So Axis SMGs really are intentionally inferior?

Just watched this off the home page today:



Is what Dane saying accurate? Is the reason Assault Grenadiers are complete and utter trash and always have been because Allied SMGs get an assault rifle profile, while Axis SMGs, including the ones Volksgrenadiers now get in Feuersturm, get a different profile, which is what makes them such trash at anything other than melee range?

So all the Allied units with SMGs get to run and gun through open fields and actually be effective, while Axis SMG units need to pull of nigh impossible feats of flanking to do anything at all?

And are the new Ostheer Stormtroopers going to have an SMG profile or an assault rifle profile?

Assuming what Dane is saying is correct, this is just further proof that Axis, and Ostheer especially, are simply intentionally designed to be inferior, given issues like this and the fact that the 222 "armored car" is STILL not actually armored to this day.

What excuse can there possibly be for just blatantly making Axis weapons and units objectively, observably worse? Not in terms of tournament win/loss ratios, not in terms of vague theorycrafting balance discussions, but in terms of objectively observable facts (i.e. weapon profiles of SMGs and absence of actual armor on an armored car).

Why don't Assault Grenadiers and SMG Volks get to have the sheer destructive power of Allied SMG squads? Like, crap-your-pants-while-hitting-retreat power, the way Allied SMG squads interact with Axis units?

Why do Allied light armor units get to drive around the entire map and into an Axis base without taking literally a single point of damage, while the 222 blows up from base MGs while trying to finish off a sniper?

And the overarching question that covers all of this: why do Allied factions get to pose a GRAVE THREAT to Axis players, yet Axis units pose NO THREAT to Allied players?

I personally have never known anything about weapon profiles, and to anyone else who didn't, this Dane video is going to be a revelation of epic proportions that showcases just how blatantly unfair CoH2 faction design is.

If by "allies" you mean USF and by "SMGs" you mean thompsons, then yes. Otherwise nope. In fact Shock buff this patch was buffing their SMG damage falloff to levels similar to assgrens, let that sink in before you start your whining again

What excuse can there possibly be for just blatantly making Axis weapons and units objectively, observably worse?

They're cheaper.

/thread

Show Spoiler

What excuse can there possibly be for just blatantly making Axis weapons and units objectively, observably worse?

They don't need an excuse. It's a video game. They could make the 222 shoot literal confetti if they wanted to.

Relic and the Balance Team don't listen to angry forum rants, so this thread's unlikely to achieve anything other than an ultimately inconsequential forum argument.

If this game really bothers you this much, maybe the best solution is for you to simply not play it?

For those of you out there, stop reading at "Not in terms of tournament win/loss ratios, not in terms of vague theorycrafting balance discussions, but in terms of objectively observable facts"

The simple answer is OP doesn't care about the actual game balance but instead small differences between factions. As for the facts, they can be explained in context.

Original post ignores or is ignorant of:

STGs are a thing,

MP40s is comparable to Grease guns, not Tompsons,

PPSH also has SMG profiles, so are Sten guns, and Tompsons are only on two doctrinal elite infantry that hit the field as almost as late as an Ober.

ranting about the 222 armored car is a detraction from the original point and not a valid claim since the 222 is more akin to an M20 and that thing still gets damaged by small arms fire,

All factions pose threats to each other, it takes a good player to pull out the advantages of each, next patch is going to fix a lot of issues.

Complaining about SMGs here (in no relationship to win lost ratios) is as useless as complaining about German armor having superior armor or the Panther having more health than the Pershing.

In conclusion: learn to use your brain more rather than sucking off the teets of someone else's opinion.

You do know Thompsons cost 90 munitions, right?
There is a reason most people prefer Riflemen with BARs, the cost is higher, that's why they are better.

Allied stock infantry has less range than axis infantry. If USF and Soviets had more range, axis short range units could be buffed.

No, what Dane says isn't entirely correct. IMO, I'd sort them like this:

Guns with an assault rifle profile AKA gradual dps dropoff
Tier 1 assault rifles (perform well at all ranges)
- Ober STG's
- Fall FG42's
- B.A.R.'s

Tier 2 assault rifles (Perform well at short and midrange, decent at long range)
- Pgren STG's

Tier 3 assault rifles (perform well at short range, decent at mid range, bad at long range)
- Sturmpionier STG's

Tier 4 assault rifles (perform (comparatively) bad at short range, decent at mid and long range)
- Volk STG's

Guns with an SMG profile AKA sharp dps dropoff at around midrange
Tier 1 SMG's
- Thompsons (Perform well at short and midrange, bad at long range)

