Strategy in Company of Heroes 2

And don't forget that the incoming new commanders should have new units more appealing than the previous ones to sell well.
So, if nothing changes, we will have more and more powerful units only for the ones who paid for the DLCs.

DLCs should stick to skins, faceplates, singleplayer missions, etc, but never touch ranked multiplayer.

The changes vcoh players demands are not feasible anymore. Time to move, it's too late for Relic, at this point 1 DLC more won't make any difference. Take it or leave it. I had hopes while playing beta, then I just gave up after release when I saw the game was a step backwards, but meh, it's worthless to keep complaining, everything has been said. CoH2 will never be like CoH1 no matter how hard you try, precious feedback has been neglected for too long to keep trying, go back to coh1 or play coh2 till dead. The only thing I'm truly happy about CoH2 is COHEXPERTSSSS on top of the game and this site, since they were the most hated clan in vcoh ironically.

I would recommend putting this in the Scrap Yard while you still have time, and not in the main forums for CoH2 enthusiasts.
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So now people typing why they don't like the current state of the game would be put into Scrap Yard?

Is this site running by China or North Korea?

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On a sidenote I find it kind of odd so many of the CoH2 mods use this site (which is still dedicated to CoH2) as a way to vent their frustrations about the game. If you don't like it walk away please. Stop trying to ruin it for the rest of us.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, just because the site is coh2.org doesn't mean it belongs to the coh2 crowd. The domain for the site was chosen long before the public had even played the game, at that point everyone thought that coh2 was going to be a no brainer transition- an all around improvement to vcoh. Sadly that is not the case, and the thing you need to remember is a lot of these "bashers" built the site which means they have more claim to it than you do regardless of which game they prefer.

Paid DLC is necessary. Paid DLC that affects gameplay is not. The game has no hope of being popular competitively if all commanders aren't available to everyone eventually.

There are so many ways to do it and still make money. You can sell faceplates, unit skins, interface skins, XP boosters. You can sell commanders to those who don't want to grind but have them be unlockable as well at certain levels. You can have a rotating list of new commanders that you can pay to use, and make those commanders free when new ones come out. There are a lot of ways to make money post-release that don't involve locking game-changing units and abilities behind a paywall.

Totally agree man. Finding some way to let everyone get access to all the multiplayer commanders is a big first step in building up a truly competitive CoH 2 scene.

Heck, they could just keep releasing single player/co-op ToW exclusive content/commanders for the people that love those modes to play. The ToW scenarios can be pretty fun so I'm sure there are plenty of people that would keep buying them and/or commanders exclusive to ToW to play with their friends. I wonder if that would generate enough revenue? Then they could continue to release a couple of commanders at a time/rehash old commanders for use in multiplayer.

I've thought about letting people buy the ability to customize their faceplates. Give them a large set of different colors, borders, star patterns and whatnot and then let them put special symbols/decals on from earning X number of wins with each faction or whatever they want to keep achievement chasers going.

Whatever it takes to sell people cool cosmetic stuff without affecting gameplay is welcome in my book if it means that everyone gets access to all the multiplayer commanders.

Another suggestion that I think James Hale had that I really liked was to get the community more involved in designing commanders. More community involvement is always a good thing in my opinion.

On some level I appreciate the commander system for opening up the ways the game can be played,

When commanders are balanced, I don't think there is any issue of pay-to-win. there will never be a time(unless you are mirror matching) that your opponent brings a commander to the fight that you would have had if only you had had the money or weak-will to purchase it. Out the gate, you and your opponent are not operating with the same tools anyway. Also, there will never be a time that somebody brings more than 3 of those tool sets into a battle. Those choices come with opportunity costs. So long as things are balanced, this is not where the problem with dlc commanders lies.

It does disrupt the well crafted way in which commanders functioned in the first game though. In COH2 I'm not aware of ways to steer your opponent into "oh shit" commander options as there were in the first game. There's far less value in holding out to choose a commander after your opponent has made his choice, as there aren't(and shouldn't be) as clear rock-paper-scissors choices regarding commanders. Typically as Russian, you choose your commander after 1 CP. The commander trees are gone, removing some of the in-game decision-making.

Still, that can be considered a trade-off for all of the flexibility that new commanders and abilities can bring to the game.

But they also make the likelihood of future global upgrades less and les likely, either because such upgrade concepts are already incorporated or will be, into a commander, or because new global content is going to be harder and harder to balance with the wide range of commanders, so I agree with inverse, that while I think there are a lot of ways to approach a game of COH2, once you start it you are far more on rails than in the first game.

