Some thoughts.

[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

[Mysthalin]

words

The main problem in every single one of your posts is that you assume the problem is spam and/or gimmicks and nothing else.

Not in any way true.

The majority of the newbies that I attempted to mentor have left on these grounds :

1) Super-high ammounts of stomping at the time(high-ranked people purposefully shying away from equal fights and chosing to fight noobs instead). Most notoriously at the time of my mentoring : Aloha and Bigdick(Yes, I just pointed fingers. Boo-hoo if it offends the two germans).

2) High levels of antagonisation and stigmata from the playerbase in playing with a newbie on their team. Meaning, the only people that would play with the newbie would be either other newbies or a mentor, if he's lucky enough to get one - which lead to excess periods of time being severely crushed.

3) Unwillingness of the actual newbie to put in any significant ammount of time into the game, assuming their vCoH prowess would transfer instantaneously into EiRR(the "I am not a noob! The game must be imbalanced and bullshit" effect). In which case I would generally think "good riddance".

I can remember exactly 0(zero) instances where they would complain about spam or gimmicks being any issue whatsoever.

[Groundfire]

I dont think they recognize what they're hit with before they leave tbh.
Ive been complained to about the spam of specific builds that neglect whole parts of company building.

[Spartan_Marine88]

I dont think they recognize what they're hit with before they leave tbh.
Ive been complained to about the spam of specific builds that neglect whole parts of company building.

TBH, the most annoying spam i have ever faced was Panda's million ketten company. But on that note the company still had the SE feel to it, so its not like what people keep making spam out to be. (senseless and nothing to do with the doc)

[Killer344]

The Dev's ( the top dev in fact ) have recognized there is a spam problem and they are looking for constructive input on how to reduce it. The Dev's and the majority of the community recognize this and want it stopped. There are about 6 very vocal individuals that cry fowl anytime this  is brought up. Excuses like: freedom of play-style, don't want everybody to have the same company, it's fun, it takes more skill..... are all the lame excuses brought up by these people to try to defend their spam and gimmicks. Hopefully they will recognize it is destroying the community and lessening the amount of new players that stay.

The problem has always been the rank 5 and 200 free pps per account after the reset, which allows people to say "lol @ availability pool". The weapon cache pool will just polish it a little, it won't magically fix anything.

[acker]

Vindictus had something where playing with people over ten levels below you gave you a token at the end of every battle, which you could trade in for extra high-level dungeon raids.

IMO, playing with someone far less skilled than you should earn tangible rewards per game, like reward points. Or temporary Tiger bling. Or hats. Whatever.

Something that high-level players would want that doesn't unbalance the game.


Marking out people in the Launcher who are mentors with a special coloring/rank could help newbs ID them easier. Make the first screen one ever sees when first booting up the Launcher ID what the special coloring means.

[Nevyen]

Spam spam spam spam spam,

This has to be the oldest chestnut in the game, and why? well its to do with the old campaigners who demand individual freedom to do with their company build as they see fit.

If this really is the issue well then (and I've said this like 100's of times before over the years) you need to stop looking at munitions and resources maximums  as the answer and start to switch up where the restrictions come into play.

What do I mean by this, well I look to games like 40k and Warhammer for the answer (and yes there will be that element that again tell me this has no relevance, tell you what though their current view hasn't worked )

40k as a force organization chart that all players must adhere to, being a minimum on 1HQ and 2 Troops additionally the scenarios favour troops over any of the elite, heavy support and fast attack options. 

At the top tier you can have a maximum of 2 HQ's 6 Troops, 3 elites 3 fast attack 3 heavy support.

This method since it was brought it eliminated some seriously wrong lists that players used yet still allowed individualism, reason i know this im one of them I have two armies right now a space wolf mechanised force with tanks and a blood angels drop pod army with dreadnaughts and troops and no tanks.  Both win and lose their fair share of games and both are very different but grounded in the Force Organization chart.

