COH2 Connundrum

I think CoH2 has a lot going for it over vCoH.

In vCoH, you could flank an AT gun with a tank, drive up close enough to run it over, and then it would just swivel around and DPS your tank to death even if you took minimal damage during the flank maneuver. CoH2 is less "rock paper scissors" so you actually get rewarded for flanking AT guns and such - if you sneak up on an AT gun with a tank, that usually does not end well for the AT gun.

What do you mean the AT gun would DPS your tank to death? If you flanked them, it's still rewarding in vcoh.

To the OP, I agree with you. The explosives in this game should be more similiar to vcoh along with the AT guns. I believe panzerfaust should be similiar to vcoh panzerfaust where it's more focused on damage while AT grenade still damages engine but doesn't chase anymore to reward good micro.

Seeing as CoH2 is built on the same engine as CoH1 (hell, there were even some of the same bugs from CoH1 in the CoH2 alpha and beta), Relic could've made CoH2 as similar to the first one as they wanted to. The fact that they didn't was a conscious design decision, and like it or not, it's probably not going to change.

The simplification of the game systems (removal of target tables, simplified damage calculations, etc.) was done so that they could more easily add new units and abilities to the game. There were quotes by developers in alpha/beta that the CoH1 system made it very difficult to add new units and modify existing ones, even though it also gave them a whole lot more flexibility when balancing. But when you consider that their entire business model is built around adding new units and abilities to commanders and then selling them, it's obvious why they chose the system that makes adding new stuff easier over the system that gives them greater control over the stuff that's already there.

Seeing as CoH2 is built on the same engine as CoH1 (hell, there were even some of the same bugs from CoH1 in the CoH2 alpha and beta), Relic could've made CoH2 as similar to the first one as they wanted to. The fact that they didn't was a conscious design decision, and like it or not, it's probably not going to change.

The simplification of the game systems (removal of target tables, simplified damage calculations, etc.) was done so that they could more easily add new units and abilities to the game. There were quotes by developers in alpha/beta that the CoH1 system made it very difficult to add new units and modify existing ones, even though it also gave them a whole lot more flexibility when balancing. But when you consider that their entire business model is built around adding new units and abilities to commanders and then selling them, it's obvious why they chose the system that makes adding new stuff easier over the system that gives them greater control over the stuff that's already there.

What is this target table and simplified damage calculations? What did you mean by they removed it? What do they do actually?

Seeing as CoH2 is built on the same engine as CoH1 (hell, there were even some of the same bugs from CoH1 in the CoH2 alpha and beta), Relic could've made CoH2 as similar to the first one as they wanted to. The fact that they didn't was a conscious design decision, and like it or not, it's probably not going to change.

The simplification of the game systems (removal of target tables, simplified damage calculations, etc.) was done so that they could more easily add new units and abilities to the game. There were quotes by developers in alpha/beta that the CoH1 system made it very difficult to add new units and modify existing ones, even though it also gave them a whole lot more flexibility when balancing. But when you consider that their entire business model is built around adding new units and abilities to commanders and then selling them, it's obvious why they chose the system that makes adding new stuff easier over the system that gives them greater control over the stuff that's already there.

I didn't know that - but unless you know 100% sure (ie its been confirmed somehow) then I don't really believe it for many reasons.

THe way damage happens to terrain, the way effects look in the game, they way all map artifacts look in game ( fences, trees, bushes ect) it looks like the DOW2 engine to me and not the vcoh one.

I can understand them removing the damage tables ect to make the game simple and the make the DLC stuff easier to implement but why would they remove the physics effects from the game? why would the camera angle change ect if it was the same engine.

Look how infantry moved in coh, bigger distance between men, they would expand and contract with distancing as they moved, soldiers would slow down and speed up relative to their squad, it was fluid, responsive and worked beautifully.

Tanks responded instantly to commands, vehicles maneuvered terrain better and all micro input was rewarded.

How arty and all mortar type weapons had accuracy that was inversely proportional to distance to target, that is gone too.

All that is gone from the game.


I really think they used a different engine with pretty graphics cos the thought players would not notice all the substance removed from the game.

I cant imagine them taking the same game engine as vcoh and then removing nearly every single feature out of the game.

I didn't know that - but unless you know 100% sure (ie its been confirmed somehow) then I don't really believe it for many reasons.

THe way damage happens to terrain, the way effects look in the game, they way all map artifacts look in game ( fences, trees, bushes ect) it looks like the DOW2 engine to me and not the vcoh one.

