Too many players left...

If you're playing the game and participating in the community, does it matter if you're a "hardcore gamer"? Surely there's room in COH2 for gamers of all stripes (in fact, if the game was only for "hardcore gamers", wouldn't the community be very small indeed?).

The most successful games out there (LoL as a for instance) actively cater to the casual community along with the hardcore community.

MOBA games are a unique example because their design scales extremely well throughout all skill levels, whereas in shooter games they don't go much past the casual level, RTS games are generally geared to higher level, and MMO games are flat out time sinks.

CoH2 would need a redesign from the ground up to be a game that caters to players of all stripes equally.

Ah the "You cant compare COH with 7 years vs COH 2 with none" argument...

This is where logic is always great.

Wouldn't that 7 years of EXPERIENCE in COH be then APPLIED to COH 2?

You know - it's Company of Heroes 2 - so by all rights - shouldn't they have learned from mistakes and experiences made in 1?

It's a different development team. The creative genius behind vCoH was killed by some dumbass teen who thought it would be a good idea to take off her top while she was driving. I think she was charged with vehicular manslaughter.

@PingPing

Assuming the same game devs were making it... *and* were in charge. Yes, then you'd have a point.

MOBA games are a unique example because their design scales extremely well throughout all skill levels, whereas in shooter games they don't go much past the casual level, RTS games are generally geared to higher level, and MMO games are flat out time sinks.

CoH2 would need a redesign from the ground up to be a game that caters to players of all stripes equally.

I get what you're saying, but any game needs a "casual" playerbase to thrive. New players coming to the game and not being turned away or verbally abused by the existing community (which is actually fairly common, sadly) is IMHO required for a thriving community. Look at StarCraft, for an RTS example. It's a complex (from some perspectives, at any rate) and very demanding game, but it's still played a ton by bad/casual and good players alike.

Aside from Blizzard's cache as a developer, the community itself actively fosters and teaches new and casual players, welcoming them instead of deriding them or berating them for having time commitments.

You can't have it both ways: casuals are going to be, and IMHO have to be a part of this game if the community is going to grow and thrive. Decrying people for (or accusing them of) being "casual" as though the casual gamer is somehow unworthy of playing or having an opinion about COH2 is IMHO narrow minded and counter productive towards the goal of fostering a larger community for this game.

I don't understand HOW ANYONE could be defending RELIC for NOT implementing BASIC RTS functions!?!?!? SERIOUSLY?!?!?! IF I told you a new RTS game was coming out tomorrow that had NO CHAT ROOMS, NO LEADER BOARDS, NO WAY TO SELECT/DESELECT MAPS, NO CUSTOM GAME FUNCTION and on top of that had BALANCE ISSUES how many of you would buy that?!

The fact is RELIC and SEGA have capitalized on the brand loyalty, fan following and good reviews of the first game. This isn't a question of 'play it or don't play it'... anyone who says that is either lazy or doesn't understand the way world works. Squeaky wheel gets the oil. SPEAK UP. Demand that this game get the features it lacks and that you eventually get your money's worth!

I get what you're saying, but any game needs a "casual" playerbase to thrive. New players coming to the game and not being turned away or verbally abused by the existing community (which is actually fairly common, sadly) is IMHO required for a thriving community. Look at StarCraft, for an RTS example. It's a complex (from some perspectives, at any rate) and very demanding game, but it's still played a ton by bad/casual and good players alike.

Aside from Blizzard's cache as a developer, the community itself actively fosters and teaches new and casual players, welcoming them instead of deriding them or berating them for having time commitments.

You can't have it both ways: casuals are going to be, and IMHO have to be a part of this game if the community is going to grow and thrive. Decrying people for (or accusing them of) being "casual" as though the casual gamer is somehow unworthy of playing or having an opinion about COH2 is IMHO narrow minded and counter productive towards the goal of fostering a larger community for this game.

I know the casuals are a major part of the player base, but there are different kind of casuals. There are the kind of casuals that play against AI or on the campaign, these are the people that I don't care about because they add nothing and the game should not be geared towards them. The other kind of casual are people who play custom lobbies and have groups of friends, and get better as time goes by until they get an interest in getting better for the sake of getting better. That's the life blood of an RTS game, RTS games are designed to have incentive for people to get better and better, and that's what I meant by geared to higher levels. Even MOBA games which work very well with real casuals, still incentivise people to get better at the game and get involved.

Right now CoH2 doesn't have any of this. They don't have the basic building blocks - that is, chat lobbies, custom lobbies, and observer mode. These are the building blocks of population and community. Most of the people on coh2.org are CoH1 or DoW2 vets so they're already integrated into the Relic RTS community. I've seen very few 100% new players.

