Feedback for Commander Revamppatch

Assault Engineers
Veterancy 2 now bolsters squad to five men upon reinforcement

This is a bad change since 5 men squad with flamer will be problematic.
Suggestions:
lower price, allow 2 different upgrades flamers or Thompson (2-3) (increases squad size to 5, takes all weapon slots) also gives access to WP grenade requires an officer.

(in addition :The ability for blowing up cover has its cooldown greatly increased now cost mu or completely removed. (the reason it available to Ro.E is to help them clear room for emplacements)

Elite Vehicle Crews
Repair speed increased by 0.5
Veterancy gain increased by 15%
This is a huge bonus it would be allot better to replace with a vet 4 level.

M10 Tank Destroyer
-HE ready aim-time from 1.75 to 1.25
-AOE Mid Distance from 1 to 1.5
-Fixed an issue where HE critcal would not apply to vehicles on deflection.
-Fixed an issue where HE shells could not be fired into the FOW.
Aimed HE round ability added that will blind enemy tanks and disable weapons for enemy tanks for 6 seconds and provide decent affect against infantry. Costs 35 munitions.

This is change in completely wrong direction.
M10 is a very cost effective unit the only reason it is not being used is that M36 is a borderline OP unit. Buff the m10 is the wrong way to go about it.

Suggestion:
Make the unit a call-in unit to but not commander that has other AI call-in tanks (mechanised for instance). Add premium when called in and make it also build-able from major at normal price.

Remove AP round (add smoke if necessary so the unit can be used as flanker. )

Sherman 105mm Dozer
The intention has been to give this unit a more devastating anti infantry and emplacement profile. Stats reflect a less potent Brumbar, with the upside being that the 105mm is turreted.
-AOE distance from 0.325/0.75/5.5 to 0.425/1/6
-Distance scatter max from 4.8 to 2.5
-Now deals 50% damage on deflection; akin to Brummbar
Veterancy 2 Bonuses from +20% speed, +20% rotation, +30% Accuracy, +20% Accel/Decel to 0.8 Received Damage, -15% weapon reload, +20% rotation
Veterancy 3 Bonuses from 3: +35 weapon rotation, -20% Reload to +35% weapon rotation, -10% weapon reload, +30% Accel/Decel

Actually I am amazed by this change it seems that people have learned nothing from the introduction of USF mortar?
Does USF need more AI tanks ?
Does a doctrinal unit with no tech cost should be model after a very powerful vehicle with a very high tech cost?
Should a unit be buffed just to compete with a unit that is already great at its work?
Simply redesign the unit so that it does not overlap with the standard Sherman.
Suggestions:
11CP 105mm Bulldozer Sherman unit redesigned as indirect fire support unit with the crew unable to disebark.
Option 1
A tougher version of priest with smaller range and a barrage with less shells (3?) and lower CD. Unit to be used to break the front line instead of being used to bomb the base.

Option 2
A smaller version of KV-2 used both a tank and in siege mod.

Option 3 a version "heavy infantry support tank" in other words the unit loses lethality for HP/armour

MECHANIZED COMPANY
Mortar Halftrack - Removed
Mechanized Group
WC-51 and M3 Halftrack consolidated and available from the Rifle Command. M3 requires either a Captain or Lieutenant to be deployed.
WC-51
50cal HMG upgrade cost from 60 to 45
Receives shared experience
Refit and Refuel
Re-added to the game in free slot
Combined Arms
Added in place of M21 Mortar Halftrack

Alternative suggestions:
"Refit and refuel" redesigned to now replaces a vehicle with another for the cost:
This gives a player more room to invest in light vehicles since he can now replace with with better as the game progress.
WC51 can be refitted to an M3
M3 can be refitted to M21
optional:
M20 can be refitted for grayhound
Stuart can be refitted to m10
Sherman can be refitted to a 76mm Sherman

Refit can be locked behind tech or XP level of the unit.

