Difficulty curve and unit tactical value trouble.

[CiZerin]

Sry, but I always think wargames as complex virsion of chess. So will you cheat while solving chess exercises?

[Schweinewitz]

Well, I have to confess that I always have a second queen hidden in my sleeve. Adds the element of nonchalant surprise to the game.

[Kathapalt]

I don´t like chess, too few units and too little rng to my taste

[sdeix75]

We really price hiked the Titans already, but it's probably not enough considering their power. We'll see what we can't do additional to keep them useful and interesting, but under control so players can only afford 10+ Titans on only the easiest difficulty settings.

Why not limit access to titans and super heavies so not to allow overpowering. really they are unique and should be treated so.

why not only allow 1 reaver and 1 warhound maybe 2 and max 3 super heavies maybe an allow and no restriction on macharius pattern tanks

[soldatmesteren]

Yes.

I had 17-18 titans at the end of the campaign. 18 of any unit is a huge amount, but the strongest unit in the game. Only another 18 Titans can stand against that.

[rezaf]

It's kinda funny that in this purely fictional WH40k background, Rudankort seems to have opted for "realism" when in historical WW2 PzC, he often opted for gameplay.

What I mean is, in PzC you often had "unrealistic" things - for example the artillery range was often much too small. Movement ranges were also sometimes weird, as would occasionally be the case for other unit statistics.
When any of that stuff was discussed, the reasoning was often enough: "this has to be so and so due to gameplay reasons".

In Armageddon, on the other hand, it feels many decisions were based on the Wh40k version of reality, i.e. what makes sense or is available or unavailable according to the setting. Artillery ranges, the balancing of various units, the sheer amount of variants of stuff and their respective availability and so on and so forth.

One really has to pay respects to Rudankort on how throroughly he obviously researched the Wh40k lore and background, but I think this game is now in need of some concessions to gameplay.
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rezaf

[Skanvak]

I don't like concessions to gameplay. But having a core of 18 titans seem a bit too much. I remind (and checked) that in the game Armageddon, the number of Titan was quite limited (one legion) and in the same zone. So either we have actually access to all the Titans and then is 18 that much? I don't know, but you should have access to them all. If the Titan are send as support unit then limiting the number would be nice.

If there are problem to raise the price number we can had other cost :
_ Has them in limited number.
_ Losing a titan permanently reduce the number of Titan you can recrute (after all they cannot be made that fast).

_ Has Titan take more than one slot. This way takin a Titan will too limit the number of units you can have in your Core unit so you could have for example a Core of 18 standard units or 6 Titans. As a raffinement warhounds should take less slot than a reaver, that would take less slot than a warlord class titan.
_ Add a repair cost between battle (that raise the overhaull cost of the titan over time and may make not the best choice in long term, though if doing so heavy tank should follow the same rules).

[rezaf]

I don't like concessions to gameplay.

Heh, neither do I - in fact I think I was lobbying (unsuccessfully) for realism vs. gameplay concessions in PzC more than one time - this is why I selected the smiley.

Has Titan take more than one slot. This way takin a Titan will too limit the number of units you can have in your Core unit so you could have for example a Core of 18 standard units or 6 Titans. As a raffinement warhounds should take less slot than a reaver, that would take less slot than a warlord class titan.

Well, this is Warhammer, so we should have a point-based deployment limit. Do I field five Baneblades or a Titan (or seven Leman Russ with half a dozen INF to boot) should be the questions you were asking yourself as a player.

Unfortunately, Acts 2 and 3 are horribly unbalanced and significant changes to what you can deploy in which numbers would very likely require some missions to be completely redesigned or make them borderline unplayable.

We'll see what'll happen eventually, I guess, but I wish the game would have had three more months in the oven...
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rezaf

[Tolien]

Blizzards Starcraft has an sollution for this.. A Marine soldier takes only one "Core spot" and a Battlecriuser takes eight..

