Why Blobbing is so Prominent in Coh2

So I'm working on a mod and blobbing is one of the core issues that I want to address. Here is some of the causes and solutions that I have in mind.


Blobbing will always be a part of Company of Heroes, but it’s currently far more ubiquitous than it should be and in comparison to Coh1. Some players propose changes to artificially punish blobbing such as negative group zeal, but that doesn’t create any more decision making and strategy, that just prevents players for blobbing because of arbitrary modifier. Blobbing should have pros and cons like all other decisions in Coh2 but currently, the downsides to blobbing are vastly overshadowed by the pros due to a number of mechanics which prevent players from getting punished when they blob, combined with other aspects of Coh2 which discourage players from being active with individual squads.

These are what I think can be attributed to the prevalence of blobbing:

Forward Retreat Points drastically reduce the time it takes for squads to get back on the field after being forced to retreat. So if you are forced to retreat your entire blob by getting suppressed by a machine gun, you’re not as punished as you should be. Without forward retreat points, mass retreats would be more punishing and players would be encouraged to use individual squads more instead of blindly blobbing around the map.

Light Machine Guns require no micro or effort to use; instead of taking cover, distancing and positioning tactically, LMG’s are ideally used by just attack moving. Why bother with intricate control of your squads when you get almost the same result from effortlessly attack moving. Furthermore, the long range combined with the high single target burst of LMG’s often allows infantry blobs to decrew HMG Gunners before the blob can be suppressed, even despite waking into the firing arc. Replacing LMG’s with more dynamic weapons would punish players that just blob and attack move instead of tactically controlling their squads as well as making HMG teams more reliable.

Demolition Charges ironically encourage blobbing; the constant threat of instantly losing a full squad means it’s never safe to send a lone squad out to cap against Soviets without the safety of being escorted by a minesweeper. Instead, players can be forced to blob cap only around their minesweeper, especially in the late game when the loss of vetted squads is so punishing. Demo Charges only counter blobs if your opponent is foolish enough to neglect sweepers. If Demos are only plantable on buildings and bridges then they would still serve a tactical purpose, but without discouraging players from lone capping.

Light Vehicles encourage blobbing for mostly the same reasons as Demos. The insane potency of Light Vehicles creates such a squad wipe potential which makes it too risky to send lone squads out to cap, especially aggressively after cutoffs or to neutralise high value points in enemy territory. The risk/reward element of aggressive capping is an inherent part of Company of Heroes, but Light Vehicles skew that to a completely different level. With the anti infantry capacity on light vehicles toned down, players would be able to cap out more actively with lone squads instead of only doing so with the support of AT.

Support Weapons and AT Guns being able to capture points results in infantry blobs being free to roam around forcing retreats instead of splitting up to capture resource points. Due to their long range, support weapons and AT guns are often able to support the infantry blobs in combat even whilst capturing points. If Support Weapons and AT guns are unable to capture or capture at a slower speed than infantry, it will force players to manage their map presence more efficiently and split up blobs to capture points.

The Inaccessibility of Support Weapons resulting from Non-Linear Teching leaves players without access to the tools they need to tactically respond to a given situation or army composition. The investment required to side tech for a specific unit is often too much, leaving players with no choice but to blob their way out of trouble. Non-linear teching can be a marketing buzzword thrown around in RTS design to give the illusion of strategic flexibility when it is often detrimental and causes players to lose access to crucial units and abilities. Some RTS games such as StarCraft implement non-linear teching fantastically, but in my opinion, Coh2 does not. Making support units more accessible not only gives players alternatives to blobbing, but also ensures blob counters are readily available.

Grenades allow infantry squads to wipe support teams very easily due to their pinpoint accuracy. If heavy machine gun teams take cover they clump up and are left vulnerable to being instantly wiped by a single grenade, this makes relying on HMG teams against blobs of infantry incredibly dangerous which goes against their intended role.

Grenades in Coh2 also don’t perform a blob counter role due to their small AOE leaving them easy to dodge and not powerful since infantry typically don’t clump whilst moving out in the open. I’m not sure what my ideal implementation of grenades in Coh2 would be, I could give them scatter in exchange for a much bigger AOE to make them devastating against infantry hordes but less consistent against machine gun teams. This is a difficult issue because it’s a symptom of the bigger problem, squad clumping, and it still leaves HMG too vulnerable to other types of explosives. Perhaps I could make light cover grant a received damage bonus in exchange for less received accuracy, so that it offers the same performance against small arms fire but more of a protection against explosives.

If anyone has anything to add or possible solutions than please mention them.
Cheers.

Should we consider WWII American/British landing on Normandy beaches blobbing?
Should we consider Operation Market Garden blobbing?

Before analyzing game mechanisms that potentially help your vision of blobbing, it would be great to give us a definition of Blobbing. Cuz I'm pretty sure yours is different from mine, different other ones.

biggest reason blobbing is so effective is that machine guns don't suppress. Late game, you can have a blobber blob his stuff through yellow cover and not get suppressed.

biggest reason blobbing is so effective is that machine guns don't suppress. Late game, you can have a blobber blob his stuff through yellow cover and not get suppressed.

