Since Relic still seems to read this forum (hello Andy!) or at least does so at the moment to check for reports on the 64 bit version, I thought I might get off some wishes regarding mainly audio atmoshpere that I'd like to see if we ever get a new CoH.
The probably biggest selling point for CoH2 for me personally is the atmosphere this game provides. It is not realistic by any standards, but does a great job at being authentic and making you feel like you're looking on an actual battlefield. The level of visual detail in this game is astonishing and what sets it apart from 99% of other - even most recent - triple A titles. I still remember playing Ettelbrück for the first time and looking at the the small café area in the city. It's just beautifully made. You're basically thinking "yeah, that would be a nice place to just sit down and have a tea or coffee and relax a bit", while over the next hour the whole thing becomes filled with dead bodies, craters and the houses around collapse one after the other. At the end of the match I was looking at this and it felt hard to believe that this destroyed crater area was actually the same as the nice coffee place. Obviously these effects diminish with repetition, but it gives you this grim feeling of war and brutality that makes me detest it. CoH2 has many good maps (official and community) that manage to trigger this feeling. Similarly, it feels absurdly satisfying if your Tiger (or any other tank) crush through walls, trees and hedgerows as if they were nothing.
Second, I am astonished by the shitload of small details that have been packed into this game at every level of zoom. Vehicles leave tracks in snow and mud that allow you to track them down even in the fog of war (although the game has become a bit too fast for that). Engines sometimes flaming up when pushing the throttle. The little jiggle that the tank chassis does when the tank is stopping. JLI having a grenade strapped around their belly and the grenade has actually readable German text written on it. Single stones sticking our of brick walls when they have been partially destroyed. And obviously the hundred little gears that fly across the map when a tank explodes (not to neglect the variety of different vehicle death animations).
Other games don't have that and do not offer that much detail. Relic at the time could have also taken the easy way because only a fraction of players will notice that. But they did not, they put that extra work in, and for me this makes the game better than many others.
Nonetheless, there is room for improvement. Visually, there are obviously models to improve, although I don't know enough about how specific uniforms and tank models looked like irl and how they are represented in Coh2. However one suggestion I can think of at the moment would be that highly vetted units get more ragged equipment (worn/torn uniforms etc). Second, but this is more like a technology thing, I would like world objects like trees and sandbags be partially destructable. Shells might even fire through some objects or bounce of them such as trees that might split the tree in half.
What is most lacking in my eyes though is the audio department. I feel like there could be more chatter in a firefight or more specific one reacting to commands. For example enemy soldiers could insult each other during a firefight. Friendly ones could give defensive orders ("Keep your had down!" "Stay in cover!"). Something that would emphasize the bonding between soldiers and that they care for each other. In general I would also enjoy more positional calls. For example, if an enemy unit is encountered behind a truck your squad should call it out as "behind the truck" etc. Similarly, I would like the same responses to move orders ("Move up to that truck/destroyed tank"). Attack orders could be responded by depending on the attacked unit as "Focus down that MG!". In general, enemy movement could be commented ("Enemy closing in/retreating", "They're running away"). Other commands like attacking after removing the hold fire could be commented as well. I also think that artillery at the moment is not properly responded to. They throw themselves on the ground (despite being slightly buggy this is a great feature), but apart from that? Maybe mortar fire call out. Units sometimes call out enemy encounters with a distressed voice, but if half their squad gets obliterated by a Katyusha and body parts are flying around them, they are just like "yup, that's EXACTLY what I signed up for", whereas it should be one of the most frightening things since they don't know who it will hit next and where it is coming from.
Overall, I find the USF voices to be the most memorable. They have a special sound of urgency and tension to them that others don't provide. Sometimes those are a bit misplaced too, but in a firefight they sound great. Other factions are sometimes a bit "too cool" with actually being close to death. Elite squads can have this attitude, but the average Joe that has to serve in the army? Those should not.
Obviously important things such as grenade call outs must trump all of this and always be hearable, but overall this would add a lot to battle atmosphere. This would also need proper fading with distance. I understand that some players would not like this as it might clutter the audio, but if done well it would add a lot. Maybe there could be an "only important voice chatter" option in the menu or something.
You are looking at things in isolation, without considering what each openings achieves/tries to do and the meta around that let them shine or not.
1- Penals vs Cons. They achieve completely opposite effects.
One relies in pure brute strength early on which fells short as the game goes on. You sacrifice map control in favour of finding isolated targets to force retreats and then trying to snowball from that position.
