The elephant(s) in the room

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".

Fair enough.

But you cannot say anything that will change this:

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

There is nothing to say. Proof is in the nerfs.

I have nothing against DLC personally, as long as they don't break game balance every month or so.

selling the actual fucking game?

BAAARRRP!

Business school fail.

Computer games that rely on constant online presence, especially RTS games, are becoming more difficult to sustain. F2P competitors, the sheer gamut of games, console competition and piracy mean that publishers are obliged to consider other funding models. Fuck it, how many potential CoH2 players are going to look at The Division and Titanfall then look at your purist, automatch fixated CoH2 nirvana and think... FUCK THAT DUDE.


Initially it was subscription, DLC or a blend of both.

Generation 'Y' perpetually want something for nothing. They view monetizing content or paying anything beyond upfront cost as a infringement. I suggest this is a generational thing - entitlement and ignorance in a perfect storm of ill-informed bullshit(not unlike your post).

Edit - actually that was harsh Tuvok. I won't pretend I didn't say it, I'll leave it up but apologize. We've all got feet of clay.

VCoH made it by selling the game dirt-cheap along with expansions. Then it died, commercially. A few thousand grogs still playing and biting the hand that feeds them does not a successful commercial enterprise make.

They tried CoHO. It was a model out of time, trying to necro-squeeze money out of an old game. FWIW it was a great idea poorly executed and just darn unlucky.

Now we have the genre's final hurrah, COH2. Gentlemen, it really is the last chance saloon for this type of game, the suits at Sega have been *outstanding* in even giving it a chance.

It needs to make money. Don't the inveterate whiners on these forums dig that? Clearly, they do not. DLC is the only way for them to do that, as selling core product can no longer sustain a franchise over the medium to long term.

I can't believe I'm having to explain this.

tl;dr - show me the money.

Personally I think although Relic have made some mistakes with a couple of P2W commanders (and only a couple) they are missing a trick with a different suite of products, which I think ToW and different cosmetic DLC and content can address.

But the constant ignorance, bitching and economically illiterate whining from a notable minority of community members is simply bringing down the franchise. I actually believe some of you are now genuinely irreconcilable and want exactly this outcome.

And to them I say shame on you.

Sorry to rant some more, but I'm in the mood. Apart from strategy / RTS games my other love is RPGs.

RPGs were fucked by people like Bioware. All of a sudden crunchy, old-skool games turned into emo dating simulators. Jesus I was butt-hurt. I just left. Stopped playing them. Looked at other stuff.

It was so much more rewarding than haunting the fucking super-creepy Bioware Social Network watching what it had become.

Now, thanks to Kickstarter, loads of great RPGs are popping up. It's a new golden age for RPGs where, without publishers (like EA, who will shortly take Bioware out and shoot it, once it's sucked the last sweet drops of profit from its veins) can do what the fuck they like.

I suggest the same will happen to RTS games. I'll lay money that a squad-level, hardcore wargame / RTS like vCoH will pop up on Kickstarter soon. It will make a good living for the developers. They will be able to do what they like without the likes of Sega breathing down their necks for the Q1 targets.

But, ladies, until that happens deal with the world as it is, not the way you'd like it to be. Because it won't change squat.

BFW OUT.

Sorry to rant some more, but I'm in the mood. Apart from strategy / RTS games my other love is RPGs.

RPGs were fucked by people like Bioware. All of a sudden crunchy, old-skool games turned into emo dating simulators. Jesus I was butt-hurt. I just left. Stopped playing them. Looked at other stuff.

It was so much more rewarding than haunting the fucking super-creepy Bioware Social Network watching what it had become.

Now, thanks to Kickstarter, loads of great RPGs are popping up. It's a new golden age for RPGs where, without publishers (like EA, who will shortly take Bioware out and shoot it, once it's sucked the last sweet drops of profit from its veins) can do what the fuck they like.

I suggest the same will happen to RTS games. I'll lay money that a squad-level, hardcore wargame / RTS like vCoH will pop up on Kickstarter soon. It will make a good living for the developers. They will be able to do what they like without the likes of Sega breathing down their necks for the Q1 targets.

