The point is to make placing buildings important. If you wanna play super safe, place your buildings at the back of your base. If you wanna play super agressive and hi-risk, place your buildings at the very front of your base. Your units get out faster, but you run the risk of your buildings being sniped by AT-guns or tanks.
The point is to put some more strategy back into this game. The designers blundered when they removed strategic elements from COH2. The left-hand-side and right-hand-side commander tree choices from COH1 are a perfect example. Why in the world would you remove that system, and make commander abilities auto-unlock? Were they trying to take the "S" out of RTS?!?
Anything they do to put more strategy back into the game is a good thing, imo. I never liked the off-map spawn points.
Aside from being a direct nerf to USF and UKF, factions that can't place building where the player wants, I don't see any benefice to that change and how it brings more strategy. everyone build close to the limit because everyone want to get his troops faster on the field. this also allow you to reinforce at your base limit to have a better defense if you are pushed back. Being able to snipe the building means you already won or lost the game.
But I agree on your second paragraph same if I don't include this feature on it.
We are all freaking out about no handheld AT. An entire faction depends on no handheld AT in stock (Soviet army), another has no native snares on infantry and its AT is useless against light armor (Brits). We are going to test these changes, doesn't mean they are 100% definitely going to be how the game ends up in the future.
OKW shreks were always a problem because they vetted volks up too quickly and they offered a strong AT support weapon to every OKW attack or defense, and forced medium tanks to fear volks blobs which they absolutely should not.
I agree that OKW may need another light AT option in the med truck to help it avoid always going to get a Puma, but let's see first.
Puma could be move to T1 and ISG to T2, so OKW get a dedicated anti-light armor for spending fuel and delaying its T2. Stuart vs Puma is an interesting match up depending a lot in micro skill, I guess AEC vs PUMA as well. Since PUMA also outrange Bofors you can use it to harass it. Last, Puma vs T70 or Su76 would also be micro dependent with cons/hourra/atnade option.
I'm not in particular favor to remove shrecks from volks, more in locking its access behind a paywall that delay enough long OKW teching to be a real decision making for the player. But if Relic proposes us to test this change, it is always better to do it.
Raketenwerfer still suck big ass and all its "features" greatly compinsated with its disavantages.
So pretty much OKW will have the weakes AT capabilities in the game, because pretty much PIV is overpriced garbage compare to cromwell. Pather is good, but all Allied factions now have something to fight heavy armor.
Dont know, removing schrecks without proper buffs to raketen (not just +5 range) its bad way to go, because we will most likely face old "OKW gameplay", when in game after game they simply got rushed my massive amount of armor without any proper counter play.
Had a look at the stats and was surprised to discover you're right. The REs use rifleman Garands and the Captain Thompson only does ~4 dps less than a para Thompson at close range so the squad will definitely have some decent combat value. That said I'm not sure I'd ever want to trade Rifle vet, smoke/nades, and an AT snare for Captain vet, On Me!, and slightly cheaper zooks.
Captain still has his management certificate ability (don't remember the exact name), really useful to pump out units really fast.
Now you can go 3RM/BARs+Zooks/captain + fast stuart/pak/Atgun and equip BARs on your captain if you don't see any light/medium vehicle.
Let's be honest that´s a nerf for sure but with HMG.50 getting better softcounter to lights and mortar to take out position, you´ll less need dual zooks to do the early heavy damage stuff RMs+BARs can´t do.
Mortar alone open a wide area of possibility to counter aggressive OKW H.Qs
I like USF and those changes are nice, at least on paper.
What I can't get is why OKW fanboys are still crying while getting what they were asking for.
Flak HT is not that good lol. It's very good at suppressing but the only time it does good damage is if a unit gets really bunched up. Its damage is actually pretty mediocre and its accuracy gets screwed up by terrain.
Problem with Puma is that no matter what you do with it, it's only going to be in one building, so you're not going to have it half the time.
Something that can wipe half of your squad out of cover doesn't need model to be bunched up, they are simply out of cover. And the second half of the squad is suppressed. I have played against it and see game where well used and it works pretty well combined with sturm and volks.
Problem is, it requires micro skill on a faction that doesn't really promote it.
I don't see how the problem with the puma is, all factions need to tech to get vehicle units.
Interesting changes, but the HMG34 shouldn't be T0, it will be easy to push with Stpio + kubel to cutoff and then have a HMG34 suppressing anything trying to recover it.
Uh where are you getting that gren/lmg42 is going to be the best? Literally 1 rifleman with a bar will beat a gren with a lmg in close /mid range and all lmgs relatively have the same stats. I would say the one unit that benefits the most are obers but they are costed relatively high already.
Edit: also on the lmg issue stats might need to get adjusted perhaps? But it makes it ridiculously easier to to balance because your only accounting for 1 LMG at a time in your calculation.
Not solving any issues? the fact that you guarantee to win with a tank against a shreck blob directly seems pretty good to me? This literally preserves all necessary relationships. You don't have to agree wit my suggestion though I personally just feel that would be the best option without gimping the faction.
To reach mid / close range with BARs you need to go out of cover and take damage and loss. There is always a good amount of chance to lose a model in the move. In fact from experience I'll say the match is decided by cover bonus available and if you lose a model while closing the range. Also to mention that vet2-3 gren reliably kill a RM model per burst if out of cover.
So yes, doing that would probably require to also nerf LMG42 performance which would also impact all infantry fights vs all allied factions.
You also mention yourself the buff to Obers it procures but we can go further in OKW infantry impact. Volks being suddenly more powerful late game, but also Falls/pzfuss/jaegers/Obers. You need 2 BARs to stay on the run vs them when they reach vet3+
I'm not saying the idea is wrong, but requires a lot of changes to make it balance. And without Trolling you, you've been part of Relic so you know how it works when big changes are done = 0 impact analysis (at least from a customer/player point of view).
On shreck let's say we need to test it and see the real impact. If you're right, I'll be happy to apologize.
So you basically make Gren/LMG42 the best mainline infantry with upgrade, dps and cost wise. I heard many people are crying for it but is it really balance?
Shreck
You're not solving any issue with a range decrease for shreck, not all maps are like Steppes were you can always being at max range. And Mr.Smith nailed out the other issue, you want to attack with your tanks, not sit down and snipe from max range. I think a nerf in penetration to a value that gives around only 50%/60% to frontally pen a sherman is probably more interesting, forcing you to flank with your schrek to have a real impact.