the same argument can also be thrown for falls and obers... id suppose the choice here is between fussies and termiagers...
You cant. Falls are x10000 time better then Obersts, because they are awaible earlier meaning that they can start vetting up earlier and provide you with resonable AI against upgraded allied inf\elites.
If I had an option to get Obersts (without LMG) by the time I can get stock Falls, I wouldnt even bother going for them, because luftwaffe commander is a garbage with falls being the sole reason you would want to pick it.
OKW has nothing to with soviets, with USF and UKF. OKW suffers from problems in their core design and tech three, aswell as from bad unit pop-cap, timing and the fact that stupmpios have to do litteraly everything.
OKW suck in inf based AI? Because obersts are too late.
OKW get gang raped by early LVs? Because faust is locked, for no reason. On I side note, I loled at ppl puting the fact that allies dont have\have to unlocked Snares, while Axis litteraly have 0 early LVs you need snares against from the get go.
OKW cant heal without sacrificing one inf upgrade? Because tech suck ass.
And to the mix that sweeping\healing\Inf AT\laying mines\reparing\damaging is consintrated in 1 300MP 8pop squad.
All OKW suffers from is from really poor quality of life desing of the faction, which pretty much rips you off essential core game mechanics of the game.
1 could, Im pretty sure, be fixed by making neutral vehicles unable to have crush
They didnt nessesry get crushed. In other words, by exiting the tank I triggered abbandon critical for some reason, thats why crew died. Because they even had a voice line played for it.
1) Happens today with my Jackson. It took some damage and had an engine critical, not sure from a Faust or as a random crit. It had like 160 HP or less, after I decrewed it, crew instantly died exiting the tank.
2) non nessesery a bug, but probably oversight, but USF ambulance can't reinforce if deployed on the ice.
edit: If ice isnt part a of any sector ty Vipper
1- I think it's the other way round. Most heavy tanks have a low rear armor value with only a few exceptions been the case of it been high. And that been said, the only outlier requiring a change is the ISU152. The other ones been the Churchill variations and the KV1.
They do have low rear, but as I said most of the mediums still have to be at point blank range, to have at least consistant chance of penetration, and its still not a garanteed chance. Even considering enemy made a mistake and let you flank him, he still have an upper hand over you, because you pritty much will sacrifice your medium attacking rear of the heavy, and possibly even without a payoff. All heavy tanks are way too forgiving against medium tanks.
Considering 2 mediums cost the same\slightly less then heavy tanks, and 2 premium mediums (which can kill heavy tanks from rear) cost a lot more then heavy tank.
2- I don't think the performance is poor. IMO it's a case of people trying to force vehicles for modes which are not designed around them. I've said it before, don't try to force Tiger/Pershing/IS2 into 3v3/4v4 and don't force JT/Ele/ISU152 into 1v1.
Before nerf, they still had usage in teamgames. While JT\Ele\ISU always were too much for 1v1, other heavy tanks saw usage in every gamemode. The fact that they were nerfed brought them on a resonable level in 1v1, but at the same time deleted them from teamgames. Balance team instead of nerfing them via providing better ways to counter them, simply slaped raw perfomance nerf. The same way TDs racived raw pefromance boost, exclusively to fight heavies, ruining medium tank play in every gamemmode but 1v1.
I mean, there are gamemode specific problems, which objectively cant be fixed, but I dont like the idea that some of the units see this "dont use them in X gamemode", especially when there are paths to make them usefull in every gamemode aswell as make counter play more or less the same in all gamemmodes.
4- I think you are confused. 4v4 having an artillery/TD metas is because the mode is designed around big number of units + not so flank friendly maps.
I do agree that in teamgames arty\TD are more dominant, but correct state of balance favors this type of play more then it should. And there are ways to tone it down, without affecting 1v1 and 2v2 too much.
What I feel is, if Medium able to easily pen Heavy from rear. It would make Premium Medium...pointless.
That will make 2 T34-76 have higher chance to kill a Tiger than 1 Comet.
2 T34 will do twice DPS as 1 Comet (Because they just have the same damage). Their total health is 1300 compared to Comet 800.
Well I didnt say that it should be always be 100% chance of penetration. But in any case, even in your example 2 t34\76 will cost you rufly the same in terms of tech+units.
Single comet cost 500MP 185FU 12pop.
Double T34\76 600MP 180FU 20pop.
And T34\76 is the cheapiest medium in the game. Other double mediums cost you more then a single panther\comet\premium, while chances of 2 mediums defeating heavy tank are pretty much non existant.
