I've posted more about this lately because the hypocrisy and bias is annoying. When JLI's needed a nerf, it was okay to wait almost a year. Same thing for taking the faust from Falls. In this case, people aren't even waiting for the meta to develop before going batshit crazy about a hotfix.
This is a tough comparison to make.
Firstly, in the case of JLI, you'd have to ask the balance team why it took so long - not the community. Most acknowledged that they were pretty OP. However, balancing CoH2 isn't a game of "revenge"; just because something was OP in the past (and left OP for ages), doesn't mean its ok to leave something else OP for ages to 'balance it out'. The same can be said for Fall's faust (and that was arguably much less powerful than JLI).
Secondly, OP mainline infantry is much more of an issue than OP doc-locked infantry. Again, in the case of JLI, they were tied to one somewhat mediocre doctrine - no heavy tanks (except the KT), no off-map artillery, no recon. Yes, JLI were powerful, but as soon as you saw them, you knew you weren't going to face a JT, and you knew your arty was safe.
OP Mainline infantry is a lot more dangerous, because it tells you nothing. They're going to be present in every single game, and they don't really dictate builds.
With that said, I do agree that we need to wait a bit longer to see where things fall - but right now, it's not looking good.
It won't be "balanced" until nobody uses it again.
This, however, is extremely disingenuous.
IS' are shoe-horned into a position that's an absolute nightmare to balance, thanks to cover bonuses, non vet-locked self-healing (and it's AOE), non-doc "off" map arty, and crazy vision bonuses. However, its pretty clear that those bonuses are a bit much when they can all apply at the same time to a single squad.
What I meant was the reduced target size in particular. Not if more mediums are used or not in general.
Reason why I am asking is because I feel like this change was pretty meh.
It's "meh" because of the limited value ranges they can assign to mediums. Right now mediums are at 20, which is basically the lowest a medium tank can be (18 is LV territory). Meanwhile, a "premium medium" like a Panther or Comet is at 24.
That means with this patch, mediums went from 8.3% smaller to 16.7% smaller than premium mediums (on average) - that's just not enough of a difference.
It's a good step forward, and its in the right direction, but it's an absolutely tiny step.
I played for the realease, I have something like 1,500 hours on COH. And I still feel german are definetely superior to soviet and ally in general.
I am playing only in 2C2 with a friend, and often I play against bad player and loose, even if i took unity in the beginning or take avantage during the beginning.
I feel that german have everything better than soviet. For instance something a german make artillery fixe, so in my turn I make artillery and target his artillery => 90% I will loose the duel even if I attack first.
I would suggest giving Axis a try. A lot of the time, finding that 'X Unit is OP' is really due to not fully understanding its strengths and weaknesses, rather than it actually being OP. Pick a build that you struggle against, or find unfair, and trying using it yourself.
That's not to say that the game is perfectly balanced; it absolutely still has issues. For example, one of the major discussion topics right now is late-game tank balance (60 range TDs, heavy tanks, panthers, super heavy TDs, etc.), which many consider to be unbalanced.
The pit can work I feel. It just needs looked at to properly be a part of the army. Adding a barrage to Pyro Tommies, even say a WP barrage that requires the pit would make it more attractive. People I feel don't know how to use it- it's a lite howitzer that can auto fire at close range, not a mortar. Not in practice. It's barrage should be its prime use not its auto fire. It's auto fire allows you to free up micro on the defensive by hitting the enemy, but it's offensive power is its barrage. I'd look into increasing that firther whem garrisoned and with vet as well.
The problem is that it's not mobile; once you pick a spot for it, it (and its vet) is locked to that position. I like the idea of adding WP barrage to Pyro tommies, but how would that work; would it only work within a certain range of the pit? If so, its way too restrictive. If it has far more range (or even infinite), there's no counter-play, especially if its built far behind the front-lines.
I just don't see a way to make it "part of the army" when it can't move, when CoH is based heavily around movement and positioning.
It'd would be really hard to balance at any timing short of a Company Command Post. Right now, it seems really situational. It's great against an Ost that wants to camp with bunkers and weapon teams, but mediocre against everything else.
I don't think it would be possible, short of re-balancing it so far that its a land-mattress in name (and model) only. It would need to be far more accurate, but far less damaging, and with a shorter barrage time. It could, for example, fire bursts of about 2 rockets, with the same accuracy as a mortar and the same delay between rounds/bursts; but at that point it's not the same unit.
The LM is designed to be a massive area-denial (and anti static weapon team) unit, not a precision-strike capable one.
