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General Feedback Show Spoiler Battlegroups
This system will be superior to CoH2 and CoH1 once itâs properly balanced, but right now it still requires tuning. There are some general issues with the abilities right now:
Some extremely powerful passives, which globally buff armies, require no player input and provide no real counterplay. Examples of this are the -25% reinforce cost and the overall cost reduction on vehicles. Mileage may vary on this, because it does allow for interesting strategic choices, but if passives have to be included, they could be more specialized in order to require more effort from the player to get the most out of them (i.e. faster construction speed). Even a passive like CoH1âs Zeal allowed for some counterplay, because you could mitigate it by not directly engaging the infantry, but using suppression, vehicles, snipers, etc. instead. Re-used stock units, like the Wirbelwind with Jaegers and 251 with Stosstruppen. This might be temporary, but if not, it takes away a lot of character from the Battlegroups. It would be great if units would even just be minor variations on existing units, for example a stubby Stug, a non-command stubby P4, open top 251 you can shoot out of, 251/17 with Flak gun installed, etc. Powerful call-ins that allow for tech skipping / stalling, like the Wirbelwind, Command P4 and Tiger. This has led to major balance issues for CoH1 and CoH2 before. Preferably, powerful call-ins should fill up holes within tiers (for example: Wehr T2 has no meat shield tank, T3 has no AI tank), but still require the appropriate tech level. The branch system supports such an approach. Most off-maps seem to arrive way too late to drop their payload. The far majority is lacklustre because of this and have no game-changing impact. CoH1 had a good off-map system, aside from a few undodgeable ones like the Strafing Run, 152mm off-map, Sector Overwatch, etc. CoH2 also had a good off-map system, aside from skill loiter planes arriving way too early (shouldâve been designed as mostly area denial, not as delete button) and most of the more expensive end-game off-maps taking a very long time to land, making them mostly reserved against static targets. Manpower Upkeep
Unit upkeep seems very steep. It seems the goal is making upkeep the main limiter on army size as opposed to pop cap, with overall lower pop requirement on units, but right now even balanced armies around 60 pop seem hard to maintain manpower wise. This leads to players having no manpower except for making vehicles in the late game, leading to pure vehicle spam.
Auto Construction
No manual construction is not a big sacrifice to reduce player macro requirements and allow more varied faction openers. That said, it does reduce some depth with timing engineer retreats and hiding such retreats from opponent as to not give him any clues about your teching progress.
Could have some sort of trade-off between the two approaches, like auto construction being very slow (for certain buildings), but allowing engineers to speed it up, to allow for some more decision making.
Auto Reinforcing
Automating reinforcing doesnât really hurt the core gameplay that much, although it might lower the skill ceiling by taking away the only resemblance of traditional macromanagement in CoH. It might also incentivize new players to be inconsiderate about how to spend manpower, making it harder for them to gain a good understanding of how manpower bleed works in CoH.
One thing that should definitely be considered is constricting auto-reinforce to HQ sectors. Some strategies are balanced around being limited by available micro, namely halftrack and bunker play, and auto reinforce severely lowers this âmicro taxâ, making these deathball type strategies way too easy to execute for how hard they are to counter. Also, by auto reinforce being available on the frontline, it takes value away from merge, because you wonât disable auto reinforce just to save some manpower with merge.
Medic Casualty Recovery
Field medics are currently a dull mechanic involving little player choice due to their massive radius and being tied to healing buildings (that you will get anyway, in case of USF). The radius of medics could be decreased and in the case of USF, medics could come in a separate building that can be placed on the field by Engineers, so thereâs a decision of if and where to build it. Effectiveness can be increased accordingly. Wehrmacht medics could remain tied to the healing bunker, seeing as itâs a Field Marshal strength.
This will especially be a positive change if combined with no auto reinforcing on the frontline, as players are then encouraged to make actual decisions with regards to how to use casualty reintegration.
Auto Vaulting
Sounds good in theory, but has the effect of making maps flatter and infantry routes less predictable (for mines, ambushes, etc). Whether this is an issue that limits map design is something that Relic should discuss with their map makers, seeing as there might be other tools to counteract this, like verticality. Manual vaulting did make difficult escapes and avoiding danger zones feel more skillful and intense.
