COH ONLINE: what was it about?

Ok, I have a faint memory that Ive once heard about such a project and then, after several months of existence, it got scrapped before i could even find it.
But Im bloody curious!

How did that work and play?

Were there any SP campaigns, or operations or coop stuff?

What factions were there? Were they the ones from base game and/or opposing fronts?

What maps were there?

Were there any microtransactions and/or P2W stuff?

Was there some sort of customization?

Were there some hero units, like from Operation assault, or the first two campaigns of ToV?

it's vCoH that has bulletine as powerful as DOW3

Totally unbalanced US vs Wher matchup with horrible maps.

COHO was actually where I first became acquainted with the franchise!

It was a free to play "version" of vcoh.

I believe it had some (all?) of the main campaign missions from vcoh.

COHO only included the american and wehrmacht forces, no brits or PE.

I think the maps were the standard vcoh map pool?

Yes there were microtransactions/p2w stuff (more on that later).

There was actually an insane degree of customization which involved "hero" units (again, more on that later).

So when first starting COHO, you were prompted to select a faction and a commander from that faction (same ones as vcoh). That commander started at level 1, and starting off you actually only got to select and use one ability from that commander. As you played, you gained experience for the commander you were playing, and as you leveled up you got to select more abilities and actually upgrade them (similar to the sort of upgrades you see for abilities in COH2's Ardennes Assault campaign). The commanders actually included more abilities than the ones in vcoh did (for example, wehrmact's terror doctrine could get a terror officer which wasn't present in vcoh). Honestly, there was actually some extremely cool and fun stuff. Once you upgraded your abilities enough, you could repurchase KTs after your first one gets destroyed, have two pershings on the field at once, and the terror officer could get an execution shot similar to recon tommies' snipe ability.

As you leveled (if I recall corectly), you were given "hero" (dont remember the actual name) units. These units could also be purchased through any of two currencies (one of which was earned through playing, the other of which was purchased with real money like most other f2p games). The hero units were special versions of units found in the base roster of the factions. Hero units were actually fairly unique and didn't gain veterancy in the normal sense... Their veterancy/levels were actually persistent through separate games and they had 5 levels. The unit would start at level 1(?) and would already have their first bonus, immediately differentiating them from their counterpart in the base roster. These hero units ranged from "basically the same as the base unit" to "this feels like an entirely new unit." Some examples include the American forces' charismatic engineers which could become as large as a 5 man squad at their highest level, and Whermacht's close combat volksgrenadiers which started with mp40s. Trust me, the variety was actually pretty insane.

I also recall some sort of bulletin system. I remember them being similar, but perhaps more impactful, than coh2's bulletin system. One bulletin that I remember in particular was one that armed Wehrmacht's pioneers with rifles instead of their usual mp40s.

Also IIRC, the game didn't have lobbies or a server browser.

With all of that variety, leveling up, purchasing of hero units with real life money, and players instantly being able to build "vet 5"/level 5 units if they played a lot, balance and the p2w aspect were fairly large issues - I'd like to think that this made it more fun...

Besides these things and the menus being different, COHO was the same as vcoh.

COHO was actually where I first became acquainted with the franchise!

It was a free to play "version" of vcoh.

I believe it had some (all?) of the main campaign missions from vcoh.

COHO only included the american and wehrmacht forces, no brits or PE.

I think the maps were the standard vcoh map pool?

Yes there were microtransactions/p2w stuff (more on that later).

There was actually an insane degree of customization which involved "hero" units (again, more on that later).

So when first starting COHO, you were prompted to select a faction and a commander from that faction (same ones as vcoh). That commander started at level 1, and starting off you actually only got to select and use one ability from that commander. As you played, you gained experience for the commander you were playing, and as you leveled up you got to select more abilities and actually upgrade them (similar to the sort of upgrades you see for abilities in COH2's Ardennes Assault campaign). The commanders actually included more abilities than the ones in vcoh did (for example, wehrmact's terror doctrine could get a terror officer which wasn't present in vcoh). Honestly, there was actually some extremely cool and fun stuff. Once you upgraded your abilities enough, you could repurchase KTs after your first one gets destroyed, have two pershings on the field at once, and the terror officer could get an execution shot similar to recon tommies' snipe ability.

