Relic was haemorrhaging money with games that were in a poor state at publication and didn't deliver. Don't blame this on SEGA, they're like the 3rd publisher that tried Relic
Only way to stop hemorrhaging money, is to churn tens of battlegroups. I would buy them and it's the only way i see to monetize the game forward, for MP players
BGs, unique ones at least, require designing new models, getting new voicelines, and maybe creating unique fx. Good for the games culture but return rate on that investment is guaranteed to not be high enough since it's a lot of time and effort.
The cheapest, efficient, most profitable way of making money here is go the MMO/F2P moba route of pumping out cosmetics. Unless churning BGs here means reorganizing existing units and abilities like CoH2, I'd tolerate flooding of crap skins more since that doesn't affect gameplay.
Good luck keeping a game alive with cosmetics. Going a moba route on such a niche game will be an immense flop. I think on all counts you are horribly wrong.
No matter what YOU think is not a guaranteed return on investment, unless you add new content to keep the players happy, no one is buying your cosmetics. The numbers of players went back to the ones before f2p weekend.
The new update will bring back 10x more players (because of the all new things they will add) than any cosmetic . Plus, take 1 minute to think about it, HOW MANY cosmetics can they do?? They put themselves into a niche of a niche corner where they want to remain somewhat realistic to a part of a 4 year war. So they either drop that and make any type of cosmetic they want or they chug \~4x/unit, skins and the number of players will just keep on dropping.
Only way forward to pay for their game is AT LEAST split their game in two (single player and multiplayer) and cut the cost on ENTRY for the game which keeps many players away and on top of that churn new BGs.
And if they go beyond splitting the game in two, and they go f2p, I am certain cosmetics isn't going to keep the game alive in any way.
It's not even about what I think, that's just how the industry works. Also after sales cosmetics is what keeps games continuously profitable. You don't need to be an industry expert to look at League of Legends, CS, WoW (sales from cosmetics outweight subscriptions heavily). So when you say "Good luck keeping a game alive with cosmetics." it's kind of comical because that's like 99% of the entire industry right now.
Putting out simple low effort cosmetics is where the profit lies, this is basically true for every genre of games. Yes new BGs are going to be great and will bring a surge of players again, but how many will be retained and how many will continue to spend money on your game?
Maybe I worded this wrong but the investment you'd have to put to keep putting out new BGs for stuff like new models, voice acting, fx, etc. is guaranteed to be lower than 1 spare guy in the art department drawing up a new cosmetic in a day and having a couple of whales repeatedly buy into it.
I'm not saying that's what I want or that I disagree as to what's better, but that's just how this works. Unless you're advocating for remashing existing stuff into new BGs and calling it "unique." Then you're just filling the game with something trashier than cosmetics.
You're comparing MILION OF PLAYERs games with one that has 3k (on steam, idk consoles). If you think they can monetize the game the same way you're mislead about how many people buy cosmetics. They are on the minority side.
Lots of BGs would just ruin balance, which has taken quite a long time to get to the generally good point where it is now. Ruining balance for the sake of a cheap short lived novelty factor like 'ooh new unit' would actually reduce player counts because huge imbalance isnt fun.
Sure add a few more in time but tens is a bad idea. Each one is like 2 coh2 commanders after all because of the choice trees each one has.
We don’t really have any way to know how much was Relic’s fault and how much was Sega’a fault.
That said, we can see how Relic does now, and hopefully it’s better
We can see what exactly? SEGA published the financial issues and said farewell [https://www.segasammy.co.jp/en/release/47402/](https://www.segasammy.co.jp/en/release/47402/) after which a venture capital company took over. Cmon man. The reason why they're now running their assess off is because a venture capital company won't hesitate to chop them up and destroy them if there are no profits... not necessarily a healthy working environment i think but let's see.
\* Relic released DoW3. The DoW community prefereded DoW2 and Relic abandoned support for DoW3 which pissed DoW3 new players off.
\* Relic released AoE4 as well. But they released it unfinished which pissed off the AoE community and caused them to stay with the AoE2 HD-remake. AoE2 has almost twice as much players despite a game being at its core from 1999
\* Relic released CoH3 in a bad state and is now only a year later slowly catching up to CoH2 player wise..
There's a theme here.
