Grittiness before the time of WFA

Is it just me, or did the game seem more dark and gritty before WFA was released? I am not saying I dislike the game currently, nothing of the sort. I find the WFA factions to be a very enjoyable part of the game. Even though I personally did not mind when it was focused solely on the Eastern front with winter conditions, I understand why this had to change. Still there is an atmosphere to game that feels like it is no longer there...

So anyway, the game just seems much less dark, much less gritty than it originally was. I remember finding the game to be disturbing at many points (or maybe I'm just numb now?) before WFA was released that I don't really seem to notice as much any more in the current state of the game. Or maybe I'm just growing up. I'm not sure


When I originally played (which was many years ago now) I used to get high all the time after work before I start playing and I was becoming convinced the recordings of people burning to death were live recordings...


tldr game felt a lot more dark and gritty in the past, just an observation

Maybe because of the maps. Back then, we had maps like Stalingrad or Bialyostok Market which were really dark or night themed maps.

Maybe because of the maps. Back then, we had maps like Stalingrad or Bialyostok Market which were really dark or night themed maps.

This is possible.

The brutality of the war seems a bit watered down compared to how it used to be shown in the game tho IMO

Still my favorite rts either way

i agree that the winter scenario really emphasizes the overall feeling of hopelessness and despair that both sides must have felt during the majority of the war. everything blurs into different shades of white and grey and you can almost feel the frostbite numbing your fingers. in contrast, the bright, colorful setting of the WFA theatre looks much less hostile and dreadful. i know ladoga karelia was despised my most of the 1v1 community, mostly for balance reasons, but the visuals of the map captured that grittiness almost perfectly. i also enjoyed the recent master league tournament that featured winter versions of the most popular tourney maps... wish some of these would make it into the live game at some point.

I was convinced they were going to double-down on the Eastern Front because there was so much potential that they hadn't touched. Some of the shit you hear in the vanilla factions is really awful. You also commit a war crime every time you shoot the writhing infantry models btw.

I think for financial reasons they decided to go with WFA because they had many of the assets for the setting already. It might have been already decided before launch (or the planned launch) to "return" to coh1. You'd have to ask a dev.

I think with many ww2 games there is a lot of opportunity to really milk the shit out of the game and coh2 is no exception. There easily could have been late/midwar vs. early war variants of factions. German allies could've been worked into the game as their own faction and a Tales of Valor style mini campaigns for those factions created.

i also enjoyed the recent master league tournament that featured winter versions of the most popular tourney maps... wish some of these would make it into the live game at some point.

there were actually two! I was happy to create the blizzard event for everyone. Idk how popular it was in terms of viewers but it was fun to put on. And ML4 with the non-blizzard winter maps was a real treat, too.

I was convinced they were going to double-down on the Eastern Front because there was so much potential that they hadn't touched. Some of the shit you hear in the vanilla factions is really awful. You also commit a war crime every time you shoot the writhing infantry models btw.

I think for financial reasons they decided to go with WFA because they had many of the assets for the setting already. It might have been already decided before launch (or the planned launch) to "return" to coh1. You'd have to ask a dev.

I think with many ww2 games there is a lot of opportunity to really milk the shit out of the game and coh2 is no exception. There easily could have been late/midwar vs. early war variants of factions. German allies could've been worked into the game as their own faction and a Tales of Valor style mini campaigns for those factions created.

Point being that even Eastern Front had much more potentual then WFA anyway. Staring off from PE like faction (SS in other words) and Guards like soviet faction, ending up with combined army of German allies and Soviet like NKVD faction or something like that.

Real shame is that both Red Army and Wehrmacht respectively had much-MUCH more real life vehicles\reglaments\support weapons which would could have filled multiple different factions.

But most likely because CoH2 orriginally resieved so much shit from russian community, they dicided to back off from EF for their own safety. Or, which is most likely, it was planned from the beggining to bring WFA factions, since most of the games have their DLC roadmap even before the relise.

Actually, who knows, maybe USF was actually planned as a soviet faction, but because of the shitstorm, they quickly turned them into WFA, made few new assets and voice lines. OKW lacks identity anyway, its a generic german faction in a global terms.

there were actually two! I was happy to create the blizzard event for everyone. Idk how popular it was in terms of viewers but it was fun to put on. And ML4 with the non-blizzard winter maps was a real treat, too.

oh yeah, i almost forgot about that one. though i must admit i didn't follow the blizzard event that much, the few games i saw were quite entertaining!

