The Current Phase A Blues For the Axis...

[FatRefrigerator]

That would be quite astonishing. Not too mention definitively suicidal from a balancing point of view. There's a reason why all the wargames were balanced around 1v1/2v2: above this amount of players, there's much more "noise", randomness and snowball effects hiding what is actually not working correctly.
So I'd say I'll believe it when I see it.

Well I think that simply from the fact that D-Day wasn't fought with only 2 divisions is a good reason for it to be balanced around larger battles. There's a reason you don't only field armored divisions, you need infantry to back them up. You shouldn't have to balance the 3AD to play nice with the 91LL, the same way you shouldn't have to nerf the 12SS so the 2ID tanks can pop them.

EDIT: Because I know we take stuff literally here, those are just examples, not a freaking manifesto.

 

[Grimreapo]

Well I think that simply from the fact that D-Day wasn't fought with only 2 divisions is a good reason for it to be balanced around larger battles. There's a reason you don't only field armored divisions, you need infantry to back them up. You shouldn't have to balance the 3AD to play nice with the 91LL, the same way you shouldn't have to nerf the 12SS so the 2ID tanks can pop them.

EDIT: Because I know we take stuff literally here, those are just examples, not a freaking manifesto.

Honest question, how can you balance around team games in a reasonably quick way? Balance in team games take ages to find but 1v1 are much quicker to find issues, if competitive players want to pick Scot vs Scots for the 2nd time during a final then... does that not say something about the balance of other divs?

 

[holoween]

That would be quite astonishing. Not too mention definitively suicidal from a balancing point of view. There's a reason why all the wargames were balanced around 1v1/2v2: above this amount of players, there's much more "noise", randomness and snowball effects hiding what is actually not working correctly.
So I'd say I'll believe it when I see it.

it would be interesting to see a 3v3 turnament to see how the gameplay and the power of different divisions changes.
also there is no reason to force the balance to be perfect for 1v1 at the expense of larger games.

 

[holoween]

Honest question, how can you balance around team games in a reasonably quick way? Balance in team games take ages to find but 1v1 are much quicker to find issues, if competitive players want to pick Scot vs Scots for the 2nd time during a final then... does that not say something about the balance of other divs?

it says something but it doesnt necesaarily mean that they are the best division in every gamesize. in aa 1v1 and 2v2 where you haave to cover a lot of ground they may be the best but in a 3v3 where that isnt the case other divisions could be better off.

 

[Fussel]

The thing is also that Axis do not have a single Division with good Phase A or more than 100points in Phase. I was hoping for 3rd Fallschirmjäger, but i also saw that it is also Phase C heavy and not Phase A. Dreams destroyed

Windhund last hope man. Also french tanks to the rescue in phase A

 

[FatRefrigerator]

Honest question, how can you balance around team games in a reasonably quick way? Balance in team games take ages to find but 1v1 are much quicker to find issues, if competitive players want to pick Scot vs Scots for the 2nd time during a final then... does that not say something about the balance of other divs?

All balance takes time. That's why betas and post-release patches exist. To balance the game. If they release the game on May 23rd as "fully balanced" I'm most likely not going to play it more than a month because I 100% guarantee you it won't be balanced by then. I don't expect them to have it be perfect, but I'd rather them at least try to balance it around larger matches. I didn't buy Steel Division because I wanted a 1v1 eSport

 

[Grosnours]

it would be interesting to see a 3v3 turnament to see how the gameplay and the power of different divisions changes.
also there is no reason to force the balance to be perfect for 1v1 at the expense of larger games.

Having a perfect balance is a tall enough order to be sure is will never happen...
Besides 2v2 is also extremely important.

At the end of the day it's a design decision.
If you balance the game around 1v1/2v2 you'll end up with something that will be robust enough but will break under a too heavy load (read: 10v10).
If you balance the game around 3v3/4v4 (how might be a fascinating question) you'll end up with something leaking on both ends: 1v1/2v2 might not be satisfactory at all for some divisions, and 10v10 is such a different animal things will still go sideways. If we begin to balance around combinations I can only foresee bad things happening.

