Where Company of Heroes went wrong.

There are so many great posts in this thread. I think OP has hit on a number of issues but I also think other people have raised some excellent additional points. I wish Relic could go back to the drawing board and produce a new COH game now, although I think it too late.

For me the interesting thing I would add is that after just 1.5 years I am getting extremely tired of this game. I tend to play one game at a time and have found myself less and less interested in playing. I never had this feeling with COH1.

Relic please take note, you should identify what was good about COH1 and build that. Please do not take each individual problem on and create a solution by building a new unit (e.g., shreks should be purchased one at a time but should also not dominate tanks, also tank killing squads are too small. Relic solution: make volks 5 man, cheap, and buy a single expensive shrek).

I could play vCoh for hours switch back and forth between Allies and Axis, now only way to win is playing Axis (majority of the time). I haven't touched the game since two weeks, been playing other games while waiting for January patch. I am hopeful that minor changes will make the killing grounds equally fair on both Allies and Axis side. Amen lol.

There are so many great posts in this thread. I think OP has hit on a number of issues but I also think other people have raised some excellent additional points. I wish Relic could go back to the drawing board and produce a new COH game now, although I think it too late.

For me the interesting thing I would add is that after just 1.5 years I am getting extremely tired of this game. I tend to play one game at a time and have found myself less and less interested in playing. I never had this feeling with COH1.

Relic please take note, you should identify what was good about COH1 and build that. Please do not take each individual problem on and create a solution by building a new unit (e.g., shreks should be purchased one at a time but should also not dominate tanks, also tank killing squads are too small. Relic solution: make volks 5 man, cheap, and buy a single expensive shrek).

COH3 - Make COH1 with essentially the same units, colors, tech trees, etc. but add tru-sight and maybe maybe some elements from cold-tech. You probably don't even need better graphics.

Edit: But please fix the m10 bug.

--- note this is covering generally both games rather than just vCoH or CoH2---

...

This was translated well into the original Company of Heroes (and if you watch the campaign cutscenes, there will even be moments where Band of Brothers scenes are played out) and in the faction setups of the original vCoH this was mirrored, with your company being easily able to access standard infantry sections, MGs, mortars etc. This resulted in a fairly even and well balanced game, with Yankees vs Wehrmacht being the original and the best when it came to a good fight, even after Opposing Fronts came out.

although i never played coh1 competitively, i have seen all the SNF4, i have never seen US build their HMG or mortar and many other units. it was either m8 or bar, m8 or bar, m8 or bar. didn't look like band of brothers combined arms existed for those US players at the highest level of coh1.

Fast forward to CoH2 and we have a similar thing, but once again there are some aberrations. The ostheer are the only one following a conventional "Band of Brothers" setup. Ostheer these days gets a lot of hate, but I personally rather like them these days. In my experience they place great emphasis on tactics, movement and positioning, definitely a greater emphasis upon it then all the other factions. Soviets by contrast (whilst having some of the worst faction design in the history of the game), whilst having the full suite of combined arms, are still hamstrung by missing out elite infantry (desperately needed by the) if they forgo T1. If they go for elite infantry by contrast, they forgo their absolutely vital support weaponry. So whilst Ostheer follows a relatively authentic Company setup, the Soviets do not, and thus is the origin of some of their significant early game balance issues.

i disagree on soviet, if they go cons, their tactics and placement just as much as because you basically have to flank weapons teams and either close in or stay away depending on enemy units (grens/sturmpio). i feel more people should try both t1 and t2, they are only (160mp)200mp/50fu per pop. that is less than at-nade + molotov. long gone are days when sov t1/t2 needed 5 hrs to build. i think ability to choose whether to go combined arms or not is better than just being 100% band of brothers.

