Availability PP costs not working as intended

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[scrapking]

In fact, it really is not working at all, except at the start of a war when nopbody has PP to spend.  I have over 50 PP in each of my Battalions right now, and I could, if I chose to, purchase as many of any unit as my resources would allow.  This smells like the old days. 

In Reserve #'s need to be lowered on many units.  Pretty much everything except General Infantry and Medium Tanks could stand to have its In Reserve amount lowered.

PP cost for In Supply and Out of Supply needs to be higher, Out of Supply perhaps much higher.  Perhaps Out of Supply should be just that - there are no more left.  Maybe Out of Supply Units should completely disappear from your Battalion after every single game, forcing you to repurchase them every time.

There is simply not enough penalty to discourage spamming of choice unit types.  I understand that there will be more to spend PP on very soon, but most of that will still be finite (it will fill up and no longer be an active PP sink).  And spending PP on offmaps is not enough because for one, not everybody will have offmaps, and for two some people will reason that spamming certain unit types in their Battalions is preferable since those units are least least kept form game to game, whereas the extra offmaps are not.

Otherwise, once people start seriously amassing PP, it is really no different at all from the way it used to be with availability removed from the game.  Its already no different.  Unless there will be more to spend PP on besides offmaps and doctrines, the latter being only a one time expense.

[Nevyen]

Scrapking ty for the feedback , we where aware that this would happen as the picture has not been painted in full and thus you will find that this itteration was just to get the factions out and see the units in play.

The real sink in PP will come in doctrines and other elements and the economics of the system as well as thier costs which  have not be released, and won't be yet.

  Obviously to say it does not work when in fact the whole system as well as its mechanics  is not in play is a tad hollistic, not having access the doctrines and the costs which have not been finalised will of course colour the view.

regards nev

[AmPM]

Maybe when we get some vet worth buying it will become more attractive.

But yes, the PP system is just another infinite resource and as such has no real balancing power. Much like the CP costs of old.

You can't balance around something with no value.

Then again, this has nothing to do with actual balance. My using FJ is less efficient than just spamming upgraded PE. With resources being the true limiter we'll see people using more of other things. Right now you can't afford extra counters to beat back some spam and still have a balanced company.

Fortunately the hard counters for units are generally less costly than the things they stop. So someone spamming tanks can be countered by adding another PAK or 57mm to your company than you previously had and it costs less. Same for Infantry vs HMGs or artillery vs support weapons.

Yes we will be back to how EIR was pre-R, but it wasn't exactly unbalanced, just not how some people prefer to play the game (with companies that all look the same).

To sum it all up, trying to cap things with an infinite resource only governed by amount of games you can play is silly.

[Scyntos]

I hope that maybe we can re-purchase Reinforcements in the future. Frankly I don't really feel like starting a new profile after all the vet, etc etc being acquired.. but seeing that maybe your play style doesn't mesh with the reinforcements choice you took.. I don't see why we'd have to suffer through that decision if we wanted otherwise.

[Killer344]

I hope that maybe we can re-purchase Reinforcements in the future. Frankly I don't really feel like starting a new profile after all the vet, etc etc being acquired.. but seeing that maybe your play style doesn't mesh with the reinforcements choice you took.. I don't see why we'd have to suffer through that decision if we wanted otherwise.

right, I shot myself in the balls when I saw how much commando reinforcements suck and now I can´t change it :p

[Smokaz]

I have between 8-10 ranger squads in my company and I like it because:

- I think rifle veterancy is subpar for how difficult they are to vet up
- I think vanilla rifles are overpriced (tie some manpower cost to the bars instead)
- PE ignores bars and annhiliates normal riflemen while thompsons and nades SHRED them
- Fireup is still great
- Ranger veterancy makes them the best assualt infantry in the game

I dont think the problem is solely related to PPs being abundant, I will still be fielding alot of rangers in a inf comp if I can afford it in future versions. Its the rangers themselves that are powerful. If axis could field assault inf in the same way with the same effectivity for cost, it wouldnt be a problem and other support units would decide who wins the engagement.

