Spring Update - Balance thread

Yeah, there's never been any top CoH2 players that were willing to troll the hell out of those balancing this game.

Also, the only valid players of CoH2 are automatch ladder climbers.

Lots of good changes, some are peculiar to say the least, but I'll wait for a preview mod or something similar.

I have to ask if OST bunkers are in scope? They still have 100% lethality for any squad garrisoned in them if the bunker is destroyed, changing this would be a good trade off for their selfspoting when they have a mg42.

Besides that, the brit sniper can still fully stun casemate vehicles, I don't know if this is intended but seeing how the Pak, stug and firefly lost the full stun for a blind and/or speed reduction stun, seems weird the sniper can still fully stun.

Lastly, the demo charge needs a look at, I understand the reason to not be able to plant it in points, but before they were a tool for destroying caches as well, and the last change killed that too.

I have to ask if OST bunkers are in scope? They still have 100% lethality for any squad garrisoned in them if the bunker is destroyed, changing this would be a good trade off for their selfspoting when they have a mg42.

I dont think so, the main focus is being put on the changes that are on the list.

Like that time when you suggested to give the su76 HE ammo so that it could act as a 90 fuel Isu152?

Fair and balanced indeed.

You.

I like you.

No homo.

to be precise, it is a buff only in case of fighting against targets with high pen to begin with, which had the chance (eg ~15% for vet0 and ~55% vet3 jackson @ max range) to kill the old panther in 5 hits. for mediums with lower pen values it is barely noticable. but it does remove some of the randomness and that's surely not for the worst

Look, pen is fundamentally RNG based, you can only play around it to an extent. Your Tanks HP pool is something you can actually make plays off its consistent, Panther is probably the most inconsistent unit in the game in terms of damage it recieves. It's armour total on live is totally unhelpful, its in a mire where its somewhat reliably penned by TDs and at guns and then reliably enough penned by mediums that results in you not being able to make the aggressive plays you should be able to make with a Panther.

If your unit takes damage in a more consistent way thats more information for the person on using it on how the plays they make play out, you have a clear goal of if i do A B will happen rather than okay, my Panther could bounce every shot and be fine or just get penned a few times in a row and I just wasted all resources on one play that could have been good.

Stop looking at units in a vacuum, its utterly pointless in a balance discussion. Think about the practicalities of HP over RNG roll

Do you know if there is a "set in stone" date for when the preview changes have to be finalized and ready for the live version?

I can only hope it is well before the holiday season starts so there will be a possibility of releasing hotfixes if any game breaking features occur.

That question is best asked to Relic directly, even Mr Smith cant answer that for you I don't think

That´s just wrong. If you have 10 APM micro and can´t keep track of all the fights going on around the map or what your units are doing etc. you cant win games. All the knowledge in the world won´t win you games.
I simly do not believe that say a rank 100 player automatically has less knowledge about the game as a rank 10 player.

Ok great argument, 10 apm? Who the hell has 10 apm? Can you please find me a clip of someone playing coh2 with 10 apm.

Micro falls off hard in this game, pathfinding and the way engagements play out mean the one thing stopping you being good at this game in reality is how fast you comprehend all the things happening and then the decisions you make in reaction, if you want to call that micro fine but in other RTS' i've played the coh2 'pros' would be noobs based on the amount of ways you can just pure out-micro/macro someone

Your micro needs to be good enough to monitor 2 engagements at once in 99% of games, if you adjust your playstyle to your micro level as CaptainPrice and others do, you can now beat the highest micro coh2 player with the micro of a 90 year old man.

This scenario where you have to monitor 4 or 5 engagements exist only in the instance you allow the scenario to happen, if you are good at the game you only have to micro within the realms of what you're comfortable doing. Watch Price play the game, he just slowly moves his camera over his sniper/blob while beating top 10 players.

There's no economy to micro in coh2, very little macro play in general. You get audio queues to warn you about grenades, tank and vehicles are clunky and are easier to over-micro than under-micro thanks to pathing. Infantry engagements take quite a while to reach a point where either play usually needs to react, there are things like tac map that let you monitor multiple engagements at once.

I have a background in AOM so my micro is actually pretty decent, I probably micro better than a lot of the 'pro' players yet they're just better at the game than me and i'll never be above 50% win rate vs them unless my in-game decisions get better.

That question is best asked to Relic directly, even Mr Smith cant answer that for you I don't think

I think you misspelled "Soon" ™

On the King Tiger front, what do you think about moving Spearhead to Veterancy 0?

Geez...the game gets worse by each community patch, nevermind the design changes

Geez...the game gets worse by each community patch, nevermind the design changes

You can't be serious about that when Community Patches have worked to solve most of this games awful design flaws. Before these we had sim city garbage, useless cons, massive pshrek blobs, Double 50 cal rifle terminators and broken flame weapons.

Atleast the community patches are trying to fix balance in this game, old relic patches would just break the game. (WFA, UKF, Released 81mm USF mortar).

RA was changed on previous patches, snipers have a model size of 1.5.

Is there a reason the soviet sniper cant have uniquely high received accuracy out of all the snipers?

Do you see my point? The stated aim is change X to achieve Y. But in reality X is achieving Y and Z (easier to kill with infantry and homogenised sniper interaction).

If it is a conscious decision that all snipers should behave essentially the same when interacting with each other, then this isn't justified/explained by saying that infantry flanks on snipers aren't rewarding enough at the moment.

What is the thought process behind that? Is it worth homogenisation to change that sniper interaction and strip the unit of its uniqueness?

