Things that ruin team games, but don't affect 1v1

This is my first time posting in the balance forum! My complaint isn't that any unit is particularly OP, just that the unit/ability/whatever severely limits strategy and commander choice. Further, I'd like to build a list of things that can be changed that won't affect 1v1 very much, but are problematic in team games. Here are my thoughts:

- All Factions

• Forward Retreat
  

Forward is probably the most strategy crippling ability in large team games. It forces you into either having a forward retreat of your own (GG Ost/Sov) or picking a commander/build order with some sort of heavy indirect fire to punish the forward retreat. That's entire factions, team compositions, and commanders that are immediately out of the meta.

• Tech/Building Independent Call-in Vehicles
  

So you've choked the enemy out of fuel the whole game, you've done well on VPs, they're way behind on tech, should be GG, but NOPE! You've got to deal with 2x/3x/4x Heavy tanks that can be called in without having any sort of building capable of tank production. This goes for OKW's King Tiger as well. You've wiped all a player's poorly placed HQs off the map? Your opponent still gets to build KTs as a final "fuck garden you" before the game can be over. This could affect 1v1 as well, but in team games, it's much easier to turtle behind your allies and hold a single point long enough to save up for a heavy. This means call-in heavies are almost always inevitable, which means your commander selection and BO always have to account for this, further limiting the meta.

Other factions in no particular order:

- UKF

• Multiple active Bofors/Mortar Pits Per Player
  

A single bofors can be dealt with in a variety of ways. When you start having 4-6 (or more) bofors on the field, the game grinds to a halt, and it starts to necessitate using specific commanders. Combine that with the forward retreat above, and only looking at a handful of truly viable commanders in team games. Again, IMO, limiting the viable meta.

- OKW

• Bundled AA
  

This one's tricky because it could affect 1v1. One Schwer HQ on the field and you can still use air based munitions abilities (sort of). 2-4 Schwer HQs on the field and you immediately shut down all plane abilities. Many Soviet and the USF Airborne commanders are now firmly out of the meta.



What do you think?

I have to agree on the okw schwer AA. Its pretty bullshit that it can basically shutout many air based abilities and in big team games they can lockdown a certain area of the map since your team mate can cover you more easily.

The emplacement definitely get worse in large team games, there are many players i've seen that don't even bother making infantry and tanks because they can rely on their emplacements to hold down a particular section of the map. It's easier in larger game modes since you often only have to hold your particular area, whereas in 2v2 or 1v1 you have to cover larger amount of map which makes emplacements less viable since they will only hold a smaller area.

The OKW AA truck is retarded in general because penetration is too high and it should at least suck at killing vehicles. Its like a moderately effective AT unit that auto rotates, cannot be decrewed, and also pins infantry. It is borderline too effective if it was a buildable unit, but nope you get it free for teching up.

You know what is the first thing that ruins team game but does not affect 1v1?

It's called MG spam.

The first 5 minutes are about who spam more MGs, whose MGs get to building first. The game quickly becomes stalemate until you can get a vehicle out.

Team games are a pretty big clusterfuck and balance depends heavily on maps. Wide maps are alright but narrow team game maps are awful when it comes to balance. USF struggles massively against Ost snipers when you can only really charge right at them, Brit emplacements are a pain in the ass when you can't really focus anywhere else on the map, and lategame axis become impossible to deal with when they have a Jagdtiger + support parked in the middle of the map and don't really have to reposition all that much to cover the sides of the map.

Some of those things mentioned in the comments actually don't bother me. 4v4 is always going to be a cluster. I'm OK with commanders countering commanders (using Arty cover + push to counter Jagdtiger, or aggressive B4, w/e, at least it requires picking a commander to get JT).

What bothers me is when stock units/abilities immediately counter or dictate commander choice.

Four AT USF going M10 Spam on Steppes can be fun to watch, but really annoying to defeat. Especially if they all suddenly decide to rush one player's base after another. They may lose total mapcontrol, but they may win the whole game.

Add fuel/muni caches to the list. Fuel especially.

Realistically, a few caches built in the first 10 minutes inject around 1000 fuel total into the economy of a team over the course of a team game, which equates to around 7 medium tanks, or 3.5 heavy tanks, on the fuel cache alone.

This, too, can be solved without touching 1v1s. Make the caches only benefit the owner, not the team, like Opel Blitz.

Add fuel/muni caches to the list. Fuel especially.

Realistically, a few caches built in the first 10 minutes inject around 1000 fuel total into the economy of a team over the course of a team game, which equates to around 7 medium tanks, or 3.5 heavy tanks, on the fuel cache alone.

This, too, can be solved without touching 1v1s. Make the caches only benefit the owner, not the team, like Opel Blitz.

That's perfect. This is exactly the kind of example I'm talking about.

I only have problems with OKW AA, which, despite relic believes, shoots 100 gliders out of 100 on most of the maps, it even shoots 90 out of 100 gliders called after recon plane to distract aa fire on them. I hate it.

