Is Coh2 ready for E-Sports?Post-oktober Betapatch discussion

I dont think you can change the commanders. AT least not the ones which are sold.
Well bulletins make an impact, if the summary of 3 increase the survivability of your main infantry.

It's a damned shame really, because the whole commander system is worse in every way to the old doctrine system. Not only is it worse, but it was clearly done just so they could make it another thing to milk money out of you for and now they can't really "overhaul" them because they sold something specific.

I assert that they are worse because A) They are only 5 abilities and not 6. B) it is a linear tree and does not branch and C) there are far too many that overlap and are poorly thought out. And D) the callins they provide are unhealthy for the game.

because it lets the tank drive to safety?

Yep.

Infantry shouldn't get one shot killed no matter what ability or unit we are talking about. I have yet to face a player who effectively avoided demos which means that they are certainly going to squad wipe at some point in the game. A grenade is easy to dodge unlike demos.
Not sure why you start with the whole fanboy accusation bs.

It should happen some. If a large explosive gets a direct hit on clumped infantry, squad should die sometimes. If you want vehicles to be killed every time they get low instead of engine or gun damage, you can't expect infantry to magically survive devastating explosives just because. I agree it happens too much right now mainly thanks to ISU, King Tiger, and demo charges, but lucky squad kills should exist unless they were to basically re-do the game and make it Starcraft 2 where you know exactly what is going to happen every time no RNG whatsoever.

Newsflash: Some abilities will wipe squads.

Normal 30 muni nade can wipe squad, what makes you believe a charge expected to demolish a bridge or building wouldn't kill a squad of infantry that walks over it?

I know there is these 'Ubermensch uber alles' trend within axis players, but you are taking it too far.

Or let me illustrate how you sound here with an analogical example:

Teller mines need a fix. They destroy scout cars, they shouldn't.
See? This is exactly how you sound here.

News flash: winning games because you killed important units with demo charges is equally noobish to losing units to demo charges. If they had a fuel tech requirement, or similar to Goliaths they were decloaked at close range which gave you time to quick react retreat and get retreat defensive bonuses and cut your losses, they would be acceptable.

lol fuckno. Does anyfucking body even read the patch notes any more?

Units and Abilities
Allies are more difficult to play as a result of their high unit count and low power ratio per unit. For example, instead of heaving one super heavy Tiger, the USF have two or three Sherman Tanks. In theory, the USF player possesses a relatively similar army value; in practice the execution of this army requires greater coordination. Short term, our goal is to target a few problematic units or upgrades to better align the factional balance. Long term, we will be addressing faction scaling, how the power of a faction compounds into the late game, and difficulty of play related to Allied army composition. That said, other factors will likely be added to that list as we further investigate some of the challenges players are facing.

Personally I think the only things that should 1 shot squads are off-maps or other artillery type units. Off maps are almost always avoidable, but should punish people who aren't playing attention. Artillery like the werfer/katy/howitzers is generally avoidable and doesn't wipe main-line infantry too often - plus there needs to be a solid counter to massed support weapon teams in the mid/late game - and vet on support weapons, while nice, is not as impactful in most scenarios as vetted elite infantry. I think the walking stuka could use a minor nerf, or a slightly longer time between showing the shadows of where it is hitting, and it actually landing. This way it would still be great against support weapons, but avoidable for other squads.

Democharges are fine imo, but Axis needs an equivalent since they have no breaching or demolition tools at all. Democharges are also one of the few good blob-busters available.

I would say CoH2 is probably closer to being ready for e-sports than it has ever been but it has a way to go still. Couple more good patches maybe.

Infantry shouldn't get one shot killed no matter what ability or unit we are talking about. I have yet to face a player who effectively avoided demos which means that they are certainly going to squad wipe at some point in the game. A grenade is easy to dodge unlike demos.
Not sure why you start with the whole fanboy accusation bs.

Then you're up for a surprise playing, well, any RTS game in existence as in all RTS games there are abilities/weapons that will instantly melt infantry in the area. And since we're talking about ww2 soldiers, not T-1000 dress up battles, there is no logical reason why infantry should survive direct hit from huge, high explosives weapons.

Or to give you a better picture:

You seem to believe that infantry should always survive direct hit from B-4 or sturmtiger, railway arty or many, many other off maps and indirect fire weapons as well following your logic. Do you really see nothing wrong with it?

And I didn't started it, I simply replied to troll starting it.

Nice posts from CieZ, Inverse and PwnageMachine. Especially CieZ, you seem to understand the game better than Relic does.

Random shit is part of the game and good player will take these kind of happenings into account when executing their plan. Though I agree things like plane crashes have been quite brutal these days judging from amount of associated screenshots and clips posted.

If they ever do decide to remove things like vehicle abandons I really hope they will at least keep it as option for custom games, because without these (un)fortunate occurrences the game would be 50% less interesting to play and watch.

CieZ definitely nailed the problems with the game along with the other great suggestions from Inverse and PwnageMachine. Hopefully, relic will see the great feedback from this topic!

RNG is one thing, wiping a squad by RNG is something different from RNG. The idea is not to have or not have RNG but put a limit of RNG impact.

Example: A unit with more than XX% of his life cannot be OS by anything, whatever the damage level originally dealt.
So you have RNG as the damage source will randomly deal damage, but you control the limit of the damage.

