Profile of Diogenes5

This game is just a mess. Optimization should always come first. The fact that there is insane optimization issues combined with huge amounts of RNG in game design means the game is nothing more than a roll of the dice in many situations. It's no wonder the community can never really grow. Frustrated players leave constantly even when they introduce new content and patches.

Another one bites the dust. CoH2 community grows dimmer and dimmer.

RNG is also a huge problem with this game. Given all the huge optimization issues this game has, the fact that they incorporated so many RNG elements and things that amplify them such as huge input delay, squads following squad leaders and responding slowly, insta squad wipes due to grenade crits and flame crits. It's ridiculous. The first game was not as bad. It's fun to watch in small doses but not at all rewarding because so many times they luckier player wins not necessarily the better player.

The amount they make from dlc can't be much. Thegame had a really messed up release because of THQ falling apart. I think they hit almost a million copies total but who knows how many of that was at a heavily disounted price during a steam sale. The DLC can't make that much. This is a niche genre now sadly and they are the 2nd bit players to Starcraft (which has its own woes as Mobas have taken over). THey probably can't justify having more than 1 or 2 guys work on the game given sales.

At the same time, I wish they would let the community pick up the slack in terms of balance and playtesting. I was so hopeful last year when they released a patch that helped fix performance issues and added watching other people's games but after that it's been back to the same slow schedule.

Why not let the community do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of balance and design? All the tournaments require you to play as both sides so players have a strong vested interest in a balanced game.

Elite troops require some finesse to play since you only get one king tiger the whole game and the manpower cost of vetting units is so high. You want to surprise them once you get vet because if they realize what you are going it will be far easier for them to counter you since their units will be so much cheaper than yours.

One way to play is to vet an early unit and use the extra combat power to push them off the map. This can be powerful but you can usually only do 1 or you will fall behind in teching and the first t70 or m8 or whatever can push you off the field before you can get a pak out.

Another way to use them is to play normally and then use the veterancy bonus to counter what they are going. Paks and Stugs with veterancy are great because they get stun. You can really punish any player that rushes to a tank with the veterancy in this way.

No matter what you do, you generally want to play a very low upkeep strategy in order to afford the veterancy bonuses throughout the game and eventually afford that king tiger. Usually this strategy is almost super-extended tier 2. All the units are relatively cheap and the upkeep should be low enough for your manpower resourcing to still be above 220 or so a minute. Hold onto your corner of the map and slowly vet all your units especially grenadiers and give them all g43's. Once you get enough MP and points for a king tiger, be sure to have all your units healed and upgraded and make a massive all-in attack at once and cut the enemy off from their resourcing.

You need to maximize the damage the king tiger does at once because it bleeds so much resources that Its like you're losing an extra 2 or 3 models every minute in the damage to manpower income it does.