Research Balancing Update

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

  • atreas1 wrote:

    Just thought of something that might not fit well together with the new research speedup.

    Forts

    Forts are already devalued (Infra is now giving morale) and now the faster advent of their real killers (Rockets Lvl4) will be the end of them I think. Even if they become MUCH cheaper, this might not be enough because they are practically almost useless (or perhaps in more diplomatic terms practically suboptimal).

    Do you have any thoughts on that?
    Right now fortresses are not much of a concern to us with this balancing update. But there will be more balancing updates in the future, where we really look into buildings and units. These small building adjustments were just some quick fixes to adress concers with the research update. This wont be the end though. Rockets will be looked at in the future.

    General Nightman wrote:

    I like every suggestion except one.

    Arcorian wrote:

    - We reduced the hitpoints of Infrastructure, Barracks, Airport and Naval base to 5, and also reduced their economic ranking factors to 5
    --> This change addresses the fast construction time of these production buildings. They are easy and fast to construct, but also give less ranking points and are also fast to destroy.
    Strategic bombers would be extremely powerful against these, one bombing run and another building is gone. Resources are tight early game, having to rebuild that much would be devastating.Perhaps 10-15HP?
    Do you mean Strategic Bombers finally have a reason to be built other than being meatshields for other airplanes? :D Not a bad thing in our eyes. Fast buildup time means faster destruction. Makes decisions on where and when to place buildings more meaningful.


    We forgot to mention one point in the update, I added it at the end of Arcorian's list on the previous page.

  • I say you should still need interceptors to research all the other planes.

    also, unit building time needs to be sped up because even though you have everything ready to make tanks, you are still making infantry at the same rate
    FORUM GANG WARRANT OFFICER
    "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
    KNOW THE RULES!
    Call of War Game Rules
    Call of War Forum Rules
    Terms of Service

    attacker 101
    Call of War Player
    EN Server | Bytro Labs Gmbh

  • Just curious if I understand correctly, the goal is to speed up how quickly units get researched while preserving game balance as the game progress from early to late stages. Assuming I understood correctly my question is: instead of doing all the rebalancing and fine tuning for research time, research costs, new prerequisits for unlocking tech, etc... Would it not be a hell of alot easier to leave everything as is and simply increase the number of research slots progressively as the game advances?

    One way could be say 10 days in everyone gets an extra research slot from 2 now 3 etc

    Another way could be Victory Point based as nations grow when they accumulate x amount of VPs they unlock research slots.

    This method has been suggested many times on the forum and from my perspective appears a hell of alot simpler then rebalancing every single research... Just trying to understand the logic behind preferring the method that was chosen over another that is farm simpler and easier to asjust on the fly should things need readjusting in the near future as inevitably they will.

  • Hi all,

    OK, first of all: Wow! That's an impressive update. And I'm confident it will be the most valuable improvement that CoW has ever seen. I really love the progression in resource costs and times from lower to higher levels. That brings bigger variety into unit choices and makes every research decision difficult and interesting. Is what I propose since a year and I'm grateful you realized this. And Kanaris: No, that clearly is not the same as just changing the amount of research slots according to whatever rules - it's a waaay better change.

    Noow... additionally you made modern technologies researchable on earlier days. I guess you did this for two reasons:
    1.: Of course, if research choices shall be difficult (which we all want), players must at any time (more precisely: after day 4) have more choices than they can realize with their two research slots and/or the resources they can spare for research. But if you double the intervals in between new research availability and analogically double time and costs required for every technology, you'd have the same effect, wouldn't you?
    2.: You wanted to speed up the pace of the game, because modern young people with the smartphone in their hands don't have the patience for slow paced games. But I want to remind you that nevertheless the slow pace in general isn't a bad thing. Players who also have a life in the real world require the slow pace to also have a chance against the 24/7 gamers. In fast paced games, online presence is more important than strategy, so in these they have no chance. Offering more speed maps is the better option than reducing the interval in between technology availability.

