An article about Relic

well, i can only speak based on the things they say in interviews and the stuff they produce.

for coh2 i have never read about that "pushing it to the limits" or "rethink every mechanic until its perfect", but for vcoh that has been true and i think it shows

I don't think they needed to rethink every mechanic and to getting it to perfection (design wise? implementation wise?) is nearly impossible.

No no no my friend. This is ONE way to run businesses. There are also other (better for both, companies and players) ways.

If you think this is the ONLY way then you have fallen in to their trap.

Like what exactly?
And please don't point towards games like the Witcher 3 which have a far larger market share than any RTS game, or Grand Strategy/Tactics game.

I don't think they needed to rethink every mechanic and to getting it to perfection (design wise? implementation wise?) is nearly impossible.

design wise and i dont want perfection, but at least a little thought

i mean which thought that the game did not need side armor?
or why did they change the ressource system from coh1?
stuff like that shows lack of thought or lazyness

I don't trust Relic as a company. Unfortunately I almost don't trust any company in the gaming industry anymore. Not only have the dlc milking scams gone up intensively since the first time one went up in 2006 in Elder Scrolls, but the games that come out are now buggy, unfinished and definite beta builds in most cases. Most companies know they can get away with patching a game after launch no matter how broken it is.

Relic has become a cash grabbing company that milks every franchise it still has, it is obvious. They launch obvious completely broken dlc in an online real time strategy game that has good balance as one of its central pillars and proceed to not hot fix it for months. The only company I still trust is CD Projekt Red.

Paradox Interactive?

+ to Ciez and Dangerous-Cloth.
I dont trust Relic after there bad work with coh2. I can undestand a lot DLC (its okey, game make for money), but not bad support, slow balance fix, broken optimizations, OP factions/docs for money. Relic make unfinished games.

The thing that people usually overlook is that, you CAN make shit ton of DLC (Skins/commanders), but not necessarily need to make that Pay2win for people to buy it.

That just isn't true.

There has indeed been a handful of games which have had hard launches(Assgreed), most on the PC since there is a lack of quality control, but in general most games are fine.

All games launch with bugs and we're lucky to get patches to fix them otherwise we would be stuck with those bugs.

Indeed the cmders was a mess but there is nothing wrong with DLC.

Uhm the last few years have seen so many pc games that have been broken at launch because they either were bad ports, or simply pushed out because a publisher needed them to be released in a specific quarter.

Not all games, but still a lot...

Paradox Interactive?

I have never played anything from them. Didn't have anything of them in mind when writing that.

design wise and i dont want perfection, but at least a little thought

i mean which thought that the game did not need side armor?
or why did they change the ressource system from coh1?
stuff like that shows lack of thought or lazyness

You should read this article.

http://kotaku.com/10-big-myths-about-games-debunked-by-the-people-who-ma-1737839268

Uhm the last few years have seen so many pc games that have been broken at launch because they either were bad ports, or simply pushed out because a publisher needed them to be released in a specific quarter.

Not all games, but still a lot...

It depends on what you mean by broken? Because if you can play through a game from start to finish then it isn't broken.

The only port I can think of which was truly broken on launch was Batman Arkham Knight and was rightly pulled from steam.

The fact is PC 'ports' will likely always have more bugs than their counter parts simply because there is a huge variation in hardware and soft in the PC market.

As a side note, many bugs are discovered post launch since no QA team in the world has the bandwidth to mimic tens of thousands of potential player actions.

Being able to patch games post launch does engender a certain amount of laziness in developers

Being able to patch games post launch does engender a certain amount of laziness in developers

What, why!? It doesn't make sense.

You still have the work to do?! You still need to fix those issues if known.

What makes more sense is to try a have as bug free game on release as possible.

You should read this article.

well, i did. didnt help me in any way.
i gave side armor as example: someone at relic decided it was fine to not have it. that is stupidity or lazyness, no other option....

What, why!? It doesn't make sense.

It does. Never had the thought "I'm not gonna do this because i can do it later"?

