Sib's Honest Opinion on the Current State of COH3

make the camera zoom more immersive

This
I felt like I was playing VCoH + MoW2

Haven't read all of it yet, but this is what I call a quality post!

Thanks for the compliment! I wish I could expand on the gameplay design & balance elements more but with my limited exposure to the MP pre-alpha, it just doesn't make sense for me to comment on such sensitive parts. I plan to update this thread with feedback as we go through more iterations for COH3 so stay tuned! If it makes sense, maybe make another post in the same fashion and archive this one so we have a log of what the progress has been like!

Appreciate your time (that goes for everyone) and please keep the feedback on the game and my post coming. Don't be shy to post if you disagree or have any other comments either.

Thanks for the compliment! I wish I could expand on the gameplay design & balance elements more but with my limited exposure to the MP pre-alpha, it just doesn't make sense for me to comment on such sensitive parts. I plan to update this thread with feedback as we go through more iterations for COH3 so stay tuned! If it makes sense, maybe make another post in the same fashion and archive this one so we have a log of what the progress has been like!

Appreciate your time (that goes for everyone) and please keep the feedback on the game and my post coming. Don't be shy to post if you disagree or have any other comments either.

I would love to follow posts such as yours. I have not played CoH2 for over 5 years, and with all the things Relic has been going through (remember DoW3 it doesn't exist), I don't know what to think of CoH3. Obviously, it's an alpha and I am not going to be pessimistic, I just want to know if they are going in the right direction.

Their engagement with the community is a very good sign tho. Looking forward to more posts from you and others!


P.S CoH community is one of the most dedicated communities I have ever seen in 25 years of gaming. I hope Relic understands and appreciates that!

I like most of the list, although it could be more in-depth at times. Which I understand that it can't go into details in every single point, given that everyone was playing the pre-alpha as a hobby in their free time.

My opinion on the auto-reinforce is fully positive though.
It reduces what I call "stupid micro". Clicking for clicking's sake. Yes, sometimes you want to not reinforce and save the manpower for buying a tank a little earlier. But let's be real, this situation occurs maybe once a game. >90% of the time everyone is just spamming the reinforce button as quickly as possible to go back to the front line. It is by far more reasonable to actually cancel the auto reinforce in the rare occasion of wanting to save manpower instead of making this rare occasion the default.
The only downside I can see is that players won't see reinforcement costs as often. Those should be displayed alongside the buying cost when hovering over the unit construction icon in the respective building, which would make sense regardless of auto reinforce or not.

I like most of the list, although it could be more in-depth at times. Which I understand that it can't go into details in every single point, given that everyone was playing the pre-alpha as a hobby in their free time.

Feel free to let me know what you'd like some more detail on. I probably have the detail (certainly from my own opinion & experiences). I felt a more lightweight version would be better suited for readability & discussion.

Feel free to let me know what you'd like some more detail on. I probably have the detail (certainly from my own opinion & experiences). I felt a more lightweight version would be better suited for readability & discussion.

Your list for me lacks how the game in general plays out. The points where you touch on that is gameplay and design, both of which are quite short. Another interesting point is immersion. It is an early build, yes, but somehow I had problems believing that this is an actual battlefield. The models in general lack personality.

I personally did not play too much of the MP pre-alpha since I could only play on the last weekend and found it hard to get somewhat even games, so I gave up after a couple of tries. That's why I am interested what others have to say that had the chance to play with a group of players they know with similar skill.

What is your opinion of the pacing of the game? Teching in particular? I know you said you don't want to go into full details here, but we have to assume that the current design will roughly be what we get. I had the feeling that vehicles are stronger now, especially the light ones. Units like the 222 were harder to damage with small arms, snares actually only stun all vehicles now.
Tanks on the other hard were beefier, at least that's my impression. Other specialized ideas like creating Panzergrenadiers from normal Grenadiers that are very likely to stay?

What do you think of the abilities they gave to units in general? Is there enough variety? Do the abilities make sense? Are there enough "new" abilities to freshen up the gameplay over Coh2? How does breach work in MP, which is the one ability they specifically marketed at reveal?

