CoH3 Feedback by Jibber and GiaA

Largest post ever in this forum?

General Feedback

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Wehrmacht Feedback

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USA Feedback

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Combat Feedback

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Maps

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UI and UX

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From what I got playing USF and Wehr - USF was much-MUCH more finished then the Wehr imo.

If we ignore of the balance problems, OP units and abilities, on a fundamental level Wehr had some serious problems.

Like for instance this whole idea behind Luft\PG tiers is cool, but luft was wastly infirrior to PGs in pretty much every single scenario, it was playable but totaly infirrior.

It is also pretty clear that Wehr is kinda not supposed to have both T2\T3 at the same time, without being punished for that res vise. This only leads to the fact either both tiers should be equally strong or we will be left with soviet T1\T2 situation.

Upgrading T1\T2 is also badly thought out, because you was able to get stug\wilberwind at 8 minute mark if you rush it. Pretty much at the time USF got access to LVs.

So idk, for me Alpha just shown some working and not so much concepts, but I think it was rolled out way to early. Because, as I was saying, it felt like wehr was just quickly made up into its MP version from SP, while USF was more or less in a finished state.

Also it wasnt helping, that we didnt exactly know what is finished and what is not (aside of oblivious things). Like for istance, is damage retreating squads recieve is the new vision of the gameplay, in other words that game should have more wipes like in vCoH or they just didnt properly balanced it up.

Relic really should have given at least some sort of a guideline on what we should have been looking at and about what feedback is needed.

From what I got playing USF and Wehr - USF was much-MUCH more finished then the Wehr imo.

True, USF has clearly been the main priority thus far.

Like for instance this whole idea behind Luft\PG tiers is cool, but luft was wastly infirrior to PGs in pretty much every single scenario, it was playable but totaly infirrior.

It is also pretty clear that Wehr is kinda not supposed to have both T2\T3 at the same time, without being punished for that res vise. This only leads to the fact either both tiers should be equally strong or we will be left with soviet T1\T2 situation.

True, but while giving the tiers similar strength may be more difficult to balance, it will ultimately lead to more varied gameplay, as opposed to the linear tiering we're used to from CoH2 Ostheer. It's not setup like CoH1 either, so the ambition is commendable. I don't think the changes have to be massive to make it work.

Upgrading T1\T2 is also badly thought out, because you was able to get stug\wilberwind at 8 minute mark if you rush it. Pretty much at the time USF got access to LVs.

It's mostly just a cost / counter thing. I didn't see such super early timings outside the 3 CP Wirbel call-in. There's also more counters available like the Chaffee, so it can work.

So idk, for me Alpha just shown some working and not so much concepts, but I think it was rolled out way to early. Because, as I was saying, it felt like wehr was just quickly made up into its MP version from SP, while USF was more or less in a finished state.

Also it wasnt helping, that we didnt exactly know what is finished and what is not (aside of oblivious things). Relic really should have given at least some sort of a guideline on what we should have been looking at and about what feedback is needed.

Well, information given could've been better in that regard. They probably did an approach similar to what they're used to with their closed dev group, but on this scale it could lead to a lot of obvious feedback. On the other hand, such obvious feedback might show them what to prioritize next. I personally felt there was a sufficient amount of things to talk about, and I've read a lot of good feedback, so I'm glad we've been given the opportunity to give input and have some ensurance of how the game is developing at such an early stage.

Interesintg thread. I'll post my thoughts down the line

Nice write up guys. Looks good.

I did not play the alpha. But what I saw had some good and bad.

BAD
1) The UI color choices made the whole scene very hard to look at. As GiaA stated the unit icons should not be grey. The extra zoom and the grey colors made it impossible to see who owned the units moving around on the screen. Both for players and stream viewers.

2) The point value indicators were some weird lime green color instead of white. And the actual point indicators were a different color, pink? There are way too many colors on the screen. The standard is white with a black border so that no matter what the backdrop is they standout. I would almost like to see these values as part of the 3D model so it has more of a realistic look.

