"Blobbing"

blobbing is just fucking boring, why even play an rts like this if your going to do that, I don't get it...

Blobbing was as apparent in vCoH, as in CoH2. Please deal with it.

what you expect a single MG to stop an entire army? Thats ridiculous.

A single MG should stop every infantry unit in it's cone of fire, no matter if it's only one squad or ten squads clumped up. That should be the whole purpose of this unit.

EVERY RTS HAS "BLOBBING". Look at starcraft 2. blobbing. age of empires? blobbing. command and conquer? blobbing. grey goo? blobbing. get the point?

CoH has barely anything to do with those RTS, and that's a good thing in my book.
Flanking from multiple directions, drawing fire in heavy cover, use of (mortar-)smoke and indirect fire versus prescient positioning of MGs - that's what's most fun about the infantry combat, unique to this game and simply beautiful. You can't win by sheer force or intense macro.

And then there are all these little things that literally shit on this mechanic, saying "fuck you, i can go dumb if i wan't and there's nothing you can about it". To regurgitate:

-Long range, high DPS infantry units introduced in WFA
As mentioned before, you only need 1 or 2 Obersoldaten / LMG Airborne to frontally decrew MGs

-Throwing long range (rifle-)grenades in suppressed state
One of the most disgusting offenders. You can carelessly walk in front of a maxim with a grenadier squad, get suppressed and you have all the time in the world to completely nullify this unit for 30 munitions. Congratulations, that's how you successfully destroy a rock-paper-scissor system. And you get more range with veterancy, what a splendid idea!

-Forward retreat points
Courtesy of WFA, making full retreats a nuisance instead of a devestating blow to unit presence. You see it in almost every (team-)game with WFA factions: Gather your blob and smash their heads into a brickwall, again and again, until the brickwall is no more or their heads are mush.

-Unreliability
Inconvenient reloading, MG gunner chain-snipes - as Luvnest mentioned

-Super urban maps (Stalingrad)
-Mobile suppresion Platforms (Kübelwagen)

what you expect a single MG to stop an entire army? Thats ridiculous. If that were even remotely possible then wed just have MG blob armies.

If the strenght of this unit shows to be to powerfull, their weakness must be even weaker (longer setup time, smaller cone of fire, slower (capping-) speed, higher cost) or more accessible exploitable (Mortars for all factions or giving PGs smoke grenades for instance, as it is the case in Cruzz's Mod).

But if the MG can't fullfill it's role properly, than there's no point.

To the defense of Coh2, I do remember the horrors of vet 3 Knights Cross spam xd

Honestly, I see more blobing after the release of WFA than I ever did before it.

That might be the case due to faction design of USF and OKW since they lack an obvious choice for combined arms. Playing combined arms as USF or OKW is hardly as effective as just bunching up your infantry forces and moving forward eliminating everything you see. Furthermore combined arms requires more micro and macro than moving your blob forward.

what you expect a single MG to stop an entire army? Thats ridiculous. If that were even remotely possible then wed just have MG blob armies.

It's not ridiculous at all. In CoH1 a single MG42 would absolutely stop a blob of 5 units. That wasn't a problem, because you can simply spread out your units. But if an entire army is within 10 square fucking meters, then YES, it SHOULD be stopped by a single MG42. It's the entire point of the unit, it's why it has a limited cone, why it has a setup time, and why it doesn't deal amazing damage.

It's not ridiculous at all. In CoH1 a single MG42 would absolutely stop a blob of 5 units. That wasn't a problem, because you can simply spread out your units. But if an entire army is within 10 square fucking meters, then YES, it SHOULD be stopped by a single MG42. It's the entire point of the unit, it's why it has a limited cone, why it has a setup time, and why it doesn't deal amazing damage.

Not exactly. Don't you remember that alot of units had abilities that negated supresion?

Dont you remember that running into MGs was standart brit tactics?

fire up + ranger or airborne blobs?

And im not so sure about mg-42 winning againts 5 squads head on. Im pretty sure it wouldn't.

Blobbing is when you cluster all your units together in a ball of death, not when you just get "a lot of units". The standard RTS term for making a lot of a single unit is "spam".

For instance spamming Pgrens is dumb, and blobbing is always dumb no matter what because things like artillery and tanks exist.

and blobbing is always dumb no matter what because things like artillery and tanks exist.

And we have blobs that destroy tanks and artillery that isnt reliable enough to counter blobs.

A single MG should stop every infantry unit in it's cone of fire, no matter if it's only one squad or ten squads clumped up. That should be the whole purpose of this unit.



CoH has barely anything to do with those RTS, and that's a good thing in my book.
Flanking from multiple directions, drawing fire in heavy cover, use of (mortar-)smoke and indirect fire versus prescient positioning of MGs - that's what's most fun about the infantry combat, unique to this game and simply beautiful. You can't win by sheer force or intense macro.

And then there are all these little things that literally shit on this mechanic, saying "fuck you, i can go dumb if i wan't and there's nothing you can about it". To regurgitate:

-Long range, high DPS infantry units introduced in WFA
As mentioned before, you only need 1 or 2 Obersoldaten / LMG Airborne to frontally decrew MGs

-Throwing long range (rifle-)grenades in suppressed state
One of the most disgusting offenders. You can carelessly walk in front of a maxim with a grenadier squad, get suppressed and you have all the time in the world to completely nullify this unit for 30 munitions. Congratulations, that's how you successfully destroy a rock-paper-scissor system. And you get more range with veterancy, what a splendid idea!

-Forward retreat points
Courtesy of WFA, making full retreats a nuisance instead of a devestating blow to unit presence. You see it in almost every (team-)game with WFA factions: Gather your blob and smash their heads into a brickwall, again and again, until the brickwall is no more or their heads are mush.

