Doctrine buffs that have cost versus free increases in performance

[Guest]

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[Smokaz]

Cross-posting here so we can have a similiar discussion starting here from a clean slate since we are also giving direct input on the doctrine drafts here at will, and the thread the post is based on is a mess and a long read.

http://forums.europeinruins.com/index.php?topic=12593.msg216077;topicseen#new

Some of you might have seen this discussion. Its about doctrine buffs promoting spam, tankspirit advocates that fielding the same exact unit type in large numbers should become more expensive than fielding a different units of the same type.

One thing related to this discussion that I think is important, is to balance out the way big flat doctrinal buffs increase the available resources in a company.

If you get carabines, you have less need for grenades or bars. They are still beneficial, but your rifles now perform amiably without them. They are better than they would normally be, for no additional cost.

Since basic anti-infantry infantry units are better at their job for no additional munition cost (which is the normal means of improving their AI ability) you can put the munitions into other stuff that you might want for your company, like zooks, ap rounds, snipers.

Similarily, heat rounds+barrels allow you to take on armor with much more impunity than normal as your P4 and Panther becomes a much more reliable AT weapon against shermans, fireflies, light vehicles etc. It also makes a P4 better against AB, which is a natural threat to them.

This allow you to shift more shreks, fausts, mines and paks over to other aspects of your company.

Compare carabines, German Steel and Heat Rounds to AP rounds or HE rounds. Here you actually lose more resources in your company to use your T4. The t4 might be very good, but you are already at a economic disadvantage by choosing it. Comparing these abilties is RELEVANT because both heat rounds, heavy explosive rounds and armor piercing rounds are currently drafted to come back in the doctrine rework.

In case you didnt know, it costs 75 (!) munitions to buy HE rounds on shermans. Wheres the +30 munition cost for a GS stug, or the extra munition cost for a heat round p4? AP rounds and HE rounds are WELL DESIGNED T4s because they are specialist buffs that cost company resources to use! German steel, Heat rounds, carabines, zeal, group zeal and all similar abilities that grant bonuses with no drawback, specialization or cost to employ lead to spam of the units buffed by it becoming very powerful. (Imbalanced.)

IMO more of the T4s that give great passive buffs, need limiters in terms of cost. AP rounds and HE cost a lot of munitions, and are on a recharge. Choosing to field HE on all your shermans/t17s with the other upgrades decidedly impacts your company resources. Same with AP rounds. The added munitions cost to these kinds of upgrades help stop them from being a onesided decision.

If you are running AP rounds or HE rounds, question and decisions like these are posed and made:

Example: "Will I have enough AT if I put HE on all my fully upgraded shermans? I'm paying
Example2: "My two m18s I have now with AP rounds can take on a panther, I'll try to use them well instead of having five of them with AP rounds and thus be better off against infantry or be able to use more mines and a sniper."

Comparably, a heat round player will be thinking like this:
Example3: My p4s with blitzkrieg can rape two m18s now, I'll opt to play them well as a Anti-tank weapon and remove 2-3 shreks from my company and replace them with goliaths which help me fight blobs."

Superificially their thinking might seem similar, but one players is receiving more resources through his doctrine specialization while the other one is receiving increased performance with higher cost included.

The result of these flat out buffs not having a additional cost associated like them is what results in the spam being viable. Why pick 4 rifles that work as six, when you can pick twenty rifles that work as thirty for no cost difference? There's no thought required.

This is a different interpretation of tankspirits problem, if you havent realized it yet. I think the source of the problem is the doctrine buffs and not the units themselves. The rework Tankspirit is suggesting is a lot more work and decidedly more complex than us solving this by adressing the problem in the current doctrine rework.

CONCLUSION:
All doctrine buffs or buffs/upgrades should work like AP/HE rounds, they should have a cost associated with using them so that you actually pay more for a upgrade that makes them a lot stronger. Obviously Explode Volk Rounds are overpriced on shermans right now when you look at passive buffing T4s freeing up tons of company resources if you focus on their use. There's a reason why the passive buff doctrine choices are very popular, because from a min-maxing optimized company point of view these are the ones that are the most powerful.

