One week from release and still no official okw gameplay

I am already happy they gave a lot of current CoH experts access to the alpha probably improving the gaming experience we will face!

Remember that these experts had access when we got elite troops and soviet industry as well as they haven't noticed slight(to greatly understate it) difference between gren(especially G43) vs conscrip performance.

Or at least haven't gave enough feedback on the consequences.

It is the hype of no hype....

Remember that these experts had access when we got elite troops and soviet industry as well as they haven't noticed slight(to greatly understate it) difference between gren(especially G43) vs conscrip performance.

Or at least haven't gave enough feedback on the consequences.

Actually not the same people at all. To set the record straight, coh2.org handpicked experts from the original game to provide private feedback for COH2 before it was launched, over a year ago. That same group (with some additions along the way) continued to give feedback throughout the initial patches and during SNF S5. That same group became so frustrated when Elite Troops and Soviet Windustry Pay 2 Win commanders were dumped into the game (the problematic commander DLC business model was one of our core complaints from the very start) that the relationship between that group and Relic degraded entirely. Relic then abandoned that group, and selected entirely different people to test the Alpha for WFA.

I probably shouldn't bother recounting all this, but I don't like to see wrong information spread about on this point.

^ Ami when you and Relic split up, who got the dog and who got the record collection?

Well Ami, Relic surely don't have the right testers, like there's always some sort of idiot stuff in every patch that spoils the game. These screw ups hurt the game even more and force players to quit.

Current testers needs to be replaced MVGame

They really should work together with the community when releasing the patches, like doing a open test before the release to see how players react and still have to time to fix and tweak and giving everyone a chance a test it. (Especially the commanders and balance because we players can better spot the bad elements in a patch than Relic's team.)

Altogether I think Relic don't trust us.

That's right. Quinn Duffy has a picture of us all on his dartboard.

Ooooh, I forgot it was Sega who are now publishers and now things are making sense, believe it or not but Sega has hard-on of hate for modern social media as a few years ago they even blocked youtube videos of an old JRPG:
http://www.destructoid.com/sega-forcing-removal-of-shining-force-videos-on-youtube-239581.phtml

I have a feeling they have a balls tight NDA because they think the internet is a bunch of whiners who moaned about their last two games of Alien: Colonial Marines and Rome 2 without a good reason in thier eyes. An NDA would stop it at the source I guess...

Actually not the same people at all. To set the record straight, coh2.org handpicked experts from the original game to provide private feedback for COH2 before it was launched, over a year ago. That same group (with some additions along the way) continued to give feedback throughout the initial patches and during SNF S5. That same group became so frustrated when Elite Troops and Soviet Windustry Pay 2 Win commanders were dumped into the game (the problematic commander DLC business model was one of our core complaints from the very start) that the relationship between that group and Relic degraded entirely. Relic then abandoned that group, and selected entirely different people to test the Alpha for WFA.

I probably shouldn't bother recounting all this, but I don't like to see wrong information spread about on this point.

I'm glad you've shed more lite onto this.

That still leaves the question of how SI and ET in their first incarnation made it live(ET got pretty balanced, SI got butchered directly and indirectly by price changes).

I don't want to do any witch hunt here and there definitely are communication issues somewhere which lead to patches that are so obviously imbalanced that it makes one wonder WHO and how drunk he was when he accepted them.

It is good that you correct me(or anyone) if you know more on the issue.
I'm tired of NDA over NDA on NDA about NDA and all this secrecy on relics part.
I love their games, but I hate that there is absolutely no transparency on anything and whatever is delivered is delivered in form of bucket of ice cold water on the head.

I hope the new group see the imbalances and can beat relic into fixing them when they see it during closed tests, but seeing flowers like march deployment make me double question everything relic related and even my love for the game can not change it.

But there is no hype for western front armies.

The game coming out in a few days and relic is going to sleep instead of showing us new gameplay videos or trailers. OR SOMETHING........

There is hype Affe... just its locked away behind an NDA. Word is another media drop is due this week - so I guess all we can do is sit tight.

