Profile of Hannibal

Im gonna make a really "bold claim" now and say it's because the MP content & experience is in a very dry state with lack of maps and features on top of all the annoying bugs. But definitely not because of stuff like TTK or "game's too similar to CoH1"

Just to clarify: My post was about how boring I find CoH3 to look at. The TTK might be fine when playing yourself, but as a viewer this can be different. CoH has the chance to draw many players in by great visuals and intuitive gameplay. But, despite me playing CoH2 for hundreds of hours and understanding the mechanics of CoH well, I found it odd how many "good plays" top level players didn't take, because they know that they won't be able to kill a low health infantry squad. This is probably worse if you're new to the franchise.

This on top of the SP players leaving the game after finishing the campaign and you get such numbers. Of course I would have loved if CoH3 launched in a way better MP state so we could have kickstarted with much more player retention, but now it's CoH2 launch all over again basically.

CoH2 MP blew horseshit for the first ~6 months and it took almost a year to recover

Let's not kid ourselves, CoH3's launch is worse than CoH2, by far.
On a technical level, both games are/were pretty bad. Which one is better or worse is probably up to personal taste and another debate that has been fought multiple times by now, so I'm not going to re-re-reheat it.
Communication by Relic is really bad and I doubt they realized the extend of it.
Review wise, CoH3 is doing horribly. Overall user reviews at Steam are below 60% and the recent ones are ~36%, showing a mostly negative, which is quite a big deal for everyone that got interested by a trailer or stream and then sees that the game is not just divisive, but definitely bad. No one is going to buy it that way. Even if Relic turns manages to turn everything around in the next couple of patches, the mostly negative label is going to cling on for weeks. It will be hard for Relic to every breach the 70% positive reviews again. I don't know how well Steam reviews worked back when CoH2 launched and I know that the game has been review bombed by Russians due to CoH2's campaign, but filtering for the earliest reviews gives +85% positives? Anyway, I doubt CoH2 every reached the level of CoH3's negative reviews. CoH2 had the chance of surviving by new player influx. CoH3 probably not so much.
CoH3 also lost more players post-launch than CoH2 back then. Peak players dropped way harder for CoH3 two months after release.
There's also more indicators. CoH2 never dropped below the player count of its predecessor, even most positive reviews on Steam are pretty critical, players seem to be concerned about the roadmap and Relic's prioritization.

It's not all bad, but the biggest issue is that players are still leaving from CoH3, and the negative reviews will surely hamper CoH3 bouncing back quickly for months to come. CoH3 is in a worse position than CoH2 back then. Tournaments and streaming could help out Relic a lot (and even for free), but they don't seem to be willing to get replays and observer mode going.

I've been clicking into AE's ML3 semi final tournament to see the current state of CoH3 tournament play.
View number wise, the CoH3 videos seem to do alright. However, I don't know why. I absolutely don't have any immersion or see any tension whatsoever in those games. It is boring as hell. I have played neither CoH1 nor CoH3 (previews aside), but the CoH1 games he casts are so much more enjoyable and tense despite me not fully understanding how the game even works. CoH2 is through the roof anyway, I'd rewatch GCS2 any day. CoH3 has nothing.

Apart from the odd behaviour and glitches I see every other minute as I described in another post, CoH3 looks 'artificial'. CoH2 looked like a constant action movie with many "human moments" of struggle and despair. With all the gameifications in mind, I always felt like many scenes could have happened like or similar to this. Some moments of good luck and bad luck, units pushing and supporting each other to get your badly damaged tank behind the line or push off the enemy before he wipes your squad.
CoH3 seems to have none of that. It just looks like a game from start to finish, a game where I'd like to min-max everything because there is no spectacle to look at like in CoH2. Mind you, this is coming from someone digging unit stats and spreadsheets and having done statistical calculations on tank vs tank combat in CoH2.

But what is the issue? Sounds are overall okay, graphics and art have their ups and downs but I'd overall say they are good. What bugged me probably the most is absolutely the TTK. Nothing seems to matter in CoH3. We all know the meme moments in CoH2 as well when a lone wounded soldier retreats through your squad and does not get wiped, but overall, these are occasional moments. In CoH3 this is fully normal. A squad retreating at 10% health despite being under fire by 8-Rad and Grens? No problem. 2-3 8-Rads pushing in on a Riflemen, constantly shooting at it for 15+ seconds? 60%+ HP and no model dropped. You've properly overrun an MG, thrown a nade and shoot with a full squad from point blank? Yes, MG retreats with 3 models left how else should it be? Heavily damaged 2-men PGren having to retreat through two squads of bared up Rifles? Player chose to shoot at the incoming Pioneer instead, knowing he won't get them anyway. I've constantly seen this: No one shoots a retreating squad if there is ANY fighting squad left, even if the retreating squad is super high value and the second squad is a low value Pio. They seem to know that their chance of getting the wipe is minimal. I am at minute 28 right now and, having skipped a couple of minutes in between, have not seen a single squad wipe. Wtf is this? There is no meaning to positioning, nothing seems to get punished, you're good as soon as you retreat. Yes, you can't really see the eco by watching it. The model losses will hurt your eco, but that is inherently boring, especially for a game that should have top notch presentation and fighting such as CoH. Some of the balance changes that Relic provided look like quick band aids that will kill the game's design. I've noticed that MGs pin withing two bursts. I've read about the blobbing issue and frontal wiping of MGs before, their solution was apparently to just let MGs pin everything almost instantly. Why? Yes, MGs should control blobs, but instapinning is not the solution. Why having a suppressed state in the first place if it lasts only for about a second? That's just the one example I notices, regular players of CoH3 will probably notice more. It just created another moment where another flaw was thrown into my face so obviously, that I couldn't help but thinking: "That's not how it should work, that'll come right around and bite the rest of the game in the ass".

Team games and low level games might work a bit differently, but the TTK issue must be so glaring that it will always translate across modes. CoH1 also had higher TTK than CoH2 to my knowledge as well, but it didn't feel as boring. In the games I watched, players sneaked squads behind the lines as well to pounce on retreating units or team weapons. It was apparently worth it, despite that movement being much harder due to there not being sight blockers.
In CoH3, no one seems to dare to make a bold move, because most likely it won't pay off.

CoH3 is boring as hell to watch and while I appreciate AE's enthusiasm and work to keep ML going, I don't want to watch it. Watching CoH2 being played at high level was almost as good as playing yourself. But watching CoH3? Apparently I'm getting more fun out of writing this discussion/rant thread than watching it. I sincerely hope another ML will be hosted for CoH2, and not CoH3 until Relic fixes the game.

Ignore my above post. You think they'll shut down the servers? Man this is so disappointing... I know this game is already good and can get so much better. I wish it wasn't so 'cool' to shit on everything.

I don't think so at the moment, I just wanted to include the worst possible outcome since also Cobra mentioned it.
Look at DoW3: the game was economically a complete failure (albeit technically in a better state) and in player numbers way worse than CoH3. Relic dropped it after 10 months. I wouldn't expect Relic to drop CoH3 in the next months. As long as plaErs stay, they can make money, and they will develop the game.
They might downscale their plans though if they don't see enough people coming back.
Obviously it is possible that support could completely cease, but I would be highly suprised at current player count. In the future maybe, but not in the next months.

Also I know that Supreme Commander Forged Alliance Forever has a game balance calculation based on the ELO that the community apparently trusts. I don't know how it works though, but maybe you can ask the devs of the FAF client for calculations. It's a community driven project, I guess they would help out.

Fix the skin colors and lighting and this would look awkwardly convincing