Change back the dog fight mechanics

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    • A game mechanic that gets no results AT ALL when optimally played (not ticking) is just plain ridiculous. I'm still very disappointed that Bytro decided to leave this serious game flaw unadressed, it:

      1) Obliterates air forces of players that are unaware of the exact details of this;
      2) Leaves air battles a tedious and utterly pointless shadow play between two players that ARE aware.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • Regid wrote:



      This should be a game for relaxation. People go to work, they work hard, they wanna relieve the stress by playing CoW a bit, then back to work. Sure if you're a kid then you will have a lot more time, but even so, there should be homework, outdoor activities...etc, in other words, going outside and have a life.

      This exploit incites hyper activeness, over-competitiveness and addition. Only people who has nothing to do can play and micro for hours and hours. This should be a game where people come to lose out the stress, not lose out the work and sleep for it.
      100% agree.

      The game is too slow to be a micro-management game and bytro should address any aspect of the game that require micro-management. I want to have a chance to feel safe when I go away from the screen for multiple hours.
    • I assume Bytro is still looking into this. I think the most straight forward and easy to implement solution would be to allow only a single air stack to defend on an offensive patrol tic. If there are a sufficient percentage of peeps that like to use a more hands on management of battles, perhaps a max of two (or 1.5) stacks could be allowed to defend.
    • I think the micro managing parts of this game is what makes it fun. Optimizing your stacks and troops to be maximum efficient is vital to me. The use of force march, defending with planes, using forts, terrain, waiting for the right time to strike, catching planes at airfields refueling, etc etc.....

      all that makes it fun for me. I've obliterated thousands of planes by making clever use of the planes and troops I've had at disposal.

      Taking that away would be game-breaking for someone like me, who puts in time and effort to try and be the best there is.

      If you want to simplify this game, by taking away the little nooks and details that make this game challenging, I cannot support that. Then it would be no more advanced than a game of RISK.

      There is a reason that tacs and strats are bad at attacking other planes, which is not just a silly game mechanic but grounded in real life.

      I can understand the frustration that new players experience when they meet someone like me, and get their huge stacks of planes smashed to bits, but honestly, RTFM.... Go into the details and see what the units have in defensive and attack values and read about SBDE. Then you know why you fail.

      The fact that some people play this game for only 5 minutes a day and sets their troops on 24 hr marches or leaves their planes hanging in the air for hours on end, is their problem. That someone takes advantage of that is only natural.
      Sincerely, wildL
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    • I agree with much of what you say Wild in terms of micromanaging being what makes the game engaging for many. I guess major game decisions have to suit the average player in some way though, whatever that might be. However, the ability to take out patrols is a bit of a quirk of the game in that it's the only viable situation where you can have many stacks at full strength vs a single stack. I think it's probably fair to limit this to a maximum number of stacks allowed or even perhaps one, although, I would like it to be two stacks so that you can still use the tactic to your advantage if you are inclined to pay close attention to your battles, just not in such an extreme way where currently you could, in theory, have 100 stacks vs a single patrol tic.

      Storm, making TAC offense and defense power the same would not affect the tactic much at all. The reason it is so powerful is due to many stacks vs a single stack, not offense vs defense power.
    • Hi, I like the micro management too. It's gives us the feeling to give orders to our virtual little soldiers, we the god like general and the pixel has to follow our deadly orders.

      But as wildL says, some of the players didn't have the time to change every ten minute the orders. But the company must take care about the customers, this guys who stay online most times a day are not the guys that pay for this game!
      We need a balance between the veterans and the rookies they want to tell the veterans a lesson with gold.

      The game has the problem that newer players can't find out why they loose the air force in dogfight in such a short time. You can say, not my problem, they can ask - but how many opponent ask you?
      The newspaper didn't gives you the answer, so they are frustrated and quit the game - maybe forever.

      The I think the devs need a to go a way between both sides, give the veterans the control over they units and the rookies a chance to understand what happens. But the first thing they need to do, is to reduce the effect of the bombers on ground units, double the time of a tick for planes on patrol, to give all other units a chance to live longer.

      Would you like to play with your friends in a game where gold is banned?


