There are a few different things that pushed maps towards the laney stuff.
1) Players need to blame something for their loss. Weird map? Blame it. Some trickier to play maps were made and they were universally hated. People were even told "Make an open field map. We are not looking at anything else."
2) Players only have three load outs. They want three useful commanders. If the map is too weird, it requires a certain commander to be viable. Which takes away from your other commanders. The game should have been designed better. If your infantry could be focused short/long by upgrades would help a lot. This is partially Relics fault by design.
3) Many players want to use a variety of weapons. If the map is too much of a maze you cant use team weapons at all. AT guns, for example, become useless. Now you have balance issues for team weapon focused factions.
4) Mappers only get one shot at making a map (unless you are WhiteFlash). You have to make the map as safe as possible. You cant risk people hating a section that is weird to play cause your map will get removed rather then reworked. This is Relics fault. Their apathy towards their own game.
5) Some players just like to play a certain style (A-move???). They will veto certain maps.
ANSWER
Relic needs to be much more active with the mapping community. They need to add maps more frequently and let mappers update them. Instead Relic is saying "We cant add maps cause we have small pee pees". As usual, doing the complete opposite of what they should be doing. I dont know how they stay in business. What other type of business can you be completely incompetent and stay open?
Thanks for the insight.
I guess on top of all that comes the "low maintenance" strategy that Relic used for CoH2 after UKF release. There were few employees working on CoH2, and those obviously couldn't do the most intricate analysis. Their feedback was that these 3 maps are not liked by players, most vetoed and rarely played, so they put 3 other maps in that were more similar to the liked maps.
It's the easiest way to maintain the game and community with the least amount of work, and people seemed to be happy and player numbers overall grew. Why risk this trend and maybe also your standing in the company to push for more varied maps that fewer people like, when all "objective" indicators say you are wrong?
It's a shame for CoH2 though. That's exactly why vetoes exist: Veto the maps that you personally don't like. Most of the maps in the current pool are good to very good by themselves. They do well what they are supposed to do: Longer range combat with some thoughtfully placed cover and garrisons in between, and every know and then a shot and sight blocker to dance around and create lanes and channels.
But they are all the same. The difference of playing Whiteball, Eindhoven, Rails and Metal, Redball, Essen Steelworks, Winnekendonk, Minsk... there's just none. Play the same standard build and same tactics and you'll be fine in 80% of the games.
If I got a rank 300 opponent, then his teammate was usually better ranked while my teammate was a bit worse. Overall in CoH3 you seem to get balanced matches in short time mostly.
In CoH2 I waited 8 minutes (MM time cap) just to get dumped into a super unbalanced trash match wayyyy too often in the last years. And I have no idea why but 90% of my CoH2 4v4 random games were a complete dumpster fire since 2022. I am sure Rosbone has some stories about that as well
I just realized I mixed up both systems: CoH3 gives you ELO, in 2 you can only see the rank, so they are not really comparable in that regard.
Looking through your last matches, I guess Relic managed to remove the worst matchmakings (dumping top players with newbies into the same lobby), but at the same time there's regularly matches with ELO differences of 200 per player. I don't know which ELO system Relic chose to use, but in AoE2 a difference of 200 ELO lead to an expected win chance of 75%.
In the end I think CoH2 4v4 is a special place. I play mostly 2v2 and 3v3 as an AT and usually (with some hick ups obviously) found an okay match.
CoH2 has seen a lot of maps rotated in and out in its 10 years life span. Some of them might not have fitted into competitive play, but they were fun and beautiful nontheless. The current map pool has some very good maps, but many of them feel pretty similar. Visuals might be different, but the play style is the same on 80% of the maps, which in turn leads to little variation in gameplay in CoH2.
I'll present a couple of my "favourites", or at least some that I found noteworthy from 2v2 and 3v3, because I play these modes the most. What were your favourite maps that you'd like to have back?
