Discussion - Current state of Tournaments

I've been clicking into AE's ML3 semi final tournament to see the current state of CoH3 tournament play.
View number wise, the CoH3 videos seem to do alright. However, I don't know why. I absolutely don't have any immersion or see any tension whatsoever in those games. It is boring as hell. I have played neither CoH1 nor CoH3 (previews aside), but the CoH1 games he casts are so much more enjoyable and tense despite me not fully understanding how the game even works. CoH2 is through the roof anyway, I'd rewatch GCS2 any day. CoH3 has nothing.

Apart from the odd behaviour and glitches I see every other minute as I described in another post, CoH3 looks 'artificial'. CoH2 looked like a constant action movie with many "human moments" of struggle and despair. With all the gameifications in mind, I always felt like many scenes could have happened like or similar to this. Some moments of good luck and bad luck, units pushing and supporting each other to get your badly damaged tank behind the line or push off the enemy before he wipes your squad.
CoH3 seems to have none of that. It just looks like a game from start to finish, a game where I'd like to min-max everything because there is no spectacle to look at like in CoH2. Mind you, this is coming from someone digging unit stats and spreadsheets and having done statistical calculations on tank vs tank combat in CoH2.

But what is the issue? Sounds are overall okay, graphics and art have their ups and downs but I'd overall say they are good. What bugged me probably the most is absolutely the TTK. Nothing seems to matter in CoH3. We all know the meme moments in CoH2 as well when a lone wounded soldier retreats through your squad and does not get wiped, but overall, these are occasional moments. In CoH3 this is fully normal. A squad retreating at 10% health despite being under fire by 8-Rad and Grens? No problem. 2-3 8-Rads pushing in on a Riflemen, constantly shooting at it for 15+ seconds? 60%+ HP and no model dropped. You've properly overrun an MG, thrown a nade and shoot with a full squad from point blank? Yes, MG retreats with 3 models left how else should it be? Heavily damaged 2-men PGren having to retreat through two squads of bared up Rifles? Player chose to shoot at the incoming Pioneer instead, knowing he won't get them anyway. I've constantly seen this: No one shoots a retreating squad if there is ANY fighting squad left, even if the retreating squad is super high value and the second squad is a low value Pio. They seem to know that their chance of getting the wipe is minimal. I am at minute 28 right now and, having skipped a couple of minutes in between, have not seen a single squad wipe. Wtf is this? There is no meaning to positioning, nothing seems to get punished, you're good as soon as you retreat. Yes, you can't really see the eco by watching it. The model losses will hurt your eco, but that is inherently boring, especially for a game that should have top notch presentation and fighting such as CoH. Some of the balance changes that Relic provided look like quick band aids that will kill the game's design. I've noticed that MGs pin withing two bursts. I've read about the blobbing issue and frontal wiping of MGs before, their solution was apparently to just let MGs pin everything almost instantly. Why? Yes, MGs should control blobs, but instapinning is not the solution. Why having a suppressed state in the first place if it lasts only for about a second? That's just the one example I notices, regular players of CoH3 will probably notice more. It just created another moment where another flaw was thrown into my face so obviously, that I couldn't help but thinking: "That's not how it should work, that'll come right around and bite the rest of the game in the ass".

Team games and low level games might work a bit differently, but the TTK issue must be so glaring that it will always translate across modes. CoH1 also had higher TTK than CoH2 to my knowledge as well, but it didn't feel as boring. In the games I watched, players sneaked squads behind the lines as well to pounce on retreating units or team weapons. It was apparently worth it, despite that movement being much harder due to there not being sight blockers.
In CoH3, no one seems to dare to make a bold move, because most likely it won't pay off.

CoH3 is boring as hell to watch and while I appreciate AE's enthusiasm and work to keep ML going, I don't want to watch it. Watching CoH2 being played at high level was almost as good as playing yourself. But watching CoH3? Apparently I'm getting more fun out of writing this discussion/rant thread than watching it. I sincerely hope another ML will be hosted for CoH2, and not CoH3 until Relic fixes the game.

To be honest playing the game is fun and the TTK feels completely alright. Watching streams is a little bit different I would admit.
But for me the focus on 1v1 was alrdy boring in CoH2. Maybe people have forgot but in the last year of CoH2 you saw in 8 of 10 games Soviets vs. Wehr matchups on the same maps and in the end Isildur won.
It would have been more exiting to see some great 2v2 action instead of the same 1v1 stuff every 6 weeks. Some bigger breaks would have also helped the 1v1 ML. For my personal taste there were just too many tourneys.

