The elephant(s) in the room

i am attacking both you and your arguments because you have no knowledge of what youre trying to complain about. you say that youre unable to comment on the balance of the game, but that is exactly what youre attempting to do when complaining about pay to win.

pay to win implies the paid content gives you a distinct advantage over non paid commanders. how can you claim such a thing if you dont play? you also really havent made a case for them being pay to win. you simply linked the steam store and said "i would argue that this is pay to win". extra options is not pay to win. if you would like to claim it is, why dont you give me a specific example from the game?

i am attacking both you and your arguments because you have no knowledge of what youre trying to complain about. you say that youre unable to comment on the balance of the game, but that is exactly what youre attempting to do when complaining about pay to win.

pay to win implies the paid content gives you a distinct advantage over non paid commanders. how can you claim such a thing if you dont play? you also really havent made a case for them being pay to win. you simply linked the steam store and said "i would argue that this is pay to win". extra options is not pay to win. if you would like to claim it is, why dont you give me a specific example from the game?

Will an analogy work?

Say we have a FPS-game where there are two groups of people, one which has paid more than the others called premiums.

The non-premiums have access access to two weapons, one which is a sniper-rifle, another which is a SMG. Premiums have access to these, and everything in between - shotguns, assault rifles, semi-automatic rifles, what have you.

In this case, everyone has agreed (including the players, premium and non-premium) that the weapons are balanced. Would you consider the availability of the alternatives to the premiums to be fair? This is a somewhat different question than "are they balanced?".

It doesn't really have to be a super-distinct advantage and I have argued that variety in itself is an advantage.

if the weapons are balanced, yes that is fair. to be honest, this reminds me of a little kid who doesnt get his way and says "but thats not fair!" if things are balanced, its not pay to win and i see no problem with a dev charging money for extra content.

going off your example, look at battlefield 4. expansion packs add extra guns that are balanced for the most part. non premium players dont have those exact guns though, even if they have similar options. premium guns have a unique combination of scatter, rate of fire, recoil, etc. is that pay to win in your mind? again, im going to have it say its not. if you want more guns, buy them. if you dont, stick with the standard guns and you will be just fine.

if the weapons are balanced, yes that is fair. to be honest, this reminds me of a little kid who doesnt get his way and says "but thats not fair!" if things are balanced, its not pay to win and i see no problem with a dev charging money for extra content.

going off your example, look at battlefield 4. expansion packs add extra guns that are balanced for the most part. non premium players dont have those exact guns though, even if they have similar options. premium guns have a unique combination of scatter, rate of fire, recoil, etc. is that pay to win in your mind? again, im going to have it say its not. if you want more guns, buy them. if you dont, stick with the standard guns and you will be just fine.

To a certain extent, yes. It is pay to win. Perhaps I'm a god while using an AS VAL, but utterly shit with everything else while the opposite is the case for you.

You forgot to mention that there are also some unique gadgets available to people who own the DLCs.

The point is the fact that certain weapons/generals/tactics/classes (or what have you) lend themselves to certain players. Imagine TF2 before the unlocks came pouring in. Imagine if you had to purchase classes. I'm a pretty good spy, but that doesn't mean anything if I can't actually play the class because I don't own it.

I can´t say it´s Pay to win, since it doesnt assure you the victory, but it´s pay to have an advantage (variety on itselft it´s a strength).

The fact that you have certain commander force you to change your playstile for just in case he might or not use it.

Things I dislike:
- P2W/DLC Commanders
- AT nades/Panzerfaust mechanics
- Tech too fast
- Final boss tanks (Tiger Ace, ISU, Elephant, IS2...)
- Commander system (Doctrines were 500% more fun)
- Bulletins

As you can see, the things I like are all cosmetic or of low impact in the game, meanwhile I dislike a lot of core mechanics of the game.
I feel that the game is really dull and repetitive. Always a race to bring out the biggest tank.

