Profile of Hannibal

But as time, another faction could already build up next tech or get more men on field ( due to new officer has to spawn outside map, not on base.
Also .50 cal nerf set up time is a biggest hit since it always clumsly (sometime it take 1 burst some time it take 2-3-4 burst to suppress a single squad. That why a blob LMG can delete them) As least Maxim or Vicker could do something and retreat. They also not give .50 cal anything back to justify a nerf.
Talk about USF openning. they depend on Rifleman too much (2 rifle to rush officer or 3 rifle and officer, sometime 2 rifle and a mortar). As same time, OKW, WEH have more solutions.

The 50cal is susceptible to LMG blobs because unlike Axis MGs, it does not get teleported when the Gun operator dies. This almost always leads to a long range death loop.
My argument regarding build time was that the current solution is probably not much different from the one we had before, since Esxile claimed this change were a timing nerf. I don't really think so unless someone provides some hard numbers from before and after those changes.

Where I agree is that USF is fairly weak early on. The weak Echelon starting squad combined with relatively expensive Riflemen and long build times on the officer basically ensures that you're at the very best on par with Axis for the first 4-5 minutes, but probably behind. Even compared with Ostheer.

Also Kubel is a thing. Unlike Sov, UKF, WEH, or even OKW. You dont have any thing to actually fight against it. This 200 mp can do various thing like bleeding, bait, push out of cover, back capping or even hackmap at vet 1.
in 2v2 and abrove, Kubel is massive unbalance unit that can simply deny a whole faction style and forcing them to pick a specific doctrine to deal with it such a Mechanize, airbrone. a combine of Kubel hack map and indirect fire is such a pain in an ass.

I fully agree. USF does not have proper answers to early stock units of Axis (sniper, Kubelwagen). Both create a huge bleed on many maps.

I bring this up because the officers being "free" as part of your tech basically make these units the same as that Starcraft Zealot or Zergling. I don't really care if they die since they were free and they gain Vet much faster than Riflemen so losing them doesn't have that same emotional impact as it does when losing a Vet Rifle Squad does.

This is one of the things about USF that I dislike the most and would like to see changed. I agree with you that LT/Captain should be made into support units. They should be vital to USF and not just a Rifleman clone without a soul that you do not care about.

Losing "free" Officer Squads and having to pay for them would be a fair trade if it meant USF had easier access to HMG/AT Gun and making the LT/Captain have some useful abilities built in since you would be paying for them instead of getting them free.

I personally don't have the feeling that officers being "free" contributes to having no connection to them, because I do not see them as free. I pay for them as part of the tech up. They are basically the next mainline infantry that I would buy, they just happen to come with an odd mechanic due to USF teching.
If they were not free and teching costs the same, USF would need some serious remodelling of their MP spending. The problem is that they are not "officers", they don't lead your troops into battle or command something. The Captain's "On Me" is the only thing that goes into that direction.

But back to topic:
Riflemen by themselves are okay, they are just stuck in a faction that has no strong options to inflict MP bleed, especially in the late game. No sniper early/mid, no long range infantry, only the scott as arty.
In 1v1, they can still sometimes single out enemy squads and go 1on1 on them where they perform very well. But the larger the mode, the more enemy squads will shoot on you when you close in. That's what most close range infantry suffers from in these modes.

When 5 entities fire on 4 entities it is certain that at least 2 entities will be firing on a single entity.

I did not object to that.
What I said was that, in a real game, you'll most likely get a 2/3 split of Riflemen firing on Grens and 2/2 split of Grens firing on Rifles in an open field battle. On top of that, cover will split the damage more equally, which will more often benefit defensive factions than offensive factions.

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I don't think balance team had much of a choice. From even some smaller things that they publicly said that Relic would not allow them to do, I doubt that Relic would have allowed them to fully rebalance USF tech structure.

Anyway, back to the point:
USF is short on MP in the beginning. In any normal build (3 Rifles into officer, but I think it is the same for 2 Rifles into officer), you will hit the 35 fuel for tech up way before you'd tech up anyway. The only way to make the teching up faster would be to reduce MP cost, but this would also mean that USF had a very cheap backup officer squad for the late game.

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While probably not broken, what would you replace the two commander slots with?

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I absolutely oppose giving more LVs a recon mode. The game has already made factions more "samey" across the board, they don't need to make the units feel the same, too.
It is fully fine if some factions shift more of the cost to combat, while you pay for utility in others for the "same unit type".
The huge sight range KT is obviously stupid, as are highly mobile TDs that spot for themselves.
Volks also only get 42 vision when in cover and at vet4, which takes a while to kick in. That vet is good for defense, but useless on the offense. No core combat unit should be able to basically self spot and dodge MGs (in cover and in the late game, you might be able to pull your squad out before it gets suppressed. And even if not, the MG will be almost useless since you can easily crawl out of range). We can see this problem with Pfusiliere already, where you just get artied all the time.


What I would have liked to see on USF is to make the officers into actual support units. The Lieutenant is almost a copy of a Riflemen squad, while the Captain has some quite limited utility. The major is good, especially after the sight buff, but with 3 models he can be easily forced to retreat. But the first two need something different. They could even get a single M1919 upgrade in my opinion to add more long range firepower for USF.

I think that with my idea, this could be implemented in the current engine.
(I know you said this is a hypothetical but if Vipper is correct about both being built on the same system then we'd have to do a little thinking about how it could be achieved in CoH2 anyways)

Realistically, the player won't be able to tell the difference between whether a bullet missed their soldier entirely or just failed to penetrate, so I think just modifying the RA of certain cover types based on the weapon would work just as well, and it still holds to the spirit of your "armor" idea.

What do you think?

The real question is: Would you think it to be beneficial for both game play and making CoH authentic?

Anyway, I just checked: There is already a solution fully implemented in the attribute editor. Relic has probably already thought about something similar. You can manipulate a weapons penetration value depending on the cover the same way you can modify accuracy and damage. That's the same thing as increasing the targets armor, just coming from the other end.
An accuracy modifier depending on the penetration could work, however this would technically not account for penetration changing based on distance. I assume no one would notice, but it is not quite correct as well.