If the argument is that everyone should have access to countersnipes as a counter to snipers, how is that balanced with OKW and USF not having access to snipers at all? Making infantry flanks rewarding against snipers (it is only not rewarding against the Soviet sniper at the moment) fixes the issue for all factions and retains the uniqueness of the unit.

This isnt JUST a balance change, but a fairly significant design and flavour change as well.

Is there a reason the soviet sniper cant have uniquely high received accuracy out of all the snipers?

Do you see my point? The stated aim is change X to achieve Y. But in reality X is achieving Y and Z (easier to kill with infantry and homogenised sniper interaction).

If it is a conscious decision that all snipers should behave essentially the same when interacting with each other, then this isn't justified/explained by saying that infantry flanks on snipers aren't rewarding enough at the moment.

What is the thought process behind that? Is it worth homogenisation to change that sniper interaction and strip the unit of its uniqueness?

If the argument is that everyone should have access to countersnipes as a counter to snipers, how is that balanced with OKW and USF not having access to snipers at all? Making infantry flanks rewarding against snipers (it is only not rewarding against the Soviet sniper at the moment) fixes the issue for all factions and retains the uniqueness of the unit.

This isnt JUST a balance change, but a fairly significant design and flavour change as well.

All the balance changes (except bugs and qol) are based on watching the current meta. Although these are not the final changes.

All the balance changes (except bugs and qol) are based on watching the current meta. Although these are not the final changes.

That's really not much of an explanation for such a change...

Ok, in the current meta, the Soviet Sniper Team is over used and over powered. Fine, it needs a nerf, fine, I'm with you there.

How does that lead to completely redesigning the unit being justified? Why not stat changes instead, like i said, the change doesnt just make infantry flanks more rewarding vs it, it also completely changes the sniper dynamic vs Ost and utterly homogenises the unit.

That's really not much of an explanation for such a change...

Ok, in the current meta, the Soviet Sniper Team is over used and over powered. Fine, it needs a nerf, fine, I'm with you there.

How does that lead to completely redesigning the unit being justified? Why not stat changes instead, like i said, the change doesnt just make infantry flanks more rewarding vs it, it also completely changes the sniper dynamic vs Ost and utterly homogenises the unit.

I could give you my personal opinion about this, but i cant talk for the whole balance team about that change. I think that 1 man sniper is a good change, 2 model sniper team made the unit too hard to kill. By my experience playing the game, killing 1 model of the sniper team ment that the other guy retreated to the base when it should've died. Now that sniper counters have been buffed, maybe the received accuracy could be tunned down a little.

I could give you my personal opinion about this, but i cant talk for the whole balance team about that change. I think that 1 man sniper is a good change, 2 model sniper team made the unit too hard to kill. By my experience playing the game, killing 1 model of the sniper team ment that the other guy retreated to the base when it should've died. Now that sniper counters have been buffed, maybe the received accuracy could be tunned down a little.

I appreciate you responding.

I still don't understand the justification for the change, you could make the team have 1 hp each and 100% received accuracy, it would not be too hard to kill then right? Why does too hard to kill justify the 1 man squad change?

The one man squad change necessarily homogenises the unit and makes the unit get 1 shot by Ost sniper (big change to sniper dynamic) and can also make the unit easier to kill. RA changes, health changes, stat changes can make the unit easier to kill without homogenisation and sniper dynamic changes. It achieves what you want without affecting other elements of the game, isnt this therefore the obvious choice to make?

This is why "its too hard to kill" doesnt justify the change to 1 man in my eyes.

This is what i mean when i say you claim you want to change X to achieve Y, but in reality you change X to achieve Y and Z. But no thought or justification is given for the secondary change.

It seems like the reaction too "soviet sniper is too hard to kill" is resulting in "lets completely redesign the unit", when you could just make the sniper easier to kil...

I can't help but agree with the argument that making the Soviet sniper 1 man isn't the only way to reduce its durability. If that's all that needs to be done it's possible to do it differently.

Like that time when you suggested to give the su76 HE ammo so that it could act as a 90 fuel Isu152?

Fair and balanced indeed.

Come on, it wasn't me. It was felinewolfie.

https://www.coh2.org/topic/69670/su-76/post/665944

A number of units have been given additional boosts to their MGs against snipers, increasing the number of mobile counters to these units.The following units’ hull MGs now have a 1.5 accuracy multiplier vs snipers
• USF: Stuart and Greyhound
• British: AEC
• Soviet: T-70
• Wehrmacht: Puma, 222 Armored Car
• OKW: Puma, Panzer II

If this isn't going to be properly communicated to the player ingame then it should be cut. The game already has too much important information that's hidden from the player: we shouldn't layer on more.

The other sniper nerfs are probably enough anyway. Do we really need more than received accuracy to solve the problem?

Agree with many others that there are many good small changes in here, but also some very WTF changes, that make me feel that the balance team has become a bit overconfident after their last (very good, very successful) patch.

For example:

• Easily dodgeable Katyusha barrage made more dodgeable
  
• Already weak AT IS made weaker
  
• AT only PTRS made worse at AT
  
• Useless treadshot more useless
  

Also the armies are being over homogenised:

• Fast, close range US mortar turned into Wehr mortar copy
  
• Long-range LeIG turned into a mortar copy
  
• Close-range PPSh cons nerfed at close range
  
• UK AT gun, which was better due to no snare, being made the same as other armies with snare
  
• Defensive Tommies turned into an offensive unit (last patch)
  
• Soviet sniper!! (enough said)
  

There are many other good changes but with so many small "fine-tuning" changes based only on the current meta, aren't we losing sight of the bigger picture?