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

Zarok, you are wasting your breath trying to explain something ridiculously simple to pseudo intellectuals on this forum.

They have a position, they wont change it no matter how much you explain to them clearly and concisely. It really is pathetic, but unfortunately thats the case.

Anyone who doesn't see rifle flamers as the main problem in rifle company, I have no hope for you.

Totally agreed momo.

What about if we make flametrower in rifle company not a upgrade but a rifleman call in that cost you 280 Mp 60 munny and give you riflemen with flamer , so you wont be albe to have all your rifles with flamers without kreeping your early game presence or in very late game.

Good idea, but someone suggested a dedicated 4 man Rifle squad as a call in which comes with a flamer (or as an upgrade). 4 M1s and a flamer is way too much damage. That would have more control over their balance.

i think usf flamers are not as potent as you ppl make them look like after all its a doctrinal ability how about finding another ability to match them , like g43s for example . If i remember well that used to be the solution against penal spam at one point when penals where all the rage . Also light artillery units need the autofire if they remove it they might as well remove the whole units

Good idea, but someone suggested a dedicated 4 man Rifle squad as a call in which comes with a flamer (or as an upgrade). 4 M1s and a flamer is way too much damage. That would have more control over their balance.

I don't get it. Doesn't a double bar rifleman have more dps ? The only problem with flamers is that they allow USF to dominate every single building on the map. Flamers should not exist on main line infantry but the flamers themselves aren't that strong. Apart from their strength vs buildings ofc.

I don't get it. Doesn't a double bar rifleman have more dps ? The only problem with flamers is that they allow USF to dominate every single building on the map. Flamers should not exist on main line infantry but the flamers themselves aren't that strong. Apart from their strength vs buildings ofc.

Requires investment on tech, going back to base, more muni, can be negated with cover and no AoE. As you say, the flamer is not the problem rather than the platform.

On the abandonment topic, what if the vehicle has to be fully repaired before it can be crewed? That way it gives the other player time to react and adds tactical depth in that the repairing player must try to defend it whilst repairing.

For those that are saying Flamer tanks can be countered by 2-3 AT guns, this is pudding. I consistently use 3 or more raktens in my build and if i see a Croc or KV8 and i do not have mines down or still saving for armor then i instantly retreat, bcoz i know a Croc/Kv8 can easily handle 3 "Unvetted" Raktens.

Vet 3 and above though 3 Raktens can easily handle a KV8 and its possible to kill a Croc.

The Centaur is now in a good place and cannot solo 2 AT guns, this is where i would like to see Flame tanks, however i think flame tanks should be able to take on 1000's of infantry and maybe some kind of fear mechanic which makes infantry fire less and with reduced accuracy against these tanks would be a good anti blob mechanism.

A few quick clarifications before I go to bed for the night (oh and thank you all for the good discussions so far, keep it up!)

I think the flamethrower mechanics are fine, flamethrowers just need to be removed from riflemen given their flexibility, great vet bonuses, vehicle snare and ability to equip a BAR on top of the flamer.

Indirect fire - probably just removing suppression would be fine rather than making them all baby howitzers. I would enjoy that style of play but I can see how others would find it annoying to micro.

@ZombieRommel - even without blobbing ISGs and Pack Howis have the ability to swing unwinnable fights in your favor just by suppressing units, this is the main thing that breaks them in my opinion.

Regarding flame tanks - I do think they they should be better against AT guns than other tanks, but the flame DOT pushes them over the top. The same thing happens to AT guns that happened to MGs in molotovs. The guy dragging the gun dies so the next crew member runs into the fire to pick up the gun... and then dies because he's in fire - repeat. This allows tanks like the KV-8 and Croc to frontally assault an AT gun position, spew flames everywhere and then back out and just let the AT guns roast.

AT guns are useful ONLY against tanks. Therefore their counter should be:

-Being flanked by anything
-Infantry pushes
-Smoke
-Indirect Dire
-Off maps
-Snipers
-Grenades
-Any combination of the above

There are already plenty of AT gun counters in the game, we don't need more.

As far as loiters go I think the main issue is that not all factions always have reliable access to AA units. If USF skips LT it will cost them 100 fuel to grab an AA HT to counter Ju87s from one shotting their tanks.

OKW has to invest in the Mech truck - easily the weakest truck in this patch and then pay for the 251 Flak.

Soviet has to invest a ton of munitions into their M5 - thankfully the M5 is still quite strong but there are plenty of situations in which this isn't going to be a wonderful option to have to go for.

On top of that there is not much counter play in the first pass coming in. If there were more time to react - or if the radius was smaller the burden of not having access to AA would be lessened. Furthermore strafes like Ju87 targeting infantry and subsequently obliterating them is hard to swallow. The planes loiter for a LONG time and on many maps they lock down such a huge area for such a long time it is overly crippling to the receiving player.

I'm sure there are other systems Relic could look into to provide the same sort of "air-force supporting the army push" feel without giving players "counter everything in this giant AoE for the next 45 seconds" abilities.

Ciez, I agree with a significant percentage of where you're coming from. I don't know if all your solutions are good fits for CoH2 as is. But I think we are learning a lot of valuable lessons for a future game in the series, if we ever get one. The most important ones IMO are related to the pitfalls of asymmetric faction design. Not that we should abolish it, just that we should think very carefully about which kinds of units to deprive some factions of, and which to muck about with in weird ways. My preference would be all factions having a standard respectable mortar, mg, at gun, and core infantry unit, no gimmick stuff like Kubels and Mortar Pits, no silliness like pack howis and isgs instead of mortars. You seem like you want to add flamers to that mix, I guess that's a fair call too.