2-3 8-Rads pushing in on a Riflemen, constantly shooting at it for 15+ seconds? 60%+ HP and no model dropped.

Woah woah. You're telling me they finally nerfed the 8 Rape?

To be honest playing the game is fun and the TTK feels completely alright. Watching streams is a little bit different I would admit.
But for me the focus on 1v1 was alrdy boring in CoH2. Maybe people have forgot but in the last year of CoH2 you saw in 8 of 10 games Soviets vs. Wehr matchups on the same maps and in the end Isildur won.
It would have been more exiting to see some great 2v2 action instead of the same 1v1 stuff every 6 weeks. Some bigger breaks would have also helped the 1v1 ML. For my personal taste there were just too many tourneys.

I agree, there was (and is) a lack of diversity and way too much focus on 1v1s, which feels like a self-declared elite in their ivory tower.

But for CoH3, a lot of the problems come from not having proper replay and casting tools and from the lackluster game sounds and effects.. the ooomph is missing, so to say.

Imo this is much deeper that that.

Firstly TTK out of cover, is more then alright, for me it works even better then in CoH2. Because in CoH2 cover really mattered only if your opponent was in cover in most cases, having it is really good, but lack of it was usually not a as big of deal. In most cases at least, busted LMGs\MGs of CoH2 forced to used cover, but all other small arms not really. Not saying cover was pointless in 2, but rather less important when you compare it to vCoH\3.
Units in CoH2 were significantly more tanky out of cover then in CoH3, maybe due to RNG based received accuracy. In 2 you basically had understanding of how fight should go, but it was still fully RNG based. Like Stumpios dropping 0 models charging rifles and winning or dropping 2 models against combat engis for example. In 3 inf fights are very predictable, you in most cases just know when you can and cant win, there is almost no middle ground or gambling.

And wise versa TTK in cover was faster in CoH2 for the same reasons basically. In CoH3 frontally fighting cover to cover is basically a stalemate, where you have to find better angle or flank. I would say, I like this system much more, tho small TTK increase could be done for sure.

Secondly, if you watch vCoH top play its pretty much the same as in CoH3 (but actually even slower), with a difference being that vCoH is much less forgiving then 2\3, with call ins on the base, instant wipes and much less friendly gameplay. So fun in vCoH basically comes from occasional money shots and really bold moves.

Also you should take into a consideration, that CoH2 basically was a meat grinder for a VPs. Maps across the board were much smaller, resources distribution was basically uncontested, aside from cut-offs and occasional de-caps (in 1v1 that is), but over-all harassment of the economy and map control played much lesser role in CoH2 then in 1\3, so all focus was on the action. In teamgames, it was either the same meatgrinder for VPs (if fuel\muni points were safely placed) or the same meat grinder for both VP\res points, because they were located close to each other, creating constant unit concentration in small areas.

As for retreat TTK, its a double edge sword. Units having like 40% damage reduction during retreats, make them super hard to kill\damage during retreats, but at the same time, loosing units in CoH3 is much more punishing then in 1\2 because of how fast passed games can be. Meaning that you most likely then not, wont even have spare resources to recover from losses, because your opponent will be snowballing like crazy and VP drain is insane. This is mitigated a bit in late game, but in early-mid game its super brutal. So this alone kinda forces players to play much safer then in 1\2 and at the same time much dumber sometimes, because they know, that unless its a major fuck up, they can easily retreat. I also believe that in vCoH retreating units were also very hard to kill, but it was mitigated by instant wipes with everything else.

Lastly you shouldn't disregard technical problems of the game. Pathing and unit responsiveness especially, is mediocre to put it lightly. So vehicle play is much more stale because of it.

Imo this is much deeper that that.

Firstly TTK out of cover, is more then alright, for me it works even better then in CoH2. Because in CoH2 cover really mattered only if your opponent was in cover in most cases, having it is really good, but lack of it was usually not a as big of deal. In most cases at least, busted LMGs\MGs of CoH2 forced to used cover, but all other small arms not really. Not saying cover was pointless in 2, but rather less important when you compare it to vCoH\3.
Units in CoH2 were significantly more tanky out of cover then in CoH3, maybe due to RNG based received accuracy. In 2 you basically had understanding of how fight should go, but it was still fully RNG based. Like Stumpios dropping 0 models charging rifles and winning or dropping 2 models against combat engis for example. In 3 inf fights are very predictable, you in most cases just know when you can and cant win, there is almost no middle ground or gambling.

