I have a feeling they have a balls tight NDA because they think the internet is a bunch of whiners who moaned about their last two games of Alien: Colonial Marines and Rome 2 without a good reason in thier eyes. An NDA would stop it at the source I guess...
Erm... you know why I linked that match, right? It was a pretty close until the T-70 spots every flank that Barton tired to make (its not like Barton is a scrub who fed the T-70). Then the ISU rolls into town sniping everything which was made extra easy by the T-70. Part of the problem is that the T-70 recon mode is NON-doctrinal, if you investing into an Commander that that focuses on heavy fire power they tend to lack mobile scouting units and the T70 makes up for that in spades.
The Germans have no NON-doctrinal equivalent AND even though people are saying "Herp, spotting scope" they are different things as spotting scopes ONLY work when the unit is not moving (in other words chasing a T-70 wont impact its LoS like anything with spotting scopes) and the two Commanders that have Spotting Scopes (Jaeger Armour and German Mechanized) dont have any strong Anti-Infantry options like the ISU152, KV8 or the IS2. I also said that it should be TONED down, in other words slightly reduced and not removed as I like the fact that there is now a true soviet recon unit...
As for "Its been in the games for months", well yeah and I believe that the player base will be creative enough to find a way on how to use it for a distinctive advantage. After all nobody ever moaned about Pios until someone found the perfect mix of spamming them, getting vet 2 armour and call in Storms until around 1.7 CoH1. "A squad armed in a Bren Gun in a Bren Carrier? Don't see the harm in that" they said back in OF. I never really noticed this until it pretty much shut down everything Barton was doing and Twister was smart enough to be patrolling with it so so he could see if Barton was a planning a flank...
First of all I think you should watch this match as its pretty fun:
I was enjoying the game but one of the hosts kept on hinting at the T-70 recon mode when it hits vet 2 and once the video gets to 21:47 you get to see it in action, so I was pretty much like this as I watch the stream:
Yeeeah that needs a nerf ASAP as you could see 25% of the map with it.
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However it gotten me thinking about how this could be a good thing if it was toned down and not fully removed, I tired to use the T-70 recon mode during the CoH2 Alpha but felt a lil bit lacklustre as you could not use the main gun. One of the things that I was excited about CoH2 for was the true sight system which sadly was not as revolutionary as I wanted as due the low sight range of pretty much every unit, the "sight blockers" only really worked if a unit was chasing another unit around a building. However with this current OP recon mode you get to see True Sight in action (as one of the hosts gleeful points out).
Whilst the current T-70 recon mode need a nerf I think it would be a cool thing to give Soviet and Ostheer units with a recon mode as this would open more things that the factions could do (both Sov and Ost have on paper great indirect fire units but they cant really use them as a lack of a spotter), so what I would like to see is:
-Both snipers units are able to use a recon mode using binoculars where they are unable to fire, although the German Sniper has a bigger LoS to make up for the fact that is combat power is not as a good as the Soviet one.
-The 221 Scout Car should have passive recon mode but it scales heavily with vet more so than the T70 so it not too overwhelming in tier 2.
-To keep things balanced, recon mode should work like spotting scopes as when the unit is moving it only slightly increasing the LoS but unlike spotting scopes as when the unit is stationary the LoS increases slowly over time taking a whilst a few seconds to get full LoS increase to make chasing the recon unit have impact.
-To counter it a player could use smoke as other than using the Panzer Smoke it always felt limited (mostly due to the short LoS), so it could use some buffs. All PURE artillery pieces can now fire smoke shells/rockets (from the German leFH 18 to the Katyusha) and smoke shells should work over time expanding the smoke cloud before it fades away.
This may sound like a lot of changes but just watch the video again, yes the T-70 in its current state needs to be nerfed hard but think about how interesting it would be if both factions had access to REAL recon units, using True Sight and being able to counter that with smoke...
Oh yeah, that is another unique thing for the Soviets that pretty much toned down, I can understand from a balance point but without ram the T34 is the most boring tank in the game next to the US Sherman which is going to rolling around the battlefield with smoke nade launchers whilst switching between AT and AP rounds whilst at vet one they passively boost allied tanks. Not saying the Sherman will be OP but they sound much more fun...
It more from a design preceptive that make me grumble at the Soviets, what made CoH1 so sexy was how flexible units were to other RTS games which only had units that only did one function, the Ostheer feels like a more flexible version of the Wehr with tier 1 units that scaled and they are fun to play with or fight with. Part of reason why people really disliked OF was how one note the PE/Brits were with their units and faction buildings were (Build Tier 4 for AP OR3 for AT), the Soviets just feel gimped next to the depth of even CoH1 US and very much like the PE.
Now before anyone says "...but that was how the Soviets were in WW2" then:
Part of the reason why the Soviets took so many casualties was due the insane risks Soviets officers took and were able to hammer the German Army into ruin. The Soviets were known for their tank riding, the Soviets were known for their insane love of smoke as pretty much every unit with a cannon used smoke shells (the average shell load on a T34 had sizeable amount of smoke and those massive "pods" you see on the rear of the T34-85 in game model were smoke canisters), the Soviets were known for "deep striking" which the Germans had issues with (the closest thing to this is the T-34 vet one ability), the Soviets were known for their slow but hard hitting artillery, the Soviets were known for their misinformation, the Soviets were known for...
