Relic; It's Time We Had That Talk

I'd also like to know why my game randomly crashes to desktop and I get a COH2 Update from Steam...

This has started happening more frequently since the patch from July 10th. I have sent in your awesome bug splat report.

Contact SEGA Support and they can look into the issue with you.

every single post i've seen from the OP on these forums has been extremely negative of coh2. i agree there are issues and things the game can do better. but it is also a great game that i enjoy playing.

reading this and other posts, you seem to think 90% of this game is a colossal failure.

relic, i appreciate the post, but you're being almost too kind

It's also important to remember that we have an entire community to service and support. The competitive community is a small part of that. CoH2.org has what, 2,760 members? That's a sliver of the community. .... we have to work for everyone

Take a look around Noun. The members of this site and others, the 'competitive' community as you label us, are currently your only players. You obviously aren't ignorant of how few people are automating. I routinely play against the same people in automatch (and they're very random lvl's), game after game. This is not coincidence. We aren't a 'sliver' of your community. We are your community.

Here's what's worse: the 'competitive community' as you label us are falling by the wayside. The recent $1,000 tourney didn't even get all slots filled. Warning signals should start flashing when $1,000 cash isn't enough motivation to play this game.... and that's even among the hardcore we're talking about. People who normally don't need monetary incentive to play. That is seriously telling.

We want to expanded the community as much as or more than you do. That's why this post was created. Which is why it bewilders us when we ask for a simple Roadmap, when we ask for a simple discussion of where in heck this game is going and in return get a stone wall with a non-reply... we know why this game is in trouble.

It wont change, until you change.

Go schedule a meeting with your higher-up's if you have to, but at the very least these questions must be answered: Where's the "Roadmap" sticky on the official message board? When can we expect new commanders? New skins? New maps? Is there a DLC in the works? Where is this game going?

In other words. You know. Basic questions.

Thanks for the updates Noun - it's appreciated. Some of the negativity here really pisses me off, but then I just remind myself that this always happens with sequels of great games, and thankfully it's always a very loud but bothersome minority.

Here's what's worse: the 'competitive community' as you label us are falling by the wayside. The recent $1,000 tourney didn't even get all slots filled. Warning signals should start flashing when $1,000 cash isn't enough motivation to play this game.... and that's even among the hardcore we're talking about. People who normally don't need monetary incentive to play. That is seriously telling.

well no, that's not entirely true. All 128 slots were filled and there was a substantial back up list, drops are expected though (usually around 50%) because some people need to be constantly reminded of times and dates, something that an event organiser can not do and also people really suck at converting time zones.

We want to expanded the community as much as or more than you do. That's why this post was created. Which is why it bewilders us when we ask for a simple Roadmap, when we ask for a simple discussion of where in heck this game is going and in return get a stone wall with a non-reply... we know why this game is in trouble.

Roadmaps are too easily misunderstood as promises, and are empty without timelines. Members of this forum have seen our internal roadmaps, but they're people we know have an understanding of development and we prefaced it by saying it's stuff that we'd like to do and are working towards without promising it.

Relic has in the past said that they were going to do stuff and then not done it, and it's something we'd like to stop doing. SEGA will help us with that, they're far more understanding of... well everything, than THQ was. THQ was big into promising things before anyone was ready. Space Marine 2. DoW 3. DoW 3 Free-to-Play. Homefront 2 & 3.

I'd much rather we do stuff first, then brag about it second. Maybe that's being overcautious, but we've in the past given easy answers that we thought the community wanted to hear. All with the best of intentions, but not always with the ability to carry those out.

So we're going to shut up and ship.

Take the Leaderboards for example. We wanted them in at launch. We were confident we could do that and now there are people who rather fairly feel upset because we said they'd be in at launch and they're not. It would have been better had we not promised them and then failed to deliver.

If we say we're doing X, I want to know that we're 100% doing it. Or at least as close to 100% as we can get.

Hopefully that's an explanation. I understand that you're frustrated, and hopefully our dedication to support the game long term will change your mind. If you want to take this as the game being in trouble that's all on you.

Personally I view it as us getting our shit together and not talking out of our hat as before.

