UKF on Life Support

After playing sporadically since october patch, I'd rather see Relic's CoH2 balancing team getting fired than have this "OPKW" madness (at least in 4v4, dunno about the rest).

I still think that not making different balances for different gamemodes (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4) in a game like this, with it's assymetrical balance and whatnot, is suicide.
Also, you guys could avoid a lot of discussion if you said which gamemode you're talking about and admit your experience only applies to them, instead of saying "hurr my 1v1 ist vetter than scrubzz 4v4 go pley sum age of empires nobb".

Sorry for my broken English

You're right. And this thread should be closed. There are many misleading conclusions from the interpretation of the data by OP.

Holy shit! dictatorship at finest! he has an opinion and has the right to say, you don't like it?! move on..

Balancing 1vs1 doesn't take into account inter-faction balance with regards to unit combinations, overall team unit availability and differences in teching structure (like Ostheer superior Team Crew Weapons + Oberkommando 4 Minute Luchs rushes/Volk Infantry amassing at cheap cost)

This, needs to be examined as well.

but it does take into account what each individual player (roughly) can potentially field at a certain time in the game. if the other faction can counter it in a 1v1, it can also be countered in a 4v4. what is harder to predict is stuff like "yeah, defending against a X minute Y is certainly possible" - "but how about 4 Xs at Y in a 4v4?", which is why 4v4s are inherently harder to balance. Trying to balance anything (but the maps) around the fact that there could potentially be 4 shock units hitting the field at the earliest possible time is ludicrous, because every other game mode would suffer horrendously from it.

What's all this teamgame talk matter? OKW is overperforming 1v1 too.

How am I clueless if I have statistics to back it up. Numbers don't lie. UKF consistently ranks last place in 1v1s whether that corresponds with your personal experience or not.



I've played this game twice as much as you. I've played this game since release and played every playlist and faction in arranged or randoms (but mostly arranged cuz surprise surprise some people like to enjoy playing the game strategizing/cooperating with friends). Just because I've taken off from CoH2 doesn't mean shit.

Idk who gave you the permission to point out who deserves to be heard and doesn't.



It's really baffling how you're going to ignore 2v2+. You're blatantly biased, not even attempting to hide it calling team games "scrub." Lol? Do you honestly not care for CoH as a whole and a successful game?

That's some insane tunnel-vision selfish game-killing plan you got there. If you wan't the CoH 2 community to be decimated, then go ahead and say it. You gotta think from the developer/producer's perspective, not a select few "elite." It's a videogame, many people play it, not just you?

There's a ginormous community in CoH, and most of them play 2v2+. That is fact. IF balance was changed based on popular demand, 1v1 would be least looked at, I hate to break it to you. You were there on that Russian tournament yourself and saw how live a poorly marketed non-English tournament went simply because it included large team games, I don't get why this needs any further explanation.

Well said. It's interesting how some someone's arrogance leads to his stupidity, even though you spent a lot of time responding to him

Lets do some math.

Shock troops = 6 man squad. 12 popcap = 2 popcap per squad entity
Bolstered section = 5 man squad. 10 pop cap = 2 popcap per squad entity
Obers = 4 man squad. 8 popcap = 2 popcap per squad entity.

Whoa.

Holy fuck man! get out of here!!!

This has to be the most intelligent post of the year! it's gold!

The reason 1v1 matters most is because balance issues at this level have a tendency to balloon out of proportion at 2v2+. Ironically, some 1v1 imbalances can be compensated for in 2v2 with good co-op play, but the ones that don't get much worse as you move up from 1v1. I'm personally not a fan of 3v3+, but balance needs to be designed around 1v1 to give all game modes optimal balance.

The reason 1v1 matters most is because balance issues at this level have a tendency to balloon out of proportion at 2v2+. Ironically, some 1v1 imbalances can be compensated for in 2v2 with good co-op play, but the ones that don't get much worse as you move up from 1v1. I'm personally not a fan of 3v3+, but balance needs to be designed around 1v1 to give all game modes optimal balance.

For starters, every faction should have non-doctrinal flamer on basic engineer/builder, and a sniper. This is a no brainer that some how has eluded lelic since release...

