It just isn't fun anymore

i agree with burts, inverse and marco.


there is a stale meta. players will naturally gravitate to what is the meta and what works best. ALthough noone is being forced to the meta strats, nonmeta strats may not perform as well.

that Stug E is the only weapon i truly fear, its so OP at the moment i yet to run into a german play who dosn't pick that commander for that one unit.

Yes, relic should nerf it into the ground so that ost have absolutely no counter to USF elite troops with bars. Most players pick stug e due to lack of any reliable alternative, which is frustrating and boring.

Yeh yeh, its always not our fault, it must be the game.
Its like talking to kids!

It's true though. You're playing a game where the main objective is to defeat your opponent. In general, winning in a boring way is a lot more fun than losing in a creative way for most people. Look at the CZ-75 in CSGO a few months ago, Marine-SCV all-ins in SC2 during the first year, Infestor-Brood Lord a few years later. Hell, even Piospam in CoH1. For a lot of competitive players, winning IS where the fun in the game comes from. I guarantee if you asked top tournament players, most of them would say that. When you're competing against someone else, winning is fun, and losing isn't.

So if there's one or two strategies that have the highest rate of success, people are going to use them, because it's all about giving yourself the best chance to win. That's why I've always hated the one-dimensional strategic nature of CoH2. With the exception of a few commander abilities, your entire strategic gameplan revolves around developing the most efficient unit composition. Without upgrades or some equivalent secondary strategic choice, the metagame devolves into finding the most efficient unit composition for the given patch and using it.

It's true though. You're playing a game where the main objective is to defeat your opponent. In general, winning in a boring way is a lot more fun than losing in a creative way for most people. Look at the CZ-75 in CSGO a few months ago, Marine-SCV all-ins in SC2 during the first year, Infestor-Brood Lord a few years later. Hell, even Piospam in CoH1. For a lot of competitive players, winning IS where the fun in the game comes from. I guarantee if you asked top tournament players, most of them would say that. When you're competing against someone else, winning is fun, and losing isn't.

So if there's one or two strategies that have the highest rate of success, people are going to use them, because it's all about giving yourself the best chance to win. That's why I've always hated the one-dimensional strategic nature of CoH2. With the exception of a few commander abilities, your entire strategic gameplan revolves around developing the most efficient unit composition. Without upgrades or some equivalent secondary strategic choice, the metagame devolves into finding the most efficient unit composition for the given patch and using it.

Love the old CZ-75. Good thing they nerfed it though. Even JW acknowledged it was OP.

In (e)sports/competitions in general there are deciding factors for the result of the game which the player cannot control. Like in COH2 you have your performance, teammates performance (in some game modes), your opponent and RNG. The more players the less is your influence on the result of the game. You can play an extremely good game and still lose, or play really bad and still win. This is espesially true in big team games.

It is very hard to ignore all negative impulses when playing. However it is possible to make an active choice on what kind of attitude you want to have when playing. It is generally a good idea to try focus on what you do/did well and what you do/did wrong and how you can improve this instead of just seeing the game in black and white, win or loss. The replay is a good tool for this.

Set yourself some goal before you start a game on what you want to achieve. You can also decide to focus on certain parts of your play, for example using mines when playing soviet, or listen in the fog, AT-gun/mortar/artillery micro, etc. This can help to give the game meaning beyond just winning and losing, and make it a more enjoyable experience regardless of end results.

Right. But the whole purpose of improving is to win more frequently. At the end of the day, that's what any competition is ultimately about.

You can argue that, as a player, using flavour-of-the-month strategies that have a high likelyhood of getting nerfed in future patches is short-sighted and will make you a worse player in the long run, but my point was it doesn't make sense to blame players for a stale meta because people will generally take the path of least resistance in competitive games.

yeah, and if you always take the flavor of the month it will make you win more, which one could argue means one is a better player.

It's true though. You're playing a game where the main objective is to defeat your opponent. In general, winning in a boring way is a lot more fun than losing in a creative way for most people.

This is sadly true for many players. It has has to be or why else would a player A-move a six squad blob around the map simply annihilating any thing he encounters. Many features of Coh set the game apart from the rest of the rst genre and it what so many people love about the game. But the direction that western fronts and to a lesser degree Coh2 has taken, has reduced that differentiation dramatically. Sure it looks like Coh, and feels like Coh but under closer inspection the real substance of the game is gone, replaced with gameplay from games designed years ago.

Pehaps they encouraged it through Western Front design because so many old school Coh1 pro's bashed Coh2(and rightly so to some extent) and they realize they had lost that part of the community and decided to allow the game to become more mainstream by lowering the skill ceiling. They still need to make money, right.

