Thread: RK 43 7 May 2021, 13:48 PM
I guess it would be situational with allowing faust snare threshold for certain tanks.
I just checked. It indeed makes a difference for tanks with health between 961 and 1120, which is the KV1 (effective health), IS2, ISU, both doctrinal Churchills and the KV2. All assuming the snare bounces. If it penetrates it doesn't make a difference for vehicles with 1040 health which is basically all of them and the window moves to 1041-1200 HP.
I think this could/should be changed to something slightly more useful. It's a bonus that is barely noticable. Every normal player that is not knees deep into stats will assume that +25% damage were a big bonus, while it actually does next to nothing for you. |
Thread: RK 43 7 May 2021, 10:56 AM
Btw, just looking at the camo bonus of the Raketenwerfer:
Is there any scenario where the damage bonus of the first shot fired from camo is actually useful?
You deal 200 damage instead of 160. The only way this will ever have effect is two camouflaged Raks firing at a T70, but this is almost going to make a difference in a real game. Other scenarios? Double Rak on dozer Sherman? But by far and large, that's about it?
I think this could be changed to something more useful. +100% accuracy for a guaranteed first hit or so. I'm not saying the Rak really needs it, but those additional 40 damage seem fairly useless, even if you run around with two of them at all times. |
Thread: RK 43 7 May 2021, 10:46 AM
The Rak trading actual combat ability for the ability to retreat isn't a good thing for the rak I hope you guys realize. AT Guns shouldn't have to be in positions to retreat in the first place. Retreating your Rak(s) means you don't have AT Guns on the field for the next however many seconds it takes for them to run to base and return meaning your opponent just brings his vehicles up supported by his AT Guns and overpowers you. Rak has retreat out of necessity not out of desire. OKW would be ecstatic about the ability to trade retreat for 60 range because it could do it's job better.
That being said, the Rak is fine and doesn't need to be changed, it's still the worst AT gun of the bunch since it can't zone the same area other At Guns can, but it's perfectly usable ever since they buffed it's range from (40? 45?) to 50 and the retreat adds a little extra unique dynamic that allows it to be a little more aggressive to make up for the poorer coverage.
The Rak range got buffed from 50 to 55. So at atm it is "missing" 5 meters of range while having a 10° larger firing cone compared to the PaK40.
It has slightly lower penetration at both vet0 and vet3 that does not matter when facing stock Allied tanks (except for Churchill and Comet). And even against heavier armor you lose about 5% pen chance at most. ROF is same to slightly worse at vet.
The current mechanics force it to be slightly more aggressive (with retreat allowing this aggression) than other ATGs, which fits OKWs play style. I also would not say that the Rak has less field presence. If you lose 1-2 models as UKF/USF/OST on your PaK, depending on the map size you're in for a long trip home. The Rak can at least shorten the way home. And depending on your tech choice, OKW (together with USF) has the easiest time for forward reinforcements, since parts of those are integrated into the main teching system without the need to shell out additional resources. |
Its not either too many without or forced commander picks, its both. I hold my commander pick specifically to ensure arty as allies. Because no artillery, players must hold their picks.
Thats why Axis players really hate SPGs, even though they are in only 1 commander per faction. They end up required. Calliope is in only 2 commanders, but in every 4v4 game with USF for the same reason. It massively stagnates commander pick rates.
Turns out this applies to Axis as well. SHTDs solve Axis's single biggest issue: heavy tank destroyers shutting down Axis armor. Jadgtiger and Elephant shut down heavy tank destroyers. Breakthrough and Jaegar Armor are both top picks for this reason. ISU-152 spam was a direct response to this by sniping units from under the SHTD protection envelope without any response.
For some reason, all of these commanders are also some of the best designed and heavily loaded ones in CoH. USF Infantry currently has the only consistent howitzer kill off-map in USF, on a commander with the best anti-howitzer unit in the game, the Priest. JA has self-spotting and a cheesy off-map AT. Breakthrough has Sector Assault and its HE barrage, letting it hammer infantry while still maintaining its AT envelope.
A fix generally is make the commanders that DON'T have these mandatory tools strong enough to compensate (heavy tank meta, new Rifle company) or make these dominating doctrines straight weaker (as discussed). We are seeing this now with the nerfs to ISU-152 so SHTDs can snipe it, removal of howitzer control from JA and ISU doctrines, removal of spotting scopes from JA. Someone mentioned nerfing Sector Assault on Breakthrough, and I would add nerfing HE barrage on the Jadgtiger. This would make paradigm breaking commanders dramatically weaker, as it should.
