4 things that would make CoH2 instantly better

But i'd much rather see a close-fought, fast-paced and unpredictable game that goes back and forth without a clear winner for most of the time rather than what we saw most of the time in coh at high levels which was early dominance leading to a predictable win or early dominance then the other guy busts out a can of 'T4 armor and bought vet/vet 3 rifle whupass' to pull an improbable win.

You essentially destroyed your own argument there. Are you sure you've been watching "high-level" replays? Cause high level games can have quite a lot of back-and-forth, close-fought action and players have an amazing potential for comebacks, and that makes the outcome of their games quite unpredictable.
The potential for a comeback as a player who's on the losing side on vCOH is dependent only on player skill. Of course, Wehr does have a slightly better comeback potential due to not being hindered as much as US by manpower drain and not having to rely on a supply yard, and naturally, lategame wehr units (at high levels, again, the comeback potential is equalized due to the players being excellently conditioned to making up for the US army's shortcomings). All this comeback potential is something that is inherently acquired by the losing side in COH2, due to the way the manpower income system rewards you for losing units.

'Long, VP close games' Really? I haven't seen a 1v1 game that goes for more than 45 mins and coh1 60-70 min games were the norm, at least on the high lvl shoutcasts.

Um, not really. Longer games tend to get selected for shoutcasts because they are more epic but your average CoH match, even from pros, wasn't 60 to 70 minutes. I say this as someone who recorded 100+ shoutcasts, the vast majority of them of games with high skill level players.

I can't play something which I can't see properly, that's why yesterday's SNF was the worse of all time, even I was not playing and just watching- I could stand only for 10 mnts.

Design and concept is not about budget, it needs witty and skillful people. Covering all over the screen with Italic fonts is not an excuse, if you are in design business or even if you are not- just ask any friend of yours who is a graphic designer and they will tell you what they think about using Italic fonts on any type of work. It's just lame.

Flanking needs skill, knowledge and practice, tough in COH2 you don't need to flank because Relic gave us super-duber Mortars which they mentioned million times that "they're awesome".

Did I say "witty people"? Right.

I was thinking about contributing a list of things that would make the game better, but it would be synonymous with asking them to cancel the game, refund everybody's preorder, and starting from scratch in the list's extensiveness.

Should Relic contact me for consulting purposes in response to this post, which I'm confident they will, I should warn the talent scout ahead of time that I've already thought of and copyrighted the title for this new game; Company of Heroes: Not A Lazy Cash Grab.

You essentially destroyed your own argument there. Are you sure you've been watching "high-level" replays? Cause high level games can have quite a lot of back-and-forth, close-fought action and players have an amazing potential for comebacks, and that makes the outcome of their games quite unpredictable.

Well I don't see how I destroyed my argument, I merely feel that the way coh2 is set up in terms of the MP system makes the games closer than in coh1. I never meant to imply coh1 games were in any way 'cookie cutter'/predictable, just that they were more so than in coh2, basically because a strong early/mid game usually sealed the deal.

Not so this time.

I saw one 2v2 on Mcgechaen's war that went down to 1 vp for the entire 3 yrs i've been watching/playing coh1, and I saw that same thing happen in one of the first shoutcasts I ever saw of the beta and most of the other games i've seen were almost as close as that.

And FYI, I have subscriptions to TFN, SNF Propaganda Cast etc.. so I definitely get my fill of 'high level play' thanks.

Well I don't see how I destroyed my argument, I merely feel that the way coh2 is set up in terms of the MP system makes the games closer than in coh1. I never meant to imply coh1 games were in any way 'cookie cutter'/predictable, just that they were more so than in coh2, basically because a strong early/mid game usually sealed the deal.

Not so this time.

I saw one 2v2 on Mcgechaen's war that went down to 1 vp for the entire 3 yrs i've been watching/playing coh1, and I saw that same thing happen in one of the first shoutcasts I ever saw of the beta and most of the other games i've seen were almost as close as that.