So the question *drumroll* is if you as a player think paying for the upgrades like armor's t4 force you to do wouldnt go a long way in mitigating the problem of companies consisting of the same unit types that get flat bonuses from their doctrine?

[Mysthalin]

I think you're on to something here.

Why not make the "really good" boosts have a cost tied to them on their own, while having the other "shitty" boosts work for free?

Really good idea...

[EliteGren]

Having to purchase carbines on all your riflesquads once you have it sounds like a good idea.
To compensate I think we should lower the PP costs of Tiers a little then.
25 PP T1
33 PP T2
50 PP T3
80 PP T4?




And to two: no u

[Smokaz]

Having to purchase carbines on all your riflesquads once you have it sounds like a good idea.
To compensate I think we should lower the PP costs of Tiers a little then.
25 PP T1
33 PP T2
50 PP T3
80 PP T4?

Im sure you understand since you are a smart german, im just clarifying for all who might not: All passive upgrades that make a unit stronger needs to come with a cost for this to be equally implemented.

[Two]

All doctrine things should be passive tbh, new doctrine system will fix it i hope.

[nated0g]

Too long to read.

Please shorten.

[Smokaz]

Short version:

All doctrine buffs that passively increase a units performance, should also increase its cost.

Heat Round P4s - more expensive
Fallschirms with kurtz - more expensive
Carabine rifles - more expensive

Examples of how its implemented (NUMBERS ARE RANDOM):

- Zeal becomes a 60 MP upgrade
- Carabines become a 25 munition upgrade
- Telescopic scopes becomes a 30 munitions upgrade

Reasoning its based on:
- The current implentation of AP rounds and HE rounds for armor
- Specialist/spam companies can overfield their doctrinal units and compensate for it because they DONT pay for the increased strength, they just get more out of A for the same amount of B

Really, the long read is a hell of a lot more informative than any short version I could produce to cater to you.

[Demon767]

LOL not trying to be mean Smokaz but why didnt you just say the short version in the first place?

hehehe sry man thats just funny

i kinda like your idea, i wouldnt care if it went either way.

[Smokaz]

UHHHHH

Because some people like to make informed decisions, while others dont care?

[tankspirit668]

I like this Idea, because it would be a reasonable counterweight to some insane buffs and PPs and can`t  bring things in balance regarding this issue. And remember kids: only a balanced system is a good system and no counterweight is  no balance.

[Smokaz]

Can you elaborate why its a counterweight and not a balanced system?

[Baine]

Can you elaborate why its a counterweight and not a balanced system?

He meant it would work as a counterweight and as such form a balanced system!

[EliteGren]

Well the other alternative would be to make AP and HE rounds come free on all tanks. But then the same should be applied across the board for all factions (blitz smoke rounds etc).

[lionel23]

Well the problem with this I see, while interesting, is it would hurt allies more due to variety of units.

With this system, MU 3 upgrade becomes the must if everything must be bought with ammo.  And the American equivalent units should get things for free, as why would I pay to nerf the only Anti-inf US tank to make it better against infantry?  While germans have P4s, Stugs, Panthers, and heavier tanks?

It just seems to me it would be skewed very heavily against allied companies, who already have to do upgrades just compete on a roughly even playing field with germans (BAR suppression to deal with basic KCHs, shrekers, assault squads, etc for example).

And what else... so the entire doctrine rework will now become pay? You'll make most of the trees useless then if that was so, with people 'skipping' tiers to get and pay for the best one and thus the same resulting 'spam' for them.  Example - Tank Reapers, which affects already purchased bazookas on rangers.  So you're saying the crappy bazooka, even with TR which still can't penetrate, now becomes more expensive than Piats?  If a cost is going to be associated with it, we need to rebuff T4s to compensate, for example range and penetration for TRs, better buffs to Cohesion which relies on having MANY squads to even take advantage of, in addition to you have to purchase cohesion for every single person.  And then British tanks will become even bigger ammo hogs than they are now they have to buy better accuracy while standing still, extra HP, slightly more speed... why bother with any other resource than MU then in this case?

