Call-in design philosophy - backwards?

When CoH2 was in alpha/early beta, all commander-specific units had to be built from tech structures.

I like this and think it should be changed back,but instead of replacing units,it simply adds the call-in to the building,with the ability to buy said call-in at a certain CP count.

Examples:
Elefant in T4 Heavy Panzer Korps Building,14 CP,230 Fuel
Stug E,T3 building.

US,M10 in Captain building,7 cp
Bulldozer Sherm,Major Building,10 CP

Assault Engineers,T0 Building,0 cp,very quick build time compared to riflemen instead of instant callin.

Guards,T1 building,Shocks,T2 Building. Both at 2cp. KV8,T3. Kv1,T4.


OKW can continue to spawn falls in buildings instantly,
JLI same as fallschrims. fusiliers come out of Med halftruck,all at 3 CP
Ostwind,from Mechanized HQ.


T34/85,T3 building.

I'm glad you're thinking about it, but what you said implies that this HASN'T been thought about already, and I wonder how this could be true.

We've seen so much discussion on here about this very topic and it's so blindingly obvious from just playing the game that this system is so wrong.

yes it is actually a scary thought. i was thinking the same thing when the relic person made that comment. i wonder if they grasp the severity of the issue.

I like this and think it should be changed back,but instead of replacing units,it simply adds the call-in to the building,with the ability to buy said call-in at a certain CP count.

Examples:
Elefant in T4 Heavy Panzer Korps Building,14 CP,230 Fuel
Stug E,T3 building.

US,M10 in Captain building,7 cp
Bulldozer Sherm,Major Building,10 CP

Assault Engineers,T0 Building,0 cp,very quick build time compared to riflemen instead of instant callin.

Guards,T1 building,Shocks,T2 Building. Both at 2cp. KV8,T3. Kv1,T4.


OKW can continue to spawn falls in buildings instantly,
JLI same as fallschrims. fusiliers come out of Med halftruck,all at 3 CP
Ostwind,from Mechanized HQ.


T34/85,T3 building.

I think that for Soviets especially, but also possibly for USF and OKW, you need to be careful with this. Soviets are not designed to get all 4 tiers, so saying that Guards only come with a T1 limits strategies. This would be extra punishing for call in tanks, as both Soviet T3 and T4 cost 120 fuel, meaning you couldn't use T-34/85s with SU-85 back up or an ISU with T-34/76s.

USF is also encouraged to tier skip, getting either Lieutenant or Captain. Thus stuff like Paratroopers, Greyhounds, or Wolverines should be either have Lieutenant or Captain + CP gate.

OKW can skip tiers, but they generally seem to get all 3 in a game. Their tech is also the cheapest.

i believe all faction should be able to build all tier building in the first 30 mins, otherwise this game just boring and lack of strategy

It's easier just to tie call ins to tech buildings and increase CPs for the heavies at the same time.

Elefant/tiger for T4, medium tanks for T3.

Increase CP for soviet Heavy tanks and tie them to T3/T4 (since Soviet T3/T4 is cheaper than ost T4).

The US and OKW has less of a problem with call ins.

Even if this would "nerf" call ins, it wouldnt effect faction balance since players would just have to use stock teching which is ideally supposed to be balanced.

I'm glad you're thinking about it, but what you said implies that this HASN'T been thought about already, and I wonder how this could be true.

We've seen so much discussion on here about this very topic and it's so blindingly obvious from just playing the game that this system is so wrong.

It's a core part of the game, and Relic has actually been surprisingly flexible about fundamentally altering the game post release (March Deployment), so I think you may be setting your expectations here may be a little unreasonable. Also I'm sure they've already been thinking about it long before now.

Thanks for being involved with the community, Peter. It's cool to hear what you guys are up to. For the record, I only complain about stuff cuz I like the game so much. : p

I didn't realize this at the time, bu Relic already did what I was thinking of with OKW - commander call-ins give you okayish tanks like Ostwinds or P4s, and the more powerful, effective, or interesting tanks, like OKW Panther, Sturmtiger, and King Tiger, come through teching, the last only through full teching. I also know that people have mixed feelings about that, though. There's the Jadgtiger but that's the exception. I guess both approaches have their ups and their downs. I don't quite know what I'm talking about as far as balance goes, but I know that OKW teching/tank progression/call-ins just feels more satisfying and intuitive.

