in 1vs1 it is ok, in larger team games there will be other AA too. It is perfect now.
Perfect for Axis planes, yes  |
As I said, it is debatable if that is good design or not, but I'd say Soviets currently fair decently in the late game even without the beefed up version. The SU85 and ZiS provide the necessary AT.
Yup, not saying they aren't, though they pay for that heavily with the lack of early game potential. It's the lack of options to capitalize on being able to preserve manpower and resources that bothers me, not the performance of T34/76 itself, as I've stated earlier. There is no option to make your late game comp more efficient if the game becomes too long. Imagine this scenario, which is pretty very common in 1v1.
SOV vs OST on crossroads, let's say:
OST pressures early game with map control, but SOV manages to hold on to fuel, kills 222 after a mistake by OST, vets up squads and turns the pressure around at 10th minute. VP is 500:400 in OST favour, but SOV is starting to reduce the VP lead. PIV enters the game, but SOV manages to minimize casualties and has T34 + ZIS a few minutes later. Both sides are now unable to decap the far VP due to mediums responding fast, so slugfest around mid VP begins. Both sides struggle around and eventually reach a 85+ pop comps, including three mediums on each side, mostly vetted up. VP state is now about 250:300 in SOV favour, OST is bleeding manpower a bit more, both players accumulate fuel because mediums are not dying, but can't hold onto the center VP. The game is very even in terms fo engagements. One of the players finally decides for a major but ultimately indecisive flanking push.
As a result, SOV loses two T34s trying to flank the PIVs, SU85 survives, drops to about 60 pop. OST loses one PIV, another manages to barely escape thanks to blitz and a bounce, third one is just fine. OST drops to 65 pop, but is also forced to retreat to not risk losing the PIV. SOV now has more MP in bank, both have the same amount of fuel and similar army sizes. SOV rebuilds one T34s, because he needs a source of AI, keeps some spare manpower and fuel and needs to decide what to rebuild next. OST builds either a Brummy or perhaps a Panther by spendiong all his fuel and manpower. He is now quickly again close to pop cap, but his overall firepower increases compared to previous comp thanks to the advanced medium and surviving vetted up P4, and uses this to pressure the mid VP very soon. SOV now two mediums, one of them unable to threaten either of the three OST tanks. He can soon rebuild the second T34 or get a SU85 because of the better manpower situation and lower fuel price, but OST is meanwhile already pushing him back at mid and SOV cannot rely on the same comp that fielded the vetted T34 against "just" PIVs. Brummy now prevents any frontal pushes and the two PIVs make any flanking attempt impossible, because SU85 can't doi that at all and T34 melt in front of the PIVs. Game drags on, but SOV eventually bleeds out on VP because he can no longer hold center for a reasonable amount of time udner the Brummy and PIV fire.
Standard losses for Axis are an opportunity to jump back with an upgrade to their late game comp. Standard losses for SOV always lead to a downgrade, even if you have the resources to rebuild fast. That's the my problem. |
Yes, the Soviets don't have a non-doc generalist. I won't dive much into the idea of making T34/85 non-doc. I will say that I suppose it could be done if and only if the T34/85's health would be lowered to 640 allowing 4 shot kills. This'll make it a weaker Comet and (slightly) better Panzer IV. The other alternative is to let T34 come faster, but that's an extremely messy change that will be just as hard, if not harder than making T34/85 non-doc.
Nerfing T34/85 would not make it a slightly better P4, it would perform worse. Even if it has higher pen than P4, it needs to combat highly armoured Panthers, Brummbars and P4s every game, where it still struggles to penetrate, whereas P4 only struggles against Comet's armour of all meta allied tanks. Again, one has to consider the avarage armour the tank is up against, not the absolute values.
Efficiency is a completely different thing. The T34 is super cheap for a medium and despite what you say it has comparable AI to the P4 out of the gate (one of the MGs is better).
How do you evaluate efficiency? At only 20–30 fuel and 2 pop more, other factions can get a tank that serves two roles – AI and AT. That's a lot more bang for a buck. It's not just a matter of stats and raw numbers, it'S about what the tank can actually do for the price. Most efficient are tanks that can stack the most firepower/utility/suvivabiltiy per resource and pop investment. Tanks that are easy to keep alive, vet up and kill stuff with. That's P4, OKW P4, T34/85 and certain Sherman variants. T34 is the exact opposite. It's only efficient if you are facing nearly exclusively infantry and don't have to retreat too often.
|
On a fresh topic, the changes to M3 might make it too vulnerable to being burst down by small arms fire. A sturm and a volks crossing paths with it will wipe it out.
Also MGs of different types will enjoy the armour nerf.
Maybe HP from 240 to 250.
That's indeed the case. The change was a nerf at most ranges. Small arms now penetrate a lot and the car kinda melts. It has a tiny better chance to survive after getting fausted, if enough support is arround, but it generally performs the same or worse and repairs take a bit longer. |
the T-34 could be made into that lategame "complete kit" we need with a simple penetration buff...
It could be worth testing. Leave T34/76 vulnerable as it is now, but simply increase its penetration to let's say Sherman levels, just so that P4 needs to take some hits when trading blows and think twice before doing some risky moves. That way it will still win most duels thanks to superior armour and penetration and T34 will typically need to retreat from it when without support, but it will allow SOV to punish mistakes, the bounce RNG is now a bit too favourable to Axis when retreating after overextending. Of course this should be accompanied with a rebalance of tech/build fuel cost of T4 and the T34. |
???