Especially the fact that they dont lose firepower before being 3 guys or less is super sick.

Anyways, we are still testing things and this is yet a beta right? So its great that these issues are brought up. I personally am never looking to break the game or the game mechanics, its just that I form my companies based on what I see competes the best. If pios could buy shreks, I would be fielding a all p4/pio company. Theres loads of other players who play the game like this, and tbh if we put too many restrictions on companies they are all gonna look the same.

[scrapking]

I anxiously await the release of the doctrines and complete game system.  My concern here is, that what I already know of it, the doctrines themselves will not be a true sink, since you continue to earn PP, and once you fill up your doctrines it is finished.  So Doctrines are more of a PP bottleneck, not a sink.

Advantages again, appear to be a bottleneck, not a sink, since you cap out the advantages shown, and there is no need to maintain them through additionally gained PP.

Offmap usage purchases while being a sink, will not necessarily be one for all doctrines since if you don't have an offmap, you would not have that expense.

Veterancy will of course be a sink for everyone, but it is a fine line between not worth spending a single point on because the units die too easily or have unattractive bonuses, and being another slow drain because some vetted units have a longer life expectancy than others.  Also it is effectively no different than spending PP to oversupply and spam units - either way if the unit dies, you lose the PP.  In many cases it is simply more rational to go with quantity over quality.  And with sufficient PP, quantity can become quality.

Of course I make the presumption that PPs earned will remain a relative constant, but even if the values are changed, or are reflected by wins and losses, it is primarily still a mathematical function of games played in the end, and is therefore a derived constant of that value.

I have utmost faith that even if my observations were correct, and there were no further universal sinks planned, that it would be addressed, and for that matter I would not be the least bit surprised if this has already been thought of, and we as a community simply haven't received any information about the mechanism to be implemented. 

But just because I trust the DEVs to turn off the gas oven when they leave the house doesn't mean that I would be paranoid to mention it if I thought I smelled gas.   

As far as "all companies looking alike" - sic, for one I would personally prefer more of a historical OOB approach, whether by being compelled by the economy, or outright forced to - but I recognize that might be my personal preference alone.  Either way, it is not so important for the success of the mod as the notion of preventing unit spamming or bypassing the intent of the design, to create more diversity amongst any given battalion, rather than comparing all battalions to one another.

The fact that I am expressing concern over essentially bypassing availability limitations does not imply that I do not see the reasons for the desire to do so in some cases - relatively weak rifle squads being a prime example.  But there will always be people who look for loopholes and abuse them to suit their own purposes so long as those loopholes are there.  Function is often not intent.

And I say that with confidence because we have already been there, and I know for a fact that it is something the current DEV team has always resented, hence why we have the availability system that we do now. 

[Smokaz]

If unit A beats unit B for cost and can fill more roles or has less counters than unit B, people will always try to mass a greater amount of unit A than unit B. This is basic human desire to have the best possible unit combination in their view.

Putting fake limitations on the number of unit A and B because the units themselves are not balanced either alone or en masse, is just a shortcut around the real problem, which is the unit itself. Rangers are an example of a unit who basically soft or hardcounters everything in the game. Especially PE are troubled by the rangers, requiring a lot of fidgeting to counter them compared to the easy point-n-click into cover etc with rangers themselves.

 If you want conformative or realistic companies, you should argue how to balance the units themselves to become viable in such individual ways that getting a lot of unit A or unit B isnt viable. THEN people will go for balanced combined arms companies because a massing of unit A will just lose them a game.

Also, I see about 1/10 players ingame send scouts to see what the enemy actually has. Can you believe that the metagame hasnt reached this state yet? Why send 4 RR airbornes against a LMG horde because you didnt scout? I always have a ketten or a jeep to scout, especially in R games where his teamate cant help him out during what I call the "3 minutes of doom".

Currently people who scout in R games have a huuuuge advantage over the other guy. Unless you are going with the hardcoded, stubborn and non-flexible 25 pop "core" platoon this enables you to bring exactly what you need or think you need on the field.

