CoH2, is it pay to win?

99% not imo

Ehm, no, I have to disagree on this one. Even though it may not be intentional by the developers, in its current state, when most of the OP abilities are available only to those, who paid for DLC (commanders), it is pretty much the definition of pay to win. I know it is a balance problem, and that it will change most likely, but until that happens, it is pay to win.



Unnecessarily aggressive thread title? We are talking about a game here. Besides, I did post it in the vCoH section, so that fanboys would not be irritated. Yet it seems it is not enough.

I just asked a simple question about the game. I apologize if it caused any misunderstandings, it apparently did, because it had to be removed, but I don´t think it could be considered "offensive" or "aggressive". I am just looking for honest opinions, while also posting my own. And some people seem to agree with me, so I don´t see the problem. About splitting the community... I don´t think there is a way to stop it. Some people play vCoH and hate CoH2, some people play CoH2 and hate vCoH. And this site is about everything CoH related. I think the community already is split, CoH2 is just bigger, because it has a lot of new players, who haven´t ever played vCoH.

No, commanders do not offer any unfair advantage of another player, if you lose a game its because of your play not because of commander choices.

Ehm, no, I have to disagree on this one. Even though it may not be intentional by the developers, in its current state, when most of the OP abilities are available only to those, who paid for DLC (commanders), it is pretty much the definition of pay to win. I know it is a balance problem, and that it will change most likely, but until that happens, it is pay to win.

Based on this you aren't asking. You already have an opinion. Yes, opinion that MOST OP abilities are available only in DLC.

With Ost, you can have Tiger, Elephant (that has stuka as an arty counter) and MT Halftrack with free commanders.
With Sov, you can have PTRS (guards in multiple commanders), ISU-152, IS2, T34's, Mark the target, you name it with free commanders.

Not mentioning WFA free commanders that are almost all really solid.

What are these OP abilities you talk about? Tiger Ace? Tank Hunters?

Depends how good you are.

I started a series of Guides looking at the Starting Commanders for precisely that reason:

http://www.coh2.org/guides/31838/ostheer-101the-consolidated-guide-to-common-commanders

Soviet will follow this month


However for almost everybody I would say that Commander Choice is much less important in deciding who wins and loses than basic skills, map design and automatching deciding what teammates/opponents you get.


If you want to take a fundamentalist viewpoint that "Any DLC that affects the gameplay means that game is P2W" then yes the game is P2W.

In practice though that tends not to be the case and other factors dominate rather than Commander Choice.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

The worst moment for P2W was a long time ago when both OKH Elite Troops and SOV Soviet Industry came out and both were very, very good. These have been fixed and since then there hasn't been a Commander released that dominates like that.

As for this year, the only two controversial commanders have been OKH Close Air Support and SOV Tank Hunters. The former was a free release from an event, along with a Soviet Commander and released again this year.

Jury is still out on if it is too good because it became very popular two months ago but has now dropped back

Tank Hunters has been around for a while and was regarded as a joke doctrine; now with buffs to the PTRS it is actually good, but still too early to say if it is too good.

Based on this you aren't asking. You already have an opinion. Yes, opinion that MOST OP abilities are available only in DLC.

With Ost, you can have Tiger, Elephant (that has stuka as an arty counter) and MT Halftrack with free commanders.
With Sov, you can have PTRS (guards in multiple commanders), ISU-152, IS2, T34's, Mark the target, you name it with free commanders.

Not mentioning WFA free commanders that are almost all really solid.

What are these OP abilities you talk about? Tiger Ace? Tank Hunters?

Nit pick:

You used to be able to unlock Tigers and ISU-152 Commanders as you gained level, since war spoils came in that doesn't work anymore I think.


You get the Common Commanders and that is it; anything else comes from Warspoils or DLC.

Nit pick:

You used to be able to unlock Tigers and ISU-152 Commanders as you gained level, since war spoils came in that doesn't work anymore I think.


You get the Common Commanders and that is it; anything else comes from Warspoils or DLC.

Ok, I checked these from commanders.coh.fi/index.php and they are marked as free.

But yeah, I actually thought that they were part of the common commanders.

Then the situation with Wehr is the worst.

I believe it is like this:

1) A new player will start the game with all the Common Commanders only

2) All Uncommon & Rare Commanders are available through warspoils

3) Some but not all of the Uncommon and Rare Commanders are available as DLC

4) This leaves the following that are neither common, nor DLC


Ostheer Close Air Support Rare
SOV Advanced Warfare Rare

These were available from MAKE WAR NOT LOVE, so will now be warspoils only?

Ostheer Defensive Rare
SOV Defensive Rare

You can still get these from signing up to the Official Forums?


