Coh2, RNG and E-sport

I've given it some thought, and bin thinking of what makes a game e-sport material. Well popularity first and foremost of curse. Just look at Hearthstone, that game is purely RNG, and top players can lose to who ever because he didn't draw the right cards. But for an RTS it is a lot different of cures. To put it in perspective, if you summen a minion in HS, you are sure if i attack the other enemy minion's it will do damage.

That is not the case with Coh2. The RNG of coh2 can make a unit godlike, or complete garbage. Since they all have a RNG dice attached to them.
I can in one game drop models every engagement, and in another game not drop any models but only losing the health of a squad(and even having almost no health, still have all models). Now i bring it up because i have bin going back and forth from SC2 and coh2, and realise how bad attaching this much of an amount of RNG to a game like coh2.

In SC2 i know if i shoot with a unit, it will do X amount of damage. However in coh2 i can shoot 3-4 shots and miss them all. Where my opponent can hit and penetrate every time. The lack of consistency in the game, makes your chances of winning or losing based on the dice roll and not as much on your strategies and skill, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, and that is why i didn't have faith in this game becoming an E-sport game, i think i could have had great potential to be it. Seeing how they could gotten a lot of the SC2 crowd after the game died in E-sport. But because the accuracy of any unit depends on the numbers you might get, the skill of the player will to a degree have nothing to do with the outcome.

Hey, lets beat a dead horse!

CoH2 RNG is fine.
Pretty much all unpleasant RNG instances were dealt with.

If you still don't like it, this is the solution for you:
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/buy-now/

Hearthstone is E-sports because Blizzard puts money for its promotion and hence lots of tournaments being held every year.

Magic the Gathering is clearly the better game.

Relic and CoH2, on the other hand, have problems when it comes to money issue. Just look at how many money our champion can get and how many the Starcraft 2 champion can get, money can buy attractions

Yeah, it sometimes gets frustrating, but most of the time, there is nothin what could be done about it. Can you imagine how ridiculously boring the game would be if you would see two infantries aproaching against each other and be instantly able to tell "OK, player two will win but lose two models, if player one doesnt retreat on time." This is exactly why I nearly stopped playing older RTS games immidiately after learning about Man of War and Company of Heroes series

After all, the RNG can let someone get away with occasional sc%rew ups, but never lets an unexperienced new-blood player win against veterans.

Yeah, it sometimes gets frustrating, but most of the time, there is nothin what could be done about it. Can you imagine how ridiculously boring the game would be if you would see two infantries aproaching against each other and be instantly able to tell "OK, player two will win but lose two models, if player one doesnt retreat on time." This is exactly why I nearly stopped playing older RTS games immidiately after learning about Man of War and Company of Heroes series

After all, the RNG can let someone get away with occasional sc%rew ups, but never lets an unexperienced new-blood player win against veterans.

My thoughts exactly, when luck is a "minor" factor in game it can be soooooooo interesting, Like gambling!

The uncertainty is the source of fun

I made a video specifically about this.

The CoH series, like most Relic titles, is more about atmosphere and innovation than Esports competition. RNG is central to the game and it couldn't work without it.

The way RNG is hidden and not clearly explained is a source of grief to those who want to get good at competitive play, but sad truth is those players are a minority. Most players want immersive and unpredictable campaign/comp-stomp, and RNG helps with that. Take vehicle abandons for example. They are a horrendous feature to have in competitive matches because they don't require any decision from the player, rather they are just a freebie that comes from nowhere to decide the game. However they make for a fun way of keeping things fresh for the comp stomp player who has hundreds of AI battles under his belt.

There are times when the winner may not have necessarily demonstrated more skill but that happens in all kinds of games. There certainly are times when RNG decides matches but skill matters far more.

I think a big source of frustration around RNG comes down to human nature. When the RNG goes our way, either we don't notice it as it was what we 'expect', we convince ourselves we would have won regardless, or we congratulate ourselves for the bold 'calculated' risk. On the other hand we always notice when things don't go our way. I don't think we should expect Relic to do anything about that.

