The Problem with CoH2’s RNG: Consistency

What RTS games are you referring to? I was under the impression that CoH2 was the most popular multiplayer RTS game after Starcraft 2.

That actually should've just said competitive games; but even if we're talking about RTS only, being behind SC is enough of an example if you look at how the SC community is healthy and active through ESL events while here at CoH2 we're busy praying this year's community-tested patches will come soon enough to keep at least some of the players from leaving and save the multiplayer from turning into a 15-minute queue time fest.

I think it's fine* in infantry combat. You should know the odds in each engagement. Take the good, flee the bad. RNG in tank combat really does feel too punishing. When I miss/bounce six shots in a row on that goddamned Tiger/IS2/whatever and he can simply roll up on me and murder everything that is way more frustrating than the reverse is satisfying. Bounces should deal deflection damage, so that (1) the bad luck player feels less helpless and (2) to create a better risk/reward curve for the good luck player**.

*Except for early game sturmpio charges.

**Even if he's beaten say a Jackson and an AT gun using those bounces, he's got to weigh the risk of another source of AT finishing off his now damaged beast vs the reward of feasting on my now vulnerable units. It's true that this already exists to a certain extent, but because it takes so much more to deal with a full health tank, he can be much more confident that I haven't got enough

Is there a mod with 100% accuracy / Penetration values ? Maybe see the difference then and as many say, not having RNG defining moments would coh make somehow boring.

On the other hand seeing your own sniper killing himself with his own ability..what are the odds and this could be crucial.

I agree on one part that RNG shouldn't really decide a match in one single moment. We've all seen the Panther on the ice or any other strange shots over the map...


Balance out "the bad RNG" events with "good rng" events?
The real question is most of the time "how to ever balance luck",so coh ain't fair sometimes.

Cool story, again, how is this related to your thread's supposed point?

Dude said coh2 tournys have been great so I pointed out all of the flaws and problems associated with the previous tournies. People like to dismiss criticism as "haters gonna hate" but it is an objective fact that coh2 sucks. Try to find another dev studio with Relic's track record. I don't know any other game where every patch breaks the game, especially during the biggest tourny in coh2 history. I don't know a dev studio that puts thousands of dollars into their esports scene just so they can pull the plug & fire the whole dev team. Majority of the coh2 pros have only been in the coh2 scene or at least been in it for a long time so they are acclimated to this level of mediocrity. There is a systemic apathy in the community when people expect Relic to fuck up.

As to the broader point, Relic could experiment with their RNG system if balance were more on point. When simple balance is hard for you, you can't experiment with your fundamental systems. When we eventually get balance updates (since Relic shifted that responsibility on to the community), the underline problems will still persist & weaken the integrity of the game. Treating symptoms while leaving the underline condition untreated will kill the patient.

I think that biggest problem of previous tourney was that prominent players of community were forced to play against other prominent players from our community.

That actually should've just said competitive games; but even if we're talking about RTS only, being behind SC is enough of an example if you look at how the SC community is healthy and active through ESL events while here at CoH2 we're busy praying this year's community-tested patches will come soon enough to keep at least some of the players from leaving and save the multiplayer from turning into a 15-minute queue time fest.

Personally, I think that not as many people are interested in playing multiplayer RTSs. People are more likely to play a DOTA game which has RTS elements but there is so much less to worry about.

What I'm saying is that it might be something (almost) inevitable, rather as a result of Relic or game balance.

Personally, I think that not as many people are interested in playing multiplayer RTSs. People are more likely to play a DOTA game which has RTS elements but there is so much less to worry about.

What I'm saying is that it might be something (almost) inevitable, rather as a result of Relic or game balance.

I agree on the whole, however I'd argue that esports appearances for CoH2 would've made that effect much less noticeable. The one time this game got to ESL was probably the most successful in terms of community numbers and wider CoH2 promotion.

I can honestly state that the only reason I personally ever started to play DotA since the Warcraft 3 days was to play a game that didn't appear to lag, commands were responsive, and could run on my laptop. Early days of CoH2 were rough on that end and spurned a lot of players from the franchise for good.

I mean, every game of DotA was/is a veritable farce of imbalance, but the menus and matches ran smoothly and consistently. Sometimes when you only have an hour and a half to play a game, that became the preferable choice.

