I was right about the failure of COH3.

With CoH2, this is a complex issue. The main funds for the creation and responsibility for how crappy and cheap the single player campaign was was on THQ. I think the frankly terrible CoH2 single player campaign turned a lot of people off. On the other hand, Sega, which spent $26.6 million on Relic and the franchise, clearly didn't want a major overhaul of the game and wanted a release as soon as possible to recoup their investment. Again, Sega did not want to fix the situation with the scandal of the single player campaign and simply ignored the criticism and did not want, for example, to create a large Soviet DLC to fix the situation, but pretended to be dead and chose the simple and easy Western Allies option.

You really shouldn't compare CoH3 and AoE4 because the subject cant be even more different then it is.

AoE4 failure (if it is indeed so) honestly has nothing to do with either Relic\Sega, objectively. AoE in general is an old school RTS game, with insane amount of content, insane fanbase and gameplay being perfected though years.

It was a bold move to even try to create AoE4, because is no way it was even possible to create something which will please fans of old AoE games, let alone have more content\be more appealing then older games.

The same way we never see Warcraft 4 (besides the fact that Blizzard is a shitfest) they understand that unless you create something which is significantly better then its predecessor, has all the content + more, there is no way in a world people will drop their old RTS in favour of a new one.


As for CoH2\DoW3 Relic pushes their ideas, trying to either base their decisions by sheet papers created by some generic game designers and managers. And it was clear, even if we look at how they balanced their game openly mocking the community and people, by saying that "we think its not a problem". And the manifestation of this approach was DoW3, which wasnt liked by either DoW1\DoW2 fans.

Point is being: Dont invent a bicycle with RTS, if you want it to be successful look at your player base, add more content and improvements of working foundation without destroying it. Not questionable changes, like CoH2 did, but improvements.

So far, I honestly don't give a damn if Relic gonna sell us commanders\skins again. If game is generally good, if content is balanced and a new one, there is objectively nothing wrong with it. And as for game itself, who cares if relic is a corporation which just wants out money. They fucked up with DoW3 and now, their idea is to please the fans by not inventing the bicycle again, which is good, because they have less space for generic retarded game-designers to fuck up series a lot of people like.

At least so far we didnt saw "unit replacement", "bulletins" and other crap for potential monetisation, so unless relic do a gut-punch on release with something they didnt announce, it will be inf\vehicle skins and commanders ones again, which is completely fine.

Even CoH2 monetisation in its essence is completely fine. Sure we have a huge amount of commanders you pretty much have to buy, if you are newcomer, but come on. Even if we bring game like PayDay2, if someone played it from the start, and bought DLC when they came out, then its fine throwing 5-10$ every couple of months for the game you spent a lot of time in. Its infair to judge coh2 monetisation, since you have almost 8 years of DLC content, sure its might be a lot to buy.

COH3 and AOE4 are exactly the same thing: consumer goods. As such everything my good boy above says is 100% true.

AOE4 made a terrific launch and thus it warranted the decision to keep the game and company afloat for a little while, at least till COH3 rolls out.

The main bad thing about lelic in particular and RTS games in general is the fact that they need to be able to keep the players engaged even while the games themselves may be hard to play or hard to master or maybe both. That's why a good MM system is in order.

I don't really know the state of AOE4 MM, but I can promise you one thing: if I give a game 10 hours of my ever ending life and get exactly 0 victories back, 0 play value and 0 items I will not play it again. You can call me a normie for not be "picky" enough, but when a market literally has 15000 titles at any given time your normie opinion ceases to matter.

Lelic should make a good COH game. att this point i will not buy it, since from what i have seen they are catering to the shady chinese software sweatshop vibe which i honestly hate with all my passion. However, if I see that the MP aspect is decent enough to garner good MM, I will think about it twice.

