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While testing the official December Balance Preview patch (v1.1), I have noticed that infantry models will sometimes assume a "T-Pose" during combat. This type of pose is used by the 3D artist to create and rig the model without animation. From what I can tell, this bug happens with all factions and infantry squads. This suggests that the models are missing an animation and is likely due to the changes to squad AI behaviour.
From the patch notes:
Squad Behaviour
* Added a squad AI behaviour where individual models in squads assume varying postures while fighting the enemy (without changing their position) - i.e. Elite squads will prefer a crouching animation for some of their members, whereas non-elite squads will also drop prone to the ground.
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The RNG of grenades (and all explosive AOE damage in CoH2 for that matter) is due to the tendency of infantry to clump up behind cover. Despite the best efforts of Relic and the modding community, I think this will continue to be an issue. Therefore, I propose that grenades receive similar treatment as landmines, in that the number of models that can be killed by any single grenade is limited. Applying a suppression modifier to the remaining models would be a fair trade-off in lethality and give grenades utility beyond squad wipes. In this way, even a sneaky commando grenade wouldn't kill a full health squad of grenadiers but would certainly force the survivors to retreat. I think Demo Charges should be treated similarly. The number of models and severity of the suppression could be directly proportional to the cost of the ability (e.g Demos leave 1 man standing of full squads, Bundles and Gammons kill 3/4 of max squad size, regular nades kill 2 models). |
I would like to offer the following advice, which should help team game balance and theoretically not even be too much of a big change for 1v1 meta:
1. Tiger II should be a call-in tank, only available to certain doctrines for 14-15 CP. I don't think it's fair that every OKW commander can get one if they so choose. It doesn't make sense that it's more "common" in team games than a Tiger I.
2. The Tiger II and Jagdtiger really should not be respawnable if they die, similar to the Tiger Ace and how they worked in Coh 1.
3. Tier 4 artillery pieces and call-in artillery like land mattresses and calliope's should be limited to 2 per player on the field at any given time.
4. Mortar pits should be limited to 2 per player MAX. I think 1 per player would even be reasonable.
5. IMO the Jackson and M10 should be swapped, with the Jackson being a call-in commander unit and the M10 being the T4 american TD (at a much cheaper cost, with perhaps some buffs). Like the Tiger II rarity comment above it doesn't make much sense for the M36 to be so much more common than the M10.
6. KV-2 buff
7. Increase fuel and munitions depots (or maybe just fuel?) to 250-300 manpower each. They're always spammed hard in 3v3-4v4.
As you can see, most of my suggestions revolve around armor spam on both sides (and artillery spam for allies).
If you don't agree with my suggestions I would honestly like to hear why. I am open minded, these are just my observations off the top of my head.
Good suggestions, although I would hesitate to swap the M36 with the M10 simply because what you suggest would just enable spam (of the M10) rather than discourage it. Furthermore, the USF already struggles in the late game vs. anything more heavily armored than PzIVs, so they desperately need that Jackson to handle those threats. To prevent spam, all call-ins should be tied to relevant tech buildings. This solution has already been shown to be effective at reducing spam of T34-85s and Lend-Lease Shermans.
I also think that your first suggestion is probably well out of the scope of a patch simply because it would drastically upset the existing meta and reduce some of the asymmetric flavor of the OKW. I think your second suggestion is enough to solve a lot of the snow-balling that occurs in team games vs Axis. Because losing a KT in a 1v1 is essentially gg anyways, I don't think that would drastically change the balance there. If an OKW team loses their KTs, they can still fall back on doctrinal units like the JT, ST, or Cmd Panther (or the dreaded Flammenhetzer) if they still need access to more heavy hitters. Furthermore, the OKW panther and PzIV are already superior to the OST equivalents, reducing their need for call-ins in the first place. The KT is just a no-brainer in team games where resources are plentiful. Losing them should actually hurt.
All of this being said - such drastic changes need to be measured carefully against the other factions. I fear that the late game UKF tanks would dominate team games if the crutch of endless non-doctrinal KTs was removed from OKW.
TLDR: +1 to all but points 1 and 5 (ambivalent about 7)
(Edited for grammar) |
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Certainly interesting (and promising) to see that team-game meta is even being considered for balance.
Stuka Dive Bomb
As elchino7 already pointed out, reducing the Stuka Dive Bomb's instant-kill range from 15 to the 6.5 would make it work as intended. A price increase would also reduce the frequency that victory points can be neutralized in team games while also making it less cost effective at killing static artillery pieces (especially considering that three doctrines feature the 2-click Wündercombo of recon overflight followed by the Stuka Dive Bomb).
ISG/Mortar Pits
The proposed changes to the ISG/Mortar pits look good. Why not give the ISG a smoke barrage, something that the OKW severely lacks? This would give the OKW a means of countering Bofors and HMG garrisons using combined arms.
Jagdtigers/Elefants
These heavy tank destroyers dominate team games because of the decreasing effectiveness of flanking maneuvers with increasing players on the field. Of course this is highly map dependent and is exacerbated on narrow maps (e.g. Rails and Metal or Road to Kharkov). This issue balloons disproportionately in the clustergarden that is 3v3 and 4v4 where, for all intents and purposes, flanks cease to exist and the otherwise prohibitive cost of these units is irrelevant. One possible solution to this problem would be to lower the mobility of these units to enable flanking (e.g. remove the Jagdtiger's engine upgrade). While damage changes might help to some extent for the tanks with 640 health, I think that a firing rate reduction might be a more appropriate solution under the circumstances (e.g. match the 10s reload of the ISU-152). Of course, the proposed normalization of repair speed would also help reduce the relative over-performance of the Jagdtiger.
Sturmtiger
While I agree with the rest of the changes to the Sturmtiger, mutual-exclusiveness with the KT might be a little excessive. A slight population and/or fuel cost increase might be more appropriate.
