Auto reinforce

Oh yes, great example. A game that averages 700 people a day at its best. DoW2 was a boring, super simplified CoH. I would not be surprised that most players preferred the Last Stand mode, which is still played today.

Oh, look, a post completely irrelevant to the discussion that completely and utterly avoids the argument!
Would you like to contribute something actually useful in the future, or you are content with just increasing post count with some words?

Oh, look, a post completely irrelevant to the discussion that completely and utterly avoids the argument!
Would you like to contribute something actually useful in the future, or you are content with just increasing post count with some words?

I have already expressed my position, but I will repeat it especially for you: auto-replenishment and auto-building are elements of simplification that are needed for noobs - the player must also be able to correctly manage his base: strengthen troops in time and correctly, decide when to use engineers to build a base, choose prioritize either map control at the beginning, or support. Right now with the builder magic gnomes, there is no need for engineers at the start.

I have already expressed my position, but I will repeat it especially for you: auto-replenishment and auto-building are elements of simplification that are needed for noobs - the player must also be able to correctly manage his base: strengthen troops in time and correctly, decide when to use engineers to build a base, choose prioritize either map control at the beginning, or support. Right now with the builder magic gnomes, there is no need for engineers at the start.

You do realize these QOL changes were introduced into CoH3 based on top players feedback, CoH1 and 2 elite is playtasting CoH3 for years, so based just on that, your argument couldn't be any more irrelevant.

CoH was never macro game and never will be.
Play AoE or SC for macro.

I have already expressed my position, but I will repeat it especially for you: auto-replenishment and auto-building are elements of simplification that are needed for noobs - the player must also be able to correctly manage his base: strengthen troops in time and correctly, decide when to use engineers to build a base, choose prioritize either map control at the beginning, or support. Right now with the builder magic gnomes, there is no need for engineers at the start.

I see the strength of any CoH game in microing your units correctly. Why do you think that it is more fun/important to spend time on reinforcing than on proper micro such as movement orders, positioning and coordinated pushes? Time is a limited resource, games generally try to minimize tasks that are "not in the main focus".
The only point I can see is if you generally want more macro in CoH. If so, would you then want more macro based mechanics, such as the (mockingly) suggested refueling? This could also be expanded to other areas, such as removing auto healing etc.

You do realize these QOL changes were introduced into CoH3 based on top players feedback, CoH1 and 2 elite is playtasting CoH3 for years, so based just on that, your argument couldn't be any more irrelevant.

CoH was never macro game and never will be.
Play AoE or SC for macro.

What do top level players have to do with general game design? Understanding how to min-max on given mechanics does not give you the magical ability to design good games. Their opinion is not worth any more than any other player that at least makes an effort for an educated point.
We don't even know if they favor this change. The only thing that we can say is that Relic wants to implement it and that the complaints are not loud enough to make Relic change their mind.

I see the strength of any CoH game in microing your units correctly. Why do you think that it is more fun/important to spend time on reinforcing than on proper micro such as movement orders, positioning and coordinated pushes? Time is a limited resource, games generally try to minimize tasks that are "not in the main focus".
The only point I can see is if you generally want more macro in CoH. If so, would you then want more macro based mechanics, such as the (mockingly) suggested refueling? This could also be expanded to other areas, such as removing auto healing etc.

Because it directly affects two parts of the game. Do you choose to build a building or more control and units on the map? All this is not there, engineers at the start are meaningless, they have lost one of their
one of main meaning. Are you bad at command and forgot to reinforce your troops? You have lost the initiative. Now this is not there, all this reminds me of the Activivision initiatives so that it would be "friendlier" for a noob to play instead of understanding the game and improving skills.

IMO, auto reinforce for top players will be more of a hindrance anyway, but itll come down to if the manpower is as important as it is in coh2 currently. If its anything like coh1/how it currently is (for everyone but DAK p much) then its just an autopick.


In coh2 optimizing what you reinforce and when and choosing which unit is hitting the field (say a 20% squad at 3/4 models, vs 2/4 at 50%) is what gives it depth in having choice, there's a LOT of nuance to the choice that isn't obvious at a glance.

