[Proposal] 11 distinct, identifiable doctrinal commanders.

Hey Relic.

The current lot of commander suck. They are not only non-unique, they are hard to identify, and most feel the same. Compared to CoH1 doctrines where they were well fleshed out and useful on a deep strategic level, synergizing with player styles and maps, CoH2 ones are very flat. Therefore, I propose a change in commanders, with a complete overhaul of how abilities are organized.

Suggestions are welcomed.


(Click link for larger image)
http://i.imgur.com/Fytvip0.jpg


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Festung: "Fortress" - Defensive in nature. CoH1 style Defensive Doctrine. Players dig in, stay close together, and have good infantry synergy.

- Improved FHQ: All garrisonable units can create a regular FHQ. Improved FHQ (cost MP + fuel) creates a FHQ with medics, but no other buffs.


Großdeutschland: "Greater Germany" - Overall a balanced feel, good utility doctrine scaling throughout the whole game. It was a German panzergrenadier division that was very well equipped throughout the whole war and achieved reputable results.

- Tiger Ace: A unique, single-use Tiger with North African colors, more health, and more accurate than a standard Tiger I.


LSSAH: Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Hitler's own personal body guard. Highly motivated and ideologically driven. A throwback at vCoH's Terror Doctrine. A more unique subset of abilities with infantry focus on left side, and fun blackout / V1 equivalent on the right. Late game KT as with vCoH.

- If LSSAH is too edgy because of Hitler reference, than make it Das Reich. If that's also too edgy because Waffen SS (yet NVKD is a-okay...), then call it the Panzer Elite.


Jäger Infantry: Emphasis on mobility, map control, and high-utility infantry. Similar to vCoH Infantry Company.

- GebirgsJäger: Similar to Fallshirmjäger, but they deploy convenionally, are armed with only Kar98k or G40, but are very accurate at shooting. Cloaks in any snow, cloaks in cover, and has ambush bonus for the first 2 seconds.


Blitzkrieg: Everything goes fast.

- Redistribute resources: Reverse vCoH MP Blitz. Pay X manpower, gain Y munitions and Z fuel. No further income penalties.


Schwere Panzer: Heavy tank battalion featuring good ol' tank warfare.

- Bergepanzer IV: vCoH's Bergetiger, except less armored. Similar functions for reviving intact wrecks. In order for zombie vehicles to occur, the vehicle needs to be revived first, wherein it will be in an 'abandoned' state, then recrewed second, and repaired back to health. (Bergetiger in vCoH was a demolitions Tiger, laying demo charges)

- Vampire Halftrack. Same as CoH1, large tactical map awareness. Deploys Goliaths.


PanzerJäger: Tank Destroyer Tactics. Build Hetzers to win.

ATHT: More powerful than PE ATHT. This is a essentially the current T2 PaK40 mounted on wheels and unflankable/snipable, but weak on armor. It may be the answer to sniper spam. It counters tanks which also counter it.

- APCR Rounds: Similar to vCoH American 57mm AT Gun. Timed ability, increased penetration by X. No damage modifiers.


Luftwaffe: Heavy infantry branch. Like Schwere Panzer is heavy tanks for frontal assaults, Fallschirmjägers with FG42s can do frontal infantry assaults. Balanced out by late game Henschel and Flak 88.

- Fallschirmjäger: Identical to CoH1 Luft Falls, but can be paradropped in like Airborne. Heavier armored (2 armor?). Has panzerfaust ability.

- Supply Drops: Airborne supply drops, munitions/guns only, costs fuel. Provides MG42, 8cm mortar. Synergizes with infantry heavy focus.


Artillerie: Arty branch. Scheldt when?

- Forward Observation: Turns an occupied building into Pripyat watchtower. Still limited by Truesight. Vision bonus subject to change.

- Flares: Similar to sniper flares. Limited range, Grenadiers fire flare, flare reveals FOW for X seconds on a medium radius. Grenadier flare range is similar to sniper range.


Pioneer: Support doctrine.

- Demolitions: Place demo charges and call-in Goliahs. Goliaths cost munitions only.

