4- so you're saying that this still isn't the case?
5- jaeger armor removing the spotting scope on the elefant is a placebo nerf - it doesn't do anything because you can do the exact same strategy with another vehicle sitting next to the elefant. You might as well not suicide that 222 and instead use it to spot half the map for your elefant
6- this...is still in the game, don't you know? any pak-43 in both factions can shoot through smoke and walls
4. It was much, much worse.
The May 2018 update did this:
• Barrage reload increased from 0 to 1.25
• Auto-attack reload increased from 4 to 6
• Veterancy 2 auto-attack scatter bonus removed
• Veterancy 3 range bonus replaced by 20% increase to barrage accuracy; applies to all barrages except smoke
• Smoke barrage ranged changed to 85
And an even earlier patch nerfed the reload by a lot:
Reload increased from 2.4 to 4
Basically, it fired 2.5x faster, gained accuracy at vet 2 and range at vet 3, while gaining more accuracy from bulletins. It was quite the thing. Other names for it included "OST Turbo Mortar".
5. Yes, the nerf though was making the Command Tank auras no longer affect teammates.
The April 2017 update did this:
+sight/+range parts of vehicle-affecting aura no longer affect teammates
Vet 5 infantry-affecting aura no longer affects teammates
Before you could have OKW and OST auras affecting a scoped-elefant, which was ridiculous.
6. Yes, I crossed it out because I was mistaken. Not sure what I was thinking of.
This was so incredibly broken that it made the game basically unplayable in all modes until it was fixed. Unless you could somehow win before any USF player could rush a tank, you would lose. Not only that, it wasn't just the Sherman that could do it - the bug was (iirc) a buff stacking when crews re-entered their vehicle - so it worked with Shermans, Scotts, Stuarts, M18s, and I think even Calliopes as they still had crews. The Sherman was just the obvious choice as it was relatively cheap, had high HP, and both decent AT and AI stats - so when it switched to full auto, it tended to delete everything.
Other notable "OP/Broken" things:
1. UKF at launch. As others have said, everything in their kit was incredibly strong. Additionally, structures could brace indefinitely (the duration was longer than the cool-down), and they could be repaired at full speed while braced. As a result, picking the "Advanced Emplacement" doc meant having basically indestructible emplacements. As OST, you were effectively required to have a Mortar Halftrack in one of your docs, exclusively for the incendiary barrage. Team games were really, really bad at this time.
2. Soviet "Hit The Dirt" at (or around?) launch made units effectively immortal.
3. Soviet "Sniper Clown Car". At launch and for a while after, you could put a sniper in the scout car. The sniper was immune to counter-snipers while garrisoned, but could fire at full accuracy while the scout car was moving. This basically removed any downsides of having a sniper, while giving it incredible mobility. Your only hope (as OST) was a lucky mine, or rushing a 222/Pak.
4. OST "Laser Guided" mortar. At one point, the OST mortar was much more accurate than all other mortars in the game. This could be boosted further with various bulletins, making it effectively 'laser guided'. Any sort of support unit play was effectively impossible, and counter mortars didn't work as OST had counter-barrage on theirs.
5. OST "Jaeger Armor" Elefant stacking buffs. At one point, you could give the Elefant spotting scopes, which buffed it's LOS to something like 85. In team games, you could park an OKW Command Panther and OST Command P4 beside it to buff it even more. I believe at its worst, the Ele had something like 100 LOS, and massively increased armor.
6. OST PaK43 "Wall Hack". Early on it ignored collision, buildings, terrain - everything really. If the unit was in range, it could hit it. As a result, everyone build them right behind walls or other shot-blockers, creating "1-way force fields".
I'd be interested in a decent working way of calculating a good ratio of elo handicap AT vs randoms. What would be a good way to do that?
It would probably take a fair bit of work and testing; my initial suggestion of Team ELO = ((arranged team size) / (game size)) * 1.2
might work, but it also means that if your entire group is in the top ~10% of players it'll take ages to find a match, as your team ELO will end up being higher than any actual players. It also doesn't work too well with large skill ranges.
After looking at it some more I think there are two other adjustments I'd want to make. Firstly, the 'penalty' needs to increase with raw number of players on the pre-made team. While a pre-made 2v2 is better than a random 2v2, coordinating with 1 random player (and getting a good random player) is a lot easier than 3 - so I would suggest a 4-stack in 4v4 should be penalized more than a duo in 2v2. Similarly, I also don't think taking a "raw average" is entirely valid, either; 3 'ok' players and 1 'top tier' player all on voice comms will do much better than 4 slightly-better-than-ok players, even if their average ELO is the same, as the 'top tier' player will be able to coordinate and advise the lower skilled players on builds, counters, and what to expect/do. As a result I'd suggest a weighted average where we estimate a group's skill to be slightly higher than the numbers suggest.
