Overall Gameplay Balance vs Unit Balance

Powercreep. Specifically referring to Western Front Armies and the Brits. FRPs, better repair, double lmgs/weapon racks, etc.

To be more specific, I want to know what people believe to be the biggest flaws of COH2 - with special regards to what makes COH2 less competetive of an RTS.

I'd argue that it's less of the gameplay/balance's fault it's less competitive, but rather it's all the stupid bugs, p2w dlcs, and laughable optimization that it's all had in the past that turned people off.

+1

i disagree on the call-in part... it's not uncommon for an OST player who is behind to pick mechanized assault, stop at tier 2, and just wait behind pak wall for tigers. had to kill 3 the other day in one match (i let it go on way too long, but i digress). it'd be great to see call-ins tied to tech... that way it's more a "finisher" and less of an instant card to get back in a game you have no right to be in. especially because the timing of some is awkward and so immediately results in a game imbalance (i.e. stug-e call-ins can happen during a generally infantry-only fight... and it's not uncommon for players to pump out two immediately, which is very hard to counter with USF or UKF mid-game).

As you noticed, "who is behind". If you are not behind, you don't want to waste commander just for Stug E if you can go for P4

USF can respond with M10 easily or AT Guns.
As for UKF, 6 poinder is the only way most of the time.

If we tied all call ins to tech, gameplay would lose most of epic moments.

I'm playing Ost 90% of the times for the last 2 weeks and this has been literally a non issue, if you actually move your squads and don't be a retarded slowpoke you can keep your squads alive.

Worst case scenario a mortar hit your squad and you have to retreat to heal.

but yeah, mortars are super annoying early game, one lucky hit and you have a low health squad. what relic should do is make them like in vcoh, less damage but have a supression hit.

a random wipe is when unit in yellow cover full healt get wiped by mortar, when you move away from green cover cause mortar is pounding you and still your squad get it ,when a tank turn the angle and one shoot full squad with one shell cause green cover means nothing (160/2=80)
Now do you understand?

I think that the biggest thing holding CoH2 back is that balance tends to be narrowly focused with an eye to fixing whatever the current meta is without any consideration of why it is the way it is or the long-term consequences of changing it.

Take the old heavy tank meta for example. Matches used to end by who could spam Tigers/IS-2s better because both tanks outclassed anything their respective factions could field. They simply weren't designed to properly require combined arms and instead of balancing them to fit their respective factions they were limited to one per player and buffed to become super-units while the real issue with heavy tanks and CoH2's fundamental flaw went unaddressed: the game is balanced around timings and phases rather than armies and units.

This post by a very good player is a good example of what I'm talking about:

The biggest problem, for me, is the light-vech meta. The meta demands you rush out a light vech or get crushed. Why? Well, light vechs do quite a few roles:

1.) They control the battlefield - with the mobility of light vechs, they can easily zip across the battlefield and control any harassing/solo capping unit. Because this can often end up in a wiped squad for the receiving player, it's generally better to concentrate 100% of your forces to 1 area just at the threat of a light vech and to play more effeciently since that 1 capping squad will no longer be viable.

2.) They deal a lot of anti-infantry damage - this mostly pertains to the T70 and the Stuart - the luchs and AEC deal some AI damage, but are not as big as offenders as the former. Because of this, it can often be useful to keep these units on the back line and plink away with a rapid fire rate at infantry lines and deal significant damage before return fire can even be attempted by AT guns. So light vechs also act as a mobile gun platform meant to mow down infantry.

3.) Utility vs vehicles - Most light vechs have some penetrations vs other tanks - making dedicated tank destroyers like the puma even weaker vs it's intended unit to counter. As such, not only do T70, Stuart, and AEC have pretty good infantry-killing abilities, but can also go toe-to-toe with other vehicles (even medium tanks).

IMO, smart light-vech design should have their roles limited to harassing units or a fragile mobile gun (like the flak halftrack for OKW is now). They should not fill all 3 of these categories at their cost.
What does this mean?
Well, it means T70, if it wants to keep its movement, repair, and ability to help penetrate tanks, should not be dealing significant damage to infantry (something more like the AEC). It should be a unit that can eventually force off a squad, but not force an instant retreat from the other play and punish him very hard if there's not AT nearby (why solo units suck vs Allies).