That's most certainly not what I described. And what I described is how they actually work IRL = what would be considered a "pure" mechanic, which is what you and I were discussing here, not how boring or fun this or that approach is.

Btw, absolutely not how indirect fire works "in real life." Mortar crew is nowhere near the fight and almost never observes their own rounds. Instead, the squad in contact is calling for support. First couple rounds will be way off unless the observer is very good, but they'd slowly bracket until they were close, then observer would call for a barrage that's made without adjustments. The variance in those rounds is based on manufacturer tolerances in the mortar tube and ammunition and any crew inconsistencies. The game actually models this part fairly accurately.

Dude said coh2 tournys have been great so I pointed out all of the flaws and problems associated with the previous tournies. People like to dismiss criticism as "haters gonna hate" but it is an objective fact that coh2 sucks. Try to find another dev studio with Relic's track record. I don't know any other game where every patch breaks the game, especially during the biggest tourny in coh2 history. I don't know a dev studio that puts thousands of dollars into their esports scene just so they can pull the plug & fire the whole dev team. Majority of the coh2 pros have only been in the coh2 scene or at least been in it for a long time so they are acclimated to this level of mediocrity. There is a systemic apathy in the community when people expect Relic to fuck up.

As to the broader point, Relic could experiment with their RNG system if balance were more on point. When simple balance is hard for you, you can't experiment with your fundamental systems. When we eventually get balance updates (since Relic shifted that responsibility on to the community), the underline problems will still persist & weaken the integrity of the game. Treating symptoms while leaving the underline condition untreated will kill the patient.

You're all over the map with your arguments here, but I'll keep this simple. You want a skill game like poker? The RNG makes coh2 work that way. 1v1s are almost never a guarantee, but things like positioning and distance allow you to read the odds and take calculated risk. Does it suck when the odds are in your favor and you still lose? Sure. But an asshole can draw a flush on the last card and ruin your bluff too.

Side question: do you even play this game any more? Ok cool, thanks.

... but it is an objective fact that coh2 sucks. Try to find another dev studio with Relic's track record. I don't know any other game where every patch breaks the game, ...

that is really not objective. its objective that it could be better.

I can name a few devs from my "game playlist": Squad, GTA IV, CIV, Rainbow Six Siege.

Btw, absolutely not how indirect fire works "in real life." Mortar crew is nowhere near the fight and almost never observes their own rounds. Instead, the squad in contact is calling for support. First couple rounds will be way off unless the observer is very good, but they'd slowly bracket until they were close, then observer would call for a barrage that's made without adjustments. The variance in those rounds is based on manufacturer tolerances in the mortar tube and ammunition and any crew inconsistencies. The game actually models this part fairly accurately.

I think it was pretty clear I wasn't claiming 100% in-game representation of indirect fire coordination and operation, rather comparing how IRL barrages are dialled in to become more accurate based on previous results, as opposed to constantly randomised shelling by Lee
Lic.

Btw, absolutely not how indirect fire works "in real life." Mortar crew is nowhere near the fight and almost never observes their own rounds. Instead, the squad in contact is calling for support. First couple rounds will be way off unless the observer is very good, but they'd slowly bracket until they were close, then observer would call for a barrage that's made without adjustments. The variance in those rounds is based on manufacturer tolerances in the mortar tube and ammunition and any crew inconsistencies. The game actually models this part fairly accurately.

I have always wanted mortars to be wildly inaccurate at first, and reliably become accurate on the third or fourth shell.

It'd make mortars so much easier to balance.

I have always wanted mortars to be wildly inaccurate at first, and reliably become accurate on the third or fourth shell.

It'd make mortars so much easier to balance.

it doesn't necessarily make sense, since if you call for a barrage, you're asking for saturation of an area and you've confirmed that you know where you're shooting.

however, i thought that it'd be cool if artillery, instead of starting with flares, started with one or two "wildly inaccurate" bracketing rounds... then the pace ramped up as the rounds approached the desired impact point. that'd be cool.

I agree with shadowada in this, coh can become a balanced unfrustrating competitive game and that doesnt mean it will have 0 RNG but instead a bit more predictable RNG.
I'll assume that those who say that coh isnt a competitive game and the wild RNG is what makes coh coh only play 4v4's and have never watched any tournament that the coh "brand" have ever had.

