A deep and satisfying read but I feel a few elephants in the room haven't been addressed.
The Pathfinding has to be fixed. - This is a thread about it from 4 years ago:
https://www.coh2.org/topic/21848/the-worst-enemy-in-the-game-pathfinding
None of the issues have really been corrected. I understand relic tried to address this issue but had to revert once because it created new issues and other fixes were also controversial (units auto-seeking cover instead of moving to where you click has created many a situation where squads stand outside a capping circle to take some crappy yellow cover). I understand development on the game was rushed but this is one of the things that prevents COH2 from taking the next step. Units need to respond predictably and not interfere with one another.
The most beautiful memory I have in COH1 was the beauty of the first big flank of a game between an American player and a Wehrmact player. Because of the way machine guns were designed, Americans needed to do a big 3-way flank to push the wehrmacht off a strategic point and it was up to the Wehrmact to anticipate and push off this attack. Constant flanking and positioning was key in COH1 and aggressive flanking was encouraged.
In COH2, because units interfere with each other, the more units you give commands to move, the more they interfere with one another if their paths intersect. The beautiful war of movement of COH1 becomes, in COH2, pushing one unit forward just out of range, and then pulling it back. It's the safest way to play in a game without very good pathfinding.
It's also a huge hindrance to map creation as well since you need a certain amount of space between objects in COH2 for vehicles to even move and function.
Unit response time should be 0.
I understand they created a 4-eyed monster with squad AI and unit responsiveness and other issues that they have tried to fix but unit movement can be bizarre in COH2 to say the least if you watch closely. In COH1, units responded quickly to inputs. In COH2 at the moment, they dance around like crazy sometimes and the more commands you give tend to make the last few models stutter back and forth. Moving out of an MG arc is slower if you give more commands as the last few units take time to respond with each click.
I remember one of the first big patches decreased unit latency by like 160ms. Maybe have engine the next go around that has no unit latency at all, the way COH1 felt.
I don't know if this is a conscious design decision to make the game not become an APM fest like SC2, but the level of where it's at right now is bleeding frustrating, especially in the race to take a building or get out of an MG arc or dodge a grenade especially since you need a lot of clicks to compensate for units not moving where you click and auto-seeking cover.
Paid Commanders are fine and I don't think they should go away
The RTS market is small now and Relic needs a way to monetize a small and enthusiastic audience. I'm ok with paid commanders as long as each commander isn't 100% must have and the default commanders are enough to compete at a high level; which I think is the case right now (or close as you can get). I do get having commanders be like maybe 50% must have is necessary to spur sales.
And the hoopla people make about it deterring people is kind of silly. Most RTS gamers play the single player campaign and maybe play a small amount of team games with friends. That's it. The paid commanders barely affects them. Monetizing those players using most of your server load makes sense.
The Elephant in the Room: Starcraft II
It hardly gets mentioned but COH2 is currently the 2nd largest online player pop to SC2 which far eclipses it. I don't want COH2 to become Starcraft but it should study what SC2 does and try to incorporate the ease-of-use and quality-of-life improvements that really make sense. Customizable hotkeys, the simple and predictable pathfinding, the elegance of the interface (I'd say COH1 had a better interface than SC2 currently does, but SC2 has a better interface than COH2 due to better presentation of useful information with little wasted space).
Keep the things that make COH unique: a focus on action and engagement, very little emphasis on macro without discarding it completely like DOW III, and a focus on a few squads managed well. But everything else just copy SC2. It felt so anachronistic fighting the interface and engine in COH2 at launch when 1) COH1 did a lot of it better and 2) SC2 had been out for a while and had already established a baseline of features an RTS should have.
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