Now Warhammer Fantasy 8th has also adopted and similar option and from that games system point of view its worked on %

So breaking down the unit categories as Lords, Hero's, Core, Special, Rare:

you get UP TO 25% in lords,   UP TO 25% in Hero's,  25% or more in Core,  UP TO 50% in Special and UP TO 25% in rare


The reason these two game systems moved to this is because of the similar problems we face, a certain element of the community was destroying it for all of us.

So what is the learning the current cap system and possibly any future cap system only is only focusing on the top end maximum of what you can get and even with hard cap that will still possibly see spam.

In my opinion you need to have restrictions at both ends.
That is you need to enforce a minimum selection of a certain type ie you must have at least 8 rifle sections etc for an infantry company or say 3 shermans for a armour company or 2 P4 or 3 Stugs for a blitz, not entirely sure. But there must be a minimum spend on something.

Then I would actually reclassify some units into special and rare and have very low hard caps on them as in the Warhammer example.

You can then still build some diversity but you also now have all players working on the same level.  A resource level does not mean you are equal on the field if you place loose or no restrictions on what players can bring to the game. 

I completly expecting people to say that Table Top Wargaming has no place in the discussion of a computer game but in my view the only difference is there are no turns here, its all real time because of the computer.
You could and can distill all the combat factors in the COH and turn it into a table top game you would just need to have a turn system put in place because of the realities of table top gaming.


The above suggestion makes sense, It requires work and testing to put in place but in my view the theory is solid, the examples are relevant. The only hurdles I see are those who go on about individual freedom and the work required to put it in place.

I personally believe spam is an issue and its one of the reasons i don't play as often, I won allot of games against those who do spam, but its boring and not really my idea of fun and at times unless you have a competent team that is switched on it precludes me from playing with newer players for that very reason (call me out all you want, but its not fun for anyone).

[smurfORnot]

yep.40k has good way of stoping spamlist more or less,but still it was not fun at all to face off 9 obliterators(while they were T5),and some similiar stuff...

[Nevyen]

yep.40k has good way of stoping spamlist more or less,but still it was not fun at all to face off 9 obliterators(while they were T5),and some similiar stuff...

yeah I agree and there are some who still do that but, they don't win allot of games and in competitions they get smashed in composition and sportsmanship scores, so they are eliminated from the competitive play.

Its really about making a system them shuns those players, BTW oblits are now only T4 and go smush to dreads and S8 weapons nicely

[11on2d6]

Smurf that just highlights how no system is pefect though, you can get better and improve, but ultimatly perfection is not possible.

Warmachine ( another TT game) uses a totaly different system than 40k, rather than having an organisation chart, which is kinda like a "fence", stop you from going overboard it has individual limits on units, some will be 2 others will be unlimited. Do you get spam? yes- however as ive always said, that makes said companies/armies vulnerable to 1 particular aspect, so much so that you would be an idiot to take such a list to any vaugly competative event where you are prevented from simply changing your company to suit your opponant.

Edit: ah, the good old austrlian addition to table top games, composition... a subjective system of discrimination  and penalization against certain builds. As much as I hate the idea of it, sometimes games are flawed so badly ( 7th ed fantasy deamons for example), that you have no choice but to use it. I always thought having the community edit the offending material was better than comp/list rating system, but eh.

[Nevyen]

Havn't played much warmachine but that's also another good system that drives players to a balanced army composition.

[Smokaz]

Slugga Spam is OP

[Artekas]

I think implementing anything from any tabletop system is a terrible and uncreative idea that will not result in balance. Not because of the difference between tabletop and realtime... but because each system is specifically tailored to the gameplay of the game it is made for. I don't think that the Warhammer 8th system should be used for Warhammer 40k just like I don't think it should be used for EiRR.

I don't play WHFB, just loosely follow it, so I can't speak too much about it... but 40k's system does still allow for some spam. I think this is okay. I really like EiRR's system as is, and will like it even more with upcoming changes. I don't think spam will be a big problem, even though it will still be possible to do some spam. In order to completely and totally remove spam you must be seriously restrictive.

