Marketing is everything.
CoH2: Eastern Front was not a mistake, it was spearheaded by bad marketing, Relic confirmation bias/logical fallacies and bad writing/narrative design that did not have the same "Band of Brothers" vibe as CoH1.
Wolf Kahler is the CoH2 announcer from BoB so the Relic audio team had the right ideas to make a faithful sequel.
Rather than learning from mistakes Relic threw the baby out with the bathwater and went back to the Western front.
I fully agree with this, CoH2's marketing and their portrayal of the Soviet are completely at-odds with each other. The marketing was a favourable portrayal of the Soviets, which also drew in a large Eastern audience, which then felt betrayed when they played the campaign which is unfortunately seems to be a Cold War era NATO interpretation of the Eastern Front. Not to mention the Great Red Army is protrayed as being staffed mostly of Conscripts and Penals, with a handful of Guards or Assault troops on the side. |
How so? They got elite infantry like snipers, guards and shock troops as well.
And it's not like every german soldier is being portrayed as a valiant elite knightcrossholder. They also have Osttruppen and Volksgrenadiers (= juveniles and old men)
The difference is they have Grenadiers (the gold standard that other units are balanced around) and Panzergrenadiers (the most elite non-doctrinal infantry until Obersoldaten). On the other hand it's been a quirk noted time and time again, the Soviet Army has no general infantry, it is an army comprised entirely of Conscripts, Penals, and Elites, with no regular backbone. Even today during the various faction shufflings and rebalances, there's still a faint voice that comes through every now and then, whispering in the night: "Add Strelki"
Volksgrenadiers were in most cases just flat out bad because they were old, untrained men and super young (16!)students who were not mentally prepared for the battles. That being said the WHOLE quality of german infantry was a lot worse in 1944/1945. If you read the files in the archives you can ALWAYS find complaints of german officers abut the lower infantry quality. "The Brave are all dead and we did not get quality replacements" is a sentence you will find a lot in wehrmacht files or privat correspondence of officers. The volksgrenadier division was pretty messy. It was a mix of soldiers across the whole range. Juveniles and old men as well as experienced veterans and regular soldiers who were simply shifted to another division. You forget that in the Volksgrenadier Division not all soldiers were veterans, but a certain percentage. For example in the 79th Volksgrenadier Division only 10% were veterans the rest were conscripts, while the Volksgrenadier Division had 6,000 people in the division at that time in the Grenadier Division was 16,000 until 1944, and after reorganization (when the Volksgrenadier Division was created) 12,000 people.
Volksgrenadiers and Volkssturm are often confused. Volksgrenadier Divisions were supposed to represent the resurgence of a modernized German Army. As such they were equipped in large numbers with StG 44's and Panzerfausts, but also Machine Guns. They were organized into groups of 2 Assault Platoons (StG) and 1 Rifle Platoon, each also including several Machine Guns, with additional Machine Guns distributed as seen fit by the Commander.
All that firepower of course is to compensate for the lack of manpower, Volksgrenadier divisions were smaller than Grenadier divisions, around 1/2 to 1/3, and quality varied greatly. To compensate for the lack of experience, they were organized around clusters of veteran soldiers and led by veteran officers. Some units were conscripts with rushed training, while others were redundant personnel transferred from the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine and performed admirably.
And yes, some were old men and teenagers, but the Volkssturm is where they really started using WW1 Veterans and sub-17 year olds. |
I don't think a modern setting fits CoH - too many high tech high range weapon systems (like ATGMs) and focus on merging combat roles like the Main Battle Tank or stuffing all sorts of heavy weapons on recon/infantry fighting vehicles (like Bradley or BMP). Or all infantry having standardized assault rifle + LMG loadouts.
While we would miss out on things like Heavy Tanks, it could still work. For example the Stryker Dragoon and Stryker Mobile Gun System could have a dynamic role like the Luchs and Puma in CoH2. Light tanks in general could be replaced by various Armored Cars and Infantry Fighting Vehicles.
Something early Cold War (the end of the 'mechanical' warfare era) would be pretty interesting though. Basically 1950s-1960s with Pattons and T-54s and with light tanks like the M41 still in service could basically be a reskinned CoH/CoH2. The same mechanics and core but in a new and unique setting.
Going with a Cold War setting would be dynamic, the Cold War as as much a jumble of technology as WW2 was. You could have a period where the US Engineers use M3 Grease Guns, the US GI use M16A2's, and Assault Infantry use CAR-15's. Or if you go earlier the GI's could use M14's and have M16's upgradable, or used by Assault Infantry.
All infantry being all-range always automatic weapons infantry also wouldn't add much to gameplay.
Well until recently the US Military used mostly M16A2's, M16A4's, and M4's, all semi and burst fire. I suppose that'd make them the long range faction infantry, and then whatever Kalashnikov using adversary is the enemy would be the close range faction infantry.
