Why Relic Needs to Stop Listening to the Community

Balance isn't about making everything the same. Quite the opposite: it's about making sure each faction has plenty of viable strategies. If a mechanic ends up creating a single dominant strategy, it needs adjustment or you end up with the same strategy game after game.

Volksgrenadier Panzershrecks were not removed from the game because other factions don't get them. They were removed because if you spammed them you got an anti-everything blob that ignored the game's core cover combat system. Sure, it was a unique design, but it was also a bad design.

Rifleman smoke was moved to Rear Echelons because it allowed Riflemen to counter their own counter. Soviet snipers were reduced to 1 man because sniper counters weren't working on them.

Yes, if what you're after is a power fantasy, these changes are bad. But if you want CoH 2 to be a tactically interesting, competitive game with a back and forth to it, they're mostly substantial improvements.

Interesting, I never really played CoH2 mp during the early years. Sounds pretty bad though.

It's not as bad for a short period of time but will definitely get stale after a while. You can have so many games of 2x T3485s vs Tigers.
The key aspect is that the game improved over time is closing the gap between meta and non meta. There's a difference between being slightly disadvantaged and almost auto lose.

Soviet snipers were reduced to 1 man because sniper counters weren't working on them.

This is one of the few points i'll argue they could had try a different approach.
Snipers are problematic on their own and the 2 man was a way to discourage sniper wars. I would had kept the 2 man squad model but make it so that the spotter always transfer their non sniper weapon for starters.

snip.

Its was better armored back when you would go 3 kubels against USF and the game was GG from 5 minutes.

Its was better armored back when you would go 3 kubels against USF and the game was GG from 5 minutes.

It also had the old maxim setup time and was lots faster. If it was squishy or had a packup time the suppressing kubel would have been fine.

It's not a good thing for things to be too OP, on release there were a bunch of thing that just ended a game really early if you manage to call them in quickly, Ost FHT, Soviet KV8.

Coh2 is a lot more enjoyable now than it was early on, back then it just felt like who could abuse OP stuff first.

Its was better armored back when you would go 3 kubels against USF and the game was GG from 5 minutes.

Well I am in no way asking for that era to come back.....

My man's trying to get volkshreks back to finish off 2020.

It's not as bad for a short period of time but will definitely get stale after a while. You can have so many games of 2x T3485s vs Tigers.
The key aspect is that the game improved over time is closing the gap between meta and non meta. There's a difference between being slightly disadvantaged and almost auto lose.



This is one of the few points i'll argue they could had try a different approach.
Snipers are problematic on their own and the 2 man was a way to discourage sniper wars. I would had kept the 2 man squad model but make it so that the spotter always transfer their non sniper weapon for starters.

Alternatively, if you wanted a sniper "team" back merely for flavour, you could well just have the remaining model retreat from the battlefield like a depeleted weapons team, if one member of the sniper team dies.

I've heard it suggested multiple times that snipers be replaced by Light Infantry squads however. I kind of understand this suggestion, snipers are very frustrating units, and are extremely fragile.

Check this video out about BALANCE and Game Design from Halo's game designer Jaime Greisemer

Here are some important quotes from that video from a master game designer:

"If everything is overpowered, nothing is." (he talks about getting players in the flow state. I love this quote, if everything makes you feel powerful and OP, that's a rather good feeling on the player)

"Don't be reactive. Don't design by committee" (this is exactly what's happening to CoH 2 right now, whoever is responsible for these changes are reacting to crybabies. Changes are reactionary, that's such a perfect way to describe the past 7 years of balance changes.)

"The brain is easily confused" (There's 7 million different factors to why some unit in CoH2 is OP, you definitely cannot logically determine what the reason is like you would a math equation.)

"Balance is like a jhenga towers, not like balancing an equation" (Paraphrased, but basically you can't treat balance like an equation)

"Don't let people file bugs against balance during the rough stage" (Although CoH2 is way past the rough stage, sometimes "bugs" in CoH2 actually weren't bugs but hard design decisions Jason Lee, Duffy, and other designers made.)

"Don't play the game too much!" (This is really important. Players who are REALLY GOOD at the game are going to have a bias because they are already in a flow state and they will think that an OP thing is not OP. Its actually a good thing to not be a pro. This is why pro players don't make good designers. If you guys played with Relic designers, you have already come to know they are not the best at the game, yet they were able to make the best RTS game)

"You cannot make things too powerful" (power fantasy is precisely what people are looking for in CoH2 as well subconsciously. People love tanks, arty, and demo charges for this reason)

And so on...