Do mind that currently the balance is not per se around 1v1 exclusively, which is a good thing. An infantry division behaves differently from a mechanized one, an armored one or a para one. Synergies exists and are taken into account. Add to this the phases dimension and I don't think we're aiming towards something rigid and inflexible.

 

[Grimreapo]

it says something but it doesnt necesaarily mean that they are the best division in every gamesize. in aa 1v1 and 2v2 where you haave to cover a lot of ground they may be the best but in a 3v3 where that isnt the case other divisions could be better off.

Fair but the Scots do have IMHO the best air deck ATM making up for that, a crap load of 25pdrs (EUGEN plz...) and its hard to attrition them out of 17pdrs, the Scots are like a tick once they get dug in...

 

[Karlburg]

Fair but the Scots do have IMHO the best air deck ATM making up for that, a crap load of 25pdrs (EUGEN plz...) and its hard to attrition them out of 17pdrs, the Scots are like a tick once they get dug in...

The only thing scots lack in the game right now is the jumbo. They have access to everything that's needed to win a game at any size.

 

[holoween]

Having a perfect balance is a tall enough order to be sure is will never happen...
Besides 2v2 is also extremely important.

At the end of the day it's a design decision.
If you balance the game around 1v1/2v2 you'll end up with something that will be robust enough but will break under a too heavy load (read: 10v10).
If you balance the game around 3v3/4v4 (how might be a fascinating question) you'll end up with something leaking on both ends: 1v1/2v2 might not be satisfactory at all for some divisions, and 10v10 is such a different animal things will still go sideways. If we begin to balance around combinations I can only foresee bad things happening.

Do mind that currently the balance is not per se around 1v1 exclusively, which is a good thing. An infantry division behaves differently from a mechanized one, an armored one or a para one. Synergies exists and are taken into account. Add to this the phases dimension and I don't think we're aiming towards something rigid and inflexible.

the way i see it you will never have all divisions be equally viable in 1v1 games so trying to do that seems pointless.
so instead making sure there are a few divisions on each side that are competetive in 1v1 is important.
the rest however are the ones benefitting massively from division synergy need to be balanced around larger games.
(id draw the comparison to AoE2 where only a select few factions are viable in 1v1 but in larger games others become more powerfull)

 

[FatRefrigerator]

The only thing scots lack in the game right now is the jumbo. They have access to everything that's needed to win a game at any size.

Just be glad the Jumbo(76) is out of time frame. I don't have a big enough jar for all the tears.

 

[Fussel]

Just be glad the Jumbo(76) is out of time frame. I don't have a big enough jar for all the tears.

The price would be somewhere between Tiger and KT. If anyone is willing to bank for that, they are welcome.

 

[Grosnours]

the way i see it you will never have all divisions be equally viable in 1v1 games so trying to do that seems pointless.

It is indeed. Hence the "classes" of division which should roughly be equivalent.
Currently 3rd Armored is more or less balanced with the 12thSS. It's not perfect, but they are more or less as effective in different ways. It's much less important to see them balanced in the same fashion with the infantry divisions.
The issue we have currently is revolving around infantry divisions as the allied ones are nowhere balanced with the axis ones. It is much less tragic in 3v3/4v4 than in 1v1/2v2, but the imbalance is there. You could even lose with the scots and indians if your allies begins playing very poorly (happened to me this afternoon ), but all in all the 1v1 tournament are quite clearly indicating something has got to change.

So when people say something like "balancing around 1v1/2v2", I think it's less about having all divisions perfectly equal and competitive, but more about not having too much of a gap between divisions which aim to fulfill the same tole on the battlefield.

 

[TGApples]

The issue we have currently is revolving around infantry divisions as the allied ones are nowhere balanced with the axis ones

None of the Axis ones have been released. We have an airborne and a mechanised division.

 

[le saucisson masqué]

It's not 1on1 based game so stop assuming some balance suggestion judging on it. If you want competitive 1on1 RTS just play Starcraft instead ort AoE2.
OFC its not any easier in team scenarios for axis, but then if you have good teamplay you can always deal with sth not to mention choosing different divisions to help each other in different areas.


