Still worth investing time and energy into COH2?

So, this is in response to the overwhelming negativity in the COH2 community... I got into the COH franchise starting with COH2. I did not play COHO, VCOH or any of the original titles.

I came to COH after becoming disenfranchised with SC2, which is mechanically complex and has an evolving meta and welcoming community, but requires even the average player to devote tens of hours a week to perfecting and practicing build orders over and over just to float at the same level, to say nothing of actually improving.

Furthermore, I'm kind of getting bored with the average base building macro element in most RTS games. My favorite part of RTS games is the tactical unit control. I enjoy Wargame: ALB, but its community is even smaller than COH2's at the moment (when I'm on COH2 there's usually about 16-1800 ppl logged in, and when I check out ALB, there seem to be ~600). I'm sure when the next Men at War and Blitzkrieg games come out, I'll enjoy those as well.

I spent the better part of a year before COH2's launch deeply involved in the development of End of Nations, which has since derailed to become something of a MOBA more than a tactics or RTS game.

All that to say, there aren't too many other games out there that focus almost entirely on unit and map control over base building and economy management, without going to something like DOTA. But aside from that, I just like COH2.

I like snow maps, and don't mind blizzards. There aren't many RTS/tactics games where the map is interactive and changes over the course of a match, and I think it's neat. I like the Relic model, even if sometimes RNG can get a bit too extreme, I (personally) feel that it suits the game better than a purely deterministic model like SC2 has.

I even like the Doctrines/commanders (though I admit I haven't played COH1 to experience that doctrine model) which allow me to tailor my tools available to me in each match.

Are there problems with the game? Sure! But that's not my point. I enjoy playing.

But, the game seems to be leaking players. It wasn't too long ago when I'd check the Steam community when I got home from work and I'd see over 4000 players. And of course, here and on Reddit, and on Facebook, there's a solidly negative stance on the game. I was hoping i'd get years of gameplay out of COH2, and if the community doesn't implode I still hope to.

So, I guess to sum all this up and bring it back 'round, I wanted to ask y'all if you think it's even worth sticking with and continuing to learn COH2, or if it's just not worth the effort of investing the time... ?

My stance is if you enjoy a game just play it. I don't think the game will be ever as big as SC2 or any of the MOBAs but I think a solid community can be built over the course of a few years.

imo the number of active players is a poor indicator for whether you should 'invest' time into something

if you enjoy it, then play it - you can be sure there will always be a bunch of people playing, small or large depending on the success of the next patch (always the next patch..)

with major patch and a new SNF season around the corner and no major Steam sale yet, to answer your question, yes still worth it but like previous players said, if you enjoy it, play it until you can.

I have the same stance as IpKaiFung, if you enjoy the game play it =)

wait until the next patch before quitting

Stay. You seem sane.

Bit odd approach, playing a specific game is an investment?

It's not like this is a job or something that will make you money. If you enjoy playing it it's worth it, if not there are plenty of other pastimes to get into, electronic or not.

I am taking a time out. Will wait to see what the new patch brings. Got close to 400 hours under my belt and playing since Beta. I am a casual player and play exclusively team games. I am/was ranked in the top 500 for both factions.

The MG fixes (both sides) took way too long and that caused all my friends to stop playing, so I always end up with randoms (who most of the time are annoying and rude). The last few weeks I played only as Russians as the German faction in team games scaling up to 4v4 is uber easy. I liked the challenge, but I am really tired of the same old strats. In team games there is no point to go for anything really other than SU85's due to the panther spam late game. I tried a lot of different strats and this seems to be the only solid solution.

Really hope that the t34-85 is in the new patch otherwise the game will start to gather some dust on my hard drive... Besides that I have 2 Warhammer 40k armies to paint which has a lot of dust on them.

Stay. You seem sane.

Very true. And this is and will most likely always be a niche game.

About the game, yes the vocal part of the community might seem to be overall negative about the game. Could be for many reasons, one of them being that game isnt like CoH1, some others are complaining its just like CoH1. For me, relic hit the gold. I played something like 500 hours of CoH1 the last 6 months till closed beta for CoH2. After that I havent opened CoH1. CoH2 suits me alot better, and feels more fun to play 2v2s with. Still there are things I miss from CoH1, like the overall resource system and cover AI worked alot better. But that wont keep me from playing. I will keep playing this game for a long time, stick with it and hopefully we meet on the battlefield eventually.

I am always interested in more 2v2 partners (though, you have to consider that Im not a top player...)

Most certainly is worth it.

Meta is still wide open, reactive balancing monthly and DLC options to try.

Thanks guys! I guess it's just frustrating seeing all the negativity and not personally agreeing with much of it.

I don't consider myself qualified to talk about balance at a high level, and mostly blame myself (or teammates, let's be honest) when I or my team loses. I'm still at the level where it's quite possible to outplay someone or to simply be outplayed, and/or maybe my mindset is just one that would rather take the blame for a loss than to blame the designers of a game?

