Teamgame dominant meta

Seriously, this entire topic is way ridiculous... listening stupid suggestions from 4v4, talking about examples in particular games, not even focusing on real unbalance.
You are not even trying to balance the game, you are changing it everytime, not exactly same thing.
I know you can't balance correcly this game.
On SC2, it's hard with only 3 factions and they only try to balance the 1V1 mode. How do you expect to do great job by changing everything at the same time on 5 factions with more than 6-7 doctrine every one in 1v1 2v2 3v3 and 4v4. Good luck mate ^^
However, you still can try... But process step by step with real logic construction.
Unabalance is most of the time due to OP doctrine like Land Matress doctrine for british for example. We don't ask you to cancel everything, but it would be nice to work on price and timing only. Make a patch and wait for feedbacks for 1 or 2 changes. It's like trying to find a frequency on radio but doing it by modifying amplitude, scale, frequency or anything else at the same time. I still wonder how you can be surprised by unexpected feedbacks.
SO... i know it can be arrogant to say my following words but 4v4 opinion isnt interesting at all, Sorry folks. I'm repeating but this entire discussion is pointless, plus people in 4V4 are like 95% of the time not as good as a top 500 in 2v2 or 1v1.
In conclusion, even if we agree about OP units according decent players in 1v1 or 2v2, only change timing or price as first step; and don't allow 3v3 4v4 players to claim patchs.

How can people make suck gratuitous affirmation....How lame and immature.

Format type is a matter of taste. Refrain bashing others.

Thanks for looking into the video further. I don't ever remember remember "proclaiming" this to be the "cure" for countering the elephant. Thanks again for putting words in my mouth and consistently trying to disagree with me as opposed to finding common ground.

This is the strategy I would use to take down elephants. I think brosras has the right idea with diving with all his tanks as opposed to one by one, but where his plan failed (the first time) was that he dived at the wrong time and with no support. The second time he dived (and took out the elephant) he had his USF ally helping distract the elephant (which is why it moved forward btw) and was far more effective. I'd the enemy is blobbing their tanks, work as a team to take them out, or force them to react by forcing engagements elsewhere. Note the game ended a few minutes after the elephant was killed.

The problem here isn't the elephant being over powered with its alpha damage, it's with a lack of team coordination. That's why first dove failed and second one succeeded.

Another option he could've done was attack the right base sector since the axis would then have to spread their forces and leave the elephant undefended.

Elephants weakness is mobility. Exploit it instead of fighting the losing battles and playing into the enemy hands.

Agree with Panzer, this was the right move, it was just executed very poorly. No support from other players, infantry or abilities (Like Mark Target). His other suggestion of going around to the base is certainly plausible.

Mr. Smith, if I had to guess you probably just asked SOE what would be some suggestions on how to make 4v4 better (which isn't a terrible idea) but limited. There are many ways to win in 4v4 and claiming there is a 'meta' is plain silly. I see you keep saying no one is giving you any suggestions on improvements but this entire thread is full of them.

This bias claims that if we try to rebalance around 4v4 this will ruin 1v1's.

ruin might be a hard word, but it is essentially true.
some things just scale better into 4v4 than other units, so you cannot balance for both 1v1 and 4v4. now, for units that arent used in 1v1 this is not true, but what is true is that you will destroy 2v2 balance, which is way more competetive mode than 4v4.
therefore you will surely ruin competetive play by balancing for 4v4

and again:
a better way to make axis less dominant is to nerf fuel caches
https://www.coh2.org/topic/61229/resource-income-per-game-mode

I don't see the difference though, I get whacked as OKW when playing against Russians who rush to Katyusha and bomb my buildings just the same as I do when I need to try and stop sim city. Or when I play Brits I some times focus on getting Land Mattress asap if it's a small map in a 4v4 to deal with close knit OKW players.

Why are we singling out Stuka? Don't Stukas have shorter range and a less reliable barrage to make up for it's damage? (I am genuinely not sure). I have seen Stuka rockets land on Infantry section square on and do no damage, other times I have seen it look like it miss and squad wipe.

Reliability is mainly made up of accuracy in this game. A skill shot is always more useful than a rng shot.Try to imagine your panther never miss a shot on ground. In this area, stuka score full mark and we call it the most reliable rocket artillery unit. If you lose to katyusha rush, you should be shame,because you simply get out-played since your opponent need to waste more resource than you to get a first rocket artillery while worse than stuka at all aspect. You should be able to kill it with brainless falls from building or any tanks or even stuka while ally cant do the same trick at the same time. As okw always have more option to kill such a fragile rocket artillery unit than ally facing stuka, I think the conclusion is obvious. This is imbalance.

You listed opinions here not facts.

Ok, prove that these are not facts and not just ur personal opinion...

