Relic: Concerns about art direction

ART - VEHICLE & BUILDING DAMAGE, AGING AND MORE! ANSWERING YOUR CONCERNS


https://community.companyofheroes.com/coh-franchise/company-of-heroes-3/forums/1-company-of-heroes-3/threads/585-art-vehicle-building-damage-aging-and-more-answering-your-concerns

I just find that a lot of the people are somehow not realizing that the game is in a pre alpha state. Very annoying, its a sneak peak into what the game will become, just common sense, too much criticism on an early build, just be happy we have the chance to see and try the new game at this state and give good feedback.

I just find that a lot of the people are somehow not realizing that the game is in a pre alpha state.

Can I get an amen!!! I keep saying most people who play RTS are one step down on the evolutionary ladder.

Watching the Twitch stream and watching idiots ask the same dumb questions over and over and over.

"I didnt watch anything, I just got here... I demand you answer my dumb question that was answered earlier for some other dummy!"

Some days I really feel sorry for Relic and the Dev team. They have to babysit these droolers all the time. Then you get some weirdo malcontent like me giving them shit for doing dumb stuff

Back on topic:
I thought the art looked fine. But I like to just play the game. I find it weird how many people care about dirt on buildings, or colors, etc....Its a game. Or what skins the units are wearing? Out of 5k hours I may have looked at some skins once... for 2 seconds... then back to playing...

I am pretty sure Nintendo WII made a lot of money by dumbing down the graphics.

And I remember the first 6 times I played coh2 after years of vCoh and I hated it. But by game 20-30 I could never dream of playing vCoh ever again. Coh2 is so much better. But people are seeing Single Player for 10 minutes and already saying "Booo Coh3 sucks Booooo". You have not even seen MP yet???? WTF are you booing?

I also appreciate the new texture blending/rendering modes. So I enjoy the added resolution/clarity/oolors/etc.

It's the year 2021, where everyone has to complain about games not being tailored to perfection for their personal use.

It's the year 2021, where everyone has to complain about games not being tailored to perfection for their personal use.

Some people just can't tell the difference between pre-alpha and release client.
Ignorance is bliss, this is why we have to deal with life service bullshit from AAA publishers, players are just too ignorant to stand up against it.

There has been significant advances towards improving the art style throughout all the internal and public builds and things are geared towards not only what the art team believes how things should look like but also towards what players expect things to look like. All is kept in fine balance whilst ensuring that CoH3 has its own distinct look and feel.

I just find that a lot of the people are somehow not realizing that the game is in a pre alpha state. Very annoying, its a sneak peak into what the game will become, just common sense, too much criticism on an early build, just be happy we have the chance to see and try the new game at this state and give good feedback.

On one hand yes, on the other hand you can't expect from everyone to exactly know what an alpha build looks like and how much and which things are still heavily under construction, which are place holders etc. There is no common definition for an alpha build, the only thing it is supposed to tell is that the developers think it is still a "very early" version.

Relic wants feedback, and they did not tell which things are place holders and what their roadmap is. Maybe a more shiny and brightly colored palette is what they aimed for to appeal for a wider audience? As it turns out it is not, these just seem to be basic skins, shaders etc at the moment and they intend to make it more gritty. As a normal user you can't tell their intentions, so it is only logical to complain about it if you don't like it.
I am not saying that none of the suggestions are useless. There is no need to discuss balance, but the general feel and looks of the game as well as stability issues is the kind of feedback that I assume Relic is looking for. And art is a part of that.

Show Spoiler

What was mentioned was that this version is an early build, A Pre-Alpha and everything is a matter of change. I agree that not everyone listens nor reads and just jumps in with an assumption that lets say graphics should be in a refined state, get dissapointed and then criticize why it looks so bad without giving it a second thought. Perhaps excitement got the best of them. As a saying goes,:"assumption is a mother of all fuck ups."

Gameplay wise the game looks to be amazing and has so much potential with the side tech and unit roster. I for one am bored with the same CoH2 builds, every game is the same, only person I have fun watching is Tightrope as he tries non meta strats, but there isnt much variety overall.

Why I wrote this, is I find a lot of ignorant rant on the forums and it scares me to think what could happen if the game will be toned down because of this. Developers are humans as well and if you feed them with too much criticism in this early stage, they might just miss the full potential out of uncertainty.

Show Spoiler
I mostly agree.
However, Relic put their pre-product out there for criticism and getting input. The general concepts and intended direction should be visible in their build, otherwise there were no reason for public testing. If you don't like central parts of the pre-version (like the art and color palette, I'll just stick with this as an example), then you need to phrase it.

From the players perspective, you don't know what Relic has planned for the next months. The alpha state says that many things will change, but not into which direction. Maybe they had planned to make the game even cartoonier. You could brush the issue aside saying it is due to the pre alpha state, but in the next preview months from now you might find out they reinforced the cartoon style, and it might become too late to properly change it anymore. So better phrase the wishes early, because that is exactly what Relic is looking for. If they intended a gritty look in the first place, Relic will lose half a minute to read your feedback and be happy that it is in line with their plans. If not, they will put it on the list of potential changes if enough people voice it.

However, I agree that some people expect too much from this build and base probably undue criticism on it. I hope that Relic manages to properly differentiate between these posts and proper critique. Therefore, I think it is just as important to make posts about what is really good about the current build and how it could be developed further.

Show Spoiler

Agreed that they could've shared more info from the get go. Here's to healthy criticism!

While it's true that a lot of people don't seem to realise that this is an alpha build: It's honestly not /entirely/ terrible that people are mentioning things that they do and do not like about things such as the artstyle/UI/etc.

This is the time in which they could (comparatively) readily make changes to these aspects, and people making clear what they want from the "aesthetics" side of things helps Lelic know what the final product should look like.

That said; the things that should be focused on are more the gameplay/core design side of things. I hope there's enough of that type of criticism being levelled, it's rather more important to the end product.

ya the pre alpha complaining is too much, i thought they are savvy enough to sign up, they should understand where pre alpha stands.

now im happy with the art style and ui, sure they can be further refined

i prefer coh1 than coh2 in art style and such. coh2 felt too blocky and smaller in scale than coh1 even though it had more modern texturing and lighting