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An idea to end the infantry spam?
Elysium
Hey guys,
We all know Dow 3 has several flaws, and it might not be the game many of us wanted, but
While I was reading the forum recently, and playing, I was wondering
There seems to be a lot of infantry spam, and all we invest energy in is technically infantry hp+dmg upgrates, because if we wont play with this "meta" we would probably lose more games, than we want. Of course later on we might see 1 or 2 vehicles, but i guess not even close as much as intended.
So the solution that came t my mind was:
- Why not put another resource in game, like FUEL in Company of heroes?
It would be way easier to tune energy income that way, and also most of the ene could be spent on infantry upgrates, or just simply the leveling of your escalation phase, and vehicles would cost fuel instead of energy + requisition of course.
(we could talk about game mechanics, cover system, races and all the things that dow 3 lacks right now, but i did not intend this topic for that, its more like a balance discussion or so 
)
What do you guys think? Lets discuss
Comments
Elysium
Wouldnt it also be a solution to take away infantry and vehicle RAW upgrates?
Like take away flat hp and dmg boost upgrate from armorys and instead add squad upgrates? Like nob for ors, sergeant for SM ect, that will only effect individual squads, yet it would be much much cheaper? It would take away the boring raw stat upgrates, and give more choices for players I think.
Elysium
I meant we dont spend it on vehicles, but raw upgrates for infantry.
Katitof
Its called energy.
"lets give tons of stuff for infantry to cut on infantry spam!"
And no vehicle was ever seen again.
Flaweless logic.
And whoever has a problem with spamming units in a game about spamming units, might consider switching game.
GuruSkippy
We have inf spam in phase 1, because the power income has been nerfed, and also with higher cost on power gens.
So there is no point in trying to fast tech, because you just can't.
Return old power income in phase 1, keeping the new power gen cost, and I think we will see less inf spam again.
Elysium
Katitof,
I ve read several of your replies before, you dont seem to add much to discussions, and it feels like you just want to mock others. You either love the game, and dont want it to change, or just dont want to help it improve. If you cant contribute positively to this post, I suggest you go find yourself another topic. Criticising is accepted as long as you can present a better idea.
Not sure if you have played company of heroes 1 or 2, but if you did, you would know there are 3 kinds of resources.
First is Man-power => basically for infantry units, and acts as a main resource for buildings ect
Ammunition => all for upgrades , and if relic would implement it here, than you could customize your squads without having to hurt echo too much. (also you could upgrate some vehicles with it too)
Last is Fuel= > echo upgrates vehicles (also some buildings)
And thats it. What i meant to say was that if we had 3 kinds of resources, and the RAW stat upgrates on units removed, instead added customization to squads, so they would scale into late game a bit, but not as much as now, that you can techincally own a game by only fielding infantry.~~~~ that would mean that later on you could build vehicles and use them, unlike now, when all we do is mass spam infantry and upgrate the heck out of them. While lategame vehicles are usually not even used.
(I would also love to see more unit types and different weapons do different damage to units depending on their armor type, but that is another topic i guess)
That is my suggestion, and please dont try to turn my words inside out, and be reasonable if you reply. Dont be like "that is called energy"
I have played Dow1-2-3 and Company of heroes 1-2 and much more. but the point is, i m not here to shout out stuff without even knowing the game, and actively playing.
GuruSkippy
yeah, that, also
Katitof
Well, my "forum me" is like lucretia candy, either you love me or hate me with nothing in between due to my rough tone, I do want to see the game improved, but I don't want it to become a balance mess like DoW1 and DoW2 were, that's why you'll see me gunning down on any ideas that would lead to such state most of the time.
No need to explain it to me, I'm well accustomed with all relic RTS games, being in top 50 for both, axis and allies in 2v2 in CoH2 for a time.
Resource dynamics and whole gameplay flow is completely different in CoH series then it is in DoW, basic principle is the same, territory control, but in CoH its much deeper with supply lines and cutting them off. Moreover, CoH gameplay requires 3 different resources as munition is a bit more then just upgrades resource as it also moderates the use of mines and off-map support abilities, which are being handled in completely different way here in DoW3.
Moreover, in CoH pretty much all factions have muni sinks, while in DoW3 that would benefit exclusively SM faction as they are the only ones with weapon upgrades.
Creating completely separate resource just for one faction is rather pointless, wouldn't you agree?
The first step to fixing a problem is correct identification of that problem.
People spam infantry, because req income is too high, while current infantry lethality is low, unless you use nuker elite.
Decreasing req income and increasing req gen income would be one possible step to cut off infantry spam, reducing BP1 refund would also help a lot, however that move would create a steamroll effect, where if you're behind a tiny bit too much, you'd not be able to rebuilt and compete against ever growing opponents army.
tritol
I propose 10 times higher energy income so we can spam vehicles instead
Wikkyd
The man was asking for depth to infantry not less spam, then you go ahead and flip it around and make it seem like he suggested less infantry spam, more infantry upgrades, and then insulted him?
Flawless logic.
Martin
I don't think introducing third resource is good because it is a big change that can have other problems and will require much work from relic, it will also confuse returning player, the point of upgrades costing power is they limit your tech if you invest heavily in them so you need to choose what to spend your power on.
Increasing energy income seems like a good solution to make vehicles play a larger role and fast teching more viable. But I heard the reason power was nerfed in the first place was because of how disposable power generators were before, that people would just spam them on undefended points and as long as they were up for maybe 30 seconds they would pay up. Buffing power income risks creating this scenario again. If this issue returns a possible way to avoid this would be making the price of power generators scale with escalation phases, but if needed only since complicating things is never good.