After a bit of work, this formula might do the trick; or at least work as a starting point.
Group ELO = (((Combined ELO / Group Size) + ((Highest ELO - Lowest ELO) * 0.15)) * (1.05 + (0.10((Group Size)/4)))
That's kind of a mess and maybe someone who's a math expert can clean it up. However, what it's doing is weighting the average ELO slightly towards the better player(s), and then scaling the "group penalty" up by 5% per group-filled player slot (i.e. 10% for 2 players in a group, 12.5% for 3, 15% for 4).
In the case of "mixed" teams (i.e. 2 groups, 1 group and a random, etc.) we multiply each "Group ELO" by the percentage that the group makes up; so 0.75 for a 3-stack in a 4v4, 0.5x for 2x2-stacks, etc. This is done instead of taking a simple average, as we want to put slightly more weight on having a large pre-made team.
Let's use an example of a 4-stack: 2200 ELO, 1500, 1300, 1200.
First half of the equation:
((2200 + 1500 + 1300 + 1200) / 4) + ((2200 - 1200) * 0.15) = (6200 / 4) + 150 = 1700 ELO average
Second half of the equation:
(1.05 + (0.10(4/4)) = 1.05 + (0.10(1)) = 1.15
Combined:
Group ELO = 1700 * 1.15 = 1955 Group ELO
By comparison, their average ELO is 1550 - so playing as a "4-stack" in 4v4 penalized them by 20.8%. Their best player will still be better than the opposing team by a slight amount (by 245 elo), but the remaining teammates will be facing strong opponents for their skill level (455, 655 and 755 elo higher).
Here are some other examples (and the work):
I'm sure there are better systems to use, and there might already be some out there, but this is what I can think of right now.
There's kind of 2 auto-match threads going now, but I'll add here as well: The issue isn't arranged teams, it's how they're handled. On paper, it should be possible to match any arranged team (except for the absolute best) against a random team; a 4-stack of 5,000 rank players will not beat a random collection of top 200s, for example. The issue is the handling of arranged teams is extremely naive right now.
Firstly, as Rosbone pointed out, any new combination of players is handled as a completely new team: 4x "top 10" players playing together? Totally new team with no way of knowing their skill level until they play 10 "placement" games. Then, if 1 person leaves the group, and a different "top 10" player joins, despite it being 75% of the same team, automatch says "no, this is an entirely new team. 10 placement matches please". This is pretty much the worst way of handling it. Instead, use the data we do have (maybe they played 1v1 a lot), and use that as a starting point. Even better, use an over-all "hidden ELO" score that tries to rate the players "average" skill level for all factions and all modes that they've played, if only to place them better when trying a new mode/team/etc.
Secondly, as pointed out by Rosbone and others in this thread, the match-making system can give some really terrible matches. While it does give even matches sometimes, in less popular modes, or in less popular regions/time zones, it gives some truly awful matches. Or perhaps sometimes it gives awful matches regardless of the situation. In any event, it clearly needs to be worked on, as the current system is just not very good, and it ends up giving a lot of players a poor experience.
Thirdly, even if the existing system worked flawlessly, the actual implementation of arranged teams is pretty bad. As-is, it assumes that a 4-stack is exactly equal to 4x randoms provided their ranks are the same. This is pretty flawed, as chances are that the 4-stack has voice communications, experience playing with each other in the past, and pre-made strategies/combinations that they like. Meanwhile, the 4x randoms have none of this, and might not even communicate in the same language. As a result, even if the "ranks" are the same, we need to assume that the 4-stack will be playing much, much better. Perhaps something like:
Team ELO = ((arranged team size) / (game size)) * 1.2
This would mean that a full pre-made team would match with players with 20% higher ELO than they actually have, and it would scale for a 2-player pre-made in a 4v4 game, for example (a 2-stack in 4v4 would give +10%).
if you do such stuff, half of the players will drop in the loading screen
If the matches were made evenly, and there was a punishment for leaving, that wouldn't happen though. People leave in the loading screen right now because it's often top 50 vs. 2000+ rank players.
While I don't think the automatch system needs to be that in-depth (speed vs. accuracy options), the lack of discussion around the automatch system is pretty concerning.
CoH2's system is archaic and lacks a TON of basic QOL features that just about every modern game out there has, and from what we've seen in the CoH3 "preview", it doesn't look like a lot has been changed so far. To be fair, that was an early alpha, so things can change; but there's been no information given on this topic, which is a bit concerning.
My thoughts:
-'Ready Check', similar to most competitive games (ex. CSGO), where players need to confirm they're ready for the match to start. This prevents AFK players.
-'Leaver Penalty', also similar to most other MP games (ex. CSGO). If you leave games, you get a "penalty" that prevents you from playing again for a little while, with increasing times for frequently leaving.
