The main issue with the Scott is while it's very good at auto-fire, probably too good, it fails to serve as functional artillery for the late-game of USF. It's AOE profile is very good at killing models, but is very poor at wounding or damaging models which is more prominent on the barrage which is known for very poor accuracy and you need to deal good AOE damage since most shells from barrage abilities don't land directly on target or are fired from further ranges into the FOW.
It's not serving the USF faction well enough in its other function as artillery to compensate for the lack of rocket or heavy artillery, with its best performance being Sherman HE lite.
So why didn't you increase the range of the barrage if you want it to be usable as functional artillery? Your change made it a more expensive mortar HT with no white phos.
Not really, Panther and StuGG are pretty well defined in the Ost roster, with the Elefant behind them. Same with Jagdtiger, JP4 and Panther for OKW.
I don't think standardization is a good thing. If I want mirror matches I'll play age of empires.
Most of the early RTS's had standardization by default. The units on different sides were basically the same but with different skins. We played those games anyway because it was the early 1990's. By today's standards, those games are boring and nobody misses them, unless they're just waxing nostalgic.
I like the difference in COH2's armor, other than I wish Strategic Reserves had came with a JPIV instead of a PIV.
ISU-152's ability to snipe infantry from behind a wall of AT I would say is more impactful as you stop all ability to capture territory and also can deny VPs for infantry daring to step on that. The JT and Elefant are more devastating to vehicles, but they can't lock out a VP or territory from infantry on their own and bleed the opponent of infantry.
And while I'm not responding too much, be assured we're keeping an eye on the posts passing through the threads.
But Napalm is right about the effect on the late game in 4v4's. Right now, games can go either way in the late game, and there is an okay trade between Ele/Jt backed by Brum/mg's/paks/elite infantry versus ISU/Jacksons/Firefly with at guns and regular infantry. Without the range of the ISU, it's going to be much worse at forcing retreats because the Ele and JT will outrange its HE round. Add in the SU85 and Jackson nerfs and you've just wrecked late game for Allies unless everyone wants to play UKF.
Lastly, it seems really odd that the ISU is getting nerfed on a patch that is intended for core or META issues. It's not a core unit, and not particularly META given the large number of maps where it's a bad idea. If it's going to be nerfed, it should be done in a patch that focuses on heavies (other than the rear armor nerf which is fine).
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It will be interesting to know why the world championships turned into such a stale series, more interesting than the games at least.
I watched a few of the games and they still seemed interesting. Regardless of how balance is done, good players will find the way that gives them the best chance of winning and everyone will play that one way, even if their odds of winning are just 1% better than the next dozen alternatives.
I really enjoyed watching VonIvan versus Luvnest when VonIvan was playing Wehr. It seemed like that game should have been over early but once VonIvan got his P4 out, he made it interesting for about 45 minutes. Luvnest was equally interesting to watch with his commando play. I don't think I've ever seen anyone get nearly as much use out of commandos as he did. It's too bad that allies can't share control of units, it would be really fun to watch those two play with Luvnest controlling the infantry and VonIvan controlling vehicles.
Hm, I appreciate the change but this doesn't change the fact that penals scale quite badly against upgraded volks or 5men Grens. Especially not for their cost of 300MP. T1 openings take quite a heavy toll on your manpower (especially since healing costs 250 MP for some reason). I'd suggest lowering the penal cost to 280 mp to better reflect their combat performance on top of the changes above. A tommy squad is at 270 and with the global 5th man upgrade I'd rather have that squad instead of a penal any time.
M5 Half-Track
Gotta see how this plays out, if it becomes too much of a dice roll to take down a plane,
Please this. I haven't played 1v1's in awhile, but in team games, the extra cost of Penals really hinders them in the early game. Combined with not scaling well, it makes T1 starts difficult on many maps. The RA might help MP bleed a little, but not enough to make a difference.
The AA nerf to the M5 is way too much. Combined with the T70 nerfs, it makes T3 unappealing. If they're going to do this, they should make T3 optional.
Since so many other LV's are being changed, could you look into timing on the Greyhound? It comes too late to have much of an impact. The unit itself seems mostly okay, other than the main gun is really lackluster.
Battering ram is a stupid ability, to move a ram for veterancy is even more stupid ability. This decision does not improve the T-34, but simply ... breaks it. Who the hell came up with this solution? This is a nomination for the most ingenious idea of the year. T-34-76 and T-34-85 are long overdue for a change in veterancy and ability. But instead, let's just forget about it and pretend that we fixed something.
The Russians did, back sometime around 1942. Speaking of which, if ram is going to be a vet 1 ability, could it be made to act more like the historical event? It would be interesting if the ram had a chance to immobilize both vehicles or turret lock both (when the T34 climbs part way up the other vehicle). It could make for some interesting play/counterplay. Those abilities would have to be limited to Panther's and below. Any larger target should just have a chance to stun.
As USF I would get a similar issue to Array's when trying to place a fighting position. The ghost image would only display on valid areas to place it. Over invalid places (ie blocked or enemy terrain) I would just see a normal mouse cursor instead of the red ghosted image. It makes it hard to tell that you have correctly select the button to place the structure.
I have the same problem trying to build base buildings as Soviet (might happen to other factions also). The outline only shows up if the cursor is in a location where the building can be built. If it can't, it the outline disappears completely.
Other than that, it looked good to me. I set up a couple comp stomps and let computers battle while doing other stuff. It ran through a couple hours with three games without crashing, and I wasn't rebooting between games. The frame rate drop didn't seem as bad so it looks like it will be a great update.
10 games in a row. Cannot win as Axis you've broken it for good in Random 3v3 and 4v4. ALLIES RULE...YOU WIN THNANKS RELIC
Your win % is around 50% for Axis and 33% for Allies. Statistically speaking, you would likely have your first Allied 10-game losing streak by playing about 100 games. You wouldn't have to play 1762 games (you current count for OH) in order to make the mirrored balance thread that 3v3 and 4v4 is "brokem" for Allies. This would make an interesting Monte Carlo simulation. Good luck with your balance thread.
Relic Entertainment