    And why? Because that has these negative consequences:
    * As soon as there exists the possibility to research high-level planes AND rockets at level >= 3 AND nuclear rockets, that makes all ground units completely obsolete. They then no longer have a chance to even get close to the enemy's border. That's a weird kind of game and doesn't feel like WW2 any more. Before this update, this moment comes at day 40 - now it's somewhere at about day 25. That means also the important mid-game battles will be decided by rockets and infinitely patroling planes. That's not good.
    * The update brings a new dimension to gold usage. Before, you could hardly buy a big research advantage with gold. Now you can buy everything you can imagine... and that already at day 20. Gold spenders will smother you with level 3 bombers on day 8, with level 3 rockets on day 12 and with nuclear rockets on day 20, when your naturally grown economy is still so small there is no chance you can defend against somebody who spends just about 50.000 gold on better technology... no matter how good your strategy is. And they will laugh in your face while doing so. So far, players without gold only have to fight against higher quantity of enemy units. Now they'll have to fight against units from another generation of weapon technology.
    Players who so far don't buy gold, still won't. And players who buy gold, won't buy more but will need less to checkmate a no-gold-player.
    If you thought about this well and it's really what you want, you can leave the update as it is.

    Otherwise please consider my proposal, which is a compromise:
    * Until day 8, leave intervals between research availabilities as you have them in the update. From then on increase them like this: A 4-day-interval becomes 6 days and a 2-day-interval becomes 4 days. Looking at the air tree as an example: What now is available at day 12 would become available on day 14; day 16 becomes 20; 20 becomes 26; 22 becomes 30.
    * To keep the schedule tight, increase all research times on all levels by about 25%.
    * Also increase research costs on the higher levels, so they keep being relevant for the late-game economies.
    * Move level 3 and level 4 rockets each one column to the right in the research tree.
    * Increase research time for rockets on all levels by an additional 10%. I mean hey, it's rocket science. Not an easy subject for 1942 engineers.

    (P.S.: I noticed that before day 8, research time hardly plays a role, but resources for research do very much. That's a consequence of progression for research time being higher than progression for research costs. My proposal also evens out this imperfection during the first 8 days.)

  • One other thing: I understand the change from goods to food as the second resource required for researching. But this has made goods less valuable and food more rare. So it buffed units that need a lot of goods and nerfed units that need a lot of steel and/or food.

    Units buffed:
    * Tactical and naval bombers: To countervail that buff, I propose to give them +2 hours research time on every level.
    * Commandos: They profit the most from that change, because they cost no steel and very few food. Additionally, they profit from this update because they now are available already on day 4! Thirdly, they were already unrealistically useful as front-line units before this update and they make paratroopers a fully irrational choice. So I propose their research time and costs should be raised by about 60%.

    Units nerfed:
    * Tanks, tank destroyers and AC: I propose their research time and costs should be reduced by about 5% on all levels.
    * Strategical bombers: OK, you already gave them lower research time, so that's already fixed.
    * Destroyers and subs: I propose their research time and costs should be reduced by about 5% on all levels.
    * Railway guns: OK, they on the other hand profit by now being available already on day 4, so you can leave them like that.

  • And one more thing: The change from goods to food in the research costs has made the situations where you have manpower in superfluity without any use for it even more frequent (because now food is more scarce, so you can build only a smaller number of units). To counterbalance this very negative side-effect, please increase manpower costs of all 4 infantry types (regular inf., militia, motorized and mechanized) and decrease their food costs. In both production and upkeep.
    This would also have other positive results.

  • And even one more thing^^: You're right with making motorized and mechanized infantry available much earlier. But mechanized infantry researchable on day 4 is a very extreme buff for them. I promise I'll never build a single tank if you change nothing about the balance tanks <-> mechanized infantry as it is in the update. My proposal is to decrease all of the attack and defense values of mechanized infantry by 20%.


    Oh, and by the way: Nobody said that nuclear bombers do any bad for the gameplay. Before this update, they are already almost useless, it's nuclear rockets only that are the problem. With the update, nuclear bombers are additionally nerfed because you no longer have to wait until day 40 for the alternative (nuclear rockets). Please at least undo the nerf you gave nuclear bombers with the latest change. Otherwise everyone who has experience with how they work (or rather "with how they don't work") will decide for nuclear rockets and against nuclear bombers, while it should be a hard choice between these two. The way it is in the update, researching nuclear bomber level 3 (which still is almost useless compared to nuclear rockets) takes 2,5 times as much resources and research time as researching nuclear rockets. That's not balanced at all.