I think the suppression that HMG's output is fine, but as I'm arguing here, the unreliability of them stems from how easily the gunner can be decrewed (not always just because of LMG's) and how easily they are wiped by explosives due to clumping.

1)Increase cost for reinforcing ? 10-20% or so
2)Price increase so not all squads end up equipped with a-move weapons, would also force you to use your few units more efficiently
4)VindicareX already made a thread about it
5)Good idea
7)Grenades with bigger AOE, scatter and yellow cover dmg reduction

+1

Double aoe halve the damage of all explosive and mortar =no more random wipe at full health, and make spacing unit rewarding

If infantry heavy army compositions are nerfed, wouldn't this game just be about team weapons and tanks? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Most of this is pretty good; I'm a bit wary of changing LMGs, simply due to how it may further promote camping, but the rest is pretty much right.

That said, I still think negative zeal/increased AoE suppression (no increase vs. single target, but scaling vs. multiple) is the easiest and possibly best solution. I just don't see why or how blobbing should stay in the game, it goes against the core design (micro, maneuvering, mobility, etc.) to such a degree that it just shouldn't be viable.

You're typically viewing this from a competitive standpoint tho.

But I totally agree about the support weapons thing.

An Army should have core Army features such as a mobile in-direct fire support unit (something which the Brits lack non-doctrinally), a good MG/suppression platform (MG34 and Maxim to some extent come to mind) and so forth.

Most of this is pretty good; I'm a bit wary of changing LMGs, simply due to how it may further promote camping, but the rest is pretty much right.

That said, I still think negative zeal/increased AoE suppression (no increase vs. single target, but scaling vs. multiple) is the easiest and possibly best solution. I just don't see why or how blobbing should stay in the game, it goes against the core design (micro, maneuvering, mobility, etc.) to such a degree that it just shouldn't be viable.

I don't like the idea of negative zeal because it seems so artificial and visually unintuitive, but increased AoE suppression is something I'll perhaps play around with.

I think the suppression that HMG's output is fine, but as I'm arguing here, the unreliability of them stems from how easily the gunner can be decrewed (not always just because of LMG's) and how easily they are wiped by explosives due to clumping.

honestly, if you compare it to coh1 (where blobbing was less prominent, especially in the USF vs WM matchup) the mgs supress and pin much slower and in a much smaller radius. if you tried to run at an mg42 with a rifleman, it got absolutely murdered. in coh2, not so much.

second of all, your point about grenades irritates me a little
a) they are too strong against mgs
b) they are too weak
again, lets take vcoh: nades were MUCH stronger there, a us nade ALWAYS killed an mg for example. the thing is, you cant make nades that strong in coh2, as input lag sometimes prevents you from being able to move.
still, nades should be stronger. together with a buff to hmgs, it should be good (on a sidenote: if one buffs the vickers supression, its range in houses would need a nerf. even if not, it still needs a house range nerf. sitting in a house and countering the counter to units in houses (sniper) is just ridculous)

I don't like the idea of negative zeal because it seems so artificial and visually unintuitive, but increased AoE suppression is something I'll perhaps play around with.

While it does seem a bit fake or unintuitive, there's a lot of things in COH2 that work like that. For example, iirc at close range some weapons ignore cover bonuses, and its literally never mentioned in game nor is there an icon for it.

Sometimes gameplay needs to use artificial mechanics to work better, and I think this is one of those things. Blobbing is just so rampant and detracts from the core design so much that I think anything that could stop it should be used.

That said, it doesn't need to be counter-intuitive. When units get close enough together to apply negative zeal, there could be an icon displayed (similar to the cover icon) indicating the negative effects are active. Also, it does make sense for a 'realistic' standpoint; one model is going to have an easy time firing at targets and getting to cover, 15 models in the same area will just be in the way of each other.

Emphasize cover, thereby rewarding positioning, and microing attacks again.

Good points, agree on most of them. however -

Blobbing will always be a part of Company of Heroes, but it’s currently far more ubiquitous than it should be and in comparison to Coh1. Some players propose changes to artificially punish blobbing such as negative group zeal, but that doesn’t create any more decision making and strategy, that just prevents players for blobbing because of arbitrary modifier. Blobbing should have pros and cons like all other decisions in Coh2 but currently, the downsides to blobbing are vastly overshadowed by the pros due to a number of mechanics which prevent players from getting punished when they blob, combined with other aspects of Coh2 which discourage players from being active with individual squads.

Just so you know, there's already an arbritrary modifier that (kind of) reduces blobbing - the Tommy section cover bonus. Tommies being abysmal at firing on the move, along with bren lmgs not being as effective if not in cover means that Tommies can't a-move blob effectively. Overlooking this while dispelling the idea of negative zeal is just silly.

