Believe me, developers and designers are getting a lot of flak from players
Thing is, we KNOW THE REALITY OF BACKSTAGE, we DO care about the game, because this is what makes our families go on and our plates full.
We have very clear picture on the players and their needs, we also fully realize when they just talk out of their asses. However we can't talk back to them(in general) and rely on community managers to rely all info, community mood, playerfound issues and so on from community to us, however we do not have the freedom to give as much info as we have.
There are situations when systems are made, QA tested and greenlighted, but everything goes down the drain the moment patch goes life, because it wasn't possible to test something in massive environment of life game.
Being a game dev or designer is a lot of fun, yeah, but its also a pain in the ass at times, especially when things don't go as planned and they often do.
Even with implementing simplest of systems(by the players eyes), we have to take into account a shit ton of variables and possibilities to try and predict how the system will act, will it be good, will it not be abusable and if there is no way around it-how to diminish it to make it as fair as possible(CoH2 example would be vehicle crews).
I am not allowed to talk back at my own projects forums, but GOD I would give up my months worth of salary to punch to the face an idiot why screams how "easy and fast" stuff is to make and flames when stuff is not fixed enough.
I'm extremely patient with relic, because I know what kind of bullshit they have to deal with and since I love the game, I'll support it and the crew.
Damn.... now I really want to punch one of these entitled, self righteous pricks
Yea...i cant read that and not adress it. Im not about to make myself look like a rockstar, im not my gf will tell you im a moron half the time hah. I just want to contrast what "being a designer" and designing a system is like and shed some light on the idea that its just SO DIFFICULT to get this game right.
So i work as an aerospace engineer putting stuff up to the space station in RL. Its very hard. The engineering is hard, the design is hard, the entire process is a bitch. But
its very doable if you think through your designs from start to finish, have defined goals, use insightful engineering judgment and rely on empirical evidence and talk to experts in the field to come to conclusions, then move forward with choices that you make to complete the mission. This typically takes under a year to do for a given mission.
Now I come to Relic, a company that has been making seriously kickass RTS games
since the 90's and has been
working with COH games for a decade now. There is no excuse to have a game like company of heroes 2 with a map pool list that is jumbled (wait for a ladder match look at the map pool list on the right, jesus christ it looks like JUMBLED UNORGANIZED crap). There is no excuse to have the level of glitches in the game that we experienced recently when a patch comes out (quality control??). There is no excuse to have a map pool that STILL isnt up to par for an Esports level competition (1v1 2v2), and there is no excuse for some of the choices that have been made in the past with regards to system design. I will reference this for the 1000th time.
https://www.coh2.org/topic/11064/commander-overlap-a-serious-problem
COH is an inherently complex game, which is one reason its great, and yes it is hard to get balance JUST right, that should be ongoing (it must be Esportsable)...but there are times when issues are so glaring and obviously hindering the experience of COH that i wonder where the quality control is, when a balance decision is made, and i wonder if they even have a dedicated mapper at Relic to get the maps where they should be (a critical component to multiplayer COH that
always gets overlooked, imagine if all the maps sucked even if balance was perfect how awful would COH2 be). And i understand Relic is working on things, i have no doubt.
But to suggest that its SO HARD that these things just cant be done in THREE YEARS, to me, is an absurd claim.
I wonder if serious effort is put in to polishing the menu interface, supporting Esports and taking EDUCATED feedback from groups of experts in different fields of COH (mapping modding balance) because taking feedback from random people is a waste of time money and effort on Relics part. If I, an aerospace engineer, took feedback on how to design something from some jackass on the street who doesnt know anything about engineering, WHY would Relic, a game design company, take advice from a non-expert on ANY aspect of coh when it comes to something like balance or mapping....THEY SHOULDENT. Taking public advice on features and things makes sense. In the cases im talking about, it makes no sense. And hurts the entire community.
In conclusion it is NOT this task that is so hard that its acceptable to see the game where it is.
Between HOMEWORLD and COH ive spent thousands of hours on them mapping and playing. But this is my PLEE to get yourself together. COH2 could beat the shit out of games like SC2 if the right direction was taken. DO IT!
-Love WhiteFlashReborn