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Recommended
1.9 hrs last two weeks / 278.5 hrs on record (31.1 hrs at review time)
Posted: 27 Feb, 2023 @ 8:48am

Great Gameplay / Mechanics - Poor UI and Progression

PROS:
- Fluid placement of squads (dots that show units in cover and where their respective spacing in the open or behind a barrier) which is much better than previous COH games
- No longer need Engineers to construct buildings (HQ spits out a team of guys to construct a building)
- Able to provide starting units with upgrades to make them fierce veterans by late game (additional weapons added to squad, heath upgrades, decrease special abilites cost and time to use)
- Lots of Armored vehicle variants and AT options at your fingertips to fight against them
- Graphics are more impressive than were show pre release so that was huge relief (initial models looked like clay figurines or toy models)
- DESTRUCTION is AMAZING

CONS/Fixes Needed:
- Maps designed with poor vehicle navigation in mind (your vehicles will either slow spin showing their rear armor and get smoked or they get confused and turn in 3 different directions when surrounded essentially doing a burn out to their grave
- UI is an absolute mess with notifications popping up when creating a squad and they overlay on top of one another with party invites, joining, messages and they are all very large
- End game stats are WAY off with sometimes showing the worst member of your team with the highest stats even after a manual calculation of all units dmg done and efficiency. Had a game where one team member had under 100% efficiency while mine was over 1000% and his damage was higher overall and when manually calculating it on the UNITS tab at the end game stats I had well over double his damage from infantry alone. This applies also to the graphs which rarely show any dips in army values even after you wipe their entire army. Some serious work needs to be done to revise these end game charts.
- Sound is VERY hit or miss. Planes sound amazing and bellowing overhead while they drop their payload or units onto the field while tanks and ESPECIALLY infantry sound lacklaster. The basic infantry's rifles literally sound like they are having a paintball battle and is laughable at best. As a suggestion, go back and listen to COH 1 and tell me that those weapons don't pop like they should. Rifles are very loud in real life and should reflect in a war game and at least sound like they hurt a little. They need a lot more reverb and pop to it to feel enjoyable to use.
- A huge problem also is at the end games stats, I've noticed that the majority of the time if any member of the team (even if they are not in your party like during a 4v4 random multiplayer match) if any hits CLOSE on the end game stats then everyone is booted from the end game stats sheet back to the main menu which is disappointing since most of the time you spending 30 - 40 mins fighting to see what you did and what you did it with to know what is working in your strategies. This was better on COH 2 but still needs improvement regardless.
- There is no Kill Count any more on your units mid game... this is fun stat missing on the in game UI and needs to be returned like it was in COH 2
- An alert needs to be made if your machine gun or Sniper teams are under attack since most times i can kill my friends units without him even knowing that his units are being ambushed and are eliminated before he has a chance to respond.
- Pings are weak on the minimap and it's hard to show my allies where enemies or points of interest are on the battlefield.
- Missing a button to show who owns what units on the battlefield (used to be left Alt on COH 2)
- Light tanks take too much dmg from light machine gun fire and are eliminated too quickly to even be a valid use armored vehicle and will soon see little to no use post lauch (1st month of playing)
- Infantry take too little damge either behind Heavy Cover or even out in the open - needs a faster Time to Kill for all infantry since their are so many options now to reinforce on the battlefield with APCs and Medic Trucks.
- Accuracy negation on retreating units is ridiculously low and feels like you can hardly secure a retreating unit kill unless you use a heavy machine gun team. To balance this, the retreating units retreat speed needs to be increased since most light armored vehicles and chase all the way home to eliminate your retreating unit on most occasions.
- Missing progression system / no ranks or leveling system leaves playing feeling empty or unrewarding. Everything feels like a waste of time "just for fun" and no unlocks being provided for at least cosmetics or different commander abilities. Needs a lot of improvement in this category.


I'm sure there are more issues but those are the major flaws that I feel could be tinkered with to make a much more enjoyable experience.


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