There are less ways to disrupt your narrative, because your opponent is also mostly on rails, so as long as you don't get crushed, you are going to deal with incoming threats the way your game-plan intends to, and besides, you've already locked yourself in to dealing with those threats a certain way, with your choice of doctrine, and your initial building tech.

Some global upgrades to mix up that linear narrative would be much appreciated, but probably complicated at this point.

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Things to praise about COH2

Plenty of openings for Ostheer(admittedly a few are doctrinal) More openings for Russia than America:

Russia is far more flexible than America was in this regard, at least in unit composition. America did have global upgrade options that could kick in early. Russia has a few of those too, they are just currently no-brainers at their low cost. You can spam 5 conscripts and get molotovs in the first few minutes, so the manpower cost on either baseline troops or the upgrade, should probably go up.

True Sight: Still think its an improvement for gameplay.

No global vet upgrades, which at least gave the Wehrmacht some fuel globals that are lacking in COH2, but at the cost of creating a late-game snowball affect...forcing a design of a weak early game for wehr and an invincible late game.

Fuel costs for Call-ins: This is both a much better idea and a problem though. Its hard to find the right medium between UP and OP. VCOH actually had the same problem anyway, so limited call-ins. COH2 could do that, but I think a better option would be to make an initial call-in buy the current price, but to ramp up the cost of subsequent buys, so that you don't have 6 t34-85s happening in a game. This way you have the benefit of skipping a building, but only an initial benefit. After the first tanks, you should decide whether you want to pay a premium or would rather start investing in infrastructure.

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other negatives about COH2:

I miss the base rush. That has been entirely eliminated from gameplay, partly because of the off-map unit arrivals, partly because of mg coverage. I was going to say that mg coverage should be scaled back and bases should have garrisonable buildings again, but I guess the nature of the unit arrival is really the big reason this tactic is no longer viable in COH2, so garrisonable bases probably wouldn't be a good idea. Base rushes were an exciting way to put pressure on your enemy. It would be great if Relic could figure out a smart way to reward a player for base-rushing in some fashion, without breaking the game. This is probably crazy, but maybe players should have resource caches in their base that hold resources beyond some base level, so that when they are destroyed, all resources above a certain level are lost, and capacity is lowered until a very cheap replacement building is built. Then a no-brainer upgrade for a faction could be some fuel upgrade that raises that capacity without the cache... not that that's a good idea, or that it would ever happen....just thinking out loud. It would obviously penalize somebody who is already taking a risk by saving up for the expensive impact tank over somebody who is buying every chance he gets, so that's bad.

Tank Spam : this just didn't happen much in VCOH. I do actually like me a few more tanks on the field. It was rare that you saw a few shermans in VCOH, but in COH2, 4 or 5 tanks on both sides is relatively common. I wouldn't mind that as a way that games could evolve, but they evolve that way a lot. I've seen plenty of games , where people have as many tanks as infantry units.

I wonder if this is just a function of no global upgrades to make infantry more powerful into the late-game, but I don't know that I really want units to wade through tank fire either, or become invincible to small arms fire the way they used to be, and the way vet made grens in VCOH.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, just because the site is coh2.org doesn't mean it belongs to the coh2 crowd. The domain for the site was chosen long before the public had even played the game, at that point everyone thought that coh2 was going to be a no brainer transition- an all around improvement to vcoh. Sadly that is not the case, and the thing you need to remember is a lot of these "bashers" built the site which means they have more claim to it than you do regardless of which game they prefer.

C'mon man why do you always have to be so hostile. I haven't heard any of us CoH 2 fanboys say that you guys should abandon the site or anything. Just the constant hostility from certain vCoH guys (most specifically you) gets tiresome. We've heard the arguments, and at least Inverse can express them in an intelligent/mannered fashion. We understand the arguments and at the end of the day it comes down to opinion. There's no way to subjectively prove that one game is better than the other. We just want some respite from the vCoH guys constantly bashing CoH 2. It'd be pretty easy for both communities to exist in tandem, and to benefit from each other all on this site - which ultimately would be a huge boon for coh2.org as a whole.

Just give it a rest...

Yeah an increase in the number of global upgrades, at least on the Soviet side of the spectrum would be awesome, I think. I'm the type of player/gamer that always supports increased player choice because the more times you have to make an important choice in a single game, the more chances there are for your skill as a player to shine.

