Powered by the Essence Engine 3.0, the Company of Heroes 2 series feature some unique mechanics rewarding thoughtful players. From the TrueSight™ system that emulates the units’ line of sight to the cover-system that encourages clever unit placement – not to mention the combined arms approach and the hard and soft counters gameplay that will make you think twice before trying to destroy a tank with a simple squad of riflemen – each game presents players with an uninterrupted stream of meaningful tactical choices that can turn the tide of war.
The Company of Heroes 2 base game gives you access to two multiplayer armies from the Eastern Front: the Red Army (SOV) and the Wehrmacht Ostheer (GER). It also comes with a gritty single-player campaign that will give you a chance to familiarize yourself with the series core tenets. Step into the boots of a Soviet commander of the Red Army, entrenched in brutal frontline warfare to free Mother Russia from the Enemy invaders! Adjust your tactics to take into account the brutal weather conditions and wield the might of the Soviet Empire as you smash your way to Berlin.
Company of Heroes 2: The Western Front Armies adds two new factions from the Western Front to the roster of playable multiplayer armies: the Oberkommando West (OKW) and the US Forces (USF). While the former puts you in charge of an aggressive and powerful army with very specialized and elite units – yet in very limited numbers – the latter introduces an expeditionary corps that allows for a variety of approaches and very powerful combined arms tactics, but which inevitably falls a bit short in the heavy armor department.
Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault offers a compelling single-player campaign for the USF faction revolving around the Battle of the Bulge. Engage in a dynamic non-linear campaign across the Ardennes landscape consisting of 18 scenarios, choose between three iconic companies, customize their abilities and bear the consequences of your actions as overall company health persists between missions.
Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces is the latest entry in the series and features this iconic Allied army from WWII (UKF). Experience a unique tech-tree that challenges the player to balance the constant trade-off between mobility and defense. Surprise your opponents with your development choices and an open end game configuration. Enjoy an army with character and distinctive units & abilities, from the Churchill Crocodile flamethrower tank to the RAF glider.
PICK YOUR FIGHT
NB: multiplayer standalones allow you to play on any map against anyone owning any COH2 product.
The Company of Heroes 2 base game gives you access to two multiplayer armies from the Eastern Front: the Red Army (SOV) and the Wehrmacht Ostheer (GER). It also comes with a gritty single-player campaign that will give you a chance to familiarize yourself with the series core tenets. Step into the boots of a Soviet commander of the Red Army, entrenched in brutal frontline warfare to free Mother Russia from the Enemy invaders! Adjust your tactics to take into account the brutal weather conditions and wield the might of the Soviet Empire as you smash your way to Berlin.
Company of Heroes 2: The Western Front Armies adds two new factions from the Western Front to the roster of playable multiplayer armies: the Oberkommando West (OKW) and the US Forces (USF). While the former puts you in charge of an aggressive and powerful army with very specialized and elite units – yet in very limited numbers – the latter introduces an expeditionary corps that allows for a variety of approaches and very powerful combined arms tactics, but which inevitably falls a bit short in the heavy armor department.
Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault offers a compelling single-player campaign for the USF faction revolving around the Battle of the Bulge. Engage in a dynamic non-linear campaign across the Ardennes landscape consisting of 18 scenarios, choose between three iconic companies, customize their abilities and bear the consequences of your actions as overall company health persists between missions.
Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces is the latest entry in the series and features this iconic Allied army from WWII (UKF). Experience a unique tech-tree that challenges the player to balance the constant trade-off between mobility and defense. Surprise your opponents with your development choices and an open end game configuration. Enjoy an army with character and distinctive units & abilities, from the Churchill Crocodile flamethrower tank to the RAF glider.KEY FEATURES
- AWARD WINNING FRANCHISE
Sequel to the highest rated strategy game of all time returns with an innovative warfare experience that will redefine the Strategy genre once more
- ESSENCE ENGINE 3.0
Cutting-edge technology that increases the graphical quality and accuracy of deadly combat with the unprecedented TrueSight™ system, the ultrarealistic ColdTech™ dynamic weather that changes strategic warfare forever and improved environmental destruction
- TACTICAL WARFARE
Develop and utilize your new Commander Abilities and experience the up-close moment-to-moment brutality of frontline warfare through new Dynamic Battle Tactics
- INTENSE ONLINE COMBAT
Featuring the great competitive and co-operative multiplayer that fans have grown to expect from this high-quality and critically acclaimed franchise
MULTIPLAYER ARMIES COMPARISON
Find out the multiplayer army (and associated game/standalone) that suits your play style.
