Commander Update Beta 2021 - Ostheer Feedback

LoL developers have a different opinion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpBh9UMOvlU

Imagine using Riot as a positive example, especially if you're assuming they're not completely bullshitting.

Completely substanceless PR video, my point still stands.

Edit: didn't notice elchino just posted the exact same thing

Point here is one can choose at what level one wants to balance a game.

In addition argument that that the game should be balanced only for top player does not really make sense for a number of reason:

1) 90% of commanders would never be balanced because they are not used by top players
2) game would be balanced only 1vs1 since the majority of tournament where stat exist are 1vs1

Deciding at what level one want to balance the game is simply choice so the word "impossible" does not really fit this case.

LoL developers have a different opinion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpBh9UMOvlU

Are you really buying that? it's similar to Pepsi saying that their product tastes better than others. It's just plain PR. If you really take Riot seriously for balance issues, then you have kind of lost all forum credibility.

Balance Team probably the worst thing to happen to the game honestly. The game isn't any more balanced than when they started and if anything it is more imbalanced than before due to power creep.

Now lets create a fake scenario as an example. Take a theoretical situation where Pioneers are under performing vs Combat Engineers. People complain, balance team will go and create a 5th Squad Member upgrade, give it like 100% accuracy at all ranges, Pioneer spam then becomes meta then they get nerfed into a worse position than what they were previously. Instead of saying ok, lets give Pioneers 10% accuracy bonus vs Combat Engineers only, then tweak/modify from there until its balanced.

Good Example of this was Rifleman vs Volks. Rifleman were fine vs Grenadiers but struggled vs OKW, rather than buff the unit against Volksgrenadiers only, they fixed the Volksgrenadier issue only to make Rifleman overperform vs Grenadiers creating another balance issue in the process.


There are 5 factions in the game so any change to one thing could have a profound effect on how that interacts with numerous other units. This is why they need to stop doing generic changes that effects how units interact with every other unit in the game and go for a more surgical approach. Think of it like a ripple effect in a pond. Rather than do generic changes that are very specific to what the issue is, they do massive sweeping generic changes.

Look at UKF for example. Pre-Nerf Infantry Sections only needed some tweaks, mostly in the form of doing less damage vs MGs. (All LMGs should have a damage penalty vs Heavy Machine Guns to prevent frontal attack move assaults but that is another topic) Being able to get Double Bren then Max Range demolish MGs was the main problem as you had no way to control blobbing. Instead of fixing that, Infantry Sections went through a balance loop of endless nerf after nerf until they became so garbage that they had to introduce Raid Sections into the game which will further upset balance even more.

Raid Sections wouldn't be needed if Infantry Sections weren't gutted into the ground but here we are. In a month something else will be considered OP and then nerfed into the ground and the never ending cycle continues since they don't address problems in a way that actually fixes things permanently.

This is why I think CoH2 suffers from not having an Infantry Type system like CoH1 did.

CoH2 is intentionally balanced without any special rules or exceptions because they learned their lesson from CoH1. CoH1 had special rules for everything, so many of them I doubt anyone knows them all or even half of 'em. In CoH1 you had things like British Infantry are extremely weak against fire but resistant to bullets or Panzer Grenadiers can stand up to Riflemen but lose to Combat Engineers but Riflemen are stronger than Combat Engineers. The overuse of Target Tables also occasionally lead to strange bugs like Tiger Tanks being unable to penetrate Allied Jeeps or M3 Half-Tracks being completely resistant to Tellermines.

As much as it is silly, it's a more effective way of tweaking the way that units interact with each other without causing as many imbalances between all the other factions because of it.

I think that the only really unfortunate thing about it was that it was arcane (examples like you mentioned where Tigers dont penetrate allied Jeeps) and completely unknown to the end user. It should have been communicated somehow. If there was a way for the average player to know all this information within the game, then I think it would have been much better.

I'm not in the balance team.




I don't think this justifies your claim about ...

This is the most coherent post I've ever seen in this cesspool of a forum.

You've raised the bar. Thank you.

I found the following video much more informative about game balance:



TL;DR, games can't be balanced by looking at stats alone.

1) 90% of commanders would never be balanced because they are not used by top players

That doesn't make even the vaguest amount of sense. The idea would be that the Balans team would improve that "90%" of commanders, so that top players would use them.

2) game would be balanced only 1vs1 since the majority of tournament where stat exist are 1vs1

This is because 1v1 is

A: The easiest mode to balance

B: Already the most "balanced" mode

Top players might play 2v2/3v3/4v4(The latter two rarely) if they were better balanced, which would then mean tournaments might involve teammodes. Balancing them around plebs means that they will /never/ be used in tournaments (Barring the rare 2v2 tournament)

They are lying to your face and you are buying that lie. PR words coming from the team who has "200+ collective years of professional game design experience"

Don't judge them by what they say but by what they do.