I can understand them removing the damage tables ect to make the game simple and the make the DLC stuff easier to implement but why would they remove the physics effects from the game? why would the camera angle change ect if it was the same engine.

Look how infantry moved in coh, bigger distance between men, they would expand and contract with distancing as they moved, soldiers would slow down and speed up relative to their squad, it was fluid, responsive and worked beautifully.

Tanks responded instantly to commands, vehicles maneuvered terrain better and all micro input was rewarded.

How arty and all mortar type weapons had accuracy that was inversely proportional to distance to target, that is gone too.

All that is gone from the game.


I really think they used a different engine with pretty graphics cos the thought players would not notice all the substance removed from the game.

I cant imagine them taking the same game engine as vcoh and then removing nearly every single feature out of the game.

Wait wut

The physics looked ridiculous in CoH1, I do not want the days where characters would fly 1000+ metres into the air back.

Honestly I'm pretty sure everything you're talking about here is just nostalgia, only remembering the good parts. Afaik imput lag always existed, even in vCoH. Vehicle pathing wasn't any better, I remember having massive problems with it. Afaik the camera angle wasn't changed much at all.

What is this target table and simplified damage calculations? What did you mean by they removed it? What do they do actually?

In CoH1, there were tables that mapped weapon types to armour types to determine things like damage, accuracy, penetration, etc. Every weapon a unit could use had a weapon type (for example M8 gun, Sherman gun, Garand, Carbine, Kar98, different grenades, and so on) and an armour type (a few different types for infantry and mostly unique ones for all vehicles).

When one unit shot at another, the correct entry in the table was accessed and used to calculate things like damage, accuracy, penetration, and a few other variables. For example, flamers had a 1.5x damage modifier against elite armour, which is why flamers are good against vet 2 Grenadiers. Also, snipers had an accuracy modifier against elite armour that gave them 100% accuracy even when shooting at retreating units, which is why a sniper will never miss a vet 2 Grenadier.

With a system like this, you can fine-tune your tweaks on the per-unit level. For instance, you can give the M8 10% more damage against just the Puma, while keeping his stats against every other unit in the game the same. You have near-infinite options when it comes to making tweaks.

The downside is, every time you go to add a new unit, you have to fill in the target tables for every single other unit in the game, and you have to test each of those interactions in order to make sure nothing unexpected is happening. It's very time-consuming, and makes adding anything new extremely difficult.

That's why in CoH2, they got rid of that system and went to straight health, armour, damage, and penetration values. It makes adding new units a breeze, since all you have to do is assign them values for those four variables (there are some others, I'm sure, but those are the most important). The downside is, if you give a unit 10% more damage, it means that unit will do 10% more damage against everything, and you have to tweak health, armour, and penetration to compensate.

Ultimately, it makes adding new stuff easier, and balancing the existing stuff harder.

I didn't know that - but unless you know 100% sure (ie its been confirmed somehow) then I don't really believe it for many reasons.

THe way damage happens to terrain, the way effects look in the game, they way all map artifacts look in game ( fences, trees, bushes ect) it looks like the DOW2 engine to me and not the vcoh one.

I can understand them removing the damage tables ect to make the game simple and the make the DLC stuff easier to implement but why would they remove the physics effects from the game? why would the camera angle change ect if it was the same engine.

Look how infantry moved in coh, bigger distance between men, they would expand and contract with distancing as they moved, soldiers would slow down and speed up relative to their squad, it was fluid, responsive and worked beautifully.

Tanks responded instantly to commands, vehicles maneuvered terrain better and all micro input was rewarded.

How arty and all mortar type weapons had accuracy that was inversely proportional to distance to target, that is gone too.

All that is gone from the game.


I really think they used a different engine with pretty graphics cos the thought players would not notice all the substance removed from the game.

I cant imagine them taking the same game engine as vcoh and then removing nearly every single feature out of the game.

It's very obviously the same engine, though it's been heavily modified of course. It uses the same file structure for game data, has extremely similar squad management, and handles cover and buildings pretty much exactly how it did in CoH1. It also uses, with slight modifications, the exact same structure for replay files and the replay system. In CoH1, there was a bug where sometimes if the members of an AT gun team were killed while the AT gun was moving, the gun would continue to move to its destination without the crew. This bug was present in CoH2 during alpha. It would be an amazing coincidence if that bug happened to be present in its exact same form in a brand-new engine. It's much more logical to assume, when taking into consideration the other similarities I mentioned above, that the core engine was taken from CoH1.

