Allied 1v1 Dominace

Really dangerously close to locking this thread, stay on topic please and try to respond to the OP, seeing too many inflammatory and offtopic responses.

I did not say that you are wrong, but you will not hear me saying that you're right either. There are certainly better ways to express your thoughts about the subject than this, hinted with stereotypes.

I get where you come from with USF, I personally think another big part of the problem is the terminator veterancy that allows their early success to transition into almost total infantry dominance once the rifles get their veterancy and upgrades. Problem is, that's a design flaw in USF where they only have one non-doctrinal infantry squad and nothing else to build until they spend fuel, so the faction lives and dies based on how well rifles perform.

I actually think USF needs a bit of an overhaul, a rifleman nerf while also shuffling their tech tree so they have actual early game options.

For Soviets, I'm not sure the problem is that big. Surely conscripts aren't dominant at any point of the game vs competent players. Guards + Maxims may be another matter entirely, but for many lower skill Soviets players (me amongst them) they're what keeps you alive vs the OKW blobs of doom. So any nerf to that setup would need to be very considerate if you ask me. Yes, balane should be done at high levels of play, but ignore the rest of the playerbase and you get BS like OPKW the week after their overhaul.

I see where you are coming from Vindi, but at the same time I have a different opinion. Although I'll probably be hated for this, aggro factions should have higher win rates imo.

When factions like Ostheer that are built around defense, if that is stronger then offense then you end up with a really long game. Say somehow you are able to balance out early game aggression and late game dominance. I'd still prefer aggro to win slightly more. I'm not sure that I'd be interested in watching a tourny if games ended up going for 50 minutes at a time.

I completely sympathize with nerfing Soviets though. Even when I play Ostheer I would rather go up against any other faction then Soviets.

Save your breath Vindi, the usual characters that can't play the game properly won't listen.

On topic, I agree with ciez in that ignoring ukf, 1v1 is fairly balanced right now even if it is a very boring patch.

The Germans bring on the back foot has been the case since launch, and it has finally gotten to the point where the fragilit has become more stressful. I don't really see how anything short of gutting the game out would do anything to change this though. Gotta live with it for now

if you read through the thread you would know hes referring to the highest skill matchups, not just the average on ladder.

Yeah he is talking about top 20 players, which is ridiculous. It's way too small of a sample size, and can be completely effected by the individual strengths and weaknesses of the few players in the sample. If we make significant balance changes according to that then at that point we are buffing players not factions, and the other 1000 will suffer for it. Top 100 is a much better statistic to look at for even higher level player balance.

That isn't to say they shouldn't try to remove high level cheese tactics, like RE spam, but they have already shown they are willing to do that.

What sort of changes do thus propose, OP? You mention map design and bring up one map that is more conducive to the German/British style of play - should all maps fall into the mold of Langreskaya? What sort of changes concerning faction design do you envision that would give the Germans more of a fighting chance in the early game without crippling the Allies?

Making general observations is well and good, but as you've seen in this thread, doing so without providing specific talking points to spark meaningful discussion won't amount to much.

One thing I noticed with the axis factions is that they are already hard countered by what factions your enemy chooses.

Say you are OKW, if you are fighting a soviet player and he plays smart into 3+ maxims. He will usually win against you since you have no good support/sniper units to take them down.

Ostheer is the same deal where USF just enjoys wringing them out with their super aggressive early gameplay; with mid game vehicle rushes; then late game calliopes and pershings.

But that's usually because axis factions shine late game, you see a game go past 40 minutes you can already feel pendulum turning towards the axis even if they look like they are in a bad spot. As long as the allies can use every early game advantage they have to lock down the map before axis gets their late game they usually win; if not, the opposite is usually what happens unless VP drain or unit wipes become too severe.

Still think double received accuracy vet on rifles is silly way to balance USF. Would have liked it better if they buffed their medium armor more.

OKW is OP, brits on life support and he is talking about allied dominance, nothing new.

