Principle Centered Feedback

Focusing feedback as a community is difficult.
Having dissenting voices is healthy, though.
It's the way of certain dissenters which contributes to a lack of good feedback and suggestions.

Explaining and justifying changes from the very roots of design is what we should all aim at.

What this represents can be daunting, but with principle centered feedback we can hone our suggestions, remove fanboyism, emotional responses, politics etc., and make our reasoning neutron star solid.
We already have a systematic approach for reporting bugs, for example, what we need is a systematic approach to design in general.

Principles of Design:

• Gameplay depth, and
  
• the removal of all unnecessary complexity, therefore
  
• low skill floor, and high skill ceiling (easy to learn, hard to master).
  
• The simplest and easiest solutions where they don't contradict any of the other principles.
  
• Dampening of game-deciding RNG.
  
• Reduction of frustrating elements.
  
• Player-first design, when opposed to spectator-first or spectacle-centered design.
  
• Effective information communication between player and game (UI, descriptions, sound cues, intuitiveness in mechanics).
  
• Optimization to increase hardware accessibility.
  
• Balance focused on emphasizing player-developed meta.
  
• Opportunity cost, marginal utility, and comparative advantage as foundational considerations in design.
  
  

Specifics relating to the above:

• Casuals are players too, but...
  
• Numbers in the UI.
  
• Abandoned Vehicle.
  
• Scattering into the rear or front.
  
• Side armor and angling.
  
• Differing reverse gears.
  
• The effect of terrain on direct fire AoE.
  
• Better pathing.
  
• More flexibility and comparative advantage.
  
• Remember opportunity cost.
  
• The margin.
  
• Resource sinks and ending the game.
  
• It doesn't have to be too useful.
  
• Usefulness of indirect fire without unreactable squad wipes.
  
• Flames for everyone! Faction Diversity.
  
• Reading the signs.
  
• Custom hotkeys.
  
• Another look at veterancy.
  
• Maybe it's not OP...
  
  

Justifications

- Casuals are players too, but...:

At one point, Relic ignored a segment of the community's feedback on the pretense of the feedback from their business analytics team and the 4v4 AI compstomper (of which I am one).
Something, fortunately, seems to have changed. Or, at least, their PR strategy has changed.

The fundamental problem with 'catering to the casual' is the sad implication that people can't shift between categories. Pro, casual, hardcore, enthusiast, team game player, solo player, strategist, tactician, noob, scrub. Each of these has different perspectives and different knowledge. Choosing the ones who do not have the most accurate and holistic knowledge of the game to focus balance and design around is foolhardy. Their grasp of the game may expand, and they may revile the state of the game they once loved. There can be no cogent expressions on balance or design from a casual, for they have not grasped the answers that will change their meta right in front of them.

But, and here's the method of transformation, if they're not expanding their knowledge of the game they either A: don't care, or B: are blocked by a lack of intuitive design and lack of effective communication between the game and the player.
It is the developer who fails in the latter regard. This is the origin of good design mentality.

- Numbers in the UI:

The central contributing factor to lack of expansion in player development is that which is not seen. An easy one to pick on is the fact that people have to put in an inordinate amount of effort to find out what should be plainly stated right in the UI and descriptions.

Put the numbers in the UI. Link them directly to the files so that the developers in the future won't have to go in and change them one by one to match the stats. Make an in-game encyclopedia like Civilization 5. Put time and effort into describing the internal mechanics in as concise, intuitive, and, most importantly, accurate a fashion as possible. The people it might confuse and don't care will start to ignore it, and the people who want to improve will be benefited by it greatly.

- Abandoned Vehicle:

This crit cannot be left in the hands of RNG, due to the degree of its ability to decide games, but can still have an important place in the game as immersive and depth adding. Put the interaction in the hands of the player directly. After a certain threshold on each vehicle / vehicles in general, handheld flame weapons should be able to cause an abandoned state, whether through auto-attacking for a certain time or a munitions-based ability. Every faction should be given basic access to a handheld flamethrower on their engineer class.

If there isn't a way to put something this significant directly in the hands of the player with clear communication as to how the interaction works, then it shouldn't be done at all.

- Scattering into the rear or front:

Positioning is a skill that, in its mastery, ought to be rewarded. The existence of only rear and front armor poses a binary existence that, while rewarding positioning on both sides, can result in unfortunate instances of RNG which don't feel deserved, especially given what we know of armor in real life.

