The way that Air and AAA operates needs to be changed

[Nebelwerfer 42]

It is easily the most frustrating part of the game, and why airborne decks in general have such a cancerous mantra of play.

No other unit in game is able to sustain heavy damage, go away for a few minutes, and come back fully resupplied and repaired and ready to engage again. Infantry squads cannot revive dead men, tanks cannot repair broken tracks or transmissions, but planes can sustain hundreds of rounds of AA fire, fly away smoking with damaged wings and hull, and come back in mint condition. This means air heavy players suffer no punishment to their playstyle, even if they fly in a braindead manner their planes still fall back and come back fine, no consequences.

Because of the way AAA works, and how 95% of the time it is only effective for suppressing planes, and since there is no limit to how many planes can be queued in the hangar, players can just send plane trains and only have the lead plane forced to fall back, while the following planes bomb without consequence. A division can field every single AAA piece in its deck and still get pummeled by brainless air spam.

Since fighters are the only way to reliably take out enemy planes, this means that airborne decks that have numerous vetted fighters already gain a huge advantage and are essentially guaranteed air superiority. This is especially problematic for divisions like the 101st which field an entire array of planes (minus their heavy bomber) that can easily outrun any plane the axis fields.

Suggestions:
Planes that repeatedly fly into enemy AAA and get damaged should have increased rates of getting shot down after every concurrent time. They should also not be able to consistently repair to full health every single time, perhaps speed decreases or ammo count reductions should be modeled in to represent concurrent damage.

AAA needs to do area of effect damage, and the higher caliber guns like the Flak 88's and Bofors need to do a lot of this, this should discourage bomber trains.

There needs to be a limit on how many planes can be in the hangar at any one time, Wargame Red Dragon had this system and it prevented airborne players sinking all their points in planes and fielding 10+ jets. This game needs it even more due to how much more resilient and dominant air is.

 

[Archonsod]

while the following planes bomb without consequence.

Which is the problem; usually you want some kind of consequences to bombing something. It blowing up being the most sought; SD however is one of the few games where AT planes aren't.
The problem here is more the plane train. A single bomber on it's own will rarely inflict much damage; having two or three dropping at the same time will usually kill units though (I suspect it's down to the 'virtual health' mechanic for panicked units).

Planes that repeatedly fly into enemy AAA and get damaged should have increased rates of getting shot down after every concurrent time.

Not a big fan, it means planes would become useless eventually. You already have an increase on the turnaround of a damaged plane versus an undamaged plane, I think that's probably enough carry over.

AAA needs to do area of effect damage, and the higher caliber guns like the Flak 88's and Bofors need to do a lot of this, this should discourage bomber trains.

It does, but I'd agree the radius isn't large enough to be effective. I wouldn't mind seeing that increased significantly. Alternatively limit the number of aircraft that can be in the air at any one time.

Another possibility would be to increase the speed debuff from suppression to allow fighters to catch them more easily.

 

[Claremont Waltz]

Not a big fan, it means planes would become useless eventually.

Uh, did you just kind of skip his first point?

No other unit in game is able to sustain heavy damage, go away for a few minutes, and come back fully resupplied and repaired and ready to engage again. Infantry squads cannot revive dead men, tanks cannot repair broken tracks or transmissions, but planes can sustain hundreds of rounds of AA fire, fly away smoking with damaged wings and hull, and come back in mint condition.

Planes eventually becoming useless is the whole point.

 

[xXSunSlayerXx]

Planes eventually becoming useless is the whole point.

That is a somewhat arbitrary suggestion, considering tanks don't "wear off", either (well technically they do, it just never actually matters).

Making planes wear out over time would be opening a whole new can of worms in terms of balance.

They would require drastic price changes to make them worthwhile, considering they'd essentially be off-map artillery with less effect for twice the price. Then you would have to adjust their availability to address their sudden loss in "bang per card". Then they would need to have either their veterancy or the suppression caused by AA readjusted, because of the currently rather high chance of loosing durability without dropping the payload.

At that point, planes would be worthwhile using again, but at the same time would also be a complete and utter *-show of a spamfest that would put Wargames helo-spam to shame, and in the end absolutely nothing would be gained.

