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Dandywalken posted:This became a big issue with Scandi and NSWP forces specifically. For some reason, Danes especially seemed vocal about it IIRC. Part of the problem is that Denmark's army was designed around a specific threat on specific terrain. Inside that box, they're fine. On giant open plains...well no one plays Denmark.
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Aug 19, 2014 01:30
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NK in beta were much more reasonable because they had Strelas on literally everything. The real problem why is that Cat C is completely useless in this game, yet there are factions (NK especially) that are basically designed for that. Cat B is likewise useless, despite some factions being extremely well suited for it (....if it were valuable).
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Aug 19, 2014 01:43
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Minenfeld! posted:Part of the problem is that Denmark's army was designed around a specific threat on specific terrain. Inside that box, they're fine. On giant open plains...well no one plays Denmark. In ALB at least Denmark was not best at anything, or even particularly good at anything. Pick any type of terrain and you'd still have trouble fighting on it; there were just some places where you'd be less outclassed than on others.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:18
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Adventure Pigeon posted:Speaking of campaigns, I tried to do the Dragon vs Bear campaign post-rebalancing, and it's a drat nightmare. There just aren't a lot of Chinese or North Korean tanks available that can stand up to the Russians, and the lack of good atgms makes it even worse. The only quasi-solution I found was the use of cluster bombers backed up by helicopters, but that didn't really do a good job stemming the tide. Anyone have any thoughts on it? Blitz the gently caress outta the Soviets. If you're fast enough, you won't have to face anything bigger than T-72As. Dealing with those is pretty much down to stunning with artillery and then throwing a shitload of crappy ATGMs, tanks and clusterbombers at them. Also, let infantry take the attack; I actually won the final battle of the campaign with a ~500-man human wave of nork Marines and chinese reservists crossing about 2000m of open ground under fire to overrun the final soviet command tank. 
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Aug 19, 2014 04:32
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Panzeh posted:North Koreans and Chinese are really not very good. Eugen never had a decent design philosophy with them. Have you played the campaign? The problem isn't the multiplayer unit roster its the 1980-whatever formations they're stuck with. The Soviet stuff may be too advanced but the problem is mostly that the Chinese have access to garbage and only garbage.
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Aug 19, 2014 04:45
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Scandinavia could be a chance to put the whole post Cold War 'the tank is dead' army onto a Cold War battlefield, I hope they take that combined arms tack.
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Aug 19, 2014 04:54
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Chantilly Say posted:What loadout do you imagine it with? Something interesting like the KAB-1500L/KR, or 6-8 ODAB-500PM. I guess they decided the Su-27M was a strike eagle alternative with the Kh-29s, but the IL-102 is supposed to be this interesting alternative and it just isn't. Mazz fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Aug 19, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 06:53
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Mortabis posted:In ALB at least Denmark was not best at anything, or even particularly good at anything. Pick any type of terrain and you'd still have trouble fighting on it; there were just some places where you'd be less outclassed than on others. Haerhjemvarnets were basically Mazz posted:Well I think the main problem there was NK/CN were really only good because they had a bunch of outright broken units. That doesn't make them well designed, more like the opposite. You could tell they weren't actually designed to be better, they were designed around feature creep and the developers not understanding their own mechanics to the point that they had to be fixed nearly immediately. The Juckwidae, Strela APC and J-7H being prime examples, nothing exceptional about them except they were way too cheap and you got way too many. I'm really coming from the exact opposite end of the spectrum from you on this. I don't think that having Javelins, LAV-ADs, Su-34s, etc would have done a drat thing to improve the game if Eugen didn't change their very scatterbrained approach to game design. And "weak fundamentals, OP gimmicks" is a much better design philosophy than "uh um uh here's some cool poo poo" that guides the design for EC and CW, in that it's a design philosophy at all. The problem remains and will remain that Eugen refuses to articulate any greater vision than milporn.
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Aug 19, 2014 07:39
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MonkeyLibFront posted:Could you link me? Seconding this I want to see the screenshot.
