old CoH fan, how does CoH2 compare?

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I want an up-to-date opinion

I was a huge fan of CoH. I was a high school student and too busy/youthful to get good. So I played ladder a bit and never distinguished myself. I'm wondering, how does CoH2 compare? Is it worth getting into? I'm reinstalling CoH now to see what the online community is like, hopefully there are still some people playing, but I'd assume it'll be a ghost town compared with the sequel!

Thanks all

i say yes.

The playerbase is ok. But the real question is, do you have time and money sink in yourself to want to be competitive in this game?

If you just want to play for fun and giggles, sure. You start with your basic 3 commanders and just work with what you got.

But if you want to win, some commanders are necessary as to not frustrate yourself later on. And Relic entices us with this by putting them on DLC sale saying "You need rifle company for semoskiy? Sure, come on over and buy it here!"

That, or just farm them with a warspoil script and map if you don't like how relic made their game.

But yeah, it's an fun game. I would say, it's the only proper RTS available next to starcraft(and starcraft doesn't really suit my taste or interests). Since the market is so unpopulated and barren for these kinds of RTS you will find that the only game you can play is this or nothing else for multiplayer. I mean, have you seen the player numbers for Act of Aggression or Grey Goo?

Either case, the game isn't going to be dying any time soon either. Especially when they still have a pershing commander to release.

Considering Relic has bent over backwards to make the game CoH1 again (Slowed down VP's, added Brits, PE and Americans, added a shit ton of CoH1 maps, removed cold tech from the fucking game more or less.) it's more or less the same game at this point with a bit more lethality going on. They basically abandoned making Coh2 it's own game and pander to the vCoh fanboy fanbase.

I've never understood the P2W argument for CoH2, the one exception being the original tiger ace, and I certainly side with GhostTX regarding the state of balance.

Go back to vCoH and you'll be thankful for the sort of survivability one has in CoH2. vCoH was punishing, run a squad into an MG, god forbid, over a road? They've had it. Mortar suppression, 221/2's, Paras, my lord.

CoH2 takes artistic and inspirational license from vCoH. Scale and particularly tech tree flow is much different, CoH2 features a much more linear progression. I get the sense that execution matters much more in CoH2, in that, vCoH was a lot more lenient and flexible regarding army composition, and timings, you had more options and more solutions were viable (excluding the OF UK... ) ironic considering the amount of commanders available in CoH2 vs. the Company system.

Now; however, in CoH2, If one misses key timings, shock units don't do enough damage or are routed, you hamstring yourself trying to troll with a goofy commander-- you may as well pack it in.

So I guess; in analogy, play the OF UK, if they feel fun, ie. Lt -> Cpt. -> Stuart -> Paras -> Cromwell -> Win interests you, I think you'll enjoy this incarnation. That being said, there is nothing else on the market that blends psudorealism and psudo-squad level tactics with cinematic qualities in as tasty a way as CoH2 at the moment.

I totally get what you are saying. I was also in high school when vCoH came out and never played it like I play CoH2 (on a daily basis).

The answer is yes IMO, despite relic's fuck ups every now and then, CoH2 is better than vCoH in almost every aspect.

You just need nerves of steel... and yea wait for a patch. It's not about AXIS OPIEOP, it about the ridiculous amount of cheese for every faction.

I totally get what you are saying. I was also in high school when vCoH came out and never played it like I play CoH2 (on a daily basis).

The answer is yes IMO, despite relic's fuck ups every now and then, CoH2 is better than vCoH in almost every aspect.

You just need nerves of steel... and yea wait for a patch. It's not about AXIS OPIEOP, it about the ridiculous amount of cheese for every faction.

I pretty much agree with this.

Despite its flaws, Relic seems much more sold on supporting Coh2 than it ever did vCoh. And the interaction with the community has (despite some rough beginnings) been MUCH improved especially in the past 6 months or so.

I'm in a clan that had dozens of players in the original. Most have moved on to other games. Some play Coh2 and prefer it. Few play Coh2 and like the original better.

My guess is if you liked the original, and have interest in this version you probably should pick up the game (or one faction if you prefer) and give it a try.

Pros
+ regular balance patches to keep things fresh
+ coh2 Brits are far better designed than vcoh Brits (which makes 2v2 rival coh1)
+ some micro stuff (reverse button, reinforcing all infantry units at same time not individual)
+ probably new factions coming
+ changes to sniper functionality
+ no more hidden trust rating disconnect arbitration bullshit

Cons
- poorly optimized
- No leaderboards in-game
- 2v2 AT is vs random teams and arranged teams lel
- micro transaction doctrines, prepare to open your wallet
- changes to pop cap system from coh1 leads to getting pop capped and income bogged down with far less units on the field usually (less advantage for great multi task players)
- meta game, while always changing, is still pretty shallow in almost every patch due to lack of fuel based upgrades and certain units being very dominant in most patches to date
- far more instant squad wipes from huge mine hits, demo charges, certain tanks or nades, etc
- you can't micro out of infantry 1 use AT abilities (like US sticky bombs of panzferfausts) once the ability is activated it will shoot you from across the map or though a building lol
- not a fan of every faction using the same vet system thats based on damage dealt and received (personal preference)
- vaulting doesn't really add much, it just detracts from positioning importance in the early game since every fence/wall is now a viable flank route



If you played vcoh competitively in 1v1 and that was all you cared for, you will probably be disappointed. If you want to go back to coh1 the 1v1 ladder is still pretty active, but there is almost no competitive community support these days such as tournaments or shoutcasts. 2v2 AT in coh1 IS a ghost town, but you'll probably enjoy coh2 if you're in to team games.

If I say it is shit, it will be prolly invis by our rather splendid moderators.