Edit: Accidental reply lol

Because it directly affects two parts of the game. Do you choose to build a building or more control and units on the map? All this is not there, engineers at the start are meaningless, they have lost one of their
one of main meaning. Are you bad at command and forgot to reinforce your troops? You have lost the initiative. Now this is not there, all this reminds me of the Activivision initiatives so that it would be "friendlier" for a noob to play instead of understanding the game and improving skills.

I am mentally mostly thinking about the auto reinforce, but let's slightly split the argument.

Regarding autobuilding/teching, I can see a point. However, I think that CoH2 did a very bad job at this mechanic as well. Only 2 out of 5 factions need their engineers for teching, and neither engineer units have a larger impact on the front. Even if you'd need to retreat them at full health, their combat potential is relatively low. While you could obviously get a bit of DPS out of them or try to sweep a mine later on, you can definitely afford to retreat them. Adding to this, the time between building the tech building and acquiring enough fuel to build a vehicle from it is far apart, and there is no benefit from just having the building itself. It does not matter if you build tech as soon as you have enough fuel for it or you accumulate fuel and start building at the last moment, finishing just in time for producing the vehicle. This usually gives you a large time frame (e.g., during which you are almost guaranteed to retreat your engineer. The only instance where this influences timings and the game is getting the 222 out as Ostheer, because the window is rather small with 30 fuel for the 222 and mistimings between BP1-T2-222 can delay it a bit. I never really had issues with the T70 as Soviets. 70 fuel is roughly 3 min worth of income. That is a large enough window that I probably need to retreat my engineers from combat in between anyway. Ostheer T3 and Soviet T4 have even larger windows.
To fix that, engineers would have to be potent in combat so that not having them on the front actually made a dent in your defense and the time frame between teching up and actually getting something useful out of it need to be reduced. But still: Is this really worth and fun, to take so much of your attention away from the battle? People where already complaining about OKW T1 needing to be clicked so often for tech ups that are both necessary, but only worth little. Yes, a good player will time everything correctly, but this is memorizing stuff and has nothing to do with tactical skills, which should be the focus of an RTS.


Regarding the auto reinforcement, I do not see a point. This is mostly memorizing stuff that you'll usually not think about anyway. You will skip over your base, select everything and reinforce >90% of the time anyway. In very few times, there will be some decision to make to tech up or reinforce either squad A or B. But those are rather scarce. Again, is it really worth taking focus and time from real tactical decision making? I personally don't think so. But even if you disagree, your argument "Are you bad at command and forgot to reinforce your troops?" can be used to justify a lot of clicking. (Exaggeration obviously All your squads fall asleep if they don't get an order for 30 secs, after which you need to press the wake up button and they go through a 10 sec animation before taking commands again. If you're bad at command and forgot to wake up your troops, you have lost the initiative. Which is exactly how you justify manual reinforcement. This example actually comes fairly close to reinforcing. Squad is not combat ready (asleep/not reinforced) -> go to squad, spam button without having to decide anything in 90% of cases (reinforce, wake up) -> do something else for a while -> give order to squad again.
What about auto healing then? This should surely be manual. With a long cool down, it could even include some actual decision making (do I heal the troops now or after the large battle?). The healing automatrons should be very bad for gameplay and differentiating good from bad players if I follow your argument.

And this can be expanded hugely. Refueling tanks, automatic reloading, autotargeting of squads. Your main differentiator is who can remember and click things faster than the other player, not who is actually able to pull of the better assault.

This is actually so funny to see.

Back when CoH2 was new, players from vCOH complained, that "Hey, new capture system is garbage", despite its being better, just because of the fact that it wasn't as abusable as in vCoH.

On a side note, no-one liked base building in CoH2, besides "Super-pro efficient players, who count every second". And the ones who liked it, most likely then not, liked it because of how garbage UKF\USF bases were in comparison.

In CoH3, if you want to be efficient with your buildings, sure, build it as you want. Don't like base building? Double click it and forget about it.

Same with auto-reinforcing. Don't like it? Want to manually click it, sure, disable it.

And Katitof nailed it, CoH was never about macro and RPM for the most part. It was actually about counter-measures, strategy and unit positioning.

Thx but most of the players had enough of this in CoH2, where "briliant e-sports competitive decisions" made a game into macrowing your x4 mainlines and x2 AT guns until tanks arrive.

The only some what reasonable complain is auto-forward reinforce, but its more of a balance issue, since forward-reinforce and especially during combat, shouldn't be as fast as normal one.

