GG Redesign/Rebalance Mod

I agree with some of your changes, but the vast majority are a mess of confusing and questionably implemented "fixes" that cause the factions to lose all sense of identity, turning the game into Copypasta of Heroes.

A couple more observations on the USF Ost matchup (v0.7). You seem to have changed quite a couple of things since the last version.

I like the overall increase in teching cost. The m20 seems better where it is now.

Oddities I observed:
- m3 halftrack (mechanised company) is one-shot by a faust, should probably be more like the mortar ht in terms of armour and health
- I don't know if you changed the vet for the 251 but mine was in one engagement (flame projectors equipped) against 1 squad, killed one member and was already vet 1.
- m20 is practically one shot by a faust without skirts (2 rifle shots will take it out (if they penetrate)) (might be intentional)
- (subjective) captain squad (2 rifles, 2 REs, 1 captain) reinforce costs are too high on average (25? for a rifle, 30!! for a RE, 50!! for the captain). If the vet didn't change (other than the removal of "on-me" and sprint), it will also scale worse than a rifle and lead to even more bleed.
- (subjective) assault engineers have a pop cap of 8 (rifles 7)
- pak40 target weak point: doesn't have a cooldown after usage allowing to chain lock a tank
- pak40 target weak point: the 4 second timer for the ability makes it difficult to use (might be intended)
- (nit-picky/low priority) Airborne has no longer anything going for it in 1v1 other than airborne and the p-47: pathfinders, mg and atg are all available over the normal tech. Calling them doesn't offer any cost benefit or any other benefit I can see. Only if manned with REs there is a slight cost saving effect. Maybe offering some utility would make these options more appealing. In coh1 the mg and atg manned by airborne could be reinforced on the field, maybe that it is possible to do something similar in coh2 as well near radio towers. This would make dropping support weapons and picking them up with airborne interesting. It would also make sense to drop these weapons on the field, normal squads picking them up will always have to retreat to base to avoid risking to lose the squad.
- (nit-picky) typo in change log, the received accuracy of assault engies is lowered to 0.67 not 0.64.



(better players should test further)
- severe manpower bleed as usf (higher unit costs? no more #free squads but same teching cost in terms of manpower? reinforce?) - could be that I just played worse in the usf games than I did in the Ost games

Came back to the game because of this mod. I'll test it out more and provide feedback, but after a couple of games I have to say I love that factions have the ability to field support weapons without unlocking multiple tiers. Wonderful work Machine.

Overall the changes to individual units generally appear positive, there are far too many to really nitpick at this stage.

Limiting OKW trucks to base sector and allowing cache construction is a good idea, it will never be possible to get balance across the different maps as long as that feature is in the game.

I really don't see why USF and OKW need linear tech, I fear that will just lead to even more stale meta. It seems more sensical to lower the costs of back teching (as you've acknowledged with sovs), that way there is diversity in openings as well as decisions in the later stages of the game.

The nerfs to heavies, especially IS-2 and Tiger are unnecessary. Those units aren't OP in any game mode. Their frontal armour is already reliably pentrated at range by TDs, why does it need to be lowered further?. Speed nerf is also unnecessary, that would only be required if they had a surviability buff rather than a nerf. The only problematic heavy is the KT and that's just because it gets repaired and back in the fight so quickly, which the change in OKW truck locations will fix.

I don't see why ALL call-ins have to be linked to tech. There is certainly a case for this to apply to late-game call in tanks but I don't see the need for it to also affect mid game vehicles. The problem is only when call ins become mandatory to counter light tank rushes (timing issue), or if they are a far superior choice to stock units (cost/timing issues).

I think you've been a bit aggressive in removing unit abilities. Take emergency repair, that could have been reworked to have a higher resource/time cost or some other tradeoff instead of removed completely, or blitz could have been changed to have a higher cost or not increase reverse speed.

Some of the changes to reduce difference between factions seem extreme. Yes, you definitely need to look at those features which have a strong interaction with map design but many of the changes go beyond that.

Man, I always loved to play USFheer, Britheer, and OKWheer in coh2!

Seriously though, I like about 60% of the changes, but from looking at the mod and changelog, you might as well have 5 different Ostheer factions with different coats of paint sitting on slightly different furniture.

Some of the changes are obvious (Call-ins, KV-1, LMGs) others can easily be more unique and creative (WC-51, The Eastern Defensive doctrines) and some are just, Why?

Why limit OKW trucks to base sector? whats the point of the Flack HQ ability if its not going to be used 95% of the time?

Why make everything so linear? Do you really like Ostheer that much? to put it into all the other factions?

All I can say is: well done, you manage to (mostly) balance the game.... but at what cost?

A couple more observations on the USF Ost matchup (v0.7). You seem to have changed quite a couple of things since the last version.

