Balancing Changes

I personally preferred the cheaper one, but looking at it this way it makes sense, its a useful feature for it to have morale boost, now infrastructure is useful in late game but harder to obtain in earlier phases of the game.

I can't see myself using it to boost morale yet but who knows, they don't make the updates for fun.

Kanaris wrote:

cchyt wrote:

After implementing a random decision of an extra 15% on native provinces, which gives bonus that stacks up to the already overcoming advantages of defense you decide to increase cost of infras while reducing the combat abilities of air and rockets.

In addition i here all the time about air superiority and many planes etc.... In my experience you can have a decent air offense after day 8. Until then resources for air and air units are not se effective. Still, players survive, have you ever thougght the reasons?

You never thought that defense has an overwelming advantage over offense so it allows players with initial units to reach higher tech units relatively safe?

So let's sum up the last changes:

1. LT cost increased
2. 15% extra defense bonus given (stacks up with forts, covers all province)
3. Infra cost increased ( arts, lts are effective)
4. Air is nerfed by lot
5. AA is buffed.
6. Rockets are nerfed
7. Instead of fixing the bug of artillery damaging the subs , they do damage but still waste their shot.

From my point of view those changes effect directly the offensive units and focuses to buff the survivability of new or bad players who can not keep up.

Giving overwelming advantage to defense forces players to use units with higher mobility or damage to break through (air, rockets). Right now you take away those advantages while keeping defense the same. This is war game, attacking has a risk ( lower mobility, less information, etc) and it should have a reward.

Changes make clear to me that attacking and breaking through a player is bad and you should never do it in a war game. It also says clearly that you do not care for veteran players, they will play for sure but you focus to make the new players survive. Good luck....

Your summary of the changes is so biast to the point of being dead wrong. Thus the conclusions you drew are at best dubious...

Perhaps its just me that doesn't understand so lets go over it:

1. Light tanks costs increase? I saw nothing in regards to light tanks being mentioned.

2. 15% extra derensive bonus? where is that mentioned exactly?

4. Air is nurfed? my understanding is that the normalization makes it less dangerous to issue attack orders with airplane stacks vs patrolling aircraft.

5. AA is nurfed? I saw that it will take less manpower to produce AA did not see any nurfing.

6. Rockets are nurfed? Range, speed or damage output remains unchanged so how exactly are rockets nurfed? Cost increase does not mean nurfing.

I am following this thread and comments suprise me. Air did not need changes because it required high level of skill and activity to use it effectively. Large number of planes do not mean much unless you know how to use them but i see many players whining about it.

So i will repeat myself saying that changes focus to the good and active players who could utilize their time spending the game and win without using gold gaining the advantages from infras, better economy and better unit management such as planes, rockets, arts etc.

Now anyone can build lvl 2 fort in native province with very few resources while his enemies will not be able to make the units to break through ( artillery, tanks and air) because of high unit cost, upkeep and resources required for research and building.

In addition, rockets really required a nerf because they were overwhelmingly strong but not in combination of the rest of the changes!!

oh, i almost forgot about the magnificent morale bonus of infras! So i have to pay so many resources for a minor morale bonus boost. In maps for 50 or 100p how can this be efficient when you have so many provinces? Why build such an expensive building like infra and not make a unit which is cheaper, will help maintaining city under control and will also be part of my army or make a fort that gives a defensive bonus as well morale boost?

it is very funny when you give such a small bonus to morale which is useless when you increase its building cost, combine that with the increased upkeep for air and you will never have enough oil for either normal economy or army.

Lastly, changes take away all the agressive tools in order to make the game more slow, with less resources to use and make the players to spend gold is the obvious goal here but you also make the game boring, noob friendly and only pay to win, so again, good luck with that.

cchyt wrote:

I would appreciate it if you made your research before replying specifically to me. Or at least, keep up with the recent changes. Moreoever, it would be nice if your game knowledge was more than decent when you say random stuff or discuss part of the changes missing the bigger picture, especially if you believe that air is not nerfed, new players would be better to learn the game before having an opinion.

All I did was ask you to clarify your comments as they did not reflect these latest changes. I would love to understand how you inferred the level of my knowledge or what my opinions are as I have offered none yet.

So following your wise council I went ahead and did my "research" the most recent change announced that I could find that refers or indirectly implies anything that you may have alluded to is this one:

Home Defense

Date of publication Dec 6th 2017

So recent changes as far as you are concerned can be anywhere from 8 months old to even older...

So next time I would appreciate if you explained your remarks better so we can all follow along so that we dont have to guess. Moreover it would be nice if you could refrain from guessing what my opinions are or what my level of knowledge is.

Thanks

The balancing changes do actually make a change in the game it didn't really make sense that I had to wait 1 Week and 7 Days just to actually get nuclear items

Captain Hurricane wrote:

thanks for the comment Mr Freezy.

your comments on limited programming time is curious. is this because there are other things being programmed for Bytro? Will it have an impact on the game development in the future? will we ever get a new unit? a new building?

the game is mighty fine as it is, no doubt, but after a while many people find that the lack of additional elements means they get bored of the same routine. To me there's still plenty of stuff to discover and try but maybe it'll all become a bit same same in the future?