The key here is that we want to reward positioning on both sides of the engagement. Which armor is hit should depend solely on where each thing is in relation to each other. For example, if an AT gun is in the front hemisphere of a tank's facing it, if it hits, should always go against front armor, and likewise for being in the rear hemisphere with rear armor. This likely requires the creation of a completely new system to calculate relative positions. However, it also seems possible to put horizontal scatter to zero when ballistics weapons are firing on armor. This also opens up an odd interaction in the way of attacking ground to increase the chance.

- Side armor and angling:

When combined with the above solution to form quadrants of armor, this alleviates some of the incongruity between how one'd expect armor to act in real life and the game. It can also create depth in positioning and knowledge and add an extra variable to tune for balancing and flavor between tanks.

Also, if the solutions presented in 'scattering into the rear or front' aren't possible, this and linear armor angling could be additions to the scatter based system which would mostly alleviate the aforementioned problem.

- Differing reverse gears:

Another minor change like side armor above, it'd reflect realism more in tank tactical function and presents another balancing variable or layer of depth. But, these both border on needless complexity for the sake of intuition, seemingly opposed principles, so handle with care--these are the weakest suggestions of the bunch.

- The effect of terrain on direct fire AoE:

Small arms don't interact with terrain at all. This is understandable; we don't want squads halting to attempt shooting through a hill. Even then, small arms don't have AoE, and often hit far wide when they do miss their target.

Ballistics-based anti-infantry direct-fire AoE weapons are the only weapons in the game that are affected by terrain in any meaningful and frustrating way. Their scatter is large enough to paint an oval for their cone of fire along the ground that changes with terrain elevations and shot blockers. This creates inordinate complexity and exception for a very small increase in positional depth, and makes balancing said weapons difficult, and the use of said weapons inconsistent and frustrating. This is even so for the receiver, as they face a much increased chance of getting wiped / damaged on retreat from something like IS-2 with its massive scatter and AoE or flak vehicle like an Ostwind near a shotblocker.

The solution is to make said direct fire weapon's scatter impact circular against the terrain and independent from it rather than ovular, and subject to it.
How this would happen is a mystery, though.

- Better pathing:

This is likely the most straightforward suggestion here in terms of justification.
Reducing frustration by having troops and vehicles act as one would expect is always a boon.

A solution to squads deciding to go really far around stuff due to the presence of a mobile path blocker like a tank is to have them ignore tanks for pathing on retreat and phase through them like normal.

- More flexibility and comparative advantage:

Flexibility and roundness in units generally creates depth so long as each unit still has its comparative advantage. Perfect example, Grenadier G43 vs LMG-42 upgrades. It's a choice between two mutually-exclusive upgrades (one better at close range and mobility, the other on defense and long range) that enhances a mainline infantry flexibility, thus adds depth. Furthermore, the G43 on Grenadiers isn't effective enough to invalidate the mid/close range role of the Panzergrenadier. Pgrens still have a comparative advantage. Move G43 upgrade to default. Can help to put us on the path to diversifying commanders in a more satisfactory way. Enhances the role of opportunity cost in builds. Explain in the upgrade texts what they're better at, and keep them updated with the meta. On the Panzergrenadier, there's the mutually exclusive sidegrade (role change) of becoming an anti-tank squad. This is another sublime example of strategic flexibility.

More things like this would be nice, but aren't necessary to create depth, as we'll see below.

- Remember opportunity cost:

Not everything has to have flexibility to create depth, lest needless complexity be introduced. What keeps things choices and thus interesting rather than braindead is often times simply opportunity cost. If I spend munitions on the LMG-42, then I won't be able to spend said munitions on spamming another few rifle grenades or my CAS anti-tank strafe.

- The margin:

Marginal utility, is another cornerstone of human action that should be kept in mind.
This can be seen as the counterpart of opportunity cost and comparative advantage. If a unit, by its design, has absolute advantage and little opportunity cost, the last way of keeping depth is to make it useful only on the margin. Good example is mainline infantry in the early game and heavy tanks in the late game. Heavy tank callins already have a hard margin of one at a time, but all things that take up popcap have a soft margin of reducing manpower income.