76mm Sherman
Population from 14 to 12
Cost from 380/135 to 380/125

The unit needs to vet bonuses looked at it can reload under 2 sec and with combined arms the unit will be broken.
The unit can also be moved to armor Armor company where it fits better thematically.

Other suggestion:
Move m10 to this commander since it can then be a call-in unit with out causing an issues since the Dozer/m10 combo will not be available.

It even suits the commander better thematically.

I brought up the same concerns. Ultimately though, I felt that there was no reason to not at least test this option.

At least someone noticed besides just me.

How is this different from vet 1 rifles with zooks? or PTRS penals? And there's a munition investment required on top. Being snared + in proximity of AT troops is practically death already, and when supported by an ATG it definitely should be.

Out of all the changes the revamp brings, this is probably the one that makes the most sense. The rest of it just seems like changing things for the sake of shaking up the meta, which ironically is going to give you all a lot to come to the balance forums to "discuss" about for quite some time. It's funny, everyone wants a balanced game, but they also feel that the game needs these redesigns in order for that to happen. I just don't get it.

Technically it is no different than rifles with 2x zooks, but the trade off of using rifles is it completely wasted the potential AI power of getting 2x BARs. When you equip REs (royal engineers and rear echelons) with AT weapons you arn't trading a whole lot of AI DPS for AT. Not to mention they're much cheaper to reinforce. As far as the PTRS goes, that weapon cannot burst damage like other handheld AT. You have to either be snared, buttoned or AFK to lose a vehicle to PTRS alone. I do want a balanced game, but I think giving sections the snare would've been better, although that would've even further made Boys AT sections obselete.

Good news is that these are all subject to change so at the very least we can all try the mod and see how it goes.

The M42 AT gun needs an increase in its movement speed while cloaked. Trying to reposition them whilst keeping them cloaked takes forever.


Is there a reason the US assault-engineers can't build caches? I assume it's because the icon locations are already taken up.

Well I know what I’m doing this weekend.

Edit: After just a look at the patch notes:

USF elite vehicle crews still seems like a total waste of munitions in a faction that really needs to spend as much as possible on getting lots of double BARs because the fundamental problem of vehicle crews with Thompsons is that their target size is too big and their squad is too small to properly utilize SMGs in like 99% of situations (made worse by the fact that they are on the more expensive side to reinforce and only get one combat related vet bonus of RA reduction IIRC) and adding repair and veterancy gain bonuses isn’t really a great incentive to use them since usf tanks are usually too squishy to be sure of being kept alive. I would propose making it so that when usf tanks are lost, a couple of the men in the squad are guaranteed to bail out if they have the upgrade, as that would make the upgrade much more worth it, but it would still pretty easy to wipe the squad on retreat (especially taking into account their larger RA), offering a bit of counterplay on the axis side as well.

The British recovery engineers could probably use a cp decrease so you don’t have to be lacking enough engineers at earlier points in the game just so you can make marginally better engineers. Valentine also comes kind of late, maybe reduce to 4-5 cp instead of 6? That way it can come out before mediums but a little after other light vehicles (which tend to come around 2-3 cp in my experience anyway).

The sector-by-sector basis of timing for the reworked British perimeter overwatch might make performance vary a lot on different maps or even different areas of maps depending on the secor size, as some have stupidly large sectors (steppes) and some sectors are kinda tiny in other maps, meaning a lot more or a lot less shells would be fired depending on where the enemy is, which seems kind of inconsistent. I really like the direction of the change though.

Vehicle crew repair in the okw elite armored doctrine still seems sort of expensive when compared to its Brit counterpart, which repairs a pretty sizable portion of health as opposed to a measly 200. I’d argue that it could use even further decreasing the cost to like 25-30 with that taken into account (I mean, 200 hp is like 1 tank shot and half a panzerfaust, or a single penetrating volley from 2 paratrooper super bazookas).

Also, OKW LefH with direct fire with vet XD
Made me think of a budget b4.

Because assault grenadiers aren't ambushers.