 

[dmdelor]

I think I agree with SunSlayer that progressive damage is probably too drastic a change to how planes work at this point. The idea of increasing AoE on suppression is an intersting one, though, and I think one that should actually apply to all AAA albeit in higher proportions to the higher caliber stuff.

All in all, I think AAA balance has gotten better since launch. Buffing some of the lesser pieces, increasing plane repair time, and making bombers care about suppression short of being sent home with bombs un-dropped are all steps in the right direction.

AAA is still pretty weak even taken in the context as a "shield", though, especially the weaker AAA pieces. I was looking through some replays and seeing planes flying over multiple AAA pieces and suffering no worse effect than "Stressed". It's silly that you've got to spend about as many points as a plane costs just to deny a single plane a quarter of the front at best. I shouldn't have to spend more points than my opponent to stop a unit I'm purchasing a counter for, especially since it's a counter that'll do little to no damage to the unit it's countering and acts on much less of the battlespace. Planes can inflict real damage and strike anywhere, AAA is mostly damage mitigation over a limited region.

First and foremost, I'd like to see little bit more range and suppression on most AA, so that if a plane flies over a pair of weak AA units or one decent one it actually has to go home instead of just suffering from an accuracy reduction. Something on the order of 25% more range and 50% more suppression, maybe, depending on how good the base unit is. If I drop 80-ish points on AAA, I should at least be able to keep a single plane away from the portion of the front the AAA is covering.

Having a knock-on suppression effect on other enemy planes in the general area might also be interesting too, though.

Assuming they don't already do this, it also might be interesting if AAA would automatically switch targets if their target is falling back and a non-retreating target is in range.

 

[Pug]

Suggestions:
Planes that repeatedly fly into enemy AAA and get damaged should have increased rates of getting shot down after every concurrent time. They should also not be able to consistently repair to full health every single time, perhaps speed decreases or ammo count reductions should be modeled in to represent concurrent damage.

AAA needs to do area of effect damage, and the higher caliber guns like the Flak 88's and Bofors need to do a lot of this, this should discourage bomber trains.

There needs to be a limit on how many planes can be in the hangar at any one time, Wargame Red Dragon had this system and it prevented airborne players sinking all their points in planes and fielding 10+ jets. This game needs it even more due to how much more resilient and dominant air is.

I like some of these suggestions,

From a quick tinker I've had in the modding files, it's important to understand a few things.

Firstly the game handles suppression and physical damage separately, and while I am not sure exactly the rate at which the each recover, I believe that morale recovers much more quickly than health. The problem is the physical damage isn't rendered in a bar, but in how visually degraded the model is, so it can often be hard to tell how damaged a unit actually is. This has led to on rare occasion an aircraft being shot down to sustained AA because despite its morale recovering, its health had not.

The problem here is that AA do so little physical damage - again 'Sword and Shield', so we have to accept that AA is primarily in place to deal morale damage, it should prevent/deter air attacks rather down aircraft.

I don't think morale should recover slower, I believe that quite the inverse is the problem. That often planes are too easily routed, feigning death and therefore are more easily recovered. Instead AA should, at a given level of suppression stun the plane for a few seconds, not so that it routs, but so that it effectively becomes blinded, unable to drops its munitions, and becoming unresponsive to all commands except to evac. This would force planes to fly over the target before turning and attempting the attack again, giving AA more time to shoot it, and fighters longer to intercept it. Much like a real shield the attack would be deflected, increasing the opportunity to strike back, rather than decreasing it.

As for AoE damage, I think this should be increased as you say, especially for 37-88mm, and would do much for ending 'plane trains'.

A further problem I have is how range impacts AA damage, especially for the smaller caliber guns, which should see much greater effectiveness in physical damage at closer range - whereas at the moment they seem to be near equally effective regardless or range. Obviously it's likley that under real circumstances that the closer a target is the more rounds of that burst will connect with the target, so why not give small AA deal more damage the closer they are to the target, much like how AP scaling works.

 

[Claremont Waltz]

I agree, plane stuns would be huge. Not sure why they weren't in from the start, WRD has them and they make perfect sense and help to prevent suicide drops.

That is a somewhat arbitrary suggestion, considering tanks don't "wear off", either (well technically they do, it just never actually matters).

Making planes wear out over time would be opening a whole new can of worms in terms of balance.

