Profile of SpectreFTL

Looks like my profile from 2009 (!) was ported from GR back in 2012. That's super nice. I'm glad my clanmate (love u whiteflash) is generating discussion at this level.

THE UI/UX WAS THE PRIMARY REASON COH 1 HAS BETTER GAMEFEEL.

There are four elements to this:

1) The commander interface. In CoH 1, the dash was muted, grey, and in the background. The whole point was to have it melt into the monitor so the focus can be had on the gameplay. In CoH 2, it's extremely bright and distracting in appearance. UI/UX is design, not art, and the focus should be on providing the player with information. vCoH always placed player feedback over realism, the result is crisp and immediate understanding. This is the most important point of my post.

2) The sound design. I don't care about realism. I want to be able to hear an American 57 popping AT rounds from half the map away. I want to hear the crack of the sniper. That's completely important information.

In CoH 2 a sniper doesn't have a distinct crack, or a vapor trail to trace. It shoots, a unit dies, and you're left wondering what's going on. The same thing happens in most engagements with AT guns as your vehicles approach; without distinct audio cues it is very difficult to react to an off-screen threat immediately. The sound mix in general is a muddy mess, even if all the individual sounds are nice.

3) The number of unit abilities. It is awfully unclear which infantry units have anti-armor abilities, their range, and their effects. In some cases this is due to unit symbols being similar (guards rifles, penal battalions, again a UI issue); in others it's the fact that there are simply too many abilities. Seems that every unit has some sort of instant engine damage AT, but no substantial non-critical ability a la stickies for American riflemen in vCoH.

This is compounded by the vehicle handling in CoH2 being sluggish and unresponsive. vCoH units may have been less realistic, but their handling was much more aggressive and they were not glass cannons or lumbering giants -- you could brawl with almost all tanks, which is what gave good engagement balance between two shermans and a panther, or three stugs and a pershing. The new system gimps gameplay dynamics in favor of linear push/pull which boils down to range and armor.

4) Lack of clarity in time to kill/damage received. There are only two unit types from a game feel perspective in CoH2: glass cannons, and damage sponges. Damage received is very unclear and inconsistent with regard to the hp bar -- again, brawling is less likely as units are killed abruptly. Suppression is also immediate and limits the majority of flanking opportunities.

This again limits the brawling and flow of the gameplay. vCoH is more dynamic mostly due to the rate at which units take damage and the clarity in how far players are able to push their units; it causes interesting gambles between risking a unit and achieving an objective.

I would hope this provides some perspective for the devs.

Grens to Tigers. Discuss.

My old build order was, literally, Bike-Volk-Volk-Volk-Volk-StuH-StuH-Tiger.

BEEP BEEP MOTHAFUCKA'.