[Spartan_Marine88]

Spam should never be removed. Limited sure, but removed? you might as well go and hardcap everything and completly take out our own companies and just limit us to the setups the balance team makes up. Everything would be completely balanced then.

[Nevyen]

Each to their own artekas, you may call it "uncreative" but then again it was more the theory I was talking about, the placing of restrictions not just at the maximums but also adding in minimums as well. 

And the changes that Ive seen that are coming in with the discussion with the dev's does look promising, so we shall see. 

[Illegal_Carrot]

Well a system could easily be adopted and perfected to fit EiR, we wouldn't have to take one of them exactly.

[tank130]

Spam should never be removed. Limited sure, but removed? you might as well go and hardcap everything and completely take out our own companies and just limit us to the setups the balance team makes up. Everything would be completely balanced then.

First:
I am confused by this comment. So you are stating if we had predetermined companies, everything would be completely balanced. You state this like balance is a bad thing....... am I missing something here, because I thought the devs and most of the community have been trying to get things balanced for a couple of years.
Second:
I don't think going to an extreme of having predetermined builds is what any body is suggesting. I believe the suggestion is a minimum amount of units to ensure a somewhat balanced build, but the rest of the units would be at the players discretion ; in other words, freedom of creation with in certain guidelines.

I propose this question / theory:

So let's say the builds are totally predetermined, completely balanced ( hard to believe, but keep up with me for a second ). You have no choices, just what you are given. The winner of the game is going to be determined completely by their skills on the battle field. Flanking, unit preservation, tactical team play, micro, macro. These are the skills we should be playing with now, real skills that count. Is this sooooo wrong. Is winning by these abilities really that boring and useless? If so, I feel you may be playing the wrong game.

Now don't misunderstand me, I do not think we should have completely predetermined builds. There should always be an element of individuality. I really like Nev's idea of a predetermined guideline, but still leave some room for uniqueness. This may not appeal to some individuals, but it should be more beneficial to the greater majority. More importantly, it will make the game about the skills I suggested above.

[Spartan_Marine88]

First:
I am confused by this comment. So you are stating if we had predetermined companies, everything would be completely balanced. You state this like balance is a bad thing....... am I missing something here, because I thought the devs and most of the community have been trying to get things balanced for a couple of years.
Second:
I don't think going to an extreme of having predetermined builds is what any body is suggesting. I believe the suggestion is a minimum amount of units to ensure a somewhat balanced build, but the rest of the units would be at the players discretion ; in other words, freedom of creation with in certain guidelines.

I propose this question / theory:

So let's say the builds are totally predetermined, completely balanced ( hard to believe, but keep up with me for a second ). You have no choices, just what you are given. The winner of the game is going to be determined completely by their skills on the battle field. Flanking, unit preservation, tactical team play, micro, macro. These are the skills we should be playing with now, real skills that count. Is this sooooo wrong. Is winning by these abilities really that boring and useless? If so, I feel you may be playing the wrong game.

Now don't misunderstand me, I do not think we should have completely predetermined builds. There should always be an element of individuality. I really like Nev's idea of a predetermined guideline, but still leave some room for uniqueness. This may not appeal to some individuals, but it should be more beneficial to the greater majority. More importantly, it will make the game about the skills I suggested above.

First , i was being sarcastic, as every time they add another cap is another limit to out freedom its a bad thing. What you think is a good idea Tank is an example of sarcasm flying over your head. The thing with the WH 40k rules, is that the army size is not a Hard Rule, its a Guideline to be adjusted to playing style and event day. The Hard number is the units price, and that of its weapons.

Warhammer Practices total freedom of everything. But every thing is priced accordingly, like Night Bringer, the 1 unit that costs almost as much as a small army. Thats EIRR's biggest failing, not the spam.

Also might i say that these SKILLS, flanking, unit preservation, tactical team play, micro, macro are how you win in EIRR. Even the biggest spam tactic will fail without any of the above mentioned skills.

The biggest spam issue is one and only thing. No other Spam is hard to beat, but AB RR spam, solution raise the RR price. Other then that no spam company can resist decent team work, and that the failings of most groups engaging the spam company.