- Fortified Emplacements: Double health, every bunker built by default is a command bunker. Bunker can be further upgraded to accomodate medics, or accomodate an MG42.

- Entrench: Combines Trenches and Hull Down abilities. Pioneers need to build trenches or hull down for tanks. Units inside get defensive bonus, and reload faster.


Ostlegionen: Swarm style. Similar to 8 conscript style, cap the map, move quickly, tech up quickly.

- Sabotage: Any and every neutral object in the game can be trapped. If triggered, it will deal fire damage similar to molotovs. Neutral and abandoned MG, motar, AT Guns, etc, will burst into flames. Buildings, points, etc have MHT incendiary fire radius. Crew weapon fire radius will be smaller. Crews must move their weapons after capturing it. Sabotaged weapons will be obvious visually.


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What is new?

* Sturmbannführer (Major) - Import and reskin vCoH Officer.
* GebirgsJäger - Reskin Fallschirms. Give it new guns.
* Rugged Movement - Units suffer no movement penalties.
* Bergepanzer IV - Completely new unit. Make a panzer 4 with Bergetiger crane.
* ATHT Sdkfz 251/22 - Similar to PE ATHT, but with PaK40 model on back.

Everything else can either be imported from CoH1 or already exists in CoH2.

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Where did Rigel AT Mines go?

Nobody uses them ever.


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Soviets:
http://i.imgur.com/MiGdgPJ.jpg


More details: http://www.coh2.org/topic/8510/proposal-11-distinct-identifiable-doctrinal-commanders./post/81605

lmao these avatars

very good post, I can tell you put a lot of effort into the art!

But my first impression is you are essentially copy and pasting doctrines from vcoh.

I dont agree with this persistent mentality that coh2 must increasingly recreate vcoh (with blizzards!) to be a good game.

On the doctrine vs commander debate im somewhat indifferent. Either one can work but the emphasis needs to be on gameplay balance. It is much harder to balance 11 possible unit doctrine combos, especially for team games to some extent, than it is 3, or a limited coh2 5 ability commander. If the sov get their own 11, youve just increased the gameplay variables exponentially. Relic does not have an amazing track record resolving imba designs in coh2 so far; its a slow process.

very good post, I can tell you put a lot of effort into the art!

But my first impression is you are essentially copy and pasting doctrines from vcoh.

I dont agree with this persistent mentality that coh2 must increasingly recreate vcoh (with blizzards!) to be a good game.

On the doctrine vs commander debate im somewhat indifferent. Either one can work but the emphasis needs to be on gameplay balance. It is much harder to balance 11 possible unit doctrine combos, especially for team games to some extent, than it is 3, or a limited coh2 5 ability commander. If the sov get their own 11, youve just increased the gameplay variables exponentially. Relic does not have an amazing track record resolving imba designs in coh2 so far; its a slow process.

Agreed and guilty with copypasting CoH doctrines. However, if Relic must insist on multi-doctrinal commanders for more "variety", then some of the better CoH1 abilities could be reused in CoH2. Right now, CoH2 doctrines lact distinctiveness, which is my primary complaint. I am designing new doctrines based on a core concept or idea, and then filling them with abilities. These vCoH abilities could be the starting point for further unique abilities. That's something for Relic to do.

If you took the current CoH2 commanders, consolidated them so each commander's 5 abilities were unique, then you'd get a much better game. But alas, that isn't so.

so the solution to making all the raging fans happy is wipe away all the commanders they paid money for and give them different ones.
sounds legit

Lol I love this. I'd go Pioneer just for the stache. As much as I think your version of doctrines would have been a blast to play, they're committed to their commanders now and I don't foresee it changing. Great ideas for CoH3 though.

Relic can't change anything because people have paid for commanders and Relic can't take those away. People would freak the fuck out.

Hey man, great post, nice to see something well thought out in this sea of crap. But unfortunately Tycho is right, a lot of people would freak. The old CoH vets would rejoice, the new players to CoH2 would flip out, and you'd have a bunch of angry people who paid for commanders.

