Abandon

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 12:18 PMkater123

There is millions of aspect to make this game fun and engaging. Also, so many mechanics to make this game full of RNG and uncertainty as IRL. However for God sake please remove or rework this abandon mechanics in multiplayer.

A player aggressively played should be punished by a well-organised defence and lose all his tank, but not be punished by that his vehicle turn to the dark side and fight against its former master. Especially a player only spends a hundred of manpower (to reinforce the squad) and a minute or two to get it repaired. It is just annoying and killing this game.

At least rework it, maybe a certain amount of oil apart from the models get into the vehicle, or a slightly longer time required to get it fully repaired. So even if it happens, the player had to evaluate if it is worthy to get the bloody tank manned and repaired, but not just man it without a second of hesitation!

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 12:28 PMCrecer13

Jesus Christ what are you whining about? The chance of abandoned a tank is already extremely small. I have seen not a single abandoned tank for several months. This is not the time a few years ago when a heavy tank was thrown very often and my Steam was packed with these screenshots. Any mechanic who was in the Game is either practically killed or has already been killed. Please stop castrate the Game.

If I wanted to play DoW2, I would go to play DoW2. But you want to turn СoH2 into DoW2.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 12:28 PMCrecer13

The chance of abandoned a tank is already extremely small. I have seen not a single abandoned tank for several months.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 12:28 PMCrecer13

But you want to turn СoH2 into DoW2.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 13:16 PMAzxc

Then it doesn't affect you that much if it is removed right?



I like how you think CoH2 is good because abandon exists in the game. Please give us one or two logical reasons on why you think abandon is fun and is positive to the game


If you haven't read my counter arguments you can find them listed here:
https://www.coh2.org/topic/107466/abandon/post/850308

Show Spoiler

To be clear Angelus main gun crits and other "bad" RNG (main gun crit in this example) should definitly be an option in casual matches or campaign, but it has no business in ladder.

Anyone who doesnt understand the real problem with some of the "bad" RNG (main gun crits, planes randomly wiping squads, etc.) in COH ladder specifically need to read and understand this portion of the article (below) in its entirety. I quoted direct from it in this thread to make it easier for everyone.

Sourced by my article: https://www.coh2.org/news/87123/company-of-heroes-3-with-whiteflash-addendum

The RNG Dilemma

I have to now talk about something in detail so everyone can fully appreciate where I'm trying to take you because, in a lot of ways, it is a part of the soul of COH and this has to be thought about carefully. I'm talking about the chance interactions that are built into every single match. I will refer to this as RNG. It is a massive part of COH, and should remain so. As far as artillery strikes, mortars, and infantry firing at each other, etc., it makes a ton of realistic and gameplay sense to maintain the RNG in many cases.

In other cases, this RNG normality starts to break down. The examples I'm about to give aren't intended to be the norm, but they happen often enough that every single person who has played Company of Heroes has had something like this happen to them. The example below is double snipers in perfect positioning to ambush an enemy sniper. The player has been patiently awaiting the enemy to come into a well prepared kill zone. And then... this happens...



The sniper gets away and what should be a tactical victory turns into a fail and potentially you will lose a sniper or worse. Now you could say, "well it happens to both sides occasionally so its OK" but that doesn't make a difference in a single game. In a single game where advancing in a ladder, or keeping a winning streak going, or competing when there is huge amounts of money on the line, or just trying to enjoy the game... it's flawed. You can't have situations where players do every single thing right in tactical situations and lose. You're removing a key element, fun, from the game. It doesn't work. It breaks the spirit of many players to come back and enjoy the game. It's objectively wrong design when we look at this specific example.

Another specific example, is an antitank gun vs a tank at close range. We have a very impactful tank, the T-34/85, and a Pak designed to counter tanks. The player with the pak sees the weakened tank, the tank player isn't microing after a battle and leaves his tank exposed, the pak player correctly moves his AT gun into position and at a very close range...



But the Pak misses and the tank escapes. The Pak player did everything tactically correct and the satisfaction, payoff, reward, whatever you want to call it has been stripped from that player. This inherently doesn't make sense.

RNG Solutions

Now, I can hear everyone saying, "you better not talk about removing RNG from COH!" and I'm 100% in agreement. What I'm driving at is the unreasonable over-impactful low chance randomness has to be curbed to everyone's benefit. I want to say that again, the unreasonable over-impactful low chance randomness is the problem here. It's not the RNG in general that is the problem. The problem is that in these highly impactful moments there aren't clear lines. There are very likely many solutions to this, two of which I will illustrate. To be clear all this discussion on this one area of the game (close range AT RNG) is to illuminate the rougher edges of COH so that it can drive towards a flourishing ladder and be one step closer to the "made by jesus" asymptote. Relic will indeed have to analyze and thoroughly test every aspect of the game much deeper than this to arrive at what makes the most sense. And, in general, I will again point to the original COH1 factions design and what made them so compelling and reciprocal.

