So I'm utterly appalled that cold tech has all but been relegated to custom games.
Even if blizzards rustled your jimmies because you didn't know how to build campfires or garrison troops and lost squads on retreat to stupidity, what was so bad about the deep snow mechanics that punished haphazard movement throughout the map? What about how spammable air support is now that there's no blizzards to prevent air call ins temporarily? (Brit command vehicle can have a plane in the air near indefinitely for only 75 munis)
I want to have a discussion:
What changes would you make to Cold Tech if it were to be brought back into the game as a meaningful and regular mechanic?
Personally what I would do is make campfires radius 25. I would also make them free to build.
Flame weapon damage reduction during blizzards, if used against cold troops they will warm up very quickly.
Vehicle repair slower during blizzards.
OKW trucks have built in heater. (No need to build one by the truck)
British emplacements have built in heater.
Reduce the amount of time it takes for units to enter into vehicles like halftracks, bren carriers etc, making it more responsive.
Mines cannot be triggered during blizzards due to the detonator freezing over. (Mostly a gameplay mechanic than a realistic one)
The idea being that blizzards are a high risk/high reward game state. The defender has the advantage of warmth, but any damaged vehicles cannot be repaired as quickly and defenses like mines and at guns are less effective due to reduced visibility. Likewise the attacker cannot use air recon or other useful supporting abilities and will be exposing their troops to the cold but can take advantage of newfound holes in the defensive line. More responsive troop transports also means that putting units in halftracks will actually have a purpose again. This allows players to break common stalemates that occur in the mid-late game where players can sit back and save up money for expensive super tank since neither side can break each others line with just medium tanks.
In all my time playing this game with blizzards I never saw anyone build fucking flame pits in between strat points, and then you all bitched and moaned about blizzard mechanics. Explain yourselves: why wouldn't you build a network of flame pits to minimize the negative effects of blizzards? Why would you continue to walk around in deep snow like fucking idiots and complain about freezing to death? I'm tremendously upset that the mechanics that made CoH2 a unique RTS have been culled due to incompetent players whining about how they had to actually prepare for it.
Improving Coldtech
7 Oct 2015, 20:45 PM
#1
Posts: 1384
7 Oct 2015, 22:20 PM
#2
Posts: 446 | Subs: 2
So I'm utterly appalled that cold tech has all but been relegated to custom games.
Even if blizzards rustled your jimmies because you didn't know how to build campfires or garrison troops and lost squads on retreat to stupidity, what was so bad about the deep snow mechanics that punished haphazard movement throughout the map? What about how spammable air support is now that there's no blizzards to prevent air call ins temporarily? (Brit command vehicle can have a plane in the air near indefinitely for only 75 munis)
I want to have a discussion:
What changes would you make to Cold Tech if it were to be brought back into the game as a meaningful and regular mechanic?
Personally what I would do is make campfires radius 25. I would also make them free to build.
Flame weapon damage reduction during blizzards, if used against cold troops they will warm up very quickly.
Vehicle repair slower during blizzards.
OKW trucks have built in heater. (No need to build one by the truck)
British emplacements have built in heater.
Reduce the amount of time it takes for units to enter into vehicles like halftracks, bren carriers etc, making it more responsive.
Mines cannot be triggered during blizzards due to the detonator freezing over. (Mostly a gameplay mechanic than a realistic one)
The idea being that blizzards are a high risk/high reward game state. The defender has the advantage of warmth, but any damaged vehicles cannot be repaired as quickly and defenses like mines and at guns are less effective due to reduced visibility. Likewise the attacker cannot use air recon or other useful supporting abilities and will be exposing their troops to the cold but can take advantage of newfound holes in the defensive line. More responsive troop transports also means that putting units in halftracks will actually have a purpose again. This allows players to break common stalemates that occur in the mid-late game where players can sit back and save up money for expensive super tank since neither side can break each others line with just medium tanks.
