The Problem with CoH2’s RNG: Consistency

One of CoH2’s fundamental problems is the lack of consistency in the RNG. For a game to be competitive, the main determiner of a match needs to be player skill. Take a card game like Hearthstone or poker, a skilled player can calculate the probabilities of drawing a card so while luck/RNG plays a huge role, the player can play around it since it is consistent; there can’t be a game of poker or blackjack where there is more than 52 cards or there is 5 kings in the deck.

Unlike this consistent RNG, CoH2’s rng is random. The obvious example is tank combat where a tank or AT shot misses multiple times in a row or hits multiple times in a row (Honorable mention is tank phasing since sometimes tanks block each other while other times tanks go through one another. Why this glitch is still in the game is beyond me). While tank combat is the easiest to see the influence of RNG, it is pervasive throughout the whole system. Basic infantry combat has many variables influencing if a target deals damage: unit mobility, target distance, weapon ammo, cover. Even if the target deals damage, the model drop is completely random (as many of you know from watching my stream, I hate the random model drop.). Sometimes a 50% hp squad will have full models. Sometimes a 30% hp squad will have full models. I've even seen less than 5% hp squads have full models. There is absolutely nothing the player can do to influence whether a model drops.

While majority of the systemic RNG problems would need a rework to fix, there is simple RNG problems that are still in the game such as vehicle abandons, weapon drops, and mine crits. It is incredible stupid to have these RNG elements in the game as they degrade CoH2’s competitive integrity. I joke I’ll give someone thousands of dollars if they can give me a legit balance reason why completely random vehicle abandons, weapon drops, and crits should be in the game and I’ve yet to hear a good answer.

Now in a defense of Relic’s decision, it is difficult to balance the competitive aspects in conjunction with the fun aspects. In a purely balanced system, it wouldn’t be as fun due to lack of variety. However, Relic took the easy fix to add variety by adding purely random elements into coh2.

The way to fix the RNG problem:

1. Remove the stupid RNG – abandons and weapon drops

2. Fix the model drop by making it more consistent - complex issue since indirect fire complicates the issue since if tied directly to hp %, one mortar could kill most models while in current system, you have the chance to heal the damage. To fix model drop, you have to make indirect fire more consistent.

3. Fix the algorithm for tank combat so penetrations, hits, and misses are more consistent. (might want to consider simplifying penetration where if the penetration is above the armor value, it does damage while if it is under, it doesn’t do damage so the RNG is tied to hit/miss chance.)

As long as CoH2’s fundamental problems remained unfixed, any balance changes won’t have a major effect; Renovating your house’s rooms won’t matter if the foundation is shit. If the fundamentals aren’t fixed, it will continue to stunt and shrink our competitive scene until there is nothing left.

+1

Well, I've got mixed opinion on this issue.

I don't think weapon drops are bad, but consistency would be better. I like being able to get hold of enemy weapons and I suppose Axis gets the short end here, since they have the best toys to drop.

Vehicle abandons, I wouldn't hurt much from seeing them go and it has been a pretty controversial issue in the community. I do believe that these abandoned vehicles did happen in the war, not sure how much they were put into service however. I don't care what happens here.

Penetration system, I get the impression you don't know how it works mathematically. However, I do think you are right about consistency. The problem again, is that Axis gets the short end of the stick here, considering they hold most of the armor strong enough to cause frustrating inconsistencies. I don't know if you were around for coh1, but I don't remember the gap being so large with the armored vehicles. Some shots didn't penetrate, but it wasn't like coh2 where Axis tanks are taking no penetrating shots frequently.

Infantry rng, I would welcome the changes you propose. Cover should be emphasized even more, perhaps with offensive bonuses like the british have. The random model drops I assume you would want to see fixed by having a shot that brings a model to 0 health or below result in death. I would agree with that. Have 4 guys with 5% health is pretty shit.

-1

Game without RNG is boring game IMO.

Misses, bounces, drops add more flavour.
Even yesterday my AEC missed finaly shot agasint Luchs, and I got disabled weapon and then Luchs killed my AEC. Double RNG against me but I didn't rage. It just happens for both sides and it's fun.

Playing fully competitive game (which is nt even e-sport game) would be boring AF.

If anyone wants competitive, boring game, cool.
But for me (and probably many others) such game would be incredibly boring, without any flavour.

snip

RNG is consistent in its inconsistency.

Lately I had 2 tank destroyers and 1 atgun firing at a Tiger 6 shots. 6 bounces leaving the Tiger unharmed. If those 6 shots would have penetrate, the tiger would have been dead.
This kind of RNG is impossible to prevent and completely turns the tide of a game.

Every time I play vs OKW, the first encounter between my main squad and his Sturmpioneer is purely RNG with huge consequences.
This is usually me being in cover and the sturm closing in.
1- Sturmpio lose 1 member closing in and another just after reaching me = I won and he has to retreat
2- Sturmpio lose 1 member closing in but no more = I have to retreat

This single action completely decided by RNG turn the early game tide of the game. There is no micro, nothing I or my opponent can do to change that.

