An Old Schooler's Rant and Observations

Whatever the merits of the current balance team - and I know nothing about them or who they are - they are evidently not people concerned with polish or professionalism.

I find this quite insulting to be honest. Like not knowing anything about doctors and then saying they are evidently not concerned with human lives because every now and then people in their care still die. Do some research, it's not that hard. The balance/community team are indeed not professionals but volunteer community members who work hard in their free time to try to make the game better and add new content where ever possible. Polish is most definitely a concern. What you're failing to see here is that (partly due to Relic's spaghetti code) with every patch having dozens or hundreds of changes, there are also hundreds of bugs and other issues, of which 99% get traced down and fixed before it goes live. Inevitably a handful remain, it's a huge game, and there is no professional test or dev team to find and fix everything. Instead of just complaining about them, I suggest you report them so the team can become aware of them and try to fix them.

I find this quite insulting to be honest. Like not knowing anything about doctors and then saying they are evidently not concerned with human lives because every now and then people in their care still die. Do some research, it's not that hard. The balance/community team are indeed not professionals but volunteer community members who work hard in their free time to try to make the game better and add new content where ever possible. Polish is most definitely a concern. What you're failing to see here is that (partly due to Relic's spaghetti code) with every patch having dozens or hundreds of changes, there are also hundreds of bugs and other issues, of which 99% get traced down and fixed before it goes live. Inevitably a handful remain, it's a huge game, and there is no professional test or dev team to find and fix everything. Instead of just complaining about them, I suggest you report them so the team can become aware of them and try to fix them.

To be fair, current CoH2 is less polished than the average steam workshop mod.

I find this quite insulting to be honest.

As is your right.

It is, however, broadly accurate. Balance aside - that's a far more intricate discussion - the UI issues are ridiculous in how glaring they are; you don't release official patches with missing localization strings and various unit descriptions randomly being missing. The state of the game's localization approaches what I'd call abysmal - buildings do not correctly list all available units and sometimes refer to units no longer built there, and commander ability descriptions are often woeful. It really isn't much to ask that someone with a reasonably professional grasp of English does a QA pass on these half-baked modding concepts that get patched into a live game.

I did see someone make a Blizzard comparison earlier, but it's a laughable one. Blizzard would never constantly redesign their factions and break abilities, nor make so many schoolboy errors with regards to basic localization and syntax. There used to be (andI assume still is) a running joke about CoH2 being designed as an e-sport, but there simply isn't the basis there for any kind of strict high-level competitive play. No serious RTS continuously redesigns factions/civs or core mechanics and expects the tournament crowd to take the game seriously.

Numerous mods are more polished and cohesive than the live game; we can argue about faction design and unit balance, but in terms of a product looking professional and correctly informing the player what's going on or what something does, that is simply a statement of fact.

To be fair, current CoH2 is less polished than the average steam workshop mod.

pls, people like you should link a playercard so we atleast know if youre playing the game *at all

To be fair, current CoH2 is less polished than the average steam workshop mod.

Numerous mods are more polished and cohesive than the live game; we can argue about faction design and unit balance, but in terms of a product looking professional and correctly informing the player what's going on or what something does, that is simply a statement of fact.

I don't think this is fair at all. The game contains 97429 lines of text and supports 8 languages. How can you are say that mods are better because they changed a dozen of bugged references for mostly one language.

As Sander said, "report them so the team can become aware of them and try to fix them".
I can confirm that the patch team is cooperating with other community members to fix many bugs.

That's when I really started sucking. It destroyed me, because my age was starting to show. Just don't have that CPM or multitasking. Just couldn't deal with the changes. And it was about this time when even sub-intermediate rank 500 players started chasing retreating units. I think there might have been another patch that encouraged this, by reducing the damage reduction to retreating units? That REALLY started ruining the game for me. Just the lamest fucking gameplay ever, 2v2s turned into a battle where the players were basically just jockeying for position to get retreat wipes after the initial engagement. If you're still a noob and are looking for a winning 2v2 strat, just do this - cap what you can, then go help your mate by flanking from behind. Even top 100 you don't always see this, but it's the easiest way to win a 2v2. Wipe all that stuff, win game. It really is that simple and that stupid a game now.

