[Proposal] 11 distinct, identifiable doctrinal commanders.

If they would change the system to customizable commanders, they could change them. Every ability a commander has that you purchased is available to customize. This way you could technically rebuild your purchased commander while be able to create some new ones. They could sell new abilities this way. Im thinking maybe 3-5 commanders with different abilities restricting some abilities to some commanders. 20 commanders+ is just a huge mess! Even abilities like placing anti infantry mines for a german anti-infantry commander and anti-tank mines for a german anti-tank commander i.e.

What they could technically do, is to have build-your-own-commander-with-a-funny-face, and choose your own abilities.

All players will get 3 blank commanders. A commander will be given 5 (or 6) ability slots, and a limited amount of points. Depending on how good a doctrinal ability is, it will cost more or less points. Recon might cost 5 points. A Tiger might cost 30. Either way, a player is free to choose whatever abilities they want until they run out of points.

How to monetize?

1) Relic can sell more commander slots. Pay to get 4, 5, 6, etc blank commanders.

2) If they import CoHO make-your-own-commander, then they can sell funny hats, monocles, uniforms, and moustaches.

3) Special abilities. They can sell upgraded versions of abilities, like KT instead of Tiger, longer strafes, firestorm instead of light arty barrage, etc. They'd cost more points than the replacement, but they will provide a bigger impact per that ability. The stronger abilities are balanced out by having all other abilities for that commander be weaker, because the point limit is absolute.

I like your model. Too bad they didn't take that route. I miss "trees"...

Lend-Lease

haha, soviets have to spam m3's already- i'd love to see what other lend lease crap they have in store for those germans

haha, soviets have to spam m3's already- i'd love to see what other lend lease crap they have in store for those germans

Shermans FTW.

And now for Soviets.

Overall design theory: Individually, Soviet units are weaker with limited effective roles. They must be used together in a "death ball" combined arms style to support other specialized units. Unfortunately, with the current way the game is designed these specialized units come from commanders. Therefore, every commander must follow one of these requirements:

1) It must have a specialized early call in to compensate for conscripts scaling badly, or abilities to make conscripts scale better, or

2) It must have a late game unit or equivalent abilities to deal with late game German armor - tank call-in or artillery. (This is why NVKD, although interesting, is the weakest commander at the moment)

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


Combined Arms: A bit of everything. Rounded approach.

- DShK 1938 HMG team: To compensate for not having Guards, the DShK 1938 is essentially a MG42 firing incendiary rounds, but towed like a Maxim. Reasonably quick setup time, can button, and is supposed to wreck scout cars and flame halftracks.

- KV-85: A late game slow, heavy tank with a turreted D5T gun (SU85's gun). It's role would be most similar to a Tiger.

Guard Rifle: Standard Guards doctrine, with huge utility and mid game support. Plays similar to current doctrines with Guards.

- AT Gun Ambush: I hope that it can be buffed so that it behaves similarily to vCoH PaK. Currently, the movement speed is reduced, but so is its rotation! It's practically worthless if the rotation speed is so slow that it needs to uncloak itself to rotate the Zis, which at that point it's no longer ambushing tanks, but getting raped.

Guard Motor: Guard doctrine with more emphasis on movement and defense.

- Secure Flank: When activated, all units in friendly sectors can sprint. Ability unlocks at 3CP so early game flanks can still be done.

- SU100: A SU85 with an even bigger gun. Similar (but much less armored) than an Elefant.

- Motorized Deployment: When you call in Conscripts, Penals, Guards, MGs, etc, they arrive in ZIS-5 halftracks. They can only be called into friendly sectors. Truck is medium armored (a bit less than a 251), spawns friendly, and can be controlled. It can only move in friendly or neutral sectors. Once undeployed, it turns neutral, uncontrollable, and heads back towards base. If truck dies while units are inside it, units suffer 50% health penalty. Truck itself has no upkeep and does not take popcap.

- ZIS-44 Ambulance: Identical to ZIS-5 with Ambulance skin. Call in anywhere, costs maybe 280 MP 20 fuel. Can deploy anywhere, gives 3 medics. Mobile healing station.

Shock Army: Good ol' big walloping punch. Slow and steady advance.

- KV-1: Slow, small gun, but heavily, heavily armored. It should be assigned high threat priority by all units so it draws fire, and must be manually retargeted by opponent for units to fire at something else. Not too expensive - maybe one or two for a big push with a bunch of T34/76s.

- KV-2: Slow AVRE unit. Huge splash radius, anti-building, some anti-armor, and flat out kills infantry. Slow reload. KV-2, due to its high profile, has ability to "deploy commander", which its commander will pop out of the hatch at top and do spotting, giving large vision bonus. An awesome, stupidly designed tank that destroys shit.

