I miss the old guard,: where are they??

With last tourney I meant star crossed cup. It got 600 viewers in the finals which is really good.

One thing I have noticed in coh2 is that streaming is a lot bigger now than it was in coh1. Nowadays some streams will often get close to 200 viewers whereas before you could get 100 at most.

A few years ago not everyone could stream with his internet or computer. Also the old CoH1 Stream Website wasnt so popular than Coh2.org.

And i think the last Sesion of SNF had around 1.6K Viewers in the Finals. and Helping Hanz had in CoH1 around 100~150Viewers in the End.


Just look at Gamereplays on the hall of fame replays they got downloaded around 4000times. Peak is 7000k. and than look into Coh2.org replay section. In Coh1 they were more focued on replays not in livestreams.


And even now the last CoH1 Turney had around 150-200Viewers. And if Inverse is streaming around 70Viewers. If i play 1v1 or 2v2At i also get around 70Viewers.


CoH2 has a lot of newplayers. I rly think 80% of coh2 playerbase are new, they didnt even tried to play CoH1 and they dont know a really good RTS like CoH1. 10% is just playin because in Coh1 u need ages for getting a good game. 10% because they played all the time Britts in CoH1 and love the blobbin in CoH2.

Many Many german CoH1 players who playin CoH2 atm sayin me the same. Coh2 isnt good but its better than waiting in Coh1 for enemys.


CoH2 has more players than CoH1 because CoH2 is easy to play. Its all about the Blobbs --- RNG.

CoH1 1v1 or 2v2 was about Strat´s about Teamplay. CoH2 1v1 is what Unit is Overpowering atm NOTHING ells. Same Story in 2v2.


I was watching many CoH2 Turneycast and they all the same *****. There is no Strat no Early Mid Late Game.
And look at your CoH2 " highPro´s" the only one who played on topniveu is BartonPl( btw i think he also dont like CoH2) all others just lowbobs or mid or wanna be experts

I rly think if the hole new Coh2 Community would watch the old SNF CoH1 they would say yes CoH1 is more interisting to watch/play...

For Sovjets its only: before the Call In ; After the Callin.


I played a lot of CoH2 and i would love to say when i lost a game. The Enemy played better but... NO.




You ve the same problems on every new RTS game. Just look at MoW AssaultSquad 2 its the same Story.



and im not sure but CoH2 has around 6k-9k Playerbase and CoH1 on the old server was around 5-6 Peak was on 11K. Im not talkin about the Steam CoH1 im talkin about the good old server RIP.

Coh2 stats

The coh1 Steam has around 2k, okay 80% are well not very good.

Coh1 Steam stats


What CoH1 rly need is just more "good" Players in 1v1 and 2v2. So u dont ve to play all the time vs brainlezz Sniperspamm bs.

what do you define as proper?

and referring to a few posts back. Streaming is way more popular than it was a few years ago with more viewers and more players being able to stream easily and you can't really use replay downloads as a metric of activity.

Also not many top coh2 players post replays very often. I'm not sure omgpop ever has, aside from when required by a tournament. Same for jesulin most of the time.

I think in general people, both top players and average community members, are less keen on replays because of the ease of access of streaming and the live games feature. You don't need to go find a replay when you can watch the game live in a couple different ways. I do wish there were more good replays though.

Also also, there is actually quite a sizable Asian community lurking around. Lots of the top ranked ladder players are Korean/chinese and don't really ever post or visit coh2.org doesn't mean that they aren't actively playing and pushing the meta though.

I guess there are no replays needed when all you have to do is blob to tanks?

I mean something like that on the scale of an SNF season, not just a simple weekend tournament.

And yeah, by itself it doesn't really say anything. It's just a combination of a lot of different factors, that being one of them. There is, in general, less discussion about how to play well, less drive to produce content geared toward competitive play, etc. Based on your numbers there are more people playing and watching CoH now than in the past, yet there are less people participating in the game's competitive community. There are far less people active here than were active on GR. There's less proper discussion and more balance bitching. There are 16x more strategy threads on GR's CoH1 forums but only 2x more balance threads.

There might be more eyes, but there's dramatically less actual activity.

I get the feeling you may be slightly out of touch. Sorry.

Ipkai told you that streaming is more active now - a lot more goes on in those streams, than often appears on the forums. Streamers are up to all kinds of things - one may run a daily tourney, another may be casting viewers games and commentating. Others may be playing with, or against viewers. Others may be playing the ladder and analysing. And all the time, there is the chat - Twitch or hotbox - sometimes serious, mostly light-hearted, but often discussing stuff which otherwise would have been in the old GR Strategy sections, or "Ask the Strategist".

