Profile of Cannonade

I dont see an issue with SU85. Its mobility and rotation was changed for good reasons (it used to chase/retreat vs all armor at a rate completely unbecoming of a TD, rendering it pracrically unflankable, even during the eaelier Blitz period). Its range is its forte. Its hard to field TDs effectively, but this is not an issue that only Sov has. Overall though, I do agree with a balance and design direction that makes TDs the hard facepunchers, when properly aligned and positioned, that they deserve to be.

As to swapping T70 and SU76, you need to think a bit larger to understand why that doesnt work.

First of all, it places T70 way outside its already narrow window. Even with stat/cost changes, it would be crazy to field it in a T4 AT heavy environment. Nobody would buy it, when they can get SU76 instead to do the job arguably even better at an earlier tier.

Second of all, there is the incipient issue of ZiS and SU76 as artillery options. If these stacked early on, it would wreck both earlier armor and even more so early infantry. It would be pracrically impossible to hold an infantry front line vs the combined artillery of SU76 and ZiS, and even when you manage armor support i to the engagement, both of these units are natively effecrive enough AT to face punch the more expensive and fewer armor you wpuld face at that poi t. Its a double whammy combination that, ironically, would sqeeuze Sov t4 even further out of the meta than it already is, and to which most faction/Commander combinations simply cannot respond to in time with equivalent AT AND AI.

Fun to think about, but ultimately impractical in balance.

Having said that, I do agree the SU76 has problems, but that is not the purpose of the thread, and continuing on that would just derail topic.

Long gone are the days of the 80-90s when a PC game was shipped "as is".

I much prefer the modern mentality of "work in progress", to how many issues those games used to have without a practical patching process. (Though actually the games worked pretty damn well, considering. Developer Houses had to ensure their stuff was as watertight as possible, to retain their reputation, which meant everything back then. The old greats like Westwood, Origin, id, Bullfrog, Mindscape and yes, even Blizzard (nostalgia orgasm) and others (like who ever did Mechwarrior). So many awesome developers who laid the groundwork for all of what PC gaming has since become)

Its quite amazing how much game production has changed since those days.
Ironically, I think it was the advent of publishers who are responsible. Bean counters, marketers and executives who dont care about "the craft and yes, artistry", involved in creating a truly great game.

Does kind of make you wonder though, if maybe we as gamers/consumers lost a degree of internal quality control compared to back then. Reviews from publications like PC Gamer used to be a gamers Bible and Gospel. I still have all my old stacks.

I hope someone has written a book about this, there is certainly enough interesting issues involved.

Try a Stug.

Yeah. You completely missed the point.

Plz dont talk about "side-hits".

No such thing exists in CoH2.

There is only front and rear armor values.