Relic; It's Time We Had That Talk

If we're completely honest with ourselves, the state of CoH2 is worrying.

Issues abound.... Multiplayer features are lacking. People are griping about the maps (in some cases it's just a matter of taste but others justified). A dearth of maps. All those things, depending on perspective, are somewhat excusable. However, balance is still way out of whack and that in itself is bad but worse is the result that gameplay is becoming quite stale. One example (there are many examples, but this is only one) is that SU-85's coming out just as germans hit T3 almost every game. The rest varies only slightly, but it's predictable, it's stale. The game play isn't as dynamic as one expects.

Secondly, updates are unbearably slow. This is the year 2013 not 1998. The community feedback on this game has been some of deepest and most most thoughtful I've ever seen--and there's plenty of it to go on--yet it takes a month to come out with the scout car fixes? That's totally inexcusable. No amount of 'back testing' reasonably takes this long. There's absolutely no excuse for balance updates not to come faster. Zero excuses.

Which makes us believe much of the community feedback is falling on deaf ears and that only infuriates the loyal community. We have no roadmap. We don't know when or if new commanders are coming or even if we will be able to purchase them individually. We don't know anything about new maps, if we're even getting any, how many, or how we'll get them. We know virtually nothing.

We do know this: this game appears to be losing pulse fast and may be DOA already.

Which brings us to the final and most troubling point: The queue sometimes has only half a dozen or more people searching for a game at any one time. I believe a Dev stated they were 'happy' with the sales (sales they wont reveal) which I find extremely difficult to believe. Either sales expectations were ultra low to begin with or that's a fib...because all of us have two eyes and ears and see what's going on and there's no way you can be happy with the current picture. The game needs a major marketing push and barring that a price reduction, because the only marketing I know of is word of mouth and most of it warns "Don't buy, total let down."

What exactly are you doing about any of this, Relic?

Agreed, at least some hot-fix to the most abused abilities for nearly 3 months, I don't like "we are working on it", sounds exactly like that old bad SOON™



This game has its potential, but currently it is lacking many things that is necessary

(lobby,ladder, ranked map pool, anti-cheat, frequently balance update and so on)

... hurry please......player base is decaying.....

If we're completely honest with ourselves, the state of CoH2 is worrying.

Issues abound.... Multiplayer features are lacking. People are griping about the maps (in some cases it's just a matter of taste but others justified). A dearth of maps. All those things, depending on perspective, are somewhat excusable. However, balance is still way out of whack and that in itself is bad but worse is the result that gameplay is becoming quite stale. One example (there are many examples, but this is only one) is that SU-85's coming out just as germans hit T3 almost every game. The rest varies only slightly, but it's predictable, it's stale. The game play isn't as dynamic as one expects.

Secondly, updates are unbearably slow. This is the year 2013 not 1998. The community feedback on this game has been some of deepest and most most thoughtful I've ever seen--and there's plenty of it to go on--yet it takes a month to come out with the scout car fixes? That's totally inexcusable. No amount of 'back testing' reasonably takes this long. There's absolutely no excuse for balance updates not to come faster. Zero excuses.

Which makes us believe much of the community feedback is falling on deaf ears and that only infuriates the loyal community. We have no roadmap. We don't know when or if new commanders are coming or even if we will be able to purchase them individually. We don't know anything about new maps, if we're even getting any, how many, or how we'll get them. We know virtually nothing.

We do know this: this game appears to be losing pulse fast and may be DOA already.

Which brings us to the last and most troubling point: The queue sometimes has only half a dozen or more people searching for a game at any one time. I believe a Dev stated they were 'happy' with the sales (sales they wont reveal) which I find extremely difficult to believe. Either sales expectations were ultra low to begin with or that's a fib...because all of us have two eyes and ears and see what's going on and there's no way you can be happy with the current picture. The games needs a marketing push (and a price reduction) because the only marketing I know of is word of mouth and most of it warns "Don't buy, total let down."

What, exactly, are you doing Relic?

The game hasn't even been out a month. Game came out on June 25th. In the time since it came out we have had 2 tourneys, a balance patch and dlc. Balance is mostly there, with most imbalances coming from bad play more then anything having to do with units and what does need fixing will probably be dealt with in a patch or two.

As for su-85's panzer grens with skrecks do pretty well vs. them.

I agree with above post. Give it more than a few weeks dude jesus christ.. relax... but that said. I am very worried about the multiplayer base especially 1v1s. It always takes a while for the game to be found and then the gsmeplay is a bit stale at times. Maybe I am just getting older Im not sure. It defnitely feels the current state of coh2 has no umph. No excitement. Just look at the demoralized posts coming up every day. Nobody is really syked not even the so called experts. It all just seems like such a bore. I am tempted to make a post about what gets you excited or happy when you play coh2

The game hasn't even been out a month. Game came out on June 25th. In the time since it came out we have had 2 tourneys, a balance patch and dlc. ...