Think you need to distinct between heavy tanks and Super heavy tanks that are limited to 1. Most of later have low rear armor.
Elephant\JT\KT\ISU. Some of them do have lower rear, but even in this case its usually too much for mediums to handle effectively, the only difference being that most of them dont have a turret, while KT is slow. By any means, its easier, but just as un-effective in general.
Tiger being a heavy P4 is not a bad thing. The abilities are great. Pintle MG. Great ROF. Great penetration. Great HP pool. Great armour. It's probably the most balanced heavy tank ATM. Still, having said that, the prepositions are not bad as they stand.
Great armor against what? TDs dont care about armor, nor they care about HP, lets be honest here. Great armor against mediums, well. All mediums suck vs any heavy anyway. But again as I said, its not about stats, because some of them are still better some of the are worst. At any point, they all share the same problems and bring same problems to the game.
So as everybody know, all heavy tanks have been nerfed not so long ago. This nerf was for the good, but imo heavy tanks state in game, while not being dominant, still is far from being enjoyable in general.
I dont want to jump into deep exeel sheet analysis, with providing all stats for every single heavy tank in the game, but instead I'il try to point out some overall problems presented which are the same for heavy tanks in general, affecting more or less all gamemodes.
What I think is problematic:
1) Overall rear armor. Most of heavy tanks has too high rear armor for mediums to fight them. While premium mediums have better chances of penetrating rear amor, all of the stock medium tanks pretty much have stupidly low chances of penetration, even at point blank range.
2) Overall perfomance. All of the heavy tanks perfomance is honestly quite poor after nerf. They lack purpose in a way. Pershing is being expensive comet, Tiger is being expensive P4. One might say that the difference is in amount of HP. But damage sponging is a so-so idea.
3) Non-single heavy tanks. This is has to do more with churchills and KVs. Most importantly their timing. While chuchill is somewhat alright, but very frustrating to play against, KVs timing feels just ridiculous, considering it comes slightly after first medium, while being proper heavy tank with a proper gun of the medium tank.
4) Heavy tanks as a TD meta justification. TDs in general got to the place where are they right now, because of the heavy tanks and mechanics behind them. Weaker TDs = heavy dominance, stronger TD = cost effective against everything.
What I think should be done:
1) Lowering rear armor of all heavy tanks. Mediums should have better chances to flank and engage heavy tanks, and player who let mediums flank his heavy tank, should be punished for it. No matter what this heavy tank is. Player who decided to go for medium, shoudnt be punished if enemy player went for heavy tank.
2) Damage on deflection. I belive that this mechanic is what CoH2 misses in general and it is possible to add it back. Considering armor combat in CoH2 worked completly differently back in the day and later was rewamped into what we have right now, which is more of vCoH model, deflection is a mechanic which will do good.
3) Because of deflection damage and fact that mediums will be an option against heavy tanks, this will bring possability of ajusting TDs to become more oriented to fight heavy targets, while becoming less effective against medium targers.
Ideal scenario would be: AT guns = more of a medium tanks counter, TD = more of a heavy tanks counter.
4) With changes like this, heavy tanks like Pershing\IS2\Tiger can recive small part of perfomance back, to actually be good, rather then being more expensive versions of medium tanks in terms of combat perfomance.
why nobody considered population as a mean to balance a unit like pershing? I think reducing the pop would make it a more viable unit since pop = upkeep and USF suffers a lot on this department.
But for this to work it needs to be reduced to something like 15~16 especially considering you NEED a RET or at least a vehicle crew to keep it repaired.
Pop isnt really a USF problem, you can always get more then you can by decrewing your vehicles.
Problem with Pershing comes not nessesy from unit itself, but from a commander. Selling point is rangers and pershing itself, second commander gives you rangers+caliope which is better chose overall. Other factions get heavies in a overall good commanders, where they are nice addition rather then key feature.
Look at Elite Troops for instance, where even if you dont plan to use Tiger Ace, commander is overall very decent. With Cavalry, if you dont plan to use Pershing, there is actually no reason to pick it, over Caliope commander if you need rangers.
If medium tanks were capable of fighting heavy tanks, without requaring you to litteraly stay in melee range of heavy rear armor and pray that you get penetration, heavies could have been made better.
All single heavy tanks suck ass, except long range one, difference being that some suck more, some suck less.
Non single heavy tanks like churchills and KVs are imo new cancer.