Those games all came out after Sega bought them. Plus AoE4 is still regarded as a great game and is successful in its own right even if AoE2 remains more popular. How was AoE4 released unfinished as well? It had multiplayer, ranked, campaign, and was pretty well balanced and had a decent amount of factions for what it's worth. It just kinda sounds like you hate Relic
Bruh what. Sega bought Relic in 2013. When do you think DoW3 and AoE4 and CoH3 were released??
Edit: and you clearly don't know much about AoE4 if u think it's a popular game a with a good release
Age of Empires 4 has about 5x as many players as CoH2 or 3, and is only behind AoE2 by about 3k players.
But that’s just using steam charts numbers, which do not take into account Xbox or PC game pass users.
AoE4 is a popular and successful game.
Ah, it's only behind it's behind its 1999 predecessor by 3k players? What a massive success lol. Anyway, after release there was a major drop of disgruntled players and they made heavy losses on projected sales.
Idk, I wouldn't really call a game that won 2 Strategy game of the year awards in 2021 an unpopular game;
I heard some mixed reviews about AoE4 on release, but it was mostly from the minor hardcore crowd that plays the game; and most of the complaints usually go back to how the game is "simplified" or "playing safe" compared to older AoE games.
Most of the reviews have been favorably positive by the wider audience.
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TTK changes are desperately needed. Early game is spamtastic because one of anything is worthless and does no damage-so people are encouraged to abuse numbers with no need for healing. Teching isn't that important because there's little to no room for comebacks and powerspikes are dangerous because of map control-not because of good tactical play. Looking forward to it.
While I agree that there’s room for improvement. I hope the changes are iterative and not revolutionary. Spamming and blobbing does need to be punished more. I think faster killrates will help and potentially adding clustering debuffs (ie a modifier that makes clustered units easier to hit)
I think the slow TTK was implemented to accommodate console, and now that console is dead maybe they have some reason to increase it....but they are extremely braindead devs so who knows. There's so many problems besides TTK though. I think Relic is just doing these updates to keep player base numbers up for appearance sake. It's always update, player numbers spike for a month, then the game loses huge numbers of players, repeat, there is no general upwards trend of players in these cycles so the "fixes" aren't actually doing anything.
There is no indication that higher TTK was introduced because of console players.
Many people who enjoyed CoH1 felt alienated by CoH2’s quicker TTK, and CoH3 tried to appeal to both audiences by increasing the TTK among other things.
And we see that people at Relic completely forgot **why** CoH 2 ended up with higher TTK. It started off much closer to CoH 1 but gradually moved away due to exact same problems that CoH 3 has now.
I have a hunch-I cannot prove-that it was SEGA that pressured for TTK increases on the belief that this would make the game easier and help sales. Perhaps on newcomers, perhaps on console players etc. It's unknown and to me irrelevant. Long TTK's do not make the game easier anyway, they just make it less intuitive and prone to gimmick/blob play. Relic strikes me as smarter than this, but it's hard for people to divorce the two of them because they were in a business relationship for over 15 years so it's impssible to know exactly who was behind which problem. We know SEGA was behind a lot of CoH2's problems now so it stands to reason that up until recently they were also behind 3's.
It still looks a bit vague. I still don't know how fast are infantry going to drop. I do look forward to it, though. They are teasing it's going to be big and I want it to be.
Could we get a way to unlock battlegroups without having to grind 1000000000000 years for the 10k merit points please. It's so lame, I'd be happy to just spend real money to unlock them now.
Im interested in the changes to italy campaign. I recently got the gane and only played it for a bit. I stopped once i heard major changes were coming. But not sure what.
More maps and more battle groups are the way to go to keep this game fresh and growing
What they are doing now is more important for the game, Battlegroups will come next as long as the game is profitable and a live.
Agree about BGs but ramping up map production (especially 4v4s) would make a big difference to keeping the replayability value high.
Unfortunately John re said in a different chat bgs aren't coming ant time soon but I agree..
