Community

Sorry Noun, these changes were proposed so long time ago that I even forgot that they existed, and furthermore, I don't visit the official forums anymore for the reasons exposed above.
(And for that black background with white letters that strain my eyes so bad)

The thing is that I think everyone is waiting for bigger changes that those exposed, and changes not only in the game balance.

I'll give you feedback from my own experience.
I bought CoH2 along 4 of my friends, 2 of them casual gamers new in the franquise, and the other 2 well experienced vCoH gamers. One of them even was a lvl 20 player in vCoH back in the time.

Well, all 4 gave up in the game recently, and the sad thing is that they really loved the game. But they feel like developers are only concerned in give as much DLCs and noveltys to purchase instead fixing bugs or giving the playerbase the things they were asking since beta. And now, I have a game that I really liked, but nobody to play with.

Please, make self-critic because there is something that you aren't doing right at this moment, and it's not concerned with the game's balance. Adding new units and commanders once in a long time is fine, to lure again players to the game, but not monthly and bad-tested.

I think this community loves CoH as much as any other internet community, and if people here is complaining so much, perhaps that's is something to have in mind.

...we should at least appear like one tight group of people...
...our voices need to be heard as one...

Are you aware you are on a gaming forum?

I've heard that Stefan Haines said: "We make more money on casual players, the people on www.coh2.org are just elitists ranting on a third party website."

And he is right. Not everybody here is an elitis ofc, but coh2.org is the ultimate whining circlejerk club, where over 90% of posts can be put into 1 of 4 categories: "DLC sucks", "This is OP", "This is UP" and my favourite "Why is this not another vCoH? Make this another vCoH!".

Now, this is a fan forum so I guess they would rather have feedback posted on their own site. They have no obligation to post or to be active on this site. I think we all would like them to do it more, but face it, there is no contract that says they have to. Coming with comments like "respond to this relic!" is a good idea, but as we have seen rarely works.

Parts of this community seems to want to drive a wedge in between themselves and relic, which i sad in my eyes. Think about it for a second yourself. If you are called an asshole and a greedy bastard over and over, would you go to that person and ask for advice? Would you feel the need to visit a whole place of ppl who call you names?

Which brings me to my next point. This is a fan forum. I have little or no understanding why alot of users keep posting "I stopped playing this game 3 months ago, it sucks, relic are greedy demons from hell". I do however understand that there are alot of players who are dissapointed of the direction of the game. Some wanted a new coh1, some dont. What makes me wondering is why dissapointed players keep coming back and spreading their hatered here. It is quite obvious if you are posting stuff like that you are not a fan but want the game and relic to crash and burn. I dont like everything relic does. But calling them names is never going to help your/our/any cause.

This is really bad for the community overall. Now I know I cannot make ppl stop posting. And banning them is not an option either, everyone has the right to post. Still, I can really understand if Relic has a grudge against this site and or community. However I dont want them to. I want them to go here and look for ideas, drop a comment here and there in our discussions. However that would require a diffrent tone towards them. Otherwise they just wont look here.

Lastly, the multiplayer community is the smaller portion of their income. But the multiplayer community will also be this games deciding factor in the how long lifespan this game has.

All i can say is word of mouth is a powerful thing - relic are just shooting themselves in the foot if you dont belive me have a look http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/company-of-heroes-2/user-reviews?dist=negative thats why no one is playing coh2.

All i can say is word of mouth is a powerful thing - relic are just shooting themselves in the foot if you dont belive me have a look http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/company-of-heroes-2/user-reviews?dist=negative thats why no one is playing coh2.

that's mostly related to butthurt Russians

I don't want to sound impatient but that's been 12 days now. When you released the Cold Blue DLC you guys hot fixed the issues with the new DLC commanders the next day I believe. Why is it taking so long here to implement the changes you have mentioned in that post?

Well, who cares - they are not really fixes anyway.

The socalled Tiger Ace change for example.

