Hannibal's personal gameplay design

I've been fooling around with the mod tools recently which in turn sparked the idea how I'd design CoH2's gameplay if I had the chance for larger redesigns.

I'll put these ideas out here to get impressions of what you guys think of it. Some are very general, others might be very detailed. I won't put them all at once since I am coming up with stuff myself and the ideas I currently have are often quite unfocused. If there is interest, I will likely expand with more topics down the line once I have the time and ideas.

Note ahead though:
At the moment I am thinking only about the stock rosters of Ostheer and Soviets. I consider them complete factions which offer the most fredom for design. The other three factions, as well as all commander abilities and units (even Ostheer and Soviet) are not part of the equation - yet.
Also, these are just ideas. I have not tested them, they are not necessarily balanced and also not really supposed to be.

Long story short: Hannibal's take on game design. Let's get started with some general ideas for vehicles and some more specialized ones for team weapons..


Vehicle sight:
This is how it all started. I wanted to force more combined arms play. Currently, vehicles are very operable on their own. An easy way that opens a lot of opportunities is heavily reducing vehicle sight. Vehicles generally should not have 360° maximum vision. For example, I restricted most tanks to 10 vision around them, with up to 20 in a 90° cone in front. TDs should get longer vision with smaller cones etc. Apart from forcing infantry to spot for your tanks, this has a lot of implications and opportunities. Tanks cannot be yolo'ed into the enemies rear anymore. Handheld AT will likely become way better vs unsupported tanks, and, most importantly: It opens up a stat to generate late game benefits for lighter units. LVs get longer sight in a wider cone, units like the Scout cars can make your tank force operable on their own, giving a reason to build them in the late game. It can also differentiate open top vehicles since those can gain better 360° vision, as well as upgrades like Panzer Commanders.


Vehicle damage:
Having fixed damage values for vehicles makes CoH2 predictable and reliable. However, damage is heavily thresholded which can hamper one of CoH2's core aspects: Combined arms. Weapons with different damage values generally don't harmonize well together. A PSchreck with 120 damage does not support any weapon with standard 160 damage well. You need two Schreck hits for the Schreck to even matter in the first place. In general: Unless you manage to cross a certain threshold, some weapons might not have participated in the battle at all. Therefore, I make a frankly quite risky proposal: Damage should be RNG. For example, standard damage should not be 160, but RNG based between 150-170. Since the mod editor allows for this change, I assume Relic already played around with this idea and abandoned it down the line. The very big downside obviously is that it adds yet another layer of RNG. But then again, this mod is not meant to be highly competitive. From the POV of authenticity, variable damage makes sense since the tanks have more and less important zones (if we accept the fact that they survive more than one pen in the first place).

Obviously this can and should be tuned to the specific unit. Maybe for some units it makes sense to deliver EXACTLY 160 damage, units that need more reliability can be moved to the 170-155 range, etc. At the same time, this opens up more possibilities for HP values. For example, in the current live version of CoH2, 340 HP is WAY better than 320 while 300 HP is not that much different from 320. With RNG damage, all these values could be more fine tuned towards the vehicle itself. Low damage weapons, such as handheld AT and penetrating small arms, can more meaningfully contribute towards vehicle combat and fill the gaps for both bad RNG rolls as well as unconventional HP values. Also, this could give deflection damage less of a niche role, although I have not really had more detailed thoughts on this topic.
If we assume that a medium tank will still have 640 HP, the RNG damage change makes this unit much more survivable, which brings me to the next topic: Vehicle HP


Vehicle HP and mobility:
Considering the changes to damage and vehicle sight, vehicles are more survivable, stronger than current when other units give them sight but more vulnerable when alone. Overall, I've always felt like more tanks should adopt a "slow and steady" approach of sitting in a fight and potentially acting as cover for infantry. I don't know if this idea will play out well, but in general I'd like to have more HP on vehicles while nerfing their speed and mobility at the same time. This could also create more room for differences between vehicles in the same class as well as between different classes.

This is obviously a very vague description, but "mobility" is hard to put into words. Overall, I think it is probably best to nerf the top speed only slightly. CoH2's vehicles are fairly close to their real life speeds considering balance as a factor as well. The "slow and steady" approach probably works best if we nerf the acceleration and potentially the rotation rate of both vehicle and maybe even the turret.