It was more gritty because from a gameplay perspective, the game was more brutal to mirror the theme.

Deep snow sucked to move through, so if you had to you just felt like a sitting duck getting slaughtered. You were fighting the weather via blizzards and frostbites while also fighting your opponent. Ice was everywhere and when it broke it took whatever with it being a squad or a tank.

The WFA seemed like it sort of had an idea what with OKW's backgrounds being fire. Though they probably in the end backed off because clearly OKW was supposed to be the SS Waffen but they probably felt going hard on that would get them in trouble.

The observations of OP are generally very true.

For starters, back then most if not all of maps were Winter themed and those that were not were so full of mud, rain and grit that were kind of worse than winter ones.

I don't really miss it tbh. I like open fields more. Just a preference.

slightly related: was there ever the event in which tanks drove over ice. I can hardly imagine this being historical

slightly related: was there ever the event in which tanks drove over ice. I can hardly imagine this being historical

Well obviously it's no the trivial way to go about driving tanks but I can imagine many many times where units needed to make some kind of difficult or risky maneuver in order to escape/encircle/outsmart the enemy so I do not count that out of the realm of possibility.

Generally, in every war the greatest losses are inflicted by nature or other non-combatant reasons rather than direct combat. I remember reading about the Jagdtigers, those elite tank destroyers that are also in the game for OKW. About 100 of them were ever produced, and about 20 were deployed to the remnants of the western front sometime before 1945. Well, of them only 5 ever arrived on the battlefield and the rest were lost in transit because the train that were to carry them to the frontline did not have proper wagons for their tonnage and it broke under the strain of them, leaving them entirely combat useless and prey for the tankdestroyer planes overhead.

The same thing happened with Tiger A and B, and for a lot of planes aswell which would just get destroyed in their hangars due to poor AntiAir on Germany's part in the later stages of war. Don't even get me started on the early stage UK convoys heading for the North African front carrying artillery cannons, tanks and other light vehicles that never saw 1minute of combat action due to their carriers getting sinked by mines.

All the great battles in history are very rare, that's why we must cherish them. Most of the time, the battles almost never happen for this or that trivial reason (or, of course, for straight up fear on the part of the commanders).

My conclusion from reading all that history is that of course Tanks driving in ice happened, although not because some commander thought it wise but because those kind of maneuvers were needed under the strain of combat. I also expect a lot of tanks to get lost that way.

Not sure if this is directly related, but the game was just better all around before WFA. I can't say that there weren't any balance issues, but it was getting to a good place right before WFA launched

WFA launch was horrendous. I'm sure it was a financial success but the balance was pathetic. It felt like whoever designed them had no care at all for the original factions they would be competing against

As far as the feel of the game goes I also liked the eastern front aesthetic better. WFA had a borderline cartoony feel to it, and I think their design had something to do with it. STs and KTs being stock units (and absurdly broken back then), riflemen being able to take on pretty much anything thanks to smoke, etc. Just didn't feel as real as EFA

Not sure if this is directly related, but the game was just better all around before WFA. I can't say that there weren't any balance issues, but it was getting to a good place right before WFA launched

WFA launch was horrendous. I'm sure it was a financial success but the balance was pathetic. It felt like whoever designed them had no care at all for the original factions they would be competing against

As far as the feel of the game goes I also liked the eastern front aesthetic better. WFA had a borderline cartoony feel to it, and I think their design had something to do with it. STs and KTs being stock units (and absurdly broken back then), riflemen being able to take on pretty much anything thanks to smoke, etc. Just didn't feel as real as EFA

I played the COH2013 mod, and I have to say that I can appreciate the design of the gameplay. One thing that was lost between then and now is how weighty and cumbersome the vehicles felt. You can still feel it in the campaign/ ToW missions as well. The vehicles became pretty light and floaty except for a few exceptions like the KT, ST, JT and Brumm.

I think that the game definitely had a tonal overhaul between EFA and WFA. I would have enjoyed the game more I think if it had kept the depressing tone instead of partially adopting the somewhat loony cartoony style of CoH1.

