I tested it out. It's basically that echelon are so criminally bad at combat, that you can basically ignore them as their DPS is laughable. Even at 10 range, Pios have 55% more DPS than echelon. Tested out Rifles + Combat engineers (soviet). Pios get wrecked. Tested out rifles + vehicle crew... pios lose hard. Basically, RE is completely useless in combat until you invest 100 munitions into them, at which point they can be used as a vehicle deterrent. Or you could use the volley fire and delay the weapon upgrades a bit. And I wouldn't call them useless later on. Not only can they repair tanks quite fast, they do get the flamers and they can plant mines. Double Pio with MG42s can easily stand up to anything in 3v3s. Mostly due to map designs. Tightrope even showed the power of double pio into PGrens power.
So all in all. The fight should say "Rifles" vs double Pios. Rifles + Rear Echelon = Rifles -> Rear Echelon = 0 iff Rifles =/= 0
I think against pios REs are even worse. At range 10, Pioneer DPS is about 80% higher. What you probably meant is that REs have 55% the DPS. As you said, they somehow have to be due to bazookas and their fifth man. Their odd veterancy actually helps in that regard.
Res are best against the Kubelwagen were the low accuracy does not matter. Otherwise, they don't add an awful lot. They are the only squad that I don't rebuild if I see that my enemy is not using mines |
There is no issue with pioneers.
They are decent at the beginning, but fall flat on their face quickly. Spamming them is not viable, nor is even building a second one in the early game unless you're trying some odd double MG/double pio stall for PGrens.
In a normal build, you'll pay for it once LVs arrive until the mid game where you can finally use the increased repairs for your medium tank.
This overall sounds like a fair trade off to me, let them have their chance to shine. |
Thanks for the kind words chaps!
"It's being taken as a given probably a bit too much than it should." Yeah I could tell that with the viewer figures for ML, glad that GCS3 saw a return to public interest.
" I hope you'll stick around for CoH3, but I can obviously understand if at some point you decide that organizing tournaments consumes too much time and you have to or want to focus elsewhere, although I of course hope you and everyone else involved will still be up for tournaments in CoH3."
Let's hope we don't have to organise our own tournaments at launch at the very least!
I wasn't playing CoH2 yet when Relic created tournaments back in the days. When they do for CoH3, I hope they match the more casual style of your organizations.
The main appeal of your tournaments for me has always been that you could see a lot of improvisation around every corner. Just some real fans having fun with the game and casting it, not some super polished "product". Relic wants to promote their game, they need to make it look good even if it were not, while you had the freedom to just cast whatever you want. It's always been a tourney, not an advertisement, and that's the important part.
If Relic-organized CoH3 tournaments can't match that, I'm gonna stop watching.
Keep that up. Your tournaments have their rough edges, but they're bloody good anyways.
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Balance isn't an on/off technology. Relic did acknowledge the skill gap issue between faction and aimed toward resolving it by reducing the skill requirement for some faction and increasing it for other and at least taking it in account every time they release a new patch . This got lost in translation years later with the succession of community members doing the balance and I my opinion especially (but not only) around the last new commanders patches and those after. What's more A-move than Grand offensive commander?
As I said, I highly doubt that Relic had a better balance towards micro than the balance team had. The balance team has done a LOT towards consistency. Vehicles for example usually got armor reduced and HP increased. These changes also reduce the overall micro load.
However, I'd rather move back to the overall topic of how micro affects balance in a not-so-obvious way. We can surely have different opinions who is the scapegoat of the current issue, in the end it is futile since Coh2 does not get updated anymore and we'll have to wait for CoH3 to maybe do a better job.
PageP's stat don't say anything about balance because you don't know the real gap between players, it just shows the win/lose ratio, the rest is interpretation. If you want to go that way you'll have to demonstrate that TOP200 faction A = TOP200 faction B but you can't.
I know that, and yet it is still the best data we have. Definitely better than purely anecdotal evidence.
But still, my last point stands regardless of win rate data: Axis factions are easier to micro, because they have less units on the field. The current mix of cost/population and performance is very well on point for most units in CoH2 thanks to the community patches, but having to take care of more squads means every unit will be managed less efficiently, and that's were late game Axis shines a bit brighter than late game Allies.
say about balance. Can We see USF, OKW and UKF in final GCS 3 ?.
funny enough Balance team tend to use big tournament as a benchmark of balance.
Now what, Soviet and Weh all the time..
From what I remember, Sanders always said tournaments should be taken with a big grain of salt for balance discussions. Which is exactly on point.
The fact that Soviets and Ostheer dominate tournaments is still Relic's fuck up. Especially USF and UKF play very linearly and predictably with little deviation and easy exploits. Especially if your opponent can counter pick a faction. |
I don't remember the exact timeframe either but yes it occured, they took actions to reduce the skill gap required to play every faction at the same level and I can tell you it brought result because it was my feeling at that time.