I really like the graphics, style, factions... everything; that AOE4 has. Except the "Who clicks faster" gameplay. One unit, one command. Battle for middle earth and Company of heroes have the best, most epic gameplay. Infantry squads. In COH it's the cover/positioning. In BFME it's tactical assault: How to move units to not get pancaked by the catapults/siege. If AOE4 actually said goodbye to old school RTS, and changed it, I sure as hell know I'd play more.
The game itself is brilliant, but after I watched a couple of tournament players play.... I mean... how many hours a day do they play AOE4 to be as quick as they are? 34 hours in a 24 hour day? And it's extreme meta. Anything that is ranged is spammed and carefully moved. Why would anyone want to get better at AOE4 to be more competitive in ranked matchmaking, if that means that you WILL HAVE TO start using the tested methods of winning and you'll need to risk carpal tunnel and whatnot just to be extra speedy with the clicks.

exactly this.

it may have been good back then in 2000 when the Rts market was literally CC and AOE, but right now this kind of gameplay is old fashioned and has 0 retention.

Nobody, apart from 0.1% of players will play a game for thousands of hours just to master it.

The main bad thing about lelic in particular and RTS games in general is the fact that they need to be able to keep the players engaged even while the games themselves may be hard to play or hard to master or maybe both. That's why a good MM system is in order.

CoH objectively, is one of the easiest, alive RTS series to get into, period. If a player has at least minimal desire to improve, he can do it. Its not old fashion starcraft or AOE where you need 100+ RPM to actually be somewhat competitive. And this is why CoH in general is very appealing for many players.

All relic has to do - not disappoint the fans in first place, in second place they need to create solid game foundation, not like the one CoH2 had.

CoH2 being objectively questionable quality game survived for 8 years, dispute its retarded game decisions, relic policy, fked up balance and P2W DLC (which I honestly believe was a total stupidity rather then intentions to milk player base) and love-hate relations 90% of the player base have towards this game.

Point being, no-one asks anything groundbreaking from CoH3 and people who do, objectively wont stick with the game for long. Its actually quite opposite, the least relic can change with their sweaty hands, the best.

And so far CoH3 looks almost perfect from a gameplay perspective. I honestly dont give a two cents about graphics, about same factions, about Italy, same mechanics and even if there will be commanders for sale, its all secondary. If they create good base game, with good core decisions, noone can change later on, CoH3 will be a good game, better then the CoH2.

vCoH was a better game from a gameplay perspective, with some decisions that didn't age well.
CoH2 was a testing ground, changing some core elements which were proven to be inferior to the ones vCoH had, but at the same time CoH2 fixed some questionable gameplay aspects of vCoH.

CoH3 just need to take best from both and learn from mistakes, thats the recipe for a successful game. And at least relic now officially acknowledged this and judging by the alpha its not just words.

CoH objectively, is one of the easiest, alive RTS series to get into, period. If a player has at least minimal desire to improve, he can do it. Its not old fashion starcraft or AOE where you need 100+ RPM to actually be somewhat competitive. And this is why CoH in general is very appealing for many players.

All relic has to do - not disappoint the fans in first place, in second place they need to create solid game foundation, not like the one CoH2 had.

CoH2 being objectively questionable quality game survived for 8 years, dispute its retarded game decisions, relic policy, fked up balance and P2W DLC (which I honestly believe was a total stupidity rather then intentions to milk player base) and love-hate relations 90% of the player base have towards this game.

Point being, no-one asks anything groundbreaking from CoH3 and people who do, objectively wont stick with the game for long. Its actually quite opposite, the least relic can change with their sweaty hands, the best.

And so far CoH3 looks almost perfect from a gameplay perspective. I honestly dont give a two cents about graphics, about same factions, about Italy, same mechanics and even if there will be commanders for sale, its all secondary. If they create good base game, with good core decisions, noone can change later on, CoH3 will be a good game, better then the CoH2.

vCoH was a better game from a gameplay perspective, with some decisions that didn't age well.
CoH2 was a testing ground, changing some core elements which were proven to be inferior to the ones vCoH had, but at the same time CoH2 fixed some questionable gameplay aspects of vCoH.

CoH3 just need to take best from both and learn from mistakes, thats the recipe for a successful game. And at least relic now officially acknowledged this and judging by the alpha its not just words.

Good take even though I doubt most of these things will happen.

The greatest problem lelic is facing right now is an absolute lack of design and gameplay vision. You can only bank on COH2 and COH1 mechanics for so long until you hit a brick wall, which judging by their current alphas, streams etc i managed to get a glimpse of look bad.