Demo Charges
I would propose to make demo charges only kill a maximum of 3 models in any individual squad while suppressing/pinning survivors to maintain their utility against blobs.
Misc.
I realize it isn't on the list of changes, but I would also like to propose including upper limits on the number of models killed by any single mortar/Leig/Pack Howi bomb. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a whole squad get wiped by an RNG bomb because the CoH2 engine remains incapable of preventing models from clumping up. Simply limiting the maximum number of models that can be killed by mortars would be an enormous boon for infantry of all factions (obviously helping OST the most since they already have the smallest squad sizes). I suppose this would also be an indirect buff to HMGs, but so long as the ISG gets a smoke barrage no single faction would gain the upper hand. In my mind, this would be an enormous quality of life change by removing one of the largest sources of RNG wipes remaining in CoH2. |
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In my opinion, the current problem with the Ostheer sniper's over-performance is a direct result of the massive health buff they received a few patches ago. The purpose of that buff was to prevent him from being wiped by random mortar strikes. However, one direct consequence is that he can escape from nearly all infantry engagements, even if flanked. This is annoying for the USF and Brits who can really suffer from sniper attrition due to their lack of an early game counter (looks like that might change with the light vehicle accuracy buff vs snipers, however). With the creation of the target tables, I think Relic could rather elegantly solve the intended problem of rng wipes while maintaining their role as high risk/high reward units.
My suggestion is to universally bring sniper health to 48 (current soviet sniper health) and use the target tables to make rng based explosives like mortars deal 40 damage to snipers. This would ensure that the snipers from all factions don't get instagibbed by random mortar shots but remain vulnerable to small arms fire or targeted explosive damage (tank shells, grenades, etc). As a result, flanking an Ostheer/British sniper with infantry would be significantly more effective while not directly changing his offensive capabilities.
This would, to some extent, maintain the asymmetric balance of the snipers. Soviets snipers have good survivability while Ostheer snipers are better at killing quickly. USF pathfinders have even more survivability but don't kill full health models. Finally, British snipers have utility vs vehicles and and due to their ROF are not OP versus smaller infantry squads.
I think the argument of nerfing the rate of fire of the Ostheer sniper is flawed because it attempts to address the massive manpower bleed that the Brits suffer in the early game with a change to a single unit from a different faction. Of course, nerfing his ROF across the board would be a massive buff to the larger squad sizes of the Soviets. To this end, some people have also argued for the ROF to be tied to the target tables. In my opinion, the damage changes that I mentioned are a more effective solution to the actual problems with the snipers based on the intent of the previous patches. The manpower bleed woes of the British is another problem that should be addressed separately (e.g. reinforcement cost reduction).
TL;DR: Change all sniper max health values to 48 (same as soviet sniper) and use target tables to force rng explosives to do 40 damage to snipers. |
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It also gives the command tank a free recon loiter ability. The loiter is centered around the command tank and has a pretty small vision radius. |
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The new manpower and fuel costs already reflect the mediocre stats of the tank. The fact that Relic chose to change the cost rather than the performance of the T34-76 in the last patch indicates that they are intended to be expendable units instead of useful ones. Indeed, I no longer feel pressured by the loss of any single T34-76 as I was previously. Furthermore, they still perform reasonably well en masse versus infantry and light/medium armor. Previously, I would have argued that they needed a penetration buff to help counter German heavy tanks. Now, however, the changes to teching mean that Soviets can reliably counter heavy armor by supporting their T34s with an SU-85.
Therefore, if it does get some more love, the T34-76's disposability could be reinforced by a slight popcap reduction (as many others have already suggested). This would have a smaller impact on the balance compared to any direct changes to the stats, since the player would still need to actually afford the cost of additional tanks and be able to micro and support them all. |
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The MG42 is fine as it is. If your troops end up on the business end of a heavy machine gun, they should be punished accordingly, either through suppression or horrible deaths. With the latest patch finally bringing the Maxim suppression in line with the rest of the HMGs, all sides need to adapt.
As several others have pointed out, the USF may need early counters to HMGs that aren't gated behind fuel. This, however, doesn't necessitate a change to the HMGs themselves. |
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Since most games have devolved into a rush to garrison an MG overlooking a valuable point, I've had a lot of success with the IR Pathfinders and their artillery barrage. Start with whatever opening you feel like, but supplement it with an early munitions cache since the barrage costs 140 munitions and grenades are absolutely necessary for USF post patch. Unless the opponent notices the red smoke right away, the barrage will destroy their HMG as well as the building (except for maybe some tougher buildings). It's worthwhile to distract them elsewhere on the map beforehand (I usually harass somewhere with a RE or spare Rifleman). Furthermore, you can force AT guns to re-position or die. Mix up fake barrages to keep them on their toes and save on munitions.
Of course, you can follow up with whatever teching you prefer or require. I usually get a Lieutenant before using this ability just so I can make a larger infantry push into the smoldering gap left by the barrage.
Unfortunately, the recon plane is pretty useless since the major's call in is better and I never have a 900mp float for the paradrop ability. I guess the Greyhound is nice in a pinch, though (especially vs Wehr snipers).
Note, however, that nearly all of my experience post patch has been in team games where I can enjoy a munitions surplus as well as late game soviet tank support. |
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As a dedicated AT platform, it should behave like the ambush cloak that the Soviet AT guns get. After firing, the Jagdpanzer gets revealed and needs to leave combat/enter the FoW to re-cloak. The first shot would give it the advantage it needs against other dedicated TDs. It should still be able to move while cloaked (with the current movement penalties), but not after engaging something in combat. Nevertheless, it probably needs a slight fuel price reduction to make it viable (bring it in line with the Jackson/SU-85). |
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