I like the overall increase in teching cost. The m20 seems better where it is now.

Oddities I observed:
- m3 halftrack (mechanised company) is one-shot by a faust, should probably be more like the mortar ht in terms of armour and health
- I don't know if you changed the vet for the 251 but mine was in one engagement (flame projectors equipped) against 1 squad, killed one member and was already vet 1.
- m20 is practically one shot by a faust without skirts (2 rifle shots will take it out (if they penetrate)) (might be intentional)
- (subjective) captain squad (2 rifles, 2 REs, 1 captain) reinforce costs are too high on average (25? for a rifle, 30!! for a RE, 50!! for the captain). If the vet didn't change (other than the removal of "on-me" and sprint), it will also scale worse than a rifle and lead to even more bleed.
- (subjective) assault engineers have a pop cap of 8 (rifles 7)
- pak40 target weak point: doesn't have a cooldown after usage allowing to chain lock a tank
- pak40 target weak point: the 4 second timer for the ability makes it difficult to use (might be intended)
- (nit-picky/low priority) Airborne has no longer anything going for it in 1v1 other than airborne and the p-47: pathfinders, mg and atg are all available over the normal tech. Calling them doesn't offer any cost benefit or any other benefit I can see. Only if manned with REs there is a slight cost saving effect. Maybe offering some utility would make these options more appealing. In coh1 the mg and atg manned by airborne could be reinforced on the field, maybe that it is possible to do something similar in coh2 as well near radio towers. This would make dropping support weapons and picking them up with airborne interesting. It would also make sense to drop these weapons on the field, normal squads picking them up will always have to retreat to base to avoid risking to lose the squad.
- (nit-picky) typo in change log, the received accuracy of assault engies is lowered to 0.67 not 0.64.



(better players should test further)
- severe manpower bleed as usf (higher unit costs? no more #free squads but same teching cost in terms of manpower? reinforce?) - could be that I just played worse in the usf games than I did in the Ost games

Thanks, I'll fix some of those!

In case you guys missed it.
Tournament Annnounced 25/09 3pm GMT

Sorry, I tried it, and for the most part it didn't work. Sure, it works in some ways (Soviets work surprisingly well, despite me at first being sure that you killed them), but the one truly fucked faction here is again Ostheer. I will comment on the other factions once I've played them to a degree that I feel comfortable with, so my remarks to the other factions should be taken with a grain of salt.

Ostheer teching costs are still beyond ludicrous, their infantry has even less impact now that they have to pay extra (on top of their more expensive AND more time consuming teching), and the changes made to them don't fit their roles. Now, Grens have to move up close to throw their grenade - a long range unit having to close in to do their job. It just doesn't work. Not to mention that Panzergrens now can't even profit from superior micromanagement, because them flanking doesn't mean jackshit without their grenade.

The changes the 222 are mostly fine, even though it doesn't fit its role. It is supposed to be a scout car, similar to a beefed up M20, not a vehicle killer. This could have been handled significantly better by making it into the infantry killer needed to support Grenadiers.
The changes to the 251 are similarly hard to understand: What was your goal with them? Because right now, there simply is no reason to build one anymore, because it is even worse off than before. Even the Universal Carrier has a better place, because it is actually clear what it's supposed to do. Not to mention that the UC is now capable of straight up running up to the 251 and killing it.

The change to the PaK 40's TWP are good, this is where it's clear what the goal was and why this change was necessary.

But then we come to the tanks, and everything falls flat on its face again. The Panzer IV without a timed speed boost simply falls behind anything a British player can throw at it. It still comes out later than its equivalents in the other armies and it still is more expensive, and it still doesn't trade well. There is simply no reason to ever get that unit, everything it can do is done better by other units in the Ostheer arsenal and significantly better by the equivalents in other armies.
Now, more than ever, StuG-Life will still be going stroooooooooooooooong, baby.

The Ostwind on the other hand was fine in terms of armour, it was meant to be scared off easily by other vehicles, instead using its mobility to circle around the map and harass elsewhere (not to mention that the "was built on the Panzer IV-chassis"-argument is total bollocks, because the turret was basically a simple steel sheet to protect against small-arms and shrapnel). What the Ostwind truly lacked was ability to kill. That thing was a fucking RNG machine, in 90% of the time it did nothing, while once in a blue moon it managed to get something done. What was necessary was a damage nerf, while significantly boosting its accuracy (reminder: The Centaur kills infantry so well despite doing less damage, because it has over ten times the accuracy of the Ostwind).
Now it lost the ability to do those pushes (no more Blitzkrieg), and still hasn't got the ability to fight infantry. But hey, it can now kill T-70s even better, right?