Again, I'd have to think more about this how and if this is desirable to achieve in the first place, but I'd like to put this out for discussion anyway.


Pioneers:
All pioneers become cheap, 3 men squads with focus on repairs and construction. This reinforces battlefield support role. I have been thinking about giving them three upgrade paths: Combat (flamer and +1 model), support (sweeper + better repairs) or construction (build time increase as well as unlock for more buildings).

Team weapons in general:
I'd like to have less of them, but be better at their job. They should be a highly specialized but expensive squad. I am aware this can create issues if you lose a team weapon. However, combined with cheaper pioneers, it gives more reason to repair equipment. Also, crew members get a usable weapon back. I always found it weird that they can't hit a barn door. They are normal soldiers.

HMGs:
I am undecided if they should act as high suppression platforms or as infantry killing machines. The former makes more sense for gameplay, however I somehow prefer the latter.

Mortars:
Mortars get their more of their lethality back. Although I understand the balancing reason behind removing their OHK radius, I miss the shocking effect of a mortar shell wiping multiple models in an instant. I was also thinking about adding some suppression to them, but this is probably a bad idea. Maybe it could be introduced for the barrage. Or as a different "suppression barrage" ability that has high scatter but adds suppression.

Snipers:
All snipers become 2 men squads, consisting of an actual sniper and a spotter. Their role should focus on recon and diversion much more than fighting. I lowered their accuracy to not guarantee hits, especially against units in cover. I was also thinking about giving them suppression, at least as a targeted ability. For recon and diversion, flares (like current Soviet sniper), tripwire flares and booby traps would be fitting. For flavor, I gave the spotter much more sight than the sniper. If the spotter dies, the squad either needs to retreat or fight together with other infantry. If the sniper dies, you can still keep the spotter on the front line for recon, but there is basically no fighting capability anymore.



That's it for now. Tell me what you think, but again please bear in mind that balance is not the primary factor. I am rather aiming for a bit more athenticity and grittyness with (hopefully) fun gameplay. Not all ideas will turn out good, but I think they are at least worth considering.

Best,
Hannibal








Added on 22.12.21

Ideas for the Soviet faction

These changes are supposed to be implemented with the proposals in the original post. Where they are contradictory, the “newer” proposals should be considered (e.g. I previously said all engineers should be 3 men squads, here I say Soviets should have 4 etc).
Again, I can’t write a super exhaustive list on ALL changes I can imagine, which features/abilities should be retained on every single unit and how exactly costs etc are going to change. This is already long, no one would bother to read it if it got any longer. When in doubt, please cut me some slack and view these proposals as a general design idea.

General:
Late game techs:
I personally love the UKF hammer/amboss decision, although I’d like to give it a bit of a different twist. Instead of unlocking units and abilities, I’d rather go with some economy boost. Might be dangerous for balance, but I like the idea.
For example, there could be (mutually exclusive) research for +5 max population, discounts on vehicles or infantry etc. These could also be made faction specific to increase asymmetry.

Teching costs:
I don’t know why the main gate for techs fuel is only. I think it would be beneficial to include munitions cost in addition or at least for some tiers. This would prevent fuel rushes in team modes where holding double fuel is basically all you need while you can neglect the specialized munition points.


Redesigned teching:
Soviet tech is now linear, Penals move to T0 to abolish the Soviet infantry duality. I hope both units work better together in more diverse builds if they are also available together. This in turn would potentially open up commander changes for elite infantry, however they are not a concern at the moment.

Restructured Tech:
T0: Conscripts, Penals, CE
T1: M3, Sniper, Maxim (building within 3 min)
T2: ATG, Mortar, M5 (building within 5 min)
T3: SU76, T70, (Katy)
T4: T34, SU85, (Katy)
I hope this gives more proper timing to the M5 (upgrade might need tweaks) which should come at around 5 min. Maxim and mortar might be switched if necessary. Katy goes T3 or T4. All costs changed to fit timing windows.