I agree...

You guys should have been around when vCoH came out in 2006. Balance was much worse. Look at the current situation from that perspective. Right now, Relic balance devs are actively communicating with us on this forum, which isn't even their official forum. This is a great situation, and certainly, our balance input is noted and evaluated.

Balance is a non-concern for me. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Some games will be horribly favoured, you just have to deal with it.

My concerns stem from the bugs.

Again, as with Dawn of War II, it's the bugs and the inefficiencies.

Let me quote myself;

I nearly lost this game multiple times because of the pathing.

Firstly, tanks automatically driving onto ice is probably the worst idea comprehensible.

Secondly, tanks bugging out and driving in 360 degree rotations over, and over, and over, while 2 SU-85s shoot at it, is game breaking. Game. Breaking.

Thirdly, why can't a PzIV crush trees?

Fourthly, auto-cover while moving. DISABLE IT ALREADY. Why do you never learn from your mistakes?

Fifth, vehicles pathing into deep snow as opposed to normal ground. Come on.

Sixth, not sure if this is a mouse issue, or a lag issue, or a game issue, but selecting squads independently in rapid succession often bugs out and my units end up all going to the wrong places.

Seventh, I appreciate the UI bugs. What I need to boost my gameplay prowess in 40 minute matches is my commander icon flashing over and over again, even when I pick my doctrine. It's true what they say, distractions are good!

On a side note, why does your UI harass players anyways? I'll pick my commander in my own time, I don't want to pick it 5 or 10 minutes early because your UI wont fuck off.

Eighth, what every game needs is a set up team that sits around, indecisive. Will I follow my orders, or stand here and be slaughtered? Oh, the decision making! I'm going to need a moment to think about this one. Oh, I guess I'll follow the orders, I don't really have a choice now do I? Oh, nope, I've been shot.

Seriously, Relic. What is this? A beta or a release project? Tell me which now so I can decide to stop playing or trudge through this pile of shit.

In this game alone, I faced bad pathing, bugging set up teams, the horrible auto cover system(A tried and FAILED one, by the way), input lag, and assorted other BUGS. As a result on multiple occasions I nearly lost this game. The fact that this happens in ONE game is enough cause for complaint.

If a product isn't fit for release, you should probably make it an Early-Access Beta and let everybody know that what they're paying for isn't worth 60 bucks yet.

But, really, when we really get right down to it, it's not really any different to what I've come to expect from a Relic game. Years and years of releases, all consecutively been buggy pieces of shit on release. Not once have you learned, but you've never really needed to, have you? People will buy all the same on the promise that you'll fix the bugs - which if we've all learned from Dawn of War II, will never happen. The playerbase fixed more bugs for that game than you did.

Rest assured, while I'm mildly enjoying CoH2 atm, this will be the last Relic game I'm buying. Ever. I'll take this shit now on the hope that you're not going to shaft your entire playerbase like you did with Dawn of War II, leaving literally 4 people to balance the game, fix the bugs, and do community relations.

Should this game actually reach a standard of development worth 60€, I'll reconsider my scathing statements, but I highly doubt it will.

6 years ago, Dawn of War II was released. 6 years later, still not fit for release. Forgive me if I'm pessimistic about your intentions to actually finish the job this time around.

I agree...

You guys should have been around when vCoH came out in 2006. Balance was much worse. Look at the current situation from that perspective. Right now, Relic balance devs are actively communicating with us on this forum, which isn't even their official forum. This is a great situation, and certainly, our balance input is noted and evaluated.

I have to disagree. Vcoh was NOT as bad as coh2 is now in its current state. Not only the balance, but the pathing, the graphics, the available features.... I agree vcoh definitely had its problems but the developers should have learned from these experiences not repeat them! You would think coh2 would come out a little more polished then its predecessor! There is no excuse for this!

I am less concerned with everyones else gripes, what really gets me mad and I feel others should be too, is the performance in coh2!!!! I have an alienware x51 and I have play with setting all low!! This is so unacceptable! Granted I dont have the BEST pc ever I would still like to play with graphics turned up a bit. If I do decide I wanna see pretty things, I pay for it dearly on snow maps. Argggggg!!!!!

FYI you should know that currently only 5,7% of the players who have played 10 or more automatches, and 2,9% that have played 25 or more. Now I do think that its not because they didnt like balance. I think many players are contemt playing campaign ToW or the occational AI skrimish (not that there are alot of the latter either). I really think the community is smaller than it thinks it is. This also might explain the lack of dev interest to hurry pvp gaming.

With that said, I really hope it swings and more ppl get more into pvp gaming. Also I do hope that relic soon gets the features asked by the community into the game.

Sorry to hear you're worried about the game.

