The State of Balance

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[TheWindCriesMary]

EiR has gone through a lot of ebbs and flows over the years, but at the moment it's at one of its lowest points in terms of balance. This post is critical, but it's critical because EiR is a good mod that can and will be better if some changes are made.

 It's leading to the stagnation of gameplay to the point where one one side only a few builds are at all viable in high level games and where a few cartoonish abilities and units are deciding most contests. I'll get more into the effect of this balance situation in a sec, but for now here's where I think the cause lies:

1. The removal of (some) unit abilities until vet 1.

This was one of the most ill-conceived notions in the history of balance. EiR's #1 biggest problem is the fact that new players have insurmountable odds against them in terms of staying to become regular players and members. By giving even greater rewards to experienced players with veterency (on top of veterencies existing bonuses) this dumbfounding concept of a change has increased those barriers significantly.

But aside from new players, it also is a cancer to good gameplay. It disproportionately affects axis and allies (far more so for allies), is unevenly distributed (takes away free abilities from some units [aka fireup] and paid upgrades to others [cromwell flank speed] and leaves some others alone altogether).

2. Cartoonish reward units.

These have been a problem for a long time (ie. the maus), but in the current metagame they've been elevated to the level of abject silliness. Reward units are neither rare, nor modest enough in their capabilities to warrant inclusion in the mod at the moment. They break games and turn gameplay itself into a roadshow circus.

Prime of this include the Super Pershing and Tiger Ace. If the interest of the mod is good, intense gameplay and balance there is no reason whatsoever for these units to exist. They are arcade RTS units, not tense and intricate RTS units. Add on the persistency of vet and they go to new heights of absurdity to the point where a single unit, used reasonably well, can reliably win games and set the entire tone of an engagement.

That should not be. A player's macro company composition and strategy should determine the game, not become irellevant due to the inclusion of one super comical unit that does not fit with the mod.

Also included in this list would be the cartoonish allied gun wagon half track and the sturm panzer (in its current balance iteration).

3. Infrequent, but drastic, balance changes

I've spoken about this many times before and sound like a broken record, but I can't stress enough how damaging it is to the mod's gameplay when balance changes are both of these things simultaneously. They can theoretically be either at one point or another (though personally I think that the need for drastic balance changes would become unneccessary after a few months of careful balancing), but in combination it becomes a significant problem that not only leads to wild swings in the meta (as certain units and strategies become ridiculously overpowered in phases) but also to swings in mod population (as players get excited about a new rash of changes until their interest dies off as the inevitable new super strat they lead to be being too drastic makes the game incredibly boring), and finally to far more work for the dev/balance team than would otherwise be neccessary if more moderate, measured balance changes were implemented.

A prime example of this (of many) would be the AVRE/Sturmpanzer. Long lived as a unit that was all but non-existent in the EiR metagame, it has now surged into the spotlight due to a dramatic series of changes that went way past viable and straight into cartoon country in one or two fell swoops.

Instead of gradually balancing this unit by making small, incremental improvements and then checking back in every month or two to see if more were needed it shot right to a 30-45 second recharge time (depending on certain abilities) and a game breaking range. This lead to a 2 week period where a game without 3-4 of these units in some combination being fielded was an anomaly. Then, as was bound to happen, a knee-jerk fix patch was needed which slightly reduced the absurdity but still left the unit well beyond where it should be.

But this is the never ending vicious circle of wanting to make big, sweeping alterations to key units in bursts spaced out apart by several months. You're constantly balancing by pendulum via big swings and are never able to get closer to the middle because each patch goes so far in either direction.

And worse, you're not able to see which changes are good and which are bad because so much is being changed across so many units. So when the meta inevitably gathers around only the few strongest strategies (and people stop playing with anything else) you get zero data on anything but those.


Solutions:

1. Remove the change that unlocks unit abillities at vet 1. It is neither conducive to good gameplay and unnecessarily advantages players with veteran infantry on top of existing vet bonuses.

2. Remove or begin the process of diminishing reward units (in terms of their power).

3. Balance in small increments. Given EiR's resources it's just not fair to ask for extremely frequent balance changes and patches, but as that is the case smaller, more measured changes are essential. Otherwise balance and good gameplay will never be reached as the result of large, reckless changes that have massive gameplay implications.

[NightRain]

Aka make veterancy a flashy thing rather than an actual use? The prime reason why that experiment was even tried? I agree it was retarded on certain units which are now fixed.

[TheWindCriesMary]

Aka make veterancy a flashy thing rather than an actual use? The prime reason why that experiment was even tried? I agree it was retarded on certain units which are now fixed.