I fail to see how proper use of positioning and flanking getting rewarded is a bad thing. It's also not at all an easy thing to do. Furthermore encirclement manouvers were a thing in real life and it was super effective precicely because it prevented retreats.

I don't think this is fair at all. The game contains 97429 lines of text and supports 8 languages. How can you are say that mods are better because they changed a dozen of bugged references for mostly one language.

As Sander said, "report them so the team can become aware of them and try to fix them".
I can confirm that the patch team is cooperating with other community members to fix many bugs.

Fair's got nothing to do with it. If they don't have the time and resources to properly patch a game like this then they shouldn't bother doing so. Do it properly or don't do it at all.

There are countless shitty mods on Steam for all manner of games, including of course CoH2. However, there are also quite a few very good ones; each to his or her own in terms of personal taste and what those mods endeavour to change or achieve, sure, but with regards to overall QA and a feeling of 'these guys care about what they're doing' some have clear advantages over the live game.

I think an issue some of you may have is that you're in something of a bubble in terms of having been an active part of this community for such a long time, and so what you witness as gradual change (the evolution of the game) is not what I see; I've only just started playing again after a gap of 3-4 years, and so to me the differences are absolutely stark. You can very much see that Relic have to all intents and purposes stopped working on this game a long time ago, and the community (whoever they are) are not in the same league in certain - though not all - respects. This is to be expected though, and it's the same were I or many other long-time modders to do the same. Modders are not game designers, however much some may wish to feel they are.

the UI issues are ridiculous in how glaring they are; you don't release official patches with missing localization strings and various unit descriptions randomly being missing. The state of the game's localization approaches what I'd call abysmal

Sheer criticism gets us absolutely nowhere. As Sneakeye said, there are tens of thousands of descriptions and other text lines in the game that are all fine and if you want to nitpick about the handful of errors that made it through public and internal testing (some are the result of buggy dev tools that only appear after release) then be my guest, but beyond complaining there actually are threads and other ways where you can report these issues so they can be looked at.

If they don't have the time and resources to properly patch a game like this then they shouldn't bother doing so. Do it properly or don't do it at all.

The main goal of the patches is to offer continued support to the game to keep it fresh and alive and to make it more fun and balanced as time goes by. UI and localization polish is definitely a concern, but not the top priority. Gameplay is. If the game didn't have these community patches it would've died out years ago, instead of being more popular now than it's ever been.

Sheer criticism gets us absolutely nowhere. As Sneakeye said, there are tens of thousands of descriptions and other text lines in the game that are all fine and if you want to nitpick about the handful of errors that made it through public and internal testing (some are the result of buggy dev tools that only appear after release) then be my guest, but beyond complaining there actually are threads and other ways where you can report these issues so they can be looked at.



The main goal of the patches is to offer continued support to the game to keep it fresh and alive and to make it more fun and balanced as time goes by. UI and localization polish is definitely a concern, but not the top priority. Gameplay is. If the game didn't have these community patches it would've died out years ago, instead of being more popular now than it's ever been.

an officially 'finished' game, one people pay money for, developed by a professional studio, should be held to a bit of higher standard than this

I already had issues with Relic's apparent disregard with consistency and quality when it came to adding community maps, skins etc before all this, but now the game definitely feels even more messy and more like a small mod some guy made in his spare time that's been applied to the vanilla game

The main goal of the patches is to offer continued support to the game to keep it fresh and alive and to make it more fun and balanced as time goes by. UI and localization polish is definitely a concern, but not the top priority. Gameplay is. If the game didn't have these community patches it would've died out years ago, instead of being more popular than ever.

Indeed, I appreciate that - I'm simply venting steam at the fact that, to me, the game looks unprofessional and all over the place. It's a bad first impression.

That said, I understand that many of these issues stem from design decisions Relic made years ago. I'm not blaming anyone in particular (and I wouldn't know who to address blame at anyway), but I can tell you without hesitation that it's immediately obvious that the game is now being propped up by modders, because most modders I know are very much into the mechanics of modding but don't really care about UI or text and any kind of what you call 'flavour' or sense of absorption. This is a definite weakness that should be addressed going forward.