Cons are the opposite. You get map control, you can stall with sandbags and are more efficient in the late game, specially as snare units. You get the added benefit of merging early on flamers. As you mentioned, you also save money and time in T2 as that's your natural tech progression.
2- Penals strats are not ideal against OH, specially in the current meta which absolutely demolishes as it punishes SU early mid even harder.
OKW has historically been the main use of Penal based strats, and less people play them.
3- Penals based strats require the faction to rely on "hero" units to carry later on. Either mass T70 based strats or late game units like IS2/KV2. When OH consistently gets to put pressure delaying T70 or accessing T3, and OKW doesn't feel the need to go mechanized "all in" with P2/Puma, more in favour of BHQ with Flak/fast transitioning to PIV, the strat is less effective.
4- Sniper strat is awful against OH meta and high risk, mid reward against OKW. Clowncar strats have generally been only great against OKW and everyone has a pocket PF just in case to counter it. Sniper was only meta during GC2, with OH been mostly Mobile defense. We didn't see snipers during heavy meta.
At this point i think i need to disclaim that this is mostly on 1v1. Sniper can still be used on 2v2.
It's not that T1 openings have become useless or non existent (such as maxim spam), it's just that it has become even more niche or become a "pocket" strats that only works in specific situations compared to bread n butter Cons + T2.
I assumed Stormjäger was talking about openings.
The first point has always been the case, just that Conscripts did not scale as well plus they were hardly replacable late game because their starting power was very bad. In addition, there was no way to buff them (hence also the veterancy gain buff with the upgrade). But overall this is not specific to the current meta.
I just checked the GCS2 stats. Apparently I misremembered as I thought Penals had been used in the majority of cases, whereas T1 and T2 openings are both almost exactly 50:50.
Overall, Penal strats and T1 openings have been handed down from being a viable alternative to a niche and rare occasion. As you said this might be partially attributed to players choosing OST over OKW more often now, but the extend that Penals have suddenly become niche is quite staggering.
Cons are your only choice actually. Penal starts are a joke, the Maxim is a meme, needs an army around it to actually work somewhat and soviet sniper needs a useless techs structure and gets countered by 222 with infantry detection and/or countersnipe.
Serious question:
How come? Penals and sniper openings have been the meta for what feels like ages until Conscripts got their 7-man buff. And at least in the early game, not much has changed on the Axis side. Volks got a mini nerf, Sturmpios a very small combat buff. Grenadiers got a vet3 buff but that does not affect the early game.
PGrens come earlier now, that's probably the biggest new thing in Axis early game, plus Panzerfusiliere are now (compared to 2-3 years ago) viable although we do not see them in every game anyway.
Throughout all those mini changes, Soviets have been a quite competitive faction, regardless if they were using Penals or Cons. And judging by tournament games we had since the 7-men buff, Penal builds are less abundant but still played and also still competitive. So it's at least not as a clear case as you make it out to be.
I'd rather argue that Conscripts have become so cost efficient especially in the late game that they just beat Penal build. Especially considering that T1 builds need to back tech at some point while T2 build do not.
I disagree that Soviet and Ostheer should be able to destroy all ambient buildings in map with a T0 unit with a 60 mu investment. Might as well veto all urban map when playing EFA or forcing specific doctrines since these faction will be able to decide which building is gets destroyed.
As for doctrines there around 7 of them with infiltration units and I do not thing they need to nerfed.
Finally as for partisans I have seen effective use of them in urban maps in 3vs3 at rank around 150.
Unless that ability cooldown will be 5 min or so it will not matter much. As I said, most maps do not have more than 2 important buildings in a player's lane if at all. We just need a better timer until the building starts burning by it own. You pay with a lot of field presence if your pio is off flaming buildings on it's own (unless you want long cast time plus long CD which might be). No one is going to spend time flaming unimportant buildings, so there will also be enough space for Stormtroopers (I don't want to open pandora's box of Partisans again, so I'll leave it at a quick comment: My experience was very different. I have not seen them in high rank Twitch 1v1 and neither in my shite rank 2v2 and 3v3 which I play primarily).
I am not saying an ability per se is bad, but it just adds additional burden on maintainance and bug fixing that is really not worth the problem we are dealing with.
There is a number of reason why a separate abilities is better solution:
1) Only 2 faction have access to stock flamers by making a separate ability one can limit the access to such utility for soviet and ostheer making more inline with other faction. (For instance the ability can become available with breakthrough equipment for Ostheer)
2) By using an ability one can better fine tune the time to set each building on fire and how often such an ability can be used. Easy access to destruction of ambient buildings can result in making infiltration units obsolete.