I'd also contend that no factions should be designed around resource shortages, and no faction should be especially good or bad at fighting in urban vs open areas IF POSSIBLE. The alternative if that is too restrictive is to make sure that ALL automatch maps have roughly equal ratios of enclosed and open spaces, so that we can at least balance that kind of thing for tourneys. Idk.

The targeted airstrikes versus loiters is something I definitely agree with you on, I can't believe they ever decided to make all strikes loiters for the base game. One of my most hated changes actually. Replace predictable strikes (which you can use experience and skill to both target and dodge as appropriate) with random nonsense in huge areas of effect that are total dicerolls regarding effectiveness half the time, sometimes get shot down and sometimes don't. The plane crashes fucking players up were just a secondary cancer that grew out of this.

Regarding skill planes:

In my ideal world, single strafes would arrive inmediatly after called at a higher speed and force to "turn around" in order to strafe.
It would leave some counterplay and the intention is to maintain the same time to arrive as now.

Some of this is sound, some isn't.

Artillery should be powerful. It was the number one cause of death on the battlefield for a reason. Do not nerf it any further, it's already been nerfed considerably.


The day abandoned vehicles are removed is the day I stop playing and never return. RNG is not always a bad thing, abandonment is the absolute definition of RNG that enlivens the game. The only way it can be game changing is if you fail to destroy the vehicle yourself, and if you don't then it's your fault.

Some of this is sound, some isn't.

Artillery should be powerful. It was the number one cause of death on the battlefield for a reason. Do not nerf it any further, it's already been nerfed considerably.


The day abandoned vehicles are removed is the day I stop playing and never return. RNG is not always a bad thing, abandonment is the absolute definition of RNG that enlivens the game. The only way it can be game changing is if you fail to destroy the vehicle yourself, and if you don't then it's your fault.

Not at all true. For example a 222 getting stolen nullifies any follow up light vehicle from Ostheer. Usually you are able to kill the decrewed tank, but not always, and that doesn't justify the other guy getting a free unit. As it is currently I wouldn't say you are forced to keep your vehicle with the bulk of your forces, but its definitely safer. If you send a medium or light vehicle to harass a capping squad on the side and they guy has a tank destroyer parked in the back, there is a 5% chance he gets a free unit even though you were using the unit the correct way.

Good idea, but someone suggested a dedicated 4 man Rifle squad as a call in which comes with a flamer (or as an upgrade). 4 M1s and a flamer is way too much damage. That would have more control over their balance.

Thy can be even 5 map. But at time you can call in them you will surely have at last 3 rifles so you can only make 4th rifle as flamer or else you will get huge mp bleed or if you make less early game rifles you will loose much mapcontrol.

And in late game it does not matter su much , if you loose some you will replace them with flamers

Supression as a mechanic should be reworked.

Units should lose supression quickly if they aren't being fired upon by the source. What I mean is if you smoke a mg42 and your rifles are supressed, they should become unsupressed really quickly since the hmg can't fire at them.

It's really stupid to have units that are crawling when nothing is shooting at them.

For pack/isg it would mean that units would become supressed/pinned for like 1 or 2 seconds and then got back up, this would also apply to CAS AI strafe which could make it less bullpudding.

To compensate units should be pinned way faster by everything.

I don't get it. Doesn't a double bar rifleman have more dps ? The only problem with flamers is that they allow USF to dominate every single building on the map. Flamers should not exist on main line infantry but the flamers themselves aren't that strong. Apart from their strength vs buildings ofc.

^

The croc is still broken, not its damage but the fact it is so durable in battle means it can push or take down AT crews.

croc should have the same similar stats to the KV-8.

i think usf flamers are not as potent as you ppl make them look like after all its a doctrinal ability how about finding another ability to match them , like g43s for example . If i remember well that used to be the solution against penal spam at one point when penals where all the rage . Also light artillery units need the autofire if they remove it they might as well remove the whole units

"As you ppl make them look"

Have you watched any higher skilled game lately? Any tournament game? No one is making them look strong. They are fucking strong, that's final.

"As you ppl make them look"

Have you watched any higher skilled game lately? Any tournament game? No one is making them look strong. They are fucking strong, that's final.

If I'm not mistaken they have been nerfed with the last patch ? I think it was anti building modifier from 1.5 to 1.25 or something. They're only good on urban maps. On Langres and crossing they suck. The problem is that flamers on mainline infantry are just a flawed concept because it essentially means that the opponent won't be able to use any building whatsoever.

If I'm not mistaken they have been nerfed with the last patch ? I think it was anti building modifier from 1.5 to 1.25 or something. They're only good on urban maps. On Langres and crossing they suck. The problem is that flamers on mainline infantry are just a flawed concept because it essentially means that the opponent won't be able to use any building whatsoever.

It was nerfed, but it's still powerful as fuck. The whole Halloween Cup got dominated by this doctrine, and it wasn't always on urban maps.
They just really need to move it from the mainline infantry.

Snip

The croc is still broken, not its damage but the fact it is so durable in battle means it can push or take down AT crews.

croc should have the same similar stats to the KV-8.

my tiger, my tiger ace and my king tigers can do that too, and in addition they can fight others tanks and targets...is that not fine?