Since i dont expect (i hope im wrong) the core of the game won´t change and still like the game, i just have to wait that they try to improve it through other aspects. Mods may come, balance will improve, new good maps will show up, etc.

if the weapons are balanced, yes that is fair. to be honest, this reminds me of a little kid who doesnt get his way and says "but thats not fair!" if things are balanced, its not pay to win and i see no problem with a dev charging money for extra content.

going off your example, look at battlefield 4. expansion packs add extra guns that are balanced for the most part. non premium players dont have those exact guns though, even if they have similar options. premium guns have a unique combination of scatter, rate of fire, recoil, etc. is that pay to win in your mind? again, im going to have it say its not. if you want more guns, buy them. if you dont, stick with the standard guns and you will be just fine.

BF3:
Show Spoiler

BF4: its worst than in BF3
Show Spoiler
Since it´s an FPS nobody cares on this little things. But i do care on an RTS.

To prevent more derailing of other threads, I'm making this one where everyone can voice their opinions about non-balance issues in a civil manner. This includes things like simplified commander-systems, the feeling that we are being ignored on the most important issues and DLCs. I repeat: do not bring game-balance into this discussion.

I'm making this thread for Relic and Sega to read and understand.

You may now skip to the Future plans/TL;DR-section if you do not wish to read a wall of text.

Because of the issues I'm writing about in this post, I went ahead and actually cancelled my purchase of Company of Heroes 2 (I have owned it since beta, but managed to get a refund anyway). I regard the current situation as no less than hopeless. However, by doing this, no one can actually come later and say that we didn't try fixing it. We did.

I also want to stress this, Relic can't blame the community for these issues, these problems are purely created by Relic and/or Sega.

Commander-DLCs and pay to win

I want to start by showing you this quote. It is Trialbob on Gamereplays.org.


He claims that there is no pay to win in Company of Heroes 2. I would like to present evidence to the contrary.

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/Company_of_Heroes_2_Commanders/

These are the commander-DLCs. They are exclusively available through purchase, there is absolutely no way to get these in the game. I would argue that this is pay to win. Even if the commanders are not better or more powerful than the stock commanders, they will still provide an edge over other players. This could be by giving you more opportunities to find something which counters the current meta-game or simply fits your playing style.

Therefore, these commanders being available is pay to win. Trialbob is therefore lying.

We want a level playing field - give us one.

Pricing
If one wishes to get the entire game - commanders, faceplates and skins, one must pay a ridiculous amount of money. Heck, let me show you some numbers.

Please note that these are the numbers when there's not a sale.

If you want just multi-player relevant content which affects gameplay, then it costs 86.83€.
This includes getting 19 commanders (4 through a bundle) and the normal edition of the game.

If you want absolutely everything, then my estimate for the total price of Company of Heroes 2 is 150.66€.
This includes buying the DCE, one DLC, one DLC+commander bundle (Case Blue is included in DCE), 6 commanders (rest is included in the DCE), 4 faceplates and 21 skins (25 included in DCE).

I'm all for skins and faceplates, but the cost is a bit too steep and there's also other DLC-content which shouldn't be DLC (commanders). Noun (I think) has also said that he can't guarantee that there won't be more DLCs of the kind that we dislike.

Hidden DLCs
But it doesn't stop there, the DLCs are actually hidden away!

Here's the DLC-page: http://store.steampowered.com/dlc/231430/

Here's a nice link on the Steam-forums showing where to get the rest: http://steamcommunity.com/app/231430/discussions/0/666827315703095481/

This is hiding away the price tag and should be considered deceitful.

As a purchaser, you do not know that when you get the base game you're missing at least 50% of the commanders. You do not know that the entire game may cost you 2-4 times more than what you are paying right now. This is just wrong.

I have already contacted Valve about this and I hope something is done. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the at some point all the DLCs were listed in the Steam Store page for the game.

Commanders, blizzards and unused potential
Please note: this section does not touch upon the actual balance of the game, personal opinions will follow.

While I appreciate the little things in Company of Heroes 2 - such as truesight, there are problems within the core of the gameplay.

