Relic Winter Balance Preview v1.3 Update

Take away useful ability (Ooorah!)
Give them useless ability (molotov)




3rd PTRS to make "AT squad" sounds like "I don't know what to do, but maybe another PTRS will make a sense"

Community dev team question - it isn't actually possible for you lot to award units experience for suppressing, is it?

lol, make Flak HT cost more tech and give T1 Soviets yet again more PTRS. OK I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this needs to stop, the changes thrown away, and start over. It's not getting better with each patch its getting worse.

agree with all the penal changes.
a third ptrs unlockable at T4 is fair, same for the satchel change.
on the other hand about the flamethrower upgrade + 2 ppsh, it seems to me that penals become shock troops with it.

but i need to try it before saying it's bad (works for u 2 Budwise).

'Sensible' tweaks and QoL changes. Aside from messing with OKW's already messed up teching. I still don't get the "soviets are already great, we know, but let's make them even better" agenda. There are certainly other stuff with much higher priority.

The 222 is useful against infantry now, you aren't flushing 30 fuel down the toilet this time.

but i need to try it before saying it's bad (works for u 2 Budwise).

I don't need to try it though. What they're failing to understand is in COH, not every building needs to counter every other building. Not every unit needs to have 20 abilities and sub classes. If you go heavy T1 and you allow your opponent fuel to get a vehicle before you get AT you SHOULD be punished. Every tier is not a damn swiss army knife. This is not balancing this changing game mechanics to your personal taste.

Shared Veterancy

5% mortars/indirect fire
10% HMGs
50% infantry

I think it should be more clarified:

-5% mortars/indirect fire
-50% infantry (USF officers)
-50% HTs
etc

Can you explain it to me?

Wait, so the penals can have 3xptrs after tech teir 4 with a satchel that sticks to vehicles. Or 1xflamer and 2xppsh....... am i drunk? who in their right minds will go cons now with these penal changes.

UI FIXES

Updated abandoned M1 81mm Portrait

Updated M1 81mm squad portraits for their respective factions.
Updated 120mm Mortar Shield Symbol to a different variant
Updated KV-8 call-in icon to match other call-in icons.
Updated M1 81mm Smoke Radius UI. UI will now get smaller at shorter distances.
Updated artillery officer call-in icon to match other call-in icons.
DShka shield icon updated to the correct version for non-EFA armies.

Yay!

I think it should be more clarified:

-5% mortars/indirect fire
-50% infantry (USF officers)
-50% HTs
etc

Can you explain it to me?

USF Officers and Halftracks benefit from the same type of shared veterancy. That is, when you have a unit nearby, it contributes part of the veterancy it gains to nearby officers/halftracks.

Previously, all affected units would contribute 50% of what they gain to the officer. With this patch, we adjusted the veterancy gain to a decent value:

- infantry provide 50% of their veterancy to the officers/HT (same as before)
- MGs provide 10% of their veterancy gains to nearby officers/HTs (used to be 50% for the 50cal)
- mortars provide 5% of their veterancy to nearby officers/HTs (used to be 50% for USF mortar)
- anti-tank guns provide no shared veterancy (used to be 50% for USF AT)

Basically, we are solving an inconsistency that only USF weapon teams would award experience to nearby officers/HTs, and they would award too much of it.

Wait, so the penals can have 3xptrs after tech teir 4 with a stachel that sticks to vehicles. Or 1xflamer and 2xppsh....... am i drunk? who i their right minds will go cons now with these penal changes.

Changing Conscripts is out of scope for this patch. Thus, unfortunately it will look very much like Penals will be used to substitute Conscripts if you go T1. Conscripts can do the following things better though:
- Are more durable than Penals
- Retain their oorah ability
- They have an insta-throw AT grenade (which can be combined with oorah)

We don't expect flamer ppsh to scale well. That's because the squad gets very little in terms of survivability. Thus, trying to yolo-close in from the front will be suicidal (the loss of Oorah is key here).

The upgrade will be good for its shock value; or for close-quarter maps, when buying a fresh penal squad. Don't expect to be doing wonders with it, though.

We don't expect flamer ppsh to scale well. That's because the squad gets very little in terms of survivability. Thus, trying to yolo-close in from the front will be suicidal (the loss of Oorah is key here).

The upgrade will be good for its shock value; or for close-quarter maps, when buying a fresh penal squad. Don't expect to be doing wonders with it, though.

can't agree more, i tried the new penal and they still looks bad.

this 300 mp unit is really not cost efficient for its price and the new upgrade doesn't add anything more.
PPSH + flamers -> only on a few map and honestly, not worth it.

as Mr.Smith said, don't even try to do that on open map. penals will get rekt before they are close enough to use them.

penals and the soviet T1 on a bigger scale are still IMO to avoid.