- Prepared defense: Gives engineers bunkers (bunker builds, upgrade to Maxim for X munis), hedgehog tank traps, and infantry trenches.

- Mandated production: Reverse MP blitz. Pay MP, get muni and fuel. It should synergize well with KV1 / KV2 call-in.

- Heavy Artillery: Essentially vCoH American howitzer off-map.

Conscription Army: AKA Conscripts Support Tactics. Those who like HTD + PPSh should be familiar.

- Positional Outpost: Similar to Commando radio triangulation things, but they only operate on vision. Provides some vision (limited by Truesight) radius. Each outpost operates individually. Spamming multiple outposts can provide large map awareness. Costs 75 manpower to build, and 25 muni for camouflage netting.

NKVD Super stealthy Soviet shenanigans.

- Special Reconnaissance Squad: 4 man "Grenadier" squad with grenades. Can be further upgraded with SVT-40. To opposing player, unit will appear friendly colors (as a Gren squad), but if they select their own unit and then mouse-hover this squad, an attack command cursor will appear. By default, when German units are assigned attack-move, the unit AI will not fire or target at this squad. This squad must be targeted manually. As the Soviet player, feel free to run around the map, bypass MG bunkers, and back-capture points. Squad has hold-fire command. If it fires upon the enemy, it will automatically be assigned some threat, and Germans will return fire.

- False Intelligence: Renamed Fear Propaganda. Forced Retreat.

- Commissar: It can supervise friendly buildings, reducing build time by 25%. When next to units with abilities, it reduces cooldown by 25% (ie, Molotovs, Grenades, howitzers). The cooldown reduction applies to all friendly units, so it may be useful in 2v2s and above.

- Penal ROKS-2 Upgrade: Penals can now upgrade cheaper flamethrowers for 45 munitions each, and can upgrade them twice (90 total) for two flamethrowers per squad.

Deep Operations: Soviet equivalent to Blitzkrieg, but not actually Blitz. Germans favored a single concentrated spearhead attack to punch through defenses, then encircling and immediately destroying the surrounded enemy. Soviets favored Deep Operations, where they used multi-pronged attacks on multiple fronts to wear down the enemy. The first wave was pure brute force and mass (the breakthrough), the second wave was firepower and mobility (the exploitation). This is reflected in left side and right side abilities.

- Grit: Conscripts take half damage. Still normally receives suppression. No bonuses otherwise.

- Independent Action: Raid, but main gun is active. Units move half-speed while within capture circle. Immediately available to all vehicles regardless of vet. Costs nothing.

Partisan Warfare: Guerrilla warfare. More Soviet zany abilities, good for being annoying and harassing in nature.

- Partisans: Armed with 4x Mosins and 1x PTRD. Also has satchel and demo charge ability. Cloaks in cover. Has hold fire ability. Sneak around, surprise the enemy, inflict casualties, then quick retreat. Light health and light armor. They deploy from any neutral building.

- Civilian Camouflage: Removes the unit symbol for the enemy (no hovering unit icon). They turn into medic-like units: no identifying circles, has no assigned threat value, and must be manually targeted. Enemies will not auto target them unless fired upon.

- Divert Resources: Partisans can call in ZIS-5 trucks to any sector. When deployed, it will camouflage, and steal half the resources from that sector and that sector only.

- ZSU-37: A lightly armored Ostwind equivalent. Similar to vCoH's Ostwind at Vet 0. Fragile, but good against infantry.

Scorched Earth: PE style SE.

- Disable Sector: Identical to CoH1. Sector must be repaired (in one go). Hopefully CoH2's engine can allow the a queue command to repair point, then cap point.

- Crippling Traps: CoHO's crippling traps are back! Cheap (25 muni), deals very little damage, but instantly pins infantry.

- Blockade: Engineers can construct roadblocks, which are high health, blocks LOS obstructions (neither infantry or tanks can pass through), or permanent anti-tank trenches, which serve as local green cover for infantry. Anti tank trenches CANNOT be destroyed, and will be permanently impassible by tanks.

Urban Warfare: Revised Urban Defense Tactics commander. Focused on building and anti-building warfare.

- Reinforced Garrisons: This reverts garrisoned buildings back to vCoH: They only fall down when their health reaches zero. This abilities does NOT give buildings extra health, or provide any sort of defensive buff to units inside or the building itself. It merely removes the chance of criticals from any non-small arms fire. Building still takes regular damage from vehicle smash, tank shell, mortar, and grenades.

