Balance 2018 2vs2

Hi,

the following is my honest opinion. I want to have a constructive discussion about it since this is honestly how I feel about the state of the game currently. That being said feel free to ignore the obvious forum trolls answers (not calling his name).

The Axis factions do not stand a chance on an equal skill footing in 2vs2s (Brits excluded). The US and especially Soviets are overperforming.

Both Axis factions lack in most of the relevant aspects of the game.

1) Infantry: Double BARs and/ or Guards eat any infantry the Axis can muster. Even when going Jäger Inf, the US and Soviets hold an infantry advantage.

2) Support weapons:
- Maxim spam is destroying a lot of games.

3) Tank destroyers:
- 60 range TDs for Soviets and US dominate the lategame.
- Su 76 spam has reached levels where Panzer IVs lose their purpose.

4) Abilities:
- The IL-2 skillplane has become meta.

5) Other:
- Two men sniper squads also are a common annoyance in 2vs2 and kill games.

In short: The Allies can easily swarm the Axis factions with infantry, TDs keep any tank at bay and this synergy is hardly counterable for the Axis. To me it seems there is no aspect of the game Axis aren't being outperformed by the Allies.

I can't be the only one seeing a problem here.

There's currently the Ultimate Team Tournament happening, with both Axis and Allies showing brilliant 2on2 tactics and counter-tactics the things you're mentioning. Its also great to show the state of balance in 2018s - I recommend watching the streams.

In the tournament, Axis is doing really great to the point of steamrolling everything. This will surely provide valuable fertile ground for discussions.

Currently, at the time of writing, Talisman and Hooligan are doing great with OST and OKW, winning easily, and earlier in the day Axis rolled over everything..
https://www.twitch.tv/stormless

And yet, tournament games are proving you wrong...

Double OKW is supposedly one of the weakest teams in coh2, yet recently they completely steamrolled allies the one game I've seen.

Yeap you basically named off all the OP things currently. Abusing OP mechanics leads to unfair advantages.

However I would like to say that at the very least heavy TDs arn't in EVERY MATCH for axis. So I think balance is better than it has been for teamgames.

Double OKW is supposedly one of the weakest teams in coh2, yet recently they completely steamrolled allies the one game I've seen.

Sample size 11/10

As for tournament games I have a few thoughts that make them feel a bit too much like "lab experiments" that might not reflect normal automatch conditions.

First off map selection: When you have a smaller pool of maps for the tournament and know your specific spawn you can better prepare a strat for that side of the map. Also you can make your commander loadout best for that specific tournament map which might not be ideal for normal automatch. For regular automatching I at least personally prefer a Jack-of-all-trades commander selection which enables me to get most out of at least one of them on any given map.

Secondly, there is often less element of surprise when teams are mostly well known and rivals can analyze each others playstyle. Many teams have some "trademark strats" and it will probably be easier to make a counterbuild in advance with your teammate than trying to make a good counterstrat on the fly with a random.

Also in automatch you can easily make costly miscalculations because you don't know your opponent and their style on a random map. For example lets say one expects a soviet player to go for an M3 against OKW on Vaux Farmlands because it performs very well there and get an early raketen to try and predict the most likely build around T1. Then you notice the opponent is actually a maxim spammer and you have a 270 manpower purchase that will take ages to start yielding some return on investment and will take away from your field presence and makes it harder to pull of flanks with less mainline infantry. I think such mispredictions happen more rarely because of the tournament element and of course because of the top players good knowledge of their rivals' styles and team synergy.

Personal experience on such miscalculations I can mention from 2v2s against certain unnamed Brit players. It was pretty surprising to do "normal" axis builds and suddenly get steamrolled by 6 comets and double artillery covers straight after simcity spam. (back in the days when arty cover and emplacements were in a really good spot) After you start to notice the same build and strat happens every single game in every single map every single day you end up making radical changes to your build and be able to counter the cheesy strat when you can prepare for it from the minute you see your opponents name.