What made Company of Heroes 1 unique and fun was (amongst things) the interesting game-depth provided by the commander-trees and teching. You were given choices. This is really important.

For instance: choosing what kind of doctrine (, support, company or tactics) you wanted gave you a lot of choices. You had to choose when to choose a doctrine, you had to choose which doctrine. After choosing a doctrine you had to choose which tree to pursue first or if you should wait and have command points ready to be used as a response.

In Company of Heroes 2, it feels like the bits where you should've had a choice are crippled. You are given two choices in regards to generals. You choose when to choose and which one. After that, your commander-perks unlock automatically in a linear fashion. This is in my opinion the definition of lame.

Snowstorms and cold weather gives you no choice. If your troops are freezing, they die - therefore, you just retreat them. Instead of troops freezing to death, what if they didn't and instead got reduced combat potential or other effects? What if they simply took less damage to kill? It would give you more choices and make the game more interesting.

I don't think I can be wrong by saying that the community wants more choices. The more choices you have, the greater the chances are that the game will break away from cookie-cutter tactics (that is, having the same stale match-ups over and over again). There will be more variation per game and it'll keep the metagame interesting.

Future plans/TL;DR
We are in a pretty bad situation.

The developer refuses to listen to us when it comes to the important things and the game is failing on several fronts - especially things like eSports, having a competitive community or being a game which is appealing to pick up and play.

Therefore, I want the following to happen in this thread:

• I want people to post their frustrations in a civil manner. I want you to describe as calmly as possible what you think the current problem with Company of Heroes 2 is. Perhaps Relic and Sega will listen. Please note that I did not swear a single time in this post and so can you while replying.
  
• I want suggestions regarding what we as a community should do. Should everyone go back to the now competitive-friendly Company of Heroes 1? Start a petition? Vote with ours and other people's wallets by attempting to get a refund and advising people to stay away from the game?
  

It seriously isn't fun to see my favorite RTS of all time fail this hard and I wish we could change the current course Relic and Sega have chosen for the game.

If you dont like the game dont play it, simple!!!

To a certain extent, yes. It is pay to win.

well i guess you have a far more liberal definition of pay to win than most people. thats unfortunate, because i think youre going to be very disappointed with the majority of video games if thats how you feel. dlcs are increasingly more common in games and devs dont work for free.

If you dont like the game dont play it, simple!!!

he doesnt even own it...

well i guess you have a far more liberal definition of pay to win than most people. thats unfortunate, because i think youre going to be very disappointed with the majority of video games if thats how you feel. dlcs are increasingly more common in games and devs dont work for free.




he doesnt even own it...

Bahaha hahaha

Here are my elephants... DLC, Money, Alternatives and Pain

I don't think the current DLC is pay to win. If Relic manages to keep the balance between commanders (and applies patches where needed), it is variety/flavor. I would not mind if all commanders would be offered for free, but that is not going to happen. Also, DLC will not go away. If this is what you are hoping for, I think looking for other games is your best option.

For those hoping for major changes in the core mechanics. How to do you think those changes are financed? From the money you paid in 2013? Most game developers move their staff to new projects, once the game is released. A little core group would work on patches and bug fixes for a certain time and then you could hope for a new expansion in a year or two. If you want to see ongoing changes and content, you need an ongoing money stream. I think DLC is a OK solution to this. It helps finance changes/fixes and new content rolling (Alternatives could be a subscription model or a premium pass thing...none of which I want to see...ever for CoH2).

I am not sure how large Relic is, but lets assume it has currently 20 people working on CoH2. They maybe have an average payroll cost of $50.000 per person/month(I assume this is on the lower side, but it is easier to calculate). This means that Relic has monthly HR expenses of $1.000 000. Add to this: office rent, travel costs, hardware, software, utility, server rental, office supply, take out food, network etc. and divide it by the price of your favorite DLC and you get an idea how much they must sell in order to break even. Sure, they sell also the base game, but I assume mostly during the sales, as those people who really wanted the game, bought in 2013.
In the last 7 month I have seen Relic releasing patches, mostly monthly, adding new features, removing bugs, establishing a Beta and an Alpha test, implementing the Battle Servers (a huge want to have feature) and providing additional content. To say that Relic is not listening or sitting on their hands, is not true. Many requested "competitive features" are not really on my list of want-to-have-instantly. I see good reasoning for them, but they do not affect me and I hope Relic is trying to balance the needs of all player groups well in the coming months.