This thread is perfect example why this webpage is retarded. VindicareX (player im tourmaments since 2013) makes a long constructive post.
Katitof: omg shut up noob look at my graphs hahahahahahahahahah (even i dont play the game at all lol)

TL, DR: Allies have early game advantage that puts the game in their initiative (a fact shown in their dominance in tournament games among high skilled players).

You could re-title your post by Aggressive Faction 1v1 Dominace top level. How can't you see that 2 top players at same skill level, top10, or even more top1 vs top2, whoever pick the aggressive faction has more chance to win the game.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that since at that level, skills + RNG are the only two components of a match. And you'll always have the edge on the skill department with an aggressive faction because you dictate the game at your path.

Resume:

Aggressive factions rely on pure skill => Favor high level players.
Defensive factions rely on heavy tools to counter, so always a step behind => Favor any players that isn't top and not facing top players.

This is why at same skill level (but not Top) Axis faction are better and why Allied ones are shining at Top.

At this point, there is only two possibilities to balance the game: mirror match and getting ride of asymmetrical concepts. Are you ready for USF vs USF matchup on a perfect symmetrical Langreska map?

You mean that allied dominance that doesn't even exist.


Also you misspelled the title.

Could a statistician clear something up for me? Does it matter that there are 2 Axis factions and 3 Allied factions? Or is that irrelevant here?


VindicareX is an excellent player. But if you don't want to trust the opinion of one guy, there're several high level players in this thread like Siuking, Lemon, Ciez, ItzDusty agreeing with Vindicare. Sadly the guys with 3,000,000 forum posts are frothing at the mouth disagreeing and making personal insults.

Katitof disagrees
Omegawarrior disagrees
NEVEC disagrees

For me that's strong eveidence that Vindicare has made a good point.


I think balance is the best it's been right now, the game's really fun. But every time I watch replays and casts I see certain things sticking out for the allies. Demo, Calliope, riflespam, maximspam (vs OKW), and various other things. I think they need a slight tweak.

Vindicare, I'd have to agree with the general premise that aggressive factions tend to play better.

here's a replay of this being demonstrated. Compared to vindicare, I'm a scrub, but I'm better than at least 90% of people who have bought this game, if not more. It got a lot easier when my opponent ran his stuart over a teller (after commenting about my mine bulletins), a rifle squad got wiped, and I kept my sniper alive. In the following game, my MG was stolen, my sniper got wiped a few minutes later and it was all over for me. I lost to the guy who ended up going onto the semis, so it's whatever.

•  
  

  0

  VS

  [RB] Crab Chicken the Bidoof

  ~TAB~ GBPirate

  ESL game #1

  by: Gbpirate map: Arnhem Checkpoint

  1

  -

I've got a thread on soviet strategies about a triple Maxim opening with some replays that are still viewable. I'd recommend checking them out. One replay, I got outplayed by Strummingbird, but he's just better than me.

With three Maxims on Minsk Pocket, I was able to use some classic, late 19th century machine gun tactics; two Maxims firing at a few squads on a VP, then my third maxim would come down on the flank and put in some enfilading fire. Cons and a shock kept flanks away, then 3 SU76s kept OKW vehicles away and their barrages lowered truck health.

Soviets seem to be the most even-keeled faction in terms of power. They have units that make them aggressive at all stages of the game. Maxims, Shocks, T70, IS2. If KV tanks weren't so crappy (excluding KV8) then Soviets would have killer late game options as well.

USF having such ubiquitous smoke is poor design. Having only one core infantry unit isn't necessarily bad. The problem is that, even with weapon racks (which could, theoretically, allow a player to have rifles used for different purposes), there tend to be rifleblobs of doom.

Even with the current faction state, the game is playable for most even at a relatively high level.

I think there are several things that need to be fixed, like the reinforce cost between rifles, Rear echelons, grenadiers, volks, etc. REs should not be 25; grens at 30 seem too high when against rifles, but against cons it is ok.