The thing is, i feel no motivation to become better at this game, not the way i did with Coh1. I started like every other player in multiplayer. I lost hard at first but wanted to improve and play like those above me. I spent numerous hours watching top Coh1 casters and tried to replicate what they could do and over time rose through the ranks. Each rank i achieved was a feeling of satisfaction and onward i would go practicing, refining builds, learning niche things about the game.

But this game, i barely give a shit any more. I often just quit because of frustration with many features throughout the game. Rank is a distant thought most games. I am just looking for a decent opponent who doesn't abuse some feature just to win.

I live in hope that Relic is addressing the issue and something will happen with the next patch otherwise i think my participation in Coh2 will be limited to watch casts.

This is sadly true for many players. It has has to be or why else would a player A-move a six squad blob around the map simply annihilating any thing he encounters. Many features of Coh set the game apart from the rest of the rst genre and it what so many people love about the game. But the direction that western fronts and to a lesser degree Coh2 has taken, has reduced that differentiation dramatically. Sure it looks like Coh, and feels like Coh but under closer inspection the real substance of the game is gone, replaced with gameplay from games designed years ago.

Pehaps they encouraged it through Western Front design because so many old school Coh1 pro's bashed Coh2(and rightly so to some extent) and they realize they had lost that part of the community and decided to allow the game to become more mainstream by lowering the skill ceiling. They still need to make money, right.

The thing is, i feel no motivation to become better at this game, not the way i did with Coh1. I started like every other player in multiplayer. I lost hard at first but wanted to improve and play like those above me. I spent numerous hours watching top Coh1 casters and tried to replicate what they could do and over time rose through the ranks. Each rank i achieved was a feeling of satisfaction and onward i would go practicing, refining builds, learning niche things about the game.

But this game, i barely give a shit any more. I often just quit because of frustration with many features throughout the game. Rank is a distant thought most games. I am just looking for a decent opponent who doesn't abuse some feature just to win.

I live in hope that Relic is addressing the issue and something will happen with the next patch otherwise i think my participation in Coh2 will be limited to watch casts.

A Balance patch can fix some issues but people will find new things to abuse and to cheese with and nothing can be done to stop people from doing so. Second thing stop with the COH1 nostalgia its like Heroes of might and magic 3, no matter what they do 3 is the best !!!!oneoneonone.

Right. But the whole purpose of improving is to win more frequently. At the end of the day, that's what any competition is ultimately about.

You can argue that, as a player, using flavour-of-the-month strategies that have a high likelyhood of getting nerfed in future patches is short-sighted and will make you a worse player in the long run, but my point was it doesn't make sense to blame players for a stale meta because people will generally take the path of least resistance in competitive games.

This is why more ppl plays Axis.

to the coh1 nostalgists here:
coh1 had its own stale meta and build orders everyone used, too

US:
-4rifles bars
-4rifles m8
-early wsc(maybe 5% of games)

Wehr
-T2 grenspam
-multiple snipers
-T3 with a puma

PE:
-AC's
-2x inf halftracks (maybe 10% of games)

Brits:
- a Blob


the metagame was basically about finding the enemy snipers. if you found them--> good chance to win. if not, you were mostly fucked
EDIT: sorry, there was also the "trying to get your medbunker up under howitzer fire" - meta


and for me a lategame which is dominated by heavy tanks is somewhat more logical and enjoyable than a lategame which is dominated by a bunch of snipers like coh1 had.

to the coh1 nostalgists here:
coh1 had its own stale meta and build orders everyone used, too

US:
-4rifles bars
-4rifles m8
-early wsc(maybe 5% of games)

Wehr
-T2 grenspam
-multiple snipers
-T3 with a puma

PE:
-AC's
-2x inf halftracks (maybe 10% of games)

Brits:
- a Blob


the metagame was basically about finding the enemy snipers. if you found them--> good chance to win. if not, you were mostly fucked
EDIT: sorry, there was also the "trying to get your medbunker up under howitzer fire" - meta


and for me a lategame which is dominated by heavy tanks is somewhat more logical and enjoyable than a lategame which is dominated by a bunch of snipers like coh1 had.

PE had fast P4 as well as pgren spam, USF had 4e into rangers, there were dreaded snipers.
Thats still much more variations then we currently have.

Sov: shock frontline or GTFO, team games give bit more freedom.
Wehr: T2 into tigerspam.
USF: Ok, here are some options for mid and late game(by some I mean 2, EZ8 spam or normal sherman with jacksons), just a single opening due to how faction is designed.
OKW: just do whatever, don't loose squads, win by vet.

The OF faction metagames were always relatively stale, which is a big reason why most people disliked them relative to the vanilla factions. Brits consistently had the worst meta in CoH1, and they also had zero global upgrades, a trait shared, interestingly enough, with every faction in CoH2. Aside from that, your post is fairly misleading Donnie, but you were never a serious 1v1 player so I can understand the confusion.