Speaking of other games. CoH caters to a niche target group: RTS and WW2 fans. Now, CoH2 reduces the target group even further by reducing it to two fractions, of which neither is the obvious "good" side. Both sides offer cool tanks and gear to play with, but not many player will be able to relate to them, as they were able with the American or British. Hence the target group is certainly smaller (Maybe the Battle of the Bulge Add-on will change that ;-) )
I don't think there is any game in the market that can really compete with CoH2 in its segment. This might explain why we see so many people hanging around, providing "feedback", after they returned their game, burned it, un-installed it, gave to the dog or never bought it. There is not just any alternative and they feel betrayed for Relic not giving them vCoH2...or they just experience separation anxiety ;-)

well i guess you have a far more liberal definition of pay to win than most people.

No he doesn't, that is the definition. Pay for an advantage.

You're trying to shift the scale, trying to say that if "pay to win" loses 1 game out of 100 it's not a guaranteed win. Get a grip.

You're trying to shift the scale, trying to say that if "pay to win" loses 1 game out of 100 it's not a guaranteed win. Get a grip.

please show me where i said that.

seriously you have 1 hour in coh2. how are you going to try and argue balance? im not even going to bother.

You don't get it. I'm not commenting on Industry or Tiger Ace or whatever the latest DLC shovelware is. I'm not saying they're winning 99% of games or 80% of games or even 55% of games. I'm not talking about balance.

I'm saying that even if they won exactly 50% of their games, they would still be pay to win. You have an extra option your opponent does not because you paid for it in out-of-game currency. That's an advantage. That's pay-to-win.

If you say otherwise your argument will inevitably boil down to "it's not pay-to-win because you can beat it" which is not what competitive gaming is about.

Lets have a case study, Im going to list all things that coh2 does better then its predecessor:

*true sight
*reverse key

What coh does better than coh2:
* small weapons fights
*cover
*basic movement of units ( men and vehicles)
*better physics
*better effects
*better doctrines
*better maps
*better sound
*better mortar and arty mechanics
*better lobbies, and in game functions
*better UI
*more attention to detail in game world
*much much much much better campaign
*target tables, different side rear armour
*better engine crits
*(better crits system
*way more depth with mines, sandbags, wire
*better pop cap system
*better resource system
*better capping system
*better performance and game engine
*more choices for strategy
*way more based on real life - doctorines and the way battles payed out, no bs molatove spam or guys shooting out of moving cars
*no stupid 2ndary fire spam
*more reward to good players/map control
*no instakill squads for no reason


I could and have gone on, I dont care that much anymore just saying coh2 has nothing on a 8 year old game and everyone can see it

Do you have any suggestions as how Relic should generate revenue from this title if you don't like DLC Commanders?

There are two which, by general consensus, are OP. The rest are fine. I have no problem playing with them or against them.

As I've said, the DLCs will always be here.

The only thing that might change is the frequency of them.

Do you have any suggestions as how Relic should generate revenue from this title if you don't like DLC Commanders?

Well, make unfinished product. Sell it at full price. Make a price tag as high as you can. Realease ton of DLCs in unfair pricing. Then mess with balance by realesing commander DLCs. Then blame casters that they don't know how to entertain people with your game. Then realese expansion with features that should already be in vanilla game. Give us hope that something will change in future. Realease more DLCs because "hey, we already made them earlier anyway" and we can't lose $. Keep repeating that game is good (just diffrent) and it's our fault because we can't appreciate great work they made and we are refusing to addapt to new ideas. Realease second expansion. Cooperate with few people who invested so much time into this game they are still refusing to accept clear facts and will be your knights in shining armors, defending at cost of their lifes and honor. Your PR will skyrocket. Make sure your company will be seen as a victim of cruel system and toxic community. Realese CoH3 "the next step in the greates RTS franchise EVAH! DUH!". Go back to beginning of this post and repeat proces. Make sure some people will pre-order your game so you will have deffenders in dire times that will come...