Caches
These all provide a flat +4 bonus, no matter which resource point. Having the income bonus depend on the type of sector might provide more interesting risk / reward dynamics, but ultimately Relic should discuss with their map makers on the best way to balance caches.
Infantry Animations
There is a slight inertia to infantry units as they start and stop moving. This seems to be due to the more realistic animations. Overall infantry feels slightly less responsive than in CoH2 because of this, however this might be intended and isnât negative per say as long as itâs tuned to add as little unnecessary delay as possible.
Another more direct result of the new animations is that infantry often seem to prefer ducking in cover before shooting when moving into cover during an engagement. Whilst the ducking animations strike a good balance between CoH1âs out of control cover jumping and CoH2âs robotic infantry, it should be limited to where it doesnât have a big impact on combat performance.
Audible Footsteps
Footsteps in the fog of war give away infantry positions. Predicting infantry movement is a major part of CoH and hearing the footsteps prevents this layer of depth.
Wires
Wires seem to be very thin at the moment, and require too much precision to reliably deny cover.
Support Units
HMG team
MG suppression overall seems very reliable and near instant, really punishing frontal assault and blobbing, which is fair considering the higher abundance of stock scout infantry and recon and sprint abilities. The level of suppression is something the game should be balanced around to prevent MGs becoming too oppressive, which seems to be done fairly well right now.
Thereâs one crew member next to the gunner, ensuring the gunner doesnât get death-looped, which is a nice trade-off between no crew members and the double forward crew members as in CoH2.
Mortars
Mortars seem more responsive and longer range than the CoH2. The latter might make it harder / unviable to force them off with infantry play, and if thatâs the case, better (de)setup times instead might be a more healthy way of making mortars more useful instead, and promote more active repositions and dynamic gameplay.
Snipers
Snipers seem to get more reliably killed by small-arms. The fire rate is noticeably faster, which might be an issue, but remains to be seen, considering squad sizes are generally larger as well. The camo seems to not linger as long, which mainly has the effect of making it harder to get into a position to countersnipe, but at least all factions will have access to a Sniper now.
Snipers are a unit that should remain a part of the game, due to their unique high risk / high reward design that adds additional layers of depth to the game. That said, the only reliable counter will likely remain a countersniper. An idea to make infantry play a bigger part in countering Snipers would be making the range advantage of Snipers less extreme (say 45 range CoH2 equivalent), but giving higher small arms durability.
AT guns
Compared to CoH2, AT guns seem less responsive and less reliable at penetrating armor, in return, theyâre cheaper and have a wider arc. Theyâre somewhat unsatisfying to use due to the long setup times and lack of reliable penetration, but itâs a way of making them less dominant and essential. They will probably remain a core part of your army if you have access to them, however.
Wehrmacht Feedback Show Spoiler TECH T0 Pioneers
Donât scale as well as Engineers with one less man and without veterancy specialization, which is fine because of their far cheaper cost. The Kettenkrad its ability to lay mines and the Grenadiers their ability to construct wires and sandbags does take away from the necessity of Pioneers (and Fallschirmpioneers).Kettenkrad
Adds an interesting alternative to Pioniers for capping. Itâs a bit of a no-brainer now, because of its very low cost combined with a lot of multi-functionality (fast capping, resource point upgrade, free spotting mode, infantry pushing, med kits, mine laying). A well-used Kettenkrad forces USF to come up with a counter like a Jeep or Quad. The unit could be more situational than it is right now, either by increasing cost or stripping down on functionality.
The upgrade giving capped sectors buffs until decapped has some design issues right now. While it does allow some interesting capping strategies, itâs way more efficient than caches right now, and there is not much to do against it in terms of counterplay on safer sectors and it punishes you for decapping sectors that arenât buffed yet. A possible solution to these issues would be making the communication cables deployable on already captured sectors and making the effect less impactful (say just the sight bonus around the point, or maintaining some resource income if cut-off, or letting the sector take longer to get decapped, or giving units a small bonus within the sector like LoS).T1 Grenadiers
Interesting design with the merge and promotion mechanics. Merge might end up too strong if the Grenadiers hold up too well on their own, considering they will be supported by very potent MG42, flamers and elites, so this should be carefully tuned. Promotion is a bit of a trap with its high cost and no veterancy retention right now (which would become more apparent once the free promotion bug is fixed). Although it fits their role as cannon fodder infantry supporting elites, sandbags and wires on mainlines were considered a massive issue in CoH1 and should at least be locked behind something like vet 1, to promote the use of natural cover and to give more room to Pioneer openings. Faust range seems quite long, but considering they will slowly get outscaled by other infantry, it makes sense.T2
More mobile and aggressive than T3, with a strong focus on anti-infantry and anti-light vehicle. The 221 has quite a strong impact, and requires a dedicated counter due to its near imperviousness to small arms. As main AT source, the tier seems to rely on CoH1-style single Schreck infantry. The Advanced Assault unlock allows further aggression by unlocking the Wirbelwind, allowing further opportunities to close out the game.
