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What if doctrines cost Elite Points?
Darkstirling
Now I know what you are thinking, "this guy is insane", but hear me out!
Imagine you could pick 5 doctrines, doctrines were all as strong as the current strongest doctrines are, however, they could not be used as soon as the game starts. Instead they are gated by elite points. Some of the stronger doctrines could even be balanced by costing more elite points.
To counter balance this, Each player would start with 3-5 elite points when the match starts, and points might be gained a little faster. One thing I liked about dawn of war 2 is that we started the game with our "commander". This change would allow us to choose our commander right off the bat.
This would also create a choice in the early game, do I want that powerful doctrine (doctrines would be stronger) or do I want that higher strength commander. Furthermore, 2 point elites would no longer have the ridiculous power that they have now, and in fact might need to be slightly buffed.
Perhaps it would be too big of a change, but i thought it was a neat idea
Comments
CadisEtramaDiRaizel
They need to fix the doctrines. SM have some of the best ones, orks have some good ones. But eldar only have a few good doctrines. What is with those speed boost doctrines? Why is it even there? It does not stack with fleet of foot and can be only used out of combat. Also, the teleport doctrine for the reapers is pretty much useless. It is too short to even be viable.
Strangequark
The real problem with doctrines is where they are chosen. You are blind picking them before the match starts, it leaves you no real wiggle room once you are playing, and limits player choice. I went into some serious depth with a revamp of the doctrine elite system using a handful of buildings, you can find the whole thread here if you want to read through it. https://community.dawnofwar.com/discussion/13479/real-talk-about-doctrines-and-elites-relic#latest
Katitof
You're not supposed to pick doctrines to counter what your opponent does, you're just enhancing units you want to focus on.
The loudout system could do with actual loudouts, but that's just army customization to enhance your playstyle, so you're not blind picking anything, you just prepare for your strategy.
Strangequark
And then broadcast that strategy to all players during the loading screen for the match. I want the freedom as a player to pick those doctrines as the game I'm in evolves. Doing doctrines that way wipes them from the drastic early game where they are hardest to balance (looking at you improved WWG and tireless) and then adds more tools for the dev's to balance them further with cost, and a tier building to slot them in. It would streamline balance at least for the doctrines that it would be so much easier to manage from the dev's side of things, and lead to surprises in matches. Someone posited that you could use them as a "fake out" for the person you are playing against, but what they don't understand is at high level play you need every advantage you can squeeze out of your units, so throwing a doctrine away as a fake out isn't going to work there. It bottle necks players before the match even starts, and there is no wiggle room once you've picked them you are locked in for the match. I've watched enough ESL 1v1 matches to pretty much tell you how a player is going to attack the map with their race and particular doctrines before it even starts. That's actually the big reason I put the game down and haven't picked it back up.
vindicarex
I mean - Table Top Warmahcine/40k does the same thing: your premade list goes up against lord knows what. The caveat is that you can take 2 lists to accomplish different tasks.
This is to say that taking a balanced doctrine loadout, that can cover different roles, is probably the better way to play (and thus, can't "telegraph" to your opponent what you plan to do). True, if you pick something like 3 landspeeder doctrines, your opponent will be wary and build anti tank early. But no 1 forces you to pick those doctrines nor build the land speeders (read: Game Theory).
Could it be a bit better? Ya, probably. But I think the doctrine/Elite loadout system is perfectly adequate.
CadisEtramaDiRaizel
They could also scrap a lot of doctrines and make them upgrades in game.
Strangequark
That's kinda the point I'm talking about with the doctrines feeling like it bottle necks me having to make those choices without knowing what race I'm going up against, and it gets stale really fast. Like 10 games, (Keep in mind these are 10 minute games give or take, with 20 minute breaks in between while it looks for another match and I keep my fingers crossed its not the guy I just played against) and I'm bored to tears.
CANNED_F3TUS
Yup exactly how i feel about doctrines. People rely too much on doctrines when units dont even need them to begin with there is plenty of flexibility in the game. I have 2 doctrines for dreads. Does it mean im gonna go for dreads. No...
Bersercker
Nice idea, would add some strategy to the game at least. Tough it would also require most(all?) elites and doctrines to be rebalanced so not sure if its feasible until some big expansion or something. Hope Relic does something similar when they add necrons.