  • the Blitzkrieg map needs some more work because without it, the tree looks likes this on day 1:
    make the limit for researching earlier?
    also, can someone create a 25 map so we can test that with the new update?
    FORUM GANG WARRANT OFFICER
    "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
    KNOW THE RULES!
    Call of War Game Rules
    Call of War Forum Rules
    Terms of Service

    attacker 101
    Call of War Player
    EN Server | Bytro Labs Gmbh

    The post was edited 2 times, last by attacker101 ().

  • attacker101 wrote:

    ya think I have time to read all of that?
    Do you think I care if you do?
    ;) :P

    I don't (saying this in friendship). But I really hope the game designers take some time to consider my proposals. Because otherwise a big chance is missed to fix about a dozen issues with simple value adjustments and without any code changes required. It's way better to do that now than to first release and adjust later.

  • General Nightman wrote:

    That looks terrible, way too quick.
    Way too quick indeed.

    I was thinking that perhaps the problem is the incompatibility of the map size and the speed. What might look like an acceptably fast speed for the 22 map will surely look like a joke in the 100 map, and vice versa. I am curious to see where the result will be, but maybe it is about time to have at least two different research speeds.

  • As I am not a frontline pioneer, I will have to work with what is written in this thread, sadly. Though fortunately there is enough to read from which I can distil some information. ;)

    freezy wrote:

    1) Thanks for the feedback so far! We are planning to do some tweaks and further adjustments, which will be shared later.

    2) It is of course per design that at some point you also have to take resource cost into consideration and not only research time, which makes choices more meaningful. In the current old system you basically research constantly as resource costs for research are in most cases meaningless, and due to that not much thinking is required. The new system will present some more meaningful choices to the players.

    3) This is also only the first step in a larger rebalancing of the game. Things that may seem out of context now will fit better once we also tackle the other areas of the game some time in the future. But that's future talk...
    1) Good news, as always, happy to see improvements.
    2) A very welcome change it seems to me!
    3) So if things seem out of context now, because they will fit better once other areas of the game are also tackled, is it not the case that things are indeed out of context at the moment? Assuming you know what you are doing, I only hope that this out of context testing makes sense in the grand scheme of things.

    freezy wrote:

    Right now fortresses are not much of a concern to us with this balancing update. But there will be more balancing updates in the future, where we really look into buildings and units. These small building adjustments were just some quick fixes to adress concers with the research update. This wont be the end though. Rockets will be looked at in the future.
    So..............., it is reckonized that rocekts form a 'concern'. One that will be looked at in future balancing updates. This makes me very happy.

    freezy wrote:


    General Nightman wrote:

    Strategic bombers would be extremely powerful against these, one bombing run and another building is gone. Resources are tight early game, having to rebuild that much would be devastating.Perhaps 10-15HP?
    Do you mean Strategic Bombers finally have a reason to be built other than being meatshields for other airplanes? :D Not a bad thing in our eyes. Fast buildup time means faster destruction. Makes decisions on where and when to place buildings more meaningful.
    If I am reading this correctly, whoever the owners of 'our eyes' might be, though I am guessing this refers to game designers building on our favorite game much like freezy himself. Destroying buildings is welcomed as a part of the game and thus welcomed as a potential strategic move within the game. Now I could be reading this with my own bias towards being able to destroy buildings as a good thing. But it seems to me that the ''destroy buildings'' strategy as I have called it before is going to be a bigger part of the game as compared to now. Again, this makes me very happy.

    I applaud the tweaking of the reasearch tree ideas as to making playthroughs of the game more diverse in terms of units. Although I do see some possibilities for imbalance when certain units are being made available earlier then their effective counters are. As for example could be the case with higher level planes and SP anti-air.

    Looking forward to the grand scheme of these changes, I am very curious.