This tier likely wonât be as popular as T3. For AT itâs quite constricted by the high 90 munition cost of Schrecks. Furthermore, the Wirbelwind and Marder donât synergize with the battlegroups as well as T3 does. With T3 you can get an AI tank from either battlegroup, and pair it up with the very meaty Stug as AT, along with the non-fuel cost Nebelwerfer, giving you plenty of tools for the late game. Meanwhile with T2 youâre more limited in options, with most being fuel or munitions based and all of them being fairly squishy, meaning you will likely want to tech to T4 (or T3) at some point to have more robust options. This is probably more so an issue with battlegroups catering too much to T3 and T3 being too robust right now.221
The AT upgrade seems quite bad at the moment, with no range advantage, bad damage, no turret, high cost and no multi-functionality, on a fragile chassis. It could probably do with being a manpower + fuel upgrade, due to the heavy munition cost this tier already has.
Detection upgrade is useful, although a cheap/free timed ability that works on the move would force more active use of the unit, while also being more flexible, making it more interesting.T3
More centered around positional play than T2. Only real assault aspect to it is the Panzergrenadiers, which work well in combination with the 251 halftrack. Very versatile tier with low munition requirement, multiple artillery options, multiple AT options, that scales well into the late game, especially when combined with a battlegroup.
The tier should be toned down a bit, for proper tech balance. The tier could have higher munition costs and some units within it should not be as cost-efficient as they are right now.251
As a reinforce platform, the 251 feels incredibly hard to dislodge at the moment. With the medic upgrade you can skip the HQ healing, meaning the halftrack has already paid for itself, and as a result of autoreinforce and autoheal, the vehicle has almost no micro tax. In addition, the reinforcement speed for squads tends to be quite fast and team weapons misplays can be counteracted with the ability to recrew without needing a squad. These factors combined have the potential to lead to very frustrating gameplay, where itâs much easier to pull off halftrack gameplay than to counter it. Halftrack play needs to be made harder and have more drawbacks associated with it.T4
If youâre far ahead, you can tech straight into this tier after T2/T3 as opposed to doing the Advanced Assault unlock, mainly to get access to your only stock generalist, the P4. It has the most elite infantry and the most powerful stock AI specialist. The tier has both high fuel and high manpower costs associated with it.
Design wise, the tier is good, but the Stosstruppen feel a bit lackluster. This is partly because the upkeep for infantry is quite crippling right now, which in combination with their high reinforce cost makes them the hardest infantry to maintain, but also because LMG elites just donât seem as powerful as they are in CoH2. The Stosstruppen could do with being a bigger factor for getting T4. In addition, this tier also suffers from the heavy competition of unlocked T3 in combination with call-in AI tanks from the battlegroups, which just seems like the more efficient way of playing right now.FIELD MARSHALS
The concept can work, but it needs better balancing and it could be fleshed out further.