Tech Test CoH-Development Update
So, what did we want to accomplish with this test? And did we achieve those objectives?
Our data also showed that certain GPU models that are slightly older were experiencing worse performance than they should have been getting. The Tech Test allowed us to identify this issue early, and well continue to make improvements based on that player data and feedback. Our goal is to make the game playable on as many configurations as possible at launch.
After our first hotfix, we were also able to cut our crash rate almost by a third. Were going to continue this work over the next month to reduce our crash rate even further. No game can ever have a 0% crash rate, but we can try to get close!
The team at Relic accomplished our goals with this test, but we also want to let you know how we plan to tackle your feedback.
One of biggest topics of discussion during this Tech Test focused on the look, feel and readability of the game right now. First, the version of the game we used for the Tech Test was about a month old, and a major lighting pass wasnt quite ready for this build of the game, but youll see updated versions in our upcoming Deep Dives. Weve also identified a couple of key issues that were contributing to degraded visuals. For some users, game scaling was defaulting to a Low setting, meaning they were seeing subpar resolutions and blurriness. Additionally, we found two rendering and map bugs that were causing lighting shadow artifacts and missing terrain details, so we really appreciate everyone calling these out! We have most of these fixes internally already and look forward to showing the game again closer to launch.
Before: Tech Test with bugs
After: Latest version with bugs now fixed
Before: Tech Test with bugs
After: Latest version with bugs now fixed
Additionally, we plan to start vehicles in a state that is slightly more weathered, so they don't feel as 'clean' when they are first produced.
Before: Original vehicle starting state
After: New vehicle starting state - slight weathering
Reference: Full weathering state
There was a lot of discussion about CoH3s sound design and some concerns that it didnt quite meet expectations. We found an issue where Sound Output Quality was defaulting to Low or Medium for some players instead of High, which would significantly degrade the audio experience. We approached CoH3s sound design with an emphasis on realism with gunshots and explosions having more of a crack, whereas past CoH titles had more of an old-school Hollywood kapow! Therefore, the team is re-working and optimizing several audio FX including cannons, machineguns, explosions, off-map artillery and more to give them that heavy impact. Not only that, but the team is working on the final audio mix and will be completely re-mixing the audio for all our tanks for launch.
Were happy to be providing more quality-of-life options for players including things like WASD camera controls, customizable keybinds, and more camera settings. We did see that some players had frustrations when navigating those settings menus or when things werent controlling in-game as they were used to in CoH1 or CoH2. Your feedback has been critical in identifying those pain points, and we hope to improve on those systems post-launch.
Finally, we know theres been a ton of discussion about balance, systems, unit abilities and more. Though this recent test was more focused on testing our online infrastructure, all these discussions are giving us a head start on fixes, balance patches and quality-of-life changes that we want to address in the first few weeks and months after launch. Were continuing to work on features and systems we know players want, and your feedback is helping to shape and inform what those systems look like, and we want to deliver them in the best state possible without compromising the core game at launch. Well have more news on some of those big post-launch updates as soon as we have all the details.
Be sure to keep your feedback coming in the weeks and months ahead, as thats going to help us prioritize it and continue improving this game and franchise that we all love so much. From everyone at Relic, thank you for taking part in the Multiplayer Tech Test and we cant wait for you to play the full game at launch.
We wanted to thank everyone who took part in our most recent Company of Heroes 3 Multiplayer Tech Test! This was our last push to test our online infrastructure and to nail down any pesky bugs and crashes before we launch on February 23rd. Over 154,000 players took part in the Tech Test, which was four times more than what we had for the Mission Alpha in July! We cant thank you enough for helping us with this crucial step.