- Resource sinks and ending the game:

Victory Point doesn't have much of a problem with ending the game in an acceptable time frame. Sometimes it gets overlong for most players, especially casuals, to keep them interested. This is where we first see spectator and player interests come head to head, for a game that's down to the wire is certainly most interesting for spectators, perhaps less so for the nerve-wracked players.

Resource sinks represent a usually spectator-friendly way to hasten a game towards its end while not majorly upsetting the outcome. A good resource sink is something useful only on the margin, with a high opportunity cost, and with almost no comparative advantage. The comparative advantage it carries has to be geared towards hastening the game to its end in some way, yet still be friendly to depth, and can be friendly to spectators. A good example is, if a USF player ends up floating tons of munitions and without a commander with artillery, he can use the Major's barrage ability. Granted, his ability is trash and we don't see it because it's too high in cost, both in munitions and requiring the Major to vet up for it to be more useful.

- Usefulness of indirect fire without unreactable squad wipes:

Relic's done a good job of this recently. AoE profiles that encouraged wiping have been reduced, unit clumping has gone down and depth increased by "to cover or not to cover?". But, there's more to be done, especially where it feels like some indirect fire units never hit anything, and are a waste of resources. I propose balancing centered around rate-of-fire vs scatter, and AoE vs squad size.

- Flames for everyone! Faction Diversity:



- Reading the signs:



- Custom hotkeys:

Come on, guys. This is basic functionality that ought to be in the game. We shouldn't have to use third party programs. Props to the people who take matters into their own hands with AutoHotKey tho.

- Another look at veterancy:

Most would agree that the performance gap between vet 0 and vet 2 might be overly large on a few units (such as PanzerGrenadier). They could benefit from having some of the passive bonuses (cooldown, received accuracy etc.) on vet 1 rather than only a marginally useful ability. Furthermore, interesting mechanics have been introduced with the new units / armies like automatic hatch grenade throwing. More of these passive / active effects could be designed to enhance spectacle and flexibility, as well as buff units in a qualitative and unique manner rather than straight up quantitative ways.

- It doesn't have to be too useful:

Such things as the Soviet tank vet 1 capture ability aren't all that useful. Nevertheless, it is marginally and situationally useful in its niche and not so incredibly rare to see. All that matters is that a thing has its niche in the meta. Not all things have to be front-and-center.

- Maybe it's not OP / UP...:

Maybe everything else sucks / is too powerful. This isn't so much a specific suggestion as it is a caution against emotional reactions. If some design or interaction is interesting or otherwise good, but generally too powerful or too weak, the correct response may be to balance around it rather than remove it.

---

The hard road is often the most fruitful.

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My inspirations for this thread: Marcus, CieZ, Romeo, some huge posts on Teamliquid criticizing Blizzard's choices with SC2, discussions on designing community mods like Project M and Starbow and how they relate to the game / series they came out of. Discussions on things like Third Strike, CS 1.6, Marvel v Capcom 2, Modern Warfare 2 vs their successors.

I'll attempt to integrate your posts into the Original Post. Let's do our best to make this game as best as it can be!

Integrated: Post #4, 5.

Please discuss the worthiness of these things based on the principles, or criticize the principles themselves.

Really good post. But will relic read it? Maybe send to Stormless.

Really good post. But will relic read it? Maybe send to Stormless.

Thanks.
Excellent criticism.

It's something I've been realizing more and more, maybe I should contact prominent community members for support before embarking on stuff like this, but there's also the fear of stifling influences and other agendas. I may only trust myself~

Still, I'm a lazy person, and was thinking that, if something like this is to be successful, it has to have the backing of the people. The part in question is getting their endorsement and input when it's early under way IF the thing in question has high potential apparent to all.

That, and given the type and size of this community, I think our prominent community members would see it pretty soon / eventually.
If we develop some really solid suggestions / designs that get really popular, Relic'd have little choice but to see it at the least!

Other than that, it's important that we get ahead of Relic in this regard and specifically not consult them, though. In SC2, the developers have tried to be more 'transparent,' but with a dash of cynicism all their community feedback updates amounted to "You guys aren't giving the type of criticism we like, please give us criticism that we'd like to hear. It has to fall within these parameters for us to consider it."

If we're to be wary of this, we must be vocal, well-versed in our stances, able to think on our feet, and bereft of inconsistency and sentiments of bad design. We can't accept subservience. We must be bold and insist upon that which is good design.