I apologize bringing thisk topic up but in answer to your question, I would counter Elephant Brummbarr/kt etc. In a similar way to how brosras did --> spam t34s and attack in pairs. I think this is a perfect example of how the effectiveness of elephants are negated.

https://youtu.be/P9OCWfm9al0

If you don't wanna watch the whole thing skip to around minute 42. That's where the elephant gets taken out.

This is simply too situational and map dependent and isnt always a viable option. There arent any restrictions on axis not to go for even more AT option while having an elefant. Not to mention so many mistake the axis players have made which reflecting a lower skill axis player can use op unit to compensate his stupidity. Stug spam, double shrecks pg spam, taller mine or even jagtigers+elefants are always happening in late game. T34 rush is simply a bad trade. Always result in scarcifing all your tanks to trade 30 second repair time of elefant/jagtiger from super strum

When I first saw this topic I thought that it might actually finally change something in the teamgame meta (especially 2v2) since there is a great disparaty between faction sides. But since everyone is focusing more on accusations let me point some things out for you.

First of all this game has always been balanced around 1v1 mode and all teamgame modes suffered. Where 1v1 focuses more on infantry, light vehicles and first 2 tanks that hit the field all other aspects as artillery howitzers, heavy tank destroyers, costly airstrikes and bombings etc. were never actually balanced. The sad state of 2v2s is that its basically ruled by axis factions. There are number of factors that influence that such as hybrid 1v1/2v2 maps, 0 cover maps for long range grens or maps with one or two important buildings that okw rush with their retared sturmpios ^^. VCoh had one great thing, allies were early game dominant and axis were late game dominant and that was somewhat balanced. Here soviets have decent mid game, usf has decent midgame and brits have strong late game, while okw has monster early and late game and ostheer has strong mid and late game. The only times when allies were actually able to have decent winrates in 2v2s is when they have a bugged unit (usf mortar) or op unit (flame penals). But other than that axis rule teamgames all the way and most players are strangely ok with that as long as the holy 1v1 mode is balanced ^^. Yes usf is strong in 1v1 but its trash in 2v2s ^^. Basically its easier to play axis because with okw is broken af and ostheer is the most versatile faction in the game that can win a game with their non doctrinal units alone but have tons of commanders stuffed with heavy tanks, airstrikes, bombings etc, isnt either munition heavy or fuel heavy.

I understand why most people are scared of this potential teamgame dominant meta. I really do. Because when Im tired and want to have a chill game I pick axis and autowin too. I know its fun and it easy which makes it more fun but everything comes to an end.

M20 would automatically become more reliable by the nerf to heavy TDs. No longer will the minelayer/scout unit of the USF be blown up just because an Elefant/JT stared at it for a second

I like this very much, and maybe you've already mentioned this somewhere, but will the m20 be receiving any of the changes that were hinted at in the WBP? The buff to far and nerf to near accuracy were a good idea IMO, and adding 5% accuracy to each of the vet levels was great too as it still gets no accuracy bonuses with vet. The HP at vet 3 you guys initially included would help with the role you just described as well.

Giving OKW vet 5 was a game design failure.

For the reason there are SO many complaining, you just have to look at the player population and the win percentages.

The average ratio of total people in-game between each mode (1v1 : 2v2 : 3v3 : 4v4) that I find based on counting the automatch numbers on observer mode at several points over the last week is
1 : 1.2 : 1.5 : 7.5

So there are 7.5 times as many people playing 4v4 than 1v1 at any one point, and 10 times as many people playing teamgames at any one point than 1v1.

Then you look at the win percentages for players outside the top 500 (i.e the average guy trying to enjoy the game) since the last patches (courtesy of coh2chart).

1v1
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2v2
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3v3
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4v4
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Look at how pronounced the shift is since the patches for the average player. OKW has long been the faction with the highest win percentage amongst average players, but since the patch it has become a faction that performs miles ahead of everything else in every mode for average players.

Absolutely I agree that the average player, particularly in teamgames, is going to have a tiny fraction of the ability and game knowledge of a top 100 1v1 player, but there's something wrong when the vast majority (10 : 1) is being completely sold out as being irrelevant.

I completely agree that the feedback from the best players who fully understand the game mechanics should be most applicable when designing balance changes, that 1v1 is the mode which is easiest to balance around, and that teamgames have inherent problems with map design, but coming into the 4th year of the game we shouldn't be moving backwards from a situation where the game was roughly balanced enough for most players to turn a blind eye to it, to now the experience for most players being that there is a huge and obvious advantage for one side. By all means make changes that benefit the 9% that play 1v1, but not at the price of dragging the game backwards for the majority.

