CieZ's State of CoH 2 - November 1, 2015

Strangely enough, I have had the strong feeling ever since WFA released, that the game hasn't been as much fun and balanced as it had been up until the day prior to the release of WFA. Even performance went down the drain after that release.

Perhaps it is just me, but the game felt far superior in terms of being solid and fun back then, than it ever has done since the WFA release.

As far as I know before Rifleman vet was buffed there was trend to use REs with equipment (BARs or LMGs). Now imagine RE flamer blob, which wouldn't be locked behind certain commander.
- Fragile? Yes, but after vet they get 5th man.
- Can't be spammed? Hell no. In fact players chose REs instead of Rifleman because of spammability (better map control) and cheap reinforcement.
- Not AT? Absence of snare - yes, but you can always throw in some zooks.

Don't you think that's the problem with REs in particular and not the general idea?

Excellent post, CieZ. I agree with almost everything.

• Flamers
  
  
  • Give all engineers flamethrowers
    YES. This is vital in the fight against garrison. It's not fair that OKW and USF doesn't have acces to flamethrowers (non-doctrinal) while the others have.
    It's also not just about 'fair', but about giving your engineers some other usability in the game.
    
  • ATcrews should still be good against flametanks
    Relic, you've made damage tables to make sure you can change how one unit reacts to another. An ATgun is made to kill tanks, so it makes no sense at all to have them being decrewed in 1 second if you roll up to them. In general, ATguns should be good against tanks and not being decrewed so easily.
  
  
  
• Indirect fire and suppression
  
  
  • Loose the suppression ability
    YES. This makes no sense at all to have suppression on a unit that requires next to 0 skill to use. Like CieZ says, a long range MG does not make sense. I would understand if they got suppressed for like 0,5 seconds or so, but how it's performing now is just not good.
    
  • Instapinning
    This needs to go too. It makes no sense at all to instapin squads. OKW HT, OKW T4, ISG, ... they all tend to instapin. This is just a silly mechanic that needs to be looked at.
  
  
  
• Weapon upgrades
  
  
  • Weapon upgrades need to also have a downside while they gain a serious advantage
    YES. Weaponupgrades can't be a nobrainer without a downside in another area.
  
  
  
• Abandon mechanic
  
  
  • This mechanic needs to go for competitive play
    YES. Relic, you said it yourself that you are making COH2 ready for Esports. This mechanic has no place at all as this is extremely inconsistent, has a super big impact on the game and promotes defensive play. I don't say you need to promote aggressive play, but that should be up to the player and not the mechanics.
    

I agree with everything you said there, but I'm not sure about the mortars. Would like to see how this works out.

Someone send this to Brad or Jason, hopefully they will take a good look into this thread. Brad and Jason have been doing an awesome job lately! This can only improve it.

Don't you think that's the problem with REs in particular and not the general idea?

Agreed, but nevertheless is should be taken into consideration when proposing for such changes to basic engineer unit.



Ok. Moving next.

Indirect fire.

I think Relic went right way when they removed autofacing from LeIG and Pack Howitzer.

In my opinion they should remove autofacing and autofire from all indirect fire units.
In response they should increase saturation of barrage ablilities and increase their cooldown.

Right now I can't really say that barrage and autoattack/attack ground are different (except barrage require clicking on each cooldown). Why even have both?

Here's my thoughts of implementation:

General idea is that YOU order your artillery unit to perform bombardment. It doesn't sling shells randomly.

1) Remove autofacing and autofire from all indirect fire units.
2) Previously unit would autofire X shells in time interval of T.
Unlike CieZ's suggestion (no-autofire, low cooldown, high accuracy, reasonably high damage) I propose to rescale barrage so it would fire X (or maybe slightly less) shells in time interval of T/3 and then go to cooldown for 2*T/3 time.
So thats high cooldown, high rate of fire, same accuracy/damage as now.

What do we achieve this way:

• No lazy "set-and-forget" positioning of Mortar/LeIG/Pack Howie. More micro tax, but more effect when as you do so.
  
• Soviet mortar flare and Wehrmacht Counter-barrage makes more sense:
  For each use of Soviet flare you can deliver single dense barrage at revealed target.
  Counter-barrage would really do massive damage to enemy indirect-fire unit each time it triggers.
  
