Taken on its own this is a reasonable patch. Good direction, on paper at least. Looks like this time they didn't want to overdo it.
Now consider that we waited more or less 5 months for this set of balance changes.
Sigh. I'll take what I can get. Imagine if they released a patch like this on a 2-3 month cycle. This game would've been esports level amazeballs by now.
Also I notice a lack of jazz hands, and instead of that, a lot of quite charming attempts to sound professional. "Our super crack team of PHD math research scientists crunched the numbers on a cluster of supercomputers for a month and we have concluded that Obers deal a teensy bit too much damage". |
Premature detonation is a serious problem that affects upwards of 25% of adult mines worldwide.
The poor mine can't help it, it is just so excited to finally get to penetrate (the treads). |
They are slow as it is. They would be crawling and enemy tanks would simply drive by and shoot them in the back. This is precisely what should happen to unsupported heavy tanks that get bumrushed by weaker, more maneuverable tanks.
Where did this notion come from that it is okay to expect your heavy tanks to be able to win against anything and not fear being destroyed if you do not support them?
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LeIG can repeat the barrage as soon as it stops firing the previous one, which is great...
... except the barrages completely and utterly suck.
This is the main offender of these weapons, I feel. The barrages are supposed to make these weapons operate at ranges far longer than mortars, and thus differentiate them and give them a clear role and justify the price. However these very same barrages are SO GODDAMN INACCURATE, at full range the scatter is like a football field away. I don't remember I ever hit something that was not a broad side of the barn.
On the other hand, keeping your pack howie or LeIG a bit behind your MG/ defensive line will net you a decent trickle of accurate infantry kills and vet them up relatively fast.
I feel the barrages should be made more accurate and, in the case of Pack Howie, fire off more shells in succession. Then these weapons might approach justifying their price point and tier placement. |
My problem with blobs is - they are not what this game is supposed to be. This is a game of terrain, flanking, and maneuver, with MG suppression mechanic EXPLICITLY designed (in coh1) so there is a cost effective counter to blobs. In theory.
This "infantry ball of doom" approach leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It is as if I was playing... Starcraft. I have to wash my hands and disinfect the room after playing versus a blobber before I stop feeling dirty.
Note, I am not arguing against massed infantry charges. Concentration of troops in a charge should be a valid tactic in some cases. For example, people can blob conscripts. See how far that gets you.
Obers are bullshit, but OKW blobs are stupid easy to deal with as Soviets. Not so much as USF. With Soviets, yes, you have your demo charges, your Kats, your B4... but all that is really awfully situational. Blob counters are binary. Either you catch his blob with one or these, in which case you obliterate him, or you miss / he doesn't go over your mines / demos, in which case the blob will outgun everything you have and force you off where ever the blob is at the moment.
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yes, because if you are a good allies player, your opponent blobing means his defeat. Yes, if you are vastly more skilled than your opponent, then you can defeat him regardless of the tactics he chooses. We knew that. Thank you.
Jesulin beat some Obers once, holy crap guys, I suppose that means they are not overpowered either. |
Blitz is dependent on what tank it's on. If you put Blitz on a Kubel it would not be OP. If you put it on a Tiger or a Panther it is extremely potent. Furthermore, Axis have Schrecks to deal with Allied armour.
Blitz + high armour = tank alive that would have died otherwise = veterancy preserved = late game dominance, even if we disregard better infantry AT support.
KT and regular Tiger would benefit from a different sort of ability. Or reduce their base speed so that Blitz has a point on them. If you want a heavy tank, fine, you should get a heavy tank. A heavy tank. (It is great that Axis gets to live with all the advantages of heavies without any of the disadvantages.)
In 1v1s the numbers are small enough to make this not matter. In team games this is an utter balance breaker. You drown the Axis in mediums or indirect fire early on or you lose the game. |
This patch means either keep playing or quit for a good amount of people. Can confirm.
