Balance Preview Update 09/08/2015

More on the comet

Beside the whole 50 range, the comet is also quite undervalued in terms of Population. it cost only 12 compare to 14 on the t34 85 and e8.

What I'm trying to say is, there are other ways to nerf the comet beside lowing its HP.

new volks grenade is sucky and it still costs 30 muni :/

Nerf to Comet? It is already in a very questionable position to fight against counter part AKA panther, and even more nerf to it?

And the firefly? Long long reload? I think firefly need a ROF buff, and tulip damage alpha reduce, and please fix the mantlet model of firefly, it's ugly and wrong

This

Why do you guys insist on turning heavies into these counter-all vehicles all the sudden. Weren't we working away from a heavy tank meta..

There is no reason give heavy tanks longer ranges to deal with tank destroyers. Tank destroyers are supposed to kite heavy tanks. Is that not obvious?

To deal with this,you support your heavy tank with 50-60 range units...
The KT literally does not need this. Just park a Jp4(which flat out beats SU85s and jacksons) right next to it..

Same with tiger,even though its harder since they lack a 60 range TD(SO BUFF THE STUG TO BE INLINE WITH OTHER FACTIONS 60 RANGE TD's,NOT THE TIGER. #JustRelicBalancing),park double paks,or a couple stugs with a halftrack to reinforce paks that were hit by artillery.

I dont understand. Please dont put this in live. And if youre planning on giving a pershing(when its added) 45-50 range,please reconsider. Its only moving towards taking away from late game combined arms.


The other changes are +1 btw,but why go 4-5 steps forward and 1 step back.

And i gonna rescue this post.

Are some of the British Artillery abilities being looked into?

There are some late game British artillery abilities that are simply too powerful/offer no counter-play options.

One that has really bothered me is the Tactical Support Regiment's Artillery Cover ability.

The ability drops in with no smoke and appears to start the bombardment very quickly after being "placed" on the map. I don't have a huge issue with the way this ability works on infantry. I think it fires on units when there's no vision (which I don't like the idea of) but regardless it has a clear counterplay: just leave the area.

For countering vehicles and tanks though the ability is simply bonkers. The shells that the artillery drops:

• Stun/damage engine regardless of armor level. Even the highest armor unit, a Jagdtiger, was getting stunned/engine damaged with every shell. This is not just the JT (which is vulnerable to stun). Other tanks like Jagdpanzers and Panzer 4s have been stunned reliably as well.
  
• Never seem to miss or scatter.
  
• Always penetrate and do some damage.
  
• Don't appear to require line of sight on the tank?
  

Your tanks in the area of effect are chain stunned by these shells. When they aren't stunned their engines are always damaged by the first couple of shells and have limited/no mobility.

What is the counter play for this? I can't "hide" from the enemies in the fog of war as the bombardment seems to hit me anyways. I can't "run" my tanks away as the engine damage/stun makes my tanks almost impossible to control. I can't fight my way out because I am being stunned constantly. I can't even protect my tanks with my infantry as they are getting hit by cloud-burst shells that are very lethal and have to retreat.

Abilities like this need to have their power checked and I hope it's being looked into. In the very least they need a clear "counter-play" option.

Regardless of my problems...

I really like the changes that have been presented in the balance-mod! The flamethrower changes and many others look spot on. Please keep up the good work!

it's 6.4-6.1 second reload with a 1 second wind down added on top, meaning it's 7.25 second reload on average. 7.375 second if you include the fire aim time.

And the ready aim time makes it 7.5
Both OKW and OH reload at the same time as it seems both have wind time.

Can Relic release this patch before OCF tournament ?
I hope can see good games.

Can Relic release this patch before OCF tournament ?
I hope can see good games.

They said they shall.

As if AT partysans were bad enough(reinforce wise). Now this. Someone explain to me why partysans are getting changed for the worse rather than the better. And the t-34/76 changes. Mass producing them vs hordes of panthers/p4s/at-gun/at-inf/etc....yet they decide to do this. For something that can't scale for ****.

Don't you know? Soviets were known for quality not quantity in their tanks

Proposed Changes:

- Revert Jagdtiger price buff (foreseeable Jagdtiger rush meta incoming by skipping most OKW HQ tiers and calling in this GGWP tank in 15 minutes)

revert JT price buff why? keep in mind you need 15CP for the call-in. ( Never seen a JT rush in 15 min btw ) Currently he is simply too expensive.

It always fascinates me that people say they are uninstalling as if anyone cares.

Developers care.

and it will obviously continue to "fascinate" you, since you obviously lack some of the basic cognitive capabilities. If the product is in such broken state that even "one" hc fan is willing to give up on it, then you better believe it - it's gonna be loosing casual customerbase very soon, and very fast. It's the law of probability - where's there's one random forum guy, there are hundreds more alike, that simply don't care enough to be vocal about it, and they're indifferently moving to something else. So I guess Relic should care, and they obviously do - considering the latest balance attempts. They have all the numbers they need, and nothing your allied lobbying machine type and retype here isn't gonna change the statistics. Not that it's a good thing, but it is a fact that majority of the CoH playerbase has always leaned toward Axis, and if they (Relic) left the game in this state (post British launch) for much longer, in 6 months time there would be 25 people left playing the game. Which would be very bad for business.

There's lots of angry shouting about PROPOSED changes in the balance preview. I am slighlty mystified by complaints such as Von Ivan complaining that T34's have moved from 8 - 10 popcap when a couple of days ago they were moved from 12 - 8. To me this seems like fine tuning of a pop reduction. 10 might not be the right number but then perhaps 8 wasnt.

