Alright I am going to make this very clear, changing the spawn system is a
HORRIBLE idea, for obvious reasons that some people in this thread who haven't played the game for years just don't see.
Reason 1: Changing the spawn would cause horrible imbalance for unit timing when for example Brits and USF have a specific base structure for their factions.
Reason 2: This whole argument for "more competitive play due to spawn positioning being defensive or aggressive now" is ridiculous considering 90% of the time unless you're unable to defend your tier building nothing will destroy it until the late game. It wont add to anything strategically to be honest other than the timing of your units coming out of your base or where you'd like to move map wise, which doesn't allow for more tactical play like some would think, unless you're in VCoH.
Reason 3: Base structures were meant to be kept INSIDE of your base, not on the outskirts unless you wanted slow reinforce times while moving onto the battlefield. It's a unique CoH2 experience putting your base structures in an assorted order that would allow for reinforcing while moving towards the front.
Reason 4: Having units spawn onto the battlefield instead of from a base structure allowed for more fluent gameplay overall for the timing of when units hit the field and when someone could anticipate an armored car or mg for example, with these changes maxim spam and sniper domination early game will become a serious issue off the bat, especially considering the other proposed changes to be implemented.
The off-map spawn system was an artificial attempt to inject some realism into the game at the pure expense of gameplay. It was only there to make the game seem more "real". It had no gameplay benefit; in fact, it made gameplay worse.
First of all, it made building placement essentially irrelevant. That alone isn't really a big deal, but because Relic trimmed away strategic decision-making in so many other places at the same time, it meant one less meaningful decision for players to have to make. You could lose games in CoH1, and in pretty much every other RTS game in existence, thanks to poor building placement. CoH2 lacking that decision was just one less decision it forced players to make, and the whole point of a competitive game is forcing players to make decisions that have real consequences.
No it didn't. Building placement became more relevant than over in the fact that in CoH2, not VCoH, having building placement on one side of the base instead of another allowed for constant reinforcement on that side of the map when units were moving in that direction and were close enough to the specific base structure. It still becomes a strategic decision in that if the enemy is fighting on one side of the map where your initial tier building is not located, for example on the left hand side of your base and not the right hand side you would have to wait inside of your base circle to reinforce and then move onto the battlefield. Secondly you could decide to put your base structure in the center of your base to make it a bit easier to reinforce on other side, although limited, or you could decide to put tier 1 on one side of the base, and tier 2 on the other so you can reinforce on both sides later on in the game.
Second, it forced you to babysit your rally points. You could argue that this meant good players were able to use this to their advantage, and you would be right, but that doesn't make it less silly. If there was some other way besides rally points to decide which point units spawned at you could make a stronger argument that they added interesting gameplay, but the way they were implemented was just ridiculous.
Actually the implementation of rally points in CoH2 allowed for your units to spawn from specific sides of the battlefield instead of one specific side where you would be forced to babysit where that unit would go exactly as you had to in VCoH.
And finally, they made microing and using newly created units frustrating as fuck. A good player is going to keep track of build progress and use units the moment they're created. But thanks to the off-map spawn system, units couldn't be fully controlled unit they walked onto the map proper. The most frustrating side effect of this was the fact that you couldn't issue repair orders until the unit was on the map, which means the gameplay flow of a good player who sees a repair unit is finished, selects it, clicks on a unit to repair, and then shifts his attention to other things is completely ruined. You have to keep going back to check on that unit to see if it's on the field yet or not, and the time it takes for a unit to get on the field is different for every map, every starting position, and every spawn point. A unit should be fully usable the moment it is available to be selected; anything else is a recipe for frustration. You also couldn't view and select units the moment they spawned on some maps and in some starting positions, which meant time wasted waiting for units to walk into your camera view. You would be punished for being fast and reacting immediately to new unit production.
Actually this promotes more strategic gameplay in the fact that players would have to check their minimap or tac map to see when a repiar unit would actually hit the field and then proceed to repair, it doesn't make that much of a difference timing wise or speed wise when you'd want to repair with said unit, you could simply do other things on the battlefield and then once the repair unit was in the clear you could simply click on it and hit repair, doesn't limit your ability to still do other things before the unit is ready for use. The argument that not being able to repair right away is contradictory to the fact that you can do other things right away. It doesn't diminish your ability to micro or move around the map.
It made for extremely frustrating and jarring moments for players, and it gave absolutely no benefit in return. It was a pure "realism" design element that actively made gameplay worse. It never should have been there in the first place.
It gave the benefit of timing and when a unit could be used on the battlefield.