The win percentages DO show that allies are slowly trending upwards, hopefully as players adapt to the new arrangement, but from the average player's point of view there is a big gap (12% in all modes but 1v1) between Soviet / USF and OKW.

Regardless of where you stand on balancing priorities and approach, you can't be surprised that so many are complaining and whining when for the majority (i.e players outside the top 500 playing teamgames, who paid the same as everyone else) the game has got noticeably worse since the patches.

This is simply too situational and map dependent and isnt always a viable option. There arent any restrictions on axis not to go for even more AT option while having an elefant. Not to mention so many mistake the axis players have made which reflecting a lower skill axis player can use op unit to compensate his stupidity. Stug spam, double shrecks pg spam, taller mine or even jagtigers+elefants are always happening in late game. T34 rush is simply a bad trade. Always result in scarcifing all your tanks to trade 30 second repair time of elefant/jagtiger from super strum

Thanks for your input. I'll remember to never try any viable strategies against units that forum warriors consider OP and instead just whine about them in the forum's.

Yeah, maybe 2 shot for medium tanks isn't good idea .

What I really see what ruins the game is Forward Retreat Point.

Also repair speed should be lowered to ostheer level.

Nothing more.

This is it.

Thanks for your input. I'll remember to never try any viable strategies against units that forum warriors consider OP and instead just whine about them in the forum's.

Dont you understand what I said? Of course T34 spam is a viable strategy, just like laying taller mine is a viable strategy to counter ally light vehicle and sometimes it is considered as even op due to the one shot power. However no one would just lay serval tellar mine and think it is enough and shout at forum "Ally vehicle isn't op, just look at the youtube below". This is a viable strategy but simply doesnt reliable. You should try every viable strategy, but you should also notice its weakness and dependency. How if ur opponent brings a minesweeper with its light vehicle? That's why T34 spam is a viable option but never a real counter since it too depend on a lot of other factors. Simply some infantry snare and stealth AT gun to protect the elefant/jagtiger are enough to prevent any flanking. And not to even mention elefant with spotting scope in red ball simply make flanking a joke. This results in ally needs very strong indirect fire to drive out the support beside these heavy tanks before making flanking is possible. However we all know that how poor is USF and UKF in this area if it is not tied to one or two specific commader. It is not like USF players like to go fo calliope or priest everytime, but they are forced to do so to get a basic unit that axis can access whatever.

Dont you understand what I said? Of course T34 spam is a viable strategy, just like laying taller mine is a viable strategy to counter ally light vehicle and sometimes it is considered as even op due to the one shot power. However no one would just lay serval tellar mine and think it is enough and shout at forum "Ally vehicle isn't op, just look at the youtube below". This is a viable strategy but simply doesnt reliable. You should try every viable strategy, but you should also notice its weakness and dependency. How if ur opponent brings a minesweeper with its light vehicle? That's why T34 spam is a viable option but never a real counter since it too depend on a lot of other factors. Simply some infantry snare and stealth AT gun to protect the elefant/jagtiger are enough to prevent any flanking. And not to even mention elefant with spotting scope in red ball simply make flanking a joke. This results in ally needs very strong indirect fire to drive out the support beside these heavy tanks before making flanking is possible. However we all know that how poor is USF and UKF in this area if it is not tied to one or two specific commader. It is not like USF players like to go fo calliope or priest everytime, but they are forced to do so to get a basic unit that axis can access whatever.

Ok

By all means make changes that benefit the 9% that play 1v1, but not at the price of dragging the game backwards for the majority.

While I agree with that, the coh2charts reference is, hm, misleading. Indeed, the current spike indeed indicates that apparently the last patch favored axis, I give you that. However, the rebound that you describe only very partially has something to do with players adapting, it's actually more an expression of the ELO values and thus the matchmaking adjusting to the balance. If you are interested in the details you can check out this article.

But since a picture says more than a thousand words: Try zooming out to the full time range that coh2chart offers. About a year ago (actually the 21st of June, 2016) there was the last big patch before the WBP. It incorporated various changes, most notably the introduction of the US mortar and a serious buff to Penals.

Here is how this looked like in coh2charts (4v4, 500+):



Now, coh2charts only goes out to one year, so you can just see how this looked like before: OKW on top, SOV at the bottom, everything else in the middle. The the patch hits and BOOM allies OP.

However, this was only a temporary thing: It took a little more than a month before the old status was restored (yes, there were a few hotfixes to bugged US abilities and a slight toning down of the USF mortar, but the allied win rates were still high when those minor changes hit).

This spike for one side or the other will always happen when there are significant changes but they are not really an indication of balance but rather of a change in balance.

