Profile of Inverse

Is it a language barrier thing maybe? Because you're using a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

CoH1 and CoHO had questionable 2v2 balance; 3v3s and 4v4s were completely garbage in terms of balance, and were never played competitively. The same goes for games like Starcraft, Warcraft, etc.

You can enjoy team games more than 1v1s, I never said you couldn't. But there's a reason the vast majority of RTS competitive play is in the 1v1 space, just like there's a reason the vast majority of MOBA competitive play is 5v5.

Current CoH1 play has actually struck a nice balance of blob strength vs. smart positional play strength. Blobbing was weak in the vanilla matchup for years, and currently only American blobs vs. PE are problematic. Brit blobs are a little too difficult to punish relative to their strength, but they're still no problem to deal with for a competent Wehrmacht player and properly microed Brit infantry is far stronger. The problem with American blobs vs. PE is the fact that in that matchup, blobbing for Americans is both easier and stronger than bothering with proper positioning.

Making blobs easy to use but hard to counter isn't really the issue in my opinion; rather, problems come up when blobbing is both easier and more powerful than more difficult-to-execute play.

The problem with comparing SC2 to CoH2 in this regard is that CoH2 is pretty much exclusively a tactics and positioning game. In SC2, there are a lot more variables affecting the outcome of a fight: economic strength, macro ability, upgrades, unit composition, and then finally micro and positioning. SC2 is a lot more about mechanical skill and strategic decision-making than micro and positioning except at the absolute pinnacle of professional play. There are a wide variety of ways to outplay your opponent, so something like unit positioning can be de-emphasized relative to other aspects of the game.

In CoH2, the only way you can reliably outplay your opponent is through superior positioning and tactical decision-making. Because of that, a lot of emphasis has to be put on rewarding intelligent positioning and punishing lazy positioning, because if you don't reward intelligent tactical play then you aren't giving players any way to differentiate themselves from those with lesser abilities.

Now, the issue isn't that blobbing exists, it's that players need to be rewarded for positioning their units intelligently instead of simply blobbing them. Smart positioning and intelligent tactical play should be difficult but also more rewarding than blobbing, because if blobbing is easier to execute and equally rewarding then it's going to be used all the time and it's going to be very difficult for good players to rise above bad players because everyone can box a group of units and attack-move.

I can't speak to CoH2, but CoH1 struggled with this a lot over the years. It eventually reached a good point in balancing blobbing vs. positioning in all but one match-up: American infantry blobs against PE. Current American vs. PE play is dominated by American infantry blobs that are very easy to use and very difficult to do anything about. This gives American players a lot more consistency against PE, and it results in a mismatch of effort required by the two factions in the earlygame, because the American blob is as strong, if not stronger, than well-microed PE infantry formations.

I guess that's my long-winded way of saying it's not a simple matter of blobs are good vs. blobs are bad. In a game like CoH2 where tactical and positional decisions make up the bulk of the player choices in a game, blobs should be easier to use but weaker in power than properly microed and positioned infantry. However, striking the proper balance takes time and a lot of trial and error.

Lots of good points here, and I agree that the system would probably be fine if they excluded commanders. But I think calling people cheap or entitled or whatever is a bit of a cop-out, especially if you're not fully aware of the history of CoH2.

This is a game that the community was promised would never have microtransaction DLC that affected gameplay, by multiple developers. Then a few months after release they started putting out paid commanders with new units and abilities. Now there are hints of a system that sounds extremely similar to one implemented in a previous game by the same studio, which in that game was there solely to nickle and dime players who wanted to use the best units and abilities for extended periods of time. You don't have to be cheap or entitled to take issue with that, or to be concerned about it given the company's track record.

There's a lot of references to microtransaction models done right in this thread, and people are using those examples as justification for this sort of system. The problem is, none of those successful microtransaction-based games use a system even remotely close to the durability system described here. Imagine if Dota 2 items disappeared after 50 games, or you had to pay to repair your CSGO knife after 50 kills. Those games wouldn't be nearly as popular as they are now if their items degraded over time.

Successful microtransaction games exist, and they're awesome. But they're successful because they're constantly releasing quality content that people want to buy. They're not trying to squeeze a few extra dollars out of dedicated players by essentially punishing them for using their items. They're constantly moving forward with new content, not taxing the content that's already been released.

If Relic does a free-to-play CoH2 right, it's going to be an incredible boon to the game and its community. But if they do it wrong, the game could just as easily end up like CoHO. This microtransaction model in particular is, in my opinion, the wrong direction to take the franchise in. Instead of taxing existing content, they need to be focused on constantly releasing quality new content that makes people want to spend their money. Unless durability is limited to dropped skins and decals only, it's going to discourage people from actively seeking out and purchasing additional content. And if durability is in fact limited to dropped skins and decals, then what exactly is the point of the system? Why even bother adding it when all you're going to be doing is taking a few dropped items away from players who probably wouldn't have spent a dime on microtransactions in the first place? No matter how you slice it, it just doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.