Profile of AvNY

It is not impossible that Relic has chased off many players who aren't German fanbois. So his statement might even be true.

Heck, it might even be the business plan (consciously or unconsciously) to make a game that appeals to the fanbois fantasy of what the German army was during WWII (hint, it was not what you see in COH).

(Please note, most of my points relate to the "average" player, not anyone who can get to the top tiers.)

A) Most people don't actually want a real challenge. For most people the ultimate is to have the feel that they were challenged and yet still won.

This explains part of the unfunness of the USF and any Axis fanbois whine... because if the US has strong early game, it feels like you stomped the other guy. Not really all that satisfying.

For the Axis, surviving the early game feels like you are now accomplished and a good player. That you can win the late game with less micro and stomping super tanks is just your "just reward".

So the question about OP and balance is really more of how it FEELS when you play. If USF has a slightly better edge in the beginning, it will feel challenging to the Axis when they win any game over 15 minutes. That would be the case even if the late game gives them a huge edge. For the USF a strong early edge will feel a bit empty but the closer they get to early balance, even while maintaining the edge, the more unfair it will feel because the more they get into mid-game the more they know they have no chance. So they get empty feeling victories and hopeless feeling losses.

It is no wonder people don't want to play USF. And that argument will apply whether their early game is OP or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre Maybe you should stop playing COH2 completely?

Lighten up, it's a game. You're not glorifying the Nazis by playing the Axis.

you seriously want to compare the Katyn massacre to what the Nazis perpetrated? Was it a war crime? Absolutely. Differing accounts put the dead at 8,000 to 22,000. Do I wish it wasn't done? I would much rather have had a freer Poland than one under the communist regime (and I am not a huge fan of the Poles).

The Katyn massacre is actually small in the panoply of crimes committed by the Soviet Union like Stalin's purges and the famine in the Ukraine.

Want a list of Shtetls with populations of 8,000 or greater that were wiped out? It probably goes into 3 figures. Whole villages with families from the grandparents to the last child and zero survivors. Poland had 3 million Jews when the war started, about 10% of its population, and completely wiped out. The rest of the Poles suffered at the hands of the Nazis as well and I am sure to the tune of many many more than 22,000. The Russians ended that death toll and that inhumane occupation and extermination. After that your average citizen had a chance to survive if they repeated the right dogma to the right people. They would no longer be hunted down like vermin just because of their genetics.

Meet and talk to the number of survivors I have and you might change your tune. The inhumane depravity of the Nazis had was taken to a level never before seen in modern times.

I don't get it why people are hating on Relic. Look at the Call of Duty devs there you see bad support.

No one should be hating on Relic. Making it personal is wrong. But taht doesn't mean fans of the game aren't frustrated with its design (and hence its developers).

And the frustration stems from the fact that we KNOW better can be done but get unhelpful responses about why they aren't done. This is after all the same company that gave us COH1. In COH1 the original campaign was not "'Murica f-ck yeah!" and it didn't villify the Nazis (though that could have been done). And the two first factions looked REMARKABLY similar to each other to the point outside observers would have thought they were mirrors (both sides had Mortars, MGs, basic infantry, AT guns, HTs, mines, MG emplacements, wire, tank traps, medium tanks, AT vehicles, scout vehicles, snipers, infantry AT, grenades, flamers, etc. etc. etc.). Yet COH1 proved games could be designed without huge biases in history and with factions whose small differences made them feel extremely different without being so different they look like they each came from a different game. (And even those small differences made them hard enough to balance.)

This all came off the rails somewhere with the introduction of Opposing fronts. The Brits would have looked different if they never had any trucks or emplacements. And they were probably more powerful when you learned to play with minimal emplacements anyway. But the game-breaking aspect of the trucks was reintroduced in OKW with the addition of automatic self-protection on one of the trucks!

I can't agree with the hate or the way it is expressed. But I understand the frustration. This company is the same that created the greatness that is COH1. They have access to examples of great game design. But they instead choose to move in a different direction.

Personally I prefer having a vehicle crew that is always with your vehicle. In this case, your echolon troop can cap or plant demos or whatever. You don't need a rear echolon squad to survive to be able to repair, that is a huuuuuuge advantage over other factions. I find myself often spending nearly 400 additional manpower or even more with other factions, simply to have a unit to repair 1 vehicle. Not to mention it saves time.

It is an advantage but not necessarily a "huuuuuuge" advantage. First you have to keep the weaker units alive and do it while mircoing more of them. If you spent mp on more units to repair that is only wasted if those units can't do anything else. with your increased micro time they could build you some wire, lay a mine, etc.

Also, I don't quite understand how you need more micro to repair vehicles as USF than as Ostheer or Soviets. You just reverse them out and order them to decrew. Once your vehicle is repaired, you recrew and you are good to go again. That is so damn easy.

"more micro" is not so easy. There is a LOT more micro and no shift clicking with USF crews. They don't automatically recrew when done, and they might run off to repair something else. They are also exposed and vulnerable (along with whatever veterancy they have gained). It takes more time to learn, to develop the muscle memory.

Is it better at high levels of play? Perhaps. I will never know.

I don't get to play much and COH2 and Rome II are the only new games I have bought in the last couple of years. COH1 had replaced my love for Total War as soon as I bought it. I even deleted Rome II because it was bad and I prefer to play against real people. But after the last patch I am convinced that Relic's vision for the factions implies that they cannot balance the factions. They are so enamored with "difference" that they don't realize a few similarities won't make the factions ever feel the same. (US is not allowed to have good AT except Jacksons, Soviets never had infantry that knew how to fight. But of course the Axis were all ubermentschen and their war machines so superior you wonder if they can go toe to toe today with an M-1 Abrams.)

Last night I deleted COH2 and reloaded Rome II on both of my machines. I want to like COH2 but can't. I would prefer to wait for the few COH1 games I get than play any COH2.