Balancing Changes

    This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy.

    • I agree with most of the "balancing changes" however I really disagree with the reduction in TAC hit points. The reasoning or explanation isn't valid and unjustified in my opinion: "Unstoppable air force..." (No air force and no army is unstoppable.) "It was necessary to decrease their hit points to make maintaining a large airforce more challenging."
      1. The number of hit points has no correlation to whether a player has 1 TAC or 25 TAC. It is a 20% reduction in survivability of TAC during a mission whether on patrol or attack. You will need more TAC to accomplish what you needed to do prior to this adjustment. So the result is to build more TAC, not "manage it". A capable player, doesn't fly his tac until its destroyed, you move it out of harms way to recover its health. The same as before this change but now this asset has to be removed after fewer missions to sit and recover. (Unless you are in the other camp and "keep flying it until its dead camp" which I am not.)
      2. Previously, if TAC was a problem, you build interceptors to chew them up. If they flew with interceptors, you kill the interceptors then kill the TAC. That is how you defeat the threat is with air superiority. If you can't build an airforce, you build AA. From my point of view, this change placates and encourages players to "super stack" their low cost units without air cover or without AA since moving forward only more ground units will destroy ground units now.
      3. The common tenant in this game that I have found to be so attractive is that every asset has a strength and it has a weakness or alt unit that has an advantage to it (i.e. anti tank vs tanks: AA vs aircraft) Each unit has its place and proper application in battle. This change is really unbalances the game in this respect as TAC is now handicapped.
      4. If you really believe this is the right decision, then increase the TAC SBDE from 5 to 6. Its not the same affect but what else can be done to mitigate the damage? The other option is to increase the damage by interceptors on infantry and armor units. But that risks unbalancing the game in that respect as well.
    • Idar_Oberstein wrote:

      "It was necessary to decrease their hit points to make maintaining a large airforce more challenging."
      Freezy has already more or less said it, they care not about balancing, just to milk the game for as much money as they can. Getting people to constantly spend money on building new units I.E. TB with low health, is a good way to do this.
      :00000441: Forum Gang Commissar :00000441:

      Black Lives Matter!!!!! All Lives Matter!!!!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:



    • Idar_Oberstein wrote:

      I agree with most of the "balancing changes" however I really disagree with the reduction in TAC hit points. The reasoning or explanation isn't valid and unjustified in my opinion: "Unstoppable air force..." (No air force and no army is unstoppable.) "It was necessary to decrease their hit points to make maintaining a large airforce more challenging."
      1. The number of hit points has no correlation to whether a player has 1 TAC or 25 TAC. It is a 20% reduction in survivability of TAC during a mission whether on patrol or attack. You will need more TAC to accomplish what you needed to do prior to this adjustment. So the result is to build more TAC, not "manage it". A capable player, doesn't fly his tac until its destroyed, you move it out of harms way to recover its health. The same as before this change but now this asset has to be removed after fewer missions to sit and recover. (Unless you are in the other camp and "keep flying it until its dead camp" which I am not.)
      2. Previously, if TAC was a problem, you build interceptors to chew them up. If they flew with interceptors, you kill the interceptors then kill the TAC. That is how you defeat the threat is with air superiority. If you can't build an airforce, you build AA. From my point of view, this change placates and encourages players to "super stack" their low cost units without air cover or without AA since moving forward only more ground units will destroy ground units now.
      3. The common tenant in this game that I have found to be so attractive is that every asset has a strength and it has a weakness or alt unit that has an advantage to it (i.e. anti tank vs tanks: AA vs aircraft) Each unit has its place and proper application in battle. This change is really unbalances the game in this respect as TAC is now handicapped.
      4. If you really believe this is the right decision, then increase the TAC SBDE from 5 to 6. Its not the same affect but what else can be done to mitigate the damage? The other option is to increase the damage by interceptors on infantry and armor units. But that risks unbalancing the game in that respect as well.
      1. It totally has a correlation. In the old version it was much easier to retain 25 tac bombers as you have fewer losses. It was too hard to lose Tac bombers (as there is no range AA and you could only lose them by plane attacks or not paying attention) and too easy to reach a snowball effect with them. Once you had a large airfleet it was pretty much game over for players who did not have a large air fleet themselves. It was too easy to dominate with just one unit branch.

