Why don't you take part in tournaments?

The ladder needs to be equally competitive as your tournaments. If the ladder is in bad shape (aka DLC) then tournaments are not appealing.

More importantly, what is a "base commander," you're assuming that the ones released with the game originally are completely balanced against one another. Maybe that's the case, but what about core often-used commanders like Assault Support (remember getting to level 40 and being excited you could get a Tiger?) that no one considers OP currently?

The only way to fix it is for Relic to say, ok, we're going to carefully balance 6 commanders against one another, these are for tournaments and other competitive play.

And then you split the actual playing community rather than just the surly members of COH2.org.

* sigh *

This all comes back to lobbies. Let the 733t have their automatch and let the rest of us have our custom games.

For fuck's sake, that's 70% of the problem solved right there.

Noun, why not? an answer, please, I beg you.

Also Noun, plz fix Twitch

This all comes back to lobbies. Let the 733t have their automatch and let the rest of us have our custom games.

I like the idea, but I see a bumper....
First, by removing them from ladder games, you erode the business model or the target group for the commanders. That hurts.
Then, once that step would be taken, there comes the understandable call: Hey, can we plz have lobby games without DLC commanders?
I guess you really have to balance them (doubt it) or remove them (more doubt).

But once you ever entered that path, down the DLC commander path, is there a way back? I would love to see an answer to that that suits players and short term profits.

1) How would he know the small details of a tournament, he's stopped playing the game.
2) He said "ladder and tournament".
3) Who cares if he got them for free somewhere in the tournament, he'd never have trained with them before.

Trying to paint Sepha as a hypocrite is like the pot calling the kettle black, only to realize the kettle is so brilliantly polished he's actually looking in a mirror.

I'm not trying to paint anyone as anything. Sepha was, I believe, involved in the discussion of rules for SNF. Even if he wasn't I'm more interested in knowing what his view would be going forward.

I'm not interested in an argument, just information. If you want an argument go ahead but it'll be one sided.

I don't mostly because I suck.

So would you participate in a tournament where only the base commanders were used?

For SNF we locked the Commander options to those already released and then gave the Commanders free to everyone who won in the first round so that everyone had the same options without buying them. That didn't get you to play.

Because I don't play just for tournaments, I love to play ladder mode and having a healthy competitive ladder that doesn't have DLC is imperative to having competitive tournaments. If I don't play ladder because I don't like playing vs or with DLC, I'm not playing the game and if I'm not playing the game I'm not practising and if I'm not practising I have no interest in playing (or viewing) tournaments.

This is also how you can explain low viewer numbers, the amount of people looking to learn something by watching competitive matches is lowered because they themselves are in the fray of a bad ladder system and not the 'all free commanders' system they are viewing on SNF. They don't have those commanders, so why on earth would they watch SNF or any tournament that has free commanders for that matter?

* sigh *

This all comes back to lobbies. Let the 733t have their automatch and let the rest of us have our custom games.

For fuck's sake, that's 70% of the problem solved right there.

Noun, why not? an answer, please, I beg you.

Ignored....don't ya love it!

When it all comes down to it I remember the view that Quinn Duffy told me in person which was that he wanted every player, casual or competitive to experience the full aspect of CoH2. While this statement alone does hold it's own value, it's simply not working. There's a place for bulletins in the game, there is a place for DLC in the game, but it's not in competitive ladder auto-match or tournaments.

I also reiterate that if Relic's focus isn't on the competitive scene then they can simply go the way that they are heading now and make money from it. But if effort won't be put into the competitive scene that we have requested and given feedback on, then these are the repercussions of that. Whether it's enough to put enough of a dent in the wallet or reputation of Relic to spur them to put more resources into improving this situation, I guess we'll see.

I don't have faith, I don't need faith. I have expectations of entertainment I want a game to provide to me when I play it, and if CoH2 doesn't fulfil them, I just won't play it until it does.

If you want to keep the DLC system in the game and retain the competitive aspect of it. Make ladder mode free of DLC and bulletins, use fixed positions and put effort into making a commander system in the competitive ladder that is similar to CoH1 with feedback from the community.

Then, also have a casual mode with no ratings where all DLC and bulletins can be used and any map too. I believe a lot of competitive games are doing similar things to this suggestion recently.

If you want to keep the DLC system in the game and retain the competitive aspect of it. Make ladder mode free of DLC and bulletins, use fixed positions and put effort into making a commander system in the competitive ladder that is similar to CoH1 with feedback from the community.

That could work if there are lobbies in the game. If the commanders are removed from ladders then a lot of people who paid for the commanders will be livid, because then there is no way to play other than custom matches with friends only, which takes the satisfaction out. If there are lobbies, players can play against other players as much as they want at least.