Honestly, the intent is to bring them closer to commandos in playstyle and performance.

Also, diversity solely for the sake of diversity is an issue in itself.

Have to test it more. Just don't like the idea of new stormtroopers - ostheer already has so many close range units (pio, PGrens, Assault grens, field officer) and only 1 long range grens. But changes aren't over so don't wanna cry over unspilt milk. G43 upgrade for all models and more buffs sound good so far.

lastly about hetzer and m10s - just wanna see some diffrent strats focusing on T1 and T2 rather than i have to go T3 all the time to get any sort of tank/tank destroyer (currently only spec ops and pershing commanders provides that options). And it's not like this unit gonna be copy paste of jp4... There is plenty of options to design it

about MECHANIZED COMPANY

Can we make Refit and Refuel exclusive for WC51 and M5 HT and bring back mortar HT? That Would bring back extra commander slot. I mean that for of indirect fire was really good for this commander.

and i agree with SneakyEye - Too many Crocs in British commanders. There's gonna be Croc meta in every game vs Brits if it's gonna be implemented

Made me think of a budget b4.

It's vet 5 ability - you almost never see it in action.

Played with Brits last night, Opponent kept his luchs out of AT nade range just fine.

Seems like a good change to me, it gives light vehicle players something to think about when playing brits. No more silly dives with 222, FHT or luchs.


Viability in 1's has been raised exponentially with this change, and to a lesser degree 2's.




Still not sure what maps I'm going to use the forward obs post on. Seems like a waste. I don't think I'll ever use this ability (even in changed form), it comes late, is hella expensive to use, and is destroyed pretty easily at the time in the game in which it comes.


EDIT: The cost of Air Resupply is way too cheap. MP cost needs to be doubled, or change reverted.

About NKVD
First, about infantry engagement. Guards or Shocks should be given, or allow AI weapon upgrade for Cons or Penals, (Replace the IL-2 strafing run or radio intercept, or make it a commissar's ability) Allow the commissar's ability to be used on teamweapons can be another alternative. Because Soviet itself lacks elite infantry and AI weapon upgrade for late infantry engagement. Though commissar could provide considerable buff for one specific squad, without ideal squad to get that buff will make it less usefull especially in late game.(Maybe it will be also be better if the ability could affect several squads, however, it could make the Penals spam too deadly in early game.)
And the traps is compeletely useless. It take ages for the incendiary shells to come. Worse more, the flames do so little damage, never stop the capture.
incendiary shells should come faster and do more damage.

Yes, this was discussed and is still on the table.

With the Mills Bomb upgrade at its current very cheap price I don't think tying it to tech as is would have much impact: you'd just always tech Mills Bombs in that case.

I think a general unlock upgrade which gives Mills Bombs, Sapper HEAT grenades, the light AT mines and which costs somewhere around 150 MP 25 FU (slightly more than Soviet snares) would make getting snares a decision (like Soviet) rather than something you'd just automatically tech. Teching snares, Bolster and the AEC would severely slow UKF's T3, but having the snares/AT gun option makes the AEC less mandatory.

It'd also bring back the advantage of the Tank Hunter sections in having snares that aren't locked to tech, much like Tank Hunter Conscripts bypass the Soviet sidetech.

How is this different from vet 1 rifles with zooks? or PTRS penals? And there's a munition investment required on top. Being snared + in proximity of AT troops is practically death already, and when supported by an ATG it definitely should be.

Out of all the changes the revamp brings, this is probably the one that makes the most sense. The rest of it just seems like changing things for the sake of shaking up the meta, which ironically is going to give you all a lot to come to the balance forums to "discuss" about for quite some time. It's funny, everyone wants a balanced game, but they also feel that the game needs these redesigns in order for that to happen. I just don't get it.

