Top 5 reasons for the good high rank game

Hello everyone!

Players from all modes except 4x4, please tell me what tips have improved your game to high ranks.

For example, I understood the main difference between a noob and a pro is that
1) Pro uses hot keys.
2) Pro does not forget his units at the base, after reinforcement. (This remains my problem)
3) Timing.
4) Using tactical map (But DevM, HelpingHans and Stalker dont use it, therefore is not reason)
5) Pro play for all factions (its also my problem, because i dont like sov and ost, very boring gameplay)

What moment gives the biggest boost in skill? In the beginning, for me it was the using hotkeys. And what was for you?

This applies to any game.

-Drink liquids, take breaks. Even if it's just 5 minutes. Fatigue is a factor, specially if you get out of +hour long matches.

-If you are prone to get titled, close the game after a heavy loss. Play/watch something else and then return. If you commonly found yourself wasting time writing in chat anything outside of glhf and gg or quick words to strategize/inform something during the game, you generally are wasting your micro.
Note: i found the ping system in the game really lackluster and this is something i would love seeing improved in future games. A mouse wheel chat commands with things like retreat, attack, defend, danger mine, etc.

-Number 1 rule when playing with randoms. You are also a random. Play for the sake of the game, not for ranks. Know that some games are unwinnable.

-Leave your ego at the door. Blame yourself first and watch your replays before going to forums/reddit/yt to complain about. If your goal is to improve, you will get more out of watching what you did wrong than writing essays.

TL;DR: psychology and fatigue. Some people are good but self sabotage themselves.


RTS:
-This is something i rescue from SC2, the first RTS that i tried to improve in.
While CoH2 requires way less in terms of micro/APM due to the fact that economy/tech/unit production is simplified it still a good practice to have a certain mental list of things to check for every so often.
For example: Minimap > Economy > Unit production > Tech > Minimap > Unit orders > Repeat.

For CoH2 it could be simplified by checking minimap/tactical map, unit bars in the top, giving orders, reinforcing, checking resources (only float resources with a goal in mind) and time (yes time. It gives you a good idea whether you are ahead/behind in preparation for certain units).

When the game gets to hectic parts, it's easy to lose focus on this things. So making it something which almost happens subconsciously makes everything else easier.
For some, having a "beep" sound every so often helps them as a reminder.

-CoH has tactical map and while this is better once you get used to it (tact map provides exclusive information) you can play just with minimap. Either is fine. None of them is not. People who play only with what they can see in their FoV losses perspective of the whole map (like not attacking a side of the map which has been empty for so long).


TL;DR: start with a good foundation in RTS 101. Minimap and having a set of actions you should check for.


COH2:
-Download and read how to setup Autohotkey. Set hotkeys to grid.

-Pro's KNOWS all factions. You don't need to necessarily play all factions, though it can give you insight on it's weakness.
While knowing to play more factions gives you more adaptability to play the strongest ones in each patch, you can do fine by just knowing how to play 2 factions, one for each side.

-Mine wins games. Don't lose squads.

-Watch high level replays. Learn what's meta. Learn unit timing.

-Know your limits. It might be fancier to play with super combined arms and sniper micro. Sometimes, simple is better.
This also applies to playing meta vs non meta.

-I'll say it again, unless you have some goal in mind, floating resources is a good way to throwing a game.
If you float fuel and you are low in mp, you have a bad unit composition.
If you float muni and you are losing engagements, you are not using your abilities. And no, wasting it in an offmap that doesn't accomplish anything, is not good resource expenditure.

-VPs are also a resource. Unless you play tournaments, winning with 1 or 500 is the same.

-Learn when to soft retreat (even before a fight starts) and learn to retreat early (don't fight unfavourable trades unless you are delaying with some purpose).

-Load up a custom game and check/learn the maps. Buildings have different amount of houses windows for a reason.

I like sharing tips, although I sometimes feel like certain tips can be somewhat forced. Best tip out there is figuring yourself out and knowing what you're comfortable with. With that out of the way, things I found that really helped me out is:

1) Turning off classic hotkey so that you can use all the hotkeys with one hand.

2) Watching replays of other people or your own, or just watch matches featured by many of the passionate and talented casters of CoH2. Since Coh2 is a strategy game, understanding all the ways a person may play a faction or how they interact with a map is like adding a new weapon or defense to your own style.

3) Idleness is a sin, so always look at the top right of the screen where it will warn you about idle troops. Get them doing something. Mines, wires, sandbags, getting into a better position, concealing, whatever.

4) Flank. Flank. Flank. In 2v2 and 3v3 matches, I tend to find myself and teammates occasionally tunnel vision and go for only one avenue of attack. That's generally going to only end in a quagmire of attrition. Be smart. Either pull back enough to force the opponent to over extend (such as luring assault troops into bad cover or a firing line), or find routes that would allow you to surround and attack from every direction.

