Profile of Sander93

Automatch always tries to match players with equal elo
That's why automatch stats are pretty much meaningless because they will always tend to be very close to 50% apart from maybe the top 1% of each ladder

I'd say that only really applies to the middle bracket, while good players will win the majority of their games regardless of elo matchups, so the top ~10-25% will still tell us a decent enough story. This also happens to be the part where player skill is consistent, factions are used to their full potential, and learn to play issues are mostly absent. Again nothing of that is even close to anything conclusive, but it does helps forming the bigger picture. I wouldn't call them flat out meaningless.

I'd say the top 25% wr stats of Siphon's automatch stats collection were pretty similar to what I thought faction balance looked like across multiple gamemodes (1v1 in the case of the linked example) at that time. Again though, it only somewhat reinforced what I/we already thought, we never used any of those stats as a baseline for adjustments.

I don't think it's a good idea to use tournaments for allies vs axis data. Unlike automatch, allies always start on spawnpoint 1, and axis start on spawnpoint 2. Any stats that point to allies being stronger than axis can just as easily be attributed to the tourney map pool overall favoring spawn point 1.

There are many more issues with tournament "stats". Low sample size (causing unreliability because RNG/mistakes/spawns/etc rather than faction balance can heavily influence the results of the low amount of games), potentially corrupt data (if a good player wins versus a worse player 3-0, and they happened to pick Allies first, Allies get a 66% win ratio while they would've had 50% with 4 games played, or Axis would've had 66% if they happened to pick Axis first, and with the low sample size this does not get cancelled out on the average), or the fact that there's a huge price pool and players will generally only play safe with tried and tested strategies (OKW Grand Offensive) instead of taking risks with off-meta strats that could potentially work better (Noggano snatching G2 of the finals with Defensive Tactics, and almost getting G4 with OST Infantry Doctrine). Or the fact that most 1v1 players simply dislike playing UKF (as proven by low pick rates even at a time they were very competitive) regardless of how the faction is.

In conclusion, tournament data is indicative at best, but never conclusive.

3. Add button "Handbrake" like halftrucks have for all HMG - sometimes you need manualy choose targets, but one missclick and your HMG will start to pack up. When this mode active, retreat will be work, but for reposition, you need turn off this mode.

Just use an attack move command. If you target an enemy squad with it, the HMG will start firing on that squad. If you accidentally misclick on the ground, the HMG will not pack up and keep firing at whatever it's already firing at. Not sure if a handbreak mode for infantry/support weapon squads is even possible.

I am confused. What is the plan with the Infantry Sections? Last christmas patch they lost a RA cover buff but got compensated with better out of cover performance. Then the balance team decided to revert this and went back to the more static defensive style no one likes. Now you want to give them better accuracy on the move again? Seems very contradictory to me.

Main problems pre-summer patch: Bolster now available early due to added snares, Bolstered stock static DPS too high and too durable in the open; optimal for A-move blobs and beating Axis mainlines in pretty much all match ups.

Some target size was moved to the cover bonus because it was the only way we saw fit, to let Infantry Sections remain quite powerful mainlines in the early game that can hold their ground, while at the same time preventing them from steamrolling the map. It was never the primary goal to force static play, rather something of a necessary evil. To compensate for this somewhat, higher moving accuracy should make Infantry Sections a bit more mobile again. But without going back to the same problem as before, since lower static DPS (due to overkill) and lower out-of-cover target size should mean A-move blobs and stock 5 men performance in general will be much less powerful as it was pre-summer patch.

I don't fully agree with UKF's faction design either, specifically the cover mechanics for IS, and ideally I'd redesign things to get rid of it or at least turn it into something that's rewarding to use rather than punishing for not using, but a total redesign like that would have far reaching and unknown consequences which basically means it'd be a huge risk to take at this point in the game's life span (each patch can be the last one). So it's very likely going to be something we'll continue to be stuck with and we'll just have to work around it as best we can.

"Just completely redesign both basic Infantry Sections stats and Bolster" (and of course redesign half the faction to fill the anti-garrison, light and heavy indirect fire, elite infantry and AI vehicle holes while we're at it) is easier said than done, and would be a way too complicated and long process at this time.

Also regarding the underlined part. This pretty much proves my suspicion that the balance team is simply not applying the same criteria for all factions

I don't care about what belongs to which faction when it comes to balance, if something needs to be changed, I'll opt to change it. This was the case with Infantry Sections totally dominating Axis mainline infantry for a very low cost (only Bolster and A-move were needed, weapon upgrades and cover were irrelevant) ever since the faction ecosystem shift caused by adding snares. I'd have done the same thing if it was Volks/Grens/Cons/Penals/Riflemen causing major issues.

Why weren't Infantry Sections adjusted WITHOUT going back to this horrific old OP in cover but shit without it design? It's literally completely mind boggeling

Because we felt it was the only way to keep Infantry Sections strong (power level is problematic because of Bolster early scaling, so they do need to have some drawbacks to restrain their early power) while nerfing the near unbeatable A-move blobs. By moving some of their target size to the cover bonus, we aimed to keep most of their early game power level, but stop them from running rampant across the map. It was very hard to predict the full extend of the Lee Enfield damage change, so we changed both to be sure. Given how fed up everyone was with Infantry Section spam, we went for a better safe than sorry approach (imo). Better to make the faction slightly underperforming and do some adjustments soon after, than keeping it overpowered and toxic, especially with the world tourney on the horizon.

To be honest, it was obvious that nerfing the crutch unit was likely going to cause some problems, although obviously we hoped it wouldn't have too much of an impact, but it was needed, and we can't predict every outcome. We just had to throw out the changes and see where the faction landed so that now we can identify some holes and attempt to fix them in the next patch. Balance isn't done overnight. In my opinion UKF is still very playable and good, at least in 3v3 and 4v4, even if not competitive for high level 1v1, but they could use some adjustments now that the dust has settled.

We have thought out some (hopefully) exciting changes for UKF, although all still very WIP at this moment, one of which is changing Lee Enfield moving accuracy to ~0.5 so Infantry Sections can fight more mobile.

They made this gem of a balance adjustment two months ago.

Would appreciate discussing this without throwing around sarcasm.