Profile of alcoholic

Paying to "add variety to gameplay" is the same as paying for an advantage, just not as direct. Having more gameplay options in an RTS is an inherent advantage. Paying for new factions is one thing, but paying to make an existing faction more robust is an entirely different situation.

i dont follow. has it not always been like this? you had to pay to stay competetive in coh. in coh1, you had to pay for opposing front to use new armys. later you had to pay if you wanted to use new TOV units like the schwimmwagen or kangeroo. in coh2 you had to pay for new commanders and you had to pay to get the new armys.

if a new system get implemented the basict fact that from time to time you can spend some money to widen your options in the game and to enhance your chances of winning stays basicly the same.
of course there are changes in detail and we still have to see if and how it plays out. maybe it will get more expansive to stay competetive. maybe top players never have to pay a dime because they win a lot in automatch and so get rewarded a big amount of free supply. i dont see any reason to object a "play for free but pay for extra content approach" in general.

in one way or another - someone has to pay for a game that gets support. thats just the way it is and you have to pay for balance relevant core gameplay options because faceplates and skins just wont make real money.

one aspect of warspoils /cohonline that has not been discussed widely holds a much bigger threat to competitive gameplay in my opinion. in the current warspoil system as back in the days in cohonline there are items that will help your gameplay but that are not for sale. now that is just stupid in my opinion and i dont want to see it further implemented in coh2.

some commanders in coh2 can not be purchased in a shop but drop randomly after playing a game. same in cohonline: you simply could not buy the sprinting mg with the rocketlauncher (or any other hero unit if i remember it right) - you had to wait for it to come to you. after you had it, you could spend cash on keeping it active.

what i dont want to see are items in a game that you can only get by chance and that are not for sale.

this is how it should be in my opinion:
- the better players should be rewarded for their skill and effort by so much free supply that they should not have to pay real money (maybe as a reward for certain a ladder position).
- the casual player should not be forced to buy anything if he does not mind playing with fewer options.
- the eager but lazy player should be able to purchase anything there is in the game with cash.
- the eager but cheap player should be able to get anything there is by grinding.

was COHO store mechanic good?

The functionality of the store itself was good.
But the system as a whole seemed rather moronic as there was nothing to spend your money on.

You got a good amount of supply after you had won a match and still a fair amount of supply if you lost.

As i remember it there was absolutely no need to actually buy anything ever. The items/units themselve could not be bought but dropped randomly after games. You gained more supply from playing than you ever needed. For some strange reasons (probably liquor) i bought 10e worth of ingame credits at one point. When the game got cancelled a couple of weeks later i still had not spent a dime.

i voted against. what would be the point? there is a rank decal in place if it is too slow, it might be a good idea to strenghthen it.

what i would like to see is an improvement to the ladder itself. it should be implemented within the main layout of the game and not through a browser, i would welcome added functionality like a ladder of the month on top of the current all time ladder.

my guess would be that a lot of people who complain in this forum about blobbing have not fully understand one key concept of infantry fighting in this game. that would be that the strenght of a present force in a fight is growing exponetially if you increase the numbers of the involved soldiers.

example: 4 grenadiers are not twice as strong as 2 grenadiers but roughly 4 times stronger.

the reason behind this is that 4 grenadiers have not only 2 times the firepower of 2 grenadiers but also twice the hitpoints.

this results in the legit tactic that to win an engagement you have try to trow in as much of your forces as possible. this is even more important when you are about to attack because the defender has the advantage of cover and from better aim while standing still.

through this reasons blobbing can indeed be better compared to have your forces spread over the whole map and that way loose more encounters.

on the other hand: if you can spare the time it takes to micro - in almost every case: it is better to spread your troops out and not move them together in one big control group, because doing so puts you at a great risk of suppression, flames and all kind of explosive weapons.

i play this game at a skill level that puts me somewere between 200 and 1500 on the ladder depending on practice.

as of this fact i feel that i have very little to say about the balance of this game. the skill range of my opponents is variating so much in my ladder game that it is just impossible for me to judge wich part of the outcome of a game comes from imbalances and wich comes from luck, strategy or differences in skill.

if i was able to judge the balance of this game it would automaticly put me in a way higher position on the ladder. it is simply impossible to have such a deep knowlage of this game that you are able to notice the nuances that diferenciate the factions in terms of strength and still and be ranked below lets say position 50 on the ladder.

my guess would be that a lot of people that have posted here might be as incompetent judging balance in this game as i am - making most of the ongoing discussion pointless.