To Relic -- Ideas to fix DLC mess

I agree with most points.
Let me just throw in my two cents about competitive coh2 multiplayer:

- p2w op commanders, in fact any p2w content will turn people away from the competitive side of the game in the long run

- there are way too many commanders in total, in the end there are only 3-4 really useful commanders per faction (and as we know, the more "rules" a game has, the worse it gets)

Also I think that SEGA has no intentions at all to strengthen the competitive side of coh2 since they dont see the money in it. They aim for the casual gaming market, and in fact this market is way bigger than any other.

I wish Coh2 could become something close to Dota2 or Starcraft which both have/had millions of players and a thriving competitive scene, however I do not believe it.

Cheers

If its not obvious, currently coh2 is a cash grab.

If its not obvious, currently coh2 is a cash grab.

More like a sunken cost fallacy market honestly.

Most of the people buying DLC's are usually the ones who have been with this game for like forever. Newcomers look at the DLC commanders, the $10 priced factions, and the even more RNG-never-lucky-allocated war spoil system and go "Yeahhhhh... no."

Game Publisher seeks to make money

Film at 11.

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Sorry I can't get angry about DLC Commanders or Warspoils


We had Tiger Ace and we had Windustry and neither was a good period, but there is no Commander like that now.


Warspoils was a two steps forward one step back change that removed any control you had over what you could get, but allowed Commander drops. It shows the signs of being a work in progress that just stopped.


However, I don't see any credible alternative to the status quo, because that always gets pitched as:

- I want no content that affects the game to be behind RNG or paywall

Which means we don't get any new commanders, nor would we have WFA or Brits unless there is some magic reason where Relic should do that for free

Skins are not going to pay the bills

And whenever Relic put out SP content like AA, pretty much the same group of people start complaining that they should be spending their time patching multiplayer and that SP is an irrelvance


So all they really want is:

Relic should devote 100% of their effort to balancing and developing the game mode I care about, and they should do so for free


I am somewhat unsympathetic to this request

So all they really want is:

Relic should devote 100% of their effort to balancing and developing the game mode I care about, and they should do so for free


I am somewhat unsympathetic to this request

Maybe not free, but somewhere between 'free' and 'only after you've paid for it' wouldn't be too far out of the realm of reason.

If you dont want to buy then dont buy em. All commanders yo uneed to buy is:

1. soviets - NONE . Theyir best commader are core ones.
2. ostheer combine mobile defence and SCAS + tiger doctrine (all you need to is buy 1 commader for 1 E at chirsmas when are discounts)
3. USA those cores are good , but if you really want you can buy only rifle company on chrismas.
4. OKW , as other faction cores are best (breaktrought , luftwaffe , special ops) . If you wanna something different , try scavenege , only one worth to buy
5. Brits - playable only with avre and commandons commader but all you need to buy is vanguard if you want to have more options.

Reminder that all commanders which were unlocked through progression are now behind Warspoils. Someone who buys the game doesn't have access to, for example, Assault support (no Tiger).

1- You are still missing:
-ISU with Guards with is way better than the one with Shocks (Mark Vehicle)
-Urban defense has some cheeky uses on certain maps
-Same as before Partisans
-Radio intercept + T3485s + IS2 has it uses but you could say you can just play ShockRifle
2- You start with no Tiger doctrine. Lighting, Spearhead, Assault Support and Mechanized all has their uses. One are more 1v1 oriented, the others are more teamgame oriented.
CAS, Osstruppen, Elite and Mobile defense are all good.
3- Rifle > Infantry/Armor >= Airborne
4- OKW: 1v1 Scavenge is slighlty above the rest of the OKW commanders
5- Vanguard overall is ahead of the rest of the options. Vanguard > Commando > rest

Which means we don't get any new commanders, nor would we have WFA or Brits unless there is some magic reason where Relic should do that for free

I approve of expansions like WFA or UKF, but i'll never accept the DLC commander system.

"I want no content that affects the game to be behind RNG or paywall"

There's a difference between having alternative options and powercreep. You can lock content through RNG but there needs to be a grind limit to it.

Another subject is price for commanders.

One thing is supporting the Company and the other is considering fair the price for what they are selling you.

1-Take any of the 20 DLC commander for EFA and they are mostly re arrange of same abilities.
2-Assets been there for the campaign or ToW and just exporting them to pvp as "new content"

Take for example the new 2 commanders for USF/OKW:
-2 are already old abilities (Field defense and scavenge)
-2 is from AA campaign (Rangers and combined arms)
-2 things that i can't considered new such as smoking an are (rename of another ability) or giving a unit a flamer.
-2 I hope OKW offmap is not Creeping barrage victory strike 2.0 but i guess this could be considered new. Recoup losses is a new mechanic so this is fine.
-2 NEW units. Hetzer and M26

And Sega won't rethink it's DLC policies. Sega is probably one of the worst publishers out there, althought EA might be worse in some regards.

