Why all the bad reviews?

[DeerSon]

Hi, I'm a CoH2 player and I really dismissed the game based on the box art and name (thought it was another light-action-"tactic" game). So I went to the store page and suddenly I scroll through an endless list of bad reviews.. raelly don't think I've seen so many bad reviews on Steam, and even from people with over 20 or a 100 hours in. So what's the deal? I understand I'll get a slanted opinion, seeing as this is a Men of War forum, but is there a general problem that all those Steam reviewers had?

[OttoVonBrak]

Most of bad reviews are from veterans of the first series.

[{FTW}Kodiax]

there have indeed been problems with parts of the game.. and since its the major part the overall game is focused towards, its been a touchy issue for many. if you buy it intending to do match making against random players and or feel ladders are important, the game is broken and still being worked on. there are now ways for friends to play that are less laggy than before. there are issues over ragequitting. thats about all ill offer since I do not normally do multi and refuse to PUG in this or any other game I admit my exp with such is limited.
I am however still playing the game because I do enjoy solo skirmishes and coop play with friends. i played enough of the vanilla skirmishs to figure out mechanics of the game and got bored after that... HOWEVER, AS2 comes with steam Workshop... and Workshop has some amazingly talented modders out there doing some awesome stuff. over 200 hours so far and i expect another 200+ as i continue to explore everything being offered. to me, i got my money out of the game.
i have found the devs reasonablly easy to access and they respond to intelligent politely asked questions. I am not a fanboy, im just giving credit where i feel its due.

so its what you want at this point... solo and coop are working fine and lots of fun.
MM is not yet working
Multi has come a long ways since early beta.
Happy Hunting

[Godwin]

See if that's what your review said Kodiax I would find you more agreeable but come on, you don't really believe the part about devs do you?

Have a look at the thread "give peace a chance". Do Instincts replies on that thread really look like something you should be giving credit to? Thats really not the standard I'd expect from a developer.

[{FTW}Kodiax]

I can only speak of what chats I have had with the devs. *shrug* I see folks calling them names, accusing them of all sorts of perfidy nearly every day , i dont blame them for how they react at times.
they are human, its a small company and i believe them when they say they are working to fix this stuff. and patience gets farther than anger.

[Titanictwist1]

I'll try my best to answer your question as accurately as I can, in order to do this I will have to say some negative things about the game, hopefully i don't get banned again for doing that.

"whats the Deal"
The short answer is: The game had a problem filled beta and release (mainly MP is the one with problems, which is what most vets are interested in) , and it is taking a very long time to get things fixed. The review section is also the most negative i have ever seen on steam, I think this stems from the fact that MOW is really a unique series and lots of people are very passionate about it (lots of us have 1000+ hours in as1 and have it as our favorite game)

"is there a general problem"
You will find that generally the negative reviews are focused on MP, while the positive on SP. In the reviews the most common complaints are (whether the complaints are justified or not is another matter):
- Barely anything changed from the first assualt squad
- There was an unfortunate event where the game changed from pre-order to early access
- MP was/is very laggy, espcially because the game only runs as fast as the slowest computer
- There is problems with optimization
- A new unit lock system was introduced which is not balanced very well
- Matchmaking is basically broken unfortunately
- There is unfortunately a bad relationship between most vets and the devs (nearly every vet that posts about MP on these forums has been banned/ had their post deleted/ thread locked at one point or another haha).
- Many vets do not like lots of the unit balance and gameplay changes
- Some features were lost (max game size went from 8v8 to 4v4, lobby chat, etc..)

"people with 20 or a 100 hours in"
You will see a lot of people with 100+ hours played with negative reviews. This is not because they feel they didn't get their money's worth, or because they think it is a bad game, but instead because they are expressing their frustration that they feel AS2 is a step back for the series.

Hope this helps

[lickitysplit]

Lots of Vets were disappointed because it seemed too similar in textures and models to AS1. Some believe that it wasn't worth a new game title "2".

Personally, I like it. I liked AS1. I play skirmish and MP. Skirmish mods made by SirHinkel are the shiznit. MP, i'm US West so I get whatever games I can at peak times. Most players are from the EU it seems. When I do get a game, most of them are very fun and it really pulls me in.
I wish there was an ingame video recorder so I could replay vids and watch other perspectives. Like in the Total War series. Total War + Men of War would be INSANE!!