Either way, thanks for the encouraging words. Maybe I'll see some of you eventually in ladder

I think the biggest problem for COH2 is vCOH. If COH2 was the first game in the series the feedback would probably be much more positiv, and there would actually be some excitement arround this game. vCOH broke new ground and blew a lot of people away, myself included, while COH2 doesnt really bring that much new to the table.

Add to that a game that lacks a lot of features from the original, and has, in my oppinion, some solutions that a lot of players find inferior, and the community will definetly be split. Personally I think COH2 was a big dissapointment, and I dont like the direction it has taken, so I have left the game for a while, spending my "COH-time" with vCOH, but I have no problem understanding that that a lot of people greatly enjoy COH2 if they like the changes, and can live with the missing features.

Again, COH2s problem is that vCOH was groundbreaking and in many ways a masterpiece. A game we can expect to see on future lists of top games etc. While COH2 on the other hand is a good game, but not much more than that.

I am taking a time out. Will wait to see what the new patch brings. Got close to 400 hours under my belt and playing since Beta. I am a casual player and play exclusively team games. I am/was ranked in the top 500 for both factions.

The MG fixes (both sides) took way too long and that caused all my friends to stop playing, so I always end up with randoms (who most of the time are annoying and rude). The last few weeks I played only as Russians as the German faction in team games scaling up to 4v4 is uber easy. I liked the challenge, but I am really tired of the same old strats. In team games there is no point to go for anything really other than SU85's due to the panther spam late game. I tried a lot of different strats and this seems to be the only solid solution.

Really hope that the t34-85 is in the new patch otherwise the game will start to gather some dust on my hard drive... Besides that I have 2 Warhammer 40k armies to paint which has a lot of dust on them.

Well first of all, you should now try to lure your friends back into the game (or after the next patch, advertise that they should give it another try! )

Also I have to disagree a bit with that bigger game strats. I have just recently got involved with bigger games (mostly I have played 2vs2 games) and there seems to be a lot of variety imo. That of course requires that your teammates will agree which role they play. So far I have tried only few strats, rushing for Tiger with GER and supporting roles. Today I was reading these different commanders and today I would like to try infantry / off map strategy in bigger game. Looking forward how that plays out.

Though I will agree that T34-85 needs some changes. At the moment it seems like the least important tank.

Most certainly is worth it.

Meta is still wide open, reactive balancing monthly and DLC options to try.

Do you mind elaborating on what you mean by the "Meta is still wide open"

Explain to me all different wide open possibilities of the meta in CoH2.

CoH2 has broken plenty of new ground, with many new RTS elements.

The problem you are referring to is people expecting CoH2 to be an elaborate vCoH patch, rather than a standalone. They could have just transplanted the same exact system, as Blizzard did with SC2 from SC. Now THERE is a game that hasnt broken any new ground. Same shit, different package.

Its not as honed as vCoH was at the end, but that was a result of years of balancing and patching. No rational reason not to expect continous improvement of CoH2 towards that same edge.

Arguably Relic is in a much stronger place now with Sega, who have taken RTS under their wing in the industry with Creative Assembly as well.

Do you mind elaborating on what you mean by the "Meta is still wide open"

Explain to me all different wide open possibilities of the meta in CoH2.

Sure.

The plethora of builds you havent tried yet, both proactively in terms of taking incentive in a match with unorthodox builds that upset the opposing players calfified, predictable unimaginative builds, as well as reactive ones which respond with unorthodox builds that the opposing, calsified, unimaginative player will not have experience or obvious means to cope with.

I sincerely hope, against hope, that you will not respond to this with "Con and Gren spam are are the only meta".

I quit after getting really annoyed with the new $5 commanders that came out. On principle, it was a horrible idea and I hope that Relic can get around to fixing this. Esp since I spent enough money without the DLC (at the time (this was when THQ was still around), it was 90 for standard/120 for DLC), it really just felt like a slap in the face.

Otherwise, it is still a pretty awesome game. Many would tell you VCoH is a lot better (myself included) but most agree, that, at least, COH2 is not bad.

It's worth learning. I found that, after playing more VCoH, my tactical thinking in chess was a lot quicker and sharper, so the skills that you get in COH2/VCoH don't only stay in COH2/VCOH, it also can be used in other games

Sure.

The plethora of builds you havent tried yet, both proactively in terms of taking incentive in a match with unorthodox builds that upset the opposing players calfified, predictable unimaginative builds, as well as reactive ones which respond with unorthodox builds that the opposing, calsified, unimaginative player will not have experience or obvious means to cope with.

I sincerely hope, against hope, that you will not respond to this with "Con and Gren spam are are the only meta".

Explain it to me again, this time provide some specific examples of the plethora of builds that have potential that haven't been tried yet?

Explain it to me again, this time provide some specific examples of the plethora of builds that have potential that haven't been tried yet?

I answered your question, time for you to answer one of mine, reciprocally.
Quid pro quo.

What is your view on the current meta?