Outside of the darkness that was the Piospam phase, the vanilla matchup enjoyed a very interesting and diverse metagame for much of the game's life (at least from 2.301 onward, which is when I started playing). Americans had standard 4 rifle starts into BARs, grenades, or M8, 5 rifle BARs into Tank Depot, 4ES and its many variations, weird WSC openings like the ones Seb loved on Semois, and most importantly a wide variety of lategame options, since every tier was viable depending on the map and situation. And this was the faction with less options in the matchup.

The options available to Wehrmacht players were too numerous to list, but the most exciting thing about Wehrmacht play in CoH1 was the fact that every top player had his own unique Wehrmacht style, and they were all equally viable. It wasn't just openings either; things like tech progression and vet timings varied greatly between the top tournament contenders, to the point where you could identify players based solely on their gameplay.

This isn't a CoH1 thread, but it bugs me when I see misinformation thrown around. CoH2 doesn't need to be CoH1 to be successful, but if CoH1 did something right, it was giving different styles and strategies relatively equal viability at a high level of play.

Outside of the darkness that was the Piospam phase, the vanilla matchup enjoyed a very interesting and diverse metagame for much of the game's life (at least from 2.301 onward, which is when I started playing). Americans had standard 4 rifle starts into BARs, grenades, or M8, 5 rifle BARs into Tank Depot, 4ES and its many variations, weird WSC openings like the ones Seb loved on Semois, and most importantly a wide variety of lategame options, since every tier was viable depending on the map and situation. And this was the faction with less options in the matchup.

The options available to Wehrmacht players were too numerous to list, but the most exciting thing about Wehrmacht play in CoH1 was the fact that every top player had his own unique Wehrmacht style, and they were all equally viable. It wasn't just openings either; things like tech progression and vet timings varied greatly between the top tournament contenders, to the point where you could identify players based solely on their gameplay.

+1

COH1 is much more interesting to watch and play, just because of this.

+1

COH1 is much more interesting to watch and play, just because of this.

Then go back to COH 1

Then go back to COH 1

The thing is everyone hopes that coh2 will get better with more strategic diversity. Thats why some players say like that. Saying "then go back to coh1" is a bit stupid.

The OF faction metagames were always relatively stale, which is a big reason why most people disliked them relative to the vanilla factions. Brits consistently had the worst meta in CoH1, and they also had zero global upgrades, a trait shared, interestingly enough, with every faction in CoH2. Aside from that, your post is fairly misleading Donnie, but you were never a serious 1v1 player so I can understand the confusion.

Outside of the darkness that was the Piospam phase, the vanilla matchup enjoyed a very interesting and diverse metagame for much of the game's life (at least from 2.301 onward, which is when I started playing). Americans had standard 4 rifle starts into BARs, grenades, or M8, 5 rifle BARs into Tank Depot, 4ES and its many variations, weird WSC openings like the ones Seb loved on Semois, and most importantly a wide variety of lategame options, since every tier was viable depending on the map and situation. And this was the faction with less options in the matchup.

The options available to Wehrmacht players were too numerous to list, but the most exciting thing about Wehrmacht play in CoH1 was the fact that every top player had his own unique Wehrmacht style, and they were all equally viable. It wasn't just openings either; things like tech progression and vet timings varied greatly between the top tournament contenders, to the point where you could identify players based solely on their gameplay.

This isn't a CoH1 thread, but it bugs me when I see misinformation thrown around. CoH2 doesn't need to be CoH1 to be successful, but if CoH1 did something right, it was giving different styles and strategies relatively equal viability at a high level of play.

i was top 50 1v1 with vanilla factions and top 20 with OF factions.

-4ES was only used when it came out and after that almost never when people found the counters (mostly snipers, like always)

-wsc was unreliable and easily counterable by snipers and pumas. that s why it was rarely used

-early nades were useless vs better players

what i remember is clicking snipers nervously around house corners, missing countersnipes and m8 running away with 5% health although the pak was well positioned and hit 2 or even 3 times. the RNG here was far worse because it had a much bigger impact.

Then go back to COH 1

You know... a lot of coh1 players want the game to succeed. I don't play coh2 anymore and still play coh1 but I would like to see this game worth playing.

People like you tend to forget this community, this website, the majority of players making the complaints all have stuck around the COH franchise / community for years. Hell, I mean SNF is hosted by old vcoh casters, TNF stuck around to cast a decent number of coh2 games and within good reason stopped and inverse gave it a good whack at some strat casts. There's many more community member's who just left due to the franchise becoming dull.