I think the well-deserved criticism of the CoH2 single-player campaign pushed Sega / Relic to launch the Western Front again, and again we will see the same factions in CoH3, which is already starting to annoy and I’m thinking about not buying the game. Instead of fixing the CoH2 situation with a single player campaign. And release a new single player campaign and focus around small but elaborate events. And the Eastern Front is a huge theater with a huge number of stories that are simply not used. Just a simple example to illustrate. Take the final part of the war Battle of Hungary. This is a huge scope for new Fractions: Hypothetical Guards Army with SU-100, ISU-122, IS-1, IS-2 various T-34 variants: T-34-85, T-34-76 with additional armor, T-60, paratroopers (who were supposed to be used in the landing operation in Hungary), 107-mm mountain mortars, BS-3 100-mm AT gun, and so on. The Hungarian faction which had its own tanks, and the German tanks (Marder, Hetzer, Pz4, Pz.38, Tiger) and the German support of the King Tigers. Hungary was the last major German offensive. Great story, the entire Eastern Front is a huge treasure trove of stories and operations. But it's much easier to make Enemy at the Gates and propaganda nonsense, instead of a detailed and interesting story about the Eastern Front.

I think the well-deserved criticism of the CoH2 single-player campaign pushed Sega / Relic to launch the Western Front again, and again we will see the same factions in CoH3, which is already starting to annoy and I’m thinking about not buying the game. Instead of fixing the CoH2 situation with a single player campaign. And release a new single player campaign and focus around small but elaborate events. And the Eastern Front is a huge theater with a huge number of stories that are simply not used. Just a simple example to illustrate. Take the final part of the war Battle of Hungary. This is a huge scope for new Fractions: Hypothetical Guards Army with SU-100, ISU-122, IS-1, IS-2 various T-34 variants: T-34-85, T-34-76 with additional armor, T-60, paratroopers (who were supposed to be used in the landing operation in Hungary), 107-mm mountain mortars, BS-3 100-mm AT gun, and so on. The Hungarian faction which had its own tanks, and the German tanks (Marder, Hetzer, Pz4, Pz.38, Tiger) and the German support of the King Tigers. Hungary was the last major German offensive. Great story, the entire Eastern Front is a huge treasure trove of stories and operations. But it's much easier to make Enemy at the Gates and propaganda nonsense, instead of a detailed and interesting story about the Eastern Front.

its even surprising we got a third game installation, even if it started off as just coh2 assets in a new engine


italy is probably the most boring theater of europe, and likely the most irrelevant one too, they really could have picked any front and have it be more interesting. At least the grandson of Dr Goebbels, Duffy, who was directly responsible for the worst plotline in a RTS ever, has left relic in 2021

I think the well-deserved criticism of the CoH2 single-player campaign pushed Sega / Relic to launch the Western Front again, and again we will see the same factions in CoH3, which is already starting to annoy and I’m thinking about not buying the game. Instead of fixing the CoH2 situation with a single player campaign. And release a new single player campaign and focus around small but elaborate events. And the Eastern Front is a huge theater with a huge number of stories that are simply not used. Just a simple example to illustrate. Take the final part of the war Battle of Hungary. This is a huge scope for new Fractions: Hypothetical Guards Army with SU-100, ISU-122, IS-1, IS-2 various T-34 variants: T-34-85, T-34-76 with additional armor, T-60, paratroopers (who were supposed to be used in the landing operation in Hungary), 107-mm mountain mortars, BS-3 100-mm AT gun, and so on. The Hungarian faction which had its own tanks, and the German tanks (Marder, Hetzer, Pz4, Pz.38, Tiger) and the German support of the King Tigers. Hungary was the last major German offensive. Great story, the entire Eastern Front is a huge treasure trove of stories and operations. But it's much easier to make Enemy at the Gates and propaganda nonsense, instead of a detailed and interesting story about the Eastern Front.

100% agree.

its even surprising we got a third game installation, even if it started off as just coh2 assets in a new engine


italy is probably the most boring theater of europe, and likely the most irrelevant one too, they really could have picked any front and have it be more interesting. At least the grandson of Dr Goebbels, Duffy, who was directly responsible for the worst plotline in a RTS ever, has left relic in 2021

Duffy was also the one who constantly pushed the truck design of Brits in COH1 (creating huge balancing issues for anyone who remembers) and also was the first one to push that idiotic faction that was UKF.

I hope we see more sensible approaches to asymmetrical balancing.