Profile of Bryan

Pity the current 222 in this patch has a very short shelf life, Captain tier and Quad do a little number on the scout car and leave a very small window for the 222 to do work. It does not help that the 222 model manoeuvres like a tank at times.

Also, the halftrack for less MP and 10 more fuel, gives you reinforcement on the field and the flamer upgrade is pretty nifty for shock value & AI/wiping squads on retreat.

Don't get me wrong, apart from some quirky unit handling, I'm not sure the 222 itself is bad, seems a pretty decently priced unit on the lid, might just be the current timing of the Quad and to a lesser extent Stuart that is making the 222 a bit out of favour.

The 221 was always a bit meh without the upgrade. I'd rather play a bit more MP and fuel than 55 munitions as Ostheer!

The most pressing, long term issue in 1's I believe is currently the maps themselves in rotation. The random element of which map & spawn you get on any given matchup is a really big deal.

USF, North Langre Spawn, vs Ost in the South spawn? Gl Hf Yank.

Ost, West Khlodney Winter, vs Usf in the East Spawn. Gl Hf Kraut, especially if they grab *that* house in front of your spawn!

Stalingrad? Cool map and thematic, but auto veto for Axis players generally speaking. It is not a balanced 1v1 map.

North Road to Kharkov..Gl to whoever spawns there!

Just some wee examples. Plenty more floating about in the annual threads on map balance that we get once in a while. I think Relic is aware, but progress on the map front has being pretty slow I feel, whilst faction balance is improving.

Tonight or more accurately for us Europeans, tomorrow morning at an unholy hour is the fight. Hoping Pac kicks seven shades of crap out of Mayweather tbh

Haven't played much COH2 this patch, and what I have, was mostly as Ostheer because they are the coolest. Just my fair warning that the following should be taken with a pinch of salt.

But I always liked using the Ost sniper before the patch, to my mind, he had 3 issues in 1's.

1. Fragile as feck, now he is more like two grens rolled into one with great camo, so that is pretty much a non issue anymore.

2. The sniper original design with the relationship between the Ost Sniper and Soviet sniper teams. 2 man sniper teams were a poor choice imo and too tough to kill, the Ost sniper got some significant benefits to try and offset this, and now has a similar health pool, albeit more vulnerable to counter sniping. So now both sniper variants are pretty tough for what you would think as a pretty fragile unit type.

3. Large map sizes and the resource system in COH2 promotes aggressive capping pretty hard, so snipers have to put in a good shift to earn their bread, which for snipers, is killing infantry and causing a constant manpower drain. A tougher Ost sniper means you can take more risks and keep him popping off modals for longer. But if you invest in an early sniper, you are sacrificing map and resources for an investment in winning the manpower war long term. Snipers of either variant still require support in close enough proximity, thus you concede map early on.

Which leads me on to the natural solution that I used as Ostheer in the past vs soviet snipers, spam infantry and cap, cap, cap. Then out tech your opponent. I imagine soviets with cons can do a similar job. Not so sure about USF, their tech structure and economy is a bit wonky that way.

I'll have to play more to test out the balance, but whilst I think snipers of both original factions are too durable now, I think we should wait a bit to make a judgement as for allot of players, this will be the first time people really see the Ostheer sniper on a regular basis and an adjustment period is fairly inevitable.

On a side note, I used the Ostheer sniper with the encirclement doctrine the other day. Fairly mediocre commander, but the Ost sniper with sprint was racking up kills like no one's business as I was constantly using it to sprint forward for shots or to backpaddle and not have to retreat. Ala the old soviet sniper when they had sprint, except the Ost sniper fires faster and cloaks better! I think Relic perhaps forgot that trick when they took away the Soviet sniper sprint.

At risk of making an ass out of you and me, I'm going to make an assumption here and say this 6 months of work on balance changes since the last one was more of a 2 months job with a reduced team of whoever relic has left on board with coh2 development. Judging by the limited changes and no new lead balance designer, we also know relic are working on a new project and their track record. I could be wrong and that is no slight intended on the changes made, they are open to judgement over the next while.

But they did not address some fundamentals of the game design or factions, and that was probably my last hope for the game. I doubt those will ever be addresssed now at this point of the games lifespan.

The game is so much better then it was on release and I have and will continue to enjoy it for what it is, a pretty beer and pretzel game with great sound effects, one of the last rts games standing and a very good tittle, a credit to relic. But i just wished for a wee bit more, which I think the game had the potential.

The game performance issues I have to note here though, post wfa it went to shit for many people. That was a real feck up!