World Championships is/was stale as old bread

I would not ban a Faction, but commanders.

I would not expect Relic to have a tournament that bans commanders/factions/etc. That would be a public announcement/acknowledgement that there is a problem with the game.

It was very cool that they at least talked about Zis gun bugs etc in their last big outing.

For now we have AE and others that will make the tourneys fun. Maybe someone should have a small exhibition match called "Break the Meta" so players have to play against meta using a non meta commander. They get paid the same win or lose. And then maybe we will see something that could counter the current stuff.

Thanks to the couple pros here that talked about Ostruppen being OP. Now we just wait for the nerfs.

How is it admitting they have a problem with the game.

There will always be overpowered stuff, you have to keep the meta fresh otherwise you get bore fests like the grand final.

Having a faction ban system and commander ban system is interesting to watch because you can now ban certain commanders and leave open some commanders which you can counter yourself. ]

Just watching the ban phase on league of legends is hugely popular and is part of the show itself.

Players could also ban 1-2 abilities from any chosen commander. Would be a bit harder to organize, but make sure that commanders are chosen that actually have a usable arsenal of abilities instead of just crutching on the 1-2 that are too good while the rest are useless (Osttruppen say hello).


Or, just came to my mind, a mash up of KotH and commander terminator (could be even run in a smaller mode than the current master league etc):

The current KotH needs to play with the commander that made him King until he loses. That Commander is then deleted from the tourney for all players. The contenders may play any (non-deleted) commander that they like. This way we could see 1. new commanders and 2. maybe see players try different strats to contest the current commander until they find a build that works. Would need some minor balancing and maybe exclusion of few commanders, but overall could work. Someone else could judge that better than me.

Then choose your faction simultaneously. 30 second time limit for allies to ban a commander and 30 second time limit for Axis ban a commander so that a total of 3 commanders are banned for allies and axis. Then launch the game.
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There is a reason why league of legends has been the most popular game in the world for 10 years now, why not copy them?

A problem with commander bans compared to other games is that there are several commanders with overlapping abilities. For example if someone wants to ban Osttruppen they'd have to waste 2 of their bans because there are 2 Osttruppen commanders. Or even worse; say the Tiger was still dominating, then if you'd want to ban the Ostheer Tiger you'd need 4 bans just to achieve that. Another small problem is the fact that WFA only have 9 commanders each while EFA have about 20 each. But yeah commander bans could easily be explored in some fun/ML tourneys to set up a proper and fair system.

A problem with commander bans compared to other games is that there are several commanders with overlapping abilities. For example if someone wants to ban Osttruppen they'd have to waste 2 of their bans because there are 2 Osttruppen commanders. Another small problem is the fact that WFA only have 9 commanders each while EFA have about 20 each. But yeah commander bans could easily be explored in some fun/ML tourneys to set up a proper and fair system.

This is why we employed more complicated solutions with ML2 and ML4 in Jan. It's not that easy!

I would not expect Relic to have a tournament that bans commanders/factions/etc. That would be a public announcement/acknowledgement that there is a problem with the game.

I don't think that would be an issue. Many competitive card games have deck bans in tournaments, RTS games already have map bans. Those mechanics are not in place just because they can help tackle imbalance, but also to open space for strategies that would be hard countered just by opponent's pick. In COH2 right now you could for example ban a commander with extreme early game presence so that you can bring in SOV, or ban a baby AT gun commander because you don't like playing against SOV T1 strats as OKW. It's just a tool used to promote strategic diversity while also avoiding hard-counter stomps, regardless of the state of balance in general.

The logical way to implement that in COH2 torunaments would be to require players to present 4 commanders per faction, one of then would then be banned by the opponent. This would be a bit problematic with base game factions though, since there are so many "duplicate" commanders" that provide almost identical tools, which would allow players to circumvent the bans just by picking commanders in pairs. But perhaps the upcoming patch will provide them with stronger identity.

A problem with commander bans compared to other games is that there are several commanders with overlapping abilities. For example if someone wants to ban Osttruppen they'd have to waste 2 of their bans because there are 2 Osttruppen commanders. Or even worse; say the Tiger was still dominating, then if you'd want to ban the Ostheer Tiger you'd need 4 bans just to achieve that. Another small problem is the fact that WFA only have 9 commanders each while EFA have about 20 each. But yeah commander bans could easily be explored in some fun/ML tourneys to set up a proper and fair system.

Not really, In siege for example there are plenty of operators that overlap in role and ability and if one of the overlappers are banned, it still notably affects how different maps and meta are played and forces alternative play (for example Defenders Jager and Wamai both catch grenades but they both catch them differently and interact with the environment differently, if one...or worse, BOTH are banned you have to significantly adjust whatever you are doing or your defense strategy will play out way weaker because you arent adapting to the nuances that change without one or both of them)

yes, sure; you can circumvent a "ban" by picking the most similar alternative thats unbanned and playing into that. but things play out different when you actually get down into the nitty gritty of how games play out...which ironically is alot like commanders and factions can be in coh2.