3- Sturmpio don't lose any model closing in and reach less than 30% life full squad. Here I'm usually like "what the fuck".

COH2 is and will be COH2. If you want a competitive e-sport RTS then you should try other games that are designed to be competitive e-sport RTS. There are plenty of options.
We (who like/love COH2) like it as it is (with all its flaws). A few changes wouldn't hurt but what you want is a different game.

lol hearthstone is the very picture of a game rendered non-competitive by rng. Literally any other card game would have been a better example.

No, i don't want another boring Starcraft.

This is CoH!!!!!

We (who like/love COH2) like it as it is (with all its flaws)

There are lots of people who love CoH2 and would vote for getting rid of the RNG factor precisely because of that. The amount of these people is very clear on Twitch streams hosted by leading players and during various tournaments.

Speaking of the latter, if you claim to love this game you should be concerned how it has failed in wider promotion compared to competitive RTS games, precisely because of the RNG mechanics that eliminate any reasonable e-sports factor from CoH2. And that failure means we're now looking at community-made balance patches to save this game from losing its playerbase.

I've played CoH series since 2010 and I definitely don't love its flaws, so please don't speak on behalf of people like me when making these public declarations.

I think Wada is right there needs to be more consistency in this game. Especially when excessive rng tends to be more frustrating for the player than "fun".

That being said rng makes the game entertaining to watch and more unpredictable which is good in a way but that doesn't mean it will be sacrificed if some small elements of rng are changed. It is very possible to the game more skill dependent without making it more 'boring' unlike people are suggesting.

Every time I play vs OKW, the first encounter between my main squad and his Sturmpioneer is purely RNG with huge consequences.
This is usually me being in cover and the sturm closing in.
1- Sturmpio lose 1 member closing in and another just after reaching me = I won and he has to retreat
2- Sturmpio lose 1 member closing in but no more = I have to retreat

This single action completely decided by RNG turn the early game tide of the game. There is no micro, nothing I or my opponent can do to change that.

3- Sturmpio don't lose any model closing in and reach less than 30% life full squad. Here I'm usually like "what the fuck".

RNG is not Lady Luck, it's Lady Average.

It goes both ways. War is series of disasters and odd things. This game doesn't have dud ammo, or faulty weapons, schrecks are seekers etc etc... No faulty engines, (which i'd love to see in freezing plains of russia, suddenly your panzers freeze in a blizzard and don't start...)

The hook which keeps us playing COH2 is the way we have to #Adapt to sudden surprising things. That separates good players from the rest.

And Esxile, there is an option, bring 2 sturmpios, or disengage, find cover. It's not just a coin toss and good luck. It's a game, play it. "Luck is a residue of design"

RNG separates coh from chess.

-1

Game without RNG is boring game IMO.

Misses, bounces, drops add more flavour.
Even yesterday my AEC missed finaly shot agasint Luchs, and I got disabled weapon and then Luchs killed my AEC. Double RNG against me but I didn't rage. It just happens for both sides and it's fun.

Playing fully competitive game (which is nt even e-sport game) would be boring AF.

If anyone wants competitive, boring game, cool.
But for me (and probably many others) such game would be incredibly boring, without any flavour.

So as you see it, it is funny to dive in with a Comet and Cromwell against a Tiger (the last fuel he had he spent on that Tiger), getting my own cromwell killed in the process, before I manage to take down the tiger, yet I still came out on top, right? Nope. The Tiger got abandoned, I couldn't stay with my Comet anymore because of AT guns, he jumps in the abandoned Tiger, puts a shot into the rear of my Comet, and my comet gets destroyed.

I tried to move my sappers with PIATs in, but at that time the Tiger had reloaded again, wiping 3 models, and the coaxial finishes the last sapper. I'm now left with 0 AT, so he can repair the Tiger without worrying too much. Yay, abandon mechanic is hilarious, right?


TLDR; Remove the bloody abandon mechanic. It doesn't make it a better game, but rewards the lucky bastards.

Take a card game like Hearthstone or poker, a skilled player can calculate the probabilities of drawing a card so while luck/RNG plays a huge role, the player can play around it since it is consistent

Really, you're going to give Hearthstone as an example of consistent RNG? A card game which literally everyone who has ever played another card game agrees is one the worst if not THE worst possible example of the genre in that regard?

(Honorable mention is tank phasing since sometimes tanks block each other while other times tanks go through one another.

Tank phasing is nearly completely binary. Both vehicles moving, you phase through. Only one moving, you can't phase through (not strictly true, but it's so unreliable you could be spamming move commands for 30+ seconds before you phase). All that you need for the phase through to happen when both are moving is to spam movement commands, within a second your vehicle will start phasing through the other one. Very honorable mention.