'Want to die now or 1 CP later?' is no fix.

that's mostly related to butthurt Russians

Either way its powerful and will stop many from buying it, all the ones iv seen so far have proper points in them that I agree with

And he is right. Not everybody here is an elitis ofc, but coh2.org is the ultimate whining circlejerk club, where over 90% of posts can be put into 1 of 4 categories: "DLC sucks", "This is OP", "This is UP" and my favourite "Why is this not another vCoH? Make this another vCoH!".

Well

1. A lot of posts here have been more constructive than you think. A lot of people here actually want coh2 to be awesome and even better than coh1. And segregating the multiplayer community by DLCs is not the way to go so I can see why people are upset about this. I mean, how many paid games have this system where it drastically affects performance of multiplayer?

2. I've seen staff here go, "okay someone post Nazi here, therefore discredit entire post" despite the fact that there was some very constructive posts entirely, as if they want to ignore tips/serious critism.

3. Not only ignoring but also launching ad-hominem attacks on your long term community who have put so much effort in the game (which a lot of the ppl on coh2.org)is definitely the way to go to destroy communities and turn this game into something no-one sees. I mean, the way I got into COH1 was through casters on youtube. Now tell me, apart from TFN and Imperial Dane (who isn't part of the coh2.org community), who actually casts?

4. If you have noticed, a lot of the high level players from COH1 are actually not posting a lot in here (that is until the last week or two or so after that thread asking what Pros think). For that matter, not a lot of the high level players in COH2 post here either. What you get in the end is a group of moderate level players (myself included) with not too much authority in terms of strategic ideas or anything who frequent these forums thinking we understand the game completely (I make this mistake myself as well) and with such arrogance, it can become a circlejerk of whining at that point. Ultimately, I've seen opinions change on things like rushing T-70s used to be thought of as OP, now its seen as reasonably balanced (of course, that's until Sov Industry but still)

So can this community be improved? Yes. Should it be sidelined like Relic wants to do? Certainly not.

I don't want to sound impatient but that's been 12 days now. When you released the Cold Blue DLC you guys hot fixed the issues with the new DLC commanders the next day I believe. Why is it taking so long here to implement the changes you have mentioned in that post?

It's because the changes considered are still under debate, so it's obvious a decision hasn't been made yet.

Well hopefully at least the scatter changes go in soon. Has a hugely positive impact on multiple aspects of the game. Also nerfs Soviet Industry pretty hard (very needed) and removes T-70 from god-mode status (also very needed).

I don't want to sound impatient but that's been 12 days now. When you released the Cold Blue DLC you guys hot fixed the issues with the new DLC commanders the next day I believe. Why is it taking so long here to implement the changes you have mentioned in that post?

I heard Peter was away for several days after the DLC released.

I've heard that Stefan Haines said: "We make more money on casual players, the people on www.coh2.org are just elitists ranting on a third party website."

I was on the stream today from when it started until they stopped streaming and I was banned twice. They told us (not just me obviously) to leave our opinions in the official forums. Why the hell would we do that when their mods are just closing down every thread critizising Relic? At least we can speak freely here.

That Stefan Haines guy clearly isn't the brightest guy working at Relic. But I do know that at least pqumsieh and Eagleheart are constantly checking this site so don't take him too seriously.

Does anyone have a source for when/where Stefan said that? Seems sort of unfair to just throw words into his mouth...

This community is already divided enough.

The release of inadequate balanced commanders has caused a backlash not only against Relic but also in the player base, I have witnessed first hand the abuse players get for using these DLC commanders, And mostly at the hands of more casual players.

I have seen players quit before a game has begun because of a opposite players commander loadout.

Lettings players to buy an in game advantage is always going to create a divide, not everyone can afford DLC.

http://community.companyofheroes.com/forum/company-of-heroes-2/coh-2-balance-feedback/commander-balance/4292-future-balance-items

posted on November 15th.

I have a question instead of making so many drastic changes to the vehicle scatter system and moving the TA to 8 cps why dont you just completely rework the commanders ??

Now, this is a fan forum so I guess they would rather have feedback posted on their own site. They have no obligation to post or to be active on this site. I think we all would like them to do it more, but face it, there is no contract that says they have to. Coming with comments like "respond to this relic!" is a good idea, but as we have seen rarely works.