IMO that's not correct. Maybe I'm confused but I think we just had some patches in which 1v1 was broken (was it USF that was too OP?) and 4v4 was somewhat balanced, and before that 1v1s where fine and 4v4s where unplayable (can't remember who was OP back then, I think it was ost?).

I think the issue remains, that you don't ignore, because you respond to them (us?) in posts, and you do so in what comes across as a very rude way.

You have no right to say your game mode (1v1) is more important, its not. We all have a right to play a balanced and fair game, we paid for COH2 as well.

The issue with this patch, balance-wise, is how bad it is for those larger game modes. The difference in win rates is as high or higher than it has ever been, making those larger game modes mostly a test of patience. I understand and support changing OKW, but not releasing it in such a state as to destroy 3 other game modes to help 1. Especially when those 3 account for the majority of the population.

this, plus This game has 4 modes, and if you don't enjoy any of those modes you don't have to play that mode. But they are all important and if one is more important it's certainly not the one which is the least played, if the game is supposed to keep it's playerbase and a community like this

I don't even know how people propose you balance for team games. They just say "You can't just balance for 1v1". Well, what do you mean there?

1v1 is essentially balancing faction match ups. What happens when economies and units mix and work together is not something you can control for at all. 1v1 has six match ups, 4v4 has 1296. Not to mention that the addition of more players means that the maps end up being much larger, which in turn has its own huge effect on gameplay.

The only way I could see team games working as their own balance thing is if they had their own unique economy. All unit costs and income would be adjusted separately from 1v1. This isn't something that is really viable to do, honestly.

Your best bet if you want balanced team games is to set out and make your own mod to accomplish that goal.

For what it's worth though, if Relic deleted this patch (except for the changes to doctrines) they'd massively improve both 1v1 and team game balance. It seemed team games were in a good spot before.

4v4
?

No one cares.

You can say "I don't care", but you can't say "No one cares"

I don't even know how people propose you balance for team games. They just say "You can't just balance for 1v1". Well, what do you mean there?

1v1 is essentially balancing faction match ups. What happens when economies and units mix and work together is not something you can control for at all. 1v1 has six match ups, 4v4 has 1296. Not to mention that the addition of more players means that the maps end up being much larger, which in turn has its own huge effect on gameplay.

The only way I could see team games working as their own balance thing is if they had their own unique economy. All unit costs and income would be adjusted separately from 1v1. This isn't something that is really viable to do, honestly.

Your best bet if you want balanced team games is to set out and make your own mod to accomplish that goal.

For what it's worth though, if Relic deleted this patch (except for the changes to doctrines) they'd massively improve both 1v1 and team game balance. It seemed team games were in a good spot before.

Here is my proposal, they should get 1v1 right and in the larger game modes do not have across team buffs and slight reduction on resources (depending on the game mode) to be on par with the 1v1 resource income.

The issues you face with asymmetrical balance in larger game modes is that factions that do well with late game tech OKW/Ostheer/Brits with heavy tanks are getting there quicker because of the increased resource speeds which hinder the teams favoring early game presence.

Decrease resource income in larger game modes will detract from the spamming that is currently seen and fixing the units upkeep costs will go a long way to fixing it.

Anyone think that wouldn't work I'd like to hear constructive feedback as to where it would fail and what instead could be done.

They will never balance all game modes individually if they are doing a poor job getting even one right.

For starters, every faction should have non-doctrinal flamer on basic engineer/builder, and a sniper...

Amd HMG. And infantry AT-weapon. And heavy tanks. And etc&etc.

I'm amused with everyone giving Dusty shit for his opinion.
1vs1 & 2vs2 are competitive modes and 3vs3+ are fun modes, that doesn't mean that game's not supposed to be fair in that modes, simply that situations are created which can not be balanced.
Core game mechanics play less on an role or non at all in 3vs3+. If you check how maps are designed you'd also notice that 1vs1 & 2vs2 are designed with a competitive mindset; you have mirrored maps that usually have some space for flanking, while 3vs3+ maps seem to be bottleneck after bottleneck, with steppes & general mud being the only exception. Just check how Lorch Assault is designed, a huge fucking castle with no tactical purpose whatsoever, just eye candy and 5 Victory Points.

