December Balance Preview

Okay the changes come from the community that is correct.

But still the fact stands that Relic allows one patch (or less) per year which is stupid imo. Better adjust little things more often than to change a lot of things in one patch that may fuck up everything until the next patch in 2019.

Imagine LoL buffing a champion beyond OPness and then simply leaving him as it is for months. That is a legit reason to uninstall a game.

That kind of support requires constant manpower on work to implement change, far more expensive than this.
No publisher would consider patching a 2013 game, even in such way, so as much as it may be a wrong way yo address balance (with hammer nerf and god buff as inevitable consequence) is the only way to balance it.

The Luchs is killing strategic diversity in the game because it makes certain builds impossible due to its oppressive timing.

Your analysis doesn't exactly hold because...

For Brits:
- You didn't account for the fact that they will absolutely need to research their infantry upgrades ASAP for their Tommies to have a chance in DBP
- The AEC is no wiping machine. The Luchs hardcounters brit infantry (since they can't simply pull fausts out of their asses), and the AEC is almost completely useless vs infantry. Especially OKW infantry.

For USF:
- The stuart is not exactly the same wipe machine it once was. It's mostly irrelevant vs infantry, but it's good at harassing; not wiping
- In any case, the Stuart isn't good at wiping the Luchs; it's mostly good at keeping it at bay
- Now, can you do the same cost analysis for what happens if you go Lieutenant? Because that will show you exactly the magnitude of how oppressive a 6-ish minute Luchs is.





That's because Soviet AT gun requires you to build T2; that's mostly OK though (though, the Zis gun is by FAR the slowest firing AT weapon in the game). USF AT gun, however, requires you to build Captain, and getting both Lieutenant and Captain is expensive.

Getting both officers used to work just fine for USF in the live version, due to call-in meta abuse. However, that doesn't work anymore, now that emergency M10's are no longer available.

Finally for UKF a single AT gun does jackshit vs Luchs. The Luchs can simply yolorush it and strafe it (due to lack of AT snares). If you've also played DBP at all, and tried to play UKF in DBP you would also notice that you aren't having such an easy time floating the MP needed to get 2 AT guns. That's because you really need to buy those infantry upgrades ASAP, and Tommies will bleed you like crazy until then.

This is only acceptable, if it is acceptable for Luchs to kill strategic diversity, just like pre-nerf T-70, AEC and Stuart were killing strategic diversity.



Clown cars can be soft-countered by small arms fire. Luchs can't. That's because Luchs has 55 armor, and is immune to small arms fire. In fact, Luchs will also chew other light vehicles and spit them out again.

Clown cars also become completely irrelevant the moment snares enter the field. A luchs is relevant during the entire game, due to its damage and range scaling with veterancy.

Clown cars actually have a window of them being useful. Luchs has no time limitations to fight against.





Luchs build time is irrelevant. That's because for every single unit you build out of T2, you need to spend a big amount of fuel.

Thus, even if your Luchs is taking longer to build, it doesn't prevent you from buying anything else in the game. Your MGs are at T0. Your paks are at T0. Everything you would ever conceivably want to queue while your Luchs is building is on another tier.

The inflation in the arrival time isn't that dramatic either way.
- Luchs can come around minute 6.
- With the changes, Luchs can now come around minute 6:45

This is not a 100% increase on arrival time. A 100% increase in Luchs delay would make it come at minute 12:00. This is obviously not the case.

Thus, please help me understand the reasoning behind your complaints.

Brits:
-no they don't, last time I checked they have got a powerful hmg to hold and upgradable UC, they don't lack any ai
-good news is piats work
-no, it's not, is a vehicle that hardcounter lights, is decent against infantry and definetly DO force a raketen ANYWAY, scale perfectly as vehicle counter and can stun vehicles nontheless.
Too bad it isn't AA too xd

Usf:
-what the hell does that mean ? Stuart pretty much hardcounter it, that's out of question
-usf at gun has the highest dps of all, is perfect for countering light vehicles
-aaht can face it with help of snares, zooks are perfect counters for light vehicles, sprinting 50 cal with AP or garrisoned can keep it at bay and almost nullify the shock value of luchs even better than captain can.

Soviets:
-zis firing slow is completely irrelevant, we are talking about minimal differences, in a faction that can use ptrs, guards call in and now viable mainline spriting with snares.
What a claim...

Brits:
-no they don't, last time I checked they have got a powerful hmg to hold and upgradable UC, they don't lack any ai
-good news is piats work

If you're going to upgrade PIATs vs an early luchs, gg; you lost the game. STG volks will run you over.

Can you show us a game where upgrading PIATs vs an early luchs won you the game in DBP?
If you haven't played DBP, you can always point us to one of the numerous replays uploaded by other players that feature DBP and PIATs.