Anyways, please let Relic do the designing

Check this video out about BALANCE and Game Design from Halo's game designer Jaime Greisemer

No offense but how is balancing a dozen weapons in a mirror matches FPS game in any way relevant to balancing an extremely complex asymmetrical RTS game like CoH?

No offense but how is balancing a dozen weapons in a mirror matches FPS game in any way relevant to balancing an extremely complex asymmetrical RTS game like CoH?

Then you didn't watch the video

Edit: he talks about design fundamentals, most of them which apply to CoH2

Then you didn't watch the video

Edit: he talks about design fundamentals, most of them which apply to CoH2

You build skyscraper with different design fundamentals then you build a cottage.

There is no single magical universal formula that works in context of everything.
Every single RTS game ever in existence was balanced reactively, because its not possible to do it any other way.

Why Balancing Is Ruining CoH2 & Why Relic Needs to Stop Listening to the Community

Context: coming in to CoH2 after 5/4 years and overall a lot of the game has lost its interesting and fun designs over the years due to community balance patches. Relic needs to stop listening to the community so much, and especially letting the community make design changes to the game. I think the original faction designs of OKW, USF, and UKF were much more fun when they originally were released than their toned down "balanced" versions today. I still love the game btw, CoH2 is amazing.

Not everything needs to be "balanced!" For crying out loud, don't jeopardize the game design of Company of Heroes that makes the game fun. As a game designer, I cannot help but to say that some things can and should be OP for the sake of fun-ness and interesting play, as long as there is a counter.

Take the Stuka Dive Bomb, yes it is OP, but it has a counter to it; move away from the obvious noise.

Here is an example of what happens everyday in the forum, just today regarding the Stuka Dive Bomb:



You get comments like these always: this thing is OP nerf it and make it like this other ability. This unit doesn't have snares like everything else, give it a snare too. With this attitude and the lack of community understanding of what makes CoH fun, results in Volksgrenadiers losing their Shreks and getting fausts cuz "balance."

Let me quote Breaking Brad, game designer at Relic:



That is the part of the design! Do you really want every single call-in ability to be the same? The Stuka
is the only call-in that has an extremely loud and obvious noise

OKW's 66% Fuel and munitions scarcity and their OP veterancy is what made the faction so interesting!

Another one: OKW losing its 66% FU penalty. That made the faction interesting and fun! It's overpowered Veterancy bonuses made up for its lack of fuel and munitions! But because the community cries balance all the time, Relic gives in and removes the parts of the factions that make you feel like a BADASS in favor of making every faction identical, flavorless, and balanced.

Game design isn't about making every design fair and balanced, its about giving players the feeling of being awesome and a badass.

As I read through the changelog I read a bunch of "to make it more in line with similar units from other factions..." That is precisely what makes the game stale and boring.

CoH2 is asymmetrical, the whole POINT of factions is that they are supposed to be wildly different.

Removing smoke grenades from Rifles? Really? Their design was to be versatile, hence they can snare, have LMGs, and have bazookas. You might as well give infantry sections snares. I once read an argument that because Riflemen have smoke grenades, all other base infantry need smokes. NO, this is not a mirror game, this is asymetrical. Its precisely these statements, especially when they are heard by Relic, that ruins the game.

Giving OKW a OST Tiger, LeFH artillery, MG34 starting, nerfed vet 4 + 5, same fuel income. Why are we sharing units between factions again? Soviet snipers are 1 man now!?

Soviet snipers were badass precisely because they had 2. You might as well play mirror matches. Dare I repeat again, the point of the Soviet sniper having 2 men is not because it makes the sniper balanced, its because it makes the player feel like his army is bigger and mightier like SOVIET RUSSIA and being a COMRADE.

Solution: Relic stops listening to every request from community. Community needs to stop complaining about balance changes, understand that fun-ness is more important than balance. Also greenlighting community made mods into the live game is a good way to ruin the original design

Last thing, 5 man grenadiers? The whole point of Wehrmacht's small unit count was to contrast from Soviet Russia's huge army size *facepalm* In my opinion, Miragefla has introduced a lot of terrible changes to the game along with others responsible for community mod balance changes.

A game well balanced is when everything is op. Back in the days, there were op things on every side. Soviets had cheap mine or demolition charge that could wipe full units, okw had Volks blob, uk had cancer city aka bofor, etc.

It made the game interesting to play but since there was a few op strategy on each side you would mostly fight against the same tactic over and over.
When now, with more balanced units across every faction, you can fight one time against conscript spam, the next time a mix of conscript and maxim and sometimes penal battalions. Having more balanced factions make the game less repetitive.

