Profile of ZombieRommel

I know it helped on-map arty in CoH1 but I don't know if it still helps in COH2.

And in the case of British Concentration Barrage, it's an off-map ability that uses on-map assets, so how does that work?

Anecdotal evidence tells me that line of sight is very important because when I call Concentration Barrage (with airburst) down on VPs I own, everything dies.

When I call it through the FOW, the shells do almost nothing at all, even despite blowing up right above units.

Thoughts?

Among the ninja changes of the last patch was the new requirement for the Brit arty commander to have line of sight to drop the 100 munitions arty strike.

As far as I can tell, this 100 munitions strike calls the base howitzers to barrage the exact same way the non-doctrinal Infantry Section 45 munitions strike does.

The utility of the ability was that it didn't require line of sight...if you saw Axis units massing, you could call it down to apply pressure. It could be used in conjunction with the Valentine to spot units and bombard them through the FOW.

Now that this ability requires LOS, there is almost no reason to use it. You need a spotter to use it, and the Brits most ubiquitous spotting unit (the Infantry Section) can throw a colored smoke grenade that summons the arty at less than half cost.

Who thought this change was a good idea, and why was it done?

If someone at Relic thought the ability was OP, it would've been better to increase its muni cost, not completely neuter its utility.

Going to state directly from the outset that I think most of your proposals are bad and would make the game less fun to play.

Flame Weapons
These got changed recently to do less burst and more damage over time. They function now as area denial weapons. The idea behind green cover enhancing flame damage is that cover provides flammable material for flamethrowers to ignite. For example: a big haystack. The gameplay purpose of flamethrowers, which stems from reality, is to flush units out of entrenched positions, whether that be a garrisoned building, a trench, or, yes, green cover. For counter-play, the idea is that you want to focus-fire the hell out of the flamethrower unit so that he cannot deny you good cover. Focusing down flamethrower units is encouraged because of how short their range is, which means they most expose themselves to danger in order to flush entrenched units out. This means they are in range to be shot and must expose themselves and be almost useless as they cover ground.

As for armored flamethrower units (Churchill, Hetzer, Wasp) marching up to an AT gun, you must consider what a unit's prime categorization is. For example, the Flame Churchill and the Flame Hetzers are FLAMETHROWERS mounted onto tank chassis. They are not tanks per se. If my Sherman or my PZ4 can easily approach AT guns head-on and wipe them, that's a problem, because the Sherman and PZ4's prime categorization in gameplay is "tank." A tank's gameplay utility is to be an all-around assault vehicle. Church and Hetzer are merely armored flamethrower platforms. It makes perfect sense that a Flame Church / Flame Hetzer could win a 1v1 battle against an AT gun, because AT guns are manned by infantry and infantry have no protection against flames. A tank has some protection against AT guns because of its armor.

If you are looking to counter a Flame Church, then you must either spread your AT guns and use a snare or use armored AT. Armored AT is the real Flame Church hard counter. Complaining that your AT crews get roasted by a flamethrower platform strikes me as odd. You are arguing against reality at this point. Certain units will be armored enough to close distance and will also have flamethrowers. To make your desired design work, you'll either have to ignore infantry's vulnerability to flames or ignore armor on heavily armored units. You can't really get what you want in gameplay terms unless you just say "To hell with reality!"

Indirect Fire
Another bad idea. Indirect fire platforms auto-firing is fine because they have absolutely no direct combat utility and merely serve as a form of pressure against A)defensive or B) blobbing opponents.

The suppression given to Pack Howitzers and ISGs is to make them a viable blob counter and differentiate them from mortars. Mortars are more versatile than Pack Howitzers and ISGs because mortars can fire straight up over obstacles/buildings/terrtain and thus allow for more versatile positioning strategy. Pack Howies & ISG must be positioned clear of most obstacles. Mortar crews can also retreat while Pack Howie & ISG can't. On the risk vs. reward spectrum, small howitzers are currently well balanced against mortars. Mortars provide more flexibility in terms of positioning because they can fire directly over obstacles and retreat. Small howitzers provide less flexibility but better blob control and longer range. This is balanced by their stricter positioning and helplessness when stormed directly by enemy units.

