Profile of Grumpy

I have played the doctrine multiple times, and I usually don't have munitions stored up my rear that I can pull out and bomb the enemy into submission. The elefant comes LATE, and being expensive, slow, and lacking AI, it leaves the player requiring a strong infantry or much support from the teamate, which is where team play comes into effect. I'm with you balancing 2 vs 2 and above, but is this really the way? Is this Ostheer doctrine an issue? I think otherwise.

I play it sometimes in team games. It's always in my loadout but is better on Steppes or Red Ball than maps like the bottom of City 17. Putting a spotting scope on a 222 is better than putting it on the Ele. I don't remember ever getting to drop more than 2 stukas, even in a long 4v4. Now, take out the riegel and add a fuel to muni conversion and this would really rock (or be really, really broken).

I completely agree with the people who say the stuka shouldn't completely destroy ML-20's. It means that players will rarely build ML-20's. Relic really screwed up the ML-20. The one at launch was pretty good with six shells and a decent AOE. The new one with 10 is meh. Relic buffed it because they thought nobody was building it because it was bad, when it wasn't built because it is countered too easily.

Yup, Hitler definitely was the typical 4v4 axis noob who kept playing that 3v3 when japan wanted to surrender and went AFK after USF used off-map strike on their base and Italians being Italians never tech'd, played with osttruppen level infantry regardless of what opponent used and just started team killing when they've seen its too late, just one went on, being a noob try hard

Hitler's downfall took on full steam after the 1943 Relic balance patch that let Soviet engineers build tank traps and made Soviet AT guns almost free. Hitler didn't read the patch notes and tried to A-move his Tigers and Panthers onto the VP at Kursk. Then relic released the paid custom DLC commander "Zhukov Tactics" that let Soviets mass T34's AND commit rampant pop-cap abuse.

So, WS depends solely on amount of time spent in game?

No, the amount of drops seems random for any amount of time but there does seem to be a time component, meaning that I get the most drops from games lasting about an hour (sometimes 3 drops but often no drops). I've never got 3 drops from a 20 minute game. I've made computer matches that have gone on for 5-7 hours and those still aren't guaranteed to have drops.

A lot of people expressed disappointment with the last patch because there wasn't a lot of changes and they weren't large. However, the patch helped balance a lot. Go look at http://coh2chart.com/

If done well, the game could be balanced with another couple small tweaks. No suppression from pak howie, LeIG, and Kubel were steps in the right direction. I also think that giving OKW full income was better in the long run, but probably should have been done along with taking away the free tech that OKW gets (or giving it to other factions also).

I mainly play 3v3+ with 2v2 trailing closely behind. I don't play 1v1. I also enjoy watching casts and because most casts are 1v1, I mainly watch 1v1 casts.

I can help but notice various improvements on maps like Langraskya, Kholodny, Kharkov, Minsk and I am pretty sure I am missing more. I also cannot help but notice some serious attention to balance issues that afflict anything but 3v3+.

With ESL 1v1 tourney bestowed upon us, my question is this:

When can 3v3+ players expect some love? no map fixes, which is unbelievably easy to implement is nowhere to be seen and obviously other glaring issues.

When should I start to expect something from you Relic in regards to 3v3+?

Maps are one of the bigger issues, with ones like Lazur and Lanserath (sp?) being very asymmetric. Other maps like General Mud favor axis because of slowed movement and long sight lines favoring generally longer range units of the axis. Also, the lack of a forward retreat point for Soviets really handicaps them on maps like this.

However, there are other problems that affect 3v3+ just as much. Compare OKW's Breakthrough with American Airborne. Pathfinders are something like 8 or 9 popcap for a unit that even at vet 3 is still pretty wipe-able and cost 37mp per model to reinforce. PF's cost 25 to reinforce and are quite good at vet 5, plus they give excellent spotting for the JT's. Throw another JT or an Elefant into the mix and it pretty much shuts down allied mediums. The prevalence of long sight units (OST sniper, 222, 222 with scope, anything else with scope, JLI, PF) mean that on some maps, Axis usually fires first, and firing first most often wins engagements when the units are relatively balanced. Stated another way, Jacksons firing first usually own mediums, while Jacksons firing second are cannon fodder.

Also, units like the JT and Ele have much more of an effect on 3v3+ than they do on 1v1's. I play about the same number of 1's lately as I do 3v3+ and rarely see either of them. In order to support either of those, you probably need to keep another 30 pop cap near them, which means most of your force is in a big, slow moving group. It might work on some maps but not that many.

I hope that relic doesn't buff British armor back to what it was on release. The Crocodile was one of the most broken units ever. Some of the things that I think would help would be: a forward retreat point for Soviets, a little buff for UKF indirect (without making it OP), balance both IR pathfinders and regular pathfinders to be more equal to JLI's or PF's (and fix other abilities in Recon commander and Airborne Commander).