The Problem with CoH2’s RNG: Consistency

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

Blizzard make enough money and are successful enough to do whatever they want. Relic, and most companies, don't have that luxury.

Blizzard make enough money and are successful enough to do whatever they want. Relic, and most companies, don't have that luxury.

Blizzard made money cause they supported their games and listen to the community, and they do communicate a lot

The only RNG coh2 needs fixing is wehrmahts 4 man squad clumping which can results in vet3 squad wipes in a blink of an eye, i have had many games where up to three vet3 squads were getting wiped to lucky mortar, a lucky is2 shot and a lucky zis barrage shot in a second... thats bullshit and did never happen in coh1 because squad formations were much better... you simply didn't lose full health squads like that.

Other than that the game is fine, yes there are RNG but people do stupid mistakes and then get hit by a small RNG penalty and in their mind they lost their tank to RNG not due to poor play. Then they come to coh2.org and write a post about it.

Blizzard made money cause they supported their games and listen to the community, and they do communicate a lot

Blizzard's games are good so lots of people play them. Because lots of people play them, it's worth continuing to support them.

I don't deny that Blizzard love their games and their community. However, fact is that is that they wouldn't able to do it if they weren't profitable. According to their annual report for 2015 (http://investor.activision.com/annual-reports.cfm) Blizzard had product development costs of $646 million.

Game companies aren't a charity. They spend money to make money. Relic simply do not have enough money to support CoH2 as we'd like.

Game companies aren't a charity. They spend money to make money. Relic simply do not have enough money to support CoH2 as we'd like.

Excuse me, but what kind of excuse is this? "We will make a game, advertise and sell it to you, but don't expect us to maintain it in a healthy, optimised, bug-free condition because we don't have money"?

If you create a videogame project to make profits, you automatically take upon you the responsibility of providing support and technical maintenance over it. You can't ask to do half the work and expect it to be accepted as a sensible behaviour.

Excuse me, but what kind of excuse is this? "We will make a game, advertise and sell it to you, but don't expect us to maintain it in a healthy, optimised, bug-free condition because we don't have money"?

If you create a videogame project to make profits, you automatically take upon you the responsibility of providing support and technical maintenance over it. You can't ask to do half the work and expect it to be accepted as a sensible behaviour.

*shrugs*

They'd have to pay developers money to work on CoH2. This money has to come from somewhere.

Their previous publisher, THQ, filed for bankruptcy because they didn't have enough money, so it's a very real thing that is important.

*shrugs*

They'd have to pay developers money to work on CoH2. This money has to come from somewhere.

Their previous publisher, THQ, filed for bankruptcy because they didn't have enough money, so it's a very real thing that is important.

They had all the resources since the SEGA takeover to make sure the game was optimised and basic bugs and crashes wouldn't plague its community for months, sometimes years. It's not just a new thing that has become a problem now when money is not flowing to them like it did in the early phases -- it's something that stained their work on CoH2 from the very beginning.

Their priority on microtransactions and DLCs is fine if that money is used to make sure the game's basic functionality is problem-free, but not if it only serves the profit interest while the players are left shafted. I can speak for myself that I've purchased about 70% of all skins and other items from the in-game store as well as about 10 commanders for various factions -- the game is still performing like they never received that money from players like me.

And it's not just memory leaks, overall performance and bugsplats but also things like War Spoils rework that took half a century, balance patches that fixed one thing while wrecking fifty other units/abilities, releasing new factions in ridiculously OP states, etc. It's just a basic case of incompetent work, hence the "Lelic" reputation they have.

Excuse me, but what kind of excuse is this? "We will make a game, advertise and sell it to you, but don't expect us to maintain it in a healthy, optimised, bug-free condition because we don't have money"?

If you create a videogame project to make profits, you automatically take upon you the responsibility of providing support and technical maintenance over it. You can't ask to do half the work and expect it to be accepted as a sensible behaviour.

Actually you can do exactly this, you just risk not making enough profit so you can't fund ongoing support.