Now we come to Western Front Armies. Here we have the same deal as Opposing Fronts. The classic set up of a World War II infantry company is thrown out the window and this has left both armies in precarious positions of balance. On the one hand we have the Americans, whose Indirect fire support is frankly pitiful with a few minor outliers, they have an MG which is too easily destroyed and is gunned down by blobs and their options for opening the game are limitted to rifles... rifles... and more rifles. Meanwhile, OKW has no infantry MG (which led to the silliness with the KoenigKubel), no mortar, it's indirect fire is frankly not very good early game, with no mortar, a heavily nerfed infantry gun and an extremely dodgy in the balance department Stuka zu Fuss, which on a bad day kills nothing and on a good day wipes out 2-3 squads in a barrage. To make up for this, the OKW is forced to rely on massive blobs of infantry, infantry whose balance is extremely questionable. In my experience, OKW is the only faction that doesn't reward positioning infantry more than blobbing them. Both factions have significant core balance problems and once again, like Opposing Fronts, this comes down to their not following authentic company set ups.

disagree on USF, although three rifle start seems to be set in stones, not many people yet experimented with rear echelons, and you have other options available with commanders like ass. engi and pathfinders. then you choose between lieutenant or captain. USF HMG is my favourite, they got good damage, good set up time, aoe suppression helps a lot etc etc, but you need very good positioning and care, which i believe you uphold as a good thing from ostheer. pak howi is worth it in my experience. only problem i see with USF is that if you go lieutenant, captain, and major for maximum ultra combined arms, officers take up 21 pop cap, two of them adding to already sufficient enough force of rifleman and other infantries, and unless you back tech to lieutenant or captain, your first tank will be too late which is a huge problem mainly because how awkward rifleman at nade is.

partly agree on OKW, giving them no mid game tank and resource penalty lead relic to give OKW, vet 5 with crazy bonuses, insane elite squads, super cheap teching with one of the tech building as long ass range area denial until late game, built in AA, KT etc etc - basically units/features that performs out of norm but apparently balanced due to OKW's shortcomings in other department, which i don't think translate too well in game.

i applaud relic for trying something new but it's a mess.

...
On faction variety:
There's a strong argument for not homogenising factions like my writing suggests above. It's a decent argument and is valid. However there are myriad ways to make factions different without forcing some factions not be able to benefit from combined arms. Within a combined arms company in CoH2 you have 4 different elements. Infantry, Machine Guns, Mortars and AT guns. Each of these can be balanced to allow certain factions to excel in certain areas or the like. Perhaps the Soviets could have better infantry, however the Ostheer have better Machine Guns to counteract that.

already ostheer, okw, sov and usf's baseline infantry, HMGs, mortars (or their counter part), AT guns are very different.

COH's excellence came from three main qualities:
1. Flanking
2. Defending against the flank with positioning and combined arms
3. Flanking again.

These elements are best evident in vCoh's early-game Rifle—MG42/Volks dance, but they were also evident in M10 flanks, strategically placed wire and mines, timed-popping flamers and BARs, overlapping AT fields of fire, and so on.

How much fun was it to get your MG42 turned around just in time to stop that third riflemen?
How much fun was it have your BARs pop and be able to take on green cover Volks?
How great was it to have four rifles and a flamer charge in from different angles?

Honestly, the rest of the game was only icing. Flanking and counter-flanking is what made the COH franchise so great. And I want it back.

TIL people still want vCoH to be all there is to the game.

If you want to play vCoH go play vCoH.

TIL people still want vCoH to be all there is to the game.

If you want to play vCoH go play vCoH.

No, people want a game that is a better vCOH, that has learned lessons from what COH1 did right and wrong. Not a buggy, poorly balanced "esport" that apparently learned nothing much.

way to downplay the issue though

COH's excellence came from three main qualities:
1. Flanking
2. Defending against the flank with positioning and combined arms
3. Flanking again.

These elements are best evident in vCoh's early-game Rifle—MG42/Volks dance, but they were also evident in M10 flanks, strategically placed wire and mines, timed-popping flamers and BARs, overlapping AT fields of fire, and so on.

How much fun was it to get your MG42 turned around just in time to stop that third riflemen?
How much fun was it have your BARs pop and be able to take on green cover Volks?
How great was it to have four rifles and a flamer charge in from different angles?

Honestly, the rest of the game was only icing. Flanking and counter-flanking is what made the COH franchise so great. And I want it back.