[DeerSon]

Very, very informative, thank you.

[O()O]

@[BEAR] janggun - there is an in-game video recorder provided with AS2.
It is only player perspective though.
It is called Bandicam.
When the game starts you see the Bandicam logo.
Have a look at this topic -

Replay System? - see post #5.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/244450/discussions/0/540733523428342422/

It tells how to record in-game ( f11 on keyboard ) and where to find the recorded videos.

[Green Card Alien]

I used to be a very dedicated COH player until I was told by someone you "really" need to try this game. Vicious learning curve, frustration, and all that. But without doubt, my fav. RTS series of all time. There is no game with replayability like this one.

[lickitysplit]

Originally posted by O()O:

@[BEAR] janggun - there is an in-game video recorder provided with AS2.
It is only player perspective though.
It is called Bandicam.
When the game starts you see the Bandicam logo.
Have a look at this topic -

Replay System? - see post #5.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/244450/discussions/0/540733523428342422/

It tells how to record in-game ( f11 on keyboard ) and where to find the recorded videos.

cool, i'll check it out

[bwc153]

Originally posted by OttoVonBrak:

Most of bad reviews are from veterans of the first series.

I'd say that's incorrect. Most of the bad reviews are from people who have played, in total, 1 MoW game before AS2 (the game being AS1). Anyone who's a veteran to the series (as in they have played more than just AS1 and 2) knows that what AS2 added is quite significant in comparison to say MoW1 vs. AS2.

[[L9] Lakota362]

If you play mp as i do the frustration comes from the death of gamespy (i know about game ranger etc. but i bought the game from steam) and the awsome GSM community that played GSM for AS1. Yes I know AS2 is going to get GSM eventually but steam and the developers could have done somthing to keep as1 alive until as2 was ready. I own all the series from the begining except the ones w/o mp (red tide and vietnam) . So as2 is a work in progress that was not quite ready for prime time when the rug was pulled from under the excellent as1 mp.

[SirHinkel]

Originally posted by lakota362:

If you play mp as i do the frustration comes from the death of gamespy (i know about game ranger etc. but i bought the game from steam) and the awsome GSM community that played GSM for AS1. Yes I know AS2 is going to get GSM eventually but steam and the developers could have done somthing to keep as1 alive until as2 was ready. I own all the series from the begining except the ones w/o mp (red tide and vietnam) . So as2 is a work in progress that was not quite ready for prime time when the rug was pulled from under the excellent as1 mp.

So you still blame steam (valve) and DMS for the shut down of Gamespy like you already did in the AS1 forum? And where is the connection to the topic? You can't give AS2 a bad review because AS1 MP isn't working on Gamespy anymore... Its like your teachers would give you bad marks in mathematics because you did not come to your geography class...

[Instinct]

Well the problem with the reviewing system currently is, that it is widely open for exploits if a game does not have thousands of reviews available.

We had a group of players who out of jealously attacked our newly assigned Community Manager, harrassed him endlessly, threatened him via phone calls and wouldn't accept a dialogue. Once we excluded them out of the community, all they did for months was to downvote every single positive review and upvote every negative one:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/244450/reviews/?browsefilter=mostrecent&p=1&filterLanguage=english

They also posted in every popular review and tried to convince other users to change their review status. Just ask yourself what a person who just got banned in forums for cursing, ranting or generally breaking the forum rules will do if he still can review the game. Now ask yourself what a person sick enough to find out a private number of an employee to harrass him will do.

This doesn't have too much of an impact if there are enough votes and if there is an overhelming amount of positive reviews. But both cases are not true. The game has by far more positive reviews than negative reviews, but with around 10 votes per review, of which 3-4 are negative to begin with, there is little chance for them to be featured in the most helpful category, therefore never grow in popularity and never will be featured on the front page. Which we didn't care too much about since the top most helpful ones were almost all positive a while ago.

But lately Valve also changed their algorythm and reviews like these are no longer featured:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198027396571/recommended/244450/
(probably because the player has been inactive?)

In any case, it's good to think twice about reviews you read, whether they are positive or negative. Or in doubt, post in forums just like you did. In the end it is up to you to decide.

[B333N0]

IMHO bad reviews have come because game's bad performances in multy. And today players have no idea about fixing time for performances in multy game !! I think the release policy of the game has upset a lot of players too. :|