Yes the m10 does not have to do with HE Sherman, I am simply pointing out that stock Sherman/M36 cover most roles very effectively leaving little room for doctrinal USF vehicles.
The 76mm is in live simply OP and is a tank not a TD. M10 is a TD and M36 is so good vs all vehicles from kubel to Tigers that leave little place for M10.
I agree. All the more important to find niches and strengthen those in the design of the doctrinal units.
The 76mm was a response to you saying there is little room for doctrinal units. I agree that it is slightly OP and not the best comparison. But it is a tank with AT emphasis designed to shut down mediums like the M10, so there might be room for medium AT specialists next to the Jackson.
I don't think that the M10 should take the blame for that. There are simply better commander for 1vs1 and the commander does not have arty or even of map so bring very little in 3vs3/4v4.
The changes to Cromwell also have limited the need for a "flanker" TD.
Generally speaking the M10 is a victim of combination of change like:
call-in tech
Rush to last tier
1 TD vs everything (m36)
The M10 is part of the commander. It is not a good unit overall, so it has to take some blame. I fully agree with your last points, which again means that we need to find a better design for the M10, otherwise it will always be overshadowed by non-doc units and 1/5 of these commanders will be fairly redundant or even useless in team games.
I don't even think it is worth to build in 1v1, unless you are able to build a sherman followed by an m10 and caught p4 out of position. Diving is very problematic in coh 2, because of snares, mines etc, so it is often a gamble with such moves. Because all of this I don't like the unit and avoid building it. Also 60% chance to pen a P4J at far range is pretty bad imo, it is passable with muni sink tho, but only after vet 1. Maybe if HVAP were available with vet0 it would be more viable.
About unit that is effective at numbers - I can't think of a situation when a single jackson is worse then 2 m10. I guess you could sacrifice it to kill a panther or a heavy tank, since a stakes are quite high, but otherwise Jackson is almost always a better investment. It is slightly slower, but the firepower and reliability it provides just overshadows m10. Even with UKF Land Lease I struggled to find a place for it.
That was my impression as well, but I am not a very versed 1v1 player. I just can say that the M10 does not work well in 2v2 and 3v3. I can imagine it working in 1v1 from my limited experience.
I can just emphasize that I believe it has neither a good niche nor decent timing. It does not generate a power spike itself nor is it THAT cheap or effective that it allows you to push a stronger unit early. Units in the last tech building must have enough power out of the gate to be somewhat effective, but the M10 in that regard falls flat on its face and doesn't do too much before vet1 at which point it becomes a big muni sink.
It is basically the last tier version of the old MobiDef Panic Puma, but without the bite that the Puma offered because of worse timing.
EDIT:
For the more stat focused guys: It combines some of the worst TD stats in the game. Low accuracy, VERY high scatter (50% larger area than the Jackson). Medium range advantage but without the armor to bounce a shot if you don't micro perfectly. Low to medium penetration. Due to the price it must go with some of these, but it should probably not get the short end of the stick in almost all categories.
It is super mobile and relatively cheap, but that is about it. And the turret. Almost forgot that one.
And the problem here is not the M10 but how cost effective the HE Sherman/M36 combo is leaving little room for other unit to fill.
I don't think it has much to do with the HE Sherman. The M10 competes with the Jackson for AT duty as a cheap and more spammable alternative. At least in that way, it is slightly similar to the StuG/Panther matchup. The 76mm Sherman found a spot as well despite that combo and despite the Jackson, so there should be room for the M10 as an even cheaper alternative. But in the current design it does not work outside of the mentioned 1v1 vs Ostheer T3.
The UKF M10 even has a way better niche since the Firefly occupies a heavier TD role than the Jackson, leaving even more space for a light TD. Yet, the commander is among the least picked despite bringing Assault Sections, a mortar and self repairs. This commander fills a lot of holes in the UKF lineup, still it is only average in the loadout picks even in 1v1. This should really tell us that something is wrong with it, and the M10 is part of it.
I did not compare it to top tier TDs though and I still think it is pretty bad.
It might work okay in 1v1, but if a unit is only okay in one single mode there is probably reason for a redesign. At least that's what this patch should be aiming for: Make more commanders appealing in general, including more modes. The M10 is not the single way to fix those two commanders, but since it doesn't work well against anything else than an Ostheer T3 spam in 1v1, some changes should be done.
With HVAP it performs well for its price, which is one reason why I can see it to be gated behind vet1. On the other hand it makes building a late M10 uninteresting because it does not properly perform.
It's only late game purpose is to use it as a throw-away tank, which is something the game is usually moving away from.