Too bad that was ONLY and SPECIFICALLY for the wehr.
All other armies were about who can blob more and faster while spamming automatic weapon upgrades.

Guess what? Not much have change since, at least for axis factions, except now even wehr have powerful automatic infantry weapons and allied blobs are nothing like coh1 bar rifles or brits as a whole.

All of what you miss so much is in coh2 for a long time already and there is one of two issues:

Severe case of denial about CoH2.
Severe case of pink glasses of nostalgia.

Too bad that was ONLY and SPECIFICALLY for the wehr.
All other armies were about who can blob more and faster while spamming automatic weapon upgrades.

Guess what? Not much have change since, at least for axis factions, except now even wehr have powerful automatic infantry weapons and allied blobs are nothing like coh1 bar rifles or brits as a whole.

All of what you miss so much is in coh2 for a long time already and there is one of two issues:

Severe case of denial about CoH2.
Severe case of pink glasses of nostalgia.

The OF factions were a design disaster. There aren't many people who would disagree with that. They moved completely away from the drawn-out vehicle play, suppression-based infantry combat, and dynamic upgrade systems that made the vanilla matchup a joy to play both tactically and strategically. CoH2's original vanilla matchup had all of those tactical elements with none of the strategic ones.

@pigsoup You're absolutely right, the Americans were a relatively simple faction to play from a strategic perspective. Their support units were very situational, and the general flow of play was largely figured out, though there was still room to maneuver within the constraints imposed by the game. That said, the simple fact that upgrades were such a huge part of the vanilla matchup in CoH1 that entire games could be won or lost based solely on their razor-thin timings added a layer of strategic depth to the game that is far deeper than anything present in any faction in CoH2. There really isn't any serious representation of CoH1's global upgrade system in CoH2, and the game lacks a large amount of depth as a result.

All of what you miss so much is in coh2 for a long time already and there is one of two issues:

Severe case of denial about CoH2.
Severe case of pink glasses of nostalgia.

All I'm saying was that early game US-Wher matchups were a delight to play. Some of my most fun video-game experiences were executing 4-rifle flanks on Ango, baiting a flank onto a mine, or taking out the first MG with a 3-rifle --> nades start.

I can't fully explain why, but I just haven't been able to replicate that gameplay in COH2.

All I'm saying was that early game US-Wher matchups were a delight to play. Some of my most fun video-game experiences were executing 4-rifle flanks on Ango, baiting a flank onto a mine, or taking out the first MG with a 3-rifle --> nades start.

I can't fully explain why, but I just haven't been able to replicate that gameplay in COH2.

Probably because MG's aren't nearly as strong, so the emphesis on flanking isn't as strong as the idea of just charging it frontally with 2 squads a few meters apart, which is easier and just as effective. In-fact the MG traverse is so slow combined with lowered suppression, you can assault it frontally with a single squad if you come up the side of the cone instead of the middle, you have about 2-3 seconds before it'll start shooting.

yeah and with maxims there isn't much point in flanking as they'll just shift their facing and suppress you. the M2 is pretty strong but flanking it into a rifle blob doesn't work very well. the mg34 is just shit.

You're the guys that whined to Relic to make suppression teams take bonus damage. First you all complained that flanking wasn't worth it, and now you complain that flanking is too good.

Just sayin'

What Galbart says. There was unfortunately alot of cheese, bullshit, and bad balance in Coh as well, at least in some patches and particularly with the release of PE/Brits, but the fundamental vCOH flanking dynamic was, and I want you to get my full meaning here, outstandingly designed and implemented.

Let's not forget that support units had 3 man squads for EVERYONE.

And this was a pretty strong set rule that consistently played out well. Now we have 6 and 4 man squads, which are really different from both each other, and the old 3 man squads.

IIRC, the large squads were designed to firstly to make snipers less effective, and secondly to delay the period of time until the final squad member awkwardly committed seppuku, or now, flee in a random direction against all logic and rationale.

But since CoH2 seems to be designed around its own metagame, (which, incidentally, indicates what takes place AFTER game design, but that's another issue entirely.) the ramifications and consequences of these kinds of changes are quickly muddled. Pretty soon the reasons for the changes are forgotten or completely buried by other changes.

