it is not huge, it is "unlikely". It is more likely to pen then not, that is the premise. And veterancy fixes that issue and should bump probability to 100%
Every shot there is 1/3 chance it will do nothing, that's huge in a fight where your atgun is going to shot 3 or 4 times before disengagement. We're far from unlikely or we have a different definition of unlikely. Does unlikely means every single game for you? And I'm not only referring to my own experience, I see plenty of it in every game OKW/USF I watch.
Then veterancy shouldn't be a fix for basics such as fighting a medium tank with an Atgun.
I think you've got a bad outcome bias.
Vet 0 m1 pen at far range is 130 + 50% (from ability) pen is 195. P4j armor is 234. So the penetration chance of P4 on hit = 195/234 = 0.83 (83%).
M1's chance to hit a P4j is 80% at far range.
Lets not discriminate between misses and not penetrating shot, since the outcome is indifferently bad for us. So to pen we have 66.4% and to not pen is 33.6%.
So, yeah, pretty much you had a bad case of RNG there.
And Jackson is awesome. Yes, it is the worse in terms of static accuracy, but it the best in terms of mobile accuracy, if you factor that it is one fast boi, you have a great TD.
I agree on this. However, at least for larger team games, I have the feeling that sight range does not matter as much since tanks do not operate on their own as often. To put it easily: Unit density is so high that there is always an infantry squad in front of your tank, rendering the tank sight less important.
To be honest, that's at the very heart of how CoH is supposed to work. Unless there will be special code for "after two misses the next shot is a guaranteed hit" or so, all RNG based games will have occasions of the game itself screwing you (or your opponent) seriously over. These games are not about who was able to precisely estimate the power discrepancy between two armies, but who was able to estimate the most likely outcome by gut feeling.
Too much RNG will never feel rewarding. On the other hand, it adds an additional layer of constantly being forced to re-evaluate your situation based on single events within that fight. Unfair outcomes will always happen, but their frequency should be minimized. In your example, a Jackson failing to penetrate a P4 even twice is less than 0.4% even on max range. It WILL happen if you play often enough, but if this system really bugs someone then CoH is probably the wrong franchise.
To what it's worth, CoH2 does a decent job of balancing out RNG and tactics. Because the scale is so small and tanks worth so much, there will always be issues with games being decided by just "that last shot" penetrating or not. Sometimes I knew that I was being screwed over or actually my opponent was being screwed over by the game itself, but we shouldn't forget that people will always attribute a great move and won fight to their own great tactics, whereas that loss of a tank is always due to shitty RNG. This in the end leaves everyone with the assumption that they are a good commander but the game screws them over regularly, forgetting all the times they were a shitty commander but the game got them the victory (which is also bad), and most of all forgetting all the times where they played well or badly but regardless got what they deserved.
Jackson fails a lot vs mediums, or I'm curse with RNG maybe.
USF ATG, well... a video can explain it better
I agree with you in general but at the moment the state of balance is rigged. Some factions are much more dependent on RNG than others, leading into more micro requirement to overcome it while some other faction can simply a-move their army because RNG plays in their favor.
To put it clear, when I play Axis I always estimate the risk to see my Tiger or Panther or Brumbar to be damaged at each shot. So every time they bounce a shot, I see it as an extra life, I see this RNG as rewarding, if there are no favor in RNG, that's not a problem because I didn't count on it.
On the other hand like in the video when my Atgun fail to penetrate twice in a raw a stock medium tank (and that's not unusual) and lead into having to retreat all your army because RNG doesn't like you at this particular moment, I feel helpless, what can I do more? That a true question. Because It would have been a KT, ok I can understand the situation, but that's just a Pz4 which in return has no problem to rampage anything around it.
50-60 range difference gives you the ability to kite, as well as a good chance to not constantly get fired at by enemy ATGs
45-50 range difference means you get the first shot off, but unless you have godly micro you won't be able to kite your opponent. You will also always be in the range of ATGs.
And while Panthers are an issue in team games, for most modes your points are exaggerated. The Panther is a dedicated AT counter, obviously it should be able to go toe to toe with generalist tanks that cost more.
Kitting is really map dependant and Axis have overall better access to extra range vision on their basic units:
Pioneer
Kubel
222
Then Axis also have better doctrinal tools/units to provide vision.
Imo the problem of balance is overall centered on Allied TDs being heavily dependent on RNG to penetrate Axis counter-part. We can all praise the Jackson's stat on paper but when it fails to pen the OKW Pz4 (sometime multiple time in a raw) and the Pz4 can't fail to penetrate it in return, here we have a balance issue.
USF is particularly impacted here, how many times I've lost simply because the ATG or Jackson simply didn't penetrate because of RNG.
Have question, How do we need to analyze it when AT team met Random team? Top200 are most likely to meet AT teams in general so the impact is probably bigger.
Because complaining about RECON UNITS sight is just as retarded as complaining about ATGs owning vehicles or snipers one-shotting infantry models, especially considering the fact that their sight is no greater then any other recon unit.
He is right, Modding team should remove the extra vision range from pioneer, they've nothing to do with it.
I have noticed in my long playtime that a majority of axis players regardless of which faction they are currently playing rush for a P4, with early caches, no IS upgrades and holding atleast one fuel point, I can rush for a Comet and get it around the same time as a P4, because they expect a P4 to be a match-winning tank but suddenly get put against a Comet in which they are in a bad matchup, they wasted fuel on something that is going to lose against my Comet.
Doing this with a premade team has gotten me good results overall, averaging around a 79% winrate with my 3v3 premade team.
What is the big issue is the amount of infantry spam that occured in the match from a certain OKW player I was facing, he was putting too much pressure in the timespan he had before I got my comet, not that we were doing very well in this particular match anyway, but by the time I got my Comet( around 14 min mark which is a bit late for my strategy IMO) we had already been bled dry of VP points and we were all on edge that match so we just dropped IIRC.
As I said, you're not adapting your strategy. You got used to rush Comet because it was convenient vs Pz4 rush in hand of low level players. But Comet isn't the only answer to Pz4.
Dont have much access to vehicles up until the 12 min mark unless I rush for a centaur at the 10 minute mark if he's blobbing which is going to delay my Comet, or wait until the 12-14 min mark to get a Comet and be relatively safe against any PZ4 or Panther rush.
My only option at that point would be to make another Vickers or a Sniper or double sniper, but we all know thats a very risky play and manpower intensive with less payoff compared to OST/SOV sniper since the UKF sniper shoots slower.
I think this is were your logic fail. Build a Centaur if you need to. You can't simply say -Oh he is building something special that wreck my infantry but I don't want to give the correct answer because I want my comet.
This is Coh not CoComet, build a centaur if your opponent is playing with heavy infantry, support it with your own atgun, use your own infantry to focus his raketen so your centaur can go freely.
If you believe he is going to get sooner a Pz4 then build a Cromwell.
Aside from that yes Falls are incredibly stupidly designed and highly reward blobbing but OKW is all about blobbing so nothing special here.
yea, if the MG is on its own, which is never the case in teamgames. If you get half your inf blob pinned while decrewing the mg the opponents inf should just overrun you. Or another MG should support.
If your blob is pinned then the HMG did its job, but I wasn't referring to that situation, I'm talking about cases when the gunner died before being able to suppress anything which is quite common past a certain time for multiple reasons. And yeah if you have your own blob around you may take advantage of the situation, otherwise even having a unit in support isn't going to make any difference.