And if u have balance problems in 1on1 just play mirror matchups BO2.

22 people already "respectfully" disagreed with you but i believe that what you said is not respectfull at all for OP who did a good job at explaining his point of view.
so i respectfully think you are a moron.

 

[Grosnours]

None of the Axis ones have been released. We have an airborne and a mechanised division.

Several possibilities then :
- there's no balance issues then as we are comparing apples to orange. Everything is hunky dory, move along, nothing to see
- Eugen is either completely stupid or extraordinarily machiavellian and released divisions which are not comparable to confuse us. See above
- it might be in the realm of possibilities that, unlike what we had in WRD, infantry/para/mechanized divisions are all quite close and hence can be compared much more directly than an armored an an infantry one
- you are nitpicking for nitpicking's sake

Beats me.

 

[TGApples]

Several possibilities then :
- there's no balance issues then as we are comparing apples to orange. Everything is hunky dory, move along, nothing to see
- Eugen is either completely stupid or extraordinarily machiavellian and released divisions which are not comparable to confuse us. See above
- it might be in the realm of possibilities that, unlike what we had in WRD, infantry/para/mechanized divisions are all quite close and hence can be compared much more directly than an armored an an infantry one
- you are nitpicking for nitpicking's sake

Beats me.

It could be that the themes of an infantry division are paritcularly well suited to the themes that let you win small games. Notably: they seem to get a lot of good cheap infantry with solid support options. You pointed out yourself that the most balanced match-up we have right now is armoured division vs armoured division. It seems pretty clear to me that Luftlande's large airforce is better in larger games than in 1v1 (air is a force multiplier across the whole battlefield). Simialry, 17 SS's strong arty is better in larger games than 1v1 (higher unit density, force multiplier again). These two divisions both have advantages that work better the larger the game gets.

I want to see what happens when we get more divisions: is it a feature of infantry divisions that make them good in small games or a feature of allied divisions?

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

The thing that makes it most apparent that the game is not balanced for 1v1 is air. To be of even limited utility, anti-air needs to be in present in quantity, and even then is not likely to actually help, except (ironically) for air-to-air combat. in a 1v1 its unusual to attain such concentrations.

 

[LKHERO]

There's a few things here that stand out to me in balance so far.

Minor issues aside:
> We don't have all the divisions or maps in the game yet.
> The current Axis divisions in the game are not infantry divisions and there's a disparity in deck archetypes.
> Divisions are designed, both in-game and historically to have strengths and weaknesses.
> With that said, 1v1 will be the game mode that glorifies this ideal to the extreme, especially when resources per phase is considered.
> In games larger than 1v1, the strengths and weaknesses (assuming a good team comp) will round out a lot nicer.

Many people in this thread enjoy 1v1, and that's great. I'm a competitive RTS player after all and I love it as well in other games. I think if we're driving balance towards 1v1, then you run the risk in making each division streamlined, by leveling their strengths and weaknesses, and thus risking damaging the historical accuracy and innate design of the divisions as a whole (both econ and deck).

I'm a huge fan of game balance, but I don't think Eugen will balance this game around 1v1 due to the reasoning I gave above.

 

[FatRefrigerator]

> With that said, 1v1 will be the game mode that glorifies this ideal to the extreme, especially when resources per phase is considered.
> In games larger than 1v1, the strengths and weaknesses (assuming a good team comp) will round out a lot nicer.

Many people in this thread enjoy 1v1, and that's great. I'm a competitive RTS playe after all and I love it as well in other games. I think if we're driving balance towards 1v1, then you run the risk in making each division streamlined, by leveling their strengths and weaknesses, and thus risking damaging the historical accuracy and innate design of the division as a whole.

I'm a huge fan of game balance, but I don't think Eugen will balance this game around 1v1 due to the reasoning I gave above.

That's my biggest fear about 1v1 balancing and why I really don't like it when people like Razzman tweak Eugen's ear about game balance. The super pro 1v1s he plays don't apply to 95% of the playerbase. And in the end the game would end up being mirror balanced and at that point you might as well play a traditional RTS.