Relic's Poorest Design: Contrary To All Reasonable Thought

Relic is not interested in gameplay but immersion and comebacks which noone gives a shit about after 5 games.

Relic is not interested in gameplay but immersion and comebacks which noone gives a shit about after 5 games.

Then their priorities are morbid.

Jaedrik has challenged the COH2 community to take up this banner and present it differently. To that end, here's my attempt to translate the OP into modern day English:

During yesterday's livestream, the topic of critical hits and plane crashes was raised. Quinn Duffy defended both mechanics, yet anyone with even cursory game knowledge probably felt tension beneath his words. Relic seems to understand that their position is contrary to the wishes of the playerbase, if only vaguely.

In fact, their position runs contrary to all reasonable game design. These mechanics introduce frustration in place of enjoyment! So why hasn't Relic changed them?

The center of Quinn's argument is that uncertainty adds an element of drama to the game. If the game were completely predictable, it would be boring. There's no doubt that this is the case. All competitive games have a certain degree of uncertainty, from Brood War to Melee. Even Minesweeper has some moments of uncertainty.

Uncertainty must be presented as a "consistent inconsistency". The armor system falls into this category, and it's a beautiful game mechanic. Both sides know the risks and rewards, and know the various ways to improve their chances. In a typical engagement, both players have a measure of control over the outcome.

Players have no control over plane crashes or critical hits at all. That's what makes them frustrating. If your opponent gets a lucky crit, you feel as if you've been robbed of a kill that you earned. If you get a lucky crit of your own, you may not feel as though you truly deserve a win. This is because neither you nor your opponent had any control over the critical hit. It was purely random, and neither of you did anything special to make it happen.

Unit preservation is an extremely important game mechanic. If you preserve your units and wipe your opponent's, you'll win. The armor system is what enables players to preserve their heavy tanks. Since tanks get shot quite frequently, the hit/miss bounce/penetrate dynamic feels reasonably fair. If a tank gets away with a lucky miss or bounce, frustration is relatively mild. A critical hit is infuriating because again, the player has no control.

The uncertainty provided by the armor system is more than enough to satisfy Quinn's desire for drama. Taking it any further only hurts COH2's chances of becoming an E-sport. If Relic is serious about making COH2 a competitive game, these game mechanics must be changed or removed.

Jaedrik has challenged the COH2 community to take up this banner and present it differently. To that end, Here's my attempt to translate the OP into modern day English:

During yesterday's livestream, the topic of critical hits and plane crashes was raised. Quinn Duffy defended both mechanics, yet anyone with even cursory game knowledge probably felt tension beneath his words. Relic seems to understand that their position is contrary to the wishes of the playerbase, if only vaguely.

In fact, their position runs contrary to all reasonable game design. These mechanics introduce frustration in place of enjoyment! So why hasn't Relic changed them?

The center of Quinn's argument is that uncertainty adds an element of drama to the game. If the game were completely predictable, it would be boring. There's no doubt that this is the case. All competitive games have a certain degree of uncertainty, from Brood War to Melee. Even Minesweeper has some moments of uncertainty.

Uncertainty must be presented as a "consistent inconsistency". The armor system falls into this category, and it's a beautiful game mechanic. Both sides know the risks and rewards, and know the various ways to improve their chances. In a typical engagement, both players have a measure of control over the outcome.

Players have no control over plane crashes or critical hits at all. That's what makes them frustrating. If your opponent gets a lucky crit, you feel as if you've been robbed of a kill that you earned. If you get a lucky crit of your own, you may not feel as though you truly deserve a win. This is because neither you nor your opponent had any control over the critical hit. It was purely random, and neither of you did anything special to make it happen.

Unit preservation is an extremely important game mechanic. If you preserve your units and wipe your opponent's, you'll win. The armor system is what enables players to preserve their heavy tanks. Since tanks get shot quite frequently, the hit/miss bounce/penetrate dynamic feels reasonably fair. If a tank gets away with a lucky miss or bounce, frustration is relatively mild. A critical hit is infuriating because again, the player has no control.

The uncertainty provided by the armor system is more than enough to satisfy Quinn's desire for drama. Taking it any further only hurts COH2's chances of becoming an E-sport. If Relic is serious about making COH2 a competitive game, these game mechanics must be changed or removed.