You know what? I could be be here all day telling you what made the Soviets into a cool and interesting army but CoH2 manages to make them rather bland next to CoH1 and now WF's US forces which do sum what made the US faction so unique in WW2...
no, however, these is a big balance patch that also adjusts the old factions on june 24th. The soviets arent getting a revamp, however, they will still shine in their ability to super hard counter things en mass.
Which is a bit sad really, if you want to counter a German heavy tank as the Americans it will involve lots smoke, flanking, combined arms, micro and all of the things that made CoH1 great (well until OF).
With the Soviets the only thing you can do is get a disable onto it using an simple ability and then point your SU-85 at it OR ram it with your T-34. Yeah, the macro side to the Soviets is really boring, Ostheer is fine as you can skip tiers and more unique stuff than the Soviets...
After watching the youtube of the US faction in play, I just have to say that they are really sexy looking faction that is flexible, mobile and looks really fun to play. You are able to use smoke with almost any unit, weapons racks look to be interesting, Officers, getting crew out of tanks to repair them, PASSIVE abilities (no really, CoH2 has hardly any passives) with a whole bunch more things that are really cool...
Then we get to the Soviets who seem to be to be really boring now, all what they have is access to bigger late game tanks, larger weapon crews, more specialized squads and tanks that ram. The overall macro side to the Soviet has always been boring (pick a building for tier 1 OR 2 and then pick tier 3 OR 4), I'm not saying that the Soviets are not going to viable but why would you ever pick them over the Americans who look fun to play:
Are the Soviets going to a make over to feel "cooler" to play or are they going to languish in the shadow of the Americans?
The Japanese were not a crappy army as they were able to pull of some the most stunning victories of the war, for example during the battle of Singapore they were able to maul a very large British garrison which much fewer men and put the US onto the back pedal during the opening years. The Japanese weapons had (on a technical level) 2 of the best bolt action rifles, the Type 38 had the best range of any rifle but had a weaker round whilst the Type 99 rifle had the most fire-power of any rifle in the war. The problem with the Japanese was that they had MACRO problems, just like the Germans, which meant the manufacturing and logistic side of things were really bad next to the Americans leading up to badly made weapons.
As for armour, that is easy to get around as the IJA will be fighting the US Marine faction which lacks the heavy armour of US Army and will fight on unique jungle based maps. There are many CoH players who would love a more infantry based focus and pacific theatre would be perfect for that.
The only thing that makes me not want the Japanese is the current lack of melee fighting...
Erm, I feel a bit sorry for Relic on this as people seem to hating on them when they are testing a brand new system, you know what is worse than not banning a cheater? Banning a non-cheater, false positive are the bane of any new system and had they started banning there was a chance that the system could could end up banning the wrong people which would lead to even more outrage...
Would be next to impossible to do. Soldiers have 80 health, rifles do 16 damage, pretty average DPS. But PTRS does 40 damage per hit, so trying to average out 2 hit kills would make it very RNG dependent.
Not really though, way back in the beta I pointed that the Anti-Trank rifle was the father of the Anti-Material weapons (like the .50 cal rifle) and AT-Rifles were used by the Finns to snipe Soviet troops. It could balanced and given a role that is now needed by Soviets, if they forgo Shocks the Soviets find it hard to remove entrenched Germans, so the AT rifle can "side-grade" into a long ranged anti-infantry weapon once tanks are on the field. This could work if the follow happens:
-Works alot like the SVT but the PTRS is the most long ranged and most accurate man-held weapon in the game.
-Due the huge firepower of the weapon its able to be effective on units in cover or in a house at long range.
-The huge size of the weapon means it cannot be used on the move.
-The PTRS had horrible iron sights which means it has a massive penalty on units which are moving, a very long aiming time (around the same time as a sniper) and the weapon has issues scaling when when units get closer.
If the PTRS worked like then then it would be able able to hurt overly defensive Germans but is weak to any anything charging the Guards or any infantry being micoed to avoid damage...
But we can clearly see that german's rifle has long barrel and so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karabiner_98k
look under the picture, it says that our subject is a bolt-action rifle despite "K" suffix.
I can say that Tiger is actually translate (or synonym) of animal, but it is a tank too ))
*clicks the link*
*looks at the second paragraph*
The Karabiner 98k was derived from earlier rifles, namely the Mauser Standardmodell and the Karabiner 98b, which in turn had both been developed from the Gewehr 98. Since the Karabiner 98k rifle was shorter than the earlier Karabiner 98b (the 98b was a carbine in name only, a version of Gewehr 98 long rifle with upgraded sights), it was given the designation Karabiner 98 Kurz, meaning "Carbine 98 Short". Just like its predecessor, the rifle was noted for its reliability, great accuracy and an effective range of up to 500 metres (550 yd) with iron sights and 1,000 metres (1,090 yd) with an 8× telescopic sight.[4]
Seeing how the G-1898 was 1,250 mm and the K98 is 1,110 mm its techically a carbine, a Russian Carbine was the Model 1938 which was smaller than regular rifle:
Notice how that is small AND is bolt action? Carbine in real life terms refers to shorter rifles than full sized ones...
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cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