The main issue right now is the popcap bug - while giving OKW an advantage in 1vs1 in turns into a huge asset in 2vs2 and becomes utterly broken in 3vs3+: When your core army takes less popcap that means you can field more infantry, allows more tanks in late game and generally never struggle to accumulate enough MP for tanks in late game. As an allied player that means you will have to deal with more units while having less. Now multiply this with 4 and you will face an enemy you can not beat.
Especially in the clusterfest 4vs4 games are. Anyone saying 4vs4 have the same tactical depth or skill range like 1vs1 games has no clue whatsoever. 4vs4 derive into age of empire games in late game where its all about accumulating a critical mass of units to roll over the enemy since flanking options are limited, as a player your usually have one corridor which you have to win and then when you won you can assist team members, seal clubbing enemies in 3vs1 situations etc.

Things like KT without CP or Panther arriving to late can be easily fixed by adding CPs to the KT and requiring 3 trucks deployed for the Panther.

I'm amused with everyone giving Dusty shit for his opinion.

That was normal reaction to his arrogance directed to huge part of the community. He could act as a enlightened gentleman, but decided just to spit in the face of the community's part. Nuff said that community spat him whole stream back. Just an observation

I'm amused with everyone giving Dusty shit for his opinion.
1vs1 & 2vs2 are competitive modes and 3vs3+ are fun modes, that doesn't mean that game's not supposed to be fair in that modes, simply that situations are created which can not be balanced.
Core game mechanics play less on an role or non at all in 3vs3+. If you check how maps are designed you'd also notice that 1vs1 & 2vs2 are designed with a competitive mindset; you have mirrored maps that usually have some space for flanking, while 3vs3+ maps seem to be bottleneck after bottleneck, with steppes & general mud being the only exception. Just check how Lorch Assault is designed, a huge fucking castle with no tactical purpose whatsoever, just eye candy and 5 Victory Points.

The main issue right now is the popcap bug - while giving OKW an advantage in 1vs1 in turns into a huge asset in 2vs2 and becomes utterly broken in 3vs3+: When your core army takes less popcap that means you can field more infantry, allows more tanks in late game and generally never struggle to accumulate enough MP for tanks in late game. As an allied player that means you will have to deal with more units while having less. Now multiply this with 4 and you will face an enemy you can not beat.
Especially in the clusterfest 4vs4 games are. Anyone saying 4vs4 have the same tactical depth or skill range like 1vs1 games has no clue whatsoever. 4vs4 derive into age of empire games in late game where its all about accumulating a critical mass of units to roll over the enemy since flanking options are limited, as a player your usually have one corridor which you have to win and then when you won you can assist team members, seal clubbing enemies in 3vs1 situations etc.

Things like KT without CP or Panther arriving to late can be easily fixed by adding CPs to the KT and requiring 3 trucks deployed for the Panther.

le this

stop acting like balancing for 4v4 will solve all problems. imbalance is multiplied when you go up from 1v1 to 4v4.

Oh boy, Dusty vs World here, here we go.

It is impossible to doubt that team games are the most popular game mode. Here are the statistics on the front page.
http://coh2chart.com/

If you wish to refute this argument, you must discredit these statistics. Simply giving your own counter-statistics does not accomplish anything. This is self-apparent to anyone who has done any form whatsoever of academic research in absolutely any field; your theory must acknowledge and either accommodate or explain away existing theories to be accepted by the general academic population.

You can tout how many people play 3v3 and 4v4 all you want. If you still think that somehow means 4v4 balancing should be a priority, and that balance somehow trickles down, all it proves is a complete lack of understanding of game mechanics, full stop.

Having said that, I will now explain why OCF had 2000+ viewers despite being a 1v1 tournament.
- COH2.org had months of advertising for it
- Relic advertised it within the COH2 game.

Looking at the viewership of one tournament with mass advertising (in COH2 standards) and claiming that therefore 1v1s are popular among the majority of players is a poor argument.

Notice how I never said that 1v1s are the most popular game mode. My post implies/claims that 1v1 tournaments receive more viewership because they are, in fact, more competitive than 3v3 and 4v4.

Assuming the hypothetical situation that it is impossible to balance both 1v1 and 4v4, Relic would lose less by disabling the ability to queue for 1v1 games than 4v4 games. Of course, one must also remember that 4v4 games have 4x as many players as 1v1 games.