As far as the cammo change goes, i think it's simple a band aid with not too much thought or time put behind it.

Well hopefully everyone can calm down about this. Any chance you guys will update the beta one last time? Would be nice for sure!

that is why i suggest remove pre-made commanders and let everyone pick and choose their abilities

https://www.coh2.org/topic/108236/suggest-to-remove-pre-made-commanders

i dont know about forcing pre-made commander diversity by nerfing the popular ones. players should have the choice of play style

that is why i suggest remove pre-made commanders and let everyone pick and choose their abilities

https://www.coh2.org/topic/108236/suggest-to-remove-pre-made-commanders

i dont know about forcing pre-made commander diversity by nerfing the popular ones. players should have the choice of play style

Gates of Hell is going to have custom doctrines from what I read somewhere but it'd be considered too OP here because this is a more competitive game, or something.

that is why i suggest remove pre-made commanders and let everyone pick and choose their abilities

https://www.coh2.org/topic/108236/suggest-to-remove-pre-made-commanders

i dont know about forcing pre-made commander diversity by nerfing the popular ones. players should have the choice of play style

They originally had it planned but because it would interfere with DLC income it was scrapped.

They originally had it planned but because it would interfere with DLC income it was scrapped.

I have actually test it (still have that version of the game in PC) and the decision to scrap it had to do with more thing than just DLC.

I have actually test it (still have that version of the game in PC) and the decision to scrap it had to do with more thing than just DLC.

Um that sounds OP af

I think It would be fine if they had a CP limit. For example you could only get 10 CP worth of stuff and each ability had a CP amount based on its worth.

It just sometimes feels likes the community dev team hijack the balance of the game to fit their own views and needs, because of what Sander said about not elaborating and explaining why this is that and so is so.

1. Ok, this may very well be happening to a certain degree. It would be very surprising if someone who is put in a decision making position doesn't in some way impose his own convictions when making said decisions. Especially when there is no objectively correct solution as is the case with game design which at the end of the day is largely subjective. But what your argument comes down to is that your own ideas should be applied instead. You can make that argument when arguing the matter itself (e.g. explain why your ideas are better) but you can't base a critique of the balance team's methodology on it.

2. This runs the risk of sounding elitist and douchey but PLEASE actually consider this point: You say you think the balance could be better balanced. The "problem" is you play this game in lobby games/vs AI. (which is perfectly fine in itself of course) This means you live in a completely different world from people who play this game competitively. Casual games are fundamentally different from "competitive" games. To a competitive player playing a casual player feels like playing a bot that is making fairly random moves that don't make any sense. How is one supposed to derive any conclusions about unit strength from this kind of "just for fun" gameplay? And this isn't a matter of execution, it's a matter of lacking theoretical knowledge about how to use units in order to win. There's people who aren't good at the game in terms of execution but have enough theoretical insight because they used to play on a high level or have done a lot of reflection on the games they've spectated.

This is often considered a personal attack aimed towards casual players but it really isn't supposed to be. I'm part of the casual group in every game except coh2. It would be absurd if I berated a league of legends pro about LoL balance. I don't even know on a theoretical level how to use champions properly. How am I supposed to determine whether something is strong or weak. ? Even in coh2 i went through periods where I was just messing around with friends doing fun shit ingame or didn't play at all and during these times I had no insight into balance topics either and wouldn't have been qualified to comment. You have to actually know what's going on ingame to comment on it. I'd honestly like to know if you see this point at all or do you vehemently disagree? If yes why?

3. Most of the things you're suggesting are CLEARLY not within the scope of what the balance team is allowed to do. Arguing about modability etc. in this context is just pointless.

So im not sure whats up with these steady nerfs to things people dont even complain about.

Anything that threatens the current spam meta will get nerfed. Not sure what game the balance team is playing but Company of Heroes has always been about combined arms yet they nerf combined arms into the ground. Guess balance team does not want people to use combined arms in game since it seems like the direction they want to take balance is to spam more things and Attack Move to victory with zero strategy. Also the balance team lacks focus and direction. They change things for the sake of change even if no one complains about it. Making the game worse one patch at a time.

Completely substanceless PR video, my point still stands.

Edit: didn't notice elchino just posted the exact same thing

While I agree League of Legends is not Company of Heroes 2 the methodology behind the way Riot balances games makes more sense than what the balance team does. They take into account all skill factors from the competitive top tier levels of play and make adjustments. The Balance Team balances only based on what is used in top tier levels of play which will alienate a majority of the player base as is what the current balance team is doing. Most of the casual people I know who play the game have stopped playing because they feel like the balance team is biased and I agree with them to an extent.

Case in point that one patch where Jaeger Light Infantry Demolished everything and there was a giant uproar over JLI. That was a product of the balance team. Actions like that are not forgotten and cause people to question anything they do.