On the plus side, I had the same sentiment for that April patch 2014, the one that came to fix March Deployment but also introduced a lot of other balancing stuff in it. It was the patch that made t34s viable (on the negative side, it also buffed ISU to godlike levels). But overall it really WAS a monster patch that fixed a lot of stuff about the game. So Relic can deliver quality patches, or could in the past. I certainly hope they do it again. |
A Word About Game Development: CoH2.org's Guidelines and Rules
Dear Relic,
Since the inception of Company of Heroes franchise in Company of Heroes 1, we have seen a lot of great developer created content. Your intention with this feature was to give your players the tools they want in order to enjoy the CoH universe, empower them to express their creativity directly within the game, and to encourage the further creation of exciting strategies and metagames for your franchise. In short, you wanted a way to help put your fans in the driver’s seat.
We’ve been blown away by the results so far, and by our passionate developer community! Several people have come to us recently to either report questionable business practices or to seek more detailed direction regarding what meta they are allowed to play. With these requests in mind, we wanted to give the developers some guidelines regarding what is and is not acceptable within our gaming community.
First we want to remind you of the following, which we encourage you to read carefully:
If you create, sell or distribute the Game, or create DLC for use in the Game, you are agreeing to adhere to the global rules of Our (i) Community Guidelines About What Constitutes a Relatively Bug-Free And Potentially Even Balanced Game, (ii) Basic Respect for the Customers, and (iii) The Thou Shall Not Try To Squeeze Every Last Penny With Subpar Content Policy (collectively, “CoH community Rules”). By creating a game for use in Company of Heroes universe, you agree to all parts of the CoH Rules. If you do not accept these terms, do not develop the game to be sold in the Steam Store.
While we want to encourage your creativity and allow as restriction-free work as possible, we are also required as consumers to meet certain targets. This means that we are putting some DLC-related restrictions in place. Namely:
Developer created game "expansion" cannot include all pay-for DLC content.
DLCs cannot grant an entire list of buffs within one specific category (e.g. a DLC cannot grant all USF buffs, or all OKW buffs).
DLC that grants game content must also change the CoH2 game in some way. The sole intent of a DLC cannot be to provide users with pay to win content for cash.
The game or DLC you release must be free of any bugs, errors, or other operational defects that could materially affect CoH2 or the Company of Heroes community at large.
In addition to concerns surrounding DLC, we have also received concerns surrounding the intent behind certain business practices. It goes without saying that game modes and DLCs should be fun for your players, and offer something that benefits the Company of Heroes community at large. We want to also offer some detailed guidelines to help players with this:
DLCs and Commanders should not be created with the intent to troll or abuse other community members.
Balance patches should not be created to give players an unfair advantage over orhters.
DLCs should not be used to encourage cheating or exploits in any way.
DLCs cannot include imagery that is banned or illegal in various forums (e.g. things such as fanboi imagery and glorification of blobsare not allowed).
DLCs cannot include imagery or material that is offensive to players of the game or the Company of Heroes fans as determined in our sole discretion.
Aside from these rules, we reserve the right to not purchase DLCs that we feel violate the positive spirit and intent behind what our playing community sets out to do. We will review forum threadson a case by case basis, and if it does not obviously fall within the violations above, we will ask ourselves the following:
What does this DLC offer to our community?
Does this DLC offer a negative experience to those that use it?
Does this DLC potentially damage Sega or Relic business interests?
Does this DLC go against the spirit of our gaming community?
When not purchasing violating content, we reserve the right to outright abandon the franchise immediately. In some cases we may try to contact the creator of the franchise and work with them to have the game revised – this will be entirely at our discretion. We recognize that developing a game requires a level of time and dedication on the part of game developers.
We also encourage you to think of the content you will be building as something that will not just belong to Relic (and players), but also to the overall community. If someone approaches you with a forum thread or suggestion or a request for collaboration, we encourage you to consider sharing your own knowledge and files. We’d love to see our developer continue to strive towards furthering collective knowledge – something that everyone will benefit from!
If as a developer you have questions regarding something you are working to create – please reach out to us on our coh2.org forums. We will be happy to answer any questions you have!
As a player, if you’ve found a DLC that you feel violates our rules or goes against the spirit and intent behind the game development program, you can report it to us by creating a forum thread on coh2.org. |
It's OKW, so the rest of the world revolves around it #REKT |