Again, your fundamental understanding of the game is flawed. The nature of variables and the amount matchups to balance, that other users have pointed out in this thread, mean that 4v4 is exponentially harder to balance and technically impossible. Throw map balance in to that, something that is refined in 1v1 and 2v2 for the most part, and it becomes even harder.

@Dusty
You continue to insist that, by virtue of your 1v1 skills, your judgements and theories about the problems and workings of 4v4 are automatically correct. This argument implies, and relies upon, the "elitism" of 1v1 over other game modes; that is, a 1v1 player requires more skill than a 4v4 player.

This argument is innately flawed because it fails to define what is meant by 'skill'. One can easily identify a 'skilled' saxophone player, or a 'skilled' baseball player, because only one set of abilities is being compared. However, it is far more difficult to judge who the better "skilled" musician, or "skilled" sportsman is, if you are given two musicians who play different instruments, or two sportsmen who play different sports.

If you ever played CoHnline, I was in the top of the 4v4 ladders for a very long time. I've played my time in 4v4s. Individual skill is hardly the factor that it is in 1v1s and 2v2s. "Top" 4v4 teams get away with literally a-moving blobs, because there are little opportunities to flank. The "Go hard like" team showed this many times on one of their POV streams during League of Heroes, where one of the players on north Lienne had 4 squads of Pgrens a-moving around for half of the game. I fail to see the "skill" involved in that.

Skill in 1v1 games undoubtedly requires larger map awareness and higher APM/Micro. However, having these skills does not make you a 'skilled' 4v4 player, any more than being a skilled baseball player means you can play cricket.

Not once do you even accept the possibility that 4v4 game modes require different types of skill or awareness. You must prove this if your arguments are to be valid.


At the same time, however, you yourself acknowledge that 4v4s are innately different than 1v1 games, albeit in a derogatory way

Yes, because most of the best 4v4 teams (with notable exceptions like the TATUS guys that have proven themselves to be extremely competent 1v1 and 2v2 players) get away with poor micro on the basis of map knowledge. Knowing where to optimally place bunkers, schwerer HQs, and which buildings to garrison at the start of the match are not indicators of skill, they are indicators of cookie-cutter pre-planning. The nature of 4v4 allows these plans to be executed with minimal micro because, again, the lack of flanking opportunities and human wave tactics that only 4v4 lets players set up a machine gun and not have to worry about it for 5 minutes. 1v1 and 2v2 have minimal pre-planning at best, and no MG will stay static for 5 minutes. All players must adapt on the fly to cutoff maneuvers and well-microed light vehicle play. A 4v4 team could theoretically place a machine gun on their cutoff for the entire game and it would hardly constitute a few percent of that teams effective fighting strength. If anything, League of Heroes proved that these types of players were abysmal at micro and on the fly planning, as these teams lost the majority of their 1s and 2s games, and only stayed in the tournament because of the extreme point weighing on the 3s and 4s games.

However, at the same time you continually insist that your experience in smaller team games allows you to recognise and judge the value of arguments and concerns in 4v4 games from 4v4 players. Furthermore, you are openly hostile to 4v4 players who have a different opinion on balance issues as you do.

I look at each player individually. When the players arguing with me play 90% of one faction, have mediocre ranks, and only play 3v3 and 4v4, it is EXTREMELY safe to say that they have a limited understanding of game mechanics/timing/resourcing. I don't even have a perfect understanding of all the numbers in this game, yet I'm not going to run head first into an MG42 over and over again, I'm not going to lose two squads to a sturmpio, I'm not going to chase a low health tank without stopping to shoot, I'm not going to fight on the move and in open cover, I'm not going to have my pants down for a light vehicle rush,and I'm not going to leave roads unmined for Panthers and complain about losing my katyusha on the forums.

