Below is the link to Bob's original design draft for this set of doctrines. I have provided a brief summery on the design philosophy and have extracted Bob's original notes from the spreadsheet to make sure everything is on context.
This is for the sake of transparency but the Doctrine design is not up for debate at the moment; this post is for reference and methodology purposes only.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tnPcjlGgfBbciwsqnVeJQow&authkey=CJXazeYH&hl=en#gid=0BoB's Doctrine Design
Doctrine Design Summerization by Groundfire: Each doctrine is divided into the top 3x4 specialization trees containing passive buffs and the bottom 3x3 trees that allow all players equal access to offmaps, abilities and full spectrum unit unlocks.
-The top three trees have their specialization contained within the T3s and the T4s because all T1s and most T2s will be chosen regardless of what tree is chosen. Buffs are to cover a wide range of units with non doctrinal units given buffs mostly in T1s and T2s and Doctrinal units given buffs in T3s and T4s, with no stacking buffs for "one unit type" along the tree, to encourage combined arms and discourage singular unit spam.
Ex. Riflemen should not get a buff from T1 to T4 in a tree encouraging riflespam.
-The top trees are specified into Offensive, Defensive and Manuverability trees, which shall buff doctrinal and non doctrinal units to focus units into the scope of their specified tree. Dual T3s are supposed to represent a mixture composition between the two trees.
- There is no longer a tree based on "Tanks" or "Infantry" etc., there are only these three trees and they may or may not contain
buffs to your doctrinal unit, based upon the focus of the tree. Lightning war Blitz is a good example of a manuverability tree.
-Unit unlocks are usually contained in the bottom 3x3 trees but T4s that alter a specific unit drastically enough may be given a new model to represent their T4 status buff. They are not considered to be a unit unlock of the caliber that you can obtain regardless of your top tree choices.
-Offmaps have been standardized to some degree because in past iterations of the doctrines usually left a handful of doctrines with all the good offmaps. They have been standardized according to the doctrines designated type. (armor based, inf based, support based)
Ex. So, every armor based doctrine (armor, TD, RE and Terror) get some kind of Unit intel that only revels a particular set of
units on map, or messes with the mini map while all the support based doctrines (Blitz, AB, mandos, Luft) gain a recon run.
-Based upon the discretion of the testers, no doctrine ability is allowed to be powerful enough to allow a unit to win a fight it would normally lose on a regular, consistant basis.
The Tree specialization is decided by the composition of the T3s and T4s of the tree and are subject to these definitions more strictly. T1s and T2s shall consider these following definitions as "Guidelines."
T3s shall be built with these tree definitions in mind but should also be built to work good together with another T3 in another tree, therefore synergy is most important.Tree specialization definitions:Offensive Tree: Tree consists primarily of damage output and accuracy combat buffs, weapon cooldown buffs, unit speed buffs, less received suppression buffs and force multiplying abilities and buffs (smoke, suppression, incremental acc. buffs)
Utility/Mobility: Tree consists primarily of buffs designed to make companies preform utility and support roles better, these consist of call-in timer buffs, buffs to artillery and indirect fire weapons, different deployment methods, faster territory capture, vehicle and tank mobility performance and handling (turning speed, aim time, acceleration), Intel gathering abilities (tank awareness/Omniscience), population buffs and ability improvement buffs.
Defensive Tree: Tree consists primarily of buffing defensive weapons/buildings/stationary defenses, traditional defensive units like support weapons, durability and armor_type buffs (including received accuracy and damage buffs), LOS, and force preservation abilities and buffs. (healing, cover bonuses, etc.)
Bobs Original Notes:
1. All T1 buffs will be selected no matter which Path.
2. The T2 buffs aren't be limited a single Path. (Extra is selectable with a T4)
3.Entire paths that attempt to stick to a "flavor" or "specialzation" tend to buff
the same units results in over buffed units that are spammed
Since the buffs are to the same units anyways,these could be rolled into a single T4, opening the lower tiers to new abilities.
Ex. Raid Path in old Armor Companies have:
Battlefield Improvements, Mobility, Next-Gen Vehicles, Onboard Mechanics.
The Result would be Light Vehicles that are tougher, faster, fire quicker and repair on the move.
The primary reason for the problem with T17s wasnt that the unit was particularly strong, but
The doctrine buffed it all long a single path resulting in a overall better unit.
Ex. The Tank Destroyer Path in old Armor Companies have:
Mobile Warfare, Improved Armor, HVAP rounds (T1 is irrelevant since it applies to all paths)
The Result would be Tanks that are Faster, Tougher, and have more Offensive Capabilities.
4. In previous doctrines, every aspect of a unit was buffed
that created units that were better in every aspect han the vanilla unit.
Conclusion: Path Specialization Abilities should be limited to T3 and T4. T1 and T2 should be non path related to promote the use of Other units with in the doctrine. Where possible units should be buffed along alternatives that are never used in conjunction to promote choice between alternatives. Lastly unit buffs in a path Will be limited to purely Offensive, Defensive, or Maneuverability.
(Ex. Stuka and Nebels, Tanks and Light Vehicles)
With the Possible Selection shown above, players will be able to choose dual T3s instead of choosing a single T4.
One of the goals of the rework was to attempt to incorporate viable non stat related buffs when dual T3s are picked.
This allows us to effectively add 2 more possible end tree abilities without creating new abilities.
A side effect of this system is that it would remove the apparent flavor and synergy of the doctrine in the first 2 tiers
Since it is rolling the current abilities up to the T3s and T4s. And the apparent overpoweredness of the T4s due to the fact that
None of the previous abilities in the same path buff the same units. This new system allows us to have T4s focused
On a particular aspect of stat buffing. The new HVAP Path in armor buffs the Offensive capabilities of Vehicles.
The new Urban Survival Kit buffs the defensive capabilities of Vehicles, and the new mobile Warfare buffs
The Maneuverability capabilities.
While all doctrines are special cases and wont mold perfectly into
This design, Armor follows this philosophy well enough to be used as an example for the goals of the new doctrines.
Unlocks and Offmaps
In the past, the Doctrine unlocks have just been patched together without
much thought of balance between doctrines. Most of the attention has gone
into comparisons of the Passive unlocks for the doctrines. This lead to some
Doctrines like Airborne with all of the useful offmaps, and other doctrines with
Much less useful unlocks.
The new unlocks will follow a standardized system across all doctrines.
Each doctrine will have 3 Upgrades, 3 Offmaps, and 3 Unlocks.
The uses of Recon abilities have been reduced by 1 and applied to all
Doctrines. Every Doctrine will have similar Offmap capabilities vs other
doctrines in the same "class"