As far as I know moving cooldown for cannons is a void stat. These weapons do not use cooldown. Cooldown is basically single shot reload for bolt action rifles (reload is loading a new clip) or time between bursts for automatic rifles (reload is reloading a new belt or magazine).
If you're using Serealia to check cannon reloads, you can select the weapon and then hover over the dot in the graph. This will show you the actual reload with all extra factors like the wind up and down incorporated.
In this case, the StuG has a 5.25s/3.4s (vet 1/vet 3) reload and the M10 has a 5.85s/5s reload.
The reload the M10 gets from vet 3 seems to be an incredibly small (effective) bonus compared to similar units, so at least I'll see if we can change that to something spicier.
CD does indeed not apply to tank guns since those instantly enter the reload.
On a side note: The serealia reload time adds up all the "ROF stats" and then adds an additional 0.125 seconds for some reason. It slightly underestimates the ROF since it should add 0.25-0.5 seconds, depending on the stats used.
M10, I can agree with the reload veterancy being odd, but I will disagree with most factors on the unit. Yes, in team games and lane maps it'll always have issues, but I believe the unit is good enough for its cost.
It already puts a halt to the Panzer IV, Ostwind and can still pressure the OKW's Panzer IV which is almost 60+ more fuel. The StuG G does have better protection against things that are flung against it, but it's also slower, lacks a turret and cannot respond to situations on the battlefield as quickly - it can only attack people head on.
Its in the place like the SU-76. They are okay by themselves, but their cheap cost makes them more in a unit that operates in pairs to trios and other cheaper vehicles are used to help fill the gap such as Scotts for AI work. And it also means, for these units if you see a opening, you dive in and either get out or trade 1 M10 for on of their more expensive tanks.
And this is from a guy who has on Stream, used the M10 Train - and armor company - alot. It is definitely, however, not a unit that works like most other conventional units.
Maybe I am not using it correctly, but I barely get the M10 to work. At least not in 2v2/3v3. Against the OKW P4, not even 2 out of 3 shots penetrate frontally (given that it even manages to hit). For the price that's how it should be. But it also means that only units it can really counter are the OST P4 and Ostwind which makes the niche really tiny.
Look at the stats: The UKF lend lease commander is mostly in the loadouts in 1v1 (I assume due to Assault Sections) with heavy decrease in larger modes. Also the Top200 stats show less load out picks than the whole dataset (https://coh2stats.com/stats/month/1617235200/1v1/british?statsSource=top200). And USF's armor company scores even worse. The M10 does not have to shine through raw power, but I'd like to see some changes to make it more attractive when newly built in the late game. Especially in team games. USF and UKF don't have that many commanders, and the M10 not working in team games makes two commanders less attractive. That's why I think it is really worth looking at, especially for team games: Because we can make two underused commanders more attractive.
There is a similar vehicle in the game - Stug-G. Stug-G has similar health, similar armor, more pen (esp at far range +20%), slightly more expensive (-20mp, +10 fuel). No idea about ROF tho. Stats say M10's reload is shorter, but there is a wind up and wind down + moving cooldown duration multiplier, which kind of convolute things a little bit for me. Might be a good idea to remove cooldown duration multiplier (set to 1 from 1.2).
Although units are somewhat similar, but adversity they are facing is not, since axis stock armor has generally more armor.
I think increased penetration, especially the at far range may help unit a lot. Maybe even buff HVAP M93 Shells. The target size is definitely pretty high for such vehicle, although with 'Flanking Speed' enabled it is almost identical to that of Stug-G.
No idea what happened to the unit, but I definitely struggle to find a reason to build one, unless a cheap flanking throwaway unit. Not even worth building to fight P4s imo.
I thought about a comparison to the StuG, but did not because they are functionally quite different. The M10 is intended to flank other tanks therefore (theoretically) the pen should not matter as much.
The StuG fires quicker. It is a way, way better TD than the M10, even if the M10 gets rear armor shots only. The CD multiplier does not matter for the M10 as well, since CD is not applied for tanks. It also vets way better.
The main difference for me is that I can buy a StuG in the late game and it will still do the work it is supposed to do since the pen and ROF are sufficient to do the damage. Building an M10 in the late game is a complete waste of resources. And the niche it can fill in the early-mid game is super super small.
The M10 Wolverine/Achilles (both versions) need some more love. I will post this here since I think the USF version is in a slightly worse state than the UKF one due to the heavy MUN need of USF infantry that competes with the HVAP ability.
It currently has a weird mix of low pen, low accuracy, medium to high scatter as well as bad defensive stats (low armor, medium-high target size and mediocre health). On the plus side, it is mobile (especially at vet) and most of all: cheap. It is clearly intended to use the mobility to get rear armor shots and thereby be a TD on a budget.
