A letter to Relic COH2 Game balance team

Just going to throw my two cents in here to defend truck pushing.

First of all I've started to try Starcraft 2 recently and I've learned that there's a thing called cheese. This is where one player goes for attempt to end the game quickly by attacking their opponent first. This is usually an all in tactic as if it fails you will be considerably behind.

Truck pushing is a form of this cheese yes but that being said it is still something that should be allowed within the game and shouldn't be considered a game breaking mechanic. The truck is incredibly slow already and only acts as a scouting unit in the first few minutes of a game. Players that take the risk to use this unit in combat to win engagements should be rewarded if they pull it off correctly. Let me remind you that if the truck is destroyed this set's back the OKW player considerably for obvious reasons.

The truck push can be effectively countered by just simply not engaging in the first place. Secondly as both allied factions can field a light vehicle in order to quickly counter this unit. Those being the M3 and WC. Furthermore both factions can have at grenades at the start of the game with the upgrade from the soviet HQ and vetted rifle from the rifle company.

I shouldn't be forced to go a certain doctrine as US forces just to counter a stupid truck

Just going to throw my two cents in here to defend truck pushing.

First of all I've started to try Starcraft 2 recently and I've learned that there's a thing called cheese. This is where one player goes for attempt to end the game quickly by attacking their opponent first. This is usually an all in tactic as if it fails you will be considerably behind.

Truck pushing is a form of this cheese yes but that being said it is still something that should be allowed within the game and shouldn't be considered a game breaking mechanic.

Well, generally when you cheese an all in, it means that either you do tremendous amount of damage finishing a game or having a huge edge or you basically concede.
When there is NONE risk and reward, there is a problem right there. Right now the thing is slow as fuck, but remember that lights vehicles arrive at 3:00 so theres no risk on pushing up to this point. 30-45s earlier you might expect an AT nade or nothing from USF (unless Elite).
Mind you that it's an extra pair of eyes and allows OKW to alter the terrain to improve retreat paths.


I'll give the truck it's prior stats (including building crush) if:
-You make it cost 200mp and remove it from teching
-Make truck health correlate to building health. Right now it will go back to 100% once it starts building.

"You are here to balance the game, not to destroy some of the tactic once and for all."

Champions changes in service of specific tactics...

but don't worry it was checked by "some top ten player".

There was editing? LOL. I'd hate to see what the first draft was like.

The truck push can be effectively countered by just simply not engaging in the first place.

He is on my cutoff..

then what?

He is on my cutoff..

then what?

I guess you could try and take his cutoff. his truck will likely have the sturms beside it meaning they wont be defending his cutoff.
Just a thought

before patch/if truck pushing comes back, it was like okw had 2 units starting. one of them far superior than any other starting unit plus an extra. as simple as that.

He is on my cutoff..

then what?

Most maps have two sides where u can engage. For instance on Angoville if he decides to rush ur cut-off from one side just move to the other or wait till you're second rifle/con has caught up to then engage.

I shouldn't be forced to go a certain doctrine as US forces just to counter a stupid truck

Well then the same could be said for the ISU-152. Axis are forced to go either Elephant or JT against that unit as flanking it nearly impossibly if it's in the hands of a decent player.

"Secondly as both allied factions can field a light vehicle in order to quickly counter this unit. Those being the M3 and WC. Furthermore both factions can have at grenades at the start of the game with the upgrade from the soviet HQ and vetted rifle from the rifle company.

Well then the same could be said for the ISU-152. Axis are forced to go either Elephant or JT against that unit as flanking it nearly impossibly if it's in the hands of a decent player."


True in every word Hans. For instance, if facing an annoying kubel in startgame maybe it worths to research first the AT grenade for your cons before anytihing else! But nobody does that. Well, wrong.
Still I don't think an abuse shold be justified by another, like "mom, why you punnish me because I slaped him? He slaped me too ". I have to confess I never used truck pushing just because I don't like it. I faced it though and it's realy annoying if anything.

This is usually an all in tactic as if it fails you will be considerably behind.

If you mess up truck pushing what happens? You can still save your infantry by retreating and you at worst lose the truck which didn't cost anything and which will be replaced for free in a few minutes. You can salvage the wreck and also get some fuel too.

OKW can also build an AT solution from their first building which means they aren't too pressed to tech up to counter early light vehicles.

There are no downsides to truck pushing and that's what was bad, if Relic were to put it back in it would have to have a larger risk element than it used to.

TL;DR For every strategy there has to be a large element of "why wouldn't you do it." Truck pushing in it's old form didn't have that, in fact other than possibly losing the truck (which is free) there were no downsides to truck pushing.

If you mess up truck pushing what happens? You can still save your infantry by retreating and you at worst lose the truck which didn't cost anything and which will be replaced for free in a few minutes. You can salvage the wreck and also get some fuel too.

OKW can also build an AT solution from their first building which means they aren't too pressed to tech up to counter early light vehicles.

There are no downsides to truck pushing and that's what was bad, if Relic were to put it back in it would have to have a larger risk element than it used to.

TL;DR For every strategy there has to be a large element of "why wouldn't you do it." Truck pushing in it's old form didn't have that, in fact other than possibly losing the truck (which is free) there were no downsides to truck pushing.

