2.5.0 Update Patch Notes

Overview

Update 2.5.0 will be available for Company of Heroes 3 today at 10am PT and includes 2 new maps, a refresh of the game lobby, and several changes to gameplay systems and multiplayer balance. Much of the multiplayer balance work in today's update is a first major step towards addressing the current meta of massing units (blobbing). This work begins today with a focus on infantry, and will continue in the next major update, 3.0 in October, with more changes targeting the massing of vehicles. Today's update also supports the release of Company of Heroes 3's first standalone experience – Final Stand. Many of the fixes and changes included in today’s update are thanks to your feedback. Please continue to share your feedback or ask the dev team questions here and report any issues to us at help.relic.com/hc/en-us.

Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand

store.steampowered.com/app/4836540/Company_of_…

Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand introduces an all-new standalone wave defense experience designed for solo and co-op play. Build layered defenses, hold the line against overwhelming odds, and survive 12 increasingly challenging waves of enemy forces featuring dynamic battlefield events and powerful bosses. Battle across multiple Battlegrounds against forces drawn from the Wehrmacht, US Forces, British Forces, and Deutsches Afrikakorps factions. Learn more about Final Stand here and buy it now for a 10% discount during the launch period and a bonus 20% discount for Company of Heroes 3 owners.

Maps

New Maps added to all modes

Butcher & Bolt - (1vs1)

Night-time desert raids are synonymous with the exploits of British Commandos. Relive their daring exploits in our new 1vs1 map! Players will always be close to their enemy's HQ, but resources on the extreme flanks are what will secure victory – overextend at your own risk, and strike fast to sever any opponent who does not watch their back.

Raids conducted by the Special Air Service and Long Range Desert Group (affectionately known as the Desert Taxi Service) marked a turning point in the desert war.

While the siege of Tobruk ground on during the winter of 1941, convoys of British Commandos struck out at airfields and munitions depots from the inhospitable Great Sand Sea, melting away into the night once the deed was done. Such raids destroyed German and Italian planes on the ground, starved fighting vehicles of fuel, and rid soldiers of their munitions.

Casualties among the Commandos were high, but their long-term effect on enemy morale endured for the remainder of the war.

Across the Savio - (3vs3)

Community map makers DutchToast and Foolish Viceroy have again restored a beloved Company of Heroes classic – Across the Rhine. This is a map of tiers, with players fighting for control over the boggy lowlands at the river’s edge, the concrete battlements to the center, or the farmlands on the high ground. We hope players enjoy returning to an iconic battlefield first introduced in Company of Heroes 2’s British Forces DLC.

On October 21, 1944, the Savio River was hastily formed into the next brutal line of defense. German forces had fallen back through a series of river positions, from the Foglia to the Lamone, but at the Savio, progress halted. With continuing rainfall and floodwaters threatening to collapse its banks, the Savio proved to be one of the most deadly bridgeheads faced by the Allies in Italy.

Map Quality of Life Features

We are still collecting feedback from our Official Discord and making changes where we felt they were most needed. Thanks again to our dedicated community for all feedback provided; please do not hesitate to leave any further feedback or issues on our maps.

• White Barracks building now has correct death states. If it collapses into an impassible ruin, it should block movement and sight
• Large fuel tanks have been given shot blocking properties, which persist until they are destroyed.
• (8) Oliveto Citra - more blockers have been added around the central bunker building, reducing the risk that vehicles can shoot through it at specific angles
• (2 & 4) Djebel Pass - Barbed wire has been adjusted near a stone wall that appears usable for cover, but was blocked
• (4) Pisa Centrale - Players were driving over explosive red barrels and did not expect them to explode. Explosive red barrels have been removed. This is why we can't have nice things
• (8) Alam el Halfa - HQ bunkers have been redesignated to the correct players. Each player's HQ should now be protected by their own bunker/HMG nest
• (8) Castello della Nebbia - Players had raised complaints that the Eastern cutoff was too easy to pin down as the attacker. The Eastern cutoff has been redesigned. A small land bridge has been removed to open movement around this area, a building has also been removed to improve sight and firing lines, and cover has been added to this area to aid the defender

User Interface & User Experience

Lobby & Battlegroup Selection Improvements

We've overhauled the multiplayer lobby experience to streamline Battlegroup selection and to improve usability across Skirmish, Co-op vs A.I., Quick Match, and Custom Games.