      This leads to point 2 and 3: Indeed previously the only solution to deal with a large air force was to build an airforce of Interceptors yourself. But this is not how a game with rock-paper-scissor balancing should work. In every type branch (ground, sea, air) there should be counters to units of the other branches. Air units therefore need to have a hard counter within the ground branch, which is the anti air unit. Tac bombers are therefore supposed to lose against stacks with anti air, as they are very effective versus all other ground units, while also having the mobility to avoid these stacks entirely. There should not be a unit in the game which counters pretty much everything if you spammed it in large enough numbers.

      I also know perfectly well that you all will continue to build tac bombers despite these changes. Because having an airforce is still a must. But now it may become appropriately challenging to win games with just an airforce and nothing else (ok some LT to take over the provinces) as it is also very challenging to win games just with ground forces and nothing else. You should have to deploy many different unit types against your enemies to be able to win, that's what we want in the end.


      Quasi-duck wrote:

      Idar_Oberstein wrote:

      "It was necessary to decrease their hit points to make maintaining a large airforce more challenging."
      Freezy has already more or less said it, they care not about balancing, just to milk the game for as much money as they can. Getting people to constantly spend money on building new units I.E. TB with low health, is a good way to do this.
      Nope, I didn't say that. I said we want to balance the game and fix the issues reported by many players, but at the same time we have to make sure that the balancing changes are not hurting our bottom line, as this is the logical and sensible thing to do. The changes are not done to make more money though, they are done to have a better balanced game with the same stable revenue.

      @stormbringer: From the airplane exploit discussion thread I of course know from which camp you are coming from, which is pretty much trying to keep the status quo about a powerful airforce. So I thought as much that the other players in that camp also disagree with these changes, that was expected. You have to agree though that the other camp has stronger arguments on their side. I for one have no horse in this race but I truly believe that this change will balance the game for the better, and for more unit variety.
      The airplane part of it will not only benefit many competitive players, who had to ban airplane production from their league games as airforce was dominating and winning every match, but also all the new players who are completely shredded by airforce advocats, quitting as they have no chance to counter it.

      So we will release this change for now and observe if it has any effect on the production numbers of the different unit types.
    • freezy wrote:

      @stormbringer: From the airplane exploit discussion thread I of course know from which camp you are coming from, which is pretty much trying to keep the status quo about a powerful airforce. So I thought as much that the other players in that camp also disagree with these changes, that was expected. You have to agree though that the other camp has stronger arguments on their side. I for one have no horde in this race but I truly believe that this change will balance the game for the better, for more unit variety. And the airplane change will not only benefit many competitive players who had to ban airplane production from their league games as airforce was dominating and winming every match, but also all the new players who are completely shredded by airforce advocats, quitting as they have no chance to counter it.
      When i first started, I got beat by several different things in the game, including airforce, until i learned. thats part of any new game we learn. when new players learn chess, we dont take the queen away from the more experienced player. lol. Also, I dont agree with the rock paper scissors argument, because a properly stacked navy will absolutely shred air power, including even naval bombers, which we have had to live with since the beginning. The purpose of beta testing is to see if the balancing is indeed a good idea. Now in this thread, we have more players opposing the change (specifically the change in HPs), yet you say the other camp has the better argument. Maybe if we want to retain more new players, we should give them a stack of 5 interceptors on the tutorial, instead of the medium tank. I am all for retaining fresh blood, but I am definitely not for unbalancing the game in the other direction. The players league in Germany, with our pal Xarus, supposedly dont use planes because of the dogfight exploit. The update changes that. You are making AA easier to build. fine, maybe that will help people that dont want to build an air force. you made planes more expensive. Ok, they were already expensive, but that will help keep people from spamming just air force and wiping out people too quickly. There was no reason to drop the hit points on planes. I have played for a long time, and way back in the day, before the last update where AA ability was raised on every single unit, planes were king. they no longer are. if you patrol a single level 1 tac over a single lvl 1 aa, you will see what i mean. Nerfing planes to this extent is excessive, and will hurt the game in the long run. I can speak more of this in staff chats if you like, mr freezy my friend, as my other arguments would include information that is not to be discussed on public forum, such as bug tickets. :) :) :)