I don't think this is fair at all. The game contains 97429 lines of text and supports 8 languages. How can you are say that mods are better because they changed a dozen of bugged references for mostly one language.

As Sander said, "report them so the team can become aware of them and try to fix them".
I can confirm that the patch team is cooperating with other community members to fix many bugs.

Agreed. It's not like nobody cares about polish or adjusting of the UI in the game. We collecting issues and suggesting the solutions for them. Here is some examples:

Most popular thread about QoL changes - https://www.coh2.org/topic/57860/some-qol-suggestions
Thread about text issues - https://www.coh2.org/topic/83979/lack-of-text-strings
Was enhanced with detailed document - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZsVcT2zuDtvSGPpgAI7tkEOlWFu0Ing-q11zNnklFQQ/edit#gid=0
Additionaly, i am opening thread for each upcoming patch with ideas and suggestion for changes, listed in the patchnote.
On top of that, people creating improved localizations for several languages (like English or Russian)

From the perspective, before was even worse. Several years ago Relic didn't care about UI and polish due to law issues of using assets,created by non-Relic authors. Currently the main issue - not to much human resources. Balance team include several people, as well as UI team, but final build of the patch assemble by one man - Andy (CM manager). Jae for Jett described it perfectly:

As for polish and bugs, thats mostly just out of most of our hands. Mods are built by miragefla, then when they go for live implementation, theyre rebuilt by andy on the relic end. No one else really has direct control over the implementation and polish of these changes.

BTW, i believe, that UI and polish will become important part of the patches, if community will be interested in it. I mean, there is world of balance threads, and only a few threads about Ui and text issues.

UPD: also this thread may be interested as well: https://www.coh2.org/topic/93861/feedback-on-ui-changes-of-the-game
UPD2: and this one too: https://www.coh2.org/topic/104881/could-coh-2-do-with-a-cleanup-patch

an officially 'finished' game, one people pay money for, developed by a professional studio, should be held to a bit of higher standard than this

You can always pay money and get Dawn of War 3. This game was also developed by Relic, a professional studio, and was held in those high standards of a professional studio that you relish so much.

I already had issues with Relic's apparent disregard with consistency and quality when it came to adding community maps, skins etc before all this, but now the game definitely feels even more messy and more like a small mod some guy made in his spare time that's been applied to the vanilla game

I think there is a decent portion of viewing the older versions of CoH2 through rose-coloured glasses. Yes, the game is still buggy, but many of these issues are not due to the current balance team screwing up but Relic. But the game has always been buggy and a mess, you probably just have forgotten how many issues there were in older builds and just see the ones there are now.
Many issues have been fixed over the patches, and the game feels way more balanced and consistent than even two years ago.

You can always pay money and get Dawn of War 3. This game was also developed by Relic, a professional studio, and was held in those high standards of a professional studio that you relish so much.



I think there is a decent portion of viewing the older versions of CoH2 through rose-coloured glasses. Yes, the game is still buggy, but many of these issues are not due to the current balance team screwing up but Relic. But the game has always been buggy and a mess, you probably just have forgotten how many issues there were in older builds and just see the ones there are now.
Many issues have been fixed over the patches, and the game feels way more balanced and consistent than even two years ago.

I think that what he is pointing at. That is unprofessional because Relic has never be professional toward this game. Pointing out Andy's bottleneck isn't about blaming Andy but Relic as a professional Company. After more than 6 years we're still in the middle of bug corrections and defining the faction's balance behavior.

I really get the impression that some people here just got used to the numerous issues the game has.

Spotting 4 glaring bugs within minutes of starting a match, without looking for them, is not a good thing. You can justify them all you want but in the end all of these justifications themselves are something I'd criticize (lack of resources for development, lack of Q&A etc). The state of the game is bad. Of course there'll be reasons for that and I don't think that anyone here believes that someone wanted to decrease the games quality on purpose.
It appears that the community and Relic bit off more than they could chew in the past two years then. Not a good thing either.

