Profile of SweetrollNearTheDoor

CoH2 might have been a total mess performance and balance vise at release but at least they really nailed the audio and visuals – the things that really added to the immersion and were a big factor in retaining players. Balancing is something that can be improved incrementally but visuals and audio that has been lefthanded is a problematic thing to fix without sinking a lot of resources into it.

Especially the audio design is so bland and takes so much away from the game. In CoH2 players can easily identify if a KT for example is fielded since you can hear it in the fog of war a mile away. Tank engines basically have a permanent mute button in CoH3 so you can’t utilize engine sounds to predict enemy movements. Everything just lacks “umph” – everything. Every battle truly tells a story while providing players with total immersion when the screen shows a massive explosion, but audio department disagreed and had active noise cancellation on. Except for the planes, big plane big engine big vroom.

It also heavily taxes the goodwill score of Relic when they are so truly dedicated to repeating the same mindboggling balance decisions that took years to fix in CoH2:

Call-in units without tech requirements: check

Call-ins without fuel requirements so map control does not matter: Gotta have those

Units with omnipotent maphacks: Game sense ™

Skillplanes that arrive instantly and delete full health tanks and inf squads: Skill issue surely

The commitment to stand behind such decisions is only enhanced by the fact that people who had to fix that garbage in CoH2 are now the people responsible for CoH3 balance at Relic.

Tl;dr it is not a Wish edition CoH but it definitely is an Amazon Basics one. At least it makes Dawn of War 3 release look polished.

10/10 on the ingame chat filter that censors words such as blob, con and second thou

Reload is based purely on number of bursts, not bullets fired. That is why for example a Thompson needs to reload after as few as 12 bullets at far range and up to 126 bullets at close range.

What could help is varying reload frequency more, so models would reload more in turns rather than all at once. But tbh it's too late now to go mess around with this kind of stuff.

Would the more liberal addition of Hold Fire still be a potential option to increase player choice and to make CQC combat more predictable for both sides?

I think Tightrope’s recent Con PPSH package demonstration showed how much of an impact the reload cycle can have when Cons Oorahed (while being unable to fire) to close range and then started blasting. The cons were able to drop nearly every model of the opposing axis squad before going into reload cycle.

Compare that to the Assault Guard Thompsons in the same video where the Guards can’t hold fire on approach. This resulted in the Thompson reload cycle starting just around when the guards reached the opponent and stopped moving dropping the DPS at a critical moment.

I think the Hold Fire would make especially some of the squishier CQC squads more appealing to use if they didn’t suffer such punishing DPS drops at crucial moments. However, I understand if such a change is considered too radical and instead efforts should be focused on reforming 50% of the commander roster.

There is not a single logical argument that would hold any value you could make for it without using "camo" in the same sentence.

That’s a very complicated sounding sentence to imply hold fire should be tied to camo and not to players choice of when and what unit they want to engage

I guess non-camoing AT guns among other things have accidentally been given the Hold Fire option

(The potential follow-up contribution to this discussion better be more wrinkly brained with the best words or I’m going to be disappointed )

ML20 randomly gets stuck on 0 seconds on cooldown making it unable to fire. (personally I find this adjustment an excellent way to balance out the most OP howi in the game by making it randomly unable to fire but some people might think of this as a bug and not a terrific balance change )

The general consensus seems to be that the chance of getting 100% OKW teams in random games does not fall under the “fun RNG” category and instead can lead to very lopsided resource income in longer slug fests that players have little control over.

If the cache system could be looked at this point of the game, I’d like to see a rework utilizing elements of resource mechanics from other RTS games like C&C, Warcraft and Dawn Of War 1 and 3 (absolutely heretical I know ) This would be my rework that I fEeL could make the caches a more fine tuned mechanic in the game:

1. Retain the effect of caches increasing the entire team’s income.

2. Make them like outposts in DoW 1 or supply docks in C&C that would eventually run dry – Caches are basically “supply depots” so its pretty realistic that they would not be infinite.

3. Give players the ability to Restock caches in exchange for manpower to restore the additional income.

4. Transfer caches to global team control so anyone on the team could Restock them and pitch in. (DoW3 inspired resource node upgrading that anyone on the team could invest in)

This would lead to but not limited to the following effects:
Cache mechanics would become more dynamic and not just build and forget – the balance team seems to want to increase player input on the more static units (like mortars, emplacements etc) so this would be in line with that mentality.

Resource income from caches could be quantified. For example, if the Restock would be required every 20 minutes the cache would be worth 60 fuel per teammate or 100 munitions so in 4v4 250 manpower restock / building of the cache would translate up to 240 fuel or 400 munitions for the entire team. In teamgames it would be a much better long term investment compared to the Luftwaffe Supply doc drops but caches would bear the risk of being destroyed in the middle of the “production cycle.”

Give a new type of decision in long team games where manpower income at max popcap is very limited. The restock would force the teams to choose if it is worth it to maintain the higher munition or fuel income. Player investing in the cache restock would help the rest of the team to replace their tank losses and make more off-maps available but in return they might have trouble replacing their unit losses at critical times.

The Restock mechanic would still keep OKW unique without caches but they would be able to pitch in to Restock the wehr built caches and give them a way to invest their end game manpower float.