Your Top 3 idea for diversifying the meta.

After trying out some new strategies in 4v4, it's become clear that the only way to succeed is to follow the meta to hell and beyond. That's not fun. It goes against the whole spirit of Company of Heroes and wargames in general. Build orders aren't fun, they're tedious and depressing.

So, in the interests of diversifying this frankly boring meta, here's my 3 most important suggestions for making things more interesting and more diverse in company of heroes.

Please add your own. I hope Relic takes not of this and begins to seriously think about changing up the game's standard builds, because in all honesty, the gameplay is trash at the moment, dominated by elite units facing off against weak units, effective armour and AT stacked on one side and brainless blobbing everywhere. It's not fun.

My 3 suggestions:

1. Make Allied non-doctrinal armour effective.

There's no reason to build any non-doctrinal armour when you know that it'll be destroyed the second a panther or KT shows up. There's no point in them currently. The only effective allied non-doctrinal tank is the jackson, and it has a pile of problems in and of itself.

2. Rework doctrines.

Certain doctrines have it all. They have the artillery strike, elite infantry, an awesome tank, or some combination of the above. Other doctrine have none. That means certain doctrines are awesome whilst other doctrines are overused. I doubt half the Soviet doctrines are used in the current meta. That's not good. It'd really boring. I can certainly say the same for Ostheer. Certain doctrines you'll find are always in a player's deck. Doctrines need to be diversified, balanced and certain abilities reworked. The synergies as well need to be looked at (Jaeger armour for example, has the ability to call in an elite tank destroyer, yet at the same time has the power to call in recon and a bombing strike to knock out any artillery built to counter that TD

3. End blobbing.

Blobbing has to be the worst part of Company of Heroes 2. For a game that prides itself on authenticity and tactics, blobs laugh in the developer's faces. Well set up MG? kill it with a blob. Effective defense? Kill it with a blob. Medium tank? Hit it with the blob. Blobs need to be whacked hard with the nerf bat. I'd recommend a debuff and heavy damage and accuracy modifiers for units closely clumped together.

There's some of my suggestions. There's a lot more I could add. Currently the meta is stale and mouldy, and I'd rather it wasn't like that.

Totally agree with you. I'd also like to see that call-ins units have some time to show up on the field, just like the regular units.

1) Give heavies any disadvantage. There is no reason not to go for them.

2) There should be no unit that is weaker then non upgraded conscripts or puppchen, bring all underpowered units to their level to increase diversity.
There should be no ubermensh troops with no disadvantage-make obers buy their LMG.

3) Allied AT.. Don't know, 45/50 muni per zooka? 50% deflection damage or different temporary crits for PTRS?

1) Remove OKW from the game. Relic has to admit that they made a mistake. I would pay for it, the same amount that I paid to get it.

Panthers who gets +50 kills just from the mg
Stukas who makes supportweapons useless
Obers
Blobbs that makes mediums useless
Kingtiger

2) Change callins

3)Make Mgs a bit more viable

1) Commander rework (Swap King Tiger for Panzer IV J, etc, etc).
2) End Blobbing. Too effective for my liking. Make support weapons more effective.
3) Rework Soviet, OKW, USF teching & Bind Call in to tech. I'd rather see things come out late like Ostheer T4 instead of the super fast-paced game we have now where it's an arms race.

Most of my counter arguements come from a 2v2/3v3/4v4 standpoint and do not necessarily relate to 1v1 balance.


I don't see why people complain so much about the KT as a mainly Axis and Okw player lately I find compared to the other choices, it's bad for the cost, as if it comes across any kind of IS2 or Medium allied blob back by Jacksons it just dies, especially if it gets an unlucky Engine crit or crew Shock.

It's speed is slow and it has low range, it's damage is ok at best until you get vet 3 or above.

Again people who whine about Stuka, ok it's a set line but that line also has Scatter on it, so it can 1. Wreck EVERYTHING. or 2. Completely miss. - Also, spread shit out more! It's like blobbing in to a katy strike after you hear it fire - no excuse.

Also find it funny people complain about Panthers MG's, they have to all be frontal facing at infantry and for a decent length of time unless you're in red cover, it's not like it's a squad wipe machine.

However I agree with almost all of the other points made already in this thread. Especially the Tech trees and call in tech.

- Morale bar, like in the old Close Combat Series.

1. Rework of call-ins (fuel penalty, limit for heavies or connected to teching - or everything)

2. Remove shrecks from volks to prevent shrecks blobs. Volks get Pzfaust and AI upgrade instead. Obers can be upgraded with LMG34 or shreck/double shrecks.

3. HMGs should be reliable vs infantry. Currently, any squad will just throw a grenade and force the HMG to retreat. Suppressed units shouldn't be able to throw grenades. This would also discourage blobbing to an extend.

Give factions meaningful global upgrades. Give people something to spend money on that isn't just more units. Would exponentially increase strategic options overnight. CoH2 doesn't have a balance problem, it has a design problem. Even with perfect balance, you're going to have a stale meta; it's unavoidable here.

I've been talking about CoH2 having a stale meta since before it even came out; it's inevitable with the game's design. Unless a major redesign happens, the only variety you're ever going to see is going to come from commanders, because the base factions are so linear and bland. Patches might mix things up every once in a while, but eventually it's going to settle down into the same thing over and over again.