USFâs Support Centers together with their veterancy system feel like a major addition to your army, allowing a massive amount of variety, whereas the Field Marshals feel more like tools and abilities have been taken out of Wehrmachtâs stock arsenal that you get back (partly) by picking a Marshal. What would help greatly already is if the Marshal system was split up into an early game and late game decision.Mechanized Field Marshal
Greatly outshines the other Marshals at the moment. It has powerful free passive effects, with a buff for infantry around any vehicle and more responsive vet 1 team weapons, along with the incredibly powerful skirts that make certain tanks 25% more durable overall (another reason to go T3). Blitzkrieg, light vehicle self-repair and repair bunkers are also all powerful. Few reasons not to pick this.Defensive Field Marshal
Quite interesting. Rifle grenades are good, Medic bunker is useful (but 251 is stronger), spotting scopes are okay but no gamechanger. Team weapon camouflage netting and first strike bonuses for tanks allow for stronger positional play. Hull down is a bit broken right now with its instant deployment, so hard to say how useful it will be eventually. Only part that feel uninspired are the med kits, considering all the forward healing options that already exist (Kettenkrad, 251, Medic bunker). Pairs well with T2 builds.Special Ops Field Marshal
Seems to be overall the most lacklustre, with abilities that are of questionable use, like the tank camouflage netting, observation bunkers and faster infantry capping. The unique munitions are interesting, but make the Marshal the most munition intensive. Only real redeeming factor about the Marshal are the very powerful incendiary grenades.BATTLEGROUPS
Comments on certain Wehrmacht battlegroup abilities, outside the more general statements and issues with battlegroups right now.Luftwaffe Battlegroup Fallschirmjäger
Hard to find a niche for this squad, due to all the stock elite infantry. A big issue for them is that the right hand side has way more powerful abilities to go for. The lazy way to fix this would be moving Fallschirmpioneers as the first ability to the left hand side and making Fallschirmjaegers the first ability on the right hand side, with the drawback of further solidifying the RHS as main route.Butterfly bombs
Thereâs already the Strafing Run as AI off-map, so would be way cooler if these actually functioned as mines, like the CoH1 Butterfly bombs.Flak 88mm
It doesnât seem as useful as CoH1âs 88mm Flak or CoH2âs Pak43 right now. The gun could use some powerful traits like 360 degree rotation, easy to decrew but hard to outright destroy outside very powerful off-maps, extra long range. It shouldnât have the questionable aspect of CoH1âs 88mm Flak of decimating infantry or the questionable aspect of CoH2âs Pak43 of shooting through any shot blocker. Maybe its bonus trait could be an artillery barrage, if it doesnât result in too many artillery options (it would be very nice for T2, but probably overkill for T3 with the 75mm 251 and Nebelwerfer as well, which is rather an issue with T3âs versatility).Breakthrough Battlegroup
This battlegroup overall feels too good at the moment, especially in team games. Only real reason to go Luftwaffe is for the -25% reinforce cost or 3 CP techless Wirbelwind. Breakthrough has highly cost-efficient MP40 Grenadiers, decent utility with capping/smoke, fairly cheap AI off-map, useful passive with faster vehicle build time (improved timings), two techless call-ins, one of which has a command aura, other which is the strongest tank in the game right now. Could make the battlegroup clearly late-game focused by replacing the Command P4 with a situational munition ability (or passive) in the same vein as Blitzkrieg, while reserving the Command P4 for a future battlegroup.Logistics Truck
Doesnât seem to be fully fleshed out, seeing as itâs just a more expensive cache right now. It could be turned into something different from a cache, say something to provide a manpower boost in some way?Smoke bomb plane
Useful, but overpriced. Having it be artillery-based smoke would be nice for thematic reasons.Incendiary Bombing Run
Likewise could be artillery-based, so most plane abilities are reserved for the Luftwaffe and future air-centric battlegroups.MP40 Grenadiers
Kind of makes Grenadiers over perform for the cost, especially seeing as how cheap this upgrade is. Would be fine if Breakthrough was balanced in other ways and T3 had a higher munitions requirement. Considering Grenadiers become solid infantry with this, it could be an idea to disable merge once upgraded.Command P4
Definitely overperforms with how call-ins are set up right now. Durable, very strong AI, decent AT, supposed to have a command aura as well.Tiger
Very potent right now with 240 damage, higher range than all stock USF vehicles, great armor and great HP. Itâs fine as the strongest ability in the doctrine, which is also necessary against USF's Amored battlegroup at the moment, but it will probably be toned down in later versions.
