double MG double ATgun and go afk
Pretty much agree with this, if you play against turtle builds you need rocket artillery to compete otherwise you are screwed. |
Can't wait for the patch to not fix most of the problems with the current patch, at least some more commanders might be viable though which is something. |
Should be better... |
Hey guys, I have been playing CoH 2 since 2014 and have thousands of hours of in-game time played but the current state of the game for me is one of the least fun meta's to play in a long time. I believe it's because the average game length has increased and the game has become more tedious to play while encouraging turtle playstyles for some factions. I'll give my reasons for why the game has become tedious and unfun to play.
1. Sandbags still not being taken off mainline infantry units. To me something needs to be done about sandbags because they dictate almost all infantry engagements at this point, they either need to be made less available by moving them off of all mainline squads and putting them on engineer units only or maybe made so you can't build them while capturing territory or while in a capture circle or something. Having units with green cover everywhere makes it feel extremely difficult to attack without loads of indirect fire.
2. MG's being over-tuned with the formation buffs, initially I didn't believe these buffs would be a bad thing as I had gotten tired of MG's getting slaughtered from the front by attacking infantry blobs but the formation changes have made MG's much more difficult to kill in general with all units. I don't think all MG's are overperforming at the moment but I do believe the MG-42, Dshka, and 50 cal are all too strong with these changes. Individually they are fine but when you are able to build multiple of them and set them in interlocking fields of fire they can be extremely difficult to flank even with indirect fire. I also don't want to see forum warriors say jUsT bUiLd iNdIrEcT fIrE 4Head because you can't build a Katy, Stuka, or Werfer in the first 5-10 minutes of the game in a 1v1 and USF and Brits don't have non-doc rocket artillery. A mortar can help but when he has multiple mg's you can't smoke off all of them and from a pure skill standpoint microing a mortar with infantry flanks is tougher to do then spamming and a-moving mg's. Plus the MG's cost about the same as a regular infantry squad both manpower wise and pop cap wise meaning you can often build multiple MG's on top of having 3-4 mainline units to provide snares.
3. AT Guns are too cost/pop-cap efficient, at the moment AT guns are only 7 population capacity allowing the player to often be able to fit 2-3 into their pop cap while still having a sizable infantry and armor force. This becomes a similar problem to the MG's because while it's not too difficult to flank a single AT gun, it can be nearly impossible to deal with multiple AT guns spread out properly with snares or mines around them.
4. Map Design, I think a big issue with some of the maps currently at least in the 1v1 automatch pool is that they often have safe points. What I mean by that is there is typically a fuel and a munitions point much closer to one player than the other on both sides of the map instead of trying to make the most valuable resource points equidistant. What this leads to is most games being fought over specific areas while the other parts of the map have absolutely no action at all. Many maps pretty much force you to take the cutoff or have your cutoff taken because of how points are placed and in many cases you have to take the cutoff back because otherwise you have to try and take your opponents safe fuel which is much further away and gives the risk of overextension plus usually there are less territory points on the side away from the safe fuel. I don't think safe muni points are as problematic but having safe fuels allows players to sit on a decent income without having to hold a whole lot of the map. This becomes a bigger problem when the VP's aren't all equidistant to both spawn positions like on Crossroads. Allowing a player to turtle on 1 VP and hold multiple territory points plus the fuel and munitions without having to hold half of the map. In some cases you can hold 1/4th of the map and delay the game for 30+ minutes. VP's need to all be equal to both spawn positions distance wise because VP's tick too slowly when one player holds 2 and the other player holds the last one.
5. Snipers are still in a weird state, I'm definitely glad for the Pathfinder buffs against Snipers coming to the next patch but I still think snipers are extremely tedious to deal with and often require your opponent to make a significant misplay in order to kill them. With MG's being as strong as they are currently, a Sniper combined with 2 of them can be a nightmare on a lot of maps and it often feels that you have to build a counter-sniper or you don't really have a chance at countering the sniper. This in general just slows the game down significantly as you get bled hard for trying to push the Sniper so instead you have to build your own Sniper and play defensively instead. For the faction's that don't have a sniper you often have to rely on commander based units or abilities to help you deal with the Sniper.
In conclusion, all of these factors I feel have significantly increased the average game length at least in 1v1 and made the game feel far more tedious to play in general as you constantly have to slowly drain VP's and gradually wear them down with indirect fire while not overextending and overinvesting in indirect fire leaving you vulnerable to enemy armor. RNG already is frustrating to deal with and keeps me from grinding the game but on top of that, this meta makes the game kind of unplayable for me and unfortunately I don't believe the balance patch rectifies any of these issues. Apologies for the wall of text but I wanted to get this off my chest. How do other people feel about the current metagame and do you believe the patch will make it better? This doesn't include other mindboggling balance changes. (Ostruppen, Raid Sections, Sturmtiger buffs) |
Do note the patch note changes which are available for reading, they are less potent early on in exchange for a stronger LMG and that LMG arriving earlier. Prior to those changes, Osttruppen traded/won at mid and long-ranges against even Rifles and Tommies when in cover wars early game despite being cheaper and costing much less to reinforce than these units.
I get they are trying to make them a more stable power curve instead of being really good early game and falling off hard late game but I feel like with these changes they become overall better than Grens. They are weaker early game but are still cheap and don't bleed much and once they get the LMG they are more cost effective than Grens and can build sandbags everywhere immediately. They don't need to be any stronger than they are on the current live patch. They are borderline meta right now and anything that potential makes them stronger in anyway could dictate the meta in the next patch. I like them having the weakness they have now as opposed to being standardized like Grens. To me they should be a unit you mix with Grens, not use as your primary mainline unit. Similar to how you mix Fusiliers and Volks together. |
Raid Sections for Brits, Ostruppen Doctrine Buffs, and Sturmtiger changes have me the most nervous atm. |
Osttruppen are pretty good right now. Unless you don't use cover they trade very efficiently against enemy units, they just need support from P-Grens/MG's to win engagements but they don't really bleed unless you are taking terrible engagements constantly. Still not really sure why the balance team is changing them more, the changes make me a bit worried they will be stronger next patch and I don't really want the Osttruppen meta to return at least in 1v1. I like to mix them with Grens and spam sandbags everywhere once you unlock Entrenching Tools. I would assume most of the 1v1/2v2 players on the balance team know they don't need to be buffed at all so I'm not really sure who is putting these changes through honestly. Trying to make Ostruppen good in 4v4 will just ruin all other game types honestly. |
Yeah Ostheer is going to by far be the strongest faction at least in 1v1 next patch assuming most of these changes go through. |
Could sandbags be moved from mainline infantry to engineer units or is that against Scope (TM). This 2 AT/2 MG meta also needs to be addressed, makes the game so tedious to play and makes every game last much longer than it should. |
So are we getting the Osttruppen changes reverted? Because no patch notes for a week and a half has me a bit nervous. |