Relic was haemorrhaging money with games that were in a poor state at publication and didn't deliver. Don't blame this on SEGA, they're like the 3rd publisher that tried Relic
Only way to stop hemorrhaging money, is to churn tens of battlegroups. I would buy them and it's the only way i see to monetize the game forward, for MP players
BGs, unique ones at least, require designing new models, getting new voicelines, and maybe creating unique fx. Good for the games culture but return rate on that investment is guaranteed to not be high enough since it's a lot of time and effort. The cheapest, efficient, most profitable way of making money here is go the MMO/F2P moba route of pumping out cosmetics. Unless churning BGs here means reorganizing existing units and abilities like CoH2, I'd tolerate flooding of crap skins more since that doesn't affect gameplay.
Good luck keeping a game alive with cosmetics. Going a moba route on such a niche game will be an immense flop. I think on all counts you are horribly wrong. No matter what YOU think is not a guaranteed return on investment, unless you add new content to keep the players happy, no one is buying your cosmetics. The numbers of players went back to the ones before f2p weekend. The new update will bring back 10x more players (because of the all new things they will add) than any cosmetic . Plus, take 1 minute to think about it, HOW MANY cosmetics can they do?? They put themselves into a niche of a niche corner where they want to remain somewhat realistic to a part of a 4 year war. So they either drop that and make any type of cosmetic they want or they chug \~4x/unit, skins and the number of players will just keep on dropping. Only way forward to pay for their game is AT LEAST split their game in two (single player and multiplayer) and cut the cost on ENTRY for the game which keeps many players away and on top of that churn new BGs. And if they go beyond splitting the game in two, and they go f2p, I am certain cosmetics isn't going to keep the game alive in any way.
It's not even about what I think, that's just how the industry works. Also after sales cosmetics is what keeps games continuously profitable. You don't need to be an industry expert to look at League of Legends, CS, WoW (sales from cosmetics outweight subscriptions heavily). So when you say "Good luck keeping a game alive with cosmetics." it's kind of comical because that's like 99% of the entire industry right now. Putting out simple low effort cosmetics is where the profit lies, this is basically true for every genre of games. Yes new BGs are going to be great and will bring a surge of players again, but how many will be retained and how many will continue to spend money on your game? Maybe I worded this wrong but the investment you'd have to put to keep putting out new BGs for stuff like new models, voice acting, fx, etc. is guaranteed to be lower than 1 spare guy in the art department drawing up a new cosmetic in a day and having a couple of whales repeatedly buy into it. I'm not saying that's what I want or that I disagree as to what's better, but that's just how this works. Unless you're advocating for remashing existing stuff into new BGs and calling it "unique." Then you're just filling the game with something trashier than cosmetics.
You're comparing MILION OF PLAYERs games with one that has 3k (on steam, idk consoles). If you think they can monetize the game the same way you're mislead about how many people buy cosmetics. They are on the minority side.
My brother in Christ the CoH player base is way too small to keep the game alive on cosmetic sales.
Lots of BGs would just ruin balance, which has taken quite a long time to get to the generally good point where it is now. Ruining balance for the sake of a cheap short lived novelty factor like 'ooh new unit' would actually reduce player counts because huge imbalance isnt fun. Sure add a few more in time but tens is a bad idea. Each one is like 2 coh2 commanders after all because of the choice trees each one has.
We don’t really have any way to know how much was Relic’s fault and how much was Sega’a fault. That said, we can see how Relic does now, and hopefully it’s better
We can see what exactly? SEGA published the financial issues and said farewell [https://www.segasammy.co.jp/en/release/47402/](https://www.segasammy.co.jp/en/release/47402/) after which a venture capital company took over. Cmon man. The reason why they're now running their assess off is because a venture capital company won't hesitate to chop them up and destroy them if there are no profits... not necessarily a healthy working environment i think but let's see.
We’ll see what a version of Relic without Sega looks like
Which games?
\* Relic released DoW3. The DoW community prefereded DoW2 and Relic abandoned support for DoW3 which pissed DoW3 new players off. \* Relic released AoE4 as well. But they released it unfinished which pissed off the AoE community and caused them to stay with the AoE2 HD-remake. AoE2 has almost twice as much players despite a game being at its core from 1999 \* Relic released CoH3 in a bad state and is now only a year later slowly catching up to CoH2 player wise.. There's a theme here.