They would require drastic price changes to make them worthwhile, considering they'd essentially be off-map artillery with less effect for twice the price. Then you would have to adjust their availability to address their sudden loss in "bang per card". Then they would need to have either their veterancy or the suppression caused by AA readjusted, because of the currently rather high chance of loosing durability without dropping the payload.

At that point, planes would be worthwhile using again, but at the same time would also be a complete and utter *-show of a spamfest that would put Wargames helo-spam to shame, and in the end absolutely nothing would be gained.

I mean from a historical point of view tanks should absolutely wear out. We have numerous historical examples of armor plates getting hammered by numerous non penetrating shells until they cracked. We also have accounts of panthers knocked out by WP shells forcing their crews from the tank, and of tank crews being bludgeoned to death by repeated hits from large caliber HE shells with the tank still intact. It would probably massively improve large format games if tank armor degraded with impacts as super tanks would no longer be able to roll around in pristine condition while murdering the shit out of their opposition. Given that tank density is substantially lower in small format games it also probably wouldn't do much to ranked balance. Or maybe it'd break the game. Dunno but at least worth evaluating.

The rest of your points are literally a reduction to absurdity coupled to an undefended assumption that we must maintain the same level of air strikes. We don't have to assume that a new system would be implemented poorly to critique it. And regarding your assumption, I think many people would agree that the current rate of plane use is somewhat too high. Games like the Graviteam Tactics/Acthung Panzer series have had limited availability high impact single use planes for years and still managed to create an engaging experience, so it is definitely possible to change the frequency without utterly destroying the game.

The downside of switching to a new system is that it's a lot of work with no new features and is overkill when we're pretty close to a decent system. We just need another couple of balance passes plus eugen ditching their bizarre belief that AA couldn't or shouldn't kill in a period where flak demonstrably brought down thousands of planes (most of them admittedly involved in strategic air raids rather than close air support, but that says more about allocation of effort than AA lethality). The existence of close air support planes with armored underbellies like the IL2 indicates that designers of the time absolutely believed that flak was a danger to the survival of low flying planes that needed to be mitigated.

Oh and the HS129 should be completely removed because it triggers the ever loving shit out of me. I know I know, but everyone is allowed to irrationally hate the duck out of something.

 

[Rojan]

I agree, plane stuns would be huge. Not sure why they weren't in from the start, WRD has them and they make perfect sense and help to prevent suicide drops.



I mean from a historical point of view tanks should absolutely wear out. We have numerous historical examples of armor plates getting hammered by numerous non penetrating shells until they cracked. We also have accounts of panthers knocked out by WP shells forcing their crews from the tank, and of tank crews being bludgeoned to death by repeated hits from large caliber HE shells with the tank still intact. It would probably massively improve large format games if tank armor degraded with impacts as super tanks would no longer be able to roll around in pristine condition while murdering the shit out of their opposition. Given that tank density is substantially lower in small format games it also probably wouldn't do much to ranked balance. Or maybe it'd break the game. Dunno but at least worth evaluating.

The rest of your points are literally a reduction to absurdity coupled to an undefended assumption that we must maintain the same level of air strikes. We don't have to assume that a new system would be implemented poorly to critique it. And regarding your assumption, I think many people would agree that the current rate of plane use is somewhat too high. Games like the Graviteam Tactics/Acthung Panzer series have had limited availability high impact single use planes for years and still managed to create an engaging experience, so it is definitely possible to change the frequency without utterly destroying the game.

The downside of switching to a new system is that it's a lot of work with no new features and is overkill when we're pretty close to a decent system. We just need another couple of balance passes plus eugen ditching their bizarre belief that AA couldn't or shouldn't kill in a period where flak demonstrably brought down thousands of planes (most of them admittedly involved in strategic air raids rather than close air support, but that says more about allocation of effort than AA lethality). The existence of close air support planes with armored underbellies like the IL2 indicates that designers of the time absolutely believed that flak was a danger to the survival of low flying planes that needed to be mitigated.

Oh and the HS129 should be completely removed because it triggers the ever loving shit out of me. I know I know, but everyone is allowed to irrationally hate the duck out of something.

Me. Waltz can we please play a game together sometime (or multiple)?You fascinate me and I would love to see how a person like you plays the game.

 

[Claremont Waltz]

Me. Waltz can we please play a game together sometime (or multiple)?You fascinate me and I would love to see how a person like you plays the game.