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Stormbringer50 ().

    • oh, and btw, i never fought against repairing the exploit. Heres my post from that thread, where i suggested the very change you are implementing:

      From the thread "Change back the dogfight mechanics": I wrote:

      Dec 13th 2017
      The community has spoken on this issue.

      There is one easy solution.

      Make all planes attack and defensive stats the same.

      kills the "exploit" (which isnt really an exploit), and leaves plane mechanics where the majority of the community enjoys them.
    • Stormbringer50 wrote:

      freezy wrote:

      @stormbringer: From the airplane exploit discussion thread I of course know from which camp you are coming from, which is pretty much trying to keep the status quo about a powerful airforce. So I thought as much that the other players in that camp also disagree with these changes, that was expected. You have to agree though that the other camp has stronger arguments on their side. I for one have no horde in this race but I truly believe that this change will balance the game for the better, for more unit variety. And the airplane change will not only benefit many competitive players who had to ban airplane production from their league games as airforce was dominating and winming every match, but also all the new players who are completely shredded by airforce advocats, quitting as they have no chance to counter it.
      When i first started, I got beat by several different things in the game, including airforce, until i learned. thats part of any new game we learn. when new players learn chess, we dont take the queen away from the more experienced player. lol. Also, I dont agree with the rock paper scissors argument, because a properly stacked navy will absolutely shred air power, including even naval bombers, which we have had to live with since the beginning. The purpose of beta testing is to see if the balancing is indeed a good idea. Now in this thread, we have more players opposing the change (specifically the change in HPs), yet you say the other camp has the better argument. Maybe if we want to retain more new players, we should give them a stack of 5 interceptors on the tutorial, instead of the medium tank. I am all for retaining fresh blood, but I am definitely not for unbalancing the game in the other direction. The players league in Germany, with our pal Xarus, supposedly dont use planes because of the dogfight exploit. The update changes that. You are making AA easier to build. fine, maybe that will help people that dont want to build an air force. you made planes more expensive. Ok, they were already expensive, but that will help keep people from spamming just air force and wiping out people too quickly. There was no reason to drop the hit points on planes. I have played for a long time, and way back in the day, before the last update where AA ability was raised on every single unit, planes were king. they no longer are. if you patrol a single level 1 tac over a single lvl 1 aa, you will see what i mean. Nerfing planes to this extent is excessive, and will hurt the game in the long run. I can speak more of this in staff chats if you like, mr freezy my friend, as my other arguments would include information that is not to be discussed on public forum, such as bug tickets. :) :) :)
      Stormbridger,
      (To quote a line from "Top Gun") You can be my wing man anytime! :thumbup:
    • freezy wrote:

      Nope, I didn't say that. I said we want to balance the game and fix the issues reported by many players, but at the same time we have to make sure that the balancing changes are not hurting our bottom line, as this is the logical and sensible thing to do. The changes are not done to make more money though, they are done to have a better balanced game with the same stable revenue.
      I don't see a difference, the game was fine as it is. Of course people having to pay more to build things, which will mean people reaching into their pockets. No morale boost is going to effect this, and it is the same of -75% resource production in conquered territories which only serve to have people spend more on resources.