Combat engineers:
Squad size 4
Get normal mosins

Upgrade paths:
1. Anti-tank -> gets 1 PTRS, sticky satchel, +1 model, light AT mines; MAYBE after T3/4 they could get a second one
2. Sweeper -> increased repair speed and build time

Conscripts:
Aim is to use them as “fill up” troops to fill gaps in the front line. Bad combat stats, short range weapon profile, scale through abilities. Damage scaling will probably be bad at mid-long range and see a steeper increase at very short ranges. Changes:
Start at 7 men, MR does not grant another model (need new usage for MR)
Molotov gets impact damage buff and maybe cost buff
RA nerf (about 10% nerf), maybe MR will be used to remove this nerf
Damage nerf, especially mid-long range

Penals:
Redesign intended to slightly mirror the German Gren-PGren interaction, however with slight twists. Penals are not elite infantry and rather in between line and elite infantry. Although doctrines are not taken into account yet, I think this should also create some room for Guards and Shocks. Mid range profile.
4 men

Upgrade paths:
1. flame thrower
2. 2x DP28 (increases squad size to 5)
The squad size to 4 is a slight band aid because I’d like to move the flame thrower for some asymmetry between the factions. Also, it would fit Penals’ role to do the dangerous jobs. However, 5 men flamers are often not a great idea, especially early on. I hope the merge with Conscripts will create the staying power needed.

M3
Retains its current sight radius, maybe even a slight buff. Potentially slightly lower top speed to nerf cheesy strategies of just running the M3 with a satchel squad into tanks or similar.

Maxim, ATG, mortar
All become 4 men squads with RA buffs as needed. As I said previously, I want them to be more expensive in general but more effective at the job. Especially with the changes to mortars and MGs, they might become too effective, thereby high MP cost should prevent spamming. This should make repairing team weapons more worthwhile as well as create more interesting play around defending them. Issues could come with wipes due to late game arty.

M5
Hopefully improved timing at T2. Changes as needed to fit the new timing. Slightly above average sight (~40 range). Maybe the truck should come with a “medic truck” upgrade that unlocks the reinforcement and healing, potentially healing as AoE.

SU76
No huge changes. I like the unit itself, I hope the changes to the Soviet infantry system will create enough room at this phase to get an SU76 instead of a T70. Sight changes as previously described.

T70
The backbone of the Soviet early-mid transition. No larger changes overall, maybe a tiny penetration nerf mid to long range so that a Luchs has slightly better chances.

T34, SU85, Katy
I’ll sum these up. Again no huge changes apart from the general vehicle proposals since I don’t fully know how those will turn out. If possible, the SU85 might be changed to fit better vs heavier armor, but this will require more changes on the Ostheer side of things.
Katy could go T3 or T4, depending on where it fits best.

Vehicle Sight: Makes sense, tanks should not be operating like 1 man armies even if they are highly vetted or premium.

Vehicle damage: I don't really like the idea of more RNG.

Vehicle HP and mobility: The main issue I see is TD become even more valuable, if Tanks becomes slower and more deliberate TD will constantly zone them out of a fight with their extreme range. The Jackson would probably need a massive price increase due to being open top/long/range/turret/speed combo.

Other issue might be a greater preference for "premium tanks" compared to the stock counter parts. For Soviet, KV1 would be godly since it would be able to take a hit and most likely bounce it compared to anything else in that price range while also being able to hit back even if it is inconsistent. P4J, Easy8 and Comet would be the choices for OST, USF and UKF respectively. OKW would be the only one unaffected due to their tech structure.

I like your idea about team weapons, spamming them is a major issue in team games.

HMG: I think they could do both damage and suppression. For damage all mg could be changed to have 30-40 degree cone of fire so that they are more easily flanked however you get mauled if your in the fire area. Then as a toggle that requires pack up and reset that puts the MG in suppression mode, a much wider cone can be used with massively reduced lethality but supression applied. Also the cone could be made shorter than damage mode to allow counter play from slow firing long range specialist like JLI/Pathfinders.

Mortars: Maybe Auto fire is the damage dealer and barrage applies suppression with slow firing shells that due reduced damage but much larger AOE.

I think tanks should have more limited sight but their turrets did have optics right? Is it possible to assign a lower sight range to the hull like 10 or 15 and then assign another sight range cone to the turret of 30 or 40 as many tanks were capable of spotting targets at great distances. Also would it be possible to add a command to have the turret hold a different position kind of like attack ground without the firing the cannon.