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Aug 19, 2014 07:50
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Tulip posted:Haerhjemvarnets were basically Well I agree with the scatterbrained aspect as it really is a collective problem within RD that new units wouldn't fix. But other then that you have to remember that I consider ALB's core gameplay ideas to be really loving good, outside of a couple very specific items like the .7 HE reduction thing or whatever (mens in houses). They tore down and rebuilt a bunch of those ideas in RD and I personally consider it a worse game because of it. You have to find a medium where decks have interesting units that fit within the normal bounds of your mechanics, and I think for the most part ALB did this well barring a couple units we really could've used (TOW infantry, etc). So considering that, I would've been perfectly happy with just more units, especially those that are relatively unique and milpornish because that's the stuff that I always found the most interesting. While I would totally love more complex deck ideas (like the NK low quality, high quantity idea), the problem is that those ideas always play out so much better in theory then in practice because, simply put, gamers tend to take things to their logical extreme and expose all the flaws they can exploit. Unless the decks can really compete with each other on a generalized level, min/maxing will lead to lovely gameplay sooner or later. It's worth noting that RD did totally add a bunch of units, but the issue I find is they basically put on a blindfold and tossed a handful of darts at a board, and then added coalitions with the idea it would sort itself out. It didn't. Look to the US for example, they got a bunch of units in categories they didn't really need new units in while some of their biggest ALB problems still remain. I never was very interested in adding large mechanics changes to ALB because the game its core was really sound, and if RD is any kind of indicator, more mechanics really just leads to more problems within your player base and game execution. Little ideas like smoke from MBTs when routing, sure, but big sweeping changes to scale and design is asking for a different game, and I didn't/don't want that. And the problem with EU and CW isn't really "too much cool poo poo," it's that they merged a bunch of decks together that do not really balance well to the rest of the decks available. Germany and France with 10-15 more units per side could be standalones on the level of the US (hell, better in some areas as they already are), and really the coalition concept was another idea that's better in theory then actual practice (it is a good idea for the actual minors, like Scandinavia IMO, but I would've approached those decks differently from the outset seeing how Denmark/Norway didn't have basic necessities). And to be perfectly clear, the changes they've made to RD with the tanks and infantry in houses have generally been pretty good and I would've been happy to see ALB progress the same way. But I still have major issues with map philosophy, artillery, air power on those maps, and some other stuff that keeps RD firmly less interesting to me then ALB was. Mazz fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Aug 19, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 08:01
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Magni posted:Blitz the gently caress outta the Soviets. If you're fast enough, you won't have to face anything bigger than T-72As. Dealing with those is pretty much down to stunning with artillery and then throwing a shitload of crappy ATGMs, tanks and clusterbombers at them. Also, let infantry take the attack; I actually won the final battle of the campaign with a ~500-man human wave of nork Marines and chinese reservists crossing about 2000m of open ground under fire to overrun the final soviet command tank. I beat it pre-patch using heavy air power. Did zerg tactics work post-patch for you? The tank buffs help the Soviets a lot more than the Koreans/Chinese.
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Aug 19, 2014 08:54
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I've done a mix. If you've done well on conserving units, then by the final battles you have the morale, starting points and troop avaiability to just throw all your poor SOBs into the meatgrinder and don't care about losses anymore because you don't intend to fight another battle afterwards anyway. But again, it's mostly the speed; you can hit that last russian territory up the coast before the T-80s and all that bullshit even arrives.
Magni fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Aug 19, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 16:12
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since coalitions have roughly similar overall capabilities point value is the fundamental of balance. it's hard to flavor factions when this is the case. necessarily a horde faction (presumably NK) would have to offer good point value on infantry. I don't think good point value as a method of distinguishing factions is even a place Eugen contemplates going; the times it has happened it's been nerfed into the ground, usually justifiably. i.e. Haer Hjemmervaet wern't flavor they were just overpowered. good points value for cost can never be balanced unless it comes at a significant price in terms of other capabilities and the only real system for that right now is Prototypes. And Prototypes are mostly meaningless. ----- I find china pretty decent now actually, their tanks have good firepower and I've had decent success just spamming line infantry and RR troops in close terrain. their tanks cant compete in open terrain with super-heavies but they have their ATGM trucks for that. NK is really suffering though they've basically been screwed.
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Aug 19, 2014 21:12
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The system is supposed to give a lot of balance flexibility because you could theoretically change the values of point cost, availability/card, and the deck point cost of each slot, but Eugen seems pretty committed to keeping a lot of that standard.
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Aug 19, 2014 21:29
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Tulip posted:Haerhjemvarnets were basically If you're talking about ALB, that would be when reservists were still un-prototyped.
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Aug 19, 2014 21:31
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Wait, if you lose APCs in the campaign it counts as losing the infantry squad too?