- Storm Position: When Conscripts are at very close range engaging a building, it effectively "storms" the position and negates the defensive bonus of garrisoned units. Enemies inside take a slight damage increase, as if the building wasn't there and they were in red cover.

- Garrison Firebase: Reduces reload time of small arms. Self-explanatory.

- Saturate Fire: Similar to Sector Arty, but localized to a single point For maybe 30 seconds, 10 clusters of 3 shells each will fall about the targeted point with low accuracy, denying an area and, if targeted at a building, destroy the building in process. Area of Denial. There is time inbetween each wave of shells to move units past.

War Machine: American Sherman tanks baby!

- Bantam command jeep: Similar to vCoH's Willys Jeep. Huge vision radius (Schwimmwagen), light MG on top. It has a radius aura that makes units around it fire, reload faster, and have more accuracy.

- P39Q Combat Patrol: The anti-Luftwaffe. It's a bit more expensive in munis than your normal recon, but it also shoots down enemy planes. This unit does two things: it scouts normally, and it engages enemy aircraft. If the enemy is using an air-based ability, such as strafe, you can counteract by activating the P39 to shoot down the JU87D. It still takes some time to shoot down the plane though, so it won't work against something like the dive bomb. The P39Q does NOT engage ground units.

- Sherman M4A2 76mm Battle Group: Calls in two upgunned Shermans. It comes equipped with tank smoke. Shermans can further have the Browning M2 upgraded.

- Affixed Positions: Similar to Osttruppen buff when units are in cover. Shoots better.

- Industrial War Machine: AKA Allied War Machine. Replaces two vehicle losses, minus upgrades.

- Assault Reinforcements: Call in a bunch of Conscripts, Penals, Combat Flame Engiss, Zis Guns, Mortars, T34/76s, or SU76s. Roll the dice, get owned by RNG. Skill is luck.

This is very cool!
One can really notice the time and effort you put into this, especially in terms of how you divided the trees. You also added some very flavorful passive abilities. Some of your suggestions to monetize the whole commander system are pretty interesting. However, like most have stated, it's unlikely that Relic will redesign the current docs. Nevertheless, Relic should defintiely take note!

In all honesty, I doubt anyone would throw a fit if he/she were to have the current docs they paid for replaced with any number of these. For example, Relic could make it so that everyone gets to choose 6 docs as standard for each faction and then one for everyone one they bought as DLC.

I'd also find it fair if Relic allowed players to test docs 2-3 times before having to purchase them... Perhaps, that would boost sales, as players would know what they're paying for before doing so.

Interesting ideas I must say...but with a few contradictions:
-why Shermans?Soviets already have T-34 which fares really bad against all units that have the name "Tank" in it...why have two tanks with the same performance?...
-you excluded Shock Troops from all doctrines apart from one
Again,apart from these,great ideas,I liked the KV-85,which was a stopgap unit until the IS series were completed

- Shermans were essentially one of the most exported tanks via lend-lease. The only other real mid/late game tank option is the British/Canadian Valentine Mk. IX which is also an infantry support tank. My intention was to make it perform similarly to the T34/85, but with more utility because it has smoke.

You do bring up a very valid point on unit overlap. The Soviet units are very defined except the conscript. I will have to do more research and find a unit that fits a role that no other tanks do.

- Only 1 Shock Troops: I believe that Soviet play should not hinge on a singular decision: do I want Guards or Shock troops? These proposed docs are an attempt (good or bad) to shift CoH2's train of thought into a more diverse gameplay. In the same vein, the argument whether PPSh should be available to all commanders, I believe it shouldn't happen, because that leads to less variety. Not having PPSh shouldn't make the commander unusable, but the commander should have benefits in other areas (having other utilities) such that it is equivalent, but different, from PPSh's advantages.

Oh man, this thread gave me a boner. Twice! And those mustaches are hilarious (as well as Deep Operation's ogre Ivan).

We can see so much work, thought and love to the game in this. Perfect marriage of CoH1 and CoH2. Let's just (naively) hope it gets implemented some way (official or mod).

- Shermans were essentially one of the most exported tanks via lend-lease. The only other real mid/late game tank option is the British/Canadian Valentine Mk. IX which is also an infantry support tank. My intention was to make it perform similarly to the T34/85, but with more utility because it has smoke.

You do bring up a very valid point on unit overlap. The Soviet units are very defined except the conscript. I will have to do more research and find a unit that fits a role that no other tanks do.