If your Shock Rifle IS2 is banned; that doesnt mean that the Armored Assault IS2 is a ez plug n play replacement for your strategy overall. because you now dont have shocks or incendiary barrages. Thats a basic example but apply that to any "key" commander unit players tend to go for in matches. Players are now probably forced to do something totally different, or something thats way weaker than what they'd 'normally' do; which is fucking exciting to watch and a GREAT thing to have.


OFC with commander bans we cant ban key units or key unit types altogether, and i dont think we want all THAT per-se. yes we'd potentially still see people forcing ostruppen, or tigers at the end of games, guards for vehicles or whatever, because those units do be overlappin' in alot of commanders and are necessary, especially to the vanilla factions; to an extent....but its a start towards way more variety, and it should open the game up.


also i think the WFA+ factions rely way less on doctrine cheese than the original factions; especially if you take alot of the OG faction meta doctrines out the picture in the matchups, 3-5 bans(the amount of bans is def debatable) but shouldnt be game breaking.

Cookies nails it but Sanders also raises a good point.

You might have to offer 2 bans for OKW, US and UK to even it out.

yes, sure; you can circumvent a "ban" by picking the most similar alternative thats unbanned and playing into that. but things play out different when you actually get down into the nitty gritty of how games play out...which ironically is alot like commanders and factions can be in coh2.

If your Shock Rifle IS2 is banned; that doesnt mean that the Armored Assault IS2 is a ez plug n play replacement for your strategy overall. because you now dont have shocks or incendiary barrages. Thats a basic example but apply that to any "key" commander unit players tend to go for in matches.

This is all relative. It all depends on what the meta resolves around. That isn't necessarily a collection of doctrinal units/abilities but it can also be just a single ability or unit. In this case Osttruppen being the prime example, that are in two commanders that are practically equally effective because that one ability/unit is the primary goodie in the doctrine. Both Osttruppen doctrines are pretty much equally effective because in essence the meta only resolves around Osttruppen themselves, with all the other abilities being a bit meh. Players usually choose which one they prefer, one isn't necessarily better than the other. Ban one and the other will work as a replacement just fine. It can be the same for other units/abilities that happen to be meta at the time.

How is it admitting they have a problem with the game.

"Come watch our broken ass game where one unit is so OP that it needs to be banned". That is admitting it is broken. And worse, if that commander needs to be purchased, now you are admitting your game is a shitty P2W game also.

Everyone agrees, perfect balance is impossible. Some maps are meant for variety and not tournaments.

"Come watch our broken ass game where one unit is so OP that it needs to be banned". That is admitting it is broken. And worse, if that commander needs to be purchased, now you are admitting your game is a shitty P2W game also.

Everyone agrees, perfect balance is impossible. Some maps are meant for variety and not tournaments.

Something similar is "admitted" in any game that includes ban systems. R6 Siege, MOBAs, etc. It's not a major admission of having a "Broken ass game" to have a ban system.

Hell, even Starcraft has map bans.

One huge advantage League of legends has is the constantly changing meta because they update it so often. We are talking massive meta changes every year, they understand that a stale meta means loss of players.

It's not an admission of failure to balance, in fact, its a balancing act in itself.

League of Legends copied DOTA's ban system because it was superior. COH2 should copy League of Legends ban system because it is superior.

I see what you are saying Sanders but you are trying to conflate two different issues, the ban system and the balancing. Just because one unit is clearly broken at the moment and will make the ban system less effective, it doesn't change the fact that the ban system would still result in a more interesting game for players and spectators alike.

One of the reasons why Tightrope is the best streamer to watch (aside from his magnificently shiny bald head) is that he is constantly trying to make different strategies work. It's interesting to watch, a lot of people enjoy the mathematics of games and working out strategies is almost a game in of itself.

In this case Osttruppen being the prime example, that are in two commanders that are practically equally effective because that one ability/unit is the primary goodie in the doctrine. Both Osttruppen doctrines are pretty much equally effective because in essence the meta only resolves around Osttruppen themselves, with all the other abilities being a bit meh. Players usually choose which one they prefer, one isn't necessarily better than the other. Ban one and the other will work as a replacement just fine. It can be the same for other units/abilities that happen to be meta at the time.

Yes, The Ostruppen Conundrum is a great prime example, youre right. but, thats not really an argument against bans, is it? If anything youre helping the argument for even more bans than 3. at least for Ostheer/soviets, because of the overlap of meta units across multiple doctrines, and because those factions have SO MANY commanders that it's impossible to really balance.

