When you're discounting the game as the vast majority of the players play it you're being ridiculous.
I'm not discounting it! I'm saying that if you play at a lower level or you otherwise aren't attuned to the fine grained differences between games, then you'll probably enjoy CoH 2 just as much as you enjoyed CoH 1! I'm not discounting that, I'm just saying that it's silly to go around saying "CoH 2 is fantastic, stop whining and nitpicking about stupid little things" when in actuality you just don't understand the changes or you don't care about them. Just because some things impact a smaller number of people doesn't mean they don't exist. The changes between CoH and CoH 2 do exist, and for a certain type of player they are huge changes, and they can certainly be the difference between a good game and a bad game.
You're using hyperbole to make minor changes seem like large differences in gameplay when they're minute details that pros are struggling to adapt with because the game is in beta and they've been playing a particular game with its particular quirks and systems for 5 years.
No, you're ignoring actual legitimate changes to fundamental game systems or saying I'm engaging in hyperbole when I point them out simply because you don't understand or care about those systems enough for them to have an effect on how the game plays for you. If you can explain which changes I'm being hyperbolic about then we can have an actual discussion about the two games but while I provided a big list of the sorts of changes between the two games and while I'm happy to go into depth on any one of the many, many changes on the list, you've refused to address almost all of them except for claiming that the readability of the game is fine, a claim that I think is obviously false for people with normal eyes rather than your superhuman eyes given the number of similar complaints I've seen. If you legitimately believe that the changes I listed don't matter in terms of shaping the kinds of game CoH 2 is going to be for people who care about competition, then I'm happy to have the discussion, but you're going to have to do more than continually claiming I'm wrong.
I've also been playing CoH1 since it was in beta and I understand that it's hard to change the way you work when you've been playing a game competitively for 5 years, but those minute changes don't suddenly become huge features because they're so engrained in your head.
Just saying this doesn't make it true! Games can change! Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't! I'm claiming CoH 2 is a big change from CoH 1 and I've listed why I think so. You've just said that I'm being nitpicky and hyperbolic and myopic but you haven't explained why you think any of this. In fact, I've gone even further and given reasons not just for why I think the games are different but why you think the games aren't different, namely that you either aren't good enough or don't care to play at a high enough level for these sorts of differences to matter for your gaming experience.
You don't get to discount everything I'm saying as "Lol you bad stop, let the pros decide what's fun". I'm not a pro, but I hovered around level 13 PE before Tales of Valor came out, which is a lot higher than most people will ever get. I may not be as good as you, and certainly not as good as a pro, but I'm better at this game than most people who play it. If my level of play is too low to make a decision on the game then pretty much everyone but you and your friends don't get to say anything.
I'm not saying "if you aren't good at the game you don't get to say anything." I'm saying "if you aren't good at the game (or more accurately, if you aren't live to the sorts of things that make CoH 1 substantially different from other games when it's played at a high level) then you don't get to tell us CoH 2 is better than we say it is, because although it might be a fun game for you, it's legitimately missing the stuff from CoH 1 that we enjoy." That's my problem - people like you going around and telling us to stop whining about the fact that Relic has given us a game that's not substantially better than Dawn of War II when it comes to a lot of the fundamentals, when in reality what we want is a game that's as good as (or better than) CoH 1 when it comes to all the fundamentals.
When you say the things I find interesting can be found in lots of RTS games, you're wrong. The things that attracted me to this game are the things that I believe attracted most people to this game. It has big fuckoff awesome tanks that take positional damage and squads of infantry who (semi)intelligently seek cover, along with fancy machine guns that suppress and victory points instead of base rapes and big explosions with physics and all that stuff.
Men of War and Dawn of War II will provide these pretty well too! RTS games in general are a fairly narrow niche but it looks like you're actually agreeing with me - you like squads, cover, big explosions, and positional combat. That's fine - I like that stuff too - but you hardly described the DNA of Company of Heroes at a high level. You've described the bare basics, and you can have all those basics without having anything like CoH. And in fact we have a game with all those basics that is missing much of CoH - it's called CoH 2.
I'm pretty sure not a single current high level player got into the game by saying "Boy look at all the weird quirks this metagame will have once I've mastered it!" The game is a sequel, it is different.
Of course! Players simply learn the game. They will learn this game like CoH and like DoW II. And once they've learned this game, they'll have mastered systems that share a lot more with the latter game than with the former game. There's nothing wrong with that - some people really like Dawn of War II. I think it's a pretty good game. It's no Company of Heroes, though.
As far as game sequels go, they are very very similar. Company of Heroes 1 to Company of Heroes 2 is not a large jump in substance or style. You don't have to be able to write a dissertation on a pro match to be able to realize the games look and play remarkably similar to one another, for better or worse. You're trying to look at a game and criticize it solely on its merits to less than 1% of the population who will play the game, and then projecting your findings to the forum and world at large by saying the game is drastically different. As such, you're being a very silly goose.
You are simplifying things to a ridiculous level to make your argument work - of course CoH and CoH 2 share a lot in common. But there's very little they share in common that they don't also share with DoW 2. And it's that link that I'm trying to make - when it comes to play at a high level, on the "CoH to DoW 2" scale, CoH 2 is far closer to the DoW 2 side than I'd prefer. And I don't understand how my viewpoint is any less viable than your viewpoint even if fewer people share it. Who the fuck cares if I'm in the minority? I'm still fucking right.
In line with the extremely short Tier 1 gameplay I've been playing a full Tier 2 strategy with Germans. I thought it'd be nice to outline my success with it. I've not lost with it yet; although I haven't really field tested it much in 1v1s and the matchmaker seems to struggle to make fair games right now. I did just get out of a fairly satisfying 2v2 game that was challenging though.
Anyways, to the guide!
German Tier 2 Rush
Why skip tier 1?
Simply put, the units that come out of the tier 1 building are not really worthwhile in my opinion. CoH2 has a very punishing upkeep cost for fielding units. Tier one units do not preform for their cost: Grenadiers: A decent general purpose troop, this unit falls off very quickly. There are very few situations where I'd prefer Grenadiers to Panzer Grenadiers. MG42 Squad: The MG 42 has not impressed me in CoH2. The low cost and built-in Ooorah! of conscripts makes flanking a nightmare and the powerful Soviet motars and snipers are very damaging to this unit. Suppression seems very weak on it; veteran or elite squads can often run through a line of fire to use a grenade on it. Sniper: A useless unit against an army with two snipers for each of your own and universal 6-man squads. To make matters worse it has the same health as any other infantry on the field making it bait to unlucky shells/rocket attacks. Mortar Team: The mortar team is quite good and punishes many troublesome units. Skipping tier one does not exclude access to an excellent mortar as the 225 Mortar Halftrack can testify.
Tier 2 units excel at their roles and are incredibly flexible. Best of all, you needn't sacrifice too much early game power for skipping tier 1.
The Build
In 1v1s and 2v2s, construct two additional pioneer squads (for a total of three squads) to give yourself good capping power for the early game. In 3v3 and 4v4 scenarios I find that teammates bolster your general capping power so much that you can instead invest the 200 manpower for your third squad into a securing a strategic point for bonus fuel. Pioneers will scale well with this strategy as Tier 2 has a number of light vehicles that will need upkeep and repairs. Their flamethrowers can be used to defensively hold ground and cover retreating vehicles from rushing Russian infantry with AT grenades/weapons.
Focus on general purpose strategic points and fuel points with your capture paths. Your third built pioneer should capture a single point and then retreat to build the Tier 2 Leichte Mechanized Company. Direct confrontation with the enemy is very unwise at this stage. Use your pioneers to capture and take count of his units. Your first unit from Tier 2 will always be a Panzer Grenadier squad. From your contact with the enemy will notice one of two strategies unfurling which will determine your second unit:
Sniper/Flamer M3A1 Clowncars
This Russian early game revolves around throwing a high impact unit ( Flamer or sniper ) into the M3A1 clowncar and rolling around sniping and murdering everything. If you see this, you're off to a great start already. The clowncar is a terrible unit against Tier 2 because the 222 Light Scout Car is an insanely potent counter and you can field one in as short as 4 minutes. This gives the clown car less than 45 seconds of time to pester pioneers and capture a point. Once your 222 Scout Car is out, throw an upgraded weapon on it and drive it directly at the M3A1. It will kill it in a single burst. If possible, chase the snipers down until it is dangerous to proceed. The upgraded gun is eerily accurate against snipers (it must have a bonus against them, because it can't hit any other infantry at all) and you can often kill them depending on how wounded/fast the enemy reacts. If the enemy was using a flamer squad, take your M3A1 kill and back up, kiting the flamer squad until your Panzer Grens follow in from behind. Don't throw that upgunned Scout Car away! It can still harrass flamethrower engineers and can defeat a T-70 light tank! It's veteran ability can give you troop movements and allow you to position your troops for Soviet charges before they happen.