If you strip Pack Howitzers & ISG of suppression, you take away their anti blob utility. You can't say "Pack Howie & ISG have suppression... therefore they are long range MGs!" This is infantile reasoning. MGs have no minimum firing distance. Pack Howies and ISG do... What this means is Pack Howie and ISG are completely helpless once infantry close in within a certain range. MG has no min range and also has (obviously) a much faster rate of fire, so MG prevents direct assaults.

So, please, remove the suppression and auto-fire from Pack Howie & ISG if you A) love blobs and B)love turtles. If you love blobbing and turtling mechanics, then please continue to argue for these changes.

Removing autofire ,as someone else said, raises the micro tax on players and doesn't do much more than that. The autofire is counterbalanced by these units' complete impotence vs direct assault and their diminished damage potential in contrast to rocket platforms (stuka/pwerfer/katyusha) and full howitzer units.

Weapon Upgrades
If you don't keep a contrast between the weapon profiles, then you end up with a blurry grayness that doesn't reward tactical positioning. You call this contrast "caveman" gameplay. SMGs do work up close and LMGs do work from afar already. What more do you want exactly? You say: "On the other hand any unit with a powerful SMG (Shocks, Rangers, Commandos primarily) just run at stuff and win." This isn't true at all. SMG units that run toward long-range infantry who are in cover get shot to pieces on approach. This is why most of these units are equipped with smoke of some sort. Ranger has doctrinal call-in smoke and Shocks have smoke grenades. Sturmpio could also be placed into this close-assault troop category but their medium-range DPS is also quite high. Their increased versatility means they don't HAVE to be up close to win engagements.

I don't think you should muddy the waters regarding this stuff. Right now you have to intelligently close distance with SMG troops and have to keep distance and user cover to be effective with long-range units. If you smooth the curve then you might enable SMG troops to win battles at medium range they probably shouldn't win, and likewise you enable some long range troops to win engagements they shouldn't win at medium range. The LMGs for Grens and Obers pretty much are net upgrades, as are BARs for Riflemen and LMG for Infantry sections, but these upgrades basically serve as scaling mechanics. You can invest your muni elsewhere and take that gamble. Some weapon upgrades already are sidegrades. Giving Sturmpio or Riflemen a flamethrower is a sidegrade because it completely changes the properties of their default weapons. Riflemen are effective on the move by default and equipping them with flamethrower means they must stop to do damage. Sturmpio have good medium range DPS by default and giving them a flamethrower means their mid-range DPS goes down in exchange for anti-garrison/anti-cover.


Loiters

I'm not opposed to single strafes (the likes of which we had in CoH1) but I do think the loiters serve a useful area denial purpose as well as give the illusion that there's an actual airforce at play. Single planes coming in for a bombing run or strafe don't give that illusion and aren't nearly as epic from a spectacle standpoint (which must be considered). I think AA works fine against planes now... certainly much, much better than it used to work during game launch.

Abandon / Out of Control

The abandon mechanic adds a small bit of RNG to the game. Whether you're in favor of this or not basically depends on how okay you are with RNG being a factor in the game. The mechanic might be better if it were made more consistent, but I don't think it's a bad mechanic strictly speaking. Taking over abandoned enemy vehicles was done in the actual war and adds a cool flavor element to the game.

I had 85, figured out the bug thanks

Here's how I believe it happened to me:

1st Pershing got shot and went "out of control."

During out of control phase, Pershing call-in stopped being greyed out, so I tried to call it back in.

Only problem is the game thinks the previous "out of control" Pershing is still on the field.

Result: takes your money for the Pershing and puts the call-in on cooldown.

Brutal bug.

I agree, I hate the racks. I liked them in concept when the USF faction was announced, but in practice, the racks are nothing but a nuisance. Two things I miss from CoH1 USA are the supply yard upgrade to decrease upkeep of infantry and the universal BAR upgrade.

Ceding map control to upgrade weapons is almost always a bad trade, especially so on large 2v2,3v3, and 4v4 maps where it takes forever to get back to where you were. On top of this USF don't have a non-doctrinal troop transport unit, so you are stuck hoofing it on foot the whole time.

The backwards-facing racks on some maps just add insult to injury on an already bad system.