Still Relic/SEGA are far behind EA/Dice.

Just look at Battlefront. DLC already availbe at the launch, 100euro for full game at start (and think about DLC in future which will come for sure) So it's not that bad for CoH2 but it's also not that good.

Well, EA has been giving away games for the last year. Dragon Age, Dead Space, BF3 and several old games (last one been Red Alert and expansion).

Remind you that you know that if you buy the Premium/Season Pass you'll get access to whatever they pull out. Remember what people got from the "Limited Edition" for CoH2?
We also have plenty of DLC available at launch, same with each release of expansions (Rangers for campaign, 3 commanders for each new faction).

I bought BF4 on with Premium on day1 (60/70 dollars) and still after the catasthrophe of it's first months they are still giving new content for free (5 new weapons, 1/3 night maps, 1 community map, 1 remade map from BF2)
Finally: Vanilla weapons&equipment > DLC weapons&equipment.

I completely agree that there were elements of the pre-Warspoils system that worked very well.

In fact pre-WFA we had four systems working in parallel

1) Most Bulletins Tied to Achievements

2) Commanders and Some Bulletins Tied to Level

3) Other Commanders available as DLC only

4) Commanders available via promotion (Cas, Mobile Defence, Defensive)


People complained about 3, but 1 and 2 were fine because people clearly knew what they needed to do to get what they wanted.


Warspoils made everything available as a random drop, but completely removed any control people had about what they could get


There has been various flirting and probing about what to do about that, like the post-game surveys and the hint never to delete any duplicates but there's been no action nor any sign that Relic really know what to do with this.

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Now, if it was me I would do the following:

1) Everything is available to buy

2) Everything is also available to grind. I'm happy with it being hard, but it has to be clear what you have to do and what you get

Another subject is price for commanders.

One thing is supporting the Company and the other is considering fair the price for what they are selling you.

The pricing right now is somewhat odd.

Most are STG 1.99

Some are STG 2.79

This includes all the Brits, USF and WFA - all of which is fair enough because they are newer and fewer

Then you have:

CAS
Elite
Encirclement
Luftwaffe Supply
Mech Assault
Ostruppen

Advanced Warfare
Counterattack
Partisans
Industry
Tank Hunters
Urban Defence


If you want clarity for new players someone might think that Urban Defence is a really good one, as opposed to being so far off meta it might as well be on Saturn

As much fun as it is to wave ur dick around and write a big fancy report it's pretty simple. Relic don't give a shit. People will still pay for whatever garbage they release and Relic I'm sure has a steady supply of garbage planned.

Everyone is complaining about the system but everyone is buying those.

A fixed warspoil system would be the perfect solution (for example give players the option to trade duplicates for new commanders etc.)
but yeah 1 year and half year ago "we will fix the warspoil system asap, we are working on it".


and please make the game F2P (at least Ost and Soviets) we need a bigger playerbase... we are alomst free to play (you can get the game during sales for a very low price/ single factions but all the other stuff like commanders is too expensive).

Eve O was never Free2Play as you bought the PLEX from someone who actually had to spend real money for it!
PLEX is also an indicator for the playerbase, as a rising median means fewer players who are activly selling them on the market -> higher PLEX price, lower playerbase (expect those wannabe-"F2P"-F1 robots, they tend to play the game longer because, well, it's basicly just ISK for their gametime)...
Coh2 will never be a competitive RTS. The Story settled in WW2 is not mainstream enough, too much violence and last but not least a publisher that has got 0 tendences for esports.
Other than that I agree, the Coh Franchise is way too expensive and I'm saying that while looking at two neat little "Steelboxes", one for Coh1, the other is the Red Star edition.

And Sega won't rethink it's DLC policies. Sega is probably one of the worst publishers out there

+1

The current DLC state of play is a lot like McDonalds' menu evolution. If current kids were still supporting it, they wouldn't alter a thing. But the gen which grew up munching McMeals is deserting those grease filled sweet buns in droves, so McDonald has had to adapt or sink.