Wow. Some very excellent points.
I've been casually playing coh since release. I just really like tank warfare and this game is the only one that does it for me.

There have been a great deal of disappointment over the life of this game.

-faction redesigns
-cover didn't matter at release, everything was too durable
-WFA and brits overpowered at release
-new commander system is lame
-new commanders are OP when released
-balance has always been done with a sledge hammer and not a scalpel

These issues bumped a lot of people out of the game. As for the esport ideas, there is far too much variation in this game. The learning curve is far to steep and there is no intuition behind the unit match ups. Coh1 commanders would have been amazing with true sight.

What, why!? It doesn't make sense.

You still have the work to do?! You still need to fix those issues if known.

What makes more sense is to try a have as bug free game on release as possible.

Once upon a time games HAD to be (mostly) bug free and in a highly playable state before release. Now they can push them out half broken. They can fix them if they sell well. If not, well perhaps the minimum required.

Games are far more complex than ever.

It all comes down to resources and picking the correct battles. For every bug which is shipped many more were deemed higher priority and squashed before release.

Once upon a time games HAD to be (mostly) bug free and in a highly playable state before release. Now they can push them out half broken. They can fix them if they sell well. If not, well perhaps the minimum required.

yes.

pong developers were true heroes who ironed out all the bugs such complex game had before launch.

i dont know what games people here play but all the new games i played past year+, even a few early access games ever had major bugs had launch. ofc there are cases like the batman game but people here seem to just slap any developers with laziness tag if they see a missing texture...

it's not like relic can say to Sega: "hey dad, we've been on crunch time for past month+ but we still need more time - can we delay?"

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ill try DOWIII open "beta" and prob buy it soon after release. not too excited though.

well, i did. didnt help me in any way.
i gave side armor as example: someone at relic decided it was fine to not have it. that is stupidity or lazyness, no other option....


It does. Never had the thought "I'm not gonna do this because i can do it later"?

No other option? Maybe it was a tech issue since it was the DOW2 engine.

It could be a design decision but not laziness.

I'll do this later?! LOL There might not be a later, it isn't a good way to run a business and not how developers what to ship a title.

There are several reasons why a bug fix would be pushed to a post release or release day patch,if there is higher priority bugs that need fixing before the cut off date, the bug was discovered to late and the fix to make it into the final build.

it's not like relic can say to Sega: "hey dad, we've been on crunch time for past month+ but we still need more time - can we delay?"

--------------

ill try DOWIII open "beta" and prob buy it soon after release. not too excited though.

And There lies the problem. Sega can push it out and fix it after. I'm not saying all games are broken. developers will almost allways try their best to create great bug free games which is hard with increased complexity but we still see lots of bad practice where games are released too early. Now we have the early access phenomenon. It may well actually result in better games overall but my point is that it's easy to assume the ability to change your product after release as being a good thing for quality but it's not quite so simple

And There lies the problem. Sega can push it out and fix it after. I'm not saying all games are broken. developers will almost allways try their best to create great bug free games which is hard with increased complexity but we still see lots of bad practice where games are released too early. Now we have the early access phenomenon. It may well actually result in better games overall but my point is that it's easy to assume the ability to change your product after release as being a good thing for quality but it's not quite so simple

A publisher spends millions of dollars on PR for a game pre and post release, that is when their game (product) is at its highest exposure and most chance of scoring a success, so why would they not try and release the best bug free version of the game possible within the given time.

I don't think they needed to rethink every mechanic and to getting it to perfection (design wise? implementation wise?) is nearly impossible.

You should read this article.
http://kotaku.com/10-big-myths-about-games-debunked-by-the-people-who-ma-1737839268

That still doesn't justify/answers the problems with COH2. I consider Relic (on CoH2) been doing 2 steps forwards 1 backwards with too many high-lows for this last 4 years.
You can make the excuses you want, which might be realistic and out of their hands, but at the end of the day what it matters are the results. If it's due to spaghetti code, UP employees, low numbers of them assigned to the project, lack of QA or a problem on how the work flow is done, for the consumers it won't matter.