      But of course, this is company policy and this update will just become yet another "feature" whether it be an unsolved bug or an addition to the game to squeeze more money from it.
      :00000441: Forum Gang Commissar :00000441:

      Black Lives Matter!!!!! All Lives Matter!!!!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:



    • Quasi-duck wrote:

      I don't see a difference, the game was fine as it is. Of course people having to pay more to build things, which will mean people reaching into their pockets. No morale boost is going to effect this, and it is the same of -75% resource production in conquered territories which only serve to have people spend more on resources.

      But of course, this is company policy and this update will just become yet another "feature" whether it be an unsolved bug or an addition to the game to squeeze more money from it.

      That's your theory/assumption and you are of course entitled to your optinion, but that is certainly not the reason why we (and I) are doing this balancing update. Alot of feedback from different player groups triggered it more or less.
      Actually I hoped that me talking openly about topics like revenue without any PR fluff would be appreciated, but if these honest statements are still not believed in and instead misconstrued, I probably have to stop being that open again.

      Stormbringer50 wrote:

      When i first started, I got beat by several different things in the game, including airforce, until i learned. thats part of any new game we learn. when new players learn chess, we dont take the queen away from the more experienced player. lol. Also, I dont agree with the rock paper scissors argument, because a properly stacked navy will absolutely shred air power, including even naval bombers, which we have had to live with since the beginning. The purpose of beta testing is to see if the balancing is indeed a good idea. Now in this thread, we have more players opposing the change (specifically the change in HPs), yet you say the other camp has the better argument. Maybe if we want to retain more new players, we should give them a stack of 5 interceptors on the tutorial, instead of the medium tank. I am all for retaining fresh blood, but I am definitely not for unbalancing the game in the other direction. The players league in Germany, with our pal Xarus, supposedly dont use planes because of the dogfight exploit. The update changes that. You are making AA easier to build. fine, maybe that will help people that dont want to build an air force. you made planes more expensive. Ok, they were already expensive, but that will help keep people from spamming just air force and wiping out people too quickly. There was no reason to drop the hit points on planes. I have played for a long time, and way back in the day, before the last update where AA ability was raised on every single unit, planes were king. they no longer are. if you patrol a single level 1 tac over a single lvl 1 aa, you will see what i mean. Nerfing planes to this extent is excessive, and will hurt the game in the long run. I can speak more of this in staff chats if you like, mr freezy my friend, as my other arguments would include information that is not to be discussed on public forum, such as bug tickets. :) :) :)
      As you already disagree to the rock-paper-scissors balancing, which we want to achieve, we probably have to agree to disagree then.

      Of course in this thread you hear more from the people who don't like certain things, that's just the nature of it. For every 1 person voicing that he likes something, you get 5 persons who voice that they dislike something, no matter what that thing is, as the people who enjoy it just enjoy it silently. But rest assured that we also received alot of positive feedback towards this change in private.

      But yes, feel free to send me your evidence in private as well. :)
    • I look forward to posts from Bytro staff explaining stuff to us.

      I find it really refreshing and makes me feel more engaged to this game which I've grown to love over the past few months.

      Please do not stop posting Mr Freezy.

      I find (as in the paratroopers thread) that many players have found their favourite way of playing and resist anything that might alter it.
    • Point 1

      It is very strange to read repeatedly that air force is dominating the game when game itself makes most of navy useless vs ground targets and most offense useless against the overwhelming defense. Instead of balancing the gameplay you plan to reduce even more the offense.
      Check the stats of the units to find out defense/attack ratio. Combine that with the STACKED 15% defense bonus on ANY PLACE of native provinces and you will understand why players had to go for air and rockets. (It is funny that forts give bonus to one point of the province and you have to pay resources). Ground attacker has no vision, moves with 50% speed and faces an extra 15% defense bonus in all the native provinces. Main advantage of the attacker was suprised focused attack which was already removed with the addition of the 1 interceptor.
      So company thought what to do next:

      Point 2
      Let players be safe with the starting units from any 2 attackers without building anything else and make expensive infras, the building needed for attacking day 2. Increasing cost of lts did not work out, people still tried to attack so let's make the economy of all game worst.
      Players still had the option to go for air. In order to make air you make buildings that are useless economy-wise , leaving yourself low to economy and you have to wait until day 9 to make them lvl 2 so you can actually cause some damage. Until then tacs are useless and the initial 3 aa can fight against any number of interceptors. More over, you can not go for tanks and air or air and extra industrial because of rare limitations. In order to make your air efficient you need to make more air fields before you magically reach 25 tacs and you win the map. ( so many random conclusions for air domination used that i will not even try to comment on ;( )

      Conclusion:
      For some reason, game nerfs attackers, who usually are the most active and good players.

      ps: in cow, what is the rock - the paper - the scissors?
    • So the "balancing" update goes into effect tomorrow. It's a done deal. Going forward, I will learn from this, and will consider sending private messages to the devs where no one else can refute my point of view. Apparently it worked for handicapping the Tac unit, based on Freezy's comment above.
      But believing in transparency, I will say this to one and all: Complaining to the devs is not a substitute for poor tactics. I said my piece about how to combat a strong air force, and I have done it: eliminating an opponent with 50 Tac in a '39 scenario.
      I have no issue with protecting the bottom line, I am a business man so I understand the criticality of protecting and ensuring a healthy bottom line. But I do wish to point out a bit of history: Nazi Germany developed the "Blitzkrieg" doctrine during the Spanish Civil War and unleashed it on Poland and France in 39 and 40. The Blitzkrieg doctrine combined air power with mechanized armor to rapidly advance to an objective. The Allies really brought air superiority and air war to its peak application during WWII. During the Battle of the Bulge, air power was decisive is quickly ending the German offensive as soon as the weather cleared. The Germans chose to attack in the dead of winter to avoid allied air power.
      I recognize and admit, this game isn't or doesn't try to be a 100% realistic simulation of all facets of WWII (artillery inflicting damage on a sub) BUT the clientel are here playing a WWII game because it is just that, not a WWI game with trench warfare, nor a modern air/land battle game. Air power was the dominant asset in WWII in nearly all theatres (exception was Burma) so the I find the decision to reduce the HPs on TAC on a lack of historical perspective. I do admire the counter arguements about the all knowing expertise of dev staff knowing that "players who use TAC don't develop any other tech: they go right to TAC and don't develop their infrastructure or industry". Although the false conclusions don't help to clarify reality, there is one truth that is irrefuteable and history will testify to this: AIR SUPERIORITY wins conventional wars (not insurgencies) and has been the decisive factor in ending them sooner. No regional or global conflict has been won without air superiority since the Blitzkrieg doctrine was developed. Therefore the reduction in the HPs of TAC is actually bandaging the practice of poor tactics. Showing up to a gun fight carrying only a knife doesn't work except now. Its my opinion and I am sticking to it. Thanks for listening.
    • Idar_Oberstein wrote:

      I do admire the counter arguements about the all knowing expertise of dev staff knowing that "players who use TAC don't develop any other tech: they go right to TAC and don't develop their infrastructure or industry".
      however, we all know this is not the case. without a very well developed economy, there are not enough resources to build a strong air force. And as far as arguments from the other "camp", there is not a single post on this thread that has said they approve of the nerfing in hps on planes. There have been lots of people that like the new update (I'm one of them, other than this single point), but not one person has said, "gee, im sure glad they are lowering the hps on planes".

      And there definitely was not enough input from beta testing, as frontline games have worked seldomly for the last 2 weeks. These are facts.
    • Players who use air understand the advatanges air superiority brings and i believe they would be fine with nerfing the air elements. However, i also believe the majority of players disagress with THAT much nerf on air while buffing aa and increasing the upkeep cost and building cost of infrastructure.
    • cchyt wrote:

      Players who use air understand the advatanges air superiority brings and i believe they would be fine with nerfing the air elements. However, i also believe the majority of players disagress with THAT much nerf on air while buffing aa and increasing the upkeep cost and building cost of infrastructure.
      Leading to absolute infantry/anti tank/anti air in the first few days. I admit this does stop pay-to-win people because they put tanks and tac bombers in the first day, and these could counter it. However, this would not be encouraging for the attackers, as many have said. A "balancing change" should not only apply to the defenders, but attackers as well. I do appreciate the hard work devs has put into this, but I think they should put into mind every single criticism and suggestion from this thread, helping them on the next update. I like AA buff, but not combined with tac nerf. It makes the game too defensive. Tacs are very OP, but they shouldn't be nerfed like this. Airbases take a long time to build, and tacs require long investment to produce, so what I would suggest in the next balancing change is either REBUFF TACS or RENERF AAs. This would help the game more and reduce the many criticisms we received these few days.
      "As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable." Albert Einstein

      "Giving up is not an option in war, for it proves one's incapability and incompetence as a leader." - Me (Little Racoon)
    • cchyt wrote:

      ps: in cow, what is the rock - the paper - the scissors?
      In a strategy game with alot of units like Call of War, there are of course multiple balancing triangles. The one relevant to the discussion is this: Tactical Bombers > Tanks/Inf > Anti Air > Tactical Bombers. But there are of course more, like Tank > Inf > Anti Tank > Tank.

      Regarding your realism argument: Yes airforce was and is very important, but usually it supports a large ground operation. Wars were not won by airforce alone, you still needed to conquer the other country. Previously in Call of War airforce was the dominant branch, while ground forces at some point only played a supporting role. Now we want to change it more into the direction of airforce being the supportive role, while ground forces play the main role, like in the actual war.
      In that regard airforce will still be very important after this update and no player will skip producing planes now just because they are a bit weaker, as without planes you are still at a major disadvantage. So I think everything will play out just right.

      Stormbringer50 wrote:

      it does seem that the spirit of the game now is to punish active players, and to protect inactive players.
      Not quite, but there have to be advantages on the defender side, since this is an asynchronous real time game, where most of the time the other person is offline when you attack. Therefore the attacker has the big advantage of surprise, the ability to choose his target freely and micromanage his troops, while the defender can only react, often times coming online when the attack is already under way. Therefore it is essential that the defending troops have some kind of bonus. This is the case in all other asynchronous real time games as well, and it is also quite realistic, as defending troops have time to dig out defensive positions, scout the terrain (if it's in their home provinces they have a natural advantage here). It is even the case in the board game Risk btw.

      If we feel that the game drifts to much into the defender's favor or it is getting slowed down too much, we can of course speed it up again in a future balancing update. For sure there are different means to do that. But we probably won't do it by making airforce stronger again.

      Stormbringer50 wrote:

      however, we all know this is not the case. without a very well developed economy, there are not enough resources to build a strong air force. And as far as arguments from the other "camp", there is not a single post on this thread that has said they approve of the nerfing in hps on planes. There have been lots of people that like the new update (I'm one of them, other than this single point), but not one person has said, "gee, im sure glad they are lowering the hps on planes".
      And there definitely was not enough input from beta testing, as frontline games have worked seldomly for the last 2 weeks. These are facts.
      There were enough people on the first 2 pages though that said they like all the changes except this and that, but no one mentioned the aircraft changes among them. The discussion only turned to that matter on page 3, after more than a week, when the airplane enthusiasts came out of the woodwork :P So I believe that overall the general reception of that change was quite good.
    • i agree mr freezy, that most of the balancing changes are great.

      also, no one wants an unbalanced game, no matter what camp they are in.

      I personally really like the infrastructure revamp.

      in the future, maybe the two camps can come to a little more agreeable compromise. Many folks like to micromanage and play with planes, and many voiced their opinion here, so no need to rehash it.

      Maybe if you folks are adamant in the idea that planes need their hps nerfed, then in the future we could have airbases contribute in some small way to resource production. It would make sense, after all.

      I always reckoned that the reason naval bases and infrastructure contributed to resource production because resources could be moved faster. airbases would fit right into that mentality