Parts of this community seems to want to drive a wedge in between themselves and relic, which i sad in my eyes. Think about it for a second yourself. If you are called an asshole and a greedy bastard over and over, would you go to that person and ask for advice? Would you feel the need to visit a whole place of ppl who call you names?

Which brings me to my next point. This is a fan forum. I have little or no understanding why alot of users keep posting "I stopped playing this game 3 months ago, it sucks, relic are greedy demons from hell". I do however understand that there are alot of players who are dissapointed of the direction of the game. Some wanted a new coh1, some dont. What makes me wondering is why dissapointed players keep coming back and spreading their hatered here. It is quite obvious if you are posting stuff like that you are not a fan but want the game and relic to crash and burn. I dont like everything relic does. But calling them names is never going to help your/our/any cause.

This is really bad for the community overall. Now I know I cannot make ppl stop posting. And banning them is not an option either, everyone has the right to post. Still, I can really understand if Relic has a grudge against this site and or community. However I dont want them to. I want them to go here and look for ideas, drop a comment here and there in our discussions. However that would require a diffrent tone towards them. Otherwise they just wont look here.

Lastly, the multiplayer community is the smaller portion of their income. But the multiplayer community will also be this games deciding factor in the how long lifespan this game has.

Very well said. +1

I have a question instead of making so many drastic changes to the vehicle scatter system and moving the TA to 8 cps why dont you just completely rework the commanders ??

I believe the goal of the scatter change is to reduce the effectiveness of all tanks on the move versus infantry - which in my opinion is a good change. This should increase the use and need for combined arms sort of strategies instead of just being able to rush for tanks because once tanks are on the field infantry become significantly less useful. The idea of increasing scatter on moving vehicles has been around since before the existence of Soviet Industry, so it is not directly the result of that doctrine or any doctrine for that matter.

Hopefully this will require there to be infantry around to fight off other infantry while tanks support/flank/etc instead of tanks being mobile death machines with infantry following the wake of corpses to capture territory. I dunno, seems like a good change overall to me.

I would not condone singling out individual members of the Relic team and abusing them. They are staff.

However, whatever else about the game/design, the current DLC model is a cluster F', a very poor business modal and complete BS that is not good for the customer (by design), so I can understand why people are pissed after spending their cash. As a company, Relic deserves all the criticism they get for that. Edit: And unfortunately, that anger in any business can often be expressed at the staff who are on the front line and interact with the customers.

Now, this is a fan forum so I guess they would rather have feedback posted on their own site. They have no obligation to post or to be active on this site. I think we all would like them to do it more, but face it, there is no contract that says they have to. Coming with comments like "respond to this relic!" is a good idea, but as we have seen rarely works.

Parts of this community seems to want to drive a wedge in between themselves and relic, which i sad in my eyes. Think about it for a second yourself. If you are called an asshole and a greedy bastard over and over, would you go to that person and ask for advice? Would you feel the need to visit a whole place of ppl who call you names?

Which brings me to my next point. This is a fan forum. I have little or no understanding why alot of users keep posting "I stopped playing this game 3 months ago, it sucks, relic are greedy demons from hell". I do however understand that there are alot of players who are dissapointed of the direction of the game. Some wanted a new coh1, some dont. What makes me wondering is why dissapointed players keep coming back and spreading their hatered here. It is quite obvious if you are posting stuff like that you are not a fan but want the game and relic to crash and burn. I dont like everything relic does. But calling them names is never going to help your/our/any cause.

This is really bad for the community overall. Now I know I cannot make ppl stop posting. And banning them is not an option either, everyone has the right to post. Still, I can really understand if Relic has a grudge against this site and or community. However I dont want them to. I want them to go here and look for ideas, drop a comment here and there in our discussions. However that would require a diffrent tone towards them. Otherwise they just wont look here.

Lastly, the multiplayer community is the smaller portion of their income. But the multiplayer community will also be this games deciding factor in the how long lifespan this game has.