A systemic approach outside of their preferences is what's required, and what I aim to give.

Pretty good post.

What I find out of most posts on this forum and by extension Official forums (this happened for WoT too) is that most players have no idea what they want from the game, it often works like one unit has been unreliable in a game and people complain about it, either that or they get rolled over by a unit and then complain.

If there isn't any reasoning behind the OP that encompasses several reasons, its usually a waste of time.

Unfortunately, bias and fanboyism tends to make the really good posts (like yours) get turned into relative noise because its a lot easier to post on something that's definite and polar than something that requires you to think
________________________________________________________

Just a few replies to your OP

1. Vet 1 cap point is really useful, it can win or save games sometimes
2. I'd agree with pathing of vehicles being terrible, infantry is passable though.
3. Relic really do need to do side armour, not sure about angling though because unlike MOW, you don't have direct fire controls so relying on AI to do that will open another can of worms.
4. Yes to custom hotkeys
5. More sidegrades needed, yes, similar to VCoH

But yeah, I feel relic worry too much about the stats to the point where they only look at the stats, rather than focus on faction design during balancing. That has been apparent in most of the recent patches tbh.

Principles of Design:

• Gameplay depth, and
  
• the removal of all unnecessary complexity, therefore
  
• low skill floor, and high skill ceiling (easy to learn, hard to master).
  
• Dampening of game-deciding RNG.
  
• Reduction of frustrating elements.
  
• Player-first design, when opposed to spectator-first or spectacle-centered design.
  
• Effective information communication between player and game (UI, descriptions, sound cues, intuitiveness in mechanics).
  
• Optimization to increase hardware accessibility.
  
• Balance focused on emphasizing player-developed meta.
  
• Opportunity cost and marginal utility as foundational considerations in economy and balance.
  
  

All noble goals, but of course it's much easier to identify problems than solutions.

- Side armor:

It's intuitive and a qualitative mechanic to balance tanks around. Would help massively in making the interaction between heavies and mediums feel awesome. Both this and armor angling would decrease the amount of silly and unintuitive RNG that results from scattering a shot into the rear armor from the front or visa versa.

I know I'm in the minority, but I really don't see any benefit to side armor. The front/rear mechanic is sufficient to encourage players to flank. Frustrating cases of scatter and RNG can be addressed without adding this mechanic.

- Armor angling:

Intuitive and easy to pick up, a micro and positioning-based way to more effectively employ tanks. The amount of valuable interplay and strategy it'd create would be immense, from standoff medium / heavy armor at long range to distractions and luring an opponent to angle against a wall and then get flanked. This and Side Armor can also decrease the severity of impact that often comes when hitpoints are used to balance against armor or make a tank feel, well, tanky.

I completely disagree. In fact, I think all physics-based calculations should be removed from the game. There is nothing fun about flak weapons missing because of terrain variations or tree clutter. Similarly I wouldn't want tanks to perform better or worse in certain situations because they just happened to be sitting at just such an elevation or angle. Whether a tank shot hits or misses should (in my opinion) be one simple RNG calculation, and how the game displays that should be independent thereof. I'll admit this system is probably not possible in tank vs infantry scenarios though. Either way, incident angle calculations seem like a step in the wrong direction to me.

- Better pathing + auto-vaulting:

Reduces frustration when dealing with anything, feels more intuitive, and reduces the frustrating elements of stuff, like ghosting and other stuff messing with pathing, while keeping some of the micro-based depth they may provide while making them less silly.

Yet again I disagree. Obviously "better pathing" is something we all want, but auto-vaulting does not address any of the real issues caused by ghosting. Furthermore, it does interfere with the behavior of existing and intended mechanics such as actually complete barbed wire. Vaulting should remain a conscious decision.

- More sidegrades:

Perfect example, Grenadier LMG-42 vs G43 upgrade. It's a choice between two mutually-exclusive sidegrade options (one better at close range and mobility, the other on defense and long range) that enhances a mainline infantry flexibility, thus adds depth. Move G43 upgrade to default. Can help to put us on the path to diversifying commanders in a more satisfactory way. Enhances the role of opportunity cost in builds. Explain in the upgrade texts what they're better at, and keep them updated with the meta.

