Profile of Hannibal

Careful I don't brush it off. The differences are tiny. Such tiny differences aren't sort of "big enough" to influence a balance discussion much (I'm talking about all games now). If they were bigger that is another story. Too many factors will usually influence such differences, especially when the matchmaking system is at work. The graph is also a bit misleading as the 2% difference looks really big there.


I might have copy pasted too much - of course we are speaking about 1v1. There are more arguments there, don't brush them off

I know how to read a graph, mate. But I am still talking about the graph that plots game rank vs win rate. This one contains by far the most information.

It actually does. There are cherry picked players and sort of the best possible match for each other there is. Of course it is not enough. But this is all we have got - no random drops due to a phone call, etc. No silly matchmaking due to waiting long for a player or no ping problems, no cheating, to name just a few factors.

No it does not. These cherry picked players are the same that you find in the top 5% of the graphs and therefore the region that I am talking about. Tournaments are additionally held on only a couple of maps which further scews the outcome in case one of them is slightly unbalanced. Additionally, the "form" of the player is way more important since they are a snapshot of only 1-2 days. If you're playing Asia/Oceania but the tournament runs until late evening in European time, the cherry picked players from Asia will have a disadvantage because they will play their games in the middle of the night. Did not sleep well that day, had a cold, a stressful day at work, argument with your family? Well suddenly the player's favourite two factions will get an additional loss. The game size is small. The only thing that tournaments have going for them is that the skill gap is - assumingly - smaller, but that's all. Most, if not all, other factors still apply (they still run via Relic's servers, there can still be a bugsplat. And quite famously, in game bugs as it happened in Luvnest vs Asiamint. All these weight actually MORE than in the 15k game sample), but with a smaller sample size and that actual RNG has more weight. You said you know your statistics, so give an actual reason as to why all this does not apply instead of sentiments and statements. The "silly matchmaking" is a fair point, but as I said: At the edged of the graph this happens to all players, therefore all factions have higher winrates at the top 10% of players. There is no good reason to assume that this happens more often to one specific faction than another.

If you know statistics you should also know that - for the most part - the tournament matches are a subsample of the data that SiphonX visualized, but slightly scewed due to the tournament environment.

They do I'm afraid. I understand You had a discussion. The conclusion and arguments seem to be wrong. The ends of the graph is actually the worst part to use for comparison. Silly matchmaking on both ends will give you silly and random results and maybe even more importantly, it will be based on a rather small sample. Drops, experiments, good players just playing for fun against weaker ones - too many variables basically. And still the differences are too tiny to be significant. And still the number of games will be different for Soviets and UKF, for example. And my main critique is that the bigger the sample the more realistic result - closer to 50% in this case. Just wrong approach I'm afraid. Completely wrong.

Alright, then give a reasoning as to why all this is wrong. Just saying "it's wrong" does not make it wrong. You also focus on the end of the graph - but don't say anything to my points regarding the top players.
Those random elements have been addressed already as above. I agree that the bigger sample size is better, that's why SiphonX's data is better. You specifically claim that the more games were played, the closer the win rate is to 50%. Let's have a look: For OST this is true, SOV has the most games from Allied factions yet differs the most, UKF and USF differ the least yet have the least games played.
Are these differences significant? You say no. The honest answer is: We don't know for sure. But it's a lot of games, and the differences in the top player department is between 5-10% with 15k games played. The drops and other random mishaps that you mention are likely a very minor fraction of all these games.

U're making too many assumptions here, and not really counting all variables/reasons to win/lose. Actually it is impossible to enumerate them tbh. For example, trying to suggest that that low end will show You how quickly a player will learn a faction is just expecting far too much from a simple graph.

If it came across as if these is the be all end all conclusion, then this was not intended. But if a faction performs the worst with both high end low skill players, it's a decent hint that this faction might be weaker than the other factions.

I'm afraid U can't see the faction strength there tbh - too many caveats. Explained by the author of the whole spreadsheet very well. Too tiny differences, too many variables, too few players for some factions with many more for other factions, etc influencing stuff. Ends of the graph, trust me, are the worst point for any analysis.

This data is not the perfect set to prove faction strength, but at some point you have to see that your initial argument is based on your personal "game experience and my tourney and cast observations" stating that "Soviets are much more forgiving and generally easier to play with than OKW". You said I can't conclude from a simple graph how easy it is to play a faction, yet you do it from what? The 100-200 games a CoH2 fan can play in a month maximum (unless you have a full month of free time) + the 50 you watched? How do your observations suddenly beat data from 15k games? You said you know your statistics, but this is fully ignoring good scientific practice. You even agreed that the matchmaking will even things out for the majority of all players. So how does your personal game experience then translate into actual balance knowledge if you additionally have to filter out that all your matches were decided by the matchmaking algorithm to give you a chance of roughly 50% (I am assuming at this point that you are not in the top 5-10% of players)?

And again: How can you say that tourney stats could be a decent basis with those few games, split across 5 different factions and a small player and map pool, but then say you agree with the spreadsheets author that the games and players in his (much, much larger) data are possibly not enough to draw conclusions?
Nothing of this adds up.

