Profile of Doomlord52

While this is a mostly good list of changes, a few of them make me say "wait what?"

Firstly, you've got the Penals, which while they needed a buff, will become the best CQC unit in the game for 270/90. That's a bit aggressive. That 90muni upgrade is just too much for a single button. My bet is that it'll normalize to just being a flamer upgrade for 60.

Ost changes seem decent, although it's basically just a "fix brummbar" patch for them. There's still a bunch that could be done, though.

OKW changes are just not that great. While I agree that Shreck blobs needed to go, they now have NO man-held AT solution. They also have the AT gun with the shortest range in the game. They're going to get rolled by basically any early vehicle play that's well micro'd. Personally, T2 or something needs to have a shreck squad similar to CoH1 PE's AT squad. MG change is great, though.

UKF changes seem decent, although the insta-unlocked self repair on the UC seems a bit strong, especially early game. I could easily see a new UC w/ flamer or Vickers K rush vs. no-AT OKW meta.

And no USF changes? So we're just keeping the current rifle-bar spam meta, then.

This stood out to me the most:

Battlegroup Headquarters
Remove Forward Retreat Ability

FRP can't be removed from only one team at a time; it'll wreck the balance, especially in mixed teams, by an insane amount. You can't have the game in a state where only one side is actually hurt by retreating.

I agree FRP needs to go, but it needs to go from ALL factions at the SAME TIME.

Nades damage is consistent, its the cover that is directional. If the nade (any type of nade, not only rifle nade) is lobbed over green cover, all entities in that cover will take half damage. Its as counter intuitive as it gets but it works exactly like that. But if your squad is standing in cover but the nade is thrown from a flanking position, entities will take full damage and the squad is likely to get wiped.

Yea, that's probably why it feels inconsistent.

Voted 'need more data'.

The implementation is FAR more important than the actual idea. While mods can fix bugs and such in an unbiased way, balancing a game is a bit trickier. You'd need to create a panel of top-tier players who are actually top-tier in both 1v1 and 2v2 with all five factions. That's just to get a good foundation going.

From there you need a "mission statement" that basically answers the following:

• How should each faction play when perfectly balanced?
  
• Is this balance for all players, or exclusively 'top-tier' players?
  
• How far from vanilla can we go?
  

This is exceedingly important for the community not to become insanely divided and ultimately disinterested in the project.

The first question is fairly self explanatory: How does each faction play once the mod is 'done'? Are infantry blobs something we actually want? Should factions stay similar to their current play-style? Should factions change to increase diversity?

The second question is very critical to get mass engagement from the player base. Simply put, the average player isn't all that great (I'm certainly not - best case I'm top 250 as 1v1 ost, 500+ with others). Do we account for that? Something that's balanced for a pro-tier player (ex. high micro cost) could be very imbalanced for the average player. But something balanced for the average player (CoH1's pios) can become broken in the hands of a pro (CoH1's pio spam). Who wins in this situation?

Lastly, how far from vanilla would this team be able to go? Small tweaks will probably work for the majority of things, but what happens when something becomes fundamentally broken? Would replacing brit emplacements entirely with their mobile counterparts be acceptable? Would transforming Ost into an elite-infantry "quality over quantity" faction be possible? What about reducing Rifle's "dual upgrades" to a single slot, thus removing their "jack of all trades" viability?

Then lastly you have the issue with promotion. This could be literally the greatest mod of all time, turning CoH2 into the single most balanced and perfected game of all time: but it doesn't matter if no one plays it. Without Relic's direct support, it would never become visible to the majority of the player base (main menu article thing?). Even then, you'd still be left with custom games, which while fun, just won't replace the ladder and matchmaking for some.



So yea, go for it, but there's no guarantee of success. It's been tried before, and it's failed before - mostly because of the above issues. But if it DOES work, it could be great.

I don't say it's your fault.
I say Relic is way too close to streamers.

Also the reason this game is bad now is because its made to please axis fanbois.

If relic was as close to streamers as you are implying they are, the game would be very, very balanced (and almost completely bug free). Simple fact is, they aren't. There's changes top-tier players/streamers really didn't ask for (AEC buff followed by AEC quadra-nerf), there's bugs that community members have found fixes for (Cruzz's thread), there's maps no one wants to play (back when Struzdorf was in rotation).

Relic does a decent job talking to the community, but they are in no way caving the 'demands' of the community, let alone a small sub-section ("Axis fanbois"). They seem to have their own idea of what CoH2 should be, and are following that idea to a very large degree.

And as for CoH2 being changed to 'please axis fanbois'.... you've seen the brit emplacement commander, right?