Company of Heroes 2 beta

[Razgovory]

TBH the double patronymic does sound kind of weird. Should be something like Lev Avramovitch Bergstein or something.

Presumably Lev Avramovitch didn't sound Jewish enough.  I've played though several of the single player missions, I wish they would get to the ones were I build bases.  I mean, that is supposed to be the meat and potatoes of these type of games.

[The Brain]

I miss the old style RTS where you could fire up a skirmish on a random map.

[JonasSalk]

I played the beta a fair amount and honestly I just did not like the changes in the game. It didn't feel like CoH at all. I couldn't keep up with everything that was going on in the game and it annoyed me too much. I see that many reviews are saying the game is definitely not as amazing as CoH is, so I think a lot of people think exactly what I do.

[Razgovory]

Yeah, it's disappointing.  It's almost a step back.

[Ancient Demon]

Yeah, it's disappointing.  It's almost a step back.

Please explain. Is there too much micro compared to the first game (it was going in that direction with the expansions)?

[Razgovory]

The campaign had to little base building, and the skirmish mode removed a lot of features.  For instance, the Soviets can't build bunkers now, and nobody can build those neat medic stations from the first game.  The soviets had an interesting mechanic in the campaign where you can summon a unit of conscripts every 30 seconds to reinforce existing squads but it isn't used in any form in the skirmish and multiplayer.  In fact a lot of the balance of multiplayer is tossed out in favor of grinding out advantages with XP.

[JonasSalk]

Yeah, it's disappointing.  It's almost a step back.

Please explain. Is there too much micro compared to the first game (it was going in that direction with the expansions)?

At the current pace of the game, there was simply too much micro involved. I couldn't keep up. I'm not a South Korean Starcraft player, so I didn't try to memorize the keyboard shortcuts and all that like I did with CoH. That probably hindered my ability, and part of it was the "newness" of the Soviets and not fully understanding their abilities, and part of it was probably that I hadn't played CoH in a couple of years, either.

[Razgovory]

I never memorized keyboard shortcuts, this one is suppose to be much easier on that front.  It uses like 4 keys for everything.

[crazy canuck]

I hadnt played the original CoH but I had downloaded it from one of the many Steam sales over the years for cheap.  After reading some of the comments that CoH2 wasnt as good as the first one I decided to give the original a try.

Wow that is a really fun game.  I wish I had tried it sooner.

Not sure if it is worth picking this one up based on the reviews though.  I got burned picking up Diablo III based on how much I had enjoyed DI+II.  Dont want to make that mistake again.

[Queequeg]

Could DLC or an add on make it better?

[Razgovory]

Could DLC or an add on make it better?

Anything is possible.  It looks like they are planing to release at least 4 DLCs.  They have this Theater of War mode that is essentially a collection of challenge maps and skirmishes.  The first one is for 1941 (and plan to produce one for each year of the war), unfortunately it's not well balanced.  The Soviets can produce a lot of T-34s very cheaply and the Germans don't get anything that can really counter it.  The German tank is the Panzer IV with the short barreled howitzer cannon.  They can also build a StuG Self-propelled gun with the same cannon. Neither is effective in tank to tank battles.  Curiously there is no T-26 or BT series tanks which were the mainstay of the Soviet tank inventory in 1941.  The Soviets can produce a light T-70 tank, but that wasn't put in to production by 1941.

[Queequeg]

So is this worth it?

[Razgovory]

So is this worth it?

I enjoy playing the Skirmishes, but if I were you, I would wait till there is a decent steam sale before buying.  I found the single player campaign disappointing due to the lack of base building for over half the missions.  The skirmishes are fun, but it feels stripped down.  Several features that were in the first game don't exist or are cut down.  The commander trees are cut down, so now there is only one path and there is a lot of redundancies in them.  Many commander paths will share abilities and units with other paths.  Soviets can't build bunkers (God only knows why), and the medic stations from the first game are gone.  The Soviets in Skirmish mode don't feel that different from the Americans in the first game.  Oddly the game doesn't give you as much information about units as it did in the first game.  A unit in Company of Heroes might have a rating of 7 against armor 5 against infantry.  In this game you have no idea.  There is no ratings.  AI is a better I'll give them that.

[Queequeg]

What's urban combat feel like?

[Razgovory]

What's urban combat feel like?

There is very little of it.  In the Skirmish maps there is only one that could be called urban, and it's not exactly densely packed.  The single player game has some urban maps, but mostly the building are already destroyed and essentially function as corridors.  I've not seen any of the maps where you have a nice orderly city that gets blown all to hell due to combat like in the first game, which was something I really liked.