• No constant attacking-ground of OKW bases:
  Previously it was very dangerous to repair them under constant attack-ground fire of mortar (especially 120mm) because it could lead to loss of Sturmpios. With these changes there would be short time when building get barraged and after that you may repair it freely.
  

Not sure how it will affect ablity of LeIG and Pack Howie to control blobs through suppression. You should predict direction of their movement and fire barrage keeping their speed in mind. Not so different from how you use Katy/Peewerfer or ZiS-3/SU-76 barrage in this matter.

Still, it should not autowin engagements for you, unless enemy is really blobbing because you can throw barrage only on small area. If enemy units are spread out you will suppress 2 squads AT MAX.

As I write this I come up with idea that there could be two barrage abilities:
dense barrage and continuous barrage.

Dense barrage is something I've described above. X shells in T/3 time. Burst ability.
Continuous barrage would be like same X shells in T/2 time. Area-denial ability.

Just my few thoughts on further development of indirect fire concepts of CoH2.

I posted this on the official forums so they surely dont miss it out

http://community.companyofheroes.com/forum/company-of-heroes-2/company-of-heroes-2-general-discussion/231945-ciez-s-state-of-coh-2-november-1-2015

Right now I can't really say that barrage and autoattack/attack ground are different (except barrage require clicking on each cooldown). Why even have both?

barrages fire shells faster iirc

barrages fire shells faster iirc

Yeah, I know that. Maybe I expressed myself not accurately.

I mean it is not so different from just autoattacking or attack ground. It doesn't feels like you have USED AN ABILITY. The difference isn't noticeable, at least for me. And when it goes on cooldown... your unit just continues to fire! In my opinion it doesn't make much sense.

Even if just one of these things were implemented, the change to weapons upgrades would shake the game up a fair bit and keep things fresh

Short post from my phone.

Thank you all for the great feedback, there are some really good ideas in this thread.

After more consideration I think you guys are right in that the problem with flamers and green cover is not the underlying mechanic but their existence on such a durable platform - riflemen.

Thanks for keeping it civil and on topic as well

1. Flamers

I agree.

2. Upgrades
Agree with this as well and to add, please unify the upgrade system across factions.

3. mortars

I like your idea, though you could also give them a cone of fire and not allow them to autoface. And/or make the autobarrage shorter range so it's mainly used for defence and force you to use barrage for offensive shelling.

4. Planes

I agree with this. I also think AA should properly counter strafe and in return reduce the amount of ammo to call in a strafe. It would force counterplay and would encourage more interesting battles.

It's actually the opposite in game, out of cover an LMG is placed on the ground with the bipod and fired from prone. In cover, they cannot prone so the LMG is fired from the hip like this:






I see several ways we can fix the Light Machine Guns without ruining them. Simplest would be to make them take up two weapon slots rather than one. This would effect every LMG except the DP, because that would break Guards. The second way is a bit more complicated, but we could make LMG's act like auto-rotating Maxims. They'll still pack a punch, but they won't be able to redirect their fire at whim. The third is to just give them flat, unchanging DPS at all ranges.

In coh2 the soldier with lmg is often standing and this is decrease in performance.
Dont get me wrong but in eastern front there were only 2 conditions -mud or deep snow. And you dont want to lay in any of them.

Flamers should make extra damage to units in cover and garrisons, that's the whole point of buying flamethrower, it's ok that they implemented it. Reliance only on specialized-support like mortars and snipers would make the game less versatile and more boring.
The problem is the Rifle company, giving flamethrowers to a 5 man mainline infantry squad was the trolliest idea ever. Either remove the ability to buy flamethrower from riflemen or make it cost a lot more (100+ ammo).
Only squishy and/or expensive units should have access to flamethrowers. This lesson should have been learned by Relic back in the days of CoH1, when Pios had the ability to receive Elite armor cheaply by purchasing vet2 and Piospam was the thing. Making this strategy more expensive by moving Elite armor to Vet3 mostly solved the problem back then.

1) Flame weapon

[snip]

Being able to deny your opponent cover is crucial. Grenades work to an extent, but aside from molotovs or incendiary grenades they're pretty easy to dodge and continue using cover. Flames forcing you to change up your opponents playstyle is what makes them tactically useful.