This will probably always be the opinion rather than fact. Still my level game experience and my tourney and cast observations make me believe that Soviets are much more forgiving and generally easier to play with (more models in a squad/team weapon, cheap spammable mines, lots of call in stuff and plethora of commanders). This usually will (but doesn't have to) transfer into better faction performance than axis. Current balance level is quite good and the difference isn't that great but is significant imo.

More like Soviets are slightly better than OKW and slightly better than regular Ostheer. Only time they are inferior is when Ostheer skips T1 with doctrinal infantry into fast Pgrens/Flame HT. To some degree also 5 man Grens but that is something every faction struggles against at the moment. OKW has no "meta" that is superior to Soviets.

https://www.coh2.org/topic/105597/1v1-automatch-stats

These are 1v1 stats. Looking at the top/bottom 10% only, SOV are worse than other factions.

KV-8 close penetration is too high, especially compared to C. PzIV.

KV-8 itself should either become call-in or have its power level decreased by becoming cheaper and less powerful.

How can the 45mm gun that is barely used anyway justify a nerf to the unit?

Thing is, you are still in range of any arty\mortar shotblockers might be a problem, but they are not persistant across all the maps and usually not in the best spots. And pretty much still sit close to the front line so you are vunerable to rushes anyway.

But it always can work like before with cone actually rotating with the scope (and it could be make smaller) itself, in this case it would make it harder to spot for arty.

Not to mention that price of IR HT could just simply be increased to match better perfomance and be limited to 1 per player.

Also it could have same pack\un-pack time as OKW 221 on point (or close to this). Aswell health can be reduced to make it more vunerable to LVs rush.

There are a lot of ways to balance it out without making it garbage.

Considering IGS general perfomance and how its in general considered support soft counter, I dont see the problem in this synergy honestly.

Yes its strong, but why it shouldn't be? At least there would be another option to counter heavy support weapons spam without brainlessly going for stuka.

The issue I always had with it is that it is quite difficult to kill. Even in the previous buggy form it was quite a nuisance. It takes two shots to kill it, but is so cheap that it is not worth risking a unit for it. So the best chance you got is if your opponent forgot about pulling the unit back at some point.

Mortars and heavy artillery cannot really counter it since they do not enough damage (ML20 for example does 200 damage, you need to be really unlucky to be hit almost directly twice. Chances are that you get out of there in time). And if your opponent wastes a barrage on a vehicle that is likely to get away anyway, you can actually be quite lucky because it does not bleed your infantry. Many mortars might be spotted anyway when firing (range difference to a barrage is 10 meters), but they also don't do enough damage to reliably deal with it (would take 4 direct hits).

Many maps especially in team games provide enough cover and blockers to park some units behind. I don't think the unit will see much use in 1v1, and I fear it might become super cheesy in team games if they can uncover half the front line constantly. A scanning motion however would probably screw with Axis mortars since they would reposition constantly. The enemy will be in the fog of war again once they are ready to fire.

I think the best concept for this unit is to keep it cheap so that it does not screw with your tank timings too much, provide okay-ish recon for mostly defensive purposes as a standard mode and then provide timed better recon if needed (potentially for offense or to check out enemy positions). Otherwise it might just reinforce the arty slugfest that already starts at 2v2 even more.

Recon works best if it requires decent input from the attacking side and potential counters from the defensive side. This is how most recon abilities work in the game. Pfussilier flares, SOV mortar flares, OKW and SOV plantable flares, recon planes, activatable unit abilities.

But if I am honest it's mostly my gut feeling. I have not used the unit an awful lot since the last patch.

So yeah. This unit has been butchered pretty badly, because of the bug. I really dont know why balance team decided to make it into what it is right now, because it feels like it was more of a excuse fix rather then a fix.

Here is my suggestions

Sight:

Well firstly because it gives you 90 range sight WHICH can be blocked by sight blocks. Which is already limits use of the unit dramatically and makes it potentially vunerable, since you need to baby sit it, in order not to get focused.

Here is what I did in a attrib editor:
Show Spoiler

And here is the result:
Show Spoiler

What its pretty much does, it gives you same 90 range as right now, but in 180* cone and ignores sight blocks.

I think if someone who knows how attrib editor works do it, its even possible for it to follow the cone effect and rotate.

Ability:

And regarding its ability to spot for muni? Again its pointless, considering you have free spoting on vet 1 kubel which more or less gives the same results.

I would rather give it marktarget ability or even a smoke call in barage, to make it more impactfull.

Becase for real, getting kubel to vet 1 is very easy.

Cost:
I think it would be more or less alright as it is with new sight mechanic.

Right now it cost you 200 MP and 10 fuel and 5p, while fuel is some what alright 200MP is a huge invesment just for a spotting unit, which have to sit on the front line.

5 population is a different topic since OKW population is already messed up badly.

That is a noice idea in general.
However I'd say this implementation would make the unit's design almost worse than it was before the fix, since you could now park it behind shot blockers AND use it to spot for artillery. While the previous implementation also uncovered hidden units, at least there was no real spotting.
I could see some use as a timed muni ability though, probably with tweaks to sight range, cone etc