Thoughts on unit diversity - especially Soviet

I’ve been reading these forums since open beta but since the game has only just been released, I thought I’d wait til after the first patch before I made any judgements on balance.

In terms of background, I’m a reasonably competitive RTS player, definitely not top tier, but decent (possibly declining with age), and have been playing RTS games (on and off) since Total Annihilation and the original Starcraft.

Having played a hundred or so automatches with both factions Vs players (probably 50% 1v1), one of the biggest things I’ve noticed is that there are a lot more players queuing as German than Soviet. It’s not rocket science that this is because of opel blitz being OP in team games, and JU-87 strafing run being OP period…. Before a critical mass of players reached level 45, and during the beta when the commander in question was disabled, the queue ratios were a lot more balanced (still slightly more german on average, but 55-45 not 70-30). Anyway, all of this is old news, and being addressed next patch, wailing and gnashing of teeth won’t bring it any closer.

The problem inherent with soviet teching

What probably won’t change with the next patch, but I do think needs to be looked at, is the other element that makes soviet rather dull to play at a competitive level – being forced into 2 buildings, and forfeiting the opportunity to build half your units. I understand the design concept, and differentiating soviet from german teching, but really strategic diversity is the meat and potatoes of any RTS, and I think the choices and opportunity costs of the soviet two-tier system heavily favour spamming over unit (and in turn strategic) diversity.

I guess the issue is mitigated somewhat in 3v3 or 4v4 team games because 2-3 players can go SU-85s to take on panther/Pz4 while 1 goes T34 for ram to shut down heavies, but in 1v1 and 2v2 you hardly see soviet T3. And even if you did, it’s at the expense of not seeing T4 (and usually a loss unless you get your T70 out fast and take most of the map with it).

Consider – what if soviet building cost was halved and build time reduced by 25-33%, but each tier made a pre-requisite for the next? Then maybe we’d get to see the interplay of T34s AND SU85s in the same game (T34 buffing and SU-85 nerfing notwithstanding). A very early M3A1 could be problematic maybe? I just think having access to all the soviet roster instead of choosing which half you want would be much better for variety. Or am I missing something?

I’ve also compiled a list of other balance suggestions which I think need to be addressed to make more units and commanders see play (many of these have already been suggested):

Pioneers vs Combat Engineers
Pios beat Combat Engis close, the CE win at long range, and probably have the slight upper hand at mid-range. Maybe slight advantage CE, but then the pioneers MP40s tend to mesh better with the flamethrower upgrade than the CE rifles. I’d say they’re pretty even, so I don’t see why CE cost 40 MP more?

German Mines
German mines kinda blow, or rather they don’t, because no one builds them. They are just too expensive for what they do unless you’re already floating munitions - which is rare as german - and the S-minefield, over and above its cost, takes too long to build. I do like the drag and drop S-minefield idea someone came up with, but I think that'd be a pretty big overhaul for the programmers, versus making a single light mine similar to soviets, or just keeping existing german mines but lowering costs of both to 50 munis or so.

Penal Battalion
Penal battalion needs to be made viable, their combat ability is somewhere in between grenadier/conscript and PGs, and should be priced accordingly. 320 MP and slightly cheaper reinforce should make them see more play (satchels can be devastating if used well).

Support Weapons
The two factions look a lot more balanced now. Prior to the patch, maxim spam was flat out ruining the game, and imo worse than clown car spam simply because it could be accomplished with a lot less micro. I also think the 120mm mortar nerf was justified. German 4 man crews are markedly less flimsy, which was needed, but I don’t think the soviet 82mm nerf was necessary, particularly in light of the double buff to german mortar. Jury still out on the 4-man HMG42.

T-34/76
T-34/76 could use a bit more AT punch, a bit less AI punch, and a bit more armor to differentiate it further from the T70, and make it put up more of a fight against the Pz4. I think in this format, it would also need to cost slightly more as well (though still less than the Pz4, as it would still lose to Pz4 head to head). And as a few people have said, make ram a vet 1 ability, or cost a good chunk of munitions, so its seen less often. It’s pretty tacky seeing the workhorse of the soviet army being used as nothing other than a battering ram.