Mutually exclusive upgrades are not sidegrades. A sidegrade would mean you change the unit's role without improving it overall. You might consider panzerschrecks on panzergrenadiers to be a sidegrade. It's important to remember that all upgrades have an opportunity cost. Mutually exclusive upgrades and sidegrades have an even higher one. If I upgrade the .50 cal top mount gun on a sherman, I forfeit the ability to use that 70 munitions on anything else. If I upgrade my panzergrenadiers with panzerschrecks, I lose the munitions AND their anti-infantry capability. Therefore units with these additional costs should be that much more exceptional at their role if they will be viable. There's a place for all of these systems, and none of them is inherently superior to the others.

- Abandoned Vehicle crit gives all crippling criticals, makes vehicles more easily penetrated:

This continues to discourage reckless vehicle use. It puts the risk and reward more in the hands of the initial vehicle owner as it should be, rather at the behest of RNG or moreso on opponent's decisions. It would reduce RNG deciding the game rather than player skill. Tension, choice, and spectacle would still be present if someone decides to go for repairing an immobile (de-tracked, de-wheeled, engine destroyed), weaponless (all guns destroyed), and easily destructible (compromised armor, new crit) vehicle.

I don't think this is a bad idea, but it doesn't do anything to increase player agency. Whether or not a vehicle gets abandoned should be entirely in the player's control, NOT a simple 5% chance. The abandonment mechanic therefore needs to be completely redone. Every faction should have some kind of unit, ability, or mechanic that can cause abandonment. For example, a 100 munitions ability on all flame units that only works on tanks at 25% health. If it is sustained for a few seconds, the tank is abandoned. As it is now, diving into a base to kill a sniper with a light vehicle has a 5% chance to go from a perfectly good trade to a game losing disaster. This change will do nothing to address that.

- Enforcing the margin in army composition:

Heavy tank callins have a hard margin of one at a time. There's no such thing as use for any more, because it's impossible to have more. This isn't all bad, as it prevents a style from dominating, and makes sense given that war involves economizing assets. Still, this ties heavily into the next point. If it's possible to make the player want to build one heavy tank but not build more because its only marginally useful / a second one has a high opportunity cost, that would be even more awesome. An easy way is to simply make subsequent heavy tanks of the same type cost more resources proportionally depending on how many are already on the field. Another possible way is to make CPs a resource too, and heavy tanks / subsequent heavy tanks costing a lot of 'em. Almost needless to say, these are both more elegant solution than a strict cap of one, and make potential for more depth in army composition.

That solution is not easy or simple. How much more do additional tanks cost? Why do they cost that much? Capping at one seems to be the elegant solution to me. In fact, I disagree with the stated problem. Who is to say that a cap of one takes away depth? I would argue that it can add depth. Since only one such unit can be fielded, it must be used very carefully. To balance this out, it can be made especially powerful in its role. All that said, there's already a system in place to make subsequent heavy tanks less and less attractive: pop cap. If heavy tanks are pop cap inefficient, it is sub optimal to spam them.

There can be no cogent expressions on balance or design from a casual, for they have not grasped the answers that will change their meta right in front of them.

But, and here's the method of transformation, if they're not expanding their knowledge of the game they either A: don't care, or B: are blocked by a lack of intuitive design and lack of effective communication between the game and the player.
It is the developer who fails in the latter regard. This is the origin of good design mentality.

Or C, its because they are fucking stupid and their opinions don't matter! =D

There's a reason people here stay away from cancer like the official forums. Primary example can be seen if you flip through any number of official forum balance posts. The most hilarious example would be the user called Genobi.

Edit:

Yet again I disagree. Obviously "better pathing" is something we all want, but auto-vaulting does not address any of the real issues caused by ghosting. Furthermore, it does interfere with the behavior of existing and intended mechanics such as actually complete barbed wire. Vaulting should remain a conscious decision.

Although I disagree with you on a lot of your other points, this actually made me feel something wrong inside.


Really, why not have it? Seriously, if I want my troops to go somewhere, I expect them to do the utmost of their ability to complete my movement order. If I wanted them to retreat, I expect them to be smart and not to run a mile around a fence in order to SURVIVE. It's the same as arguing for less freedom of movement. In the end, what harm could this cause if this was to make it into the game? If you want to limit some freedom of movement, let it be up to the mapmaker's craft. There's literally no harm to this other than freeing up APM to be used elsewhere.

