Call of war 1,5 event feedback

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    • Call of war 1,5 event feedback

      Please use the official 1,5 threads to communicate about the changes. We don't want 10 threads all about the same subject.

      Thanks for your understanding and cooperation,
      BMfox
      Moderator
      EN Community Support | Bytro Gmbh

      Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BMfoxCallofWar


      Found a bug or need help? Send a ticket here!
    • Alright, here's my first impression of the "event."

      Fair warning, I am not sugarcoating anything. This is the cold, hard, blunt truth.

      I'd like to start by saying that using manpower in such massive amounts when it comes to research is, if I'm being perfectly honest, a step in the wrong direction. If you're playing as Britain in the 1939 map, you're essentially screwed: your manpower production is so low that you'd really, really have to try in order to research. That's part of why researching required rare and food/goods. Manpower is needed for ARMIES.

      I could say the exact same thing for the resource requirements for buildings. Speaking of buildings, needing as many facilities as you need now is a complete waste. We already have a game that does this, and it's called Conflict of Nations: WWIII. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but Call of War was/is not Conflict of Nations, and this just makes it feel the same, and not in a good way.

      Now for resources! Population no longer consumes food, which is not only hilariously inaccurate, but completely undermines the vitality of food. If there's no risk of your population starving and revolting, which was a very real threat in this time period, then why have the resource at all?

      Additionally, making EVERY SINGLE THING require EVERY SINGLE RESOURCE is a terrible, terrible idea. It doesn't make any sense, first of all. Industrial buildings were built out of brick, not bread. Second, you run out of resources 3x as fast this way. In a game where resources are everything, how are you supposed to destroy your enemies if you have nothing to build troops with?

      As for military, the values of attack and defense have officially gone too far. 84 attack power in air combat for an interceptor? Seriously? The military tree has become hilariously unbalanced. While it's not as bad on a 22 player, 50 player, or even a 100 player map, once again, on the 25 Historically Accurate map, this would spell murder for smaller countries, and activity would sharply decline.

      Now, for the thing that is bugging me the most: now, only cities can produce units.

      This is just cruel. If you only have 4 cities, the most units you can EVER produce at one given time is 4 units (and that's assuming you have all of the buildings needed!) Again, on the 1939 map, if you're playing as Russia, you would have a massive advantage over a country like Mongolia. Smaller nations wouldn't even have a fraction of a chance: they'd just lose. Militias are now worthless, and you can't just "desperately cling to one final province." It completely undermines the strategy aspect of this game. It genuinely makes the game worse.

      In my opinion, it's not really working for Conflict of Nations, and it is DEFINITELY not working for CoW. Part of what made the Militia useful was it's ability to be produced literally anywhere. Now, if it can only be produced in Cities, there's no point in even researching it.

      This game is changing for the worse, ultimately. There's no reason to go through with this "update:" it's heavily flawed. Flawed beyond fixing, even. Some of the aspects of it don't even need to exist, yet here we are.

      If I get banned for this review, then so be it. It's the truth. If the developers can't handle that, then there's no reason for me to play the game.

      This isn't Call of War anymore, and I think we all know that.
    • Thanks for the feedback.

      You are basing alot of your arguments on the assumption that we would release the 1.5 on the existing maps with their current balancing. This we will not do. If we were to release 1.5 on existing maps, we would update their balancing (e.g. resource or manpower production) to make them work. On some maps we will even add more urban provinces.

      Regarding resource roles: They have indeed been changed and also shouldn't be compared with the current version as base for the discussion. We decided against a resource being only good as an upkeep or only being good as a research resource. Instead we decided to make all resources useful for production, with some units needing more of certain types than others.

      About units and buildings needing all resources: Buildings were built out of bricks, true. Not even in the old version were bricks a resource though. Still buildings were built by a workforce (hence manpower cost), which needed to eat food (hence food cost), and which also had production equipment and machinery (e.g. needing steel and oil for maintenance) and also some equipment made out of special materials, like rubber or aluminium (rare materials). Its just an example but if you want to play the realism card we can perfectly justify all units/buildings needing all resources, even if its just small quantities. For gameplay reasons it made also sense to us, to make all resources worthwhile. It's not set in stone though, but we wanted to test it.