Naval bombers will be used even less after this. Might as well spam subs and destroyers, and not bother down that research tree.

Could Bombers and Naval Bombers just finally get merged? Even if they are made weaker against naval units.

VorlonFCW wrote:

I think The morale bonus for infrastructure will more than pay for them with increased production, both early game before your core typically grows to 100% morale, and late game in large maps to stabilize far flung food provinces.

Diabolical wrote:

Mmmm, not always. I prefer to upgrade Factories to level 2 before adding infrastructure on some matches, especially when your craftiest of neighbors blows half their starting cash on a bunch of military spies and tries to flatten your level 1 factories on the day 1

Deyric wrote:

Not at that cost. Fast-expanders will ignore it for the oil costs. Ploders won't have the resources or need to take advantage to take advantage.

I like most of the changes especially the speed upgrade of the Tank Destroyers and the upgrade of the Armoured vehicles.

However I do disagree with some of the changes.

Tactical bombers health nerf does make senses as it encourages interceptors to escort them however the fuel upkeep is way to high.

In my opinion fighters fuel upkeep should be reduced significantly and tactical bombers should be increased.

Overall though I do like the updates even if some of them I disagree with.

VorlonFCW wrote:

Deyric wrote:

Not at that cost. Fast-expanders will ignore it for the oil costs. Ploders won't have the resources or need to take advantage to take advantage.

These type of players don't typically maximize their economic production currently either, but once you understand that investment in economy has a great payback in a week it changes how you play the game

Deyric wrote:

The cost vs benefit is too big

Also keep in mind that all your enemies will also be building infrastructure. When you conquer their provinces, you will likely just have to repair it and then benefit from the morale boost immediately, which should speed up stabilizing your non core provinces and the amount of resources you get out of them. Therefore this change does not only benefit defensive players but will actually also enable more agressive expansions.

Captain Hurricane wrote:

thanks for the comment Mr Freezy.

your comments on limited programming time is curious. is this because there are other things being programmed for Bytro? Will it have an impact on the game development in the future? will we ever get a new unit? a new building?

I'm sure @freezy is referencing the difference between changing database values (unit strengths, ranges, etc.) vs. changing how a thing does a thing. In other words, it's a whole lot easier to change the values for bombers by normalizing their database values on offense and defense rather than to create programming code for a new consideration, that of having overlapping patrols and/or units from the same airbase recalculate HOW they come up with their SBDE ratings (combined multiple stacks instead of a single stack).

This example of change would be more than just tinkering with numbers in the database. The code changes could break the game play, even crash the servers if they go into divide-by-zero errors, etc., without error-checking portions of the code, to account for mistakes in the assumptions by the coders in how they create their algorithms to accomplish this otherwise-simple concept.

So, given their staff's budgetary constraints, this may not be something they can focus on at this time....if not, ever. Though I sure hope they do implement this idea. After all, I proposed it in the forums long before @Dontezuma did....not that I need the credit. And I've long-foreseen how forcibly-stacking units that are very near to each other on the ground is totally unfair when the aircraft overhead....who are also very near to each....do not get forcibly stacked together, thus keeping SBDE out of the equation for aircraft but in the equation for AA, etc.

CzarHellios wrote:

Part of the issue is that this game is SP1914+. Old spaghetti code where genuine fixes requires a actual rework of the overall system. And any possible patches or updates are done not based on fixing gameplay, but on encouraging players to spend or buy gold. When I would honestly prefer cosmetic micro-transactions and membership instead of GM, which would is a pretty good viable long term income model instead of the alternative - Which so far is a good short term strategy, horrid long term strategy. Especially for maintaining a actual competitive playerbase and mature community.

For those players that were wondering about the programming issues, a lot of the code for CoW, from what I remember, was C/P from SP1914. I remember when the game was first released in Alpha, a lot of the stuff had names akin to SP1914 or 30K, including the newspaper at one time. And SP1914 is a ages old game from 07 which has been built on numerous times. With the biggest changes being from Java to HTML5 user side. But I have a feeling the overall core code is still pretty messy and bad, and everything Bytro does is working within the existing framework. Any actual changes as we want would require extensive reworkings of this framework, which would be a massive task. So it's easier to just copy the existing frameworks over, tweak things within said framework, build upon parts of it in certain ways, and update the artwork. And Bytro has a think for copying Paradox a lot.

Now, it's OK to have different styles, and so forth, so long as a strongly-enforced Object-Oriented Coding (OOC) standard is adhered to on the outside of each module. Though it would be helpful for the programmers to make their pieces of the pie to have the most efficient internals, so long as those internals function correctly enough to operate only on the expected input and to output only the expected results, then encapsulating those portions of the code can help to enforce the principle of each module not breaking other modules....by keeping that wall of separation principle of encapsulation in place.

