Community Farewell from pqumsieh

I do not believe there is either the interest/ambition from the developers for that to be the case

Yeah the whole "we be esports" thing they keep brandishing about is as laughable as their whole "games as a service" shtick. Let's throw out some cool and contemporary buzzwords to keep the nerds quiet, while we utilise some of the most scummy business models to extract money from our hapless fans.

I think the most damning thing I can say about CoH2 is that outside of dedicated forums like this one and dedicated social media channels, despite the shocking metacritic user score and the abhorrent pay to entry business model with tacked on freemium options. Nobody is talking about this game.

Anyway salt aside, good luck Peter I'm sure you'll do an excellent job working under less oppressive conditions and with more creative freedom.

Thank you Pete for all the years of work to make this game special!

Using certain emote when relic will do some questionable, against common sense changes will lose its meaning...

Naaaaah we'll just can an emote of the new Balance Lead

I'm going to be rude here and say that I'm glad there's going to hopefully be some new blood on the scene.

The game's balance up til now has been pretty badly done in some key areas. Hopefully a shake up will do balance some good.

We'll see.

If you take some time to read Peters own blog about balancing videogames at http://pqumsieh.com/. I kinda get the feel sometime that his perception of the overall problem with multiplayer balance is a compartmentalization between balancing teams and designers.
Now I don't work at relic so I have no idea about that, I just take it from the following. :


"I used to think design and balance were things that had to be done separate from one another. This was reinforced by a similar sentiment which I encounter both at work and throughout the design community. That is not to say they are not both fields of design, but creating new content vs. balancing new content required completely different mind set. The designer is focused on creating innovative interesting decisions where the balancer is focused on making those decisions all equally appealing. The reason for this point of view is largely rooted in the belief that thinking about balance too early limits or restricts the creativity of the designer. I would imagine a number of colleagues might still share this belief, let me see if I can share some reasonable doubt to convince you otherwise."

Maybe, just maybe we shouldn't blame the balancing team for all that affects balance, but rather give try to understand that they sometimes cannot interfere at will with design choices. This would give a suitable explanation to why it sometimes takes a long time to 'fix' what seems to be blatant balance problems.

Maybe sometimes the balancing team are simply delivered "This is unit X it has Y and Z abilities, it should excel at A but be bad at B. Make sure you balance it but don't go do far from the overall design of the unit."
Same with factions.

But I digress again I don't know if too much compartmentalization is present at Relic or not, but thats the feeling I get.

Put that joint down and rub your eyes a moment. CoH2 will never become an e-sports title, and it amazes me that there are still people who believe it could ever be so.

Yes, at least it will never be a very successful e-sports title. If you consider a game an e-sports title because you can play tournaments in it, maybe even with a small prize for the winner, then CoH2 already is one, but then you will have to consider already a great amount of games as part of e-sports, and I think not many are going to mean such games when they speak about e-sports.

But I digress again I don't know if too much compartmentalization is present at Relic or not, but thats the feeling I get.

Well there was that one time where during a preview stream Noun or another Relic employee bragged about the balance team not being allowed to touch the elite troops doctrine until it was released....

We all know how well that worked out.

In any case, I wish PQ the best of luck in his new endeavor. He was always one of the more vocal devs on the forums and the communication was appreciated.

The reason not more are playing is because it's not their thing. The reason is NOT that they first went researching what the community thought about balance and e-sports potential and then opted out of a game that beforehand interested them. That's not how things work, alright?

I... agree with In---- I ag--- I agree with I---

*clutches chest, collapses*

I hadn't heard about his blog prior to this thread.

My apologies to Peter for what maybe inferred by my words. You will be missed.


What gives though with the stream and all that recently? My impression from that was that he'd be going on for much longer.

I'm going to miss your input in CoH2's game design PQ.

Even though your blog rarely seemed to line up with anything that was ever represented in CoH2, it was for me a great snapshot into the culture of (Relic's) game development. One voice is only so loud, despite its truth or logic. I hope that your next endeavors allow you more freedom and control.

PQ: CoH2's Fox Mulder.

I... agree with In---- I ag--- I agree with I---

*clutches chest, collapses*

*Gives CPR*

*Slips over banana peel, dies*

Peter is a tragic loss, yes, but I can't imagine it being that bad if, for example, Brad takes over.