Lastly I think team synergy is probably the biggest factor in tournament games. Good communication and teamwork can overcome many balance issues. I think its obvious that a team who has spent hundreds of hours playing together can do very well with both sides against people who have randomly teamed up to compete in a 2v2 tournament. For random automatch such things don't apply nearly as often unless you have a very intuitive teammate and both can adapt to each others playstyle on the fly and cover their weaknesses. On normal random automatch conditions the lack of team synergy makes raw unit stats matter much more than brilliantly coordinated flanks and diversions that can turn the tide in tournament matches. (as a bonus when you have a familiar teammate who you can count on its possible to focus much more on your own performance rather than checking your mate's build orders etc)

tl;dr high-level tournament conditions might not be ideal to interpret normal automatch balance between random teams

That being said feel free to ignore the obvious forum trolls answers (not calling his name).

This individual's name doesn't happen to start with a K, does it?

Sample size 11/10

too bad the win chat is no longer working. tourney result is the best size sample we are going to get.

The early field pressure of double OKW is simply astounding in 2v2 and can almost lock allies out of the game if played right.

The early field pressure of double OKW is simply astounding in 2v2 and can almost lock allies out of the game if played right.

Agreed, if played right OKW can snowball a game early and win it by mid game.

At the same time not gaining that advantage is very costly without a OST partner.

My opinion is that allies actually range from slightly unfavored to very unfavored depending on 2vs2 map right now. No matter what faction mix you run，they all have their own set of problems though brits probably have the most. Both axis factions are less exploitable and have a fair bit of cheese with which to deal with the few strongholds that allies still hold (lategame double upgrade basic infantry and 60 range TDs...except personal opinion wise JPIV is the best of the 60 rangers so even the latter part is arguable when OKW is in the mix)

There's several maps that are super bad for allies, out of the "tourney" maps the prime example would be Crossing in the Woods. Werfer just wipes for days on that map and ost mortars reach into every engagement from the center. Stadschutt is another really bad map for allies, the map design just makes axis MGs unkillable. Any map that is close quarters is very unfavored for allies in the lategame if they can't gain a massive lead in the midgame, because 60 range doesn't mean jack shit on maps like Elst where almost all tank engagements happen at range <40

Hi,

the following is my honest opinion. I want to have a constructive discussion about it since this is honestly how I feel about the state of the game currently. That being said feel free to ignore the obvious forum trolls answers (not calling his name).

The Axis factions do not stand a chance on an equal skill footing in 2vs2s (Brits excluded). The US and especially Soviets are overperforming.

Both Axis factions lack in most of the relevant aspects of the game.

1) Infantry: Double BARs and/ or Guards eat any infantry the Axis can muster. Even when going Jäger Inf, the US and Soviets hold an infantry advantage.

2) Support weapons:
- Maxim spam is destroying a lot of games.

3) Tank destroyers:
- 60 range TDs for Soviets and US dominate the lategame.
- Su 76 spam has reached levels where Panzer IVs lose their purpose.

4) Abilities:
- The IL-2 skillplane has become meta.

5) Other:
- Two men sniper squads also are a common annoyance in 2vs2 and kill games.

In short: The Allies can easily swarm the Axis factions with infantry, TDs keep any tank at bay and this synergy is hardly counterable for the Axis. To me it seems there is no aspect of the game Axis aren't being outperformed by the Allies.

I can't be the only one seeing a problem here.

Haven't we just be witnessing a 2vs2 tournament last night where Axis dominated all matches independently of the team playing them?

Yeap you basically named off all the OP things currently. Abusing OP mechanics leads to unfair advantages.

However I would like to say that at the very least heavy TDs arn't in EVERY MATCH for axis. So I think balance is better than it has been for teamgames.



Sample size 11/10

Well, there was a full evening of axis steamrolling allies, regardless of team compositions or who played them last night.

Does that make for a better sample for you know?

Bottom line is:
If you do not suck at the game, axis is stronger in team games, 2s included.

I will now wait in anticipation for 1k+ RT players to come here and scream how underpowered axis in 2s are.

The ONLY reason why OP is saying what he does is because he plays RT and has no control over his team mate and pretty much only reason to play RT is to remind yourself why you should never play RT.

Hi,

the following is my honest opinion. I want to have a constructive discussion about it since this is honestly how I feel about the state of the game currently. That being said feel free to ignore the obvious forum trolls answers (not calling his name).

In short: The Allies can easily swarm the Axis factions with infantry, TDs keep any tank at bay and this synergy is hardly counterable for the Axis. To me it seems there is no aspect of the game Axis aren't being outperformed by the Allies.