Wait wut

The physics looked ridiculous in CoH1, I do not want the days where characters would fly 1000+ metres into the air back.

Honestly I'm pretty sure everything you're talking about here is just nostalgia, only remembering the good parts. Afaik imput lag always existed, even in vCoH. Vehicle pathing wasn't any better, I remember having massive problems with it. Afaik the camera angle wasn't changed much at all.

Mate I just played both games back to back 2 days ago - have a try you will see what I mean. Pathing maybe wasnt perfect but vehicle response was, they reacted instantly to your clicks just not always in the way you wanted.

Seriously go play some coh and see what I mean - as for the physics they were phenomenal. Maybe the men flying was exaggerated but everything in that game was destructible and effected by physics - it is a masterpiece.

In CoH1, there were tables that mapped weapon types to armour types to determine things like damage, accuracy, penetration, etc. Every weapon a unit could use had a weapon type (for example M8 gun, Sherman gun, Garand, Carbine, Kar98, different grenades, and so on) and an armour type (a few different types for infantry and mostly unique ones for all vehicles).

When one unit shot at another, the correct entry in the table was accessed and used to calculate things like damage, accuracy, penetration, and a few other variables. For example, flamers had a 1.5x damage modifier against elite armour, which is why flamers are good against vet 2 Grenadiers. Also, snipers had an accuracy modifier against elite armour that gave them 100% accuracy even when shooting at retreating units, which is why a sniper will never miss a vet 2 Grenadier.

With a system like this, you can fine-tune your tweaks on the per-unit level. For instance, you can give the M8 10% more damage against just the Puma, while keeping his stats against every other unit in the game the same. You have near-infinite options when it comes to making tweaks.

The downside is, every time you go to add a new unit, you have to fill in the target tables for every single other unit in the game, and you have to test each of those interactions in order to make sure nothing unexpected is happening. It's very time-consuming, and makes adding anything new extremely difficult.

That's why in CoH2, they got rid of that system and went to straight health, armour, damage, and penetration values. It makes adding new units a breeze, since all you have to do is assign them values for those four variables (there are some others, I'm sure, but those are the most important). The downside is, if you give a unit 10% more damage, it means that unit will do 10% more damage against everything, and you have to tweak health, armour, and penetration to compensate.

Ultimately, it makes adding new stuff easier, and balancing the existing stuff harder.


It's very obviously the same engine, though it's been heavily modified of course. It uses the same file structure for game data, has extremely similar squad management, and handles cover and buildings pretty much exactly how it did in CoH1. It also uses, with slight modifications, the exact same structure for replay files and the replay system. In CoH1, there was a bug where sometimes if the members of an AT gun team were killed while the AT gun was moving, the gun would continue to move to its destination without the crew. This bug was present in CoH2 during alpha. It would be an amazing coincidence if that bug happened to be present in its exact same form in a brand-new engine. It's much more logical to assume, when taking into consideration the other similarities I mentioned above, that the core engine was taken from CoH1.

i.e. allows more detailed stuff but more troublesome to add new units as well. Sounds like it's worth adding. Makes the game better IMO.

In CoH1, there were tables that mapped weapon types to armour types to determine things like damage, accuracy, penetration, etc. Every weapon a unit could use had a weapon type (for example M8 gun, Sherman gun, Garand, Carbine, Kar98, different grenades, and so on) and an armour type (a few different types for infantry and mostly unique ones for all vehicles).

When one unit shot at another, the correct entry in the table was accessed and used to calculate things like damage, accuracy, penetration, and a few other variables. For example, flamers had a 1.5x damage modifier against elite armour, which is why flamers are good against vet 2 Grenadiers. Also, snipers had an accuracy modifier against elite armour that gave them 100% accuracy even when shooting at retreating units, which is why a sniper will never miss a vet 2 Grenadier.

With a system like this, you can fine-tune your tweaks on the per-unit level. For instance, you can give the M8 10% more damage against just the Puma, while keeping his stats against every other unit in the game the same. You have near-infinite options when it comes to making tweaks.

The downside is, every time you go to add a new unit, you have to fill in the target tables for every single other unit in the game, and you have to test each of those interactions in order to make sure nothing unexpected is happening. It's very time-consuming, and makes adding anything new extremely difficult.

That's why in CoH2, they got rid of that system and went to straight health, armour, damage, and penetration values. It makes adding new units a breeze, since all you have to do is assign them values for those four variables (there are some others, I'm sure, but those are the most important). The downside is, if you give a unit 10% more damage, it means that unit will do 10% more damage against everything, and you have to tweak health, armour, and penetration to compensate.