      About provinces not having food upkeep: We simplified this and just went with the assumption that a whole province can handle their own needs. There are many aspects within a war and we don't need to simulate all of them (we also did not with the old version). We wanted to stop punishing players for conquering and make expanding easier to understand. We also needed to remove these upkeep costs to fit into the new balancing. If all provinces were to have resource upkeep, players would not want to touch any non-urban provinces anymore, as most of them would be a net-loss.

      As for the damage numbers: Having 84 attack actually does not mean anything without a reference point. It can be very little or it can be alot, depending on how much damage other units do and how much hitpoints they have. The mistake is to compare the damage values in the 1.5 version wih the damage values in the base game. They should be compared with hitpoints and damage values of other units of the 1.5 update instead, because there they make much more sense.

      This is also just the first event in a series of events. The current balancing is very rough and not final, it will be tweaked based on your feedback. For that we need detailed feedback, explaining why something is god or bad using specific game situations from the event. So please keep playing and try it out in practice, this will help us more than theorycrafting :)
    • So far I think I like the changes to the buildings and economy, but I'm concerned that units will not have their level automatically upgraded as research is completed. With the rapid increase in unit capability through the levels, early levels will be quickly obsolete.
      I thought, so far so good, and then I tried a few attacks. I attacked a troop transport holding 5 level 1 units with 3 of my new level 1 Tac Bombers. Easy meat for bombers - no, the transport hardly damaged and the bombers forced to retreat. Oh well, thank god I have a sub. First attack and the sub is down to 5% while the transport maybe loses 1%. What is this new order where troop transports rule the waves and can behave like vikings. This is madness.
      It seems that the sub is using its attack stats versus land units and not a ship.
      I fear my days are numbered.

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

    • Dunzell wrote:

      So far I think I like the changes to the buildings and economy, but I'm concerned that units will not have their level automatically upgraded as research is completed. With the rapid increase in unit capability through the levels, early levels will be quickly obsolete.
      I thought, so far so good, and then I tried a few attacks. I attacked a troop transport holding 5 level 1 units with 3 of my new level 1 Tac Bombers. Easy meat for bombers - no, the transport hardly damaged and the bombers forced to retreat. Oh well, thank god I have a sub. First attack and the sub is down to 5% while the transport maybe loses 1%. What is this new order where troop transports rule the waves and can behave like vikings. This is madness.
      It seems that the sub is using its attack stats versus land units and not a ship.
      I fear my days are numbered.
      All of this will be reviewed and likely adressed in the next event version :)
    • Dunzell wrote:

      I'm concerned that units will not have their level automatically upgraded as research is completed.
      I share Dunzell's concern, particularly when veteran units become 'obsolete' with 1.5 ... A general concern is that In my 30+ years of experience in electrical/electronic engineering design and development, one of the things that lead to misspent money and loss of market share is the tendency of talented designers to fiddle with a great product- like the introduction of new Coke many years ago mentioned elsewhere in this forum. I believe that CoW is a great product- like a classic car! So don't kill it- just tweak it a little here and there ...
    • I agree with Jester the sheep. I have enjoyed playing Call of War for several years now. I disliked many of the previous updates and liked some others. I've never complained about the ones that I didn't like. I simply found a way to adapt to them and continued to play. I have found a lot of guys who I really enjoy playing with and am a part of a great alliance. But if the game is changed as the 1.5 suggests now, I will find something else to do with my free time.





    • freezy wrote:

      (snip)

      Well, I do have my own feedbacks, that I will split between the horrible, the bad, the good, and the best :)


      - The horrible

      1. All buildings needing all resources to build
      I understand the "realistic" part of it (to an extent), but I do believe it goes against good design.
      The 06/11/2019 note said " Second we will make the game more appealing by making changes to the progression and game pace (...)"
      This changes makes the exact opposite : it makes the game less clear, it creates a noobie trap and in general more complex for no added advantage.
      It also forces the player to do some serious calculation to optimize productions, whereas before you would make easier strategic decision (I am currently gated by oil, where can I increase my oil production, where can i find more oil externally, how can I shift production to need less oil). Here, it is complicated.
      Note that the cost in manpower is cool with me (see below the "excellent"), I am more frustrated at Metal + Oil + Supplies + Rare Material + Food for every single units.