That said, what coh2charts does show is what player in these ranks on average experience, and while this likely is a temporary effect due to adjustment of the ELO, they are likely not aware of that and perceive it as "Waaah, my faction is broken!". And this is a valid concern. In fact, every significant patch comes with the danger of driving away very casual players. E.g. the guys that brought me to play this game, now play maybe once a month and I hear stuff from them like: "Well, they patched my IS, I can't use them anymore."

Rather gradual changes would help to alleviate both effects and also would make balancing easier I guess, but the issue then of course is that in reality this would mean we'd need a lot of patches to get anywhere, which likely not going to happen...

So, to give this post a little more on-topic spin: Significant changes to e.g. the Elefant might result in many casual players to get alienated (and I would content that these game modes do attract a lot of casuals) so I feel you'd really have to be careful here. Yes, certain units and abilities might be cheesy, but the players playing now do so despite of this. The danger of not fixing this is that people will get bored of the cheese and leave, but others might leave because they can't follow the changes. Tricky...

While I agree with that, the coh2charts reference is, hm, misleading. Indeed, the current spike indeed indicates that apparently the last patch favored axis, I give you that. However, the rebound that you describe only very partially has something to do with players adapting, it's actually more an expression of the ELO values and thus the matchmaking adjusting to the balance. If you are interested in the details you can check out this article.

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Interesting picture, it also show that USF didn't reach OKW current pick even with the OP mortar. And the pick is directly followed by a return to normal level. OKW is going up since the patch and while Ostheer is back to normal level, OKW stays over the top.

Imo, the explanation is rather simple
1- OKW has the best early game momentum allowing them to quickly win matchs. This is as per design.
2- OKW has the best late game momentym, so they have a second chance to win the match. This is also as per design.
3- OKW has an average, not better but not worst, mid game momemtum which profit from early game advantage in some cases and let OKW prepares late game advantages on the other half of cases.

On top of that, mid game momemtum is rather poor in 4vs4, what count is early and late game.

I hope no balance decisions are made from this thread. Considering most people here ranks are like a phone number. This all started because of an elephant/brumbar issue from another thread. Personally I think In all fairness rocket artillery/sim city needs to be looked at and go from there. That's what is poisoning every game

Interesting picture, it also show that USF didn't reach OKW current pick even with the OP mortar. And the pick is directly followed by a return to normal level. OKW is going up since the patch and while Ostheer is back to normal level, OKW stays over the top.

Imo, the explanation is rather simple
1- OKW has the best early game momentum allowing them to quickly win matchs. This is as per design.
2- OKW has the best late game momentym, so they have a second chance to win the match. This is also as per design.
3- OKW has an average, not better but not worst, mid game momemtum which profit from early game advantage in some cases and let OKW prepares late game advantages on the other half of cases.

On top of that, mid game momemtum is rather poor in 4vs4, what count is early and late game.

This is part of the fundamental flaws of asymmetric design. They will lead to a lower enjoyment of the game. If one side is designed to win early (and after that will have a progressively uphill battle) then there is less satisfaction in winning with that faction. To hang on for the 20-30 minutes it takes to build your own momentum and then be able to steam roll the opposition is much more satisfying... so one side is being designed for more satisfying gameplay.... which is bullshit and why COH2 is not more successful.

I want to play it. I watch the streams, read the forums, but find the game itself unsatisfying. Mind you this is not about balance but about business. You HAVE to pay attention to the 10x more people who play team modes. I will repeat that for the l33ts and tryhards... YOU HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE 10X PLAYERS WHO PLAY TEAMGAMES because without them you don't have a franchise. Not enough players -> no money -> no franchise.

COH2 is not a contender for eCompetitions. That has already been determined.... In fact there is a valid argument that the best strategy for business and game success is balancing the team modes and making a seperate 1v1 mod (should we call them "snobs"? It is a description that kind of fits).

(just throwing bombs out there to be discussed. I always hated the asymmetrical design. I think that not only is it very flawed in its concept even if "balanced" properly, it is also much much harder to execute that balance.)

Been fiddling around with the strumtiger.

I kinda agree with the nefts but I have 2 exceptions.

1. It can be abandoned to easily:What I mean is that I had a guard shoot my strumtiger with a ptrs and it was abandoned (vet 2 as well). Is it possible to give it a threashhold of damage to be abandoned? E.g has to be damaged by a unit with 160 or higher damage (in this case, will still punished people reloading to close to the front lines and encourage median tanks to flank).

2. Vet: Famous for its time to vet, needs to come down a bit if neft.

I hope no balance decisions are made from this thread. Considering most people here ranks are like a phone number. This all started because of an elephant/brumbar issue from another thread. Personally I think In all fairness rocket artillery/sim city needs to be looked at and go from there. That's what is poisoning every game

You are personally an axis fanboy and your only concern is "how can we make the game easier for me to win with my beloved faction".
Knowing that, you have no more authority than "people here with rank like a phone number"...