Profile of Noun

After disparaging remarks from other devs about coh2 org elitist, I was resigned to not adding to the 500+ dollar tab I've spent on the coh series. I understand that hardwork was put into coh2 and people being critical of that effort can be upsetting, but pulling out a dagger and pointing it at your customers is always a business no-no.

I think there's probably some context lacking from that, and some mischaracterization happening at some point. Probably just a misunderstanding, but that's not how anyone here feels.

I found a different problem.

On Steam I opted into the Beta, then chose to "opt out" of the beta, but now I can't opt back in! There is no longer a choice to "opt in" under properties-betas.

That's weird, but that's also a Steam issue.

I'd suggest quitting Steam then trying again. It may clear itself up.

Not a single unit in this game has not been bitched about, If one PERSON in the community was to say a "flame pio" is OP just because someone got lucky with RNG and wiped a whole squad, everyone would make threads about it until it got nerfed.

I think this is the case for all game communities, especially those with a competitive or multiplayer element. Ultimately the feedback in the aggregate is useful. Not every post is, but if lots of people are posting about one unit it ensures we take another look at it.

We listen to both the top tier players and more casual fans, because ultimately the game is designed for both groups. Top players, typically those who are in tournaments or at the top of the leaderboards, tend to know the game better than more casual fans and can give a different type of feedback. But that doesn't mean we should ignore other fans.

I'm not sure if Blizzard specifically has side-conversations with the top tier SC players, but I'm sure they're monitoring their feedback and I'm also sure that they are aware of what their casual fans are saying.

I know that's the case on EA SPORTS' titles, though they're not quite the same in terms of competitive esports.

In terms of what's wrong with CoH 2 and blaming that on the community? I don't agree. I think that you over-estimate the herd mentality of the community. I think if someone started saying that the Pios w/flamerthrower were too OP and were taking out tanks, people would mock them.

However it could be what's wrong with the game to you. As Miley Cyrus famously said, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." If you don't like the community then that could ruin the game for you. There's some FPS games that I won't play multiplayer because of the community, and so I've stopped buying as many FPS games.

In terms of whether the community makes the game better or worse, I think it only makes it better. When we fail, and we have failed at times in the history of the franchise, that's on us. When we succeed it's because we've had really great support from our fans.

Looked for a game as US, played as Brits.
When I shut down the game, I had some error about Visual C++, pretty cool.

Will post if it happens again.

I'll pass that on, but if it happens again post in the Steam forums (there's a Beta section) or our official forums because that's the two places that the CoH dev team is watching. I don't think those guys are here that often because they're programmers and server techs not designers.

When Lynx used to answer questions about when things where going to happen with "Soon" it became a joke and eventually something you guys didn't like. The reality is on timing issues sometimes we can't share times because things in software development have a habit of taking longer than you think, and if we gave dates and then missed them people would be more upset than us being vague.

So do we keep saying things like "Soon" which eventually just start annoying people and sounding repetitive or do we just let people speculate a bit more?

It's the same thing with feedback. There has been a ton of great stuff posted on these forums, the Steam forums and our own. A lot of it's the same thing again and again, which is fine it shows which ideas have caught on with the fans, but I don't have the time to respond to every thread and even if I did we can't take everyone's advice.

If all I wanted to do all day was post "That's a great idea" in reply to every post, I probably could. But how long would it be before that seemed annoying, or like a joke? How long would it be before people started to draw conclusions from when I didn't post?

"Noun didn't say that's a great idea to my post? Maybe he hates my idea. Maybe Relic are going to do that and it's a sign!"

And a lot of the time we can't use the great ideas, because we have other stuff planned or it's in a different direction than we want to take the game.

We're running two betas right now for CoH 2, one for DLC and one for balance. The people in that get a chance to give feedback direct to the balance team, or the designers creating the DLC. I think BC is looking for more beta testers for the balance beta, and that thread is on our official forums.

That's a great way to get specific balance ideas right in front of the people who make the changes, exactly when they're making changes.

Ultimately we're listening to you, even if we're not pipping into each thread to say so. And we consider all your feedback, even if we don't end up taking it because we have to balance that with the feedback of other people and our own ideas of designing the game.

The other thing to consider is the speed of changes. The idea that it's been 12 or 15 days since a change was proposed and it should be live now, is based on a very aggressive update schedule. Even the most basic balance changes need to be tested, sent to Q/A to test and then made live. That's costly. And that's when everyone agrees exactly what needs to change.

We feel the cost is worth it, but pushing that faster raises that cost. Sometimes we've done that, made changes quicker because we felt it was necessary, but it's not something we can do all the time every time.

Lastly we can value your feedback without agreeing with it, or following it. My wife tells me that my hat looks stupid and I should wear different pants and yet I still dress like a hipster idiot. It doesn't mean I don't love my wife, or value what she says. It just means that I might also like wearing these pants or this hat.

We value frank and constructive feedback. It's best when it can come from a place where everyone assumes that the other side is intelligent and only wants the best for the game. If not, well we filter out the passion and pass on the meat of the message.

And it's all good. Passion is a good thing. If you didn't care about the game you wouldn't be here complaining. We like that you care, that's what we want.