      2. Unit speed decreasing when below 50% IN COMBINATION with units not dying one-by-one.
      It is realistic, certainly, but it does not work because you cannot "detach" low HP units, so if you have 1 nice unit and one slow unit, if you merge them and the average is below 50%, you are stuck with one larger slow units and can't detach the fast unit any more. It is like the blob.
      This becomes REAL bad because units now don't die when below 50%. So as time passes you get those stack of say8 units at 20%, which you don't want to merge with healthy units because it will just become at stack of 9 at 24%, that is tapping fully in your resource in maintenance - and now you are actively trying to get the large stack to die. Very unrealistic.
      I feel like it should be either units die like in 1.0 CoW, or units don't die like in 1.0 CoW but they don't lose stats below 50% Both => Don't work.




      - The bad

      1. Units price and time of production changing depending on the level of the unit.
      I realize that this is made worse by the lack of information, but currently unit price, maintenance and time of production change by level. The unit progression is power is significantly more than the progression in price, but since in a city you cannot "degrade" the levels of the unit you produce (you have to produce the best available) I am in a situation where I would like to produce MORE, weaker units even weaker but I can't.
      This is especially jarring for foot infantry, where the "HP producer by hour" (eg how much HP of units you create in one hour) is better for infantry level 1 than for infantry level 2.


      2. Resource almost only produced in cities + units produced in cities
      It simplifies the game yes, but this means that only cities became relevant in the game. The rest is just distance to cross.
      In addition, it means taking cities = Less production capacity AND way less ressource for your opponent.
      I would really do the opposite : cities produce units, but not that much resources (or even not at all), and provinces produce the raw materials. This way, you have a real choice on what to defend, and one to attack

      Also, note that taking the supply crates or the wheat city of your opponent early game is quite simply crippling, there is no way to come back from that in a war.

      3. Units (esp. infantry) having different HP by level
      It makes the game much less accessible because you need to know - or check - the HP of each unit in a stack.
      I feel the progression is particularly bad for infantry (35=>60, x5 difference between low level and high level), but I would accept a (smaller than currently) progression for armor.


      4. Shorter combat and production time
      I know where it comes from, with more players playing on mobile, and it is a change to my advantage (I am VERY active) but I believe it gives too strong advantage to the active player. I also feel it will directly impact your monetisation, as before while could compensate less activity with more gold... but not now.


      - The good
      1. The new "light armor" category + the general direction of the balancing

      The light armor category really gives a space for the heavy armor, and - along with the decrease of efficiency of planes - it will create more diversity in the line-up of units we see. Some further balancing is obviously going to be necessary (light tank totally crippled for instance, motorized infantry being a solution to everything, ...) but still good.


      2. removal of province food & supplies upkeep.
      I wasn't so sure about this change, but I feel like I am now not afraid to take worthless province, and it was a newbie trap - so good.


      3. Each type of units needed a specialized building + units have a level they keep when created
      While it complexifies the game, I feel like it also makes the game more strategic, forces more arbitration (should I build more units of an existing team or upgrade my factory to produce better units).


      - The excellent
      1. Removal of building maintenance.
      No more need to activate or desactivate barracks and shipyard every time production is over ? GREAT !


      2. Gating by manpower
      Previously, manpower was only a problem early game, after that you were gated by other resources (usually food and oil) - something you could easily increase in production or exchange (relatively easily)
      I feel like the gating by manpower - the only resources where it is difficult to increase production - would in a leaner way hamper players from snowballing too much and would force more alliance.
      When balanced better, I think it will be ++.
      Also, I suspect it is going to be good for your monetization :)


      - "Jury still out"
      1. The new research tree with only food & manpower.


      Some proposals (as a former producer / designer on mobile MMORPG, one of which is in the "really successful" category)

      On building production
      Buildings would require (in addition to money / manpower) :
      Barracks : Supply crates
      Artillery factory : Supply crates, Steel
      Tank factory : Supply crates, Steel and oil
      Airports : Supply crates, oil and rare materials

      Upgrading a building stops production in said building (it would emulate what you wanted to make with units taking more time to produce at higher level without the frustration for the player, and also emulate IRL WW2 Germany wanting to shift production to better tanks and better planes, but just not able to afford the output loss in number)

      Unit costs (in addition to money / manpower) would mirror what it costs to make the building, so planes would require rare materials (which would represent aluminium or wolfram) and oil, tank would require oil and steel. Or course, Motorized infantry would need oil.

      Wondering whether I would not make infantry units "auto-upgrade" so the players would have the choice between building infantry (heavy on MP, but remain relevant) or armor (less heavy on MP, but needs to be upgraded and can be obsolescent).

