I wrote this as an ultimate guide to fix coh2 – right now its a good game but its not “Company of heroes” it’s a game trying to cash in on the great name.
Ill explain why in the article and what can and should be done to make it the best RTS of all time ( so far vCOH has this title)
I want to start first off saying that I do like coh2 and I think the devs are doing a great job with monitoring the forums and listening to the community, there have been some real good changes that improve the game over the original but also a lot of things that IMO are not working as well.
I do want to say that if you don’t speak out then you wont be heard and I do want to be heard - I will for the most part be listing things about the game that in my opinion should be changed, addressed of I don’t feel are as good as in vcoh.
I know this may seem negative but these sort of things help the game and community overall and just positive comments don’t drive change.
Overall game issues:
I know there has been a patch for this issue already but I wanted to mention it - the super slow responses from your units when given a command - if you play coh and coh2 back to back coh 2 is much more sluggish and this ruins the whole feel of the game.
If micro is meant to be the most important thing in coh they why punish people that can exert great control over their units but not making them respond.
I can’t explain how many times I have seen a grenade or molotov coming, ordered my units to move only for them to not do that and then actually stay and linger in the area.
Physics: There has been a large reduction of physics from coh to coh2. This to me is a big mistake. If a 7 year old game shows greatly superior physics over its sequel you know something is not right.
This goes hand in hand with the violence or gore - I am not out to make games gratuitously violent – but its more about the attention to detail, let me explain.
A visually realistic depiction of war was one of the biggest drawcards ( without the fantastic game play it wouldn’t be such a big thing) but as a combination it was simply unbeatable.
When a 105 artillery shell gets a direct hit on a squad you would see some squad members disintegrate into pieces, see a leg flying through the air, hitting and sliding off a nearby houses roof, or see a rifleman or gren missing a leg doing pirouettes in the air, to slowly falling on top of a tank, or a creek, bouncing off a street ect.
Or getting a direct hit from a tank and being sent at high speed into nearby well. When something like a goliath exploded, you could feel the force of the high explosive, and the effects it had on anything in the near vicinity was dramatic – weather it was infantry or terrain.
They way tanks moved and acted was that they were an independent 3d unit, from which actual individual pieces could be damaged, scorched, blown off.
When an tank hit a pot hole or dip in terrain you could see the suspension working and how the inertia could rip off a piece of armour such as a side skirt.
A physical reaction could also be seen when a shot bounces off the front armour.
In coh 2 it’s obvious that the vehicles are just 1 big lump, barely affected by real world physics – when they bounce a shot they have a reaction, but its not due to physics its just a effect added to the game.
What I mean by that is its a pre programmed reaction to an event instead of a detailed physics engine actually reacting to a specific force.
Artillery: one could line up incredible shots and you could watch the fire coming in – you could trace the parabolic arc and try to predict how to nail a moving squad for instance.
The effects on target were incredible. The arty effects in coh2 look like a joke to me, instead of exploding as a high explosive – with real force.
It explodes like a Hollywood special effect – all fireball and zero force being exerted to the world, its pathetic when compared to the original.
Coh2 has much larger calibre artillery but it might as well be a peashooter, the effects for shell hitting the ground (without snow) is a joke, and so is the environmentally destructibility.
When playing a map such as semois, by the end of the game it truly looked like there was a warzone, now the effects on the environment have been greatly reduced.
If you don’t believe me just go and drop 280mm arty on a squad in a village and show me the equivalent in coh2, the destruction is incredible and the aftermath is shocking.
The train gun is meant to shoot massive calibre shells, but the result is just a fireworks display, none of the actual power or force is transmitted into the environment.
Cover: Cover in coh was paramount to success, a squad that would ordinarily have no chance against another one, would outright beat it if they were in green cover and the other squad wasn’t. The indicators on map where clear for green, yellow or negative cover.
The old cover system would mean you have to be much more tactical in your play and rewarded players that took advantage of this. This just does not happen in coh2, the cover system is drastically inferior to the first game hands down.
The cover system worked in a way that squads out of cover could quickly take severe casualties and it meant that really decisive engagements could be had –p the engagements now feel clunky and the whole dynamic of the game is simplified and not in a good way – the biggest reason for the success of coh is how detailed it was, and how after 7 years of playing you still saw stuff that you never had, or would always marvel at the detail.
Just watch some shout casts and see how differently the announcers react to in game moments ( with joy and surprise or boredom), yes i get it coh2 is a new game but the honest truth is these issues are going to be there for ever unless they specifically update the game later on, and I hope the developers know that we know they are missing.
Little green numbers:
Self explanatory – this is an amazing part of the game, shows how effective your firepower has been and gives a lot of satisfaction to see a squad go up, or a mass of numbers after an arty strike.
Its harder to see effect on target on coh2 and it shouldn’t have to be.
Vehilces: As I mentioned before they are just one solid blob, the damage to vehicles has been simplified, effects of weapons have also.
I like how they move better, and aren’t so fiddly but to just make them into a cartoon unit does not do them justice.
The beautiful crit system has been removed, and it kills the randomness of a game – why should a faust of anti tank nade always do a critical to the engine?
It does balance things out, it doesn’t make the game more fair its just a very poor decision made to make the game feel like the armies are “mirror image”.
When you have a teir 0 unti completely nullifying a tiger tank which is a doc abiulity which costs 250 fuel, all the tijme every time you know something is not right.
Conscripts: Ok so, lets think about how this effects the game. There is a teir 0 unit, which is completely scalable fro the whole game, has early game ability to cheaply and quickly get units out OP houses, and always kill a gren or pgren with a Molotov, or kill or retreat a weapon crew.
