Mirror Match

Well said, Yoink.

no offense, but game is already and has always been about puppies and kitties, and luckily for us, otherwise it would not be the fun arcade style RTS that we all loved for so long.

I played Men of War: Assault Squad for a while, loved it and tried to bring on it most of my COH friends. For 80% of them it was impossible to get into it because it was too "realistic", too hardcore, eventho the shooting distances there arent even 1/5 of what they were in the reality. But in in MOWAS, and thats my points, units pretty much have their own real role that they used to have in WW2, unlike COH where tanks have a "life bar" and everything is working throughout totally fantasy modifiers, which we actually all love, otherwise we would not be on this forum.

Tanks shooting at 10meter distance and infantry not dying to 1 rifle shot are puppies and kitties.

This just to repeat again that "realism" is not where Relic is heading on and therefore should not be an argument "against mirror".

This just to repeat again that "realism" is not where Relic is heading on and therefore should not be an argument "against mirror".

I could not agree more. Realism is a terrible argument (in this case) to make "against mirror".

It's a good thing that my entire post repeated reinforced this very point.

However, *authenticity* IS where Relic is headed and therefore is a great argument "against mirror"

Realism and authenticity are two completely different things. They sometimes go hand in hand, but sometimes not.
In COH's case, it's "sometimes not".

The authenticity, the atmosphere, the feeling, the satisfaction when you beat a beast "Tiger" or "King Tiger" with your "Shermans" or "Rangers". These things mean more than realism, competitiveness. Completely agree Yoink that he nicely interpreted the joy & feeling that we get from the game- not for all of us ofc at least for many of us. These are main reasons that we are so attached to this game but not to another one.

I still feel the same thing when I launched the game very first time in 2006, watching the intro, watching those boats approached the shores, camera zooms in and you are there, on Omaha beach. Through all campaign you carry this feeling that you are one of these guys fighting vs Axis. Then comes the Multiplayer; now you can experience the "other side", how does it feel to repel the Ally attacks for the Fatherland? How many different ways to enjoy the game by commanding one of these Armies against "another" one.

This is too romantic? Maybe, but this is one of the other reasons we love this game even if we don't call it romanticism.

At least for me, mirror matching will make me feel like "Brother will kill brother" thing which I'm not looking forward to see.

.

Andrey Vlasov makes Soviet versus Soviet authentic!

However, *authenticity* IS where Relic is headed and therefore is a great argument "against mirror"

I’m with Yoink here, Realism aside, mirror matches just feel wrong.
And it opens up a whole can of balance problems. Like Germanys unit X is weak against the Russians but powerful against a fellow German. And because of this the unit X is the only valid option for early game. Does unit X needs to be nerfed to balance the metagame?

Or the synergy of a German-Russian 2v2 against Two Germans. Will it be too powerful like early US/Brit combos?

These are all balance problems which can be avoided by not using missors. They can also be simply ignored, which will be worse (for casual players).

If Mirrors are definetly in then please only basic matches with an option for the host to select weather they are allowed or not (Army selection: free / authentic).

Why is any of this important, you might ask? Well ask yourself this question: Are you playing this game because you simply love the mechanics, or are you playing this game because of something more? If Relic kept the exact same engine, the exact same unit types, and the exact same mechanics, but made it a game about Kittens vs Puppies, would you still play it? Every single unit on the Kitten team behaves exactly like an American unit, and every single unit on the Puppy team behaves exactly like a Wehrmacht unit. The mechanics are all the same. If this is true for you, then you don't really love COH...you just love the rules system that Relic built. And let me tell you, you'll be even happier with other RTS games out there. Because there are better ones. Heck, you can even Sci-Fi it up with DOW2.

If you allow the Russians to fight the Russians and the Germans to fight the Germans in COH2, what's to stop us from really changing *anything* about the game for the sake of balance? It becomes trivial to introduce totally non-authentic concepts and powers to either side, since you've thrown any sort of historical authenticity out the window. If we get mirror matches, I hope someday in future DLC we'll be seeing the Japanese vs the Germans, the Americans vs the Brits, and the Italians vs the Chinese. Maybe we'll throw in an alternate universe DLC pack that includes a Martian invasion of the Third Reich, because it doesn't matter anyway, we're not actually dealing with World War 2 anymore.

