Profile of Lokust22

It has been suggested several times that adding the T34/85 to the base Soviet faction would help them a lot. I agree with this opinion, but the way to add it has been difficult. I would like to suggest that the T34/85 replace the T34/76 in T3 and the T34/76 be moved to the Soviet HQ, where it becomes available once either T3 or T4 are built.

Without going into too much detail, the basis for this suggestion is 4-fold:

(1) - Soviet game meta: The current medium to late game Soviet teching is tactically very limiting. The large fuel cost of T3 and T4 often makes it infeasible to build both buildings. Furthermore the lack T3's anti-tank ability is a severe shortcoming, especially with the inclusion of the OKW's heavy tanks and the improvement of the Panthers front armour. Finally, T4 builds struggle with out a basic medium tank, especially considering the fragility of the Katyusha and Su-76 and the manoeuvrability of the SU-85. These short comings result in a large dependency on commander choice to fill in weaknesses.

(2) - Soviet faction design: Currently, at the start of the game, the Soviet player is supposed to have a core infantry unit (the conscript) and can choose from two different buildings with differing play styles, namely T1 and T2. In the same way, my proposal would see the Soviets with a core tank (the T34/76) and then two buildings that offer differing play styles. T3 would provide fast and manoeuvrable, support type units. I.e. T70 - Recon, Half-track - Forward reinforce/AA, etc. T4 would provide artillery/long range support.

(3) - Implementation: It is (seemingly) simple and maintains/expands upon the asymmetrical teching system of the soviets.

(4) - Balance: This change would obviously result in a buff for the Soviets due to the increased choice of units. I think this is an area the Soviets need buffed, as I believe that they are unduly disadvantaged with their current teching scheme. That being said, it is difficult to say just how much of an impact, balance wise, this will actually have. I do think it will result in a more all rounded faction. This would result in a more diverse meta and a team that is more fun to play with or against. I also think this faction could be balanced better in this manner, resulting in a faction which doesn't rely on "lame/cheesey" strategies to remain competitive.

The glaring issue that would need to be addressed would be what to do with the 3 commanders that can currently call in the T34/85(s). The ability could be changed to allow the commander to call in vetted T34/85's, for example.

Another potential issue might be the extent of the overlap of the T70, T34/76 and T34/85. This could be tweaked to emphasize a recon role for the T70 and the AI ability of the T34/76.

TL;DR:
Put the T34/76 in the Soviet HQ, to be unlocked with teching. Put the T34/85 in T3. In this way, the Soviets can become more adaptable, while maintaining their branching teching structure. This will ultimately make them far more fun to play as and encourage a diverse meta.

I read that whole topic and didn't see it. I guess I could've missed it, and if I did, I apologize.

Maybe you misunderstood my point? I am not talking about the top 200 player stats, but rather why expanding onto the entire player base would be meaningless. Regardless of balance, the win loss ratio over the whole player base will be 50%, assuming a large player base and an established patch. I didn't want to derail that topic, as this is just a general point.

EDIT: I don't understand how you think I didn't know about that topic. I link to it in the opening paragraph.

The difference between the number of played games between the axis and allies in the top 200 could be an artifact of how the data was generated.

If you assume that the Axis is currently over-powered, but once weren't, then you would expect that it would be very easy for players this patch to beat the ELO rating of players who played in previous patches, but have since become inactive. This would result in the majority of the top 200 axis players being active.

The opposite will occur in the Allies ladder, where an active player now can expect to fall below a player who earned a high elo rating when the game was more balanced. This will result in a larger portion of the top 200 players on the allies side being inactive accounts.

What this would bascially suggest is that the effective sample size on the axis side is larger and has hence played more games.

Lift fuel penalty, and Im fine with this. If not, then nope.

My understanding is that the fuel penalty is compensated by the fact that OKW gets 5 levels of vet. Less units, but able to get more out of the units they have. Its not much of a "penalty" if they paying 40 fuel (less if you consider that some of the cost goes to building function), for something the soviets need 160 fuel to get access to.

That sounds to me like they got OKW right. Relic already has noted they want to change the call in system to make regular teching competitive. It is not an OKW OP problem its an every other faction problem

Fair enough. If Relic's fix to the call in problem is to reverse their March patch and reduce the teching costs of the other teams, in order to make the main tech competitive, then there wouldn't be a problem. I hope that isn't the fix though. I like the idea of the March patch, namely to increase the period in which infantry and light vehicles are on the field and effective before armor.

I don't think that's bad design. In fact, I think it works well in game and OKW vehicles on the whole seem functional and balanced. They are usually very good but losing them is a more crippling blow.

I agree the vehicles are competitive at the moment. The problem, I think, is that the vehicles that they are competitive against are the call ins. If all call ins are nerfed by requiring teching (a good change imo), you are effectively nerfing every team except the OKW.

You could say that I should wait to see if that is what they will actually do in the patch first. I would just rather not have to wait several more months for another fix to what I see as a foreseeable problem.

Consider also that the trucks are immobile and relatively fragile, an OKW player getting pushed off the map could lose his buildings which other factions don't really have to worry about.

There is nothing forcing the OKW to place their buildings on the field. The risk of having a building destroyed is off set by the advantage of having the building on the field. Besides which, I haven't suggested raising the upfront cost, so the building could still be replaced for the same price (and if the upgrade was purchased before, it would still be now).

Okw does get a panther out in about 16 minutes if they hold their fuel and a large part of the map.

How are they gonna do that without hurtung themselves ? While volks and püppchen will keep shermans/t34s at bay , you will bleed and you will lose mapcontrol in the meantime. and 4 minutes ( as 12 minutes is easily the time medium tanks come out ) is a long time in coh2 midgame.

You're right. They will bleed and hurt themselves if they hold out for a panther as their first vehicle. Is that a problem though? They have 2 anti tank vehicles that can come out a lot sooner than a panther. If the Ostheer were to hold out and not get any tanks until a panther (imagine panthers were good), they would be in the exact same boat of having bled.

Mortars do not have accuracy against moving targets. They fire at a single center point (usually a model in a squad) and the spread determines the accuracy. It does not compensate for movement and the projectile does not follow infantry.

Yeah, I know. Perhaps I should have said "ability to hit moving targets" instead of "accuracy against moving targets". But either way, it is pretty effective at hitting men on the approach. Blob or no blob.