    Kind regards,

    Edepedable

  • freezy wrote:

    Rockets will be looked at in the future.
    I honestly don't see what is wrong with the rockets, I they are pretty evenly balanced.
    You get high damage for dangerous build, risky transport and expensive rare and oil costs.
    While SP Rockets might be cool to add, I think regular rockets are perfect as is.
    General Nightman

    Retired Hero


    "War is fought in three ways. Helping your enemy to lose, helping your allies to victory or helping yourself to win. Any way you take it, you are always helping someone."

  • General Nightman wrote:

    freezy wrote:

    Rockets will be looked at in the future.
    I honestly don't see what is wrong with the rockets, I they are pretty evenly balanced.You get high damage for dangerous build, risky transport and expensive rare and oil costs.
    While SP Rockets might be cool to add, I think regular rockets are perfect as is.
    Just a few hints:

    They have extremely unrealistic damage over units, plus unrealistic accuracy (remember the time we are talking about).
    They have no real counter - the transport risk is simply not enough.
    They even have a (small) range damage. That is inevitable in game (grid).

    I am struggling to remember a case of rockets been used against troops, even decades later than WWIi. Especially against engaged troops.

  • After testing a bit more, I want to stress this:
    1.: It's not good that research durations only start to matter quite late. In early game, you very clearly don't have the resources to keep both research slots filled all the time. Would be better if you had to ask yourself whether you make the investment to keep them filled non-stop already during early game and research stuff you MIGHT need later (because you know that research time will become precious later on).
    2.: As many of us said, it's not good in itself that "high tech" now is researchable on earlier days.

    The suggestion from my first post would improve both aspects very much.

    Hans A. Pils wrote:

    * Until day 8, leave intervals between research availabilities as you have them in the update. From then on increase them like this: A 4-day-interval becomes 6 days and a 2-day-interval becomes 4 days. Looking at the air tree as an example: What now is available at day 12 would become available on day 14; day 16 becomes 20; 20 becomes 26; 22 becomes 30.
    * To keep the schedule tight, increase all research times on all levels by about 25%.
    * Also increase research costs on the higher levels, so they keep being relevant for the late-game economies.
    * Move level 3 and level 4 rockets each one column to the right in the research tree.
    * Increase research time for rockets on all levels by an additional 10%. I mean hey, it's rocket science. Not an easy subject for 1942 engineers.
    Also would help to make decisions interesting already at the beginning if research slot #2 was closed until day 8. But don't know if that would be easy to implement(?)

  • Thanks for the detailed feedback Hans A. Pils! Many of your suggestions will likely be looked at in further balancing updates, where we will also look in detail at units and buildings. As said previously this research balancing change is only the first step in rebalancing the game. This change is of course not perfect, but its also not the end of the road. It should already by a nice improvement and we will iterate on it later. The feedback in this thread is very qualitative and depending on playstyle and experience. While I think you may be right with many of your concerns, I think they still may not be valid for all players in all situations. We already made alot of adjustments based on the qualitative feedback in this thread and tried to adress most of the concerns. But now we need more quantitative data to verify many of these changes. Since there is no major issue blocking the release and most of the remaining concerns are rather minor, we will likely release the changes in their current state to get practical data on a grand scale, and then make further adjustments in later updates.

    attacker101, that is indeed a good catch! We forgot to update the starting day of the historic scenarios accordingly. We will likely fix this issue before the release, as it is indeed not wanted that you can research everything from the start.

    Thanks for the kind words, Edepedable.

  • One round played on 22p map. These changes made my ‘standard’ development strategy obsolete. The switch from Goods to Food alone forced a complete reevaluation of economic and research priorities. The availability of stronger units sooner wasn’t as big a deal though. For example, can research MechInf early but it still takes the same amount of time/resources to build Barrack3 so still not able to *produce* one for several days. Just because units researchable early doesn’t necessarily mean fast deployment. Making effective adjustments to the new situation will be a true test of players’ skill.

  • Nooberium wrote:

    The switch from Goods to Food alone forced a complete reevaluation of economic and research priorities.
    well you've got to feed your scientists :P .
    FORUM GANG WARRANT OFFICER
    "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
    KNOW THE RULES!
    Call of War Game Rules
    Call of War Forum Rules
    Terms of Service

    attacker 101
    Call of War Player
    EN Server | Bytro Labs Gmbh