Congratulations on 1.6, and Some General Suggestions Inspired by It

[ÜberScrub]

Hello,

I would like to keep this brief and avoid turning this into a self-introduction post, however, I would like to say that I've been playing this mod on-and-off since it was released. I always had high hopes for the mod, but aside from the compstomping the improved AI (lame, I know), I never really enjoyed the fruits of the modders' labour. Bluntly put, I always found the Soviets to be an awkwardly designed faction that was annoying and unenjoyable to play. The lack of retreat on infantry (or at least certain infantry), lack of recrewable heavy weapons, and non-retroactive unit upgrades really destroyed the gameplay for me, and so I could never get into this mod to play it potentially competitively. Most of the issues were slowly fixed over time, but it wasn't until this latest update, 1.6, that finally eliminated the Soviets' 'unique' elements, and morphed the faction into a more Relic-inspired design. The Soviets now not only fit better into CoH's gameplay design, but are actually rather fun to play as, as a result. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that these new Soviets are a more enjoyable faction to play than the British. And while that is not necessarily saying a whole lot, the truth is that a handful of modders have managed to create a faction that seems to be a decent addition to CoH. That's more than OF's developers managed.

My sincere appreciation goes out to all the modders who have been involved in this mod's creation, because 1.6 is a remarkable accomplishment.


Now, onto my general suggestion.

While I understand that most of the mod team is preoccupied with countless other more pertinent tasks, I would seriously like to suggest that the team consider giving the Royal Marines British faction more attention. Much like earlier iterations of the Soviets, this modification of the British is simply not fun to play as. As far as  I can tell, its designers understood the short-comings of the vanilla British, and attempted to fix these issues, but I find that we are still left with a half-baked faction that just doesn't seem to make for an enjoyable game. Perhaps this is due to the inherently more design of the British faction from its very roots, but I have confidence that if the team is capable of making an enjoyable faction from scratch (the Soviets), then the team probably is able to do something with the British.

So, my suggestion is, if possible, give the Royal Marines British more attention at some point in time. I like to believe that the faction is not a lost cause, and that the talented people here are capable of salvaging the mess that is the vanilla British faction.


If I have learned anything from the development of the Soviets, it is that as the faction became less unique, and followed CoH's gameplay philosophy more closely, it became a more playable and enjoyable faction. This should be considered with the British as well, and so with that in mind, I have a few ideas regarding the Royal Marines British, and how they could potentially parallel the vCoH factions more closely.

These suggestions might sound ridiculous, but here they are:

1) Emplacements and Heavy Weapons Teams.

Vickers Heavy Machine Gun Teams, Mortar Teams, and 17 Pounder AT Gun teams could be trainable units. These units would be similar to the Wehrmacht and American heavy weapons teams, but with the unique exception that they can deploy themselves and thus become the emplacements that the British currently have.

My philosophy behind this is to make the British faction less radical/unique, and as a result make it more playable, fluid and with more build-order options. The British faction would still excel in entrenching itself, because it could set its heavy weapons teams to become emplacements; however, the British would not be forced into the current lame strategies that it currently must pursue. With mobile heavy weapons teams, they would obviously become a more mobile faction, enabling them to face threats across the map. For example, if the enemy has a vehicle out on the map that one simply can't reach with the emplaced 17 Pounder, one needs to either fast-tech to heavy tanks, or create a massive blob of infantry to button the vehicle and destroy it with Sappers. This is predictable and repetitive. Being able to un-entrench a 17 pounder to deal with threat would open up options that simply don't exist at the moment.

Mobile Mortar teams and Vickers HMGs could also give new dynamics to the Royal Marines British army.

This naturally means that Mortar Emplacements, Vickers Machine Gun emplacements, etc. would no longer be buildable.

25 Pounder Artillery, and Bofors emplacements would still remain buildable structures, however.

2) Trucks and teching.

I don't believe that the HQ of the British should be responsible for the 'construction' time of the higher tier trucks, because this conflicts with their capability to simultaneously raise an army. No other faction is handicapped in such a manner, that they must choose between teching to a higher tier and training soldiers (Wehrmacht can't train Pioneers while teching, but that doesn't mean they can't train other units from their barracks during this).

It would make more sense if the Royal Marines British were given the ability to call in higher tier trucks for a cost of resources, just like how the British gain the ability to call in a replacement HQ truck whenever they lose one.

This would allow the player to not need to decide whether to tech, or train units - this is a ridiculous decision to make. A player should be able to carry out both, if he has the resources for it.

[Cranialwizard]

Patch 1.7 is focused towards completely reworking the RMC. We already have a major redesign drawn, only needed to fine tune.