Ideally you want to be able to provide support and technical maintenance, but if there are too many problems with the product, you don't make the profits, let alone fix the product with said lack of profits..

This is CoH2.

They had all the resources since the SEGA takeover to make sure the game was optimised and basic bugs and crashes wouldn't plague its community for months, sometimes years. It's not just a new thing that has become a problem now when money is not flowing to them like it did in the early phases -- it's something that stained their work on CoH2 from the very beginning.

Their priority on microtransactions and DLCs is fine if that money is used to make sure the game's basic functionality is problem-free, but not if it only serves the profit interest while the players are left shafted. I can speak for myself that I've purchased about 70% of all skins and other items from the in-game store as well as about 10 commanders for various factions -- the game is still performing like they never received that money from players like me.

And it's not just memory leaks, overall performance and bugsplats but also things like War Spoils rework that took half a century, balance patches that fixed one thing while wrecking fifty other units/abilities, releasing new factions in ridiculously OP states, etc. It's just a basic case of incompetent work, hence the "Lelic" reputation they have.

Why would they have all the resources they needed just because Sega took over? Do you think Sega are going to keep throwing money at them because Relic feel they have a "moral responsibility?"

It seems like when Sega brought Relic they gave them more money and then pushed back the original release date from March to June. That doesn't mean they are going to keep giving them money just to maintain the game.

There are benefits for them to keep updating CoH2. Either DLC sales or the keep people interested the game, encouraging others to buy it or other Relic games.

I'm pretty sure they aren't doing it because they believe they owe their customers constant updates 3 years after the original release and over a year after the last expansion.

Why would they have all the resources they needed just because Sega took over? Do you think Sega are going to keep throwing money at them because Relic feel they have a "moral responsibility?"

The takeover itself was a means to keep the CoH2 project alive and release the game, and it was later followed by announcements on big plans for competitive multiplayer, ladder and ranking system, esports participation, etc. -- you don't do all this (and certainly don't push loud promotional campaigns with these messages) without having a funding to keep and maintain a game at a required level.

I'm pretty sure they aren't doing it because they believe they owe their customers constant updates 3 years after the original release and over a year after the last expansion.

They owed their customers a properly functioning, optimised, bug-free game starting with the release, and they haven't delivered on it for four years now.

The takeover itself was a means to keep the CoH2 project alive and release the game, and it was later followed by announcements on big plans for competitive multiplayer, ladder and ranking system, esports participation, etc. -- you don't do all this (and certainly don't push loud promotional campaigns with these messages) without having a funding to keep and maintain a game at a required level.

As long as it makes them money. If the eSports thing didn't work out then they would have stopped work on it.

That said, they still seem interested in tournaments and doing balance updates, so they are keeping up with it. The reason they haven't dedicated much time to CoH 2 is probably because of Dawn of War 3.

I guess you don't care about Dawn of War 3 but if it flops then I wouldn't be surprised if the company folds entirely.

They owed their customers a properly functioning, optimised, bug-free game starting with the release, and they haven't delivered on it for four years now.

The game is fine. It might not be balanced when it comes to multiplayer but even then it's good enough to be the second most popular multiplayer RTS.

It's hard to take you seriously when you are talking about CoH 2 as if it's Sword of the Stars 2 or X:Rebirth.

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

+1

Just limit the how much RNG is able to fuck you over . Either that or pseudo RNG.

Standard deviation, mentlegen. I'm pretty sure the RNG follows this as well...

So every blue moon your lucky mortar gets that wondershot which wipes the whole squad. And just as often there should be a critical miss when it could have killed the whole squad but it just didn't.

Game usually has two players, or at least two teams. A RNG event is a loss AND a win as long as you spectate without favourite player. It's not that YOU always miss with snipers and the ENEMY always squadwipes your teams. It goes other way around too.

When you think of it, every mortar shell has RNG already calculated in. Most of the shells just fall in to the "normal" area and behave as they're supposed to do. Same goes with everything else.

I liked Wardonnos post, but:

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.