Haven't played in over a month, not planning to until eugen does a division balance patch.

 

[Protosszocker]

Haven't played in over a month, not planning to until eugen does a division balance patch.

Yeah they announced it 1 month ago that they will do one still the next patch will not be it. hope it will come out in august.

 

[Archonsod]

We just need another couple of balance passes plus eugen ditching their bizarre belief that AA couldn't or shouldn't kill in a period where flak demonstrably brought down thousands of planes (most of them admittedly involved in strategic air raids rather than close air support, but that says more about allocation of effort than AA lethality).

The problem is the scale. Most of those aircraft were shot down en route to the target (or if particularly unfortunate, on the way back). Very few were shot down during a ground attack (if anything Eugen are a little generous with the actual time the AA guns can fire on the planes).
I wonder if we're not looking at the wrong part of the mechanic here. It's pretty clear the intention is that AA is there to disrupt the attack with most air kills provided via your own air cover. Plane train aside I think the AA itself is in a pretty good place. Bombers could possibly stand to be a wee bit less accurate when stressed (they're still a bit too accurate, though part of that is likely the AoE). Maybe it's time to look at the fighters and interceptors?

 

[Claremont Waltz]

The problem is the scale. Most of those aircraft were shot down en route to the target (or if particularly unfortunate, on the way back). Very few were shot down during a ground attack (if anything Eugen are a little generous with the actual time the AA guns can fire on the planes).
I wonder if we're not looking at the wrong part of the mechanic here. It's pretty clear the intention is that AA is there to disrupt the attack with most air kills provided via your own air cover. Plane train aside I think the AA itself is in a pretty good place. Bombers could possibly stand to be a wee bit less accurate when stressed (they're still a bit too accurate, though part of that is likely the AoE). Maybe it's time to look at the fighters and interceptors?

You do realize airborne decks get the best fighters right? If you buff fighters, you worsen the problem of air cancer. AA needs to not blow so that every deck can defend itself even if the air complement sucks. Luckily Eugen is finally coming around to that viewpoint so hopefully the cancer endeth soon.

 

[Gamesguy]

You do realize airborne decks get the best fighters right? If you buff fighters, you worsen the problem of air cancer. AA needs to not blow so that every deck can defend itself even if the air complement sucks. Luckily Eugen is finally coming around to that viewpoint so hopefully the cancer endeth soon.

Except that's not true? The best fighters are typically in infantry decks. Like the phase A double vet ME109 in 17th SS.

 

[Nebelwerfer 42]

Except that's not true? The best fighters are typically in infantry decks. Like the phase A double vet ME109 in 17th SS.

The 17th SS is a mechanized division, and its an anomaly since it has a ton of vetted things overall. Look at the 352/716 ID's or the 15th Scots and tell me if they get the best fighters.

 

[Rojan]

Except that's not true? The best fighters are typically in infantry decks. Like the phase A double vet ME109 in 17th SS.

What? The 17. SS do not even have a phase A fighter.

 

[Gamesguy]

The 17th SS is a mechanized division, and its an anomaly since it has a ton of vetted things overall. Look at the 352/716 ID's or the 15th Scots and tell me if they get the best fighters.

Sorry, Windhund, not 17th SS.

2nd Inf and 352 both get decent fighters, plenty of other divisions outside of airborne decks get good fighters as well.

What? The 17. SS do not even have a phase A fighter.

Windhund. Point remains.

 

[IS-2]

Sorry, Windhund, not 17th SS.

2nd Inf and 352 both get decent fighters, plenty of other divisions outside of airborne decks get good fighters as well.


Windhund. Point remains.

they get 2 . . . . . ................................. ........... .1 per card

 

[dmdelor]

A little summary of vetted air fighters, admittedly one ignoring the multirole type planes...

