Analysis: should buy CoH3 or not.

Full analysis if you should buy CoH3 or not. Opinion, fan polls, CoH1/2/3 comparison.

These are my true feelings based on my 17 years XP as a CoH fan, community feedback, the launch package of the game, and how it's looking in beta. It is aimed at fellow CoH fans but may be interesting to outsiders.

I try to remain as objective as possible using a comparison exercise. It may be surprisingly negative and positive in different areas so stay open minded. I had 250 viewers on Twitch helping me with some of the trickier issues. Overall I have 6 things Relic need to fix asap in order to make it a must buy game, as right now there are fixable things holding it back.

(SPOILERS) Here is the spread sheet with time stamps: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZcRlqvvQQo_qOydYBbGRfH8_2hVVFBlv/
YouTube

Let me know what you think!

Let me know what you think!

I didn't watch your live and will not watch the replay so sorry if I have an uncompleted picture of your opinion. I checked you sheet and something wrong comes from it.

1- You're comparing a partial beta with 2 released products. We're not even having a beta here, just a kind of demo for multiplayer aimed at testing our and relic's hardware. And Relic acknowledged that we're not playing on the last build.

2- We all have partial memories of Coh1 and Coh2 releases, let me share what I remember and why I think you're wrong here with the numbers you're attribuing to coh1 and coh2.

When coh1 was released it wasn't the astonishing game you're playing today, it wasn't the 5,5,5,4,5 etc.. your giving it today. Because your computer, unless having one of the best of its time, couldn't handle it. I had at that time a 2 / 3 years old computer dedicated for gaming and I couldn't play the game at full graphics and could only play multiplayer 1vs1 or 2vs2 without crashing it, not because of the netcode (which wasn't that good either) or my connection that was one of the best you could have, but because of the many calculation my rigg had to do to and whose where too much past a certain time. I finally enjoyed the full graphics capacity of the game couple of years later after the release when I changed my rigg.

When coh2 was release, it was a bit of the same story, a computer 2 / 3 years old and the game was unplayable for me at more than low / medium graphics. I bought the game a month after release but didn't play it till I change my computer a month before Ardenne Assault's release, so a year later.

So today we have a partial beta of Coh3, not even the version 1.0, I still have a 2 / 3 years old computer, dedicated for gaming, and I can play the game almost at max graphical options. I'm currently playing between medium and high graphical resolution and the game is stable, I can play up to 4vs4 without a lag and with graphics much better than Coh1 at maximum.

The game is meant to be accessible, not only gameplay wise but accessible with hardware that are not for gaming. That the WOW accessibility strategy. Do you remember how people described WOW at launch, how it compared with FF series and other mmo Korean games. Relic is aiming the same thing, having the game accessible and enjoyable even with non gaming hardware.
You could respond to me that it shouldn't be a problem having super high resolution and graphics and medium good accessible graphics, I'll simply respond that you're wrong if you think so. That a lot of work, a lot of investment to put into it which would be better suited into gameplay, lore, faction, design etc... Same reason why WOW had such low quality graphic for everyone.

So yes, I do agree on certain issue like sound and some graphical parameters that are not optimized but don't compare them to coh1 and coh1 at their release, you didn't have them either, you had them at y+1 at best.

I actually uninstalled Company of Balance 2 before playing CoH3, now I want to install CoH2 again, so I can uninstall it again knowing that I was playing shit game for so long.

It now actually feels like an RTS and not "wOw esport balance gameplay".

Also on a side note, I cant agree that CoH2 deserves so many 5s in terms of gameplay.

How can it have 5s for stuff in gameplay, when literally in tournaments only 2 factions out 5 are played, with only 1-2 meta commanders out of dozen others, with the same fking builds every single game and on every single map. And the win factor is literally your RPM and knowledge of timings.

I actually uninstalled Company of Balance 2 before playing CoH3, now I want to install CoH2 again, so I can uninstall it again knowing that I was playing shit game for so long.

It now actually feels like an RTS and not "wOw esport balance gameplay".

Also on a side note, I cant agree that CoH2 deserves so many 5s in terms of gameplay.