The biggest problem with ostheer right now, is the weak mainline infantry. Other problems it is dealing with, can be dealt by rebalancing other factions.
I think it's that, combined with their reliance on static units; the MG42, mortar, Pak40, etc.
There's simply so many auto-fire artillery units these days, that has made that style of play impossible. Staying still means getting hit by either a mortar pit, Pack-Howie, Scott, Mortar HT, ISU-152, etc.
For other factions, this isn't too much of a problem; most other infantry can fire on the move, or rely on more mobile units. For OST, they're basically 'bricked'.
Waaah my crutch unit got nerfed now my faction is useless because I can't auto win. Thats what you sound like. The (for the most part) death of the heavy meta means that you can actually play doctrines without heavies, and not be at an inherent overwhelming disadvantage.
The thing is, without the Tiger, OST was completely stomped in the WCS. IIRC non-tiger doc picks had something like a 20% win rate.
No what's supposed to happen is we moan an whine about the Stug being OP for doing it's job and get it nerfed...oh wait that only applies to USF's Jackson (and apparently the Pershing now) nevermind.
If you're not going to revert the BS done to it there is no point in bothering to tweak anything else. Making it have better AT is completely pointless because the Jackson is better and more readily available.
Balance fked up big time with this unit. No two ways about it. I don't know why they thought all heavies had to have the exact same attributes.
There's a difference between "doing its job" and "being OP".
The STUG is a reasonably slow, case-mate, 50-range, 170 pen TD.
The M36 is the 2nd fastest tank in the game, with a turret, 60 range, 220-286 pen, 50% better moving accuracy, and a vehicle crew (self repair + target dropping).
They're not really comparable.
Also, note the "63% pen chance". Even if (somehow) a Pershing is ambushed by two stugs, you've got ages to react.
As for 'all heavies having the same attributes', they don't. They have different armor, speed, turret rotations, vet, ranges, pen, damage, rates of fire, and even prices. All the heavies did need a nerf to AI power, though, since "heavy meta" was far too dominant.
I haven't played enough on the new patch to say it confidently, but this seems fairly accurate. I'd swap OKW and OST, though.
#1. UKF, if doing their new "infantry blob" strategy is absurdly powerful - but outside of that one build, they're pretty average, if not slightly sub-par (probably #3 or even #4).
#2 and 3. Sov/USF are both still very, very strong. TD meta needs to be looked at, as does mid-game infantry (i.e. vet 2, before Obers and Vet 3 LMG grens are available). Docs also needs to be looked into, especially for USF, where there seem to only be 2 viable choices (but they're both great).
#4. OKW. They have a good set of tools, and their units scale well. Some things are still a bit on the strong side (late-game volks are still a bit too cost effective, Spec Ops flares, etc.), and some things could use minor buffs (JP4 pen?). Over-all, I'd say OKW feels the most "right" in terms of power level. They could also go for some doc revisions, as there's basically only 2-3 viable choices (Grand Offensive, JT, possibly still spec ops?).
#5. OST. Still pretty bad. Grens get beaten fairly easily in the early/mid game, and they don't have access to any non-doc vehicle with over 50 range. They also rely heavily on static units (LMG Grens, MG42, Pak40s, etc.), but those are all countered (either soft or hard-countered) fairly easily by units like the Scott, Pack-Howie, and so on.
No. Mods can not simply be copied into the game files. Each patch, every single change has to be manually replicated on Relic's side. Which is one of the reasons the live patches can take so long to make.
While that's pretty much expected (mods aren't patches); would "test mods" improve the working and/or iteration speed of official (and preview) patches?
For example, let's say there's some change the balance team and/or community wants to make - for the sake of discussion, nerfing the M36's moving accuracy multiplier. Chances are, the first value anyone tries (mod maker or balance team) won't be the 'perfect' value; however, a mod maker could iterate changes much faster than the official preview patches. For example, on Monday they could try 0.6, on Wens 0.5, on Fri 0.55, etc. With much faster iterations, we could figure out what the ideal value (or close to it) is quite quickly, and then the balance team could implement that value.
This could prevent issues such as the perceived under-performance of the IRHT, which was only iterated on (publicly) twice, before the final release.
This would, however, require excellent communication between the balance team, mod team, and community; the mod team and community would need to propose ideas that are possible to implement by the balance team (so no ST animation changes, or changes to every infantry squad), and the balance team would need to share their ideas with the mod team ("we were thinking of trying X for the next patch" and/or "the scope of the next patch is Y").
Effectively: Community made test mod -> official patch preview mod -> official patch
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Doomlord52
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