And wise versa TTK in cover was faster in CoH2 for the same reasons basically. In CoH3 frontally fighting cover to cover is basically a stalemate, where you have to find better angle or flank. I would say, I like this system much more, tho small TTK increase could be done for sure.

Secondly, if you watch vCoH top play its pretty much the same as in CoH3 (but actually even slower), with a difference being that vCoH is much less forgiving then 2\3, with call ins on the base, instant wipes and much less friendly gameplay. So fun in vCoH basically comes from occasional money shots and really bold moves.

Also you should take into a consideration, that CoH2 basically was a meat grinder for a VPs. Maps across the board were much smaller, resources distribution was basically uncontested, aside from cut-offs and occasional de-caps (in 1v1 that is), but over-all harassment of the economy and map control played much lesser role in CoH2 then in 1\3, so all focus was on the action. In teamgames, it was either the same meatgrinder for VPs (if fuel\muni points were safely placed) or the same meat grinder for both VP\res points, because they were located close to each other, creating constant unit concentration in small areas.

As for retreat TTK, its a double edge sword. Units having like 40% damage reduction during retreats, make them super hard to kill\damage during retreats, but at the same time, loosing units in CoH3 is much more punishing then in 1\2 because of how fast passed games can be. Meaning that you most likely then not, wont even have spare resources to recover from losses, because your opponent will be snowballing like crazy and VP drain is insane. This is mitigated a bit in late game, but in early-mid game its super brutal. So this alone kinda forces players to play much safer then in 1\2 and at the same time much dumber sometimes, because they know, that unless its a major fuck up, they can easily retreat. I also believe that in vCoH retreating units were also very hard to kill, but it was mitigated by instant wipes with everything else.

Lastly you shouldn't disregard technical problems of the game. Pathing is unit responsiveness especially, its mediocre to put it lightly. So vehicle play is much more stale because of it.

+1


TTK is perfect in CoH3.

self-declared elite in their ivory tower.

This is basically the COH-community in a nutshell. Which is probably also one of the reasons COH3 is as bad as it is.

This is basically the COH-community in a nutshell. Which is probably also one of the reasons COH3 is as bad as it is.

Not sure if you've thought this point through...

Imo this is much deeper that that.

Firstly TTK out of cover, is more then alright, for me it works even better then in CoH2. Because in CoH2 cover really mattered only if your opponent was in cover in most cases, having it is really good, but lack of it was usually not a as big of deal. In most cases at least, busted LMGs\MGs of CoH2 forced to used cover, but all other small arms not really. Not saying cover was pointless in 2, but rather less important when you compare it to vCoH\3.
Units in CoH2 were significantly more tanky out of cover then in CoH3, maybe due to RNG based received accuracy. In 2 you basically had understanding of how fight should go, but it was still fully RNG based. Like Stumpios dropping 0 models charging rifles and winning or dropping 2 models against combat engis for example. In 3 inf fights are very predictable, you in most cases just know when you can and cant win, there is almost no middle ground or gambling.

And wise versa TTK in cover was faster in CoH2 for the same reasons basically. In CoH3 frontally fighting cover to cover is basically a stalemate, where you have to find better angle or flank. I would say, I like this system much more, tho small TTK increase could be done for sure.

Secondly, if you watch vCoH top play its pretty much the same as in CoH3 (but actually even slower), with a difference being that vCoH is much less forgiving then 2\3, with call ins on the base, instant wipes and much less friendly gameplay. So fun in vCoH basically comes from occasional money shots and really bold moves.

Also you should take into a consideration, that CoH2 basically was a meat grinder for a VPs. Maps across the board were much smaller, resources distribution was basically uncontested, aside from cut-offs and occasional de-caps (in 1v1 that is), but over-all harassment of the economy and map control played much lesser role in CoH2 then in 1\3, so all focus was on the action. In teamgames, it was either the same meatgrinder for VPs (if fuel\muni points were safely placed) or the same meat grinder for both VP\res points, because they were located close to each other, creating constant unit concentration in small areas.