SEGA's 'menu' aka content delivery model will change when the game playing demographic, that's you guys, matures and won't pay for this ripoff BS any more. They don't give a toss about gamers any further than how it affects their share price and profit. You only have to look to its one armed bandit origins to see that. You're just going to have to trust me as someone who has been there and so knows what it's like to be 20, then 30, then 40 etc and how perspective alters the gaming experience of a keen gamer. That will happen as you get older and your POV and circumstance change out of proportion to anything you might be capable of perceiving right now. However as long as you continue to munch happily on overpriced McMeals with the inducement of a toy in the box and bland Big Macs, SEGA will happily keep serving them up to you.

So by now, I'm a LOT older than most of you, and was PC multiplayer gaming when many of you here weren't able to do much more than dribble. OK the time is too fast approaching when thats probably all I'll be able to do at some time in the future too, but until I'm afflicted by Alzheimers or can't find my mouth with a spoon, you might take note of the following.

Westwood made money with C&C, a lot of it. And it was a great game. Cavedog the same with TA, and blew it with a beautiful but dud sequel. Then there was Starcraft and Warcraft. But while they raked it in, they followed a classic but simple model. Make game, patch it, make two or three add ons, evolve into next version. Trust me when I say C&C2 even though it has some monumental advances such as inherent TCPIP support, was not as good as C&C as a multiplayer game, but gamers who had never played C&C never knew that.

As years passsed, despite attempt by publishers to prevent it with Macrovision and Securerom et al, piracy flourished later facilitated by the advent of torrenting. In conjunction with consumers demanding game eye candy consuming ever bigger budgets in a much more competitive but narrower genre market -every publisher wanted to be the one with the next "QUAKE". It was sickening at the itime. This reach the moon or crash and burn on launch approach requiring NASA like production budgets inevitibly killed small PC game publishing by gamers for gamers by and large. Very big money wanting big returns quickly on investment got involved.

OK so move on some years and now we have a DLC delivery and online login verification model to avert piracy, at least by those who want to play on a game auto matching or MMO server. That's cool by me. I don't mind paying FULL PRICE for a game that's good which I will play a lot. I also don't resent paying FULL PRICE for regular add ons as marketed for COH and a zillion like predecessors, although I saw the exploiting PTW rot start in ToV although it was delivered within the module rather than as a singular DLC unit. How it's delivered whether by DL or hardcopy is immaterial. And to be fair, I actually like the STEAM delivery model, so I'm not just some old fogey stick in the mud as youth not knowing what they don't know naturally perceives experience until they visit it themselves. Don't worry, most of you will eventually get that privilege, and its coming faster than any of you can even imagine right now.

Relative to the number of people buying and playing games, the overwhelming majority of gamers couldn't give a toss about "e-sports" competition even if it might be used as a hype medium to heighten awareness.

By and large by the far larger proportion of gamers are AI campaign or vs AI gamers, sad though that may seem and limit development to those of us who live for multi-play against human opponents. You need only look at relative regular 1v1 auto participation audience who continue with that in COH2 to realise that. As such we who do play 1v1 and 2v2 AT auto as the game's niche buyer audience don't pay sufficient fare to keep the bus or train service running. It needs a model or something that sells to everyone, not just our niche. If just comp stomping, who really needs a premium commander? SEGA know damned well exactly what they're doing with PTW or PFA for those of you in denial, Premium commanders. One only has to understand human nature, the juvenile audience ego and play auto for a day to realise regardless of what they might espouse otherwise, players generally will exploit any unit which is broken for advantage, and many of those have no qualms paying the exploitive price for a Premium commander which offers significant advantage if they can avail themselves of it.

With all the other balance issues plaguing the game, the many obviously deliberately the release of any new module -only to be patched a short while later, to induce the widest possible potential audience penetration and catchment at release tier pricing. SEGA well know exactly what they are doing to the sheeple, and Relic are doing their bidding as instructed. You'd need the IQ of an ant not to be able to see this.

Personally, I don't see SEGA changing anything any time soon, and no employee of the developer is going to voice that if they want to keep their position or find a future one. The game as it is right now isn't about us, what we want, nor how loudly we complain or valid the complaint as long as we continue to pay for it as is. Now that's contempt.

Given they've only promised to support it for five years, and half of that has elapsed already with yet another balance patch where it's already apparent with a October patch promise of reinstitution of the Bren flamer from 6 to 10 to appease a whine from a vociferous audience with utter disregard of play balance so we'll see it abused in every game again <sigh>, and I think the answer to why this game is a crock is only all too readily apparent. How many alleged balance patches have been released in its relatively short lifespan, and it's still broken while they continue to pump out novelty overpriced PTW Premium Commander DLC?

Seriously, although belatedly committing to the game to give it a decent fair shake, if there was anything else out there contemporaryily supported of a similar theme which wasn't as broken as this is, I'd abandon this game in a heartbeat as would my 20 year old auto 2v2 AT team mate, and we are RTS afficionados who have played COH auto for all its warts for years.

