COH: Europe In Ruins

After he'd been here for a few weeks I thought I'd ask him how he was finding things, and to get his first impressions.

1. How did you find the mod?

I found the mod looking at COH youtube videos.
I had only played company of heroes a small amount at the time and thought that this looked really good. I had played maybe a dozen games of vCOH before i played EIR. I was mercilessly stomped for a while and I simply didn't improve. Then I played COHO for a bit and got back into EIR then and came back to stay maybe two months ago.

2. What convinced you to try it?

No base building. Definitely was the key thing for me. I love not having base building. I have played games with no base building but you start with all your units at once and that's less fun. Those games tend to overwhelm you at the beginning and it comes down to only a couple at the end in a really intense match. Well with EIRR you have that intensity and value on individual units throughout the entire battle and that adds so much to the game that it was missing before.

3. How are you finding the community?

The community really is not friendly at all to new people or veterans much either. There is a lot of trash talking of everybody it seems. For the most part people seem to like seeing each other online and playing but there seems to be moments of intense flaming. I think that may have to do with how frustrating a loss can be as the matches are so intense and you are trying your hardest to keep each unit alive and fighting but I'd still like to see less of that.
   With new people there are lots of just shameless stomps as well. I have a few friends who have tried the mod and naturally they are terrible at it but when I play them I 1v1 first and try not to smash their units. Like attack more individually or whatnot and give them advice so they have time to think and react and move their things around and that seemed to be really helpful.
   What bugs me is often you'll see a new guy come in and nobody wants to play on his team or somebody who is decent will but they'll always be this stack of people against him that they have no chance against. And too many times the decent players on their team will get frustrated at the loss and bash on the new guy which does nothing to help him retain interest and get more into the mod.

4. How do you find overall balance so far?

The overall balance seems decent. I mean it definitely takes more effort to play allies well. I'm a terrible terrible axis player but I can hop on an axis account and do half decent in a game with no doctrine buffs as my axis are all lvl 5. But on my allied companies I have to be on top of my game playing my best to do well and that's with a lvl 9 company.
    I think the axis aren't so much overpowered as they always can have the right tool for the job while allies lack that. I think units like rangers and assault engineers need to be improved so they are more viable and used. The howitzer could also use some slight buffs to make it more fearsome. Currently it can be ignored most games and it really won't change the battle much at all. Marines are a great allied unit and I think they should be made flat out available to the US in the inf company with rangers being a tad cheaper with more upgrade options and being available to all US doctrines as their only version of an elite infantry. not mirror balance or anything but a similar role to grenadiers; a pricier beefier mainline infantry.
   I think the british could use some work here and there just to remedy some little issues people have but in general strength the British seems to be a good faction. I think PE could use a little finagling with their inf costs as they get very strong inf for very cheap but This also doesn't seem that bad, more just a case of US a bit too weak.

5. Favourite thing about the mod?

My absolute favorite thing about the mod is no base building. As well as smaller pop limits. It really brings the fighting down to a smaller scale where each unit is more significant which really adds to the intensity. It also isn't too small where it becomes a unit versus unit micro shootout.

6. Least favourite?

Least favorite thing is the people who will go into a game knowing full well they can easily defeat the opponent and think that is fun. Smurfs also kill me. I will play a stomp or not as long as the person isn't a jerk about it but it really bothers me when people make different accounts pretend to be new and then enjoy "oh haha he thought I was new but I completely stomped all his stuff."

7. Your most wanted addition to the mod?

I would really like the warmap to go in. It really seems like it is interesting and could much more quickly and easily do things to fiddle with balance.

I also really want to see some attempts at beefing up allies just a bit preferably in a way that expands their viable builds. Like mortar and howitzer improvements making inf atg supported better or tweaks to shermans to make them viable as the support backbone. Things along those lines where the non useful units are tweaked a little to be more useful and thus make US capable of more varied strategies.

8. Preferred faction & doctrine?

I am a diehard US player who plays infantry. Every time I ever play COH of any sort this is what I go with and I'm not sure why. I just like the way US units work even though they are a bit underpowered in my opinion.

9. How would you describe your playstyle?

Playstyle? Medium mobility infantry with AI tank support backed up by ATGs (only feasible US AT) and I really like the idea of this all running around with a mortar or two covering or a howitzer but those typically don't get thrown into my mix for lack of pop effectiveness.

10. Favourite map?

My favorite map is probably bastion as I like the intense city fighting and city defense. St. Winn is also fun for that but a little less so. I also really like Red Ball Express but haven't played too many 3v3 maps.

now...why r these called parting gifts?