3) Some colors were different hues. Like normal blue on your icons and a different blue for captured points.

4) Mini Map size. Since it was an alpha there are not a lot of graphics around the UI. AOE4 is pretty sparse. Assuming Coh3 is that way also, the MM could be larger or adjustable. Let the player sacrifice some vision to get a bigger MM.

GOOD
1) I like the zoomed out view. The actual distance is still up for debate.

2) The maps looked very good. I did not play so I cant comment on balance, cover, etc.

3) I like the idea of the commander system allowing for less predictable play.

4) I like the Global Unit Overview on the bottom next to the minimap. Lets you click a unit then click the minimap. When making my game, I placed them above the menu so you could click a unit then the menu. Bottom is a nice go between for both minimap and menu.

ALPHA STUFF
1) The weird blinking shadows on the ground etc. Rendering dithering? Z buffer issues?

2) The capture circle that draws on top of game play objects.

STUFF TO THINK ABOUT
1) Everyone hates snow maps because of the reduced FPS brought on by the extra geometry used on the snow tracks. I saw vehicles making tracks in the sandy/muddy areas on a map. I did not see footprints (which is what kills FPS). Having only vehicle track splines that fade away seems like a great balance for realism and FPS. Hopefully that is what was done. Of course people could just not use the mud/snow in the maps if its an issue.

2) I did not see any re cover in matches I saw. Is there red cover in Coh3?

yeah, mini map size should be adjustable or bigger, so that one does not need tac map. it would be great if the dead bodies do not disappear, especially on higher graphical settings. zoom level can be adjusted on the fly with the use of the third wheel, the zoom level is far enough. i hope abandoned mechanic is brought forward to COH3 from COH2

This is really good feedback. I agree with basically all of it except for the grenade scatter. Thanks for writing up all this insightful feedback.

I like how grenades scatter, it means they are less ultra-precise mini squadwipe nukes to punish squads that are clumped. The Coh2 implementation of grenades encourages blobbing and punishes multitasking because if you look away for 2 seconds your squad might get instagibbed. Especially regarding Rifle grenades. Grenades in CoH3 seem to be much harder to get squad wipes with, with I appreciate.

I did not see any re cover in matches I saw. Is there red cover in Coh3?

Yea, it was a red emblem with an X.

Amazing post, thank you guys Definitely gonna try to pass this on

Looks like a solid write up from a balance & design perspective, I think this article will work well in tandem with my write up that I just posted that is more concerned with the technical & usability aspects of the game.

Good to see some overlap between the two (no surprises there) - cheers to you & JJJ for the extensive testing.

This thread deserves a bump.

I think personally I like the idea that infantry combat is slower than CoH1 or 2. It incentivises flanking/unit abilities, and combined arms play more than low TTK would.

One criticism I have of the alpha, that I'm not sure was mentioned specifically, is that cover feels very fiddly in comparison to CoH2, even beyond the fact that autovault simplifies things a little too much.
It feels rather hard to get your units into the cover you want them to be in sometimes... Or at least it did for me.

What a great post, very throughout and well explained summary.

A bit of an add on:

"Audible Footsteps
Footsteps in the fog of war give away infantry positions. Predicting infantry movement is a major part of CoH and hearing the footsteps prevents this layer of depth."

You have this in both previous games, also units speech in fog of war is a thing.


"Wires
Wires seem to be very thin at the moment, and require too much precision to reliably deny cover."

I would also like to add this, the ability to curve the wire and not just have it in a straight line.

"Audible Footsteps
Footsteps in the fog of war give away infantry positions. Predicting infantry movement is a major part of CoH and hearing the footsteps prevents this layer of depth."

You have this in both previous games, also units speech in fog of war is a thing.

Is it really? Is it possible in CoH1 and/or CoH2 to determine infantry positions in the FoW? At least it's easier in CoH3.

