Come to think of it, and consider this a suggestion too.
Give all players ELO ratings as in chess. There are parallels here, though clearly chess is balanced over two games but different openings do have different effects depending upon level.
King's Gambit for instance is quite deadly up to about 150 ( effectively the third level as losing to a player 50 ranks below you is regarded as nothing but a fluke). Above 150 it is rarely played and easily countered. Similar story with many weird and wonderful openings, Grandmasters understand them whereas novices wouldn't know whether they were in a good position or not!
For instance if you took a hypothetical rook away from one player but gave him 5 extra pawns would that be balanced? It might depend upon rank, Grandmasters might trounce international masters more heavily than normal due to early game power, novices who rarely got to the late game might prefer the extra defence just to stay in the fight and losing a unit they hardly used.
I work in stats and can tell you categorically that only showing stats for the top x players is statistical garbage. I have no idea whether the game is balanced or not as I suck rather badly but if you were going to take a cross section of the data the top x percent is almost willfully dishonest.
A balanced game would allow novices, intermediates, good players and tournament players to compete on an even keel across factions. I recently found that one doctrinal ability had been nerfed in 4 different ways which is a massive change, an almost balanced game would only require tiny changes, though the latest patch notes don't give much confidence that it is anywhere near that state.
Note however that I'm not complaining about balance or OPness as people seem to call it. Merely that the proof is in the stats and therefore those stats should be published and sliced only across different ability levels ( seems there are 20 levels of ability defined in the game?).
There is an ELO system out there for the ladder rankings.
Also didn't know if you knew this site existed: http://coh2chart.com/ |
Those are subtle mechanics that should be there (at least in my opinion) to distinguish good players from great players, there were actually a lot of those in vCoH, the first example that comes to mind is the motorcycle micro that you needed to make the MG Bike combo work, you needed a lot of control for that kinda like the one you need to do that fast repair on the tanks. That, however, does not mean that if you balanced the game from the top players that it would mean you had to micro more to make a faction work, those are little things envolving the outcome of the game. Assuming the factions are well balanced AND designed, design being key, means that each factions has its little "secrets" and perks that only top players will make most use of by being faster but that does not mean that the faction as a whole will be unplayable for players with less micro. Again ill refer back to US vs WM on vCoH since I believe it was done to near perfection, US was a faction that needed most micro to make it work at a top level that doesnt mean that at a lower level of play the faction was better or worse because you still had the things you needed and those easier to use units or whatever you might call them, just that as a player gets more efficient playing a faction they can diverse from that type of play and make more use or better use of riflemen for example (big part of US gameplay both in Coh1 and Coh2, that requires a lot of micro to perform well).
I won't disagree. I still play COH1 with most of my game time. But there you had factions that by COH2 standards would be considered "mirrors" since everyone had a scout vehicle, mg, mortar, infantry, sniper, arty, TDs, flamers, flame vehicles, bunkers, etc. etc.) And that is aside the veterancy. Even if Wehr had earned veterancy instead of bought, those factions would play differently because the units had differences in how they functioned and in which tiers they arrived.
But they were so balanced that the balance of "ease" shifted from one to the other as your learning grew. |
It might surprise you that top players are there because of their game knowledge rather than micro, it's actually quite funny that micro is such a heavy topic when in CoH2 it hardly matters past a certain point (which isnt hard to reach btw).
I don't know what is possible for the rest of humanity. I do know that COH2 feels like it needs more APM and less strategic thinking than COH1 and top levels of COH1 are beyond my abilities.
But part of the point is I am not sure if those at the top are in the best place to judge what is and isn't possible or balanced at lower skill levels. The fact is there are people who know the game well, often really well, but some factions are harder against others even at supposedly equal levels. No one enjoys getting stomped.
(Ok, mostly no one. I have seen players play 1000s of games even while having only 20% win rates.) |
Are you seriously suggesting the game can't be balanced by top players because lower level players wont be able to micro as well? I have seen about everything now.
