Shocked at how easy Germans are.

Stale metagame breaks easily. In this sense, German players have to rely on soviet (in)ability to micro their units to gauge their own ability. If the Soviet's micro is faulty, a German player is not required to put forth a micro intensive effort. The ball is effectively always in the Soviet's court, so to speak, as far as micro impetus is concerned. Hence, German players are only ever pushed to put forth high level micro skills when up against high level Soviet players, whereas Soviet players always must put forth such an effort in every match.

So in a simple manner of speaking, and especially where tournaments are concerned, Soviet players are much more able to maintain a high level of practice in their gameplay strategies than German players. The Germans must rely on their opponent's level of competitiveness to even begin to gauge their own gameplay for practice. And this is not taking into account any perceived issues with ELO ranking and automatch matchmaking, either.

That actually makes a lot of sense to me, thx.

I never had the sense of such a strong interdependence of the level of play in the two factions in COH1.

In COH1 if you played well,what your opponent did sort of only matter for the size of the victory.

I understand now that the german play experience depends a lot more on the opposition than I had realised.

Insightful post!

@Nullist: quit asking for the play Card. I posted several times that I'm a casual player and that I'm ranked in the deep thousands. That's the basic info needed to evaluate my background.

@Nullist: quit asking for the play Card. I posted several times that I'm a casual player and that I'm ranked in the deep thousands. That's the basic info needed to evaluate my background.

Far as I can tell, youve posted that once. Previous times you just ignored my request.

Considering your recent claims, I think it was reasonable to ask to see it.
If you dont want to show it, fine. That's your prerogative. I wont ask again.

Stale metagame breaks easily. In this sense, German players have to rely on soviet (in)ability to micro their units to gauge their own ability. If the Soviet's micro is faulty, a German player is not required to put forth a micro intensive effort. The ball is effectively always in the Soviet's court, so to speak, as far as micro impetus is concerned. Hence, German players are only ever pushed to put forth high level micro skills when up against high level Soviet players, whereas Soviet players always must put forth such an effort in every match.

So in a simple manner of speaking, and especially where tournaments are concerned, Soviet players are much more able to maintain a high level of practice in their gameplay strategies than German players. The Germans must rely on their opponent's level of competitiveness to even begin to gauge their own gameplay for practice. And this is not taking into account any perceived issues with ELO ranking and automatch matchmaking, either.

Please correct me if I am wrong. But the way I read this is.. Ost is essentially easy enough that the only time an Ost player is challenged to step up their game is when they meet a good or better Soviet player.

You could also put it this way: As long as the soviet player under-utilises the potentiale of his faction, the german will player will likely be able to close the deal on cruise-control.

It's like two cars with different power distribution. The german car is easy to accelerate. The soviet car has a higher top speed, but takes a lot more changes of gears to get there.

So if the soviet driver doesn't bother using more than the first two gears, you are sure to win with your two gears.

Now I'm rambling....dunno if that makes sense to you?

Threads like these are pointless.

Recent tournament showed "pros" can win with Soviets just as easy as the Germans.

No im stating a common sense statement that what seems hard for one player will not be for another

@sluzbenik
Those same 10% soviet players generally also play top level ostheer too.

Whereas german squad kills come from powerful passive damage like pgrens shooting at scripts 5 feet away, soviet squad kills can be produced by abilities like frag grenades and 120mm precision strikes. With input lag and the fact that you cant pay attention to everything all the time, soviets have no problem killing ostheer squads. Oh and soviet guns work just fine for that too I've lost plenty of squads sitting afk on a fuel point when my attention was elsewhere (((

That's right, except that passive damage from p-grens is completely free while soviets have to pay shit load of muni for precision strikes.

That's right, except that passive damage from p-grens is completely free while soviets have to pay shit load of muni for precision strikes.

Thats called asymmetric balance. There are other areas where Sov compensates, although I have a bad hunch that you may actually argue that Sov has no asymmetric strengths whatsoever in response to this.

I think you are misreading me. I'm not elitist.

I'm not even a competitive player. I'm a casual player down in the thousands, rank wise, and I don't care that much if I win or lose. Winning is better ofc, but losing or getting a big losing streak will never spoil my sleep.

I could care less how factions match up for top 200. I'm talking about how the game runs for casual players like me without super micro. And my conclusion still stands: germans are easier for my kind of players. And I'm not alone.

Cool fake outrage. Firstly ost is not easier to micro compared to the soviets. The fact that its based off squads with much smaller unit numbers means that its actually harder to play as any mistake / luck and you have a diminished presence on the field. Soviet play is actually more static due to their units advanced range and the fact that units do a ok job at targeting their own targets unti the player takes control.

For an ost player to be successful they need take the initiative and pull off armoured in the face of the best at unit in the game as well as extremely hardy at guns with 6 man squads, that can also instantly turn into ant infantry troops. This means that assaults have to come from many angles which obviously takes more micro than reacting to the play.

The only thing that is more difficult about the soviets is strategic choices, as they have to choose their tiers sometimes you make the wrong mistake and get punished for it by the more flexible and liniar ost builds. As far as actual micro/ play between armies its obvious that soviets are more robust and require less finicky micro than the ost counterpart.. just look at early game with mg flipping, molatove dodging, trying to nail a m3, setting up paks against fast and deadly t70s ect ect

You are obviously trying to be douche and stir things up and the more you play ost against decent soviet players the more you will realize that you are wrong to the off chance that you are being genuine then I just think ost is more flexible and the fact that you dont have to make more distinctive tech choices helps less advanced players just play along without needing to understand the game so ost can seem easier.