Another thing I'm very concerned with, are we going to double pricing abilities that you already have to purchase like single bazookas on riflemen now?  Because otherwise I could indeed spam 38 riflemen with single bazookas.  Or sticky bombs.. you want that extra +1 bomb and half cooldown?  I guess add +40 MU on top of the already expensive sticky bomb price for that ability too, and your doctrine specific, resource heavy 105s?  Want artillery fortification?  You better pay 100 MU on top of your resource cost and make it triple resource costs and give up any AT for fielding a support weapon.

If the factions were mirrored, maybe I could see this working, but the fundamental thing with US is that they have single, versatile units that are decent against everything and need ammo just to become average at taking on a threat (BARs, Stickys, nades), so again we're going to hit them harder on upgrades if they want to stay versatile?  May as well spam nothing but ATguns who already HAVE to pay for AP rounds if you want anti-tank, as I'd see no incentive in picking doctrines if I got to pay for it when the basic non-doctrine stuff becomes just simply more cost-effective (I can get regular stickybombs on 38 riflemen, or do half cooldowns on half of em... hmm, I wonder what I'll pick in an attrition game!).  I'll just end up going airborne or Armor to get their specific, basic faction unit and rely on spam/mass to beat your fewer and more expensive doctrine units, like how allies work together to overcome panthers and tigers already.  Axis will buff their elite, few choices, allies will forgo doctrines to simply overrun them in spam and mass.

Then you have offmaps... which you can now use to 'nuke' that 500+ MU Gren squad (that has zeal/ferocity/medkits/double shreks) and that will make more companies prone to being overrun in this case by armor as they now get fewer AT weapons on semi-fragile platforms unless it's a stormtrooper who is cloaked.  I just don't think it'll help with tankspirit's suggestion of encouraging diversity, as it will promote being even more specific and non-doctrinal to take advantage of the penalties you get for picking a doctrine in the first place.

[Smokaz]

Not everything has to be bought with munitions. Upgrades could be tied to survivability/manpower, anti-tank or anti-infantry ability increased/munitions while anything related to upgrading a tank could be related to a mix of either manpower/fuel or fuel/munitions.

Cohesion is a far point - it would need redesign, seeing as nobody runs one it needs some love anyways. But as it stands now even with the current drafts, theres a huge difference in the economic aspects of some of the doctrines. Armor is the only doctrine so far that even attempts to balance out the received extra performance with cost increases.

Adding upgrade prices with passive buffs allow us to adjust for the units being inherently better like you also point out - and who says allies cant get more bang for their buck if that seems to make it balanced?

Go look in the Balance Advisor forum, I just posted an example of how a doctrine using this system could look like.

[Smokaz]

I'm also not sure how it nerfs variety. You can still opt to place the majority of your resources in any type of unit you want, the difference is that you actually pay for the increased performance. You also have the added ability to not buy it on some units, allowing you to truly spread out your upgrades into exactly the unit you want to have it. Please expand on that.

Two's company for instance could be replicated, albeit on a smaller scale. He wouldnt be able to afford the exact amount of squads he has now or the exact same amount of upgrades, but rifle number 1 and rifle number 33 would cost exactly the same, given that they receive the same upgrades. There's no incremental cost for spam, but you pay for what you get.

[lionel23]

Editted my last post to add some stuff, definitely will go peak in the BA Forum and see what you came up with Smokaz.

Hmmm, okay I'll concede it now does sound interesting if this can be buffed for allies and they just aren't a cost added onto what is currently into the game, as is.  I'll get back with you after I look at your post.  

[lionel23]

Okay no incremental costs is good, I do like that most definitely and for the obvious reason I explained in the other thread and won't bother to just restate here.

Looked at your Doctrine Rewrite Smokaz, looks interesting to say the least.

And on Two's company though, how would it be smaller scale?  Unless he gets M1 carbines, it will not affect his company at all, for example.  So it would not discourage his company as 'spam' if it can be considered that, and I think in terms of 'less variety' it would basically turn your army that barely has say 4 cloaking PAK guns that can move to 2 PAK guns that can cloak and move.. which would make you very vulnerable to say an armored player who, again, puts all his resources in non-buffed (and thereby cheaper and more plentiful) tanks who then overruns you because you can't get enough AT on the field to counter his extreme build with a balance but buffed build.