But, ladies, until that happens deal with the world as it is, not the way you'd like it to be. Because it won't change squat.

BFW OUT.

+1.

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

Very funny, go (shit)post somewhere else.

I *OWNED* the game. Still doesn't mean I don't care.

If they did something about this game so it stopped being bad in the ways I described, I would re-purchase it.

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

What if I want it to be good so that I can play 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.



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.



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.

I'm not sure which one of BF3 and BF4 is worst.

I think that the UCAV won't get nerfed despite being really strong because the majority of the players will fail to use it and therefore won't recognize the true potential of this weapon.

Also, before anyone tries to call me out on playing Battlefield, the developers actually never said it wouldn't be pay to win. It also feels somewhat different in a FPS.

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.

Thanks for backing up my argument in my absence. This is exactly what this is about.

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.

By selling the game, skins and faceplates. Not commanders which alter the game.

TZer0 you haven't read my first post have you? Base game, skins and faceplates simply won't fund the game even in the mid-term.

Theatre of War, a controlled release of premium content with a mixed payment model (i.e. balanced commanders with frequent promotions / sales and giveaways)*and* the stuff you subscribe is the *only* way.

BAAARRRP!

Business school fail.

Computer games that rely on constant online presence, especially RTS games, are becoming more difficult to sustain. F2P competitors, the sheer gamut of games, console competition and piracy mean that publishers are obliged to consider other funding models. Fuck it, how many potential CoH2 players are going to look at The Division and Titanfall then look at your purist, automatch fixated CoH2 nirvana and think... FUCK THAT DUDE.


Initially it was subscription, DLC or a blend of both.

Generation 'Y' perpetually want something for nothing. They view monetizing content or paying anything beyond upfront cost as a infringement. I suggest this is a generational thing - entitlement and ignorance in a perfect storm of ill-informed bullshit(not unlike your post).

You can make good game and monetize it in fair way or just go full retard and say "it's not our fault, it's how the bussiness works nowday". It was Relic/Sega decission, in my opinion they chosen badly. They could focus more on e-sport (or at least competetive aspect of game) and still get money they want.

Look what Valve did with Counter Strike: Global Offensive. I don't have to buy new wapons. I have all options right off the bat. I can still buy tons of useless stuff if I want. Some of my buys even support directly mapmakers and e-sport scene. And we are talking about game that really use dedicated servers, not some p2p mambo jambo.

TZer0 you haven't read my first post have you? Base game, skins and faceplates simply won't fund the game even in the mid-term.

Theatre of War, a controlled release of premium content with a mixed payment model (i.e. balanced commanders with frequent promotions / sales and giveaways)*and* the stuff you subscribe is the *only* way.

What makes you so sure of this? Do you have the numbers in front of you?

Last time I checked, other RTSes are doing just fine without having to resort to DLCs like the ones Company of Heroes 2 has.

I'll name a few.
Men of War
StarCraft 2
Total War (they have something resembling commander-DLCs, but not as many)
Planetary Annihilation (even though they're officially not yet out)

Why can't we have a business model closer to these games?

Fair enough.

But you cannot say anything that will change this:

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

There is nothing to say. Proof is in the nerfs.

I have nothing against DLC personally, as long as they don't break game balance every month or so.

That is bad balancing.
As I've said, it gets fixed.

If your conspiracy theory would be true, then all DLC commanders would be OP and then nerfed.

They are not. Only 2 were most evident cases and both are getting more hefty nerfs soon to get them in line, because that is the ultimate point-having all commanders in line with each other, so they offer more options, not better ones.

The only cases of OP commanders come from bad or ignored feedback on beta forums I assume, since I don't believe beta players didn't noticed how much bs TA was.

Also, even if the new commanders will be perfectly balanced on day 1 since their release, they will still 'break balance' for you, because they might bring in something you havent faced before and you won't know how to deal with it at first, but that doesn't mean the commander is OP, it just means meta got expanded and you need to adjust.
That is of course a perfect situation, since there will most likely always be some balance concerns with new commanders, some will be op, some will be up, some will be fine, give it time and all will be just as strong.

