Exact effect of Armor ?

[pro.gamer.69]

bonus points to anyone who can tell me who they are,

RCR? i would have never guessed you were Canadian

Should the Devs place an extra charge on your credit card for every feature that was included in the DLC that wasn't in a dev diary?

it wasn't advertised as a DLC feature but a patch one, which would actually support your point. but it would certainly be nice for the devs to apologize, or even better make some announcement about it beyond a single comment in a single thread, instead of saying "you shouldn't be upset we didn't put in free improvements we said we would because you bought the game before we said we'd make them," which is demonstrably not true for everyone.

Such unreasonableness and nit-picking stifles discussion between players and Devs, not the other way around.

i agree, but that seems to be more on the dev's refusal to apologize for/be clear to the community about a miscommunication. after all, this was reported to the bug forum quite a while ago and this thread is to my knowledge the first time any PDX official addressed it.

 

[Corpse Fool]

The excruciating level of detail you are going into looks quite ridiculous to me.

What are you referring to? the part where I specifically requested you don't pay it much mind?

Should the Devs place an extra charge on your credit card for every feature that was included in the DLC that wasn't in a dev diary?

We aren't talking about the DLC, this change was associated with the patch which was free to begin with, as long as you bought the game.

To answer the question, no. As an aside, would you happen to have a list of features that were included in the DLC that weren't mention in dev diaries though? I imagine that list is very short, if not empty. I'd like to know the difference though.

Such unreasonableness and nit-picking stifles discussion between players and Devs, not the other way around.

I think this extends to more than just players and devs, provided that whichever side is having an alleged fault pointed out is some combination of unwilling or unable to consider the criticism as valid. People have a tendency to get very defensive when someone suggests that they may be wrong about something and will often reject the criticism without much thought to its validity. Being able to engage in that sort of discussion and have it end positively for everyone involves a sense of personal responsibility of a level that most people I've encountered generally don't have. That is one of the reasons I generally pass faults, rocking the boat generally isn't deemed as 'worth it'.

That said, I would imagine (or perhaps, hope) that someone that reaches the position of game director and has had all manner of vitriol directed at themselves personally, would be able to respond to my comments rather than reacting to them emotionally as a random person generally would.

RCR? i would have never guessed you were Canadian

Yes, the RCR. I was part of a military family and grew up around Gagetown.

 

[DaleDVM]

I admit to being a bit stumped at this point. I've pointed out it was omitted in error, told you it'll likely make a reappearance at some point - what are you after here?

Please just fix the binary piercing system. Pretty please.

The combat system should never have been designed this way in the first place. It makes no sense whatsoever, that a division with AT guns that are very close to piercing enemy armor are treated the exact same as a division with no AT weaponry at all. (Both receiving 4 x org damage.)

The result is too... well... binary. This is especially true for combat at the divisional level. I don't desire a debate. I just want the game to be the best it can be.

This seems like a relatively simple fix. As a bonus, if the AI is programmed to build AT guns, and uses them, it will help the AI to fight better.

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

Except you already bought the washing machine, and what you were getting was a free upgrade that you weren't promised when you bought it.

We're not in the habit of selling algorithm changes, and we don't intend to start. This instance is no different.

I know and get your point of course, still I guess you can't deny that back in the days most of the video games were finished when they were sold, because if not the company would have not last long.. Today we're used to buy unfinished games which shouldn't even get out of the developpers' computers, sometimes to be finished much later thanks to patches and sometimes even not to be ever finished. Yes here comes the good ole 'game is unplayable' statement/argument and this isn't going to vanish, as this slider appreciation of what a released game has to look like will always be a plain topic in what the video game industry became.
It's not really a price question, as most customers can agree with putting more money in a video game than at the time, but the point is that we knew what we were buying.
But if I understood you well, that specific feature wasn't meant to be part of the 'NSB' DLC, so that my point is about pointless in this context.

Still I think that video game companies should move the slider of what we have once we customers paid more towards the customers satisfaction and less towards their short-term benefits.

 

[Cavalry]

The combat system should never have been designed this way in the first place. It makes no sense whatsoever, that a division with AT guns that are very close to piercing enemy armor are treated the exact same as a division with no AT weaponry at all. (Both receiving 4 x org damage.)

The result is too... well... binary. This is especially true for combat at the divisional level. I don't desire a debate. I just want the game to be the best it can be.

Piercing is going hand in hand with hard attack so it is not that binary. And there is a diary to talk on this. They did it on purpose, they want a race between armor and piercing. The race is costly so the winner take it all.

 

[Corpse Fool]

And there is a diary to talk on this. They did it on purpose, they want a race between armor and piercing. The race is costly so the winner take it all.

Could you give me a link to what you're referring to?

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

Piercing is going hand in hand with hard attack so it is not that binary. And there is a diary to talk on this. They did it on purpose, they want a race between armor and piercing. The race is costly so the winner take it all.