USA Feedback Show Spoiler TECH T1
So far seems to be preferred opening in 1v1 and 2v2, which is nice thing to see, considering that the Rifles vs Volks + MG dynamic in vCoH is considered one of the most well-designed match-ups in CoH history by most people. The Mortar as part of T1 makes a lot of sense, because it synergizes well with Rifles and provides a counter to MG42 centric play.Rifles
Rifles are very reminiscent of CoH1 in that they scale extremely well due to global upgrades, which makes up for the lack of stock elite infantry and provides a nice asymmetry between Wehrmacht and USF. The differences in damage profiles between Rifles and Grenadiers are not pronounced enough at the moment, which makes Rifle feel somewhat weak during the opening moments. Rifles need a more pronounced close-range advantage and long range disadvantage compared to Grenadiers, so they can flank and close in vs the typical Grenadier+MG42 opening.Jeep
In terms of combat performance, the Jeep is well rounded. It is quite squishy, especially against high RoF small arms, due to its weak armor. However, it makes up for this through its ability to chase Kettens and trade efficiently.
However, similar to the Kettenkrad, the Jeep has an extreme amount of utility, making it too much of a no-brainer not to get. It has an MG, can freely repair at vet 1 and can either be upgraded with detection and a command aura or upgraded to cheaply drop MGs and Mortars. The utility could be toned down. A command aura should not be on a Jeep, the repairs can be cheap but shouldnât be free. The team weapon drops should have a more significant cost as to not make the Airborne battlegroupâs MG drop redundant.T2
A very interesting and unique tier. It combines extremely potent and flexible light vehicle options with Sniper and MG access, which is unique in CoH history. This comes at the cost of not having access to mainline infantry, urging the USF player to go for doctrinal infantry options like Assault Engineers, Pathfinders and Paratroopers. The tier can function both as opener or as a follow-up tech to T1. Judging based on the CoH2 team game meta, it is likely to become the go-to opening in 3v3 and 4v4.Bazooka Squad
The Bazooka squad provides a much-needed infantry based AT option for T2. This way pure support weapon builds with or without doctrinal infantry donât need mainlines for access to snares and LV deterrent.M3
The M3 comes very early for how resilient it is against small arms. However, it only becomes a high impact shock unit once the AA upgrade hits, so the timing may not be an issue. The 75mm version seems to perform extremely well in its AT-role, comfortably dealing with units like the Wirbelwind, while also regularly sniping infantry (especially with the vet 1 ability) and having access to a free barrage. Either its secondary capabilities should be toned down (give barrage a cost / less accuracy against infantry) or it should become a master of none with nerfed AT capability.
The Medic upgrade has the same issues as the 251 for Wehrmacht in that most micro requirements have been removed as a result of autohealing, auto reinforce and easy team weapon recapture, resulting in halftrack play becoming very hard to counter for how easy it is to pull off.T3 M24 Chaffee
Conceptually an interesting unit that seems very cost efficient at fighting medium armor right now, especially compared to the M18 Hellcat. The combination of the Greyhound + Chaffee, both great in their respective role, is a surprisingly potent combo that can hold its own against bigger threats.T4 M18 Hellcat
This unit seems very lacklustre. It only has a small price advantage, marginal speed advantage and a modest penetration advantage over the Sherman but has 320 less HP and does not have any AI capabilities. Its speed is supposed to be one of its advantages, but the difference is not big enough compared to Shermans or other tanks to really justify going for Hellcats. All these factors lead to the Hellcat not being particularly good at swarming tanks, which is supposed to be its main purpose. One solution to this could be to increase its speed, which would also fit thematically.
An alternative would be to design the Hellcat with a small (5-10) range advantage to allow it to more effectively zone out mediums and return fire against heavies. In that case the Chaffee could function as the swarming option.
The artillery barrage is an interesting touch and gives T4 some minor indirect fire capabilities.Sherman
The Sherman is the go-to late game option for USF, partly due to the lack of alternatives. The White Phosphorous shot seems extremely strong but is currently needed to be able to fight a Tiger. Once the Hellcat is buffed this ability could do with a minor rebalance.SUPPORT CENTERS
The idea behind Support Centers is great and Relic has even exceeded expectations with the numerous sidetechs that are available. That said, the balance isnât quite right at the moment.Airborne Support Center
Pales in comparison with the other Support Centers right now. The munition abilities should be what defines this Support Center over the others, with some sidetechs focused on improving those abilities, while the remaining ones give more concrete advantages. For this purpose, the current 4 sidetechs could be combined into 2 to free up 2 slots. This should be the main Support Center to provide powerful munition sinks.
