Profile of Pip

What things in CoH2 was he responsible for, exactly?

I think zoom out is cool and all that but, no way, I don't like zoom out. CoH has always been up close and personal. Even if zoom out lets you strategize better, I prefer the unique zoomed feel of CoH that makes it CoH.


Not sure if Relic made this decision based on feedback from singleplayer Pre-Alpha where people complained that it was too zoomed in.


Solutions for birds eye view:

1. Tactical map

2. Minimap


Reasons why traditional vCoH/CoH2 style zoom is better:

You can see individual soldier animations better
Game becomes more about micro and tactics and less about grander strategy
Tactical map and minimap usage increases, makes the game fun
You can see grenades incoming and the grenade timer better
You can enjoy the close up details of soldiers and tanks
Tanks feel more massive and scary, soldiers look cooler when bigger. Especially tanks, this sold CoH 2 a lot for players.
Slightly easier to click on units
Easier to discern units from background foliage and map scenery
Great for streaming, youtube, marketing, and media in general ---> Seeing the soldiers shooting their guns up close or the tanks is always cinematic and awesome
Feel free to add more...

https://community.companyofheroes.com/coh-franchise/company-of-heroes-3/forums/1-general-discussion/threads/2171-zoom-the-game-more-like-vcoh-and-coh-2?page=1#post-12559

You can solve this "problem" by just zooming in yourself though.

Several good points were made on this topic in another post.

The main problem being whatever gives you the best tactical advantage will have to be used by top players. Whether they like it or not. They will have no choice but to do it. So we may have fewer good players in tournaments if the zoom level is ridiculous since they will stop playing the game. Could be said the other way also.

Not necessarily.

A lot of top players either don't use, or minimimally use the Tacmap, despite the advantages it gives in efficiency. I don't see it being any different for a greater zoom level. (I don't think the zoom level is "Ridiculous", anyway.)

I honestly think its the way which balance team chose to fix those features what trigger people. While things like abandonment in its core is a bad feature (and I really hope they will scrap this recovery vehicle shit from CoH3 because its x2 worst then abandonment), some of them had its rights to be in the game, but the lack of any compinsation mechanics pretty much forced to be remade into what we have now.

I'd agree, but unfortunately I doubt it. At least in CoH1 the bergtiger could only repair axis wrecks, whereas the USF recovery vehicle seems like it'll be able to repair /all/ vehicles.

For instance, in vCoH all explosion\inderect fire units were much more deadly, just like in CoH2 at launch, but vCoH also had medics which allowed you to at least somehow not fall completely behind if you got few units wiped.

CoH2 on the other hand, didnt have any of those and the easiest solution to fix them - either nerf or remove them.

The medic system from CoH1 had its own severe problems... "Zombie Squads" were absolutely retarded. CoH3's medic system seems much improved over 1s, with "saved" units providing small MP discounts rather than producing free squads. It also seems like both USF and Wehr have these medics... I thought it was just going to be an USF thing in 3? (I'm not complaining about this)

Also: Losing units (Even with zombie squads) was way more punishing for USF than WEHR, given the way veterancy worked. I'm definitely glad they did away with the factional veterancy mechanics for CoH2 and 3.

But I also dont understand this claim that coh2 was made into starcraft, since the only thing which was changed is the random 1 hit wipes from mines\inderect fire. I dont see how this makes the game starcraft. Maybe if every faction had their version of pre-nerfed ST coh would have still be coh.

Anyone who actually argues this to be the case is either an idiot, or simply doesn't have a real argument. CoH is nothing like starcraft, and none of the changes suggested make it closer to starcraft in any way.

Actually questinable solution. Team Fortress 2 tried different balance from ranked and un-ranked games. Baning weapons and removing mechanics like random crits in competitive and, as far as I know, not many players like this solution.

I just belive, that when creating a mechanics developers need to think with their heads and not asses when creating features. Because "meme" features are nice, when they are happening to your enemy and not you. There are plenty of ways to create meme possabilities with different abilities and strats, but all of them should requare player involvement, like "close the pocket" for instance.

This is it, really. The game shouldn't fundamentally be different dependent on what mode you play. Changes that benefit "Ranked", or "Competitive", or "High skill" players benefit the game as a whole, and there's 0 reason to have two totally separate experiences.

Grenade animations might actually be the best argument against the wider map zoom.

The seeming lack of grenade callouts doesn't help, either. I'd probably argue for more exaggerated animations, or perhaps some sort of visual effect to show that a grenade is being thrown.

A sprite or something to represent the grenade might be worth considering, such a thing could be scaled according to resolution/zoom level (Disappearing at closer zooms, perhaps). There's already the large red timer that appears above grenades, so I'd hardly think this would be meaningfully "immersion breaking".