4 Conscripts Strategy
This Russian early game revolves around high capping power and scaling conscripts. Panzer Grenadiers destroy conscripts at close range and do not need to fear closing with them. However, the 222 Light Scout Car is not useful against this strategy. Indeed, the scout car will hit the enemy exactly as AT grenades complete if they're following Inverse's strategy. Instead, save 5 more fuel for the other halftrack. This halftrack can keep your Panzer Grenadiers on the field capping points and contesting territory. If you save munitions for a little longer it can become an unstoppable engine of death (AKA Flamethrower Halftrack) before AT guns hit the field. Shock the enemy with this unit, but always keep PGs and pioneers nearby.
Fighting against both strategies will require you to use the map to the fullest. This strategy uses elite units early on that must be deployed to high impact sectors. This means your first units should aim for key fuel points or sectors that cut off large swaths of enemy territory. Early tier 2 units are almost unstoppable within a short window. Use this window to punish conscripts and crush the enemy's map control by cutting off territory or taking crucial fuel away from them. Eliminating entire enemy squads is not uncommon if you press this advantage and your enemy gets underestimates you/gets careless.
Moving Forward
Round out your army with 2-3 more Panzer Grenadier squads. A medical bunker a home base can be invaluable. Fuel becomes less important after the tier 2 building is up; so focus on munitions with your capping pioneers. Your main forces should seek to deny fuel however. I would not usually advise replacing scout cars or halftracks if they are lost unless the enemy builds a new M3A1 or more snipers. If the enemy fields AT guns/Guards Rifle Infantry to deal with your light armor, invest in a mortar halftrack or flanking maneuvers with 2-3 Panzer Grens. Early game Russian AT must stand still to really function unless you stumble into 2-3 AT grenades. Don't stumble into 2-3 AT grenades. Support your armor.
Focus your fuel on getting up a tier 3/4 building by the flow of the game. To be honest, the large majority of my games end before Tier 3/4 can really swing into gear. I cannot really say which one is better. In larger matches (3v3s and 4v4s) the increased fuel that you will have from securing and the more inevitable gameplay tends to favor tier 4. Tier 3 has some nice units that are worthwhile for 1v1s and 2v2s. Upgraded conscript with PPSHs and Shock Troops will pose considerable threats to Panzer Grenadiers as the game moves forward. Investing into armor that can tackle infantry and support your Panzer Grenadiers in fights will be important against these high Anti-Infantry strategies.
Commanders
I like red-neckerchief commander. He looks real snazzy, like a Nazi Freddy, and gives access to the Mortar Halftrack. This rounds out tier 2 well. Most commanders are shitty though, I don't really like any of them too much. His sector artillery would be good if sectors weren't so small or weird shaped. Stuka Smoke Barrage is neat, but smoke is wonky in this game. The Lieft Howitzer is actually very powerful and fucking expensive. You will probably never get one but they can be good?
I am still experimenting with Jager Infantry Tactics dude. The cloaking upgrade is sounds terrible (untested though) but G43 rifles on Panzer Grenadiers might be nice against Russian PPSH spam. The problem is that this strategy requires so many munitions already that outfitting troops with G43s will probably leave you too open to T-34s overwhelming you.
Example Replays:
Still gathering good replays, here are some examples as well as a nice 3v3 game where I sort of fight a fast tier 2 (not the finest execution though). Exceptional tank battles as well. Replay Pack (Zip File)
-Contains a somewhat one-sided 1v1 execution
-Contains an excellent 2v2 with diverse Russian strategies in play.
-Bonus 3v3!
edit: thought I'd try and throw this to the sega wolves but it's also containing "forbidden text". Come the goose on...
Tycho, maybe if you wrote one or two mechanical changes that you enjoy in CoH2 compared to 1, people here and on the .org forums wouldn't tell you to "stop whining" and take your criticism more seriously.
Even if you can't it absolutely doesn't prove you wrong or anything, but if you're literally complaining about everything you might see how some people can stamp you as a whiny fanboy.
It doesn't help that you don't put one critical post up, but keep posting everywhere how absolutely horrible everything is while everyone else is busy enjoying the game. You're clearly hyperbolic in your points. (This is a fundamentally different game because vehicles can take less damage and the UI is similar except worse!)
Edit: I can testify that german t2 is suuuuuuuuper strong.
Apologies for being slightly off-topic, but it seems like the best place to ask. What actually happened to Relic over the past few years? I've seen alot of talk about how the original HW team left long ago, how the CoH1 team is no longer there etc. I know that the Space Marine team got laid off and I think I heard some of the Retribution team went aswell? Makes me wonder who is actually left...
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Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
edited April 2013
What happened to Relic is basically what happened to every other game developer in the whose name isn't, say, "Valve". The industry is just incredibly turbulent.
Tycho, at this point I have to ask - what do you actually enjoy about CoH2? Is there anything about it that you think it does better than CoH1, or at least in a competent and fun manner? I'm not trolling here, just asking. I think if there really is nothing or very little you enjoy about CoH2 you might do well to just write it off as a game you dislike and stick with Men of War, a game I think is very much what you want out of an RTS (or RTT I guess more accurately?). Either way I've always enjoyed your casts a lot, and I thank you for doing them. I just pains me to see someone I respect so much as a caster seemingly bashing literally everything about CoH2, a game that so far I think is pretty good and quite fun.
//TheoryCrafting:
Though some of my enjoyment might stem from the fact that I really liked DoW2, except for the oddly unresponsive units (at times anyways - get to cover you idiots!! ect) and poor mp match making (gfwl until retribution, but it was too late, it has no player base now). I actually would love it if CoH2 had a melee option, so long as it was balanced in some way. Like why can't I fix bayonets? Charging an MG nest head on should result in a squad wipe of course, but a flank should result in a melee battle between those 2 squads that takes abit to play out, and prevents the gun from firing.
DarkMecha on
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Tycho, maybe if you wrote one or two mechanical changes that you enjoy in CoH2 compared to 1, people here and on the .org forums wouldn't tell you to "stop whining" and take your criticism more seriously.
Blizzards, the sniper changes, veterancy for damage dealt instead of just for kills, British removed, unit ability unlocks tied to veterancy, a wider variety of vehicle criticals, elimination of medic bunkers/casualty clearing stations/zombies, an even further reduction of static defensive options like tank traps and bunkers, lack of a British faction, Soviet barbed wire, doctrine call-in units moved to production buildings and saddled with fuel costs when appropriate, some of the graphics are prettier (like trees on fire), no British, fewer units that can cloak outside of cover (there might be zero?), etc.
I think if people spent less time thinking "Tycho hates CoH 2" and more time thinking "what things about CoH 2 does Tycho hate?" things would be more productive. When I have more than a dozen specific complains about a game that I think are very important and that I think are tangibly making it worse, it's frustrating to get replies like "the game is not bad" or "stop whining" or "you just like CoH more because you're used to it" instead of direct responses to my specific complaints. It's also frustrating to see replies like yours that suggest that I'm just somehow out to find negative things in CoH 2 so I can have excuses to hate it. That's totally not how it works. I was really looking forward to CoH 2. Like, really looking forward to it. I made hundreds of shoutcasts for the first game and got untold hours of entertainment out of playing it and watching other people play it. I was hoping I could do that again! I'd get another game as good as, or even better than, CoH! Back when I shoutcasted CoH it was in the stone ages where not a ton of people released videos, but now that I have my own YouTube channel I was really looking forward to sharing the CoH magic with my subscribers and getting a whole new set of fans. My shoutcasts had hundreds to thousands of downloads back when they were on some little site in the corner of the Internet and I was really looking forward to having a whole new fanbase of people on YouTube watching CoH 2 and talking about it and playing it. I was thinking of doing a CoH 2 podcast with a lot of my shoutcaster buddies and starting up my own weekly video show and everything!
So when my expectations for the game are disappointed, not in a vague "Tycho hates every game that isn't CoH" way but in very specific "Tycho is pretty sure he understands RTS games and he's seen a lot of these specific changes already implemented in Dawn of War 2, a game he played and enjoyed but which was very different from CoH, and Tycho thinks these changes are also present in CoH 2 and he's willing to talk about why he thinks all of them are present and why he thinks they aren't good changes," I'm sad! I wanted CoH 2, instead I got CoH + DoW 2. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but so far nobody has even tried that in this thread. They've just claimed I'm wrong, or in your case, you've just claimed that I'm a big mean grumpyface who hates everything.
First of all, that's untrue. Second, even if it's true, it doesn't fucking matter. The game has the issues I say it has, whether I'm a grumpy bum or not. Being upset doesn't make me wrong!
Even if you can't it absolutely doesn't prove you wrong or anything, but if you're literally complaining about everything you might see how some people can stamp you as a whiny fanboy.