If there was a signal point you appear to have missed ,it might be this: how relevant is a forum now to fast-moving streams? It has a place as a meeting point, but streams mean any forum can no longer be the absolute centre of the universe.

This, of course, ignores the invaluable obs mode, currently underused, which enables a poster to view play on a certain map, or certain players etc in comparative solitude, from both sides. In the light of all this, replays are far less essential than they once were.

I used to think that the old formula of replays and mp3 was passe - I am close to concluding that you tube may also be entering that bracket, and really only exists to preserve replays, which would otherwise be extinguished by a patch.

Sure, that's a possibility. But when we look at sequels to games that resulted in larger and healthier competitive communities than their predecessors (see SC2, Dota 2, CSGO), the growth of those games corresponded with major growth in the forum hubs of their competitive scenes (TeamLiquid, HLTV.org, Dota's various communities and the new ones that popped up after its success). Those forums grew exponentially alongside the growth of their respective games. The fact that it happened not once, not twice, but three times with three separate games is pretty compelling evidence that people aren't simply replacing forum usage with other mediums.

Compare that growth to the community situation for CoH2. The GR CoH2 portal is essentially nonexistent. The daily active membership on COH2.ORG is a fraction of what the GR CoH1 portal enjoyed. There were regularly 800-900 concurrent users browsing the GR CoH1 portal before CoH2's release; the most concurrent users ever on COH2.ORG is 775.

These other games have more popular streamers with more viewers, better observer functions, and more penetration of services like YouTube. Yet in each and every instance, rather than shrinking like your hypothesis would suggest, growth of these games' competitive scenes correlated with growth of their main forum hubs for competitive play. Looking at forum activity and member numbers, CoH's forum hub for competitive play has shrunk since CoH2's release. It doesn't instill much confidence in the strength of CoH2's competitive scene.

I'd say the CoH2 competitive scene is quite healthy and I'm bold enough to say it will surpass CoH1's heights in a few months.

With regards to forums I don't think I saw TL staff shitting on SC2 constantly saying it wasn't as good as brood war. Let's face it a guy with a senior badge constantly shitting on the game just puts people off from visiting your forums in the future.

Sure, that's a possibility. But when we look at sequels to games that resulted in larger and healthier competitive communities than their predecessors (see SC2, Dota 2, CSGO), the growth of those games corresponded with major growth in the forum hubs of their competitive scenes (TeamLiquid, HLTV.org, Dota's various communities and the new ones that popped up after its success). Those forums grew exponentially alongside the growth of their respective games. The fact that it happened not once, not twice, but three times with three separate games is pretty compelling evidence that people aren't simply replacing forum usage with other mediums.

Compare that growth to the community situation for CoH2. The GR CoH2 portal is essentially nonexistent. The daily active membership on COH2.ORG is a fraction of what the GR CoH1 portal enjoyed. There were regularly 800-900 concurrent users browsing the GR CoH1 portal before CoH2's release; the most concurrent users ever on COH2.ORG is 775.

These other games have more popular streamers with more viewers, better observer functions, and more penetration of services like YouTube. Yet in each and every instance, rather than shrinking like your hypothesis would suggest, growth of these games' competitive scenes correlated with growth of their main forum hubs for competitive play. Looking at forum activity and member numbers, CoH's forum hub for competitive play has shrunk since CoH2's release. It doesn't instill much confidence in the strength of CoH2's competitive scene.

You'd have to compare the overall growth of the forum sites to the overall growth of the communities for the the original game and sequel to compare metrics like that. Sure the forum sites have grown a lot for those games but the community has probably grown by a significantly larger margin.


Coh2 probably does have a smaller overall community, and it has way more games to compete with than vcoh ever did for trying to retain competitive players, so not really a fair comparison there either. Still is interesting to me that some posters in this thread seem to imply that coh2 is a game with a low skill cap that is super easy/lacks competition/no one good plays... Yet we have a consistent top 16 in all tournaments and those making these claims have never amounted to anything on the ladders nor in tournies... Just sayin. (Not really directed at you inverse)

u are not the old elite

u aren't either

+1

The thing is, in the case of SC2 and Dota 2, those communities never shrunk. The rate at which they grew is of course going to be related in some way to the rate at which the games themselves grew, but the competitive communities never shrank. CSGO's community, on the other hand, was tiny until Valve took it over and finally fixed some of its major design problems.

CoH2 is taking the CSGO trajectory much more so than the SC2 or Dota 2 trajectories, except Relic hasn't shown any willingness to reconsider problematic core design decisions like Valve did when they took over CSGO. Without Valve's intervention, that game would've died a long time ago.