The difference is that you need to sacrifice anti infantry vetted squads, like giving tommies piats, it's risky and doesn't worth it. So i agree this is not the correct way to correct brits.

if u give them HEAT you must bring down brits AT options.

german armor has actually real struggle to deal with LMG blobbs and TDs from allies. you can get a panther...but this would struggle to deal with LMG blobbs...bringing a p4...allie TDs say hello easy target. since ost has non doc 60 range TD and only 4 model squads...and okw has a poor AT gun which wipe when you look at it with low range...

while allies can rolfstomp around the field with most of their unit...

its time to stop to give more tools to allies.

- dont let double equip LMG to alli infantery
- give axis a self propelled arti
- dont let 200mp unit equips double handheld AT
- give KT a back more range...now it has less range than most mediums tanks is slow AF and is bullied easily ...its a shoot into the own knee
- if u give brits a snare..bring down their AT options (AEC, sniper, FF, AT gun) else they will become an overpowerd OST (same AT gun, better MG, better infntery, snare, MUCH beter defense option, better TD, better tanks, better callins, better pios, ...)

Can we pls have the new changes in the mod merged with old changes so that one can read all the changes in effect is version of mod?

Firstly I just want to say yet another thank you to the mod team and the staff at relic for supporting their hard work. Many other games would have been abandoned years into their life-cycle but it's just brilliant to see the community and relic coming together to sort out balance and inject some new life into the game.

NOW! I played a few matches as Brits and OKW last night, my thoughts:

British Engineer snare:

Very good change as I thought, yes Engineers can be upgraded with double PIAT and snare but this only makes its appearance in latemid-lategame and is a non-issue (they still get kited to death by Panzer 4 just like RE/Rifle zooks).


The counterbalance to having a useful Royal Engineer snare is you can only really fit two of them into your army composition without being overrun, Axis meanwhile will usually have double your number of snares (4-5 volks or panzerfusillers/falls mixed in with snares as well. compared to your 2 sapper squads on average).

The above point is why I'm not sure about removing brits 6 pounder bonus vs lights, in the current meta OKW players will rush Luch and Puma combo and just dive for your AEC and Bren carrier exploiting the Brit lack of snare, brits meanwhile have to turtle with a AEC and AT gun in the hope they can hold their fuel in time for a cromwell but until then have to play incredibly boring and passive. If the AT gun accuracy was removed and snare was locked behind fuel and MP upgrade would this cheesy puma+luch meta really change? I don't think it would be enough to help brits with how fragile sappers are vs luch until you can afford 5 man and double piat.

Everyone has seen over the last 3-4 months just how terrible UKF are in GCS and other high level games (hans even refusing to play his beloved brits and picking USF). So this bit of love and out and out buff with the AT grenade is a lifeline. If it turns out there's an issue with PIATS just stick them up to 60muni and it will prevent spam but in the games I played it was a non-issue. I played one game against RE spam and I found it easy to counter with OKW flak truck just like it counters Penal PTRS, Tommy BOYS or RE zooks. I imagine we will see a lot more flak truck usage vs brits rather than the current "build a luch+puma dive AEC and win" picking on holes in their design.


TACTICAL SUPPORT

Actually feels like a viable doctrine now, so big thumbs up to the mod team for fixing this doctrine. The only issue I have is with the removal of the artillery cover. Of course it's initial version was game winningly OP and it was then nerfed into a minor annoyance... but having a mediocre ability that's only a minor annoyance is fine, it just needed to be cheaper. Reintroduce it but fix the price at 125muni imo, as others have said the Croc feels a bit overused and im not sure sacrificing a doctrinal ability with unique voice lines is really what is needed here.

Speaking of the Crocodile it feels balanced now, it should have been a premium Churchill with a flamer and that's exactly what have finally. I much prefer this than having all the DPS tied to an overpowered flame thrower or the previous version that was lets faced it a bit toothless for the 230 fuel.

Recovery sappers are useful now, but they could do with being a CP or so earlier due to their timing being a bit late. Possibly put them up to 260mp due to the extra utility of salvage and smoke nade. 230mp is a bit cheap.