DmonBlu
Lul the doctrines aint supposed to decide ur build... The whole point of the elite system is help u buff certain units to makethem a bit better NOT make u rely on them. This aint SC 2 u cant get improved stim and nano projector at the same time that would be too broken. Relic took inspiration from League's rune system, they r supposed to boost certain units a bit to make them stronger so u dont need too many of them (DA doctrine for example, normally u will need 4 DAs but with DA doctrine u can get away with only 2). Surely u can base ur build on the doctrines u pick but they r by no means, decide ur build. Think of them like the AP and MR runes of league, u can take AP runes for more ability power or MR to help reduce the damage taken. They r only minor factors NOT deciding ones. I certainly agree a few doctrines r too OP and need a nerf, but making doctrines researchable is seemly outragous. To the OP there r things called "presence doctrines" u know? There is no need for u too make them unlockable by elite points cuz by summoning the elites u would get their presence doctrines lul. The problem its the game is still doesnt have THAT many elites, once 10-20 more elites r released it will get a lot more varied and Deathwatch wont be a must pick anymore. However this is balancing issue so lets not get too deep into that, shall we?
CadisEtramaDiRaizel
The true damage needs to be looked at. Some units dont deserve it. Looking at you whirlwind + solaria doctrine obliterates everything even t3 stuff.
RaspberryTurtle
The point of doctrines are to customize your playstyle, not autistically min/max your army against a foe
Strangequark
I hate to break it too you, but in competitive play that's what they are used for, for how they perform, and because some are straight up buffs, in the early game it can be extremely difficult to balance without tweaking the base unit to the point that it feels like a trash mob without the doctrine, or the doctrine itself gets nerfed into the ground because of the presence it helps you achieve in the extreme early game. Doctrines would better serve this game as tech options you get in game, or as straight up upgrade paths for the units themselves.
Katitof
And I hate to break it to you, but that's balance issue if some perform meaningfully better then others, we already had couple of strong doctrines having brought down, if more will become problematic, we'll see more nerfs, however relic acknowledges the fact that most doctrines are useless and is going to address that in the very near future as the ultimate goal of the doctrine system is EXACTLY what @RaspberryTurtle said.
Sure, there will always be meta, but look at orks currently, they have most viable doctrines going for them and we can see a lot of different combinations, depending on player preferences, so they work the best for orks.
Katitof
Gross exaggeration isn't going to prove your point you know.
Plus, you have mistaken customization of existing army with a whole set of fully functional sub-faction.
Strangequark
A lot are stuck behind a grind wall, (Not the skulls, grinding the elite levels) so that's pretty terrible for new players approaching the MP not being able to have all the tools at their disposal while someone else does. That's terrible game design with how that works.
They will always be a balance nightmare because trying to make something feel like it works for all phases of an RTS is by no means an easy task, and why bigger studios with much larger budgets have stayed away from such a thing.
They would be much better suited as unit upgrades, and actual tech upgrades. Giving someone something to spend Req on that isn't spam early units. Because if you remove all the doctrines and make them tech or upgrades, that means in the extreme early game all the units are bare bones stock. No tireless, no warping around WWG. Just tacticals, DA, and some boyz in their purest form. Makes balancing the early game way easier from a dev standpoint, and gives you a much needed tech macro side to this game that its sorely lacking.
Gorb
Doctrines are both upgrades and base game features. They're just selected at a different stage in the game. Presenting them as some form of cut content when they are actual ingame content is misleading at best.
Furthermore, just because they're not the customisations you personally want (@Nassir_Amit), doesn't mean they're not still customisations. You're welcome to your suggestion but that's not what Doctrines should be for. That's what you want Doctrines to be. There's a large difference there.
Besides. You can't say you're forced to select them in the pre-game (which is true) and then say they're used to min-max against a competitive opponent, because locking them in the pre-game (given that the game doesn't let you alternate picks in some kind of ordered fashion) means you can't "draft" them like people draft hero picks in MOBA games. You can't min-max against an opponent unless you keep shuffling until the last second, which is pointless tedium that leads to sub-optimal picks (which, again, is why MOBA games introduced a drafting system for this kind of mechanic).
Ergo, you're meant to use ones that fit your intended playstyle. This is a game in which you control a bunch of units - not just one. They all have an impact on the end result, assuming you manage control of the game enough to build them in the first place (see: burden of choice in selecting Elites of differing Point values). This isn't a MOBA game where your hero is 100% guaranteed and your always have it. You might not even build the units you have your Doctrines for (in a worst-case scenario) - which is another point that makes using them to counterpick really, incredibly risky.
Are there balance issues with the Doctrines? Absolutely.
Does this mean that they can't be balanced, or that assigning them some kind of Requisition and / or Power and / or build time cost will fix this? No, and no. Of course they can be balanced. You can claim that it might take a lot of work, but believe me it would be more work to convert them all to researches or upgrades (both of which the game already actually has) and subsequently balance them. Far more work.