They could just make a system like this.. like if the army has 70 "Supply points" Millitia soldiers take 5 points, Space marines takes 15 points, Titan takes 30 points

Space marines should be way thougher in the game, if someone read the books, they can be compared with Imperial guard soldiers as Strongmen (The Spacemarine) compared to 10 year old boys (regular soldiers),.. So more than just a little thougher..

[Skanvak]

Well, Tolien your point as the Titan value in the game seem to be taken from the Lore BUT when I take it from the rule of Space marine (5mm table top rules) The space marine are not really stronger than the IG (better assault value that all). The Titan in Space Marine are not that strong either they are Void shield (that we don't see in the game) and actually very few hit point as they can be one shot (though it take generally 3 shots to kill one once the shield are down). May be if the Titan were weaker with a real shield system that could make them more in line with their cost. Otherwise, Tolien, this is one of my suggestion (have titam take more than one slot).

Rezaf, of course you are right, some tweaking of that sort will result in lot of testing and rebalancing of the scenario.

[JimmyC]

Whilst the unit slot idea does sound good (Titans taking more than 1 slot, etc.), it might get a bit tricky to no where to stop and i wonder it might be difficult for them to implement into the game code. An easier option i imagine would just be to limit the total number of each unit you can purchase. Eg. max 2 titans, max 4 super heavies, etc.
But of course they would have to rebalance the scenarios taking this into account.

[rezaf]

Whilst the unit slot idea does sound good (Titans taking more than 1 slot, etc.), it might get a bit tricky to no where to stop and i wonder it might be difficult for them to implement into the game code. An easier option i imagine would just be to limit the total number of each unit you can purchase. Eg. max 2 titans, max 4 super heavies, etc.

As someone who knows how to program, I can assure you the difference between imlpementing either model are rather trivial. If anything, I think your suggested model might actually be more time consuming, but that depends on the implementation.
In the first case you need to implement a game or scenario property limiting the units of a type the player can own. That might actually require quite a few changes, depending on how it was coded.
In the other case you need to add a new property to the unit definition that assigns a weight value to it, but can otherwise leave everything alone ... perhaps. Once again, it depends on the actual implementation. I imagine there must be a function somewhere that deducts the value of 1 from the total allowed number and that then needs to handle the newly implemented unit weight. Might be fairly simple or complicated - only Rudankort knows.

However, if going for a unit weight model, why not go the extra mile (actually, it might save work since no new unit property would be needed) and opt for a Wh40k-inspired point-based system, based on the price of the unit? You can field 6000 points and a titan is 1500 whilst Steel Legion Infantry is 100. You can flood the map with 60 infantry units or field 4 titans. Now, there are still limited deployment hexes and just getting 60 inf on the field might take 8 turns or something, but at least you have the option to go for a different tactic and a decent chance to be successful at it. Like I wrote numerous times already on these forums, I really have a hard time understanding why they didn't go for a system like this in the first place - before designing the scenarios...
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rezaf

[Skanvak]

Rezaf, the idea behind the panzer general system is that you get a better army if you are good. The point limit system does not work for that. But the PzG system have different level of victory that open different scenario.

[rezaf]

Rezaf, the idea behind the panzer general system is that you get a better army if you are good. The point limit system does not work for that. But the PzG system have different level of victory that open different scenario.

First of all, whenever I bemoan a lost feature from PzC, people keep telling me that this is NOT PzC, so I guess no it's my turn to use that argument?
Besides that, if XP would work better than it does now, that might be encouragement enough (provided XP does not affect deployment costs).
And finally, there was a recurring discussion about how the very idea that you get a better army if you play good puts less perfect players into a downward spiral where they have an increasingly harder time playing. A point based system would for the most part get rid of that problem.