Right now all veterancy has an actual use. It gives buffs to units, typically to those most important to that specific unit (accuracy, rec. accuracy, penetration, damage etc.). There's no problem with that. The problem is now basic, essential abillities like flank speed, smoke cannister (for CCT's and shermans) and fire-up are only unlocked at vet 1 so there is an added extra benefit to veterancy that doesn't benefit gameplay or the mod.

[XIIcorps]

I agree with fireup/cloak requiring vet 1, stops suicide vet hunts.
Flank speed being made vet tho was poor sport.  Like the cromwell has it hard enough already only to be nerfed more.
Mandos requiring vet for smoke is absurd,  9/10 smoke was used in retreat not attack and half of the buffs to mandos is rendered useless without it.

[Illegal_Carrot]

I was going to make a post similar to this, with my impressions of EiR after being gone for almost three years, but decided to hold off until I had a few more games under my belt. I'll probably still make that post, but for now I couldn't agree more.

1. The removal of (some) unit abilities until vet 1.

This was one of the first things I noticed when I came back, and the decision to lock certain key abilities until vet 1 really baffles me. Veterancy has always been a small, direct upgrade to a unit, meaning your units get slight upgrades to their stats as they acquire vet. But the abilities that have been locked away are either core to a unit's function (Ranger Fire Up, Marder Lock Down), or allow for radically different tactics and strategies for a given unit (Sherman Smoke Cannister, Armored Car Flank Speed, Command Tank Smoke Screen). Locking abilities away like this was a bad decision, and seems like the laziest way possible to keep "overpowered" abilities like Fire Up from getting spammed. Ultimately, locking away these abilities not only restricts a player's options when building and playing with a company, but makes veterancy even more powerful, relative to those without it.

2. Cartoonish reward units.

I actually like most of the reward units, and haven't had too many issues with things like Marines, Wespes, and even Nashorns. The real problem comes in with "extreme" units, stuff like you mentioned: the Maus, the Tiger Ace, the SPershing, etc. Extreme units and abilities have always been a big issue for this mod, and that's something the dev team constantly and consistently fails to consider when designing such units. Currently, the Sturm Panzer and Churchill AVRE are clear examples of this. The real issue, though, is the team's total inability to properly balance the mod in any meaningful way, as you mention in your third point:

3. Infrequent, but drastic, balance changes

This is something that a lot of people, myself included, have been crying about for literally years. With all the new balance team members and devs that show up, every one of them wants to radically alter the game to fit their view of what EiR "should" be, and it's lead to what feels like a million different doctrine, veterancy, and unit reworks over the years. There's also the issue of the balance team using a broadsword when they should be using a scalpel: rather than slowly tweaking a unit's stats bit by bit and measuring the effectiveness of such changes, the balance team is prone to either hitting a unit way too hard with the nerf bat, or sprinkling Magical Pixie Bullshit Dust on anything deemed "underpowered."

On top of those three, though, I feel the largest issue currently facing EiR is the absurdity of certain buffs that one can achieve. Veterancy alone is pretty overpowered on some units, but then you factor in some of the insanely good doctrine buffs available, and then Officer buffs on top of all that; you're virtually playing an entirely different game, where cheap cannon fodder units are able to out-perform their more expensive counterparts.

[TheWindCriesMary]

Well said, I think you articulated a lot of the key problems bang on. In terms of reward units I agree with you as well that there are many decent, moderately useful and powerful units that fit well in the mod while adding some nice small utility or interest. No problem with those -- they're great.


And to just disclaim all of this to everyone: this isn't about pointing out all the things that are wrong and say "look how bad everything is, everyone should feel bad". It's about how can this mod succeed and get to a level of gameplay and balance that not only improves gameplay, but makes the lives of the dev team/balance team easier. Yes there are problems, and there have been problems before, but these problems are fixable.

We can get to that point with a clear strategy for getting back to the basics. No more super units, super abilities and complex and convoluted doctrine abilities. And most importantly, slow, conservative balance decisions based not on "what is possible" or "what might be cool". Because every time I open up a new patch thread and see 20-40 changes to all kinds of units it's depressing. It just means we're going further into aimless balance wandering for kicks and the victim is the mod. 4-5 years in there should be almost no need for patches that have 20-30 changes in them. Slight maintenence touches and adjustments should be all that's needed by this point. We're far from being able to do this at the moment, sure, but you have got to start somewhere.

 If we literally started tomorrow we'd at least be on the right track.

[Shabtajus]

I am not so sure removing/ultra nerfing reward units is a great idea tbh. Eirr has allways beeen morre atractive to play when had cool stuff to offer such as bad ass rew units and epic abillities. Ofc some things like maus/avres/stturm panzer or AB smoke were plain stupid. But after all its fun to have and enjoy some crazy thints that only eirr can offer. Things like that make eirr special  andd not so boring/ static game wise compared to omg etc. Want regular basis units? Go  play omg or coh tbh.