The reason I cannot accept any of your arguments, and the same reason I encourage everyone else to disregard your arguments, can thus be summarised;
- you ignore the fact that 4v4s are the most popular game mode
- you believe, by virtue of your superior 1v1 abilities, that your judgements are automatically superior to those of a 4v4 player, and thus
- you refuse to acknowledge most complaints brought up by 4v4 players about 4v4 specific to 4v4, because you believe they are complaints by a bunch of unskilled idiotic retarded casual crybabies who don't know how to play the game, despite the fact that they actually play 4v4s and you don't
- you are openly hostile towards those that disagree with you regarding 4v4 game mode

I've never said they aren't the most popular, I have always said that is a dumb metric to use when prioritizing balance in an RTS game. This isn't a MOBA, go play DOTA or Total War Arena if thats what you're looking for. The game is, never has been, and never will be designed to be anywhere close to perfect in 3v3 and 4v4.

My judgements are superior to the average 4v4 player, because again (and this is getting very old to repeart), the average 4v4 player sticks to one faction or side, has mediocre micro, and has mediocre game mechanic understanding. This really isn't hard to understand.

This thread really has proven to me that the "unskilled idiotic casual" moniker becomes more true each day. Notice how I've never even said in this thread that OKW isn't OP, but everyone is pretending like I'm saying there isn't a problem. The hyperbole in this thread that I've been calling out is about "LEL 90% winrates" 3 days after a patch that had a MAJOR faction redesign, most importantly the potency of EARLY light armour play in the Luchs that Allied factions have NEVER had to prepare for (unlike the m20, t70 rush of early 2014, m5 rush in the summer) and the fact that people are up in arms about this without even learning how to counter it is ridiculous. Even better is the people that make these arguments have no right to make them, they have hidden ranks with OKW, or a majority of games played as allies. I don't really care how batshit OP something is, but no one is allowed to make a balance argument without playing a SINGLE match as what they claim to be oh-so-OP. Sure, 11 minute KTs are retarded (and surprise, only exist in 3v3 and 4v4, remember what I said about lack of flanking, micro, and retarded tunnel vision static play? No wonder, people can just build caches and never get cut off in 4v4) and that is going to be changed.

In further summary, in case you refuse to read my post because I am a 4v4 player;
- I view your arguments about 4v4 in the same light you view my arguments about 1v1
- Your entire justification of the superiority of your arguments lie in the fact that you play 1v1, and I play 4v4.

1v1, and 2v2. And yes, that literally is a good justification. 1v1 and 2v2 primary players have a better understanding of game mechanics, because if they don't, they lose. Tell me how many of your 4v4 friends can say the same about their matches, considering you don't need to know much at all to be a competent 4v4 player. Bonus points when these players complain about patch notes and specific numerical changes. I loved reading the posts when the flame changes happened, and people knee-jerked harder than I've ever seen, repeating the same incorrect bullshit that only someone with a lack of understanding of mechanics would be able to fathom. Oh, lets not forget the crit shot change too, apparently EVERYONE claimed to play the balance mod, and apparently none of them did because they all though there was no more snare.

Finally, to get back on fucking topic;
One must remember in 4v4 game modes, that the allied team can have potentially all three factions. Therefore, if UKF has a significantly lower win% than USF and SOV, there must also be a larger # of games with either only UKF or 3UKF (+EITHER USF OR SOV).

This does not necessarily mean that UKF cannot be played in team games. Perhaps 1/2 UKF with proper mixed allies remains quite powerful.

This also does not necessarily mean that UKF is "fine". We cannot know, hypothetically, if UKF was deleted tomorrow, how the USF and SOV win rates would adjust (assuming all UKF players would play either USF and SOV with the same skill)

Are we really going to base UKF being bad on the 25% 4v4 statistics that do not take into account matchups with what is a fairly broken OKW due to pop cap?

UKF performs completely fine against Ostheer, and would perform fine against a fixed OKW. This is the truth for all game modes. UKFs win rates can easily be explained by the lopsided OKW search rates, and the fact that their brokenness disproportionately affects UKF more, on top of UKFs current population cap bug.

The hyperbole in this thread about UKF being "on life support" comes from the exact same clowns that think the sniper was fine, the churchill was fine, the crocodile was fine, and free heavy engineers were fine. These are those oh so high caliber 4v4 players that required these crutches to make up for their poor play. After all, a cheap 1400HP well armoured tank requires minimal micro, ditto for one with a stupid long range, DOT dealing, AT gun wiping 1400HP well armoured tank with a flamer, perfect for 4v4 players.