Tier 2 SMG's (perform well at short range, decent at midrange, bad at long range)
- Commando stens
- Assault engineer Grease guns
- Revamp shock PPSH's
- Revamp storm MP40's

Tier 3 SMG's (perform decent at short range, bad at mid and long range)
- Conscript PPSH's
- Assgren MP40's (includes arty officer and feuerstorm volks)

Tier 4 SMG's (perform bad at all ranges)
- Sapper stens
- Pio MP40's
- Tank crew grease guns

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not gonna say this list is perfect. For example: there's also a large difference between moving dps for each listed weapons. You could also add the G43, which has a comparable profile to pgren STG's, altho it's not really an assault rifle.

It's intentionally not very specific; for the exact numbers you can always look for Cruzzi's dps chart .

They're cheaper.

/thread

Profiles are meaningless, it just explains what ranges they are good at. The only allied smg that would actually be assault-rifle like is the thompson, which is on very expensive niche units.

+1

I think the smg profiles are fair right now though I'd like to see agrens scale a bit better. Tactical assault with mp40 however is quite lacking.

I think an issue with Ostheer is that it has been consistantly the most difficult faction to play with and it used to be a high risk high reward faction and from late 2014 onwards it was a high risk low reward faction until 2 patches ago when the balance team has finally woken up and put more oomph back into Tier4 and gave back the late game that Ostheer deserves.

As well, I think that Ost because due to its chronic weakness has been less respected than other factions. For example, a shitload of people overreacted to the 222 buffs when it first went live. SU and USF players were not used to needing an at gun vs Ost lights. U can get away with a single zook/ptrs squad vs one 222 but with 2 or more, u need an at gun and even the pros like Jae for Jett couldn't fathom the thought of sinking manpower into an at gun so early in the game when Ost players have done that all their life. I find USF only players especially greedy and want to sink all their mp into inf so they can try to win in 10 minutes every time. After a month, allied players finally learned where the "buy at gun" button was on their screen and finally no more complaints about the 222. 222 spam was nothing but a gimmick and a weak one at that. This is only ONE example of players disrespecting Ostheer.

https://www.coh2.org/topic/36347/cruzz-s-the-more-you-know/post/672650

Here's that DPS chart; his information is definitely wrong. The "SMG Profile" is applied very consistently: a sharp drop of effectiveness outside of 10m.

Derbyhat has it right.

I'd also like to point out that the main reason we haven't seen good Axis SMGs until now is that Axis elite squads have relied on other weapons, like STG-44s.

MP40 Storms are a cool, unique unit. I'd rather have free (good) MP40s than 100mu StG-44s (that you can get for free on another unit).

About the new stormtroopers: here's my comment on Dane's video (which for some reason doesn't show up outside of my own youtube account):



"Ok, so the damage profile of stg's vs mp40's is:

Range: 0 - 5 - 10 - 15 - 17 - 25 - 35
4x stormtrooper mp40's: 74.76 - 74.76 - 74.76 - 28.68 - 9.80 - 2.87 - 0.40
4x stormtrooper stg44's: 61.97 - 61.97 - 47.54 - 36.87 - 33.8 - 20.1 - 4.22
4x assgrenadier mp40's: 39.40 - 39.40 - 39.40 - 13.04 - 7.05 - 2.70 - 1.08

So, higher close range dps and near range is 10 instead of 5. Mp40 dps starts to drop sharply under stg's at around 13-14 range (that's about two halftracks in length). You also lose the bundled grenade. What do you get in return for losing the stg's?

- 33% faster decapture rate
- Passive healing out of combat
- Smoke grenade
- Anti-cache incendiary grenade
- Commando camouflage! (can cloak while moving and camo lingers for a few seconds like snipers)
- Booby traps

So you can actually close in on the enemy now with smoke nades and commando camo, while getting higher close-range dps while doing so. You can do covert actions behind the line with fast decap, cache destruction and passive healing. You can defend your own line with booby traps. You can upgrade the shreck (with tank detection) while still having a decent close-range squad. You can deny garrisons without having to resort to a flamer pio or a mortar. And on top of all that: you don't actually have to pay 100 munitions to make them effective like with stg stormtroopers.