I can only repeat myself in stating that I'm very disappointed about how little the hard lessons learnt over the years with PzC affected design decisions in Armageddon. But what can you do?
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rezaf

[DandyFrontline]

Well, totally totally agree with this post. ACT 1 was a lot of fun with many difficult missions, but ACT 2 is too easy - too , much requisition and too cheap super units. I use to play third difficult, and have like 4 titans and 4-5 baneblades + a little bit SM squads - with such a force missions become brainless ra*e of the orks. They just can't do anything. No need of tactic. Already missing ACT 1

[Aloo]

...

However, if going for a unit weight model, why not go the extra mile (actually, it might save work since no new unit property would be needed) and opt for a Wh40k-inspired point-based system, based on the price of the unit? You can field 6000 points and a titan is 1500 whilst Steel Legion Infantry is 100. You can flood the map with 60 infantry units or field 4 titans. Now, there are still limited deployment hexes and just getting 60 inf on the field might take 8 turns or something, but at least you have the option to go for a different tactic and a decent chance to be successful at it. Like I wrote numerous times already on these forums, I really have a hard time understanding why they didn't go for a system like this in the first place - before designing the scenarios...
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rezaf

This is what I would consider a very good solution. In addition the point limit could be defined for each scenario and you would not earn them in game. If your units survive and gain xp you can recruit them in the next mission again so you can keep something like a core but could play with a totally different set of units. This would allow for much easier balancing of each scenario as you wouldn't have players having too much or to little points. Right now I see people say they play with an all titan army or say they don't have the points to get all the allowed units and this is just wrong. The incentive for the good player would be the fact that he has experienced units + maybe a better score if somebody is into that.

But I think its a bit too late to implement this as it would change the game too much.

The thing missing in this game that was mentioned somewhere is unit progression. Units "upgrade" or "downgrade" to anything in their class w/o any difference and powerful units appear very soon. There is no time to have fun with the basic units, no time to learn how to play with them. But maybe thats just an expectation I had after PzC?

[Steakenglisch]

I dont think that Act 2 is so hard, i use a Mixed Core. I only dislike the xp losses of the space Marine units. The only Way i found to get fast Space Marines with 2 Skulls or more ist buying Space Marine Scouts and upgrade them when they have reached 3 Skulls... after that it is hard to hold this exp or gain more.

My Core:
3 Titans (2 Reaver, 1 Warhound)
4 Super Heavie Tanks (Mixed Baneblade, Shadowsword and this other Banething *g*)
2 Land Raider (Crusader and Achilles)
4 Deathstrike Artillery
1 Rattling Sniper
1 BA Furioso Dreadnaught
1 Captain Tycho
1 Sanguarian Guard
1 Terminators Cyclone
1 Sternguard
3 different Ultramarine Centurions

First Time i lost this Tartarus Industry defending Mission, second Time after better deployment it was no big Problem.

I would like changes in the core:

1. The Number of slots should be higher than the number you can deploy on a map so you can play different Types of Armies depending on the ground / situation
2. The Number of Titans should be limited to 3 or 4 at max
3. The Number of super Heavie Tanks should be limited
4. the concept of flyers should be overhauled, more like the planes in PanzerCorps, so that the Flyers and the AA Units make sense
5. Transportation for Terminators and Centurions (Land Raider)
6. The Chance to develop Elite Units with Elite Replenishment

[VoidDragon]

I just got out of Act 1. Hadn't yet tasted Act 2, but here are my current thoughts:
- I just can't have experienced *anything* except artillery without extensive save-load. Infantry die like flies, and even tanks burn all the time. The only really experienced units in my army are artillery. It would be nice if infantry got experience much, much faster. Otherwise there is just no point in trying to have elite infantry.
- Tanks and aviation are too vulnerable to small arms fire. I regularly had my Valkyries shot down by Shoota Boys. This is stupid.

[Aekar]

Hello guys, first thing first:



Why is this thread opened on the basics of:
"I play on Normal difficulty and I find it too easy, I have 15 Titans" etc?


There is no glory to be had for a strategy player, to play on Normal, and say it is too easy.