Forward ob post while I didn't get a chance to use it in 1vs1 in any of my games... it will find a lot more use in 2vs2 3vs3 or 4vs4 im sure. But with the amount of artillery and howitzers in these modes im sure it will be easy to counter.


OKW ELITE ARMOUR

This is probably my favorite doctrine now with the changes. The panzer commander upgrade actually feels like it's buffing your vehicle now rather than before when it was essentially locking you out of a gren squad MG42 slapped up top for some extra DPS in return for overpriced artillery. This will probably be my go to upgrade for panthers for now on, HEAT shells+50 range of the panther+panzer officer line of sight is very potent for bullying fireflys indeed. The artillery call in itself is a lot better, the price decrease allows you to just keep dropping it on emplacements or team weapons and not really worry too much about munitions.The doctrine suffered from the same issues as the old british tactical support in that everything had extortionate muni cost so it's nice to see some attention to fixing this.

Emergency Repairs well the buff was pretty straight forward and works well. No issues with that here.

Sturmtiger I only got to play around with a bit but it felt better, if you hit an AT gun it's still going to be a wreck. Just now any units instead of dodging the AoE free from consequence will now instead be suppressed and easy pickings with a follow up attack. But possibly make the suppression bubble slightly bigger.

The only other change I would add to the doctrine is making HEAT shells 10muni or so cheaper, but in return slapping 40 seconds or so on the cooldown so it can't be spammed in every engagement. I think it only makes sense considering the other abilities have been dropped in price too.

Hey all.

German Infantry Doctrine

It shows that you need 1 CP to unlock Squad Leader Upgrade, when in reality you need 2 CP.

BRITISH
GENERAL FACTION CHANGES
Trialing change where Sappers, and Recovery Sappers have access to HEAT Grenades (The same as BOIS Tank Hunter Sections)
Trialing change where Infantry Section/Tommies can now plant M7 Light AT Mines; replica of the Rear Echelon Mines.
BRITISH ARTILLERY

The m7 have no reason to be available to Tommies, they already can be built sandbags and trenches and feel more like engineer unit. If Tommies need some sort of snare the heavy gammon bomb can be redesigned as more of an AT weapon and not be model after the normal satchel charges.
In addition since now UKF have normal snares one should rethink the rest of their snares and AT weapon like ATG accuracy bonus, tread break, sniper snare, heavy gammon bombs, tullips snare part.

Sexton
Changes intended to give similar performance to USF priest, with some different characteristics.
AOE damage from 1/0.25/0.1 to 1/0.5/0.2
AOE distance from 1.5/3/4.5 to 1.25/2.5/6
Range from 135 to 160
Supercharge Victor Creeping Barrage no longer shares a cooldown with the main barrage
Again a step in the wrong direction, modeling a unit after a unit of another faction is usually bad idea.
Sexton has very low CD that scale with veterancy (-40 barrage CD). With the purposed changes and the changes to valentine the sheer volume of fire Sexton can provide is over the top, proving almost continues fire

Suggestions:
Start with a smaller change to AOE like 120% instead of of 200% and if any more firepower is needed move to vet.

Valentine
Changes intended to make this unit more potent in combat.
Main gun damage from 80 to 120
Population from 12 to 8
Sexton Creeping Barrage no longer requires veterancy 1
The combination of fighting abilities and the utility of radar is simply too much for this unit.
Suggestions:
Remove radar from the unit and balance the unit as light/medium tank with vet bonuses/abilities suit for the role.

Allow the radar as an upgrade to the vehicle similar to command vehicle that add penalties to fight capabilities of the vehicles and would be limited to one. This change will allow the vehicle to be balanced allot better.

Reduce the vehicles ability to crush infantry.

Perimeter Overwatch
Now launches an off-map mortar shell every 8 seconds and 25 pdr shells every 16 seconds at enemies in friendly sector. This applies on a sector-by-sector basis.
This ability does not suit the commander, it should be swamped with "counter fire" ability available to advance emplacement commander that should not have that ability in the first place. Having the ability to make better emplacement and the ability to counter their natural counters with "counter fire" is very bad design and should be removed. On the other hand moving the ability in this commander will make solidify the commander an responce to enemy spamming artillery.