In all my time playing this game with blizzards I never saw anyone build fucking flame pits in between strat points, and then you all bitched and moaned about blizzard mechanics. Explain yourselves: why wouldn't you build a network of flame pits to minimize the negative effects of blizzards? Why would you continue to walk around in deep snow like fucking idiots and complain about freezing to death? I'm tremendously upset that the mechanics that made CoH2 a unique RTS have been culled due to incompetent players whining about how they had to actually prepare for it.
Haphazard? Cold tech added undue complexity while taxing the APM and thought economies highly, thus performance in all other areas was hampered. It's not a consistent mechanic that one can find in all maps, therefore learning was niche and had a slightly higher skill floor. Overall, its design was frustrating. Granted, it can be interesting for people who've mastered it, but, again, their overall frustration would likely be increased because it requires a switch in playstyle and thought and still taxes them. Whatever flavor it brings is certainly not worth what it takes to learn and deal with. Another reason you never saw people deal with blizzards because they're stupid to deal with. Yeah, this is a scrub mentality, but they're legitimately poor design.
The only interesting mechanic was the reduction of LoS, but that places a direct buff on close-fighting units and destroys a lot of important map design elements by reducing the importance of positioning and movement. Furthermore, some commanders were arbitrarily nerfed by the removal of some call-ins.
Balancing around these ridiculous mechanics means the balance of non-cold maps and cold maps when blizzards / deep snow aren't present is screwed up, adding further complexity and frustration.
The changes I would make if Cold Tech had to be brought back (which they shouldn't be):
Remove freezing.
Make fire pits grant greater LoS, free, super fast build.
Slightly reduce, but not remove, recon abilities in proportion to regular lost LoS, because removing them would nerf commanders, making them full would buff commanders.
Pathing around deep snow when pertinent (and auto-vaulting).
Allow all commander abilities.
There should be more responsive / quicker entering / exiting halftracks etc. in the game anyways.
I'd rather like it if we had permanent (not intermittent "blizzard approaching / going away!") blizzard automatch though, not to split the playerbase or anything, but so we can adjust all our loadouts and playstyles around it before we play, and we understand what we're getting into.
Then again I'd like Annihilation automatch too.
Ha.
Still, Cold Tech is legitimately bad design and ought not be in the standard automatch at all.
Dear Lord, teach me to be generous; to give and not count the cost; to fight and not heed the wounds; to work and ask for no reward, save that of knowing I am doing Your will.
Argumentation, disagreement, and debate are critical for success.
The most important type of diversity is viewpoint diversity.
Argumentation, disagreement, and debate are critical for success.
The most important type of diversity is viewpoint diversity.
7 Oct 2015, 22:53 PM
#3
Posts: 1384
Haphazard? Cold tech added undue complexity while taxing the APM.....
Ah yes, building a few firepits near cover and making sure you periodically keep your infantry warm is just too intense. I guess it is because I won dozens of games simply by killing my opponents firepits and he was too dumb to build new ones so he froze to death. The glowing blinking blue skull was too easy to miss, you know. Lets remove swathes of tactical and mechanical depth of the game because we want to play on semois and angoville and langres again and we don't want to have to think about too much while we afk our machine guns in buildings. Lets just forget about the whole eastern front thing and keep replacing new maps with remakes of old maps like sturzdorf.
7 Oct 2015, 23:02 PM
#4
8 Posts: 2470
speaking from experience, i seldom did anything except sit in one spot during blizzards because my guys were to slow to flank and take advantage of the decreased LoS and if i just charged forward i would just run into MGs/ATGs at 10 range instead of 60.
7 Oct 2015, 23:19 PM
#5
Posts: 446 | Subs: 2
... I guess it is because I won dozens of games simply by killing my opponents firepits and he was too dumb to build new ones so he froze to death.... Lets remove swathes of tactical and mechanical depth of the game because we want to play on semois and angoville and langres again and we don't want to have to think about too much while we afk our machine guns in buildings. Lets just forget about the whole eastern front thing and keep replacing new maps with remakes of old maps like sturzdorf.