Well about the auto reinforcement if it boggers good players wencan even go as far as forcing it to be disable in competition. Bur for the casual people like the friends I sometime play with it's such a reflief. Some people don't have the micro, experience, and thinking time to do all these micro things. And if you do not like it, as I said at the beggining make a poll for tournament players and see if they want it on or off. problem solved imo.

And as a result putting yourself at a disadvantage compared to the players who have it enabled?

It's not really a disadvantage though. A lot of times, enabled Auto-Reinforce will result in the annoying situation where your manpower disappears by itself even though you are saving for an important new unit. And in that case it's incredibly fiddly to cancel all the reinforcements & disable AR in time before the mp is gone for good.

I would not use the feature personally unless a lot of manpower is floated in the late game.

What's really broken & stupid however is auto-reinforce on frontline halftracks and ambulances, that shit needs to be removed asap.

What's really broken & stupid however is auto-reinforce on frontline halftracks and ambulances, that shit needs to be removed asap.

Either this or generally preventing units from reinforcing if they have been in combat in the last X seconds. At least if they are outside of the base sector.

I fail to see how reinforce in combat would be bad now after it was perfectly fine in CoH1 and 2.

Not having to spam button didn't made it balanced, because even damn bad players used it without much of an issue.

I fail to see how reinforce in combat would be bad now after it was perfectly fine in CoH1 and 2.

Not having to spam button didn't made it balanced, because even damn bad players used it without much of an issue.

It was fine because it was not an auto-reinforce, here we are talking about microing your units during a fight not managing your base.

Imo auto-reinforce, which I support, should be only available within the base area.

It was fine because it was not an auto-reinforce, here we are talking about microing your units during a fight not managing your base.

Imo auto-reinforce, which I support, should be only available within the base area.

Again, it is irrelevant if it is auto reinforce or not, I've played against utter noobs in coh2 who spammed pios and 251 and they never had any problem spamming reinforce in combat, this is no micro issue, because spamming R or F while your blob is selected never was, isn't and never be a skill or micro issue.

It was always about your manpower stockpile and reinforce speed vs enemy units firepower, nothing more, nothing less and most certainly, no taxing micro involved.

Its just one button you had to mash every X seconds, depending on squad size.

If you didn't had plenty of suppression or reinforcement of your own, you always got pushed back by reinforced units, it was never micro or skill thing, this is why I believe it is irrelevant if its on auto or not in combat and this is why I'm for it being optional setting for everything as it was during the test.

Alright, I doubt that driving your tank back to base every 5 min to refuel would benefit the gameflow in any way. So no, I would not like that. However, I do like basic macro management in RTS games. That includes reeinforcement management and base buildings. Simplifying that already basic process hurts the game in my eyes. Let me ask you this: why not take this further and move units to a way point after being fully reeinforced? Or automatically search cover?
Btw, I was against adding the "manual reload" button in Coh2. I would have been fine to reset magazines after a short time when out of combat. That is tedious.

There's a downside to autoreinforcing, in that you don't have fine control over the process (which can cost you manpower). The way to alleviate that issue is to disable autoreinforce... Which is still an aspect of macro management. I get where people are coming from regarding this mechanic, but I do think it's a good change. High level players are already adept at reinforcing units, and the addition of autoreinforce isnt going to do anything but allow both players to focus more heavily on engagements.

Moving units to a waypoint after replenishment is honestly not that much different to waypointing a unit you're building, to move to a location as soon as it is built. Is the latter something that should be removed? I might even be more pedantic and ask whether you think attack-move is a bad mechanic that simplifies the game (In terms of, for example, attack moving a rifle squad so that they stay at max range rather than walking directly into an SMG squad).

Autosearching cover would be a terrible mechanic, I don't think it's comparable. Positioning and engagement managment is the core gameplay loop, automating that in some way is indeed simplifying the game in a negative fashion.

A manual reload key is far better than units reloading automatically. Unless you mean that units would just instantly replenish their magazines after a delay... In which case that would honestly be a decent idea.

Unless you mean that units would just instantly replenish their magazines after a delay... In which case that would honestly be a decent idea.

I don't like the idea of certain units having infinite magazines hollywood-style. No need to make it instant when it can just be a normal reload. Realistically almost nobody would notice, but it would be better attention to detail if they did a quick reload after some time out of combat.