      Capacity to build the "not-optimal" unit (at the lower price, this is what every single MMORPG is doing). Actually, being able to do that could allow to have better units more expensive in time, too.

      Raw materials are produced in not-cities, unit production can only be done in cities.

      Research would cost manpower, money, but also steel/rare materials/oil for units that require them
    • The ability to disband units needs to be added. Nothing worse then having a unit build in a lake and having it suck resources the rest of the game.

      The plus side of veteran unit spawning is...A gold spammer will not have great units early in the game.

      However I see more bad sides as you will have a huge mix of units. An upgrade feature should be included (i.e. in a city with the base resources).
    • deathmaster421 wrote:

      The ability to disband units needs to be added. Nothing worse then having a unit build in a lake and having it suck resources the rest of the game.

      The plus side of veteran unit spawning is...A gold spammer will not have great units early in the game.

      However I see more bad sides as you will have a huge mix of units. An upgrade feature should be included (i.e. in a city with the base resources).
      However, this has been suggested but to make this game more fun...They do not add the disabling or terminate part
      BeaveRyan
      Moderator
      EN Community Support | Bytro Labs Gmbh


      Training Alliance United Leader
    • airport has better infrastrukture than small level 1 factory. "pit stop" times on airports lvl 1 is 30 minutes. Lvl 1 factory with 1 single airstrip 1 hour. Better factories with more airstrips have better refueling time. But already lvl 2 factory is more expensive and take longer to build then easy level 1 airport...
    • I made a group of 7 tanks and 8 motorized infantry and another of 3 tank destroyers and 7 tanks, I sent them yesterday to conquer a country, human player, the first one to the cities, the second one to rural provinces. He has moved well, but this is not 1.0, so he "crashed" against my "megadivisions" with smaller groups. At the morning he was erased. Before, you needed to mind where attack, when, use the right type of unit, aircraft support, bigger groups of the same unit had damage penalty....think, have a plan. Before this was a strategy game, now is only brute force, the mechanic of combat is made for dumbs.
      You don't need to mind about the resources neither, the only thing that matters is manpower, and the improve of the factory is ridiculous, you can increase manpower faster conquering territories.
      Excuse my mistakes in english, I came from the spanish server, where almost all the staff have resigned like 2 weeks ago....
      This game is dying and make it for children with credit cards is not the solution.
      Kind regards.
      Si no tienes posibilidades de vencer, es el momento de atacar.
    • Somanta wrote:

      I made a group of 7 tanks and 8 motorized infantry and another of 3 tank destroyers and 7 tanks, I sent them yesterday to conquer a country, human player, the first one to the cities, the second one to rural provinces. He has moved well, but this is not 1.0, so he "crashed" against my "megadivisions" with smaller groups. At the morning he was erased. Before, you needed to mind where attack, when, use the right type of unit, aircraft support, bigger groups of the same unit had damage penalty....think, have a plan. Before this was a strategy game, now is only brute force, the mechanic of combat is made for dumbs.
      You don't need to mind about the resources neither, the only thing that matters is manpower, and the improve of the factory is ridiculous, you can increase manpower faster conquering territories.
      Excuse my mistakes in english, I came from the spanish server, where almost all the staff have resigned like 2 weeks ago....
      This game is dying and make it for children with credit cards is not the solution.
      Kind regards.
      You might want to consider to use artillery and or air force. Every noob can make superstacks and run them around, no skill or strategy needed. Furthermore Superstacks are an open invitation for nukes or rockets.

      You are right on the recourses but industrial complexes are still needed to enhance economy. If you only go armour you soon run into metal and oil problems.
      BMfox
      Moderator
      EN Community Support | Bytro Gmbh

      Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BMfoxCallofWar


      Found a bug or need help? Send a ticket here!
    • Hello,

      on test map version 1.5, number 2899440 are this bugs, in day 2:

      A) Now are First day of Peace , end in 19.30 our time. But South Usa attack Hamilton Island from Great Britain, Both are Human players

      B) AI Inteligence is low, because, when I attack by artillery, nobody go from city against artillery.


      Version 1,5 is fantastic idea and very good step for better play this game.
      Thank you.