The issue I have with it is the following:
- The almost only unit it is designed to counter is the Ostheer P4 before vet2 and LVs which are not relevant in the late game anymore. Due to the low base pen, the unit becomes a constant muni sink to function.
- Scaling is bad. If the pen is so low, scaling must be done via ROF. However, the unit gets only a ~14% ROF bonus (due to wind up times) with vet and starts with a mediocre to bad ROF to begin with. Other TDs get way better scaling options.
- Connected with the previous point: Survivability hampers the effectiveness. It has relatively high target size and can be killed by comboing with a Faust. This means the unit only has a short time to be effective before it must retreat due to a counter push. With this ROF, you can't fit many shots into this window. The other option is to sacrifice it as a throw-away tank which is something the game has moved away from (see T34 ram).
- building one in the late game is horrible. The unit makes sense if you get one early and manage to vet it. But if you don't do that or want to build one later for replacement, it won't work. At this point, the M10 has very bad performance and you can't even boost it with HVAP rounds to vet up since you require vet1 to get them in the first place. This is different with the standard TDs of both factions since they already "work" at vet0 without further investment.
- a further oddity: It costs comparatively much MP. This is something both factions, especially USF though, can't really afford which makes the unit a bigger investment than the fuel price would indicate investment.
- scaling for larger modes is horrible as well as with all units that rely on maneuvering. Additionally, these modes have heavier units which the M10 is bad against.
- In UKF builds, this unit can fit in due to the ATG being decent enough to deal with heavy units. In USF builds, the unit is shitty because you need a Jackson anyway. ATGs compete for the same munitions as the M10 while having similar AT performance, making those redundant.
I suggest considering some (not all of the below) changes:
- lower population to 9. This would reflect better at least the current performance and make it easier to fit into builds.
- improve veterancy reload bonus
- lower target size
- improve scatter
- as a unique gimmick, give it a moving accuracy of 1.
- lower the MP/FU cost ratio
- Add smoke canisters (allows more aggressive flanking pushes due to getting out more easily)
- add some utility AT ability like a stun shot or a blinding shot
Obviously the cost must be adjusted to the new performance. I think something between 80-100 would be good enough to still give it a niche besides the regular TDs.
do you mean something like the probability distribution of how often the 1st shot dealt x (0, 20, 40, etc.) damage or scored n kills?
unfortunately i don't have this kind of data at the moment due to how the results are calculated (i.e. it stores only the average, not the individual results of each iteration used to derive it which reduces calculation time by a lot), but it would certainly be possible to do this for the first shot.
i agree that this would be quite interesting, especially with respect to judging how reliable the damage output is between different tanks. maybe i can get some data on that...
Yes, that's exactly what I meant.
Especially with tanks that use a long reload like the IS2, this would be very interesting. Units fall out of meta because they are simply unreliably when you need to count on them. Especially if a heavy does not perform by pure chance in the first engagements a lot of the shock value is gone. Making them more reliable was also one reason for the rework. Looking at the AoE changes this has been achieved 100%, but being able to deal not enough damage within the first 10-15 seconds of the engagement can still be a breaking point.
Also out of interest: how do you allocate MG damage? Start at model one and switch to the next one ones it dies?
This is very nice, good work!
From the simulations, can you grab any data how the distribution of kills and damage is between the first shots?
That's usually the most impact and the important ones. You show the average which is clearly lower in the new versions, but to see the chances how each shot performs would be cool as well.
Regarding the discussiin about mediums:
I doubt that rebalancing more damage to the MGs for all mediums would be generally good. A singly shot rarely wipes more than 1-2 models unless the squads are clumped by cover or just random game pathing. In the latter case it is quite unfortunate, but unless the plan is to really gimp near AoE and OHK radius, this will also happen with a new profile.
Mediums must have a good reason to use the main gun against infantry. If it became too weak, then there is no reason to not prioritize vehicles with the gun. But unless the game jerks around, mediums barely kill a lot of models with a single shot. And if they fight against the back of a clumped squad in cover, I would say that this is fine and more due to skill and good positioning
If you look at it, a lot of "better rounds" end up being pretty negligible unless up against say super heavy tanks. OKW and Jackson Hvap rounds add 30% dmg and 30% pen, but that means the shot only does 200, which means it takes the same amount of shots for lights/meds. The pen is really what you pay for.
They all got nerfed because the ability to 2-3 shot a tank vs 3-4 shot it was too strong, so in this context it had the same idea but got the same nerf and probably just got forgotten.
I agree that you usually buy those rounds for the pen increase. The Jackson rounds have an important function especially against heavies though. It is a timed ability, so there will be more than only one shot as well. Even against meds, they actually don't increase the time to kill by that much while allowing a three shot if you get an additional bazooka/snare/light mine in.
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