[Illegal_Carrot]

I am not so sure removing/ultra nerfing reward units is a great idea tbh. Eirr has allways beeen morre atractive to play when had cool stuff to offer such as bad ass rew units and epic abillities. Ofc some things like maus/avres/stturm panzer or AB smoke were plain stupid. But after all its fun to have and enjoy some crazy thints that only eirr can offer. Things like that make eirr special  andd not so boring/ static game wise compared to omg etc. Want regular basis units? Go  play omg or coh tbh.

Noone said that they wanted to do away with reward units completely, or any of the things that make EiR fun and unique.

[ick312]

removing the suicide Fire up blobs, was the best balance decision ever! Hmg have now a use.

On the reward units. There are too many. They should be a reward => sth really rare.

[XIIcorps]

removing the suicide Fire up blobs, was the best balance decision ever! Hmg have now a use.

On the reward units. There are too many. They should be a reward => sth really rare.

they were rare once upon a reset, the market is just flooded with units is all.

we also have different tiers of rewards ick, you know common, uncommon, rare and legendary.

most of the rewards offer something to a faction its lacking in eg the Sturmpanzer, Comet, 76mm ATG, Flakpanzer.

The problem is that some of these units are either horribly priced and inferior to vanilla options, or just horribly underpriced for performance.

[Mister Schmidt]

There's a new Balance Lead now, thankfully. Future looks better.

[NightRain]

There's a new Balance Lead now, thankfully. Future looks better.

This. Mysthalin calculates things before he puts them up. He can see things that most of us wouldn't dream of. Ability such like that is desired from those who tweak balance.

[Hicks58]

1. The removal of (some) unit abilities until vet 1.

If Myst and Co want to switch unit abilities back to not requiring vet, it'd be a pretty simple change (It'd take half an hour to an hour's work, tops) and I honestly wouldn't care in the slightest if they did decide to revert it.

It was decided as an experiment to see if people would actually care about holding on to vet if it meant something, ya know, the entire highlight of EiRR being a PERSISTENCY mod - It always felt strange that zerg rushing to the last man was more attractive when the entire concept of the mod is that you can keep things alive from battle to battle...

However, in light of that we dropped exp requirements by a third (The launcher STILL isn't updated to reflect) so that vet 1 was much more accessible to all. As well as that, units that straight up relied on their stock ability (Marder lockdown for example) were given them back.

I should note that I rather hated the gameplay style that things like mass fireup and it's equivalents promoted. It feels like a fix for stupid - "Oh no, I'm scouting around with my doom blob of AB/Rangers and bumped into a HMG... It's OK I'll just hit this button and take no losses". Honestly, it's straight up saying that it's perfectly fine to play without proper scouting or awareness. It's the same kind of idiocy that the original cloaking dual shreck Storms was.

2. Cartoonish reward units.

As a base, I really can't stand reward units. I hate them because for some reason beyond my understanding we always seemed to want to throw more and more of the damned things in without regard for if they were necessary or balanced in the slightest.

A few of them make sense, like the 76mm for the US, the Wespe for PE, etc. Legitimate units that you should be able to pop into your coy every now and again that can help cover up shortfalls instead of exclusively leaning on a given doctrine. Then you've got shit that is just plain wrong, like the Maus. That unit had no place in EiRR and it took a hell of a time to get rid of it.

3. Infrequent, but drastic, balance changes

Drastic changes aren't always bad, I'll agree that yeah, some of them can be extremely damaging (AVRE/Sturm, I'm looking at you) but infrequency will always be the biggest killer. You can be as subtle or as heavy handed as you want but if it isn't followed up on (Especially in areas which you know aren't final, but are being worked upon) then it'll do a lot of damage.

If you think it irritates you guys, try seeing it from my perspective where I know exactly who is responsible for which areas, and how long given tasks ACTUALLY take to do.

[tank130]

2. Cartoonish reward units.

These have been a problem for a long time (ie. the maus), but in the current metagame they've been elevated to the level of abject silliness. Reward units are neither rare, nor modest enough in their capabilities to warrant inclusion in the mod at the moment. They break games and turn gameplay itself into a roadshow circus.

I argued this point in the Dev team pretty much from the inception of reward units. I have also argued for reducing the number of units. The fact that you can just play a game and have the possibility of being rewarded a unit is.....well......kinda stupid.

Why do we even call them reward units? A reward for what, showing up in the launcher?

All reward units should be rarer. It should be something remarkable when you see one in a game - not, "Oh, there's the 3rd "X" reward unit in his company"

Putting fireup on vet is the best decision ever made in this mod. The other abilities were a mistake in my opinion.