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Aug 19, 2014 21:43
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Chantilly Say posted:The system is supposed to give a lot of balance flexibility because you could theoretically change the values of point cost, availability/card, and the deck point cost of each slot, but Eugen seems pretty committed to keeping a lot of that standard. I remember when they raised the price on EGer T72. I'm amazed at Eugen's ability to give themselves millions of tools, and only use them accidentally. Mortabis posted:If you're talking about ALB, that would be when reservists were still un-prototyped. So long ago, but it was so traumatic 
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Aug 19, 2014 21:55
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Yahoo! Brand new PC arrives, and my old monitor refuses to function with it! Yeeehaww! GOOD TIMES!
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Aug 19, 2014 22:12
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They could do some probably pretty decent balancing if they dropped mixed decks entirely, but they're not gonna do that.
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Aug 19, 2014 23:40
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That's essentially why we killed mixed decks in UralMod. Unless it operates on a white list mixed decks are always going to be problematic due to unintended consequences.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:16
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I've been trying out mixed decks recently, and it's kind of hard mode. Granted, I'm taking absolutely no restrictions, but I don't see why you would take it outside of some gimmicky support deck.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:46
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Mixed decks are not really an issue because who plays mixed decks anymore? Coalitions are where it's at. Coalitions are, I think, the best way to have a variety of viable decks without breaking the game's philosophy too hard by just giving every minor a ton of fictional or artificially buffed units. Most nations just aren't going to make a good deck in on themselves.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:50
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But then, some nations don't really need to be in coalitions. Eurocorps has always been the prime example of this as FRG is definitely only a few additions from being a stand alone power. France would take more work I think but could be doable. While Commonwealth is complained about, I figure it's a way of allowing CAN/ANZ decks call on heavy support options from the homeland  as the UK is another one of the "stand alone" candidates in a similar vein to the FRG.I'd even argue that the East Bloc is somewhat superfluous after the DLC additions as each one of them is a self contained complete army that are all very competent. The East Bloc is fine for flavor/fun I guess, but they defiantly don't need to band together to be competitive anymore. Xerxes17 fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Aug 20, 2014 |
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Aug 20, 2014 03:03
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If you killed mixed decks you could do some crazy poo poo, like making all DPRK squads 15man without changing prices, and make each nation play shockingly differently without worrying that you were accidentally making mixed decks stupid powerful.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:25
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Chantilly Say posted:If you killed mixed decks you could do some crazy poo poo, like making all DPRK squads 15man without changing prices, and make each nation play shockingly differently without worrying that you were accidentally making mixed decks stupid powerful. But none of the good poo poo is non-proto anyway. Like loving up balanced with mixed decks is a total non-issue since like, late ALB since mixed decks are just plain bad. They've had brief moments as artillery monsters but it's a complete non-factor, it's like worrying about the balance of RR jeeps.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:42
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Mixed decks are still a try-hard go to though from my experiences of playing with daywalker and sleksa. Centurions backed up by 103C's and Type-90's with the best selection of infantry and support backing them up is a bastard to fight.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:45
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Tulip posted:But none of the good poo poo is non-proto anyway. Like loving up balanced with mixed decks is a total non-issue since like, late ALB since mixed decks are just plain bad. They've had brief moments as artillery monsters but it's a complete non-factor, it's like worrying about the balance of RR jeeps. Honestly, most of the really point-efficient stuff is distinctly not-proto. It's why mixed nato was dominant in ALB and even for most of RD's life.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:46
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Xerxes17 posted:Mixed decks are still a try-hard go to though from my experiences of playing with daywalker and sleksa. Centurions backed up by 103C's and Type-90's with the best selection of infantry and support backing them up is a bastard to fight. You forgot the Kyu Marus.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:54
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Panzeh posted:Honestly, most of the really point-efficient stuff is distinctly not-proto. Hm that's true. My "1v1 isn't real Wargame" attitude is a bit of a liability here. Still, mixed is just another deck, not actually a particularly unique form of deck, so dumping it isn't really that much more meaningful from a balance perspective than dropping Denmark or Poland.
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Aug 20, 2014 04:01
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Tulip posted:Hm that's true. My "1v1 isn't real Wargame" attitude is a bit of a liability here. Still, mixed is just another deck, not actually a particularly unique form of deck, so dumping it isn't really that much more meaningful from a balance perspective than dropping Denmark or Poland. The big unique thing with mixed decks is they let you pick and choose the most effective/cost effective items from every nation. Vary rarely are these units prototypes anyway. They're just really hard to compete with economically. Essentially picking out the pricing flaws across a whole alliance and abusing the hell out of them.