If you want stg's, you could just get panzergrenadiers. Actually, the only thing that the old stormtroopers offered above pg's was the focused fire ability, at an initial cost of 125 munitions. (Also 0,75 RA instead of 0,8 RA). I did some testing of the wiping potential of the ability against a retreating full health vet 0 con squad with the following results:

Panzergrenadiers: Reduce con squad health by ~30%
Old stormtroopers w/ focused fire: Reduce con squad health by ~50%
New stormtroopers: Reduce con squad health by ~20%
New stormtroopers w/ focused fire: Reduce con squad health by ~40%

As you see can see it's a pretty nice bonus, but the new stormtroopers w/ focused fire are arguably more cost-effective at this role. The only allied squads that outperform them at this are rangers and paratroopers with thompsons which do ~50% damage and paratroopers w/ focused fire that do ~80% damage. Commando's and assault engineers do ~25% damage and revamp shocks do ~30% damage."



All in all: I'd consider the changes a definite buff which also give stormtroopers a more distinct role.

They're cheaper.

/thread

...I don't know why I even bother.

Price means literally nothing because resources are infinite and dependent only on time and nothing else.

Arguments about something being "cheaper" mean absolutely nothing when talking about objectively observable flaws.

For instance, if you were to make the T70 take damage from bullets and make it cost 50 manpower and 10 fuel, it would become 100% suicidal just like the 222, and the quantity you can put out would mean absolutely nothing.

Same with SMGs. Weapons that only deal damage in melee range are not viable, at all. Shock Troops are an exception because they're "armored".

Dane is right when he says there's no incentive to bring out SMGs and that the game is dominated by rifles, assault rifles, and LMGs, because when your weapon does nothing until you get in melee, even flanking does nothing, because a rifle unit can just turn and fire at your flanking SMG unit and kill it before it gets into range to deal any damage.

For crying out loud, stop using cost as an argument. It isn't one. It means absolutely nothing. Balance is about objectively observable performance, the kind you can observe in labbed situations where you spawn units in using the admin console without any regard to the cost of anything.

...I don't know why I even bother.

Price means literally nothing because resources are infinite and dependent only on time and nothing else.

Arguments about something being "cheaper" mean absolutely nothing when talking about objectively observable flaws.

For instance, if you were to make the T70 take damage from bullets and make it cost 50 manpower and 10 fuel, it would become 100% suicidal just like the 222, and the quantity you can put out would mean absolutely nothing.

Same with SMGs. Weapons that only deal damage in melee range are not viable, at all. Shock Troops are an exception because they're "armored".

Dane is right when he says there's no incentive to bring out SMGs and that the game is dominated by rifles, assault rifles, and LMGs, because when your weapon does nothing until you get in melee, even flanking does nothing, because a rifle unit can just turn and fire at your flanking SMG unit and kill it before it gets into range to deal any damage.

For crying out loud, stop using cost as an argument. It isn't one. It means absolutely nothing. Balance is about objectively observable performance, the kind you can observe in labbed situations where you spawn units in using the admin console without any regard to the cost of anything.

actually he would have a point if only that u get 3 Thompson instead of 2 stg
so 1 stg = 1 Thompson by price but not performance

"Price means literally nothing because resources are infinite and dependent only on time and nothing else."

Fundamentally wrong about RTS games.

Resources are infinite if you sit on meatgrinder stalemate where no site pushes their VP advantage to pressure the enemy into fighting in your own terms.

For instance, if you were to make the T70 take damage from bullets and make it cost 50 manpower and 10 fuel, it would become 100% suicidal just like the 222, and the quantity you can put out would mean absolutely nothing.

You seriously think a 50 MP 10 FU T-70 with the 222's armor would be a bad unit?

It'd be the most overpowered unit the game's ever seen.

Time is an important resource. If you lose a squad or vehicle, that is time you lose to rebuild while another player can expand their forces or worse, stockpile resources to prepare for the future and be ahead, even on a poor engagement. That is also time for VPs to bleed.

On SMGs, Assault Grenadiers suffer because they have the least utility compared to other SMGs, yet cannot be as powerful due to their 0 CP requirement.

Stormtroopers have an SMG profile as they’re not expected to fight head-on given they have a cloak to pick engagements or pick off weaker units at a favourable range.

Allies also generally have the stronger SMG squads because they are specialists, arrive later, and/or need costly upgrades. Shocks have to run from vehicles and can only ever fight infantry with nothing to help them out of combat, Commandos have a giant warning they are coming in or need to come in as a weakened 3 man squad, paratrooper and Rangers are significant investments and are also generally pure AI when put into the role of CQC units while having no abilities to close the distance.

"Price means literally nothing because resources are infinite and dependent only on time and nothing else."

Fundamentally wrong about RTS games.

I'm pritty sure he means that as the game goes on, a 30 munitions cost difference is a neglible cost compared to the overall increase in killing power. Which is fair