Ostheer is awkward, possible solution?

[krupp steel]

No need to be rude, but I happen to play at high expertise, beating many renowned coh experts on the GR forum, and unlike you I don't have the game mechanics program lists and shit to know the exact specifics for every man. Just sayin'

[chaosval3]

Which is why you should refrain from making bold statements. It doesn't matter how good you are at the game, it won't make your say ultimate. There is no point in thinking you 'know' everything about the game or this mod. The only thing bragging will do is that it will make you look bad, in my opinion.

[Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.]

No need to be rude, but I happen to play at high expertise, beating many renowned coh experts on the GR forum, and unlike you I don't have the game mechanics program lists and shit to know the exact specifics for every man. Just sayin'

Nah, don't get me wrong. Wasn't meant as an insult.

[krupp steel]

No problem, just wanted to give out my insight as to why things are the way they are.

[maddogb]

now i'm getting confused, shouldn't the doctrines be more about style of play than pools?
 to me it appears the pool system is more a mechanism for "spacing" availability of overwhelming weaponry thus making the balance somewhat more even.
After all no one can play an entire game based on one pool, eg the lack of a cheap mortar team etc prevent you from going straight to assault and staying there whilst the lack of decent "finishing" firepower such as panzer 4 prevent anyone staying in support pool.

[krupp steel]

The way I see it, pools are a way to divide the ostheer faction, almost as if it would be 2 different armies. This is implemented so the faction would be more original unique and harder.

[Blackbishop]

Perhaps the initial use of pools caused to divide the armie, but now it is false, specially because there is only one unit being toggled so it is no way to make it two "armies" now.

[Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.]

now i'm getting confused, shouldn't the doctrines be more about style of play than pools?
 to me it appears the pool system is more a mechanism for "spacing" availability of overwhelming weaponry thus making the balance somewhat more even.
After all no one can play an entire game based on one pool, eg the lack of a cheap mortar team etc prevent you from going straight to assault and staying there whilst the lack of decent "finishing" firepower such as panzer 4 prevent anyone staying in support pool.

Yes, Overall doctrines are also to fit a faction to your personal playstyle. However, doctrines shouldn't be forced, that's why we've been trying to make the Ostheer not rely too much on a doctrine (although you'll always need one because else you cannot get your main anti tank vehicle). But at least you don't Need to pick it immediately at the game start.

The way I see it, pools are a way to divide the ostheer faction, almost as if it would be 2 different armies. This is implemented so the faction would be more original unique and harder.

The pools do not really "divide" the Ostheer, they just put in certain accents in the gameplay. Either you're going for frontline troops (kugel, bombardiers etc), or more passive Long range Support Units (Pwerfer, Mortar etc). AWith the next time we'll emphasize this System I hope. Afterall you can still Switch the pool ingame. Even if you don't do it a lot in a 1v1, in 2v2+ there are many situations in which a pool switch will bring you a tactical Advantage for a comparably low cost.

However, as for the whole Topic "make the pools permanent. It'll be more fun!". It won't. We had that thought in the past a while after the Ostheer was released in the initial beta. It's dumb. You essentially still Need to have the same Unit types in the tiers to make the factions work. And then you can just use different unit Skins instead. Every faction Needs a hmg, a mortar like unit, a main battle tank, an anti infantry tank and so on. So, for Ostheer what will you do? Add a mg42 and a mg34 for switching? Boooooooooooooooooooooooooring. A Kugelblitz and an Ostwind? BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING. And so on.

So, what do you do then? Ah, design the other pool competely different. Also, it's pretty much impossible to design 2 completely different factions in one army with the same doctrinal layouts. First off it's confusing for the Players playing against the Ostheer. Second, it's not worth the effort. Because Players simply pick the stronger faction, which then results in the other "pool" being underplayed. Third, it's incredibly hard to make the tech layouts fit the doctrines.

Having 2 entirely different factions in one is not really a way to make them "unique and harder". Having a faction that is hard to Play is shit, to put it short. Factions have to be easy to learn, hard to master. Not hard to learn easy to master. Soviets and Ostheer already are hard to Play properly, there is no reason to make them even harder.

Edit: don't get me wrong though. I'm always open for suggestions. But there's also stuff that I simply do not like to talk about much, especially when I hear stuff like "make factions harder to Play but more rewarding". CoH is already hard enough in many aspects, there's no Need to increase that difficulty even more.