Not like RNG damage，but I like limit tank sight，maybe could limit tank sight only have hull front and turret front，so will make panzer commander more useful （especially UKF）
And I hope all slot item will remove drop rate，in my opinion factions infantry squad upgrade already balance by weapon power and squad size.

Vehicle Sight: Makes sense, tanks should not be operating like 1 man armies even if they are highly vetted or premium.

Vehicle damage: I don't really like the idea of more RNG.

Vehicle HP and mobility: The main issue I see is TD become even more valuable, if Tanks becomes slower and more deliberate TD will constantly zone them out of a fight with their extreme range. The Jackson would probably need a massive price increase due to being open top/long/range/turret/speed combo.

Other issue might be a greater preference for "premium tanks" compared to the stock counter parts. For Soviet, KV1 would be godly since it would be able to take a hit and most likely bounce it compared to anything else in that price range while also being able to hit back even if it is inconsistent. P4J, Easy8 and Comet would be the choices for OST, USF and UKF respectively. OKW would be the only one unaffected due to their tech structure.

I like your idea about team weapons, spamming them is a major issue in team games.

HMG: I think they could do both damage and suppression. For damage all mg could be changed to have 30-40 degree cone of fire so that they are more easily flanked however you get mauled if your in the fire area. Then as a toggle that requires pack up and reset that puts the MG in suppression mode, a much wider cone can be used with massively reduced lethality but supression applied. Also the cone could be made shorter than damage mode to allow counter play from slow firing long range specialist like JLI/Pathfinders.

Mortars: Maybe Auto fire is the damage dealer and barrage applies suppression with slow firing shells that due reduced damage but much larger AOE.

I agree on the potential issues with TD, although I'd not refer to the Jackson as of now since for the time being all of this is focused on OST and SOV only. Similarly, the KV1 is doctrinal and I don't take it into consideration just yet.
Regarding the general issue of how to counter heavier tanks (Panther, Brummbar, and in general doctrinal heavies) with lighter ones: I hope that by leaving a relatively high top speed, but low acceleration, there will be a dynamic between these two classes. If you take the time to build up speed with your medium, you might be able to overrun the heavy tank at the front line, since it cannot speed up as quickly. On the other hand you really need to commit since there is no way back...
Another thought I had that both goes into the direction of realism as well as "slow and steady" tank design is to completely remove the ability to shoot while driving. Tanks back then did not have stabilizers. I think the USF were the first ones to introduce them, but even those were shitty at the time. At least German tank hand books instructed the tank commanders to stop for the shot, afaik.
The gameplay change of this one would be VERY heavy though. I fear it might make the whole game more static than what it is designed for and kill all the fun. Especially since I'd like indirect fire to have a bit more "oomph" (see mortar lethality). There must be a way to punish backline units like artillery with something else than more artillery, and the only way I see are tanks. Those dives are already nerfed a lot by the sight nerf, needing to stop-shoot would completely eradicate this possibility.

Regarding HMGs:
Technically, they could have a profile where they do little damage far, with heavy damage starting mid to short range while suppressing at all ranges. Not sure how authentic and intuitive this would be though.

I think tanks should have more limited sight but their turrets did have optics right? Is it possible to assign a lower sight range to the hull like 10 or 15 and then assign another sight range cone to the turret of 30 or 40 as many tanks were capable of spotting targets at great distances. Also would it be possible to add a command to have the turret hold a different position kind of like attack ground without the firing the cannon.

The engine does not differentiate between the turret and hull (some actual modder please correct me if this is wrong). What you can do and what I did is to define a frontal cone with higher sight range. In my example, I gave mediums 10 sight in a 360° radius (so they see everything very close around them) and 20 sight to the front. This sight is fixed to the hull however.
Tanks did have optics and some of them were very good. I was not sure how this can be really translated into proper game play without making tanks independent of infantry again. Seeing far to the front is basically 90% of what keeps them save enough, so I assume unless the vehicle has some mobility weakness, long frontal sight range does not fit with my initial idea.

Main problem with armor system and AT weaponary in coh2 is that its pretty much dumbed down vCoH system.

Few core aspects were removed like deflection damage and AT gun vulnerability.

