Profile of Inverse

vCoH's problems were a lack of viable map options and a lack of timely support for large issues, such as the burst bug, Pak sniping, and ToV unit imbalance. Those issues have been improved upon with the Steam Workshop and more frequent updates in CoH2.

Nobody complained about the gameplay, which is why it's hard to understand why it was changed so drastically. The only real complaints revolved around ToV units (which were largely developed by the team that created CoH2) and snipers (which split the community; lots of people love them, lots of people hate them).

EDIT: To clarify, this is why I believe many vCoH players are frustrated with CoH2. I'm not saying Relic's approach won't work, I'm just saying I think it's the wrong way to do things, and it's clear that a lot of other people aren't particularly thrilled by it either.

The way I see it is, Relic had two directions they could've taken the game in. They could've said, "Hey, we want to turn every vCoH player into a CoH2 player, so we're going to aim for 95% conversion rate on those players and make a game that we think they're going to want to play, and we're going to rely on the word of mouth from those players as well as marketing/stream/other traditional avenues to bring in new players." But instead, they said, "vCoH was great, but it didn't have the mass appeal we need to make a game based on DLC work. So instead of catering to the vCoH audience and getting most of them into our game, let's aim for a 50% conversion rate and make a game that we believe will appeal more to the type of person who wasn't interested in vCoH in the first place."

Only time will tell if their approach is the correct one really. I think comparing player numbers from similar times in the lifecycles of the two games is silly because you're comparing a sequel to an original IP, and you're comparing two completely different games with different levels of depth and different business models that appeal to completely different audiences. I personally wouldn't be happy with 6000 concurrents a day when your previous game had that amount and more a year ago.

But this is a thread about strategy in CoH2 and how that can be made more interesting, so let's stick to the subject at hand.

Why?

If you had three riflesquads grouped up close enough to all die to a goliath as it was driving toward you and you were shooting at it, I'd hazard to guess it was your own damn fault. That's like running three squads straight into an MG and then bitching about how bullshit MGs are. They're only bullshit if you don't know how to handle them.

Goliaths were slow and did barely anything to retreating infantry. All you had to do was pay attention enough to split your squads and retreat the one the goliath chased while focusing it with the others.

Can't play would love to cast some games though if I have time, we shall see.

I really don't think that commanders should become a crutch for the lack of strategic depth in this game (free or not). COH2 as a tactics/strategy game should be primarily about that. If it's lacking in that field, then Relic should strive to improve it, not cover it up with commander variety.

The thing is, no matter how many commanders you add, once you get past the wow factor of discovering a new ability, you're left with a bland strategy game (not that I think it's bland, but I would like to see more depth).

Commanders should not be that integral to COH. They are supplements to a playstyle and you should not be required to "have 'em all". That model has worked for MOBA games because the hero unit and its abilities are all you have. In COH, every base unit is important and each one should have a specific and meaningful role.

I agree, it's a bad solution, but the only way to fix the base game would be a major redesign, and that just isn't going to happen until an expansion, and even then it's pretty doubtful. But with the recent change to increase the number of CPs, I think Relic could make commanders a lot more complex and give them a lot of abilities and upgrades that could approximate the kind of strategic options that made vCoH so much fun. If they lock those additions behind a paywall, however, it just makes the situation worse.