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And to respond to this more serious now: I cannot imagine why you would want these times of CoH2 back, it was often such a shitshow.

Every faction had 1, maybe 2 completely over the top broken build orders in teamgames:
- USF: Double M1919 spam and calliope spam
- OKW: Volk blob and invincible King Tigers. JTs that pierce through terrain
- Soviet: Maxim spam and broken DLC doctrines
- Brits: emplacement spam, PIAT blob, broken tanks
- Wehr: Invincible Tiger ace, doubleshotting elefants.


Now combine that with horrible faction design and OP p2w commanders. OKW and USF had no nondoc flamer or flamenade and an extremely delayed HMG (or no HMG at all) for example. Imagine you were OKW on an urban map vs a FHQ maxim spammer or blobber.
It led to so much unparalleled cancer and the same uninspired strategies that one has never seen before.

I almost think you want the game to be more like Halo Wars (a game that I loved) type of assymetrical design and balance, but it's just two completely different games and this is how it should be

3. One Criticism I have of the balance team that pretty much falls in line with what you say is the increasing linearity and similarity of tech. It takes away decision making and leads to a very one sided meta when tech is just a linear progression without possibility or reason of skipping a building. This has happened to both Wehr and Soviets. It seems like the goal is to make the game more "convenient" to the player by giving him all the options without any trade off.

This is because of the core design decisions in the game that were made more prominent after the Western Fronts debacle. The problem is the game has never had the deep strategic decisions that could support asymmetric balance - OKW was at least an attempt at recreating some non-unit based strategic gameplay but failed in so many other ways they couldn't maintain it. COH2 needs some sort of deeper strategy layer - like the old COH1 veterancy system, major decision events like "bars or an M8" or for commanders to actually be MORE a part of the game. The game has no path forward for balance other than to gradually make factions symmetrical. Tech has to be linear across factions, otherwise there is going to be an imbalance somewhere. That's one of the reasons they got rid of the Soviet choice - T3 with medium tank spam or T4 with mobile arty and tank destroyers. I really liked that choice though because it gave different playstyles a path to victory - if you like microing lots of tanks and pulling off rams, go T3, if you are a more static player who likes to punch holes in enemy lines, you went T4.

This is because of the core design decisions in the game that were made more prominent after the Western Fronts debacle. The problem is the game has never had the deep strategic decisions that could support asymmetric balance - OKW was at least an attempt at recreating some non-unit strategic gameplay but failed in so many other ways they couldn't maintain it. COH2 needs some sort of deeper strategy layer - like the old COH1 veterancy system, major decision events like "bars or an M8" or for commanders to actually be MORE a part of the game. The game has no path forward for balance other than to gradually make factions symmetrical. Tech has to be linear across factions, otherwise there is going to be an imbalance somewhere. That's one of the reasons they got rid of the Soviet choice - T3 with medium tank spam or T4 with mobile arty and tank destroyers. I really liked that choice though because it gave different playstyles a path to victory - if you like microing lots of tanks and pulling off rams, go T3, if you are a more static player who likes to punch holes in enemy lines, you went T4.

And we come full circle back to why those tech changes have been made: Certain people that have too much free time on their hands to post every minute of every hour cried how their faction needs to choose while another one doesn't. I'm all for choosing different playstyles. The need to make a choice, sacrifice one thing for another leads to interesting games. Right not, in teamgames you exactly know what the axis player will build and how allies will react.
It's pretty standardized. However, the balance team has done an excellent job. I'm not the fan of broken units, no matter if people cry how stuka is OP or how pak howi is OP. All just crybabies that don't have the brainpower to counter such units. The game, so far, is great. Balance is great. I don't even find 5 man grens overperforming. Of course, for me, in 3v3s, 5man grens are definetely not overperforming. They might in 1v1s but it's well known that 1v1 is a completely different game from 2v2+ and should not be the basis since it's probably the least played mode. That's where I agree that balance should not be done from the perspective of pro players.

I will leave these. I might have more, but some thoughts that respond to some things.

Fun For You Does Not Equate to Fun For the Other Guy

Winning and succeeding feels good, but you also got to make sure the other player feels completely powerless or so constrained that there is only one path forward. People don't want to be super restricted where there is only one solution to the problem - IE early WFA blob on blob violence, USF needing to win in the first 15 minutes or auto lose, Soviet insane back tech cost before their tech rework that had no complimentary AI or AT unit, or demolition charges as super mines that meant you had to hand hold every squad to avoid an instant wipe on capture points.