I'm not literally complaining about everything. I'm complaining about stuff on that list of problems I have that nobody wants to discuss because nobody seems to have any arguments against any of them at all, so instead they resort to stamping me as a "whiny fanboy," which, true or not, has absolutely no bearing on whether my criticisms are correct. Who the fuck cares about my personality? That's entirely irrelevant.
It doesn't help that you don't put one critical post up, but keep posting everywhere how absolutely horrible everything is while everyone else is busy enjoying the game.
I think "posting everywhere how absolutely horrible everything is" surely counts as "one critical post," yes? As for people enjoying the game, I've already explained why that might be: either they enjoy DoW 2-esque games, or the stuff they enjoyed from CoH was at a lower level of skill/sophistication/whatever and thus survived the transition to the sequel.
You're clearly hyperbolic in your points. (This is a fundamentally different game because vehicles can take less damage and the UI is similar except worse!)
Those two alone don't make it a fundamentally different game, but if you add the rest of my points, then yes it is a fundamentally different game. It's much more like DoW 2.
Tycho, at this point I have to ask - what do you actually enjoy about CoH2? Is there anything about it that you think it does better than CoH1, or at least in a competent and fun manner? I'm not trolling here, just asking. I think if there really is nothing or very little you enjoy about CoH2 you might do well to just write it off as a game you dislike and stick with Men of War, a game I think is very much what you want out of an RTS (or RTT I guess more accurately?).
I pointed out some stuff I enjoy above in this post. As for whether I don't enjoy anything about CoH2, that's off base because I enjoy the game plenty, just like I enjoyed DoW 2, but I enjoy to the degree that I enjoy any good RTS game, which is to say way the fuck less than CoH. And it's also tough to just ignore the sadness I feel for the fact that it looks like we aren't going to get a worthy sequel to CoH, right now and potentially never in the future.
I think it's funny that you would tell me to stick with Men of War which is what I want out of an RTS, because it demonstrates that you didn't really pay attention to any of my criticisms, almost all of which apply to Men of War much more than they apply to CoH. MoW has basically no CoH-esque early game - you can buy a vehicle as your first unit. MoW has much simpler map design than CoH or CoH 2 because it doesn't even have any resource points or cutoffs. Men of War's resource system is completely fucked up if your goal is a game like CoH because it's divorced almost entirely from your on-field performance. Explosive damage vs. infantry is even higher in Men of War than it is in CoH and CoH 2 and it has almost no suppression power. There are no target tables in MoW and infantry health is fairly standardized. Vehicle health is even lower than in CoH 2 - basically every vehicle in MoW can be knocked out with 1 lucky shot. Teching choices are even more absent in Men of War than in CoH 2 because there is no teching at all. There are zero doctrines in Men of War, which is much worse than CoH 2's simplified doctrines. True sight is implemented with even more fidelity, allowing people to hide in bushes and stuff and thus leading to even easier flanking compared to CoH and CoH 2.
Again, it's hard to say this sort of thing without sounding mean, but you're basically in the same category as Fiatil, the category of "people who don't really get what's going on under the hood of an RTS game that makes matches play out in one way rather than in another way." It's not like you're an idiot or doing something wrong or anything like that, but you're just not really able to comprehend why I don't like CoH 2 because you don't really understand what it is I liked about CoH. I love Men of War, maybe even more than CoH (although probably not) but the two are fundamentally different games. CoH 2 does have a lot of Men of War-esque stuff, but that's why I think it's worse as a CoH game, not better. Your post is basically telling me "look Tycho, you loved pizza in the past, but if you really don't enjoy this chocolate coated piece of pizza, maybe you should go eat that chocolate you love so much." I love chocolate and I love pizza but I don't like them together.
Either way I've always enjoyed your casts a lot, and I thank you for doing them. I just pains me to see someone I respect so much as a caster seemingly bashing literally everything about CoH2, a game that so far I think is pretty good and quite fun.
I'm not bashing everything! I DO NOT THINK EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH COH2. You know how you can tell? I wrote a fucking list of the things I don't like about CoH2! If I thought everything in CoH 2 were fucked up, why would I have bothered with the list? I could've just said "everything" and been done with it! But obviously I don't dislike everything about CoH 2. It's not like it's Stalin vs. Martians or something. It's still a competent RTS. It's just not the sequel for CoH we could really use right about now.
Tycho, never stop being you, because you being you means you're right. And also because I hear you speak these words in my head and it makes them even better.
I'm sure I've missed it somewhere earlier, but what do you like about blizzards Tycho? They mostly seem annoying to me, but I'm sure it's because it's still early and no one knows how to play them.
Like, I remember a game yesterday where I lost early and then just got the entire map because the other guy just stayed in his base with everything during blizzard. It wasn't a very rewarding "outplay" by me.
All blizzards really do is cut the LOS down a lot, make infantry freeze, and make infantry move a bit slower. Cutting the LOS down is really interesting because it basically changes how all the combat plays out. Infantry freezing is stupid but it's usually not that hard to find a fire and hopefully they can tweak the freezing rate so that it's not really an issue. Infantry moving slower is also dumb but they cut that down some already and hopefully they'll just get rid of it completely. Just because you played against an idiot who went AFK when a blizzard showed up doesn't mean dynamic events that alter how the game plays can't be interesting.
1) - I think everyone could stand to calm down a little.
2) - If you think Tycho's purely thread-shitting instead of offering points where he feels the game has lost its way from the original CoH (points that can be argued), then oh boy it's a good thing Goomba's not around anymore to show you what that REALLY means. Although the hyperbole could stand to be ratcheted down a notch.
3) - Man there's way too much angst directed at DoW2, I love that game.
@Tycho - I apologize for my comments, you are correct - why would you go through all this trouble if you didn't enjoy CoH2. I don't really know anything about how RTS games work, or how to play them well. I now feel stupid for saying anything, because in light of your last post it all seems illogical.
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All blizzards really do is cut the LOS down a lot, make infantry freeze, and make infantry move a bit slower. Cutting the LOS down is really interesting because it basically changes how all the combat plays out. Infantry freezing is stupid but it's usually not that hard to find a fire and hopefully they can tweak the freezing rate so that it's not really an issue. Infantry moving slower is also dumb but they cut that down some already and hopefully they'll just get rid of it completely. Just because you played against an idiot who went AFK when a blizzard showed up doesn't mean dynamic events that alter how the game plays can't be interesting.
Woah hey I'm not disagreeing with you anywhere, I'm just curious what you thought about blizzards.
All I was trying to point out is how you could make people not react in the way you hate.
Blizzards make halftracks super important, and I'm not sure if I particularly enjoy it or not.
I see what you mean about not being able to see what units are firing at which, however I don't see it as detrimental to the game. It drastically improves the effectiveness of artillery units (perhaps TOO much) and forces players to scout to find what the enemy has and the best way to get to them. The increased units on AT guns and this effect actually makes it so you can't just tank rush the position, a tactic that made using AT guns really hard to use unless you had perfect positioning and overwhelming numbers of them.
Tank traps are gone. Barbed wire still exists for Germans (and in fact it's as good as it used to be in CoH because Relic unlearned the lesson it learned in vCoH and has made it so that you need to upgrade wire cutters, and it's even worse because you can't destroy barbed wire with vehicles so that sucks, but Russian barbed wire makes units crawl under it instead of blocking them. Sandbags are gone except for weird chunky sandbags that Conscripts can build. Bunkers are AWOL for Soviets although they still exist for Germans.
For Blizzards, you don't need a firepit necessarily. Any cover will keep them from freezing.
Cover will stop the temperature gauge from going down. Fires warm them up. There's no reason to give a shit about temperature until your units are literally freezing to death, at which point cover's not going to help. The reason freezing is dumb is because it reduces mobility by forcing you to stop moving around in the snow, and cover doesn't help this at all. It just forces you to be static.
I see what you mean about not being able to see what units are firing at which, however I don't see it as detrimental to the game. It drastically improves the effectiveness of artillery units (perhaps TOO much) and forces players to scout to find what the enemy has and the best way to get to them.
I don't think you really see what I mean. It doesn't make artillery more effective because you can still tell where the shot came from if you check the minimap. It just makes your eyes hurt more and makes it more difficult because the minimap is a piece of shit and you can't just use the shell trajectory because it's harder to see everything. You don't have to scout to find out what the enemy has any more than you did in CoH because everything that shoots at you is still lit up on the minimap. The information is all t here in the game and it's being communicated to the player - it's just being communicated in an awful way that's hard to see.
The increased units on AT guns and this effect actually makes it so you can't just tank rush the position, a tactic that made using AT guns really hard to use unless you had perfect positioning and overwhelming numbers of them.