Air decks
FSJ: 1x2-star in A, and 2x1-star in B, 5 vetted cards in total, 7 air slots
LuftLande: 2x1-star in A, 2x1-star in B, 1x2-star in C, 4 vetted cards in total, 7 air slots
Red Devils: 1x1-star in A, 1x2-star and 2x1-star in B, 6 vetted cards in total, 7 air slots
101st: 1x1-star in A, 2x1-star in B, 3x1-star in C, 4 vetted cards in total, 8 air slots

Other Decks
3rd Armored: No vet, 3 air slots
2nd Infantry: 2x1-star in B, 1 card in total, 5 air slots
France: 3x1-star in C, 1 card in total, 4 air slots
Guards: 2x1-star in C, 2 cards in total, 3 air slots
Scots: 2x1-star in B, 2x2-Star in C, 3 cards in total, 4 air slots
Canadians: 1x1-star in A, 2 cards in total, 5 air slots
Poland: 2x1-star in A, 1x2-star in B, 2x2-star in C, 6 cards in total, 5 air slots
Lehr: 1x1-star in A, 1x2-star in B, 3 cards in total, 3 air slots
Jugend: 1x2-star in B, 2 cards in total, 3 air slots
Zircus: 1x2-star in B, 2 cards in total, 3 air slots
Windhund: 1x2-star in A, 1x2-star in B, 2 cards in total, 4 air slots
PZG: No vet, 4 air slots
Pegasus: 1x2-star in B, 1 card in total, 4 air slots
Eichenlaub: 1x1-star in B, 2x1-star in C, 3 cards in total, 4 air slots

So, basically, no, non-air decks don't really keep up with air decks, and certainly aren't the best. They've mostly got to give up on ground support for fighters at all because they don't get many slots, they get fighters later, and in much more limited quantity than air decks. Poland can put up a pretty good air fight, and that's about it. Scots and Eichenlaub aren't hopeless. From there it's bad (most everyone else) to worse (3Arm, PZG, France, Guards).

How much worse off the non-air decks will depend some on how much the dodge changes nerf vet, but they're still pretty much always going to be in a worse position in quality and much worse in quantity relative to air decks.

 

[Protosszocker]

A little summary of vetted air fighters, admittedly one ignoring the multirole type planes...

Air decks
FSJ: 1x2-star in A, and 2x1-star in B, 5 vetted cards in total, 7 air slots
LuftLande: 2x1-star in A, 2x1-star in B, 1x2-star in C, 4 vetted cards in total, 7 air slots
Red Devils: 1x1-star in A, 1x2-star and 2x1-star in B, 6 vetted cards in total, 7 air slots
101st: 1x1-star in A, 2x1-star in B, 3x1-star in C, 4 vetted cards in total, 8 air slots

Other Decks
3rd Armored: No vet, 3 air slots
2nd Infantry: 2x1-star in B, 1 card in total, 5 air slots
France: 3x1-star in C, 1 card in total, 4 air slots
Guards: 2x1-star in C, 2 cards in total, 3 air slots
Scots: 2x1-star in B, 2x2-Star in C, 3 cards in total, 4 air slots
Canadians: 1x1-star in A, 2 cards in total, 5 air slots
Poland: 2x1-star in A, 1x2-star in B, 2x2-star in C, 6 cards in total, 5 air slots
Lehr: 1x1-star in A, 1x2-star in B, 3 cards in total, 3 air slots
Jugend: 1x2-star in B, 2 cards in total, 3 air slots
Zircus: 1x2-star in B, 2 cards in total, 3 air slots
Windhund: 1x2-star in A, 1x2-star in B, 2 cards in total, 4 air slots
PZG: No vet, 4 air slots
Pegasus: 1x2-star in B, 1 card in total, 4 air slots
Eichenlaub: 1x1-star in B, 2x1-star in C, 3 cards in total, 4 air slots

So, basically, no, non-air decks don't really keep up with air decks. They've mostly got to give up on ground support for fighters at all because they don't get many slots, they get fighters later, and in much more limited quantity than air decks. Poland can put up a pretty good air fight, and that's about it. Scots and Eichenlaub aren't hopeless. From there it's bad (most everyone else) to worse (3Arm, PZG, France, Guards).

How much worse off the non-air decks will depend some on how much the dodge changes nerf vet, but they're still pretty much always going to be in a worse position in quality and much worse in quantity relative to air decks.

thats the special thing about airdecks right? that they have a strong airforce. I think the new AA patch helps to make it better to fight against them though. If you combine your few aircrafts with strong aa batterie you can easly kill the Airdecks in the airfight (esp. because their AA isnt that good in most parts)

 

[dmdelor]

Umm, sure? My post was in the context of the discussion between Claremont & IS-2 vs Gamesguy, not some commentary that air decks were unbeatable or too good at air.