Lierneux
Beautiful map, don't know why it had to be removed to be honest. I loved how the map was seperated organically into three parts: The closed forest, the semi-open village and the open fields. It often lead to relatively clear matchups who would win which side, but I loved the unsuspected surprise of attacking on one of these allegedly "secure" areas, mini commando raids or, if these didn't work, the house to house fighting in the middle to get an edge towards either of the sides. Some surprise commander choices could also switch up who would dominate which area. There's also some cool ideas: The southern outmost forest road that was rarely used apart allowing flanking maneuvers and the more separated northern fuel that was almost its own area from the "main fields". The tree lines could lead to some weird pathing, I was still happy to play that map. Atmosphere was top notch, it really felt like company level battles placing mortars behind houses and infantry groups supporting each other, ATGs blocking roads etc.
Semoskiy (Winter)
I have fond memories mostly of the Winter version, however it was taken out of rotation soonish after I started playing online. Loved the frozen lakes in the winter version and blowing up the ice to sink tanks. Great stuff and good implementation of this feature. The northers side didn't see much action, but was always a good diversion strategy to draw away attention or just snack a couple of territories while the opponent was busy. On the negative, the houses generally were too dominant. If you got pushed to you side of the river, the game was sometimes just over. For the current maps, this has often been solved by moving houses or placing sight blocker bushes. Maybe this map could have seen a similar treatment. Otherwise I remember great matches and honestly would like to play it again.
Stadtschutt
Was in rotation for quite a while. It usually yielded good games, I didn't like the atmosphere and blocky design of the map. The map just never clicked for me. That's not how a city looks like. What's the weird green patch doing in the middle of the city? The lumber area? All the ruins are so far apart, as if no one wanted any neighbour in the vicinity of 50 meters. It just looked a bit cobbled together. For gameplay, every single part was well designed, although all of the were focused on long range combat. I even liked the usage of red cover here, forcing you to think about when and how to cross certain streets. I think this is the map that looked the most gamey to me: We have it because the gameplay works on it, not because it really feels like WW2 combat. A big plus though for the idea of putting some fences that block infantry movement in the early stages of the map, while you could later open those up by overrunning them with tanks.
Poltava
I had a love and hate relationship with Poltava. The map is so linear it you'd just get stuck in MGs and TDs. On the other hand, the battle in the middle around those four houses worked so god damn well. The red cover streets were sometimes frustrating, but overall promoted thoughtful moving and use of smoke and grenades to transition between the houses and from the sides to the middle VP. The VPs in the corners were unfortunately pretty safe but could yield some really fun fights since these were the "enclosed" areas of the map. Apart from this, there were quite some issues: The munition points were pretty hard to take due to bushes and fences that would lead to weird shooting and pathing. I also felt like the northern side had safer fuel, although the map is supposed to me symmetrical. the roads on the very sides of the map were a bit too decoupled from the rest. They were meant to be highways to the fuel and corner VPs, but somehow I rarely used them. My fondest memory is getting my Sherman stolen in one of the corners because I thought the crew was safe to repair there. Good stuff.
Trois-Ponts
Honestly one of the most freaking unique maps in automatch that I remember. It had serious issues, but I loved it. The middle VP on the bridge with no good retreat path and being a prime target for literally any artillery was atrocious - but sometimes in even a good way. Some games just ended by being pushed back to the base and then being artied to death because you couldn't safely cross your bridge anymore, definitely not one of the high points in design. But everything else was just so fun. The huge graveyard with the VP on one side with few vehicle entry points yielded really good infantry engagements early on and even good battles once tanks broke the walls. The enclosed VP on the other side in the courtyard was also great for infiltration and taking them unnoticed while the main fight was going on elsewhere. Actually, both VPs had cool infantry entry points. The wider area around the munition points were a struggle literally for map control to open up movement options and the possibility to get into the valuable middle VP. The houses were well placed and dominant, but manageable. I loved this map, despite some glaring issues. It was unique and offered some areas and play styles that are hard to replicate on the current map pool.