Honestly, it's hard for me to imagine CoH without AT guns. But the existence of World in Conflict leads me to believe it can work (but stay being CoH, not WiC, I much prefer CoH's cover proliferation).
I suppose it would work with ATGM Teams like the BGM-71 TOW or 9M133 Kornet, they would have to deploy like machine guns instead of being wheeled though.
I'd rather they'd stick to world war 2, there is so much more there that hasn't been fully captured.
Such as the Panzer III!! |
CoH2 at release was a true beauty to behold..
Hulled down Panther with CP4 and scopes lmao.
~ ƒ o r t i f i e d ~ |
Part of the problem is that most of the models are already being used, and the handful that aren't may not be complete. I know there's 2 unused Soviet models, a Red Army Officer, and a Guard without the cape, but I don't know if they are rigged up to be useable. |
I'm torn on tying call-ins to tech, while it does reduce call-in spam and prevent games from devolving into a trickle of heavy tanks, it also makes it harder to deal with highly efficient vehicles like Panthers when you are the Allies, especially if it's OKW and they open with the Command Panther. |
For me, yes, CoH 2 of 2014 with a bunch of new mechanics, with more unique fractions and problems much more fun than CoH2 of sample 2019, people call it a balance, I call it castration. It was possible to keep the mechanics and balance the game, but it is always easier to go the easy way - to remove the thing that would facilitate work.
I disagree, as the old saying goes, different doesn't mean useful. Faction differences are fine to an extent, but when the entire faction is a gimmick with half a toolbox and little room for new strategies, it's not only a pain to balance, but a pain to play with and a pain to play against. I'm using the original OKW as my example here, they were meant to take a quarter of the map and use infantry based anti-infantry and anti-tank to hold off until they could scrape together enough for a Jagdpanzer or Panther, then center their army around this as they try to gain more of the map. To keep the few vehicles they had, they were given tankier vehicles than average and excessively good repair. This could easily snowball and dealing with an OKW that became too strong was very frusterating. On the contrary if the OKW lost their vehicle then you have effectively crushed the keystone of their army, if they cannot get a new one fast, it's over. Alternatively destroying one of their trucks sets them back even more and they may as well quit.
Over time the OKW was heavily reworked, they gained a Machine Gun, their Infantry gained rifles (also making them realistic), they gained a Medium Tank, and they lost a bunch of gimmicks that didn't quite work. So on the contrary I applaud Relic for realizing the design was untenable and steadily reworking them as a more proven design instead of doubling down and trying to tape up the cracks a structure that is sat upon an unstable foundation. |
The Pershing is a heavy tank, and like I already said it was the heaviest tank used by the US during the war. On how it is currently balanced I cannot argue or comment on as it's not my place.
If you want a meat shield then I would say that the Jumbo is your best bet, which I have also vouched for but sadly as most other things, a new model won't be added to the game, at least just yet.
I was kind of bummed they added the Pershing instead of the Jumbo, I thought a call-in 75mm Sherman with roughly Vet 2 Panther level durability would have been an interesting dynamic with the M10 or M36, or just other Shermans. It would have been an excellent screening vehicle.
I agree on the Calliope, sadly my suggestion of enabling it's main gun to be able to fire has turned out to be impossible to implement due to the mod tools limitations, apart from that I have no other ideas on what to do with it.
Same with the Calliope, I feel that it's pretty underwhelming. Introducing a rocket launching platform like the Panzerwerfer and Katrusha but much harder to destroy was a departure I don't think should have been taken. Since it's so survivable they've had to keep scaling back the damage so it's not too strong. Should have just went with the Xylophone, which was mounted on truck beds.
More on topic:
Why not just give them some sort of explosive resistance on higher vet? I'm all up for Ostheer buffs but I'd rather have them stay with their iconic 4 men squads.
That would probably be the best way to go, or even increase their HP with vet, but that might skew balance since all regular infantry are 80HP, with only exceptions for Partisans and Soviet Snipers, and the latter is being changed (unsure of the former). |
I do think the mechanic needs reworked but I don't think this is the way to go about it. Maybe if the kill comes from a paid ability, or the kill happens in friendly territory (chance to recover), or heck the kill happens in any base territory (chance to recover/extra risk for base inspections). |
I still feel like one of the unique markers of the Soviet Army, the mass deployment of Submachine Guns, is completely missed in CoH2. Most of the time you'll play the whole game without a single SMG in your whole army. I've long advocated for Conscript PPSh's for that reason and because it would enforce the dynamic of Grenadiers Long (LMG) - Conscripts Short (SMG).
There is an icon in the game files that resembles the Conscript's icon, but with crossed PPSh's instead of Mosins. I think that could be worked into the game somehow, either to show a distinct unit or to show that they've received the global PPSh upgrade (as opposed to the doctrinal upgrade/won't mask objects the upgraded cons have picked up). |