Light-vechs, as they are now, are a no-brainer, anti-everything unit making them an easy choice to put into any strategy.

Additionally, they promote lazy, non-competitive gameplay as their rapid rate of fire means they can easily A-move around the field and score a lot of kills with the click of the button. This is in contrast to infantry micro, which requires smart positioning and unit pairings (i.e. Gren at long range vs conscripts) to play effectively. Light vechs like the T70 and Stuart generally dominate the field at first sight.

VindicareX is correct that light vehicles are currently a bit of a mess balance-wise but doesn't understand (or at least write about) how it got to this state. The current problem with light vehicles is that they're balanced for the mid-game light vehicle phase rather than being balanced to be a viable option all game.

What do I mean by this? Light vehicles must be overwhelmingly powerful during the light vehicle phase to justify the resources spent on teching and building them since they become obsolete late-game. This is modified by utility in a few cases (222 and UC AA, M5 and 251 field reinforcement, etc.) but the fragility of the Stuart, AEC, and T-70 mean that buying a new one during late-game is often a waste of resources. Compare this to the Puma. 50 range means that the Puma can do damage in late-game without needing to worry as much about the proliferation of enemy AT weapons.

In short, the solution to the light vehicle meta is to balance units both for their initial arrival and to give them a place in a late-game army. Infantry are already fairly balanced all game (ignoring certain weapon upgrades) but vehicles and AT weapons are generally not.

The earlier a vehicle arrives, the less health and armour it should have to make countering it easier within the early lack of options. By the same token, it should have a low target size (< current 15-18), lesser lethality, higher mobility and lower cost so tanks and AT guns don't make it completely obsolete in late-game and it doesn't dominate the mid-game.

Balancing AT weapons is similar. The later a weapon arrives, the more damage and penetration it has and the more it costs. Earlier AT weapons are more accurate and mobile to make it easier to hit but don't do enough damage to destroy a light vehicle instantly.

Picking a random example, the Ostwind should be more mobile, cheaper, and harder to hit than the Brumbarr but have slightly lowered lethality and less durability when actually hit. Currently the Ostwind is significantly less lethal than the Brumbarr and has exactly the same target size but all the other factors hold making the Ostwind generally less useful than the Brumbarr.

When units are balanced along these lines a player can choose the specific type of unit to counter an opponent's army instead of choosing whichever comes from the highest tech level. Against light vehicles you would choose light AT guns, infantry AT, and light tank destroyers (Puma, SU-76, etc.) while heavy vehicles would encourage heavy tank destroyers, AT guns, and AT emplacements to fight frontally but heavy units would have difficulty fighting a flanking force of light vehicles due to weapon and vehicle rotation, fire rates, and harder to hit targets.

this is a non-issue, either l2p or give up.



what do you mean by that? the wooden houses that die with 2 grenades? yeah, that is kinda of stupid

You certainly dont know what im talking about first analyze what i mean by squad spacing then go with your l2p rants.

a random wipe is when unit in yellow cover full healt get wiped by mortar, when you move away from green cover cause mortar is pounding you and still your squad get it ,when a tank turn the angle and one shoot full squad with one shell cause green cover means nothing (160/2=80)
Now do you understand?

only thing I understand is that you need to l2p.

And if a squad get wiped, so what? make another one. Especially axis infantry that can vet super fast anyway.

And if a squad get wiped, so what? make another one. Especially axis infantry that can vet super fast anyway.

Exactly how do they vet super fast and what's your evidence? Everyone vets fast shooting at higher vetted squads if they survive and Axis values are about on-par with their cost like most other units. Furthermore, it also depends what the squad is shooting at. Grenadiers vet up slower when shooting Conscripts as their models are worth less in terms of xp compared to Tommies and Rifles who in return, shoot at more expensive Grens or less expensive Volks.

And losing a full squad early-mid game is bad for everyone. You can't simply say build another one without looking at how it delays other units, ability to deal with pressure, map control, etc.

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I would like to be wrong but we are beyond the point on which we can rebalance/tweak the whole ecosystem of units timing and performance.

