My real problem with COH3

How about a fun tourney with a 100% abandon chance mod.

I'd watch that

Speaking purely theoretically, I actually think 100% abandonment chance would be far superior to whatever low % chance it is in COH2 right now (though obviously I would rather it be 0%).

If a mechanic was consistent, it can be planned around. If a mechanic occurs only rarely, especially when said mechanic also can represent a HUGE resource shift from one side to the other, it is broken. This is why plane crashes were nerfed, because they rarely happened (maybe 1 ever 10 games), and had the potential to instantly lose a player the game.

How about a fun tourney with a 100% abandon chance mod.

I'd watch that

I made a tuning pack that switched abandon chance to like 80% a month ago. Only issue is I had no idea the modding tools were outdated so the tanks have old stats because of it.

I have been playing COH since I have known myself. It's been a good game.

Even COH2 after all these patches still gets more things right than wrong and that's why it's quite popular in the declining RTS market.

So I have played the Alpha COH3. Nevermind the graphical glitches, the overpowered units and the unfinished art, the real problem is that the company thinks that "involving" the community more will make a better game.

And it will not. I have some arguments for this. I might be wrong of course. I'm looking for a discussion, not a pronunciamento.

• The community cannot balance shit, because this is normally a job reserved for real professionals who have in-depth knowledge of what "balance" means in the context of the game to be made. The players should only be there to give opinion on closed environments. Something like what all good RTS companies have done since the dawn of time. AoE and AoEII had 200 ppl closed betas that met more like pals for a nice evening than gamers.
  
• The community cannot balance shit, because the players want their own faction to win. As they are not designers, they don't realize the scale of balance and also the model which seeks to be adopted. Most players, myself included, act emotionally to some things. I can't even get a grip on the number of times when many people lost to a specific unit, calling it OP and demanding its nerf.
  
• I guess I'm kinda nostalgic, seeing that COH 1 didn't really have that many updates (leaving aside expansion packs). It was a game. You liked it, you played it as it was. You didn't like it, you didn't play it again. It was simple. I realize it was horribly unbalanced in many departments (too USF friendly in some aspects, particularly PE vs USF).
  

So, in a nutshell, I just really want COH3 to succeed. RTS is slowly dying, let's not kid ourselves. I hope Relic won't fuck this up. AOE4 seems decent and its numbers are healthy. I can see there still is a demand.

Hard disagree. The patches that Relic put out were the worst. I remember one where they nerfed the bazooka because it looked too good in their spreadsheet. A "professional" is just someone who is paid to do something. That doesn't mean that they are competent.

My biggest problem with the community balance team is that they don't seem to listen to anyone that plays random 4v4's and won't address the couple units that make that unbalanced. Those units (Walking Stuka, LEFH, and Sturmtiger) are within scope. All of them can be countered when you're playing as a team but it gets really boring having to play as a team and picking the same two or three commanders every game. The flip side of that is that those same units are really mediocre in 1v1 and 2v2.

I play to have fun. Abandons are fun. Simple as. And there are plenty others like me who play CoH2 just as much as you and I do.

I play to have fun too and I still have a hard time understanding how anyone can possibly find coh2 abandons to be fun. It's not the idea of them in general, just the way they are implemented

2) Relic did not ask the community for help in CoH2 until 2016 when they realized they messed up, until then they basically had a "we know it better" approach and the balance was the worst mess ever. People who are around since 2013 unlike some 2018 CoH2 Steam Sale Andys, know exactly what I am talking about

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Changes from when I started playing back in early 2019:

• ISU was OP af with 70 range HE - 24/7 mid VP camp machine was nerfed .
  
• Cons were decent only in 6 first minutes of the game and pretty much not worth building late game - was fixed.
  
• Calls-ins (e.g. command panther stall without Panzer HQ) - got fixed.
  
• Heavy tanks are decent now, not op, not useless, but can be actually used.
  
• 1 click counter barrage - removed.
  
• Self spotting heavy TD - fixed
  
• Multiple "swiss knife" level commanders that could counter Armor and arty - fixed.
  
• Grens and Pgrens were squishy, thus making most of OST infantry expensive to maintain late game - fixed
  
• OKW healing became more affortable
  
• OKW ober timing improved.
  
• t70 got nerfed
  
• Lots of units became useful (g43 grens, Assgrens, 120mm, KV1 come to mind), UKF has lots of variety and the list goes on. And that what came to mind.
  

