Realism v Gameplay in Ranked Multiplayer

Browsing the CoH2 beta forums - Is anyone else here concerned about how much the term 'realism' is thrown around when discussing gameplay features for multiplayer? Sure, WW2 is an awesome historical setting for COH2 but surely gameplay should take preference over realism. I am all for immersion in CoH2 but not at the cost of balance and gameplay (minimize random factors).

Of course they don't have to be mutually exclusive but I feel a lot of gameplay features are being decided upon the grounds of 'its more realistic' or 'that's not realistic'.

We all know a few examples are mirror matches and blizzard cold tech have been discussed openly by devs

I am afraid that I am in the minority or at least the vocal minority when it comes to this. Yes I know this isn't StarCraft2 (which is the benchmark of awesome competitive MP RTS imo) but I just hope relic don't make decisions based on realism that detract from the flow, matchmaking, balance, and competitive side of the game.

I'm probably going to be again in the very small minority here but for once I felt like creating a thread to voice an opinion!

I'll probably post this on the beta forums as well to compare the feedback tbh

Yes. It's stupid. People who want realism shouldn't be playing a video game like Company of Heroes, which has literally dozens of historical inaccuracies in the first 15 seconds of every single match. There are so many great realistic games to choose from (Combat Mission, Close Combat, and Men of War on the scale from "very realistic" to "not very realistic but way better than CoH") and there's no reason to fuck Company of Heroes up by adding "realistic" stuff that ruins the gameplay when CoH never has been and never will be even remotely close to a realistic game.

That's what happens when you push "realism" as a hype word.

It's because all the casual noobies who play 2 games a week want to feel so good and are so freaks. REALISM REALISM REALISM, HERP DERP we just made a game shit BUT REALISM!

I used to be an advocate for realism... when I was 12 and "balanced gameplay" meant nothing to me.

Games like CoH offer a balance between realism and gameplay, and I think that's why a lot of us play. We want to see fabled WW2 armor and weapons on our screens, and have them somewhat live up to the hype that has built up in all of our minds as we've gone through books, movies and other media over the years.

But, those of us who've been gaming for at least a few years know that if you begin to favor realism in your games, balance suffers, and then gameplay suffers. It stops being fun and challenging, therefore losing replay value and eventually just becoming lost, fragmented bits on a hard drive.

The reason realism gotta be restrained is because the things decipted in games would, in real life, not be funny. Sure it's funny to see a tank blow up and a guy fly 100 meters up in the air as if he was Wile E. Coyote. Would it be as fun to see someone roll around is own crap and blood because his arm just got blown up by that grenade he didn't throw in time? Sure some people might get a kick out of it, but I'm sure most wont. I don't think they'll be stifling a laughter either When he subsequently gets rolled over and crushed by a t-34.

Realism is just a immersion token anyways. As long as you have a healthy amount of suspension of disbelief, both CoH games will probably not be a problem at all for you. Except for when it bugs out and m8's starts doing wheelies.

Except for when it bugs out and m8's starts doing wheelies.

Hey hey HEY!

...

Wheelies are awesome!

'Cinematic' realism is fine with me. If anything CoH owes more to war movies than it does to anything else I think. I think it looks incredible