Step 1: Watch UTT streams
Step 2: Realize you are wrong.

As much as Butcher mostly plays axis and he's known as a axis favour guy he is kinda right. Points 3,4,5 accually are unfair and gives advantage to allies. BUT as Cruzz meansion it's mostly depends on a map.

Tank destroyers like Jaksons and Flies in cover with double bren tommies spam or guards makes them too strong from it costs. Soviet snipers are really hard to kill with small arm fire even flanked by 2 volks squads (you have to pray to RNG God really hard to get a wipe). Add IL-2 strafe which is wiping every not full heath squad for only 200ammo (and as we all know soviet is a faction that float ammo the most) and here you have a easy strats for winning and unfun to play vs.

It;s not like Axis doesn't have good effort-efficient strategies just i think allies have it more.

Well, there was a full evening of axis steamrolling allies, regardless of team compositions or who played them last night.

Bottom line is:
If you do not suck at the game, axis is stronger in team games, 2s included.

Eee, nope?

The reason that top teams are winning against such strats and cheese plays it's becouse they find out the solution to beat it. It doesn't justify that those units/builds/tactics are too cost efficient to their counterplays which make them unbalance in a longer term.

The ONLY reason why OP is saying what he does is because he plays RT and has no control over his team mate and pretty much only reason to play RT is to remind yourself why you should never play RT.

I have too agree in 100%

Eee, nope?

The reason that top teams are winning against such strats and cheese plays it's becouse they find out the solution to beat it. It doesn't justify that those units/builds/tactics are too cost efficient to their counterplays which make them unbalance in a longer term.

So you're basically telling us here that if we actually have a clue on how to play our faction, then that faction suddenly does not look weak? That if opponent does Rock, you should do Paper to counter it and not use your Scissors every singular time because you THINK it should work good, complaining how hard you have it on forums?

All of the perceived OP allied units were used during these games and team playing axis at the moment always managed to overcome them.

Its almost as if the issue is with knowing what your shit does, how to use it and when to use different shit instead of trying to use magical, unflexible same BO on all maps, against all team comps, at all skill levels, regardless of what opponent do and now with the long term balance.

You rarely see top players complain all the time about something(except Hans and his bad RNG when parking on own mines), because these players are not mentally stuck 5 patches ago, they read changes and adapt themselves to new balance, which I can not say about a singular person who creates a thread like this one.

Bottom line is, balance section is overcrowded with people who should be spamming threads in strategy desk.

Tho we saw yesterday Stug > jackson or firefly on all games.
Stug won the tankfights and at guns get killed from panzerwerfer or walking stuka.


So it really depends on the maps. And don't forget you can have like 2 stug for 1 firefly from time.
And the attackspeed from stugs is just ...

So there is no really answer at all for 2vs2. It depends on the maps and also if you are playing vs 2 brits or 2 usa or mix etc ...

mentally stuck 5 patches ago

best thng ive read in 2018, thanks

Tho we saw yesterday Stug > jackson or firefly on all games.
Stug won the tankfights and at guns get killed from panzerwerfer or walking stuka.


So it really depends on the maps. And don't forget you can have like 2 stug for 1 firefly from time.
And the attackspeed from stugs is just ...

So there is no really answer at all for 2vs2. It depends on the maps and also if you are playing vs 2 brits or 2 usa or mix etc ...

Best scenarios were 2xStug paired with 1xBrummbar and 1xP4 Command Tank, using houses as cover and shot-blockers. That was fantastically powerful, it countered infantry, it countered tanks, and was utterly devastating as both attackers or defenders.

Very simple. Create a poll of the top 50 players of all play options. I guarantee that at least 65-70% say that the allies are stronger in all disciplines.

Very simple. Create a poll of the top 50 players of all play options. I guarantee that at least 65-70% say that the allies are stronger in all disciplines.

The results will most likely be screwed with confirmation bias, as players will most likely validate their preexisting beliefs or hypotheses by voting that their preferred side is weaker in a particular discipline. E.g. in the tournament yesterday, Stugs dominated the fields, despite the common believes that allies have a stronger TD game-play.

The few ally things that, in my opinion, stand out at the moment are their Snipers, their Skills planes, and their late-game double equipped infantry.