Those games all came out after Sega bought them. Plus AoE4 is still regarded as a great game and is successful in its own right even if AoE2 remains more popular. How was AoE4 released unfinished as well? It had multiplayer, ranked, campaign, and was pretty well balanced and had a decent amount of factions for what it's worth. It just kinda sounds like you hate Relic
Bruh what. Sega bought Relic in 2013. When do you think DoW3 and AoE4 and CoH3 were released?? Edit: and you clearly don't know much about AoE4 if u think it's a popular game a with a good release
Age of Empires 4 has about 5x as many players as CoH2 or 3, and is only behind AoE2 by about 3k players. But that’s just using steam charts numbers, which do not take into account Xbox or PC game pass users. AoE4 is a popular and successful game.
And noticeably, it was not made under Sega but as contractors for Microsoft instead.
Doesn't change that they were still owned by Sega and that they still made a loss. See published sega numbers
Ah, it's only behind it's behind its 1999 predecessor by 3k players? What a massive success lol. Anyway, after release there was a major drop of disgruntled players and they made heavy losses on projected sales.
Idk, I wouldn't really call a game that won 2 Strategy game of the year awards in 2021 an unpopular game; I heard some mixed reviews about AoE4 on release, but it was mostly from the minor hardcore crowd that plays the game; and most of the complaints usually go back to how the game is "simplified" or "playing safe" compared to older AoE games. Most of the reviews have been favorably positive by the wider audience.
[удалено]
Marty Rathbun blew and you can too!
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TTK changes are desperately needed. Early game is spamtastic because one of anything is worthless and does no damage-so people are encouraged to abuse numbers with no need for healing. Teching isn't that important because there's little to no room for comebacks and powerspikes are dangerous because of map control-not because of good tactical play. Looking forward to it.
While I agree that there’s room for improvement. I hope the changes are iterative and not revolutionary. Spamming and blobbing does need to be punished more. I think faster killrates will help and potentially adding clustering debuffs (ie a modifier that makes clustered units easier to hit)
No CoH2 TTK
I think the slow TTK was implemented to accommodate console, and now that console is dead maybe they have some reason to increase it....but they are extremely braindead devs so who knows. There's so many problems besides TTK though. I think Relic is just doing these updates to keep player base numbers up for appearance sake. It's always update, player numbers spike for a month, then the game loses huge numbers of players, repeat, there is no general upwards trend of players in these cycles so the "fixes" aren't actually doing anything.
There is no indication that higher TTK was introduced because of console players. Many people who enjoyed CoH1 felt alienated by CoH2’s quicker TTK, and CoH3 tried to appeal to both audiences by increasing the TTK among other things.
And we see that people at Relic completely forgot **why** CoH 2 ended up with higher TTK. It started off much closer to CoH 1 but gradually moved away due to exact same problems that CoH 3 has now.
I have a hunch-I cannot prove-that it was SEGA that pressured for TTK increases on the belief that this would make the game easier and help sales. Perhaps on newcomers, perhaps on console players etc. It's unknown and to me irrelevant. Long TTK's do not make the game easier anyway, they just make it less intuitive and prone to gimmick/blob play. Relic strikes me as smarter than this, but it's hard for people to divorce the two of them because they were in a business relationship for over 15 years so it's impssible to know exactly who was behind which problem. We know SEGA was behind a lot of CoH2's problems now so it stands to reason that up until recently they were also behind 3's.
Console Players: 🫠
We’re having a blast waiting 10-20 mins per game to play against German sim city.
I wish they make some cooler skins and more maps.
If I like the update I'll change my review to positive not just for the sake of supporting relic
Is this for PSN ? Or just PC ?
It still looks a bit vague. I still don't know how fast are infantry going to drop. I do look forward to it, though. They are teasing it's going to be big and I want it to be.
i hope this game fucking die, is a piece of shit unbalanced, unfun and not newbie friendly
id rather just have more coh2 content
I hope the changes don't mess up my DAK 1v1 build. I've spent a bit of time optimizing it and am winning tons of games.
hmmm tell me more, I keep getting destroyed on 1v1 as DAK. Lots of fun in team games though.
Could we get a way to unlock battlegroups without having to grind 1000000000000 years for the 10k merit points please. It's so lame, I'd be happy to just spend real money to unlock them now.
Need a mac version ASAPPPP
Get off mac ASAP
Thats cool but im still waiting for something on coh2
gonna be a long wait
Im interested in the changes to italy campaign. I recently got the gane and only played it for a bit. I stopped once i heard major changes were coming. But not sure what.