Another issue I see with the commanders is that after a certain point (and I honestly think we're almost to that point) there will simply be too many commanders for them to ever be balanced or competitively operational. Sure we could start having tournaments limit things to the commanders we have right now today, but then practicing becomes tedious where you constantly have to organize scrims and can't ever automatch/ladder for practice.

So while the current commander system is pretty cool, I don't think it is necessarily sustainable. I believe we're getting to the point in CoH 2 lifespan (or will be there soon) when we need to find other ways of adding/increasing depth and content. And this is where vCoH veterans could really help CoH 2 and the CoH 2 community. vCoH did a lot of things right and applying some of those aspects to make CoH 2 better (one example being more global upgrades) would be amazing, I think. And this is where the developers and us CoH 2 enthusiasts should look to you guys.

I don't see why CoH 2 commander system + vCoH global upgrade system couldn't somehow combine to make an amazingly deep/skillful game.

Load up the COH Steam Version (if you're so lucky to get it working) and see the depth of a match of Wehr vs American. I think that is what most people long for. After like 8 years, it's still exhilarating to a point unmatched in COH2. It's night and day. It's also, imo, night and day compared to a match between VCoH factions and the awful TOV factions.

It's NOT a coincidence that the team that designed the Brits, PE, and this game created 4 factions that are all, for lack of a better word, bland. I think I've stated this a long time ago around when game came out and many people were about to get a big let down, but it's very difficult to pinpoint the source of the problem because at the very core, the game has an extremely weak foundation. And the people who built the foundation or have access to fix it don't have the capability to fix it. Is it playable or serviceable product? Sure. Is it anything more? Doubtful. Is it going to be anything more? Doubtful. The problem is that this product has a "premium" label with Relic/COH (although that is now in speculation after the THQ/Sega pass-around and staff reshuffle). Many of us were completely suckered in to this vortex.

I went to the store and saw some knives on sale for $1.00 (a 4 pack) so I bought them. "Hey 4 knives for a dollar!" I opened the pack and one was already bent, the handle of the knives were cheap plastic, and the blades themselves were wafer-thin. Now, I didn't expect much because they were a dollar, didn't ask for more money in order to function, and weren't slapped with a Ginsu label. Still with me? That is the problem with COH2.

We've heard the arguments, and at least Inverse can express them in an intelligent/mannered fashion. We understand the arguments and at the end of the day it comes down to opinion. There's no way to subjectively prove that one game is better than the other. We just want some respite from the vCoH guys constantly bashing CoH 2. It'd be pretty easy for both communities to exist in tandem, and to benefit from each other all on this site - which ultimately would be a huge boon for coh2.org as a whole.

Just give it a rest...

All my criticisms of CoH2 gameplay have been very constructive, the only things I've "bashed" about it was the outrageous pricing for the DLC content and the terribad optimization.

http://www.coh2.org/topic/9783/semoiskiy-%3D%3D-semois
http://www.coh2.org/topic/7525/semois-bushes-for-eagleheart
http://www.coh2.org/topic/8240/very-few-cost-effective-counters-to-upgraded-grens
http://www.coh2.org/topic/7389/main-reason-coh2-less-competitive-than-original
http://www.coh2.org/topic/4076/additional-coh2-improvements
http://www.coh2.org/topic/3075/blizzards-don-t-add-strategic-depth
http://www.coh2.org/topic/2341/my-2%C2%A2-on-beta

I haven't heard any of us CoH 2 fanboys say that you guys should abandon the site or anything. Just the constant hostility from certain vCoH guys (most specifically you) gets tiresome.

I've seen several times people saying anyone on staff shouldn't voice any bad opinions about the game and should step down for new people if they don't like coh2....I didn't say you said that, but other people have multiple times.

I don't have problems with moderators having issues with the game. They are there to moderate, not be Relic auxiliaries.

Relic seems interested in mitigating this to a certain extent with purchasable commanders. The recently added commander that allows for a version of purchasable veterancy is one that comes to mind immediately. This is, in my opinion, a poor way to fix problems that exist in the core game. I shouldn't have to pay money in order to have access to general strategic options, or in order to fix deficiencies in the game I already paid full price for.

The most funny Thing are the tank traps.They are locked in a dlc commander.HELLO?I MEAN TANK TRAPS!10000s of Thing that should b part of the non doctrinal game like tank traps and many more Thing are locked in a dlc commander.COH2 design is a comlete fail with thi endless commander spam by relic.

I've seen several times people saying anyone on staff shouldn't voice any bad opinions about the game and should step down for new people if they don't like coh2....I didn't say you said that, but other people have multiple times.

