"ESHE BOLSHE SEKRETOV"Alpha News
Company of Heroes 2 Development Team would like to express its gratitude to all testers who volunteered to take part in the UKF Private Alpha Test. Wednesday May 27th marks the final date for the UKF Private Alpha Test. We would like to thank all those who participated for their diligence and invaluable contributions. We will continue to iterate internally based on the tremendous amounts of feedback you have given us. We humbly ask that you continue in your testing efforts for the final private alpha test, and keep the feedback coming!
Gameplay Updates
Criticals
We found that receiving an engine destroy critical at 25% was too penalizing for the player. We have decided to remove it from the damage critical table. Vehicles will still be able to get a destroyed engine from mines or explicit engine destroying abilities.
Removed Destroyed Engine Critical at 25%
OKW
General
We saw some interesting strategies arise after the OKW tech tree updates we made last patch. The goal we wanted to achieve with the updates we made to the OKW was to open them up to more combined arms tactics and to encourage more aggressive playstyles. We feel we are on the right path towards the intent and plan to further develop it internally. For now we have decided to revert some of the early game changes that we made to the OKW to direct more focus towards the British.
Sturmpioneers are now the starting unit of the faction
Volksgrenadiers moved from Battlegroup Headquarters to HQ
Kubelwagen changes reverted
Infantry Support Gun
Cost reduced from 430 to 330
Soviets:
With the recent updates to the Soviet tech tree we found the pacing was a little off. This resulted in light and medium armored vehicles being fielded too early. We have readjusted the cost of these buildings to better reflect their significance in the game.
Special Rifle Command (Tier 1)
Cost reduced from 160/ 50 to 160 /40
Tankoviy Battalion Command (Tier 3)
Cost increase from 240/60 to 240/80
Mechanized Armor Kampaneya (Tier 4)
Cost increased from 240/100 to 320/110
120mm Mortar
We have decided to reduce its base damage to reduce
the 120mm lethality against infantry.
Damage reduced from 100 to 80
SU-76
The SU-76 received numerous changes to improve its performance last patch. The changes to its cost is to better reflect its performance.
Cost increased from 240/70 to 320/75
T34-85
The T34-85 is a better version of the T34-76 in all areas. We felt there was never a reason to build a T34-76 over the 85 when it was available through a Commander option and by leaving this option open, we felt we were leading the player into making a bad choice. By changing the CP cost to 0 and replacing the T34-76 completely; this will minimize the confusion for other players.
CP changed from 9 to 0
T34-85 now replaces the T34-76
Wehrmacht
General:
After updating the cost of the Wehrmacht buildings and battle phases last patch, we found that players were able to field medium armor a lot faster than other factions. We have increased the cost of Support Armor Korps(Tier 3) and Heavy Panzer Korps(Tier 4) to bring their pacing in line with the other factions.
Support Armor Korps(Tier 3)
Cost increased from 240/40 to 260/75
Heavy Panzer Korps(Tier 4)
Cost increased from 260/50 to 300/80
Stug III G
In the last patch we gave the Stug III G a new profile. We are now adjusting the cost of this unit to better reflect that profile
Cost increased from 230/80 to 280/90
USF
M15A1 AA Halftrack
We wanted to create more dynamics between the units available in the Lieutenant tier and the Captain Tier by moving the M15A1 AA Halftrack to the Captain building. We have also reduced the cost on the M15A1 AA halftrack to account for the additional cost of the captain.
Moved to Captain Building
Cost reduced from 350/60 to 350/50
UKF
Commando Glider Insertion
We have increased the cost of the Commandos to bring it more in line with their performance. We have also lowered the CP cost required to call in this ability; as the timing in which commandos appeared was quite late in the game.
Cost increased from 350 to 450
CP Reduced from 6 to 4
British Call in Vehicles
All British Call in vehicles now have appropriate manpower and fuel costs in relation to their power.