I mean, if you want to be challenged, go play the Challenging difficulty.
If you want to have some tough time, go play the Hard difficulty.
It is only a logical situation. I don't think I would sound brilliant by saying it, as it is the plain and the obvious, but that does seem like a very valid point.


That being said...
I understand there is a quality feedback in the middle of all this, of course.
I believe all this feedback comes from the way the game handles the requisition budget.

Since player can get losses (or disband during deployment) and replace these units with whatever he can think of (ie. Titans), players easily come to the conclusion that they can, and should, get many of these shiny Titans.
Some scenarios involve a lot of player losses so players are easily offered the opportunity. For others, they will just one time try that Disband option (or like me, read on the forums that it sells the unit value) and find that freedom.
I find out that Disband = resell option makes things very easy and breaks out the "I made a decision" and the "batallion with a story" flavour, and shall be made available only when switching Acts, but that is another story.

As a result, if Titans aren't balanced enough in price, you will get an oversized amount of Titans.
Since they can shoot far and deadly, that might give enough map control that you mainly use Titans and a very few leg infantry for victory hexes.

I must say that with 4-6 Titans so far (Hard difficulty) I have the perfect mix between Titans and my other units (Heavy Tanks, Command infantry, Snipers, Vehicles, Artillery, and a few cheap infantry to protect these).
There is a real Combined Arms spirit to that. I don't even know how you could have enough requisition for 15 Titans, but I suppose it comes from the difficulty level.


I see other inputs there, about infantry or other light units not being balanced (because they take losses), but first I believe players should read and understand how the requisition points are handled in game.
I mean that you will get the opportunity to replace them.
Infantry units are good in cover, partial LOF hiding, and with fire support, to make a good chokepoint that will mainly delay the opponent or deal him losses. Otherwise they die a bit too cheaply.
But even when they do die cheaply, they are still very easy to replace. As such, they will support your victory.


There may be a problem with the AI not even trying to damage Titans and heavy tanks when it can.
It seems that the AI "holds fire" when it can attack a unit, if that unit can deal too much damage for its taste. (ie anti-tank orc infantry not firing on heavy tanks)
Whereas if the AI would attack them with all units, they might in the end deal enough damage to just down it.
Maybe the AI could be adjusted with that in mind ; that would break the feeling that even heavy tanks can control the map routes.


Salamander scouts, snipers, are very good low cost damage dealers and scouting units, very easy to replace and quick to get XP.
Basic infantries are only "temporary delayers" to hold a victory hex, but they are damn cheap. You won't get enough XP on these so you are free to replace them when they get shot.
Command infantries are expensive, but are only to play as the banners behind your artillery and your front line, and are the desperate officers to join the charge or to die defending a building when you are in the scenario most critical turns.
Then there are the "other units": medium tanks, light artilleries, average infantry.... I don't really know about the other units game balance, but I found out on Act 2 that medium tanks and direct fire support units (and not the indirect ones), just get shot and get shot too early for their cost.


For me the situation is about balanced; I must say I had a few very easy times, and a few very hard times, exclusively depending on the scenario, and I have a realistic combined arms situation.
That doesn't mean, however, that all units look balanced when compared to the situation or other units.

Other people seem to have a too easy time on Normal.
Long feedback to say it but:
I would say lightly increasing the heaviest Titan price (from +150 to +300) would certainly not hurt.

For me, a Titan at 1900 price would reach the "breaking decision point" where I have to hesitate longly before committing the points for more than X of them.
Also, the more Core slots the player has, the more interesting it is to recruit infantries and light units to use.
Making Titans cost more, and opening more core slots, would reward an army variety. A slight increase might be enough.

[Kerensky]

We have been listening, and there are some fairly significant changes coming up sooner or later... stay tuned, we won't disappoint!

I would like to say that Aekar above me has hit some pretty solid points, anything I could really add to that would just be redundant to the conclusions he's made. Especially those comments about combined arms. My Titan sweet spot is roughly where his is, the 3-4 range.