About E-sport itself, Coh2 has clearly be design far away from any competitive thought. Automatch system emptier of ranking board system is the best demonstrator of fact.
Couple of months earlier they decided to turn 180 degree and look for e-sport, I'll be cynical but I'm ready to bet they took that decision after looking a Dota2 Compendium cash prize pool and the big profit Valve did with it.
I guess they can turn again 180 degree when they'll cold down their mind and see the true in where they are and what they have to accomplish to be somewhat attractive for ESL.

People are always going to complain about squads getting wiped. Whether its 4 volks clumped in cover getting one shotted by a grenade, a 3 man Shrek PG getting one shotted by a Sherman HE round, or a stationary blob getting wrecked by a B-4. One time I was playing DanielD in coh1 and I had a King Tiger one shot a 100% rifle squad. Out of the hundreds or thousands of shots I've had KTs take at infantry in my coh career, this was the only time where a semi clumped squad and direct Tiger hit caused a perfect storm of a insta 6 man unit wipe. NOBODY ever complained about KT being a OP noob squad wipe machine, I was just really lucky. Every now and then in coh1 a Sherman can one shot a Gren squad, usually if it flanks a squad clumped in cover and gets a perfect shot on whatever they were standing behind. Very rare. Sherman is not a OP squad wipe machine. When this type stuff happens multiple times in one game like it does with many units in CoH2 (ISU, KT, Sherman HE, etc) its really frustrating/anti-competitive and it does need to be toned down. But when something like that happens maybe once every 20-50 games, its not an issue. Like I said at the top, even if there was some stupid arbitrary squad-wipe shield (say above 75%) people are still going to flip shit when their 3 man Shrek PG goes down to one shot from a T34 or whatever. Putting in that "feature" or whatever you want to call it is not going to stop complaining about RNG squad wipe luck, its just going to lower the bar on what people consider to be lucky.

If a unit is clumped up and a explosion hits the area at the perfect spot to cause max damage to every unit in the squad, it should die. Some changes need to be made in the game so that it happens far less frequently, but there shouldn't be some quirky exception to the game engine where squads don't die when they should. It just blows my mind that people are saying "tanks should die when they take the necessary damage" but infantry should be some exception to the rule, and they should magically survive stuff that should clearly kill them. That is so contradictory.

Of all the things people complained about in the current CoH1 meta, insta squad wipes is not one of them. Just because it can happen does not mean the game isn't competitive.

You're maybe right, I don't know. But as you said, back in vCoh, it happened really sporadically when now, in Coh2, I'm lucky if I don't have any of my squad wiped in one shot per game lasting more than 15 minutes.

So there is a average between both situation and would be great to figure out where do we want to place this curser. And we could also come back to vCoh concept of squad wipe: really rare.

I would like to add that squad wipe isn't an issue in a game where veterancy isn't that important. But in Coh2, like in vCoh, having a full vetted squad dying in one shot isn't competitive at all. It is maybe fun and provide more substance to drama but it isn't competitive.

Competition means rules, means limits, means a frame surrounding what we want in and what we want out. It also means fair and balance for all parties.
So now, take the wipe squad concept and see if it enter in the frame or if it is out.

Would be nice if the game didn't run like shit. The game freezes and stutters while scrolling the screen, it's not fun to play because you can't control units due to freezes.

Good posts Basilone, you're pretty much spot on. Infantry should in no way be invincible, nothing in the game should be impossible or exceedingly difficult to kill - but I think most people can agree that currently squads are being one shot with far too much frequency - especially against the ISU. There have been games where I've lost 6 or 7 vet3+ squads over the course of a game against an ISU.

Anyone saying "l2p" or "adapt" to that sort of bullshit is just wrong. Completely wrong. There's no way you can "adapt" to that kind of thing, or your heavy tank dying while the enemy heavy tank lives because of a death crit.

I agree with lots of Ciez points mostly with callins being broken I however don't agree at all with your explanation as to why RNG is bad. CoH has NEVER been a game where you calculate in your head "I drop 150 munitions for bombing strike on his 200 manpower 100 fuel unit, I calculate its worth the trade *order bombing strike* OMG It only destroyed engine now my plan went to shit due to RNG!!!"


CoH is more like poker than chess, you plan your strategy on whats most likely to pay off and if not you adapt and if adapt doesnt help you wait for a new "hand" which CoH gives with its many comeback mechanics. If you turn CoH into a chesslike RTS its gonna die right away because there are many RTS that already does that better than CoH ever will, its pokerlike strategy is what makes CoH special.

agree with spajn

Guys,

I'm not a good person for eSports discussing (as I'm poor player) but have in mind that for company (Saga, Relic) going into this business is a matter of .. business.

It just costs, a lot.

Part of you may know my opinion (very bad) on the way the random games are arranged now (and were always). They have to solve it BEFORE or will get no INCOME from eSports investments.

So even if 1x1 (or any other mode) will be perfectly balanced, it will be waste of time and money as it will be very hard to attract new players because of "Why I am always loosing" problem.

It could be, and will be, a fun for most of you but the question is if game is ready for massive new players number - what is the business point inside "going eSports" idea.

For me it's not.

(Hope you got my point as sometimes it seems to me I am writing Chinese)