Stug III
Increase range to 60 to make it a dedicated tank destroyer and actually see some use. Stug should be the slightly cheaper, inferior SU85 where the T34 is the slightly cheaper, inferior Pz4.

Panzer 4
Nerf the fire rate of its main cannon slightly (like 10-15%) and make it slightly more expensive (maybe 360 MP / 130 fuel).

Brummbar
Way too expensive for what it does. Currently the ostwind kills infantry just as fast (albeit less initial burst), is way more mobile, a tech tier lower, and much cheaper. Might not be historically accurate, but I’d think increasing range and fire rate in conjunction with a slight cost decrease (470/150ish) would all be needed to make the brummbar see any use at all. It should be the poor man's ISU-152, instead its just outclassed by ostwind and KV-8 which cost 320/115 and 370/135 respectively.

SU-85
Same deal as Panzer 4, too effective for its cost. If T-34 was buffed, Su-85 could be fixed simply by lowering its reverse speed, reducing splash vs infantry and making a bit more expensive (360/130 or so, similar to Pz4 price).

Heavy Tanks
In their current iterations, I think pricing along these lines would be more appropriate to balance bang-for-buck against non-doctrinal tanks:

IS-2 520/220 (sure it is a good meatshield tank with strong AI, but all told I think this is the least useful heavy, why is it most expensive??)
Tiger 540/225 (good generalist heavy tank, slightly overpriced currently)
Elefant 580/240 (best AT in the game, could be a bit cheaper)
ISU-152 600/250 (not as sturdy as the Elefant, but long range anti-everything, definitely the best overall heavy imo).

Obviously there is a personal bias in all of these suggestions, and most are not new, but I think taken in conjunction they would make for a COH2 in which more unit combinations would see play, increasing the longevity and fun factor of the game. Any thoughts / discussion would be great (especially on the soviet tech tier situation).

i dont know about your teching change for sovjets; it seems solid but it also mirrors the germans.
Good list of units you listed there, only thing I find missing is the su 76. That thing is only useful for its barrage. armour is terrible.

And quick note about Heavy tanks. PQ said on stream that they probably wont change the costs of heeavy tanks, they will only change the performance. So i guess most of them will get buffs

I support Riggsen proposition

Good list of units you listed there, only thing I find missing is the su 76. That thing is only useful for its barrage. armour is terrible

Well SU-76 is pretty useful against light vehicles, its awesome support weapon, it takes out crew weapons nicely , it costs 55 fuel what u expect?
Imo its great i always use it as soviet when going tier 4
Cheers

Penal Battalion
Penal battalion needs to be made viable, their combat ability is somewhere in between grenadier/conscript and PGs, and should be priced accordingly. 320 MP and slightly cheaper reinforce should make them see more play (satchels can be devastating if used well).

The problem with Penals, is that it takes roughly 1 minute and 55 seconds to get THE VERY FIRST Penal, if you go with straight T1 building, then build it. By that time, you could have had 2 Conscripts and def. Engineer already out on the field.

Penals are actually quite good. They pack quite a punch in ranged, and demolition satchel is no joke, they're quite linear in their overall utility, but their anti-infantry + gib potential makes them quite a fierce unit if you utilize them.

I would however, in order to make them more viable adjust them accordingly;

- Penal Battalion build time reduced quite significantly. (They have quite a ridicilously long build time)

Outcome: Increases the map prescence to allow them to get back in the ham faster.

Penal Batallino could also for what it's worth, cap slighly faster, making them an offset of early-game disadvantage if you go for them in the early-stages of the game, but more potent in snowballing the map in their favor as the game progresses.

There's really several ways, but I don't think there's a need for a really significant "big performance" change overall, it's more along the niché of their overall utility. The downside is really the really long build time in order to acquire them. Most regular infantry have either a fast build time (Concs, etc), or instant impact performance. (Call-ins)

I dont agree with just about anything in OP.

@Caeltos and with what can germans counter early penals? With cookies+milk strat... havent rly tried that tbh
Srsly if penals were stronger+cheaper i dont see any way of countering them, sniper is 360 and has slow ROF , and dies quickly if seen by penals
Srsly soviets dont need more early strong units , how about early penals + shocks , make shocks 400mp right?