Tank accuracy vs. AT gun crews was minimal in Company of Heroes, which means if you tried to bumrush an AT gun with a tank, you could probably get behind it but it would take you forever to kill it. (With the removal of target tables this is no longer the case in CoH 2 and I suspect tanks have an easier job of blowing up AT guns now...) Saying that AT guns were "really hard to use" in CoH is, I suppose, correct in one way - you actually had to care about positioning and protecting your AT guns and setting up overlapping fields of fire and utilizing units that caused engine-damaging criticals and so on in order to take out enemy vehicles. You also didn't need "overwhelming numbers" - two was easily sufficient vs. one tank. US AT guns could pop armor piercing rounds on whatever gun had the flank shot, forcing the opponent to pull back, and Pak 38s could cloak, keeping them safe and making it much easier to set up flanks. This dynamic is gone in CoH 2 from what I can tell - the Russian AT gun special skill is an anti-infantry artillery barrage (as if this game needs more fucking anti-infantry artillery...) and I dunno what the German AT gun gets.
In CoH 2, basically any unit can cause an engine critical even if the vehicle is at full health, so instead of having to rely on sticky bombs/infantry support you can just shoot at the tank with your AT gun from the front. AT guns do more damage, so instead of having to worry about setting up ambushes and overlapping fields of fire and protecting against flanks, you can just roll the AT gun up and let it get a few shots off - any player worth their salt is then either going to immediately pull back or go for broke and rush the AT gun, which is sort of what happened in CoH except now it happens three times as fast and if the tank is a light vehicle it's already dead because those can die in one shot from the front.
I hope you're posting this stuff into their official beta forums as well, assuming Relic is actually paying attentions to the forums of course (I haven't actually visited). While quite a few of your points seem to be things that would take a fair amount of reworking to fix there's also a bunch that don't seem that hard to change and I hope they are genuinely using the beta to take advice on board and make changes before the actual release.
You can still do that, it's just a much worse idea in this game. First, your tank has way less health, so it's riskier because they might get a shot off or show up with more AT. Second, your tank can take engine damage criticals at full health from any AT, which will make it much harder to keep up that tank micro. Third, true sight makes it easier for them to hide more AT, like another gun, somewhere that will catch you when you circle strafe. Fourth, now that tanks can be decrewed and stolen if the opponent rolls a lucky critical, it's a worse idea to drive your tank closer to enemy lines. Overall, CoH 2 has moved away from the original game's rolling armor battles with lots of movement/positioning, like circle strafing and retreat blocking, in favor of faster, more brutal tank combat and less viable positioning options other than "shoot from max range and reverse at the first sign of trouble."
In other news, some posts that talk about a lot of stuff that I've been talking about for those interesting in reading more about the game:
So they had this problem in CoH where units got stuck on stuff when they were retreating, like fences, and they also got blocked by vehicles and stuff that led to you losing whole squads.
They had this problem all through DoW2 and now CoH2 as well. Seems really hard to fix eh? They should even be porting back to base if the retreat timer runs out instead of becoming controllable...
Ugh, I think I'm done with this game already. Russians suck so bad that Germans seem like easy mode. Also, coming from 4 factions in the last to 2 again is not so hot.
3DS Code - 5370-0463-9307 Wii U - 'Nocero' XBox ID - therealmasume PS4 ID - realmasume
Buttoning vehicles and russian snipers are both really good though. Just takes more than the usual supply truck into fuel caches into tiger spam after the initial flammenwerfer (that disintegrates infantry when it comes out holy shit) that we usually see in the team games.
My biggest problem is that the only reliable AT I have as russians is the regular AT gun. No good infantry or tank based AT, except IS:s I guess.
Buttoning vehicles and russian snipers are both really good though. Just takes more than the usual supply truck into fuel caches into tiger spam after the initial flammenwerfer (that disintegrates infantry when it comes out holy shit) that we usually see in the team games.
My biggest problem is that the only reliable AT I have as russians is the regular AT gun. No good infantry or tank based AT, except IS:s I guess.
That's the whole problem really, the only things the russians seem to be able to do is stall the inevitable death to the german tanks of doom. Russian armor is a joke, especially since the Germans have fausts. Also, the sniper isn't so hot without a cloak, IMHO. That was the good thing about snipers in the first place...oh wait, german snipers cloak, don't they? -,-
It just seems like the whole game was a great concept starting out then just kind of devolved into whatever it is. The Germans and a retooled american faction with worse infantry and no decent AT.
Masume on
3DS Code - 5370-0463-9307 Wii U - 'Nocero' XBox ID - therealmasume PS4 ID - realmasume
Snipers cloak in cover, and russian snipers are the shit. I have no idea why people who can't micro keep buying german snipers for me to kill.
But yeah, russian AT is an issue. The whole game changes if you can get a guard squad with a panzershrek. It's not wildly unbalanced though, we keep winning as soviets all the time. You can surprise kill a lot of tanks with button.
Ugh, I think I'm done with this game already. Russians suck so bad that Germans seem like easy mode. Also, coming from 4 factions in the last to 2 again is not so hot.
The trick to Russians is to build like 3 conscripts, don't let your engineers die, and you may never need to build more engineers. The russians are great in my experiences with them. Just not as standard as previous factions.
Also for anyone seeing this thread and huge text walls of "OH GOD IT'S SO BAD"...disregard a lot of that. Some complaints are valid, but it's still a damn fun game. Plus it is still in beta, and people haven't really had time to work out all the quirks. Initial reaction to most RTS games is "THIS IS OVERPOWERED HOLY FUCK" until people figure out the counters and why it isn't overpowered and such. Still needs some time in the oven, but it's still fucking delicious.
Also for anyone seeing this thread and huge text walls of "OH GOD IT'S SO BAD"...disregard a lot of that. Some complaints are valid, but it's still a damn fun game. Plus it is still in beta, and people haven't really had time to work out all the quirks. Initial reaction to most RTS games is "THIS IS OVERPOWERED HOLY FUCK" until people figure out the counters and why it isn't overpowered and such. Still needs some time in the oven, but it's still fucking delicious.
If this is a response to me, I'm not sure you really read my huge walls of text - I didn't say the game's un-fun and I didn't say anything is overpowered holy fuck. I said they broke or removed most of what I enjoyed about CoH and churned out a game closer to Dawn of War II. If you enjoy Dawn of War II you will likely enjoy this game, or if you don't really play RTS games at a deep level and care about the nitty gritty stuff and you enjoyed the first CoH, you will enjoy this game.
Also for anyone seeing this thread and huge text walls of "OH GOD IT'S SO BAD"...disregard a lot of that. Some complaints are valid, but it's still a damn fun game. Plus it is still in beta, and people haven't really had time to work out all the quirks. Initial reaction to most RTS games is "THIS IS OVERPOWERED HOLY FUCK" until people figure out the counters and why it isn't overpowered and such. Still needs some time in the oven, but it's still fucking delicious.
If this is a response to me, I'm not sure you really read my huge walls of text - I didn't say the game's un-fun and I didn't say anything is overpowered holy fuck. I said they broke or removed most of what I enjoyed about CoH and churned out a game closer to Dawn of War II. If you enjoy Dawn of War II you will likely enjoy this game, or if you don't really play RTS games at a deep level and care about the nitty gritty stuff and you enjoyed the first CoH, you will enjoy this game.
It was a response to many things, not just you. Also I disagree a great deal with your essential assertion that more serious in depth players won't like this game. I played the ever loving fuck out of the first COH and enjoyed the nitty gritty stuff and also enjoy this game. I think a lot of your assertions about the game stuff are your opinion and not necessarily incorrect. Most of my post wasn't directed at you either, so don't go getting all upset. I never accused you of saying it was un-fun or calling anything overpowered.
I didn't say they won't like the game, I said they'll like it about as much as they like DoW 2. The reason I thought maybe you were talking to me is because I'm the only one who wrote walls of text. Except for Corp. Shephard except that was a strat guide so I doubt you were talking about that.
The increased units on AT guns and this effect actually makes it so you can't just tank rush the position, a tactic that made using AT guns really hard to use unless you had perfect positioning and overwhelming numbers of them.
Tank accuracy vs. AT gun crews was minimal in Company of Heroes, which means if you tried to bumrush an AT gun with a tank, you could probably get behind it but it would take you forever to kill it. (With the removal of target tables this is no longer the case in CoH 2 and I suspect tanks have an easier job of blowing up AT guns now...) Saying that AT guns were "really hard to use" in CoH is, I suppose, correct in one way - you actually had to care about positioning and protecting your AT guns and setting up overlapping fields of fire and utilizing units that caused engine-damaging criticals and so on in order to take out enemy vehicles. You also didn't need "overwhelming numbers" - two was easily sufficient vs. one tank. US AT guns could pop armor piercing rounds on whatever gun had the flank shot, forcing the opponent to pull back, and Pak 38s could cloak, keeping them safe and making it much easier to set up flanks. This dynamic is gone in CoH 2 from what I can tell - the Russian AT gun special skill is an anti-infantry artillery barrage (as if this game needs more fucking anti-infantry artillery...) and I dunno what the German AT gun gets.