I disagree : in reality this is a statistic question. Because in reality piercing vs armour takes place in an infinite amount of circumstances : angle, distance, actual part of the vehicle armour being hit, etc..
For instance, there is a chance that a poor AT gun destroys a very well armoured vehicle.
As another example, there can be 40% chance that a given, slightly better AT gun can destroy a slightly worst tank. For me this isn't 'the winner takes it all'.

 

[Jays298]

Armor and Piercing
Currently the effects of having stronger armor than the enemy can pierce, or being able to pierce an enemies armor are binary and give fixed bonuses. This meant that there wasn't really any benefit to have more armor than you needed to stop the enemies piercing, and also that being a single point of piercing under enemy armor was just as bad as having no piercing. So things were quite binary. With the tank designer coming we wanted to make it feel like your investments in upgrades were always worth it, so we are changing armor and piercing to have more gradual effects.

HOI4 Dev Diary - Combat and Stats changes

Hi everyone and welcome back to another dev diary! Today is about various changes that affect combat and units. With the Barbarossa update we want to shake up the meta a bit and also change a few stats and other aspects to make using the tank...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I would hope it's still on the agenda and not something that had issues.

I realize they just rebalanced tanks again. Which in turn makes tanks useful again. Which in turn makes piercing worthless unless you have a lot of it. And still a binary, all or nothing meta.

 

[Morgoth_the_Constrainer]

The hardness/softness abstraction is underlaid beneath the armor/piercing abstraction, so it's difficult to say if their combination creates a realistic simulation. From a gameplay perspective though, the all-or-nothing nature of the armor/piercing race can feel a little too punishing. If you can't win the race, it almost seems better not to invest the IC and research into trying, which is a little unrealistic. Being slightly ahead or behind shouldn't produce such huge swings in combat effectiveness.

Since armor penetration events over a large set of ranges and angles are probably identically distributed random variables, the sum of a bunch of events over the course of a divisional battle can probably be approximated by a normal distribution. We could have the armor bonus scale somewhat steeply like the Normal CDF here, and thereby add more math to the game while also increasing the accuracy of our simulation (probably). Win-win.

 

[Cavalry]

From a gameplay perspective though, the all-or-nothing nature of the armor/piercing race can feel a little too punishing. If you can't win the race, it almost seems better not to invest the IC and research into trying, which is a little unrealistic.

There are specialized AT templates to boost piercing (or armor). You can throw them to surround enemy tank's breakthrough points, or strategic move to protect pincer, blocking enemy armor counter attack. It is hard to use before because of 40w advantage, but now they are much better than before. Like the template 4 inf-2 AT+ support AT...

 

[DaleDVM]

The hardness/softness abstraction is underlaid beneath the armor/piercing abstraction, so it's difficult to say if their combination creates a realistic simulation. From a gameplay perspective though, the all-or-nothing nature of the armor/piercing race can feel a little too punishing. If you can't win the race, it almost seems better not to invest the IC and research into trying, which is a little unrealistic. Being slightly ahead or behind shouldn't produce such huge swings in combat effectiveness.

And this sums it up perfectly. The system encourages not investing any IC in the piercing/armor dichotomy. And hence decreases strategic depth.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Piercing is going hand in hand with hard attack so it is not that binary. And there is a diary to talk on this. They did it on purpose, they want a race between armor and piercing. The race is costly so the winner take it all.

That's not what happens, in HOI 4.

• In HOI 4 SP, you can build support AA and in the vast majority of cases, pierce AI tank templates. For those that can't, a trivial investment into AT does the job, and it becomes more about attacks.
• Since AI also doesn't get very high hardness, piercing + soft attack still messes up its tank divisions.
• For a very long time In HOI 4 MP, it is possible to design tank templates that divisions with line AT cannot pierce. I haven't played with the numbers with NSB design tanks, since I don't have NSB. But MP is the only time you'll see hardness values meaningfully over 70% in vanilla HOI, unless you make them yourself. Soft attack + piercing winds up being meaningful pretty often.
• But there's something off about an "arms race" where being contemporary = can't pierce, unless you put the same AT gun on a tank, then randomly you can.
• CAS of any quality can pierce tanks regardless of armor. I get that sides, back, and tops of tanks had less armor, but presumably it would be easier for CAS to shoot through infantry or normal vehicles than a heavy tank. At minimum, if doing a bombing run you'd at least have to land them a little closer.

 

[Harin]

While binary may be suitable on a gun range where one AT gun is shooting one round at one target, it does not capture the multitude of attack angles an AT unit is going to deploy against a tank force that will include a multitude of different tank types and variants. Even undersized AT guns made tank units bleed and slow down. When a commander knows his guns cannot pierce the front of the tanks he expects to encounter, he is going to adjust for that. There are solutions. He will not be 100% successful, but he will not fail 100% either.

