do that, it just deals with LoS blockers. i'm sure we could dig up lots of examples, particularly if we get into unsuccessful games.

Whatever else was terrible about Rome II Total War, their line of sight system was truly superb.

i have maybe 8 hours in RII:TW but, iirc, hills blocked los? see, TA had that but all ballistic projectiles also used the same height map. you could build behind hills and long range low angle artillery physically couldn't hit.

i think the 34/76 should get a fairly decent armour boost. it would still have a poor gun but it would be better at tanking damage from other medium AT sources

Does the T34 has rear armor?
If yes just remove it because the t34 has the same armor everywhere
(45mm)