Profile of Doomlord52

Was adding build timers ever an option or idea? I feel like it would be a good change for all heavy tanks. Adds a little delay, especially for replacing them when they get lost. In some team games you see people replacing them instantly

This is a good suggestions. It would be interesting if all heavy tanks were made buildable at each factions "final tech" level/building when the current conditions were met (enough points, pre-req up, etc.). It would give the balance team the ability to adjust build times on individual heavies, and it should be possible to do; the T34-85 already uses this method, just with a 0-point requirement, rather than the 9-14 of heavies.

Yes, it does have higher pen than a T34/76 (+20 at all ranges), but its' projectile is also incredibly slow moving; the chances of a direct hit vs. a moving vehicle is very low (unless using attack-ground, but then it's a skill-shot). I can't really think of a situation in which the higher pen would make it over-performing?

As for the 105-sherman having low pen; I'm really not sure why it's that low. Possibly because it has a turret and higher RoF?

Well, you could do it the lazy way.

1. Select the "random" faction (new 6th faction icon)
2. Your player card is covered with dice or something (doesn't matter what, just hide it)
3. The game has actually picked a faction now (client side), and is using whatever loadout you have as default for that faction (i.e. the one that's selected when you switch manually).
4. Queue as that faction

True "random" faction selection (like in SC2) doesn't really make sense in CoH2. There are no mixed teams (you're always the opposite faction-side of the other team), there's no "random start" locations to scout, and build orders aren't hyper optimized to the point where you can win/lose a game before seeing a single enemy unit.

This 'lazy' solution fixes the problem of you not deciding what team to play as with minimal effort from devs. It also wouldn't be hard to expand it to arranged teams (just cover everyone's cards).

Also, if it was implemented as a new faction, in theory, they could replace the loading screen player card with a 'dice' card as well; creating some sense of 'random selection' for other players as well.

They're in a pretty good place right now. Long range DPS with double brens might be slightly on the strong side (when blobbed...), but it's in a good enough place where I'm impartial to a nerf (maybe a ~10% nerf at long?).


That said, I think there's still room for improvement, but not without a serious redesign, as others have said. They're just such a bizarre unit with so many 'unusual' abilities. Ideally, this is what I would like to see, in terms of a redesign:

• The Bolster upgrade at HQ unlocks a cheap (30 muni?) PER SQUAD upgrade, which takes the place of the "medical supplies" upgrade (which would be removed entirely, as explained below). This would be similar to the Gren "veteran squad leader", where taking the upgrade fills a weapon slot (so only 1 bren on 5 model squads). This also solves the "free model on new squads" issue, since new squads would spawn at 4 models, and you'd need to reinforce to get the 5th one. If needed, a slight RA bonus could be given by this upgrade, to further emphasize the "dps vs. hp" trade-off.
  
  
• The "Medical Supplies" upgrade should be removed and replaced with an HQ Aura (150mp, 50muni?). Right now you can have giant, 5 man, 2x bren, AoE-healing blobs; this is just too much. Removing Medical Supplies would bring the IS more in line with every other infantry unit, and would make retreating to base much more important. That said, self-healing is still really important in late-game, so I would suggest giving the IS a self-healing vet ability, similar to grens/Volks, once they hit vet 3.
  
  
• Remove cover bonuses. It was an interesting idea, but it's just not fun for either side. It forces UKF players to play in either a very static manner, or as a giant bren blob when moving. Re-balance the unit so that the out-of-cover power is higher, but the in-cover power is lower.
  
  
• Reduce "HQ Arty" flare throw range when suppressed. Currently it's 30m when not suppressed and 20m when suppressed; which is as far as normal grenades when not suppressed. I would bring this down to 15m, inline with other grenades when suppressed. This would make MG positioning/focus firing more important for axis, while also increasing the importance of smoke/flanking for UKF. Considering that the ability does much more damage than a grenade, I think this is a fair change.
  

Guessing the formula used is going to be pretty hard; there's a TON of variables to consider. We might be able to get a good approximation, with enough work, but there will still (probably) be issues. That said, has anyone on the patch team asked if any dev knows (or can find) how it really works? That's probably the easiest (and best) way to go about this.

Here's what I've found, using a similar setup to elchino7.

"TestRangeMap" by Tric / Mr Smith (steam workshop)
Two Con sandbag walls 20 "units" appart
MG42 in Green cover, set to invulnerable
Conscript squad in green cover, set to invulnerable

Basically, the idea is to see what the suppression does at 20 range vs. green cover, without having to deal with damage numbers, squad sizes changing due to losses, etc.

Show Spoiler

I also tested Vet 3 cons, due to their 0.71 received accuracy (vs 1.09 at vet 0), and found that they were suppressed after 9 bursts, rather than 6. This seems to indicated that suppression is influenced (to some degree) by received accuracy, since the 1.53x improvement to received accuracy followed a 1.5x increase in bursts required.

When I tested this with combat engies, they had similar numbers: 4 models at 9 bursts, 2 models at 10 bursts, 1 model at 10 bursts. Combined with Elchino7's tests, it seems clear that a major influencing value is the number of models in a squad, NOT the percentage of a squad left.

Another factor seems to be the MG's accuracy, as per elchino7's testing. Unfortunately, I can't really test this myself, since no stock suppressing unit has a veterancy bonus ONLY giving accuracy.

Then there's the suppression recovery. I don't think the numbers given are correct, though. The problem with the 0.008 x 5 (green cover mult) = 0.04/second recovery speed is that squads would recover (on average) 0.0634 during the break between bursts, which is higher than the MG42's suppression burst of 0.038976. As Hannibal pointed out, that would mean suppressing a squad in green cover would be impossible (it is possible, though). From what I can tell, it also seems that the recovery is a constant reduction in suppression; so it applies itself every "tick" (who knows how fast that is?).

There's also AoE Suppression, which may or may not apply to single squads as well (only 1 model is targeted, so AoE applies to the others), which may explain why larger squads suppress quicker, but doesn't line up (from what I've seen) with how AoE suppression works with other nearby squads.

Lastly (I hope), there's "incremental accuracy", which no one seems to know anything about (how it works, how fast it increments)...