SOV Lend Lease Rare
Ostheer Mobile Defence Rare

These two were released on Elbe Day - and I recall went to everybody then.
However I presume that they are now warspoils only

Ostheer Assault Support Uncommon
Ostheer Jeager Infantry Uncommon
SOV NKVD Rifle Uncommon
SOV Shock Motor Uncommon

I believe these used to be unlocked as one gained levels, but that no longer happens so they are now warspoils only

++++++++++++++++++++

So actually there are Commanders that you cannot buy with money, but are/were dependent upon events and warpoils.

That's the opposite of P2W

I wouldn't say it is a trolling thread. OP just doesn't like CoH2, nothing wrong with preferring vCoH over CoH2, and he is just fishing for arguments as to why CoH2 is so bad.

If that isn't the case, no CoH2 is not P2W. Whilst abilities are important the players action weighs higher and just the vanilla docs + anything you get from warspoils should be enough for any good player to win.

this is of course NOT a trolling thread!
im surprised to see that many people denying any P2Wcontent.
yes, the vanilla commanders are solid, but as others already said examples like elite troops show, that it was p2w.
now with war spoils you have a chance to get those OP commanders out there (tank hunter is definetely op, at least in 2v2 from my experience), but they are pretty much unreachable for a casual coh2-player, who is not farming. so, you can buy an advantage with money->P2W

Beside the warspoil thing it is P2W... but the introduction of the War Spoil System is one step in the right direction. If you have equal chances (e.g. just skins are on the store) it is not P2W.
Theoretically, you can get every single premium commander out of the warspoils - if it would work properly
I played about 400-500 hours since the war spoil system got introduced and I received about 12 commanders without spending money... (yes all 3 USF and all 3 OKW commanders - also some Ostheer doctrines though)

P2W is in the game but it makes not that big impact on the game because you can counter every commander and the Tiger Ass is not longer a 100% victory guarantee

An alternative would be more premium skins and maybe unlockable commanders (you have to do achievements? (like the old bulletin system) - just an idea, dont blame me for that ^^)

It is think to win

I have 2500 hours in game, have been at prestige rank 3 for ages and I have not been able to drop every commander via warspoils.

Therefore I would say that you cannot rely on Warspoils to get you everything, but you will get something

Excluding the Commons that never drop I have:

5 duplicates of one commander
4 duplicates of two commanders
3 duplicates of three commanders
2 duplicates of five commanders
1 duplicate of seven commanders
18 commanders that have never dropped via warspoil

Yup. Examples in order:

• http://store.steampowered.com/app/297512/
  
• http://store.steampowered.com/app/249082/
  
• http://store.steampowered.com/app/249083/
  
• http://store.steampowered.com/app/249085/
  
  

Buy these and you will never lose again. The USF Eazy Company being the worst offender here. Way to clime da ladder.

Yup. Examples in order:

• http://store.steampowered.com/app/297512/
  
• http://store.steampowered.com/app/249082/
  
• http://store.steampowered.com/app/249083/
  
• http://store.steampowered.com/app/249085/
  
  

Buy these and you will never lose again. The USF Eazy Company being the worst offender here. Way to clime da ladder.

Pretty ridiculous statement to be honest with you. Maybe it is true in your case if you can't effectively deal with these strategies, however unbalanced they are. And to put urban defense and windustry in the same category as rifle company and mech asasult is equally as amusing.

I understand it is easy for most people to avoid blaming themselves for their shortcomings and to quickly blame doctrines/ the game, but it isn't going to make you a better player. ( I agree that there are some issues out of the players contrrol) You have to be able to analyze the micro/macro mistakes you make in game and accommodate your play style in a manner that proves to be successful. Complaining on forums about "P2W" etc isnt going to solve anything, especially when a lot of these whine threads derive from 3v3, 4v4 game modes that are not going to be balanced in the first place.

Ostheer Defensive Rare
SOV Defensive Rare

You can still get these from signing up to the Official Forums?

Please, continue.

Pretty ridiculous statement to be honest with you. Maybe it is true in your case if you can't effectively deal with these strategies, however unbalanced they are. And to put urban defense and windustry in the same category as rifle company and mech asasult is equally as amusing.

well, he is certainly right that these commanders are or were much stronger than the normal commanders and really helped you winning games.

actually, !your! statement is pretty ridiculous. yes, there are people crying "nerf xy" when it is a l2p problem, but as you said "some things are out of players control" and sometimes its not a l2p problem, but something uncounterable or much harder to counter, than the strategy itselve

Imo it´s not realy p2w, because everyone gets some realy good commanders with the basegame and the western front armies.

What brings up some kind of a fishy smell, atleast after the last 2 patches, are those "accidentially" op dlc-commanders.

I think it was a bad idea to sell dlc-commanders, if something like this is being sold there is always somekind of p2w argument around...
Selling skins, alternative models or anything else that doesn´t have a direct function in the game is a much better idea.