For instance I belive in CoH2 PaK38\M1 did 150 damage per penetration and, say PIV, had 600 HP. So its pretty much same 4 shots like in CoH2.

But in vCoH you coudnt 1v1 tanks with single AT gun like in CoH2, since possability of loosing mentioned AT gun completly were 100% persent real. Meaning that you had to support your AT guns via combined arms. While in CoH2 you still have to spend hell of a lot time circling around AT gun, then you need to spend time killing gun itself.

Deflection damage is the biggest oversight in CoH2 imo. Since in CoH2 we have only penetrating\non-penetrating shots, whole AT gun perfomance is locked behind its raw penetration values. In vCoH even non-penetrating shots dealt 50% of the core damage via deflection, meaning that AT you can cheap away some HP which will help other AT sources with less damage.

All of this led to the fact that AT guns\TDs are pretty much balanced around facing heavy tanks, because aside from penetrating shots there is no way to deal damage to them, which on its own leads to the fact everything but heavy tanks most likely will be just nuked by AT gun walls.

Not to mention that HP values were different even for light and medium tanks in vCoH and AT guns with veterancy\Abilities actually had increased damage.

In CoH2 everythin is just flat, without anything even remotely deep behind it.

Lower vehicle sight seems like a cool idea, but as you say, not sure how it would affect dives.

And I actually think that RNG damage sounds ok. The other RNG in the game is binary: hit or not, penetrate or not. This is more subtle than those. I agree with GachiGasm on deflection damage as well.

Hmgs being more suppressive or lethal could be made in a way like ammo switch on sherman. Suppression with long bursts and more suppression while lethal having barely supression and short bursts but accuracy and more damage.

Vehicle sight reduction (in certain quarters) sounds good... to an extent. The thing is that I would prefer having tanks be somewhat able to operate independently if it means you could break a stalemate. I think a decent compromise would be to make it so that tanks have almost no vision behind them but to only have side vision somewhat worse than frontal.

Not a fan of making damage random. Accuracy and deflection is already enough of a factor, IMO, and damage ranges adds another layer of unneeded complexity to what is already a somewhat arcane aspect of gameplay.

I think the problem is that everything reverses at full speed, which was definitely not the case in real life. If reverse speeds were to be nerfed for most vehicles, you'd have savvy players playing their vehicles more carefully without needing to turn them into sponges.

Not sure what a change to pioneers is supposed to accomplish. As they are now, I think they're fine, but that's the SU player in me speaking.

As for team weapons, I'm not sure what could be done to make them less spammable without making them useless. I mean, look at the Maxim. It used to be arguably slightly broken what with the meta focusing on spam, but now they're nigh useless. I constantly find myself questioning if I ever really need one, only to find a situation where some suppression would have been very useful.

The mode switch that Aarotron proposes seems like a decent idea, and could provide some room for differentiation so that the disparity between good and bad MGs is lesser (i.e., could also affect weapon rotation speed or AoE effects). The fact is that as I have outlined with the case of the Maxim above, you do need MGs to stop infantry spam. The problem at the moment is that there are many MGs that are utterly terrible at suppressing infantry so they don't really stop spam, while others are exceedingly good, to the point where they shut down any infantry mobility completely.

Disagree, and this is as a person who loves 120mm mortars. With a tactics-focused game like CoH2, any ability that can potentially wipe a squad in one shot before you can react just seems kind of oppressive to me.

The problem is that I think Snipers can be kind of oppressive to those factions that don't have them and that you really do need to bake in some vulnerabilities which your proposal doesn't have. At the same time though, you do kind of need their one-shot-kill capabilities in certain contexts: Soviet T1 definitely needs it to be able to neutralize MGs in absence of mortars that they would get with T2. As a compromise, what if Snipers have something of a basic attack (absolute accuracy but not one-shot-one-kill) along with a sort of assassinate ability (where they kill one model and suppress the others).

Overall I am inclined to like most of your ideas but a few could use some modification.

As a note ahead I think the point did not get fully across that my ideas are not supposed to create a fully balanced game or create better balancing while all other factors stay the same. I'll just pick out a couple of points for clarification, but thank you very much for the feedback!