Usf:
-what the hell does that mean ? Stuart pretty much hardcounter it, that's out of question
-usf at gun has the highest dps of all, is perfect for countering light vehicles
-aaht can face it with help of snares, zooks are perfect counters for light vehicles, sprinting 50 cal with AP or garrisoned can keep it at bay and almost nullify the shock value of luchs even better than captain can.

Ditto, for AAHT and 50cal counter to luchs.

Soviets:
-zis firing slow is completely irrelevant, we are talking about minimal differences, in a faction that can use ptrs, guards call in and now viable mainline spriting with snares.
What a claim...

Same, for PTRS vs Luchs.

If you're going to upgrade PIATs vs an early luchs, gg; you lost the game. STG volks will run you over.

Can you show us a game where upgrading PIATs vs an early luchs won you the game in DBP?
If you haven't played DBP, you can always point us to one of the numerous replays uploaded by other players that feature DBP and PIATs.



Ditto, for AAHT and 50cal counter to luchs.



Same, for PTRS vs Luchs.

Have you nerfed vickers or UC ?
Then a normal replay is perfect, and there's of those.
Also, 2 piats are 100 muni on RE, and then you are free to upgrade brens.

Those are pretty much softcounters, especially useful at keeping luchs at bay, enough to prepare zooks, zook bug has been fixed, so your claim that it isn't enough has low to no basis honestly.

Cherrypicking from my quote is useless, ptrs do its job to keep light vehicles at bay, horra at nade are a unique soviet thing, and can help zis at getting the job done.
T70 comes 1 minute after max...

Have you nerfed vickers or UC ?
Then a normal replay is perfect, and there's of those.
Also, 2 piats are 100 muni on RE, and then you are free to upgrade brens.

Those are pretty much softcounters, especially useful at keeping luchs at bay, enough to prepare zooks, zook bug has been fixed, so your claim that it isn't enough has low to no basis honestly.

Cherrypicking from my quote is useless, ptrs do its job to keep light vehicles at bay, horra at nade are a unique soviet thing, and can help zis at getting the job done.
T70 comes 1 minute after max...

Then show us a normal replay where we see AAHT/.50/Piat etc... countering the Luch? I hadn't any opinion so far on the Luch additional delay since I don't play OKW but watching you countering it with an AAHT (with support) or a .50 should be entertaining.

lol smith if you seriously struggling vs luchs with USF and soviets, im sorry thats ur l2p issue. Only brits have any right to complain about luchs

The AEC is no wiping machine. The Luchs hardcounters brit infantry (since they can't simply pull fausts out of their asses), and the AEC is almost completely useless vs infantry.

But AEC is a counter to Luchs. Or balance goal now is to make game safer for those who can't adapt and predict?

can you do the same cost analysis for what happens if you go Lieutenant

If I go Jagdtiger in the game vs player who spams infantry all day long and there is no sign of any vehicles does it make JT UP? Another words, if you expect Luchs, why you go LT? Is your wrong decision a balance's fault?

-usf at gun has the highest dps of all, is perfect for countering light vehicles

-zis firing slow is completely irrelevant, we are talking about minimal differences, in a faction that can use

PS: Can you make up your damn mind?

If I go Jagdtiger in the game vs player who spams infantry all day long and there is no sign of any vehicles does it make JT UP? Another words, if you expect Luchs, why you go LT? Is your wrong decision a balance's fault?

Because Luchs will come out every damn game; if not only to restrict the other guy from going lieutenant. Luchs coming out isn't a prediction. It's a certainty.

Have you nerfed vickers or UC ?
Then a normal replay is perfect, and there's of those.
Also, 2 piats are 100 muni on RE, and then you are free to upgrade brens.

Tommies were nerfed and RE were mega-nerfed. Who is going to carry the PIATs and who'se going to carry the Bren guns. Also, how many guns can you really afford by the time Luchs comes out?

So yeah. I dare you to find me a DBP game replay to back up your claims.

Because Luchs will come out every damn game; if not only to restrict the other guy from going lieutenant. Luchs coming out isn't a prediction. It's a certainty.

And why?
because okw struggle vs the allie infantery and anti infntery tool from allies.

Thats why you have no other good tools vs this....thats why you have only the hope the luchs will kill some models and dont get killed by a lucky mine/ faust/ aec/ t70/ stuart / AT gun/ satchels etc...

look to the new m8 greyhound..it wipe whole squads in a blink of a eye, is super mobile (more than luchs) and can even kill the luchs.

a luchs kill model per model..a m8 wipe a squad easily

And why?
because okw struggle vs the allie infantery and anti infntery tool from allies.