As you leveled (if I recall corectly), you were given "hero" (dont remember the actual name) units. These units could also be purchased through any of two currencies (one of which was earned through playing, the other of which was purchased with real money like most other f2p games). The hero units were special versions of units found in the base roster of the factions. Hero units were actually fairly unique and didn't gain veterancy in the normal sense... Their veterancy/levels were actually persistent through separate games and they had 5 levels. The unit would start at level 1(?) and would already have their first bonus, immediately differentiating them from their counterpart in the base roster. These hero units ranged from "basically the same as the base unit" to "this feels like an entirely new unit." Some examples include the American forces' charismatic engineers which could become as large as a 5 man squad at their highest level, and Whermacht's close combat volksgrenadiers which started with mp40s. Trust me, the variety was actually pretty insane.

I also recall some sort of bulletin system. I remember them being similar, but perhaps more impactful, than coh2's bulletin system. One bulletin that I remember in particular was one that armed Wehrmacht's pioneers with rifles instead of their usual mp40s.

Also IIRC, the game didn't have lobbies or a server browser.

With all of that variety, leveling up, purchasing of hero units with real life money, and players instantly being able to build "vet 5"/level 5 units if they played a lot, balance and the p2w aspect were fairly large issues - I'd like to think that this made it more fun...

Besides these things and the menus being different, COHO was the same as vcoh.

Wow, thats one huge explanation, thank you very much!

I think Hero units were dropped or purchasable from a store. You had different hero units per tier, aka a hero sherman and a hero M36 from T4 but your commander usually had only one slot for hero per tier.
As USF, I recall having a kind of Lieutenant unit and a sherman and had a lot of fun with them.

Callin a hero unit would cost you ingame currency, losing it and calling it again would also cost ingame currency. Then winning and losing a game would provide you a certain amount of currency. Usually with a 50:50 victory ratio it wouldn't be possible to sustain all ingame currency cost of using all hero units at your disposal. So you had to make some choices or buy ingame currency with real money.

I leveled up a Airborn commander to max and that would provide you completely crazy stuff, super strong airborn troopers and completely over the top bombing runs.
As mentioned by Jae, the system was similar from what we have on the USF campaign and you had to make choices, being able to recall a KT wouldn't let you have access to other stuff from the tech arbol

The game was very fun to play indeed but completely broken on some aspect. I recall a german doctrine have a kind of permanent free vision on all the map that was completely broken with snipers, they just build two or three snipers and you couldn't do shit vs this...

I can't understand how a game concept like that can be successful

Callin a hero unit would cost you ingame currency, losing it and calling it again would also cost ingame currency. Then winning and losing a game would provide you a certain amount of currency. Usually with a 50:50 victory ratio it wouldn't be possible to sustain all ingame currency cost of using all hero units at your disposal. So you had to make some choices or buy ingame currency with real money.

To clarify (as this jogged my memory), building the hero unit would cost manpower/fuel just like any other unit, but using these hero units (not sure if its a set amount per game played while you have them equipped, or number of times you called them in) lowered their "durability" (dont remember the term that was used), and you had to pay in game currency to restore that durability. When their durability reached zero, the units were unable to be used/equipped for future matches.

To clarify (as this jogged my memory), building the hero unit would cost manpower/fuel just like any other unit, but using these hero units (not sure if its a set amount per game played while you have them equipped, or number of times you called them in) lowered their "durability" (dont remember the term that was used), and you had to pay in game currency to restore that durability. When their durability reached zero, the units were unable to be used/equipped for future matches.

