Improving Coldtech

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 19:12 PMDullahan

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.

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 19:12 PMDullahan

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.

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 19:12 PMDullahan

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?

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 20:16 PMvarunax

If Relic added wild animals and made it so you were attacked by a squad of bears in a forest unless you constructed bear traps, that would also add more "strategical" play into the game.

Why not add diseases too? You know, the majority of deaths from WW2 weren't caused by bullets or tanks. Most of the Allies and Axis were killed by diseases.

Oh look, we can add elements of strategy into the game where you have to keep your troops fed and healthy. Better keep them out of those waters so they don't contract trench foot. MORE strategical play right there folks.

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 20:38 PM5trategos

That's nice, except there was so much deep snow that it actually affects both attacker and defender equally most of the time.

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 20:38 PM5trategos

Back to deeps snow retreats: since you can't really avoid deep snow on most winter maps, it essentially turns into punishment for flanking and capping the more distant points. This leads to more static play, less valid strategies, more high stakes play.
.

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 20:58 PMDullahan

The winter mechanics both fit narratively (Eastern front), Aesthetically (winter!) and gameplay wise (CoH is all about controlling territory and supply and fighting from cover.)

They also blended well with the existing terrain mechanics. We already have water, so why is deep snow a suddenly a sin? It does pretty much the same thing. (water is actually worse since it's negative cover) Why is keeping your troops warm during a short ~3 minute blizzard so fucking terribly difficult? If you're turtling through the entire blizzard you're doing it wrong.

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 20:58 PMDullahan

WHOA JUST LIKE NEGATIVE COVER ROADS. WHOA JUST LIKE AVAILABLE GARRISONS AND HEAVY COVER. It's almost like it was a tactical component of the map or something.

It was relevant all the time on kholodny's vp's, winter langreskaya and pripyat's central forest. Also possibly in team games but I didn't play much of them.

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 20:58 PMDullahan

Retreat earlier? Kite your opponent without retreating? Use soviet sniper (unimpaired by snow) to do such things? Hide in the snow instead of retreating?

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 20:58 PMDullahan

They also blended well with the existing terrain mechanics. We already have water, so why is deep snow a suddenly a sin? It does pretty much the same thing. (water is actually worse since it's negative cover) Why is keeping your troops warm during a short ~3 minute blizzard so fucking terribly difficult? If you're turtling through the entire blizzard you're doing it wrong.

Jump back to quoted post21 Sep 2015, 15:20 PMBad_Vader

Cold Tech was just implemented poorly(very, very, very poorly)
It could have been improved Like:
1. Instead of blizzard being a timed event during winter maps, certain maps could instead be on a permanent blizzard settings.
> Blizzard in itself would turn from an event into a battlefield condition, something the players would have to take into consideration instead of just camping until the blizzard ends.

2. Infantry gain cold immunity through vet and/or upgrades.
>the longer the game goes the less focus the players have on each individual unit so giving the option to provide cold immunity can lessen the focus of the player on the cold.

3. Certain units gain LoS increase(in Blizzard maps) through vet and/or upgrades.
Blizzard will decrease the LoS of all units thereby making scouting harder for certain factions. An upgrade/vet bonus to certain units can help mitigate this.

4. Units move faster in deep snow through vet/upgrades.
>Deep snow is annoying in the sense that infantry get slowed down a lot. So giving the option to remove this hindrance is nice.

5. Deep snow is ONLY placed in tactical locations and not cover the whole map with it.
>Deep snow should force players to make choices and not just no brainer decisions.

6. Deep snow doesn't recover.
>once its gone its gone for good.

7. Deep snow can camouflage infantry.
>To increase its usability and not just make deep snow into a hindrance.

These are the things off the top of my head that could improve cold tech.

Mud tech follows in a similar manner, it should be use tactically and force players to make decision and not just have all the roads littered with them.

EDIT:
8. Disabling Offmap support because of making blizzard always on would kill certain commanders(CAS, Luftwaffe, etc.) so a better way to show that they are hampered would be to increase their cost or increase their delay in blizzard maps.
>This would further emphasize the notion that blizzard maps would play differently from summer/winter maps since your offmap support will be hampered by the blizzard.

Jump back to quoted post9 Oct 2015, 02:18 AMturbotortoise

I do love the stawmanning of: no actually, these players that wanted cold tech gone just didn't get it, didn't exploit the environment for all it's tactical nuance, and are thusly atrocious at the game, when A. it is pragmatically not actually nuanced at all, and B. it was boring.

Why do you just outright dismiss our our argument that we found how it grinded games to a sputtering halt faster than a CAS strafe, pinning our army, incredibly boring? That is the most damning thing one could say during a critique of a computer game, it was boring.

Jump back to quoted post9 Oct 2015, 16:43 PMDullahan

Because if blizzards slowed your game down to a crawl you clearly didn't understand the cold tech mechanics. Passive play during blizzards is an issue with the players, not the mechanics.