Here's what's worse: the 'competitive community' as you label us are falling by the wayside. The recent $1,000 tourney didn't even get all slots filled. Warning signals should start flashing when $1,000 cash isn't enough motivation to play this game.... and that's even among the hardcore we're talking about. People who normally don't need monetary incentive to play. That is seriously telling.

Are you serious? Time to get your facts straight.

PS: Noun, it's a nice read from your part!

Man, I feel S0_L337_1T_HURTS needs to go lie down and have a glass of wine or something. Relax broseph.

Noun already said he's not going to put an exact date on something he doesn't know the exact date of. Isn't that intuitively understandable? I mean you would have to be some kind of slow not to understand why someone would do that, right?

If you actually looked around or, I don't know, READ Relic posters replies, you would know that Relic has a several year plan to support CoH 2. That should answer most your questions about if DLC is coming etc.

Maybe it's just me, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game right now. I'm not thinking about the next commanders to be released on DLC.

As a related note, I worked at EA for a year and one of the games I worked on was the UFC which EA had bought from THQ. Thus I got to interact with the THQ/UFC fanbase a bit.

They had a number of technical issues with the game that they wanted to be fixed. To keep people from complaining THQ promised a patch. They went through three community managers, all who promised a patch was almost done.

I believe that patch still hasn't come out yet.

My goal is to make sure that sort of thing never happens to CoH 2. If we say we're going to do something, I want to make sure we're going to do it.

I have said plenty of times how disappointed I am with this game. As someone who does not care for single player RTS (sorry I find them boring) it is hard to ignore all the MP features missing.

On top of that I search for 1v1's and it says only 10-20 people are searching.... for a game roughly a month old!

Loved vCOH... playing SC2 at the same time with the awesome matchmaking, ladders, replay system, custom games, chat and clan support, friends list that actually tells you what your friends are doing in game etc etc. Makes me sad COH2 doesn't have these features.

As a side note, I as a customer hate the idea of public Roadmaps. From playing that failure of a game, PlanetSide 2, I saw how SOE manipulated the Roadmap to make it look like they were always doing a good job.

On top of that I search for 1v1's and it says only 10-20 people are searching.... for a game roughly a month old!

This is perfectly fine. Games in 1v1 take anywhere up to 45 minutes, to have 20 or so people searching concurrently isn't really an indication of anything.

That said, the CoH2 population is roughly half what it was at launch, with 2.9% of people playing MP, we can surmise about ~300 people playing games at peak time. 600 if we're optimistic.

If you actually looked around or, I don't know, READ Relic posters replies, you would know that Relic has a several year plan to support CoH 2. That should answer most your questions about if DLC is coming etc.

Relic also had a plan to support Dawn of War II for a number of years. Then the entire team got laid off and who gives a shit about promises amirite?

A healthy skepticism of the developer team is always good. No disrespect intended Noun, but aren't the guy in charge and you can't guarantee me or anybody anything, so while your comments are appreciated on my part, I don't quite believe them. Not out of any possible malice intent you may or may not have, but simply due to the fact that you aren't in charge of where this game goes, and when it comes right down to it you're doing your job. But you've said as much yourself.

Though I do have as many gripes with the game as there are grains of sand, I do understand the difficulties involved in development, having had quite a few insights into the development process over the years. So I'm not an impatient man when it comes to development schedule, I am however, an invested consumer who has put a lot of time and is planning on putting hundreds of hours into this game. And I want to have confidence that this was a good investment. Right now I do not. Whether Relic is addressing key issues or not that massively effect the polish and smooth gameplay of CoH2(As outlined in my rant/quote earlier in this thread) has not been said and as such I feel like my investment has been poorly placed. Until this starts getting fixed, or a fix is promised somewhere down the line, I will remain skeptical.

As such when I see any bugs or problems in this game all I think about is Dawn of War II and how that situation was handled, so forgive my disillusion with what developers say on this or that forum.

Dawn of War II was under THQ, COH2 is under SEGA. Very different companies, very different philosophies.