Theres no reason to settle for less here.... The balance team over the period of 8 years has simply lost the war in terms of eliminating and not adding terminator meta doctrines, and thats OKAY. Why? Because its essentially IMPOSSIBLE.

There has not been a esports developer YET that; to my knowledge that can successfuly tackle this "hero/commander/operative" system......... without having some sort of ban system as well at least in COMPETITIVE PLAY. which is why I dont understand why COH2 INSISTS on living life the hard way, and living in 2013.

Theres just no reason for it. We can work a ban system in to tournaments and it wont require a drop of code or development work. We just need tournament admins that can use microsoft excel and track what commanders are banned in certain matchups lol. You might need to get an artist to make a ban overlay for the streams or replays. Thats it.

And again I gave an example of how 'ban one and the other will work just fine' is just not simply a blanket statement argument that you can use across most of the factions and doctrines. If Ostruppen for example are THAT batshit op and polarizing as you say; to where people are legit only picking these commanders for that one singular starting unit and barely touching the other abilities then we should be talking about deleting ostruppen from the new revamp commander at this rate. Thats a balance issue in itself, that obviously again we apparently struggle with weeding out before things go live. But thats really just a whole nother can of worms that i'd rather not get into because that discussion just isnt gonna get anywhere.

Point is. We CAN save ourselves from USF mechanized EVERY GAME. We CAN save ourselves from IS2 stalling. We can save ourselves from Grand offensive, and yes, even ostruppen...every damn game. We CAN promote creativity. it is a GOOD thing. ADD BANS.

Just save ourselves the controversy and pain. Allocate commander vetos in competitive relative to the total commanders the faction has available overall and you will magically see top percentile tournament games become an infinitely better product.

For a serious format i think a 2/1 ban for either EFA/WFA-UKF could work, adding another round of bans after each pair of games.

For a non meta tournament, you could make everyone (say 32 players) vote each round 2/1 for each faction, eliminating the commanders with most votes and repeating for each round of the tournament. At the end you should end up with basically half the commanders ban.

but, thats not really an argument against bans, is it?

It isn't, that wasn't my point. My point was only that a ban system for CoH2 wouldn't be as straightforward as it is in other games and that it would have to be thought out very carefully.

It isn't, that wasn't my point. My point was only that a ban system for CoH2 wouldn't be as straightforward as it is in other games and that it would have to be thought out very carefully.

It really is funny to me that there is so much discussion about this when we already had it implemented in SMC and next to nobody gave two shits. It wasn’t perfect, but it already inspired more variety and showed higher levels of decision making than what is currently happening.

I’m on mobile so this post is a bit lazy in quotes so excuse me for tagging just the last one.

It really is funny to me that there is so much discussion about this when we already had it implemented in SMC and next to nobody gave two shits. It wasn’t perfect, but it already inspired more variety and showed higher levels of decision making than what is currently happening.

I’m on mobile so this post is a bit lazy in quotes so excuse me for tagging just the last one.

Im sorry you felt no one valued your difficult work. From what i saw video of it; it looks pretty cool, and interesting actually, admittedly i havent been really around lately or i wouldve definitely been one pushing for it or for something like it to see the light in a major tournament.

Im sorry you felt no one valued your difficult work. From what i saw video of it; it looks pretty cool, and interesting actually, admittedly i havent been really around lately or i wouldve definitely been one pushing for it or for something like it to see the light in a major tournament.

Sorry you felt you had to directly respond to this, I just lazily quoted the last post in this thread cause I was on mobile.

It was fun, but the time consumption and not just my hardwork, but that of the two modders and the other casters made it really hard to validate time on the project. Especially since we asked for Relic support and were softly told no, since they didn't have funding at the time.

Mix that with the complete lack of newer players in the 1v1 scene and the loss of some of the greats making it extremely hard to even really care. If people cared enough we could try something smaller, maybe once a month, but the biggest problems will be money, interest, and time zones.

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It will be interesting to know why the world championships turned into such a stale series, more interesting than the games at least.

I watched a few of the games and they still seemed interesting. Regardless of how balance is done, good players will find the way that gives them the best chance of winning and everyone will play that one way, even if their odds of winning are just 1% better than the next dozen alternatives.

I really enjoyed watching VonIvan versus Luvnest when VonIvan was playing Wehr. It seemed like that game should have been over early but once VonIvan got his P4 out, he made it interesting for about 45 minutes. Luvnest was equally interesting to watch with his commando play. I don't think I've ever seen anyone get nearly as much use out of commandos as he did. It's too bad that allies can't share control of units, it would be really fun to watch those two play with Luvnest controlling the infantry and VonIvan controlling vehicles.