5) Focus fire. In early game when you clash with multiple squads, getting into cover is good, but being able to focus down one squad rather than spreading out the damage is often what determines the winner. The sooner a squad is wounded, the sooner they are likely to retreat, which ultimately means less models shooting. That's a win in most cases.

6) Edit add: in 2v2 and higher player count matches, if you facing an impasse on your side, it is far easier and more effective to lean on helping your teammate out and forcing their opponent to collapse under your combined attack. Just be sure not to over commit unless you plan to collapse your own side while you're at it.

After playing a game I find yoga or just walking around outside for five minutes really helps to refresh the brain

The tac map point is an interesting one, tac map gameplay is very boring and difficult to look at for spectators. This is why Skippy and hans have the most twitch viewers.

Tac map aids players with slow micro, and provides a little clearer map awareness but you miss out on grenade calls which can be costly with wipes.

-when you want to improve your ranks, dont be afraid to play "dirty". Sometimes you have to blobb, abuse the current meta strats.

-its alot about your and opponents army composition. Double at gun strats are very common, you can use them yourself and when you face them try to destroy them at almost all cost.
identify your opponents key units and find a way to destroy them

-mines

-improve your game sense and map awareness. you need to learn when to be aggressive and when you have to be( and/or when you can afford to be) defensive.
sometimes a bad trade considering the ressources is worth it, for example when your map controle allows it or you kill a key unit of your opponents composition

Thats all i have to add for now.
Elchino and Partisanship made very good points

dont try to improve everything at once, pick one or two tips and focuse on them for a few games then go on for the next

The tac map point is an interesting one, tac map gameplay is very boring and difficult to look at for spectators. This is why Skippy and hans have the most twitch viewers.

Tac map aids players with slow micro, and provides a little clearer map awareness but you miss out on grenade calls which can be costly with wipes.

interesting perspective - for me it's completely the opposite. relying a lot on the tac map myself i find watching streamers like hans etc. that don't use it and instead jump between scenes extremely exhausting to watch. i also feel it's much easier to keep track of what's going on when the tac map shows up frequently, but again that might be due to being used to using it a lot.

with regard to the op, i think what helped me the most was switching to gridkeys and using a wasd script that's compatible with it. that and, as you might have guessed by now, using the tac map a lot.

My take on this:

- For very new players: Keep on pushing. Many players have a mental barrier to push further than half the map. As long as you don't have enemy contact, push further. If you don't make contact, maybe your enemy is weaker than you thought.

- Check on Twitch/Tournaments what is the current meta and copy an infantry build from there as a solid basis (otherwise you might not even reach the late game and it gets very hard to get better)

- Watch tournaments. Top players are so familiar with the game that they can do more "out of the box" thinking

- Watch your resources. If you float, build a unit or spam mines. You can never go wrong with mines, really.

- After you got your base build by heart, start counting enemy squads. How many main lines does he have? How many support weapons? Try to get the best counter for that.

- Learn how much the units cost (approximately) and what your resource standing in the game is (also regularly check your own income to see who has the better resource income). From this point onwards you can have a decent guess when you should expect an enemy tank or if your opponent is saving up for something, if he is short on resources etc.

If you're playing random teammates. There is not much you can do. AFKers, campers, newbie-like players (after 800+hours nonetheless)... etc.

Beyond that, what you said. Also, I'd like to add...flanking. Most of the games you will see people focus the mid VP while holding the closer ones with a bunker and maybe one unit. Use that. A lot of the map is undefended and unguarded. Use that to sneak one or 2 units to flank or one cheaper tank to take out anything it can. Works wonders in team games. Less viable in 2v2 since the maps are smaller and denser so somebody is bound to spot you.

Since this one wasnt pointed out cleraly earlier: If you cant recrew enemy team weapons, destroy them with your at.
Rebuilding stuff costs way more and takes more time.

Personal opinion gather through years of gaming and from several different genres.

What's the difference between a good player and master class one? The later will recognize opportunities and take risks. Risks which end up later been the safe choice as you end up the game straight at that point without letting your opponent the opportunity to recover at all.


I think "most" people who play any game start with a badly focused "bloodlust". A short sighted frenzy of just pushing forward. Once you know better and know how to control yourself, it's the opposite. Too passive for their own good.

To be at the top i think you need to achieve some of this things.

-Smell blood. Know when your opponent is weak. In RTS, when the opponent doesn't have a counter to what you got or a low army value. In CoH could be as simple as a base rush or chasing squads or vehicles to confirm kills.

-Calculated greed is good.

-Identify your win conditions. Play to win, don't play to not lose.
You face a better opponent? Try some cheese strats.
You have a weaker army composition or commander? Go for an all in push if you see a momentarily weakness. Ex: Ele with no infantry support. IS2 retreating with low health.