In CoH 2, basically any unit can cause an engine critical even if the vehicle is at full health, so instead of having to rely on sticky bombs/infantry support you can just shoot at the tank with your AT gun from the front. AT guns do more damage, so instead of having to worry about setting up ambushes and overlapping fields of fire and protecting against flanks, you can just roll the AT gun up and let it get a few shots off - any player worth their salt is then either going to immediately pull back or go for broke and rush the AT gun, which is sort of what happened in CoH except now it happens three times as fast and if the tank is a light vehicle it's already dead because those can die in one shot from the front.
This power balance shift has bothered me as well. Decrewing an AT gun with the lethality of flamers, grenades and tanks is easy. The popularity of mortars ( their increased potency aside ) has made fielding AT guns a nightmare as well. I can count the times I've built AT guns in this beta on one hand in all likelihood. Upkeep is so punishing in this game that I don't like investing my resources into a static AT unit like AT guns. Stealing a Pak38 is rarely a bad idea though.
Buttoning vehicles and russian snipers are both really good though. Just takes more than the usual supply truck into fuel caches into tiger spam after the initial flammenwerfer (that disintegrates infantry when it comes out holy shit) that we usually see in the team games.
My biggest problem is that the only reliable AT I have as russians is the regular AT gun. No good infantry or tank based AT, except IS:s I guess.
That's the whole problem really, the only things the russians seem to be able to do is stall the inevitable death to the german tanks of doom. Russian armor is a joke, especially since the Germans have fausts. Also, the sniper isn't so hot without a cloak, IMHO. That was the good thing about snipers in the first place...oh wait, german snipers cloak, don't they? -,-
It just seems like the whole game was a great concept starting out then just kind of devolved into whatever it is. The Russians are a retooled american faction with worse infantry and no decent AT.
I sort of felt this way at the start too. I didn't really respect Conscripts. Russian armor seemed quite awful aside from the SU-85: which as a Tank Destroyer mostly just offsets the German's versatile and deadly armor. (I think that the SU-85 is decent/great AT though)
Since then I've come to realize that with certain doctrines Conscripts are insanely cost efficient. T-34s are an excellent low cost tank that can disable enemy (more expensive) tanks on a one to one basis with their ramming attack. In a sense the T-34 is like an un-upgunned Sherman: effective against infantry targets but should only engage armor in safe areas where flanking can happen and other AT support is available. Except that the T-34 is cheaper and can ram which gives it impressive AT utility. My least favorite thing about Russians is their reliance on doctrines. Conscripts don't scale for shit if you don't grab the doctrine that gives them PPSHs for 20 munitions and "Hit the Dirt!" which makes them very hard to combat without a grenade. On the other hand you have no fuel sinks without the heavy tanks from different doctrines. You have no general purpose AT infantry without Guards Rifle Infantry.
Also, both snipers can cloak in this game- they cloak passively in cover. The Russian sniper is very potent. I've had a 4v4 where my snipers racked up 99 kills (~3 squads of snipers, not all of which survived...).
I believe that the game can ( and should ) be improved with the changes that Tycho has been a proponent for: retooled UI, reworked upkeep system, maps (and maybe reworked resource systems) that take advantage of the supply line mechanic, expanded early game, etc.
I have enjoyed myself everytime I've booted the game up. I still worry about this game long term though. What does CoH2 really have going for it against CoH1? ColdTech and TrueSight. TrueSight's great but it's fairly simple. ColdTech... I am always a little on the fence with this mechanic. Blizzards and freezing do add depth, tactics and changes the pace of the game. A part of me can't help but feel it is slightly gimmicky though.
These two mechanics set CoH2 apart but at the same time I feel like it's hamstrung by forgetting lessons from the first game and trying to deviate in poor ways. CoH2 has to contend with expansions worth of content and balancing in CoH1. If it doesn't build on those lessons then it really will just be seen as a watered-down CoH1 with fewer factions by many. I know that some of my friends have already condemned the game as such.
I didn't say they won't like the game, I said they'll like it about as much as they like DoW 2. The reason I thought maybe you were talking to me is because I'm the only one who wrote walls of text. Except for Corp. Shephard except that was a strat guide so I doubt you were talking about that.
I hate to restart this, but I fucking hate Dawn of War 2! So it's like people can like this game for other reasons than it being some sort of Dawn of War 2 clone! Please stop trying to speak for a bunch of people who disagree with you.
I didn't say they won't like the game, I said they'll like it about as much as they like DoW 2. The reason I thought maybe you were talking to me is because I'm the only one who wrote walls of text. Except for Corp. Shephard except that was a strat guide so I doubt you were talking about that.
I hate to restart this, but I fucking hate Dawn of War 2! So it's like people can like this game for other reasons than it being some sort of Dawn of War 2 clone! Please stop trying to speak for a bunch of people who disagree with you.
You're like, the one outlier. (Or you're not what SniperGuy refers to as a "serious in depth player"). If you could mention some of the things you hate about Dawn of War 2 and stuff maybe we could have a legitimate conversation but you haven't said a fucking thing about this game, CoH 1, or DoW 2, or any other game in this thread and it's making me sad
I didn't say they won't like the game, I said they'll like it about as much as they like DoW 2. The reason I thought maybe you were talking to me is because I'm the only one who wrote walls of text. Except for Corp. Shephard except that was a strat guide so I doubt you were talking about that.
I hate to restart this, but I fucking hate Dawn of War 2! So it's like people can like this game for other reasons than it being some sort of Dawn of War 2 clone! Please stop trying to speak for a bunch of people who disagree with you.
You're like, the one outlier. (Or you're not what SniperGuy refers to as a "serious in depth player"). If you could mention some of the things you hate about Dawn of War 2 and stuff maybe we could have a legitimate conversation but you haven't said a fucking thing about this game, CoH 1, or DoW 2, or any other game in this thread and it's making me sad
Er. It seems kinda silly that you're trying to say everyone else must just not be as good at the game as you, because we have different opinions.
The game has the issues I say it has, whether I'm a grumpy bum or not.
There are some people that disagree with you. What exactly are you using to quantify if someone is a nitty gritty player or a lolcasual? COH isn't exactly a high tournament uber balanced atmosphere anyway, due to the randomness of some things. What makes you a better player and more qualified to speak on the issues than others, and how do you know?
edit: you know what is dumb though? Those army customization things that give actual in game buffs and stuff. Because I played against level 20 people when I was level 9, and that's just lame.
Argh! For the 5th time or whatever people have said "no these issues don't exist" without even discussing them! I gave you a list of the issues. There are like 15 or whatever. Do you agree or disagree with the list?
NOTHING makes me more qualified to speak than anyone else, so SPEAK. TELL ME. TALK. ABOUT. THE. GAME. PLEASE. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. DISCUSS THE GAME INSTEAD OF ME. THIS IS NOT THE TYCHOCELCHUUU THREAD. CAN WE PLEASE ADDRESS MY CONCERNS. I will quote them and if you need me to elaborate on any of them then please ask me to do so:
1) UI is much worse than original CoH.
2) Early game is almost entirely gone compared to original CoH.
3) Map layout is simplified (fewer points, fewer cutoffs) compared to original CoH.
4) Resource system, upkeep system, and pop cap system is fucked up compared to original CoH.
5) Explosive damage vs. infantry is way higher but with less of a radius and less suppression power compared to original CoH.
6) General readability (who is shooting at who? Where is the sniper? Where is the AT gun firing? Is artillery coming in? Off-map or on-map? From where? Is my vehicle damaged? How so? Are my troops suppressed?) much worse than original CoH.
7) Target tables removed and all infantry health standardized at the exact same level (vast departure from original CoH in terms of how fights play out).
8) Vehicle health way down compared to original CoH.
9) Teching choices basically zero compared to original CoH.
10) Doctrines removed and replaced with uninteresting homogeneous largely theme-less commanders
11) Infantry squad vary much less compared to original CoH.
12) Smaller unit variety than original CoH.
13) More symmetrical teams (especially with the newest patch which standardized vehicle health levels per tier across each team) compared to original CoH (vet the same across both teams for instance).
14) Cover less important in infantry fights compared to original CoH.
15) True sight changes flanking mechanic (especially in the early game) compared to original CoH.
16) Infantry combat slowed down except for flamethrowers which own face compared to original CoH, and combined with large Soviet weapon crews = weird dynamic when it comes to getting in close to something like a mortar or AT gun and trying to decrew it.
Posts
I'm not discounting it! I'm saying that if you play at a lower level or you otherwise aren't attuned to the fine grained differences between games, then you'll probably enjoy CoH 2 just as much as you enjoyed CoH 1! I'm not discounting that, I'm just saying that it's silly to go around saying "CoH 2 is fantastic, stop whining and nitpicking about stupid little things" when in actuality you just don't understand the changes or you don't care about them. Just because some things impact a smaller number of people doesn't mean they don't exist. The changes between CoH and CoH 2 do exist, and for a certain type of player they are huge changes, and they can certainly be the difference between a good game and a bad game.