Opinion post.
Katitof
And not a singular one of them is mandatory or even meta. They used to, when they were bugged/OP, but not anymore.
Each elite starts with presence doctrine, which usually is stronger then command doctrine and again, not a single command doctrine is mandatory for any army-they used to because they were OP, can't stress this enough.
ATM its just another option.
Its NOT meant to work for all phases.
What gave you the idea they should be?
Dire Avengers shield and nade doctrines are prime examples, both are relevant exclusively in BP1, before infantry gets upgraded.
You have stuff specifically for early game, mid game and late game and not a singular unit will feels week without it.
And what bigger studios with much larger budgets? There is literally exclusively blizzard here who is bigger and with larger budget.
All others are either dead or indie.
You forgot that DoW3 is MEANT to have large armies, you are MEANT to spam units in this game after BP1.
What your asking for would only diminish possibilities, because no one in his right mind would make all the doctrines into upgrades-it makes completely no sense and would create impossible to balance clusterfuck if you keep them and extremely bland and boring game if you only pick a few.
Doctrines present perfect way of introducing varied additions and allow for more stuff to be added later on, which upgrades prohibit by the very nature of upgrades.
Asking for doctrines to be removed is equally naive as asking for elite system to be removed-that's not going to happen, so you might just as well drop the idea.
Strangequark
Well Gorb, here we are again with conflicting viewpoints.
The elite doctrine grind wall is real. It's busy work, and its boring. I'm talking about the elite doctrines that turn into army doctrines once you get your elite to a certain level. For their use specifically in MP that's a terrible design decision for new players. If they have never played a DoW game or CoH game they are going to not only have to learn to use that system, but are limited on what they can bring to MP until they complete all of the "video game busy work" if they even stick around that long.
I'm saying they can't be, and let me explain why. To make a blanket change to a specific unit for the entire match is down right impossible to make feel balanced and useful. Certain things will feel extremely strong early, and then useless late. Some of them are totally useless until tier or phase 3. Just that alone makes them a nightmare to balance. You'll get exactly what we are seeing now, the same or similar doctrines being nerfed hard because of what they bring to the game so early. What relic signed themselves up for with doctrines is a dev game of wack o mole trying to keep the doctrines in line for the health of the game.
Yes upgrades do exist in this game, I didn't say they didn't. I said it was a bare bones system right now, there is no real macro side to this game, no over arching big picture tech tree that gives you rich and deep choices as the game evolves. Making doctrines fill that space makes early game balance MUCH easier, since you can actually balance the base units to themselves instead of working them around doctrines. Now here's the kicker, the portion that makes the doctrines easier to balance with a cost as in game tech, you as the dev can more effectively control the timing for when those doctrines start to be felt. That's a HUUUUUUUUGE tool for balance that I don't know why the dev's wouldn't want it.
So I totally disagree that you think assigning them a cost wouldn't fix the issue, because you are completely ignoring timing.
Strangequark
@Katitof Let me boil down how this works for you. With as many options as there are, what you are going to see in high ladder play are games where most players stack the early game, because there are no other real options in that timing, spam their units (which you think is purposeful game design yuck) and push to win the map in 5 to 10 minutes. That's been the story since the game released, its why we got the early game req change initially that lead to all sorts of other issues in a domino effect. Why do you think the 25 DA was such a memetastic viable strategy, or scout spam now? Why do you think the orks are having such an easy time? Their army is built to spam, their mechanics play right into the game design.
BALANCE WACK O MOLE NIGHTMARE
CANNED_F3TUS
You are talking about sub factions chapter related perks. Which will never be in a game for balancing reasons.
Doctrines can cater to your play style or strategy. They are not useless.
Katitof
Ok.
You've asked for it, so here it is:
Nothing will prove your point, because you have none, not a singular viable one.
You're in denial about the system from the get go, you refuse to see and accept possibilities it provide, thinking its flawed at the core, when its the exact opposite and your lack of will to approach the system in neutral manner strips you completely from any kind of valid insight you would have on it.
Couple that with your overblown expectations, which aren't even in the same solar system as the doctrines and you end up with unhealthy mix of bias without any ground to stand on.
Say, DoW3 is a cantina and factions are meals.
You have 3 meals to choose from, to which you can take a side salad of your choice(doctrines) to go with the side flavor you like.
But you refuse to accept that and instead are asking for completely different meals, pretending its still the same one, because in your head it would come out of the same kitchen.