The question is not if it brought result, the question is if they really fixed it. How I understand your post is that Relic initially screwed up, then fixed it, then balance team screwed it up again. But to be honest, judging by Relic's patch and balance history as well as what they allowed and not allowed for community patches, I highly doubt Relic really fixed the issue. *Some* improvement, surely, but not more than that. Ostheer units were always designed for highly specialized and powerful units. Tanks like the Panther and P4 were always higher in population than their Soviet/Allied in general counter parts. This means that Axis always had less units on the field, even during Relic patching. This is obviously only one factor for micro, but it is also meant to illustrate why I don't believe Relic ever fixed it.
They didn't even allow the introduction of artillery like the land mattress to stock UKF although this is one of the most obvious issues that UKF has. If they stick that much to their old designs, I don't think they ever turned their initial design upside down.
Grenadier's late game issue is a symptome of balance failure. Ostheer was designed around weak mainline infantry and strong late game tanks to where we are today: strong mainline infantry and strong tanks. And if my memory is correct this change was applied because arty shells wiped them with ease. So yeah today I can't remember the last time I saw a ML20 or priest on 2vs2 vs Ostheer but what I know is that tanks have harder time dealing with them while Axis armor still fence Allied's one like butter.
OP's post is not about the balance of one unit. In my eyes the buff was generally a good one, but that topic is very very specific and not really the scope of this thread.
Judging by PageP's stats, the even buff to Grenadiers is not an issue. 1v1 is slightly biased towards Allies, 2v2 and 3v3 overall pretty balanced, 4v4 is biased for Axis. If Ostheer were OP due to both having both good infantry and tanks, we should see it in all modes. But we only see it in 4v4, which can be either due to the maps or the player pool.
I obviously have no more data than anyone else, but I assume it is the player pool. 4v4 is the mode that is being played by your average Joes that dig up CoH2 for a game or two on the weekend. So Axis factions are either synergize better once you reach 4 players, or they are easier for beginners.
And I assume that micro is probably the biggest factor here, because that's what limits beginners the most: Being able to control and coordinate multiple units at once. |
This issue was addressed long time ago with Relic acknowledging Axis factions were in essence easier to play but Allied having an higher celling resulting in having ELO matches quite balanced but high level tournament favoring Allied. I remember there was a post from Relic dedicated to this matter and a couple of patches aimed to correct it.
That was long time ago because then the modding team took the decision to change that to where we are today. Now we have what the OP describes where Grenadiers have late game equal survivability than 5men squads while being less exposed to damage and having superior support tools and tanks around them.
I am not quite sure which time frame you are talking about. I played CoH2 only against bots for quite a while and did not care much about unit balance, so I probably missed it.
But you are raising two in my opinion different issues. There is no connection between Relic acknowledging an issue and the balance team having their vision.
Acknowledging an issue is not fixing it. Judging by my memory and Relic's general behaviour in balance patches, I highly doubt they ever fixed the issue of different micromanaging levels. Especially since this Soviets=cheap an numerous, Ostheer=expensive and outnumbered was Relics own design. Axis having high value/high population units compared to Soviets was also never fixed under Relic's patches.
The Grenadier issue you bring up is exaggerated in my opinion, but is also a singular issue. No doubt late game Grenadiers are less micro intensive than Riflemen, but at the time the damage reduction was introduced there was also no doubt that Grenadiers were very weak in the late game and needed a buff in that direction. Anyway, I don't think this would be a larger issue if Axis tanks required more micro, but they don't. And that is what my suggestion was aiming at: If your infantry is already "low maintenance", your tanks should require more input. |
With GCS3 and therefore probably CoH2's last major tournament being concluded, I just wanted to get a big thank you out to especially A_E and all the tournament organizers of GCS3 and previous tournaments.
GCS3 was a pleasure to watch (actually, I am still catching up on youtube), and I can only imagine how many weekends, how much time and effort in general you guys have put into planning to make this event happen in person. This is not normal, especially not for a small/middle sized community as CoH2.
My first big CoH2 tournament that I watched was GCS2, which has already been a long time ago. You've been leading the CoH2 tournament scene for the better half of a decade and taken it to a level that probably no one would expect from a community of this size, while keeping it still very personal and "casual".
By now, the community probably already takes it as a given that you're organizing tournaments regularly and there will be an A_E tournament every couple of months. It's being taken as a given probably a bit too much than it should. Especially on this forum tournaments are barely discussed outside of balance issues, which might come off as ungrateful, so let this thread be a small counter point to that.
In essence: Thanks for all the effort you've put into CoH2 and its fanbase. I hope you'll stick around for CoH3, but I can obviously understand if at some point you decide that organizing tournaments consumes too much time and you have to or want to focus elsewhere, although I of course hope you and everyone else involved will still be up for tournaments in CoH3. |
I think one problem here is that it is hard to tell apart faction imbalance (in this case I think OP also aims at the need for micro to use the units properly) and player skill. Technically, they form one big overall strength level and you'll notice the majority of effects only on both ends of the ladder. Second, map design and game mode also plays a huge role.