No, you're ignoring actual legitimate changes to fundamental game systems or saying I'm engaging in hyperbole when I point them out simply because you don't understand or care about those systems enough for them to have an effect on how the game plays for you. If you can explain which changes I'm being hyperbolic about then we can have an actual discussion about the two games but while I provided a big list of the sorts of changes between the two games and while I'm happy to go into depth on any one of the many, many changes on the list, you've refused to address almost all of them except for claiming that the readability of the game is fine, a claim that I think is obviously false for people with normal eyes rather than your superhuman eyes given the number of similar complaints I've seen. If you legitimately believe that the changes I listed don't matter in terms of shaping the kinds of game CoH 2 is going to be for people who care about competition, then I'm happy to have the discussion, but you're going to have to do more than continually claiming I'm wrong.
Just saying this doesn't make it true! Games can change! Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't! I'm claiming CoH 2 is a big change from CoH 1 and I've listed why I think so. You've just said that I'm being nitpicky and hyperbolic and myopic but you haven't explained why you think any of this. In fact, I've gone even further and given reasons not just for why I think the games are different but why you think the games aren't different, namely that you either aren't good enough or don't care to play at a high enough level for these sorts of differences to matter for your gaming experience.
I'm not saying "if you aren't good at the game you don't get to say anything." I'm saying "if you aren't good at the game (or more accurately, if you aren't live to the sorts of things that make CoH 1 substantially different from other games when it's played at a high level) then you don't get to tell us CoH 2 is better than we say it is, because although it might be a fun game for you, it's legitimately missing the stuff from CoH 1 that we enjoy." That's my problem - people like you going around and telling us to stop whining about the fact that Relic has given us a game that's not substantially better than Dawn of War II when it comes to a lot of the fundamentals, when in reality what we want is a game that's as good as (or better than) CoH 1 when it comes to all the fundamentals.
Men of War and Dawn of War II will provide these pretty well too! RTS games in general are a fairly narrow niche but it looks like you're actually agreeing with me - you like squads, cover, big explosions, and positional combat. That's fine - I like that stuff too - but you hardly described the DNA of Company of Heroes at a high level. You've described the bare basics, and you can have all those basics without having anything like CoH. And in fact we have a game with all those basics that is missing much of CoH - it's called CoH 2.
Of course! Players simply learn the game. They will learn this game like CoH and like DoW II. And once they've learned this game, they'll have mastered systems that share a lot more with the latter game than with the former game. There's nothing wrong with that - some people really like Dawn of War II. I think it's a pretty good game. It's no Company of Heroes, though.
You are simplifying things to a ridiculous level to make your argument work - of course CoH and CoH 2 share a lot in common. But there's very little they share in common that they don't also share with DoW 2. And it's that link that I'm trying to make - when it comes to play at a high level, on the "CoH to DoW 2" scale, CoH 2 is far closer to the DoW 2 side than I'd prefer. And I don't understand how my viewpoint is any less viable than your viewpoint even if fewer people share it. Who the fuck cares if I'm in the minority? I'm still fucking right.
Loved the small things. Nearly managed to steal a Panzer IV from the Germans, though it got shot on the way back to base to be repaired.
In line with the extremely short Tier 1 gameplay I've been playing a full Tier 2 strategy with Germans. I thought it'd be nice to outline my success with it. I've not lost with it yet; although I haven't really field tested it much in 1v1s and the matchmaker seems to struggle to make fair games right now. I did just get out of a fairly satisfying 2v2 game that was challenging though.
Anyways, to the guide!
German Tier 2 Rush
Why skip tier 1?
Simply put, the units that come out of the tier 1 building are not really worthwhile in my opinion. CoH2 has a very punishing upkeep cost for fielding units. Tier one units do not preform for their cost:
Grenadiers: A decent general purpose troop, this unit falls off very quickly. There are very few situations where I'd prefer Grenadiers to Panzer Grenadiers.
MG42 Squad: The MG 42 has not impressed me in CoH2. The low cost and built-in Ooorah! of conscripts makes flanking a nightmare and the powerful Soviet motars and snipers are very damaging to this unit. Suppression seems very weak on it; veteran or elite squads can often run through a line of fire to use a grenade on it.
Sniper: A useless unit against an army with two snipers for each of your own and universal 6-man squads. To make matters worse it has the same health as any other infantry on the field making it bait to unlucky shells/rocket attacks.
Mortar Team: The mortar team is quite good and punishes many troublesome units. Skipping tier one does not exclude access to an excellent mortar as the 225 Mortar Halftrack can testify.
Tier 2 units excel at their roles and are incredibly flexible. Best of all, you needn't sacrifice too much early game power for skipping tier 1.
The Build
In 1v1s and 2v2s, construct two additional pioneer squads (for a total of three squads) to give yourself good capping power for the early game. In 3v3 and 4v4 scenarios I find that teammates bolster your general capping power so much that you can instead invest the 200 manpower for your third squad into a securing a strategic point for bonus fuel. Pioneers will scale well with this strategy as Tier 2 has a number of light vehicles that will need upkeep and repairs. Their flamethrowers can be used to defensively hold ground and cover retreating vehicles from rushing Russian infantry with AT grenades/weapons.
Focus on general purpose strategic points and fuel points with your capture paths. Your third built pioneer should capture a single point and then retreat to build the Tier 2 Leichte Mechanized Company. Direct confrontation with the enemy is very unwise at this stage. Use your pioneers to capture and take count of his units. Your first unit from Tier 2 will always be a Panzer Grenadier squad. From your contact with the enemy will notice one of two strategies unfurling which will determine your second unit:
Sniper/Flamer M3A1 Clowncars
This Russian early game revolves around throwing a high impact unit ( Flamer or sniper ) into the M3A1 clowncar and rolling around sniping and murdering everything. If you see this, you're off to a great start already. The clowncar is a terrible unit against Tier 2 because the 222 Light Scout Car is an insanely potent counter and you can field one in as short as 4 minutes. This gives the clown car less than 45 seconds of time to pester pioneers and capture a point. Once your 222 Scout Car is out, throw an upgraded weapon on it and drive it directly at the M3A1. It will kill it in a single burst. If possible, chase the snipers down until it is dangerous to proceed. The upgraded gun is eerily accurate against snipers (it must have a bonus against them, because it can't hit any other infantry at all) and you can often kill them depending on how wounded/fast the enemy reacts. If the enemy was using a flamer squad, take your M3A1 kill and back up, kiting the flamer squad until your Panzer Grens follow in from behind. Don't throw that upgunned Scout Car away! It can still harrass flamethrower engineers and can defeat a T-70 light tank! It's veteran ability can give you troop movements and allow you to position your troops for Soviet charges before they happen.
4 Conscripts Strategy
This Russian early game revolves around high capping power and scaling conscripts. Panzer Grenadiers destroy conscripts at close range and do not need to fear closing with them. However, the 222 Light Scout Car is not useful against this strategy. Indeed, the scout car will hit the enemy exactly as AT grenades complete if they're following Inverse's strategy. Instead, save 5 more fuel for the other halftrack. This halftrack can keep your Panzer Grenadiers on the field capping points and contesting territory. If you save munitions for a little longer it can become an unstoppable engine of death (AKA Flamethrower Halftrack) before AT guns hit the field. Shock the enemy with this unit, but always keep PGs and pioneers nearby.
Fighting against both strategies will require you to use the map to the fullest. This strategy uses elite units early on that must be deployed to high impact sectors. This means your first units should aim for key fuel points or sectors that cut off large swaths of enemy territory. Early tier 2 units are almost unstoppable within a short window. Use this window to punish conscripts and crush the enemy's map control by cutting off territory or taking crucial fuel away from them. Eliminating entire enemy squads is not uncommon if you press this advantage and your enemy gets underestimates you/gets careless.
Moving Forward
Round out your army with 2-3 more Panzer Grenadier squads. A medical bunker a home base can be invaluable. Fuel becomes less important after the tier 2 building is up; so focus on munitions with your capping pioneers. Your main forces should seek to deny fuel however. I would not usually advise replacing scout cars or halftracks if they are lost unless the enemy builds a new M3A1 or more snipers. If the enemy fields AT guns/Guards Rifle Infantry to deal with your light armor, invest in a mortar halftrack or flanking maneuvers with 2-3 Panzer Grens. Early game Russian AT must stand still to really function unless you stumble into 2-3 AT grenades. Don't stumble into 2-3 AT grenades. Support your armor.