Relic appears to have decided to break all their own rules with CoH2, and well, the results are as self-evident as its design.

You're the guys that whined to Relic to make suppression teams take bonus damage. First you all complained that flanking wasn't worth it, and now you complain that flanking is too good.

Just sayin'

This.

< Infantry combat evolution in CoH2 >

MG42 TOO STRONK OMG AXIS BIAS NERF NOW!

MG nerfed :

OMG FLANKING USELESS AXIS BIAS NERF NOW!

Buff lmg/introduce elite infantry to punish blobbing :

OMG SUPER DPS INFANTRY RAPES MY BLOB! AXIS BIAS NERF NAO!


See the pattern here?

Key to having a good game : Devs should ONLY listen to high ranked players.

Key to having a good game : Devs should ONLY listen to high ranked players.

With a post like that, you'd be somewhat surprised that that statement wouldnt exactly be in your favor...

The problem, I think, is that in vCoH the Wehr/Ami matchup wherein the Amis had an early/midgame 'advantage' was a result of how the gameplay ended up flowing together, rather than the original faction designs.

In CoH2, Relic decided to specifically model the factions to either suck early and faceroll with no effort mid/late, or to rickroll for the first 10 minutes of a game before diving off of a cliff face-first into a vat of failsauce.

Too bad that was ONLY and SPECIFICALLY for the wehr.
All other armies were about who can blob more and faster while spamming automatic weapon upgrades.

Guess what? Not much have change since, at least for axis factions, except now even wehr have powerful automatic infantry weapons and allied blobs are nothing like coh1 bar rifles or brits as a whole.

All of what you miss so much is in coh2 for a long time already and there is one of two issues:

Severe case of denial about CoH2.
Severe case of pink glasses of nostalgia.

I'll disagree there with you...

COH2 is COH/OF on steroids, with all the cheesy units, abilities and faction designs multiplied and made worse.
For example. KV8= faster, stronger, deadlier and more impact flame churchill
120 mm mortar = Brit emplacement at least couldn't move
Elephant = it was 10 times easier to flank and kill Marder or Firefly
Call in King Tiger? how about Vet 3 Elite tiger that can virtually give victory on its own.
PE assault grens? how about blob that can take on anything, can reach vet5 and doesn't need to retreat far away?
Straffing run, V1, Defensive barrage. One click abilities. all stronger, longer lasting, easier to use and more impactfull. Did I mention way more of one click = instant hero abilities?
Virtually indestructible super tanks that can only be fought off with another super tank?
etc, etc...

OF was far more strategic and less cheesy to play than COH2

VCOH is dead and things that made VCOH RTS of the year, getting raving reviews and loyal fan base over 7 years have NOT been included in COH2.

That is why COH2 isn't getting raving reviews, awards nor large loyal fanbase

I think you are wearing pink glasses when looking at COH2 and comparing it with VCOH or even OF.

I won't say this game is complete sh.. but it's no COH

This.

< Infantry combat evolution in CoH2 >

MG42 TOO STRONK OMG AXIS BIAS NERF NOW!

MG nerfed :

OMG FLANKING USELESS AXIS BIAS NERF NOW!

Buff lmg/introduce elite infantry to punish blobbing :

OMG SUPER DPS INFANTRY RAPES MY BLOB! AXIS BIAS NERF NAO!

how is this related?

did anyone with sane mind complain about nerfed mg42 when it used to pin squads in milliseconds?

flanking was useless because small arms did such little damage and since march 2014, it has been tweaked and general opinion is that it was a giant step in the right direction. only problem is obers wiping at guns and 1v1-ing HMGs frontally.

i don't think buffed lmg and elite infantries were added to punish blobs. gren lmg got nerfed over the course of the game life cycle.

LMGs got retooled so that rather than LMGs blowing apart men from close range(0-10) they do it from far (35) range instead

LMGs doing so much damage at far range makes it hard to close in to theoretically counter LMGs where they are at their weakest, unless you have SMG troops and plenty of shot blockers to sneak them in without being shot at.