-snipperino-

Awesome feedback, will update in the morning

-silliness-

Wowwww das mean but also C probably exists. Nothing different designers can do about that, though.

-snappidydap-

Thank you.
The Soviet tank capture might not be the best example of what I'm getting at. That part might not even be good. Will think more tomorrow.

i'm not quite sure i understood your post correctly... but one thing that i disagree with is categorizing the coh franchise as "easy to learn, difficult to master". i would argue that the opposite is the case. for a multitude of reasons the game is very difficult to understand/learn (loads of commanders/bulletins/abilities; all the different kinds of game mechanics like cover, criticals, weapon crews, reinforcing, scatter etc.). but once you have a good understanding of how the game works, there is only little to improve upon to actually "master" the game. if you compare coh2 to other games (for example sc2) it becomes obvious that the gap between a casual player and a "master" is a lot bigger than in coh2.

Good day, everyone!

Major update to OP.

i'm not quite sure i understood your post correctly... but one thing that i disagree with is categorizing the coh franchise as "easy to learn, difficult to master". i would argue that the opposite is the case. for a multitude of reasons the game is very difficult to understand/learn (loads of commanders/bulletins/abilities; all the different kinds of game mechanics like cover, criticals, weapon crews, reinforcing, scatter etc.). but once you have a good understanding of how the game works, there is only little to improve upon to actually "master" the game. if you compare coh2 to other games (for example sc2) it becomes obvious that the gap between a casual player and a "master" is a lot bigger than in coh2.

You're right in that you're misunderstanding. All games that aim to be competitive or have appreciable depth must follow the principle of "easy to learn, hard to master," is what I mean.

One of SC2's major design flaws is the presence of macro boosters. Mule, Chrono Boost, Inject Larva. They are depthless aside from their opportunity cost in the APM economy. They throw balance majorly in favor of macro-oriented styles, thus reducing the importance of other actions with the APM economy. They add such complexity in execution. While it's easy to tell the difference between them, the difference is shallow. It's not easy to learn, and once learned it's not hard to master.

Compare to Brood War, which has such a depth of importance in positioning and other various microable interactions, and has a balanced emphasis on skillsets, from macro and strategy to micro and tactics.

CoH as a franchise has been friendly to positional micro and tactical choices and the depth provided therein compared to SC2. It's more like Brood War in some ways than SC2 is, hilariously enough.

Really, why not have it? Seriously, if I want my troops to go somewhere, I expect them to do the utmost of their ability to complete my movement order. If I wanted them to retreat, I expect them to be smart and not to run a mile around a fence in order to SURVIVE. It's the same as arguing for less freedom of movement. In the end, what harm could this cause if this was to make it into the game? If you want to limit some freedom of movement, let it be up to the mapmaker's craft. There's literally no harm to this other than freeing up APM to be used elsewhere.

You know what would happen? Units will vault unnecessarily as they will try to go back to base or retreat point on the most linear way. You would also get wipes as you need to have the whole squad finish up the animation of jumping the fence which is pretty easy to hit with AoE.

People should either: clear the path with vehicles/indirect fire or be careful with over-extensions. You can always vault and retreat.
Retreat is not meant to be a save my squad button.

You know what would happen? Units will vault unnecessarily as they will try to go back to base or retreat point on the most linear way. You would also get wipes as you need to have the whole squad finish up the animation of jumping the fence which is pretty easy to hit with AoE.

People should either: clear the path with vehicles/indirect fire or be careful with over-extensions. You can always vault and retreat.
Retreat is not meant to be a save my squad button.

Thanks.

For vaulting unnecessarily, pathing could be made to calculate which took less time and then take that route. As for wipes and clumping, models can be made to vault individually instead of having to wait around, I bet, and units are often spaced widely on retreat, and the vaulting speed / animation can be made up to "sprint vaulting."
It's also equally possible if not moreso for squads to get hit by direct fire AoE when retreating around cover / shotblockers.

Clearing a path is complexity that doesn't add strategic or tactical choice. One'd always want to create an optimal / quickest way home for their troops.

What is meant by retreat is irrelevant. Developer intention is always irrelevant for the simple fact that there can be unintended consequences.
Immediate balance concerns aren't relevant either. Design first, balance later, always.