Concentration barrage
This ability overlap with pyrotechnic allot and is redundant is a more powerful Sexton exists.
Suggestions:
Replace with "smoke" ability, ability now provides smoke instead of HE CP could go down to 2. Pyrotechnics now also provides smoke barrage for tommies.

TACTICAL SUPPORT
Artillery Cover - Removed
Swapped out for Churchill Crocodile
Adding Croc to commander making it one of the most common abilities available to 3 commanders is not needed and not suited to the theme.It almost feel as if the croc is add to the doctrine so the unit can enter "scope" and be balanced which is actually a very bad approach. If a doctrinal unit is needed one can add a Sherman or M10 or Dozer.

Churchill Crocodile
The Crocodile has been adjusted to have its gun match other tanks. Smoke has also been added to allow the Crocodile to provide combat support.
Main gun damage from 80 to 160
Can now fire smoke shells; ability similar to Comet and Cromwell’s Smoke Shot
Suggestion:
Lower rear armour is the value is simply too high (applies to some other vehicles also.)
Remove dot damage from flames (this change can apply to all vehicles) add an ability that add the dot flames but aim at a specific area.
Changes smoke of the vehicles to solidify the role as an infantry support vehicle. Smoke work like normal churhcil instead of shot blocker now work like the older version of commando smoke providing "cover bonus" status to infantry without the cover bonuses. The unit now offer synergy with infantry.

Recovery Sapper Squad
Cost from 450 to 230 Manpower – one squad instead of two
Can throw smoke grenades for 15 munitions
Repair speed from 1.6 to 1.85

Forward Observation Post
Upgrade available to the Forward Assembly which grants the FOP abilities to the Assembly
Costs 100 manpower and 10 fuel

For more info about commander design here:
https://www.coh2.org/topic/81270/commander-rework-approach
and
https://www.coh2.org/topic/81491/suggestions-for-commanders-revamp

Invised a post for excessive flaming. Keep it civil, guys!

Why give m42 160/80/60 pen instead of 120/100/80 though? It's only AT gun with this kind of weird power hike of pen power at close range.

Also why no go futher with it and remove green cover bonus from crew but make it faster in stealth and retreatable like raketen?

Why give m42 160/80/60 pen instead of 120/100/80 though? It's only AT gun with this kind of weird power hike of pen power at close range.

Also why no go futher with it and remove green cover bonus from crew but make it faster in stealth and retreatable like raketen?

Puma has that profile as well, however, contrary to ATGs, puma can actually close in and keep itself there as well as is mobile.

BRITISH

Sexton has very low CD that scale with veterancy (-40 barrage CD). With the purposed changes and the changes to valentine the sheer volume of fire Sexton can provide is over the top, proving almost continues fire

Suggestions:
Start with a smaller change to AOE like 120% instead of of 200% and if any more firepower is needed move to vet.

Did you play the mod? those changes are a first step, i wouldn't complain about numbers until they gonna be proparely tested.

Valentine

Suggestions:
Allow the radar as an upgrade to the vehicle similar to command vehicle that add penalties to fight capabilities of the vehicles and would be limited to one. This change will allow the vehicle to be balanced allot better.

TACTICAL SUPPORT
If a doctrinal unit is needed one can add a Sherman or M10 or Dozer.

Really like the ideas here.

Did you play the mod? those changes are a first step, i wouldn't complain about numbers until they gonna be proparely tested.

Thanks for reading my post and taking the time to respond.

Unfortunately at the moment I can not.

On the other hand I have used Sexton enough times to know that it can deliver almost constant barrage when it reaches vet 2.

In addition Valentine can now keep sexton firing even when normal barrage is on CD.

And that is part of the problem with balance changes, most of them are way too massive and they do not take into account that performance of units when they vet up.

Units should be balance in all their vet levels.

Really like the ideas here.

Thanks