To highlight my point here, imagine if you were one of the North America’s most successful and well-known Esports players like Huk (who got frustrated with COH and left for SCII) and you miss an AT gun shot at close range on a last shot on a vehicle that wins or loses the game. And, it's for tens of thousands of dollars... that is the breaking point for a lot of people who consider themselves pros and would want to get into a game like this in a serious competitive way. The thing is... the COH mechanics are compelling and amazing so they would be interested. But if the difference is a dice roll, like a close range AT gun shooting a tank, and it misses, that just won't work in a competitive environment. The high impact units is where this matters. However, if it takes 30 shots to kill a unit it's OK and actually desirable to have random chance mixed in there because the impact of missing a single shot is much lower, but if an AT gun takes 3 shots to kill a tank and it misses the last shot at point blank range, it can be a deal breaker. I got a chance to have Huk look at this specific paragraph and he commented.

"For argument sake I think chance in games is good, but obviously to the degree they have it is bad, your example being good."
Huk


Image credit to Dustin Steiner

I would even suggest Relic and/or SEGA temporarily employ some of these RTS pros and take advantage of their deep RTS knowledge, experience, passion and perspectives. They could be called upon during certain stages of the development cycle and may be a valuable asset which would potentially benefit everyone.

As it stands, units that get closer to other units have an increased chance to hit, which means the edge case of missing at close range is all the more frustrating when it does happen. In this specific case, I will be talking about AT guns only, but this can apply to snipers, tank vs tank battles and any high impact unit. Artillery among other things doesn't apply here as stated before, each unit has to be looked at and individually calibrated. One solution to AT guns could be to layer a system that basically says, if an enemy tank is within (I'm using 50% here but pick any close range number) 50% of the max range of the gun then the AT gun will hit 100% of the time. This will remove edge cases. And players, knowing that they will have 100% chance to hit at certain ranges, will play differently in specific tactical situations because they will benefit from this 100% zone on the AT guns.



Another important improvement from this is that when an AT gun misses a kill shot at long range, they will know that they COULD have changed their tactics and positioned their AT gun close enough to have a 100% chance to hit, and thus, there is rational to the miss. The ability for players to rationalize these kinds of impactful moments are critical, especially to new players. In other words, I could have increased the risk for reward but it essentially is, on some level, my fault that it missed because I wasn't willing to take the risk to get closer. This is a far cry psychologically from an AT gun missing a kill on a tank at point blank after having done everything right then the player says "well it didn't matter WHAT I did I was never going to get that kill". That kind of helpless disillusionment is dangerous for the health of the game, the competitive spirit, and the community. Many of the hardcore fan base simply accept that this is part of the game, with AT guns in this example, but it is unnecessary and is one of the needless rough edges of the game.

Another potential solution is to change AT guns so as shots miss, the next shot chance increases. The target would have a timer attached to it that increases the chance to be hit by any other AT gun in a cumulative manner until the timer expires. This would reduce some of the unreasonable over-impactful low chance randomness but in a different way. You could have a modifier specific to both the target and the shooter or maybe just a modifier on the target if you dodged a tank shot in the last x seconds, the next one has a higher chance to land, something along these lines. Or perhaps some combination of both solutions would be best, or something totally novel! This is where thorough testing and a keen sense of game mechanics will reveal what is best.

A good example of a gameplay element that is impactful and has well defined lines built into the mechanic is the way that you fire a panzerfaust or AT grenade at a vehicle. The vehicle goes inside the range circle, the player takes the risk of getting close to the vehicle to obtain the reward of killing or snaring the vehicle, the player clicks the vehicle to faust and regardless of how far away the targeted vehicle gets after the action is taken the faust lands 100%. There is a tactical satisfaction that comes with knowing you did the right thing and you get the payoff, conversely the player with the tank knows he messed up because he got into range of the faust and the vehicle getting hit is his fault. There are clear lines for the players and that's important. Other elements that follow this trend where a player knows a game element will act a certain way is when a teller mines hits a vehicle or a smoke grenade conceals an area or when a flame grenade damages infantry in a building.