Thats why you have no other good tools vs this....thats why you have only the hope the luchs will kill some models and dont get killed by a lucky mine/ faust/ aec/ t70/ stuart / AT gun/ satchels etc...

look to the new m8 greyhound..it wipe whole squads in a blink of a eye, is super mobile (more than luchs) and can even kill the luchs.

a luchs kill model per model..a m8 wipe a squad easily

if remember correctly grayhound is 5cp so comon its super late

Miragefla:
Originally I suggested the Mechanized and Luchs both get 15 seconds on their build timer, though people would just plop down the Mech truck sooner.
If anyone has a better suggestion regarding the early Luchs timing, feel free to put it in.

Me:
I do have an idea, however I don't know if it is possible. Give the luchs a 65 seconds build time and, if possible, make it so that it can only be build after a 15-20 second 'cooldown' after the mech truck is setup. This way you will have your 85 second build time, but it will not have a 85 second build time if you want to rebuild it for example.

Again, I don't know if this is possible, but it would delay the obvious problematic timing whilst not punishing anyone trying to rebuild it.

This solution is identical to increasing MechHQ build time by an equal amount of seconds.

The solution will simply not work because people are just going to adjust their build order to put the MechHQ truck 15-20 seconds before they would normally do. Then, it would only take 1 week for people to finetune their build order, and we're back to luchs-rush meta.

Unless MechHQ build time increases to beyond 3 minutes (which would be retarded), it won't have any effect on delaying the Luchs.

The only other option to increasing Luchs build time is throwing a fuel nerfhammer on MechHQ or Luchs.

However, we don't want to increase the fuel cost of either because that would completely delete the tier from ever being used.

A more long-term sustainable solution would be to redesign what goes in OKW T0, OKW T1 and OKW T2 so that tiers actually have both long-term value and present interesting trade-offs (rather than I go T2 for Luchs rush/Stuka and T1 for healing, and forget about T1/T2 units for the rest of the game). However, we aren't allowed to do this; especially at this point.

lol, people go luchs to have the extra early AI cuz volks will hands down lose to allied infantry in the early game that is why TOP players need that luchs. AND lol2, by forcing yourself to go mechanized ur sacrificing battlegroup which is okay, making decisions is good for gameplay but when USF are having to go lieutenant, then suddenly its no longer OK, so its all from the USF perspective. ther is a clear bias going on here.

PS: Can you make up your damn mind?



Because Luchs will come out every damn game; if not only to restrict the other guy from going lieutenant. Luchs coming out isn't a prediction. It's a certainty.



Tommies were nerfed and RE were mega-nerfed. Who is going to carry the PIATs and who'se going to carry the Bren guns. Also, how many guns can you really afford by the time Luchs comes out?

So yeah. I dare you to find me a DBP game replay to back up your claims.

Zis is just ok, the difference is minimal, usf at gun is awesome as always because of super range ability AND super fire rate.
On the other hand no faction has special snowflake non doc single unit sprint on the snare unit, and you want to argue that SOVIETS can't counter a light vehicle with snare and atg ?

No it's not now that crap halftrack and mg is good, but....

RE were nerfed because simply op as cheap shock unit, especially with 5 men, giving them a piat is more than an option.

"Nerfs" means better out of cover performances for a minimal durability nerf of 0.9 RA ?

If you win garrison play without using too much muni and get a pit you can easily get 100 spare muni for double piat and 2 bren by that time especially considering that 6 minutes luchs require okw to completely outplay the opponent, most of the time is already 6:45

Can you provide a replay of those factions struggling against luchs in dbp, and struggling against okw early ai (and luchs coming at 6 min), especially after kubel nerf ?

Ease off smith guys. He is doing this for free and on his own time with miragefla. We've seen that our ideas can make it into the preview, such as the falls para drop. Use strong arguments, not saying "modders biased".

@Mr. Smith, you said you needed to add 45 seconds to the luchs time. Where did this number come from?

...

Unrelated note: what's the supposed damage the new Jackson with HVAP should be doing. 240 or 200? What about pen values?

Unrelated note: what's the supposed damage the new Jackson with HVAP should be doing. 240 or 200? What about pen values?

Just to be on the conservative side, for the live version, we'll be changing HVAP to the following:
- HVAP damage from 240 to 200
- HVAP penetration from 300/270/240 to 300/280/250

That's in order to avoid having the new 640HP jackson 3-shotting medium tanks with HVAP.

HVAP is super-buggy in live version, and the prospects of Jackson surviving to benefit from the extra veterancy it would get from added damage were extremely low.

keep going with the great balance changes mr smith, and ignore these people that have a 700 rank ( in a game where 4000 people play, which mean they are absolute loosers), and are biased and need stuff to be OP to win a damn game.

CoH2 is strategically shallow, and it has always been.

Players have, outside their initial build order one real meaningful decision: their first fuel investment.

Buffing and nerfing that one decision players can make won't change the landscape of players really having no strategic diversity to begin with.

It is not the luchs fault that strategy is shallow in coh2.