Remove USF Major and OKW Med truck retreat

1. The nature of the factions already makes them quite blobby, but having your armys focal point fairly close to the middle of the map worsens the problem.

2. The excess of infantry units around the truck/Major creates a big clusterfuck in engagements. Units behave badly when they are grouped so close. OKW units get stuck near the truck. Sometimes you accidentally retreat the major instead of your units, and sometimes you are trying to leave to your HQ (in case of arty for example) but its difficult to find your Major in the blob to disable his retreat path.

3. Unfair towards vanilla factions that must run back to base.

4. In some games this leads to ceaseless blob v blob combat. In CoH1 and vanilla CoH2 sometimes there are games with only a few coordinated large engagements, and then other games with constant combat but with only a few units at a time as your squads are constantly going in and out of your HQ to reinforce. In WFA you have constant combat, but with your entire army rather than just a few units at a time. This is pretty lame for a couple reasons. First because it is fairly difficult to micro that many units at one time for an extended period of time (up to an hour). The agonizing part is you aren't even doing much meaningful micro (such as arranging flanks and executing) its just non stop focus fire, throwing and dodging grenades, and retreating. The second problem is it makes forcing certain units to retreat far less rewarding. Only shrek squad forced off? No problem he will be back in a second. Same thing goes for MGs and the silly racketenwerfers. It makes it harder to capitalize on retreated units, and gives a strong point on the map that is insanely difficult to win over in an even matchup.

5. The mass killing of units that are stuck at that retreat point is silly, and not very satisfying. The USF artillery tank or the Luchs getting mass kills at the retreat point is not interesting gameplay.

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Keep the Medical truck and Medical truck reinforcing, just scrap the retreat points. As an alternative maybe give the USF truck a little more mobility and some extra health, and let the OKW purchase a increased reinforce speed from their medical truck.

agree.

I advise a delay in time of reinforcements of forwward truck/ambulace.

I like semoisky games when on one side of the church is medic truck and on the other major with ambulance. That is simply loltastic to watch.

And yes, this is bad design given the size of maps, but sadly I can't see it go, so complaining about it is pointless.

Moreover, we already got leaks that wehr might get FHQ with retreat point, so that leaves only soviets without one in the future.

I agree with the OP.

If OKW truck is not retreat point.

then they need to be able to produce a halftrack to reinforce in combat.

Or the option to pack up and relocate med truck

USF has halftrack in commander. usf would need halftrack to be non doc as well

That being said, this thread is pointless. relic will not remove the retreat points.

or at best they will add commanders for vanilla factions that allows retreat points

Moreover, we already got leaks that wehr might get FHQ with retreat point, so that leaves only soviets without one in the future.

poor soviets already have one

Since i don't think it'll ever be removed, i think it would be worth trying a different aproach.

Different reinforce speeds, being the ambulance and the HQ the slowest.

Base > FHQ/Bunkers >= M3-HT-M5 > Ambulance/Medic HQ

If OKW truck is not retreat point.

then they need to be able to produce a halftrack to reinforce in combat.

Or the option to pack up and relocate med truck

No not every faction needs a unit that does X just because another faction has one. But moveable trucks isn't a bad idea.

poor soviets already have one

Please master, guide the blind soviet masses to FHQ retreat point as we all are in the dark and can not see one since... forever.

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Wholeheartedly agree with op. Reward players who soft retreat. Potentially splits blobs as well... this could be good. The only thing is it makes major worthless except for fake barrage mind games. No ideas on that though. Major is almost worthless now. At least before Scottie could beam him into abandoned vehicles....lol. just remove his pop cap or make him a medic or something.

You could make his off map don't suck as much.

I completely agree with the OP.
My main gripe is that these retreat points pretty much invalidate MGs, as retreats are by no means as punishing as they are for the vanilla factions.


Sadly I also think relic won't change this in the near future ...
BUT
... if we want this game to evolve these kind of threads are invaluable.

This sounds like a good Idea, too bad its a non-stat change and therefore will never happen

To a limited point, I see where Bas is coming from, but he does not address these two issues: Ostheer can reinforce from the half-track, and SU can also reinforce from a half track.

Bas also suggests that the OKW trucks could be made mobile - as per Britz truckin'?

But moveable trucks isn't a bad idea.

. I really do not like this idea- can you imagine the Schwere Cannone edging gently into central Semmy? Before the heavies from OKW appear? It's like having an Ostwind on speed. Just no. sorry

Or the OKW Battlegroup (Med sic) truck advancing firmly and furtively, behind a blob of Sturms/Obers/Fallschirmjaegers/Panzerfusiliers, constantly reinforcing? ? It will make the Ambulance from the USF look like a pussy. Just no. It's crazed.

Britz trucks will seem like a blessed relief, in comparison.

To a limited point, I see where Bas is coming from, but he does not address these two issues: Ostheer can reinforce from the half-track, and SU can also reinforce from a half track.

Bas also suggests that the OKW trucks could be made mobile - as per Britz truckin'? . I really do not like this idea- can you imagine the Schwere Cannone edging gently into central Semmy? Before the heavies from OKW appear? It's like having an Ostwind on speed. Just no. sorry

Or the OKW Battlegroup (Med sic) truck advancing firmly and furtively, behind a blob of Sturms/Obers/Fallschirmjaegers/Panzerfusiliers, constantly reinforcing? ? It will make the Ambulance from the USF look like a pussy. Just no. It's crazed.