Focus your fuel on getting up a tier 3/4 building by the flow of the game. To be honest, the large majority of my games end before Tier 3/4 can really swing into gear. I cannot really say which one is better. In larger matches (3v3s and 4v4s) the increased fuel that you will have from securing and the more inevitable gameplay tends to favor tier 4. Tier 3 has some nice units that are worthwhile for 1v1s and 2v2s. Upgraded conscript with PPSHs and Shock Troops will pose considerable threats to Panzer Grenadiers as the game moves forward. Investing into armor that can tackle infantry and support your Panzer Grenadiers in fights will be important against these high Anti-Infantry strategies.
Commanders
I like red-neckerchief commander. He looks real snazzy, like a Nazi Freddy, and gives access to the Mortar Halftrack. This rounds out tier 2 well. Most commanders are shitty though, I don't really like any of them too much. His sector artillery would be good if sectors weren't so small or weird shaped. Stuka Smoke Barrage is neat, but smoke is wonky in this game. The Lieft Howitzer is actually very powerful and fucking expensive. You will probably never get one but they can be good?
I am still experimenting with Jager Infantry Tactics dude. The cloaking upgrade is sounds terrible (untested though) but G43 rifles on Panzer Grenadiers might be nice against Russian PPSH spam. The problem is that this strategy requires so many munitions already that outfitting troops with G43s will probably leave you too open to T-34s overwhelming you.
Example Replays:
Still gathering good replays, here are some examples as well as a nice 3v3 game where I sort of fight a fast tier 2 (not the finest execution though). Exceptional tank battles as well.
Replay Pack (Zip File)
-Contains a somewhat one-sided 1v1 execution
-Contains an excellent 2v2 with diverse Russian strategies in play.
-Bonus 3v3!
edit: thought I'd try and throw this to the sega wolves but it's also containing "forbidden text". Come the goose on...
Even if you can't it absolutely doesn't prove you wrong or anything, but if you're literally complaining about everything you might see how some people can stamp you as a whiny fanboy.
It doesn't help that you don't put one critical post up, but keep posting everywhere how absolutely horrible everything is while everyone else is busy enjoying the game. You're clearly hyperbolic in your points. (This is a fundamentally different game because vehicles can take less damage and the UI is similar except worse!)
Edit: I can testify that german t2 is suuuuuuuuper strong.
//TheoryCrafting:
Though some of my enjoyment might stem from the fact that I really liked DoW2, except for the oddly unresponsive units (at times anyways - get to cover you idiots!! ect) and poor mp match making (gfwl until retribution, but it was too late, it has no player base now). I actually would love it if CoH2 had a melee option, so long as it was balanced in some way. Like why can't I fix bayonets? Charging an MG nest head on should result in a squad wipe of course, but a flank should result in a melee battle between those 2 squads that takes abit to play out, and prevents the gun from firing.
I think if people spent less time thinking "Tycho hates CoH 2" and more time thinking "what things about CoH 2 does Tycho hate?" things would be more productive. When I have more than a dozen specific complains about a game that I think are very important and that I think are tangibly making it worse, it's frustrating to get replies like "the game is not bad" or "stop whining" or "you just like CoH more because you're used to it" instead of direct responses to my specific complaints. It's also frustrating to see replies like yours that suggest that I'm just somehow out to find negative things in CoH 2 so I can have excuses to hate it. That's totally not how it works. I was really looking forward to CoH 2. Like, really looking forward to it. I made hundreds of shoutcasts for the first game and got untold hours of entertainment out of playing it and watching other people play it. I was hoping I could do that again! I'd get another game as good as, or even better than, CoH! Back when I shoutcasted CoH it was in the stone ages where not a ton of people released videos, but now that I have my own YouTube channel I was really looking forward to sharing the CoH magic with my subscribers and getting a whole new set of fans. My shoutcasts had hundreds to thousands of downloads back when they were on some little site in the corner of the Internet and I was really looking forward to having a whole new fanbase of people on YouTube watching CoH 2 and talking about it and playing it. I was thinking of doing a CoH 2 podcast with a lot of my shoutcaster buddies and starting up my own weekly video show and everything!
So when my expectations for the game are disappointed, not in a vague "Tycho hates every game that isn't CoH" way but in very specific "Tycho is pretty sure he understands RTS games and he's seen a lot of these specific changes already implemented in Dawn of War 2, a game he played and enjoyed but which was very different from CoH, and Tycho thinks these changes are also present in CoH 2 and he's willing to talk about why he thinks all of them are present and why he thinks they aren't good changes," I'm sad! I wanted CoH 2, instead I got CoH + DoW 2. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but so far nobody has even tried that in this thread. They've just claimed I'm wrong, or in your case, you've just claimed that I'm a big mean grumpyface who hates everything.
First of all, that's untrue. Second, even if it's true, it doesn't fucking matter. The game has the issues I say it has, whether I'm a grumpy bum or not. Being upset doesn't make me wrong!
I'm not literally complaining about everything. I'm complaining about stuff on that list of problems I have that nobody wants to discuss because nobody seems to have any arguments against any of them at all, so instead they resort to stamping me as a "whiny fanboy," which, true or not, has absolutely no bearing on whether my criticisms are correct. Who the fuck cares about my personality? That's entirely irrelevant.
I think "posting everywhere how absolutely horrible everything is" surely counts as "one critical post," yes? As for people enjoying the game, I've already explained why that might be: either they enjoy DoW 2-esque games, or the stuff they enjoyed from CoH was at a lower level of skill/sophistication/whatever and thus survived the transition to the sequel.
Those two alone don't make it a fundamentally different game, but if you add the rest of my points, then yes it is a fundamentally different game. It's much more like DoW 2.
I pointed out some stuff I enjoy above in this post. As for whether I don't enjoy anything about CoH2, that's off base because I enjoy the game plenty, just like I enjoyed DoW 2, but I enjoy to the degree that I enjoy any good RTS game, which is to say way the fuck less than CoH. And it's also tough to just ignore the sadness I feel for the fact that it looks like we aren't going to get a worthy sequel to CoH, right now and potentially never in the future.
I think it's funny that you would tell me to stick with Men of War which is what I want out of an RTS, because it demonstrates that you didn't really pay attention to any of my criticisms, almost all of which apply to Men of War much more than they apply to CoH. MoW has basically no CoH-esque early game - you can buy a vehicle as your first unit. MoW has much simpler map design than CoH or CoH 2 because it doesn't even have any resource points or cutoffs. Men of War's resource system is completely fucked up if your goal is a game like CoH because it's divorced almost entirely from your on-field performance. Explosive damage vs. infantry is even higher in Men of War than it is in CoH and CoH 2 and it has almost no suppression power. There are no target tables in MoW and infantry health is fairly standardized. Vehicle health is even lower than in CoH 2 - basically every vehicle in MoW can be knocked out with 1 lucky shot. Teching choices are even more absent in Men of War than in CoH 2 because there is no teching at all. There are zero doctrines in Men of War, which is much worse than CoH 2's simplified doctrines. True sight is implemented with even more fidelity, allowing people to hide in bushes and stuff and thus leading to even easier flanking compared to CoH and CoH 2.
Again, it's hard to say this sort of thing without sounding mean, but you're basically in the same category as Fiatil, the category of "people who don't really get what's going on under the hood of an RTS game that makes matches play out in one way rather than in another way." It's not like you're an idiot or doing something wrong or anything like that, but you're just not really able to comprehend why I don't like CoH 2 because you don't really understand what it is I liked about CoH. I love Men of War, maybe even more than CoH (although probably not) but the two are fundamentally different games. CoH 2 does have a lot of Men of War-esque stuff, but that's why I think it's worse as a CoH game, not better. Your post is basically telling me "look Tycho, you loved pizza in the past, but if you really don't enjoy this chocolate coated piece of pizza, maybe you should go eat that chocolate you love so much." I love chocolate and I love pizza but I don't like them together.
I'm not bashing everything! I DO NOT THINK EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH COH2. You know how you can tell? I wrote a fucking list of the things I don't like about CoH2! If I thought everything in CoH 2 were fucked up, why would I have bothered with the list? I could've just said "everything" and been done with it! But obviously I don't dislike everything about CoH 2. It's not like it's Stalin vs. Martians or something. It's still a competent RTS. It's just not the sequel for CoH we could really use right about now.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Like, I remember a game yesterday where I lost early and then just got the entire map because the other guy just stayed in his base with everything during blizzard. It wasn't a very rewarding "outplay" by me.
1) - I think everyone could stand to calm down a little.
2) - If you think Tycho's purely thread-shitting instead of offering points where he feels the game has lost its way from the original CoH (points that can be argued), then oh boy it's a good thing Goomba's not around anymore to show you what that REALLY means. Although the hyperbole could stand to be ratcheted down a notch.
3) - Man there's way too much angst directed at DoW2, I love that game.
They got rid of tank traps, barbed wire, etc?
That's not good.
Woah hey I'm not disagreeing with you anywhere, I'm just curious what you thought about blizzards.
All I was trying to point out is how you could make people not react in the way you hate.
