Faction comparison by Relic

"US forces. Specializes in blobbing riflemen into Jacksons."
"Wehrmacht is great at camping with machine guns and PaK walls. Also, LMG grens and turbo mortars that work better than the 120mm."
"Soviets can cheese you really early with flamer scout cars. If that doesn't work, try spamming maxims and waiting for call-ins."
"OKW reforms wounded men and old guys and expects them to fight better than anyone else, and they do because schreks and 5 stars of veterancy."
"The British: an Allied faction Axis players will love. We can't say any more because of the NDA."

lol, this was good. If you can't get a position writing for Relic, there are always spots open here at COH2.ORG.

Yes they should. It's what Relic refers to as asymmetric balance. It's what already set vCoH apart from World in Conflict. The only way to achieve perfect balance would be to give every faction the exact same units with a different paint job. Well, then the maps would be more in everyone's focus, prolly.

What you are stating is basically against everything CoH always was and always should be. Maybe this is the wrong multiplayer game for you.

Well said!

Making factions stronger at different phases of the game means automatic balance scaling issues. It guarantees that whomever has the best "late game" faction is more and more powerful in larger game modes where the probability of the match reaching late game approaches 100%. Thus, you can never have a game where the 1v1 and 4v4 are both balanced. To a smaller extent even 2v2s become skewed by this effect, a mode which is still highly competitive. If you balance for 1v1, then 3v3 and 4v4 become the late game faction's bitch. If you balance for larger games, then the early game factions will be OP in 1v1s. Balancing around resource shortages for OKW also has the same problem when combined with OH teammates and cache resource sharing.

Also a keen observation. This is probably the root of COH2's balance problems. How could it/should it be resolved?

Do you think the word "very" was used enough in the faction profiles? It reminds me of how laughable some of the bulletin text and unit descriptions in game are.

Also a keen observation. This is probably the root of COH2's balance problems. How could it/should it be resolved?

I don't think it can, at least not without major changes in CoH2. They have taken steps already to try and mitigate it through patching, which is part of why the current meta feels quite unrelated to the original design statements for USF/OKW. USF lategame got more consistent with changes to Jackson (although it's still not great), OKW late game got a bit nerfed, although it's still very good. OKW isn't as weak as most people think in the early game. Sov / OH have fluctuated wildly over patches about whom was stronger at which stages of the game. Further patching could slightly tweak this but it's a bit late to shut the gate once the horse has bolted.

Resource inflation in team games is a natural consequence of cache sharing and map's being flooded with more and more units to make sure everything is capped. People have proposed solutions to this before. One would be to disable cache sharing. Another is to make caches only "partially share". A third is to make it so caches don't share, but you can build one cache per player on each point, so that OKW wouldn't ever benefit from the resources, and additionally the OH / Sov / USF players would all need to build their own caches and thus all pay the manpower price. Mechanically that would require some srs patching from Relic, methinks, but it's not a bad idea conceptually.

Games going longer in team games is a regression to the mean type thing, one player failing early in a 1v1 means gg, 1 player failing early in a 2v2 means its "probably" gg but could be recoverable, in a 4v4 its bad but not uncommon to recover gracefully. Other players can cover for build weaknesses (you almost never get an "oh shit nobody built an AT gun" moment although it can still be badly positioned), other players cover for you getting driven off the field early, etc. The effects of individual failures get averaged out and because there are so many bodies per square feet on a lot of maps, it becomes really difficult to exploit small breakthroughs unless you've REALLY romped them. Even games where one side is clearly winning sometimes drag out for quite a while in big team games.

The lessons are more valuable for designing the sequel, imo. In CoH3 the need to seriously think about the differences between game modes both economically and tactically when designing factions, and attempt to differentiate them in ways that do not create asymmetry in the problem areas I've pointed out.

Obviously the other main area they need to have a long hard thing is the urban / enclosed vs open maps, and how they can try to minimise the impact of bad maps on balance without just making every faction a carbon copy. It's definitely a design challenge!

Well now they say they are a bit weak in the heavy armor dept. Before they said their heavy armor dept was non-existent, so that actually implies it's going to get better.

I'm pretty sure they just suck at communicating and aren't implying anything.

Also a keen observation. This is probably the root of COH2's balance problems. How could it/should it be resolved?

For starters we can make it so that caches don't benefit teammates.

Of course the balance is going to be crazy when players are receiving 4 times the fuel without making a single investment. OKW in particular is never supposed to be receiving such high resource income it's no wonder they are so strong in 4v4s where they have a feild full of fuel caches supporting them.

With caches only benefiting the player, tank numbers and pacing for each player would be more like 1v1 levels. And USF won't have to deal with as large a number of heavier vehicles that their AT was never meant to handle.

When i saw it at trending index i just wonder who claims okw is early game faction... Relic pls!

I'm in favor of a little bit of asymmetrial balance, but not too much.
There always needs to be a counter against what the enemy makes.
At this moment, balance is going into the right direction but indeed not what Relic had in mind at first.
They've learned that 'super units' aren't the way to go (Obersoldaten and Luchs on release), and that they need to tone everything down.

And YES. I'm sooooo in favor of caches benefitting the player rather than the team. Yes please.
Specially for OKW which are completely beast when they receive so much fuel.

Soviets weak with and against armor units.

OKW have good early game.

USF have combined arms.

I must be playing another game.

I lol'd when I've seen relic thinking OKW biggest advantage is in early and not in late game.

Too bad the soviet description of quantity vs quality desn't apply either, maybe it would if cons costed 200mp and T34 280mp.

Oh well, what we could expect from relic data presented in this way.