SEGA could have shipped COH2 back in March, but instead decided to give the team more time to try and finish up the game. After spending 27 million dollars, they made the decision to put more money into the game.

Just take a look at the Relic website under jobs. Over the last two months, I've seen more job listings than I have seen in the last 1 or 2 years combined.

As a consumer, that is a very good sign in my mind. Where THQ was cutting costs, SEGA is investing in the company ten fold.

With regards to balance, I know a number of you want instant fixes to elements within the game which are clearly ruining your experience, such as the strafing run, but there are pipeline limitations that prevent that.

I can confirm there are fixes in the pipeline but they take time to go through all the stages and deploy.

If any of you would like to talk about this in more detail, feel free to send me a PM.

Noun is Hero of thread. People whine too much, and expect too much too quickly from a small development team. Then again I shouldn't be surprised people on the internet tend to have a sense of entitlement.

As a related note, I worked at EA for a year and one of the games I worked on was the UFC which EA had bought from THQ. Thus I got to interact with the THQ/UFC fanbase a bit.

They had a number of technical issues with the game that they wanted to be fixed. To keep people from complaining THQ promised a patch. They went through three community managers, all who promised a patch was almost done.

I believe that patch still hasn't come out yet.

My goal is to make sure that sort of thing never happens to CoH 2. If we say we're going to do something, I want to make sure we're going to do it.

Noun - it really sounds like you're caught between a rock and hard place - and I really respect that you go online and try - to the best of your role allows - to meet the needs of your community.

However - you've ducked the same question I've asked here THREE times - one that oddly is also the longest thread on your very own forum:

http://community.companyofheroes.com/forums/company-of-heroes-2-discussion/topics/Need-annihilate-custom-games-and-game-lobbys-Please-dont-ignore-the-casual-players-Relic

Yet there's still no DIRECT answer - you've said "ladders" - but thats it - nothing in regards to the most basic of basic requirements for multiplayer - that being custom lobbies to create your own games.

I didn't try and ask for a date or a road map etc - not a specific balancing issue etc - just something that we expected to be there as part of the game from day 1 as it was in COH 1 and nearly every other game out there.

Your lack of a direct response to this most basic of requests really worries me in that as you don't wont to over promise anything - you don't want to acknowledge the question at all.

That effectively tells me this probably won't happen - and we'll be stuck with the system you have in place now.

I really, truly, hope that I am completely wrong here as I want to one day enjoy COH 2 as much as I do COH 1 - but without this most basic feature - and worse - no discussion/acknowledge of it - it doesn't look like I'll be able to.

Noun is Hero of thread. People whine too much, and expect too much too quickly from a small development team. Then again I shouldn't be surprised people on the internet tend to have a sense of entitlement.

Thats kind of funny - when I deliver a product to a client thats not to their standard - oddly enough they too feel "entitled" too.

The nerve of some people hu?

Can I just say how much I disagree with the OP.

I completely disagree with what the OP has said about support. If anything, I'm certainly encouraged by the support we are getting.

And no, games like these should Never never be balanced patched weekly. Maybe at the beginning but that's a different story.

Some things are missing, yes, but without the context, it may look like they're not putting effort in but in fact, they almost certainly have, they did everything they could.

It is time people stopped whining over the small stuff and appreciate the great effort the devs put in. Hell, they could have even went with the March release date but they didn't so we could have a better game.

When a game with no dev support, extremely difficult to learn, barely functioning online features, questionable balance and is chock full of bugs gets nearly 130k concurrent viewers at a 100% community ran event you know that we as a community can do a lot better.




http://www.coh2.org/news/1281/building-the-foundations-making-coh-huge

Read it well, I give an example where a publisher threw as much money as they could at a game but that didn't save the game's competitive scene and I give an example of a scene where the community is the driving force for games that get little to no developer support.

Thats kind of funny - when I deliver a product to a client thats not to their standard - oddly enough they too feel "entitled" too.

The nerve of some people hu?

I didn't realise you had personally commissioned Relic to create this game to your exact specifications

I didn't realise you had personally commissioned Relic to create this game to your exact specifications

I never said I did.

I never said I did.

then stop being a fucking asshole