VCOH Vs COH2 Meta

Jump back to quoted post5 Mar 2015, 14:44 PMInverse

It would take too long to refute every silly argument in this thread from people who never played or analyzed CoH1 at anything approaching a high level, so I'm not going to bother. Instead, I'll give you some examples of the diversity that CoH1's unit upgrades allowed, and you can draw your own conclusions.

Wehrmacht, thanks to its wide array of veterancy upgrades and diverse T1 unit selection, always had the most potential for strategic variety. What always impressed me the most about high-level Wehrmacht play was the fact that every single top player had a unique and viable style of play. Sepha pioneered VVSMG and usually played a single-tier-heavy style with veterancy relevant to that tier; Aimstrong perfected VVSMG and played to get crazy-fast vet 2 on infantry before transitioning to vehicle play, and even used vet 1 infantry as a fake to get players to invest in snipers while he fast-teched to T3; aljaz played a stupid-long T1 style and poured the fuel he saved into T3 vet upgrades; Tommy loved support vet and was one of the few players to keep using Piospam after its nerf, and devised some other interested support vet strategies like his MG-Sniper Blitz opening; DevM used a little bit of everything and adapted his teching decisions very well to his opponent's play; Mags played an incredibly powerful defensive style with support, infantry, and tank veterancy.

In every single one of these instances, vet timing and progression played an integral role in the effectiveness of the strategy, and it was those little nuances of varied timings and the dozens of little variables that went into making a teching decision that made high-level CoH1 games so interesting to watch and analyze. Players constantly had these little decisions to make, and their choices had broad-reaching impacts on how the game would proceed going forward. From a macro perspective it just looked like players arbitrarily building units and upgrades, but if you took the time to look closer you could deduce the reasoning behind every little action, and it added an element of mind games and strategic back-and-forth that just isn't present in CoH2.

Even Americans, which were far simpler than Wehrmacht from a strategic perspective, had a variety of options late-game and strict reliance on tight timings in the early-game. Things like delaying BARs to induce your opponent into investing in AT and then flanking with stronger infantry or investing in supply yard upgrades when your opponent thinks you're going for tanks were incredible to watch and analyze, and the viability of every single unit and upgrade in the late-game gave players meaningful choices throughout the game.

CoH1 had a lot of problems. The OF factions were design disasters (and share a lot of traits with the CoH2 factions, which tells you a lot), and the strength of grouped MGs, snipers, and infantry made lower-level play frustrating at times. But the vanilla matchup was very good at encouraging better play and giving players a wide variety of ways to differentiate themselves from others thanks to its upgrade dynamic and strong, diverse core factions. It's that dynamic and diversity that CoH2 is sorely lacking.

Jump back to quoted post5 Mar 2015, 18:55 PMAvNY

When I was a noob I also thought that way about INFANTRY vet.

But I still think that way about Wehr armor vet. Vet on US armor is not huge and lends nothing to a units survivability. Wehr armor vet adds survivability (received damage reduction, more hitpoints, reduced penetration chances, and free anti-infantry). And it isn't like Wehr armor needs added strength to punch through US armor.