My wish for better infantry combat

Hello ladies and gents of the COH2.org community! I would like to share my thoughts on infantry combat and why it is problematic and how it can be improved.

I am really enjoying the combat in the first 10 minutes of the game. I especially like the infantry play in the first several minutes. Flanking is rewarded and proper positioning is important. It is really satisfying running up your conscript squad next to a gren squad, where the conscripts close-range advantage make it more lethal. Flanks around machine guns also feel wonderful.

This dynamic seems to change drastically in the mid and late game. There are more units to control first off, so micro and attention is harder. However most of these units are either vetted or elite infantry. They have great damage but also significant durability. These units, when blobbed, really make infantry combat not very fun. These blobs can do a lot of damage, even to units in cover, and take a lot of damage. This diminished the advantages of smart flanking and good cover.

I would like late game infantry fights to retain the dynamics of those first minute skirmishes, where flanking and cover are key to success.

I am not sure how to fix this issue, but I hope you players feel the same way about this problem. Perhaps Relic should:

1. tone down infantry lethality to discourage a-moving powerful units that pulverize everything
2. change the bonuses/penalties for units in cover/negative cover
3. ???

Everything is fine. Case closed.

Offensive vet outweighs the impact of defensive vet bonuses at the moment. While units may be balanced initially dynamics change with vet adding ~40% accuracy and 20% weapon cooldown while only mitigating the effects of the accuracy with defensive bonuses. In short vet = everybody dies faster

If you translate some of those offensive bonuses into defensive ones combat will slow down and it will be more rewarding to manuever into different ranges and cover discouraging standing in the open.

Also with lower damage lmgs won't kill a model just about every burst.

This will also make supression more helpful as mgs will be harder to focus down since they don't get any survivability bonuses with vet making them quite vulnerable

at least thats what i think should be done. This could make the blobs super durable, but since you can still blow them up with tanks and grenades i think durability is more counterable, Raw dps is harder to counterplay

You make the problem worse by decreasing infantry lethality. Remember infantry damage was much lower at the beginning of coh2 and cover didn't matter at all. Every squad could just move up to a enemy in green cover with minimal damage and throw their grenades and grenades decided almost every infantry fight, not cover.

Just make machineguns better at killing and bonus vs blobs and decrease their crew to 3 like vcoh because it works and prevents machinegun spam.

You make the problem worse by decreasing infantry lethality. Remember infantry damage was much lower at the beginning of coh2 and cover didn't matter at all. Every squad could just move up to a enemy in green cover with minimal damage and throw their grenades and grenades decided almost every infantry fight, not cover.

That is a good point. Good find That was not my intention hehe

Everything is fine. Case closed.

edit:

If you want this kind of infantry dynamic, you should try men of war assault squad

You make the problem worse by decreasing infantry lethality. Remember infantry damage was much lower at the beginning of coh2 and cover didn't matter at all. Every squad could just move up to a enemy in green cover with minimal damage and throw their grenades and grenades decided almost every infantry fight, not cover.

Just make machineguns better at killing and bonus vs blobs and decrease their crew to 3 like vcoh because it works and prevents machinegun spam.

I would say it's rather a matter of tweaking vet, long range weapon dps, MG and blobs.
If you read him again, he just want to have late game stage of game feel a bit more like first 10-15mins where lethality is there but not too high because of upgrades.

lmgs are the core of the problem. long range units are much safer and also more effective to use than short range troopers. together with good grenades on some of these infantry, they can fight smg troops in a pinch or rape them from afar.

there is no fun in infantry combat once lmg upgrades and obers come to play.

I remember November infantry combat of last year....

Never again.

lmgs are the core of the problem. long range units are much safer and also more effective to use than short range troopers. together with good grenades on some of these infantry, they can fight smg troops in a pinch or rape them from afar.

there is no fun in infantry combat once lmg upgrades and obers come to play.

Change LMG to original style again? Short-mid range weapon.

Change LMG to original style again? Short-mid range weapon.

OMG, what i'm supposed to do with this useless conscripts nao!

OMG, what i'm supposed to do with this useless conscripts nao!

6 rifles. Still good to kill at long range.

lmgs are the core of the problem. long range units are much safer and also more effective to use than short range troopers. together with good grenades on some of these infantry, they can fight smg troops in a pinch or rape them from afar.

there is no fun in infantry combat once lmg upgrades and obers come to play.

It'd be nice if there was actually a downside to choosing lmgs, like disabled grenades or disabled AT.

It'd be nice if there was actually a downside to choosing lmgs, like disabled grenades or disabled AT.

well when you talk about LMG units i assume you are talking about Grenadiers mainly, they do loose the ability to shoot on the move makeing then less effective in offensive situations or any situations where micro is required or where they have to move often, they also loose effectiveness as the enemy closes in range and at close range the LMG-42 does the same damage as a regular Mauser K98k

and considering the 60muni price tag they should gain the advantages

you also have to remember the grenadiers are not durable due to having only a 4 man squad which makes the purpose of Grenadiers clear long range only, lmg just gives them more relevance late game

Change LMG to original style again? Short-mid range weapon.

Maybe opt for flat DPS regardless of range? Or model-based success (low dps vs singles, bonus dps vs blobs)? Or maybe a flat +__ DPS to their standard weapons?

Nerf these ridiculous "received accuracy" bonuses some units get. Mainly Volks.

Maybe opt for flat DPS regardless of range? Or model-based success (low dps vs singles, bonus dps vs blobs)? Or maybe a flat +__ DPS to their standard weapons?

I like this. Flat DPS would be good.

well when you talk about LMG units i assume you are talking about Grenadiers mainly, they do loose the ability to shoot on the move makeing then less effective in offensive situations or any situations where micro is required or where they have to move often, they also loose effectiveness as the enemy closes in range and at close range the LMG-42 does the same damage as a regular Mauser K98k

and considering the 60muni price tag they should gain the advantages

you also have to remember the grenadiers are not durable due to having only a 4 man squad which makes the purpose of Grenadiers clear long range only, lmg just gives them more relevance late game

what micro? A+move with lmg blob.

Maybe opt for flat DPS regardless of range? Or model-based success (low dps vs singles, bonus dps vs blobs)? Or maybe a flat +__ DPS to their standard weapons?

Hey good ideas



It is a delicate balancing act. Perhaps dps nerfs and received accuracy nerfs and or cover bonuses changed.

Too much DPS nerf = Units just running up to your face regardless of situation.
Received accuracy nerfs - things die too fast

So it would be good to change both of these at the same time. Some units like Volks and Obers just never die. They tank so much damage without really being in cover.

Hmm I think one of the biggest reasons why late-game infantry combat is so much less exciting than early game infantry combat is because in the late game there is yellow cover EVERYWHERE and it works in all directions.