This is a terrible strawman. You could use that argument against any RTS and make the same point. If SC2, C&C, MoW or DoW was kittens, puppies and hamsters, of course people would be turned off. But that doesn't have anything to do with mirror matches, or CoH, in any way, shape or form.

To answer the bolded question: yes, I've played CoH since retail because of the mechanics and an interest in WWII. However, I've played CoH for so many years now that my fondness of the WWII aspect has almost completely dissipated. CoH is much, much more than its setting, to me. And no, no other game touches its mechanics - certainly not DoW II's horribly watered-down attempt at it. But if it did, and it did them better? I'd play that. A worse game with a preferable setting or richer authenticity is still a worse game.

Authenticity is just as bad an argument against mirrors as realism is.

This is a terrible strawman. You could use that argument against any RTS and make the same point. If SC2, C&C, MoW or DoW was kittens, puppies and hamsters, of course people would be turned off. But that doesn't have anything to do with mirror matches, or CoH, in any way, shape or form.

To answer the bolded question: yes, I've played CoH since retail because of the mechanics and an interest in WWII. However, I've played CoH for so many years now that my fondness of the WWII aspect has almost completely dissipated. CoH is much, much more than its setting, to me. And no, no other game touches its mechanics - certainly not DoW II's horribly watered-down attempt at it. But if it did, and it did them better? I'd play that. A worse game with a preferable setting or richer authenticity is still a worse game.

Authenticity is just as bad an argument against mirrors as realism is.

+1

If relic itroduces mirror matches, they could as well introduce alien race in a DLC. Why not? We could see germans fighting xenomorphs that would be cool! Would you like to see that? I guess people who advocate for mirrors wouldn't care.

If relic itroduces mirror matches, they could as well introduce alien race in a DLC. Why not? We could see germans fighting xenomorphs that would be cool! Would you like to see that? I guess people who advocate for mirrors wouldn't care.

if it's fun and balanced for competitive play, then why not?

First let me ask all of you: Why are any of us playing COH (Or COH2) in the first place? I can think of several *extremely* popular RTS games that are more refined and much more balanced than COH. Starcraft 2 comes to mind. Hell Starcraft 1 comes to mind, too. Ultimately, I expect there is a myriad of great answers out there as to why we're all attracted to COH, and all of them are valid. Perhaps it was the game mechanics. Perhaps it was the amazing sound and graphics. For some it's the unique retreat and cover systems. But the one thing that I think we can all agree on is that COH is NOT perfectly balanced. Especially the OF factions. So I don't think that anyone can say that they're drawn to COH for the "amazing balance." But there is one thing that we all have in common as COH players. Every. Single. One. Of. Us. And that's that when we play COH, we're all playing a World War 2 real time strategy game.

The thing that draws me to CoH is the low skill cap/APM requirements and the unique game mechanics like suppression, cutoff points, and retreating. I know it's not balanced and I hate the OF factions and ToV units because of it. CoH was a much better game before that crap and it would be a much better game without that crap. If CoH had better balance I'd like it more and if it had worse balance I'd like it even less. Everything Relic does to CoH and its sequel should be in service of making a fun, innovative, balanced RTS game. Letting people keep up their fantasy of reenacting World War 2 with their little digital toy soldiers is best left to single player, custom games, and other video games. When it comes to the competitive environment in which an RTS lives or dies in the later months and years of its life, balance trumps all.

And that leads me to Tychocelchuu's point. Is COH a very realistic WW2 game? Absolutely not. Is COH a very realistic war game in ANY way? Not really at all. The combat and physics system lend themselves more to an arcade game than any kind of actual real combat simulator. But while COH may not be realistic at all, it IS *authentic*. Every single unit modeled in COH was used in World War 2. The King Tiger didn't see much combat until the end of the war, but it existed, and the thing was a beast. The 101st Airborne dropped into Normandy, and some of them were armed with recoilless rifles. And the Wehrmacht was one of the first armies in the world to use a true assault rifle, the Sturmgewehr 44. Do ANY of these things behave in real life like they do in COH? No. But they existed. And they're included in the game in the *exact same context as they were used in real life*.