3) one can add a mu cost to it
Glad to see confirmation that flamer interaction with Ambient buildings is not just "Vipper's perspective" as someone claimed.
Those suggestions would make the ability almost pointless.
1) Ostheer would get only one (two?) instances of this then-doctrinal ability.
Soviets get it how? Standard? This would just lead to confusion about flamer units and would also be a bit off if other units pick up a flame thrower. And other factions? Get it on top of their flame pio doctrine or not? If so, OST would be the only faction to not have it on their flame pios.
2) I don't think there are enough important buildings on most maps that would actually require gating the ability somehow. Usually it is enough to take out 1, maybe 2 buildings at most. Especially on large modes. Also, there are not many infiltrations units anymore that spawn from buildings. I probably forgot one, but I the ones I currently remember are Stormtroopers and Partisans (that no one plays anyway).
3) Depending on how costly it is, this might only make sense for Ostheer. But this faction needs their munitions early on (where taking out buildings is the most important) for upgrades, so there is not much space for spending mun on destroying a building. Soviets - again, depending on the price - are often just better of then building a demo charge. If I already pay (probably 20-40 mun) for destroying the building, I can just add another ~30 on top for a potential squad wipe or damage.
I agree that setting buildings on fire more easily would be good, but adding yet another ability would just cause more issues, potentially bugs and quirks than necessary.
Make it inherent to flame weapons, only pios get them anyway. And if another unit picks up the flamer by god let them have the passive "ability" too. It's a rather rare case and would probably not cause issues. But active abilities that need potential doctrinal activation will just cause issues and more oversights should we ever see semi regular patches again.
How do you figure? The Soviets have a way better early game than the Brits do now, and its always been 10x better than USF which is by far the worst of any faction.
Soviets have several opening game options such as Conscripts, Penals, Maxim, Sniper ect.
Maxim spam has not been a viable opening for the last 3 years.
Conscript opening is fine I would say, in all T1 openings you usually lack behind in map control because you just don't have many units on the field. Even more so if you go for a sniper.
with the heavy delays and nerfed aoe, especially bad for Tiger. Vet3 is too long.
Panther can counter counter, but Sov play will have SU85 support.
I think thats the point of this topic. Axis tanks has worse counter to Allies heavies than the other way round.
This thread does not have a point. It's a rant to let off steam and that is it. If at all it's making a vague point that the KV1 has too much armor (or the Tiger not enough pen). Of course SOV plays with SU85 support. Just like the Axis player can get a P4 to flank or a StuG/JP4 to support. Combined arms and positioning is the whole point of the game. It obviously depends on the game mode. Dense, laney maps favor the KV1-SU85 combo, just like and Elefant and Jagdtiger are almost unbeatable on them.
The ROF is incorrect as well. A vet0 Tiger still fires pretty much as fast as a vet3 Jackson iirc.
When Tiger calls in, Allies probably have vet2 60TD...
Panther is also bad, not just moving accruacy but slower turret turn-lock.
KV1 KV8 and ISU152 are tanky but Ost counter is not as effective as to Allies counter to Tigers. Despite the higher costs.
IIRC KV1 is rather cheap and can be multiple units....
The Tiger has literally the best ROF of any tank in and below it's class. You have to go as far back as the Valentine and Sherman76 to level out or sligthly surpass it's ROF.
I would hate to drift of topic specific unit but I have to point out:
Pistol should be fixed and have range 35
Commissar comes with HE grenade
Veterancy bonus are hardly the same:
but I pointed out Commissar has the same XP value as Ostheer officer that is allot weaker in combat.
If you want to debate this issue more I can start a separate thread.
The veterancy is not the same at every level, but taking all of them together they are pretty equal.
Comparing them on vet to vet level and then giving "points" to define who "wins" the veterancy tournament does not make much sense, especially here since the SO still follows the old OKW principle of vet4/5 giving strong combat bonusses.
Fact is, units with higher DPS also need higher veterancy, otherwise they will skyrocket from 0 to 3 in no time. And additionally to this rule of thumb, other factors like timing and utility of a squad have to be taken into account. It is hard to say whether a single unit in faction 1 absolutely must get buffs to veterancy because a somewhat similar unit in faction 2 has it better.
SO though has better starting DPS which the Commissar can equalize once reaching vet 3 (at least according to the serealia site). Once the SO gets buffs though (and the additional man already is a DPS buff), it stays ahead in DPS.
At least judging by that, it is not surprising that the SO also has higher vet requirements, because it can deal more damage at basically all stages and therefore vet faster.