No, i think the suggestion is in cases where perhaps two factions are "balanced" but one requires more micro (think US crew repairs to make up for the fragility of their tanks, or having to click on the ambulance heal instead of a passive heal). If 40 APM will be able to handle one faction and 50 or 60 will make handle the other, then for someone with 70-80 apm all the factions are an L2P issue.
For someone with 30 apm vs someone else with 30 apm, those factions are imbalanced even assuming perfect game knowledge on both sides. One will be able to get more out of their faction than the other one would out of his/hers. This gets exacerbated by the asymmetrical-over-time balance (which you were complaining about). More mistakes on both sides also means the games will last longer as each side makes mistakes, but longer games in COH2 are much worse for Allies than they were in COH1. (Not least because you get to "late game" faster but have the same VP system.)
So "balance" does mean something different at different levels of skill, not just different levels of game knowledge. COH1 (in its later stages) didn't have this. At almost every stage of the game US vs Wehr was a L2P issue, not one of assymetric faction design. |
"I think you might like COH1."
Mate of mine told me to avoid COH1 like a plague because relic nerfed the Brits into the ground. I think he played tournaments, said no-one ever chose Brits even at the highest level, he didn't mention the Soviets though.
Don't avoid like the plague. Still one of the most engaging and fun games there is.
A lot would still claim the Brits are overpowered in team games (has to do with the way they are designed and the synergies). And some avoid it for different reasons. In 1v1 they are probably UP (lots of cheesy strats that will defeat all but the very best Brit players) and many sort of look down on the faction or just dislike it. (Same can be said for the Panzer Elite.) Brits take a lot of knowledge to play but they can have effective blobs so they are sometimes looked down on as low skill.
Later tourneys I think avoided the expansion factions completely (Brit and PE).
Lots of youtubes to learn, still some good streamers online.
No Soviets in COH1, only US, Wehrmacht, British and Panzer Elite. The basic game will give you the first two of those factions but that should keep you busy for a while. You only need one of the other expansions to get the other two ($4.99 when on sale I think).
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"If you balance the game from the top down, the rest will inherently be balanced because any perceived imbalances at lower levels are, almost always, rooted in a lack of some form of skill. Not trying to offend anyone, but that is just the way it is. "
Right... So as a casual gamer I should just go and play bubble witch craft saga instead? Guess I made a mistake by buying a Relic game. Silly me!
Just out of interest are there stats for all games played rather than merely those between self appointed experts or those who spend their entire lives playing? I really don't care a hoot whether the someone with a weird name can use his l447 micro skillz to win with nothing but Bren carriers.
Someone made an interesting point earlier, namely that in terms of low actions per minute the Nazis were much easier to play. Now I have no idea whether this is true or not as I only own UKF - and frankly am unlikely to buy anything else just to compete. If the top players can't win with the Brits then should I consider my hard earned money to be well spent?
What I want to see, and as I'm probably ranked about 10,000th I suspect I am speaking for the masses, is a game that is playable at all levels.
I don't mean to offend anyone but with three kids and a mortgage to pay I'm looking for some immersion and fun, not whining condescension from people who seriously consider skill in a computer game to be a valuable commodity! I mean, really? Are you sure?
Sure I've seen there are tournaments but the prizes seem to be a few Euros so it doesn't seem as though l447 skillz pays very much. Why then is cohcharts only listing the top 250... Or 150 as it appears now?
Yes I am a noob. No I won't learn to play, frankly I have more important things to worry about than whether clicking A, left mouse button, Ctrl C whilst balancing on one leg with a Chicken in a pentagram - but only on specific maps if OKW has a 3 nazi wank sock opening works. Lets just assume I tried flanking with smoke ( hint: I didn't, too many fucking buttons to press).
I think you might like COH1. it is more crowded during european evenings and on weekends, but the community is still pretty active. The feeling of immersion is great. The campaign is great. There are stages through out in which the balance between the factions switches as your skills progress. And there are more tactical choices than just out-apm'ing your opponent. And it is cheap, as low as $2.99 on sale I think. |
What's being discussed here is not management of players but the rules of the game. Maradonna was a player who became a trainer/manager, not a football rule-maker.