Watch your replays if you lose, understand why you lose and stop losing.

Try to imagine your opponents micro load. This is a big game of lulls and intense fighting. Try to hit your enemy with grenades/artillery/flanks etc in one area whe. You know he is busy microing a tank or something somewhere else. Can be as simple as throwing two nades at two targets simultaneously, much much harder to dodge. Or I see top players do waaaay more complicated actions in order to overload their opponents micro.

For me the biggest skill buff is none other than kimbo iq pills, buy these fellas and you'll never game coh2 the same:


EDIT: answering allegations as if the pills contain some type of tapeworm in them, they have been tested multiple times by independent sources and proved 100% risk free.

For me the biggest skill buff is none other than kimbo iq pills, buy these fellas and you'll never game coh2 the same:

I'd like to order 50 cases. Can I have one after my Greek expresso coffee?

Personal opinion gather through years of gaming and from several different genres.

What's the difference between a good player and master class one? The later will recognize opportunities and take risks. Risks which end up later been the safe choice as you end up the game straight at that point without letting your opponent the opportunity to recover at all.


I think "most" people who play any game start with a badly focused "bloodlust". A short sighted frenzy of just pushing forward. Once you know better and know how to control yourself, it's the opposite. Too passive for their own good.

To be at the top i think you need to achieve some of this things.

-Smell blood. Know when your opponent is weak. In RTS, when the opponent doesn't have a counter to what you got or a low army value. In CoH could be as simple as a base rush or chasing squads or vehicles to confirm kills.

-Calculated greed is good.

-Identify your win conditions. Play to win, don't play to not lose.
You face a better opponent? Try some cheese strats.
You have a weaker army composition or commander? Go for an all in push if you see a momentarily weakness. Ex: Ele with no infantry support. IS2 retreating with low health.

Interesting take on things, but I'm curious how you view talisman and his play style. I remember him winning a 1vs1 tourney by just going five volks, waiting for tanks then sitting behind each VP with sandbags to strangle out a long winded drain.

Then he would do the exact same as soviets but with Maxim's and more sandbag spam mixed in. That type of defensive play served him well.

Interesting take on things, but I'm curious how you view talisman and his play style. I remember him winning a 1vs1 tourney by just going five volks, waiting for tanks then sitting behind each VP with sandbags to strangle out a long winded drain.

Then he would do the exact same as soviets but with Maxim's and more sandbag spam mixed in. That type of defensive play served him well.

Funnily enough i thought about him and "defensive" playstyles when writing these. But didn't know how to convey it properly. Mostly because we don't have too many examples to that extreme. One reason in CoH2 it might be cause you would drag games for too long which in the long run can mean fatigue as opposed to say ending games in 20 mins or less.

Most PvP games by design reward aggression rather than defensive styles. Because when defensive is meta, the game becomes "dull" and leads to player frustration.

Be it campers, fighting stallers or simcity.


Powers to him. I think having a "reactive" play is harder than a "proactive" one. You concede all initiative to your opponent and force him to try and climb or destroy a wall.
I might be wrong but i think the tournament Talisman won heavily played on Crossing, a map which might benefit him.

I'd start off by saying that no one is really a pro in COH2 as I don't think anyone to my knowledge is making enough money off of it to play as a job. I'd also point out that a lot of the top players have put in a hefty amount of hours into the game which you may not have time to do/want to do.

As for general tips. Well I am not a top player or anywhere close. Bang average to decent depending on the day, moon phase and caffeine levels. I used to be top 50 in a bunch of factions on the ladder and even then, was a big difference between that and the top tournament players.

In general I would say though that 1's is the best practice and focusing on one-two factions. Playing to your natural inclinations like defense/offence is probably a good idea. For example my micro is okay but nothing special and I will against better players attempt to slow down the game by playing defensive as that is where I am comfortable and can rely on positioning more then outright micro.

Knowing common strats and the maps are necessary. You get that from reps. You get better by learning from games and developing good habits.

In teamgames try to avoid situations in which you fight engagements with 2 players simultaneously. It is impossible for 1 person to win 2 seperate engagements each being attended by an opponent. You're at disadvantage and it's easy to lose units this way.

I propose to read that book (it's free). This is kind of Meta stuff around different games (based on Street Fighter experiences of author)

Playing to Win
Becoming the Champion
by David Sirlin

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

In team games don't get over confident. Even if you have both fuels, all VPs and caches on every point you can still lose by throwing all your tanks against a wall of AT guns for the sake of attacking.

All it takes is for your teammates to lose the bulk of their panthers and suddenly a T34 has broken out and racing for your unprotected rocket artillery.


Lastly, if you have a style of play that is counterproductive (like refusing to build tanks or only using T70s) then keep that shit in 1v1 rather than potentially ruining the match for 7 other people.