-Unreliability
Inconvenient reloading, MG gunner chain-snipes - as Luvnest mentioned

-Super urban maps (Stalingrad)
-Mobile suppresion Platforms (Kübelwagen)



If the strenght of this unit shows to be to powerfull, their weakness must be even weaker (longer setup time, smaller cone of fire, slower (capping-) speed, higher cost) or more accessible exploitable (Mortars for all factions or giving PGs smoke grenades for instance, as it is the case in Cruzz's Mod).

But if the MG can't fullfill it's role properly, than there's no point.

I could not have said it better. This post really encompass everything that need adjustment in COH2.
Great post, thank you.

And we have blobs that destroy tanks and artillery that isnt reliable enough to counter blobs.

How exactly is a volks/obers blob going to kill my b4 which is sitting comfortable behind my maxims, and KV1's?

Don't leave your artillery and tanks unattended kids!

How exactly is a volks/obers blob going to kill my b4 which is sitting comfortable behind my maxims, and KV1's?

Don't leave your artillery and tanks unattended kids!

Sure, i go Counterattack tactics every game against OKW to best blow up crap, but panthers still exist and kill the KV-1's, Obers still snipe Maxim gunners rendering them dead and the B4 wont always hit a moving blob of infantry. Oh, i have to choose a commander just to counter this...Sorry entire soviet teching system and other commanders.

But what about USF and Ostheer?

There's blobbing because it's the best way to win. In CoH1, the MG(Even at vet 1) was able to suppress all infantry in it's fire radius; it was extremely effective and was a hard counter. All the other factions also had their hard counters to blobbing, but there's nothing in this game short of the B4 that can stop blobbing.

Sure, i go Counterattack tactics every game against OKW to best blow up crap, but panthers still exist and kill the KV-1's, Obers still snipe Maxim gunners rendering them dead and the B4 wont always hit a moving blob of infantry. Oh, i have to choose a commander just to counter this...Sorry entire soviet teching system and other commanders.

But what about USF and Ostheer?

USF has: the AA HT, the Scott, the priest, the Sherman, the 75 mm howitzer. Ostheer doesn't have that much however, which a valid point and one of the reasons Ostheer hasn't been doing well lately.

K1's exist to soak damage and bounce shreks, if your opponent wants to rush you with panthers from the front hit him with some AT nades and a b4 shot, or just a AT gun or two. Make sure your maxims have overlapping fields of fire and have infantry supporting them.

And -always- keep the b4 as close to the front as possible to make sure you have a sure chance to hit, the spread really isn't that big at medium range. You just need to hit near a blob to wipe squads.

There's blobbing because it's the best way to win. In CoH1, the MG(Even at vet 1) was able to suppress all infantry in it's fire radius; it was extremely effective and was a hard counter. All the other factions also had their hard counters to blobbing, but there's nothing in this game short of the B4 that can stop blobbing.

Incorrect. But, I am not engaging. Others will enlighten you (hopefully).

It's almost like people don't understand demo charges are a thing that exists, the OKW mine detector can't even detect the damn thing until it's far, far to late for your "blob"

The fact of the matter is that common blobbing is effective and requires very little energy devoted to micro-ing your army. Most of the effective counters to blobbing require decent micro, luck, and attention. It's just not a fair balance of reward vs energy/resources spent.

I feel as though a mechanism needs to be put in place to punish blobbing and decrease its effectiveness. My suggestion is to place a modifier on groups of infantry moved in tight groups of 3 units or more. This modifier would increase damage taken, decrease accuracy, and increase susceptibility to suppression. I think this would encourage more strategic troop movement and be logically true to reality as troop spacing is important to avoid taking larger losses, friendly fire, etc.

It's almost like people don't understand demo charges are a thing that exists, the OKW mine detector can't even detect the damn thing until it's far, far to late for your "blob"

Thing is, Engineers are not a front line unit like sturmpios. If you want to plant a demo charge somewhere relevant you are always risking the whole squad getting killed by Obers in 1-2 seconds.

Thing is, Engineers are not a front line unit like sturmpios. If you want to plant a demo charge somewhere relevant you are always risking the whole squad getting killed by Obers in 1-2 seconds.

I feel like a broken record here, but you normally want to keep your troops together, not wandering around the map alone.

I feel like a broken record here, but you normally want to keep your troops together, not wandering around the map alone.

There is a difference between having squads completely alone on opposite sides of the map and strategic troop placement to take a specific point on the map.

I believe the people here are making the case that blobbing is more effective than strategic troop placement (which takes micro and decision making) because the counters to blobbing aren't reliable enough for the time/resources they take to implement vs someone who only has to attack move.

There's blobbing because it's the best way to win. In CoH1, the MG(Even at vet 1) was able to suppress all infantry in it's fire radius; it was extremely effective and was a hard counter. All the other factions also had their hard counters to blobbing, but there's nothing in this game short of the B4 that can stop blobbing.

Let's not forget that vCoH and OF both were blobfest (Brits much?) and let's not forget anti suppression mechanics like Fire-up which were game breaking.

Aside from that, although OKW blob is a huge issue right now, let's not forget that double bar/LMG spam and Cons/Shocks spam is also a huge problem specially mid game. Katyusha, ISU152 and to IS2 (although not effective like before) are still good choices for counter-blobbing. Soviets also have Demo charges which are OP (they really are), and some good CC commander abilities (Propaganda Arty, IL2 strafe, incendiary barrage) which are decent. Blobbing is an issue "for all 4 factions", but stop saying it's an insta-win trollz tactic.