Light Machine Guns require no micro or effort to use; instead of taking cover, distancing and positioning tactically, LMG’s are ideally used by just attack moving. Why bother with intricate control of your squads when you get almost the same result from effortlessly attack moving. Furthermore, the long range combined with the high single target burst of LMG’s often allows infantry blobs to decrew HMG Gunners before the blob can be suppressed, even despite waking into the firing arc. Replacing LMG’s with more dynamic weapons would punish players that just blob and attack move instead of tactically controlling their squads as well as making HMG teams more reliable.

I don't think LMGs can be downright replaced/removed since, y'know, they were a big part of the whole war and all, and coh2 being a ww2 game and all that. However I agree that lmg blobs are cancerous af, and lmgs themselves need some kind of adjustment to them. Like maybe a drastic reduction of aim time if out of cover, or somethin

Perhaps I could make light cover grant a received damage bonus in exchange for less received accuracy, so that it offers the same performance against small arms fire but more of a protection against explosives.

This would be very nice to have. Less RNG wipes to random explosive shots is always, always appreciated.

That said, I'm looking forward to the mod

For squad weapons I think the real fault lies in the lack of diversity you get in them. It's pretty much lmgs or bust for every faction. If you are playing USF and you pick a commander with lmgs, are you ever going to tech bars and use both? No, you are going to kit all your troops with identical lmgs and all your units become the same. That's the big problem, units become too similar and all share the same role. With different weapon options given to mainline infantry it is much less beneficial to keep them all together at the same optimal range, it forces you to spread out to be effective.

If there are more options that are balanced for each faction, like g43s vs lmg 42s on grens, the tactics required become much deeper. They would need to add alternatives to the brens and the bars/m1919s, and make it possible and necessary to use them all. They also need to be possible regardless of commander.

What I would like to see is g43s made non doctrinal on grens, (weaker) thompsons added in a weapon rack to USF, non doctrinal m1919s, and once weapons are teched they all become available. These would need to be balanced around each other to favor short, medium, and long range respectively much more. Brits also need something besides brens as an optoin as well, but I see the USF tweaks as the simplest without adding new stuff to the game. If these get balanced well you will see much more diverse infantry combat, even though they are all technically the same units. Their roles should vary much more between squads.

Think about the PE, where it was viable to get g43s, stgs, or schrecks, and one wasn't clearly superior to the others, and you would use them in conjunction. Hopefully without the other crappy PE blobbing mechanics this time.

See Blob, make three MGs, everyone is dancing on the floor.

I don't think blobbing is as bad as it used to be. The only faction it is still a big issue with is USF, who aren't fazed by MGs due to their smokes, long range damage, and the slow reaction of the MG42 unless the target comes straight into the front of its arc.

There are 3 things which could easily destroy blobing:

1) Changing bullet mechanic. Right now bullet can hit only members of the squad which are being attacked by other squad. Bullet works like - hit or miss.

Macking bullets as entities which would be able to hit models even from different squad could easily make blob much less effective.

2) De-buffed group zeal. Pretty much like PE thing from vCoH, but upside down. When blobed, exp spread across all squads which are blobed. This would make blobs take MUCH more time time to vet up.

3) Increased rec-accuratcy when blobed. Thats simple.

Grenades allow infantry squads to wipe support teams very easily due to their pinpoint accuracy. If heavy machine gun teams take cover they clump up and are left vulnerable to being instantly wiped by a single grenade, this makes relying on HMG teams against blobs of infantry incredibly dangerous which goes against their intended role.

How is that a bad thing?
Unless you mean throwing grenades from a plain HMG facing blob, in which case the solution would be to make blob much more vulnerable to suppression.

Demolition Charges ironically encourage blobbing; the constant threat of instantly losing a full squad means it’s never safe to send a lone squad out to cap against Soviets without the safety of being escorted by a minesweeper. Instead, players can be forced to blob cap only around their minesweeper, especially in the late game when the loss of vetted squads is so punishing. Demo Charges only counter blobs if your opponent is foolish enough to neglect sweepers. If Demos are only plantable on buildings and bridges then they would still serve a tactical purpose, but without discouraging players from lone capping.

We may not have the same definition of blobbing, but having your minesweeper with a regular infantry unit, isn't what I call blob.
Demo on capping point isn't something you just spam, and get a complete success rate everytime you plant one.
Demo charges offer various tactical possibilities, limiting it to buildings only is going to make it so boring and predictable, and instead of not being prompt to capture a point, you will just discard every garrison until you minesweep it.

Other than that I pretty much agree with LMGs and the current light vehicle meta, some changes are needed here, not only to fix blobbing either way.

I think a lot of burst fire weapons have 'focus fire' set to 'true'. I could be wrong though.

But focus firing burst fire weapons will hit (or miss) only the targeted squads entities. This can make focus firing very effective. I'll have to check that next time I have time off from work.