Hamburg Hafen
Not a "lost" map since it's still in rotation, but, for the love of god, a ton of lost potential. Mostly with the flanks of the map that are basically never ever used. I don't know why this was never fixed. The ruin area and the dry dock on the other side of the map look so cool, but there is barely any reason to ever be there. The channels, point placements, pathways and obstructions just make it so hard to ever use these areas effectively. At some point, the map makers realized that issue so the ruin area got an infantry bridge. Cool. Still, its hardly used. The dry dock would have benefited from some crossing as well apart from the main bridge. In previous game versions, you could also blow up the bridge and later on repair it. That was a neat feature, albeit not that great for competitive play. Looked cool for bot matches and low ELO play though. This map has unfortunately lost a ton of potential due to some bad map design decisions. It's one of the heaviest arty spam maps in the current rotation. It's not a bad map, but it feels like developing it has just stopped once it got to "okay", and the rest of the ideas that have been built in to 50% completion were just left to die.
Ettelbruck
Again not a lost map, just lost visuals. It is a good map for arty and a lot of explosions in a tiny area. A map with good interaction between team mates even at low ELO, because it just is so small. My only gripe is: We had visually more beautiful versions. The version I remember the dearest is a pre-war Ettelbruck with a beautiful café, I think even the middle and station sides looked more tidy. It was a version where you're fighting the very first fight in this city, and seeing what war does to a beautiful small town at the end of the game was the highlight for me. The current version is a "you're commanding the 10th assault on that area" version - half the stuff is destroyed already. Lost some of its flair. The main issue for me currently is that a Brummbar can completely block off one victory point with not much to do about it, otherwise gameplay is good, if arty is what you want.
Not the most meaningful sample size, but a month ago I played like ~20 2v2s and not a single one felt like mismatched teams. Always less than 5 minutes queue time and always a full top 300 lobby or better. I was playing DAK where I am around rank 50
Didn't feel out of place for you, but in CoH2 getting matched up 200-300 ranks is quite a harsh difference. You'll see feel the difference instantly if you're the lower ELO player.
Since CoH3 has only half the amount of players in the leaderboard, the skill difference between a 100 and 300 is probably even larger than in CoH2.
Out of interest: What were the main improvements that made you change your review?
Regarding some points that you made (I hope this does not stray from the topic): I have only played the pre-alpha, I found the matches usually too short. A main mechanic is to keep my units alive, but especially the units bought later will see battle only a handful of times maximum. Didn't really like that one.
The CoH2 late game arty+TD spam is partially a map design issue. The maps in 3v3 and 4v4 are so narrow. The amount of firepower in each "corridor" is crazy in the late game, anything below a heavy tank usually doesn't cut it and flanking is nigh impossible, especially if you invest in 2-3 defensive mines.
The few open maps (such as Steppe and General Mud) are often vetoed out and have some other issues, such as a huge advantage for OKW, UKF and USF due to forward retreat points etc. But these are maps where mediums are viable to the very last second of the game, we just rarely see them.
It's mainly cause the eyes are way too light. Especially the darkness and size of pupils. Makes them look as if they're staring into the abyss and are almost blind.
To the right I added just a tad of darkness to each pupil and it already helps giving the guy an actual expression to his face.
While better I still wouldn't say it's fixed.
The 3D infantry renders also look much like plastic throughout the game (inside the shop they obviously need to show the skins somehow, could still have been more focus on ingame screenshots). These graphics just look cheap and won't age well. The stylized CoH2 images will still look decent in another 10 years. They should have stuck to it.
Wouldn't go crazy about this. The skin overall not appealing. The Thompson just looks stupid. The fact that it is non-historic is a downside, too, but wouldn't be overly dramatic about it.
The uniform is authentic it least and could have been there. When playing, you won't see the Thompson, it is much too small. I will only see it when I use the replay feature and can zoom in to see the cool battles up close. Same with casted games.
So overall I will start caring about this problem in.... december I guess.
