A little love for relic.

Hi all,

1. a little love for relic is never wrong;
2. to all members of the community some love is nice too. Have a Happy Easter everybody: Pro Gamers and noobs, trolls and staff.

Best Regards awa59

And a Happy Easter to you also, Awa, and thank you for your formidable support !

The problem with this train of thought is that the VAST MAJORITY OF PLAYERS are not ever going to be "elite". And while I completely respect the elite players opinion, it appears to me that if I'm a game developer that I am going to give priority to balance with respect to THE MEDIOCRE MAJORITY over the vocal elite minority while doing as good as I can to placate both.

In other words, if the elite players find it imbalanced but the majority finds it to be fine...then it's as balanced as it should be. At the end of the day, the game is a product and needs to be designed to cater to the largest % of its player base...not just some pie in the sky e-sport dream that we've been waiting 8 years and counting for.

That being said, I do find your past comments interesting and valid concerning the true issues with Coh2. But we both know that redesign you want (and frankly I wouldn't mind seeing either) isn't coming.

Indeed

The pure level of saltiness in here is abysmal. Sadly, Inverse has a degree of reason in his posts. No matter how much 'balancing' is undergone within this game it will always have issues on the premise that it has a broken core that was never fully developed. While his comments come out as being elitest(and offensive), they have a point. Does a non programmer(whom has never worked with code) get to sit and call out issues within a program? No, so unless you work with programming it is unreasonable to assume that you can sit there and call out issues within a code you have no idea about.

Just my thoughts as a programmer.

yes, for the same reason an art critic doesn't have to make art. the "stfu if you can't do better" answer is a poor excuse for (generally) bad work.

it's fuck easy to make critics, especially unhelpful ones, but if you're producing something for other people (being a professional) then what you produce must be appreciated by them.

yes, it sucks to get bad and/or viscous feedback and sometimes it's just people being assholes but other times it's because someone is doing a bad job.

That's the wrong way to approach game balance in competitive games, however. The problem is people often have trouble distinguishing game balance and game design. Balance and design are two entirely different aspects of multiplayer games, and they influence the game in very different ways.

Game design in multiplayer games is all about making the game fun and engaging for as many people as possible, regardless of skill level or the degree to which they decide to dedicate themselves to the game. Good game design results in games that are fun and engaging regardless of any balance issues, since perfect balance is an unattainable ideal. Dota 2 is a great example of a game that excels in this area. The game is so complex that even approaching perfect balance is difficult, yet it's designed in such a way that there's so many ways for people to outplay their opponents in spite of perhaps being at a technical disadvantage because of imbalanced gameplay elements. Even though it constantly has balance issues and is balanced pretty much exclusively for tournament play, so many people play that game because it's just as fun when you're a 2k scrub as it is when you're 5k and getting matched against pros.

Game design is something every single player could and should voice their opinions on, because it's an important aspect of the game that affects all players equally. Things like the merits of call-in-focused gameplay, the lack of global upgrades, and the stale metagame are issues that every player could and should weigh in on, because they're the direct result of deliberate game design decisions on the part of the developers. Game design feedback should come from everyone because the purpose of good design is to appeal to the most people as possible.

Balance, on the other hand, is entirely different. The key fact of balance that people refuse to accept is how little it actually affects the outcome of games except at the absolute highest level of play. The vast majority of players have so much room for improvement that any perceived imbalances can easily be overcome with superior play. If the game isn't fun at lower levels, we shouldn't be looking to fix balance, we should be looking to fix design.

The main reason we should be looking at design instead of balance if we want to fix low-level play is because the only effective way to balance a multiplayer game is to balance it for players at the highest possible level of play. This seems entirely obvious to me, but it's a point that people constantly resist. The reason balance needs to be done for the highest level possible is because that is the level with the least complicating factors. Things like skill, dedication, and time spent are complicating factors when talking about balance in the context of low-level play because ranges are so great and there's no baseline. High-level players are separated by very little in terms of skill, and are affected far more severely by balance issues as a result.