Good for you, you were clever and beat your opponent. The way you put it makes me question your motives though: do you perhaps want it back so you can dunk on people easier?
Perhaps you should stow yourself away if you wish to talk about things that affect everyone.
As I demonstrated earlier, the middling depth afforded is not worth the significant complexity, frustration, and learning. It's a universal design imbalance.
Furthermore, it seems most people would rather play on those three maps over and over again than with the horrid Cold Tech, hence their removal.
Lmao afk mgs in buildings wat? That doesn't work m8
New = / = good. Nice implicit false causation with post hoc flair fallacy, bro.
Dear Lord, teach me to be generous; to give and not count the cost; to fight and not heed the wounds; to work and ask for no reward, save that of knowing I am doing Your will.
Argumentation, disagreement, and debate are critical for success.
The most important type of diversity is viewpoint diversity.
Argumentation, disagreement, and debate are critical for success.
The most important type of diversity is viewpoint diversity.
8 Oct 2015, 01:40 AM
#6
15 
Posts: 1970 | Subs: 5
I'm glad that cold tech is gone. I think it is noble to experiment and bring new game mechanics to the table, but even more noble to admit that such an experiment is a failure and go back to what makes the game the most fun.
Jaedrik presents good arguments. While cold tech did force a different kind of tactics (which had potential to be interesting), it inherently imbalanced certain commanders/units and generally produced slower gameplay.
I never found cold tech to be fun. It is not very satisfying to wipe a squad that is retreating through deep snow that should have gotten away.
Jaedrik presents good arguments. While cold tech did force a different kind of tactics (which had potential to be interesting), it inherently imbalanced certain commanders/units and generally produced slower gameplay.
I never found cold tech to be fun. It is not very satisfying to wipe a squad that is retreating through deep snow that should have gotten away.
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8 Oct 2015, 01:58 AM
#7
Posts: 218
-snip-I don't even need to read the rest of the thread to know everyone thinks Cold Tech was a horrible idea.
They're wrong, and you're right, for all the reasons you stated.
You'd think people would have simply adapted instead of bitching, but oh no, winter maps can't actually be, you know, WINTER maps. All environmental factors must go, all units should be mirrors of each other, and this should be like LoL or Starcraft.
8 Oct 2015, 04:57 AM
#8
8 Posts: 2470
I don't even need to read the rest of the thread to know everyone thinks Cold Tech was a horrible idea.
They're wrong, and you're right, for all the reasons you stated.
You'd think people would have simply adapted instead of bitching, but oh no, winter maps can't actually be, you know, WINTER maps. All environmental factors must go, all units should be mirrors of each other, and this should be like LoL or Starcraft.
this is the only game i can think of where "winter" means gameplay impacts. i mean, your units don't get dehydrated in summer because it's hot out and we want to make summer special or all dirt is mud in fall because it's raining a bunch and we want to make fall special.
i actually like the idea of having various gameplay mechanics on different maps but the current coldtech system is not a benefit to coh2's competitive gameplay.
8 Oct 2015, 05:05 AM
#9
Posts: 1384
Good for you, you were clever and beat your opponent. The way you put it makes me question your motives though: do you perhaps want it back so you can dunk on people easier?
Perhaps you should stow yourself away if you wish to talk about things that affect everyone.
As I demonstrated earlier, the middling depth afforded is not worth the significant complexity, frustration, and learning. It's a universal design imbalance.
Furthermore, it seems most people would rather play on those three maps over and over again than with the horrid Cold Tech, hence their removal.
Lmao afk mgs in buildings wat? That doesn't work m8
New = / = good. Nice implicit false causation with post hoc flair fallacy, bro.
It wasn't nearly as complex as you make it out to be.
Cold units are weaker in combat and eventually die.
Warm your units up by garrisoning them or putting them near a fire pit.
