Profile of cataclaw

Jump back to quoted post6 Dec 2013, 03:28 AMDoomlord52

There's a difference between can and do. Servers CAN stop hacking - it's entirely possible. But if you have more than 50ping, you'll be lagging around like crazy. Look at Path of Exile. The best "hacks" out there are the most generic map hacks - that's it. They aren't even useful. They just tell you the layout of the map. They can't tell you the position of anything outside the characters screen.

Why? Because the Path of Exile uses the worst client-server system. When you move your character, it doesn't *actually* move your character. It tells the server to move your character. Then the server moves your character, and THEN tells you that your character moved. You're basically playing the game with a really long stick. The problem is, if there's even a slight amount of desync, the system breaks. If you ask to move your character from A to B, but your character is at C, the server has no clue what to do; you'll teleport around a bunch, and probably die.


As for COH2's problem; the problem is that the client has ALL the info (and it's going to, because it's P2P). At any point, the game client knows where all the enemy units are. Hence, all the hacker needs to do is "unhide" that info. If CoH2 had a server, they could easily check for FoW, and simply not pass on any info that is outside of the FoW (you'd need to work around that when using arty/mines).

So yes, the problem IS that it's P2P. Servers would solve the problem, if they took the insane method Path of Exile took to combat hackers. The problem is; there's no easy solution. Changing the game from P2P to CS takes WAY too much time, and even then; who's paying for the servers? They'd need to be all around the world to prevent lag - and honestly, I don't think CoH2 has sold enough copies (or continues to sell at a high enough rate) to allow for that.

Oh well.

Jump back to quoted post3 Dec 2013, 15:03 PMNullist

There is a systemic problem with DLC Commanders.

It means everytime more Commanders are launched, the baseline balance, even including previous DLC Commanders which have hopefully beem balanced by then, is thrown into imbalance yet again.

Imagine this game with 20-50-100 DLC Commanders available.
How is that possible to balance? Who the hell can balance 50 different Commander options, many of which with unique abilities, against each other?

Its a balance disaster waiting to happen, and gets worse with every DLC Commander added to the pool. Every new DLC Commader means more balancing effort in order to not only align its release with previous ones and the baseline, but also to align baseline and previous Commanders to that.

I appreciate and understand trying to make money, but there is a inevitable problem with this kind of DLC program.

Sooner or later, it will become impossivble to balance the ever growing pool of DLC Commanders, against each other.

If this continues as it is now, this game will with 100% certainty become "Company of Commanders".

Its an unsustainable model, in terms of balance. Sure, you can continue to release Commanders which beat the current flavor of the month, but even that is unsustainable, because invariably you will end up with Commanders so distanced and overpowered when xompared to vanilla ones, that there will be no choice than to buy a recent DLC to be able to match it.

In the first wave, the real Balance team managed to respond with an immediate hotfix. In the second, three weeks later, still no hotfixes. Im sure the DLC are making good money in the short term, but we have been repeatedly assured that Relics plans are long term. If this continues as it has now, there will be no long term. The commu ity will be decimated to only the relstively small pool of players who buy the most recent DLC. Its like shitting in your own backyard, eventually it stacks so high that nobody wants to be there.

Having a small pool of players who buy the DLC may make sense, superficially, fiscally, but when EVERYONE ELSE leaves the game, how long are even those DLC guys going to continue buying product when there is nobody exceot other DlC buyers to play against?

This kind of business model, in a game, has clearly only one impetus. Milk the hell out of the small pool of DLC purchasers before it dries up. Balance, as I explained esrlier, is a even more distant and a lost cause, with every single DLC Commander.

If the current trend continues, at this point next year, we will have more than double the current amount of DLC Commanders we have now. Imagine that.

That is literally, to be called "Company of Commanders" at that point.

Jump back to quoted post5 Dec 2013, 09:47 AMNullist

MG42 has 1s slower suppression than Maxim.

That alone should be an obvious imbalance, especially when you add Oorah into that.

If anything, the HMG stats should be aligned so MG42 is the better suppressor, and Maxim the better DPS. Arc and setup time are asymmetrically ok, imo, between the two units.

That still leaves the 4/6man crew split however. In theory, the Molotovs forced displacement is a fair tradeoff vs RNades range, but the weak suppression coupled with Oorah is overarching that in practical ingame terms.

Its too easy to flank or even frontally charge MG42s. Low Suppression is the primary reason for that, but Oorah multiples that ease.

Furthermore the 4/6 man split makes the MG42 far more vulnerable to the various indirect fire options Sov has, than what the Maxim is. The Maxim can not only quicker reposition out of them, but also soak 2mens worth more dmg before elimination.

I hear rumours of a suppression increase, and dps reduction for MG42, sounds good to me.

But the crew differential is still a persisting problem. MG42s simply die much more easier than Maxims. What is the justification for that?