Axis also only have the P4.
Uhm, that's the point. P4 is a complete package with both AT and AI capabilities, T34 is not.
Soviets have the SU85 (even the SU76) and a decent ATG for AT purposes.
And OST has even better AT gun for AT purposes (better pen, better vet ability), two respectively better tank destroyers that also happen to deal damage to infantry while having better survivability.
Regarding AT, the M4A3 will also lose to a P4 since they almost cost the same (making a 1v1 comparison better).
M4 has better AI performance than P4, self repair, smoke and it can still threaten P4 and force it away. Risking a duel with an M4 is, well, a risk. T34/76 can do none from that list, so why even bring this up? |
yes exactly... id be fine with the T-34 if the T-34 werent the best stock medium tank in the soviet lineup if the soviets actually had a proper lategame medium like a P4/m4 analogue... but they dont have it at the moment and i dont think the balance team is ever gonna make the T-34-85 nondoc...
hence the best course of action is just to buff the T-34-76 in order to make it comparable to other lategame options like the P4/M4 when critically massed... whether its making the T-34 cheaper or improving its performance....
Yeah, making the 85 non-doctrinal is probably heresy to the balance team. And to a degree I can understand why. Giving SOV a T4,5 tech would take away from the uniqueness of OST/UKF teching. It could also bring some general balance issues, because SOV would then be able to have both the manpower economy advantage (7m cons, merge) and vehicle efficiency per population.
The advantage of more expensive and powerful armour that people seem to forget about since the heavy call-in meta has gone is the performance per pop. Pop cost doesn't increase as steeply as fuel cost does with performance, so having access to great mediums like the 85 or P4 allows you to build stronger and more flexible late game comps, if you have the unit preservation and resource management. Stock SOV don't have the option to use this to their advantage, other factions do.
But then again, Guard Motor Coordiantion, which simulates the scenario where SOV has access to P4-like medium, is viable as ever and I've seen noone complain about it being oppressively good in late game. Even the 85 has its limits when it comes to heavier Axis toys. |
I don't disagree that there is a greater context. Perhaps a better comparison would be to the M4 or cromwell since they face the same foes as the T-34? And honestly, the stats would skew more in favor of the T-34 if we did this.
Except that the M4 has already been dismissed as broken op and apparently the cromwell too except for being underpowered (not by me). I chose the comparison to the Panzer 4 because neither the other options was deemed acceptable to compare to.
Would you say the T-34's stats are warranted given its cost? Or do you believe it needs a buff in this department?
In my personal opinion, T34/76 is fine in terms of combat stats for its price and I don't even think it necessarily needs better timing than it currently has.
But what I generally dislike is the fact the SOV has no upgrade path options in the late game. T4 feels more like T3,5 and there is no way you can press your resource advantage if you manage to get to 100 popcap, have decent unit preservation and start stockpiling fuel. When you finally lose some armour, you have to go back to stock uvnetted T34 for your generalist role, whereas other factions have Panthers/Brummbars/Comets that replace losses in a more efficient way. Fresh T34 can no longer compete or survive in this environment. USF is similar in this regard, moreso in the infantry department, but that's another story. This is more of a 2v2 issue, but I've been having this feeling in 1v1 too if the game dragged for too long and became a slugfest. |
For 25% reduced fuel and -2 pop, the T-34 suffers an average of -13% penetration, -10% rate of fire and -17% armor, though it does gain in all speed categories. I'd call that a fair exchange.
1. Comparing absolutely numbers between performance of guns of Allied and Axis armour doesn't make any sense, because both sides face different targets with different armour values. You need to use the difference in penetration to armour ratios instead: T34 vs P4 at mid range is for example 0,56 vs 0,77. So in reality P4 has 37,5 % advantage over T34 in AT performance, which is a lot more than you suggest.
2. Mutiple numerical advantages stack mutliplicatevely, not cumulatively or by avarage. By lacking in mutiple departments, the T34 doesn't perform ~ 13,5 % worse. The total disadvantage is ultimately something like 0,87*0,9*0,83, so again about -35 % overall. This is how scaling works with mutliple factors, but this realistically still isn't the ideal way to represent difference in performance, because...
3. ...COH2 doesn't work with fractions. It's just result A (hit) or result B (no hit). Tanks are not some massive damage sponges, so having by 37,5 % lower theoretical DPS against P4 for example, the T34 doesn't get to damage a P4 just by amount this lower and perform 37,5 % worse overall. It means that result B happens significantly more often for T34 and P4 has proportionally higher chance to get result A, which overall means that under vast majority of statistical scenarios, T34 fails and has to retreat/get repaired or dies right away, while the P4 has vastly increased map presence.
This is why T34 feels so much worse to use as an actual tank compared to other mediums. I'm writing this just to show how important it is to work with the numbers in proper context. |
Personally I don't understand why some of the Sandbags are getting nerfed instead of just removing sandbags on all Rifle infantry and instead only having them on Engineer units. That would make them so much more tactical and interesting instead of just being spammed around the place.
Because engineers are generally already overloaded with tasks. Especially Sappers and Sturmpios, whose corresponding mainlines "coincidentally" are the ones that can build sandbags. Conscripts are a separate category, as they are not a proper combat unit in the same sense as other mainlines. |
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