Please someone read the list and tell with a straight face that balance team is worse then what relic did and is biased towards one side/faction.

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I prefer the OKW when they were release than the braindead A move German Protoss faction here now.

You've got a nice point which I cannot ignore.

Perhaps saying that community cannot balance shit was a bit too much. What I meant in depth was that there are more ways to balance a mechanic rather than a straight up numbers game.

For example, for years people complained of Sturmtiger being too OP. So what did the balance team did? They just removed some vision and the ability to repair and reload. So basically they asked for 2% more micro for a still very potent killing machine. Guess what? The community thinks now that sturm is balanced. It's just retarded.

Maybe if there is a new system in place. Who knows. Asymmetrical balance is not and should not be a stats game.

I think part of the reason why the Sturmtiger buff that made it "OP" is two reasons. First they made a prototype change and didn't apply the change to other units. In this case its the AVRE. So Sturmtiger had free reign while the AVRE was at its 'meh' status. Same thing happened with half-track healing. They only do prototype changes on one unit and then the next patch, it gets applied to all units. This is really bad patch balancing and planning in general.

Another reason why it was so memorable and powerful is because for the past 2 years, the balance team has been nerfing every unit to the ground. Everything that was strong is now weak. Everything that was mediocre is now considered 'normal'. Overtime any slight buff makes the unit immediately overpowered because everything else is sucks.

I prefer the OKW when they were release than the braindead A move German Protoss faction here now.

The a move shreck blob with a move kt support and supressing kubel and pre nerf obers was the definition of a broken faction design.

I am glad its gone and how okw is now in a much better state.

I think part of the reason why the Sturmtiger buff that made it "OP" is two reasons. First they made a prototype change and didn't apply the change to other units. In this case its the AVRE. So Sturmtiger had free reign while the AVRE was at its 'meh' status. Same thing happened with half-track healing. They only do prototype changes on one unit and then the next patch, it gets applied to all units. This is really bad patch balancing and planning in general.

Another reason why it was so memorable and powerful is because for the past 2 years, the balance team has been nerfing every unit to the ground. Everything that was strong is now weak. Everything that was mediocre is now considered 'normal'. Overtime any slight buff makes the unit immediately overpowered because everything else is sucks.

Sturmtiger was OP because all the major downsides were removed, while none of the upsides and prior buffs addressed. We had a "high risk high reward" unit that got the "high risk" part removed.

Sturmtiger was OP because all the major downsides were removed, while none of the upsides and prior buffs addressed. We had a "high risk high reward" unit that got the "high risk" part removed.

there was no risk before either, it simply didn't hit reliably and that's what moved most people off*

there was no risk before either, it simply didn't hit reliably and that's what moved most people off*

There was a risk technically. If you shoot it while it's reloading, the crew would fu** out of the ST. That was a good mechanic, don't know why they removed that. Given the HP/armour, it can easily start reloading the moment you fire your shot, no matter what's shooting you.

there was no risk before either, it simply didn't hit reliably and that's what moved most people off*

and that too. You could have still dove it and steal the bastard, which was a risk for the OKW guy. Now you can start reloading after backing up 10 meter and not caring if you get hit or not.
I can't remember if ST was slower during reloading phase before the rework, but if it was, that was also a major contributing factor.

EDIT: BTW ST received several buffs prior due to it being unreliable. So when the rework was live, those buffs were not rolled back.

and that too. You could have still dove it and steal the bastard, which was a risk for the OKW guy. Now you can start reloading after backing up 10 meter and not caring if you get hit or not.
I can't remember if ST was slower during reloading phase before the rework, but if it was, that was also a major contributing factor.

EDIT: BTW ST received several buffs prior due to it being unreliable. So when the rework was live, those buffs were not rolled back.

As far as I know, there is a small mobility nerf during reload, but not much, you can still drive it away. Both AVRE and ST are cancerous, with ST having a larger AOE but AVRE having a turret. Still, unlike AVRE, the ST is in a brilliant commander with the heat shells.
They really should reintroduce the "get out" mechanic if hit during reload.

As far as I know, there is a small mobility nerf during reload, but not much, you can still drive it away. Both AVRE and ST are cancerous, with ST having a larger AOE but AVRE having a turret. Still, unlike AVRE, the ST is in a brilliant commander with the heat shells.
They really should reintroduce the "get out" mechanic if hit during reload.