I think it looks bad. Even if compared to CoH2, the release of which was worse due to the fact that their main publisher went bankrupt and the scandal surrounding the single-player campaign. Even there the numbers were better. And if you compare it with some Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, the developers of which are even smaller than Relic, and their game is even more niche and hardcore compared to the casual Company of Heroes which has a certain recognition and name. There are almost similar online numbers, but Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront did not lose its audience dramatically like CoH3 did from 30,000 players to 2,600. Only from 3,800 maximum to 3,000 peak over the last 30 days.
In my opinion, this is a catastrophic failure of Relic. And the dismissal of 120 employees only proves to me that SEGA does not see the point in fixing games.
What I meant is: A small studio would be fine with these numbers. A game like this can support 30-50 devs. At least I know other games with studios of this size that keep releasing - so at least it seems to pay their salaries. It's definitely bad for a company like Relic and the CoH franchise. They completely failed to meet their expectations, both regarding game quality as well as financial.
So the best thing we can realistically hope for is that Relic keeps a smaller force working on the game and improving it for the next 2 years when support usually ends. CoH3 is a pretty mediocre game at the moment. The last half year had some improvements albeit not a lot. Another two years at this pace and CoH3 will be okay to decent. Not the go-to game in the franchise, but something with its own player base in its own right.
Worst case scenario is obviously DoW3: The expansion doesn't do much, player numbers at some point start dwindling and Relic will end support completely. Ironically, this might not be the worst for the whole franchise, since some people might be back to CoH2 again, which also suffers from a split player base.
And just some context for your screenshot: The data you show is misleading. This game was released in June 2021. Player numbers from release shrunk by 65%. Still better than CoH3, but it wasn't really stable. This is pretty good retention for any game though, which might be due to the more hardcore player base: The player base is limited, but also way more sticky than casual gamers.
For a strategy game with MP focus, these numbers don't look that bad. CoH3 has stabilized after the release and backlash, there's no real outflow anymore. Many other studios would love to have 2000+ players in peak times. But these are studios with 50 devs or less, not a company of Relic's size.
I guess even if Relic dropped the game right now and half the players leave the game out of frustration, the game might not be dead right away. Maybe the numbers then stabilize around CoH1 levels, maybe they slowly dwindle over time.
My assumption is that SEGA/Relic have decided that this game will not financially support more than a small group of developers in the long term. That's why we see mostly smaller updates, because the majority of Relic has been moved to another project. I guess the expansion is another decision point where they will adjust how many people for how long etc will work on CoH3.
The Matrix reference was more about the last part, where you hypothetically stated that CoH3 development is slow because Relic is directing everything at the expansion and everything is fine as is.
We both don't believe it.
After initial critique and failure, CoH2 became a decent success and successor to CoH1. UKF for CoH2 got released a good 2 years after the main game's launch. I don't remember exactly when the community took over balancing and most of the patch work, but I think it was soon-ish after.
Good devs often support their game for 2-3 more years. But afterwards, they really need to move on to another product and focus on that instead, that's just the way it is. Given the current pace of development and seeing how CoH3 developed after more than half a year by now and what their plans until December are, I don't have big hopes of CoH3 becoming the go-to company of heroes game like CoH2 finally became with >80% of the player base.
Unless the expansion is a huge success (which it won't be, it will be single player only) that draws back an unexpected amount of players, leading to SEGA and Relic rethinking the strategy and diverting more resources to CoH3 again, nothing much will change.
Relic doesn't even need to drop the game. Extend the current pace of development for 2 more years: Where do we end up? CoH3 will be a decent game, some strengths, some weaknesses. But I doubt it will be the game that sucks me in for another 1000+ hours as CoH2 did. CoH2 was my main game for more than 5 years, every time friends and I met up online we'd ALWAYS play CoH2.
CoH3 will never be. At least I don't have any faith in it. The failed planning during development and subsequently financially disappointing release for SEGA did too much damage.