I like this and think it should be changed back,but instead of replacing units,it simply adds the call-in to the building,with the ability to buy said call-in at a certain CP count.

Examples:
Elefant in T4 Heavy Panzer Korps Building,14 CP,230 Fuel
Stug E,T3 building.

US,M10 in Captain building,7 cp
Bulldozer Sherm,Major Building,10 CP

Assault Engineers,T0 Building,0 cp,very quick build time compared to riflemen instead of instant callin.

Guards,T1 building,Shocks,T2 Building. Both at 2cp. KV8,T3. Kv1,T4.


OKW can continue to spawn falls in buildings instantly,
JLI same as fallschrims. fusiliers come out of Med halftruck,all at 3 CP
Ostwind,from Mechanized HQ.


T34/85,T3 building.

This is pretty cool idea and could work with armor.

• The building can build the armor, but that unit can only be un-greyed out once the commander is selected. For example, you won't be able to get an IS2 and ISU152.
  
• If the building is destroyed the player must rebuild it to get their armor back.
  
• Technically, you could assign a build time to them.
  
• Timing is still controlled through the CP system.
  
  

yes great suggestions!! Teching should always be a good choice instead of waiting solely for call-ins. What the hell is the point of building god damn buildings if there is no incentive

I believe fuel costs on call-ins is a problem, because right now it forces you to go Tier units or doctrine units, in CoH1 you could get Tiger in late game for 800 MP and that was fair and you could get some other tanks too from tiers, CoH2 is one sided in terms of tiers, call-ins or tiers, never both (talking about small matches like 1v1)

Another thing is, in coh1 call-ins were side grades or different role units. In coh2 they are plain upgrades over tier ones, so there is even less of a reason to go stock units. Couple that with ineffectiveness of stock armor(especially for soviets) compared to call-in one and we have current meta.

The idea is that the stock tanks were more common in WW2, so you're supposed to see them more often, whereas the big boys (elefant, etc.) were rarer, so they are tied to a doctrine.

However, I do think tying the call-ins to fuel hurts the other tech options... In vCoH you'd see plenty of Sherman play leading up to a Pershing whereas in CoH2 the choice is more binary... do you want vanilla Sherman OR Easy 8?

Because you won't have enough fuel for both.

It makes the gameplay less interesting.

A part of me feels the callins should be MP-only like in the past. This would allow normal teching and vehicles to be made. If you want to make a call-in more prohibitive (like Jagdtiger), you could force players to have all the buildings deployed first on top of the ostensibly very large manpower investment.

The idea is that the stock tanks were more common in WW2, so you're supposed to see them more often, whereas the big boys (elefant, etc.) were rarer, so they are tied to a doctrine.

However, I do think tying the call-ins to fuel hurts the other tech options... In vCoH you'd see plenty of Sherman play leading up to a Pershing whereas in CoH2 the choice is more binary... do you want vanilla Sherman OR Easy 8?

Because you won't have enough fuel for both.

It makes the gameplay less interesting.

A part of me feels the callins should be MP-only like in the past. This would allow normal teching and vehicles to be made. If you want to make a call-in more prohibitive (like Jagdtiger), you could force players to have all the buildings deployed first on top of the ostensibly very large manpower investment.

There would have to be limits of deployment, and it also makes them more spammable. You lose an ISU and you easily get the manpower to replace it 5 minutes later.

There would have to be limits of deployment, and it also makes them more spammable. You lose an ISU and you easily get the manpower to replace it 5 minutes later.

That's a good point, but I think that's also why CoH1 tied popcap to map control. So that if you pushed a tiger off the field and cut him off from the map, he might have the MP but still couldn't call in another tiger.

Or just put a monster upkeep cost on super tanks such that manpower dribbles in when they're out.

BTW... I didn't clarify, but I think one way to encourage the non call-in vehicles would be to keep their fuel cost about the same but create a sizable gulf between their MP cost and the MP cost of a call-in.