Sometimes a 50% hp squad will have full models. Sometimes a 30% hp squad will have full models. I've even seen less than 5% hp squads have full models. There is absolutely nothing the player can do to influence whether a model drops.

The CoH2 infantry health bar is just an UI nicety, rather than cluttering the view with individual health bars for every member it combines them all to a single bar. Not like you have control of individual entities anyway so there's no need for you to know their health. I sure as hell wouldn't want some convoluted system where the squad health is its own little thing and where at set milestones it'll kill off members of the squad. Not that there is any chance whatsoever of such a major rework anyway.

AOE weapons leaving lots of low health entities alive is just the way things work, nothing random about it (apart from where it lands and thus how many entities it actually affects). Deal with it.

Small arms targeting would be the "random" part in the equation. Every accuracy based gun will pick an individual target from a squad to fire at, and won't change that target until it dies or it can't be fired upon anymore for some other reason. Targeting entities inside a squad seems to be random when there are multiple targets at roughly the same range available, but maybe there is some inner game logic to it that we just don't know.

If you're running around with a grenadier squad and run into an enemy squad at max vision range, then the guy that is going to get targeted from the grenadier squad will be the one in front of the "diamond" formation. No randomness, because he's the first viable target to enter the range of all enemy units, so they all focus fire on him first.

So understanding this, if you think your squad is targeting the totally wrong entity in an enemy squad, give them a move order backwards and thus force them to abandon their current targets, then immediately a-move towards the enemy again. In some situations you might actually get your squad members to target what you want.

Overall I'd say giving players the opportunity to target entities within squads would just lead to way more cancer than it would ever add to gameplay depth, so I'd be against that sort of change. Not like it would happen at this point in the development cycle.

simple RNG problems that are still in the game such as vehicle abandons, weapon drops

Actually right about these.

and mine crits.

The minor chances for engine destroyed have already been removed months ago, there's almost zero RNG to mines (or grenades), the only thing you need to work out their exact effect is the formation of units that are about to trigger them.

So as you see it, it is funny to dive in with a Comet and Cromwell against a Tiger (the last fuel he had he spent on that Tiger), getting my own cromwell killed in the process, before I manage to take down the tiger, yet I still came out on top, right? Nope. The Tiger got abandoned, I couldn't stay with my Comet anymore because of AT guns, he jumps in the abandoned Tiger, puts a shot into the rear of my Comet, and my comet gets destroyed.

I tried to move my sappers with PIATs in, but at that time the Tiger had reloaded again, wiping 3 models, and the coaxial finishes the last sapper. I'm now left with 0 AT, so he can repair the Tiger without worrying too much. Yay, abandon mechanic is hilarious, right?


TLDR; Remove the bloody abandon mechanic. It doesn't make it a better game, but rewards the lucky bastards.

So you want to say that you lost becasue of RNG. Cool.

What about wins you took also thanks to RNG?

So you want to say that you lost becasue of RNG. Cool.

What about wins you took also thanks to RNG?

I lost that match thanks to a bad mechanic, that is what I'm trying to say.A mechanic which isn't even historically accurate, since the crew would mostly only abandon the tank, if the engine or main gun were damaged/destroyed, not if they had taken 20 shots and the tank still worked perfectly.

To note I won the match after that one thanks to my opponents getting 2 cromwells abandoned, and I repaired them. Yes I were glad that I won of course, but it was such a cheesy way to win. If the abandon mechanic were removed, my winrate would remain the same, yet it would be a more enjoyable game to play!

Really, you're going to give Hearthstone as an example of consistent RNG? A card game which literally everyone who has ever played another card game agrees is one the worst if not THE worst possible example of the genre in that regard?

Hearthstone is manageble in comparison to MtG.

Like top player from HS must say that this game a full of RNG, yes you can make combinations with cards, but what if good combo dont drop to you, but drop to you opponent. Same we have in coh. Game without RNG is bad for coh. I dont see problem that coh player can make same calculate situatuions where its can be hit or miss (ofc not murica mortar).
RNG is life, RNG is all.

So you want to say that you lost becasue of RNG. Cool.

What about wins you took also thanks to RNG?

Finally, first honest man in the thread.

What I got from watching casts and playing games with my friends - people are getting tricked by their mind in order not to get into uncomfortable position where you admit your mistake.

Sometimes you just have to let this tiger go (while saving your own army) and try to take it down some other time.

When you talk about RNG you have to be completely honest with yourself and admit your mistakes.

weapon drops only on wiped squads and it drops 50% weapons, minimum 1 weapon

remove abandons

give new penetration value that has 0 penetration if overshot, for exmaple if Jackson has 55 range than a shot over that range has 0 penetration

these things would nerf RNG

Honestly I am content with the current amount of RNG.
The only thing that sucks are mortar wipes but with the spacing coming in WB 1.7 hopefully this won't be that big issue anymore.

CoH2 got rid of most of its RNG. Without RNG the game would be boring.