Ultimately, it makes adding new stuff easier, and balancing the existing stuff harder.


It's very obviously the same engine, though it's been heavily modified of course. It uses the same file structure for game data, has extremely similar squad management, and handles cover and buildings pretty much exactly how it did in CoH1. It also uses, with slight modifications, the exact same structure for replay files and the replay system. In CoH1, there was a bug where sometimes if the members of an AT gun team were killed while the AT gun was moving, the gun would continue to move to its destination without the crew. This bug was present in CoH2 during alpha. It would be an amazing coincidence if that bug happened to be present in its exact same form in a brand-new engine. It's much more logical to assume, when taking into consideration the other similarities I mentioned above, that the core engine was taken from CoH1.

Hmm ok that is strange and I believe you - but at the same time I cant imagine they would go in and change pretty much every single feature of the game, to make it more simple and not only that remove all physics ect and make it run worse than the original game which is 9 years old and should easily run wwell on all machines.

Not only that they increase the size of all map features, make units slower to respond, remove all reactions from infantry * ducking down when huge explosions happen, change they way they swivel and engage infantry that aren't directly in front of them, change vehicles from units made for multiple components which are effected by physics to a solid "block" unit that seems to be unaffected by physics in game. Changed how deformable terrain is - its only about 40% compared to what it use to be ( you could create some truly deep craters in game with multiple heavey explosions to the same ares)

I duno man its always been so perplexing to me and Id love to know exactly what happened because it sounds like so much work to go into the game and changes everything for no real reason.

lol the helpless guy with the helplessly long posts about going back to vcoh is back!

Hmm ok that is strange and I believe you - but at the same time I cant imagine they would go in and change pretty much every single feature of the game, to make it more simple and not only that remove all physics ect and make it run worse than the original game which is 9 years old and should easily run wwell on all machines.

Not only that they increase the size of all map features, make units slower to respond, remove all reactions from infantry * ducking down when huge explosions happen, change they way they swivel and engage infantry that aren't directly in front of them, change vehicles from units made for multiple components which are effected by physics to a solid "block" unit that seems to be unaffected by physics in game. Changed how deformable terrain is - its only about 40% compared to what it use to be ( you could create some truly deep craters in game with multiple heavey explosions to the same ares)

I duno man its always been so perplexing to me and Id love to know exactly what happened because it sounds like so much work to go into the game and changes everything for no real reason.

The performance issues can be blamed on the massive visual overhaul they gave the game. There's a whole lot more going on in CoH2, and though I find it very cluttered when playing, there's no doubt that it looks extremely pretty to a casual observer.

I can't really comment on the unit control aspects because I just haven't played enough, but it could be a combination of poor performance and the new battle servers. Lower FPS obviously means units are going to feel less responsive, and the addition of the battle servers means your ping will now be more consistent but possibly higher.

In true peer-to-peer games, if you connect to a guy sitting right next to you, you're going to have great ping because you're connecting right to his machine and the data barely has to travel anywhere. The battle servers, on the other hand, are pseudo-client-server, meaning if you play against that same guy in CoH2, you both have to connect to the battle servers instead of to each other. Therefore your ping is determined by your distance to the battle servers, and since that distance is unlikely to change, your ping is also going to be fairly constant.

This is great if you're right beside the server, of course, but most people aren't that lucky. In CoH1, if you were matched against someone on the other side of the world, your ping would be terrible and your units would be terribly unresponsive. At the same time, if you matched with someone beside you, everything would be great. If you aren't close to a battle server in CoH2, your experience is going to be consistently shitty, relatively speaking. Might not be the entire issue, but it's probably a contributing factor.

The best way to test unit responsiveness is to jump into an offline skirmish game and see if you can notice problems there. If you can, then it's a problem with the engine; if you can't, it's network conditions.

This is great if you're right beside the server, of course, but most people aren't that lucky.

Your geographical location to the server doesn't matter too much as there is some input lag added on top so the playing experience is uniform no matter where you live. My ping to the server is about 150ms but input delay in game is at about 450ms - 670ms when I have the game running at 60fps.

Oddly enough the game runs better when I use the recommended settings in graphics rather than turning everything to low or off.

The performance issues can be blamed on the massive visual overhaul they gave the game. There's a whole lot more going on in CoH2, and though I find it very cluttered when playing, there's no doubt that it looks extremely pretty to a casual observer.