Ipkai if you lose your truck you're going to be behind in tech not matter what. This is pretty serious. Even if the OKW fields raketens to counter armour that is their only form of AT apart from mines as they can't upgrade shreks until the truck is set up.

On a side note we have the exact same amount of posts. Spooky.

Losing a truck barely makes an impact when OKW T1 is already one of the most diverse tech structures that lets you deal with essentially every threat, provided you have good micro and map awareness.

I've won multiple games where I have lost my truck early.
I've lost multiple games where I have killed a truck early.

I don't find it has a profound impact losing a truck. I'd say there is more cheese involved with utilizing all your munition resources on early grenade spams. It might win you a lot with early squad wipes but as you verse more skilled opponents its less likely to pay off.

I like seeing the truck being used consistantly for initial scouting, since this helps keeps Sturmpioneers healthy from early mid/long range fire. However, to be actively involved in engagements through pushing, especially on some maps/spawns it can be out right unfair.

losing the truck is bad. It's not insta-gg (nor should it be) but it does delay every tech structure by several minutes. The luchs or flak HT will arrive several minutes later. Just because it's free doesn't mean losing it doesn't matter.

losing the truck is bad. It's not insta-gg (nor should it be) but it does delay every tech structure by several minutes. The luchs or flak HT will arrive several minutes later. Just because it's free doesn't mean losing it doesn't matter.

Exactly because its free, loosing it should matter.
And if you're going for flak HT you don't stall with deploying it long anyway or you'll loose AA HTs window of opportunity.

Why does the first truck has to arrive almost immediately anyway? I have never seen anyone plant their first truck right away so why can't the first truck arrive at say the 5 minute mark? By that time there is so much firepower on the field that truck pushing does not matter and if it dies at the 5 minute mark then OKW is in deep trouble. Would have been a more elegant solution than making them made of paper which means its super easy to snipe trucks that are setting up.

Back on topic I don't believe the balance changes would make much of a difference, the problems with CoH2 are in my opinion much more fundamental and are:

• The WW2 scenario is not widely appealing. It is a conflict that people around the world still have many issues with, especially in far east asia. People are also still burnt out from the massive amount of WW2 games that were released at the turn of the century. ( Can't really do much about this however it's down to marketing to show gamers that there is a very compelling game to spend their time with)
  
  
  

World of Tanks and Warthunder disagrees.

World of Tanks and Warthunder disagrees.

Did you even read the last line?

As well as those games being free to play, which I addressed in the rest of the post. wargame.net and gaijin entertainment marketed their products by highlighting the compelling game play within their games.

Relic spend a lot of their time highlighting the narrative story elements of their campaigns or how realistic their game is rather than highlighting the compelling game play you can spend hours on.

Hence addressing the point of: "Can't really do much about this however it's down to marketing to show gamers that there is a very compelling game to spend their time with."

There are still loads of markets around the world that find WW2 a very sensitive subject. Asian markets especially where there is massive room for growth.

Why does the first truck has to arrive almost immediately anyway?

Good question, USF is the only faction out of all of them that cannot tech right away unless fuel income is attained.

Ipkai if you lose your truck you're going to be behind in tech not matter what. This is pretty serious. Even if the OKW fields raketens to counter armour that is their only form of AT apart from mines as they can't upgrade shreks until the truck is set up.

On a side note we have the exact same amount of posts. Spooky.

Even if you lose the truck...what? Few mins of delay while the opponent cut-off or fuel is denied for +4-5 mins and probably loses MP to regain it ASAP. OKW's teching and units are so forgiving that even a small tech delay works fine.

And if the truck survives? Allied player got screwed pretty hard; probably loses +75% of the map and gets raped by a fast luchs/AA HT.

And still; a kübel could be there too after the truck's death suppressing capping squads.^^

As said earlier; it was a retarded feature with zero risk and huge reward.

Did you even read the last line?

As well as those games being free to play, which I addressed in the rest of the post. wargame.net and gaijin entertainment marketed their products by highlighting the compelling game play within their games.

Relic spend a lot of their time highlighting the narrative story elements of their campaigns or how realistic their game is rather than highlighting the compelling game play you can spend hours on.

Hence addressing the point of: "Can't really do much about this however it's down to marketing to show gamers that there is a very compelling game to spend their time with."

There are still loads of markets around the world that find WW2 a very sensitive subject. Asian markets especially where there is massive room for growth.

Just wanted to point out that WW2 have a massive appeal if you just get your audiuence to stick around long enough to learn the basic concept of it. Most of my irl friends did not give a shit about WW2 until they just got stuck in world of tanks and now they know about every single vehicle and even future projects that eventually got cancelled. Thing is WW2 is usually very fascinating to people when they see how far technology got pushed in the short timespan (from panzer2 to King Tiger in just a few years) and the horrible the odds were stacked against the Germans but they were a people with amazing determination.

Imo reason for CoH's lack of major success has always been that Relic never have seem to know where they want to go with the game and the game has always been under the radar. I have never met a person yet that has talked about Company Of Heroes and if I ever tried to explain it to them they think it is a close combat ripoff or First Person Shooter. That the game is WW2 is not a negative thing but it doesnt have the appeal that Warhammer have either but not many settings does. CoH2 gives a player zero reason to stick around and play the game, hopefully the uber secret rewamp project Relic are working on for coh2 will be the change we need... but after their warspoil work im not hopeful.