.......
CoH1 was a game.
CoH2 was pretty much a mod to CoH1, reusing assets and code everywhere while stripping everything that made CoH1 belowed only to add it back later after their "casualization beam" failure.
CoH3 was made from scratch as new engine had to be written for it, so things were not hard coded as they were in previous games, therefore development time had to go into engine itself instead of using engine to build on, couple that with experienced developers and designers leaving and you have release CoH3. It got to where it should be with 1.4 and is mechanically superior to CoH1 and 2. What's missing now is QoL of low relevance, hence it is not in yet.
DoW3 was management of relic completely losing touch with playerbases of DoW (DoW1 players are not the same as DoW2 players) and their attempt to cater both spectacularly failed on both fronts, the game had absolutely nothing to do with CoH3 or vice versa.
As a casual player. are you able to conjecture why Relic even bothered to waste time making a new engine? I am grateful for your brief analysis as to how COH2 was created - so why not simply adapt COH2 to COH3 and cut out the time and expense of the new engine?
Second, it is evident that COH1 concentrated on 1v1 and LV play, while the introduction of the 'casualisation beam' in COH2 led to a concentration on team games with plenty of Armour and Arty, to the extent that by the end of Relic's active development of COH2, balancing was concentrated on team games.
The consequence of the first 3 COH iterations is that the 1v1 players from COH1 tended to look with disdain on COH2, while the team players from COH2 seem less than enamoured with COH3.
My other questions are:
- You state that Relic failed to satisfy either group of DOW players. But it looks as if history may be repeating itself with COH3. Is it not possible with a new engine to apply different balancing and values to team games as opposed to 1v1? e.g. is it possible to create different BGs for team games only which could not be selected for 1v1?
- Since developers presumably wish to maximise their income, would Relic have been wiser to concentrate on team games rather than 1v1?
- Is the relatively crude COH3 UI indicative of the loss of ability and/or experience of those Relic Devs who departed the game pre-COH3?
Same questions to Tiger Baron
PS Let's lay off with the fisticuffs, please.