I would like to use this thread to gather some opinions about the new Auto-vaulting mechanic in CoH3. For those who don't know, squads in CoH3 now always jump over obstacles like fences automatically, you cannot do it manually anymore.
I will start by saying that I dislike this new feature. Here is why:
Auto-vaulting sucks in combat
In a gunfight, you want to maximize your dps by shooting as long as possible of course. However, (unintended) vaulting interrupts this action and therefore decreases your damage output. There is also the terrible issue where some squadmembers vault over cover instead of using it. I think autovault during combat does nothing apart from being extremely annoying
Auto-vaulting takes control away from the player
Being able to select a tiny chunk of fence to vault over with pinpoint accuracy is extremely important in order to execute precise movement, necessary to avoid HMG arcs, mines or the line of sight of your enemy. It also plays a minor role in the control over how much you want to space your squad out which can be important. Auto-vaulting hurts this aspect of CoH.
Auto-vaulting on retreat is overpowered
You want to make a risky play and wipe a squad on retreat? Good luck with that when your vehicles need to drive all the way around a stonewall while your enemy just vaults over it with high running speed.
"Necessary vs unnecessary micro"
Precision-Vaulting like in CoH2 is a prime example for necessary micro, as explained above. It gives you access to precise movement required to play the game how you want. It also is mostly un-intended during combat, therefore should require player input! Not to mention how auto-vaulting nullifies the map balance where mapmakers create fences in a certain way so one side can reach the area faster than the other, unless you do the input like in CoH2.
A good example for "unnecessary" micro was the spam-clicking in CoH1 when you wanted a vehicle to reverse long distances, which is why the reverse hotkey got added to CoH2. A massive QoL improvement and stark contrast to auto vaulting in my opinion. This whole auto-vault feature feels like something you would expect from a RTS that you play on Console with a Gamepad, but not in a CoH PC game!
Conclusion: I am not asking to completely scrap this feature, but to give us the ability to make it an optional choice. Make it so you have to press a new hotkey for auto-vault (similar to attack-move but now the name is "vault move"
) or give us the option to disable it completely in the menu or something.