• Battlegroups can now be selected directly from a dropdown menu without leaving the lobby screen. Players who prefer the previous experience can still access full Battlegroup tech trees through the new More Info option
• A.I. Player Battlegroup options can be restricted by assigning empty Battlegroup slots, forcing the A.I. to select a specific Battlegroup, allowing for more control over your experience
• Sub-selecting units from a garrison or multiple-selection (especially when using the Tab key to cycle the sub-selection) now displays decorators for garrisoning and sub-selected units in the correct state. This will make it easier to distinguish which unit you are focusing on when multi-selecting/commanding

Multiplayer

For multiplayer balance in update 2.5.0, we are aiming to improve the importance of unit tactics and micro, and big changes are coming to some core systems.

Our main target this update is to make infantry positioning more rewarding. Cover is more durable and harder to crush, targeting and suppression is much more punishing against infantry in the open, and multiple weapons are being made weaker against cover.

We hope these changes make a difference to the early phases of the game, but we do not expect them to fix all of the frustrations players have right now. Mass vehicle play is a problem we’re aware of, and we will be looking at that more closely in update 3.0.0 in October. These changes take a great deal of time to test and validate, especially since there are always uneven winners and losers when making global changes. So we will closely monitor this update and your feedback.

Pathing

We've made several improvements to pathing, fixing some longstanding issues.

• Vehicles that are already reversing no longer overly favor reversing when a new move order is given in front of them
• Smoother rapid movement commands - issuing movement orders in quick succession should no longer cause slowdowns or jitter
• Smarter navigation around obstacles - vehicles now make better decisions when turning near or around movement blockers

Infantry Combat and Suppression

We are making some changes to infantry combat to help alleviate some of the issues facing the game. These changes are not meant to fix all the issues regarding massed infantry, but they should make it easier for the defender to reduce the effectiveness of the enemy when fighting from good positions or are backed by suppression.

Infantry Formations

We are tightening infantry squad formations to make squads that are in the open slightly more vulnerable to area of effect weapons as squads currently have wide formations and reduce the amount of space a squad covers.

• Direction and position of the squad is now always determined by a model at the front of the squad, rather than the back/center
• Most squads have had their formation tightened by 0.5 - 1 in-game meters

Infantry Small-Arms Priority

Infantry weapon priority has been adjusted to make combat more consistent and reduce cases where infantry squads spread their damage amongst all members of the enemy squad. This should make it easier to bleed enemy models over the course of an engagement.

• Infantry squad members will now prefer to focus on the closest enemy squad member directly in front of them when they engage infantry. This generally means most weapons will target the front models of the squad

• This tends to allow squads in cover to focus down squad members faster while damage tends to be more spread out against the defender when they are being directly attacked from the front or back

• Infantry rifles no longer re-roll their target to pick the next best target in a targeted squad
• Infantry small arms no longer take over-penetration into account when firing on enemies; this previously resulted in weapons like Light Machine Guns(LMGs), Scoped Rifles, and Automatic Rifles to target enemy squad members in the rear of the formation

• These changes generally make squads in cover have damage distributed more evenly amongst its members while squads in the open are more likely to have a single model focused down depending on the angle of engagement

Suppression

The following changes make it significantly harder for suppressed enemies to break suppression while they are still in-combat. Previously, only a weapon that dealt suppression damage could keep a squad in the suppressed state with enemies automatically recovering even if they were in combat after 10 seconds.

This should make it easier to halt large masses of infantry so long as the Heavy Machine Gun (HMG) can get its suppression off, and nearby units are able to prevent suppression recovery.

