Features that affect gameplay before the match even begins.

Over the last few months most discussion and debate on these forums have revolved around the Winter Balance Patch. That's all well and good to set priorities towards the most realistic route to having changes made. But at the same time I think it's caused a lot of components of CoH2 to be missed or ignored because of, well, "The Scope." CoH2 is a very intricate web of various mechanics, many of which can be highly dependent on choices players make outside of an actual match. I think the issues that lie therein should be paramount to most discussions of gameplay.

That said:

Loadouts:
Bulletins aren't a big problem, but they are often a tell of player's intended tactics. (IMO bulletins should be cleared for tournament play. They're just... unnecessary for actual gameplay: Negligible at best, tipping the scales of balance at worst.)

Commanders... Where to begin. The imbalances between commanders themselves, be it in design, or by volume for EFA, are probably the single most problematic aspect for CoH2's languid attempts at balance.

I think there are actually a lot of avenues that can remedy this situation. (I feel like I sound like I'm from 2013. ) Some outlandish, some, well, more outlandish. For tournament play I really think there should be a list of approved commanders for that event. That, and/or a pre-tourney draft or veto session between players to determine which commanders can be on the loadout.

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Map design:
The current limitations of map design prevent a high degree of dynamic gameplay. The importance of capping order is barely recognizable in CoH2, whereas it was a critical component of matchups in vCoH. Furthermore, the maps themselves suffer as there is a high degree of homogenization of territory. There are only so many combinations of three resource points that can be utilized before maps become pretty cookie cutter or clones of each other.

My signature links to my mod that addresses this issue directly. I urge you to play a game on Langres as it was designed in CoH1: very different gameplay, if only in the opening stages of the match.

'More' maps are unlikely to improve the situation until there is 'more' that maps can utilize.

Since tournament play doesn't take place in Automatch, I feel like maps themselves could eventually be modified/fixed in certain ways to promote more competitive or balanced games for a given event.

Faction Design itself:
Alright, we've made it past the loading screen! But now we are faced by the issues that have been extolled and debated on online forums, official or not.

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So the point of stating all this here is that I think it is important to really look at some of the components that go into making a balanced and competitive match of CoH2. This game is very complex and full of nuanced mechanics, and when scrutiny becomes too focused on specific units or abilities, I feel a lot of factors are missed/ignored.

A lot of things probably will never be officially changed, but I do think there's entirely the capacity for things like tournaments to be constructed in a fashion that mitigates many of these issues.

Anyway, this was all just my day-off-time blurb about the game.

Feature that affects match result before it even beggins as well

Bugspat

Feature that affects match result before it even beggins as well

So true...

Although I rarely have bugsplat... But then again I rarely play more than two or three games without restarting the game.

Bulletins : tipping the scales of balance at worst.

hehe, in the early days of coh2, some bulletins were so op one could not lose earlygame with them

Going beyond that, I have always felt (since beta) that because commanders don't branch, that players should be able to allocate CPs into multiple commanders.

i honestly think that's a terrible idea, impossible to balance and it would make the game more stale rather than less

The current limitations of map design prevent a high degree of dynamic gameplay.

+1

hehe, in the early days of coh2, some bulletins were so op one could not lose earlygame with them

I missed the first 4 months of this game, how OP was it? 50% increased infantry accuracy like the flame hetzer bulletin?

I missed the first 4 months of this game, how OP was it? 50% increased infantry accuracy like the flame hetzer bulletin?

effectively 25% more health for conscripts
counterable with a bulletin for grenadiers, but getting this bulletin required killing 5 tanks with panzerfausts, so you can guess how many people had this bulletin (i farmed it with a friend just to get this bulletin)

if you are interested:
https://www.coh2.org/topic/5229/guide-on-impact-of-bulletins
relic changed it at some point

I actually really miss the branching commanders of vCoH, allowing for more dynamic strategic choices.

With that said, the problem with the "map design" goes deeper than you have suggested here. Asymmetry aside (I'm looking at you Faymonville, Kholodny, Moscow...) the way that man power is allocated to popcap, and how popcap/mp isn't affected by strategic points changes the core philosophy of the game and lessens the impact of strategic cut offs which vastly impacts things like tech structure, and power creep.

the way that man power is allocated to popcap, and how popcap/mp isn't affected by strategic points changes the core philosophy of the game and lessens the impact of strategic cut offs

totally agree. i feel that in many aspects vcoh had a lot more thought put into it than coh2. you can really tell that they aimed for that 95 score when making the game

totally agree. i feel that in many aspects vcoh had a lot more thought put into it than coh2. you can really tell that they aimed for that 95 score when making the game

Yeah, it's such a shame. If they had the resources to make a proper sequel, my word... especially after the lessons they learned from balancing the first game. Like, sure both OF and vCoH had rocky starts but they figured it out. I can only imagine if they had the opportunity to cary that wisdom forward, it's tragic. AND THEN on top of that to gut the development study ostensibly for circumstances out of their control... I find it actually sort of disgusting. #capitalism

i honestly think that's a terrible idea, impossible to balance and it would make the game more stale rather than less

Probably at this point yeah. My perspective on it is that if cps are spent, as in allocated into commanders and not auto unlocked as you acquire the cps, there would be a whole lot more strategic options to doctrines.

But yeah the volume and nature of commanders does make the possibility of multiple commanders in a match a recurring pipe dream

the way that man power is allocated to popcap, and how popcap/mp isn't affected by strategic points changes the core philosophy of the game and lessens the impact of strategic cut offs which vastly impacts things like tech structure, and power creep.

I don't disagree with you at all actually. Although I feel like diversity in territory points impact the game more than how pop cap works. IIRC the mechanics are unchanged, territory points don't provide any pop cap anymore. The value is just set to 0, but the components are all there.

I should just incorporate the pop cap stuff with my mod and be done with it. Interestingly enough the pop cap of vcoh is something I think a lot of people simultaneously didn't like or understand. It is one of those things people struggling with coh2 also say they didn't like about coh1, but may not realize how much it may have helped them before.