However I am worried that just increasing power income might make infantry upgrades too much of no brainer due their low price compared to vehicles so if that problem occurs infantry upgrades might need an increase in cost. But this is just a concern.
Also I have seen suggestions by mainly vindicarex that economy is fine and the problem is really several design problems in the game needing to be solved most notably size of maps. But I think that is a lot of changes to expect from relic and the problem would still exist on existing smaller maps so despite agreeing with those suggestions I would say we should look for simpler solutions, buffing power income being one example of them.
Katitof
I know what he was asking for.
I also know it would mess the balance more then hurricanes mess south-eastern US states, while incentivising infantry spam even more, which is the complete opposite of what this thread is supposed to be about.
Wikkyd
I am aware of what the thread is about, I have yet to throw in my opinion because, as you said, it would mess with balance.
The point of my comment was calling you out for acting in an un-necessary manner, that and he was commenting on the use of power, not infantry spam itself.
Elysium
I don t think relic can improve the game overall without doing drastic changes...
That being said, temporary balance issues might be things we have to put up with, if we want anything to happen.
vindicarex
I view the unit spam meta as more tied to forward bases/objective rewards more so than economy factors.
For instance, the Forward Base reinforcement gives an enormous boost to the effective power of early aggro spam (perhaps best exemplified through tact marine spam): normally units that take damage would have to spend time reinforcing to get back into the fight, but forward bases effectively eliminate this RTS principle. For example, the fall back mechanic directly enforces this down-side to attacking (that you have to wait for your units to run back, heal, and then march back up to the front lines). In Starcraft, reinforcing an army is no easy task as you have to coordinate the producing timing and rally points across the map (not to mention that it's a much more mobile game since there are no invincible buildings to camp next to). That down-time is nearly non-existent in DoW3. And so, your early game units are almost constantly fighting and on the attack (and, therefore, attaining VALUE for the player).
For example, I played against Kist (Korean streamer) as SM vs SM on Charon's rest. I went for a mix of units (tact + snipers + ASM + dev) and Kist went for typical meta tact marine spam. While I was able to skirmish and harass his marines somewhat well with my units, I just couldn't keep the 3 and 4 marine squads off the field for any time long enough to stabilize my side of the map... he built a building near one of the center contested points.
Later, he simply built a barracks on my natural 2-point node to siege my power generator right next to it... why not, right? God forbid you run back to HQ on Charon's rest... Needless to say I eventually was forced out of my shield gens by Deathwatch as tact stepped 2 steps back to reinforce whenever I dealt model losses.
See the point I'm trying to make here? The down-time present in many RTS games limits the potency of early-game unit spam, but forward base reinforcement (having, like, no downsides) drastically increases that potency.
Further more, you MUST defend shield generator - having your opponent gain the reward (especially the +1 EP) is HUGE - especially in a 1v1. So not only do forward bases make early-game unit spam easy to execute and hard to punish, but the shield generator mechanic FORCES the opponent to commit a lot of resources to defend that shield gen (and, so, necessitates the opponent to make an army of equal power to the spammer...).
Yes, the base req gen from HQ, the 35% refund rate, and even the lower power income rate all contribute to incentivizing unit spam in their own way (and the refund rate/req rate should probably come down), but these are secondary influences, not primary or most critical. IMO, if it wasn't for very accessible on-field on-demand reinforcement + easy when to win the game in first 6 min, you wouldn't see this meta we see here now to such an extent.
Katitof
Remember that forward bases completely invalidate upgrades like WWG reinforcement, trukk reinforcement and doctrines like tip of the spear and ork waagh tower reinforcement.
A whole LOT of issues would be resolved if building forward bases wasn't so cheap and risk free.
Martin
On the bright side relic is aware of the forward bases.
"No, the health has not been increased. We know that people are concerned about early forward bases and didn't want to make them even more resilient. It's worth noting that Ork and Space Marine units now reinforce more slowly while in combat. Even though they have been changed in the last few months to recover proportional shields, it's still much harder for Eldar to persistently attack by reinforcing, so they don't have this penalty."
I just fear that they will hesitate too much in addressing them or be too biased by how easy they are to take down in 3v3 where there are more units to focus down these bases.
In concept I really do like the idea of forward bases, just need to be less of no brainer but more risky or having to commit units to defend the base to avoid that risk. The base should feel like a weakpoint, not a defensive position, that role goes to listening posts and turrets.
Martin
@Bigamo
I think making power generators buildable like dow1 would be too big a change if you wanted to make power less tied to ground control. But maybe the same could be achieved by changing the way upgrades for resource points work? fx lowering the power cost of upgrading resource points or making it so you can upgrade requisition and power production separately?
Still not really certain if such changes would be needed if other suggestions like power increase or forward base nerf were implemented.
steinernein
I am going to throw stuff on the wall.
First of all, decrease the cost of the armory, reduce the cost of vehicles slightly.
Second thing is to add more utility to the units being underutilized so you see greater diversity but in such a way where people aren't relying solely on those units (scout spam comes to mind).
Third, decrease the cost of turrets or somehow make a more hard defensive play viable so you can fast tech.
charlando
http://steamcharts.com/cmp/285190,9450,56400,4580
@Bigamo
for reference
salvasc
There is a flaw in the economic design that slows down the access to quickly rise of tier, as another strategy mode. Therefore, many requisitions are accumulated and must be invested in something, all this aggravated by the low mortality of the units and the return of the deaths. The energy flow must be corrected to allow choosing SPAM or tier evolution strategies.