As you say, the problem with light v./tanks is that if they are not good enough, then they are useless as they have a limited timing to do something. If you are not effective with them, the fuel cost to tech or produce them puts you behind.
Early game:
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Early/mid game light vehicles n tanks tend to have certain utility which might make them more attractive but still not enough to rebuilt them past certain stage.
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So we get to the following points:

"IF we go with the premise that we do reduce their AI perfomance" what do we do with them:

A)Light v./tank phase
-Should we extend the time of this phase by delaying mediums? (Nightmare. OH relies on call ins for this "stage" and some counters are delay too much (arty or mediums to push certain compositions)
-Should we make them cheap fuelwise and adjust teching instead? (This is a nightmare having so many factions with non linear tech)
It looks like a bad idea to change any aspect of this right?

B)If messing with timings is not good, what about utility?
The game has proven that raw performance is better than utility. Even if Stuart has 2 of the strongest abilities in the game (snare and stun) who makes them on the late game. Utility is nice to have but the cost to access it just for it, it's too prohibit on a real game.


IMO, in order to make them useful on the late game, they would require to be both cheap on the late game (make them cheaper with further levels of tech) and have utility abilities beyond pure raw performance (scouting, AA, moving troops, healing, capping, reinforce, snare, denial, resource manipulation, etc.) taking in mind that we are also nerfing the AI.
But TBH this might be a design decision. Not all units are meant to work through the whole game.

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I know u hate light vehicles, but you are overblowing their performance.

T70: has crap AT performance. 40dmg and 50avg pen. You can finish off light vehicles, you can't kill them 1v1 on a reasonable amount of time. If you reduce AI, make it more like the Luch. 400hp and steady damage instead of "burst" kills coming from the main gun. You could improve the MG but nerf the main gun against infantry by using target tables (simil to PTRS).

Stuart: the AI is highly RNG based. Whenever the main gun lands a shot it kills something but the MGs are not amazing. I wouldn't mind seen a nerf on the main gun against infantry (again target tables).

Ontopic:

-Abandoned vehicles Show Spoiler
I do not think it's such much of an issue after they added the engine crit. I would remove it from mobile artillery although.

Regarding issues with the game, there are certain ones which can be fixed and others which unfortunately can't (commander system or the simple garrison mechanics).

If i stay on the topic of things that affect all maps and all factions:
-My votes goes to squad pacing (specially for certain units) on the open, while crossing light cover and/or bunching up of models.
-Weapon upgrades. They should be sidegrades (PPSH like) rather than non brainer power ups.
-Lack of unit control. Manual reload and having hold fire on all units should be an option.

If we talk about certain factions:
-FRP. More decision making than just a toggle.
-Spam design factions (OKW/USF/UKF/SU*) which are a result of limiting their teching options. It didn't work for SU, you make the same mistake twice again (LT/Cpt and Medic/Mech).
*SU spam maxim against OKW but that's mostly due to OKW lack of real options early on (ISG is really not design to dislodge them).
-Powercreep. #makevet1greatagain for EFA and #equalopportunities for repair speed.

Speaking of Abandoned:

I don't mind the mechanic if it was less RNG. I think the idea of being able to steal vehicles is fine, but it shouldn't be up to the dice gods to decide, but up to the player on them choosing abilities and their engagements and timings of those.

I thought about the idea of abandon where rather than being random chance, have certain weapons designed to force abandons if they manage to land a killing blow. This way, it makes abandons predictable, but requires specific weapons/utilities so a player would know better whether to rush a vehicle into the enemies base or not and avoid times where a vehicle might be simply handed over to the enemy due to RNG.

EX:

AEC uses its Track Shot ability on a low health vehicle and its second shot is the one that lands the killing blow. Rather than the unit simply exploding, it would force abandon.

Other possible weapons could include: Stuart Engine Shot, ISU-152 Concrete Round, Elephant TWP, Puma Aimed Shot, etc.

only thing I understand is that you need to l2p.

And if a squad get wiped, so what? make another one. Especially axis infantry that can vet super fast anyway.

fan boy engaged Brit have the same problem usf some time too and why they vet super fast do they have a 20 mun tank commander on top of them ?