So for example a normal Sherman might be 350MP 110 fuel whereas Easy 8 Sherman could cost 700MP flat. Super heavies could cost about 1200MP with lots of upkeep cost.

Tying popcap to sectors contributed to the snowball effect, which Relic wanted to avoid this time. Sure, many old fans still think if you lose your fuel and cutoff, you should automatically lose the game. But that's not the philosophy in this game, they wanted you to have the option of fighting back.

Tying popcap to sectors contributed to the snowball effect, which Relic wanted to avoid this time. Sure, many old fans still think if you lose your fuel and cutoff, you should automatically lose the game. But that's not the philosophy in this game, they wanted you to have the option of fighting back.

Yeah good point, but we don't have to tie it to map control. Like I said, super heavies could have a large upkeep cost such that they couldn't ordinarily generate enough MP during their lifespan to become instantly replaceable once they die.

That's a good point, but I think that's also why CoH1 tied popcap to map control. So that if you pushed a tiger off the field and cut him off from the map, he might have the MP but still couldn't call in another tiger.

You could only have 1 heavy at a time in CoH 1. If your Tiger or Pershing died, you could get another, but you couldn't have two at once.

I think different solutions ought to be tailored for each type of call in. Some call ins are meant to help you with a timing push, they offer weaker vehicles but the possibility to get them earlier or cheaper. Those perhaps ought to stay as they are. Its the call ins that offer significant upgrades that need to be tied to tech levels.

For example the easy8 is a clear upgrade to the regular sherman, and its cheaper if you skip teching. So it provides a double blast of cheaper tanks + better tanks. Theres no downside or risk involved with the ability.

That is an interesting point Lucas, definitely something for us to think about.

Have a cookie, we will now do something totally different.

i can't help but be cynical...

Tying popcap to sectors contributed to the snowball effect, which Relic wanted to avoid this time. Sure, many old fans still think if you lose your fuel and cutoff, you should automatically lose the game. But that's not the philosophy in this game, they wanted you to have the option of fighting back.

It didn't though. As a person who played and watched a whole lot of vCoH over 5 years, the only time popcap was ever an issue was super-late-game when you had a whole ton of units and your opponent managed to cut you off from a large chunk of your territory. It never let one player just roll the other because the other player couldn't build units. That actually never happened. The "snowball" effect came from the fact that resource sectors were more valuable in vCoH than they are in CoH2, which brings us to your second point...

If you lose an important resource, you should be punished for it. The benefit of vCoH's resource system was it focused the action around key points on the map. In CoH2 each resource point is less important on its own, so action is far less focused. Not necessarily a bad thing, just different, though I'd argue it makes interesting map design a lot more difficult to achieve because you are less able to control how your map will be played.

Going back to the whole popcap debate, in CoH2 it's more an issue of the upkeep system being totally wonky, since as I mentioned above, the vCoH popcap system never actually prevented you from building units except in rare, outlying circumstances.

The vcoh system of doctrine tanks was perfect. Doctrinal tanks for NO fuel but very costly in manpower. Also limited to 1 at a time. I don't think doctrinal medium tanks should be restricted to one at a time, but the heavies should. Then people will use these heavy tanks to supplement their mid/later game tanks rather than spamming them in replacement of them which is very boring and a big reason why I don't play the game very much.

I believe fuel costs on call-ins is a problem, because right now it forces you to go Tier units or doctrine units, in CoH1 you could get Tiger in late game for 800 MP and that was fair and you could get some other tanks too from tiers, CoH2 is one sided in terms of tiers, call-ins or tiers, never both (talking about small matches like 1v1)

This is the problem, tbh.

In CoH2, you have to decide whether you go for doctrinal units or "regular" units, because both of them cost fuel. So obviously, everybody will take the stronger, more cost efficient unit over the weaker one.

By lowering / removing the fuel cost on the call-ins, and in return increasing the manpower cost, you could get your regular units while also calling in a doctrinal one.

I guess the call-in units need some power adjustment then, but in general, this is the easiest way of achieving a variation of doctrinal and non-doctrinal units while maintaining a healthy game flow.

The only problem is that you are then even more forced into using the doctrines that have these call-ins, as you are otherwise probably at a disadvantage.