Hello Eastern Front fans!
It has been a while since the last update and many things happened during that time. First of all, we apologize for the lack of updates in the last few months but we have been busy with our duties/studies/work so we paused the work on Eastern Front for a while, or at least the core developers. Nonetheless, the balance team continued working on the balance of the Ostheer and Soviet factions, so big changes have occurred in the Eastern Front factions. However we'll talk about it in a bit because we have a lot of important stuff to cover.
(http://media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/13/12303/profile/moddb-profil.png)
1 - Mod of the Year 2013 (aka MOTY 2013)
It is this time of the year once again! The Mod of the Year 2013 is here! We are at the Top 100 competition right now thanks to your votes in the nomination round, so keep voting and we'll win this!
In order to vote for Eastern Front you need to go here (http://www.moddb.com/events/2013-mod-of-the-year-awards/top100#vote9675) and vote for CoH: Eastern Front. The process is very easy and straightforward, as you can see in the pictures below.
(http://www.majhost.com/gallery/blackbishop/Temp/moty_2013b.jpg)
You just need to hit the "VOTE" button/word.
(http://www.majhost.com/gallery/blackbishop/Temp/moty_2013c.jpg)
Once you have voted, it will change into this.
You can only vote once per mod, but you can vote for more than one, so feel free to vote for the ones you like the most. :)
2 - Next update is close!
We have planned to release the next patch around December 18th, we are working hard to ensure this date is final and we will keep you informed about it, expect more announcements soon. In the following paragraphs we have some information about the changes.
3 -Because feedback matters!
In these last few months, the balancers have been tweaking the stats and the design for some of the elements in the Ostheer faction, including the pool system. But you might be wondering why we did this if we were so convinced that it was 100% right. Well to clarify, we did think the idea was spot on, although we had our doubts for it's implementation. So we reorganized the upgrade system for the Ostheer, because most of the players found it too complicated: get one of the two pools, get modernization upgrades, get support upgrades from buildings, get squad upgrades... Certainly the Ostheer had a lot of upgrades and this made the tech tree too complex, at the very least more complex than our Soviets or any other CoH faction released by Relic so far.
So listening to the feedback from our players (you guys ;)), we have made some changes here and there so as a result the balance was dramatically improved and the tech tree was simplified, while keeping the pool choices. Some of the changes we made are:
- Luchs removed from T3.
- Panzer 38t removed from Support RHS call-in.
- Infantry Gefechts Kommand now produces Landsers, Marksman, Mortar & leIG18 teams.
- Infantry Gruppen Post now produces an Kampfkommandt squad(Skirmish Officer), the Kübelwagen and the Light and Heavy-MG teams.
- Schutzen War Camp now produces Panzerfusiliers, Halftracks, Panzer III, PaK 40 & Marder II.
- Panzer Kampf Kommand now produces the Sdkfz. 9 "Famo", StuG III, Panzerwerfer 42, Kugelblitz and the Panther/Panzer IV/Tiger tanks.
- Sturmpanzer IV removed from Elite tree.
- Foxholes no longer are treated as buildings and infantry digs one hole for each soldier (making it more like Commonwealth's Hull Down ability).
The new officer on Ostheer side is similar in essence to the Soviet Command Squad, yet they are quite different units. The Luftwaffe Officer's ME-262 ability will be given to the Kampfkommandt unit and the former now has a BF-109(also known as ME-109) bombing ability instead.
(http://www.majhost.com/gallery/blackbishop/Temp/bf109.jpg)
Yes, we already had a BF-109 model. Though it is not very detailed because you barely will see it flying above.
The mortar squad was added to add choice about how do you want to support your troops (due to being requested by fans) and currently only two units from each building require a specific pool choice:
- Mortar/leIG18 teams in T1.
- LMG/HMG teams in T2.
- PaK 40/Marder II in T3.
- Panzerwerfer 42/Kugelblitz in T4.
So, this means you can get your main battle tank regardless of what pool you get when you get into T4.
There are more changes, but listing all would make this post very long, but we will make a changelog about all the changes.
4 - The Red Army wants to join to the party too!
While Ostheer had some changes to make things more simple, Soviets also had some of their own:
- Firebase removed from Propaganda War Strategy tree.
- 76mm obr.1927 removed from the same tree.
- God of War has been reworked.
- ZiS-3 is now the anti-tank gun available at the Soviet Support Barracks.
- ZiS-2 is now a possible upgrade for ZiS-3 that comes from Propaganda War Strategy tree.
- T-34s can be upgraded with the ato42 flamethrowers.
- Soviet Support Barracks no longer uses pools.
Probably a lot of you will be surprised to see the Firebase and the 76mm obr.1927 removed from the command tree; and perhaps due to the rework of God of War. Propaganda War Strategy have an overkill of artillery, because the tree gave you Katyushas along with God of War, Firebase and 76mm obr.1927 plus you have SU-76, artillery barrages (observer team) and mortars as non-doctrinal units. Too much to use for indirect fire and on the other hand it was the only command tree that didn't have armoured support of any kind so, we thought about replacing the Firebase/76mm obr. 1927 to something else.
Now for the replacement of the mentioned artillery units, players wanted to have the ZiS-3 ingame and their wish was justified since it was the most produced anti-tank weapon by the USSR during WW2. On the other hand the ZiS-2 was barely used compared to it's brother. ZiS-3 is a field gun it had a bigger caliber but lower muzzle speed, which means lower penetration. It is a good unit for the Soviet Support barracks, unlike the old ZiS-2 that while his caliber was lower, it could perform better versus the German "cats".
When you get the 2nd. RHS upgrade of the mentioned tree, your Soviet Support Barracks will no longer produce ZiS-3 and will instead produce ZiS-2. All the produced ZiS-3 units can be upgraded individually, just like the T-34/76s when you get the up-gun upgrade. There are more changes but as said before we will create the changelog soon so you can read them by yourselves.
5 - Constant updates!
We have a lot more to say and to not make a too big post, we decided to split it up into multiple so we will have more updates on Friday 13th, Sunday 15th and either Tuesday 17th or Wednesday 18th. If you have any questions feel free to ask, we will try to answer as accurately as possible.
(http://media.moddb.com/images/articles/1/101/100960/auto/stalinweneedyousmallv3.jpg)
Like some Russian players have noticed, we need a Russian translator for the mod. If you have free time and you want to help Eastern Front to be translated in the Russian locale, send us a message or let us know in the comment section.
Thanks for your support,
Archaic Entertainment