Nothing will please you, because you want a completely different game with completely different solutions.
Katitof
What we've seen on ESL already proves you wrong.
Your argument was invalid before you even wrote it and I find it hilarious.
That's easy to answer, 25 DA is NOT viable strat, it'll be dead the second people will apply right counter to it (suppression teams+builders). It differs in no way to previous ranger spam - people see something new, they get crushed, then they find a counter and the "dominant" strat dies out.
That's how new strats are created.
Req change occured, because it was too punishing to lose a squad early game, leading to unintended snowball effect, which made DoW1 1v1 non competitive in every way, nothing deeper then that.
Scout spam is nothing more then relying on a crunch of broken crowd control effect on super cheap squad, thanks to that we'll see either scouts nerfed into the ground or their nade with the next patch - that's standard balancing cycle.
Sure, they also have most powerful teching which provides most benefits as well as is the cheapest one in the game.
It'll be sorted, just like OP eldar at release and OP SM before last patch.
Welcome to any online multiplayer game ever created.
That is why balance is an ongoing process.
There is nothing wrong with it, because that's the nature of online multiplayer gaming.
It takes years to balance the game, look at oh so praised SC2 for an example.
On top of that, DoW3 is already much more balanced then ANY previous relic RTS ever was.
Gorb
@Strangequark (snipped for length)
Conflicting viewpoints are going to happen between people in general dissatisfied with the state of the product, and those generally satisfied with it
The grind to attain these Doctrines wasn't something I was ever talking about. It's not relevant to the argument I was making. Yes, it is a barrier to new players, absolutely. But again, that's also another argument against your supposition that they're meant to be used in some kind of competitive counterpicking scenario. They might be being used as such (I doubt this, for the other reasons already stated), but they're certainly not designed for such. And you may get better mileage out of using the ones that you get the best mileage out of, especially as the game matures and these things get more balanced.
The arguments you raise against Doctrines in their current state work against your proposed solution. You're contrasting the vanilla state of a unit, compared to the state of a unit with any number of Doctrines applied to it. That's the same as contrasting the vanilla state of a unit, compared to the state of a unit with any number of (additional) upgrades or (additional) researches on it (bearing in mind, again, the game already has these).
Timing is indeed an argument that can be used against Doctrines; they're omnipresent. But you're ignoring things yourself. Firstly, the limited availability of Doctrines. They have to compete against however many other Doctrines, across a lonely three slots. This is something your suggestion doesn't have. Secondly, the precedent. Dawn of War: Dark Crusade featured wargear for the Necron Lord that was a) so cheap as to be negligible in cost and b) so fast to build as to be negligible with regards to its timing window. You are instead limited to three Artefacts. Do you load up with early-game Artefacts, or do you wait for the ones that have a better lategame payoff? That's the choice, and a choice that is present here in Doctrines.
You're here claiming there is "no real macro side" because the system is "bare bones"; the system sure beats the Necrons in vDoW who had two Power upgrades, a Wraith upgrade, three Warrior upgrades and that was about it in terms of researches (and unit upgrades, barring Tomb Spyders) that could benefit your army. Oh and the Nightbringer / Deceiver addon. It's why I rub up against these kinds of absolutist statements, because they really don't hold up to an actual comparison of the older DoW titles (DoW II, too, basically having no research at all barring the Tier upgrades). I chose the Necrons because they're a) a popular fan request b) hinted at in DoW III and c) Dark Crusade was received very well as an expansion pack and that impression lasts to this day.
Anyhow. Thirdly. Pace. The entire game is a complete product, and balanced and designed as such. This means the balance of the basic units themselves, the time it takes to construct buildings, to advance through Tiers, etc, is all done as a part of a greater whole. You want to just insert not one or two more upgrades or researches into the mix, but an entire raft full of them. Twenty Doctrines per faction, or similar. This affects all of the above. Which is why I said it would be far more work. Doctrines can be balanced. The fact that they're omnipresent and have no timing window is accounted for the fact that you have a limited selection of them and are required to pick the ones that play to your own strengths as a player. The more strengths you have, the more comfortable you feel with your faction, the greater the potency of those three combinations. Which is something that scales with player skill, as gameplay options should.
All your arguments against balancing Doctrines applies to upgrades and researches as well, because you're looking at the Doctrines in their least-balanced state. Why not look at upgrades or researches similarly? Relic won't get them all right instantly. The fact that timing gives you another variable to tune does not meant that that timing will instantly be gotten right.
CANNED_F3TUS
You did say doctrines are useless. And no chapter related perks are a bad idea.