It should do the trick. Just have faith brother!

As I've said, the DLCs will always be here.

The only thing that might change is the frequency of them.

DLCs are cancer of this industry but that's just completely diffrent story. What company can do when using this bussiness model is just making sure that what they realese can be seen as "fairly priced", "interesting" and can't be connected in any way to "pay 2 win" tag, of course it they are aiminig with those DLCs to people that can take their game seriously (competetive level).

Well, make unfinished product. Sell it at full price. Make a price tag as high as you can. Realease ton of DLCs in unfair pricing. Then mess with balance by realesing commander DLCs. Then blame casters that they don't know how to entertain people with your game. Then realese expansion with features that should already be in vanilla game. Give us hope that something will change in future. Realease more DLCs because "hey, we already made them earlier anyway" and we can't lose $. Keep repeating that game is good (just diffrent) and it's our fault because we can't appreciate great work they made and we are refusing to addapt to new ideas. Realease second expansion. Cooperate with few people who invested so much time into this game they are still refusing to accept clear facts and will be your knights in shining armors, defending at cost of their lifes and honor. Your PR will skyrocket. Make sure your company will be seen as a victim of cruel system and toxic community. Realese CoH3 "the next step in the greates RTS franchise EVAH! DUH!". Go back to beginning of this post and repeat proces. Make sure some people will pre-order your game so you will have deffenders in dire times that will come...

I see a lot of complaints, but not any solutions.

At the end of the day he's right. If they can't work on the game while making money then there is no reason to fix it. They will just drop the game. I'd rather cough up 15 bucks every month or so to keep the game new and updated then see it die.

DLC commander comes out - DLC commander gets heavy nerf - DLC commander gets another nerf. After its been tested out by Devs and on balance servers.

Just because you can beat someone with DLC commander it doesn't mean its not P2W

P.S. you have to take into consideration that lower down the skill levels you go, that Tiger Ace, Ass Grens, etc become harder to deal with by many factors.

Just because OMGPOP or Siberian can find tactics to kill Tiger Ace or deal with S. industry it doesn't mean that it isn't P2W for some poor guy ranked 38,000 who has problem killing Panther

You have to sometimes look through other peoples perspective not just your own opinion and experience

Do you have any suggestions as how Relic should generate revenue from this title if you don't like DLC Commanders?

selling the actual fucking game?

DLC commander comes out - DLC commander gets heavy nerf - DLC commander gets another nerf. After its been tested out by Devs and on balance servers.

Just because you can beat someone with DLC commander it doesn't mean its not P2W

P.S. you have to take into consideration that lower down the skill levels you go, that Tiger Ace, Ass Grens, etc become harder to deal with by many factors.

Just because OMGPOP or Siberian can find tactics to kill Tiger Ace or deal with S. industry it doesn't mean that it isn't P2W for some poor guy ranked 38,000 who has problem killing Panther

You have to sometimes look through other peoples perspective not just your own opinion and experience

Ummm, some poor ranked 38,000 guy who has problem killing panther will put the blame on everything but himself and his lack of skills. Ever wondered why absolutely terrible players happen to be most vocal ones, flaming everything and anything but themselves?
On official forums some german nublet complained how OP and uncounterable SU-76 is and you are trying to make it sound like he have a valid concern, just because he plays worse then easy AI.

Being bad is not a balance argument and when paid commanders are as strong as free ones, then its not P2W, its just QQ of the ones who don't want to pay. Relic went full retard with elite troops more then anything else in game, but this is going to be balanced now, so will you still call it P2W?

So, I could say "You have to sometimes look through other peoples perspective not just your own opinion and experience".