And FYI, I have subscriptions to TFN, SNF Propaganda Cast etc.. so I definitely get my fill of 'high level play' thanks.

You don't get it do you... Yes, games in COH2 end up being closer exactly because of the MP system. The MP system takes a good amount of player skill out of the equation. You may think noob comebacks due to increased manpower income are exciting to watch, good for you bud. The rest of us prefer not to waste three quarters of an hour trying to beat people of vastly inferior skill due to them coming back with new units again and again, while we struggle to deliver the killing blow because of having less than 150 manpower income due to the units we already have.
It dumbs the game down, end of story.

Prepare your pitchforks for what I'm gonna say now, and I truly hope I'm wrong in the end.

Relic has proven time and time again their incompetence, why do you guys suddenly belive they will listen to the community and actually do some work?

------E


Oh and one thing I haven't seen being mentioned: where is the count of killed infantary/tanks... a unit has killed? :/

Proved their incompetence? CoH and DoW 2 are two of the games I've played the most, ever. I don't see how they prove their incompetence by poor balancing. To me it mostly seem to tell of what priorities they have. (or had, tbf, since 90% of this games development was under THQ)

Maybe TheSoulTrain is talking about OF and ToV and CoHO.

Oh and one thing I haven't seen being mentioned: where is the count of killed infantary/tanks... a unit has killed? :/

It's in.
Move your mouse on the kill count in the upper right corner of the avatar of the selected unit.

You're right, I hand't seen it up there... maybe if the UI wasn't so shitty I'd would be in a logical place.

And yes I'm pretty much talking about OF, ToV and CoHO. But you can also add DoW2 to that list, if anyone has played the original DoW he'd know why DoW2 is the most utter shit ever(maybe even worse than CoH1 expansions...)

At least OF had new ideas brought to the game. Does CoH2 do anything new that wasn't already in CoH? Even "Coldtech", ie weather affecting gameplay was an idea they wanted to implement in OF, but couldn't. And then they ripped progression from CoHO, put it all together in a game they have the balls to call Company of Heroes 2.

Truesight is new, abandoning vehicles is new, ramming is new, merging squads is new, the multi-purpose AT platforms that can barrage are new, and something being a feature they couldn't add before does not disqualify it from being a new feature, so Coldtech is new.

Plus vaulting, deep snow (meh), earned vet by both factions, crew injuries, flamer drops, doctrinal units that require a building + fuel, differentiation between AP and AT mines, cap radius, snipers that can cap while cloaked, units that unlock abilities with vet, units that can consistently counter aircraft, crew weapons being dropped on retreat, etc.

deep snow is not a new feature per se, it is just an added "environment"... just like water, road, pastures etc. (as in it effects movement speed and cover)

for the most part, coh 2 is a mashup of coh and coho (especially ability wise) with a few added things. but that in itself is not necessarily bad, you do not have to reinvent the wheel.

You're right, I hand't seen it up there... maybe if the UI wasn't so shitty I'd would be in a logical place.

And yes I'm pretty much talking about OF, ToV and CoHO. But you can also add DoW2 to that list, if anyone has played the original DoW he'd know why DoW2 is the most utter shit ever(maybe even worse than CoH1 expansions...)

I think you're too stuck in what the game was. I enjoyed DoW immensely, same for DoW 2 and CoH. I don't compare them because that's just not what Relic does. They don't expand on a game in their sequel but instead they create a separate experience. This does make their games lacking in polish that you can see in for example a Blizzard game, but it gives something new and (usually) interesting. If you're gonna follow Relic games you might as well get used to it honestly, or you'll spend a lot of time complaining about what it should be when your idea of what it should be is so clearly different from theirs.

Extending weapon crew remanning to tanks, giving an AT gun a barrage ability, and an ability that works differently from suicide M8 mines.

I'll give you True Sight and Blizzards. They're yours.