My concern with auto-vaulting is what it may do to the ability of foes to influence the map and pathing in creative ways through ghosting or barb wire building in general, because those things add a substantial amount of depth and skill to the game. It has decent complexity and isn't the most intuitive thing, though, and I'm not sure about how much expectation it might break and frustration it might cause. After all, it's in the hands of the other player and not arbitration like RNG.

I know I'm in the minority, but I really don't see any benefit to side armor. The front/rear mechanic is sufficient to encourage players to flank. Frustrating cases of scatter and RNG can be addressed without adding this mechanic.

The scenario he keeps bringing up is of tanks facing each other at a slight tilt and by a freak of chance, the rear armor is hit from a mostly frontal shot, because the rear half of the tank is sticking out in a thin slice. This is a valid (although very rare occurring) problem that the current armor system can't fix.

Hitting the front armor from a rear shot is equally frustrating.

The inclusion of side armor would mitigate these edge cases (although it wouldn't guarantee the desired result) but I don't trust Relic to properly maintain the added level of complexity. Just look at how difficult it has been so far for them to handle the new building panels and target tables.

Let's also excuse Relic on that front and admit that bugs are simply inevitable. Well the horrendous patch rate would still be a problem. I would not look forward to T34s consistently bouncing P4's side armor not getting fixed for months.

Thanks.

For vaulting unnecessarily, pathing could be made to calculate which took less time and then take that route. As for wipes and clumping, models can be made to vault individually instead of having to wait around, I bet, and units are often spaced widely on retreat, and the vaulting speed / animation can be made up to "sprint vaulting."
It's also equally possible if not moreso for squads to get hit by direct fire AoE when retreating around cover / shotblockers.

Clearing a path is complexity that doesn't add strategic or tactical choice. One'd always want to create an optimal / quickest way home for their troops.

What is meant by retreat is irrelevant. Developer intention is always irrelevant for the simple fact that there can be unintended consequences.
Immediate balance concerns aren't relevant either. Design first, balance later, always.

My concern with auto-vaulting is what it may do to the ability of foes to influence the map and pathing in creative ways through ghosting or barb wire building in general, because those things add a substantial amount of depth and skill to the game. It has decent complexity and isn't the most intuitive thing, though, and I'm not sure about how much expectation it might break and frustration it might cause. After all, it's in the hands of the other player and not arbitration like RNG.

1-We are talking about a complete change of a mechanic. I don't think it's feasible to add a optimal retreat path based on time. And i'm still under the impression that there is gonna be too unncessary vaults involved.

2-Not necessarily true as you are also destroying cover. At the end of the day it's knowledge. Little tips that improve your gameplay (like vaulting early on to make it faster to certain zones).

3-I don't know what you meant by that but my point was: people blame retreat paths when they overextend their units.

4-Maps are designed (nowadays) to take into account for no automatic vault. As you say, it will remove another facet of wiring/blocking the map.

1-We are talking about a complete change of a mechanic. I don't think it's feasible to add a optimal retreat path based on time. And i'm still under the impression that there is gonna be too unncessary vaults involved.

2-Not necessarily true as you are also destroying cover. At the end of the day it's knowledge. Little tips that improve your gameplay (like vaulting early on to make it faster to certain zones).

3-I don't know what you meant by that but my point was: people blame retreat paths when they overextend their units.

4-Maps are designed (nowadays) to take into account for no automatic vault. As you say, it will remove another facet of wiring/blocking the map.

You've convinced me, sir! Having cover vs having optimal retreat is an example of worthy depth, therefore the complexity is necessary, likewise with manipulating the map. Further, the conditions of optimal retreat aren't always dependent on time, but on expected enemy presences, therefore it's best left to the discernment made possible with the lack of autovaulting.

Heap all the other, more tactile concerns of development time and resources (things I don't like talking about, as they can get in the way of good design), and there's nothing to stand in the way of the existence of player-manipulated pathing and the status-quo for good map design.

I feel like adding a section on catering to the scrub, but that's partly covered in "casuals are people to, but," it'd be much the same reason. An admonishment against casual elitism, then just against projecting what one personally finds honorable.

Aside from that, I'm exhausted, and not sure what to write next in applying the principles, if anything. I think I've hit on and elucidated / struck down most of the ideas I've seen from the community as of late. Perhaps I should do some browsing over the forums on the morrow.