Finally I would add that I have nothing against you Scrapking if we somehow got off on the wrong foot in ventrilo, I just think you are partly (not entirely) wrong that hardlimits on units are the core of the problem with spam. I think its the units themselves, while agreeing that both approaches have their merit and disadvantages.

[scrapking]

Finally I would add that I have nothing against you Scrapking if we somehow got off on the wrong foot in ventrilo, I just think you are partly (not entirely) wrong that hardlimits on units are the core of the problem with spam. I think its the units themselves, while agreeing that both approaches have their merit and disadvantages.

Never crossed my mind, Smokaz.  Nothing personal taken, or given, at all.  I don't even think we got off on the wrong foot, I didn't blame you for the Battalion you fielded, I blame the system for allowing it so easily.  I don't even disagree with your reasoning for doing so, really... I'm well aware at the fragility of Rifle Squads.

Although while I don't think that you are entirely wrong about the importance of unit & price balance, I still stand by all of my previous statements.

The truth might be somewhere in the middle, and some units are in fact too strong, or too weak, or too cheap, or too expensive - but my original point still stands - that availability is not actually working as intended.

This same argument and counter-argument comes up about Allied arty proliferation.  It IS the legitimate counter to superior Axis support units, particularly mortars.  But to say that some arty is too effective (either for its cost, pop, cooldown, or outright lethality, or all of the above), or too abundant (whether from cost or availability, or both), does not mean that the same thing might not also apply to various axis units, like mortars or PAKs, for example, which themselves inspire the perception that artillery is needed in the first place..

I truly understand that it is an action - reaction type of situation, but I'd prefer if we limited both cause and effect, rather than spiraling further down the road of impotent availability rules or further increasing lethality.  To limit the effect (the arty in the above example) favors the other side, but much the same, to limit the cause only would then leave the same potential abuses as possibilities.

I firmly believe that while EiR:R is a wargame based on destruction, chaos and death, that it is foremost a persistent MMORPG style game.  It is this aspect which differentiates it from all other wargames, including VCoH.  And as such it is this aspect which must be preserved and enhanced before any other aspect of the game.

People must enjoy the units they have, and feel the sensation of growth and development of their Battalions - while still having the notion of risk and loss.  This enjoyment is not just of your own units, but of the sort of encounters that arise from opposing Battalions as well.  Defining enjoyment is of course in the eyes of the beholder.  However growth and development MUST be greater than risk and loss, even if slightly,  or else there ultimately is in fact no persistence.

And then we are really just left playing VCoH.

[MannfredvonRitter]

I noticed that there was more of a PP sink with PE above all others armies, their stuff just dies insanely easily, so currently with PE, compared to my games as wehr, american or british, with PE i'm constantly spending points to have a diversified force. Although it's worth noting that British squads are quite survivable and quite easy to vet up in comparison to PE.

Rangers and Airborne are probably the two most survivable infantry in existence. They's so ridiculously easy to vet up and keep alive it's insane. Knights Cross are also easy to keep alive (I would argue not as easy as Airborne).

The Americans and Wehrmacht benefit the most from the current system as they have the most unique and powerful options to exploit in the environment. The british and panzer elite don't have the ability to exploit the system as much. The units in the panzer elite are in general not individually powerful enough to benefit largely from 'spam' whilst the cost on british units is so high, that you couldn't spam them if you wanted to. What do you 'spam' with pp in pe? Fallshirmjaegers? With limited munitions two G43 squads are often better and given that FJ lack fireup, the idea to change infiltration to paradrop was a bad one at best. Spamming FJ is in general a sure way to lose. I mean, Airborne have fireup, land in the wrong spot just fireup and run away to harass again another day.

[jackmccrack]

PE gets very nice vet bonuses starting at Vet 2.

My vet 2 Assault Grenadier squad refuses to die and sprints all the dang time too!