Deep snow (rivers), earned vet, weapon drops, doctrinal units, separate AP and AT mines, vet unlocks, Ostwinds and Quads, unmanned crew weapons are all not new.

Vaulting is new, and my tanks getting shocked on the first hit is also new.

You guys forgot ice, where an arty or mortar round lands on my super-unit and sinks it. Or put another way, the only part of a map where my vehicles won't run into every obstacle they can.

If a barrage ability on an AT gun and building doctrine units out of production buildings is what we are now calling new, I have too high of expectations.

Relic certainly isn't Blizzard. There's no making that mistake.

I have too high of expectations.

No, you're just really frustrated. Everything they said is new to COH, that's a fact. Squeeze a stress ball instead of hating for the sake of hating.

What I absolutely don't get is the logic behind those changes. First off they took away an important CORE ELEMENT of CoH1 - cut offs! So they actually took away one major factor in terms of map control.

Think of the three big maps of CoH1, they all had that cut off that made those maps interesting. Now, they did not only take away cut offs (which makes it already a lot easier to keep a small portion of the map, but they also changed the way upkeep works, so that holding the map does not give you a manpower advantage, but rather a manpower disadvantage by having more units and not getting any more mp from the map. On top of that you get veterancy from taking damage and you get some fuel and ammo from every point you hold.

For me it feels like you get much less rewarded by playing better than your opponent, in nearly every aspect.

'Long, VP close games' Really? I haven't seen a 1v1 game that goes for more than 45 mins and coh1 60-70 min games were the norm, at least on the high lvl shoutcasts.
And I do like the more accurate weaponry this time around, no more 5% tanks getting away because an RNG rolled a miss/crit on a schreck squad at close range.

Exactly the other way round, although the numbers are not accurate. CoH1 (1v1) games took about 30 minutes up to 60 max. I can't remember a CoH1 game that took longer than an hour, not a single one of myself at least (and I played more than enough of 1v1s). There were a lot of (high level) games that took only 20 minutes or even less (remember DevMs ~10 minute win against sym after he took over that first MG of him with the jeep in some tourney or SNF final).

In CoH2 it was literally 1 time where I won in about 10 minutes (when my opponent left after he ran 3 MGs into my whole army..). All other games took at least 20 minutes, most of them 30 or 40. And that all while I was 10 times better than my opponent.

A major problem that causes these long games are, imo, the base buildings and the fact that units come from outside the map. Baserushing the enemy with vehicles and mining T2/circling the pak once it comes out made it actually possible to close out a game when you crushed him early game. Now it takes years to destroy base buildings and you don't get a chance to prepare for enemy units, because you don't even see where they come from (and when).

In the end I agree with every single point, Tommy (and others) made so far. There are still a lot of things that have to be changed to make it as good as CoH1, but maybe it will improve until (and after) release.

Now, they did not only take away cut offs (which makes it already a lot easier to keep a small portion of the map, but they also changed the way upkeep works, so that holding the map does not give you a manpower advantage, but rather a manpower disadvantage by having more units and not getting any more mp from the map.

Interesting discussion going on here, have been following this thread for a good while now! I'd like to throw in my two cents on two points:

1. Cut-offs are still there. They are NOT taken out of the game. SNF had some 2v2 games with very effective cut-off strats, where one team had literally zero strat points for one - two minutes. While this might not take away all the MP, it does limit your Muni/fuel income severely, limiting teching and the use of special abilities that improve your general fighting strength. I agree that cut-offs are not as brutal as they were in vCoH, but saying that they are "taken out of the game" is polemic and plain wrong.

2. Come-backs are over-rated in this conversation. I've had plenty of games where I had the whole map capped after 10 - 15 minutes and had the dude pinned in his base, and I knew I had won the game. Some tried to fight on, but two or three T34s would always be the end of it. You are making it sound as if your opponent is getting a stronger army by losing, which is simply not the case.