How can it have 5s for stuff in gameplay, when literally in tournaments only 2 factions out 5 are played, with only 1-2 meta commanders out of dozen others, with the same fking builds every single game and on every single map. And the win factor is literally your RPM and knowledge of timings.

I have over 5000hrs in CoH2 and I wouldn´t use such strong terms, but yes, CoH3, for all the unfinished mess it is plagued with, certainly highlights many of 2s horrible issues in a pretty depressive way

Newcomers, fresh and new to the series, will never be able to understand how euphoric it is to be able to actually flank, soft-retreat, or decap territory neighbouring the enemy base in a 4vs4 match later than 3 minutes into the game, knowing that if you retreat on time, you may not be evaporated on the way home by a blob that´s defending a bunch of self-spotting, homing, pinpoint accurate arty pieces

I didn't watch your live and will not watch the replay so sorry if I have an uncompleted picture of your opinion. I checked you sheet and something wrong comes from it.

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2- We all have partial memories of Coh1 and Coh2 releases, let me share what I remember and why I think you're wrong here with the numbers you're attribuing to coh1 and coh2.

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Man, there is literally score of 1 for original game in his scoring regarding performance of the game, for both Coh1 and Coh2. And a score of 4 for this CoH3 Beta on how good it runs.
So not even that you didn't watch a video, you didn't even take a good look of the sheet before u started a rant.

I like that you stayed truly neutral towards coh1, especially in the variety and gameplay aspects. as soon as i understood that it's basically all about snipers and sniper wars, it killed the game for me.

good video

PS: Maybe a no-sniper tourney would be n idea sometime

coh2 launch was the worst but at least relic then did not reach out for community feedback as much as coh3.

coh3 many issues on mp tech test, were brought up to relic many momths ago with their alpha tests. so i dont know what they were doing since. are our feedback ignored? are the new hires at relic too proud of their work and seeking feedback is just PR from marketing department? how many of them comes from mobile development background?

interesting part of your talks about former coh1 developer posted comment on YouTube. it's pretty clear coh1 was way ahead for its time. and relic hasn't really replace their old talents for coh2/3

that said, i think relic should delay the mp portion of coh3. or at least assure early buyers the mp is still being work on, and launch as an early access. work on not just on balance but also the graphics and physics engine

Honestly underselling how bad CoH2 was on launch.

It took until march deployment for the game to even feel good to play, after they tried to milk the community with mega OP microtransactions on the ass commander system.

Honestly underselling how bad CoH2 was on launch.

It took until march deployment for the game to even feel good to play, after they tried to milk the community with mega OP microtransactions on the ass commander system.

Damn i totally forgot the pay2win BS in coh2. That was one of the reasons why I barely played until Western fronts released. Coh2 was such mess in the beginning.

Damn i totally forgot the pay2win BS in coh2. That was one of the reasons why I barely played until Western fronts released. Coh2 was such mess in the beginning.

This is an important point to people doing preorders. How confident are you that Relic/Sega will not put this kind of trash into the game? I would be extremely mad if I bought the game just to find, when I downloaded it, there was some garbage like this in it.

But that is not my problem.

Are we not going to see dubbing in other languages such as Spanish,German,French,Russian and so on? Quite disappointing, I've been playing CoH in Spanish for many many years and I've felt very disoriented these past days, I don't want to imagine the feeling of a casual player playing this new game,it's very difficult to get rid of this habit, on the other hand the hotkeys... retreat R and reverse it's the same key. you'll have to get used to it I guess...

interesting part of your talks about former coh1 developer posted comment on YouTube. it's pretty clear coh1 was way ahead for its time. and relic hasn't really replace their old talents for coh2/3

This talent bleed is obvious and it likely means Relic/Sega will have to cut corners and/or implement deeper CoH3 monetization/MTX.

Relic is a publicly traded company (Sega Sammy Holdings) in the business of providing goods and services. They are NOT our gaming friends. By LAW they have fiduciary duties.

Ironically the studio seems to live in an echo chamber/cognitive bias/hivemind mentality thinking they are still "cool kids".
Even with hard work replacing old talent, Relic may be “beyond the point of no return”.