I never found cold tech to be fun. It is not very satisfying to wipe a squad that is retreating through deep snow that should have gotten away.
They shouldn't even be that cold before retreating! That's the problem. Cold tech punished people who didn't manage their troops properly. It punished people that overextended and didn't maintain their troops. It punished people who ordered their units to move without any regard for the terrain.
I'd even be content if they removed the freezing to death mechanic and just give me blizzards, frozen water and deep snow back and a map pool a little bit more inspired than just copying CoH1 maps over.
8 Oct 2015, 05:33 AM
#10
1 Posts: 169
In a 1v1 or 2v2 situation it's just horrid and really slows down the game. It is also unnecessarily taxing on players as they have to babysit all their units into shelter, build a fire (not a good option as it costs manpower that you need), or in cover of some kind (leaves units stranded in cover and freeze up when on the move) as well as taking players out of "the zone" of peak micro and focus. It was sometimes fun in 3v3 and 4v4 tho.
Pudding.
8 Oct 2015, 05:57 AM
#11
Posts: 1283 | Subs: 4
Even if blizzards rustled your jimmies because you didn't know how to build campfires or garrison troops and lost squads on retreat to stupidity,
You make dealing with it so simple as to sound like needless pedantic tedium, so why have it in the game?
what was so bad about the deep snow mechanics that punished haphazard movement throughout the map?
Kholdny Ferma West.
What changes would you make to Cold Tech if it were to be brought back into the game as a meaningful and regular mechanic?
Make it less of a light switch, game on, vs. stand next to a fire AFK simulator.
The idea being that blizzards are a high risk/high reward game state. The defender has the advantage of warmth, but any damaged vehicles cannot be repaired as quickly and defenses like mines and at guns are less effective due to reduced visibility.
Map design doesn't facilitate this, a chokepoint doesn't become less of a chokepoint 'cos it's winter outside.
Add in environmental changes, much like the emergent game play caused by the destruction and cover and shell holes, "blizzard induced short cuts" if you will.
Likewise the attacker cannot use air recon or other useful supporting abilities and will be exposing their troops to the cold
but can take advantage of newfound holes in the defensive line.
^^^
More responsive troop transports also means that putting units in halftracks will actually have a purpose again. This allows players to break common stalemates that occur in the mid-late game where players can sit back and save up money for expensive super tank since neither side can break each others line with just medium tanks.
I fail to follow how half-tracks, cold or otherwise are the solution to mid-late game stalemates, which also in my experience are either rare, or an entirely different beast.
In all my time playing this game with blizzards I never saw anyone build fucking flame pits in between strat points, and then you all bitched and moaned about blizzard mechanics.
These generalizations are unbecoming of your argument and betray your opening point.
Explain yourselves: why wouldn't you build a network of flame pits to minimize the negative effects of blizzards?
We did, and it was boring
Why would you continue to walk around in deep snow like fucking idiots and complain about freezing to death?
This wasn't our argument.
I'm tremendously upset that the mechanics that made CoH2 a unique RTS have been culled due to incompetent players whining about how they had to actually prepare for it.
^^^
8 Oct 2015, 06:15 AM
#12
Posts: 186
"..if used against cold troops they will warm up very quickly."
Whatever
8 Oct 2015, 06:23 AM
#13
Posts: 1216
I personally think they should have just slightly reduced movement penalties to deep snow, and either made walking/ driving through them permanently removed, or blizzards restored the deep snow and introduced freezing.
That would have made tactical openings interesting- want a path cleared? Get M20/ Kubel/ Scout Car...but do you want to bother if the enemy anticipated that, or do you want to do that later for a surprise and focus on the more obvious clearer pathways?
That would have made tactical openings interesting- want a path cleared? Get M20/ Kubel/ Scout Car...but do you want to bother if the enemy anticipated that, or do you want to do that later for a surprise and focus on the more obvious clearer pathways?
8 Oct 2015, 06:59 AM
#14
Posts: 1740
Coldtech itself was cool but it was devastating with the flaws the game has.