I'll do a revision from what IRC. I'll skip the goods (the game, battle servers, constant "reworks" even if they were at a low pace, etc.)

1-You can't justify them implementing commanders when CM say months before released that there wasn't gonna be gameplay changing elements behind a paywall.

2-Giving them the middle finger to those who bought the "REAL" collector/limited edition.

3-The mess we have with EFA commanders because THAT WAS A REAL lazy/money grab decision.
A smaller core set of commanders for "ranked" multiplayer and leaving the rest for ToW and custom games would be good. Instead we have 20+, many of them never seen, and all or most of them having the same repeated abilities. This was rectified with the new factions.
Note: the supply system was god sent but unfortunately arrived a bit too late.

4-Bulletins and Blizzards were interesting features badly though/implemented. Blizzards had like 0 priority in order for it to be less frustrating/balanced/dynamic gameplay wise (just take a look at the changelogs). Disabled due to probably lack of manpower to work on it.

5-For +2 years, the whole design direction of "every plane crash tells a story" aka BAD RNG. This kinds of RNGs are expectable on something like Hearthstone, not on an RTS which can have an avg of +25mins games.
Ex:
Show Spoiler
I can get a REAL bad roll on having an AT gun miss of fail to penetrate a certain vehicle. That's part of the "good" RNG. Now, if i call a recon run, my opponent has AA, shoots the plane and then it suddenly kills my opponents whole vet 3 main line infantry and i win the game due to that. Neither of the players is gonna feel really well cause neither had influence or intention on doing that.

6-REAL SLOW times on fixing game-breaking bugs. Slow decision on fixing/balancing latest DLC commander/faction (TA/Windustry 6 months of reign). I don't expect patches every week, not even monthly patches, but 4/6 months is quite a time lapse specially with glaring issues.

NOTE: i can understand something as the gun shoot sound bug been hard to detect for example. That is justifiable.
What I don't get why they kept releasing "old builds" with new patches, which introduced several ninja changes which were already fixed/dealt with in previous patches. AND i'm not talking of complicated mechanics. Think about how on the WFA beta, we had SwS truck crush removed and then it was implemented on the live build because someone problably used an "old" build.

NOTE2: you can't be taken seriously when a single guy from the community (at that time it was only Cruzz) checks your game, gives you a list of all the changes applied which are not mentioned on the changelog and tells you what they broke.

7-Communication and community handling.

i gave side armor as example: someone at relic decided it was fine to not have it. that is stupidity or lazyness, no other option....

OR because of how the game plays (dynamics, handling, mechanics, engine) it might not make too much sense on having it? IMO it would be a layer of depth which doesn't really add to much due to how positioning and projectiles and handled.

Example:
On an FPS such as Battlefield, i think they handle this well and it makes sense since you have FINESSE control of both the vehicle and the projectile. Positioning and more so angling is important. It's not the same hitting the rear armor at 90° than doing so at 15°. Since on that game there's no "deflection" this is just reflected on pure different damage values.

On CoH2, IMO, this not worth it, cause you'll had to implement a new mechanic and stress the PC even more to handle the respective position between the damage dealer and the victim target. Right now, it all depends on what part of the tank, the shell lands. If the vehicle lands an accuracy role, it would most probably land right on a straight line to the vehicle. But when not and with scatter, what would be a "frontal" shot can transform into a "rear" shot with enough RNG. If side armor was implemented this would be even worst. Not to mention it would mean more work, test and headache to balance properly.
PD: and i didn't even mentioned how bad and frustrating sometimes is too handle vehicle pathing.

That still doesn't justify/answers the problems with COH2. I consider Relic (on CoH2) been doing 2 steps forwards 1 backwards with too many high-lows for this last 4 years.
You can make the excuses you want, which might be realistic and out of their hands, but at the end of the day what it matters are the results. If it's due to spaghetti code, UP employees, low numbers of them assigned to the project, lack of QA or a problem on how the work flow is done, for the consumers it won't matter.

I'll do a revision from what IRC. I'll skip the goods (the game, battle servers, constant "reworks" even if they were at a low pace, etc.)