I can't really comment on the unit control aspects because I just haven't played enough, but it could be a combination of poor performance and the new battle servers. Lower FPS obviously means units are going to feel less responsive, and the addition of the battle servers means your ping will now be more consistent but possibly higher.

In true peer-to-peer games, if you connect to a guy sitting right next to you, you're going to have great ping because you're connecting right to his machine and the data barely has to travel anywhere. The battle servers, on the other hand, are pseudo-client-server, meaning if you play against that same guy in CoH2, you both have to connect to the battle servers instead of to each other. Therefore your ping is determined by your distance to the battle servers, and since that distance is unlikely to change, your ping is also going to be fairly constant.

This is great if you're right beside the server, of course, but most people aren't that lucky. In CoH1, if you were matched against someone on the other side of the world, your ping would be terrible and your units would be terribly unresponsive. At the same time, if you matched with someone beside you, everything would be great. If you aren't close to a battle server in CoH2, your experience is going to be consistently shitty, relatively speaking. Might not be the entire issue, but it's probably a contributing factor. If the response issues are present in offline games as well, of course, then this doesn't apply at all.

IF you have any spare time and want to see for yorself fire up coh2 play for 15 mins then go straight to vcoh and see for yourself.

In SP there is less lag but the units are still terribly unresponsive when compared to COH. Its not a lag issue that I am talking about, lag is different to the thing I am describing.

There is no doubt there has been a overhaul in the looks department that is meant to impress the casual player - but I just cant belive not a single effect, texture, animation ect has not made it from coh to coh2 if its the same game engine.

Everything from tracer rounds, how mortar rounds fly, tanks shoots, mgs pack unpack, at guns rotate, infantry moving ect is different from one game to another. Basically i cant spot a single feature in coh2 that was in the original, every infantry animation is radically different, vehicles dont behave in the same way, even the green little numbers are completely different from both games.

Even the speed that infantry move around the map is different, as is retreat speed.

Its obvious some people don't care at all.. but im super curious and its driving me crazy as to why


EDIT: even incidental features like spotting at guns in fog of war via green cover that shouldn't be there doesnt work in coh2 - its just ridiculous that someone would go in the game and remove all these sort of things.

Your geographical location to the server doesn't matter too much as there is some input lag added on top so the playing experience is uniform no matter where you live. My ping to the server is about 150ms but input delay in game is at about 450ms - 670ms when I have the game running at 60fps.

Oddly enough the game runs better when I use the recommended settings in graphics rather than turning everything to low or off.

That's a good point, I forgot to include the built-in delay. It seems SC2 has a built-in delay of 200ms, which is probably a good place to start when guessing at what CoH2's is, which also lines up nicely with those values you gave. Your ping to server still matters though, since the total delay you experience is ( 2 * ping + built-in delay ).

I find from playing Dota 2 that I start noticing major responsiveness problems around a ping of 120ms, but that could just be personal preference.

I think the built-in delay is way too high. In 2006 maybe 500ms made sense, but not anymore.

I've asked a few people from all over to do the same test (record a 60fps video playing online and playback frame by frame, count frames from click to responce) and most people had between 25-40 frames.

Which is exceptionally high and adding in the average human reaction time of 200ms - 250ms it makes reacting to grenades quite difficult.

Yeah, it actually might just be an insanely high built-in delay, or the battle servers are just really inefficient at processing commands and take a long time from receiving the command to sending them to the players.

My statement above wasn't entirely correct either. I did some more reading and the correct way to determine latency with a built-in delay is to multiply your ping by 2 and see if it's higher than the built-in delay. If it is higher, then that's your total latency; if it's lower, then your latency is equal to the built-in delay.

Using that and your numbers, you get 300ms from your connection and around 500-550ms on average from your observations. Seems the built-in delay (or processing delay on the battle servers) is up closer to that 500-550ms mark.

the battle servers are hosted on the AWS in New Jersey, it might be worth their time to look at their net code to drop the delay buffer or see if the servers are just slow at processing the packets.

Reading up some more and both my calculations are probably a little wrong. The only thing we really know for sure is total latency involves your ping to server, the server's processing time, and any built-in latency values used for smoothing. Can't really say for sure how they all interact.

But this has gotten kinda off-topic, my apologies to the poster.

Reading up some more and both my calculations are probably a little wrong. The only thing we really know for sure is total latency involves your ping to server, the server's processing time, and any built-in latency values used for smoothing. Can't really say for sure how they all interact.

But this has gotten kinda off-topic, my apologies to the poster.

All good its interesting - I feel my little mystery will never be solved anyway.