You have indeed a very good memory, I remember it now.

Here are some of the unit cards, you could use in your deck:

http://cohonlinegame.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=267

OOOOOH yeah, I remember now the supermegaOPness of the Fatherland HMG42...

Still the best and a lot more fun of all the COH opus !

Yeah, it was unabalnced as fu***, but still fun since the games ended a lot quicker. Just get your unit setup and abuse it to the max vs an opponent who did the same.
For the fatherland mg , the one man army unit ...

A good casual mod if you see it that way

I probably put more hours into CoH than vCoH.

CoH was not P2W in any sense, it was grind and RNG to win. You could not pay to purchase the rare heroes (Gladiator Riflemen, Bargain Volks, Fatherland HMG, etc.), you had to be incredibly lucky to get them as drops. Maintenance of the hero cards and bulletins was easy without paying.

In fact I think the reason CoH likely failed was from NOT being P2W. There was literally no incentive to purchase CoH Cash at all. I would have easily purchased CoH Cash if it meant I could get some of the hero units I desperately wanted dropped.

The game definitely became super unbalanced when certain hero cards were in play. Units like Bargain Volks were just silly, they had no downsides and costed half as much as a normal Volks squad. At least some units, like the Old Man Volks (I forget their exact name) cost a lot less but also only walked as a downside.

Bulletins were the same too. The higher tier of bulletins stacked up made the game ridiculous. Extra health and such on Vet 3 BARed riflemen squads was insane.

I won't pretend that CoH was not the most fun I've ever had playing an RTS though. 4v4 in that game was so full of unbalanced shit that it actually made it incredibly fun. US Armor players with god mode field repairs were countered by Blitz players using a flare and triple rocket barrages on their Tank Depot to ensure that no tanks were even built in the first place. There were insanely unbalanced counters for every unbalanced thing in that game, it was incredible.

It was completely unbalanced but also a shitton of fun because of all the ridiculous units and variety. I remember the Fatherland MG 42 that had passive sprint in friendly territory and could always run away if flanked, Venerable Volksgrenadiers that was super cheap but could only walk, pioneers that could do everything camouflaged, PAK that could fire from camouflage, Motorcycle that could throw grenades, USF engineers that had a BAR, and the list goes on.

Commanders was just throwing OP shit at each other and hoping your shit was more OP, like surviving a USF tank rush that had god mode field repairs just because you yourself could call in fully flushed out double Panzershreck running-in-camouflage Stormtroopers and a cheap Tiger. Then retaliating by using flares to call in a huge rocket strike on the US base. It was glorious.


As long as you didn't take it serious it was so much fun. Such a shame they shut down the servers.

I probably put more hours into CoH than vCoH.

Show Spoiler

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Don't forget the game was in beta. They shut down the servers like 2 months after having opened the real money system. The beta status explain a bit of everything, why so much unbalance and why the P2W wasn't a thing.

I'll never forget the Hero US Engineers that started the game with BARS! Gladiator rifles that started with a BAR. Close Combar Volks that was a squad entire on MP40's, if they got close to anything it was goodnight.
Free US Rifleman camouflage was OP as hell. US Infantry Attrition, so you could charge all you rifles into battle click one button and they would all be replaced instantly.
https://youtu.be/irbPFB3FJOI

Readin these memories makes me laugh
Wish they would try something simmilar again

I think it was an early experiment in free to play. Besides all the above issues tragically the game designer was killed in a car accident shortly after it launched

Lest you forget Harlequin COHO: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd5A1F189UQmBTe433209Ag



COHO was aimed at the casual player and also at eliminating piracy in China with the FTP mode. It was launched in China first.

COHO could never hope to compete with COH1 competitively, from which it was derived. And to that extent, serious COH1 players often held COHO in near contempt. Nevertheless, COHO was fun to play - its multiplayer was far superior to COH1 (Hero units etc notwithstanding).

Edited