Its been a long time since I've played vcoh but I recall sandbags requiring manpower something like 5mp?. Perhaps I'm misremembering?
AT any rate if I am wrong I'll happily take credit for the idea myself! A mp cost to defenses could hopefully add some more thought to throwing them up and instead I hope lead to more dynamic engagement using the map that we're present in the early days of coh2
Giving them a cost of 5-10 MP would honestly be so negligible that it wouldn't be worth doing. How many sandbags do you actually create throughout the game?
The best (but pretty much impossible) solution would be either a removal of sandbags from mainlines (though this would require more work than one might think for OKW and SOV, UKF might actually take it in stride if they got RE's as their first unit, rather than a section), or sandbags providing sub-green cover protection, the latter of which would mean that green cover extant on the battlefield would still be a superior choice to player-built cover.
I wonder if making Sandbags deteriorate into yellow cover after a certain amount of "use" would help?
I'm still of the opinion that the zero-micro, pinpoint-accurate rifle grenades on REs are not a particularly good bit of design. I was a little disappointed that they reverted the change that made them manually activated, at the very least.
What restrictions would you implement? I'm trying to imagine in my head what kind of silliness would result from a hard cap of two of every kind of unit. Very diverse armies but also I would think that there would be underused units quite a bit. That or a lot of stockpiled manpower/fuel just waiting for units to be replaced as soon as they die.
Not saying it's a bad idea, I just want to hear what you were going for with it.
Primarily just Premium Mediums, Heavies, and Artillery pieces. Those are the things that cause a lot of problems in teamgames, at least in my opinion.
Being able to stack 6 panthers/LEFH/B4/Calliope/etc is part of the reason teamgames can be so very unfun to play.
Ideally "team wide" limits would be considered, but this causes issues with commander selection.
Something like the mortar emplacement basically just becoming a big ass trench that gives garrisoned mortars inside some buff or something would be nice.
Not sure on what to do with the 17 pounder and Bofors. Since the 17 pounder for example is too big to be useful in urban combat and cannot fire through shotblockers like the Pak 43, which is infinitely more useful to me at least rather than being able to take a sturmtiger shot while being relatively useless throughout a match.
While the bofors just feels like a bigger flak emplacement so I have no idea on what to suggest about it.
This would be MUCH easier to balance/design around if the 17-pounder and Bofors had "moving" animations. Being able to pack up and move them around would mean they wouldnt need to be balanced around their complete immobility, and instead be balanced around having to "dig in" before being able to attack.
The Mortar Pit could already just pack up into a squad holding two mortars, but unless there's some models of infantrymen carrying around bits of bofors/17 pounders, or either can be made to be pushed around by infantrymen, this will somewhat hamper potential design.
We tried to keep it under wraps until we had a chance to fix it. Luckily all people who found out reported it personally or agreed to delete their public posts so it didn't become widespread knowledge.
Then Skippy decided to make an entire video about exploiting it. Great stuff.
At least it will be fixed in the upcoming patch.
On the one hand, making a youtube video of major exploits for a game still under development can be a good thing, as it can prompt developers to actually fix the issue more quickly... Though for a game like this, being "developed" by a mod team with minimal code access, it's more likely to be a detriment, as you guys don't have the resources to pounce on every issue.
Given that you guys were already in the process of fixing it, all Skippy did was lower the quality of matches between his video and the eventual fix. Skippy was likely only doing it for ad revenue/content, and I'm doubtful he really cared about the ultimate impact. Bit of a poor track record from him recently.
Mainly Balance reasons. We discuss it and we couldn't agree of how would it work and it was a big concern that this unit will turn into overpower unit. It would require a lot of time and more than 1 patch to balance it proparely. For example as british emplacement it sohuld have brace for consistency. Brace in emplacement that can fire from half of the map would make it almost impossible to counter. It was consider as an alternative unit in advantance emplacement regiment. I guess we end with conclusion that it's bigger risk than reward.
As for the future we will have to see, but sadly i doubt that we gonna see a new unit.
I may not replay a lot on this forum but i can assure you that we do read most of those posts and yes, we discuss many of those topics in the meetings.
Really, it would either need to only fire utility munitions (Smoke, some sort of airburst suppression shell that does minimal damage, WP shells), or it would want to be tied to another unit(s), in a similar fashion to the base howitzers.
Or specifically tie it to the assault officer. Perhaps it could only fire within a certain AOE of the officer unit, or something similar? These seem like harsh downsides, but a very durable Howitzer is rather difficult to find a niche for.
That's a possibility but it's far too great of a change. Specially with how eecky we still are with sandbags and late game abundant light cover situation. Not to mention map balance and garrisons.
I'd unfortunately be inclined to agree with you. Although I think it would be a pretty positive change, it's something that would take a massive amount of work, which the balans teem simply don't have the resources for.
I think Sandbags have become less of an issue as of late, with the combination of increased build times, and much more reliable wire meaning it is easier to deny... But I definitely agree that the abundance of yellow cover in the lategame is a major issue, even with the current strength of cover.
I wonder if Red Cover could just be repurposed as a new form of "positive" cover? It's getting rarer and rarer on competitive maps, and considered to be a "bad mechanic" by some, and would give the opportunity to make things like craters weaker than "normal" yellow cover.
I suppose this is much too large of a change too though.
Ah yes, nothing more strategic than heavy cover versus heavy cover fights lasting up to literal minutes or infantry charging over open ground and barely taking any damage. It is not the other way around, fast TTK forces people to carefully plan their manoeuvres and positioning to either maximise the use of cover or to minimalize the damage on approach. If TTK was low, you could just blob and straight up overrun everything.
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I mean, I might argue that heavy cover -> heavy cover engagements being very slow could actually make the game more strategic. It would further incentivise the use of things such as Mortars, flamethrowers, assault teams advancing through smoke, and other specialised tools, in order to push combat in your favour.
Very strong cover bonuses combined with otherwise very high damage while out of cover might actually make blobbing less effective.
I'd agree that just outright reducing damage would be an abysmal idea, but I do think that making cover even stronger while making units absolutely melt outside of it might be interesting to consider.
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