1-You can't justify them implementing commanders when CM say months before released that there wasn't gonna be gameplay changing elements behind a paywall.

2-Giving them the middle finger to those who bought the "REAL" collector/limited edition.

3-The mess we have with EFA commanders because THAT WAS A REAL lazy/money grab decision.
A smaller core set of commanders for "ranked" multiplayer and leaving the rest for ToW and custom games would be good. Instead we have 20+, many of them never seen, and all or most of them having the same repeated abilities. This was rectified with the new factions.
Note: the supply system was god sent but unfortunately arrived a bit too late.

4-Bulletins and Blizzards were interesting features badly though/implemented. Blizzards had like 0 priority in order for it to be less frustrating/balanced/dynamic gameplay wise (just take a look at the changelogs). Disabled due to probably lack of manpower to work on it.

5-For +2 years, the whole design direction of "every plane crash tells a story" aka BAD RNG. This kinds of RNGs are expectable on something like Hearthstone, not on an RTS which can have an avg of +25mins games.
Ex:
Show Spoiler

I can get a REAL bad roll on having an AT gun miss of fail to penetrate a certain vehicle. That's part of the "good" RNG. Now, if i call a recon run, my opponent has AA, shoots the plane and then it suddenly kills my opponents whole vet 3 main line infantry and i win the game due to that. Neither of the players is gonna feel really well cause neither had influence or intention on doing that.

6-REAL SLOW times on fixing game-breaking bugs. Slow decision on fixing/balancing latest DLC commander/faction (TA/Windustry 6 months of reign). I don't expect patches every week, not even monthly patches, but 4/6 months is quite a time lapse specially with glaring issues.

NOTE: i can understand something as the gun shoot sound bug been hard to detect for example. That is justifiable.
What I don't get why they kept releasing "old builds" with new patches, which introduced several ninja changes which were already fixed/dealt with in previous patches. AND i'm not talking of complicated mechanics. Think about how on the WFA beta, we had SwS truck crush removed and then it was implemented on the live build because someone problably used an "old" build.

NOTE2: you can't be taken seriously when a single guy from the community (at that time it was only Cruzz) checks your game, gives you a list of all the changes applied which are not mentioned on the changelog and tells you what they broke.

7-Communication and community handling.



OR because of how the game plays (dynamics, handling, mechanics, engine) it might not make too much sense on having it? IMO it would be a layer of depth which doesn't really add to much due to how positioning and projectiles and handled.

Example:
On an FPS such as Battlefield, i think they handle this well and it makes sense since you have FINESSE control of both the vehicle and the projectile. Positioning and more so angling is important. It's not the same hitting the rear armor at 90° than doing so at 15°. Since on that game there's no "deflection" this is just reflected on pure different damage values.

On CoH2, IMO, this not worth it, cause you'll had to implement a new mechanic and stress the PC even more to handle the respective position between the damage dealer and the victim target. Right now, it all depends on what part of the tank, the shell lands. If the vehicle lands an accuracy role, it would most probably land right on a straight line to the vehicle. But when not and with scatter, what would be a "frontal" shot can transform into a "rear" shot with enough RNG. If side armor was implemented this would be even worst. Not to mention it would mean more work, test and headache to balance properly.
PD: and i didn't even mentioned how bad and frustrating sometimes is too handle vehicle pathing.

I absolutely agree about the commanders (and have never said otherwise), it was and is a terrible idea to have any DLC which affects MP bar cosmetics.

The blizzards and plane crashes are all subjective, the competitive community hates them but the comp stompers prob love them.

I agree that I feel Relic's patching system wasn't good, massive patches just didn't work.

Game development all boils down to resource management, time, money etc a developer normally has a set time and budget to produce a product in, this means hard decisions have to be made, things get cut, It is just the reality of the business.

The biggest misconception I read all the is the lazy developer issue. A development team is made up of so many disciplines that if you're lazy people will notice and you will be fired.

And releasing a product with the we'll fix it later attitude will only get you poor reviews, poor sales and out of a job.