Over the course of the test, we received over 650 bug reports from the community through our new online form. Your testing also helped us identify crashes well before launch so that we can already investigate fixes. All these reports along with your feedback is going to help us deliver a great Company of Heroes experience when we launch just over a month from now!
Objectives & Results
So, what did we want to accomplish with this test? And did we achieve those objectives?
- Test server load and overall stability. This includes things like match performance, player logins and overall matchmaking.
- Test matchmaking queues and how they worked individually.
- Test wider array of different PC setups, hardware and software compatibility, and game client stability.
- Optimize the game by discovering and reducing crashes and bugs.
- Test client and server-side maintenance and patching.
Our data also showed that certain GPU models that are slightly older were experiencing worse performance than they should have been getting. The Tech Test allowed us to identify this issue early, and well continue to make improvements based on that player data and feedback. Our goal is to make the game playable on as many configurations as possible at launch.
After our first hotfix, we were also able to cut our crash rate almost by a third. Were going to continue this work over the next month to reduce our crash rate even further. No game can ever have a 0% crash rate, but we can try to get close!
The team at Relic accomplished our goals with this test, but we also want to let you know how we plan to tackle your feedback.
Visuals
One of biggest topics of discussion during this Tech Test focused on the look, feel and readability of the game right now. First, the version of the game we used for the Tech Test was about a month old, and a major lighting pass wasnt quite ready for this build of the game, but youll see updated versions in our upcoming Deep Dives. Weve also identified a couple of key issues that were contributing to degraded visuals. For some users, game scaling was defaulting to a Low setting, meaning they were seeing subpar resolutions and blurriness. Additionally, we found two rendering and map bugs that were causing lighting shadow artifacts and missing terrain details, so we really appreciate everyone calling these out! We have most of these fixes internally already and look forward to showing the game again closer to launch.
Before: Tech Test with bugs
After: Latest version with bugs now fixed
Before: Tech Test with bugs
After: Latest version with bugs now fixed
Additionally, we plan to start vehicles in a state that is slightly more weathered, so they don't feel as 'clean' when they are first produced.
Before: Original vehicle starting state
After: New vehicle starting state - slight weathering
Reference: Full weathering state
Audio
There was a lot of discussion about CoH3s sound design and some concerns that it didnt quite meet expectations. We found an issue where Sound Output Quality was defaulting to Low or Medium for some players instead of High, which would significantly degrade the audio experience. We approached CoH3s sound design with an emphasis on realism with gunshots and explosions having more of a crack, whereas past CoH titles had more of an old-school Hollywood kapow! Therefore, the team is re-working and optimizing several audio FX including cannons, machineguns, explosions, off-map artillery and more to give them that heavy impact. Not only that, but the team is working on the final audio mix and will be completely re-mixing the audio for all our tanks for launch.
Settings & Controls
Were happy to be providing more quality-of-life options for players including things like WASD camera controls, customizable keybinds, and more camera settings. We did see that some players had frustrations when navigating those settings menus or when things werent controlling in-game as they were used to in CoH1 or CoH2. Your feedback has been critical in identifying those pain points, and we hope to improve on those systems post-launch.
Post-Launch
Finally, we know theres been a ton of discussion about balance, systems, unit abilities and more. Though this recent test was more focused on testing our online infrastructure, all these discussions are giving us a head start on fixes, balance patches and quality-of-life changes that we want to address in the first few weeks and months after launch. Were continuing to work on features and systems we know players want, and your feedback is helping to shape and inform what those systems look like, and we want to deliver them in the best state possible without compromising the core game at launch. Well have more news on some of those big post-launch updates as soon as we have all the details.
Be sure to keep your feedback coming in the weeks and months ahead, as thats going to help us prioritize it and continue improving this game and franchise that we all love so much. From everyone at Relic, thank you for taking part in the Multiplayer Tech Test and we cant wait for you to play the full game at launch.
[ 2023-01-19 22:26:23 CET ] [Original Post]
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