Britz trucks will seem like a blessed relief, in comparison.

i think he is concerned more with the retreat point, not the reinforcing part. agree with movable medic truck though. would hate to see it able to creep up.

To a limited point, I see where Bas is coming from, but he does not address these two issues: Ostheer can reinforce from the half-track, and SU can also reinforce from a half track.

Bas also suggests that the OKW trucks could be made mobile - as per Britz truckin'? . I really do not like this idea- can you imagine the Schwere Cannone edging gently into central Semmy? Before the heavies from OKW appear? It's like having an Ostwind on speed. Just no. sorry

Or the OKW Battlegroup (Med sic) truck advancing firmly and furtively, behind a blob of Sturms/Obers/Fallschirmjaegers/Panzerfusiliers, constantly reinforcing? ? It will make the Ambulance from the USF look like a pussy. Just no. It's crazed.

Britz trucks will seem like a blessed relief, in comparison.

1. I never said get rid of the forward reinforcing, only the retreat points. Ostheer and SU halftracks do not have a toggle retreat point. Its a good thing to be able to soft retreat your units to a reinforce point like that. Soft retreating takes time, and your units cannot outrun if they are being pursued nor get any retreat modifiers. When you have a low health unit in combat you have to make a risk/reward decision to soft retreat. If you soft retreat him instead of immediately retreating he can rejoin the fight sooner but is more likely to get killed. If you retreat you will usually survive but he will run all the way back to base. When your FHQ is your retreat point, there is no decision to be made. You benefit from quick exit, retreat modifiers, and a quicker return. Another situation that becomes a no-brainer is getting away from artillery in a pinch. Before you have to decide whether to take the safe bet and retreat back home, or try to walk out of it and hope for the best. Now you can just retreat to your truck that is ~10 seconds away.

2. Yeah I changed my mind about the moving trucks. Usually when they are rushed and killed early it was either placed too aggressively or there was just a big skill mismatch. No need to change that. Doing away with trucks entirely would be great, but thats not going to happen.

i think he is concerned more with the retreat point, not the reinforcing part. agree with movable medic truck though. would hate to see it able to creep up.

I think....maybe it was a little unfair to take the analogy too far...... the basic point remains, that irrespective of the retreat point, all armies are able to reinforce on the field, with the properly chosen units. The Major (USF) can adjust position; the OKW Battlegroup cannot. The half tracks from Ostheer and SU are perfectly adaptable, and can be repositioned at will to reinforce (if they survive)

So, how important is the retreat point? (A vCoH adaptation from 'the Captain'). As Bas suggests, it has the unfortunate effect of encouraging blobbing f0r the 2 WFAs. This is your point, also, I think.

I was not part of the original WFA Alpha-but from what I read subsequently , there was something very bad in OKW- which was driving off committed CoH2 Alpha volunteers- and which resulted in a big last minute change to OKW. Maybe Ciez can assist? (If I had to guess, it was that OKW trucks were portable -but I may be wrong)

1. I never said get rid of the forward reinforcing, only the retreat points. Ostheer and SU halftracks do not have a toggle retreat point. Its a good thing to be able to soft retreat your units to a reinforce point like that. Soft retreating takes time, and your units cannot outrun if they are being pursued nor get any retreat modifiers. When you have a low health unit in combat you have to make a risk/reward decision to soft retreat. If you soft retreat him instead of immediately retreating he can rejoin the fight sooner but is more likely to get killed. If you retreat you will usually survive but he will run all the way back to base. When your FHQ is your retreat point, there is no decision to be made. You benefit from quick exit, retreat modifiers, and a quicker return. Another situation that becomes a no-brainer is getting away from artillery in a pinch. Before you have to decide whether to take the safe bet and retreat back home, or try to walk out of it and hope for the best. Now you can just retreat to your truck that is ~10 seconds away.

2. Yeah I changed my mind about the moving trucks. Usually when they are rushed and killed early it was either placed too aggressively or there was just a big skill mismatch. No need to change that. Doing away with trucks entirely would be great, but thats not going to happen.

I think - could be wrong - that we are more or less in agreement?

I was not part of the original WFA Alpha-but from what I read subsequently , there was something very bad in OKW- which was driving off committed CoH2 Alpha volunteers- and which resulted in a big last minute change to OKW. Maybe Ciez can assist? (If I had to guess, it was that OKW trucks were portable -but I may be wrong)

OKW truck was never portable, instead, they were designed in an even more stupid way.

The trucks need to setup a chain with adjacent strategy points from the HQ, all points generate 66% less than other army, only the chained point give full resources, if the chain is broken or not even chained at all, the deployed points don't generate full resources, this stupidity of design making OKW NEVER able to get "normal" fuel or muni income even in small map like South Langres (but North Langres was fine, making this flaw even more obviously retarded), because the points are 3 sectors away from HQ.

Of course, unlike the Brits, the truck can't prevent the points being captured, but if it is captured, the truck became useless.

I really doubted my fellow alpha testers really care about the game, 95% of them just messing around in 4v4, and doesn't give a shit to this obvious flaw, some even think there is nothing wrong with this. I complained a lot yet Relic don't give a shit until the very end of alpha.

And the last patch overbuffing the trucks to high speed, heavy crush, high armour unit which able to squad wipe the first Rifles in the first minute, and even bring it to the first release.