"But it is balanced now!" is a weak argument anyway.

It appears that the community and Relic bit off more than they could chew in the past two years then.

I wouldn't say that the community bit off more than they could chew. The game is better because of community run efforts. I can more than understand if you disagree with that statement, but my point is that I think it is the only one metric that matters.

We are not Relic. We are not COH2 game devs. We, as the community, either choose to put effort into the game, or we leave it alone. That's the only thing we have control over, and if the game is better off because of our participation, then what Relic or actual devs do or could have done for COH2 is besides the point because that's not within the limit of what we can control.

After playing the Iron Harvest demo and reading this post I must say I vehemently disagree. CoH2 has a stellar level of polish which is rare to see in games today.

Bunch of disrespectful people came out to insult our unpaid volounteer modders that made this game better than it ever was... what the fuck is wrong with people?

I'm pretty much a lurker on these forums, I like to read but I'm not usually interested in participating in discussions, I'd rather play the game.

However, I find this topic interesting, because for a long time, I was debating on starting a similar one myself.

The original Company of Heroes was, for a long time, the only RTS I ever really loved, and I mean *LOVED*. Before that I used to hate the RTS genre. Actually, I still hate the RTS genre. COH2 is the only RTS game I ever play these days. I stopped playing COH only because it's pretty much dead, not necessarily because I like COH2 better.

Now, I'm probably the only person who is gonna say this, but what first attracted me to COH wasn't the gameplay. It was what I call the "atmosphere". Unlike old RTS where units' voices sound generic, they have emotions in COH. They change depending on the situation. The first time I heard a Puma say "We will not make it" in a pathetic voice when I clicked on it, I didn't think "Dang, I'm gonna lose it". I thought "Dang, I'm an asshole for leaving these guys die".

Anyways, I'm ranting. Later on I appreciated the gameplay a lot, how the game focus on squads. The first time I saw suppression I was stunned. The game isn't a simulation by any means but to me, it makes more *sense* than old school RTS, where you just throw a bunch of units to die happily.

Anyways again I won't go into more details, I'm pretty sure everyone reading this already know the game and doesn't need a review. What I'm trying to say is, I did notice how the game seems more "unpolished" over time. It's cool that the community introduced new units. It's less cool they reuse the same voiceovers as other units. It's even less cool when the new commander abilities just have generic lines, or sometimes no voices at all. It always bother me that when I make a Stuart, there's no voiceover, although that's a very old problem and not the community's fault.

I also noticed since the last patch that there's a lot of units or abilities with missing descriptions. I find that very unfortunate.

However!

These are all things that, when you notice them, they're annoying, sure. But in my opinion, in the long term, what's most important is the gameplay. After a while, you heard all the voice lines in the game and you stop paying attention to them. And I truly admire how dedicated the community is in balancing and keeping the game fresh. In my opinion, that's much more important and admirable. Saying there's other games out there with more professional mods is technically true, but I don't care about those games, I care about this one. I hate RTS, COH2 is the exception, and the day this game die is the day I stop playing RTS.

So whatever. It might not be perfect, but it's still better than anything else out there, at least for me. And the balance/modding team is keeping the game alive and is improving it. Sure they make mistakes, like how the JLI were OP for a bit, but it's not like Relic didn't make them either when they actually worked on the game. I still remember the original Rifle Company, who had riflemen with flamethrowers. This was so OP, it was the only time I managed to reach top 50 with a faction. Me, a noob, who can only get top 100 if I'm lucky and get match against bad players multiple times in a row. Anytime I face a real top 100 player I lose, so for me to reach top 50 was ridiculous.

Anyways (again), I'm probably ranting, but my point is, I understand where the OP's coming from, because sometimes I feel the same way. But when I look at how much the community improved the game and how it's still alive even after all these years, I can't help but be grateful. If you feel your money wasn't well spent, it's your choice, but most "professional" AAA games, despite being expensive, rarely last this long, unless they're huge universal successes.

I hope you guys get what I'm trying to say, I'm not always good at expressing myself.

Good day everybody.