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Aug 20, 2014 04:08
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I mean pragmatically that's how it works. There's no hard rule that that is what makes a mixed deck a mixed deck, though. The super efficient units could also be proto'd - i earlier referenced ALB NATO with the non-proto reserves, and if you look at the ALB LP that was the way, uh, whoeveritwas played MP: took every form of militia and just send them walking across open plains toward the enemy line. What i'm trying to focus on is the real, deep, core of what is wrong with RD balance, which is far deeper and more systematic than most of its contingent factors, and removing the mixed deck or adding some more units will fix nothing if Eugen has no articulated plan other than randomly lumbering this way and that between things that sound cool. In other words, they'll stil gently caress it up. And is Redfor mixed any good? In ALB, Pact Mixed is basically a joke since it's just plain old worse than USSR.
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Aug 20, 2014 04:18
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What about intentional slight underpricings that are prototyped as a value-add for nationals set up so that you can't frankenstein them together in coalition decks because of overlaps or whatever? If we're going insane, they could even be worse propositions from a deck space consideration so the national AP bonus would help taking them. That way being able to stitch together the best unintentional price-performance units from the whole side has less of an advantage over a side with intentionally good price-performance units. Also a way to get intentionally designed "national flavor" rather than my national flavor is your exploited balance flaw. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Aug 20, 2014 |
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Aug 20, 2014 04:39
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I figured you could get really aggressive about making things protos, but I'm imagining that would basically reduce mixed decks to set unit lists.
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Aug 20, 2014 05:12
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Chantilly Say posted:I figured you could get really aggressive about making things protos, but I'm imagining that would basically reduce mixed decks to set unit lists. Getting the prices right and then agressively restricting units would be the best way to solve that problem yes.
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Aug 20, 2014 05:16
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Shanakin posted:You forgot the Kyu Marus. That's the Type-90, baka gaijin 
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Aug 20, 2014 05:30
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Shanakin posted:Getting the prices right and then agressively restricting units would be the best way to solve that problem yes. I had the idea to start fiddling with activation points too, like--you can take lovely basic motostrelki or you can take a card of cheaper motostrelki but pay an extra activation point for that card. Something like that.
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Aug 20, 2014 06:01
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Chantilly Say posted:I had the idea to start fiddling with activation points too, like--you can take lovely basic motostrelki or you can take a card of cheaper motostrelki but pay an extra activation point for that card. Something like that. That could be interesting but outside the current framework the game supports. Although I suspect it wouldn't be an amazing amount of programming to introduce, I also suspect it's more than Eugen is likely to perform... Xerxes17 posted:That's the Type-90, baka gaijin Shanakin fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Aug 20, 2014 |
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Aug 20, 2014 06:18
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EDIT: Quote self is not edit.
Shanakin fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Aug 20, 2014 |
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Aug 20, 2014 06:19
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:I find china pretty decent now actually, their tanks have good firepower and I've had decent success just spamming line infantry and RR troops in close terrain. Yeah I made a Chinese deck recently and I reckon they're better than they're given credit for. Other than not getting an ATGM team their infantry options are pretty good (li jian 90 and 15 man shock infantry in cheap wheeled IFVs are nice), and their tanks have very good guns for the cost. They still have that annoying flame arty piece that everyone used to spam, a recon vehicle with a pretty good heavy tank gun on it, a good AA chopper and a decent ATGM one. In the vehicle section they get a tank destroyer with a 21AP gun for 65 points and hands down the best ATGM vehicle in the game (2975m range and 26 AP). Their other ATGM vehicle is good as well and they get 2 cards of those. Their airforce is also OK. My only problem is that their only radar AA piece is a bit mediocre, but I think to a certain extent you can make up for it by spamming crotales. Overall it isn't exactly an incredible deck, but it's perfectly playable and fairly fun.
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Aug 20, 2014 14:04
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http://alb-replays.info/rdbeta/php/api.php?download=685 1.37 hr unlimited time game against a team on Gunboat, we got our rear end handed to us in the ocean and at several points lost our naval call-in, and had very little if no air superiority. We won through sheer grit and won by attrition (they were attacking with German self-propelled guns and Wiesels towards the end, until someone dropped and gave them a bit more availability). We finally broke them with a combined amphibious assault and tank attack up the middle which sniped 2 CVs, letting us rack up the points to victory.
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Aug 21, 2014 05:18
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