IMHO; the only chance to save Relic is to downsize the studio and focus your remaining talent on a decent IP whether that be AoE or CoH.

This is an important point to people doing preorders. How confident are you that Relic/Sega will not put this kind of trash into the game? I would be extremely mad if I bought the game just to find, when I downloaded it, there was some garbage like this in it.

But that is not my problem.

I'd be surprised if there wasn't some garbage in it, or if the first DLC didn't have over-the-top commanders. I'll buy it and like it anyway.

It is also worth remembering that CoH2 was made when THQ was bankrupt. CoH2 simply had no money, in the single player campaign everything is clearly visible how the game was made cheaply and simply. And even in this form, I have a much more positive perception. Graphics, gameplay, abandoned machine guns(unlike the first part when the machine gun could only be captured if it was deployed), abandoned tanks, blizzards, factions (unlike the third part where you need to play the third time in the same USA, Britain, Germany) and much more just aroused delight compared to the first part. The third part was not "wow effect" although the developers had to create a game in a more relaxed environment when your publisher is not bankrupt.

It is also worth remembering that CoH2 was made when THQ was bankrupt. CoH2 simply had no money, in the single player campaign everything is clearly visible how the game was made cheaply and simply. And even in this form, I have a much more positive perception. Graphics, gameplay, abandoned machine guns(unlike the first part when the machine gun could only be captured if it was deployed), abandoned tanks, blizzards, factions (unlike the third part where you need to play the third time in the same USA, Britain, Germany) and much more just aroused delight compared to the first part. The third part was not "wow effect" although the developers had to create a game in a more relaxed environment when your publisher is not bankrupt.

That's not how it works.
That's not how any of it works.

That's not how it works.
That's not how any of it works.

This is how it works. THQ was the copyright holder, as well as with THQ money. So a game created very quickly and cheaply in order to be a lifebuoy for a drowning company looks more interesting than the project under Sega.

This is how it works. THQ was the copyright holder, as well as with THQ money. So a game created very quickly and cheaply in order to be a lifebuoy for a drowning company looks more interesting than the project under Sega.

Publisher being broke does not mean developer being broke.
That's why THQ went bankrupt and not Relic itself.
You don't just rush development when you hear your publisher run out of money nor it can just end payments to developer out of sudden. CoH2 already got delayed so Relic could work on it more, it was transitioned to Sega in that period as well, but I guarantee you, it had zero impact on relics financing, THQ HAD to pay them due to contractual agreements, they simply went into deficit they were not able to recover from and had to field for bankrupcy and to sell their IPs/studios.

Have fun arguing with me about it further, please, pretend I didn't worked as developer on publisher level and I don't have first hand inside knowledge of how these things work as well.

Publisher being broke does not mean developer being broke.
That's why THQ went bankrupt and not Relic itself.
You don't just rush development when you hear your publisher run out of money nor it can just end payments to developer out of sudden. CoH2 already got delayed so Relic could work on it more, it was transitioned to Sega in that period as well, but I guarantee you, it had zero impact on relics financing, THQ HAD to pay them due to contractual agreements, they simply went into deficit they were not able to recover from and had to field for bankrupcy and to sell their IPs/studios.

Have fun arguing with me about it further, please, pretend I didn't worked as developer on publisher level and I don't have first hand inside knowledge of how these things work as well.

Sega bought Relic as well as the rights to the game. But it was not transferred. The game, like the studio, belonged to THQ, the fact that Sega postponed the release for several months did not give anything at all, the game was already ready, all that this delay gave was a little more than those technical readiness. Relic couldn't do anything on own, THQ owned the franchise, budgeted for the development, and led the development. THQ had financial problems much earlier than the release of CoH2. You can continue to brag about how cool you are, that's just clearly visible that the development of the game from a publisher who was losing money and the development of the game under the leadership of a multi-billion dollar company they are different conditions. This is a comparison of an apple and an orange. And the game that got out of control by Sega looks like a CoH2 mod, and with a very poor technical component. To justify what bullshit CoH3 is right now, with different development conditions and say: -well, you know, CoH2 was also not the best at the start. It's just a pathetic.