As for unequal distribution, that's fine too. Used to have such a discussion all the time in Dawn of War 2 and ultimately what it comes down to is that the factions are different. Brits only have the WASP (although you severely underestimate the universal carrier) for flame, but they have the best sniper in the game, base arty/mortar pit and can outshoot damn near anything from their own green cover. OKW have incendiary nades, ISG and flak weaponry.

Rifle Company is a special case, the flamers are actually the relatively balanced portion of the doctrine. Having early vet 2/3 and a generalist tank to fall back on are the real problem. I'd much like to see the easy eight swapped with the bulldozer sherman, but I doubt that would ever happen.

2) Indirect Fire Units
[snip]


Flank? Counter with your own indirect fire units? Honestly, these units becoming barrage platforms would make them pretty damn useless against anyone smart enough to move.

Jump back to quoted post2 Nov 2015, 02:25 AMCieZ

3) Weapon Upgrades in General

Upgrades are, well upgrades. If we had multiple weapons to choose from I'd agree with you (i.e mp40 upgrade for grenadiers) but we don't. Dawn of War 2 handled this much better since there were squads like Tac marines or weapon teams that had multiple options for upgrades, with the units role often changing entirely when upgraded. (i.e weapon teams upgrading to autocannon lost suppression, but did more damage against everything. Or they could get las cannons for strong anti vehicle) It's much more straight forward here, most units only have a single upgrade or with say weapon racks the option to pick anti infantry potential or anti vehicle potential.

In general, not spending resources should not be a superior martial choice as well as economic one.

Jump back to quoted post2 Nov 2015, 02:25 AMCieZ

4) Loiters (aka Skillplanes)

You don't need to AFK your AA unit, you know. imo the easiest way to tweak this is to fix these without simply removing them is to reduce the loiter AoE so that it can only really cover 1-2 strat points. And maybe tweak the duration/vulnerability of the planes a bit.

Jump back to quoted post2 Nov 2015, 02:25 AMCieZ

5) Abandons/Out of control

lol Nah.



Anyway, you have too much of a hard on for green cover infantry battles. I don't know how you can propose flame weapons being too good against cover and that indirect fire should be necessary and then go onto say that indirect fire should be a shortlived barrage. Cover should be important, but it shouldn't be a be all end all. Your stance reflects the game's long lived metagame of "build lots and lots of generalist infantry". The reason Rifle company is so damn successful is because if you try and fight outgun them with infantry you're going to get smoked. It's a damn sight weaker against support weapon play or vehicle play. (Or a mix of the two.)

Hello, I usually never answer any thread i'm just lurking, but the other day I came up with the idea and comment them to other guys, and wouldn't know how this would be implemented in a 1vs1 scenario, but the idea was basically that if you upgrade your infantry with lmg's add them WEIGHT, yes WEIGHT, a passive counter to your grens+lmg. Elaborating on the subject, well lmg's and grens, are good for positional play, which that means, being on green cover and repositioning, that is good for protecting your flanks, and setting up MG, etc. While I agree with most of the post, I disagree with the mortar solution, everything else +1, just for brainstorming purposes, I suggest adding the weight variable only on lmg's, maybe that way you can bolster up the g43s as active play and maybe shreks as well or other at infantry, instead of stalling for mg42 lmg's instead of going for g43s. This weight, can't be added to elite infantry, maybe obers, guards, and other types of infantry, even shocks picking up some mg42 on the ground, etc. I dunno how this would solve any issues, but maybe not making them as slow as the anvil engineers, something in the middle ground. Regarding Mortars, well, I would suggest to not making them attack ground on fog of war, that would be my suggestion, altough I dunno if this could possibly happen, or if it would bug the hell out of em. that's it, Weight!

Cheers

Rifle Company is a special case, the flamers are actually the relatively balanced portion of the doctrine. Having early vet 2/3 and a generalist tank to fall back on are the real problem. I'd much like to see the easy eight swapped with the bulldozer sherman, but I doubt that would ever happen.

No they are not, having flamers on mainline infantry is downright worst thing of this commander.
Not only do they deny cover and garrisons, the flamers themselves are straight up better then a BAR upgrade ( since flames hit multiple models and the dps is very good too).
Open cover has no negative penalties for flames, thus you get the entire DPS load of the rifles+flames at your sqaud.