As for comparisons to CoH1, I feel it's totally fair because failing to retain your most dedicated player base in your sequel is a major failure for a multiplayer game. If CoH2 were at least as compelling competitively as CoH1 was, there is absolutely zero reason that the game could not have at the very least maintained its numbers. But that didn't happen, and now the competitive CoH1 and competitive CoH2 communities are almost entirely segregated in terms of who has played which game at a high level. In SC2, Dota 2, and to a lesser extent CSGO there's a large amount of overlap between the different versions of the games; in CoH2 there's almost zero.

The thing is, in the case of SC2 and Dota 2, those communities never shrunk. The rate at which they grew is of course going to be related in some way to the rate at which the games themselves grew, but the competitive communities never shrank. CSGO's community, on the other hand, was tiny until Valve took it over and finally fixed some of its major design problems.

CoH2 is taking the CSGO trajectory much more so than the SC2 or Dota 2 trajectories, except Relic hasn't shown any willingness to reconsider problematic core design decisions like Valve did when they took over CSGO. Without Valve's intervention, that game would've died a long time ago.

As for comparisons to CoH1, I feel it's totally fair because failing to retain your most dedicated player base in your sequel is a major failure for a multiplayer game. If CoH2 were at least as compelling competitively as CoH1 was, there is absolutely zero reason that the game could not have at the very least maintained its numbers. But that didn't happen, and now the competitive CoH1 and competitive CoH2 communities are almost entirely segregated in terms of who has played which game at a high level. In SC2, Dota 2, and to a lesser extent CSGO there's a large amount of overlap between the different versions of the games; in CoH2 there's almost zero.

Sc2 and sc:bw only shared a handful of top level players and their respective communities were much like coh1 and coh2's for a long long time, probably still are but I don't keep up with it. Of course dota and dota2 kept the same players, dota2 is 99% a copy/paste of dota1. Coh2 shares very little other than genre with CoH1 theyre totally different games.

Plus the majority of top vCoH players are much older now with a lot more going on in life, it's just natural that they wouldn't play as much or as competitively. I see the discussion a lot about "coh2 just doesn't make me want to spam games as much as I used to" and I'd say that applies to basically any game. I used to be able to play stuff for like 10 or 12 hours a day back in high school and college. I can't do that today even when I'm in love with a game, after a few hours I'm ready for a break no matter how much fun I'm having... It's just life.

Anyways typing on a phone is hard... Hopefully this all made enough sense. I can fix it when I get home if I need to.

when Ipkai is going along and posting optimistic stuff, you know stuff is going somewhere. Just saying

Almost all of the Western Starcraft scene moved to SC2, and the Korean scene only stuck to BW because they were under contract and getting paid insane amounts of money. Once KeSPA moved to SC2 almost all of the old BW pros followed, and today a lot of the top SC2 players are former BW pros. Saying CoH2 and CoH1 are completely different games is a bit of a stretch; there's a lot of overlap with core mechanics.

Anecdotal evidence doesn't really say much either. I could counter your "getting older" theory with anecdotes about CoH1 players with thousands of hours in Dota 2 and LoL and CSGO. I have 2000 hours in Dota 2, and I was up until 2AM last night spamming CS games. Sepha spams Dota games, DevM puts on his fairy anime costumes and plays LoL. But that doesn't really say anything useful. What we know for sure is, unlike many similar games, CoH2 failed to retain almost every single one of its predecessor's top players. That's a unique situation, and the reason behind it is no doubt complex. But it's interesting to think about.

Ipkai and Ciez, you are forgetting about the most important factor regarding a competitive community which is the playerbase. There might be stream viewers and casual players but only a very small amount of competitive players.

I'd say the CoH2 competitive scene is quite healthy and I'm bold enough to say it will surpass CoH1's heights in a few months.

Depends on your definition of 'competitive scene' and 'healthy' i guess.

I rarely play CoH2 myself and its save to say that i am a bad player. I know less about micro and macro and i don´t know the current meta. But if i decide to play some hours on a sunday i can reach the top 100 without a problem, even while losing about 50% of my games. I did this three times now. You couldn't do that in CoH1. It was simply impossible. Also ididn't play for about two months and i just dropped from position 100 to 150 during this time. Meaning the ladder is more or less static.


Next point: replays. No offence but 98% of CoH2´s replays uploaded on this site aren´t entertaining. There are just a few players who actually got a enjoyable playstyle. I can´t even remeber the last time i saw a entertaing 2v2 game. I´d really like to cast them but none uploads such replays. There are way less good replays then CoH1 offered even in the state of decay following the steam migration.