Giving the other Support Centers munition abilities as well blurs the line between battlegroups and Support Centers too much, with overlap between abilities and an overabundance of available munition sinks. Support Centers would feel better designed if the munition abilities of Infantry and Armor were removed, with some reserved for future battlegroups instead, with Airborne keeping its munition abilities.Infantry Support Center
Definitely the strongest choice overall right now, with very concrete advantages, like a free squad that not only gives additional map presence with capping, but can also hold itself in combat and has great supportive abilities. Also has the two most universally applicable sidetechs, in the form of reduced infantry upkeep and greatly reduced munition cost for infantry upgrades and abilities.Armored Support Center
Viable as well, but its advantages are not as direct as Infantry. Repair Bay is a bit buggy right now and doesnât quite hold up to the Captain. The sidetechs are useful, but are more situational than those in Infantry.SPECIALIZED VETERANCY
A great faction mechanic as well, more well thought out than the previous veterancy systems, like 5 veterancy levels or the offensive/defensive veterancy split.
The main challenge will be balancing out free passive effects against activated effects, considering activated effects will always be competing with other abilities for munitions. It seems to be heading in the right direction though. BATTLEGROUPS
Comments on certain USF battlegroup abilities, outside the more general statements and issues with battlegroups right now.Assault Engineers & Pathfinders
Letting these be an upgrade over existing infantry (Engineers and Scouts) is a smart way of making the ability slot retain value, even if the battlegroup is picked late into the game.
That said, they currently way overperform with cost not matching performance. Both squads, especially Assault Engineers, can go toe to toe with Grenadiers, without even the need for a teching structure, allowing easy snowball victories. Implementation needs to be looked at.Armored Battlegroup Veteran Crews
A powerful passive, with interesting implications. Considering its massive impact in the late game, it should just be limited to light vehicles, also to be a fair trade-off compared to Assault Engineers (once they no longer overperform).M3 Recovery Vehicle
The recovery vehicle is extremely strong. It leads to all dead vehicles becoming quasi abandons. It completely cripples offensive vehicle play from Wehrmacht, because any vehicle that dies on USFâs side of the map cannot be effectively contested. It should just be turned into a pure repair and salvage unit.
Strength in Steel
Pop cap should arguably not be affected by abilities, it is too essential as a limiting factor. The ability is also just straight up too strong, even though it is currently likely needed to compete with German skirted Stugs + Tiger late game.M8 Scott
The Scottâs combination of high damage, precision, extremely long range and fast firing rate negate team weapon play completely, while also providing strong regular AI through autofire outside the range of most AT. Some aspects of this vehicle need to be nerfed, like autofire range, or its health so it can only take three shots from medium tanks.Easy 8 task force
Attaching a vanilla Rifle to a late game ability feels like artificially crippling the ability to punish tech skipping. It could at least arrive with vet 1 to be more useful at this late game stage.War Machine
This ability seems dull being a straight up cost reduction and does not require any decision making. It could be redesigned into something more akin to CoH1âs Allied War machine, but less potent. For example, it could be a global timed ability that partially refunds the cost of a tank upon its death.Airborne Battlegroup Smoke bombs
Useful, but overpriced.Paradrop reinforcements
This ability is extremely potent. It can save massive amounts of manpower if used on a large number of depleted squads and can also outright brute force win engagements through the immediate on field reinforce. Could be argued as a better implementation of Luftwaffeâs -25% reinforce cost for infantry, with its efficiency being highly dependent on the situation and good timing, but this also makes it hard to balance.
Combat Feedback Show Spoiler Flat small arms dps profiles
Currently the strengths and weaknesses of infantry at particular ranges are not pronounced enough. For instance, even close range specialist SMG weapons retain significant DPS at relatively long distances. This leads to static infantry combat, because repositioning a squad for a range advantage is generally not worth it. The situation is reminiscent of the early stages of CoH2 (where it was fixed with the March Deployment patch in 2014). Time to kill
The overall time to kill in infantry combat seems quite long. This is in part due to the flat dps profiles as described above (and subsequent lack of high close range dps). Combined with the large squad sizes this leads to the overall pacing of the game being quite slow. Whether that is a good or bad thing is subjective. Grenade scatter
Grenades seem to have scatter. This adds a very consequential RNG element for no apparent reason. Precise grenade throws (e.g. on retreats or in prediction of movement) increase the skill ceiling and have become a staple in competitive CoH2.Lack of mine suppression
Mines should suppress infantry upon explosion. This is an important gameplay element when it comes to stopping flanks that is currently missing. In fact, suppression and health damage could be the main strengths of mines, so theyâre encouraged to be used mainly as a tactical asset as opposed to being mainly a bleeding tool like in CoH2 (which just had model kills and relatively short lasting suppression). Range and speed differences between tanks
Currently there are minimal range differences between direct fire tanks. All US tanks have the same range, while for Wehr only the Marder and Tiger have beyond default range. In addition, the speed differences between vehicles are not very noticable, which might be partly because there is barely any kiting between vehicles.