I started playing shortly after its release (early 2007 I think) and worked my way up to a top 100 1v1 player in coh automatch and sunk countless hours into the game / community / discussion when I could. I reserve my right to be a bit disappointed when relic's previous community managers talked about the game not being pay to win (there is a nice thread on gamereplays.org about this), having some sort of competitive focus, and just overall being a polished game that learned from the OF expansions mistakes (poorly designed additional armies).

So.... look where we are now, the game is super casual, it doesn't know what it wants to be or who its audience is.

And every time one of you guys say "go back to coh1..." well, I mean you're basically targeting a large number of the community. Whether someone speaks up or not a LOT of people enjoyed that game, loved it. Even to this day it's a pinnacle or RTS gaming, it's still one of the highest ranked RTS games of all time (if not THE highest). Maybe relic just had too big of shoes to fill under the circumstances of the THQ bankruptcy but it's certainly disappointing to be promised a swing-set and getting a sandbox if you get my drift. Not that either one is better than the other but the original promise, the painted picture was something much more than what we got. That and the loss of the competitive community and a bunch of kids like you on this site who have one liner poorly thought out sentences with no constructive criticism for improvement. Yea... you make this community suck ass sometimes.

Well, ladder play isn't tournament play. There were a lot of top 50 players who wouldn't last beyond the second or third round of a tournament.

4ES was strong enough that Marinez made it to the front page of the American leaderboard using it on a profile named 4ES. People knew it was coming and still couldn't beat it. He also had decent tournament success with the strategy, and it was adapted a number of times with minor changes to improve its viability. It was a difficult strategy to use, but extremely difficult to beat when used correctly.

WSC openings were rare, yes, but fast WSC follow-ups after 3 rifles were common on maps like Semois and Argentan, and late-game WSC transitions were essential in many situations. It's not all about openings you know; one of the major boons to CoH1's strategic variety was the fact that every tier was viable in a number of different situations thanks to upgrades, purchased veterancy, and the fact that the tiers were well-composed. You frequently saw players backteching to WSC after Motor Pool, or Wehrmacht T2 after a T3 rush, simply because those tiers offered units that were vital in certain situations.

Moving on, fast grenades were actually an amazingly effective opener at all levels of play; KoreanArmy's entire American strategy revolved around this opening, and he had notable tournament success. Even if you don't deal damage with the grenades, you force your opponent to reposition MGs, which negates a large amount of manpower investment, and it also lets you follow up with a triage and transition into the midgame a lot easier than BARs.

As for snipers, nobody with any clue about what they're doing has relied on countersniping to kill snipers for at least 2 years now. There are far better ways to deal with snipers than by flipping a coin and hoping for the best.

I don't care if you prefer CoH2, or think it's a better game. At the end of the day that's entirely subjective, and nobody can tell you what you do and don't like. But if you're going to spout bullshit, at least have a sliver of a clue of what you're talking about.

Regardless, you've pushed us off-topic. Let's not derail this thread any further.

Well, ladder play isn't tournament play. There were a lot of top 50 players who wouldn't last beyond the second or third round of a tournament.

4ES was strong enough that Marinez made it to the front page of the American leaderboard using it on a profile named 4ES. People knew it was coming and still couldn't beat it. He also had decent tournament success with the strategy, and it was adapted a number of times with minor changes to improve its viability. It was a difficult strategy to use, but extremely difficult to beat when used correctly.

WSC openings were rare, yes, but fast WSC follow-ups after 3 rifles were common on maps like Semois and Argentan, and late-game WSC transitions were essential in many situations. It's not all about openings you know; one of the major boons to CoH1's strategic variety was the fact that every tier was viable in a number of different situations thanks to upgrades, purchased veterancy, and the fact that the tiers were well-composed. You frequently saw players backteching to WSC after Motor Pool, or Wehrmacht T2 after a T3 rush, simply because those tiers offered units that were vital in certain situations.

Moving on, fast grenades were actually an amazingly effective opener at all levels of play; KoreanArmy's entire American strategy revolved around this opening, and he had notable tournament success. Even if you don't deal damage with the grenades, you force your opponent to reposition MGs, which negates a large amount of manpower investment, and it also lets you follow up with a triage and transition into the midgame a lot easier than BARs.

As for snipers, nobody with any clue about what they're doing has relied on countersniping to kill snipers for at least 2 years now. There are far better ways to deal with snipers than by flipping a coin and hoping for the best.

I don't care if you prefer CoH2, or think it's a better game. At the end of the day that's entirely subjective, and nobody can tell you what you do and don't like. But if you're going to spout bullshit, at least have a sliver of a clue of what you're talking about.

Regardless, you've pushed us off-topic. Let's not derail this thread any further.

the stuff you described was used by A FEW people on A FEW occasions. the "not top 50 and tourney player" guys used the same standard build orders over and over again (list above). because they were reliable, easier to perform and therefore gave people the best chance to win.