Flanking was not possible because everything was slow as fuck and froze to death in seconds. Then you arrived at the enemy with some squads that have only 1-2 men left. Not cool.
In addition the deep snow thing made it even worse. Your troops were literally snails then.
Poor game implementation gave it the rest. My PC (i5 4k, GTX 970) became about 20-30° hotter in blizzards and my framerate dropped to about 20. This is simply bullshit.
So yeah, I'm glad it's gone. On the otherhand a sandstorm in African maps could be nice...
Flanking was not possible because everything was slow as fuck and froze to death in seconds. Then you arrived at the enemy with some squads that have only 1-2 men left. Not cool.
In addition the deep snow thing made it even worse. Your troops were literally snails then.
Poor game implementation gave it the rest. My PC (i5 4k, GTX 970) became about 20-30° hotter in blizzards and my framerate dropped to about 20. This is simply bullshit.
So yeah, I'm glad it's gone. On the otherhand a sandstorm in African maps could be nice...
It is though God by command has withdrawn every other throne.
And God is saying 'No. These people will deal with me alone.'
And God is saying 'No. These people will deal with me alone.'
8 Oct 2015, 08:38 AM
#15
8 Posts: 2470
My PC (i5 4k, GTX 970) became about 20-30° hotter in blizzards and my framerate dropped to about 20. This is simply bullshit.
ino, rite? should be running colder since it's a blizzard.
blizzards were one of the few things that caused me visible stutters though.
8 Oct 2015, 16:52 PM
#16
Posts: 8154 | Subs: 2
Firepits
-Remove mp cost and xp gained by destroying them
-Increase range
-Give it a long cooldown to avoid spamming.
Heavy snow
-It should be able to be cleared by explosives, vehicles, flamers, etc.
-Only reappears during blizzard.
-Conceals units inside, giving them ambush bonus. During normal weather, freezing is slower.
-Retreating units: either they avoid them or they have a lesser movement penalty than normal.
Blizzard
-Less random. Both appearance and duration. RNG is not neccesarily bad BUT huge disparity of result is.
-Ice gets more resistant.
Freezing
-Combat debuffs (accuracy, cooldown, reload)
-Units no longer die to freezing but rather lose health as white phosphorous. Or just make units gets huge RA debuffs instead.
-Increase threshold of heat with veterancy.
-Remove mp cost and xp gained by destroying them
-Increase range
-Give it a long cooldown to avoid spamming.
Heavy snow
-It should be able to be cleared by explosives, vehicles, flamers, etc.
-Only reappears during blizzard.
-Conceals units inside, giving them ambush bonus. During normal weather, freezing is slower.
-Retreating units: either they avoid them or they have a lesser movement penalty than normal.
Blizzard
-Less random. Both appearance and duration. RNG is not neccesarily bad BUT huge disparity of result is.
-Ice gets more resistant.
Freezing
-Combat debuffs (accuracy, cooldown, reload)
-Units no longer die to freezing but rather lose health as white phosphorous. Or just make units gets huge RA debuffs instead.
-Increase threshold of heat with veterancy.
My controls weren't working
And if they were, you were playing dishonorably,
And if you weren't, you were playing without skill,
And if you were, it's not fun to play that way,
And if it is, you only care about winning.
Bible of Scrublord, Psalt 3:16.
And if they were, you were playing dishonorably,
And if you weren't, you were playing without skill,
And if you were, it's not fun to play that way,
And if it is, you only care about winning.
Bible of Scrublord, Psalt 3:16.
8 Oct 2015, 18:12 PM
#17
Posts: 1210 | Subs: 1
Thank god Cold tech is gone from AT. It has no place in the competitive scene. Interesting idea, terrible execution. Good riddance.