A year old now but still relevant: http://www.coh2.org/topic/12973/strategy-in-company-of-heroes-2

And also referenced in Peter Qumsieh's article on compelling game design: http://pqumsieh.com/2014/01/08/compelling-game-design/

if just any squad can force your mg to retreat its because
A. your opponent already knew it was there
B. that mg was all alone
C. you just want to have it easy, set and forget and keep the area clean


if its 5 infantry squads vs 4 infantry squads + hmg

the one with hmg will win every time
(well maby not if it's an okw blob with obers and fallshirms, that crazy long range dps)


but yeh we want the hmg to block of one side and cap the other with our 4 infantry
oh my wet dream: what if the mg42 could cover its entire arc as good as other mg's cover their small arc

and concerning meta, what inverse said
okw has all it needs in its basic units, by default
mobile infantry for capping power with good AT and good AI
no wonder they Always play the same way, no wonder there is only 1 way to counter it.
give them choices to mix and match mobility, AI and AT

1) ONE heavy tank per player (as it was in vCOH)
2) Fuel upkeep for Call in Tanks (enhances non-doct tanks)
3) Give OKW stable income, eliminate shreks on volks (give it pios or tank busters) & Obers buy LMG for 120 muni (like paras)
4) Update old commanders from Ostheer and Soviets (80% of them are non competitive).

All i want is to Relic changing something really meaningful. A really really big change. A major rework.

Relic, please do something. Something other than bug fixes here and there. I'd like to have fun playing this again.

Increase the suppression of all mgs and there will be no problem with blobs anymore.

debuff Cons and increase PPhS and Molotov.

Increase Rifles refresh costs to 30/32 or maybe the upkeep to stop rifle spam.

t34/76 should be cheaper or tier 3 should be cheaper.

Axis Panzerwerfer reload time should be faster.

obersoldaten damage decrease slightly.

Kubel should do more dmg.

shocktroops should get lower health points or decrease armor

PTRS should make more dmg to Tanks.

Increase Penetrations of all AT guns.

Decrease King Tiger and Jagdtiger rear Armor.

Increase StuG 3 Ausf. G and E front Armor.

Improve Brummbär and Sherman Bulldozer. Last Patch they were fine but after this f***** howitzer Patch it is just horrible.

decrease PanzerFaust and AT nade penetration.

decrease Stuka dmg or increase Reload time.

Tiger Ace shouldnt shoot as far like a jackson.

Set Tiger Ace Pop cap to 50.

1. Readjust infantry AT to give some sort of parity across factions, not just Axis

2. A *big* commander cull / overhaul... less is more sometimes MOAR (look at vCoH). I like commander variety but the dead ones need a shake up.

3. A design solution that limits heavy tanks and increases 'the dance' of the early-mid game.

To be fair, we asked for '3' and in the March Deployment last year we got it. CoH2 needs another refresh akin to that patch in terms of a tactical step-change.

Edit -

Allowing players to have an Ardennes Assault-style commander interface, with in-depth unit customization and tweaks for competitive games would be all sorts of awesome. It needs re-working, of course, but intelligence bulletins could segue into the custom options for each commander. Basically, you make your own commander from a suite of agreed sub-commanders and bulletins.

EXAMPLE

I have a template for a commander I'll name '2 v 2 WEHR' In that I'll buy upgrades from my intel bulletins that make my gren MGs cheaper and increases mortar damage and health. Then I drop in my Blitz Assault commander. That allows me to select one or two of those commander abilities (up to six agreed mix and match) so I go for smoke and tiger.

-Rework of old doctrines
- " of call ins
- " " stock units and tech
- " " vet1 abilities
- " " ...

Relic ruined this game for me. i stoppled playing when OKW was introduced. more stupid than vCoH british.
I quit completely. i ocassionaly check the forums to see if they fixed anything, but they haven't.

remove OKW
make it not all about doctrinal heavies
minimize RNG.

also: take a look at DOW2. that community is still playing that game through a community created promod, and it's a lot more popular than this game. (based off youtube cast view counts) they even added their own custom created faction. the meta is not stale, and there's barely any balence whining, completely overpowered things.

that game has orks, tyranids, space marines, chaos, imperial guard, eldar, grey knights... a lot more factions than this game. and they have excellent balence, so you know the communinity can do a great job if they work together!

honestly this game just needs a promod, balence needs to be done by the players; not by relic. they couldn't balence their way across a flat road.

1.-
-Panther
-KT
-Jackson

Panther and KT are balanced regarding the jackson.
A player with a KT stroll around the map cleaning everything in your path. In 3v3/4v4 is very common to see 1KT or 2KT together, because it is very difficult to bring them down if they are well protected.
The Soviets left without any effective tank.
These three tanks exceed effectiveness medium and heavy tanks enemy, therefore must be nerf.

2.-
Scope, Smoke, Blitz in some vehi/tanks is OP
Troop Training. Buy VET, It is a great advantage are 3v3/4v4. All units with VET3. Who can with this?
VET1/Smoke of TigerACE abilities should be removed. It's a good tank will not spoil

3.-
Spam is complicated. But bazoo/shreck should hit 1/5 of health of medium tanks, not half.
Should be able to use the ATnades axis/allies, with more effectiveness in heavy tanks.

My idea to fix all Problems in CoH2: Another competent Company then Relic should design the game. Relic is completely unable to give this game a good design or listen to the community. The meta is a failure from relic because they dont have any idea what they a doing and they are ignoring all the fans since 2 years.

ill make it short and sweet

1. lower tech costs of ostheer and Soviet Union and make Soviet core units good

2. Nerf Schrecks and create or buff other AT options for OKW

3. redo some of the call-ins/commanders and commander system