COH: Europe In Ruins

With doctrines off I've really been enjoying EIR a lot.
Thinking about it I would almost be interested in seeing doctrines back in as more options in the lower unlock section and the top parts left out.
So mostly unit unlocks and ability type things.

Your thoughts?

Bad idea. I won't even argue. Think about it.

Hey its cool that you give your opinion, but i honestly dont like it. I REALLY dont like it

This is actually what we were planning for eir2, only unlocks of all kinds that then cost resources.

I will really be pushing to never, ever, ever see doctrines come back in their current form.

This test has clearly shown that our current system is shit broken!!

BREAKING NEWS:

EIR at an all time high when doctrines don't screw balance and gameplay.


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The problem is, what would those unlocks consist of? Most of the COH abilities and units are already used. It's a cool idea. Would love to see Terror Officer and British Sniper.

no offense - the current system was never thought through. It shows that a designer is missing.

A lot of reward units could be unlocks. Perhaps at slightly higher costs or simply as is.
Then reward units either are a smaller number of things or are slightly lower cost or for getting say a dodge ambulance outside of armor or something similar.

I think you would only need to add a couple unlocks and it would be good. They could also be offmap buffs like supply drops, smoke drops, an uncrewed atg drop, things of that nature.

We have a lot of offmap offensive abilities but having more offmap buff/intel type things is a possibility.
I do like doctrines sort of directing the style of forces but I think that can still be accomplished.

Commandos could have a second grenade use as an unlock etc but have them be abilities or item based rather than buff based. So weapon upgrade options and extra uses can stay but things such as pen modifiers and the like could go.

A lot of reward units could be, but they shouldn't. They should remain outside the core mechanics. Otherwise people like (me) would build nashorn companies and all other kinds of things and simply have fun with it. As it is now I can do it, but I have to pay to do it and if I lose something I have to pay again for it. Or I can imagine myself running a marine company just rofling everyone with 5 men gren squad. No, no, and no. Reward units should stay where they are. They are reward for playing, shiny toys you itch to get your hands on. Not things you should constantly get your hands on, no matter what they are.

I thought about posting really negative... In other words : dbl post

I understand that and actually am in favor of that as well but bonuses from current doctrines could get dropped down things like pe healing in buildings and lvs capping territory or moving howitzers could all be added. Just in a format where it is like our current bottom section unlocks. you pick and choose and they don't do stat bonuses.

Edit: I also would be fine with them staying exactly how they are currently with the main doctrines off.

A lot of the "Neat" T4's could also be transferred into purchasable unlocks.

HVAP, APCR, etc.

Yea, the doctrine system as it is now is broken as shit

But, in a way it would be sad to see them go as they make EIRR what it is and differentiate it from OMG 

Exactly, most doctrine abilities that actually introduce interesting gameplay dynamics can easily be turned into purchasable abilities. The other ones, mostly plain stat buffs, we are better off without anyway. In most case these type of abilities are pointless filler, i.e players will often not notice their effects but they still end up skewing balance. (Particularly when there's a lot of them stacking and what no)

I'd love if we could already introduce this approach for EIR 1, but unfortunately due to the workload required it's not exactly realistic.



I don't think anybody will take offense, EIR never had a design document or a long-term strategy. The doctrine rework was an 'ad hoc' rework, originqlly thought up by a single guy, a coder, with very little peer review prior to its implementation. It would be a lot different today, and we actually have a design document in place for EIR 2, but unfortunately that doesn't really help us in the situation we are in today.


 

I dunno, I feel like I've played for a long time and I feel like doctrines added a lot of flavor and really differentiated this mod from OMG.  I've put in a lot of hours on SE and I gotta say it's pretty boring right now on SE without any doctrines.  Some units because of their design  did not have high usage because they were horribly inefficient without doctrine buffs or ability unlocks.  For instance, ISTs are a pretty poor choice to bring to the field currently for all PE doctrines.      

The doctrines as they stand are a bastard child of many different people with many different perspectives on balance. Some heavy, some light.

You can actually break them apart and see different people's styles for each one/pairs of them. Infantry and Terror for example.

Aye I forgot to mention the post-original implementation patchwork it turned into as the result of several doctrines receiving make-overs by different people and whatnot. They all attempted to follow the original philosophy behind the doctrine rework though, i.e the one that wasnt very well though out and very open to different interpretations.

This is a good point. Despite their flaws, it is true that many of the doctrines DO add a lot of flavour. Even when stuff is somewhat or very much out of balance, it can still be a lot of fun and introduce interesting gameplay... heck I sometimes miss the old crazy EIR doctrine abilities (vehicles moving and shooting while repairing for example)

I think that is ultimately where it comes down to striking a balance, we CAN have very interesting and powerful abilities but then we need to be able to balance them through for example pricing.

Interesting abilities and increasing usage of abilities is cool and I like similar to HVAP and extra democharge use and things like that. I also like the pick and choose style of the bottom unlocks so if each doctrine had a larger pool of varying point cost unlocks like that I think you could have a lot of flavor and style differences but also have an even more customizable feel as you don't have the trees we do now.

That is exactly why we needed to do this review without doctrines. If a unit is useless without doctrine buffs, then the unit needs to be balanced accordingly. It needs to be buffed or price dropped, or some kind of change. Units should not be designed or balance by doc buffs.

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The future of Doctrines:

In order for us to overhaul the doctrine system we essential have to redesign EiRR and build a new launcher (coding & graphics).
The work of creating the new doctrines and/or abilities is a massive undertaking, but it pales in comparison to the massive work required to redesign t he launcher to accommodate it. So while all these ideas are awesome, it just can't be done that simply.

That being said: as Unknown has already stated, we have a new system designed for EiR2, because EiR2 will be a brand new mod built from the ground up with a completely different launcher and everything. I have even built a completely new website for it, including forums. If Sega had not fucked us up the ass, we would be full on it right now.

However, Eirrmod is working on the new launcher for it. We will be using EiRR as the test bed for the new launcher while we wait for CoH2 to be moddable. When he gets the new launcher up an running, we may be able to implement a new doctrine program for Eirr - but that is not a guarantee. It is a stretch goal at best.

Very basically, the new doctrine system will be close to what some of you are suggesting - not exactly, but similar.

Unlocks will be about a company specialization: like Pershing for Armor, StuH for blitz...etc
Off maps will be handled with commanders and/or commander cards

Abilities like our current T3 & T4 abilities will become slot items that have a resource cost, but are a pick & choose method, not a predetermined tree method. For example, a current T4 ability could be available to the entire faction, not just Blitz. There could also be some abilities that only buff a specific unit that may only be available to a specific doctrine.

All of these abilities will be slot items. As the war progresses, you will have more slots available to fill. Some abilities may be so specialized that they take 2 slots instead of one.

We can create really awesome, powerful abilities but have a really great way to balance them. Using both slot requirements and resource costs gives us lots of flexibility with balance.


It sounds awesome, but it essentially requires building the mod from the ground up................

That sounds awesome!
Knowing that is in the works is really exciting.
Now if only mod support was enabled for COH2 also it'd be awesome if they had an expansion to include the pacific theater, US and japanese anyone?