Things need to feel powerful, yes, but it shouldn't be like if you missed retreating from the old stuka by .75 second, which team weapons could barely if ever escape from, your unit shouldn't die because it was 10-12m from the blast zone and got glanced by the auto death critical.

Faction Flavour Should Be done Without Compromising Core Aspects

Having no core tools for core systems such as reliable suppression - Kubels will never cut is as MGs late game to counter blobs - should not be the case. All factions in their core should at least have the basic tools to counter either large infantry assault, defensive positions, and/or heavier armoured vehicles.

Can't always be done due to lack of assets, but the core tools should be there.

And others might disagree, and I will heavily disagree with Brad's point - who is not infailiable- heavily from ages bygone. The early StG puts more offensive power than Volkshrecks did in a meaningful way. The former allows OKW to quickly upgrade and attempt to take the field in the infantry war before tapering off later in the game. The latter promoted critical mass. One Schreck was not useful, 4-5 Schrecks meant it became absurd trying to attack any supported OKW tank. The upgrade also means you could swarm vehicles with cheap infantry - and that's not including how these weapons encouraged being massed up on cheap infantry, avoiding cover and charging forward to attack armour as cover was determential vs AOE.

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Soviet old tech system was barely holding all together due to infinite no tech requirement vehicle call ins.

Once people started to optimize gameplay, they basically remove the weak link which was teching and they basically skipped going for tech which resulted in either KV8 into IS2s or 2x T85s.


Yes, initial T3 with weak T3476 worked due to how broken ram was. Same with Su85 with turbo reverse and main cannon machine gun. IF you go for an army with limited options, then those options were broken. Maxim spam and precision strike mortars. Or double man squad sprinting snipers inside a clowncar.

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The problem is that the game was not designed from it's core as a team game based RTS. It allows to be played in that way, some balance aspects take into consideration team game things, but there's so much you can do with what you have.

Outside of really specific moments in the game life, the main problem for teamgames (3v3+) has always been unit volume, maps and match making.

As far as popularity, i think in order it was 4v4/2v2 > 1v1 > 3v3.

In regards to how balance should be done, EVERY COMPETITIVE PVP game goes from top to bottom. There's a difference between balancing for your best players and down the line and completely ignoring the noobs input. What "bad" players needs is not balance changes, rather than QOL and ease of use patches which makes their experience with the game better. What you aim for is making the game "easier" while not lowering down the ceil floor.

Ex: Reverse hotkey, compared to how it required to be done in vCOH1. Some things that could be done for COH3 could be auto reinforce toggle on/off in base.

Yes, initial T3 with weak T3476 worked due to how broken ram was. Same with Su85 with turbo reverse and main cannon machine gun. IF you go for an army with limited options, then those options were broken. Maxim spam and precision strike mortars. Or double man squad sprinting snipers inside a clowncar.

Those were the days, it was a very casual unbalanced RTS, but god damn it was fun. Alternative crazy balance would be to restore all that to Sov and then make grens great again - remember that patch when G43 grens became godlike? That was hilarious. Modders? please make! Sniper car vs ubergrens would be so fun.

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Apples to oranges. You are trying to apply "wide" concepts which sounds fine without taking into account how different genres or even games in general have to apply them to each of their games. Not to mention the execution of those concepts.

If everything is overpowered, nothing is

Good ol "DOTA" mantra. Key aspect you are missing is the word "EVERYTHING" and that things should not necessarily be OP but feel like it. The game had like 25% OP things and rest was irrelevant.

"Don't be reactive. Don't design by committee"

I 90% disagree. The people who are geniuses in the game industry are far and few. Those who can sell the game and make people play them based on who they are. I have seen too many games fail because game devs are too stubborn in designing features and adding elements which their playerbase doesn't want.

The mantra "they design the game, they know better, they are 100% right". It's funny how many times i've seen this kind of things bite them back. Be humble. Design with a goal in mind, but be open to new ideas.

The brain is easily confused

A single person can't. The consensus of a big group of experienced people might.

Although CoH2 is way past the rough stage, sometimes "bugs" in CoH2 actually weren't bugs but hard design decisions Jason Lee, Duffy, and other designers made.)

Give an example.

Don't play the game too much

HARD disagree.
Game designers generally are "good enough" in their respective games if they are designed around PvP. IIRC most Relic game lead balance designers were easily top 200/100 at the game.

When you have devs which don't play enough the game, they get out of contact with their product which lead to taking decisions which are based on equations (one of the points you mention before).

When devs get out of touch, you end up getting a disaster like BF5.