Automating reinforcing doesn’t really hurt the core gameplay that much

Agreed.

One thing that should definitely be considered is constricting auto-reinforce to HQ sectors. Some strategies are balanced around being limited by available micro, namely halftrack and bunker play, and auto reinforce severely lowers this “micro tax”, making these deathball type strategies way too easy to execute for how hard they are to counter. Also, by auto reinforce being available on the frontline, it takes value away from merge, because you won’t disable auto reinforce just to save some manpower with merge.

Auto-reinforce in base only sounds like l33t tax that doesn't help the game in any way except making more micro, because you're adding clicks based on where the unit is reinforcing. That's not consistent design.

I'd rather see auto-reinforce available wherever one can reinforce, and then merge becomes the combat version of reinforce. Maybe it should take twice as long to reinforce outside HQ.

The answer to blobs must come from coh3 gameplay design, not micro tax.

The Medic upgrade has the same issues as the 251 for Wehrmacht in that most micro requirements have been removed as a result of autohealing, auto reinforce and easy team weapon recapture, resulting in halftrack play becoming very hard to counter for how easy it is to pull off.

Coh3 designers need to be thinking super hard about blobbing in their game, and how they'll mitigate it in teamgames without just throwing micro tax clicks at the issue.
Good suppression at long range on all MGs is a good start. Enhancing the cap point losses for teams that are blobbing instead of capping is another.

Like, what if captured points started to de-cap themselves in teamgames. That'd mean they need to be re-capped occasionally. That would severely hamper blob play and further reward the fortification of specific areas, leading to a dynamic push and pull that can reduce camping as well as encourage fewer blobs.

I'd rather see auto-reinforce available wherever one can reinforce, and then merge becomes the combat version of reinforce. Maybe it should take twice as long to reinforce outside HQ.

I think slower reinforcing speed from forward reinforce means such as halftracks or forward HQ's is a very nice solution that is intuitive, elegant and effective at minimising cheese.

Is it really? Is it possible in CoH1 and/or CoH2 to determine infantry positions in the FoW? At least it's easier in CoH3.

Recently played CoH and I heard infantry movement in the fog.

Auto-reinforce in base only sounds like l33t tax that doesn't help the game in any way except making more micro, because you're adding clicks based on where the unit is reinforcing. That's not consistent design.

I'd rather see auto-reinforce available wherever one can reinforce, and then merge becomes the combat version of reinforce. Maybe it should take twice as long to reinforce outside HQ.

I get your view. Baseline is that with halftracks, a player makes the deliberate choice to help increase the staying power of his units on the field, at which point auto reinforce becomes less of a QoL thing and starts impacting balance.

Balancing it in other ways could be fine as well, like increasing reinforce times outside of HQ or reducing reinforcement radius (so it’s easier to force away). Right now in CoH2, halftracks range from being very cumbersome in 1v1 to being very dominant in 4v4. Keeping the ease of use, but adding some drawbacks might help smoothen this difference.

"Audible Footsteps
Footsteps in the fog of war give away infantry positions. Predicting infantry movement is a major part of CoH and hearing the footsteps prevents this layer of depth."

You have this in both previous games, also units speech in fog of war is a thing.

Recently played CoH and I heard infantry movement in the fog.

I do have a vague memory of it being a thing in CoH1, but pretty sure it's not in CoH2, or at least it's so mute as to be unusable. You can hear things like mines being planted and flags being raised though, and I think some units have some setup noise like Raketen.

Alright, funny how I assumed it was a thing for CoH2 as well, I swear. Sorry for the misinformation I haven't played CoH2 for some time.

Alright, funny how I assumed it was a thing for CoH2 as well, I swear. Sorry for the misinformation I haven't played CoH2 for some time.

Well, we were all half correct/wrong, I think the interesting question is whether hearing footsteps is a good thing. Of course sound being a relevant source of information is a central element of CoH but I personally think the footsteps thing goes too far.