-'In Game Report', self explanatory; the current "email us a replay" system is honestly unacceptable.
-As you said, better matches. Refer to this thread for examples. To put it shortly, the allowed "range" is far too high, and there needs to be hard cut-off as well. Top 50 players should never, ever, be matched against top 2,000+ players; that's just creating an awful experience for every person involved.
-Also as you said, loading screen info. What rank are my teammates? What rank are my opponents? Is one player in a pre-made group significantly better?
I don't think "ELO-hell" is a real thing, at least from my experience; I've never had a problem getting to my usual "top 200" rank in 4v4 (or any mode), on any of the factions I've tried. The only advice I can really give is to "not leave games". Leaving games almost always results in a loss, which of course lowers your rank. As a result, even if you win every match you think is "fair", you're still probably taking a lot of losses due the games you've left, cancelling out any wins. In my case, I only leave if one player on my team is clearly afk (no movement for the first 2 minutes), or if the game has clearly been lost (getting base-pushed, facing tanks when we've never held any fuel, etc.).
With that said, the match-making system desperately needs an overhaul in CoH3, for many of the reasons listed already. The biggest change, in my view, would be to limit the possible "range" of ranks within a match. As pointed out in the Legendary Team Game Matchups thread, you can currently get into some incredibly one sided matches, especially if you wait long enough in queue, or matches where the skill levels don't make much sense (top-50 players matches with ~5000 ranks).
This needs to be limited, as it creates an awful experience for everyone involved; the lower-rank players aren't going to be able to compete, and even worse, won't learn anything from such a one sided match, and the "pro" players are going to either find the match incredibly dull due to how one-sided it is, or incredibly frustrating as their teammates won't be able to play at their level.
Other changes would also be great, like leaver penalties, or adding a "skill bonus" to pre-made teams so they face "random team" players of a higher level (to compensate for the pre-made team's better communication), and of course a "ready check" when a match is found; but I think all of those are a much lower priority.
The problem isn't that it allows for AT vs. Random; it's that the automatch system assumes that a Random team is equal to an AT team if their ranks are the same. Get 4x rank 200 randoms to play against a premade of the same rank, and the premade will win every single time simply because they'll have much better coordination.
My suggestion has always been to give a skill "bonus" to the premade team; assume a 4-player premade of Rank 200 players will probably be equal to rank 100 randoms, etc. Similarly, that means if you're a rank 200 player, you won't be facing rank 200 pre-mades. You'll probably face rank 300-400s, where you'll have a noticeable advantage in skill to compensate for their coordination.
*They have the safest bases that prevent infantry and light vehicle base-rushes.
*No-tech AT guns so you never get rushed with vehicles without an answer
*AT gun with retreat - much less likely to lose them if you missmacro
*No weapon drops for mainline inf so you are not feeding the enemy your weapons if you lose squads
*Free-ish weapon and nade unlocks (baked into tech and cheaper overall)
*Strong nondoc elite inf lategame that can replace volks losses (less punishing to lose inf)
*Extra support and protection if you build shwere outside of base sector
*Nondoc super heavy tank that can be build even if you lose strutures
Is there a faction that is better or similarly good for a new player?
I'd probably put OKW pretty high on "hard to learn" list, mostly because they have so many strange and unique "features" that don't carry over to any other faction. In a vacuum, sure, they're fairly straightforward to learn; but as soon as a new player tries a different faction, they'll need to learn a lot more. Regarding your points:
1. Only if you're playing 1v1, otherwise you'll probably get OST bunkers. Also, relying on base defenses isn't a great plan, and realistically, base-rushes aren't all that common.
2. While Raks are more forgiving, it can also teach you 'not-ideal' ATG usage (pushing too far, etc.) and reliance on camo, which no other ATGs have (non-doc). I also find they're frustratingly inaccurate.
3. Yes, but you also can't pickup weapon drops on mainlines once you get STGs, so it's sort of a trade-off.
4. This is the same on OST.
5. They're strong, but tricky to use; they'll show up quite squishy and be competing with Vet 2 or 3 upgraded infantry, which will force them to retreat quite quickly if you're not careful. Once they get vet, yes, they're very powerful.
6. I find that the KT is a bit of a "beginners trap"; the only time to build it is if you're winning by an incredible margin already. Otherwise, you've spent an incredible amount of resources on a single, slow, tank that can be countered (or at least, held off) quite easily by pairs of TDs. I find that it's much better to get a JP4 and P4, or really any other combination of stock tanks.
Overall, I'd recommend learning OST first. They have a linear tech order (unlike OKW) which means you'll never miss standard units, simple base healing, and a generally strong roster of units. Except for LV rushes, they generally don't have a downside for beginner players, unless the player has trouble preserving squads. Learning OST will also tech the fundamentals of every other faction in the game, which OKW might not.
Doomlord52
Relic Entertainment