The RNG doesn't kill units, the ability does.
Those "unfair stuka loiters" are not a RNG killers, but a game mechanic. If you see stuka, you should move your infantry, or risk a wipe. Same goes for all barrages and offmap abilities. Don't blame RNG, if you stick around you're bound to get hurt. Bad.

Game doesn't simulate ricochets actually hitting anything, dud ammo, human error (such as totally screwing up artillery barrages), misfires, engine/mechanical failures, bogging down, detracking etc... All this would bring even more RNG into the game and spice things up. Maybe they're left out for not to totally outrage the sore losers and chess/pokerplayers.


TL;DR
RNG is everywhere. Abilities and gameplay wipe units, not RNG.

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

I like this

I like this

I like that aswell.

Weapon drops are a big offender, together with squad wipes. IMO all non-heavy artillery weapons/tanks should have a maximum of 3 kills per shot. This is a horrible band-aid, but alleviates an even more horrible negative spectrum of outcomes. This should apply to all tanks, mortars, zis barrages except howitzers, brummbär, sturmtiger, avre and similiar. Potential damage losses are (this is one of the great improvements over vcoh) mitigated by coaxial and pintle mounts.

With these changes, things should be a tad more consistent and reliable.

I like that aswell.

Weapon drops are a big offender, together with squad wipes. IMO all non-heavy artillery weapons/tanks should have a maximum of 3 kills per shot. This is a horrible band-aid, but alleviates an even more horrible negative spectrum of outcomes. This should apply to all tanks, mortars, zis barrages except howitzers, brummbär, sturmtiger,avre and similiar. Potential damage losses are (this is one of the great improvements over vcoh) mitigated by coaxial amd pintle mounts.

With these changes, things should be a tad more consistent and reliable.

Solid writing sir!

I remember reading an article from a former Israeli tanker about how at the end of the day, it's luck that saves your ass. Like technology and training is nice and all, but luck plays a major role whether you survive or not.

I love and hate the RNG in COH2. And I dunno, I mainly play Allies (Soviet and USF) and it seems like RNG usually isn't in their favor :/ Especially when it comes to Tank vs Tank combat. This is mostly in the case of penetration and yeah, I think I've only seen 4 rounds bounce off from a Sherman from a Panther in all these years of playing COH2. But usually it's the Sov and USF tanks bouncing off German tanks much to my frustration, particularly when I commit my tanks to negate the distance issue and yet somehow it still bounces off at point blank, resulting in either a severely damaged tank or its destruction.

RNG rarely saves Sov-USF tanks I feel.

EDIT: Oh, and also annoying is when you spend munitions on HVAPs or AP rounds annnnnnd bouncy-bouncy-bounce :/

The more I play, the more I realize Wada was right about this particular topic.

Change tank RNG with a penn/distance/armor eq.
Armor + (distance/scalingF) =< penn*modifiers --> dmg if true

scalingFactor because distance units may not correlate to actual penn/armor values, and modifiers for the attacks like HVAP for M10 I.E. to secure a penn shot at max distance.

This way, some TD can become the most reliable to get tanks from far, but if its armor is not that big, they can get countered too. Kiting is the best tool to get secure tank kills. Ambushes too. RnG tank brawling will become a thing in the past.
Rear armor hits could do +50% dmg. If not its lower armor makes them easy targets

Change tank RNG with a penn/distance/armor eq.
Armor + (distance/scalingF) =< penn*modifiers --> dmg if true

scalingFactor because distance units may not correlate to actual penn/armor values, and modifiers for the attacks like HVAP for M10 I.E. to secure a penn shot at max distance.

This way, some TD can become the most reliable to get tanks from far, but if its armor is not that big, they can get countered too. Kiting is the best tool to get secure tank kills. Ambushes too. RnG tank brawling will become a thing in the past.
Rear armor hits could do +50% dmg. If not its lower armor makes them easy targets

I think RNG based penetration is the only think keep Heavy tank at bay in current game.

Based on your suggestion, the enemy could bait you active HVAP then retreat (a Panther could do this easily), and start full assault during HVAP cooldown.