Profile of Lugie

I dont think you can make this work anymore. It seems to rely on a old ext that has been changed for COH2. They were planning on re-implementing it with the western front armies, but never got around to it.

This is a list of gripes and complaints I have about the current live game-play(I was told this was the place to put it so im doing that then, aye?). However, that doesn't mean the live-game isnt good. I might be slightly disappointed, but I enjoyed myself. I'm doing this because I love the game, not hate it. I didn't write this with the intention of having a 100% fact-checked perfect review, so dont expect that either.

(Its a shame I have to put this here, but, please be civil. This is just my humble opinion. If you disagree, that's fine, tell me why without calling anyone names and move on.)

1. Loosing the spirit of COH, damage and accuracy.

It seems that the heart of COH, luck/rng, tactics, and battlefield conditions is being replaced by a more streamlined, DOW/Starcraft style system that has hard damage values dictating the outcome of battle.

This is exemplified by the Conscripts and Osttruppen, who both have near-perfect accuracy, but very low damage. In COH1, this would be the other-way around, so these units still do the same damage as other infantry, but hit much less, especially when the target is in cover. This is a simple change, but it has profound effects.

This encourages spamming and blobbing, the contrary to what most people want. Shifting the focus from accuracy to damage means that they will do consistent, low damage to all types of (infantry) units behind/in any cover, rather than doing almost no damage at all due to not hitting anything. Units that, in coh1, would be used mainly as a defensive stopgap to punish a enemy trying to advance in the open, are now best at rushing a enemy en-masse, the thing everybody complained about in the first place.

Unit preservation is key, right? Well, now these units have a much, much higher chance of killing most retreating units (if they are already damaged, like most retreating units are), while better infantry dont because their accuracy is slightly lower. Why would the worst of the worst be better at finishing off retreating units than a elite SS death squad?

It even makes whole aspects of the game obsolete. Cover is pretty much useless if the accuracy is near-perfect. Why use effort, lose rate-of-fire and time to try and get my units into good positions when there are no good positions? Why garrison that conveniently placed building if its only purpose is to serve as a death-trap for my units to get stuck in? Why hold my position and not risk losing accuracy while moving when I dont lose any accuracy while moving?

Onto other units/weapons.
Mortars now do less damage and have a smaller AOE, meaning if they dont get a direct hit they dont do anything, and when they do it does less damage than a grenade. Meanwhile, in COH1, a good, direct hit on a clump of units would kill or critically injure them all. Mortars were a force to be reckoned with, something you wouldn't dare take on without some kind of mobile piece or counter-artillery. Now, its only a slight annoyance, and that feels wrong. The AOE is so small the explosion fx doesn't even match it.

TBE

In summary: Yes, RNG might piss you off at one point, but the satisfaction when you score a lucky hit somewhere else tops the rage you might have felt before.


2. The spice that made it nice

The new formations are nice, but there is a distinct lack of them. Each unit used have its own formation, and because of that each of them moved a certain way. Along with that, squad-AI is almost completely gone, providing no sense of individuality or uniqueness among soldiers. The "dynamic ai"(hard-to-handle nature) of infantry in the first game was a big selling point. I also recall the COH2 team boasting about improved squad-ai in one of the old 2013 showcases.

Animations are stiff and robotic, with enough bugs to fill a Louisiana swamp. The SMG animations bug out whenever they are moving in-combat, there's missing FX for the coaxial mg on the T-34 and plenty of other bugs that should be saved for a bug report thread. COH1 once again outdoes its younger brother, having less bugs and a bigger, better selection. Every game I seem to see a new combat animation, weather it be a generic "freaking out because im getting shot at" or a epic combat dive/roll.

Similar to animations, speech content is also lacking. I've must have heard the "He shot my canteen" line a hundred times. For so many canteens being shot, you'd think there wouldn't be any content droughts. (I hate to keep pulling this card) Meanwhile in COH1 there's a pleasant flow of new quips and screams being thrown my way every game I play. From "We unpimped his ride!" to "I dont care, run around naked if you want!" Its alot more quote-able than COH2, and that's for the better.

All the special game-play mechanics that were supposed to make COH2 unique have been stripped and hidden away. Every Commander feels like a clone because of ability overlap. Why do 3-4 soviet commanders all have the 152mm howitzer (that never gets used anyway)? It feels cheap and rushed.

Tanks/vehicles have almost no random criticals, apart from, maybe, the main gun being destroyed at 0.1 health. COH1 had a entire suite of criticals ranging from tread-damage to crew stun/kills.

Wounded soldiers serve no real purpose, only providing a laughable amount of sight. Why even have them if they dont serve any purpose? I do agree the zombie squads were a bit strange, but changing that to, say, half the MP cost of the soldier (or "model") being refunded when returned would be a much better system.
(Even if it was re-implemented purely visually, medics dragging a wounded soldier away from the battlefield looked and would look bloody amazing. You could even commit war-crimes if you were feeling like a a******.)

--En
So, this is the end of my humble opinion. Refer to the statement at the start of the document when commenting, aye?

--Edit
Apparently this post has become a place to generally discuss gripes with the game. I encourage this as-long as you stay respectful to other people and such.

The ability requires that upgrade, so granting the upgrade then gives the ability.

And here is where you went wrong. The upgrade does not grant the ability, it unlocks it. Unless you have the commander that actually adds that ability (If its a commander ability), then its not going to work at all. You have to add the ability through a, surprise surprise, add ability action.

So, lets go back to the first point. What exactly are you trying to do? Give a small chance of adding a ability on construct, just the upgrade, both, wot?

Its probably because normal territory points dont have that exclusion space due to build-able supply caches. Its probably something with the impass or actual size of the point itself.