These factors combined make vehicle play feel not nearly as deep and rewarding as CoH2, which had greatly pronounced differences between vehicles in these regards. While range differences donât have to be as big as CoH2 (from 40 to 60-70), they should definitely be more pronounced than they currently are in CoH3.Armor, deflection and side armor
Tank armor values seem high in general, especially for Wehrmacht tanks with skirts (e.g. 400 armor on Brummbär). Meanwhile, AT guns and handheld AT seem to be lacking penetration against this armor. This could be a good thing, given that CoH2âs late game often devolved into medium tank spam supported by double AT guns. As things stand, this wonât be a viable option in CoH3 and dedicated late game AT will be required to counter high armor units. However, the issue with this is that currently USF seems to lack such a reliable late game AT option.
Deflection damage is a nice addition and leads to the RNG element of penetration being less all or nothing. Overall though, it doesnât seem that impactful against the high armor as described above, which is not an issue per say. Side Armor
Side armor is a great feature, adding reliability and depth to positional tank play. That said, the values seem quite high right now. A way to balance the extreme frontal armor values could be by making side armor values significantly lower. That way you donât necessarily need units with a high frontal penetration chance, but could use partial flanking and ambushes to reliably penetrate the side armor of a vehicle, without having to do full flanks to reach the rear armor. Verticality
Verticality is a great new mechanic, but in its current form seems extremely strong, negating (most?) cover, pretty much never making it a viable option to fight a literal uphill battle, which is quite one-dimensional in terms of decision making. It also doesnât make sense from a visual or logical standpoint that when fighting against a unit with height advantage, a squad behind cover has as little protection as a squad in the open. A pure accuracy buff for the elevated unit could be one way to fix this.Breach
Breach is an interesting mechanic. Itâs a more reliable way of clearing a building and guarantees occupying the house, which is not the case for grenades where it mostly depends on who can spam click back into the garrison first after a grenade is dodged. It still has counterplay by allowing the opponent to dodge the grenade explosion, avoiding damage.
An issue is, if you move out manually, you can immediately breach again yourself, so you get into a breaching loop. This could lead to some absurd immersion breaking situations. The player who breached first is always at a disadvantage because he had to take the damage of closing in and will always have to spend 35 ammo more to take the house. Possible solutions would be a cooldown on breach after leaving a breached house or making a breached house unbreachable for some time.
Maps Show Spoiler Twin Beaches Overall a very good map that is well suited for competitive 1v1. The Angoville-esque asymmetry between the two VPs with medium resources on the right and single VP with high resources on the left is an interesting touch, however it leads to a big advantage for whoever takes the left side, because it is more difficult to consistently hold the right VP and +10 fuel close to the opponents base. Losing the left +16 fuel is also very punishing due to its elevated position, allowing the opponent to exert a lot of pressure onto the low munitions. The low munitions can in turn provide a lot of pressure onto the beach due to its own height advantage. This also makes controlling the +16 fuel way preferable over controlling the beach. This may be resolved if the height advantages get rebalanced, otherwise this needs to be looked into (e.g. by making the hill more constricted to just the fuel or by separating lower munitions from beach a bit). That said, the beach does have the benefit of more congested approaches, helping an entrenched player fend off attacks. One of the sight blockers on the +16 fuel doesnât seem to be perfectly symmetrical right now, making the approach towards the hill a bit harder for the southern player. There seems to be a lot of natural green cover around the map, especially around the +16 fuel and nearby low munition points, but also on the beach (tank traps, boats, boulders, sandbags, walls). Due to verticality, this amount of green cover might not prove that impactful as it seems, but itâs something to consider, as green cover can traditionally be as important to control as territory points. Right now you can often find a green cover piece right next to the other, making such cover control less decisive. Pachino Farmlands Overall a very good map that is well suited for competitive 2v2. The northern left spawn gets a very strong elevated position to fight from (the big house on the hill surrounded by green cover), there is no equivalent to this on the right side, the right side should get a similar position that favors the southern spawn. Aere Not suited for competitive 2v2 due to the limited vehicle pathing and the extreme elevation. Potentially good map for casual games and comp stomp (in the vein of Scheldt), although lack of vehicle mobility around the middle area will be an issue even in casual games. Maps of this type should only make it into the automatch pool if a sufficient amount of vetoes is provided so competitive players can avoid them. UI and UX Show Spoiler GENERAL
The UI has a very innovative design with the intent of being almost completely collapsible. Thought has clearly been put into where to locate each UI element, and while players might be sceptical at the moment, they will surely grow more accustomed to it over time.