Obersoldaten getting suppression without any sort of micro or ability is silly. That's why it was taken off rifles with M1919s. Those are just a few things off the top of my head, but there are more. Well, one example is Jagdtiger killing 17lbr because the Jagd can attack ground outside of the ATG's range...silly.

There are still bugs with many things, I find. As far as I know there are still problems with british tanks' smoke shells when moving. Target Weak Point shouldn't take munitions away if it fails to fire... Weapon teams can be slow to respond to orders and MGs don't always begin setting up when being put in houses. Slow unit response times can be incredibly frustrating.

Could a statistician clear something up for me? Does it matter that there are 2 Axis factions and 3 Allied factions? Or is that irrelevant here?


VindicareX is an excellent player. But if you don't want to trust the opinion of one guy, there're several high level players in this thread like Siuking, Lemon, Ciez, ItzDusty agreeing with Vindicare. Sadly the guys with 3,000,000 forum posts are frothing at the mouth disagreeing and making personal insults.

Katitof disagrees
Omegawarrior disagrees
NEVEC disagrees

For me that's strong eveidence that Vindicare has made a good point.


I think balance is the best it's been right now, the game's really fun. But every time I watch replays and casts I see certain things sticking out for the allies. Demo, Calliope, riflespam, maximspam (vs OKW), and various other things. I think they need a slight tweak.

I'm not disagreeing with the fact that more aggressive factions do better in the hands of highly skilled players. But you yourself say that balance is in a good place, but then then talk about nerfing heavily factio dependent units like maxim and rifles. How do you plan on doing that without ruining balance. Every single unit's effectiveness in USF depends on rifles, and we have already seen what happened when they had weaker vet and maxim is the only reliable way to deal with infantry other then doctrinal elite infantry. Nerf these things and balance will crumble.

USF in particular would need to be rebuilt from the ground up to make them less reliant on rifles. And we are going to do all this for what? So that a couple of dozen players can have a perfectly even winrate against each other.

Besides the vast majority of vindicares points are only really about ostheer (who is actually doing the best in 1v1 overall). OKW has a really good early game and light vehicles. Ostheers early game would mostly be fixed with making the 222 a little beefier.

I do not agree.

OKW does not lack early game power at all. The faction starts with a solid close combat unit and 80 extra manpower. The Kubel is the best back-capping unit in the game with its fast speed, fast capping speed, and it's ability to overcome RE troops and combat engineers that are generally used for capping. The first tech structure will always offer a light vehicle or light tank and offers a ton of free stuff including anti-mg/garrison grenades and anti-vehicle weapons. You have the choice between the more defensive T1 that includes free medics or the offensive T2 that can give you a fast Luchs. Medium tanks and Elite infantry follow up relatively fast. I do not see OKW getting dominated at all this patch; quite the contrary actually, I see them forcing a very narrow meta-game from the allied factions.

Ostheer I feel is in the same boat as the allies; i.e. meta or die. However, if you are getting dominated while using Ostruppen, Elite Troops, or Mechanized assault, you have only yourself to blame.

I'm not disagreeing with the fact that more aggressive factions do better in the hands of highly skilled players. But you yourself say that balance is in a good place, but then then talk about nerfing heavily factio dependent units like maxim and rifles. How do you plan on doing that without ruining balance. Every single unit's effectiveness in USF depends on rifles, and we have already seen what happened when they had weaker vet and maxim is the only reliable way to deal with infantry other then doctrinal elite infantry. Nerf these things and balance will crumble.

USF in particular would need to be rebuilt from the ground up to make them less reliant on rifles. And we are going to do all this for what? So that a couple of dozen players can have a perfectly even winrate against each other.

Besides the vast majority of vindicares points are only really about ostheer (who is actually doing the best in 1v1 overall). OKW has a really good early game and light vehicles. Ostheers early game would mostly be fixed with making the 222 a little beefier.

