Relic Winter Balance Preview v1.3 Update

is it me or thiw winter patch gets more retarded over time?

its not just you.....

oh man, what exactly are those guys smoking?

This is why there is a Tournament going on tomorrow; and I would advise you to sign up.

We expect that a great-many broken things that we were not allowed to change will become even more broken with some of the changes.

What we hope that the players will do is find out those broken things, and abuse them in the tournament in order to win. That will hopefully give us the bargaining chips to be allowed to fix those things as well.

It takes some time to find and abuse things, for a patch just release couple of days before, people will play as they were playing the old version. This is why I say wait a month witch may not be sufficient.

And I cannot participate, quite busy on my week-ends

principally speaking, the balance patch, especially at this stage of the game, should touch as little as possible, as subtlely as possible. you guys really should not try to anticipate everything. this nerfing of okw flak ht... logically it makes sense i guess since all other light vics got nerfed. but the aaht is already a niche unit and it just feels like you guys sre trying to compensate for every buttery effects of your primary changes. other changes like nerfing puma AI because AEC got nerfed etc etc is simply unneeded i feel. afterall, changes to most prominent light tanks were small to begin with so i think you guys can chill out on trying to predict every thing in that department.

and this penal ptrs... i thought it was worth trying but it is just getting messier and messier. too big of a change. fundamentally changing a unit's role is obviously creating a lot of real problems. creating too much ripples.

+1

Right now I´m moving from PTRS idea to M42 idea with reverting flak track and new ppsh flamer changes.

Its getting ridikulous that one infantry squad have 2 upgrades where both of them are actually downgrades.

We are changing too much right now I think, gotta revert those changes before coh2 become harder to understand than civ5

The Penals "thing" is getting out of hand, in fact, it's getting ridiculous!

Urban Map, go for Flame and PTRS Penals, no Cons or Shocks needed.
Open Map, go for Penals without upgrades and with PTRS, no cons or guards needed.
All other maps, go for all 3 versions of Penals, no Cons, Shocks or Guards needed.

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.

This!!!

damn, why the hell you guys try to make some ultra important role for Penals? why not let them be good anti infantry unit? maybe some slightly worse in early and better in late (compared to current CoH2 version not winter patch), there are actually a lot more things that needs to be changed and you are toying with Penals lul

I already had to gave up 1v1 games thanks to new, amazing community 1v1 maze-maps.

After this patch, I'm afraid I will have to give up whole CoH2 which the only game I'm playing

Don't get me wrong, good job with bug fixes but as for the balance, there are many weird decision made by few people "in the name of community".

Tier2 USF does have a reliable counter to halftracks. The .50 does really well.

damn, why the hell you guys try to make some ultra important role for Penals? why not let them be good anti infantry unit? maybe some slightly worse in early and better in late (compared to current CoH2 version not winter patch), there are actually a lot more things that needs to be changed and you are toying with Penals lul

What Barton proposes here might be a good solution of T1 problem. Imagine penals are ok early game and good in late game but only AI. That way T1 becomes a "high risk high reward" early game tier thanks to snipers and m3s, but also, an often build back-tech making it useful overall, even if not that much in the early game. So we can actually have useful T1 without AT or OP penals.

How to acheive that? It's quite simple. You keep T1 without AT and penals on what they are at 1.2 but without upgrades. Then, you add one upgrade unlockable by T4 that gives them good long range dps but bad on short range (like scope for their mid range SVTs for example). That way they become potent but ballanced late game elite AI squad that you need all buildings to go for them if you are going standard T2 route. If you risk going commander only AT, you can make it to them without building T2 and you have vet advantage at the moment you buy their upgrade.

This solution is also the only one I've heard off that makes penals and shocks usefull in the same match.

What Barton proposes here might be a good solution of T1 problem. Imagine penals are ok early game and good in late game but only AI. That way T1 is still a "high risk high reward" early game tier thanks to snipers and m3s, but also, an often build back-tech making it useful overall, even if not that much in the early game.

