No, CoH2 is already a shambling monstrosity of conflicting design philosophies, monetisation strategies and managerial mind changing.
I'm not opposed to CoH3 being the "good" kind of F2P, the kind where all microtransactions are cosmetic. However I doubt Sega is interested in that kind of thing. |
I see two possibilities, either there will be more content coming after the new Brit stuff (which will flesh out the WFA factions), or there will be that design-a-commander stuff. |
How much are we allowed to discuss vis a vis NDA? E.g. if they've revealed units can we talk about them, or is that still off limits? |
Static arty is only intermittently useful in a 1v1 context, which tends to be quite mobile and favouring aggressive action. In team games there's way too much risk of going up against CAS since it's part of the Ostheer Meta. If not CAS, then at least one player will probably be Elefant doctrine for recon+stukka bombing strike. These will both render the 152 / B4 / any static emplacement useless.
On the German side, there's less to worry about in terms of instant hardcounters, but IL2 bombing strikes are not "uncommon", and the allies usually have better indirect in the form of Priests or Katyushas. You don't often win an artillery duel. |
the problem goes beyond spam-ability of CAS strikes.
both AI and AT strafes are light years ahead in terms of damage, timing and cost-efficiency when compared to any other off map artillery strikes. the logic behind other artillery strikes is as follows: the faster it comes, overall less devastating it is. not with CAS doc abilities.
not to mention having both stuka dive bomb and 30 muni recon pass is laughable.
Yeah the recon/bombing run combo is already potent in other doctrines, but this is even cheaper than normal recon, perfect for scouting a single high value target for the bombing strike. The pinning strafe has an enormous radius. AT strafe is sometimes ok to dodge, but if you're close to the edge it's almost impossible if your tanks have to turn or slow down for any reason. Or if you've got a bit of lag.
In theory the abilities in CAS would be "worse" than regular strafes, regular recons etc because they're half the price. But in reality, they simply become much more efficient abilities because they are devestating for a short duration, but don't keep firing long after most players would retreat for the more expensive versions of the abilities.
Enormously efficient, uncounterable fuel-> muni is icing on the cake. Even if you deleted that ability and replaced it with literally nothing would be a good doctrine for team games. |
All heavies in the game have exaggerated survivability, not only extra armour compared to a normal tank but also extra HP. In reality one nasty penetrating hit to the side could take out your expensive Konigstiger just like it could a Stug III, but part of CoH is exagerating unit survivability so that you have a chance to retreat in good order. You could make a case for heavies only having more armour, not more HP, but I think most people would stop using them if that were the case. |
I was legit shook when CAS didn't get nerfed last patch.
Big team games means bigger maps so the strafes are "slightly" easier to dodge in theory, but in practice you're close to edges a lot of the time, and the larger the team mode the more shit going on you have to pay attention to. It's an extra micro-tax that is just unbearable, especially if you're playing USF where the strafe will instakill any vehicle you can make. |
The point is to design a doctrine that won't become the de-facto mandatory USF doctrine. Having a Pershing alone makes the doctrine more attractive than it's counterparts to most players. If it's too useful, you'll see Pershings every game. Talk about stale metagames...
Eh, in team games maybe. But right now all we see is Inf, Airborne, and sometimes Rifle. In big team games we hardly see USF at all, but when we do see it, it's only AB and Inf, usually AB for the strafe. By choosing a Pershing, you're giving up the fantastic 1919 upgrades for riflemen, you're giving up the Priest for heavy arty, you're giving up the versatile and powerful airborne squad, you're giving up the amazing p47 strafe. It's impossible to comment on how viable the commander is until we get one, it could easily be overall worse than AB, even if the Pershing tank itself was very good. Particularly since it would be limited to 1 thanks to recent patches.
At least Pershing meta would be a change from the stale current one. And if there's a Pershing doctrine, and a Calliope doctrine, that would be two new ones that we might actually see in team games. Imagine having 4 viable USF doctrines  |
You are confusing faction design with faction mission statement.
Faction mission statement for USF (summarized ): A versatile army with many generalist units capable of fulfilling multiple roles. Relies on mobility to break defensive lines.
Faction statement for OKW (summarized ): A specialist army that relies on veterancy. The okw rely on veteran soldiers to compensate for their resource disadvantages.
The faction design is what you are thinking about in terms of medium armor and heavy armor. Faction design has been changed many times before, like by giving ostheer a TD (stugg) and the soviets a tech NDA. Faction design changes always follow the mission statement, and the USF mission statement never said anything about a lack of Heavy units.
(If someone can track down the original mission statements for USF and OKW that would be swell. Couldn't find the exact wording.)
http://www.coh2.org/news/18161/us-forces-army-preview
It does state that they were not advantaged with heavy tanks. But ultimately this argument is a non-sequitor, the implication being that it's somehow violating a sacred principle laid down by the gods of olympus. In reality, every doctrine has a series of advantages and disadvantages, and they can make the Pershing balanced by the rest of the doctrine being merely mediocre or "ok" at best. This doesn't "destroy" the American factions design, the fact that they lack heavies is more incidental, as with the OKW lacking medium tanks. You could change that without actually wrecking anything. Whereas if you had some doctrine that gave OKW full fuel income, that would have major consequences and basically ruin the balance of the faction since the timings, tech structure and so on are all based around this being reduced.
Also pretty funny since through patching they did experiment with changing the values for munitions income, didn't they have full muni income for one patch? Lol. None of this stuff is set in stone. |
I hope Persh and Calliope are separate doctrines.
Viable 3v3 teams with tripple USF  |