We're exceptionally happy with it's performance so far, and with how it's been received. Some things aren't perfect, sure, but then they never are on launch. For example the leaderboard situation is not something we're happy about, and we share the community's frustration with that. We hope to have it resolved as soon as possible.

As OnkelSam pointed out we're actively working with the community both here and on the official forums to take in feedback, and share what we can of what we're hoping to do in the future.

As you say it's 2013, and not 2008. As such it's even more important to have a rational and thoughtful process of deploying game updates. Rushing fixes out just so it looks like we're doing something might be good for some kind of "community management" or "PR" but it would be a disaster for the game. We'd much rather take our time and deploy something we have faith in than rush.

Which isn't to say we may never make mistakes, but by being methodical we hope to limit them.

Further I do disagree that we've been slow in updating the game. It's been out for 3 weeks and we've 3 updates (not including Day 0) and have another one in the works.

Again as OnkleSam points out a lot of people's frustration is coming with a lack of historical context. It's easy to look at CoH and say that it has more than CoH 2, when it's not taken into account that CoH is over seven years old and has two expansion packs released for it.

If we did a bad job of setting the expectations that CoH 2 at launch would be more like CoH at launch than CoH now, that's on us.

We've very happy with how the game launched. In a day when the largest publishers are fumbling launches like Diablo III and Sim City, we had remarkably few issues. No launch is perfect, but the game is incredibly stable for a PC title and we're not having to spend most of our time fixing issues impacting the majority of the player base.

I'll also address UGBEAR's complaint about "soon" or "we're working on it". We believe in open communication with the community. However that's never going to mean you guys get to know everything that's happening at all times. We can either be honest with you and say that we're working on something, or we can just not say anything.

I realize that what you'd rather is to have us say, "Well that will be out on August 32nd at 11:45 am PDT". But that's not realistic, and will never happen. As we see with the Leaderboards things fall behind, for reasons that are often out of our control. We'd like to let you know what's on our radar, or being worked on, but we can't commit to things where we might not make it.

A lot of companies just don't say anything about what they're working on until they're ready to ship it. We're trying another way, if it's not working we can change.

The bottom line though is we are listening to feedback. We're also watching the in-game stats and metrics, and those often tell us more than forum posts can. For all the people who dramatically are declaring that they're never playing again (all games have that and it's funny to see how many of them then post the next day as if they've never said it) our retention rate (the number of players who play and then play later) is incredibly high.

We committed to continually improving the game, just as we did with Company of Heroes. We hope that's with your help.

The meta doesn't revolve around snipers, so balance is already better than 2.602.

Respect for posting. Atleast you guys aren't like Ubisoft and say nothing. Your response gives confidence.

Actions speak louder than words.

I'm happy(as always) when developers post on forums. They usually have long and/or insightful comments and they're enjoyable to read. I appreciate Dev Communication(Even if it is their job, Relic has spoiled me in that regard), but I appreciate patch notes, and bug fixes, more.

As I said, balance will never be a concern for me. It doesn't effect the quality of my game, nor does it effect the new-player experience. My most aggravating qualms will always and forever be bugs, and I will always take a pessimistic stance in that regard where Relic is concerned after my experiences in Dawn Of War II.

I dont know why are people complaining about balance when it cant be achieved in a zap...game needs to constantly evolve and people keep finding ways to tackle opponents and defeated players constantly complain about something being 2 strong
Im actually glad to see CoH2 progressing , and this game isnt popular as Battlefield and Call of Duty cuz its pretty hard to get into, dont expect community of over milion players, vCOH sold over 1 milion copies over 6 long years and that was quite sucess, and believe me when CoH2 becomes even more improved and more content becomes implemented and DLCs come out community will grow
Keep it optimistic
Cheers

Thanks for replying. No one here is unsympathetic with regards to the process and amount of work required of the Dev team & the other parties involved. Having said that:

We're exceptionally happy with it's performance so far, and with how it's been received. ... We've very happy with how the game launched. In a day when the largest publishers are fumbling launches like Diablo III and Sim City, we had remarkably few issues.

Granted, COH2 did not have issues at launch like Diablo III and Sim City. And given the fact that those titles sold millions more, were under 1000x more load, and are/were not in any way similar to COH2 doesn't engender confidence in how your measuring success.

Speaking on a 'relative' basis.... I guess there were no meltdowns. So, that's good. Congratulations on not blowing-up at launch? We weren't expecting that were we?

As for performance, I personally don't have any major issues running on my machine so I can't speak to that, I only know from posts that others here disagree.

As you say it's 2013, and not 2008. As such it's even more important to have a rational and thoughtful process of deploying game updates. ... We'd much rather take our time and deploy something we have faith in than rush.