[maddogb]

Yes, Overall doctrines are also to fit a faction to your personal playstyle. However, doctrines shouldn't be forced, that's why we've been trying to make the Ostheer not rely too much on a doctrine (although you'll always need one because else you cannot get your main anti tank vehicle). But at least you don't Need to pick it immediately at the game start.

? do remember a  long time ago playing a full game without picking a doctrine but not with OST
 main anti tank vehicle, with OST fortress thats panzer4, is that something needing looked at?

The way I see it, pools are a way to divide the ostheer faction, almost as if it would be 2 different armies. This is implemented so the faction would be more original unique and harder.

I can see that but, to clarify, not as though its two different doctrines? perhaps a clear simple statement from the devs about their vision on pools would allow more constructive input from players as to how successful this is

The pools do not really "divide" the Ostheer, they just put in certain accents in the gameplay. Either you're going for frontline troops (kugel, bombardiers etc), or more passive Long range Support Units (Pwerfer, Mortar etc). AWith the next time we'll emphasize this System I hope. Afterall you can still Switch the pool ingame. Even if you don't do it a lot in a 1v1, in 2v2+ there are many situations in which a pool switch will bring you a tactical Advantage for a comparably low cost.

However, as for the whole Topic "make the pools permanent. It'll be more fun!". It won't. We had that thought in the past a while after the Ostheer was released in the initial beta. It's dumb. You essentially still Need to have the same Unit types in the tiers to make the factions work. And then you can just use different unit Skins instead. Every faction Needs a hmg, a mortar like unit, a main battle tank, an anti infantry tank and so on. So, for Ostheer what will you do? Add a mg42 and a mg34 for switching? Boooooooooooooooooooooooooring. A Kugelblitz and an Ostwind? BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING. And so on.

So, what do you do then? Ah, design the other pool competely different. Also, it's pretty much impossible to design 2 completely different factions in one army with the same doctrinal layouts. First off it's confusing for the Players playing against the Ostheer. Second, it's not worth the effort. Because Players simply pick the stronger faction, which then results in the other "pool" being underplayed. Third, it's incredibly hard to make the tech layouts fit the doctrines.

Having 2 entirely different factions in one is not really a way to make them "unique and harder". Having a faction that is hard to Play is shit, to put it short. Factions have to be easy to learn, hard to master. Not hard to learn easy to master. Soviets and Ostheer already are hard to Play properly, there is no reason to make them even harder.

Edit: don't get me wrong though. I'm always open for suggestions. But there's also stuff that I simply do not like to talk about much, especially when I hear stuff like "make factions harder to Play but more rewarding". CoH is already hard enough in many aspects, there's no Need to increase that difficulty even more.

Couldn't agree more with the learning curve concept, having played RTS games since Dune2 seen so many fail on good ideas not only poorly carried through but also poorly communicated.
Radical new concepts like the "pool" system may be fantastic but if the players don't "get it" they can still fail, that supports my idea of a simple statement on how the devs see the pool system going forward, my personal view is it simply needs "tweaking" (Marder and maybe Ostwind
moved to 1st pool )

[chaosval3]

It does indeed need some tweaking. Although it is mostly important, I think atleast, that we stick with what we have now and that it will hopefully lead to overall acceptance from players. Changing the design and balance continously is its own sort of problem(in the long run).

In my opinion, with some minor switching around and tweaking, the pool system could be finalised. That said, I haven't played in quite a while...

[Codename "Tiger"]

Basicly i think the Pool System is fine now.
I played some games and i talked to many other Players and i think its more a training problem (i know players who hated the pool system and changed theit opinion after the 10th + game). Maybe some little changes are possible but imho the Pool system is almost finaly...

[krupp steel]

When i said that they make the faction harder, i meant it because the player is left with less options and must use resources to switch to the other pool if he really wants the alternative unit. Ofcourse, it would be much easier if the ostheer had no such thing as pools and all units were available.

[Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.]

When i said that they make the faction harder, i meant it because the player is left with less options and must use resources to switch to the other pool if he really wants the alternative unit. Ofcourse, it would be much easier if the ostheer had no such thing as pools and all units were available.

Sure thing. The importance of actually switching the pools to get access to a certain type of unit will become more important iwth the next patch. Or at least I hope so.

[maddogb]

When i said that they make the faction harder, i meant it because the player is left with less options and must use resources to switch to the other pool if he really wants the alternative unit. Ofcourse, it would be much easier if the ostheer had no such thing as pools and all units were available.

Sure thing. The importance of actually switching the pools to get access to a certain type of unit will become more important iwth the next patch. Or at least I hope so.

ooo now your just teasing us