I don't know how to do it. I'm hoping the pros come up with a way. But insulting them and derailing the thread is not going to help that.



I agree about Ostheer. OKW is strong now, I don't think they need any buffs.


I would like to see less rifle blobs with double BARs. Or at least toned-down rifle blobs with BARs.

And change demos so they have a timer!!!1! Whoever saw Momo4sho's game vs Paula's Soviets will understand. It's so retarded.

Are we back to old thread about how maxims are OP with callins infatry (now its better for 1 reason coz get m5/t70 soviet can faster, but after adding USF in game and there light vehicle its not big problem imo, but dont need forger about map).
In hight top level every game have story (map, resp, moves with infatry, fighting positions, build orders and anothers). Maybe allies are more attacking factions if you use tham well, but the same i can say about axis (if you defend well its hard to break there line).
If top players are example how strong are factions, if i am not mistake in OCF final was only vermaht wins ? Its not good example or proof how strong are ostheer ? if you know how to use it.
We all know that allies stock units lose to axis stock units (not riflemans and some units from brits).

from what I remember Osttruppen get completely hardcountered by maxims

You remember wrong.

The games I have played of Osttruppen vs Soviet T2 have been some of the most imbalanced matches I have had in this game. Every game I have played against people foolish enough to open with T2 against my Osttruppen was over in 10 minutes. And every game I have tried to make it work the other way around ended in complete disaster.

I agree with OP.
Basicly, main problem with USF vs Ostheers is that murica has M20's which planting non doctrinal Riegel mines, has smoke, has better damage to snipers and it counters every harassment of axis on the map, isn't it? We could see it even in grand ESL final, where Jesulin's M20 survived whole game and countered every harras on the top/right hand side. Even if you sell him Faust, he just gonna get outside and use quickly repairs. That's why M20's are very powerful and somehow, its game breaking unit, because Ostheers couldn't deal with it until P4's arrives. The one counter is teller but you want to spend all your muni to mine when you grenadieres struggling to rifles?
Quickly repairs from muricas crews also should be removed, its completely broken because it forgives stupid non mine sweeping (and we lost the point of Riegels mines)
What's about very powerful Stuart? If you remember correctly, Jesulin just played it to stun every ensmys vehicle and then, two M1's did most the job. If we removed stun from Stugs, why it still is on M5's?
Next thing its browings spam. I mean those M1919, not the BAR's, its like double MG42's on grens.
Still USF has free powerfull tech. I mean free Bar with Thompson at 4th min or two zooks on capt aren't powerful?
Caliopes are a bit op.

Ok, now time for OKW.
Remove building respawn for Falshims and for Jagers (Falshims could be drop like Para's anyway), remove shreks from Volks and give something instead like double Panzerbushe? MP40's? I don't know. Remove 4th vet suppression on Obers, increase price of Kubel to 240/5, give non doctrinal MG's. And that's it here.

The Soviet problem is too powerful T-70 which counter every axis harras on the sides and should be somehow nerfed.

And that's why, axis have to fortify when they forcing against USF or Soviets, very powerful light vehicles which counter every axis harras on the map by even whole game (or until P4's arrived but it comes too late and still, it can't provide support on sides and can't counter those light vehicles because tons of mines etc).

And agree with that, ostruppen should be nerfed. Its should be cheap support infantry to cap territories and for recrewing support weapons, not for offensives or for replacement grenadieres.

I'd like to address to issue with Allied factions in 1v1 - particularly soviets and USF.

I wouldn't call them OP, per se, but they have noticeable advantages in the early game that can quickly allow them to snowball and heavily contain the germans from establishing any sort of foothold.

I'll quote myself from another post to explain:



TL, DR: Allies have early game advantage that puts the game in their initiative (a fact shown in their dominance in tournament games among high skilled players).

Is that a bad thing tho, we have always known ost have a weaker early game as a trade for a stronger late, makes them perhaps the hardest faction to play but doesnt make them weak.