Like Kolaris said, if you pay for more options (even if you won half your games) it is pay to win. Even if you can only have 3 choices in any one particular game, it is still an advantage to have a larger pool to select from.

After balance some doctrines will still be better choices than others. In vCoH going infantry instead of armor was the better choice 80% of the time vs a Wehrmacht opponent in 1v1, and this was after 6 years of patching. Even if Tiger Ace, Soviet Windustry, and whatever else comes out in the future have been made more reasonable, there will always be doctrines that are better choices than others, and some of these will happen to be DLC commanders. There is zero argument against that being P2W, just stop.

I'm not going to say the game is pay to win cause I haven't bought any dlc crap and I do okay. However no one is going to convince me that the last batch of commanders (elite inf and sov industry) weren't made op to entice people to buy them. This does seem very pay to win-esque. Additionally the fact that there is no way to get this content without buying it also feels like a pay to win model.

A few others games that I know of have a better setup in that you can pay to get early access to the gameplay content but eventually everyone gets it (not skins there are some that are dlc only which I'm fine with since its cosmetics). If coh adopted a similar start I think the people crying pay to win would be silenced. Release a new doctrine make it available exclusively thru dlc for 3 months then give it to everyone free. People will still buy it and there is no perceived pay to win ... Seems like a win win to me

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.

Sorry dude, but that's rubbish and a complete falacy to think that whoever complains about DLC commanders is a noob.

As Kolaris explained quite rightly, DLC commanders give more options and strategies to pick.
That's P2W. It doesn't really matter if you actually win or not.
You have an advantatge in terms of units, abilities and strategies available and your enemy who didn't purchase DLC doesn't have.

If you win every match just buying them, then they aren't P2W, they are a hax.

Has Relic indicated there will be no more new DLC commanders?

The DLC situation was NOT okay, that is why Relic has not released any new ones They were not well received. So the focus has shifted away from DLC commanders.

As Kolaris explained quite rightly, DLC commanders give more options and strategies to pick.
That's P2W. It doesn't really matter if you actually win or not.
You have an advantatge in terms of units, abilities and strategies available and your enemy who didn't purchase DLC doesn't have.

So, with that logic, every single add-on for CoH was pay to win? From what I remember you could play against Brits, even so you had never bought the add-on.

1-Discussion: how can you find DLC commanders acceptable when they:

A- Use 2 or 3 abilities which have already being used on prior commanders.
Show Spoiler

B- They just take SP or ToW units n put them on the MP.
Show Spoiler

We have from 20 DLC commanders, just 23 "new" abilities which includes things which are rippoff from campaign, theater of war or resource modifiers.

Problem with microtransactions/DLC is that most of the time they lack creativity and innovation in comparison to a proper expansion.
Thing is, its easier to get more money through the DLC model (specially when you just cut off content just to get into release time) rather than the "old" system.

So, with that logic, every single add-on for CoH was pay to win? From what I remember you could play against Brits, even so you had never bought the add-on.

how about the reward units in ToV? thats extra options you had to pay for. guess thats p2w too.

So, with that logic, every single add-on for CoH was pay to win? From what I remember you could play against Brits, even so you had never bought the add-on.

From what i heard balance was pretty shaked with Brits n PE.

Even then, you were facing a new EXPANSION faction which you know what to expect from it and you could adapt from minute 0 to it.

I feel less "cheated" if someone faces me with a whole new faction rather than the same faction with little new cheap tricks.

Cue:
"But that was not made by the original CoH team"

So, with that logic, every single add-on for CoH was pay to win? From what I remember you could play against Brits, even so you had never bought the add-on.

ToV was most certainly P2W, and it was the bad kind - imbalanced, with certain units offering staggeringly higher chances of winning. But even if Roos were balanced, it would still be P2W.

Whether the traditional expansion is P2W is another matter. By the strict definition I could see it argued that way, but traditional expansions have been around almost as long as RTS games themselves. DLC is new and egregious, expansions are not.