Vehicle sight reduction (in certain quarters) sounds good... to an extent. The thing is that I would prefer having tanks be somewhat able to operate independently if it means you could break a stalemate. I think a decent compromise would be to make it so that tanks have almost no vision behind them but to only have side vision somewhat worse than frontal.

That's one issue I have with this idea: I think it could lead to spamming artillery, since mediums are the only vehicles mobile enough to punish backline units. My suggestion would heavily nerf that, that's why I am also aiming to make the mortar more expensive as described below.
Unfortunately, there is no side vision in this game. There is a minimum and maximum vision and the angle in which the max vision will be applied.

Not a fan of making damage random. Accuracy and deflection is already enough of a factor, IMO, and damage ranges adds another layer of unneeded complexity to what is already a somewhat arcane aspect of gameplay.
I think the problem is that everything reverses at full speed, which was definitely not the case in real life. If reverse speeds were to be nerfed for most vehicles, you'd have savvy players playing their vehicles more carefully without needing to turn them into sponges.

As I pointed out, this could be an issue. On the other hand, CoH2 has almost no deflection damage. In the end it does not really matter if you miss or bounce, the outcome is the same. In any engagement, one could argue that there is only one level of randomness, just the visial presentation is different.
Fully agree on the reverse speed. However, the ideas need to conform to the game's engine, so that was the best I could come up with.
Not sure what a change to pioneers is supposed to accomplish. As they are now, I think they're fine, but that's the SU player in me speaking.
I'd like to move them stronger to support units. Currently both pioneer units are mediocre to okay at combat in the beginning and shitty in the end. They are often used as meat shields to throw into a VP to block capture. I'd like to move them to pure supports unless they get a special combat upgrade.

As for team weapons, I'm not sure what could be done to make them less spammable without making them useless.[more detailed team weapon feedback]

My main point was to improve authenticity. It does not make sense that a mortar shell directly hitting a target does not kill it, nor that heavy MGs feel like worse versions of light MGs.
Regarding the mortars, I edited my OP after your response to avoid misunderstanding. I don't want a whole squad gone in one shot (unless they really clump up), but a well placed shot should kill the models around it. Visually, they currently lack a lot of punch.
Unless this completely breaks gameplay, I'd like to have team weapons more lethal, but also more expensive to counteract spamming.

I am not sure about switchable rounds for suppression on the MG. I don't know what the "logical explanation" should be.
A suppressive sniper shot I could imagine as a "wounding shot", only wounding a soldier which ties up the squad for saving him or something, but MGs? I don't know about many different ammo types, but in the end I don't think there was one that effectively suppresses better than the standard round.

After all, I hope that changes to the scatter will increase damage spread enough to do a lot of damage in total, but drop models late. Similar to how e.g. flamers work.

The problem is that I think Snipers can be kind of oppressive to those factions that don't have them and that you really do need to bake in some vulnerabilities which your proposal doesn't have...

As I wrote, I only care about OST and SOV.
I agree that some further changes can be made. I did state though that they do not have guaranteed hits anymore, which makes the use of cover much mor effective against them since it reduced bleed. Snipers move from pure combat to recon and combat support.

Can you just remove the suppression damage modifier? The hmg42 already does more damage at all ranges then a vet 0 gren lmg. Same with the soviet maxim and dp-28.

HMGs:
I am undecided if they should act as high suppression platforms or as infantry killing machines. The former makes more sense for gameplay, however I somehow prefer the latter.

I prefer the current implementation of suppression. Partially for realism and partially for balance. If you're suggesting to lower suppression in favor of tearing infantry to shreds, I have to disagree.

Maybe increase damage against units in neutral and negative cover, but I'd say that light and green is probably fine.

I prefer the current implementation of suppression. Partially for realism and partially for balance. If you're suggesting to lower suppression in favor of tearing infantry to shreds, I have to disagree.

Maybe increase damage against units in neutral and negative cover, but I'd say that light and green is probably fine.

Extra damage against units in the open sounds like a good idea. Especially since cover would then become more important.

I am not sure about switchable rounds for suppression on the MG. I don't know what the "logical explanation" should be.
A suppressive sniper shot I could imagine as a "wounding shot", only wounding a soldier which ties up the squad for saving him or something, but MGs? I don't know about many different ammo types, but in the end I don't think there was one that effectively suppresses better than the standard round.