The DLC commanders would be no problem at all if they had been unlockable by playing at all... I really don't get why this wasn't considered when this "buy DLC" system was introduced.

The DLC commanders would be no problem at all if they had been unlockable by playing at all... I really don't get why this wasn't considered when this "buy DLC" system was introduced.

That was what we were made to believe before the game was released. That the commanders, though affordable via DLC, could be unlocked as bulletins are.

Even if he wasn't I'm more interested in knowing what his view would be going forward.

I'm not interested in an argument, just information. If you want an argument go ahead but it'll be one sided.

That's cool to hear, I just took offence when it seemed like you were calling BS on Sephas feedback.

That said, you don't come across as 100% genuine here. I mean, everybody was able to point out that, obviously, contestants in tournaments need to be able to train with all usable commanders.
When you don't argue from a common sense point of view, when you come across as wilfully ignorant, people get the feeling that you're arguing for arguments sake. That brews toxicity.

I'm not fishing for an argument here, I am just trying to give you some feedback on toes you are tap-dancing upon.

I'm the total newbie 5 online games or so under my belt ... no wins.
(okay one because everyone else dropped)
I would not participate in a tournament ... I'd want to feel that I have a chance at winning some games in it and time constraints would play a huge factor.
I can't talk about balance other than I play Russians and once the German armour hits the field it seems to get lop sided for me at my skill level. I also play the game as purchased without DLC. I like that you get rewarded with experience and get some skins and some commanders. I do not see myself ever spending more on the game other than adding in additional armies if that became available. In fact that would probably be a major factor for making tournaments more interesting ... adding the other factions ... British, American, French, Italian etc...
I love the game but it's just 2 armies with little variation.

I have time. But its still hard to play at the hours the tournaments are done. Although I participated in some.
The fact that there is a lack of people participating is big too. For example in the last tourney I played my first match was against a complete noob and then I get against The winner of SNF5, a big jump in skill cap don`t you think?
Also the current state of the game is, I can`t say its bad, but its just too boring, I mean playing against the same strat in every game is lame. Although I understand that`s how it is in RTS it is just lame. I mean in VCoH yes you were building the same units in every game but, the time you needed them or the so called build order was somehow different in each game. In CoH2 there is nothing like that, no matter what, you just go "X" unit, "X", "X", "Y", "E", "Y" ----> Victory/Defeat.
Also it`s has nothing to do with tourneys but the "silence" of Relic in General, with no announcements or sneak peaks to what is coming to the game is kinda discouraging and gives the impression that even Relic gave up on making the game better.
I mean seriously patch notes are coming out few hours before patch. No screenshots of new units while they are in beta, no sneak peaks videos of the new maps. Yes, they happen, few hours before patch, but that`s lame. I mean seriously guys do you really believe we will be interested in playing when you sit for months in silence and then suddenly you pop out with 3 different threads "Hey, guys we just woke up from our routine sleep at the office, how were you doing for the past few months?"
You seriously should be MORE active than that. Even the company that I work for is considered silent, but we show up more times in a week than you in 3 months.....

The answers to most of the problems, especially in tournaments seem obvious to me.

First is the ladder - I suggest that a seperate automatch queue, which disallows paid commanders and bulletins be implemented. This is considered the "official ladder" and Relic can source top players for high level tournaments for this, it can be used as a yardstick or a measure of a players skill too if necessary.

Second, tournaments - It's all very well supporting community tournies, but we need some official ingame tournaments based on the above. Warcraft 3 did this - players signed up, automatched against a tournament pool and had their stats counted. It can be run in rounds online, through the game. Everyone would benefit from this - you can even take BeltFed's suggestions and implement them, disallowing certain commanders or having a specific map pool. I don't know about the limitations on something like this, but it would be great.

Finally, the game really, really, REALLY needs a custom lobby, ala DOW2:Retribution or the Relic Online version of COH1. People like to screw around vs computers in games they control, people like silly stacked odds and bulletins. The latest patch shows you still care about this audience - hell you fixed a lot of the ridiculous features of the AI. Just take this final step and COH2 will look after itself.

As a side note: Finally, as a person primarily interested in COH2's single-player, where is the rest of the TOW content? I feel like we've stalled at 1943. There's so many incredible battles, including that famous tank battle the name of which constantly escapes me that need to be implemented. The game still screams unfinished to me, not only because of the lack of the custom lobby but because of things like this. The setting is not being used to its maximum - I feel Relic is running scared since the whole Russia hates COH2 thing.

I've gotten over my anger about commanders, but I definately think some of them need a revisit and rebalance (I'm referring to the first round of paid DLC commanders that collectors got). I wouldn't mind those being released for free to everyone once the rebalance is done too.