Design: Froward Reinforcement/healing

Another aspect of Coh2 that could be improved is forward recommencement/healing mechanism.

FR/H point in COH2 give a big advantage to certain faction and allow people to turtle around.

One could lower the healing speed and increase the reinforcement time but have base provide a bonus to both. This tool would allow a separate balancing for in base and FR/H speed allowing results.

In addition squad could be changed to standard reinforcement according to type from faster to slower:

Support troops
mainline troops
Elite troops
support weapons

The reason why support weapon should reinforce slower is that inflicting causalities to them is more difficult since these weapon have great range.

Reinforcement types are already a thing. Just a unit to unit basis. Obers reinforce slower, ostruppen faster etc

I agree though. Frontline reinforcing is undynamic and unfun gameplay that forces overinvestment on one side (coh1) or makes the game cheesy (coh2)

Reinforcement types are already a thing. Just a unit to unit basis. Obers reinforce slower, ostruppen faster etc

No actually they are not based on types.

When Coh2 was launched reinforcement time was directly linked to entity cost.

After all the patches that have changed entities cost and reinforcement cost there is no logic, it is simply a mess.

I agree though. Frontline reinforcing is undynamic and unfun gameplay that forces overinvestment on one side (coh1) or makes the game cheesy (coh2)

Glad that you agree.

I think the only necessary change would be to disable reinforcing during combat outside your base sector

I think the only necessary change would be to disable reinforcing during combat outside your base sector

What about halftracks? Would such a change greatly reduce their utility?

What about halftracks? Would such a change greatly reduce their utility?

Not at all, you can still put them somewhat to the frontline and then soft-retreat to them. Just not anymore parked right next to fighting squads

Not at all, you can still put them somewhat to the frontline and then soft-retreat to them. Just not anymore parked right next to fighting squads

I still prefer OP suggestion...

The only issue I have with CoH2's forward reinforcement system is, that forward retreat points exist. Those promote blobbing and careless movement because the cost of retreat gets diminished heavily. On top of that, not all factions have access to forward retreat/healing/reinforcement points and even the one's that have differ a lot in accessibility.

Ostheer did it best:
No forward retreat point, giving incentive to smart movement, disengagement when necessary and soft retreats. At the same time. Forward healing and reinforcement are available but either gated by fuel/micro (251) or static structures that are vulnerable to artillery (bunkers).
This way, Ostheer still gets punished if they are fully routed and can lose their forward structures, but you can gain significantly if you consistently manage to hold your line and prevent enemy reconnaissance.

On the point of tying reinforcement time to unit classes: CoH2 ties it to combat value, at least for the most part, and that's what makes the most sense. A e.g. Grenadier has higher combat value than a Conscript and due to the long range LMG also lower risk of dying. Losing one should be punished more than losing a Conscript.
There can be definitely some overlap with "unit classes" as Vipper suggested with the support weapons, but deciding on a unit per unit bases is still the smartest thing to do and also gives more room to differential faction design (e.g. Faction A relying more on team weapons and needs them more readily available than faction B etc).

^^^^^^^^^^^

All these people did not play the beta in order to see how fucking OP lelic is making fr/fh for COH3.

Quoting directly from my experiences post:

Auto-reinforcing may be way too op, even for this forum's axis' larpers' standards. I cannot see a way to fix this. It gets worse when you realize that you can build an HP center in every point you capture and it gives you free reinforce, free heal and retreat point. So in essence for paying 100mp and 50muni to upgrade point, you get auto reinforce, free reinforce, free heal and free retreat point. Boy does it sound shitty.

Where did you get that from?

There was a reinforcement upgrade in the singleplayer alpha for the manpower point. I doubt that will appear in MP.

There was, but Relic made it clear in their online video streams that numerous gameplay elements are strictly SP only. If this particular reinforce point remains for MP is not known to the public, but to me, this feels like a proper SP feature.

The old system implement by Relic with reinforcement time connected to entity cost was completely arbitrary was part of the reason why certain units where and some still are UP.

Imo it was one of the main issue with Pg which not only had to retreat earlier due to low entity count but also had to spend lots of down time to reinforce. Same thing now happen with Ostheer officer with their long reinforcement time.


As for Bunker imo the change that allow ostheer to build make to upgrades one one bunker is part of ostheer strength (at least in larger games). It would have been better if command bunker where cheaper and only healed garrisoned units.

There was, but Relic made it clear that numerous gameplay elements are strictly SP only. If this particular reinforce point remains for MP is not known to the public, but to me, this feels like a proper SP feature.

a ok I hope that's the case because SP FR/FH was so insanely op that it made compstomping even on expert a piece of cake

singleplayer and multiplayer will have their own balance.