We BOTH have a love hate relationsship with this game, and I can asssure Relic and SEGA the HATE aspect of ever growing resentment extends to refusing to ever pay for their BS DLC Premium Commander extortion in the particular any time it isn't sale discounted -75% off. Even then it's grudge buy, but we do it just out of necessity to level the playing field in auto. I suppose SEGA work on the policy you can fool all of the people some of the time, and there's sufficient "all" within the community to maintain the status quo and continue it?

To fix the current broken state of DLC, either price it at insignificant pricing about a quarter of what it currently is to achieve a level playing field, and don't tell me they still won't make a motza from selling recycled pixels designed by kids for kids even then, or preferably drop the model altogether for all inclusive add-on modules per predecessors. But the game really does need to be properly fixed first, and I don't see them having a sincere interest in that anytime before it becomes abandonware to its sequel.

My greatest hope is another publisher and developer will come along with something the equal of COH2's predecessor to eclipse it as Cavedog did with Total Annihilation way back in '98, which would see COH2 plummet to the depths of obscurity faster than RMS "Titanic" did.

Pardon my ignorance but dunno what's STG.

I presume he means it as an abbreviation and contraction of UK Pound Sterling.

The actual contemporary international acronym is the UK currency is GBP, a contraction of Great British Pound. Like AUD and USD.

But we take on board his meaning and point.

Game Publisher seeks to make money

I wouldn't have expected such a condescending justification from you?

No one would deny a business is in business, or that being profitible so as to stay in the black is a necessary adjunct to that.

What we are justificably complaining about is DLC extortion with pricing pitched beyond even demand pricing pricepoint with the added insult that the game was from the outset, is, and after two years remains broken.

As for SEGA needing to screw the consumer as hard as they do with COH2 DLC, methinks reason suggests not.

What we are justificably complaining about is DLC extortion with pricing pitched beyond even demand pricing pricepoint with the added insult that the game was from the outset, is, and after two years remains broken.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but no amount of whining, forum crying, online petitioning, IQUIT threatening etc will change anything unless majority of players will stop buying DLC.

And guess what? They won't stop, because they want to have this stuff and laugh at you while you cry for it in ever lasting online "battles".

People opposed to DLC, micro transactions and so on are nothing else but a vocal minority.
You may not agree, but you definitely won't change that.

Gaming isn't a charity, publishers main goal is to make the most money possible and its NOT forum warriors that decide the success, its the KPIs such as active users, recurring users, payers and the amounts of stuff sold vs predictions and previous year KPIs.

You people can have as many ideas as you want and I guarantee you that nothing will ever change, unless 95% of ALL players, not just CoH2 ones will stop buying DLCs, forcing publishers for another method to reach your pocket.

Why do you think we have DLCs and F2P games in the first place?
Because players few years ago-majority of players-decided its "unfair for them to enforce on them full expansion content then they are interested only in part of it and its unfair for them to pay subscriptions fees and they wanted to buy what they want and when they want without commitment".

Clearly, you weren't around during the CoH1 days when getting a patch was a really big deal. They were quite uncommon. This is because game sales were the only source of income. With things as they are now, we get A LOT of support now.

Will probably get a lot of flak here but I suspect people who bitch and moan about having to pay for additional, mostly optional content - either don't work at all, bit off more than they can chew in life or feel like they should get everything for nothing. Completely ignoring the fact that Relic's employee's wages doesn't grow on trees. I wouldn't change the current setup Relic is going with. Support is far better now than in the past.

COH1 was actually a game that was worth playing. There's nothing but frustration and anger involved in COH2. It's a broken down mess of ass mixed with blind developers backing it. This game needs a whole redesign.

Everyone is complaining about the system but everyone is buying those.

A fixed warspoil system would be the perfect solution (for example give players the option to trade duplicates for new commanders etc.)
but yeah 1 year and half year ago "we will fix the warspoil system asap, we are working on it".


and please make the game F2P (at least Ost and Soviets) we need a bigger playerbase... we are alomst free to play (you can get the game during sales for a very low price/ single factions but all the other stuff like commanders is too expensive).

To be honest this game isn't even worth it for free. There are plenty of other better games to be playing than COH2.

To be honest this game isn't even worth it for free. There are plenty of other better games to be playing than COH2.

Then why do you spout this hateful stuff on a CoH 2 forum? Do just voice your dislike of the game and developers because you have a mouthpiece to do it with, it groups you with the other forum warriors and trolls.