Company of Heroes

CoH can't seem to help having no less than a good handful of 'OP' units to choose from. They could be balanced if they had been arranged in any sort of meaningful manner with regard to their cost and time of arrival, but for the most part they don't.

In my new CoH I would combine a very small element of CoH Online, hero units, while scaling down the effectiveness of all other troops on the field. Basic units would be attached to interlocking tech-trees, allowing for a higher degree of faction strategies that are currently lacking. Because these power units are effective, they must either a. have a hardcap or b. have a very high upkeep
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So I haven't played CoH in a while, mainly because I, like many, could predict the frustrations that would lie ahead trying to balance out ToV's new units into a cohesive 1v1 and/or 2v2 experience. Before the core multiplayer mechanics had even been 2/3 straightened out, on one level or another, any seasoned CoH player could see that this was coming. It took a good year before the damages from OF were mended to even modest balance at best.

So I didn't play or watch replays for 4 months. Yesterday I download a replay. I wish I could tell you I was surprised...

This giant elephant cannon almost the size of the always imbalanced Marder III, was negating the point of even getting a M8 or Sherman by first dispatching of them, and then the depot from where they came - oh, they were also pretty good against rifles, too.

Great, more insanely powerful units for a game which already has fireflys, rangers, g-wagons, commandos, trenches, king tigers, tigers, king panthers, calliopes, kangaroos, def med bunkers, paks; you get the picture.

It's fine for a game to have power units, but not when they come into play at some point in the game where their price/effectiveness can hugely determine the games outcome. To be honest, it's hard to say if CoH could ever balance super units with 4 completely different tech trees and faction gameplay mechanics that are clear as day and night.

In the sample of several games I watched, if the US couldn't completely suffocate the whers foothold on even 1/4 of the map, the wehr would inevitably wind up with more manpower than the US and proceed then proceed to wipe them out in some crazy comeback, usually with the arrival of some behemouth tank or by raining down stukas. This is much like what the Brits do to the wehr, that is unless the wher can wipe 'em out early with a fireworks display by pioneers and stormtroops, or even better yet, a T3 Gwagon rush.

Whether their endgame boost came from the Wehr troops lower upkeep, universal scalability, recyclability (medbunkers), or the arrival of a uber lategame unit - it becomes clear that wehr has the best chance at survivability and eventual victory than any other faction in the game.

You want to know why there were so many perceived wehr fanboys on this forum, it's most likely because the faction has numerous stratigies to approach any given 1v1 or 2v2 scenario. They also have the greatest unit variety, plus the most awesome late-game abilities and units.

Wehr even has great AT options at every level of the game - I don't think anybody will deny that - and it almost completely negates any meaningful armor presence on the field beyond lightning hit and run tactics that an M8 can provide. Their AI isn't great, but every unit has a muni upgrade/ability that can bolster it. Even volks can wipe out vetted rifles with assault or mp40's if you're not wary.

Because of the great wehr AT presence, the US game focus shifts heavily from infantry over to armor. Rangers or Airborne are the best choice when you need to knock the wehr out of the game quickly before they mushroom into the 3rd reich, a situation which happens pretty much every game. Otherwise it's go with Armor and slug it out in the end game.

Why not just overhaul this steaming pile of imbalances, borrow ideas from CoH Online and have the super call-in units be more powerful with either a hard cap, or simply have an upkeep that wouldn't make it beneficial in possessing more than a few. Make all supporting units decent at best without some type of muni upgrade/ability or combined attack (this obviously requires cohesive tech trees and game mechanics - something which CoH currently suffers) and we may be able to play a CoH that is even a semblance of what could be considered a proper, competitive RTS game.

Relic was right, they were telling the truth when they said they wanted to use the CoH franchise as a platform for the future. It was a platform to exploit profit; adding game additions that focused on immediate financial benefits rather than the games final state definitely reveals where Relic stands with CoH.

IMO, of course.

This post has been edited by audios89: Nov 19 2009, 10:29 AM

lol

I don't see why people are complaining so much, this is probably the best balance we've ever had outside of that brief 2.400 week. The PE still suck, but I'm not sure if the current PE vs USA matchup is worse than the 2.301 matchup, and certainly everything pre-2.301 was so unbalanced its not even worth the point of comparing.

LoL?

kangaroos are balanced? paks are balanced? piospam is balanced? PE is balanced?
2.301 was much better than this

its alot better balanced than anything pre-2.301.

that short 2.4 week was awsome

Teleporting Wehr MGs. 2.400 was otherwise near perfect.

Yea nowadays brits take skill to play unlike in 2.301. I can understood ppl not liking the change.

This post has been edited by Nimitz: Nov 19 2009, 18:47 PM

Imo, the idea of "Hero" system rts is just down right lame. No offense to you if you like that sort of thing but I find it idiotic. I want to play a strategy game, not a hero builder. CoH is pretty much the only game I can think of that provides strategy, intense game play and a large degree of historical accuracy. Hero units would just throw all that in the shitter.

²

Games with heroes are crap. That's all i am gonna say here.

do you need skill to use kangaroos?

I don't get why people say 2.400 was the best. It was only around for a week, which is definitely not long enough to decide whether it was good or not. 2.600 was considered much better than now on it's first week...

Super tanks are kinda like heroes.

Allies are easier (not necessarily better) than axis in 1v1 and 2v2. FACT.

The part about the Marder III take away all your credibilty I'm afraid...

Balance is getting better, there are some clear units now which need attention instead of whole factions. (Roo, Pak, Stag, strafe)

I agree about this endless bitching being unwarranted, but it looks like a good sign that people can only find 10~ things to bitch endlessly about, the downside is, just about everyone takes advantage of those.

I've had a great time with this patch so far. In my opinion, vCoH matches are as balanced as I've seen them in a while, Paks don't bother me at all, Piospam is bullshit but beatable, and roos are really the only outright broken aspect.

Compare this to 2.301: insane strafe, Commandoes, overrepaired Cromwell rushes, ACs that torn infantry to shreds, mortar pits that countered everything and took forever to kill...

People will always find something to bitch about. That's human nature.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see a balanced CoH without any hero units, but it just seems to me that we've never gotten a real sense of balance since the introduction of OF. There are always OP units which tend to massively sway the state of gameplay. Those units have always been spammable in one way or another whether it's because they arrive too early and/or with a fairly low cost.

Shortly, I think one of this games most glaring points is that Wehr have excellent AT at any point of the game which almost negates the point of even getting armor. This makes US infantry-centric and if they can't get the balance of callin rangers or AB right, may as well make hero units? It would seem to be the simplest course of action to me because Relic can't get the balance right otherwise.

Actually, I would say PE and Brits need to be redone as factions. When you take away all the OP units covering both factions, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that they are underpowered due so some very poor design.



If Relic cannot balance a game without hero units, what makes you think they can balance a game with hero units?

What is this guy talking about? Hero units like Rambo?