How to acheive that? It's quite simple. You keep T1 without AT and penals on what they are at 1.2 but without upgrades. Then, you add one upgrade unlockable by T4 that gives them good long range dps but bad on short range (like scope for their mid range SVTs for example). That way they become potent but ballanced late game elite AI squad that you need all buildings to go for if you are going standard T2 route. If you risk going commander only AT, you can make it to them without building T2.

I like Barton's ideas, and I think it could work. Tbh, though, I don't think that an upgrade is really necessary to achieve this balance between early-game OK-ness and late-game scalability.

I mean, if they do get an upgrade, that will allow them to scale. Though, the question is what kind of upgrade to give them to prevent role overlaps:
- Guards have long-range DPS covered
- Shocks should, in theory, be the goto squad for short-range DPS

There are ways of letting Penals scale with their SVT rifles, with bonuses alone, without turning the unit into death-gods of they pick up weapons.

e.g. Suppose you want to make Penals 15% weaker at Vet0 and 30% stronger than what they are, at Vet3:
- Take WBP current Penals
- Apply a +30% accuracy buff to Penal SVTs (the weapon)
- Apply a -34% accuracy nerf to the squad (the models)
- Progressively, apply a 52% buff to the squad, as they vet up (according to how fast you want them to scale)

Finally, the reason we are fixated on fixing the Penals is because out of all possible openings, we deem that Soviet T1 to be the most problematic tier of all. Since we have the tournament coming up for Sunday, we wanted to make sure people would feel invited to try all possible tier openings, so that we can gather better quality feedback.

I like Barton's ideas, and I think it could work. Tbh, though, I don't think that an upgrade is really necessary to achieve this balance between early-game OK-ness and late-game scalability.

I mean, if they do get an upgrade, that will allow them to scale. Though, the question is what kind of upgrade to give them to prevent role overlaps:
- Guards have long-range DPS covered
- Shocks should, in theory, be the goto squad for short-range DPS

There are ways of letting Penals scale with their SVT rifles, with bonuses alone, without turning the unit into death-gods of they pick up weapons.

e.g. Suppose you want to make Penals 15% weaker at Vet0 and 30% stronger than what they are, at Vet3:
- Take WBP current Penals
- Apply a +30% accuracy buff to Penal SVTs (the weapon)
- Apply a -34% accuracy nerf to the squad (the models)
- Progressively, apply a 52% buff to the squad, as they vet up (according to how fast you want them to scale)

Finally, the reason we are fixated on fixing the Penals is because out of all possible openings, we deem that Soviet T1 to be the most problematic tier of all. Since we have the tournament coming up for Sunday, we wanted to make sure people would feel invited to try all possible tier openings, so that we can gather better quality feedback.

I wanted to give them late game long range upgrade becouse the mid range tends to not be that useful in the late game when the amount of firepower becomes bigger and its hard to close in. Also, the guards have good long range dps but still they mainly are a combination of AI and AT, I wanted to create a squad that would excell on AI only, but would be easily counterable by vehicles or short range infantry. This is the other thing, I don't think they should recive strigt off late game bonus. Every bonus they get should make them stronger in most situations, but weaker in some specific ones. The opponent should be able to exploit such weaknesses to defeat them if he can think of it and micro it well.

The upgrade is also a way of dumping some of soviet munition reserves, lowering the amount of late game demos. Late game infantry will be worth it for the soviets whatever the cost.

I like Barton's ideas, and I think it could work. Tbh, though, I don't think that an upgrade is really necessary to achieve this balance between early-game OK-ness and late-game scalability.

I mean, if they do get an upgrade, that will allow them to scale. Though, the question is what kind of upgrade to give them to prevent role overlaps:
- Guards have long-range DPS covered
- Shocks should, in theory, be the goto squad for short-range DPS

There are ways of letting Penals scale with their SVT rifles, with bonuses alone, without turning the unit into death-gods of they pick up weapons.

e.g. Suppose you want to make Penals 15% weaker at Vet0 and 30% stronger than what they are, at Vet3:
- Take WBP current Penals
- Apply a +30% accuracy buff to Penal SVTs (the weapon)
- Apply a -34% accuracy nerf to the squad (the models)
- Progressively, apply a 52% buff to the squad, as they vet up (according to how fast you want them to scale)

Finally, the reason we are fixated on fixing the Penals is because out of all possible openings, we deem that Soviet T1 to be the most problematic tier of all. Since we have the tournament coming up for Sunday, we wanted to make sure people would feel invited to try all possible tier openings, so that we can gather better quality feedback.

well, historically Penal battalions were very good equipped due to their hard role in combat, they use SVT-40, that could be like rifles standard rifle, give them upgrade for 90 munis that gives them flamer and 3 Ppsh, also i think that some standard nade or molotov at least would be a good idea, maybe AT nade? that way Penals can make a good close combat role

You guys really don't know what you are doing, isn't it?