I know it is outside the binary discussion, but AT guns were also very handy when attacking dug in units, fortified positions, like forts, urban areas, mountains, and about anywhere the infantry needs some close support, but tanks cannot be risked and indirect fire cannot be used due to danger close situations and the arc of the shell being ineffective. I know if I was leading an infantry battalion in the attack I would wheel my AT assets up to take out buildings, MG positions, etc... It would be criminal not to. Maybe the game could give AT units some bonus to the attack against such positions. They are amazing assets and it is a shame that in SP the only smart move is not to build them.

 

[kaguravitro]

Now let me give my perception of this topic. The new unemployed method soft the binary old penetation bonus, it doesnot disappear. This chages for me should be not realistic but in general mean, have sense. I dont bealive this chage would be a game changer, but a good long term effect change.
My dislike its that was announced and its likely a minor change to the code, or should be.... and was an early announcement. Im for sure that if it wasnt done it was cose they break other things and need to refix, and refix, the dlc policy for non content dlc is killing the game development.

And in my personal opinion a head of the game should know the very angry people would be with something like this that we were asking for from like wtt when the game become playable. if they are waiting other reaction they are working in the wrong game... we remember findland

 

[Cavalry]

• For a very long time In HOI 4 MP, it is possible to design tank templates that divisions with line AT cannot pierce. I haven't played with the numbers with NSB design tanks, since I don't have NSB. But MP is the only time you'll see hardness values meaningfully over 70% in vanilla HOI, unless you make them yourself. Soft attack + piercing winds up being meaningful pretty often.
• But there's something off about an "arms race" where being contemporary = can't pierce, unless you put the same AT gun on a tank, then randomly you can.

The game did nerf the piercing of AT 36 gun on purpose. They correct it now. And the MP often ban HTD which is a very good investment. I have a good time rushing HTD to play against Expert AI tank number/templates boosted. One of my tank divisions criteria is pierce the enemy tank divisions, that needs the HTD too. The regular infantry often not pierce but the AT regiment with HTD can.

Most of the MP players, for various reasons: control, balance... not very good on defending in hard times (few tank, few planes). They ignore AT, and they ignore AA before and just depend on their tank and planes. Arms race is not present in vanilla SP, but it is a different matter, not a reason to change but need to make the race happens. As said above, now the specialized AT regiment is much better than before and can be used to defend hot spots. Any playing like history use is good to follow.

It looks like people go reverse now, they don't try to not get piece on tank build. But adding 1 heavy tank battalion for maximum armor is not expensive for some spear head tank divisions.

 

[Cavalry]

While binary may be suitable on a gun range where one AT gun is shooting one round at one target, it does not capture the multitude of attack angles an AT unit is going to deploy against a tank force that will include a multitude of different tank types and variants.

Well, replace the word "pierce" to "effective rating" and no one argue about piercing! While some statistic say 37mm AT kill the most tanks, it may actually kill the most OLD tank, not effective and limit the AT team to some hard- to- do tactics.

 

[PK_AZ]

The thing is, armor/piercing mechanics was introduced in HoI3: Their Finest Hour(?), specifically to make armored warfare more binary, and less continuum.
Changing armor/piercing to less binary, and more continuum form makes me ask: why keep it at all? We already have Hardness and Hard Attack, which do exactly that.

 

[Harin]

Changing armor/piercing to less binary, and more continuum form makes me ask: why keep it at all? We already have Hardness and Hard Attack, which do exactly that.

That is a thought provoking question. So in doing away with the piercing mechanic, are you suggesting that armour could increase hardness and the more modern AT guns simply have more hard attack than the previous models? Not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to understand how it might work out.

 

[PK_AZ]

So in doing away with the piercing mechanic, are you suggesting that armour could increase hardness and the more modern AT guns simply have more hard attack than the previous models?

Yes.
Actually, what I want to say is: having continuous armor/piercing mechanics on top of continuous hardness/hard attack mechanics is worst solution. You would end with two different systems that (conceptually) do the same, but each of them in different way, with only most math-inclined players understanding difference. Compare it to current system, where interaction is very straight forward ('more armor than enemy piercing good, less armor than enemy piercing bad, there is also hardness I guess').

 

[pro.gamer.69]

Yes.
Actually, what I want to say is: having continuous armor/piercing mechanics on top of continuous hardness/hard attack mechanics is worst solution. You would end with two different systems that (conceptually) do the same, but each of them in different way, with only most math-inclined players understanding difference. Compare it to current system, where interaction is very straight forward ('more armor than enemy piercing good, less armor than enemy piercing bad, there is also hardness I guess').

they simulate two completely different and very historically significant things. one is the armor/piercing arms race and the other is whether or not armies were equipped with more than small arms at all.