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 can’t 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.
On all counts, this test was extremely successful for our team. We had 4x our estimated players and we had no server issues. Our average gameplay latency or matchmaking times were both lower than our targets, and we continue to look at ways to improve both. We were able to test over 1,400 different processors and video cards across different hardware setups, and we found and fixed several crashes related to configurations, rendering and game mechanics. Additionally, we found some fun bugs related to AI and economy exploits.
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 we’ll 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. We’re 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 wasn’t quite ready for this build of the game, but you’ll see updated versions in our upcoming Deep Dives. We’ve 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 CoH3’s sound design and some concerns that it didn’t 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 CoH3’s 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
We’re 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 weren’t 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 there’s 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. We’re 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. We’ll 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 that’s 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 can’t wait for you to play the full game at launch.