Profile of 2ndBestKiller

Now that everyone is talking (bitching) about the new patch, I thought it might be fun to think back to the vCoH Patches. Relic is known for having some ups and downs with its balancing over the time.

For example I remember the good ol' strafing run of the US. Took them quite a while to get it right. At some point people would only play airborne and go right for the strafe, since you could basically kill everything that has feet with it.

Or the time when sniper and At guns only were pretty much a valid strategy, since AT guns were like recrewable snipers, that could one hit inf like it was heat seeking arty.

Remember when the staghound didnt have a reload time on its MG? ... Oh wait ....


Those were the times, people really dont know what unbalanced is nowadays

I simply have to agree with most things. A ladder and a good ranking system is a must have for any RTS and should not have been, at any time during the development, be an afterthought. The game was delayed for 6 month and still they didn't bother to put a simple ladder into the game.

Noun said that implementing this feature would cause certain trade-off, like a less functional game. If thats true, I don't want to know how the game would have shipped if the original THQ management was still in place.

In a year from now everyone will be lvl 100 and you cant tell good from bad. I'm not a pro player, usually between lvl 12 and 14. But even for me it was fun just to maintain this lvl. Because in the beginning I couldnt get beyond lvl 8 and as my skill grew, so did my rank. Now it doesnt matter at all. There really is no insentive, no reason to be proud of you rank and the cool symbol that comes with it. No longer do you get respect just because some fancy lvl 16 shows up in the enemy team.

I would love to see a system similar to SC2, with leagues and seasons (probably not enough players for that, but we'll see). Its probably the one thing that would make me want to play that game again.

Relic needs to realize that there are casual players who like that linear progression, while others love the more competitive approach. Blizzard implemented a progression system with unlocks in HoTs. But that doesnt mean they gave up on the eSport aspect and it doesnt ruin the game for either side.

The fact that the first thing about the game I realized when I played it yesterday, was the absence of a ladder show alot for me. Its not just a feature for the top 20 players. Its an incentive for alot of players to keep playing and keep getting better.

Plz, for the love of god, make that your number one thing on your to do list, because right now, I couldnt even rage about sync errors or bugs or balance issues, since it doesnt matter at all. And an online game without rage is like sex without a parter, a pretty one handed approach (yeah doesnt make a lot of sense, deal with it).

edit: If money was the problem they should think about priorities. Is a ladder system a very basic feature that should be implemented (imho: yes). Are the theater of war thingies something desperately needed in an RTS (imho: no, but they do make for some good DLC that doesnt cause threads about potential imbalances, like commanders do)

Sry for bumping the topic, but I had to give my 2 cents as well

I think most people dont realize that CoH has a very different combat mechanic compared to SC2.

In SC every unit always hits and always does the same amount of damage, it only depends on what upgrade each units has and whether or not the enemy has armor. However it does not matter what unit you fight against. A marine will still always hit and will always do his standard damage.

In CoH each unit has several modifiers against all kinds of different units.
For example:

A Pak does a certain damge x. This damage x is modified by the target it is shooting at. There are different modifiers for heavy tanks, light vehicles and infantry.
It also uses different accuracy modifiers. Many of you probably still know how the accuracy modifier of AT guns has changed several times during vCoH. Or Schrecks (vs. light vehicles).


On top of that, some units have specific modifiers vs specific other units, sometimes influenced by their veterancy.

So maybe you are already getting my point. The game is only balanced towards a non mirrored match up.
To give an example:

The US and british AT-Guns have a much higher penetration and damage output compared to its german counter part. Why? Obviously because of the asymmetric balance. Germans have better tanks, but allies have better AT guns.
What happens when a PAK is fighting a King Tiger? Well, pretty much nothing.
As a result, it would only be viable to fight tanks with tanks.
At the very least some units will become completely useless. That might be ok if CoH was famous for its large number of different units, but its not.

A CoH developer once stated that you couldnt just let Wehrmacht fight Wehrmacht. In order for that to be balanced, they had to change hundreds of said modifiers.

Also, much of the fun comes out of the fact that there are vastly different units on the field at any given time. Its a difference between having some volks/mg combo with a HT and some mines fight vs M8's and rifles or if you just fight rifles vs rifles and M8 vs M8.

Now they might have designed CoH 2 arround the idea of mirror matching, so that the mentioned problems wont be such a big deal. However the fact that mirror matches are usually more boring still stays. That is not only bad for the matches themselves but also for e sport. Maybe 2on2 would be more fun as there are more variations.

Still, I think its a hard task to do it right (dont forget the bulletins and commander abilities). If they implement it, it should stay in basic non ranked matches. It might be fun every now and then.

I'd much rather see a good variety in map designs, which will have great effect on how each battle plays out. That is much more interesting to watch and play, compared to mirror matches.

I also fail to see how mirrors can make a game more competitive. Its like saying shrinking the seize of a football goal makes the game more competitive. Its makes it different at best and more boring to watch (ok, yes bad example, but still )