Profile of ZombiFrancis

There's a lot of backlash about the particular design decision of giving Penals access to the PTRS upgrade. Since everybody seems to be converging to the same objections, I think it is more productive to gather all these comments here, in a thread, so that everyone can look them up.

Since everybody seems to be converging to the same objections, I think it is more productive to take heed of those objections and move on instead of grinding efforts to dust.

I can partly understand the hate vs putting PTRS on Penals (especially from people that haven't tried; or don't even want to bother trying the mod). However, if you guys ever want to see T1 built again, until the next patch, there needs to be some compromise somewhere.

You make it really hard to want to read the following wall of text when you start things off like this. This isn't an 'us' and 'them' this is all 'us'. Except all of 'us' need to get through to 'you'.

In short, with this thread, I hope I'll be able to convince you that for T1 to be viable, one of the following should hold:
- Keep Penals OP, as they are (so that a T1 investment is worth it)
- Give T1 access to some AT options, so that they can hold off until T3
- Make T1 free/ultra-cheap (that way, a T1 will be less of a costly detour)

Which one would you choose?

Option #4: Realize that the viability of Soviet T1 has everything to do about the viability of T2 and the necessity to rush for T3.

The rest of this post is dedicated to the people that believe that no such compromise is needed.

Is it? Is the goal to silence opposition or to arrive at a solution? Because there's more than just the perspectives you're laying out here.

The simplest answer is that giving PTRS to T1 is the most tried-and-tested option in the history of CoH2.

What is this, I don't even. And what is the result of this most tried and tested option?

You're asking questions like "Why didn't you conspam"?

You argue intensively about AT nade viability, but you never address the munitions cost of throwing AT nades. You only mention munitions as a factor when talking about PTRS costs.

Trying to break apart this massive wall of text and address these issues does not seem that productive when this thread itself is a rejection of multiple threads of feedback.

(This should also give us a second indication about how much of the poll to take seriously)

How nice...

Anyway:

Current live design. Give Satchels their AT functionality.

Flamethrower COULD be exchanged for molotovs, but probably not necessary. It'd be better to see if Satchels need an unlock cost than anything.

Also, I think its extremely important to NOT conflate T1 and Penal Battalions together. Penals are in T1, but they are not the entirety of T1. Balancing T1 is a whole other can of worms that requires analyzing T1, early Soviet teching, impacts on 2v2+ and pacing of Soviet T3.

As for T1, the sniper is probably utilized the least for me. It can't use the m3, and it's a waste of manpower early on. Ever since they couldn't clowncar, they haven't been worth it except for maybe a countersnipe. But Ostheer sniper is better at wiping the sniper team with its ability though. Plus there aren't female snipers anymore, so the coolness factor there is gone too.

The m3 scout car becomes useless way fast, but clowncar flamers does have a niche. It's not as pronounced with volksfaust though.

I completely agree. Unfortunately CoH2 is full of issues caused by changes in the initial design done very early in the game's lifespan. Guards and Shocks used to replace Penals (which, granted, would probably have its own set of problems), and if you look at early Soviet commanders it seems that the great majority of them were intended to have either of the elite infantry units available. Then people cried for greater commander ability diversity. Most (or all?) call-ins used to be built from tier structures. They changed that, and we had call-in meta for ages before they partially went back to that idea. A lot of the later problems the game had were due to this indecisive and possibly rushed early development, IMO.

...and a three second command delay that made it almost impossible to dodge Satchels. Oh beta. Oh release. Oh CoH2 for the 3 years afterward.

But you have to put yourself in the balance team's position. They've said multiple times that they are limited in what they can do, and are doing their best to leave the game with a large number of viable strategies, considering that this patch will come out in February (if not later), and God knows when the one after that will be.

Believe me I've tried. And I've tried time and time again to express the reality that because the scope is so limited, trying to rebalance the entire game (while also attempting to predict the metagame resulting from their own changes) is a ridiculous effort that will result in people getting caught up in sunk-cost fallacies of the proposed/their own changes. It also heavily reduces the odds the mod will be implemented in a favorable fashion to the live game.

I've been saying this since the MAY preview patch. It's what happened with the map contest, even. Getting feedback doesn't validate ideas as good, feedback is what helps determines whether an idea is good or bad.

I've spent hundreds of hours fiddling with CoH2 in mod tools and I completely understand how intoxicating it can be to be able to make changes to the game that you can really see and look at, and go "I did that." It feels great. (And for those changes to make it into the live game, or even just be in an 'official' mod? I can't imagine!) But man I have the humility to understand that my opinions aren't golden because I spent time on them. I used to push and argue for 5 man grenadier squads until I built a mod to test it. I quickly realized it wouldn't be healthy for the game. (I didn't test it as a T4 clone of UKF's Bolster though.) Same with the M42 AT gun being in T1 with a T70 gun.

I think the molotovs on Penals isn't necessarily bad at all, especially if they lose their flamethrower. But if they're getting PPSH + Flamer again, I don't see why they would get molotovs, and I REALLY don't get removing Oorah. Oorah is not Fired Up.

Why in God's name would I want to buy a single extra ptrs at t4...

Also what is the love affair of ptrs on penal battalions? The ptrs is a janky and clumsy weapon that has never filled a strong role in coh2. I mean when it destroyed team weapons and wiped their squads as a result it was powerful, and when it still sniped infantry it had its use, but both those situations were not really intended nor did they contribute to gameplay in a positive fashion.

So those problems were fixed, but that's it. I mean, having guards drop their ptrs has been a blessing in disguise for ages.

Also who in their right mind was trying to use at satchels offensively? Or worse yet, as a hard counter to ai vehicles?
And is that reason enough to redesign the best thing this patch seems to have going for it?

I mean do people not understand what a meta game actually is? Do people even understand why something like light vehicles became so prominent?

These kinds of haphazard changes are exactly what's going to undermine the whole effort by creating unfeasible or contentious concepts that won't survive official relic implementation. Or even worse, they do survive and end up being imbalanced from biased and inconclusive testing.

I mean look at the scope of this patch and compare to the last patches that affected okw and implemented the USF mortar. Am I the only one that sees the relationship?

I find it odd that so much focus is being paid to adjusting light vehicles across the board, but then other units are being balanced around the light vehicle meta that is being actively broken by the rest of the patch.

I know the patch has a scope, but the goals and intent of the patch seem to be getting muddier.