Since I haven't used the Panther, Tiger, PaK 43, and leFH 18 enough (too situational for me, StuG is where it's at) I will not comment on them right now, but from what I gathered, the Elefant is even more punishing now, despite costing less. It was meant to require some effort to attack an Elefant, instead of driving to its front and parking there. Good Elefant play is a bitch to pull off, not having enemy tank destroyers (with higher mobility) simply take it out at range from the front was the only way to pull it off. That's now gone, and the Elefant is not viable this way.

Facit: Pulling off a good game as Ostheer feels more complicated than ever. The tools to success were taken away (and I'm not talking about the sniper changes, those were long overdue) and replaced with more complications. Playing Ostheer simply isn't fun this way, every single step of the way is a battle with the faction's design instead of a battle with the enemy. And because you're not only fighting the enemy, but the game on top of that, you are always behind, always trying to catch up, always trying to turn this thing around. I wrote a lengthy post about initiative in military games and strategy before in this forum, the same words still apply: Ostheer feels like a faction that is meant to play the losing side (which from a historical perspective may be called accurate, but doesn't make much sense in a competitive game). Neither Relic's balance ideas nor these ones here would make me play this faction again.

Ostheer teching costs are still beyond ludicrous

Look at the teching costs comparisons. Ostheer benefited the most compared to live

hey TheMachine,

i am since a long time a coh2 player and your post made me register on the forum, something i would never do because of all the shitheads on it, just to congratulate you.

This mod is a huge step in the RIGHT direction, everything is well thinked and designed.

Now we should all spread it everywhere and make it the most popular possible, that's the only way to force RELIC to take it into consideration.

In fact the only way to make good balance on this game is do it ourselves by making mod that Relic can simply copy pasta, otherwise the game is as dead as Relic.

congratulation

Hey thanks man, that's awesome!

Look at the teching costs comparisons. Ostheer benefited the most compared to live

That's like throwing a drowning man a plank and calling him ungrateful when he wishes to come aboard your ship instead.

Not to mention that this is no argument, especially when you take away the reason for more expensive teching in the same move. If Ostheer has to side-tech for upgrades (and especially if those upgrades become more expensive, in the case of the MG 42), then teching costs have to go down relative to the other factions. Not to mention that the pay-off of that side-teching is now potentially worse than ever, with the switching of the G 43- and the MG 42-upgrades, depending on your doctrinal choice.

It gets even more interesting from the perspective of taking away British emplacement research. So much for lengthening the infantry phase, when the Brit player can now get his Bofors out faster than ever before.

And yes, it's a simple as that. Either the side-tech is included, or teching costs go down to comparable levels. Otherwise we don't have to fool around with the term "balance", because then we would be no better than Relic's trollinator-moves the past couple months.

Deleted the post since it is just a reply to an upset post and like the post does nothing to contribute to the mod.

Maybe you aren't a top player, so i guess your ignorant reply doesn't count.

If you are gonna make a strictly, EXPENSIVE anti-inf tank kill 2 models max, why not just remove them from the game?

Dont worry suiking, Le shit talks pro players and when prompted for playercard he just says "you cant see that"

He was BM zarok for maxium spamming

I agree with some of your changes, but the vast majority are a mess of confusing and questionably implemented "fixes" that cause the factions to lose all sense of identity, turning the game into Copypasta of Heroes.

The current game is a mess too and each faction has its identity there. We just want a good functioning game balance wise. We´ve had each faction having it´s own identity since launch now, it doesn´t seem to work.

The current game is a mess too and each faction has its identity there. We just want a good functioning game balance wise. We´ve had each faction having it´s own identity since launch now, it doesn´t seem to work.

The game would be balanced fine within each faction's identity if Relic put in the time and effort.

This mod is a terrible idea. The game will turn into a mutual turtlefest behind MGs + mortars with the drastic nerfs to grenades + snipers + light vehicles + units spawning out of ambient buildings.

It also has a lot of questionable design decisions. Why would USF ever make a captain or a major? Dual bazooka riflemen will be better than captains at everything that matters while majors won't have any use when most USF commanders already have awesome global artillery abilities. Also, giving OKW MG34s and Pak40s at T0 will give them such a strong early game that they'll be able to skip side teching and go straight to T4 for 115/125 fuel Panzer4s.

This is an overhaul, not a balance. David Kim might like this considering what he's been doing recently, but most players won't. I agree with 5% of your ideas.

Complaining penal terminators, stormPGs, 0 tech Pak40, base sector halftruck and so on is an endless thing, but the core issue here is this overhaul is trying to use asymmetrically designed game elements to make a symmetric game, this is not very likely to work out and the result won't be very appealing to this game's original users.

Dont worry suiking, Le shit talks pro players and when prompted for playercard he just says "you cant see that"

He was BM zarok for maxium spamming

story of this forum xD they hide their playercards while they talk shit using rankings as a justification