Let's manufacture a little scenario. Say we break down CoH into two "skill areas" of micro and macro decision-making, and assign every player a value between 0 and 100 for each. That means a theoretical perfect player would have a micro score of 100 and a macro score of 100.

The complication, of course, is the fact that there's really no way to easily tell what a player's relative strengths and weaknesses are, so instead of seeing this breakdown all we're essentially seeing is the aggregate skill rating. So if you see a rating of 200, you know the player is a perfect 100 in each of the rating categories. But what if the aggregate skill is 100? You could have breakdowns of 100/0, 0/100, 50/50, or anything in between. This adds a degree of uncertainty that is far beyond that of theoretical perfect players.

Say we make two of these perfect players face off; we know they represent the absolute maximum possible level of skill, and because of that we can entirely eliminate skill as a contributing factor when analyzing the outcomes of their games, thus giving us theoretically perfect data on the balance of the two factions they played. Next, we get two players with aggregate scores of 100 to face off. These players could have micro/macro skill splits of 100/0, 0/100, 50/50, or anything in between. Though they may technically be of equal skill, the data they generate will be extremely different based on their relative skill disparities in certain areas. A match between two 100/0 micro/macro players would generate entirely different data than a match between two 0/100 players, or a match between a 100/0 player and a 0/100 player.

We don't have perfect players, of course, but the closest we have are high-level tournament competitors, and those are the players who should be looked to for balance because they play at a level where skill gaps are tiny and the effects of balance are large. At a lower level, game enjoyment is all about design. If people aren't having fun at those levels, they need to frame their complaints in the context of design, rather than pushing for balance changes when they know very little about how said balance changes would impact the game beyond their personal sphere of familiarity.

Inverse beating that ol' drum again... how droll.

Looking at it as an outsider, I see (almost) exclusively balance changes to a game whose balance has never been its primary issue. It just seems like after all the time and hype for this patch, there needed to be something a little more. It'll freshen things up for a few months, no doubt, but the game's core issues remain untouched, and people will be back to complaining once the meta settles down.

It's also hilarious how people (the vast majority of whom are overwhelmingly mediocre at the game) are suddenly experts able to analyze the balance changes before they've even played them. But that ignorance has traditionally been one of the CoH community's greatest strengths. By which I mean, above all else, it's the one thing this community is truly good at.

The truth. Nobody is going to admit it though.

That's the wrong way to approach game balance in competitive games, however. The problem is people often have trouble distinguishing game balance and game design. Balance and design are two entirely different aspects of multiplayer games, and they influence the game in very different ways.

Game design in multiplayer games is all about making the game fun and engaging for as many people as possible, regardless of skill level or the degree to which they decide to dedicate themselves to the game. Good game design results in games that are fun and engaging regardless of any balance issues, since perfect balance is an unattainable ideal. Dota 2 is a great example of a game that excels in this area. The game is so complex that even approaching perfect balance is difficult, yet it's designed in such a way that there's so many ways for people to outplay their opponents in spite of perhaps being at a technical disadvantage because of imbalanced gameplay elements. Even though it constantly has balance issues and is balanced pretty much exclusively for tournament play, so many people play that game because it's just as fun when you're a 2k scrub as it is when you're 5k and getting matched against pros.

Game design is something every single player could and should voice their opinions on, because it's an important aspect of the game that affects all players equally. Things like the merits of call-in-focused gameplay, the lack of global upgrades, and the stale metagame are issues that every player could and should weigh in on, because they're the direct result of deliberate game design decisions on the part of the developers. Game design feedback should come from everyone because the purpose of good design is to appeal to the most people as possible.

Balance, on the other hand, is entirely different. The key fact of balance that people refuse to accept is how little it actually affects the outcome of games except at the absolute highest level of play. The vast majority of players have so much room for improvement that any perceived imbalances can easily be overcome with superior play. If the game isn't fun at lower levels, we shouldn't be looking to fix balance, we should be looking to fix design.