Well, not everything in CoH existed in real life. American sticky bombs, fake commando artillery, squads of Knight's Cross Holders, canister shot for Tetrarchs, the Bergetiger as depicted in CoH's model, Sherman Calliopes without a main gun... not to mention stuff like Ostwinds that, although they technically existed, barely even saw combat. And more importantly, almost none of the things in Company of Heroes are used in anything like the context they were used in real life. No M8 was ever used to circle strafe a Puma long enough for Riflemen to stickybomb it to death. No Fallschirmjagers ever cloaked next to a VP to take out engineers that were sent around the back to cap it.

You can't use the King Tiger as the Americans and the German's aren't driving Shermans in COH. The game functions under a very strict set of CONTEXTUAL RULES.

Can you explain these contextual rules? I don't think they exist in any form other than "whatever allows the stuff that happens in CoH." And in that form, they don't seem like rules that make any sense or that we should conserve for the sequel.

When you allow mirror matches, you destroy any authenticity that the game hopes to achieve. You also destroy any context in which to play the game. For the sake of trying to make a game more balanced, you have actually destroyed any possibility of the game being seen as World War 2 experience. For me, the setting in which this game takes place is *extremely* important. I'm attracted to this game, in great part, to the fact that it's authentically World War 2. Playing a game on Angoville reminds me that an actual World War 2 battle took place on the Angoville farms in France. Did it look anything like the game I'm playing right now? No, but it's couched in historical authenticity. When I shoutcast a game, I shoutcast it using the historical knowledge that 70 years ago, these two armies actually did fight, and the units involved actually went head to head in some way in France and Germany.

Look, a lot of these units didn't go head to head in France and Germany, and they especially didn't do it together. Pretty much the closest CoH ever gets to reality is that most of these things existed and were on the various sides of the war that the game says they were on. Anything beyond that, CoH doesn't model at all. It jumbles together units from all years of the war and all theaters of the war with no regard to how or when they were used together or who they fought and where they fought against them. If you need Company of Heroes to remind you that a battle took place on the farms of Angoville, then fine, whatever, but I think it can remind you just as well even if both sides are German or American. I mean it's not like when you're shoutcasting a Wehr vs Wehr game, you instantly forget all of your historical knowledge.

Why is any of this important, you might ask? Well ask yourself this question: Are you playing this game because you simply love the mechanics, or are you playing this game because of something more? If Relic kept the exact same engine, the exact same unit types, and the exact same mechanics, but made it a game about Kittens vs Puppies, would you still play it? Every single unit on the Kitten team behaves exactly like an American unit, and every single unit on the Puppy team behaves exactly like a Wehrmacht unit. The mechanics are all the same. If this is true for you, then you don't really love COH...you just love the rules system that Relic built. And let me tell you, you'll be even happier with other RTS games out there. Because there are better ones. Heck, you can even Sci-Fi it up with DOW2.

Of course I'd play this game even if all the units were sci-fi units. I played Dawn of War II for a while, but it was missing most of the MECHANICS I loved about CoH, like a bigger emphasis on suppression and flanking, especially in the early game, cutoff points, and different types and values of capture points for resources. It was still fun though. It's not like I only play World War II games.

Telling me I don't love CoH because I don't love non-mirror matches to the exclusion of mirror matches is ridiculous. You're pretending like CoH is ONLY what you say it is (some sort of silly historical contextual simulation) when in reality CoH is many things to many people.

How does it make sense for you to tell ME that I don't love CoH because I don't love this weird historical stuff? Why doesn't it make sense for me to tell YOU that YOU don't love CoH because you don't love the competitive balance that makes for interesting matches and a thriving competitive scene? Why do YOU get to decide what the CORE of CoH is? Why aren't the mechanics the core of the game? Because you could swap the units out and keep the same mechanics? But you could do the same thing for the mechanics! We could keep the EXACT SAME units and historical context from CoH and swap it out with completely different mechanics. Would that still be CoH? No, of course not. That would be a different game. But you'd still love that game, because it has the same context, right? So really, YOU don't love CoH!

This is stupid, of course. We both love CoH, but for different reasons. If you want to argue against mirror matches, making up ridiculous arguments about how anyone who disagrees with you actually doesn't like CoH is not the way to do it.