+1 internets for the post though

wow these ideas are actually pretty good, but even if relic makes it possible ( yes a lot of people would be pissed ) it will take time for relic to make new units, because based on what i see in the new doctines i think relic no longer have artists to make the new models. i could be wrong but ... no new units :'(

It would be so sweet if we could have doctrines like that, I find thems so much more interesting than any other Commander released till now.

Good job, you designed them well!

I like the mustaches !
On topic, this is how commanders should be done.

Btw, I have a question, from what I remember of my short experience on coh2... when you unlock special units (call-in in vcoh) from the commander tree, they take the place of the standard units ? Don't you find this dumb ? Commanders should bring you diversity in your build.. and not modify your core build.

While in vcoh, when you call-in stormtroppers, they don't take the place of gren squads.

the new unit (call in) dont take the place of the standard

Btw, I have a question, from what I remember of my short experience on coh2... when you unlock special units (call-in in vcoh) from the commander tree, they take the place of the standard units ? Don't you find this dumb ? Commanders should bring you diversity in your build.. and not modify your core build.

While in vcoh, when you call-in stormtroppers, they don't take the place of gren squads.

The doctrinal units have not worked like that since the beta. They work like COH1 call-ins now.

Related to OP: I really like the idea of some kind of unique, identifying mark on each commander portrait. Something like that would really help to differentiate the commanders on the loading screens as well as in-game. As it is, the only commander I can ever remember by look is the Lightning War commander because he has that bad-ass eye patch.

Idea for doctrines is good but i doubt Relic will change whole doctrine system because they have DLC policy and they gain $$$ for selling their current commanders and it would be hard for them to replace current doctrines with your (who would get which doctrine)

Also it's a lot of work to create new doctrine system, they are mostly focused on balancing things right now instead of changing current systems

I agree that Relic overhauling the entire commander system will be a huge task. However, I have faith that Relic could possibly revise current Commanders to bring it more similar to what I have proposed, and focus new commander DLCs in their ToW packages. Regarding people who already paid for commanders, maybe give them free future ToW packs, exclusive skins, or bulletins. We can hope!

Single player wise I have no gripe on what Relic does to enhance their storytelling experience - I bet they could get a whole lot of milking done with Battle of Stalingrad, Third Battle of Kharkov, Kursk (huge mission potential), Dneiper, Bagration, Vistula-Oder, Operation Mars, then Battle of Berlin. And then on the side, possibly Warsaw Uprising, North Africa 1940-41.

I'm now trying to figure out how to manage Soviet doctrines. There's currently 29 unique abilities/call-ins spread over 14 commanders. If commanders were all unique, they'd all get 2 abilities.

i doubt relic will add new units, but i like these a ton

you should do ones for soviet too

or are you a reich fanboy

Nice, I would buy just for the mustaches and leather! But yes the problem is some people paid for some commanders + the work they have to do so I have little hope

i doubt relic will add new units

Eh, they added new units two days ago:
http://www.coh2.org/news/8461/3.0.0.10701-patch-new-dlc-commanders-and-case-blue-launch

i doubt relic will add new units, but i like these a ton

you should do ones for soviet too

or are you a reich fanboy

Yep, working on Soviet ones! There will be new abilities required and probably new units. I'll admit that I know a lot more about the Wehrmacht than the Red Army, and that a lot of the proposed German ones draw from CoH1. Currently, I'm on these general concepts:

Propaganda: Patriotism / Nationalism
Guard Rifle
Motorized Guards
Shock Army
Conscription Army: Conscript Support / Combined Arms
Shtrafbat (Penal Batallion)
Maskirovka (Deception/Denial): SMERSH (or NKVD) / Scorched Earth
Deep Operations
Mechanized Assault: Independent Action / Breakthrough
Partisan Warfare: Sabotage / Infiltration
Urban Combat
Lend-Lease
War Machine: Logistics / Attrition
Combined Arms: Close Air Support / Strangulation
Counterattack: Defensive / Envelopment

Subject to be changed, combined, or split.

Very nice indeed, but youre out waaay to late. Id wish it was like this from the start but as said its gone too far to change anything this drastical.

But we can hope for this system in a future game perhaps

+1