I'll use my company for example to illustrate.  My entire company is focused around taking out tanks, and I use basic riflemen for AI.  By making TR cost something, I'll just remove the handful of BARs and maybe some stickies to not adjust my force composition.  It thereby doesn't reduce my 'spam' at all but just means I can field more riflemen as I'll now have fewer upgrades to put in my troops so hence I'll get more men to compensate (ie if you only had 1 riflemen in your army fulled upgraded, you'd have to buy a 2nd one to fully upgrade him for resource, and I restrict myself on riflemen based on upgrades like BAR/bazooka pairs and whatnot).  So if I cant get my pairs, I'll just buy more and more basic riflemen to take out your even fewer buffed, elite troops, you kind of get what I'm saying?

[Smokaz]

It will affect his company immensily if he doesnt have free carabines. How will he deal with upgraded infantry geared towards anti infantry duty with a bunch of regular rifles with a single zook?

Carabines atm grant him comparable, probably higher dps than bars for free on all his squads. This directly causes that he can sink all his munitions into zooks. See the disparity between carabines and HE/AP rounds here?

This system would force Two to redesign his company somewhat if he expected to win against anything other than non-skirted tanks, pumas and pioneers without weapons. But he is entirely free to do it like he does now, but the system doesnt give free performance upgrades for any faction or company.

Spam is a problem when the spam overperforms for cost, him running a one-dimensional company is his own problem when he meets something that doesnt care about regular rifles with a single zook. However the system doesnt punish spam, it just forces you to pay for your increased fighting ability.

[lionel23]

Personally I thought carbines was so-so at best when you compare them to ferocity terror LMGs, which rambo their way to victory! Heh.

But seriously, you go and upgrade your fewer men, I don't take M1s, I'll out-attrition you thru use of regular men and numbers (like how end game mass volks come onto the field, and I've had SMG rangers surprisingly beaten in green cover by basic volks charging them in mass, hence why I dont take too many SMGs anymore and use the extra ammo to field more rangers for more men/life).

And in the carbines example, bazookas are a crap weapon already, he is sacrificing superior AT from Tank Reapers to get mediocre bazookas and to buff his AI capabilities, just like taking TR nerfs your AI power for a company going down that path, isn't that the tradeoff in the choice?  Otherwise all T4s should become open so we can have more options to play with in terms of having to buy everything or any one thing anyways, no?

And spam is only effective if you can't counter it, which for me it usually isn't the case.  And the things that can be remotely spammed to give me problems? Say 4 snipers on the field at once, tough for infantry to counter, so this new system would not stop that.  Also, would it be considered 'spam' when two squads, both 1 man grens with LMGs, can singlehanded rape 5+ riflesquads with M1s?  You have to spam to deal with some of that higher vet + doctrine stuff situations like that, and given the cheap cost of doing 1 man squads, Two in this instance will need 10 squads of regular rifles to just be able to match the 1 man squad, as I've had trouble even with DOUBLE SMG RANGERS at VET2 or higher to take on medkit single gren squads in cover, while they are being hit with stun nades and break stun to rapid burst and instant rape the rangers.

Extreme example, I know, but you'll now eventually get to a point where a single unit becomes godly now and the only way to take it on is to spam numbers to beat down an elite unit, like how allies must do that to overcome King Tigers and a pair of panthers... so the discrepancy will grow and allies will have to 'nerf' their stuff just to field sufficient numbers to counter those overbuffed units, and before you mention AP rounds, that is doctrine specific.  If some of these abilities become non-doctrinal, then it wouldn't be an issue or if the doctrines are rewritten where US Infantry gets AP rounds and Armor companies get Tank reapers, etc to be able to cope with this when the basic non-doctrine buffed units become useless now and unable to compete even if they are in a tactically better situation than the buffed squad but it can single-handled repel 10x the number, thus becoming more cost effective, no?