Profile of CieZ

Casual/Routine 1v1 scrim between Ciez and God is an Astronaut turns into one of the best/most fun 1v1s that I have ever played.

I don't even know what to put here. The game was awesome. Check it out & some one should cast it.

GG WP, God is an Astronaut!

There is RNG in how your squad decides to clump up. This will be the case as long as there are no player-selected squad formations. Sometimes the crew of a set up maxim for example is spread out all over the place and sometimes the crew members are sitting right on top of each other. Sometimes even infiltration nades land right on top of team weapons and do virtually no damage, etc.

While you cannot fully control the specific formation of your squads, you can greatly influence them with proper orders. The game always shows you the preview of where the members will stand when you order them into a location. It's possible to issue multiple orders into the same area until you get the spread that you want.

It's not perfect, but it helps.

Isn't more RNG a good thing in a way ? I mean the more dice rolls you have in the game the less luck is involved right ? The sheer amount of RNG moments in CoH2 makes for games where the better player comes out on top. Wanting "less RNG" is a really weird thing to say refering to CoH2 considering that every single engagement is decided by RNG. I hope I'm not wrong with this but there is a chance to miss in every single shot fired in the game right ? There is no "if you let Unit A attack Unit B it's gonna take 8.523 seconds until Unit B is dead" sort of thing in CoH2.

The results of most engagements vary quite massively. I think that when people use RNG they're actually meaning luck which is something completely different and it has just become a trend to blame RNG for your losses even if your opponent was significantly better than you.

The only thing I can think of right now that actually matches the idea of RNG (luck) people spread are plane crashes. 120mm one hits happen regularly so I don't see how they're lucky. If you keep a 120mm on the field for a long time there is gonna be a one shot eventually which is most definitely bad for the game but has nothing to do with luck.

I agree with your thought process on more individual instances of RNG giving the better player more opportunities to make the proper choices, ultimately leading to victory. I'm also not advocating for CoH 2 to have significantly less RNG. I love the RNG in CoH 2 and it is one of the primary reasons that I play it over SC2/AoE 2. Also, these individual fire fights/most tank combat can be influenced by each player. Grens in green cover will basically always beat Cons in green cover. To counteract this I can support the Cons with other units, or try and push to close range. This sort of RNG creates dynamic situations that each player can react to. It's not like my Cons are just going to vaporize instantly because of a lucky Grenadier shot - and I have a fair amount of time to react to rifle grenades that COULD wipe my squad.

It is as IpKai and Elchino have said - I just want to remove/greatly lessen the frequency of majorly impactful RNG moments that neither player can control like: plane crashes, main gun crits, 120mm one-shots, flame crits, etc. These sorts of events are outside either player's control therefore, in my opinion, they should not be part of a competitive game. I don't want to win just because my ISU got main gun crit while my opponent's Elefant died. Just like I don't want to lose because the opposite happened.

RNG is a good thing for games. Overly impactful RNG, in my opinion, is a bad thing.

@Inverse - I know you weren't saying that COH2 has more RNG than DOTA2. But having played both competitively/extensively I have to disagree. COH2 probably has more individual instances of RNG than DOTA2 unless you want to count literally every single creep vs creep attack in the game, which is a bit extreme. It also has more impactful RNG than DoTA2.

I do agree with your assessment that RNG and e-Sports are not exclusive. RNG plays an extremely important role in games, especially games like CoH 2 which are way more dynamic than SC2. The levels of RNG have been slowly lessened over time, which is good, but the current levels of RNG are probably not acceptable to most hardcore competitive players. For most competitive players, the competition drives/motivates more than the actual game itself. These players want to feel like they out-played opponents and deserve their victories, just like when they lose they want to be able to look back and figure out where to improve.

