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Mission Alpha CoH-Development Feedback
It’s been an incredible couple of weeks here at Relic! We not only revealed Company of Heroes 3’s North African Operation, but we also got to see players go hands on for the first time with the Deutsches Afrikakorps in our Mission Alpha. We want to talk about some of the hottest topics you’ve been sharing with us and what our major takeaways have been. The entire team is working hard to make this the biggest and best Company of Heroes game yet, and we need your feedback to do just that. So keep it coming!
UI & UX
There’s been discussion about the current direction of the in-game UI, and we hear you loud and clear. We’re working hard to take all that feedback onboard and to improve our UI for CoH3’s launch day. A lot of this work was already in progress, but your feedback here is critical in guiding that work over the finish line. That includes several things that you’ve called out like the HUD layout, the overall theming, and the minimap. It’s important that we find the right balance in the UI experience between the game’s design needs and the expectations of our players. This is a top area of focus for us right now and we’re working to get it locked down ASAP. Next month, we hope to have another update for you with a better look at the changes we’re targeting for launch, including some mockups.
Graphics, Art & Lighting
The CoH franchise has always been well known for its cinematic action and attention to detail, and CoH3 will be no exception. Much of what we’ve shown is still work in progress, and we’re hard at work bringing visual elements in line with what you expect and love from our games. One of the key callouts from players was about the current contrast and general readability in CoH3, and we agree. Much of this stems from issues that are materials based, but we’re happy to say that most of the necessary fixes were already in our development pipeline. The Art team is currently in the post-alpha polish phase, when materials are balanced and set to more precise PBR (rendering) values which will improve readability and visual fidelity. The team have also clamped or limited darks in some cases, like environments, but have not set that for effects yet. Once completed, this will help to reduce contrast with effects materials that have not been tuned yet. Lighting is also being tuned with the goal of having a variety of lighting conditions that are still readable and easy on the eyes. This ultimately requires all the art to be balanced and tuned together, which the team is working on now. This should address the visual hierarchy of not just units on the battlefield, but FX too.
Here are some before and after shots of our Mission Alpha with material polish and the same lighting as an example:
Before
After - Still Work in Progress
Before
After - Still Work in Progress
Before
After - Still Work in Progress
Controls & Camera
We know customizing the player experience both for comfort and accessibility is incredibly important. When it comes to fully customizable key binding and further customization options, we’ve been working hard in collaboration with our sister teams at Relic for quite some time on this. If you take a look at some of the updates our other teams have released, you should get a good sense of the direction we’re headed.
When it comes to seeing a CoH match unfold, camera positioning and height are key to making units look cool and having the action really come alive. We know some players feel there is something off about our current camera height in CoH3, and we totally agree. We have some major changes coming that will have a big impact on how the game looks and feels. Our maps in CoH3 now have significantly more elevation changes than in previous titles, and currently the tuning for zoom levels still needs to be applied across all our meshes on all our maps. Once this is implemented, that should make CoH3 look and feel more like you’d expect it to. Once we see how these changes behave in-game, we’ll have a better sense if this needs further tuning. With the increase in elevation changes across CoH3, it’s important to note that camera height will never be a one-to-one comparison with CoH 1 or 2. This mesh fix will also help with general readability across the board. We’ll be paying close attention to what players are saying about this in the months ahead!
International Representation, Factions & Theatres
The Mediterranean was one of the most diverse theaters in World War 2, with nations from all over the globe answering the call and playing their part. One of the most exciting aspects of this period in history is being able to draw on and share those incredible stories. We have a ton of ways that we can do this across the entire CoH3 experience, including through our narrative, factions, battlegroups, expansions, seasons, modes and more. International representation is incredibly important to us, and we’ve already teased several units for the Commonwealth and Deutsches Afrikakorps that help bolster their ranks. Another thing we’ve heard you on is wanting to see more and more from the Italians. We plan on working with our players to grow Company of Heroes 3 for years to come and building out Italian representation will be a strong focus as we move forward. We’ve seen some phenomenal feedback, suggestions, and ideas from players for new factions and fronts to bring to CoH3, and right now everything is on the table as we explore options! Rest assured that anything coming post-launch will feel fair for all players. We’re committed to this ongoing conversation with you through CoH-Development over the coming years. We’re also incredibly proud of the work the team has done to launch a CoH game with more factions and units than we ever have at launch, and we can’t wait to see the epic battles you’ll be having with them right out of the gate.
An example of some of the Italian units coming at launch including the Guastatori, Bersaglieri, L6/40 Light Tank, Semovente Assault Gun, Cannon da 105 Howitzer and the M40/13 Tank.
As always, our team is incredibly excited to be working with our community to deliver on the best Company of Heroes experience in the franchise’s history. Your continued feedback and support are key parts of that process. Not only do we plan to deliver an amazing experience right out of the gate, but we’re in this for the long-haul, so you can expect even more cool stuff from the team for years to come.