Currently in Coh2, I'd say Axis are easier in low/mid team games because
1. both factions have all basic tools regardless of their tech path (less need to compensate for holes in your faction and knowing soft counters)
2. Easier access to artillery
3. Infantry is generally better on long range (-> less micro)
4. their units are usually higher value on a per-unit basis (-> less micro due to less units)
In these low/mid games, micro is a serious restraint, and having to give less orders makes every order way more efficient and easier to coordinate. So let's focus on the points above (except for 2. which is more of a faction issue)
Needing different micro levels for units is actually quite important to game flow and game balance, it can create a lot of interesting back and forth without having "OP" units. But, where Coh2 failed a bit in that department, is that Relic made a whole faction follow one design only. As previously mentioned by someone else, it also allows you to "get better" with factions and strategy.
Soviets were always numerous but weak individually. This is cool as an idea, somehow fits the general narrative/stereotypical picture that most people have. But ALL their units followed that idea.
As an example, look at Conscripts: Short range infantry, so every engagement you need decide whether to push or not while the Axis player can stay intially passive and just A-move.
Then T34: Basically the same thing here. Your units are worth less both in price as in capability. If you spend the same amount of resources, you'll rather end up with an additional tank to micro (e.g. Panther + P4 takes up 30 pop, which is equivalent to 3 T34s).
On paper, all these units are balanced. But if you're a low/mid level player and therefore only capable of dealing with 2 tanks efficiently, your third T34 will always only be an afterthought and not perform as well as it should.
Before the screeching starts: Obviously there are downsides to Axis, too. But it certainly is not the micromanagement which will be one major constraint if you max out your army in the late game.
So, what could be done to solve this?
As I noted above, one faction should not have micro intensive infantry AND tanks. Shift the micro between different unit types. Micro intensive mainline, but easy support and normal tanks. Faction two needs a lot of focus on the support units, but has forgiving tanks. Faction three has an easy mainline etc etc.
This will need some specific balancing for certain time frames where e.g. only infantry is present, but it should alleviate the problem with overloading one faction with micromanagement. |
Do u build t1 with ur starting engy? Or do u send him forward to cap and build 2nd engy for tech building?
Cuz I like to build 3 penals too, but i am afraid of being behind on territory if I dont build any units until t1 is finished. Is that a fair concern or am i wrong? Cuz i often build 1 con while t1 is going up
What you can do is to quere in a second engineer and send the first one out to cap. The second one builds T1. Once the building is finished, you pretty much hit 270 MP again for the first Penal.
The second engineer also helps with map control for capping. |
I said Raketen + KT. Because as I said the KT is a force multiplier that put the cheap and resilient raketen into orbit of Opness when associated together. The reste I questioned the need for the raketen to have those stats since OKW isn't a faction laking of AT.
Your previous post listed also other units, my initial response was mostly referring to those.
OKW does lack early AT though. That was the whole reason why the Schreck got more accessible. The Puma needs to be optional due to OKW's tech system. A usable ATG is also a must for any faction, you can see what issues a lack of penetration causes for USF already. If an ATG cannot deal with even mediums reliably, there is barely any reason to buy it in the first place.
Doctrinal units are doctrinal, KT isn't then I don't really understand your argumentation about cost opportunity and the KT and how it impacts the topic. Why would you get something else that a KT that can fight tanks and infantry and force your opponent to invest more resources in TDs. I mean unless your opponent already has 2 or more TDs (and even in that case a KT can still be a good choice). I mean every single late game that last enough sees a KT pop out because it simply the best late game unit, it requires much less micro than any equivalence in cost to be used efficiently.
I mean I come back to the TD scenario, do you think building a panther or 2 P4j to fight of TDs is going to be better than a KT associated with a pair of raketen? To me it's map dependant and also dependant on what else the opponent still has on the field but the KT is still rather the superior solution.
If a unit is doctrinal or not does not matter. Your argumentation was that OKW as a faction has to work without the KT, meaning that building the KT on top will make the build OP. That works for basically all units that are not in the standard build order, including doctrinal ones.
The cost opportunity point is very simple, you can basically boil it down to this: The KT has weaknesses, that you would not have if you'd build something else with your resources instead. Your KT is slow, can be flanked/overrun, not respond to a shifting front line, you cannot rush with it etc. It needs heavy support by the rest of your army, focusing you in one single spot.
Other tanks for example are able to operate more on their own, can be dived to kill artillery etc. That's your cost opportunity, and sometimes the best counter to heavies is not even TDs, but artillery to bleed out all infantry and keep the tanks barely supported. That's the cost opportunity you have. Not even mentioning that I have seen many opponents throw their game because they stalled too long for their heavy.
Obviously all of this is heavily map dependent. On some maps you'll get more benefits, on some others rather the weaknesses.
6/7% is huge and clearly noticiable otherwise why would they nerf them this amount? Cosmetic?
I said it is noticable, so what is the point?
I assume the reason for the nerf was, that previously TDs were penning 300 armor heavies like the Tiger with close to 100% chance. Basically, a vet3 TD evaporated all meaning of Axis armor. I assume the KT was not really taken into consideration, or deemed to be okay. |