Just going to repeat my idea of making Ambush Camo and G43s exclusive with each other. This would have no impact on the other (less popular) commanders with Ambush Camo, but would force players to give something up for the camo snare in this (too popular) commander.

Look, I just don't understand the whole idea of reducing the camo to a measly extra 10 meters without being seen. How useful is that actually? For LMG grenadiers, its counter productive, you don't *want* squads to get that close to you before you open fire. Why would you want to? So you have lower DPS and drop models quicker? There's no point. But for G43, it's not nearly enough. You can't get off a cheeky nade nor do they move into your highest DPS range before you're revealed.

I just don't understand the idea behind it. It makes more sense when the balance notes say that it's because grenadiers are so readily available, but for this sprint/snare combo that everyone is talking about, the change does nothing.

1. Ok, this may very well be happening to a certain degree. It would be very surprising if someone who is put in a decision making position doesn't in some way impose his own convictions when making said decisions. Especially when there is no objectively correct solution as is the case with game design which at the end of the day is largely subjective. But what your argument comes down to is that your own ideas should be applied instead. You can make that argument when arguing the matter itself (e.g. explain why your ideas are better) but you can't base a critique of the balance team's methodology on it.

2. This runs the risk of sounding elitist and douchey but PLEASE actually consider this point: You say you think the balance could be better balanced. The "problem" is you play this game in lobby games/vs AI. (which is perfectly fine in itself of course) This means you live in a completely different world from people who play this game competitively. Casual games are fundamentally different from "competitive" games. To a competitive player playing a casual player feels like playing a bot that is making fairly random moves that don't make any sense. How is one supposed to derive any conclusions about unit strength from this kind of "just for fun" gameplay? And this isn't a matter of execution, it's a matter of lacking theoretical knowledge about how to use units in order to win. There's people who aren't good at the game in terms of execution but have enough theoretical insight because they used to play on a high level or have done a lot of reflection on the games they've spectated.

This is often considered a personal attack aimed towards casual players but it really isn't supposed to be. I'm part of the casual group in every game except coh2. It would be absurd if I berated a league of legends pro about LoL balance. I don't even know on a theoretical level how to use champions properly. How am I supposed to determine whether something is strong or weak. ? Even in coh2 i went through periods where I was just messing around with friends doing fun shit ingame or didn't play at all and during these times I had no insight into balance topics either and wouldn't have been qualified to comment. You have to actually know what's going on ingame to comment on it. I'd honestly like to know if you see this point at all or do you vehemently disagree? If yes why?

3. Most of the things you're suggesting are CLEARLY not within the scope of what the balance team is allowed to do. Arguing about modability etc. in this context is just pointless.

I don't see how I'm arguing for my ideas to be applied instead of anybody else's but okay.

What I'm requesting is the community dev team instead of doing what Sander said about not elaborating on decisions regarding the balance and design of the game that they are making like good little politicians be made more public and transparent. Never did I say that I should be put in charge or have them go out of their way to ask every single individual playing the game for their opinions about the balance and design of the game so I have no idea where you got that notion from.

And yeah, I'm a casual player and I admit it. So?

But unlike certain trolls that have no other reason to live than to constantly argue about a game that they don't even have installed and claim they're on an endless vacation from work I have been playing CoH since 2006 and was also competitive in team games with the Panzer Elite back in my middle school days and also sometimes play in PvP team games in CoH2 as well. The reason why I don't bother with it most of the time is because of the constant toxicity and elitism spreading through the competitive scene and ranks. Even when we were winning in my competitive days somebody thought they were superior to the rest of us and wanted to boss us around and "teach" us to play the game and if didn't do what they wanted they started team killing our bases or insulting us constantly or pinging the map every 2 seconds to try and annoy us.

If you want you can also go through my post history to see that I have almost never argued about balance, only about some design decisions and suggestions like the USF base, OKW trucks, 25 pounder emplacement, Sturmtiger and so on and so forth.

However I will just say that the majority of the player base is part of the casual community and not the competitive one. And so while yes balance should be centered around the more "proven" so to speak players entirely ignoring the rest of the community or nerfing/removing fun things that have nothing to do with the competitive scene or aren't such a big gripe as well as adding unfun things and mechanics makes no sense and is actually hurting the game because as I said, people have less initiative to actually play then when they know it's all about the competitive scene and the guy that just wants to come back from a long day at work and relax by playing a few matches is forgotten about.

Lastly again, what is the scope exactly? Sander said the USF base redesign was suggested several times, I'm guessing during the previous update that touched on the core Armies and was rejected, the 25 pounder which could have been part of a doctrine to help out the British now part of this update was as well.

So we again reach to the conclusion that the scope is more like used as an excuse not to give a proper explanation on why something was done or wasn't instead of an objective thing that can be argued about.