Good translation.

+1 Romeo.

There is already a first layer of randomness on tanks thanks to the probability based armor system. The second layer is death criticals. What's annoying is that a tank losing it's gun isn't actually bad for the tank, it's good for the tank, because it can only happen in the place of dying.

An alternate system would be penetrating hits always have some probability of causing a critical, BUT there are no death crits and HP going to 0 always kills them.

Better? Worse? I don't know, but I would rather have no crits at all than death crits in their current state.

There is already a first layer of randomness on tanks thanks to the probability based armor system. The second layer is death criticals. What's annoying is that a tank losing it's gun isn't actually bad for the tank, it's good for the tank, because it can only happen in the place of dying.

Seconded. That is just, really, super weird.

RNG is overrated. The better player wins 95 percent of the times otherwise Players like Jesulin and POP would not have been able to get 90%+ win ratios. The game has bigger flaws than that.

Edit: It's annoying as hell how people use RNG as an excuse in the stupidest situations. Aka: Not a single sector after 10 minutes ? "Bah this game is so random"

Well, the argument isn't that RNG trumps skill, just that plane crashes and critical hits are very frustrating.

Well, the argument isn't that RNG trumps skill, just that plane crashes and critical hits are very frustrating.

So is trying to solo a King Tiger with one depleted Guards squad

critical hits are frustrating. but I like them. The risk of getting criticalled adds interestingness to your battles. You can't rely on the same tactics in the same situations every time- because RNG always adds an off chance for something unforseen to happen, so you have to include contingency plans for everything.

I'm always in favor of making RNG as player influenced as possible, (ie how infantry RNG is based on cover modifiers). But it still works even if the scenario is only lightly influenced by player actions (such as critical hits on tanks)

If you want to win, you have to have a mindset of "whats my contingency plan" not "i hope i get lucky"

Thanks for the translation Romeo, much easier to read.

Good points all around, though I feel there is still a place for vehicle crits in certain instances. For example a frontal t34 ram breaking main weapons, and of course vehicle snares.

Perhaps a more logical approach to them could work, such as a sniper taking out a gunner on a HT or pintle mount.

When it comes to plane crashes I have nothing good to say about them. They are just too out of control and can result in some serious nonsense that neither side deserves.

I'm always in favor of making RNG as player influenced as possible

I think most players would agree that they don't want crits to be outright removed from the game, they just want the system to change in a way that makes it less frustrating.

critical hits are frustrating. but I like them. The risk of getting criticalled adds interestingness to your battles. You can't rely on the same tactics in the same situations every time- because RNG always adds an off chance for something unforseen to happen, so you have to include contingency plans for everything.

I'm always in favor of making RNG as player influenced as possible, (ie how infantry RNG is based on cover modifiers). But it still works even if the scenario is only lightly influenced by player actions (such as critical hits on tanks)

If you want to win, you have to have a mindset of "whats my contingency plan" not "i hope i get lucky"

I think that you already need contingency plans in most situations without RNG crits. Things like, what if the engagement doesn't go my way because shots deflect or my opponent brings support. RNG crits give players that don't properly account for those risks a get out of jail free card, and frustrate players that do. Watching a tiger that gets away with as crit is so frustrating when you take so much effort to flank it and have at gun support.

Plane crashes are just insane. Its not possible to prepare for, " oh what if a plane crashes into my forward retreat point and kills 3 squads."

I agree with your premise that RNG can be good, just that RNG that can't be influenced by players in any way, I think, is more frustrating than beneficial.

I want to add 2 things to Romeo's translation: a metaphor, and a solution.

Imagine that in soccer, there was a random chance that one side could randomly lose 4 players to red-cards out of nowhere. Or maybe, if a player scores, if their wife's middle name starts with a M, they get 3 points instead of 1. Or, imagine that in football, when one team scores a touchdown, it only counts for 4 points instead of 7, depending on the position of the Sun.

This metaphor, I think, makes it clear why these kinds of situations don't exist. They make the game worse for both sides because they cheapen the game. It's frustrating to play, knowing that freak incidents can decide a game, and it's less to fun to watch as well.