If you allow the Russians to fight the Russians and the Germans to fight the Germans in COH2, what's to stop us from really changing *anything* about the game for the sake of balance? It becomes trivial to introduce totally non-authentic concepts and powers to either side, since you've thrown any sort of historical authenticity out the window. If we get mirror matches, I hope someday in future DLC we'll be seeing the Japanese vs the Germans, the Americans vs the Brits, and the Italians vs the Chinese. Maybe we'll throw in an alternate universe DLC pack that includes a Martian invasion of the Third Reich, because it doesn't matter anyway, we're not actually dealing with World War 2 anymore.

Well, yeah, sure.

The bottom line is that when you allow mirror matches in *any* way, you are destroying the very spirit of the game in the hope of achieving balance and fame. I personally don't want to play a game that's not couched in a World War 2 setting. And when I choose the Russians and end up fighting more Russians, I realize I'm just playing a set of mechanics and rules. There is no longer any immersion, there is no longer any perspective.

I don't know who made you the captain of the CoH Spirit Police, but I think you're doing a bad job and you should be fired. Here's what the CoH spirit is to ME: cutoffs, suppression, retreat and reinforcement, combined arms, capture points, victory points, minimal base building, veterancy, low APM requirements, flanking, small unit numbers. I think any time you change THIS STUFF you destroy the spirit of CoH. I don't think you destroy the spirit of CoH by screwing with the World War II stuff.

If you honestly think the spirit of CoH is just a bunch of World War II fantasizing, then I have a lot of video games you'll like much more than CoH because they do a much better job of capturing World War II. Games like Close Combat, Men of War, and Combat Mission do World War II WAAAAAAY better than CoH could ever hope to do it. You should go play them - I personally think they're even better games than CoH so you'll probably enjoy them much more. But you should leave CoH and let us have our mirror matches, at least those of us who care about CoH as an RTS rather than a World War II make believe program.

And finally, I think it's insulting to think that players wouldn't care or notice that a group of developers would travel all the way to Eastern Europe, visit the sites of battles, interview historians there, and even record the actual sounds of weapons being used in this great conflict, only to try and pass off to these same players that mirror matches somehow makes the game a more fulfilling experience. Why on Earth would you go to such great lengths to achieve this level of historical immersion only to throw it away with a fantastical voyage into bizarre army matchups?

The reason you'd do all this is because you don't understand what makes your game fun and appealing to competitive players, or you don't care about competitive players enough to spend resources making them happy, or (the real answer) the art/audio team isn't the design team and they have two different jobs.

TL;DR If developers are going to make a WW2 game, it's incumbent upon them to keep it historically *authentic*. Otherwise, just make a game about puppies and kittens.

TL;DR If developers are going to make an RTS game with a focus on multiplayer competition, it's incumbent upon them to keep that multiplayer balanced and interesting for competitive players. Otherwise, just make a game about recreating World War II perfectly.

Yoink, everything you say is right. About the single player. It's wrong when it comes to multiplayer because there are people who have different desires than you who play MP. People like me, who care about balance and competition, want different things from our RTS games than you, and instead of fucking us over by taking away our mirror match, just go play Close Combat or Combat Mission, which recreate World War II extremely well.

instead of fucking us over by taking away our mirror match, just go play Close Combat or Combat Mission, which recreate World War II extremely well.

you say you want balance, but you want something that introduces balancing problems?

Yep! And I and others who agree with me have already given our reasons earlier in this thread so you can just go read those.

or you go read mine ^^ or you just imagine a perfectly balanced CoH and then introduce mirror matchups like wehr vs. pe.....

i also want balance, but imho mirror makes balancing the game just so much harder

What Yoink said. Couldn't have said it any better.
As a side note: I'm from Russia, and we historically study and discuss the Eastern front (primarily) when it comes to the WW2. But even for me wehr/wehr or US/US match-ups would be ridiculous to watch. I can only imagine, since I'm not in the alpha, how it is for SU/SU match-up, but I'm sure it would look even uglier. It just takes any sense away from the game.

Sorry for my English.

i think at this point all that can be said on each side has been said. there is an argument for both side however it isn't up to us to make that decision its up to relic.

Or Relic could leave it up to us by making it an option in custom games.

Nobody has actually supplied us with any reliable evidence that CoH's competitive life span has been negatively affected by a lack of mirror matches.

As far as I can tell, the game has been hugely popular for years.

Of course, you may trumpet the fact that CoH's competitive scene pales in comparison to that of SC2's, but you would be remiss to argue that this is due in any way to mirror matches, unless you've got proof.

im with Yoink