Profile of Hannibal

The funny thing is I stand by tournament stats before I know the outcome. I don't know if the tourney is going to show axis op or allies op, but I still go by them. The other guys go by outdated stats because they are only interested stats that support their claim. The tourney is not over yet, and we can't base our conclusions on the latest games.

We can't base anything on the latest tourney, even when it's finished, since there will be too few games with every team composition. At the end of the day we can't tell apart if a victory was based on rng, day-to-day performance of some teams or truely due to imbalances.

There isn't enough people playing the game, matchmaking isn't proposing balanced matches due to lack of players available.

This is true also for the top 10%. You do not improve this effect by shrinking the player base you look at even further to the top 10%.

Below elite playing ranks most of the game aren't balanced and the faction played has little impact on the game outcome.

I agree that high level play reflects better the strengths and weaknesses of the respective faction.
In contrast, if you're an average player at (for the sake of the example) 50%, you have way higher chances of getting a balanced match than being at the edges of the skill curve due to the fact that you can get an opponent slightly above AND below your skill level.
High skill players get obviously more often matched with lower skill players, low skill players get more often matched with higher skill players.
The question is if the game should be balanced around top tier play or somewhat the main player base, but that would heavily derail the topic.

We have to live with the fact that different skill levels play with slightly different metas. Units like the Brummbär require heavy micro to be effective but die more easily in low skill level. Is the unit OP? Is it UP? There's no easy way to say that, but balancing it only according to the top players that can give the unit the high micro it needs will basically kick out the main player base.

I agree with the general conclusion that low skill data is not really representative of the whole game, but first the argument given does not make sense to me as well as the conclusion that only top tier play shows game balance while 90% of the games played are purely luck is also bullshit.

Also a cache is an investment that leads to less MP on the field. It is okay to get your tank out earlier because of it.
Caches are not necessary for any faction and often not build at all in 1v1 and 2v2, so we can happily calculate everything as if they were not there.

The following numbers are assuming you are teching directly for it. In a 1vs1 this won't happen, but you can assume both players will spend around the same number of fuel on side techs (Soviet/OKW), optional T1 and T2 building (Ostheer) or vehicles and light tanks (all). So we can take the numbers as an orientation for timing. In bigger game modes it is a common tactic that one or two players in the team are teching as fast as they can to get a shock unit asap.

Ostheer (BP = Battlephase):
BP1 = 40
BP2 = 90
T3 building = 15
PZIV = 120

Alltogether 265 - Starting fuel of 10 = 255 fuel
(StuG III G comes at 225 fuel)


Soviet
T1 building = 10
T3 building = 85
T4 building = 90
KW-1 = 145

Alltogether 330 - Starting fuel of 20 = 310 fuel
(T34/76 comes at 255 fuel like PZIV)


I didn't compare to OKW in my post, because there it is much harder to compare. Are we playing a 1vs1 where OKW is dependend on salvage only or are we playing a 2vs2 with an Ost mate who builds the caches while OKW still can salvage. This is a huge difference that really makes any comparison very hard if not obsolete. Your numbers are correct with the exception of the medtruck that costs 25 fuel instead of 35 fuel.

You did not talk about OKW, but for the balance of the KV1, timings against OKW are important as well. Timings in team games are a bit more difficult, but 1) I think we should look at 2v2 at max, everything above is a huge unplannable black box where are factors are probably more important than the fuel cost and 2)unless they try a special strat, teams only tend to build 1-2 caches, and unless both Axis players play OKW, both sides have the possibility to do so. So it can be a rough estimate. Also I would not call them obsolete, as the difference to the first tank is about 20-30 fuel at max, depending on when the cache was build. And the calculation of the fuel for Ostheer is misleading in my opinion, since the only possibility to skip both grenadiers, mortars and a PaK is playing the Osttruppen Commander with Osttruppen callins and the supply drop. For the sake of comparability in 1v1 and 2v2 modes, the building costs should be added.

The KV1 comes at approximately the same time as Axis mediums. If it got better AI, it probably would also be alright to come slightly later than Axis mediums, since it is the better tank in medium-vs-medium warfare.

I do think that the KV1 is slightly UP, I just don't agree with the statement that the timing of the KV1 is the parameter that makes it UP.

For tommies - yes, that's their DPS in cover.
For osttruppen, most certainly NOT for LMG as their LMG in cover should be dealing 75% of what gren LMG does. Their rifle accuracy also seems like it has the value in cover, because they most certainly do not have 50%+ accuracy out of cover, but I'm not vouching for that.

I thought Osttruppen get their ROF doubled or tripled or something? But also not sure about that