There are 10 top players in this thread who agree with Vindicare. Ciez has made some incredible posts. What I think you should do is stop, listen to the pros and then think over what they said. Don't rush to draw conclusions and create inaccurate analogies.
There's no harm in questioning "the best players", but there's a ton of harm in automatically disregarding what they say.
I am going to respectfully disagree.
If the response of pros amounts to "it will be balanced when we say it is balanced and the fact that you can't enjoy it at lower levels is an L2P issue" then you are not dealing with the game.
It is MORE IMPORTANT that the game be fun with different factions and at different levels. Yep. It is. Not to the 50-100 people who are at the top, but really, the game is not designed for them. I promise you it really isn't. It is designed to sell lot to a lot of people. Promise. Ask Relic.
Is it harder to balance across skill levels? Yes. Is it going to be harder to balance across game modes (1s, 2s, etc)? Yes. So try harder. Maybe add strategic depth? There shouldn't be huge APM differences between the factions. That just makes the learning curves more frustrating than even all the intricacies of the game. In that sense the top tier players DON'T know how to balance (or "design") the game. APM disparities aren't something they probably even understand.
I want COH2 to succeed. I really do. and a lot of the recent changes are in more of the right direction. But mostly I just don't want to play it or watch it. It feels like [build counter unit] -> [micro counter unit].
In COH1 I was able to make up for a lack of APM (I am older) with game knowledge (ie, L2P). With COH2 i feel like APM is more important by an order of magnitude and the meta so restricting that you can't use strategic decisions to try and make up for APM. |
OP: problem is not the message you want to transmit, rather than the title of the thread. People will just read allies OP.
The thing is, this is how the allied factions were designed and are meant to be played at the moment. If you want things to be changed, then you'll have to mirror the factions even more. Remove whatever aggro tools allies have early on, while improving drastically the scaling and late game, while buffing early game while nerfing the late game scaling. This is not worth doing IMO.
Point is: allies (not UKF) are aggresive by nature, and aggresive play means you have initiative. Point is, there's no reason to not play aggro as the alternatives are worst.
Same can be said for the opposite side, mostly OH. They are not designed as aggro factions, and benefit the most of dragged games.
More like APM required to perform at certain level above average. By nature, it's easier for 95% of the population to play on the defensive with small number of stronger troops than control several more weaker units and be aggresive.
Nice synopsis of the current state and of the disparity in skills needed at lower levels.
That said, there could be a whole lot more similarities thrown in before you even come close to "mirroring" the factions and it would make it easier to balance across the timeline.
There should also be a cost at some point of having the game draw out too long past the point of heavy Axis advantage, such that allies, if they survive that long, aren't still assured a loss. In COH1 this came in the form of veterancy. It wasn't actually easy to get several riflemen to vet3, but it the reward was a unit that could slug it out with vet3 Wehr. And I don't think I have ever seen a vet3 Ranger in 1v1. But having a whole bunch of vetted US troops and vehicles took a lot of time (40 min+) and at that point they gave you a fighting chance.
Should US top be even good/better but cost much more so the balance shifts again? This could also help in 3's and 4's. (As could better resource model and maps.) |
simple make axis elite actually elite so buff sotrm,panergrendaiers,falls and obers they have been either nerfed to hard or just were plain bad from start to fight hordes of terminator rifles and tommies.
Ummmm.... and the point of this would be......? (serious question.) |
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Wow. 4 posts arguing that top 20 1v1 might not be the only game mode that matters all while I was writing my own.
It can't possibly mean that there are differing opinions among the game players as to which modes to balance, can it?
(Note, none of them offered an opinion about balance issues themselves, nor argued they were in a better position to make those arguments. Nevertheless their opinions do matter, and since there are 1000's to 10,000s more of them, and hence their $ count more than those of top players if they choose to continue playing or buying content.) |
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