No they should not.

It was removed for good reason since it could be exploited so that one could call multiple SturmTigers.

No they should not.

It was removed for good reason since it could be exploited so that one could call multiple SturmTigers.

maybe, but i think there could have been other solutions to keep that from happening and still have the abandon mechanic in place. at least the damn thing should become immobilized again while reloading and maybe, MAYBE get reload on the move as a vet 5 bonus like it used to be.

maybe, but i think there could have been other solutions to keep that from happening and still have the abandon mechanic in place. at least the damn thing should become immobilized again while reloading and maybe, MAYBE get reload on the move as a vet 5 bonus like it used to be.

The abandon mechanism was exploitable so unless they could find a way to removed the exploit it was good that was removed.

The are other solution that could be implemented but that is another story.

Personally I would test adding the gunner injury critical.

The topic once again is steering out of the thought process I put it in.

I have seen what most of you have said, and I say that I agree. After all, I just want a good COH game. I'm not here to make enemies nor prove somebody wrong.

I just want COH3 to be a coherent vision. Something that COH2 basically never was due to the constant mix and match of the factions.

Take the original game: SOV vs OST was the perfect example of the asymmetrical balance in the devs' vision. Both factions had the basic tools (MG, AT, Snares) but with very different capacities. P4s were generally more expensive but more sturdy while T34s were shit piles that cost nothing and were reliable generalists. That's what I mean.

Sure, the balancing was never good. I accept that or rather, I just grew to it.

After WFA came out, everything went to shit for a couple of reasons.

1. Relic silently started abandoning COH as a franchise, outsourcing most of its developmental tools to third parties. I doubt if there are more than 20 people of the COH2 team working on COH3 (I wish).
2. The new "community balancers" traded the vision of an RTS with potential to be very different from the norm with an homogenized bland soup.

I used to have a shitty COH2 fanpage on facebook a couple years back and I remember seeing a poster laying out the vision of the game. Basically it said that SOV and OST were more turtle like factions, while OKW, USF and UKF were destined to be somewhat more aggressive minded. I can't exactly recall what. Perhaps someone can find it and post it.

What we have today is a desperate attempt to make all factions play the same, because the only real base the COH2 game has (and I am including myself in those) are the hardcore factionists. That means that balancing has become an impartial job (I think most of balance team is axis players, correct me if I'm wrong). Normies have long given up on COH2 for exactly that reason.

Nowadays, if a unit is considered OP (notwithstanding L2P issues, which I think could solve 99.99999% of the forum's problems) it will just get its stats changed. It's retarded and boring.

It is too late for COH2, but it's not for COH3. What I am saying in all these pages is just that we need to make a better game in general. Not a more "balanced and fair" worksheet videogame. Balance is not necessarily that all ATs have the same damage and AOE. Balance is not necessarily that all factions should have T0 MGs just because the factions that do have that MG seem to shred the others.

Just look at all the build orders for COH2.
3 line inf -> T1 -> MG -> AT -> Mortar -> T3 -> Elite Inf -> T4 -> Tanks.

Ridiculous, washed down and flavorless if you ask me.

As far as I know, there is a small mobility nerf during reload, but not much, you can still drive it away. Both AVRE and ST are cancerous, with ST having a larger AOE but AVRE having a turret. Still, unlike AVRE, the ST is in a brilliant commander with the heat shells.
They really should reintroduce the "get out" mechanic if hit during reload.

Turret is nice and all, but having 28m in diameter stun is better.

...

Take the original game: SOV vs OST was the perfect example of the asymmetrical balance in the devs' vision. Both factions had the basic tools (MG, AT, Snares) but with very different capacities. P4s were generally more expensive but more sturdy while T34s were shit piles that cost nothing and were reliable generalists. That's what I mean.

...

I can agree to that.

Imo that is an actual issue with current balance process of COH2 where many people are involved and they do not seem to share the same vision of how faction should work.

Agreeing of faction design and unit roles should be a base line upon which balance should be build.

Many patches seem more like bandaids than actual solutions.

No they should not.

It was removed for good reason since it could be exploited so that one could call multiple SturmTigers.

the only person who ever complained about okw players abusing this bug was you


No need to get multiple sturms, you get king tiger or jp4 spam