[scrapking]

I noticed that there was more of a PP sink with PE above all others armies, their stuff just dies insanely easily, so currently with PE, compared to my games as wehr, american or british, with PE i'm constantly spending points to have a diversified force. Although it's worth noting that British squads are quite survivable and quite easy to vet up in comparison to PE.

Rangers and Airborne are probably the two most survivable infantry in existence. They's so ridiculously easy to vet up and keep alive it's insane. Knights Cross are also easy to keep alive (I would argue not as easy as Airborne).

The Americans and Wehrmacht benefit the most from the current system as they have the most unique and powerful options to exploit in the environment. The british and panzer elite don't have the ability to exploit the system as much. The units in the panzer elite are in general not individually powerful enough to benefit largely from 'spam' whilst the cost on british units is so high, that you couldn't spam them if you wanted to. What do you 'spam' with pp in pe? Fallshirmjaegers? With limited munitions two G43 squads are often better and given that FJ lack fireup, the idea to change infiltration to paradrop was a bad one at best. Spamming FJ is in general a sure way to lose. I mean, Airborne have fireup, land in the wrong spot just fireup and run away to harass again another day.

The only thing I would note in somewhat disagreement is that conversely Wehr tanks are much easier to keep alive, and therefore vet up.  But yeah I fundementally agree with your observations.

[Malevolence]

Availability is a system designed to SOFT cap your units. If you play enough games you can build any company you please (within your resource limitations) but unless you're very good or very cowardly your ability to maintain your company is likely quite poor.

The entire point is that if you play enough games you can have the company you want to have but to start you have less customization available. This is the point of a persistance mod - as you win, you get better...

[scrapking]

Availability is a system designed to SOFT cap your units. If you play enough games you can build any company you please (within your resource limitations) but unless you're very good or very cowardly your ability to maintain your company is likely quite poor.

The entire point is that if you play enough games you can have the company you want to have but to start you have less customization available. This is the point of a persistance mod - as you win, you get better...

One of us is misunderstanding the intent of the DEVs when they implemented the system, and personally I don't think its me.  If it is, then oh well, most of my points in this entire thread are wrong.

Regardless, soft cap isn't a cap at all when the price paid is paid for in an inflated and overly abundant currency.  At the very least, that is a problem now, and I am concerned that it will not change much, excepting the aspects of the mod yet to be announced or discussed.

Its like parking fines when you are a billionaire.

[gamesguy1]

Availability is a system designed to SOFT cap your units. If you play enough games you can build any company you please (within your resource limitations) but unless you're very good or very cowardly your ability to maintain your company is likely quite poor.

The entire point is that if you play enough games you can have the company you want to have but to start you have less customization available. This is the point of a persistance mod - as you win, you get better...

One of us is misunderstanding the intent of the DEVs when they implemented the system, and personally I don't think its me.  If it is, then oh well, most of my points in this entire thread are wrong.

Regardless, soft cap isn't a cap at all when the price paid is paid for in an inflated and overly abundant currency.  At the very least, that is a problem now, and I am concerned that it will not change much, excepting the aspects of the mod yet to be announced or discussed.

Its like parking fines when you are a billionaire.

Well before EIRR release I had a discussion with salan and he basically told me its a softcap system.  I had a company with 25 volks in EIR and he was actually nice enough to build the company for me and tell me how many PPs it will cost.

With offmaps costing PP you will basically have to choose between offmaps or buying vet/oversupplied units, and everytime you lose a complete squad it will cost you quite a bit of PP(on a per game basis) to buy it back.

If all a player does is noobstomp all day then I guess PP will be plentiful and never a problem, but for people like me who play multiple companies and care more about winning than unit preservation, the availability system may as well be a hard cap.   I still cannot afford a single reinforcement package on any of my companies with certain units costing PP just to buy the first one.

Oh and this replay might help you against smokaz's ranger spam scrapking.

http://forums.europeinruins.com/index.php?topic=8417.0

[scrapking]

Malevolence, my issue here has nothing to do with game balance (not to say there aren't balance issues as well), I'm sure many spammed units are relatively easy to beat in terms of the actual game.  Arty is often easily beatable in term of win / loss for example, but the gameplay is shitty when there is too much of it.