8 Oct 2015, 18:25 PM
#18
Posts: 449
In all my time playing this game with blizzards I never saw anyone build fucking flame pits in between strat points, and then you all bitched and moaned about blizzard mechanics. Explain yourselves: why wouldn't you build a network of flame pits to minimize the negative effects of blizzards? Why would you continue to walk around in deep snow like fucking idiots and complain about freezing to death? I'm tremendously upset that the mechanics that made CoH2 a unique RTS have been culled due to incompetent players whining about how they had to actually prepare for it.
I think you're a little quick in branding people as incompetent for disliking 'coldtech'. The simplest way I can put it is that it is little more than a micro tax. The strategic additions that cold tech brings to the table are minimal.
Game mechanics are interesting if players can take advantage of a situation to gain a strategic advantage over another player. For example green cover around a map can be used for protection or with a well placed mine / demo charge, it can be used as a trap. Green cover can be created and destroyed for the most part. The interaction with players is deep and satisfying to exploit.
The problem with cold tech is it's too much of a handicap to everyone and no one can really take advantage of a situation except for hunting down retreating squads in deep snow. And there's often little the retreating player could have done to properly predict the path. Besides, once the retreat is triggered, there's no more counterplay involved. So you can lose a squad and it's completely out of a player's control.
8 Oct 2015, 19:12 PM
#19
Posts: 1384
I think you're a little quick in branding people as incompetent for disliking 'coldtech'. The simplest way I can put it is that it is little more than a micro tax. The strategic additions that cold tech brings to the table are minimal.
Game mechanics are interesting if players can take advantage of a situation to gain a strategic advantage over another player. For example green cover around a map can be used for protection or with a well placed mine / demo charge, it can be used as a trap. Green cover can be created and destroyed for the most part. The interaction with players is deep and satisfying to exploit.
The problem with cold tech is it's too much of a handicap to everyone and no one can really take advantage of a situation except for hunting down retreating squads in deep snow. And there's often little the retreating player could have done to properly predict the path. Besides, once the retreat is triggered, there's no more counterplay involved. So you can lose a squad and it's completely out of a player's control.
The fact that you think that cold tech doesn't provide strategic advantages kind of demonstrates the incompetent thing. There's DOZENS of ways to use cold tech to your advantage.
For example, one thing I used to do when I built an early sniper vs Soviets was screen him with deep snow. This meant if they popped Hoorah to try and rush him down they would get bogged down in the snow and the sniper could be quite safe.
https://youtu.be/gsHLH7ZOe5A?t=56
There's dozens of ways to use cold tech like this. Det packs on frozen water, using garrisoned vehicles or flares to get vision over your opponent during blizzards, camoflauging your units in deep snow for an unexpected ambush. (Very useful at the top left kholodny VP) etc etc. It's not my fault this playerbase doesn't think of their own ideas and just copies the same build orders as everyone else.
Also, A squad won't freeze to death retreating through deep snow unless it is ALREADY FROZEN BEFORE RETREATING. It takes like a minute of being frozen for a squad to lose one member. The fact that it is being brought up so much in this thread really demonstrates my point that people didn't keep their troops warm. I don't understand, how is building a firepit any more microintensive than building sandbags?
I think it's fair for people to dislike it, but it grates on me that people deny it added tactical depth to the game. It absolutely added meaningful tactical depth for those willing to utilize it and it's a shame it is gone from the game. As I've suggested, there's no reason it couldn't be tweaked to satisfy players here while still retaining some flavour. It's a shame for it to be gone completely from the game.
8 Oct 2015, 19:45 PM
#20
Posts: 2779
90% of players just camp at fire / OKW truck / buildings at blizzard until it gone.
Increasing meaningful tactical depth, common
Do I need to add the craziness of LeiG / Pack shooting into campfire site, suppose blizzard is still here?
and if they camp around a big chuck of deep snow that clearing them even more mission impossible?
Increasing meaningful tactical depth, common
Do I need to add the craziness of LeiG / Pack shooting into campfire site, suppose blizzard is still here?
and if they camp around a big chuck of deep snow that clearing them even more mission impossible?
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