      Watch for the next season starts in September!
    • Sure you can take them out of service, but one of the main purposes of planes is to guard your land units and/or provinces. If you are not able to use them like this when you are offline, because your patrols will be easily killed due to an unrealistic many stacks vs a single stack tactic, I think it diminishes the game.
    • Well it sounds to me, that player is going to inevitably lose anyways? No matter if he puts his planes up or away. It is easy to patrol "defend" with multiple stacks on the exact same area. Not hard to do. Don't punish the players who learn this mechanic for the less experienced player. I remember one of my first game where a real air battle incurred that i used planes in and got smashed, that was against WildL for the record. almost 2 years ago now. I learned quickly how those mechanics worked. The more you "dumb" down the game, the more you will lose the player looking for competition. I have said this before and will state it again. If plane patrols are nerfed and become useless, i will quit this game and i know many many others that will to. These are long time supporters.
    • Ay, we are not talking about taking away patrol ability, we are talking about how to kill patrols in a massively advantageous way and possible solutions. No offense, but like many other people that want to give their input on this thread, you don't seem to understand the basics of what is going on.
    • Im sorry, but isnt one of the points of this game being able to make more troops and stronger troops than your opponent? If someone makes more troops, then shouldnt they be able to use them? Doesnt everyone have an equal opportunity to build the troop type they want, and the quantity of those troops they want?

      This is about strategy. There are finite resources to be used. If a player wants to spam all planes, then they can. It is not always a good strategy. Anytime someone relies on a single strategy, they leave themselves weak in other areas. I dont see any threads with people complaining about massive "doom" stacks of tanks and artillery (I'm talking about those huge stacks of mixed tanks, infantry, and the like, with another stack of artillery behind) that are able to just cruise across a country destroying everything as they go. That seems to be an "exploit" to me, personally. But, if these guys put all their units in one or two huge stacks, then a couple of single units can flank them and wreck havoc with their cores. So there is a counter. There are also counters to plane spamming, or naval bombardment spamming. I can't condone protecting players for making the wrong decisions in how they plan out their game.
    • That is not a logical comparison. A more analogous scenario would be if an attacker could surround your "doom" stack with 10 or more of his own doom stacks so that when your doom stack ticks all 10 enemy doom stacks tick and obliterate your stack while taking relatively little damage.
    • I do understand what is going on here. My point here is, if planes are direct attacking, they are more vulnerable. Correct? Every time they have to refuel they are exposed. Now, Patrols, of what everyone is trying to call an "exploit" is taken away, it takes away all the risk of using said planes in patrols. Even at the current time, Patrolling when you are not there is a safer way to defend or do damage than direct attacking. Am i missing something here?
    • well thats not correct. I dont make strawman arguments, and I dont try to muddy the waters, I am disappointed you would say such a thing, because I actually respect your opinions, and would not accuse you of such a thing. I only voice my actual opinion, DxC. I have no desire, or need to "distract" someone from an issue. My points were quite valid.
    • Sorry, Storm. I shouldn't have made that come off as a personal attack and I don't think you are trying to distract the issue. But the central point is that the current patrol mechanics allow an unusual situation where an unlimited number of full strength plane stacks can be used to target individual patrol tics. This creates a gross imbalance and having a massive number of defending patrol stacks doesn't solve it.
    • I would love CoW to become / to remain a strategy game. In other words the most important criterion for success shall be how intelligent your strategic decisions are.

      Now as long as air-to-air combat works in the current way, rather these two things are important:
      1.: You know the exploit.
      2.: You're more active than your opponent.
      Both is... well, sorry, not wanting to offend anybody, but that's not challenging for anyone with brains, is it?
      Would you feel great if you won because you logged in every 14 minutes and managed to avoid your patrol tick more often that your adversaries?
      I wouldn't. I don't want one more click-to-win game on the net and I'm sure the majority of CoW-players doesn't.

      Anyhow let's come back to discussion on HOW the current situation could be improved.
      If we come to a proper draft that many people agree with, we can then still think for a moment and ask if it would take away too much the activity advantage.
    • I am still convinced that solution E is the best - make the patrol functionality what is was in WW2: A mere defense or recon manoeuvre for fighters.

      I would go so far as to remove the 15 minute tick completely. Planes on patrol should only fire if a ground or sea target within their patrol circle is being attacked by enemy planes.
      Secondly remove the patrol functionality for all bombers.
      Since naval bombers should still be able to search for subs, they should get a "recon" functionality (which would be equal to patrol, but without firing at incoming plane attacks).
      Thirdly give refueling planes more hitpoints (best if they had the same amount as if they were in the air). Otherwise they would be targeted too often by rockets... which is an unrealistic proceeding that I'm sure never happened in real life.

      Any opinions on this proposal?