As for retreat TTK, its a double edge sword. Units having like 40% damage reduction during retreats, make them super hard to kill\damage during retreats, but at the same time, loosing units in CoH3 is much more punishing then in 1\2 because of how fast passed games can be. Meaning that you most likely then not, wont even have spare resources to recover from losses, because your opponent will be snowballing like crazy and VP drain is insane. This is mitigated a bit in late game, but in early-mid game its super brutal. So this alone kinda forces players to play much safer then in 1\2 and at the same time much dumber sometimes, because they know, that unless its a major fuck up, they can easily retreat. I also believe that in vCoH retreating units were also very hard to kill, but it was mitigated by instant wipes with everything else.

Lastly you shouldn't disregard technical problems of the game. Pathing is unit responsiveness especially, its mediocre to put it lightly. So vehicle play is much more stale because of it.

Thanks for the insight.
My concern is less about balance itself, but about how boring it makes it to watch CoH3. In the previews, I didn't feel like TTK was overly long either, although I didn't have the time to play much.
I am obviously biased by CoH2, but watching CoH3 tournament play feels like a constant stream of misplays not being punished and good plays not rewarded. There have been quite a few moment where I thought that the correct move should be to go all in, to focus down that completely overextended, wounded squad, but nothing like that happened. This design might male more sense when playing the game and might also be decently designed, but they take away from the spectacle that watching a CoH1/2 match was. Eco damage is just really boring to look at.

Combine that with the overall presentation being average, I found CoH3 just boring to watch. I might be in the minority with that opiniom, I thought there might be more people like me. Good for AE and all other streamers I hope.

Not sure if you've thought this point through...

Why? There is a group of "elite" community members that had a say in the development of COH3.

Why? There is a group of "elite" community members that had a say in the development of COH3.

Oh, sorry. I must have misunderstood. I thought you were talking about the community in general, like the guys who played a big part in keeping 2 alive when it was shit.

I hope the “elite” LOLOL. Can live with killing the franchise. Numbers don’t lie and COH3 playerbase isn’t recovering or increasing. It’s steadily dropping off. Numbers don’t lie. You can’t spin it anyway to make it look good. Since release the coh3 playerbase has been going down.

Thanks for the insight.
My concern is less about balance itself, but about how boring it makes it to watch CoH3. In the previews, I didn't feel like TTK was overly long either, although I didn't have the time to play much.
I am obviously biased by CoH2, but watching CoH3 tournament play feels like a constant stream of misplays not being punished and good plays not rewarded. There have been quite a few moment where I thought that the correct move should be to go all in, to focus down that completely overextended, wounded squad, but nothing like that happened. This design might male more sense when playing the game and might also be decently designed, but they take away from the spectacle that watching a CoH1/2 match was. Eco damage is just really boring to look at.

vCoH tourney CoH2 looks more alive and action packed, despite tourney played on one of the "meatiest" maps of vCoH.

Well I mean, I do honestly think its just bias towards CoH2. Presentation and visuals aside (and they are clearly lacking in 3), fundamentally CoH3 is very similar to vCoH. And vCoH and CoH2 are like DoW1 and DoW2, but with DoW its much more noticeable.

They share similarities, but again in its core its completely different games. So watching CoH3 with the ghost of CoH2 in mind, for sure leads to some disappointment.

The same way expecting CoH3 to be similar to CoH2 is kinda silly, because Relic said that they pretty much thought that vCoH was a better game and they want CoH3 to be closer to it. This actually might be the reason why so many players, cant cope with vCoH\CoH3 because fundamental gameplay of 2 was completely different. I myself played vCoH when I was very-very young and played CoH2 since release, and even CoH2 on release cant be compared to present CoH2 in terms of how game is played. And since for the majority of players CoH2 was their first game in the series, after it started shifting towards different gameplay, they feel disappointed.

As for personal taste, I liked vCoH much better then CoH2, especially after all "e-sport" alterations, which made CoH2 into meta, micro and stats war, with minimal decision making and adaptive gameplay, which was actually a fundamental part of CoH. But CoH2 introduced really good visuals, effects, quality of life changes and over-all presentation and atmosphere of the game was astonishing, even after WFA release, so it was easy to stick with it. Hell, even after 10 years I still enjoy pretty much every single audio aspect of CoH2, its just that good.

But again it is also stupid to disregard all the technical\balance\visuals problems of CoH3 atm, which play much bigger role in its presentation. Basically all good parts of CoH3 are completely and fully overshadowed right now by the really poor quality in pretty much all technical aspects. Casuals wont stick with it because it dosnt have "wow" factor, competitive players wont because of shortcomings in mentioned balance\tech areas.