There is a very fine line between "Pixie dust Bullshit" and "OP / Broken". Also keep in mind that while very tiny gradual balance sounds great, it can also result in several tweaks to get it right. That means the coders are patching twice as often. But then again, I guess if the pendulum effect is fucked, then they just have to code again anyway...........

I think it should also be pointed out that there were zero to very little complaints about balance when the docs were removed - so perhaps that is more the problem? I would suggest removing docs again to asses the real unit balance: but none of this 3 - 4 day bullshit, that achieves nothing.

[tank130]

If you think it irritates you guys, try seeing it from my perspective where I know exactly who is responsible for which areas, and how long given tasks ACTUALLY take to do.

yup, pretty much this.

Very big part of why I gave up on trying to organize this mess. Paper work gets ignored on someones desk until 11:59, then they say they don't have time to reach the 12:00 deadline........

[Mister Schmidt]

Alternatively, sack off the very concept of 'reward' units

Make them tiered units:

Oh hey you got 700xp on that Gren squad? Look, they're Elite Grenadiers now!

Your Cromwell survived 40 games? Heck, trade it in for a Comet!

etc.

[tank130]

That sounds good in theory Schmidt, but now go through every RW unit in the system and pair it up.......doesn't work.

I would take the units the faction really needs and tie them to a doctrine unlock (doctrine rework)

The remaining units should be reward units based off a working warmap. If you play on a team that is by all numbers going to get stomped, but you pull off a win - boom, you get a reward unit!! Just an example.

[ick312]

I would take the units the faction really needs and tie them to a doctrine unlock (doctrine rework)

wow i can give you bad shit docs and their unlocks, if its allowed to touch the reward units...

[TheWindCriesMary]

Want to really stress that there isn't anything wrong with reward units, or the concept of how they're rewarded or purchased etc. Most are reasonable, measured and have modest impacts on game balance. They simply add some flavour and utility to the game without being gamebreaking.

It's with specific "super" units that do definitively break the game. Play in a 2v2 or 3v3 with balanced teams and see the difference a TA or Super Pershing makes -- it changes the entire dynamic of the game from 1:1 to 1:1+super unit. Used decently well, that supert unit will break the game. If these were incredibly rare, MAYBE they'd be OK. But they're not. They are far more powerful than any of their counters and can effectively destroy many times their resources in units without much difficulty.


And also want to highlight another aspect of the original post: these problems are current. The recent AVRE/Sturm changes that have resulted in a comical 45s reload timer and 40 (45 at one point) range are still in effect and have lead to a huge shift in the meta. 5 g43s are still in the game despite anyone's best interest. The def officer is still broken and instead of fixing it there is talk of changing the brit LT to function similarly (a very, very poor idea). Elite armour grens are still in the game despite there being no good gameplay reason to allow it.


Each patch, including the most recent ones, it becomes more and more clear that we're meeting the definition for insanity: trying the exact same strategy to solve the same problem we never get closer to fixing.

The problem is that balancing should place the mod above personal interests or a desire to do some fun and creative alchemy just for interest's sake. And truthfully it feels, now as much as ever, that this is the motivation that governs how changes are devised: out of a desire to experiment about what we think might be cool or neat to try. As if it's possible to balance in a maelstrom of variables by taking cool guesses in the dark. This can't work though, and hasn't for several years yet. Not when every change goes live without a test server and bad ideas stay in the mod for weeks or months at a time.

To be honest we'd probably be much better off reverting almost everything back to vCoH and starting from that point with minor, gradual and monthly (or bi-monthly) tweaks. In terms of doctrines, cutting their power in half by 50% would be a good step in the right direction.


Super powered units and doctrines do attract people to play... at first. For a few days or maybe a week. But they don't stay because the game breaking they introduce wears off really, really fast. What makes people stay over the long term? Good, balanced gameplay that rewards hard work and practice. That's how you get people to stick around longer.
 

[rolcsika0128]

Alternatively, sack off the very concept of 'reward' units

Make them tiered units:

Oh hey you got 700xp on that Gren squad? Look, they're Elite Grenadiers now!

Your Cromwell survived 40 games? Heck, trade it in for a Comet!

etc.

I've been really thinking about this for quite a while, and since Schmidt mentioned his idea I might share mine aswell. The idea is, that for example if you reach a certain vet you should be able to decide to convert your vet unit to some reward point. So u basically baby your unit to a certain point where you can either keep your hard-earned vet or sacrifice it and get some rew points from which you could be able to buy rew unit cards. Each unit could have its own rew point value if vetted up, or there could be standardized values for inf, etc.. This way rew units would be really a reward, a reward for your efforts and sacrifice. Not to mention that this procedure would encourage vet-keeping efforts. And make rew units, especially ,op ones' less widespread by pricing them correctly.  Just a random idea.