It is worth considering that in finding values it is quicker statistically to exaggerate changes (i.e. overbuff or overnerf), gather data from them and then set the correct value based on the data from the original value and the extreme value. Earlier someone complained about a cut in the wasp to 4 damage and said that six 'felt' better as it was kind of middling - it might end up as six but the change to 4 will testing can quickly find the value it should be rather than what might in woolly terms be right on the grounds that its in the 'middle' of two values suggested by the developers.

Everyone has their own opinion of course. In my mind I think I see a bigger picture in these interlocked changes or a shift in the feel of gameplay to increase fun and reward skillful play. This includes range changes to tiger (still needs a spotter to take advantage!) and all the flame tinkering etc.

For those flooding the threads with demands for improvements to Brit IS or whatever pet balance issue they feel is being ignored, I would say the balance preview is not over and all the other changes will have impacts on how they should be handled. The process so far shows a willingness to engage with all corners of the game so I expect that its not the case that they have 'forgotten' IS or whatever it is that is 'missing' from the patch at this point. The preview is very bold and this may prove a problem but I would rather they tried and failed to fix everything whilst improving gameplay through changes people don't think are needed rather than leaving things alone because they seem 'ok'

Gonna play devils advocate here but if the Tiger is 45 range stock and 50 range at vet 2 why shouldn't the IS2 also be 45 range stock and 50 range at vet 2?

This is purely from a historical perspective:

The T-34/76 tank was the best tank of WW2, and according to some lists, even the best tank of all times. This tank made a great impression even on Heinz Guderian. Therefore I do not understand why this historical fact is not reflected in the game. I don't expect to see so much of this tank in the game, if it is placed in T4 and has a population cap of 10.

Proposed Changes:

- Revert Jagdtiger price buff (foreseeable Jagdtiger rush meta incoming by skipping most OKW HQ tiers and calling in this GGWP tank in 15 minutes)

How do you rush something tied to 15 CP?

Developers care.

We don't.

We have statistics of active players, if these start go down, we start to care(well, we do care about the communities of our games, but we don't care about "I quit" posters, they never quit anyway, yes, we can check that effortlessly).

"I quit" posts are included in community mood reports only if half of the forum is suddenly full with them.
Single one is as much of a reason to laugh for as as it is for fellow players laughing at you atm.

I kind of feel fooled by the Tiger buff and veterancy nerf. This barely changes anything. The range is still the same with veterancy. The only thing that has changed is more penetration. Tbh. that stat is not really needed on the Tiger. I would have preferred a buff to the health or armor. This patch is not going to make me build Tigers. Instead I´m probably going to be stuck in the good old Elefant doctrine versus anything and everything.

Handheld flamers are going to be a but too strong against garrisons / emplacements.

Why do you guys insist on turning heavies into these counter-all vehicles all the sudden. Weren't we working away from a heavy tank meta..

There is no reason give heavy tanks longer ranges to deal with tank destroyers. Tank destroyers are supposed to kite heavy tanks. Is that not obvious?

To deal with this,you support your heavy tank with 50-60 range units...
The KT literally does not need this. Just park a Jp4(which flat out beats SU85s and jacksons) right next to it..

Same with tiger,even though its harder since they lack a 60 range TD(SO BUFF THE STUG TO BE INLINE WITH OTHER FACTIONS 60 RANGE TD's,NOT THE TIGER. #JustRelicBalancing),park double paks,or a couple stugs with a halftrack to reinforce paks that were hit by artillery.

I dont understand. Please dont put this in live. And if youre planning on giving a pershing(when its added) 45-50 range,please reconsider. Its only moving towards taking away from late game combined arms.


The other changes are +1 btw,but why go 4-5 steps forward and 1 step back.

Agreed, the KT buff was not necessary.

I kind of feel fooled by the Tiger buff and veterancy nerf. This barely changes anything. The range is still the same with veterancy. The only thing that has changed is more penetration. Tbh. that stat is not really needed on the Tiger. I would have preferred a buff to the health or armor. This patch is not going to make me build Tigers. Instead I´m probably going to be stuck in the good old Elefant doctrine versus anything and everything.

Theres other game modes (I assume you play 3v3/ 4v4) where Elephant is never used and Tiger is all the time (1v1).

Ehh people, do you have reading comprehension problems?

Relic buffs GUN RANGE and reduces SIGHT RANGE. It means tiger will still have 55 range at vet2, but will need spotter to use it.

I don't think 55 range tiger is a good idea though, especially TA.

The t34 change is also bullshit - it needs to be 8 so that the tank works as a support armour unit for the rest of your combined arms force. I would have to see a T34 buff in order to like this change.

'Balancing' the unit up to 10 in case someone spams T34's ignores the fact that T34's are shit and germans have abundant AT at their disposal.

This is a blatant Relic error that tries to constrain the SU faction because it doesn't want T34's to be any good. But it's still the wrong decision to make, guys.

1. Anyone with lots of T34's has no capping power (an unsupported vet1 T34 trying to cap is a dead T34)
2. T34 spam midgame is already possible due to the tank being cheap
3. Pop cap won't be maxed early/midgame anyway, so the pop cap doesn't even matter here
4. The SU player will lose his T34's in short order and subsequently lose the game, you could leave the pop cap at 5 and the SU player would still lose the game if he spams T34.
5. T34 spam lategame would be an absolute joke - Germany can easily counter waves of T34's in the lategame and punish the SU player for spamming them.