The sniper idea draws upon the old cinematic trope (appropriate for CoH2 since it is a very cinematic game) where someone gets shot by a Sniper out of nowhere and everyone takes cover. It maintains the flavour and utility of a Sniper without being too oppressive, because Soviet does need that ability to harass and eliminate high value targets like weapons teams or elites that regular infantry may have trouble handling.

As for the MG idea, it could go like this for something like the MG34:

Suppressive Fire (default)

• Longer bursts of less accurate fire
  
• Strong suppressive effect with wider AoE
  
• Narrower firing arc
  

Aimed Fire

• Shorter bursts of more accurate fire
  
• Weak suppressive effect with limited AoE
  
• Wider firing arc
  

The sniper idea draws upon the old cinematic trope (appropriate for CoH2 since it is a very cinematic game) where someone gets shot by a Sniper out of nowhere and everyone takes cover. It maintains the flavour and utility of a Sniper without being too oppressive, because Soviet does need that ability to harass and eliminate high value targets like weapons teams or elites that regular infantry may have trouble handling.

As for the MG idea, it could go like this for something like the MG34:

Suppressive Fire (default)

• Longer bursts of less accurate fire
  
• Strong suppressive effect with wider AoE
  
• Narrower firing arc
  

Aimed Fire

• Shorter bursts of more accurate fire
  
• Weak suppressive effect with limited AoE
  
• Wider firing arc
  

That's why I like this sniper idea too. The current OST stun shot has a fairly similar effect, but it does not make any sense to me. Even in live I'd replace that in an instant for a suppression shot.

I know how the MG ammo could be done stat wise, but there is no logic explanation for it. That's the issue I have.

That's why I like this sniper idea too. The current OST stun shot has a fairly similar effect, but it does not make any sense to me. Even in live I'd replace that in an instant for a suppression shot.

I know how the MG ammo could be done stat wise, but there is no logic explanation for it. That's the issue I have.

Well when it comes down to it, the Sherman ammo switch doesn't have a logical explanation to it outside of game mechanics, nor does the ZiS-3/SU-76 barrage ability, when contextualized with the shortcomings of their normal attacks. At least this has a rationale associated with it: the MG team is switching focus between accuracy or area suppression, depending on whether they are targeting a single squad or want to keep a much larger group of soldiers at bay.

Well when it comes down to it, the Sherman ammo switch doesn't have a logical explanation to it outside of game mechanics, nor does the ZiS-3/SU-76 barrage ability, when contextualized with the shortcomings of their normal attacks. At least this has a rationale associated with it: the MG team is switching focus between accuracy or area suppression, depending on whether they are targeting a single squad or want to keep a much larger group of soldiers at bay.

What part of the Sherman's ammo switch mechanic is "illogical"? You're loading one of two different types of shell, either HE or APCBC.

Well when it comes down to it, the Sherman ammo switch doesn't have a logical explanation to it outside of game mechanics, nor does the ZiS-3/SU-76 barrage ability, when contextualized with the shortcomings of their normal attacks. At least this has a rationale associated with it: the MG team is switching focus between accuracy or area suppression, depending on whether they are targeting a single squad or want to keep a much larger group of soldiers at bay.

Crews had different shell types in their tanks. That's actually a pretty neat way to simulate that. I don't get what is illogical about it, apart from the ZiS using such a different trajectory.

Different orders for the gunner could be a somewhat logical explanation, but it does not always make sense. It is still only one squad, there is no much larger group. Suppression fire usually makes more sense if the enemy is behind cover, if you can't see him as well so there will be fire into the general direction to keep him in cover. Against squads in the open, it does not make an awful lot of sense to me. But maybe someone with a more military background can clear that up.

What part of the Sherman's ammo switch mechanic is "illogical"? You're loading one of two different types of shell, either HE or APCBC.

What's illogical is that only the Sherman needs to do it, whereas all other tanks seem to load different shells for different targets by default.

What's illogical is that only the Sherman needs to do it, whereas all other tanks seem to load different shells for different targets by default.

Other tanks just use the same shell for every target, which is why they're not as good as the shermans' specific-use shells. The ISU-152 has a similar shell switching mechanic, incidentally.