Please keep in mind I'm giving specific examples and solutions, but they are only examples, and the solutions presented have no testing or data to back up whether or not they would work. I'm trying to illustrate the rough edges that COH presents and providing a possible concept to address them. Much more work than this will have to be done for a new game. The meat of COH, the fundamental mechanics, are so strong that with thorough design, testing and analysis Relic can knock COH3 out of the park. All of this "edge case" discussion is, to get back on topic, part of refining fundamental game subtleties to propel the competitive scene, get players interested in the franchise, and satisfy players to the point where they want to stay. Especially new players.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:08 PMCrecer13

My controversy is simple - I don't care what you don't like. I like how planes fall into a crowd of people (no matter the enemy or mine) or how it falls on the ice and sinks a tank (no matter the enemy or mine), I like how the tanks are abandon and the event starts around the capture or destruction of this tank. This is a game for me, there are no questions of justice or injustice. For me, this is a question of getting fun and adrenaline. And everything described above gives me this.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:33 PMPip

Nobody cares what YOU like either. You're not providing any arguments, you're just inventing strawman scenarios about how removing terrible mechanics like Abandon and MGC somehow make the game more "Sterile", whereas the people arguing against Mario Party Mechanics like those two are giving actual reasons as to why they're shit parts of the game that should be removed.

Just because you like the game's bad parts doesn't mean they aren't bad. Whiteflash, Azxc, and kater123 have provided actual arguments. Either provide some yourself, or stop whining (And projecting that anyone else is "whining")

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:39 PMCrecer13

What the hell does a need proof? Data from game statistics that I like it all? This is FUN ... FUN. I play the game and not the statistics. I am acting aggressively and am not afraid that my tank will be abandoned. Could this affect the game? Of course. Am I going to cry about it after playing on the forum? Not.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:46 PMPip

Too bad. What you consider "fun" isnt relevant for a balance discussion, which is what this is. You consider bad mechanics and bad game design fun, that's your problem, nobody else's.

You whine consistently as soon as anyone starts discussing these mechanics being bad for the game.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:52 PMCrecer13

I can also advise you to get away from people who love this. Because your problems are your problems. This mechanic has always been here and I want her to continue to be here.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:56 PMPip

Then make a real argument, if you want to convince the Balance team not to remove them.

You, and about two other people like these bad mechanics, but that has absolutely no bearing on what changes are or are not made. Anyone with any sort of competence at the game thinks they're utterly terrible, and would be ecstatic at their removal.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:58 PMCrecer13

Your evidence is exactly the same as mine - personal feelings. So don't tell everyone here that they don't like this mechanic.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:59 PMPip

No it isnt, you clearly haven't read any of the posts by people arguing against you in this thread. Stop projecting.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 14:56 PMPip

Then make a real argument, if you want to convince the Balance team not to remove them.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 15:25 PMJibberJabberJobber

I'm thinking of a more advanced system now, that would feel a bit more fleshed out and be easier to implement.

The tank would be able to get repaired and recrewed like normal, but its gun would be unrepairably disabled until you 'refit' the vehicle for a certain cost.

Cost could be like:
- 50mp + 50% the fuel cost (minimum 5) for a light vehicle.
- 100mp + 50% the fuel cost for a light tank.
- 150mp + 50% the fuel cost for a medium tank.
- 200mp + 50% the fuel cost for a heavy tank.

Then it at least requires some economic investment besides the recrewing models, which makes the impact of abandon not quite as big and punishing.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 15:18 PMSneakEye

MGC and abandon are not nearly the same in my opinion. MGC has a decisive impact. Abandon is not directly decisive, because the tank would just die otherwise. I like abandon (in custom games) because it creates a moment of extra attention. You need to defend the area and repair the destroyed engine in order to use it. Therefor the opponent has time to interfere.

Yes if the tank gets abandoned behind enemy lines it has a huge impact, but diving is a choice and you are the only one who can influence that. If you support your tank then you should have the tools to avoid your opponent to crew your tank.

Jump back to quoted post29 Jan 2021, 15:25 PMJibberJabberJobber

I'm thinking of a more advanced system now, that would feel a bit more fleshed out and be easier to implement.

The tank would be able to get repaired and recrewed like normal, but its gun would be unrepairably disabled until you 'refit' the vehicle for a certain cost.

Cost could be like:
- 50mp + 50% the fuel cost (minimum 5) for a light vehicle.
- 100mp + 50% the fuel cost for a light tank.
- 150mp + 50% the fuel cost for a medium tank.
- 200mp + 50% the fuel cost for a heavy tank.

Then it at least requires some economic investment besides the recrewing models, which makes the impact of abandon not quite as big and punishing.