Subjectivelly, the UI could have weight added with a theme and it could do with some more natural looking rounded edges, but honestly the minimal art is not what makes or breaks a UI.
Some things are clearly not finished yet, like certain art assets, control group functionality, some of the newer UI elements (i.e. Field Marshals), which is to be expected from a pre-alpha. Likely any missing functionality from CoH2 now, we can expect to be part of a later version.
HOTKEYS Grid keys
In general, similar/same abilities seem to have a universal place on the command grid now, and it's great that effort has been put into this from the start.
Reverse key
One especially common nuisance with how grid keys are setup, which stems from CoH2, is reverse being on the same key as retreat, considering how undesirable it is to accidentally retreat a squad when you thought you had a vehicle selected. Especially players with a classic hotkey background will struggle with this, considering the reverse key has always been a separate hotkey from retreat for them. If any adjustability is added to hotkeys, this would be a great addition, either the option to assign a unique hotkey overriding its grid position or shifting it from the R to F position.
Move camera to selected unit key
A hotkey to jump to the currently selected unit would be useful. There is a key with similar functionality currently ('), but it also keeps following the unit with the camera. This feature would be useful when you have multiple units selected and when tabbing through them, want to move to their individual location.
MINI-MAP
Visibility of the mini-map can be improved, taking Twin Beach as an example.
The mini-map on the right from the single player alpha had an amazing art design (aside from the very dark color scheme and lacking contrast):
⦠Landmarks like garrisons, walls and hedges are the most distinct part of the mini-map.
⦠Roads can be clearly made out from the terrain, but are not dominating the landmarks.
⦠Colors are clean and uniform.
Naturally, Twin Beaches requires a different color scheme, but the use of contrast is messy, the colors are grainy, it shows unnecessary amounts of details and landmarks are ultimately hard to make out. The mini-map should only communicate what's necessary to the player in the most effective way.
Aside from art design, sector outlines could be thicker and cleaner and sectors should show a bit of transparent coloring for the controlling / capping side.
UI CUSTOMIZABILITY Global Unit Overview
An option to move the global unit overview to the top left would be a great option to have. Many players only glance at the bottom of the screen in order to quickly check something, like movement on the minimap or resource count, while otherwise their eyes are focused on the center and top half of the screen (considering more of the battlefield is shown there), this is why the bottom is not the ideal position for those players.
The top left would be a good compromise between the top right and the bottom, being still closer to the minimap than the top right, but also near where the eyes are usually focused.
Commander bar
As part of the above, the option to move the command abilities to the bottom would be nice to have, when that space is free.
GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS Verticality
The camera angle means verticality can sometimes be hard to detect for the player. Currently, any height (dis-)advantages are only shown during combat. It could be made part of the UI, for example as percentage on the unit card. This would also help with making the mechanic more intuitive, because players could directly check the verticality difference between two units and know when the effect will kick in.
Mines
Enemy mines should have an opaque color when detected.
UNIT SHIELDS
Unit shields currently only have a thin colored outline to show the controlling player, unless selected. As opposed to the center being completely grey, it could have some color of the controlling player added.
Health bars
The health bar flashes when low health. This is distracting and it should either slowly turn into a solid color like pale red when nearing the threshold or be possible to disable.
Status indicators
Could be expanded upon by adding a "moving" status indicator and a status indicator for units within the HQ sector.