I'm extremely happy to hear the common sense notion of taking ones time, being methodical, and not rushing into changes. We agree. Any rational person will agree. But frankly, given what I've seen I feel the team is hiding behind this excuse. For reasons I do not know or understand, and I wont speculate here, but the fixes just aren't coming fast enough. The clown car is a perfect example...it was known for weeks and the fixes that were pushed through were proposed very very early on (even during beta). I agree there are types of changes that require a lot of testing and time, and others that are blatantly obvious and don't need to wait 3 weeks before being addressed.

The community had to suffer through that failure.

It's almost as if you don't play your own game. In fact, a Dev commented on twitch they didn't play much after launch. And from other dev statements there seems to be an over reliance on internal metrics & statistical data that in no way gives an accurate picture of real play. So it appears there's a disconnect between what the Dev team sees as 'the current state of play' and what the actual 'current game play' is that the community experiences.

I'm not claiming the Dev team doesn't play. We know you do. Of course you do. But for a whole month to go by (longer, actually, if you add beta) before glaring problems are addressed then it raises a fair question. And this is a Dev team who seems to have trouble getting accurate patch notes.

We believe in open communication with the community. However that's never going to mean you guys get to know everything that's happening at all times.

We don't need to know everything.... nor want to, but what do we actually know currently? Where's the "Roadmap" sticky on the official message board? When can we expect new commanders? New Maps? New skins? Is there a DLC in the works? Where is this game going?

For all the 'community engagement by the Dev team' you tout--we do not know much.

If you consider those to be unreasonable questions that can't be answered then we have to assume there is no answer... and that this game is basically set aside in terms of development or worse, DOA.

The meta doesn't revolve around snipers, so balance is already better than 2.602.

Now this is why MVgame faces exist.

Holy shit people the game is brand new, have some patience. The expectations of players must be just impossible to live up to.

I think Relic are doing a pretty good job overall.

Personally the single player doesn't really interest me, in the same way COH 1 single player didn't really interest me. But I'm here for the multiplayer and core game play is still great. Some nice new additions like coldtech, true sight and vaulting which at the moment are partly offset by IMO poor multiplayer maps.

Multiplayer functionality isn't as good as the original game which is disappointing but its still functional.

Game is still good overall. My main gripe and I wouldn't call it a major one is that its not as fresh as the original COH was so it hasn't had quite the same impact on me, it doesn't feel quite so different and out of the blue, but that's like catch 22. Change it too much and its not COH, change it too little and its a bit like deja vu. The game play additions are subtle as are the graphics improvements, and I don't want to sound over entitled but I was expecting something more substantial.

Game has been rock stable for me and I do appreciate them having dialogue with the community and taking their time with balance patches. The communication with the community makes the wait for patches and maps easier. In that regards thank you Relic.

Regarding balanced, I have raged at balance but its mostly to do with me being a poor looser during an actual game where I can never admit to be being outplayed. But reading forums and watching replays has time and again proven I've been mostly wrong on this issue and once I clam down after a game I can see where I went wrong.

Overall I've already got over 100 hours playing it, so its being more than value for money. I hope future support helps it reach the great heights of the first game.

It takes more than a month for the meta game to shift. Snipers weren't dominant in 2.602 vCoh until practically a YEAR after the patch. If you make "obvious" balance changes weekly or less you're just shooting in the dark.

Given the relative silence we've had in regards to probably the biggest dropping of the ball in COH2 multiplayer - the customizable lobby and match making abilities that were available in DAY 1 of COH 1 - we just get the line "we're working on it".

As Noun was good enough to respond here - I'd like to know more than "we're working on it".

Will we have the same multiplayer game creation lobby abilities that we had in COH1? Yes or No?

That is the true failure of the game - not balance etc - those can be fixed - but something as simple and as core as being able to create your own game, select your own map, select your own starting conditions - this is what is driving players off who either are bored with the current lop sided "auto match" ability - which anybody playing a game greater than 2v2 right now will tell you is a complete failure - OR - POTENTIAL players are sitting on the side lines waiting for these features to be included.

So will we have this???

Or are you "working on it"? Where "It" could be anything at all?

A simple yes or no will make a whole LOT of COH'ers (be them current, past of potential) a lot happier and maybe more willing to buy your game.

Simple economics - people demand it - they'll buy it.

Actions speak louder than words.

I'm happy(as always) when developers post on forums. They usually have long and/or insightful comments and they're enjoyable to read. I appreciate Dev Communication(Even if it is their job, Relic has spoiled me in that regard), but I appreciate patch notes, and bug fixes, more.

As I said, balance will never be a concern for me. It doesn't effect the quality of my game, nor does it effect the new-player experience. My most aggravating qualms will always and forever be bugs, and I will always take a pessimistic stance in that regard where Relic is concerned after my experiences in Dawn Of War II.

No game in the history of video games has shipped without bugs, and no QA team in the world can find them all.

We should be thankful that Relic don't have to pay to submit a patch to steam or we would never get any fixes.