For the most part this is possible in COH2, but there are numerous moments you look back on and have to say "Well I guess I should have known that my full HP vet 5 Volk squad was going to get 1-shot by that 120mm mortar." A lot of players in the COH2 community blame RNG to an unfair extent because they're unwilling to admit that they got outplayed, or that they could have improved - but the fact of the matter is that currently singular extremely random/unpredictable events *too often* decide the outcome of matches.

Now, I'm not saying that the reason CoH 2 isn't an esport is because of RNG - because it's not. Yes lessening the impact of RNG would help COH2 improve as a game. Unfortunately I'm not sure any RTS in the current gaming community could succeed as a true esport in the modern sense. As you've correctly pointed out - even SC2 is struggling massively compared to the major titles like DoTA2, LoL, CS:GO, and HS.

Another unfair comparison that you make however, is that the price point of entry for COH 2 has traditionally been massively higher than currently successful titles like our friends: DOTA2, LoL and HS. Even CoH 2 can run ~2x the cost as CS:GO if you were to buy all factions (not including commanders). At the end of the day COH2 is simply way too different to fairly compare with any of those titles though.

I guess the point I'm getting at is this: COH2 has grown to become an amazing game, but it is suffering just like every other recently released RTS. As I said before, COH2 is probably the second most successful modern RTS - only behind SC2.

Also, since it just popped into my mind, I think there are numerous reasons why MOBAs have replaced RTS in many ways:

*Their nature as team games makes it a lot easier for new players to get into. RTS has traditionally always been a 1v1 genre. 1v1 is scary for new players.

*Scrubs don't like 1v1s. It's easy to blame others for your loss in a 5v5 environment.

*Free to play. It's extremely easy to convince friends to try out free games. People naturally like to play with/against their friends. Getting five buddies to download and hop on LoL/DOTA is exponentially easier than getting 5 buddies to hop on CoH 2.

*More gradual learning curve. There are a myriad of mechanics that are not clear in CoH2. I still find myself learning random things, or trying to wrap my head around how some mechanics actually work in CoH 2. DoTA 2 has some similarities in this regard in that because of the WC3 engine it used do exist in, there were some really wonky things that happened. However, the base level of knowledge that you have to have to begin enjoying the game with friends is pretty limited. Put your newbie friend on Leroic, tell him to stun people on cooldown, and let him have fun. Plus DOTA2 has a solid tutorial now.

Anyways, this post is getting way too long now.

TLDR - You're making a ton of unfair/unfounded/unjustified comparisons to try and explain why a game that you know next to nothing about isn't an esport.

That's still a range. Regardless, this element just one tiny aspect of RNG in Dota 2. There are heroes like PA that can one-shot heroes if they get lucky, or hit a hero 4 times and barely deal 1/4 of a hero's damage if they don't. You can get teamwiped by a Kunkka with Daedalus who gets a lucky crit, or he could not get the crit and you jump him a second later and blow him up. You can get first blood on an uphill hit and snowball off it, or miss the uphill attack and completely lose your advantage. You can TP beside an AM with basher and get away safely, or get bashed and have your TP cancelled, losing you the game in the process. I could go on, there's really no limit to the number of situations possible in Dota where a random event can have a gamechanging impact.

In every single one of those situations, you as the player have zero control over the outcome of a single instance of RNG that could win or lose you the game outright. Dota is random as fuck. It's also one of the largest, most successful competitive games in history.

This is getting extremely off topic, maybe we should start a new thread?

Also, more instances of rng =\= greater impact of rng on the outcome of a game. A lot of the examples that you've cited are extreme scenarios. A few can be mitigated by players, when you claim they can't (spread out against kunkka, position better vs PA).

I'm pretty confident in saying that RNG has a greater impact on the outcome of a coh2 game than a match of dota2.

Or we can just go by your (flawed) theory and say that literally every bullet/projectile ever shot in a game of coh2 is ruled by RNG, and each of those instances has more random factors involved than a singular attack in dota2, therefore coh2 has more RNG. Yay. I guess snipers are guaranteed to hit against squads not in buildings though.