Jump back to quoted post9 Oct 2015, 21:43 PMNuclear Arbitor

i think you need to enlighten the entire community on how to play during blizzards then because you seem to be the only one who gets it.

Jump back to quoted post8 Oct 2015, 16:52 PMelchino7

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.

Jump back to quoted post9 Oct 2015, 23:07 PMDullahan

Gain vision over your opponent. This can be done through flares or garrisoned halftracks. (Units inside see further than units out in blizzard) Use smoke barrages to make key targets less useful. Use fire pits near the front to warm your troops up before assaulting with pgrens/shock troops. (It takes time to get cold.)

Or just spread to the corners of the map and take territory. Using troop transports you can strike multiple areas of the map very quickly depriving your opponent of territory. Destroying firepits at your opponents natural resources also make recapture more difficult for him. By seizing the initiative, counterattack becomes more difficult since he has to leave the safety of his firepits. Meanwhile you can get back in the halftrack and drive off after he waltzes all over to you and then attack the part of the map he just left.

Soviets in particular were very good in blizzards due to their flare veterancy abilities on the sniper and mortar and their recon ability on t70/t34. Germans however had the advantage of bunkers, earlier halftrack and scout car vet ability detecting infantry.

OKW had the flash light halftrack and kubel wagon vet 1 ability for their own blizzard detection, Americans had smoke rifle nades and fighting positions but had troubles remaining mobile during blizzards. (Which is fine, because normally they are spread all over the map and blizzards ended up isolating their squads forcing them to consolidate a bit more than usual.)

If you honestly took advantage of your opponent hunkering down, you could seize huge swathes of the map during blizzards. It also gave you an advantage if you scouted his position before attacking him. It shook up match up dynamics, putting Ostheer/Americans on their backfoot while giving Soviets/OKW new opportunities for map control.

The original Soviet/Ostheer match up is one of the most interesting in the game during blizzards because of how the factions were designed. Without blizzards the match up is less interesting, and units like the t34/76 had to be buffed significantly. (The soviet tech versatility also got neutered.)

Jump back to quoted post9 Oct 2015, 23:07 PMDullahan

...

Jump back to quoted post9 Oct 2015, 16:43 PMDullahan

Because if blizzards slowed your game down to a crawl you clearly didn't understand the cold tech mechanics. Passive play during blizzards is an issue with the players, not the mechanics.

If ones play style catered to blizzards, they did not understand the core mechanics. In order to "take advantage" of cold tech, if that's even the right terminology, because again, when it comes down to combat, a blizzard has, near as makes no difference, 0 bearing on the outcome of a firefight. Blizzards effected logistics, but again, to take advantage of these situations you required two things: vision and mobility, but in any situation, ask anyone, do you want to hamstring yourself during the other 2/3rds of the game that aren't a blizzard by stalling tech, or spreading your economy even thinner by requisitioning weaker or specialist units for the blizzard, ie, half tracks and spotters, that may or may not give you a microscopic edge during a small slice of the game? No, of course not, don't be preposterous. The blizzard only slowed the game down, and did not have any value tactically, because again as you have mentioned, it was not a high risk reward state. Wiping an entire army isn't any more likely simply because it was during a blizzard, and if anything it was more unlikely because these effects will also attry the attacker. So, why take the risk. The cost/benefit analysis just doesn't favour attacking in any scenario.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moreover, if ypur complaints are the game was too slow why did people petition for thngs like more expensive tech costs and slower vp bleed? It was a much faster game before the vCoH crowd convinced Relic to neuter it.


Pace hasn't changed. What has are the windows of opportunity. The changes implemented have slowed down the acceleration, stretching out the game and allowing for more engagements relative to advancements in tech. No longer is the game a rush to heavy armor and then a slug fest for a half hour. The game is more evenly spaced, but the pace at which it plays is still the same.

You didn't have the option of turtling because you'd be way down on VP's. As it is now if you hold one vp and one fuel for the entire game you're guaranteed a king tiger, regardless of what your opponent's larger map presence and vp drain.

Come now, this is hyperbole and you know it.


This is by the by why competitive play is obsessed with squad wipes.

An emphasis on squad wipes is due to the new economy, essentially tied to pop-cap, and as an aside, if you blame this on catering to vCoH, surviability of everything with the exception of vehicles is factors higher than before.

Map control means dick in this game as long as you have fuel.

Map control equates to fuel.


^^^^

but all these arguments are digressions away from the conversation of cold tech.

Jump back to quoted post10 Oct 2015, 07:26 AMturbotortoise

vp stuff

Jump back to quoted post10 Oct 2015, 08:01 AMNuclear Arbitor

apparently in the alpha (as in WAY the fuck long time ago) the VP tick rate was similar to dow2. i've played since the beta and as long as i've played it's been the same slower tick rate.

the point being that in dow2 you couldn't let yourself get triple capped or the game would end in a couple of minutes. the vps were actually the most valuable points instead of being the least valuable for 95% the time for 95% of games. dow2 also handle the tech resources differently but that's not as important. personally i'm not really bothered that vps aren't important in dow2 but it does make a difference in game play.