Profile of Tommy

I am seriously concerned about CoH2's future. Ever since I played it back at Eurogamer and I saw Button was making a return to the game, I knew this was going to be a bumpy ride to release. The beta is, in many ways, slick, extremely well detailed and has some amazing physics. But the gameplay needs a serious tune up to be even close to something that I, and many others, are going to want to play for the next several years.

Sure, if the game was released right now it'd probably get rave reviews; critics would cite it's incredible attention to detail, it's sound, the particle effects and the way it reflects the 'grittiness' of war and it'd sell very well, no doubt. But I would be comfortable betting all the cash under the bed that it wouldn't have a third of the lifespan of the original, because it lacks two key elements that are only really apparent if you're extremely familiar with the original and/or played it competitively; competitiveness, and fun. Yeah, I'm not even having fun with CoH2 right now, and there's a laundry list of reasons as to why that is, and I accept that a lot of them can't be 'fixed'- the single tier doctrine system, the UI (mostly), Intel Bulletins and so on. I accept that these are things that are in the game for business reasons, because the game needs to make money at the end of the day, and money allows for support, support means patches, etc. However, I believe there are a few things that could be changed relatively easily that would instantly make the game 10x better- not perfect, and far from ideal, but they would make it so, so much better, and it wouldn't mean losing any of the mass market appeal that CoH2 is clearly being marketed for.

1. Change the upkeep system. Basically, change it back to how it worked in CoH1. Which was fine. That basically means a system where you start with a high, fixed upkeep, which is affected by the following factors;

Size of army (bigger army = lower upkeep and vice versa)

Amount of territory held (more territory = lower upkeep and vice versa)

This is opposed to the current system whereby you start with a fixed upkeep which simply goes down according to army size and nothing else. In case it wasn't clear by virtue of being top of this list, it's a fucking horrible way to do upkeep. It utterly throttles a player in the mid-late game and punishes you for unit preservation. It makes actually securing a win far, far too difficult, should one gain a sizeable advantage in the early game or gain the tech advantage. It will probably be necessary to make the upkeep system as a whole less punishing, to compensate for the lack of Supply Yard upgrades or global veterancy.

2. Let us see what is actually happening. Wouldn't it be great if we could tell when a unit was shooting at another unit? In vCoH, every weapons left a clear tracer as to exactly where it was firing. A third of the UI is taken up by telling us that an MG42 spits 1200 rounds per minute- so let us see it! Let's have that white tracer fire actually visible so we can see what it is shooting at. Everything in vCoH, from the lowly BAR riflemen, and especially cloaked units such as Paks and snipers, left clear tracers to show exactly where the shot came from and what fired it. If this lack of visibility was intentional for whatever reason, like, to reflect the 'chaos' of war or something- that is a massive load of utter bollocks. Get that idea right out the room and kill it with a spear because that cannot be what drives CoH2- 'grittiness' is all well and good, but I get cranky when I start to taste gravel. At that point, the game ceases to be fun in exchange for some meaningless stab at 'realism'.

3. Blizzards. Coldtech is, in theory, a fine concept, and I know that mechanical changes are being rolled out in internal beta builds that we might not see until the game goes gold. However I know that I am not the only one who, upon playing a match of CoH2, sees the 'Blizzard Approaching' message and goes, "For fucks sake." Right now they are a frustration, a punishment for the player. However I think this is something that Relic have definitively said they are looking to tweak and balance until it works well so I'm not going to bitch about the mechanics- rather, I'm going to bitch about the fact that it exacerbates problem #2. I cannot see shit in a blizzard, by which I mean the blizzard is quite a lot like taping a load of Sellotape to my monitor and trying to play through it- I get that my troops can't see for shit in a blizzard, but all I can do right now is laugh pityingly as I lose yet another squad to the fact that I cannot see when a grenade was thrown, or when an off-map was placed, or whatever. Lose the blizzard 'effects', keep the mechanics. Instantly, I no longer loathe that countdown timer with a fiery passion.

4. Fix the vehicle critical system. I played two games last night, and in both games I had a full health tank (a Panzer IV in one, a T34 in the other) get immobilized from one shot. I've seen this happen in replays as well. Now, this really worries me; this isn't some statistical anomaly, but a developer who actively thought that giving the chance of an immobilization from full health was a Good Idea. That really scares me. Luckily, there's a simple fix; don't let that shit happen ever again. CoH1 got it right first time (with the exception of Tigers' random destroyed engine chance in the name of 'realism')- no chance of a critical when you're above 80% health ('green'), some change of a damaged engine when between 40-80% health ('yellow') and a high risk of a damaged engine/destroyed engine/immobilization/destroyed main gun when below that ('red') (I may have gotten so of that wrong by the exact %, but that's the crux of it). Random immobilizations is totally retarded, and there's no other word for it.

The same goes for the temporary criticals. They aren't a horrible idea, but they seem totally random. Having your tank suddenly stop because he got hit, at full health, is frequently a death sentence- you're now open to ATG's, AT nades, fausts and anything else that can seriously hurt a vehicle. The 'no gunner' temporary crit isn't quite so bad, but the whole 'no moving' business is horrid, and shouldn't even be considered when a vehicle is above half health.

Also, no more damaged engines when driving over fires. Just no.

It's very tempting to add more to this, and to be frank, I could be here for hours. However, I believe these to be the main issues that are a block to both competitiveness and simple fun, and they all have straightforward fixes that I would challenge anyone to say are not necessary, even if they don't agree with the precise fixes I've suggested. Fixing these things won't jeopardise the appeal of the game, and it's very likely that 90% of the eventual CoH2 fanbase when it releases wouldn't notice the difference if they were implemented or not. However, these things have got to happen.

You can't just slap in an observer mode and call it a day, saying CoH2 is going to be some kind of a mystical 'esport'. It has to be competitive first, and satisfying second. Right now it's neither, and if it came out today, I wouldn't buy it.

Booked!

Well I don't see your name on the permission post, but anyway you really ought to be aware of this:

There are a couple of ground rules we need you guys to follow. They're pretty simple:
* Do not cast menus, settings, and other things beyond the actual gameplay component.

Yeah it's horribly artillery centric right now. It's too early to say 'who has the stronger artillery' but it's really irrelevant- every other unit has some alternative artillery ability it seems. That plus tracers plus blizzards is a recipe for chaos.

Although maybe that's intentional.

I hope not.

Booked!