@Caeltos and with what can germans counter early penals? With cookies+milk strat... havent rly tried that tbh
Srsly if penals were stronger+cheaper i dont see any way of countering them, sniper is 360 and has slow ROF , and dies quickly if seen by penals
Srsly soviets dont need more early strong units , how about early penals + shocks , make shocks 400mp right?

That's why I don't think they need any real combat effiency improvements. I'd prefer subtle and outside the box stuff that makes them more accessible and more viable. Penals are still afterall 360 manpower, and getting several in the early-game puts you down quite heavily on the overall "large" army composition. A MG42 can lock them down, Grenadiers with MG42s will outscale the Penals, and well, there's a good chunk of stuff that makes Penals quite easy to cope with.

If you make the investment, and let's just theorycraft on this for the sake of it, to just demonstrate the manpower cost/effiency.

2x Penals + 1 engineer (This will be a rough 5-minute unit composition or so) // 3 units
VS
1x Pioneer, 2x Grenadier + 1 MG

Grenadier, 240x3 = 720 , 2x Penals are 720 manpower. 3x units of 240 will outshine a 2x of 720 MP investment, at least in terms of overall map control. (The Pioneer/Engineer are def. ones)

Penals are more straight up skirmishers, whereas the 3x units can give you the extra unit to attend to obtaining map control, yet the Gren/MG can deal with 2x Penals. (Disregarding a flanking manuever for the sake of it) which makes maintaining map control with Penal oriented builds, quite the big obstacle for it's performance, and map control is absolutely essential to ensure your transitions do well, esp. with Soviets who have the map control as a big factor for their snowballing performance. Alof of the things I've paid notice to is that Soviets will generally have great timings for their T70s, and other misc. t3/t4 stuff that makes the Ostheer struggle. If the Ostheer is ahead, or on par - the soviet is going to have a bad time.

If Penals can just ease out some of it's issues they present when incorpating them into builds. I'm sure there might be abit of more of an influx to get them. For when I'm playing 2s/3s/4s, Penals aren't really that bad of a unit to get, but it's important that not everyone commits to them, since you're goin to lose the early map control, and you'll have have a bad time in the early-mid stage of the game, unless you're brutally lucky. But again, 2s/3s/4s have less significant impact on overall map control (To some degree), since there's less restrain on moving around the units (unless certain points need defending etc), so you have the option to commit to actual skirmishes. In 1s, the issue with the build become more clear, since the overall timing/effiency and map control all play a much bigger part, and Penals for the most part don't quite cut it.

However, with just a food for thought, if the build time is reduced for the Penals, or misc. side-note changes. You can get a faster-scout car to help out with the map control issue, just to throw some food for thought here again

* Reduce Build time on Penals from X to Y *
* Next Investment can be made to M3 Scout Car* <- You'll most likely always have the money and time to commit to this after the initial Penal Investment *

^ Global change; Penals hit the field faster , but so does the Scout Car in return. None changes are applied to the Scout Car, yet the Scout Car performance/timing has been changed due to a indirect change on a builds overall performance. Increasing the versatility of diff. army compositions.

Pardon my misinterpretation i was thinking u were in for cost decrease, i honestly havent made them ever? maybe...i guess based on argument which is pretty acceptable it does deserve build time decrease , i agree on your propositions!
Cheers

I disagree about the Soviet to German ratio. People play German because they look cooler and the aura of playing for the Evil Empire. I don't play Soviets because I dont want to look at let alone control, men in puke colored uniforms,cheap egg shell helmets, dark green heavy weapons and all sound like count Dracula.. If you want more people to play Soviets, embellish them and make them look and sound bad ass

Maybe Penal battalions should get tattoos and take cig breaks when idle . Maybe steal something from a house when they are passing by I don't know, but Soviet aint sexy.

Hm dunno about that , I prefer germans cuz of their diversity, u have at least 3 buildings and can require everything u need , and ofc combined arms wins u the game, while soviets can stay in game with 3 unit types and get to SU-85 and end game in that way (to have aditional units available u have to tech down, me dislike that)

With only 2 types of combat inf, mediocre support units(compared to counterparts and cost to actual killing ability)

a useless at gun,

1 decent battle tank (Panzer 4),

1 decent and expensive anti armor tank (Panther).