The other necessary fix is to give proper shock indirect to the factions that don't have it. All tools for all factions. Calliope and Land Mattress would be made non-doc and adjusted for proper shock artillery statistics. USF had the Pack Howi and Scott for that job previously, but the change to focus on barraging means they can't consistently punish infantry blobs just team weapons, so they need actual shock arty. UKF has had issues literally since release.
Big +1 to this.
I assume we have to go with option #1, since Balance team repeatedly confirmed that Relic does not allow any large scale faction reworks to, for example, give UKF and USF non-doc artillery for the late game. |
I disagree. You can deduce a state of balance from the pick rates of the five factions. You cannot conclude UKF is the least played faction only because of the paywall/DLC. UKF, plain and simply put, just suck plain and are a bad faction. That's why they're the least picked. They suck. That's it. They're not fun to play with. They are bad. UKF is not even fun to play against. Even in tournaments, the pick ratio of a faction (out of five) shows the perceived game faction balance of that set of players. UFK disappears quickly from any recent tournaments. Tournament, or public play, people will pick the faction they consider to have the best chances to win with. There are people in this forum who confirmed that they are picking and learning different factions just because they're the current meta. And UKF is the fart of the current meta.
post edited to emphasise some phrasing.
The tournament setting is quite different. The vast majority/all players there have bought all DLCs, so they have the choice which one they play and will pick the on that gives them the best chances (which can also be also backfire for tournament statistics. The best players contribute most games and his choice of faction might also not reflect what is objectively the strongest, but what he personally feels most comfortable with. This has also been confirmed by top players). However, I doubt that we can say the same of a top 100 to top 200 player. They might have all DLCs, they might have some, they might only have the base game.
Technically speaking, what matters is also not the faction pick out of all five, but the pick rate within either the Axis or Allied side. Allies should get a 33%, Axis a 50% in a perfect setting. But we don't know if some factions, especially UKF, is even a choice for all players. UKF not scoring 33% might indeed be due to them being UP, but it might also be a reflection of them being paywalled.
That being said though, I agree that UKF is on the weak side in team games unless they pick Royal Arty regiment. I wonder how they will do after the patch, but I assume not too great. |
So, to settle this, JohnSmith means there is Absolutely more plays for both Axis faction in 4v4, which makes sense due to 2v3 factions, as all Allied plays should == all Axis plays.
What Hannibal means is the relative play ratio between factions for Axis vs Allies is problematic. OKW vs OST is about 1:1. USF or UKF vs SOV is about 70%.
The why for the ratio is trickier. DLC factions, incomplete factions, or straight weaker factions are all likely factors.
Yes, that is the logical conclusion from that. My initial point of concern was more that you cannot deduce faction balance by seeing that - when looking at a single faction - each of the two Axis factions has more absolute picks than one of the three Allied factions. It is to be expected, Axis having more picks/being most played doesn't prove they are stronger. It just means there are only two factions for Axis player's to chose from.
I agree that pick rates are really, really hard to use for balance, especially in team games. 3/5 factions are paywalled and USF and OKW are paywalled together, yet you cannot really compare those because of the existance of Brits as a third one...
But even if the sample size was higher, I don't think we could say too much from 4v4 and probably also not from 3v3 because most of the games there are random teams. Artillery is so important in these modes and USF and UKF do not have stock long range artillery. So either you have a higher chance of losing because you randomly got "too many" USF and UKF players without artillery, which scewed the win rates. Or those players are forced to pick Artillery commanders to even it out, which makes the commander pick rate scewed. |
Apparently you still didn't at all. Your point is still that there are only two factions, whereas there are five.
I would suggest we'd just leave it as it stands and agree that we're not understanding each other.
You're heavily misrepresenting what I said both initially and even clarified later on. But I agree that we'll just leave it at this point. |
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Good, then I understood you correctly. My point still stands. |
I have a feeling you're completely misreading everything I say and focusing on one single sentence.
I understood "most played" as most picked, in the sense of their game count on the stats site (left graph) is higher than the one of Allied factions. That was the only thing that made sense to me since Axis and Allied games should be equal.
If that's not what you meant I'd kindly ask you to explain it to me. |
Because you told me there are only two factions. There are more than two factions. Both axis factions are the most played. I even quoted you.
Yes. In the context of you talking about OST and OKW. There are two Axis factions. Those having higher pick counts is due Axis only having two factions in contrast to three Allied ones. It has nothing to do with balance as you claimed. |
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