The leaderboards, the tournaments, all of that doesn't matter if they have no foundation. And right now it has no foundation. The twitch integration was a great tool and idea by Relic, but it's not a fitting substitute at all.

You have a kid. WTF are you doing.

Stop trying to pretend to be a hardcore gamer.
How many hours have you gamed in the last 7 days?
If it doesnt exceed 50% of total waking hours, you aint it.

There are several streamers here who do 6hrs average a day of streaming.
And they are the least anti-social overall. Im sure there are far more compulsive recluses around.

Why pretend to be a hardcore gamer, when you have a baby?

Cyridius, I was mostly targeting my response at Nullist, who seems (unless I'm misunderstanding something in that post above) to be ridiculing someone for being a "casual" gamer, as though it's something for a COH2 player to be ashamed of. I was just trying to bring that reasoning back around - this thread is about players leaving the game, and multiplayer features aside, berating casual or new players for the limitations of their lifestyle ain't a good way to keep people in a game.

Cyridius, I understand and agree that things like leaderboards and observer mode (and maybe even Steam Workshop support!?!?) are very important, and I too hope to see them implemented in a relatively short time frame. But toxic communities can drive players away, as well.

Just my 2 cents

not for my benefit, but dev should put all their work on implementation of lobby system to keep casual player base....

Smokaz wears a dress

I would think (have heard of no plans for something like this?) that Steam Workshop integration would be neat, or at least official mod tools and an in-game "arcade" interface like SC2 has. Custom maps/custom game modes aren't really my shtick, but seem really good for helping keep casual interest.

Also, I want a really simple way for players to be able to create their own unit skins and maps and have it easily accessible to the whole community.

/careface

400 mph elephant

If you guys are cut from the same bread I'd say the loaf was moldy. Just kidding but in all fairness what Sepha said isn't trolling. It's fact. Look at the balance issues and numbers after CoH when they added Brits and Panzer Elite. Ya there are some features Relic didn't have on release for CoH2 but sales of CoH2 were better than expected. That has helped Sega's quarterly profits and considering what went down with THQ I'd say were lucky this game saw the light of day. It could have been a lot worse. EA could have bought the studio and we'd be paying for each map for multiplayer. Given the game is less than 2 months old I can't see why a player or group of players can say a game is dead. (Not this thread but from others) Also saying the game is dying and too many players have left serves no purpose but to scare off future players who may see this. Instead of them buying and helping it grow they see what the nay sayer/doomsday nuts have to say after 45 days have passed and the game is still being balanced and features are being added. If the game declines that could very well be a contributing factor. So in other words you are not the cause but you would be making a post that would help the game die if that is the route it goes but even with all this trash that won't happen. The hardcore community would have to bail before that happens and I don't see that happening. 45 days is nothing in game years. Look at all the things Relic has talked about adding and all the stuff they haven't told us that the guys who toured Relic were told after signing an NDA. All things that will help the game grow.

Also being summer does keep people from playing if they have a family life. When it's nice and sunny I find myself taking the kid to the park or going to the outdoor pool. Come winter my but will be glued to this chair. (Literally) Add to that traveling during the summer time and many people find themselves playing less when they assumed they would play more. I have played 20 percent of what I did during beta and right after release due to the great weather and just enjoying the summer. In Canada we get 2-3 months of sun then the rest is all rain. I'll skip a few matches of CoH2 to enjoy the sun and soak up some vitamin D for the winter. Kinda like a squirrel storing it up for the long winter CoH2 sessions where I don't see the light of day.

So either play the game or bail but don't do it damage on the forums. (Ya I know this is public but for the good of the game don't make damaging claims you can't prove. It's only been a month and a half and there may be a lot of factors affecting player numbers.

It's a different development team. The creative genius behind vCoH was killed by some dumbass teen who thought it would be a good idea to take off her top while she was driving. I think she was charged with vehicular manslaughter.

that man was COH, he is gone now. there is no COH now, only a franchise.

Multiplayer in Coh2 is what singleplayer is in a game like Battlefield; nothing more than a tacky feature just like the in game achievement system with it's shiny little ribbons. Warcraft 2 had more multiplayer features and a better peer to peer system 18 years ago.

I don't understand HOW ANYONE could be defending RELIC for NOT implementing BASIC RTS functions!?!?!? SERIOUSLY?!?!?! IF I told you a new RTS game was coming out tomorrow that had NO CHAT ROOMS, NO LEADER BOARDS, NO WAY TO SELECT/DESELECT MAPS, NO CUSTOM GAME FUNCTION and on top of that had BALANCE ISSUES how many of you would buy that?!

The fact is RELIC and SEGA have capitalized on the brand loyalty, fan following and good reviews of the first game. This isn't a question of 'play it or don't play it'... anyone who says that is either lazy or doesn't understand the way world works. Squeaky wheel gets the oil. SPEAK UP. Demand that this game get the features it lacks and that you eventually get your money's worth!