I hope the “elite” LOLOL. Can live with killing the franchise. Numbers don’t lie and COH3 playerbase isn’t recovering or increasing. It’s steadily dropping off. Numbers don’t lie. You can’t spin it anyway to make it look good. Since release the coh3 playerbase has been going down.

Sadly they probably didn't really have much say at all, wishful thinking on our part. No way so much stuff would have been allowed to slide. You know better than most, you wrote that awesome list of broken shit that should never have made it past beta testing.

Why? There is a group of "elite" community members that had a say in the development of COH3.

There is/was only so much that we can do. The closed group is really a courtesy. We have little direct impact on the development of the game because we're not the manager or SEGA telling Relic employees what to do. Of course, I don't want to say more than I'm allowed, but we were always pushing to make the multiplayer more fun and to make players want to come back.



There are many things I'd change and priorities I'd like to have switched around but it seems that SEGA wouldn't tolerate another delay.

This is basically the COH-community in a nutshell. Which is probably also one of the reasons COH3 is as bad as it is.

It isn't. The ivory tower thing is a complete BS narrative. You guys are talking out of your asses saying random things that sound good but have no connection to reality.

It isn't. The ivory tower thing is a complete BS narrative. You guys are talking out of your asses saying random things that sound good but have no connection to reality.

When I loaded up COH3 for the first time I immediately noticed a lot of things that reminded me of vCOH. That`s not a coincidence. WhiteFlashReborn wrote a lengthy post about how coh3 should be more like vcoh and not coh2 and that`s what we got.

Also the focus on 1v1 is apparent. Relic and Sega must have missed the fact that 3v3 and 4v4 are by far the most popular game modes. It`s sad how 80 % of the playerbase wants to play big team games yet they only get 2 maps. Then people are surprised why the player numbers are absolutely awful and the reviews negative.

The "ivory tower" narrative is not complete BS when the self-proclaimed "elite" (basically a handful of 1v1 players and casters) was allowed influenced Relic on the development of the game even though this elite has absolutely nothing in common with the average COH2 player. Might as well asked players of another game on how to develop coh3.

I hope the “elite” LOLOL. Can live with killing the franchise. Numbers don’t lie and COH3 playerbase isn’t recovering or increasing. It’s steadily dropping off. Numbers don’t lie. You can’t spin it anyway to make it look good. Since release the coh3 playerbase has been going down.

I think it`s 50/50 at this point.

50 % chance of COH3 going the DOW3 path and 50 % chance of Relic managing to improve the game to a standard that is good enough for the majority of COH2 players to switch over.

Also the focus on 1v1 is apparent.

Other than the fact that there are relatively few maps available for larger game modes (at the moment), what makes you say this? Because there are several fairly unique units and abilities in the game that seem largely intended for team modes. You can't really get away with using them in a 1v1.

It isn't. The ivory tower thing is a complete BS narrative. You guys are talking out of your asses saying random things that sound good but have no connection to reality.

Didn’t in the past you preach riflemen are viable in team games in COH2? Then you double back? Then COH3 releases and you preach it’s amazing I love it. It’s so good. Then you play team games and say omg this is terrible? Your judgement is disconnected from reality. Anyone who follows the community. Knows the stigma for anyone that’s not a 1v1 player. Wasn’t there a 4v4 tournament team comprised of 1’s players verbatim say “it’ll be easy they’re team game players”? Then get absolutely hulk smashed? Only to proceed to blame pathfinders Scott’s? No mention of misplay on their part lol? COH3 is dramatically different from COH2. The TTK is what’s going to turn a lot of players away. Including myself. There’s no noticeable difference in weapon profiles. There is no unit in this game that does omega damage close range besides royal engineers. I LOVE watching a squad on top of another squad take over 8 seconds to resolve an engagement. It’s so thrilling. To the point where I can’t even tell if COVER is even important. Everything that was “tactical” and semi believable about COH2 was left behind with making COH3. Maybe I would enjoy the game if they painted all the models green or tan. So we can pretend they are plastic army men. Im ranting at this point. But I’ll say it again. If you influenced COH3 to be more like COH1. You killed the franchise. Congrats 🎈🍾🎉. There is a reason that COH1 retains the lowest playerbase. There is a reason COH3 has a smaller playerbase then COH2. There is a reason that no one is coming back after the “balance patch”. The gameplay fucking blows 🤯. It’s no longer epic WW2 battles with epic sound and visuals. It’s now watching squads miss point blank for 10 seconds.