[Nevyen]

Fair point spartan, even so you come to a tournament for 1500 points everyone else there is also playing 1500 points so as far as EIR is concerned the resource caps are like that.

What really needs work is the interplay in pricing, unit selection, how things are capped overall etc. hence the "theroy" behind the GW model not the model itself i feel has application to the EIR.

[Spartan_Marine88]

What really needs work is the interplay in pricing, unit selection, how things are capped overall etc. hence the "theroy" behind the GW model not the model itself i feel has application to the EIR.

I was agreeing with yuor example being the GW model. Just trying to help clarify.

What i should have used as an example is.

Ork Speed Freaks.

There rule is that thier infantry takes the slots of vehicles and thier vehicles takes the slot of infantry.

so instead of having

6 inf squad and 2 vehicles

you get 6 vehicles and 2 infantry.

So in my mind Speed Freaks would work for things like Blitz and most PE companies.

[lionel23]

My two cents, some doctrines do need to be looked at and re-evaluated, at least from the axis side.  Defensive being 'German RCA', Blitz being about some good tanks or 'the infantry player' and then terror I guess is the armor doctrine and elite infantry hordes?  Something is really wrong with that.

The other issue I see is the lack of usefulness in a lot of the support weapons, other than elite infantry and ATGs. With the fuel increase for M10s and their fragility, I cannot justify fielding that unit or its inferior counterpart the M18, as many a times it will let you down against the things you need it for, like heavy tanks while dealing pretty well with vehicles and medium armor.  US MGs, by the last doctrine discussion I was apart of, is supposed to be 'DPS' and not suppression.. excuse me?  Make the damn thing do its job, if I wanted damage, that's what the rest of my company is for.  US mortar, regardless of the 'superior fire rate' still sucks compared to an axis mortar at vet 0.  The reason you never see me take support weapons?  They weaken a company being inferior to all its counterparts while the Brits and Wehr have the better ones.  British having instant suppression when you need it and a high-damage mortar, while Wehr's MG AND Mortar both damage AND suppress.  And for the Wehr/PE, some things do need to be looked at like Hotchkisses and upgun pumas OR some sort of German Light AT rifle to better field quantity AT weapons (like bazookas) or quality AT weapons on their infantry (shreks).  MP44 for grens I would also like suggested as an option as KCH are a terrible assault unit (3 man ones) in a persistancy mod due to how fragile they are.  Just a little more weapon options for the axis and better support for US, maybe a look at something with P4s or Stugs if people are bothered by how 'ineffective' a P4 is (though I love using mine). Minor relooks at the doctrines, etc.. there's many things that can be looked at, but let's start small here.

My little ramble on that, not ignoring the tabletop system, though I would like to add they don't necessarily eliminate spam.  The new edition of IG did not affect my company one bit for Imperial Guard, WH40k.  I still field over 100+ models, 3 heavy tanks and 3 IFVs with many support weapons.  The company structure prevents one from fielding say an all tank force (though there are rule books which allow that, such as Imperial Armor with a pure Leman Russ company... and I don't know what whackjob really thought it would be good to bring in air vehicles and Baneblades - as much as I love them - into a table top squad battle.. urgh).  But yeah you could do that under the system.

Now I'm not saying I'm against the 'spam' limit or whatnot, I do see from certain companies where it be can be immensely powerful or just annoying.  But the mere idea of going 'fixed' companies would really destroy what I like about EIR - customization.  I like having AI Rangers or Bazooka rangers or even vanilla rangers!  I like the US Officer supporting my infantry, a heavy support tank that can actually take hits, Quads that can suppress and chase away some light vehicles, etc.  It's that synergy that really makes me fall in love with his mod.  But not everyone is good at everything.  People like me can do tank micro but I mainly love infantry, others are terrific with light vehicles and tanks (damn HTs and their pathing, argh!) and suck with infantry, others blob caues they don't know to tab thru their selection and spread them out.. not everyone is the same.

And let me leave off with this important tip....

RED MAKES THINGS GO FASTER!