By following such standards, they can have spaghetti code, internally to modular programming without being spaghetti where it counts most, thus making it easier for future programmers to follow the interactive logic and maintain the program. Oh, and heavy amounts of internal documentation helps that last part, too.

Since the front end is web-based, it seems that migrating from one version to another (Java to HTML5) might have actually made the OO Design (OOD) methodology more difficult to maintain, but that is neither here nor there (unless you're dealing with client/server systems, then "neither here nor there" takes on a whole new meaning...which, by the way, is a large part of how Call of War's web-based front-end functions). Regardless of the languages of choice (assumed to be differing for client/server, backend, etc.), keeping the OOD is crucial, if not critical, to the future of the game.

CzarHellios wrote:

Unpaid volunteers who do paid jobs for free can only go so far, especially when they got hands tied behind their backs.

CzarHellios wrote:

- I and others have noticed maps are overall giving out less resources.

I'd rather they eliminate the blockage of trading Manpower, and just keep the Gold as the "sole" premium point (if they insist on keeping premium points, that is). Although, in the past, I've also suggested creating a secondary market -- a black market -- where things like Manpower, units, and even spy information, could be anonymously traded.

In addition, to facilitate supplementing the semi-rare resource of "Money", I've proposed a uniquely-new part of the game where there could be an international "Swiss" style bank which offers loans and whose interest rates fluctuate with the demands and state of the market resources. Of course, then there'd be limits on the amount of Money that can be used when loan interest rates start piling up, so players would be encouraged to payoff their loans to save more in the long-run. With interest rates climbing, due to higher demand by overzealous builders, untempered spenders will find themselves being virtually unable to build until they've cooled down their rates by cleaning up their debts and paying off some loans....so, you'd gain but also lose if not carefully balanced....as any lending system typically operates.

CzarHellios wrote:

- Strategic bombers were never that useful. Don't care.

This new update will give Strats more of a primary role than just as fodder.

CzarHellios wrote:

- Back to Infra cost increases. So we increase the cost of all these units and necessary requirements for these units, with what apparently seems to be less map resources. This removes quite a few of the dynamic offensive units we got, and nerfs early game play. Which means it will take longer in order to achieve the same forces. But the increased morale encourages players to slow down while attacking and slowly build the provinces up.

CzarHellios wrote:

More morale = Bigger Empires: This seems horribly false. This would be more of a factor with Supremacy 1914 and definitely not call of war.

If anything, for economic builders such as myself, the increased morale update to Infrastructure will make my late-game pre-planning have even better outcomes. You see, if you plan enough and well-enough ahead, you can forestall -- if not permanently-delay -- the supersize empire food shortages that so many less-experienced players fall prey too.

freezy wrote:

Also keep in mind that all your enemies will also be building infrastructure. When you conquer their provinces, you will likely just have to repair it and then benefit from the morale boost immediately, which should speed up stabilizing your non core provinces and the amount of resources you get out of them. Therefore this change does not only benefit defensive players but will actually also enable more agressive expansions.

I love the new infrastructure changes. that is awesome. I also love that they made planes offensive and defensive values congruent, and I'm not just saying that because it was my idea. hahahaha.

However, the nerfing of planes is going a bit too far. I can see and live with the more expensive costs for air power, but the nerf on hps is too much. I say this because I am very aware of the losses currently being incurred under the current mechanics. If they go thru with the hp change, it has become entirely too easy for a very cheap unit to defeat a very expensive unit. I don't think they should go thru with the 20 percent hp reduction on planes. Everything else is fine.

@freezy, don't let the DE players league decide how the rest of us play. planes are one of the few things that very active players can micromanage, and enjoy the game. a nice medium is to go through with the more expensive costs for planes, but don't make them so fragile plane spammers become frustrated with the game.

Anti air still has the problem, that it is immobile compared to planes. Your tac bombers may now be a bit more vulnerable if you don't pay close attention, but if you are active and micro manage your planes, you can still avoid the enemy anti airs and just bomb everything else. This very big advantage, combined with the great mobility and ability to defend an entire country from basically anywhere, still makes planes one of the strongest units in the game, even after the change. Hopefully the change will lead to less brain-dead usage of them, rewarding more skilled plane usage.

Your feedback is appreciated though and we will see and monitor how it goes .

so far in frontline games, the report is that it is too much. It isnt fair that very expensive units, esp when taking into account that air bases must be built in addition to the research and high cost of building planes, are extremely fragile to very cheap units. Building ABs means you are not building infrastructure and other resource enhancing buildings. Anyone that spams only airforce is left extremely vulnerable in their rear, as they only have resources to build planes and airbases.

Most experienced users know this and are able to defend against the plane spammer.

The real original issue was the dogfight "exploit". Making the offensive and defensive values the same when air vs air fixed this problem.

The update also makes planes more expensive. While at the same time makes anti air easier to build.

There was no reason to lower hitpoints. We beta test games to see how the balancing works. After discussion, my alliance and my friends, all very experienced, some staff, some ex heroes, and non staff all report the hp reduction was going too far.

Hope this helps

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.