So why not ST and AVRE then?
Of course they are comparable, it's just not an argument in balancing. Balance changes are made purely based on a unit itself, not because some other unit in a totally different faction has this or that compared to it. There is no us versus them beyond the petty squables of the fanboys. Everything is balanced individually, based on how something performs within its own faction. |
Actually, I don't believe that's true. Last time I ran the numbers, the leFH has the advantage due to its extra shell and better AoE damage, a larger 80 damage radius letting it kill crews and infantry better.
LeFH has 2/4/6(8) AOE radious, with 160/160/56/8 damage.
ML-20 has 2/4/6(8) AOE radious, with 200/180/56/10 damage.
80 damage distance is 3.54 for LeFH and 3.61 for the ML-20.
LeFH does have one extra shell. |
Difference being that max range the LeFH has a chance in hell of actually hitting anything intentionally.
So in a howitzer dual, the LeFH still has a distinct advantage, even without its busted counter barrage ability
This is what we call bias.
The LeFH and ML-20 have the exact same scatter (accuracy) stats on the normal barrages.
They also have practically the same AOE profile, although it's slightly in favour of the ML-20 (94.1 AOE score for LeFH vs 101.5 for ML-20).
However, the ML-20 deals 200 damage on direct hits while the LeFH deals 160, giving the ML-20 a small edge in killing the other because it only needs two direct hits to kill the weapon (400 health) while the LeFH needs three.
It's the ML-20 that ultimately holds the advantage, although not by much. |
Yeah and this is why some factions can litteraly flat fall on their asses if at some point they lose vetted unit.
Which is exactly the point? Losing vetted units should be a tough loss, and the enemy should be rewarded for killing them. All factions have late game options to deal with heavies.
I mean, you for some reason only forcus on the cheapest units dealing damage to the most expensive ones, but at the same time completly skipping the midle ground, where not so much cheaper units cant deal with slitghly more expensive ones, just because they are out of their league.
Yeah, because what on earth would be the point of heavies if even generalist mediums could take them on frontally? It's exactly the purpose of a heavy tank to be durable enough against generalist medium tanks and other mid tier AT options to force the opponent into specific heavy AT counters if they want to directly counter it.
|
That's why COH2 is silly in this aspect. If late game units are totally immuned to earlier units then why should you preserve your lighter armours? COH is different from other RTS that every units should be useful in any stage of the game and the core idea should be preserving them.
Most units scale by either getting good veterancy bonuses (like Puma) or gaining utility (like T-70/222 scouting). Likewise a vet 3 StuG for example still has a decent chance to deal damage to an IS-2 due to the various combat bonuses that it gets through veterancy.
That's different from being able to just spam cheap units and avoid teching up to counter an enemy's high tech/unit cost late game unit just by sheer frontal DPM, which would become possible if deflection damage were to be introduced on a large scale.
Scalability of units should come from either vet 3(/5) combat performance or (veteran) utility. Not from stock performance. |
An immobilized Panther is being outranged by Allied TDs and ATGs. ATGs can be countered by indirect or retreating from the position, but there is nothing really stopping an Allied TD from pot shotting a hulled down 50 range Panther.
Ostheer hull down gives a firing range bonus, giving the Panther 62.5 range, allowing it to fire back at Allied TDs at their max range.
Which can be useful, especially because with the added durability it can out-DPM up to two Allied TDs with a bit of luck, but it's not that practical because a stationary Panther usually just attracts a bunch of ATGs or artillery and is then forced to move.
Panther hull down can come in handy sometimes, in scenarios like having to defend a victory point to stall out the last few VPs, but most of the time mobility is more valuable than being stationary with a bunch of bonuses. It's definitely not a no brainer ability, which is good. |
The 222 shouldn't be doing deflection damage to the IS2, but the Stug should.
I disagree. A heavy like the IS-2 comes with such a high tech and unit cost nowadays that a (few) cheap T3 unit(s) should not be enough to counter it. It should require an equal time+resources investment to reliably counter it, in this case T4 + Panther/Tiger/Elefant. The StuG is an intermediate medium tank counter, not a high tier end game TD. It has no business taking on (super)heavies.
Deflection damage is an equally flawed system that should not be brought back imo.
I expect side armor in CoH3 will fix most of the issues that CoH2 has with pen/armor.
Flanking will become significantly more viable, giving mediums and TDs a chance to use good positioning rather than dangerously overextending or relying on bloated pen values to damage heavy vehicles. It should allow lower tier units to scale better, but only when the player uses/positions them correctly. |
As is, deflection damage is generally deleted from CoH2. The all or nothing coin flip has caused lighter units to disappear in the late game since they can barely contribute to the foght anymore. They become pop cost inefficient compared to higher tier units. The existance of heavy armor then forces all factions to have access to high penetration units, otherwise heavies become a game ender. Those high pen units (TDs and ATGs) in turn shit on medium armor, which is why from 2v2 upwards you'll always see a Panther and Comet spam. Due to similar reasons, other units such as the StuG, JP4 and SU76 disappear from the late game: Because they might be unreliable when they need to perform against heavier armor.
As much as the current system promotes overreliance on high tier TDs, a deflection damage system would just promote spamming low tier units instead of teching, which would be bad too. I'm sure we don't want to go back to people spamming SU-76s and just frontally out DPM-ing everything. If the opponent invests in a (super)heavy tank, which comes with a lot of tech costs nowadays, you should be forced to invest in higher tier units yourself too. We've purposefully raised the costs of superheavy vehicles, so spamming low tier crap to counter these late game units rightfully shouldn't work. In this particular case, there is no way a pair of 270mp ATGs should even have the slightest chance to significantly damage a 1500mp/500fu superheavy tank from the front.
Imo deflection damage would be a bad solution. Hopefully side armor in CoH3 will help. Then low tier units can still deal damage, but it would still take effort to position them to get to the side armor, rather than just relying on sheer DPM to cause damage on frontal deflections. And high tier TDs wouldn't need such ridiculous pen values. |
The fact that smoke nades and damage nades are on the same cooldown is really holding them back right now because a lot of other units are able to do that just fine with the one exception being shocks.
No. All units that have smoke and frag grenades have shared cooldowns now, so that they can't just throw smoke and frontally grenade HMGs in one go.
The only exceptions are Falls and Obers, but they have WP smoke grenades that they can't run through. |
A superheavy tank that is meant to frontally defeat ATGs actually frontally defeats ATGs.
Color me surprised. |