I just can't see logic in the actions they do / don't do, and that bothers me. I can see so much oppertunities being missed every damn time.

GAD DANG SON!

Actually not the same people at all. To set the record straight, coh2.org handpicked experts from the original game to provide private feedback for COH2 before it was launched, over a year ago. That same group (with some additions along the way) continued to give feedback throughout the initial patches and during SNF S5. That same group became so frustrated when Elite Troops and Soviet Windustry Pay 2 Win commanders were dumped into the game (the problematic commander DLC business model was one of our core complaints from the very start) that the relationship between that group and Relic degraded entirely. Relic then abandoned that group, and selected entirely different people to test the Alpha for WFA.

I probably shouldn't bother recounting all this, but I don't like to see wrong information spread about on this point.

I fully respect your evident transparency here,Ami. And so I am not going into detail, but...irrespective of how talented the chosen Pros may have been, it was not their game which they personally funded, it was Relic's amd Sega's. And it was always clear(to me,at least) that Relic were not in the business of promoting pros at that stage: what they were after (rightly or wrongly) was income and numbers. So for an elitist self-regarding consumer group to (once again) set up their stall and be demanding was,at the very least, naif....though others may say supinely arrogant

Relic appear to have succeeded on the income target, by all accounts, but their player base did seem to start to shrivel bcs of the various problems:the Russian mafia, the Commander hiatus, and perhaps most importantly, the evident lack of micro requirements in early/mid game which was missing until the pre Xmas patch.

Since when, ofc, the game has altered radically.

As for a degrading relationship with Relic, (especially considering the amazing generosity of the Relic hosting exercise in Vancouver), I would say many of the pros who felt they could take the cookies, then cut and run, have a hell of a lot to learn about loyalty, respect and commercial life. You have to take the rough with the smooth: I am certain you know that - it is a lesson you need to inpress upon the others.

New commanders were never tested by the community before going straight into automatch. Not at initial release, not when Elite Troops or Soviet Industry hit. We "heard" they were coming (a supertank that is "twice as good as a tiger and costs no manpower"), protested, and were flabbergasted when they suddenly appeared, ruining automatch games left and right, making mockeries of streamers and streams, and sending tournament organizers back to the drawing board to fight over rules that allow or disallow "Premium" commanders.

It has nothing to do with entitlement... it has to do with wanting the game to be competitive.

Well said BloodNok.

I'm glad you've shed more lite onto this.

That still leaves the question of how SI and ET in their first incarnation made it live(ET got pretty balanced, SI got butchered directly and indirectly by price changes).

I don't want to do any witch hunt here and there definitely are communication issues somewhere which lead to patches that are so obviously imbalanced that it makes one wonder WHO and how drunk he was when he accepted them.

It is good that you correct me(or anyone) if you know more on the issue.
I'm tired of NDA over NDA on NDA about NDA and all this secrecy on relics part.
I love their games, but I hate that there is absolutely no transparency on anything and whatever is delivered is delivered in form of bucket of ice cold water on the head.

I hope the new group see the imbalances and can beat relic into fixing them when they see it during closed tests, but seeing flowers like march deployment make me double question everything relic related and even my love for the game can not change it.

I could probably write an essay on why the mishap of ET/Industry happened (different testing environment, changing of personnel, patch being released in two+ parts instead of simultaneously) , but everyone would still be upset - and I'd probably get in trouble with Relic so let's just focus on the positives since then. First off, Relic has definitely listened to their community about paid DLC that directly impacts the game. I'm pretty sure I'm correct in saying that there have been no more paid commanders released since ET/Industry. I guess Advanced Warfare was kind of paid DLC, but most people got it for free - and while Advanced Warfare is extremely strong, it isn't anything like Industry/ET were on release.