I will certainly read this whole thing when I get home. On my phone at work now.

[Pac-Fish]

Basically he wants the emplacements removed and replaced with actual moving units (like US or Wher At guns or MGs)

In addition he wants the system of the trucks buying new trucks changed b/c it hinders the production of new units.

These IMO are valid concerns and fortunately EF balancers are working on it next patch which is 1.7

BTW welcome to the forums ! You seem like a nice person

[GodlikeDennis]

Thanks for the feedback. However, a revamp of RMC has been the aim of patch 1.7 for a while now a and a new design is being implemented in the internal version pretty soon for testing.

[Pac-Fish]

and a new design is being implemented in the internal version pretty soon for testing.

Wowie . That was fast

[GodlikeDennis]

We've been discussing it for a while - well before we released 1.6 to the public.

[ÜberScrub]

I am glad to hear that it is being worked on. Keep up the good work!

BTW welcome to the forums ! You seem like a nice person

Thank you, and thanks for taking the time to read my suggestions.



I was also looking at the 'reward units' list that we currently have, and I thought of something rather superfluous, but perhaps possible:

What if the Eastern Front mod allowed for in-game skin customizations for your infantry forces? By this, I mean that the mod could add, for example, a Volksgrenadier reward unit that would be no different from a regular Volksgrenadier, except that it would change all the Volksgrenadiers' outfits in your army.

This would allow the player to quickly and conveniently customize his army in-game. I suggest this because from past experience I have had difficulty getting skin mods to work, and I have never been able to specifically use those custom skins that I liked. For example, the skin mods refused to work if I removed any of the skins that I didn't want in the game.

At any rate, I don't know how widespread this opinion is, but I think it would be interesting to see some sort of 'reward unit' options that would let the player pick and choose which skins to use on which units. It would add more flavour to the mod, and staying true to the spirit of the mod it would not affect the vanilla gameplay. Not to mention, I don't believe that such a feature would take up too much of the developers' time, since all of the art work already exists.

[Cranialwizard]

While I think this idea has been mentioned before, I think it was said to no, because it would take away time from skinning. Perhaps when Ostheer is done.

[ÜberScrub]

Certainly that is an issue. Though, that's based on the assumption that the skins would necessarily be made by EF artists. However, it could be possible to use already existing skins from other artists.

[stealthattack1]

if you procure them i have no doubt they would be considered.

[Pac-Fish]

if you procure them i have no doubt they would be considered.

Well If he simply had his own skins I dont think he'd be asking would he? . Thats why he's asked EF to do do

[ÜberScrub]

I am reluctant to spam this board with multiple threads, so I figure that I'll post another überscrub suggestion in this thread of mine:


I think it would be interesting to see a multiplayer version of the Angloville Challenge. By this I mean that two (or perhaps more) players could work together to attempt to hold off the enemy CPU waves. To accommodate for this, I think it would sensible to use a map that properly supports 4 players, such as Wrecked Train, rather than simply modifying Angloville.

I imagine that the team is busy with other things, but - much like my previous suggestion - this one wouldn't require a lot of original development, since the coding for the challenge already exists - it would simply need to be modified and applied to another map (which, obviously, also already exists).

I say this because I find that CoH has great potential for various 'challenge' orientated games, such as what the SpecialOps mod attempted to do, and so did Tales of Valour... even if that failed miserably. It's just a pity that there aren't more well-made challenges/operations.

if you procure them i have no doubt they would be considered.

Well, I've noticed that the links for the skins on these boards are no longer working due to megaupload shutting down, so my initial suggestion won't work. I'll try to find some other skin mods that I had tried out over the summer, but at the moment I unfortunately do not have the links for them.

[Pac-Fish]

I suggest Egeltons . THe funny map with half the map a city and the other halfrolling plains and a little fort at the corner . IDK what the exact name was. Srry

[Tankbuster]

I would suggest Kursk, it would seem more awesome seem historically accurate and would be great for vehicles like the ISU-152.


Egeltons: Name reminds me of omlettes for some reason

[ÜberScrub]

There is a feature in CoH that I have felt has always been missing, and I have never truly understood why: dropping weapons, and de-crewing heavy weapons.

I find this feature to be rather neat, and I think at times having the freedom to order an AT Gun team to drop the AT Gun, or for a group of Grenadiers to drop a BAR and pick up a Panzerschreck would be very useful.

And, I believe that the engine is capable of this, since in the Tiger Ace campaign the player's units actually have the ability to drop weapons that they had picked up.

Now, I highly doubt that anything like this would ever be added to the game because it might dramatically alter the vanilla gameplay itself, but I am curious what others think about this and whether it would have any place in CoH competitively.