In cover? you die.
In the open? you die.
Got teamweapons? White Phosper barrage, and thats useless too.
Killed a rifle squad? get instant vet 1 rifle replacement, slap a flamer on it and you are good to go.

It's insane, plain and simple.

some of the points raised are bad/invalid for various reasons already mentioned (especially flames being good against garrison/cover... always has been like that, is completely fine in and off of itself, also weapon upgrades being straight upgrades is not an issue just because they are an all around upgrade).

some of the points raised are not a new issue, but have been around all the time (mortars or indirect fire units in general being (too) strong, abandon/crits and skillabilities).

one thing i'm missing from your post is also straight up number issues (as in units being straight up too strong for too long). issues that come to mind are bofors, brace, centaur, churchill, wasp, or generally almost all brit units. while quite a few other units also fit in here, especially the centaur and flame tanks pretty much broke the game for 2 straight patches or almost 2 months of playing time.

loiter planes are just insane, but not just the loiter abilities themselves. both CAS and P47 just kill everything in their area of operation and self scout. if you think back to coh1s henschel strafe, i think it was a good version of "loiter" ability (for those that dont know: planes dont scout for themselves, you have to give LOS; planes will only start strafing if tanks are in AoO).

in total: there are LOADS of issues with the game, but most of them are NOT new, but instead have been in the game for ages (especially bullshit DLC commanders/units/abilities like rifle/elite company, to a certain extent maybe even CAS; units that seemingly have no counter/only inadequate ones or, the inverse, units that seemingly don't counter anything). ISG/pack howies should not suppress/pin, no idea how anybody could have thought thats a good mechanic. autofacing getting removed i don't really care too much about. also, no words about vet scaling on infantry being completely off, or blobs being way too efficient.

LMGs are just coming too fast in the game and aren't dictated by any strategy.

In vcoh, lmg42 were locked behind grenadiers and really expensive, like actual pgren with double shreck.
BARs were also locked behind a strategic choice, or you were going garage and a fast m8, or unlocking general BARs.

Today, on a Ostheer vs USF matchup, you got expensive Rifles doing the job vs cheaper Grenadiers until Ostheer reach T2 (so around 5 minutes) and then, if you don't buy BARs, your expensive Rifles are suddenly worthless vs those cheaper grenadiers getting lmg42 upgrade. There isn't anything strategical in the decision making, the game ends around 5 minutes on a LMGs fight or you lose. 1 side get them fast and fuel free, other side for 15 fuel.

Relic simply designed squad upgrades the wrong way. SMGs upgrades should have been 1st upgrade available in game forcing people to use them on several squads (but not all) and apply strategy and tactics to take advantage, like volks in vcoh.
And next, only around T3 unlocking LMGs when you need to micro much more units on the field and only SMG micro is too much taxing your general gamplay.

Of course, it isn't difficult to see why they made this error, original Coh2 design is based on Sov being strong short range from T0/T1 (remember shock troups were Cp1) vs Ostheer being based on long range fight in oposition (Lmg available T2)

just a quick throw in, 90% of community finds rifle company totally op,does relic care about that subject? there is a wide support for nerfing it. o.O

LMGs are just coming too fast in the game and aren't dictated by any strategy.

In vcoh, lmg42 were locked behind grenadiers and really expensive, like actual pgren with double shreck.
BARs were also locked behind a strategic choice, or you were going garage and a fast m8, or unlocking general BARs.

Today, on a Ostheer vs USF matchup, you got expensive Rifles doing the job vs cheaper Grenadiers until Ostheer reach T2 (so around 5 minutes) and then, if you don't buy BARs, your expensive Rifles are suddenly worthless vs those cheaper grenadiers getting lmg42 upgrade. There isn't anything strategical in the decision making, the game ends around 5 minutes on a LMGs fight or you lose. 1 side get them fast and fuel free, other side for 15 fuel.

USF have a free unit when they tech up, lt is brutal with thompson and bar, paying 15 fuel and 150 mp is kinda acceptable to be able to equip EVERY unit ( hello cheap RE ).

As Ostheer is forced to go T2 kinda fast cause light vehicule ( and the need of lmg 42 ), USF is forced to equip rifleman to be able to continue crushing grens ( or just rifle flamers like 90% of usf player and no need to pay 15 fuel and 150 mp )