It's really nice video about how preorders destroy game industury, but partial answer to your question starts in 16:46.



Also it is hard to become negative about game when you met someone face to face and get glimpse of what is planed for CoH2

Speaking of Warcraft I still remember how awesome Warcraft 3 was when it came out. I don't remember the exact multiplier features that were added in the expansion but the game had so much going for it; unlockable avatar system, in game chat channels with moderators, clan support, in game ladders and built in tournament system where you signed up within the game and were rewarded with unique avatars besides tons of other features. I don't even think Starcraft 2 has as many multiplayer features as Warcraft 3 did and I don't expect Coh2 to have as many as Warcraft 3 did... though I did expect there to be chat channels. Anyways it just sucks that nowadays the RTS genre has really gone down in general, very little competition between both Relic and Blizzard (Battle.net 2 is a joke).

RELIC if you ever get your act together and manage to get a fraction of the DLC money that's probably all going to SEGA just look at Warcraft 3 and implement some of it's multiplayer features, trust me on this one you can't go wrong.

I got so frustrated and bored I just stopped playing. I believe the dev team are doing their best but some of the design decisions took a great game and made it feel blah. I un-installed weeks ago which was hard to do because I love what coh was and can be, and I spent as much money as I could on the Coh series to show support,(Coh retail, Tales of Valor retail, Coh steam with all expansions, spent over 100 dollars in coho, coh2 collectors edition...)but coh 2 seems like more of a chore playing then fun. Even with all the mindblowingly massive imbalances in coho online, it was still loads of fun because you had so many choices. Now it just feels like a watered down coh.......I wonder if there was such a great focus on single player that multi became an afterthought, but the longevity of the game will suffer if multiplayers lose enthusiaism

Ah the "You cant compare COH with 7 years vs COH 2 with none" argument...

This is where logic is always great.

Wouldn't that 7 years of EXPERIENCE in COH be then APPLIED to COH 2?

7 years of experience doesn't equate to 7 years of game development, you can't simply apply 7 years of post-game support and patches to CoH2 that had a smaller development time and has barely been out for 2 months. Take into consideration also that if certain features and mechanics in the game are too similar too the original then they run the risk of the game not being unique enough, on the flip side the less the game is like the original, the more development and risk that is going to take so there has to be a balance.

I don't understand HOW ANYONE could be defending RELIC for NOT implementing BASIC RTS functions!?!?!? SERIOUSLY?!?!?! IF I told you a new RTS game was coming out tomorrow that had NO CHAT ROOMS, NO LEADER BOARDS, NO WAY TO SELECT/DESELECT MAPS, NO CUSTOM GAME FUNCTION and on top of that had BALANCE ISSUES how many of you would buy that?!

Not sure about others but I stopped using vCoH's chat rooms a long time ago, this multi player community evolved well beyond using the online chat rooms to communicate with each other, plus the fact that steam is a much better tool to keep track of your friends with, which doesn't require an online chat system like the original did. Plus you can even make group discussions within steam anyway and yet despite all this, Relic still say they are considering implementing a decent chat system into the game.

The leaderboards I can completely agree are a problem and should have been in the game upon release, but this issue has already been answered a while ago and is already being worked on as a priority from Relic. Unfortunately, obviously there were some difficulties with it getting released on time. Meanwhile the game is still able to match you up with players of your same skill level anyway, so the matchmaking system is working, the ladder is just not transparent.

LOL oh come on now -

Just because you toured their office and probably have some sickle swag laying around doesn't mean you can troll people with statements like that. Some people are just critical because they like the game and were hoping it would be a booming success instead of the sequel slump we all feared when the financial problems went public. Chat, leaderboard, in game friends options, map selection, custom lobbies, etc. were all features that were in the 1.0 release of vCoH which I continue to point out was 2006.

Well I don't have any swag or bribe or anything around here so I don't know what that statement was made up about. In fact I've probably, no, I know that I've been more critical of Relic than just about anyone posting here and I have voiced that to them over the years sometimes non-constructively and angrily but mostly constructively and helpfully.

Meeting people in real life and letting them know exactly what you'd like and what should happen and what should be in the game, and having them tell you yes we know, we're aware and we would love that as well, is far different than letting them know and them telling you that they simply decided not to do it and don't think it's worthwhile. Unfortunately this message is lost when you're a consumer and you're purchasing a product, and I completely understand that, customers will vent their frustration, and that's just the way things are right now.

Meeting people in real life and letting them know exactly what you'd like and what should happen and what should be in the game, and having them tell you yes we know,

Since you met Relic, did the developer team responsible for the first COH change allot? Particularly the directors, did they all get replaced or is it still pretty much the same team?