For starters we can make it so that caches don't benefit teammates.

Of course the balance is going to be crazy when players are receiving 4 times the fuel without making a single investment. OKW in particular is never supposed to be receiving such high resource income it's no wonder they are so strong in 4v4s where they have a feild full of fuel caches supporting them.

With caches only benefiting the player, tank numbers and pacing for each player would be more like 1v1 levels. And USF won't have to deal with as large a number of heavier vehicles that their AT was never meant to handle.

Just make cache not benefice 100% to OKW faction. Sharing resources is part of teamplay, but should be much less rewarding for OKW.

I lol'd when I've seen relic thinking OKW biggest advantage is in early and not in late game.

Too bad the soviet description of quantity vs quality desn't apply either, maybe it would if cons costed 200mp and T34 280mp.

Oh well, what we could expect from relic data presented in this way.

Hmmm...... Soviets out quantity the Ostheer. OKW can pretty much out quantity the Soviets

The quality of the Soviets sucks though, only their doctrinal units have some quality there.

But from what you are stating here, Soviets should be the most hampered faction in 1v1, but they are not, far from it

But from what you are stating here, Soviets should be the most hampered faction in 1v1, but they are not, far from it

Not really sure what would make you think so.

Soviets still are under heavy doctrinal influence, not so much armor thanks to tier restructure, but infantry still forces you for sniper or maxim builds as cons are utter trash that is less useful and worse scaled then cheaper volks.

Not really sure what would make you think so.

Soviets still are under heavy doctrinal influence, not so much armor thanks to tier restructure, but infantry still forces you for sniper or maxim builds as cons are utter trash that is less useful and worse scaled then cheaper volks.

Yet the sniper and Maxim builds work wonders. Combined with an m5 Quad rush and you can pretty much turtle anyone to death. Don't know what makes you believe that Soviets aren't what every statistic, most of the replays and player opinions suggest they are.

Could it be your own mind that twists things?

Again, like I already stated and what you seem to have ignored in my first post, I agree that non doctrinal soviets lack much and their doctrinal stuff is mostly more potent. But you just can't deny the fact that maxim spam combined with at guns and m5 quad rush can dominate games fairly easy.

Now please drop the bias and be realistic here.

For starters we can make it so that caches don't benefit teammates.

Bad idea, because then you'll have some players hogging all the strategic points with their own caches, while other players are blowing up allied caches so they can make their own caches, and then that person gets butthurt and starts shelling his teammate's base.

For that to work you'd either need to make caches stackable on the same point, or make them buildable anywhere in the sector.

Yet the sniper and Maxim builds work wonders. Combined with an m5 Quad rush and you can pretty much turtle anyone to death. Don't know what makes you believe that Soviets aren't what every statistic, most of the replays and player opinions suggest they are.

Could it be your own mind that twists things?

You are completely missing the point.
Relic said soviets use menpower(numbers, do not confuse with menpower resource) to overcome quality(upgrades).
Its not true, while soviet armies are often bigger, it still doesn't make them equal to stock units of other factions, this is why elite infantry is used extensively.

And I've already said its not so bad on the armor side while T34 is still tad too menpower(and pop cap) heavy.

Again, like I already stated and what you seem to have ignored in my first post, I agree that non doctrinal soviets lack much and their doctrinal stuff is mostly more potent. But you just can't deny the fact that maxim spam combined with at guns and m5 quad rush can dominate games fairly easy.

Now please drop the bias and be realistic here.

And where did I denied anything again?
I've said it myself that its go combined arms or go home and the claimed by relic menpower(again numbers, not resource) advantage is a myth since you can't get more units if these units perform worse and cost as much or more then axis counterparts.

I was raised on RTSes when there was not anything about capping. Just pure strategy battle. And those games were not designed like this pic. I mean, none faction had great early-game but shit lat game, or weak early-late but powerful middle.
All factions were balanced somehow with weak early game units which could be upgraded or which could be replaced by late-game units, so you are not forced to win quick cause you will struggle late game cause of lack of late-game units.

Classic mirror design, and guess what, those were best RTS I have ever played.

Witch such design you won't find balance problems like CoH2 has.

Just for example, Cossacks 1. Best RTS ever, even if it has almost mirror factions.
Battle for middle-earth. Another great example.
Or Warlord Battlecry III. Over 15 factions but almost none balance problems casue all of them have early/mid/late game units.

Same thing with AoE series or EE.
Even old but gold Empire at War shows how rock-paper-scissors design should work.

But that's just my opinion that mirror desing is a way better for balance and if done right, it won't make game boring.

Also a keen observation. This is probably the root of COH2's balance problems. How could it/should it be resolved?

By adding a disclaimer to everything that is not 1v1, basically saying "use at your own risk / balance is for 1v1 / Relic is not responsible for resulting traumas". Would be the easiest way to shut ppl up.

[soviet army] limited unit upgrades force player to build fresh new units

why.jpg

This seems more like a graph for new players to give an idea what faction to start with / perhaps stay with, and seems accurate enough for such. OKW truck placement can also be seen as being aggressive, and supporting aggressive assaults, instead of being seen as defensive. Seems right to me.


The OKW early game graph is the kubel in graph form or something.. derp

Its not true, while soviet armies are often bigger, it still doesn't make them equal to stock units of other factions, this is why elite infantry is used extensively.

And I've already said its not so bad on the armor side while T34 is still tad too menpower(and pop cap) heavy.

You are implying that the Soviets are to expensive and their always larger numbers are weaker than smaller numbers of slightly more efficient troops?

Soviets can steamroll anything with their superior numbers.