Is it OK anyway to give unit upgrades both for AI and AT roles? Yes, there are sturmpios and pgrens basically AI and you can up then to AT but still. I mean that everybody will go penals and upgrade them by situation. It's like give ability for 2 su-76 merge into t-34

I don't need to try it though. What they're failing to understand is in COH, not every building needs to counter every other building. Not every unit needs to have 20 abilities and sub classes. If you go heavy T1 and you allow your opponent fuel to get a vehicle before you get AT you SHOULD be punished. Every tier is not a damn swiss army knife. This is not balancing this changing game mechanics to your personal taste.

+1000

seriously, this is ridiculous. USF LT Tier doesn't have any hard counters for vehicles. it's a risk/reward situation, as is the current SOV Tier 1. penals are broken because they're far more useful and durable than conscripts. can you work around penal spam? yeah, but it's a challenge if the guy knows what he's doing... and even without vehicles, good SOV Tier 1 play usually results in a T-70 or SU-76 in plenty of time to counter your vehicles.

oh, and people that play SOV Tier 1 usually follow it with partisan and guards commanders.

SU is not UP. let's stop with this insanity.

As usual, great bugfixes and quality of life changes (especially retreat point distance, feels like it should've been done ages ago). You've done some great work.

As to balance changes:
Flak HT behind healing may be good for balance, but it doesn't 'make sense' logically, though I agree this shouldn't be a priority.

About the hot topic of Penals, I can't speak for their performance or new role(s) yet, but I hope you don't fall victim to sunk-cost fallacy. The point of the balance mod is to play around with ideas (and I love that you're giving us a chance to try stuff out), but please don't get fixated on the PTRSs if you come up with something better. I may be biased because I'm not a fan of hand-held AT in general, but I would prefer another solution if possible.

oh, and people that play SOV Tier 1 usually follow it with partisan and guards commanders.

SU is not UP. let's stop with this insanity.

That's the point. It's not about being UP or OP, it's about not being stuck with a Guards or AT-sans commanders if you go T1, opening up strategic variation. I am not saying I necessarily agree but that's the balance team's reasoning.

Why in God's name would I want to buy a single extra ptrs at t4...

Also what is the love affair of ptrs on penal battalions? The ptrs is a janky and clumsy weapon that has never filled a strong role in coh2. I mean when it destroyed team weapons and wiped their squads as a result it was powerful, and when it still sniped infantry it had its use, but both those situations were not really intended nor did they contribute to gameplay in a positive fashion.

So those problems were fixed, but that's it. I mean, having guards drop their ptrs has been a blessing in disguise for ages.

Also who in their right mind was trying to use at satchels offensively? Or worse yet, as a hard counter to ai vehicles?
And is that reason enough to redesign the best thing this patch seems to have going for it?

I mean do people not understand what a meta game actually is? Do people even understand why something like light vehicles became so prominent?

These kinds of haphazard changes are exactly what's going to undermine the whole effort by creating unfeasible or contentious concepts that won't survive official relic implementation. Or even worse, they do survive and end up being imbalanced from biased and inconclusive testing.

I mean look at the scope of this patch and compare to the last patches that affected okw and implemented the USF mortar. Am I the only one that sees the relationship?

That's the point. It's not about being UP or OP, it's about not being stuck with a Guards or AT-sans commanders if you go T1, opening up strategic variation. I am not saying I necessarily agree but that's the balance team's reasoning.

See, I'd argue that's an issue with commanders and Soviet tier design, not penal battalions. Just because penal battalions and guards are all thats on the scope doesn't mean that redesigning the Soviet early game is actually possible by making changes to them.

Like I've said before it's fixing water damage without fixing the leak. If you're not allowed to address the leak, trying to fix the water damage is futile and a waste of time and effort that would be much more valuable focused elsewhere.

Re the okw 251 changes, in usf t2 doesn't the aa ht counter it?

Also in su's case why is the 251 being slowed down when it allready costs70 fuel to get out, on the other hand it costs 20 fuel to get soviet t2?

Penals don't need to be good at everything. It's fine to give them PTRS but no reason to add the molotov too.

Flame engies and conscripts need to have a reason to exist beyond doing the same thing slightly better.

penals don't have ooh rah no more? but they should get it with the flame package tho cuz they gna die like flies trying to walk close