You touched on readability e.g. when mentioning animations. What was your impression on that part in general? To be honest I found the game very hard to read. It might be due to it being a "new", unfamiliar game and due to having lower frame rate than in CoH2, but I had serious issues really "understanding" the battlefield within 1-2 seconds of looking at it. For me it is not directly obvious what my units are doing.

And last thing I want to mention, since it is one of the few things I can actually comment on as well as probably the biggest grudge I have with CoH3 at the moment: The UI design in general. You mention a lot of stuff like text placements, highlights and readability. My interest goes more into the art/design direction. I just found it bland and boring. Everything is just boxes in a very "clean" design. This doesn't convey the feeling of neither being in WW2 nor being some type of platoon commander at all. Minimap is oddly tilted, creating empty space towards the edges of the screen. While CoH2 has this too, it filled it up with some "art", mostly metal plates. The selection menu in particular seems to float above the actual battlefield and don't stand out. For me, it all just feels so exchangeable, incoherent and not thought-through. There are ability buttons from the battlegroup on the right, other abilities on the left. VP count in CoH2 was also packaged into a decorated bar, now I got a lifeless mono-colored bar.
The fact that it barely changed from the first pre-alpha tells me that this is intended, but I hope they won't stick with this design.

Your list for me lacks how the game in general plays out. The points where you touch on that is gameplay and design, both of which are quite short. Another interesting point is immersion. It is an early build, yes, but somehow I had problems believing that this is an actual battlefield. The models in general lack personality.

I personally did not play too much of the MP pre-alpha since I could only play on the last weekend and found it hard to get somewhat even games, so I gave up after a couple of tries. That's why I am interested what others have to say that had the chance to play with a group of players they know with similar skill.

What is your opinion of the pacing of the game? Teching in particular? I know you said you don't want to go into full details here, but we have to assume that the current design will roughly be what we get. I had the feeling that vehicles are stronger now, especially the light ones. Units like the 222 were harder to damage with small arms, snares actually only stun all vehicles now.
Tanks on the other hard were beefier, at least that's my impression. Other specialized ideas like creating Panzergrenadiers from normal Grenadiers that are very likely to stay?

What do you think of the abilities they gave to units in general? Is there enough variety? Do the abilities make sense? Are there enough "new" abilities to freshen up the gameplay over Coh2? How does breach work in MP, which is the one ability they specifically marketed at reveal?

You touched on readability e.g. when mentioning animations. What was your impression on that part in general? To be honest I found the game very hard to read. It might be due to it being a "new", unfamiliar game and due to having lower frame rate than in CoH2, but I had serious issues really "understanding" the battlefield within 1-2 seconds of looking at it. For me it is not directly obvious what my units are doing.

And last thing I want to mention, since it is one of the few things I can actually comment on as well as probably the biggest grudge I have with CoH3 at the moment: The UI design in general. You mention a lot of stuff like text placements, highlights and readability. My interest goes more into the art/design direction. I just found it bland and boring. Everything is just boxes in a very "clean" design. This doesn't convey the feeling of neither being in WW2 nor being some type of platoon commander at all. Minimap is oddly tilted, creating empty space towards the edges of the screen. While CoH2 has this too, it filled it up with some "art", mostly metal plates. The selection menu in particular seems to float above the actual battlefield and don't stand out. For me, it all just feels so exchangeable, incoherent and not thought-through. There are ability buttons from the battlegroup on the right, other abilities on the left. VP count in CoH2 was also packaged into a decorated bar, now I got a lifeless mono-colored bar.
The fact that it barely changed from the first pre-alpha tells me that this is intended, but I hope they won't stick with this design.

Good stuff. Let me edit my response with some more detail pertaining to the inquired topics - thanks!

I had the feeling that vehicles are stronger now, especially the light ones. Units like the 222 were harder to damage with small arms, snares actually only stun all vehicles now.
Tanks on the other hard were beefier, at least that's my impression.

That's the design goal. The devs said they were taking vCOH as the gold standard and that is how vehicles worked.

222s could eat an infantry squad for breakfast and PzIV were actually a really present threat in the battlefield. Not like now, where a snare is an actual threat to a vehicle damaging its HP pool. Anyhow, I like both designs.

we got autovault, why not auto dodge greanade?

Yes and autododge artillery too please 😁