      Ales B.
      Alliance Leader 311 Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron RAF
    • Thanks for the detailed feedback on all those topics, very helpful! I have to say we alredy planned to improve alot of points on your list in future iterations of the Event. On some of the points you made we got very contradictory feedback so far. Players have different tastes and we probably have to find a good compromise in the end, as we cannot fulfill all wishes of everyone. So while we probably don't change everything you listed, we will hopefully improve many of it.
    • Well, thanks for the answer to me specifically.

      I think it was already mentionned, but some more info on unit balancing specifically (the general rules, not the fine-details). I can't comment on ships since I see very little naval action.

      Terrain Preference

      - I think it is more newbie friendly now, especially the end of the -"50% HP in cities for armor". Only working with bonus (for infantry in city) rather than the malus in 1.0 (for tanks in cities and mountains) is just easier on new players.
      Keep that

      Attack&Defense
      - Unit stronger in attack than in defense needs to go. In CoW 1.0, it was exceptional and justified by the nature of the units (submarine and artillery), with one exception - the commando. In the new version, it is super common, with three negative impact :
      - You have a bonus in being active when attacked to do that one last minute move against the enemy moving against you. - It forces you to calculate whether you are better off with the province defense bonus or the attack bonus. Not cool.
      - Huge newbie trap. I can't count the number of players letting their Light Tank in defense.

      The previous system with some units being either "good in both" or "better in defense" worked very well, I feel like you broke something that worked.
      Also, some of the choice do not make much choice. Self-propelled anti-tank were NOT meant to be used in attack, motorized infantry is more mobile but not supposed to attack "mounted" and thus better in defense in real life, etc.


      Speed
      - Units going faster each level is a good feature. Different unit level depending on your production level is a good feature. Sadly, both those feature mix terribly, since you need to check the speed of all unit and micromanage your stacks due to that.

      - For air, speed is not much of an issue, but range gets complex between different unit level. What I would do is align the range of the most commonly used planes (figher/n bomber / t bomber) when they have the same level so all level 3 planes have a range of 375 km/h and you don't need to be looking which units is shortening your range.

      - Foot infantry walking at 42 km/h at level 5. Come on…

      HP
      - Increasing HP by level is really weird and I keep calculating how much HP i have by unit of oil/MP/whatever I am lacking.

      - Early infantry are so bad compared to even level 2 infantry that you want them dead asap for the resource cost. Another problem
      In general, foot infantry are terrible compared to their manpower cost (motorized infantry are on the other hand OP but I guess it gonna be fixed)

      Holistic proposal to fix the issues above :

      Infantry (militia nd all 3 kinds of infantry, tbd for Commando/Para) automatically level-up when the new tech is found. That's the "special power" of infantry-type of units. This way, early units level-up if you make them survive, and the key advantage of the VERY costly infantry in manpower is that it will never become obsolescent. Yes, it is not as good as an armored unit of the same level for an higher price in Manpower, but it will help you 'till the end of the game.

      The only unit that gain speed when it levels-up is the LIGHT armor unit, eg the raiders and the units meant to go fast (+self propelled AA/AT/Arty, but that acceptable). That's the "special stuff" with light armor, they go faster as they level-up. Easy to remember, and since they are already the fastest unit you don't need to compare your various units to know which one to detach to go faster, it is always going to be the same "slow" unit.

      The only unit that gain HP when it levels-up is the (normal) armored unit, ie Tank Destroyers, Mid & Heavy Tanks units meant to, well, "tank". That's the "special stuff" with heavy armor, they are more sturdy as they level up. It will also allow less dramatic increase of HP : Tank destroyers moving from 120 to 360 HP (x3) is more acceptable than foot infantry moving from 35 to 210 HP (x7!!). IMO the "gap" should be x2 but that's balancing decision.

      Of course, other stats like attack/defense are still increased for all units.

      The only "gap" in the design are AT, AA, Artilery (and maybe Commando/Para units). Making them upgrade automatically would make the Ordonnance factory useless. So I would do one of the following :
      - remove the Ordonnance Factory fully and make AT/AA/Artillery have the same "auto-improve" as infantry,
      - keep the Ordonnance Factory and repurpose it (production speed for armor ?) and make AT/AA/Artillery have the same "auto-improve" as infantry,
      - keep them separated and follow current rules but no speed gain no HP gain. It will just be a little less clear for new users but still.
      - Create a new “support” category. Units have the same attack / defense versus support as they have versus unarmored (just add a “/“ in the attack/defense matrix of all units to clarify). The “special” stuff of support is that they are not special :)

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