Profile of Madok

Very good thread.

I think the initial mistake was the attempt to make the game more appealing to a larger audience by sacrificing depth (global upgrades for example) and instead introducing a wealth of clickable abilities.
... to bring more action to the combat I suppose.

For me the original "ram" mechanic is the best (and certainly not the only) example how this backfired in a big way.
While it sounded really cool this allowed players to reliably trade a cheap tank for an expensive one.
This invalidated one of the core principles of any RTS game: Invest in Tech now - reap benefits later.

That "ram" was the only real purpose of the T34 at that time (stats were truly horrible) hardly helped to develop an interesting meta.




I'd also like to add my 2 cents regarding the DLC model and the "Greed" allegations.
First of all: I've never bought DLC commanders as a matter of principle. It's not like I couldn't afford it, I just refuse to have a real competitive advantage.

That being said, let's look at the environment prior to COH2 launch:
THQ went belly up - the game would have died then and there had not Sega snatched it up.

Some people have held Sega responsible for the DLC mess but that's not entirely true.
Sega certainly aimed to make money BUT the earliest preorder bonuses (published on steam - reward tier 3) already pretty much confirmed some kind of ingame currency.
Though preorder bonuses were changed later on, DLC would have been introduced even if THQ had survived. Perhaps the DLC wouldn't have been implemented as callously and as obvious pay2win (till the inevitable patch) but it would have happened.

An ingame currency would solve a lot of problems but it's also very hard to design (progression in an RTS?) and implement.

IMO the main problem is reliability.
If you cannot count on a unit then that unit may be nice in a midgame support role, but not as one of the initial units and possibly the lynchpin for covering an approach or flank.

There is a fair chance that any mg will not suppress an advancing unit within the expected number of bursts.
This happens because of the reload animation kicking in after the initial burst, some specks of yellow cover (barely enough to cover 1 or 2 soldiers) or just plain old RNG.

I'd dearly like to see a change to Call-Ins.
Any change would be welcome.

As Ciez pointed out - it's safer and even more economical wait for that Call-In.
This goes against the very core of strategy games that include any kind of teching:

Invest now and reap benefits later!
Invest too much and get overrun.
Invest too little too late and suffer for it.



Imo Call-Ins represent a deeply rooted problem:
There are few tough makro choices to be made.

...
I'm not preordering, because if they pull a new Tiger ace, I dont want to be the guy throwing money at them.

That's one reason I refused the preorder temptation.


The other reason is that the OKW shares some "superficial" traits with the British faction which I loathed.
A lot of alpha testers hinted that the Brits and OKW just share trucks but nothing else.

Fair enough - still waiting for that OKW game play special to prove it.
All this as well as apparent sweeping last minute changes prevent me from spending money for a game I actually care about...

Well they didn't saved the US Forces Gameplay either so? Bitchin 'bout nothin

I've been searching for information regarding the expansion recently ... and well there is this footage of the US faction.:
Relic Twitch: US forces ~ 30.05.2014

Couldn't find and equivalent for the new German faction.