So...

Pros
...
Cons

- you can't micro out of infantry 1 use AT abilities (like US sticky bombs of panzferfausts) once the ability is activated it will shoot you from across the map or though a building lol

that belongs to the "Pros" - Section

Is it worth it; yes.

How does it compare; the game isn't as "tight", as in it has a lot of loose ends with superfluous commanders and units plus a few imbalanced commanders and units as well. Nothing as bad as the Contador strafe or boring as "For The Fatherland" though, IMHO.

Relic seems to have laid a new gameplan; we no longer get new commanders with imba-unit-of-the-month-trololol and recent patches have all moved in the right direction.

I particularly like the new US (watch a few DevM games); they've made a "tier 2 jeep" (M20) which does low damage but can handle a faust/AT-shot and they rely heavily on impact units without having any heavies. Makes for awesome replays.

Speaking of replays we've got observer-mode. That's cool. The community is a bit more toxic, but as the game has improved these last months, so has the community.

I hope that helps

A lot of neglect and unfairness in many of the above posts IMO.

Sure the basic game design is the same. But Relic has added a lot of options and details in the gameplay that makes the whole game sort of more complete.

Just one example: True Sight. No longer can you stand behind a hedgerow and observe the enemy on the other side. And now you can make real ambushes. Like an AT-gun waiting undetected around the corner for a tank!

A lot of sound effects were improved over time. The battle is much more alive now than it was in vCOH.

ONLY ONE THING STAYED EXACTLY THE SAME: Players still bitch to no end over sort of everything...

Hm Vcoh was better in my opinion, Opposing Fronts was just the same disaster as Coh2 Western Fronts is. The vanilla factions of Coh2 are great, the expansions not so much. The Relic that delivered Vcoh under THQ seemed way more competent than the current Relic that delivers us Coh2 expansions under Sega. In other words the current Relic Studios reminds me of the Relic Studios that launched Opposing Fronts and we all know what that means

The playerbase is quite salty, the matchmaking makes no sense whatsoever, you can be put against top 5 players when you are rank 700-2000. On top of this, every patch brings new bugs, new issues and exploits, that get ' hot'fixed and then said 'hot' fix breaks something else entirely, then a new patch comes around and screws up balance once again with overbuffing or overnerfing a few units. It is a repeating cycle of two steps forward and about three to five steps backwards.

All in all the game itself is great, especially the vanilla coh2 factions, the campaign ins't (lol), the expansions are pure moneygrabs that are extremely unbalanced and powerful at release and their in game store and micro transactions for commanders and skins are just criminally atrocious and in my believe a stab in the back to their loyal playerbase.

Just wait for the next free steam weekend, will be around shortly, we are expecting a big announcement this week (free weekend probably).

Cheers

I wanted to be totally honest in and this is my experience and believes, yours may totally vary!

well, my understanding is that Relic's team changed significantly post vCoH, and that OF had some different designers, which is probably why OF felt very out of touch with what made vCoH great. DoW2 also indicated a lack of understanding of what made vCoH great, since it somewhat haphazardly ported some of its core ideas and felt like softcore poor man's CoH.

Thanks for the responses, I have a few more questions:
1. Regarding p2w: are steam sales for the DLC good? And which factions have strong vanilla commanders? I usually play exclusively a single faction and dabble in the others from time to time to get a feel for their timings/style. If I could pick one of the 5 factions which has a good vanilla commander and be done with it I would be happy.

2. I played mostly PE/USF in vCoH, which factions are similar?

3. Is relic planning more factions/commanders in the future?

4. I just moved and haven't set up a gaming pc, I just have an ok laptop. I can run vCoH on medium settings at a pretty decent framerate but anything higher and it's over. Someone said it was poorly optimized, should I wait until I've bought a new rig?

well, my understanding is that Relic's team changed significantly post vCoH, and that OF had some different designers, which is probably why OF felt very out of touch with what made vCoH great. DoW2 also indicated a lack of understanding of what made vCoH great, since it somewhat haphazardly ported some of its core ideas and felt like softcore poor man's CoH.

Thanks for the responses, I have a few more questions:
1. Regarding p2w: are steam sales for the DLC good? And which factions have strong vanilla commanders? I usually play exclusively a single faction and dabble in the others from time to time to get a feel for their timings/style. If I could pick one of the 5 factions which has a good vanilla commander and be done with it I would be happy.

2. I played mostly PE/USF in vCoH, which factions are similar?

3. Is relic planning more factions/commanders in the future?

4. I just moved and haven't set up a gaming pc, I just have an ok laptop. I can run vCoH on medium settings at a pretty decent framerate but anything higher and it's over. Someone said it was poorly optimized, should I wait until I've bought a new rig?

Just my opinion,

1. All factions with the strongest being the USF.
2. Probably USF since they have quite a few light vehicles and riflemen that can do most things.
3. No idea, won't know until Relic announces something.
4. Optimisation is horrible. I've got 8GB RAM and I still get freezes from memory leaks. Btw, I'm running on pretty much everything low. Considering that your laptop can only run vCOH on med reliably, I don't think it will last with CoH2's optimisation. A new rig is recommended.

CoH1

Pros:
- Better music IMO

Cons:
- No reserve ability
- no unit icons in top right corner

CoH2

Pros:
- it has soviets

Cons:
- CoH2 USF is crap compared to CoH1 USF
- Soviet campaign is extremely historically inaccurate.

CoH1 USF is crap compared to CoH1 USF

Might want to fix this.

4. Your laptop is probably going to catch fire.

3. We are pretty sure another will be announced shortly.

2. The US and SU are pretty similar, but all factions require micro and can be aggressive in their own way.

1. Dunno.