Valentine Light Tank
Cost changed from 400 manpower to 360/90
Sexton Self-Propelled Artillery
Cost changed from 500 to 480/115
Churchill AVRE
Cost changed from 750 to 600/140
Churchill Crocodile
Cost changed from 700 to 600/180
Churchill MK. VII Infantry Tank
The Churchill MK. VII Infantry Tank best shines when used to support specialist units. Because of its hefty cost, we found that often the better choice was to make more specialist units than to explore the option to support them. We have reduced to cost of the Churchill MK. VII Infantry Support Tank to make this a better desirable option.
Cost reduced from 580/180 to 540/150
AEC Mk. III 75mm Armored Car
Because of the early availability of the AEC Armored Car and the cheap cost to man it on the field, we found that players were able to dispatch an AEC Armored Car very early. This made it very difficult for players to deal with this unit. We have increased its fuel cost to give players more time to build a counters for this vehicle.
Cost increased from 340/45 to 340/60
Hammer/Anvil Specialization
Because of the hefty fuel cost of specializations, the benefits to specializing wasn’t worth its cost relative to manning another unit. We hope to encourage its use with the reduced fuel cost.
Fuel cost reduced from 50 to 25
British 0.55 cal AP Sniper
We have given the Sniper a small health increase to prevent the unit from being killed instantly by various explosive weapons. We anticipate this will give the player more time to react.
Health increased from 80 to 82
Sherman Firefly
We wanted to further develop the role of the Firefly as a Sniper. In order to keep the units high damage against vehicles; we have increased the reload speed on the unit significantly. This means the firefly will be able to initiate first strike damage but will need supporting units to follow up. This should also create numerous counter play situations.
Reload increased from 7.5 to 12
Armor reduced from 215 to 160
Tulip Rockets
The Tulip rockets were designed to generate strong alpha strike damage towards vehicles. We found through playtesting that the rockets themselves were very potent against infantry and anti-tank guns. This made the Sherman Firefly not a specialist unit but with the purchase of the Tulip Rockets a very strong generalist unit. We have made the ability target vehicles only to prevent this. We have also reduced its damage on the rockets to prevent instant death for some vehicles.
Rocket Left Damage reduced from 240 to 160
Rocket Right damage reduced from 240 to 160
Recharge time increased from 90 seconds to 120 seconds
Target vehicles only
Brace Structure
With the changes to emplacements in the last update. ”Brace Structure” now plays a critical role in insuring emplacement survivability. Through observations and playtests we found the ability to toggle the ability gave very little room for counter play. By making Brace Structure a timed ability it opens up more consistent opportunity against emplacements.
Is now a timed ability that last 30 seconds
Air Superiority
We recently increased the cost of this ability to a 10 minutes shared cooldown. We found that 10 minute cooldown was too heavy of a price for the ability.
Reduced cooldown from 10 minutes to 6 minutes
Anti-building Flame Mortar Support
We found this ability to be extremely potent against OKW base buildings that were setup on forward positions. We have removed the targeting option of OKW buildings as it was providing an unfair experience against the OKW.
Does not target OKW Buildings
Maps
General
Lots of minor tweaks to world assets, which affect all maps
Adding (2) Kholodny Ferma and (2 - 4) Moscow Outskirts to the map lists
Essen Steelworks
New loading screen
New Mini/Tacmap
Port of Hamburg
New loading screen
New Mini/Tacmap
Adjusted several territory points to try and balance out distances
Arnhem Checkpoint
Adjusted the terrain around the furthest East point so caches can be built on it now
Kholodny Ferma
Area was opened up around the west cutoff section of the map.
Moscow Outskirts
Refinements were isolated to the north cutoff section of the map.
Known Issues:
Port of Hamburg
The mini/tac map doesn’t properly fit the size
Flood gate is blocking pathing
Across the Rhine
Cliff rocks are shot blocking unit garrisoned in bunkers
Bugs:
Fixed an issue that allowed players to call in multiple heavy tanks
Fixed an issue of emplacements costing being not accurate
Fixed an issue that caused weapon teams to re-face unintentionally
Fixed an issue that caused certain weapon teams to be invulnerable
Fixed an issue that allowed Signal Relay to be permanently active
Fixed an issue that allowed Spy Network to be permanently active