My issue is it is fucking ridiculous and stops feeling like a tactical wargame when its the same few unit types being fielded repetitiously.  Yes, I am grasping for some semblance of realism, at least in terms of Battalion OOB.  But the only thing my years of tabletop / hexmap gaming has me expecting in any abundance are general infantry and medium tanks.  Everything else is a flavor / utility / specialized unit.  Which are, amongst actual wargame sims & games, rare, expensive, and fielded for specific purposes only.  Certainly never spammed.

"Because it is effective" is not a valid counter argument for me to not want to see more variety and combined arms within a particular battalion, even if it comes at the expense of decreased variety between any 2 Battalions side by side.  And there is still plenty of distinctive flavor in the subtle details I would think.  The problem is because many people do not see this as a wargame at all, but rather just another RTS which uses WW2 units, and they look for every conceivable advantage by fielding the "most for the least". 

Don't tell me that there aren't people in this community who have, and continue to abuse loopholes, circumvent rules, exploit broken maps, broken doctrines, broken abilities, and increase the gaminess and gimmickry of the mod that I personally always thought was meant to be somewhat of a company, or battalion level wargame simulation.  I never thought it was meant to be an arcade style game, and that is what it turns into.

And to retort to your previous statements, one idea that had been thrown around in the past, by some of the same people now on DEV, was fixed-premade platoons purchased instead of individual units.  I am reasonably sure that a good part of the inspiration behind this mod for them is tabletop gaming, which supports all of my previous statements.  But like I said, maybe its me who is wrong.  Maybe I'm playing the wrong game, and / or mod.

But until I hear otherwise from the DEVs, I will assume that I am not.

[Malevolence]

Yes, I am grasping for some semblance of realism, at least in terms of Battalion OOB.

I couldn't hear you over your tiger ace with support weapon spam. I love me some realism, I played WW2 online and was tempted to buy red orchestra, but the irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

[gamesguy1]

Ya no offense scrapking, but if historical accuracy is what you're aiming for, your company is completely inaccurate.

A historical company would consist of mostly infantry, and a tiger ace would be a rare sight indeed, in fact I don't think there were any tigers outside of panzer divisions, which had pretty much only tanks and mechanized infantry.

[scrapking]

Yes, I am grasping for some semblance of realism, at least in terms of Battalion OOB.

I couldn't hear you over your tiger ace with support weapon spam.

4 HMGs, 2 mortars, 2 ATG in the whole Battalion, and never out all at the same time are spam?  As far as Tiger Aces, I'm open to discussing their removal, honestly.  Although using one I don't find them to be as powerful as people think that they are.

But now you are grasping.  And also starting to be a smartass.  Leave your internet cliches out of what might have been an otherwise intelligent discussion please.

[31stPzGren]

PE gets very nice vet bonuses starting at Vet 2.

My vet 2 Assault Grenadier squad refuses to die and sprints all the dang time too!

Using veterancy to balance is a wrong approach. Not everyone will gain vet and in a tight match where even skills face off against each other, survivability is always very low.

The problem is because many people do not see this as a wargame at all, but rather just another RTS which uses WW2 units, and they look for every conceivable advantage by fielding the "most for the least". 

This is the truth about EiR, as well as OMG, vCoH and a lot of other mods. As Smokaz have mentioned earlier in the thread, if people bothered to scout, it would be a lot different.

"Some semblance of realism" will never go into games and "fanboys" will scream and shout at each other about what was better etc etc no matter how history really was.

Its better to let the "Realism" idea rest and focus more on balance.

Smokaz is right about promoting combined arms through balancing the unit advantages and disadvantages... the problem lies in the DEV stating they want to stick as close to vCoH as possible, which totally kills this option.

Most of the points brought up here has been discussed many times in the past, though it is good that you guys are bringing it up so hopefully the DEV will change the direction they're heading somewhat.