The main reason we should be looking at design instead of balance if we want to fix low-level play is because the only effective way to balance a multiplayer game is to balance it for players at the highest possible level of play. This seems entirely obvious to me, but it's a point that people constantly resist. The reason balance needs to be done for the highest level possible is because that is the level with the least complicating factors. Things like skill, dedication, and time spent are complicating factors when talking about balance in the context of low-level play because ranges are so great and there's no baseline. High-level players are separated by very little in terms of skill, and are affected far more severely by balance issues as a result.

Let's manufacture a little scenario. Say we break down CoH into two "skill areas" of micro and macro decision-making, and assign every player a value between 0 and 100 for each. That means a theoretical perfect player would have a micro score of 100 and a macro score of 100.

The complication, of course, is the fact that there's really no way to easily tell what a player's relative strengths and weaknesses are, so instead of seeing this breakdown all we're essentially seeing is the aggregate skill rating. So if you see a rating of 200, you know the player is a perfect 100 in each of the rating categories. But what if the aggregate skill is 100? You could have breakdowns of 100/0, 0/100, 50/50, or anything in between. This adds a degree of uncertainty that is far beyond that of theoretical perfect players.

Say we make two of these perfect players face off; we know they represent the absolute maximum possible level of skill, and because of that we can entirely eliminate skill as a contributing factor when analyzing the outcomes of their games, thus giving us theoretically perfect data on the balance of the two factions they played. Next, we get two players with aggregate scores of 100 to face off. These players could have micro/macro skill splits of 100/0, 0/100, 50/50, or anything in between. Though they may technically be of equal skill, the data they generate will be extremely different based on their relative skill disparities in certain areas. A match between two 100/0 micro/macro players would generate entirely different data than a match between two 0/100 players, or a match between a 100/0 player and a 0/100 player.

We don't have perfect players, of course, but the closest we have are high-level tournament competitors, and those are the players who should be looked to for balance because they play at a level where skill gaps are tiny and the effects of balance are large. At a lower level, game enjoyment is all about design. If people aren't having fun at those levels, they need to frame their complaints in the context of design, rather than pushing for balance changes when they know very little about how said balance changes would impact the game beyond their personal sphere of familiarity.

This is a solid statement and one I am inclined to agree with. If only Relic would take notice and at least put a thought toward it. Furthermore, I believe it is a point that all those whom wish to have a deeper level knowledge of the game should at least read, then formulate their own opinion, whatever it may be, with this in mind.

wall

this is true however some stuff is so obviously broken (whether you want to call it a design or balance issue) that even lower levels can pick up on it. also, to a certain extent, balance has an affect on game design (see volk schrecks/raketens/and OKW fuel timings or the OKH sniper, both prior to this patch). the caveat to this being that high skill players can more accurately analysis finer grained changes, like the reduction in rifle/lmg damage on obers.

How did this turn in to a Inversed thread?

Like the Devs? Last I checked they arent top 10 Tournament players.

This is seriously the most elitist crap I have ever seen posted to the forums...

Let all the devs be top 10 and you won't get a patch at all.

Like the Devs? Last I checked they arent top 10 Tournament players.

This is seriously the most elitist crap I have ever seen posted to the forums...

Game devs normally never are top 10 players in any game, being good at a game =/= being good at designing one. But the developer can take hints and advice from the top 10 in order to make a better game for everyone.

Inverse is 100% right, the biggest issues this game faces are design issues, not "specific" balance issues. One glaring one is the lack of proper target tables, along with the refusal to add squad spacing when a modder can do it in less than half an hour.

I thought this was a pretty decent patch. Hoping for them to announce some new multiplayer content on the stream tonight!

Lol @ Inverse. I couldn't agree more with your point about how balancing numbers in this game doesn't address the underlying problems. I am just curious what changes YOU think need to be made? I wonder if they are similar to what I think

Lol @ Inverse. I couldn't agree more with your point about how balancing numbers in this game doesn't address the underlying problems. I am just curious what changes YOU think need to be made? I wonder if they are similar to what I think

http://www.coh2.org/topic/12973/strategy-in-company-of-heroes-2

There's a lot of smaller problems, but that's the core issue in my opinion.