Profile of Siphon X.

Looks good, guys.

I have few questions, though:

M15AA: Well, there was a time when the Stuart was generally considered not worthwhile. But even then the AAHT wasn't built much if at all. It was mostly M20 => Sherman. Why do you fear it would become the meta now if kept in it's current state?

US mortar: I thought the original idea behind the addition of the mortar was to give USF some early smoke and a way to deal with garrisons, but ended up with a lethal uber mortar. Now, with this change you made the mortar more tricky to use but otherwise kept the lethality on the OH level. Why not instead, dunno, slash the damage in half (while keeping the damage vs. garrisons), potentially while also decreasing the price?

DP's would probably make penals even stronger, and would overlap with Guards.

How would you think that "overlap" would play out? Like, would it increase or decrease their synergy?

A more general comment:

I would love to see something like "Designer's notes" on the maps - maybe similar to the map guides - where the map creator explains how the different elements of the map are supposed to play out. What's the idea behind this lane, what function does this house have, etc.

The advantage is that e.g. when the player knows that a certain house is supposed to work as a strongpoint for the Northern team, there are two levels on which feedback can be provided:

- Is is a good thing that the house is a strong point?

AND

- Does the house actually fullfill its intended role?

And of course this also could serve as a general map guide which likely helps in the adoption of the map when it is added into the map pool.

Before the feedback, first a disclaimer: I'm not that good of a player, and also didn't play that many matches on the two maps. I did some compstomps to check out the maps, and then did two ladder matches with USF where I happened to end up on Westwall and Rüstungswerke Essen.

Really nice to see new maps as they do have a different look and feel (visually). Thanks!

I enjoyed playing on Westwall (even though I lost), but Rüstungswerke (even though I easily won with USF) seems to be a bit too CQC for my taste when playing OH. I have no problem with that, that's what vetos are for, but if you want cater to a bigger crowd:

It would be nice if you can lay out what your design ideas behind this were. From what I see it seems to be unique in that the main parts (2VPs and both fuels) are in fairly cluttered buildings where indirect fire isn't effective. I like the idea because it allows to emulate fire-fights in a house which otherwise doesn't happen in Coh2. Unlike other CQC parts, it basically has no strong garrisons. If you have secured your warehouse, you can't easily be cut off because the point for that is right next to the base, away from your opponent.

I did two quick games on v2. The changes I saw that some stuff in the Eastern building was removed and that the concrete wall around the central VP are replaced with wooden fences (so it can be crushed earlier).

While that's better, I would suggest to replace that fence with some cover. Yeah, I know you put those in on purpose, but I still think that that would be better because:

• It's possible to cap the center VP from outside; while that's probably intended, doing so can have some annoying side effects. The problem is, you don't see if anything is happening to the flag. Like, if both players sit on their side of the fence, they could sit there indefinitely without getting feedback that they can't actually cap. And since it's kind of tricky to position the squad just inside the circle, the typical way I found this plays out is:
  Ok, you guys cap! (1 min later) Err, nothing happened, maybe I didn't position them correctly? Try again! (2 minutes later) Uhm, still didn't work. Ok, maybe there is somebody on the other side? Oh crap, there is...
  
• This would give long range units including MGs, and ATGs more room to work. Ok, they still can't take over the interior of the halls, but at least they control the central lane better.
  
• If you are concerned that you can easily see the central VP from the entrances of both halls, I'd rather place some fences right at the doors there.
  
• Visually, it looks weird: Why would a curved fence like this be built?
  

I guess the situation would be more relaxed if the buildings wouldn't contain VP and fuel. Maybe you could consider switching Muni and Fuel Point?

Finally, some remarks on your comments in the other thread (I didn't want to derail that one further):

But that is a gameplay balance issue and not a map issue. And i cant understand why everyone is obsessed by the idea that all maps have to be done around the current balance. With the next balance patch everything could change. So we have to rework all maps for the new balance patch or is it in indicator for a current balance issue.

I think this misses the point. The CQC issue is not about faction balance. It's actually about faction design. True, the faction balance changes with patches and adjusting maps according to that would be silly. However, faction design changes much slower, if at all. If you look at the vanilla factions, the dynamic is still the same as it was at release:

Grens predominantly win at long range and have a long range grenade.
Cons win predominantly at short range and have Oorah to close in.

And with all the other doctrinal and non-doctrinal units, bottom line is and always was that SOV has better tools for CQC.

As for PGrens with Schrecks: Yeah, I can see them working once they camp inside the building and can probably be devastating against light vehicles outside (like, hide behind a wall and the pop out to shoot and pop back in). However, I doubt that they would work as well getting light vehicles out of the buildings.

The "problem" with PGrens with Schrecks (and for that matter any AT infantry) is: They are not really good in CQC. Yes, unlike ATGs they can't really be flanked, but they are far from ideal in CQC situations:

• They have a significant aim time to shoot their AT weapon. So, the light vehicle can push them around preventing them from shooting.
  
• Close up they take a lot of damage. And the damage often is amplified in a CQC situation because often they will end up standing in front of a shotblocker, so they take a lot of the additional splash damage.
  
• In addition, cover produced by small debris will cause them to hug each other which tends to lead to RNG one-shot wipes (I do see chances that this point might be addressed in balance patches, though).
  

I think they gave it us for free once. So everybody has it.

Right, but do you also have it when you buy the game now?

Hey at least you can use supply and get it instead of spending $$$ or relying on the RNG War Spoils of old.

About that: Is it actually possible to buy the mobile defenses commander? It's not in the in-games store (yes, I made it to show items that I do have) and an (admittedly superficial) search on Steam also didn't help.

Just wondering if player's that weren't around when it got distributed actually have a realistic chance of getting it. It seems to be like they don't and that's particularly weird given that it is one of the most popular OH commanders...