Profile of CombatMuffin

Modifying accuracy penalties would not be fine.

Imcreasing the penalty would make small arms fire even more insignificant.
Reducing them would make cover even less useful than it already is.

This depends on how you approach it. Remember game programs are an abstract representation of reality, simulations reducing that abstraction as much as possible.

With this in mind, analyze how it is in real life: Soldiers miss, A LOT. In fact, more than 90% of the ammunition spent in combat is off target. However, damage is such, that a single hit on the enemy will most likely take him out of combat.

Now, I am not saying CoH should be modeled on that. The "semi real" but arcade feel of company of heroes stems from the fact that shots can miss (unlike most other RTS games), but units don't die from a single shot.

On to the point: If soldiers miss a lot, then damage must be used to compensate or else, like you mentioned, combat will be long and tedious. Right now, small arms combat is a little longer than we like, because of the three factors we have been discussing: accuracy, armor and damage. Three different filters just to register a kill, which will not kill the enemy squad outright.

There's several ways the devs can approach this, and each one has its traits and flaws:

-Decrease accuracy, increase damage: This would promote close distance encounters, and cover would have to help more against damage, than to accuracy penalties (since units already miss more). Armor can remain the same.

-Increase accuracy, leave damage the same: More hits will register against the enemy, so perhaps armor would have to be raised slightly to balance it and allow a saving grace so soldiers don't drop like flies. Cover becomes extremely important then, because anything that will help your units get shot less, no matter how big or small, is elemental.

-Accuracy remains the same, armor remains the same, damage increased: Combat becomes more lethal, shots already hit relatively often and you have armor to save you in case they do. If shots pass armor, your men can only take about 2-4 shots each. Cover can become important only if the accuracy penalties are increased, or if they provide substantial damage reduction.

This is relevant to the bulletins topic since, whatever changes they choose to make (if they make them at all) will affect how bulletins interact with the game. In some cases for good, in others not so good (for instance, if damage is increased, the 4% health buff becomes less useful).

Something that has not even been considered, is changing how cover interacts with the game. Perhaps heavy cover could, instead of reducing damage, could improve armor instead. This has a synergy with the flamethrower theory: it works against cover since it ignores armor.

They are listening Akula. Read around the forums, and you'll notice they are posting here personally. They talk about possible future changes, and absolutely everything being said here is at least being skimmed through.

That said, just because we bicker around and cry for something, doesn't mean we are going to get it. They have access to tools and testing environments that we don't, and they don't want to rush things.

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Now @Raw mentioned something interesting: "Nobody is going to spend 100+ fuel on a vehicle dedicated to destroy infantry". This is completely unfounded, man.

The T-34 is a good indication that this is true. If you rush it, it is actually very good against infantry and there's very little in the battlefield to stop it at that point. Another example, an even BETTER example, is the Ostwind, another amazing AI tank, that costs more than 100+ fuel, and is VERY popular.

The problem with the T-34, is that it doesn't have staying power. Its good when it arrives, but it can't do anything that the T70 already can't, for a fraction of the cost.

Yes, the T-34 is very good against infantry, but it won't move around the battlefield as fast, or kill enough units to justify tis cost before a PIV or supported Ostwind arrives. The T70 comes way earlier than the T34, and has a lot more chances of repaying itself before the the T-34 can. Both tanks run useless at around the same time: when Ostheer fields medium tanks. (The T-34 can stay around this time, but a smart Soviet player will be aiming for SU-85's, not T-34's).

The Soviet army, like it or not, is very similar to the Americans. Extremely so. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. I am still of the opinion that a global upgrade for the T-34 will do wonders for the mid game, and help the metagame evolution.

Part of the reason why the Americans were interesting, is because there were valid reasons to jump back and forth between tiers, or to delay a tier, even though you could evolve. The massive difference between the Soviets and Americans, is that the Americans had versatile tanks, the Soviets only have specialized tanks, especially in T4.

The T-34 needs to be on par, or even better than a sherman was. It is the only, non doctrinal tank the soviets have with a turret. Making it AI is good and all, but an upgun that changes the role to match the PIV in role, not stats, would make the late game mid-late game much more interesting.

I really don't think the T-34 should be a rival to the PIV, unless they added an upgun upgrade of some kind. It would break the balance the game already holds in that department.

The T-34 arrives early, and that's great. I understand that, being the only turreted vehicle for the Soviets, and being such an iconic tank, players want it to be more useful in the anti-vehicle department. An upgun could fix that (maybe turn them into T-34/85's, and have the doctrinal power bring in veteran ones).

If the T-34 is buffed as is, then it must undoubtly be delayed, either through cost, or required upgrades. The Soviets can field vehicles much faster than any Ostheer player can, and buffing those vehicles with more staying power than necessary is going to break stuff up.

Well, I have some sympathy on the difficulty of Relic's job. It is very hard to work between different publishers but it is also difficult for them to release a product with the original publisher just so that THQ could keep on ticking on - ie releasing it for money.

But then again, with COH1 being perfected over 7 years, why not use the better elements of COH1. I mean, that game has been perfected over time. I can understand a few changes but I also don't understand why a few other things have been changed (namely, MG guns and strafe). Both elements of the game worked perfectly fine in VCoH anyway.

of course. Development time is never an excuse to release an underfeatured product, and I agree that they missed some very basic features thst I expected in the game. However, I am betting in the medium term, so Relic delivers something better.

Adjusting range accuracies may be one feasible way to affect small arms fire.

I would agree with this if there wasn't an armor factor involved, as well as equal HP on units. The introduction of armor into the game means that even when your gun accurately hits, it won't roll for damage unless it penetrates. Most small arms fire has around 66% chances to penetrate if I recall correctly (not exactly a coin toss, but somewhat close).

Its just an added filter of protection for your troops, which adds up in the long run, and once you consider it as a whole, its as though your gun didn't hit after all. I suspect this is part of the reason why cover in CoH2 is much less effective: I can stand around in negative cover if I want, and your bullets will hit me more often, sure. I still have a 34% chance to ignore your accurate shots (this is also why the 2% accuracy bulletin isn't that useful after all, compared to the damage one).

Close combat troops (PGrens and Shock troops) have amazing armor. They can theoretically charge in no cover against a green cover enemy, and while they'll sustain some damage, it doesn't have the dramatic effective it did back in vCoH. I want to assume increased accuracy in close range is much better than their semi automatic counterpart, but I'd still prefer increased damage(since close range makes you very accurate anyways, and you have burst fire).

What I think they need, simply and plain, is to increase small arms damage by about 10%-12% (so bulletins don't go crazy powerful). Shots will still miss, shots will still deflect from armor, but the ones that DO go in, will pack a punch. Green cover and above not only makes your enemy miss more, it also reduces weapon damage by half.

Once small arms fire damage is increased, fights will be slightly deadlier, and as such, any bit of cover will be welcome and much more important.