Staff here? Heh, I don't think so. No one told me about that, anyway.

If anyone here knows me from RN then they'll know I've been very critical of certain aspects of the game, and particularly the design of the Tiger Ace and modders being locked out with no explanation, apology or word on when it'll be re-enabled.

Relic have made some schoolboy errors on the communication and accountability side of things, and I frequently let Noun know my feelings on this subject.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to criticise an aspect of the game (or Relic) then you may do so, so long as it's a structured argument and polite, as Inverse's seems to be.

No one's going to be censored unless they're intent on being a dick about how they express their opinions.

I agree that making DLC commanders free for everyone would be a great step in the right direction if Relic decided to do this. The game would never get stale and this would encourage more people to stick with the game. Relic can make money elsewhere through skins and xp boosts etc. They would also make more in the long run as more people and more people would buy the game. Currently if games even have a hint of pay-to-win it puts off potential new players entirely.

One of my primary concerns about coh2 is that Relic didn't include features that were excellent in vcoh for what reason god only knows why. Such things off the top of my head include no in-game leaderboads, a proper chat room, lobbies and vcoh sandbags and mines.

Staff here? Heh, I don't think so. No one told me about that, anyway.

You misunderstood me. Some non staffers have this attitude that nobody on staff should voice criticism of the game and should leave if they don't love coh2.

You can love CoH2 and voice critisism at the same time. We all know CoH2's flaws, it would be stupid to ignore them.

What bugs me the most however, is that Relic's work isn't appreciated ( or not shown to be honest.) I played since the beta of CoH2 and along with some rubbish marketing decisions, Relic implemented a lot of stuff to make the game better. Imagine if you were a Relic employee. Working your ass off and when browsing community fora, seeing that your game is being bashed upon. Hell yeah we should point out their mistakes and flaws, but at least realise that Relic's work since the release isn't all moneygrabbing P2W shennanigans.

It speaks of great passion that a community is angry because of the state of the game at any time and that's good. But respect everybody who tries to make the game better and understand that CoH2 is very young. The state of vCoH after 6months of release wasn't all that good either. We have been spoiled with vCoH and expected much of CoH2. We had to wait several years for vCoH to be what we wanted it to be. The least we can do is give Relic and everybody involved with the progress of CoH2 some time.

I'm happy that this thread is reasonable and respectfull towards everybody, I hope it stays that way...

cheers !

So Inverse hasn't played coh2 in god know show long, but I've read this on so many threads at this point I don't understand why he's even participating on these forums anymore?

You can love CoH2 and voice critisism at the same time. We all know CoH2's flaws, it would be stupid to ignore them.

What bugs me the most however, is that Relic's work isn't appreciated ( or not shown to be honest.) I played since the beta of CoH2 and along with some rubbish marketing decisions, Relic implemented a lot of stuff to make the game better. Imagine if you were a Relic employee. Working your ass off and when browsing community fora, seeing that your game is being bashed upon. Hell yeah we should point out their mistakes and flaws, but at least realise that Relic's work since the release isn't all moneygrabbing P2W shennanigans.

It speaks of great passion that a community is angry because of the state of the game at any time and that's good. But respect everybody who tries to make the game better and understand that CoH2 is very young. The state of vCoH after 6months of release wasn't all that good either. We have been spoiled with vCoH and expected much of CoH2. We had to wait several years for vCoH to be what we wanted it to be. The least we can do is give Relic and everybody involved with the progress of CoH2 some time.

I'm happy that this thread is reasonable and respectfull towards everybody, I hope it stays that way...

cheers !

+1 good post. I think another thing that annoys me, and possibly others isn't necessarily the criticism itself - because a certain level of that is warranted. Rather it is the seemingly incessant vCoH >>>>>>>>>>>>> CoH 2 stuff that is annoying. Feel free to constructively criticize the game in an attempt to make it better but putting in the shoutbox "LOL vCOH IS BETTUR BCUZ IT HAS MORE STREAMZ THAN cOH2" is just ridiculous.

Also @Inverse and anyone else that hasn't played CoH 2 since the beta/early release. I really think you guys should give the game a shot again. As I mentioned earlier I took a break from the game shortly after release because of the state of the game and the massive imbalances which directly resulted in a stale meta game. Things have improved significantly since then. Better maps, better commanders, more balanced units, better tech timings, buildings, input delay, pretty much everything has been improved and the meta game has evolved. The game is very fun now.