I'm not playing anymore, don't visit the site much anymore, not really involving myself at all, so yeah :)

Do what I do now, stomp noobs in Vcoh with arty spam

then you're the noob...sigh

ahh o kay. no more newsletter :(

Another good interview! Very interesting, and it's nice to see a new player, I think if more new players got on vent, maybe we can make a noob channel, this way new players can find each other easily and get games with each other and mentors can join games too (maybe a good player on each side, and a noob on each side).

Oh please God, help me find a way to get more new players on vent..........

put tits on vent, i m sure that will work

tits will help keep me on vent.

I've actually seen quite a few new players on vent lately. But the first thing anyone asks a new player is "are you on vent?" i still dont get the people who refuse to use it.

i think it's just intimidating for the new guys. I didn't use vent much when i started although I hadn't ever used it before.
It's a bit intimidating at first especially if people on vent are ticked off at noobs for being noobs. But i've seen a bunch of recent new people on vent and helped a couple out with random issues.

(http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/5594/frveralone.jpg)

...you would have to understand social aspects of going to ventrilo, thus i dont get people who dont get it why otehrs dont like to go vent/TS

first - game should be playable without this req.

because,


1) there are also introvert people
2) believe it or not even older ppl play games, and you can be sure that i in my 30ties dont give fuck about some french boy raging about PC game or other petty problems. i was young too, i was raging, i  understand it,  problem is younger ppl dont understand other side... so for u it may seem this is good for better coordination and gameplay - for me it is detrimental because instead of concentrating on play my brian is procesing insults which are useless and the person would not have said it before me IRL without me kicking his head of and pissing in his neck... Trust me I tried several times I even gave warning to communication beeing constructive or I mute/leave... same scenario again again, so why bother with muted vent, i dont  go there at all...
3) most important - why u use such piece of shit communication sw as vent is? like GUI/UI i cant even speak, tried to setup mic like 3 times without success, controls are shit, everything shit and outdated...
mind u i am from IT industry and there is saying to not to change shit which is already working, but if u really want ppl to participate in this kind of communication and provide them with good apropriate tools for it... SO Y U NO SETUP TS SERVER? lol, like almost everybody atleast has it or knows it

teamspeak is shit. just overly complicated with shit you don't need.
I spend 15 minutes turning off the audio notifications in ts3...

also the presence of bigdick on teamspeak is HIGHLY exaggerated and it also cant be used to activate him from sleeping nazi droid mode

basically useless

sounds like noobs are playing with the wrong people.... and once again somebody things allies are UP... interesting

I don't see how vent is complicated, all you have to do is set a speak button and you're ready.

if axis were so bad i wouldnt get dodged so much on my axis accounts, sry4carpartymoscow

Well either way, i think people need to be more open about playing with new people, but also some people accusing others of stacking/stomping and other blah blah blah, they must sit and remember some other times noobs have showed up and weve tried to help like.... Vermillionhawk. We cannt do shit if the person isent willing to help themslefves. a Good example of a "Good" new player is Toxic, if anyone has seen him on vent prowling around. As soon as he got the mod, he hops and vent and asks various people for help, starts up conversation and makes friends quite quickly. People played with him even though he was new,i know i did, and i know many others did as well.

The other HUGE THING that discourages helping noobs is, Lets give a very easy example that occurs repeatatly

Proguy567 is trying to helpout noobguy98 by playing on his team in a 2v2. So these 2 are waiting in a game for maybe some other not so great guys to wander in, so they can have a "slow paced" game that will last more then 5 minutes. Suddenly 2 people proguy567 has never seen before enters the game.... slighty susprcious and confused, proguy and noobguy ready up and start the game. As proguy predicted the game ended in frustration becuase he had to fight 6 snipers on the field at once. Poor noobguy doesnt know how to deal with such retardation and just sort of... gives up. Not his fault, but of course proguy, ALREADY frustrated from fighting spam, would get kind of mad at the new guy, when it actually isent his fault.

Its becuse of fucking cowards who show up with smurf names to stomp noobs all day becuase they enjoy games that end before the 5 minute mark.

me and morka made skaffa quit in less than 5min yesterday,lol
2x Joint Ops can be retarded  :P

Also, he didnt have a noobguy546 on his team, he had a goodguy325.

But why bother bringing this up smurf?

lol,...americans ^^

wow u got the bullseye, but unfortunately its true

same happens if new guy is alone in a 3v3 and the other side will fill up with players that played much longer very fast.

dont u see, hes proud of beeing a pro assault spamer

Well hes right, I dont think these really anyway to stop it to be honest.  My p4 killed his churchhill with ablative armour.  We start with 31 pop, call out 2 volks with assault, a pak, a p4 and an mg, while Smurf brings out 2 stugs and 3 volks with assault, we then each pop the ability that makes everything run and its gg.   Its really brutal and bullshit in my opinion, theres really nothing else like it.