These are cheaply reinforacable, so even if multiple squads take heavy casualties then can come back on field without usually throwing off the MP balance out for the soviet.
Conscripts get a at ability, AI ability, defensive ( HTD) ability, ability to get smgs which make them even more potent, a sprint for ability and merge – which already brings the super cheap and very robust soviet army to reinforce at a very low rate.
Not only that due the te fact that asll soviet squads have 6 men they can easily reinforce any weapon crews and steal any enemy equipment on the field, something that is basically impossible for ost in most occasions.
These are the most versatile unti of the game, at vet 3 they are tough as nails, and the are anti emplacement, anti inf and anti tank.
Sorry are the conscripts meant to be a special forces unit that has no weaknesses or a bunch or drafted men and women with no training?
The fact is they are there whole game so at one throw they can disable a vehicle which costs 6 tiems the amount they do.
This would make sense if there was some drawbacks to Molotov’s or nades but there isn’t, with a 30 second cool off time it just makes no sense – do you remember the PE fire nades in vcoh?
They had a massive cool off time as they were originally being used as the molatovs are used now, just as a normal fight winning nade – bring up the cool off time so they are only used when needed ie, flushing people out of buildings/cover not some rapid fire flame grenade that basically always kills ¼ of a ost squad per throw.
I think that as conscripts vet up ( which in the new vet system is easy) they should cost a lot more to reinforce – this would actually make it a drain on soviet players to lose them all the time and then retreat.
I have lots many games after popping an ostwind, getting 20 or so info kills and this having very little effect to the MP situation for the opponent.
If you manage to catch them unaware and inflict damage there should be some sort of penalty for the opponent – a la t70 which wipes squads our or just drains MP quickly as ost units are much more expensive.
Weapon crews: 6 man weapon crew could be fine idea – but in reality it just isn’t. I mean that a blob of mortars or just mg spam is a legit tactic – this would get laughed out of vcoh in seconds unless in a already one sided game.
When direct fire from an ost mortar can’t clear out a mg squad or mortar squad you know this is a bad idea.
When p grens (360mp) start taking casualties after they sneak up up 2 mortart squads from the rear you know it’s not working, this still leaves them enough time to pack up and run. Does no one remember how easily to kill weapon crews use to be in vcoh, when flanked or cornered? Keep the 6 man crews but make them easy to slaughter in a direct fight.
Damage tables: Ok i don’t know as much on this topic as many others but basically, the game has been overall simplified, this means that its less fiddly for the devs but actually means its much harder to balance – it causes issues like the one above.
Bring them back slowly or interest in the game just won’t be there for the same time as it has been in vcoh. Dumbing down a game with a cult following is just a bad idea full stop.
SU85: ok... so much has been said on this topic, but i still want to add.
IF you are going to have a unit that does this much damage for the same cost as a stug there needs to be a drawback.
I have seen a tiger struggle 1 v 1 against these units. Their front Armour is so strong that even a good sneak attack with 2 paks they just reverse out faster then basically any vehicle in the game can move forward.
They rotate fast enough and reverse fast enough that its impossible to flank properly without blitz and even with that you will take serious damage and struggle to kill 1. With 2 its almost impossible, this does not help at all that most maps are much more closed then vcoh and the opportunity for easy circling or flanking just isn’t there.
They give themselves massive LOS and means they can always use full range, did I mention they routinely snipe pgrens and can take on paks..?
The direct counter to su85 cost 360MP, is the most squishy and weak inf unit in the game and for it to be able to do any damage has to pay 120 munis for an army which already needs massive muni reserves for mgs, rifle nade, flammenwerfer, mgs on tanks ect ect only to have the unit be sniped regularly by the su 85 as its trying to approach.
Or just in the face of massive inf blobs – and if you somehow make them scatter the su can simply reverse away taking maybe 1-2 hits when it needs like 6 to die.
With paks its ridiculous as I can understand if they were circle strafing at units and hitting them from the sides, but its actually a front on attack.
No tank should be able to sit in front of a anti tank gun and not be worried especially a tank destroyer with a fixed gun, not a heavy tank.
SU85s are not a battle tank therefore if they over extend it should basically be dead in most situations, but this is almost never the case even with inf, anti tank guns working in combination.
And the more failed attempts at killing it the more vet it gets and therefore its even more OP.
Vet system:
Im not a fan, a bad player in vcoh could have squads alive all game but not get vet 3 in this game its like they are trying to make even terrible players get vet for their units?
I just don’t get why it works as it works, it means soviets are always in the advantage for vet as they have a higher chance of taking damage and retreating due to numbers and the complete lack of units which can just chase down retreating squads and annihilate them.
I think this system ads nothing to the game and detracts from it, so imo it’s a bad inclusion but hey it’s just my opinion.
Mines: ok wtf.. s mine is completely useless, takes so much muni, minutes to set up and give a warning sign.. its pathetic while the soviets have a superior one fits all vcoh mine which is great and should be this way for both armies.
Give the option for s mines ( to both armies) but don’t take away the option for standard mines. Mines made vcoh the great game that it is to remove them was a terrible idea.
If you made it this far I thank you for reading and look forward to hearing peoples opinions, especially the devs.
I am not saying you owe me anything or how to do your job or that you are not doing a good job. I am just putting out my opinion.
I paid extra money to get the collector’s edition of the game to support you guys for making fantastic games, in fact I have bought vcoh 3 times and the expansions 2 times each as a testament of how good those games were.
What I’m trying to say is I believe I know what made the original great and I want to give you the opportunity to know what I think is missing and what can be done to make coh2 a worthy successor.
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