A massive and great heavy tank (Elefant) but so expensive no one buys it unless they already have won the game.

A Heavy tank that isn't worth half of it's cost. ( Why anyone buys a Tiger when a panther is more cost efficient is beyond me)

I feel like I have an army that falls short and constricted by shortfalls and lack of options. I'd rather have the old wehrmacht back, then the rag tag bunch units we have now. There are just so many gaps, that they don't feel like an army that was prepared,equipped and trained.

First off, thanks for the replies, even those who disagree.

While I have seen a few trolls in other threads, the community here seems a lot more mature on the whole than on the official site. Kudos.

@ Sarantini: Yes the proposed soviet tech would mirror the germans, you just don't research the tiers at HQ. Like I said, I understand the flavour of the current soviet system, but the reality is you choose 2 of your 4 buildings at the expense of the other two, it's too limiting (just my personal opinion). You might like that flavour, I don't particularly like not being able to back-tech, or having only half my units on call each game. I wouldn't mind if the heavies got buffed instead of made cheaper, though at their current prices they would hardly see play in 1v1 and 2v2, which I guess is ok if the trade-off was being less spammy in 3v3 and 4v4 (assuming they become cost efficient with these buffs). Interesting. SU-76 is a hard one, they're good barrage and light vehicle support, but don't really have a niche, yet you can't really make them any cheaper as I don't think they are ineffective for cost.

@Caeltos: Penals do take too long to build, and I agree, they are not terrible, but for cost their only niche is building clearance and they need flamer upgrade to go toe-to-toe with PGs, which cost the same MP. Satchels really are very good though, I've taken out an engine damaged half health P4 with one, but obviously that is extremely situational. Interesting to see what happens with them, but they're definitely underused, I do like your suggestion

@VonMecha: While I don't doubt that evil empire and cool toys are a factor for German preference, I think they're pretty small factors compared to the critical mass of people hitting level 45 and jumping on the opel & strafe bandwagon. Since a fair few from open beta like myself were already level 40 this sadly only took a couple of days. The open beta queue balance was pretty good iirc? Vcoh Wehrmacht was my favourite faction, but since the patch I think ostheer units are all viable save Stug and Brummbar. I even like the german sniper, just don't rate my micro enough to use him often.

Agree with most of the Stats of OP

For Stug:
I personally like to see stug back to 75 fuel and keep what it is, a spammable AT weapon with acceptable AI capabilities(especially the MG turret gunner has been far more effective then what is was in vCOH)
A spendable AT counter which is nice and add a little bit authentic, and a decent soft-counter T-34 spam( after T-34 buff...)

For elefant:
It is a beastly tank with beastly gun, but remember, it has 320damage/hit, which is the highest damage output in the game, 320damage/hit with 8.55 reload and 170 pen for a 100m maxim range gun with 400 frontal armor, this unit is potentially very very overpowered if it get's such high price reduction.

I'd like to see both ISU-152 and elefant range dropped from 100m to 80~90, and damage reduction from 320 to 200 and rise ROF a little for elefant.


BTW, the conesight+spotter combo of elefant is little bit too effective

Yeah I'd be equally happy to see the Stug a bit more spammable, vs giving it more range. Whatever helps it see play without being overpowered, same with T34.

I'd be ok with ISU and Elefant dropping a bit of range, not sure on the dmg change in addition. Agree on cone + scope being a bit much also. Kind of a moot point for now, since as someone said earlier one of the devs said they're buffing heavies but won't drop price.... As long as IS-2 and Tiger get more of the buffs then I guess that works too.

I disagree about the Soviet to German ratio. People play German because they look cooler and the aura of playing for the Evil Empire. I don't play Soviets because I dont want to look at let alone control, men in puke colored uniforms,cheap egg shell helmets, dark green heavy weapons and all sound like count Dracula.. If you want more people to play Soviets, embellish them and make them look and sound bad ass

Maybe Penal battalions should get tattoos and take cig breaks when idle . Maybe steal something from a house when they are passing by I don't know, but Soviet aint sexy.

Lmao, this is actually very true. I like Axis playstyle, I used to play both Axis and US in vCOH days. This time around I tried the Russkies and they felt so plain and booring.