Threads like these are pointless.

Recent tournament showed "pros" can win with Soviets just as easy as the Germans.

+1

Threads like these are pointless.

Recent tournament showed "pros" can win with Soviets just as easy as the Germans.

uhhh, ok..... Except that a game isn't made for the top 20 or even 200 players of a faction. It is made to be sold commercially, which means pleasing at least a few thousand people down the side of each ladder, preferrably including 3v3 and 4v4 ladders.

If you don't manage that then the game isn't likely to last long enough, and sell enough other content (DLC's, expansions, what have you) to support further patches and other things we like.... Like for example; servers.

So it isn't pointless to point out the things that keep people from wanting to play both sides happily and at different skill levels.

Threads like this are only pointless when you try to distill a complex and interweaving balance scheme into.

It's important to break down how and why the Soviets won or lost games and the tournament overall, and how and why the German players lost or won games.

More importantly, just who actually won that tournament? How many Soviet players placed in the top 5 or 10? Were people only playing one faction, or were they switching every time? What maps were played? What were the build orders? What happened in each major engagement? What were the timings on those builds that caused certain units to be available to fight in the major engagements?

So many factors to consider. Not so easily boiled down.

Cool fake outrage. [snip]

You are obviously trying to be douche and stir things up .[snip]

If you had read on instead of just assaulting this one post, you'd see that I learned something in the meantime. From the game and from this thread (Ie this thread is NOT pointless).

Maybe you should try that too?

A player's tactical and operational decisions in any game match will almost always supersede the strategic options or limitations of the faction.

Tactically, soviets are rather balanced against germans. If both factions had infinite resources, were fully upgraded to field every unit from every tier and commander, and were fighting on a perfectly balanced battlefield, then I imagine every match would be a nailbiter. Given all the possible options, (but importantly, not the available options) the game is rather balanced in this fashion.

Operationally, the individual units are more or less balanced against each other, and a player's ability to micro a unit well or not can result in either it gaining a ton of veterancy and dominating the field, or a quick and early death. There are very few circumstances and instances in the game where poor micro isn't punished. Also, weird issues with truesight and pathing apply here too.

But strategically the game is very skewed. With a soviet player alone being largely incapable of (effectively) fielding a complete army, they are often forced to choosing one strategy and having to stick with it. This force of initiative plays perfectly into the versatile and adaptive nature of the german army: with a complete army from their tier buildings and units that either by default or upgrade are multirole and readily capable of being a threat to the bulk of the soviet army. A very strong soviet player can overcome this through utilizing a variety of measures (harassing territory, coordinating combined arms attacks and support weapons, using defensive units offensively, etc) but nonetheless the soviets are at a strategic disadvantage throughout any match-up.

tl:dr
Soviets are able to beat Germans, and consistently so, when they're able to play in a way that innovates away their innate disadvantages. The Germans don't have strategic disadvantages to downplay.

The point of the thread was claiming ost is easier. False, not the case and these type of threads don't help anything.

And if you watched the tourney players switched sides and played both factions (won with both too) so you can not say one side is easier. If that was indeed the case then players would constantly win with Germans... It all boils down to the skill (and some luck) of the players.

The point of the thread was claiming ost is easier. False, not the case and these type of threads don't help anything.

And if you watched the tourney players switched sides and played both factions (won with both too) so you can not say one side is easier. If that was indeed the case then players would constantly win with Germans... It all boils down to the skill (and some luck) of the players.

I still think that comparing the balance at pro levels is not relevant to this conversation.

The argument is that at below pro levels the game is not balanced. I think that balance at those lower levels is fundamental to the commercial success of the game, which is fundamental to its survival.

To argue that it is balanced at pro level doesn't respond to all the arguments made that it isn't at the lower levels or in other game modes (3v3, 4v4).

I personally find it the other way round.

I find Soviets far easier to play than Germans, not saying anything about balance.

I still think that comparing the balance at pro levels is not relevant to this conversation.

The argument is that at below pro levels the game is not balanced. I think that balance at those lower levels is fundamental to the commercial success of the game, which is fundamental to its survival.

To argue that it is balanced at pro level doesn't respond to all the arguments made that it isn't at the lower levels or in other game modes (3v3, 4v4).

That is why in my second response I did not mention "Pro" players but used the tournament as a whole. The better player wins, simple as that. There is no "handicap" when playing the Soviets and frankly i'm sick of this type of excuse. Just a way for players to justify losing and not getting better (this isn't for you personally, I am just saying).

As some as said here, people find it easier to play with a certain faction, doesn't necessarily mean it is an "easier" faction, it just means it fits that players style. Right now I cant win a game as OST but as Soviets I am rolling, does that mean the Soviets are easier, NO. And I retract my old statements with saying Soviets are easy, I was wrong, however I do like their unit synergy a lot.

And as far as balancing for 3v3 and 4v4, good luck. I have read a few times (need support here) that Relic only intends balance on the 1v1 and 2v2 levels.

It's stunning how easy the Germans are to play in team games. Just Assgrens to push off first conscript and engie, get in a suitable house, wait for friends MG42 to show up and get out. Thing with Assgrens in team games is that they show up early enough to push them back from the vital fuel point, especially right side City 17.

I feel that early and mid game is completely dominated by the Germans where you can pretty much just relax and only watch out for any evil molotovs. Only late game is pretty equal if the Soviets know what they are doing and have a proper micro on their tanks. Otherwise it's gg most of the times as Germans.