Blizzards make halftracks super important, and I'm not sure if I particularly enjoy it or not.
Barbed wires are still around.
Cover will stop the temperature gauge from going down. Fires warm them up. There's no reason to give a shit about temperature until your units are literally freezing to death, at which point cover's not going to help. The reason freezing is dumb is because it reduces mobility by forcing you to stop moving around in the snow, and cover doesn't help this at all. It just forces you to be static.
I don't think you really see what I mean. It doesn't make artillery more effective because you can still tell where the shot came from if you check the minimap. It just makes your eyes hurt more and makes it more difficult because the minimap is a piece of shit and you can't just use the shell trajectory because it's harder to see everything. You don't have to scout to find out what the enemy has any more than you did in CoH because everything that shoots at you is still lit up on the minimap. The information is all t here in the game and it's being communicated to the player - it's just being communicated in an awful way that's hard to see.
Tank accuracy vs. AT gun crews was minimal in Company of Heroes, which means if you tried to bumrush an AT gun with a tank, you could probably get behind it but it would take you forever to kill it. (With the removal of target tables this is no longer the case in CoH 2 and I suspect tanks have an easier job of blowing up AT guns now...) Saying that AT guns were "really hard to use" in CoH is, I suppose, correct in one way - you actually had to care about positioning and protecting your AT guns and setting up overlapping fields of fire and utilizing units that caused engine-damaging criticals and so on in order to take out enemy vehicles. You also didn't need "overwhelming numbers" - two was easily sufficient vs. one tank. US AT guns could pop armor piercing rounds on whatever gun had the flank shot, forcing the opponent to pull back, and Pak 38s could cloak, keeping them safe and making it much easier to set up flanks. This dynamic is gone in CoH 2 from what I can tell - the Russian AT gun special skill is an anti-infantry artillery barrage (as if this game needs more fucking anti-infantry artillery...) and I dunno what the German AT gun gets.
In CoH 2, basically any unit can cause an engine critical even if the vehicle is at full health, so instead of having to rely on sticky bombs/infantry support you can just shoot at the tank with your AT gun from the front. AT guns do more damage, so instead of having to worry about setting up ambushes and overlapping fields of fire and protecting against flanks, you can just roll the AT gun up and let it get a few shots off - any player worth their salt is then either going to immediately pull back or go for broke and rush the AT gun, which is sort of what happened in CoH except now it happens three times as fast and if the tank is a light vehicle it's already dead because those can die in one shot from the front.
I hope you're posting this stuff into their official beta forums as well, assuming Relic is actually paying attentions to the forums of course (I haven't actually visited). While quite a few of your points seem to be things that would take a fair amount of reworking to fix there's also a bunch that don't seem that hard to change and I hope they are genuinely using the beta to take advice on board and make changes before the actual release.
In other news, some posts that talk about a lot of stuff that I've been talking about for those interesting in reading more about the game:
http://www.coh2.org/topic/2781/4-things-that-would-make-coh2-instantly-better
http://www.coh2.org/topic/2323/visibility
http://forums.sega.com/showthread.php?478595-My-take-on-CoH-2-an-appeal-to-Relic&p=7928236&viewfull=1#post7928236
(That third one is on the beta forums, which everyone should have access to since everyone can now get into the beta by liking it on Facebook.)
They had this problem all through DoW2 and now CoH2 as well. Seems really hard to fix eh? They should even be porting back to base if the retreat timer runs out instead of becoming controllable...
Wii U - 'Nocero'
XBox ID - therealmasume
PS4 ID - realmasume
My biggest problem is that the only reliable AT I have as russians is the regular AT gun. No good infantry or tank based AT, except IS:s I guess.
That's the whole problem really, the only things the russians seem to be able to do is stall the inevitable death to the german tanks of doom. Russian armor is a joke, especially since the Germans have fausts. Also, the sniper isn't so hot without a cloak, IMHO. That was the good thing about snipers in the first place...oh wait, german snipers cloak, don't they? -,-
It just seems like the whole game was a great concept starting out then just kind of devolved into whatever it is. The Germans and a retooled american faction with worse infantry and no decent AT.
Wii U - 'Nocero'
XBox ID - therealmasume
PS4 ID - realmasume
But yeah, russian AT is an issue. The whole game changes if you can get a guard squad with a panzershrek. It's not wildly unbalanced though, we keep winning as soviets all the time. You can surprise kill a lot of tanks with button.
Also for anyone seeing this thread and huge text walls of "OH GOD IT'S SO BAD"...disregard a lot of that. Some complaints are valid, but it's still a damn fun game. Plus it is still in beta, and people haven't really had time to work out all the quirks. Initial reaction to most RTS games is "THIS IS OVERPOWERED HOLY FUCK" until people figure out the counters and why it isn't overpowered and such. Still needs some time in the oven, but it's still fucking delicious.
It was a response to many things, not just you. Also I disagree a great deal with your essential assertion that more serious in depth players won't like this game. I played the ever loving fuck out of the first COH and enjoyed the nitty gritty stuff and also enjoy this game. I think a lot of your assertions about the game stuff are your opinion and not necessarily incorrect. Most of my post wasn't directed at you either, so don't go getting all upset. I never accused you of saying it was un-fun or calling anything overpowered.
This power balance shift has bothered me as well. Decrewing an AT gun with the lethality of flamers, grenades and tanks is easy. The popularity of mortars ( their increased potency aside ) has made fielding AT guns a nightmare as well. I can count the times I've built AT guns in this beta on one hand in all likelihood. Upkeep is so punishing in this game that I don't like investing my resources into a static AT unit like AT guns. Stealing a Pak38 is rarely a bad idea though.
I sort of felt this way at the start too. I didn't really respect Conscripts. Russian armor seemed quite awful aside from the SU-85: which as a Tank Destroyer mostly just offsets the German's versatile and deadly armor. (I think that the SU-85 is decent/great AT though)
Since then I've come to realize that with certain doctrines Conscripts are insanely cost efficient. T-34s are an excellent low cost tank that can disable enemy (more expensive) tanks on a one to one basis with their ramming attack. In a sense the T-34 is like an un-upgunned Sherman: effective against infantry targets but should only engage armor in safe areas where flanking can happen and other AT support is available. Except that the T-34 is cheaper and can ram which gives it impressive AT utility. My least favorite thing about Russians is their reliance on doctrines. Conscripts don't scale for shit if you don't grab the doctrine that gives them PPSHs for 20 munitions and "Hit the Dirt!" which makes them very hard to combat without a grenade. On the other hand you have no fuel sinks without the heavy tanks from different doctrines. You have no general purpose AT infantry without Guards Rifle Infantry.
Also, both snipers can cloak in this game- they cloak passively in cover. The Russian sniper is very potent. I've had a 4v4 where my snipers racked up 99 kills (~3 squads of snipers, not all of which survived...).
I believe that the game can ( and should ) be improved with the changes that Tycho has been a proponent for: retooled UI, reworked upkeep system, maps (and maybe reworked resource systems) that take advantage of the supply line mechanic, expanded early game, etc.
I have enjoyed myself everytime I've booted the game up. I still worry about this game long term though. What does CoH2 really have going for it against CoH1? ColdTech and TrueSight. TrueSight's great but it's fairly simple. ColdTech... I am always a little on the fence with this mechanic. Blizzards and freezing do add depth, tactics and changes the pace of the game. A part of me can't help but feel it is slightly gimmicky though.
These two mechanics set CoH2 apart but at the same time I feel like it's hamstrung by forgetting lessons from the first game and trying to deviate in poor ways. CoH2 has to contend with expansions worth of content and balancing in CoH1. If it doesn't build on those lessons then it really will just be seen as a watered-down CoH1 with fewer factions by many. I know that some of my friends have already condemned the game as such.
I hate to restart this, but I fucking hate Dawn of War 2! So it's like people can like this game for other reasons than it being some sort of Dawn of War 2 clone! Please stop trying to speak for a bunch of people who disagree with you.
Er. It seems kinda silly that you're trying to say everyone else must just not be as good at the game as you, because we have different opinions. There are some people that disagree with you. What exactly are you using to quantify if someone is a nitty gritty player or a lolcasual? COH isn't exactly a high tournament uber balanced atmosphere anyway, due to the randomness of some things. What makes you a better player and more qualified to speak on the issues than others, and how do you know?
edit: you know what is dumb though? Those army customization things that give actual in game buffs and stuff. Because I played against level 20 people when I was level 9, and that's just lame.
NOTHING makes me more qualified to speak than anyone else, so SPEAK. TELL ME. TALK. ABOUT. THE. GAME. PLEASE. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. DISCUSS THE GAME INSTEAD OF ME. THIS IS NOT THE TYCHOCELCHUUU THREAD. CAN WE PLEASE ADDRESS MY CONCERNS. I will quote them and if you need me to elaborate on any of them then please ask me to do so: