Relic: June 23rd Update: About Balance

Relic loves to play that mysterious game of, "what random thing shall we add on the patch".

I Agree with every thing u have said.. Its just Relicthrough and through. I dont see why we all keep supporting this Rubbish

Relic doesn't understand that releasing out-of-context patch changes (which have not being tested on their own, only in the context of Alpha) is just as bad as releasing completely untested changes (ahem, PTRS buff on Guards, which came out of nowhere).

My concern is that they rely too heavily on metrics to balance rather than real world testing.

They wait weeks to gather the data and then they act, That isn't necessarily a bad thing for say map pool rotation but when it comes to clearly broken balance I don't think it is an effective strategy.

Only time i was partially satisfied with Relic balance is when they balanced game "on the move" and released hotfixes almost immediately after first one or two WFA patches. And i really think it is a best approach in balancing complex stuff: release big patch full of huge, bold changes, and then, after gathering some data in first week release quick hotfix which resolves most common problems in this patch. This way players would not be forced to deal with complete imbalance BS and game would stay fresh gameplay wise.

Relic loves to play that mysterious game of, "what random thing shall we add on the patch".

Previous changelog of #JustRandomRelicDecisions:

Hey! Osttruppen are actually quite decent now!

If only all other cheap doctrinal units were as effective.

Hey! Osttruppen are actually quite decent now!

If only all other cheap doctrinal units were as effective.

Not as effective as Irregulars

Not as effective as Irregulars

Whut AI partisans are sooooo awesome Kappa

At this stage its pretty sorely obvious that "we want to do further testing" is not the reason for the mega delayed patching.

They've put so much stuff into the game without the remotest bit of testing.

If they had so much concern over the quality of their product I probably wouldn't still have to watch random sturmpioneer models getting stuck to their own base or watch vehicles doing donuts when getting called in.

Politics trump game balance it appears.

Not as effective as Irregulars

I think osttruppen are better then irregulars, no contest.
They have defensive scaling so high that it gives them normal con squad durability later on.

Irregulars on the other hand... there is no redeeming quality going for them... Why they cost so much while sucking so hard is beyond my comprehension.

I've played with osttruppen and had some success and fun.

The only game I've won using irregulars was against some pro, who was so sophisticated that his opening BO was T2 and 4 mortars.

Osttruppen are quite decent. I use them frequently since the Osttruppen doc dropped for me.

Just make sure you keep them in cover and never attack with them. You can win the first fuel point engagement if you reach the cover first (and thus get the bonus) with your two Osttruppen squads.

Later on they are the best squad in the game to recrew weapons.

And they are good for Panzerfaust spam, Bunker spam and weapon of choice versus Snipers - simply because you can cap the map without taking too much mp bleed.

I think osttruppen are better then irregulars, no contest.
They have defensive scaling so high that it gives them normal con squad durability later on.

Irregulars on the other hand... there is no redeeming quality going for them... Why they cost so much while sucking so hard is beyond my comprehension.

I've played with osttruppen and had some success and fun.

The only game I've won using irregulars was against some pro, who was so sophisticated that his opening BO was T2 and 4 mortars.

Sure vs your average randumb Ostruppen are okay.
Try it vs the Top 500. And you'll find they give you a loss quicker than trying to tech to t4 units.

I am one of those who took a break from this game 6 months back. Last week, out of curiosity, I came back to coh2.org to see how the balance state has progressed and also played some matches...

I expected the game to be overhauled and expected most of the annoying issues to be dealt with. I was playing quite a bit towards the end of 2014, and I remember reading about how - come the new year, coh2 balance would be addressed.

Well here we are, almost 7 months later.

The game is still broken as fuck. It's laughable how bad it is, and how the balance and RNG bullshit is just NOW being address, albeit quite poorly.

I agree with a lot of comments in this thread, and I'm generally not one to harp on devs because I work in the industry and know what it's like...

..I also know, that when there's this lack of 'caring about product' I suppose, it means that most of the dev team has moved on to another project.

Most likely, another game title.

Just release the whole alpha now, it's fucking common sense, you will get all your precious 'metrics' from the community playing the game rather than from your brain dead QA team ... LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS, RELIC, WELCOME TO 2015 - THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE!!!

You want to maximise "Fun" you configure the game for Axis-Only Comp-Stompers and/or 4v4 players, both of whom are groups of people the 1v1 Herrenvolk tell us must suck it because of the all-important competitive balance.

Again, balance is not necessarily causative of fun, therefore, the statements of 1v1 AND 4v4 fun are not mutually exclusive except in the particular, or accidental.
Additionally, players who tend to be more casual often have a lesser grasp of the game's mechanics often come up with wildly inaccurate claims as to the game's balance, refuse (or, more likely, simply not care to, as they admit they are casuals) to improve, and find relatively petty reasons to dislike certain aspects of the game. 4v4 players, compstompers, etc. tend to be casuals.
So, there is less practicality, or even magnanimity, in designing for them insofar as any design that must exist might throw the two game modes into conflict, for their perception of fun due to balance would be largely unchanged.

Sure vs your average randumb Ostruppen are okay.
Try it vs the Top 500. And you'll find they give you a loss quicker than trying to tech to t4 units.

So not that quickly after all.
And I am playing within top 500 bracket so... top 200 is where the real steps start.

"improve the stats of the SU-76 so it can serve as a light tank destroyer. "

light tank destroyer is absolutely useless thing. Since all light vehicles are countered by cons.
What is needed is non callin heavy tank or t-34\85 at least.

this has been worked out already. just going to have to wait until it gets updated. but i can assure you relic has a solution for this.

i can see how people want the whole thing, but releasing such a massive update so fast would cripple the game.

if you look back at vCOH it took almost 6-7 years of updates until it was patched for the last time as "balanced"....

Sure vs your average randumb Ostruppen are okay.
Try it vs the Top 500. And you'll find they give you a loss quicker than trying to tech to t4 units.

you are posting so much angry posts but I cant understand what you want in short

I think all these claims about, who cares about balanced we want fun, is really ridiculous.

Did you guys already forget all the raging that happens here when things get unbalanced? Rememeber that 10+ page thread about the king tiger being useless when they only reduced it's armor by 50? Come on, if they released an unbalance alpha patch to the public, you'd be killing them on the forums. This is exactly what people were criticizing relic for in the past, for making aggressive sweeping changes without testing them first.

Remember what they to the katy a few patches ago when it was ridiculously OP? how fun was that for axis players? How about when ram guaranteed every crit on super heavies? was that fun? Please. If the game isn't balanced, it's not fun. Unbalanced games kill the playerbase faster than slow patches.

The only thing I'd like more clarity on is the patch schedule. What's the timeline for the rollout? 1 month? 3 months? It would seem to be a little ridiculous if it took 3 months for each patch until all changes were out.

I think all these claims about, who cares about balanced we want fun, is really ridiculous.

Did you guys already forget all the raging that happens here when things get unbalanced? Rememeber that 10+ page thread about the king tiger being useless when they only reduced it's armor by 50? Come on, if they released an unbalance alpha patch to the public, you'd be killing them on the forums. This is exactly what people were criticizing relic for in the past, for making aggressive sweeping changes without testing them first.

Except, other than two to four major issues (that people had easy solutions for) the Alpha felt quite balanced. That's why it makes abso-fucking-lutely no sense that they are slow rolling us.

I think all these claims about, who cares about balanced we want fun, is really ridiculous.

Did you guys already forget all the raging that happens here when things get unbalanced? Rememeber that 10+ page thread about the king tiger being useless when they only reduced it's armor by 50? Come on, if they released an unbalance alpha patch to the public, you'd be killing them on the forums. This is exactly what people were criticizing relic for in the past, for making aggressive sweeping changes without testing them first.

Remember what they to the katy a few patches ago when it was ridiculously OP? how fun was that for axis players? How about when ram guaranteed every crit on super heavies? was that fun? Please. If the game isn't balanced, it's not fun. Unbalanced games kill the playerbase faster than slow patches.

The only thing I'd like more clarity on is the patch schedule. What's the timeline for the rollout? 1 month? 3 months? It would seem to be a little ridiculous if it took 3 months for each patch until all changes were out.

In general, you are correct.

But at this point, for this game, something drastic has to be done and we don't have a year to wait around. By that time, Relic will already be pushing its next project, leaving Coh2 in the dust...

Also Relic has a poor customer relations department.

That's not a personal insult at the ONE or TWO Relic people who do actually communicate, but they're probably bound by studio bureaucracy more than anything else.

So it's a fault of the system and the total lack of appeasing customers, customers who have very basic questions that require basic answers.

And also whoever mentioned that the power lies with us, the consumer, well you're right and it's a damn shame this community can't unite and actually take some action (ie, boycott).