- Only 1 Shock Troops: I believe that Soviet play should not hinge on a singular decision: do I want Guards or Shock troops? These proposed docs are an attempt (good or bad) to shift CoH2's train of thought into a more diverse gameplay. In the same vein, the argument whether PPSh should be available to all commanders, I believe it shouldn't happen, because that leads to less variety. Not having PPSh shouldn't make the commander unusable, but the commander should have benefits in other areas (having other utilities) such that it is equivalent, but different, from PPSh's advantages.

Maybe a new infantry unit would give some diversity to gameplay?(please not Partisans)
My observation was based purely on my tactics,as they are based around Shock Troops,they are the only Soviet infantry that are able to tackle well against LMG Grenadiers,Assault Grenadiers and Panzer Grenadiers...tried with Penal Battalions and Guards,but failed at anti-infantry role
This is purely my opinion so please don't say use T70 or T34 as anti-infantry because as soon as you get those out the Ostheer player already has or will have a minute later a Panzer 4 to counter you

Nice work on the soviet ones, awesome stuff!

Really impressive work you've done here tengen. This is how it should be done. They are interesting and opens up for several strategy options.

I personally hate how the commanders are set up now from a game design perspective. And it makes me wonder what went on in that meeting room at Relic. The commander system doesnt feel like proper strategy choices and more just picking a box of sweets with the same mix and matches. You just gotta pick some flavor.

And I totally agree on the Guard/Shock part. Its silly that every game is more or less about "do i want this or that"
Even though your avatar faces is hilarious id like to have icons or something that makes it easier to distinguish the different commanders/doctrines.

We will probably never see this implemented in the game since what others already said, cant change something that people paid for.

your doctrines are cool as beans

Nice work.

I thought of a talent point system to replace the commander system, thread hijack.

The players general has 18 command points, Every ability in a tier and costs command points.

Tier 1 - Tank smoke, PPSH - 3 points
Tier 2 - Guards, ostrupped - 4 points
Tier 3 - T34/80, Assgrens - 5 points
Tier 4 - Tiger, ISU, IS, ELEFANT - 6 points

The abilities you have chosen for your commander unlock as normal in game.

This system would allow for massive amounts of variation and allow players to focus more on their prefered player style.

Love the idea, not sure how the balance will work out. With new units and commanders all the time.

We shall see tho. Hopefully, Relic will make few commanders similar to yours for DLC. Maybe even exactly the same

Although I feel like there are now a bit too many different units (too hard to balance and other disadvantages), I really like your ideas. Sadly, this will never happen

Great job nonetheless

Balance would be very difficult, especially around NKVD and Partisans, where their effectiveness directly hinges on the opponent's mechanics. Newbies will absolutely get devastated because they lack map awareness and APM to multi-task; pros won't get affected at all and make these specialty units useless.

If they only release "core" doctrines - Festung, Grossdeutschland, LSSAH, Schwere Panzer - Guard Rifle, Shock Army, Conscription Army, Deep Operations - and then slowly reintroduce new doctrine/commanders one by one, I think they can get a good balance going. Because they'll balance around the standard, not guess which unit is OP and which unit is UP.

The problem with Relic now, besides not beta testing new commanders, is that they haven't allowed the current metagame to stabilize before introducing new elements. What they should really be doing is to wait two months, release a bunch of commanders, then wait two more months while fixing bugs for another release. It's only been 3 months since release with highly unstable balance. They should have fixed all the problems with the default set of units before adding new stuff. People can't bitch about no new content if they don't know it exists. The Sept. 10 patch did make CoH2 closely balanced with oddities here and there, they should have left it alone more than 14 days (Sept 24 Case Blue) to allow players to discover new strats.

Balance would be very difficult, especially around NKVD and Partisans, where their effectiveness directly hinges on the opponent's mechanics. Newbies will absolutely get devastated because they lack map awareness and APM to multi-task; pros won't get affected at all and make these specialty units useless.

If they only release "core" doctrines - Festung, Grossdeutschland, LSSAH, Schwere Panzer - Guard Rifle, Shock Army, Conscription Army, Deep Operations - and then slowly reintroduce new doctrine/commanders one by one, I think they can get a good balance going. Because they'll balance around the standard, not guess which unit is OP and which unit is UP.

The problem with Relic now, besides not beta testing new commanders, is that they haven't allowed the current metagame to stabilize before introducing new elements. What they should really be doing is to wait two months, release a bunch of commanders, then wait two more months while fixing bugs for another release. It's only been 3 months since release with highly unstable balance. They should have fixed all the problems with the default set of units before adding new stuff. People can't bitch about no new content if they don't know it exists. The Sept. 10 patch did make CoH2 closely balanced with oddities here and there, they should have left it alone more than 14 days (Sept 24 Case Blue) to allow players to discover new strats.

+1

Would love to see a Relic response in this thread...