Profile of RMMLz

First of all, the game is P2P and there is no dedicated system. Second of all, the amount of data in a map after like 15 minutes is HUGE apparently. And games like LoL and CS are not P2P, they have dedicated servers which are expensive as hell.

I've been begging for reconnect function since the previous alpha, Q Duffy said "Ok we will look into it" back then but I think it's not actually possible.

Inverse explained it in details in another thread.

yup it costs money, pity relic probably put most of coh2's budget probably in coldtech such as blizzards and deepsnow. As i said i dont think anyone wants this to become sc2 but features such as blizzard and deepsnow that slow your squads and mess up retreat paths, abilities that doesnt go off or have random delays before activiting etc that is things that wreck competitive play and also irritates everyone else... these are things that relic needs to focus on.

When you are paying your employees to do "stuff", anything you add to that workload technically costs money. Fore example, their programmers are getting paid to work on something, probably their next game (DoWIII maybe) and their work full time. If they tell them to fix something, like pathing which you mentioned would delay their work on the other project.

But there are still a lot more things which make CoH2 non-competitive, or less competitive. Not just technical issues.

I don't think anyone wants coh2 stripped down of all its rng mechanics until its a ww2 version of starcraft2 but there are many things they could have done and still do to provide with more responsive squads, better readability, less bs-rng and interesting tech choices. One thing that always annoyed me is Relics refusal for different infantry camo-pattern or even realistic uniforms in the name of readablity but had no problem doing blizzards which is breaking every rule of good readability.

All of which cost money and manpower. I like these to happen too but they won't.

It's not only about the RNG. There are a lot of factors which make CoH2 non-competitive.

Relics biggest mistake is and will always be that they still think that making the game dumbed down so casuals like it is the way to go. Just look up steamcharts and look what are the most popular games... dota2, counter-strike go and LoL being the biggest game outside of steam... all competative games and made most of its design decisions to work as a competative game. Relic on the other hand sees the competative crowd like 2% of its playerbase.

Yeah its true that the truly competative esport players are a tiny part of the playerbase but even casuals enjoy a competative, fair and responsive game even if they themselves are not competing...but i guess Relic will never learn that lesson.

What you say makes sense at first glance, but things are a lot more complicated. Here is the thing:

Hardcore looking competitive multiplayer games are dominant in the PC community, we all know that. And I say competitive looking, because they have a lot of stuff like ladders and tiers and everything which lures a lot of players but only a tiny fraction take it seriously. We've had phenomena like LoL, DoTA2, SC, and of course CS:GO, most of which are Free to play. They control the market, they have a lot of income and HUGE communities.

But from a developer's standpoint, it's not like "Ok guys, let's make a game like that and make millions". Game developing doesn't work like that.

First of all, you need to find your target audience, and understand what they need, what they want and what you can give then with your limited resources, and limited resources is not only about money. Timeframe, experience, policies, management, publishers and many other factors directly or indirectly influence your development. And financial factors are the most important ones, but money doesn't solve everything (I bet you can count a lot of games which have cost a lot of money but turned out to be failures)

In this case, let's talk about CoH series and Relic, here is what I think (keep in mind that I'm not criticizing nor praising Relic, I'm just sharing my thought as an Indie developer and 3D designer)

Relic is a small studio, with many talented individuals who have created many good games. After all these years, they've found their target audience, they know what they want, what they need and what Relic can get them. They are very good at making Casual RTS games. They make these kind of games and they earn money. So, we can't expect them to enter the "Competitive RTS market" with a few balance tweaks and gameplay re-designs.

But I think I know what's going on when they try to enter the competitive market.
Game developing costs money, and even when your game is released you have to pay your employees, taxes, R&D etc. So you always have to be in motion, you should always be developing something that pays off. That's why we see games like Call of Duty are developed and released in light speed. Huge income, repetitive mechanics and low maintenance costs. And since creating a new game from scratch is very costly, we see Remastered versions or Reboots of older games a lot these days. Do not underestimate the cost of pre-production.

This also applied to Relic. They should have income or they go bankrupt. So they have to chose the most cost efficient business model, which is releasing commanders, new "payed" content almost every year or this "supply system" which people have found in the game files we now nothing about

All that being said, Relic decided to promote their currently available and finished project (with all of its technical and gameplay issues) through competitive play. They are not expecting their games to grow big as games like SC or DoTA2 because both they and their audience know that this game is not competitive material. I think that they are going though all these ESL partnership merely to promote their game as it is right now, and temp us to buy more factions, commanders "supply", User Generated Content, making it F2P and milk customers or other things that might come up later

Bottom line, there is not lesson for Relic to learn here. They know their game is not Competitive material for a lot of reasons and they know their audience, they know that CoH2 is not competitive and if you change it in a way to be competitive, what remains can not be called CoH2 anymore. They just want to promote CoH2 as it is.

PS: Understanding a fast developing and evolving market like the Video Game market is hard, and managers should make difficult decisions. I just hope they don't destroy the game. I also have limited knowledge in this area and what I've said was just my own experience and the result of studying the market a bit.

Truly sorry for the long post. I just wanted to point out that AAA Game Developing has a lot of aspects and decision makings are not as easy as they look.
Here is a potato:
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Give it secure territory. It's so good all the soviet tanks have it. SO GOOD.

I would actually like to see that on StuG-E. It shreds infantry and later in the game you can abuse the hell out of secure territory with it.

yeah, it sort of betrays the role of the vehicle, but i mean, i feel like the odds of it actually penning make it fair.

i would be averse to something like heat rds, because a. ammo types don't seem to be implemented all that well, and b. it's primary role as a assault gun/infantry support.

a barrage would be nice for the situations when support teams are out slugging yours and you need to breakthrough. counter battery ... or i know, cloak! :3

tracking would really complement ATGs, defensively probably to the point of abuse. infantry awareness like the SC?? ehhhh not loving that either.

hollow charge could be an ok compromise to give it a little AT capability, if it's deemed necessary.

IMO barrage makes it OP (it's even borderline OP now), and it should not have AT capabilities if you ask me, aside from countering light armor which it does at the current state. It come with a commander which has Tigers, all you need for AT is a PAK40.

I disagree. Giving it smokes would be a solely defensive ability which can be countered by attack ground regardless of if its infantry based or vehicle based. TWP allows you to do both roles and in the hands of skilled individuals can secure tank kills.Not only that, Smokes you can drive around and still kill the Stug E, while TWP stun allows the StugE to drive off into potential reinforcements while the other vehicle cannot pursue.

Using it with its set up time is no different then trying to use its main gun, I dont see how even the short delay puts it at more risk than it already is. Not only that, but smarter players dont just throw Stug E's at their opposing players tanks just to get a stun round. its usually a sneaky flank shot stunning a tank which was focused on trying to kill something else.

Then a lot of people will bitch about it running away with 0 hp, or "Attack Ground is very useless and isn't accurate" (which is kinda true).

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I think StuG E is almost fine, aside from it's main gun which acts like a Heavy Bolter at vet3. The reason it wipes left and right is infantry spacing. Infantry spacing+ROF at vet3 = sniping 2 models every 3 seconds. So if the infantry spacing is fixed (which is an improvement for all 4 factions), StuG-E will be a mediocre AI tank.

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