When they ve told you that the dlc will have no impact on multiplayer and then they do a 180 turn and make the game pay to win , when some very basic features are missing from the game yet all effort goes to making new dlc and what we get is some 90s chat , when they make empty promises they have no intent at fullfilling , when they absolutely refuse to take in well constructed feedback and believe me there was tons of it especially during the beta in this site , when they change things for the sake of changing them . Yeah when they do all that then IMO hard language is justified in the same way harder language should be justified for EA .

ALSO where have you seen any members of this community trying to put a wedge between us and the devs . In order for a meaningful dialogue to exist there needs to be mutual respect . From the moment relic sees us as whining walking wallets and we see them as moneygrubbers who did a bad job and who couldnt care less about our opinion . How on earth do you think we can have any meaningful conversation ?? The wedge has been there for some time it started at the open beta and its been growing ever since . Personally when i hear relic saying "we vallue the community" i always say to myself "yeah sure thing "

Hard language will always exist where emotions exist and that is always prevalent in an RTS . The job of a community manager and the communication with the public department is to filter and separate the useless from the useful and the wellspirited from the meanspirited . If you think soft language in posts will make things better by all means keep believing it i ll have you know its already failed opn countless occasions .

And dont you dare brand me as someone who wants to break communications with relic because i habe devoted significant ammount of my time defending them pre release and proving feedback in this site all along . I even took the time to provide altrnative designs for the p2w commanders just to be ignored .

When Lynx used to answer questions about when things where going to happen with "Soon" it became a joke and eventually something you guys didn't like. The reality is on timing issues sometimes we can't share times because things in software development have a habit of taking longer than you think, and if we gave dates and then missed them people would be more upset than us being vague.

So do we keep saying things like "Soon" which eventually just start annoying people and sounding repetitive or do we just let people speculate a bit more?

It's the same thing with feedback. There has been a ton of great stuff posted on these forums, the Steam forums and our own. A lot of it's the same thing again and again, which is fine it shows which ideas have caught on with the fans, but I don't have the time to respond to every thread and even if I did we can't take everyone's advice.

If all I wanted to do all day was post "That's a great idea" in reply to every post, I probably could. But how long would it be before that seemed annoying, or like a joke? How long would it be before people started to draw conclusions from when I didn't post?

"Noun didn't say that's a great idea to my post? Maybe he hates my idea. Maybe Relic are going to do that and it's a sign!"

And a lot of the time we can't use the great ideas, because we have other stuff planned or it's in a different direction than we want to take the game.

We're running two betas right now for CoH 2, one for DLC and one for balance. The people in that get a chance to give feedback direct to the balance team, or the designers creating the DLC. I think BC is looking for more beta testers for the balance beta, and that thread is on our official forums.

That's a great way to get specific balance ideas right in front of the people who make the changes, exactly when they're making changes.

Ultimately we're listening to you, even if we're not pipping into each thread to say so. And we consider all your feedback, even if we don't end up taking it because we have to balance that with the feedback of other people and our own ideas of designing the game.

The other thing to consider is the speed of changes. The idea that it's been 12 or 15 days since a change was proposed and it should be live now, is based on a very aggressive update schedule. Even the most basic balance changes need to be tested, sent to Q/A to test and then made live. That's costly. And that's when everyone agrees exactly what needs to change.

We feel the cost is worth it, but pushing that faster raises that cost. Sometimes we've done that, made changes quicker because we felt it was necessary, but it's not something we can do all the time every time.

Lastly we can value your feedback without agreeing with it, or following it. My wife tells me that my hat looks stupid and I should wear different pants and yet I still dress like a hipster idiot. It doesn't mean I don't love my wife, or value what she says. It just means that I might also like wearing these pants or this hat.

We value frank and constructive feedback. It's best when it can come from a place where everyone assumes that the other side is intelligent and only wants the best for the game. If not, well we filter out the passion and pass on the meat of the message.

And it's all good. Passion is a good thing. If you didn't care about the game you wouldn't be here complaining. We like that you care, that's what we want.

This is what we have learned about Noun so far:

-He likes pizza alot
-Has a nagging wife
-Wears ridiculous clothes
-Loves rhetorical questions

Lets give Noun a break.