Dane casted my recent game. In this cast you can see Command Panther vs Sherman. Command Panther misses 4 first shots (3 agasint this Sherman) while Sherman penetrates Panther at max range 2 times

I have a friend that have bad habit of keeping his sniper team under enemy mortar fire for prolonged times. Then when he ocassionally catches oneshot kill he screams "RNG!!!!11!1!". I mean, the mortar missed for like 8 shots and 9th was a direct hit.

Don't mess IN the probability of something happening if you really don't want that thing to happen.

the bad thing about coh2 is not necessarily the rng (although pseudo RNG might be good for tanks), but the lack of options to sway RNG in your favour. no side armor, horrible response times, mines direction not changeable, squad spacing,...

coh1 was definetely better in that regard, although not perfect

Agreed, I much prefer the SC/WC3 model where units cannot miss shots, except for some very specific cases and even then the probability is well known or can be easily determined. Sure there was some RNG on some abilities, but nothing as game breaking as COH.

COH is nice and all, but it can never have a serious e-sports presence with the current mechanics.

To put it in perspective, if you summen a minion in HS, you are sure if i attack the other enemy minion's it will do damage.

There's much more than RNG draw in Hearthstone. There are plenty of RNG attacks or even summon minions that drastically alters the outcome of a match. (Boombots, shredders, magic missiles, heck we have the epitome of RNG on Yog Saron).

CoH2 RNG is fine.
Pretty much all unpleasant RNG instances were dealt with.

Definitely this. While some things could be improved, we are far from every plane tells a story era.

Hey, lets beat a dead horse!

CoH2 RNG is fine.
Pretty much all unpleasant RNG instances were dealt with.

If you still don't like it, this is the solution for you:
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/buy-now/

vehicle abandons, weapon drops, vehicle crits, AT nade crits, mine crits, inconsistent model drop & squad damage is all fine?

CoH2 is a good enough game as it is with its current RNG, but if relic wishes for more people to take it seriously as an esport, then it would need pseudo RNG to even these RNG spikes out. A more consistent RNG would definitely help a lot.

vehicle abandons, weapon drops, vehicle crits, AT nade crits, mine crits, inconsistent model drop & squad damage is all fine?

Currently?
Yep.
AT nades do not crit.
Mines do not crit.
Each model in squad has its own hp, it will never be consistent, because its mechanically impossible.
Vehicle abandons were reduced.
There is nothing wrong with weapon drops.
There is nothing random about vehicle crits and pretty much all are reliable, unless you are talking about T34 ram here.

The Mine change, Max 2 casualties per mine, was one of the best changes I always wanted. Changes like this really minimize Bullshit RNG from completely costing a player the game. IF we let random explosives be random, but put a limit to the maximum amount of damage these random explosives do, we improve the RNG of the game.

EX a Riffle squad takes cover behind a haystack. With how the cover system works, the rifle squad is literally shoulder by shoulder behind the haystack. If a motar/isg round barrage is ordered, is possible but rare for the entire squad to get wiped with one shot. Everybody has been in this situation before and everyone feels cheated by the game when a fresh squad gets instantly wiped. What if only 3 soldiers max could be damaged by a single mortar round? Devastating damage is done to the squad, however the player can retreat a squad in time.

Another thing about RNG is you need a big sample size for it to 'even out' over time, which CoH2 matches don't always provide. Nobody really complains about RNG in infantry engagements (except a certain streamer heh) because there are so many shots fired the outcome moves towards what you expect over time.

Compare that to decisive vehicle engagements which don't happen that often. Say you commit your full-health P4 to pursuing a heavily damaged sherman, you accept there's a risk but the odds are well in your favour so you take it. Instead of getting the kill shot your next 3 shots bounce, meanwhile all his pen and you end up one tank behind when you expected to be one ahead. If that scenario was repeated you would come out ahead 9/10 times but that is irrelevant since the game is basically decided in that moment and you won't get another chance.

People don't get so salty over the randomness of say, poker because everybody understands that randomness is part of the game and can be the undoing of even the best players. Thus the problem with CoH comes down to that gap between what competitive players want/expect from the game, and the reality of the mechanics.

I also agree it would be good to have more ways to influence the RNG that don't just involve trading one risk for another.