• Out of Combat suppression recovery bonus now only applies if the squad is not being fired on; before this would only trigger if the squad was fired on by a weapon with suppression

• Squads will still gain their out of combat bonus to suppression recovery if they are firing but not being fired at after 10 seconds

Heavy Machine Guns

We are increasing the penetration power of HMGs to allow them to better combat early ultra-light vehicles to allow for more soft counters which should be able to help factions like the Wehrmacht in team games where they lack their own combat capable ultra-light unit.

The power of the HMG is being reduced against units in cover as the changes to suppression make these units significantly stronger in infantry combat.

• Axis HMG penetration increased from 1.3/1.2/1.1 to 2.25/1.75/1.6
• Allied HMG penetration increased from 1.6/1.4/1.2 to 2.5/2.25/1.75
• 50cal HMG damage modifier against light vehicles increased from 0.25 to 0.35
• HMG accuracy against units in cover reduced from 50% to 60%

Automatic Rifles and Light Machine Guns

Special weapons like automatic rifles and LMGs are having their damage penalties against heavy and garrison cover types increased to match most weapons. This will make heavy cover more valuable against the majority of upgraded squads in the game.

• Damage penalty against heavy and garrison cover increased from 40% to 50%

Team Weapons

Team weapons will no longer be counted to the area of effect damage limit, making damage against them more predictable with units like mortars or artillery.

• The weapon no longer counts towards the damage limit against area of effect weapons

Munition Points

As fuel plays such an important factor for gaining tech-based power spikes, the capture time of certain munition points are being reduced to make it easier for players to prioritize this resource in the early game.

• Capture speeds sped up from 45 to 30 for +16 munitions points
• Capture speed sped up from 15 seconds to 12.5 for +5 munition points

Mortars and Mortar Halftracks

Mortars are receiving adjustments to make them a little easier to access but have slightly slower speeds. We have also increased their penetration against certain objects to make them better able to destroy cover or abandoned team weapons.

• Mortar manpower cost reduced from 260 to 240
• 250 mortar upgrade cost reduced from 75 to 60
• Mortar High Explosive barrage cooldown increased from 0.5 to 0.625
• Now has +200% weapon penetration against sandbags
• Now has +200% weapon penetration against team weapons

Light Artillery - Pack Howitzer, 4.2 Inch Heavy Mortar, le.IG 18 Support Gun

Light artillery is too effective against stationary targets, having high damage payloads, good range, and good area of effect that makes it a little too hard to fight from cover when these units are on the field.

To retain their hitting power, while reducing their ability to take a squad out of a fight with a single hit, these units will be inaccurate at the start of their barrage, but steadily have their accuracy increase the more they fire.

• Light Artillery angle scatter increased from 6 to 10
• Light Artillery distance scatter max increased from 5 to 11.25
• Light Artillery scatter ratio increased from 0.05 to 0.1125
• Light Artillery barrages now gain +33% scatter accuracy each time the weapon fires

Medium Anti-Tank Guns - 6-pounder, 57mm, Pak 38/40

The power of veteran Anti-Tank (AT) guns is being slightly reduced as their rate of fire can be oppressive to medium tanks, and they level up very quickly.

• Veterancy required per rank from 1000/3000/6000 to 1100/3300/6600
• Veterancy Rank 3 rate of fire bonus decreased from 30% to 25%

Casualty Recovery

Recovered casualties could still provide too much manpower over the course of a long game. Because of this, we are further reducing the amount refunded to the player.

• Manpower recovery from 25 to 20

Vehicle Weapons

We are slightly reducing the effectiveness of vehicles that fire on the move - mainly against infantry - by allowing projectiles to scatter further in front or behind the target when a miss is rolled.

The previous system always capped the distance scatter to the scatter max value even if the moving scatter penalties would bring it over the limit.

• Direct-fire and autocannon vehicles standardized to 1.25 movement distance scatter max
• Lobbed projectiles retain 1.5 movement distance scatter max

• Makes these units generally more inaccurate if they get a shot off while moving; includes Stummel, Brummbar, Dozer and StuG D
• Centaur and Scott are exceptions to this rule

Direct-Fire Ballistic Weapons - Autocannons, Anti-Aircraft Guns, Anti-Tank Rifles, Tank Cannons

Previously, cover would not provide its damage reduction bonus if a projectile-based weapon’s shell landed behind the unit’s cover or the weapon rolled a hit. This caused heavy cover to be somewhat ineffective against certain weapons.