Why would you give PTRS to penals when they already have Guards in most commanders

small corection. In all docs not just most.

I know that any long range for penals won't be historical. On the other hand the "rifle command" is the name of the tier and it should contain a well trained infantry squad. We can't add new units so this is a way recycling the penal batallion in this role that is so much needed for the sake of design and ballance.

The other solution could be swapping guards and penals in the commanders, that would work well to allow for broader non-meta commander usage, but that way we are back to having PTRS in T1...

This is why giving penals long range upgrade seemed more desirable to me.

why give penals their flamethrower back if you already gave them molotovs for them to deal with greencover?

well, historically Penal battalions were very good equipped due to their hard role in combat, they use SVT-40, that could be like rifles standard rifle, give them upgrade for 90 munis that gives them flamer and 3 Ppsh, also i think that some standard nade or molotov at least would be a good idea, maybe AT nade? that way Penals can make a good close combat role

Than u will have Penals with 3Ppsh plus flamer, conscripst with Ppsh from certain doctrine and shocktroops with bodyarmour for close combat role. Flamer on mainline inf? I think it was considerated as OP back in the days when u could upgrade rifleman with flamer.

why give penals their flamethrower back if you already gave them molotovs for them to deal with greencover?

Molotovs are an upgrade that is very rarely used due to its long windup and low damage. It is usually simply too costly to be useful. So if penals were to be short range AI squad, the flamer is a better idea.

On the other hand, making penal a short range squad sounds only well historically speaking. From design perspective it just means they will complement guard doctrines even better than before and will make shock doctrines even more redundant.

This is obviously really bad, as shocks have not been seen on the battlefield since they were nerfed into ballanced position, just becouse guards work too well with each and every other soviet squad even today.

I think T1 is never going to be in a good position if it is only build to complement guard doctrines. The problem we are solving is not only the availability of T1 but also tonns of unused soviet doctrines that are forgotten only becouse there is no guards in them. Soviets need something that would make them work without guards (or guards in tech). Penals are good candidates, even if that would mean these units somewhat overlap.

Than u will have Penals with 3Ppsh plus flamer, conscripst with Ppsh from certain doctrine and shocktroops with bodyarmour for close combat role. Flamer on mainline inf? I think it was considerated as OP back in the days when u could upgrade rifleman with flamer.

rifles have way better vet buffs + lot of nades, especially smokes that were a good combo with flamers on them

so.... still no hope for SU ambush AT tactic right ? it's a suicide button 8x reload delay they barely just to take two step forward

i mean why does it still exist

Dropping white phosphorus in a base sector is a bug and dropping a carpet bomb attack in a base sector is not. Much double standard.

I wanted to help balance CoH2 but I believe that in order to do that some design changes need to happen which I think is not in their scope.

In my opinion CoH2 suffers from having a bad design in the factions and commanders from the get go making it impossible to properly both balance the game and give the player the sense that their decisions are creating an impact.

If I were to change the game a bit though I would probably try to focus on every faction having a scouting unit early on, reduce the overall size in squads especially in team weapons , give flamethrowers to every engineer unit, be able to lay single mines and not those S mines, give territories more specific roles in the resources they give and regarding penals I think they should fill the role of a long range unit (remove flamethrower). This would be a good start in my opinion .

Also to expand on the penals subject, obviously there's also the problem that they are a unit that is strong for the time they get into the field due to the fact that ostheer T1 is in my opinion in need of changes too in regards to their main infantry force. Also I would look into the T1 soviet vehicel since being able to put a squad and flank the MG is super easy to pull off and can be hard to balance.