Now, my solution. If Quinn Duffy and Relic think that drama, and the ability to make a "comeback" are necessary, there are plenty of ways do this through in-game mechanics. I think the most obvious is to add more "high risk, high reward mechanics." The best example of this is OMGPOP's OKW play. Last tournament (the Wachts $1000 one), he played ultra-aggressively against Aimstrong, placing his forward HQ and schwerr HQ in the center of Semois. This was high risk, fun to watch, forced many engagements, and was dramatic. Eventually, Luvnest punished his aggression in semis, and won that series. This mechanic of the mobile HQ require you to calculate risk-reward, and has few RNG elements, but creates a huge amount of drama, and is genuinely enjoyable for everyone.

There are other, smaller examples of this, such as the strategy of going double flamer cars in the past.

High risk, high reward mechanics create the kind of drama that Relic and Quinn Duffy are talking about without cheapening the game or frustrating the player in the way that pure RNG mechanics do.

My personal opinion is that the RNG cursor is badly set.

if I completely agree with the OP and Romeo Translation, I think the entire concept of RNG + Armor is wrongly design today to make COH2 a competitive game. In a way, the game follows 100% Quinn Duffy's goal of entertaining spectators before players.

RNG shouldn't be set as a Yes Damage / No Damage position like today.
But a Always consistent (low) damage / RNG Critical hit makes more damage.

So a player always knows he will make damage or take damage. He always knows there is a cost for his action and it need to be evaluate before pushing, plus a potential additional RNG critical damage.

When you play as USF, you know you'll get hit by anything because the chance to deflect are ridiculously low. So you can go medium, you can potentially play with any unit you have if it doesn't under-perform too badly.
When you play as Sov/Ostheer/OKW, you know that your late game can make you invincible with some RNG favor and its why everybody prefers the call-in meta that going medium.

Now imagine:
If you consider that any tank can damage any other, and potentially crit, so you can consider to build 4 Panzer4 to counter a IS2 because you are confident enough to overwhelm him and make consistent damage to kill him and maybe, 1 or 2 crit damage will make it easier if the RNG god likes you. It will probably take time but it is feasible.
And of course, your 4 Panzer4 don't pop at the same time with the IS2, 4 Panzer4 can make a lot of trouble before an IS2 reach the battlefield. But since everyone knows 4 Panzer4 can't do much vs a IS2 (with a bit of support), nobody think to play that way.
And the same goes for Puma or T34-74.

Make sure every unit can perform a minimum consistent damage and with RNG sometime critical damage would bring more fun in the game and makes it less RNG dependent.

I think planes crashing off map would still be plenty dramatic. Vehicle death criticals are one of the worst features in any game that I've ever seen.

This thread is amazing and relic needs to see it (and reply).

I think vehicle crits should only have a chance to occur when you make the "killshot" on a tank but damage has almost no overkill, lets say tank has 20 health left and the shot has 25 damage and thus the tank ends up with -5 health which could translate instead to a possible critical hit. If instead the tank has 20 health left and final shot does 120 damage meaning the tank ends up with -100 health and that means it will always gets destroyed with ZERO chance of critical hit because the overkill is much greater.

I think this would still keep the immersion but still get more power to the player to influence the RNG factor. Win win situation.

Myself i think fixing unit hugging when a squad is moving which results in mine squad wipe or tank shot squad wipes is more frustrating and more important to fix than crits or planecrashes.

I like plane crashes on map, it looks cool and gives perspective of air and ground forces. HOWEVER the fact they can wipe entire armies, kill tanks etc is not right. My thoughts would be to have infantry get out of the way, (I.E. they look up and run/dive out of impact zone). Also they shouldn't be able to land in base area. Vehicles are tricky, on one hand they shouldn't survive direct crash, that would look stupid, though it is cheap for a tank to get nuked by a kamikaze. Maybe provide a hitbox around tanks that planes avoid when crashing, meaning they will adjust and fall next to one instead of on one.

The concept of "consistent inconsistency" and player's influence over RNG is very well written in this post. You should be able to influence the odds and take calculated risks, not to get punished because you want to counter a certain unit.