Furthermore, balance is much more delicate and a lot more difficult to achieve than people think. Us testers play as much as we can (everything from 1v1 to 4v4) and Relic has frequent internal testing going on but the ability to account for every possible strat/build order on every possible map is nearly impossible. This is further compounded by the issue that the vast majority of top players do not want to spend time testing/helping Relic balance. I'm not going to mention names because I don't want to call anyone out but Relic has tried extremely hard to get the top guys working alongside them to help balance the game, but it simply hasn't panned out. I can understand not wanting to volunteer personal time in "doing Relic's job" (since after all, it is their game and they're the ones getting paid to balance it) but to be offered the chance to participate, then not take part and spend half your time bitching about the balance that you could have helped fix... honestly in my book it's just a bit insane.

I certainly can't promise anything (since obviously I don't work for Relic) but a few of us really impressed upon one of the higher-ups in the company today the need to remove the NDA from WFA and the need to advertise it more. As I've said on my stream and in other threads on coh2.org Relic has done a phenomenal job with this expansion. I doubt everyone will like it but I can say from first-hand experience that when we were handed WFA (back in like April) I legitimately hated it. It was downright terrible. To Relic's credit, they took all of our feedback into consideration and over the past few months have managed to transform WFA from an expansion that I was not going to play - into one that I'm extremely excited about. Maybe I'm just too excited, or maybe I'm too naive but in my opinion Relic has significantly changed the way they interact with us testers, and with their community as a whole - and in a very positive way. With the past two patches (infantry combat, vehicle combat) and with WFA they've listened very closely to our feedback and they've implemented a ton of really amazing changes. Sure the balance isn't perfect but I think that the mechanics of the game are better than ever - and 1v1 is arguably the most balanced it has ever been. Sure there are some cheesy strats (m3 spam, ISU spam) but overall if you look back over the past year - CoH 2 has become an amazing game.

Please, just give Relic some more time and understanding. All the recent patches have been a step in the right direction. Peter, Brad, Jason and the rest of the Balance/multiplayer guys are all really solid players and they know what they're doing. They're hugely invested in COH2 for the long-term - it's pretty obvious with how much the game has changed for the better this past year. Blaming people/starting witch hunts etc etc isn't going to do anything - that's not the sort of feedback that anyone wants or likes - and I really wish this community was more positive. I can promise you that Relic listens very closely to constructive criticism - imagine what we could accomplish if people would stop bashing anything/everything at every chance they got and actually made sensible posts.

Sadly, I doubt most people will read this post since it is so long. Oh well.

Show Spoiler

Ciez the TL;DR of what you wrote says to me that the balance team is still cleaning up messes made by the design team.

Sadly, I doubt most people will read this post since it is so long. Oh well.

That remark guilt tripped me into reading your post! haha

but its getting there. I was dissapointed aswell, the alpha felt like a step in the wrong direction, but they made some necessary changes and now im quite hyped for the expansion.

Ciez the TL;DR of what you wrote says to me that the balance team is still cleaning up messes made by the design team.

Somewhat, but that's basically the entire point of having a balance team - at least in my opinion. Design guys make stuff that's really cool/fun to play with - balance guys make it so that it is fair.

That's just my view of it anyways, makes sense to me - and that's how I'd handle it if CoH 2 were my game.

Another thing people forget is how much of a crunch and how much stress Relic was under with the whole THQ mess. I mean, I don't want to constantly blame that for any and every mishap that Relic makes but I think some one told me that they had like 1/4th of the budget for COH 2 as they had for CoH 1?

Pushing out a game that is, in many ways superior to CoH 1, while under such a time/budget crunch is impressive. (Do not want to derail this thread into coh2 vs vcoh, both games are good both games do things right and both games do things wrong).

I just wish this community was more positive and supportive. That's the only way we'll ever make it grow and reach the vast potential that CoH 2 has. All eSports and popular games have stemmed from highly dedicated communities, not from a developer throwing money at the problem.

Come on, this community is immensely positive and supportive. Our criticisms are generally constructive. Let's not paint some twisted bitter picture here cause that's not even close to the case. People are pissed about this NDA and the real lack of marketing, and rightly so. We can't be awesome together if we're not allowed to be, now can we?