We are making a change so all direct-fire based projectile weapons now have their damage properly reduced if the cover bonus would apply.

• If a target would gain directional or area cover bonuses against a firing unit, cover damage reduction modifiers will now take affect for both direct hits, splash damage, and suppression damage

• This does not affect things like mortars, light artillery, heavy artillery or units like the Stummel with a lobbed projectile

Cover

We are increasing the durability of many map objects in the game, particularly heavy cover objects so the battlefield retains strongpoints for longer periods of time, allowing for more dynamic infantry combat. Previously, it was too easy to destroy the majority of cover objects, which led maps to being fairly barren by the mid game.

• Heavy cover map objects armor increased from 25 to 35
• Heavy cover map objects have standardized health values

• Large objects (pre-wrecked vehicles) have 600 health
• Medium objects (pre-placed sandbag walls) have 300 health
• Small objects (stone walls) have 300 health

Light cover map objects armor standardized to 25

Light cover map objects have two classes of health values

• Decoration objects have below 200 health
• Cover objects have a minimum of 200 health

Flattened building ruins now more consistently provide heavy cover to infantry and team weapons that enter them

Light Vehicles - Marders, Stuarts, Chaffee, Semovente, Carro, 8rad

The majority of light vehicles are having their medium crush reduced to light crush to increase the longevity of heavy cover in the early to mid-game. We have noticed that maps could be easily flattened, reducing the amount of positional play there was early game vehicles hit the field.

• Crush type changed from medium to light

Wespe and Bishop Self-Propelled Artillery

Certain artillery units are having their veterancy adjusted to have their ability recharge bonuses lessened or moved to higher levels. Currently, veteran artillery units can have too much up-time, allowing for constant barrages that make positional play very difficult in the late game.

The Cannone, Whizbang, and Walking Stuka changes can be found in faction notes.

Veterancy bonuses for these two units changed to the following:

• Veterancy 1: +25% rate of fire
• Veterancy 2: +20% ability range, +20% scatter accuracy
• Veterancy 3: +60 HP, +20% Ability Recharge speed, Unique bonus

High Explosive Light Artillery Barrage - Pack Howitzer, le.IG 18, Heavy Mortar, Stummel, Scott, M3 75mm HE Barrage

This change is to make these units less effective against vehicles which they are not intended to counter.

• Deals 25% less damage against vehicles

Rifle Grenades

We are reducing the kill radius of the rifle grenade to make them less devastating. There will still be instances they can kill a squad, but this doesincrease the chance a healthy squad in a line formation or one that is dodging, will survive.

• Area of effect distance lowered from 2 to 1.5

Team Weapon Formations

We are making a change that allows team weapons like HMGs to have further spacing when placed in cover to make it harder to destroy/damage the entire crew with a single grenade or area-of-effect (AOE) weapons.

• On longer cover pieces that allow for it, the squads spacing has been increased to prevent the squad from stacking

Paradropping

• Units paradropping can be targeted and killed
• Satchel Charges no longer start on cooldown for paradropping units

Medical Vehicle Healing Auras - 251/M3, CWT, 2.5 Tonne Truck

The healing range of these mobile healing and reinforcement platforms has been reduced to make front-line healing more risky when dealing with indirect-fire/AOE weapons and force the truck to get closer to the frontline.

• Healing range reduced from 20 to 15

Panzerschreck

The Panzerschreck is having its far aim-time reduced, allowing this weapon to engage long-range targets sooner.

• Far aim-time sped up from 2 to 1.75

Flamethrowers

This change should reduce how likely a mine will trigger on contact with a flamethrower while still making these weapons able to quickly clear a mine if the player knows its location.

• Removed bonus damage against mines

Off-Map Heavy Artillery Strikes

A large number of off-map artillery strikes are having their cooldowns increased to give more moments in the game where the player in not constantly under attack from off-maps, especially in team games.