Okay so I posted my thoughts for 1.5 and wanted to share my opinions on the new 2.0 update (new for me anyways, been awhile since I've played).
So the new graphics are fine, I've gotten used to them after a few weeks, it's still kind of hard to differentiate terrain at a glance, so I tend to use the low graphics version of the game as it has terrain icons. Also the new graphics seems to be more intense on my computer, so that's another reason why I use low graphics and don't love the new visuals, but that's just a me problem.
Okay now onto the gameplay: Damage sharing from 1.5 is still awful. Damaged units slow down and lag behind the front, don't heal easily, eat up upkeep costs, and encourage me to just suicide them forward. Additionally it discourages combining units together as it brings fresh units closer to the speed penalty. I know hospitals are still an extremely divisive issue, so maybe a new mechanic where you can send damaged units to their appropriate level production facility (ex. level 3 tank requires level 3 tank plant, etc.) and pay a fraction of the original training cost to reinforce them and improve their condition. And it takes a proportional amount of time to reinforce compared to lost health of the unit. A better alternative in my mind is just to have the ability to condense damaged units. It makes sense in my mind, no bringing back soldiers from the dead, just cannibalizing multiple damaged units and re-condensing them into a smaller number of new relatively healthy units. This might mess with the K/D stats, but I'm sure there's a solution there, I just haven't given it that much thought.
What happened to the names of battleships/carriers? I used to love seeing the ridiculous names I gave vessels when I clicked on them. Now I can only see the names when they're in the newspaper, and even then it's hard when there are multiple named vessels in a stack. Personally I'd love to see a little more customization of armies so you can better recognize them by renaming them. You probably still need to keep the existing naming convention for gameplay purposes, but having a customized name that shows up in parentheses next to it would be pretty cool in my opinion. Plus this would synergize pretty well with the new armies tab.
Also why was the different color for force marching removed? It was really helpful to see at a glance who was rushing and who wasn't and has helped make sure I didn't accidentally keep units on forced march for extended periods of time. Please add this back into the game, it would save me the stress of compulsively checking my units speed to make sure they're not force marching.
The new chat box is bad. Inactive mode seems worthless, just close the tab when you are not using it, and having to click the tab twice to open chat is super annoying. The box is way more intrusive on the screen, try adding an option for the text to be smaller so you can see more without it taking up the entire screen. It doesn't help that the chat box doesn't extend all the way to the edge of the screen anymore. I very rarely play on mobile so not sure how this looks there, but for PC I think it needs some serious improvement. Additionally, prior to this update, being able to see which chat (global/help/etc.) had new messages was really easy, but with 2.0 it's much harder to see, first you have to open the chat box (twice because of inactive mode), then open the drop down menu to see which chat has new notifications. It seems like this is just geared towards mobile users and it's just a major downgrade from what the chat box used to be.
This isn't a criticism of the 2.0 update, but the espionage tab has always needed some work. It's very hard to tell where your spies are in the tab, and when you move around the map, the spy locations move and reset too. I hope this get changed in a update soon, I've gotten used to it as it's been a thing for as long as I can remember, but this is something that should be fixed.
It would be nice to see the attributes that different levels of the same building provide, and knowing how many levels there are to certain buildings. There used to be an option where you could see what the max level would be and what it's benefits would be, but a more detailed option that shows all attributes of all levels of a building would be really nice.
Just a few things that were changed that I think are good additions: The concept that troops positions are revealed by interceptors only after they finish a full cycle of patrol was a good change, gives more power to those outclassed in the air but still have a potent ground-based AA force. Not sure if these are 1.5 changes or 2.0 changes, but resource balancing has been much improved, and building level corresponding to building times is really cool, it helps avoid the one decisive battle and instead forces players to continuously keep up with their buildings if they want to replace losses quickly.