What people tend to forget is that CoH fucked up badly from the start with cheeky pay2win mechanics, bad engine and that they screwed over about 99% of the Russian playerbase with their campaign.

There were about 10.000 players from the start and now about 5.000 (which is 90-95% comp stomp only). SC2 has about more than 100.000 players.

And the most important thing: Blizzard appears to care much more for their playerbase. Since CoH2 the team of Relic has always been a bunch of greedy SEGA slaves in my eyes and the eyes of many more in the CoH2 community.

Look at Youtube:

SC2 videos - more than 100.000 views, many above the millions.
CoH2 - You won't find any current videos with much more than 1.000 views.

What people tend to forget is that CoH fucked up badly from the start with cheeky pay2win mechanics, bad engine and that they screwed over about 99% of the Russian playerbase with their campaign.

There were about 10.000 players from the start and now about 5.000 (which is 90-95% comp stomp only). SC2 has about more than 100.000 players.

And the most important thing: Blizzard appears to care much more for their playerbase. Since CoH2 the team of Relic has always been a bunch of greedy SEGA slaves in my eyes and the eyes of many more in the CoH2 community.

Look at Youtube:

SC2 videos - more than 100.000 views, many above the millions.
CoH2 - You won't find any current videos with much more than 1.000 views.

You will never see a game breaking bug lasting more than 2 days in Starcraft 2.

and in coh2, Remember Gatling usf tank / Vet 1 vickers unlimited range / usf mortar auto tracker ? ;D they last for 2-3 weeks

Wada,

The structure of your argument is wrong. You cannot use single subjective examples to make an argument about a system's "supposed" wide standard deviation or in game variance...

Take a closer look at probability and you'll find that the systems are actually very intricate and predictable. Maybe the game structure does not bear this out, ie: you only get 3-6 squads in a game, 1-3 tanks, so the number of engagements is lower meaning a normalized/weighted mean with a low standard of error cannot develop, but that's not evidence enough to lambast the entire system or lament its implication.

It's like a low scoring sport, it just means the chances created and points or whatever measure you chose to determine a winner become more meaningful. It's the nature of the game, I don't think it's something you can fiddle with without destroying it.

You will never see a game breaking bug lasting more than 2 days in Starcraft 2.

and in coh2, Remember Gatling usf tank / Vet 1 vickers unlimited range / usf mortar auto tracker ? ;D they last for 2-3 weeks

The difference i guess, of having their own platform (battlenet) instead of going through steam.
I'm not saying they should stay for weeks/months. If it's gamebreaking it "should" be fixed on a 1 week timelapse if possible, but i found it shameful when community members are the ones who found and fix them and they take ages to implement them.

In retrospective, if the game was released with the following, it would had been in a much better shape:
-A campaign which is not "Enemy at the gates 2.0"
-Balance direction: it took 2 years to finally start in removing bs RNG/tells a story situations
-Supply/Commander system: we didn't need 21 EFA commanders. We don't need a single P2W commander screwing the game and going rampant for 3/4 months.

If they need to appeal to the compstomp players, then we had something called ToW for that.

The main problem is that RNG is to inconsistent. The RNG in COH2 should be fixed by decreasing the large difference in army strength results from said RNG.

For example how to fix the following (Focus on making the lower exchange)

• Abandon - make it cost 70%(arbitrary value, should be depend on vehicle type) of the resources cost of the vehicle in order to recrew it, i.e the mechanic that was in Ardenne Assault. That way abandon mechanic is still in the game but does not have as much as an impact.
  
• Full health squad wiping - restrict the amount of models that can be killed at any particular time. The realism crowd would dislike this but it is necessary, as it is a fix to the horrible unit clumping that occurs. Or, the implementation of changeable formation option for squad to tell them to remain spread out or pack in tight.
  
• Skill planes - Make them either controllable i.e like strafing runs, or have them operate like the Spectre gunship from CnC Generals ZH. After all what is better, having RNG kill your enemy army, or being in direct control.
  
• Etc, any bit of rng in the game should have it maximum potential effect reduce. That way you avoid bullshit. The alternative is using skill/ player choice to counter RNG.
  

Basically, the general idea is the RNG is fine as long as it does not cause to much of an imbalance between players. The main problem is that COH2 stresses the importance of unit preservation, however, making it that when RNG kill valuable units frustrating. It also results in players taking less risks. By not taking risks the game becomes more boring to play and to watch.