An other aspect are the threads here in coh2.org. I miss discussed between competitive thinking players. Guys who play the game to win, guys who want to improve and dicussion about the meta game, about possible strategys, about ways how to improve micro and macro management. There are a few interessting threads each month but thats about it.

IpKai, i really wish you are right. I really do. I´d would be great for this side, great for Relic, greate for me as commentator but from what i can see i can´t share your optimistic estimate.

Still is interesting to me that some posters in this thread seem to imply that coh2 is a game with a low skill cap that is super easy/lacks competition/no one good plays...

CieZ, you are one of the guys who´s posts i usually enjoy to read. But seriously, CoH2´s competitive scene is smaller than CoH1´s scene was. Especially mid skill players are totally missing. And no, i don´t want to attack the CoH2 players. In every game offering the same chances to all players the better player will usually win. You need a different skill set for CoH2 then you needed for CoH1 but CoH2 is not easier to play.

I really hope we can overcome this hate some day. I am tired of it.

What we know for sure is, unlike many similar games, CoH2 failed to retain almost every single one of its predecessor's top players. That's a unique situation, and the reason behind it is no doubt complex. But it's interesting to think about.

They aren't playing CoH1 all that much either, maybe they just don't care for the franchise at all? Even when the god awful CS: Source came out the 1.6 scene was still kicking and screaming and playing the game they loved.

As much as people make out how much they love CoH1 they don't exactly spend much time with it.

Ipkai and Ciez, you are forgetting about the most important factor regarding a competitive community which is the playerbase. There might be stream viewers and casual players but only a very small amount of competitive players.

Pretty difficult to measure the amount of "competitive players." People have varying definitions of "competitive player." So whatever metric you use it will be heavily criticised.

All that we can measure is that there are more people interested in watching competitive CoH2 than CoH1 and that the average player base is larger.

IpKai, i really wish you are right. I really do. I´d would be great for this side, great for Relic, greate for me as commentator but from what i can see i can´t share your optimistic estimate.

You can quote me in 2018 if the scene hasn't taken off by then.

+1

never said it but much better then he

edit: Inverse covered most points before me.

Sc2 and sc:bw only shared a handful of top level players

I disagree, the very best Korean players were on Kespa teams which officially switched BW to SC2 early in WoL. Over half of the current top players (rough estimate) in SC2 have a history in BW. They can only really do this due to the 'e-sports infrastructure' unique to Korea though.

and their respective communities were much like coh1 and coh2's for a long long time, probably still are but I don't keep up with it.

For Brood War, maybe. It was never that big outside of Korea, but the level of competition was considerably higher with LANs/sponsorships. The size of the CoH2 community is and never has been anywhere near that of SC2, despite Starcraft losing a lot of players to MOBAs and other f2ps.

Of course dota and dota2 kept the same players, dota2 is 99% a copy/paste of dota1. Coh2 shares very little other than genre with CoH1 theyre totally different games.

I'd say that both coh games are really similar compared to other sequels like DoW(1-2) and SC(BW-2) or even non-RTSes like CS(S-GO). The core game mechanics are the same, even if gameplay feels a lot different between versions which is kind of what Dota has too.

Plus the majority of top vCoH players are much older now with a lot more going on in life, it's just natural that they wouldn't play as much or as competitively. I see the discussion a lot about "coh2 just doesn't make me want to spam games as much as I used to" and I'd say that applies to basically any game. I used to be able to play stuff for like 10 or 12 hours a day back in high school and college. I can't do that today even when I'm in love with a game, after a few hours I'm ready for a break no matter how much fun I'm having... It's just life.

Good point, many coh1 players were college students, so once you finish your education you're unlikely to have as much time to spend or maybe you just lose interest.

They aren't playing CoH1 all that much either, maybe they just don't care for the franchise at all? Even when the god awful CS: Source came out the 1.6 scene was still kicking and screaming and playing the game they loved.

As much as people make out how much they love CoH1 they don't exactly spend much time with it.



Pretty difficult to measure the amount of "competitive players." People have varying definitions of "competitive player." So whatever metric you use it will be heavily criticised.

All that we can measure is that there are more people interested in watching competitive CoH2 than CoH1 and that the average player base is larger.



You can quote me in 2018 if the scene hasn't taken off by then.

Hmm Ipkai what makes you think this way ? I don't really see any trends indicating growth in this community ? Am I missing something ?

we should close the thread. CoH2 Fanboys will never see the truth and Coh1 Fanboys will die.

never said it but much better then he

Oh, wow, that's so amazing.