Other is adaptation/your views on how game should work. FRP is how factions should work (both OKW and USF emphatize on agressive infantry play which FRP helps to sustain), callins are huge tradeoff, brit cancer is perfectly counterable, althought I hate it aswell.

the kt problem could be solved, without nerfing it more, by giving each building which is still standing a fuel discount. So lets say you still need all 3 trucks to unlock the kt, then you can call one in for 280 fuel (price in balance mod). If one of your buildings was destroyed the price will rise about 20-50 fuel for each building. So If you managed to destroy all buildings the okw player need to pay around 350-400 fuel for the kt. This way he gets punished for too aggressive truck placement, but not to much because some commanders don´t make any sense without aggressive truck placement.

solution:

stop playing 4v4, start playing 1v1

There are people out there who have friends and enjoy playing with them.

Add fuel/muni caches to the list. Fuel especially.

Realistically, a few caches built in the first 10 minutes inject around 1000 fuel total into the economy of a team over the course of a team game, which equates to around 7 medium tanks, or 3.5 heavy tanks, on the fuel cache alone.

This, too, can be solved without touching 1v1s. Make the caches only benefit the owner, not the team, like Opel Blitz.

Why should players who sacrifice alot of MP to contribute to the "war effort" be punished because their lazy teammate built a cache first? I'd rather reduce the amount of safe points to a minimum.
Most maps could need a reduction by 2-4 points. In fact, you can see that most of the 3v3+ maps have completely overthrown and ignored the competetive map design of 1v1 and 2v2 maps. Cut offs are almost non-existant, fuel points are either 100% safe (Lienne) or are both strongly contested (Steppes).

Your proposal is just unfair and would cause toxic behaviour. It doesn't sounds like it's been thought through.

FRP is how factions should work (both OKW and USF emphatize on agressive infantry play which FRP helps to sustain)

That's a great point, but I think faction aggression should be dictated by moving accuracy, things like smoke and mid/close DPS. You can still soft-retreat to heals or reinforce to facilitate aggression without having a 1-click, get out of jail card in a forward retreat button.

Also, it's not that I'm saying anything isn't counterable. It's just that I feel like you've only got 1-3 commanders per faction or a couple compositions within an AT that are viable to counter stock play. Not that you can't win with other loadouts, but anything else is just going to hinder play.

Edit: put everything in a new thread.

Team games are a pretty big clusterfuck and balance depends heavily on maps. Wide maps are alright but narrow team game maps are awful when it comes to balance. USF struggles massively against Ost snipers when you can only really charge right at them, Brit emplacements are a pain in the ass when you can't really focus anywhere else on the map, and lategame axis become impossible to deal with when they have a Jagdtiger + support parked in the middle of the map and don't really have to reposition all that much to cover the sides of the map.

+1000

the 2v2 map pool is shit. needs large revamp.

anything 3v3 and above people cant complain that much because the game is unbalanceable at that scale.

Why should players who sacrifice alot of MP to contribute to the "war effort" be punished because their lazy teammate built a cache first? I'd rather reduce the amount of safe points to a minimum.
Most maps could need a reduction by 2-4 points. In fact, you can see that most of the 3v3+ maps have completely overthrown and ignored the the competetive map design of 1v1 and 2v2 maps. Cut offs are almost non-existant, fuel points are either 100% safe (Lienne) or are both strongly contested (Steppes).

Your proposel is just unfair and would cause toxic behaviour. It doesn't sounds like it's been thought through

Indeed, why should a player playing a team game mode be punished if his teammate refuses to play with teamwork and does things without regards for the team?

Players who play with decent build orders and good micro can be punished by a lazy teammate who YOLOs their infantry into MG arcs and has to spend 2/3 of the game retreating. Or a player who stalls for Kingtigers without building AT and getting rekt by a medium rush. There are many ways having a bad teammate will bite you in the ass.

200 manpower for 100 fuel over the course of the game is a good trade that people can make in 1v1s as well. In large team games the same sacrifice yields four times more resources across the entire team, and all for a "substantial" investment. Either the cache should cost 50 manpower in 1v1s, and 200 in 4v4s, or 200 in 1v1, and 800 in 4v4s. Which is it?

I've heard this exact argument before. For some reason people treat potential teammates as wild beasts that you can communicate with exclusively through grunts or something. I find that even random teammates can be reasoned with.

I could use the same logic to argue against demo charges - if I play random I can get a team killer that will demo charge my retreat point. Why should I be punished because this guy is an asshole that refuses to play as part of a team? Remove demo charges, immunize me from idiot teammates.

There are enough points for everyone to put down a cache or two. Players who play with decent build orders and good micro can be punished by a lazy teammate who YOLOs their infantry into MG arcs and has to spend half the game retreating. Or stalls for kingtigers without building AT and getting rekt. There are many ways having a bad teammate will bite you in the ass.

What is worse, a teammate stealing your cache slot once every 10 games, or 4v4s being a tech tree spamfest and clusterfuck?

Sorry if you feel this wasn't thought through.

Perhaps you are just used to the way it is, and think team games are balanced as they are. You seem like you like to benefit from caches and prefer the team game fuel flow, medium armour spam and 18 minute KT. Please accept that some of us do not.

If your teammates are behaving toxic, if you cannot even coordinate such a small thing a building of a few caches between your teammates, you deserve to lose.

If you cannot coordinate such a simple task, how can you hope to take down a Jagdtiger on steppes 30 minutes in?

edit: format fixes

Currently IMO the super axis units like KT and Jagdtiger are too strong in larger team games. The May balance patch may change that a bit.

I also feel like fuel income in larger games is too high. You'll see the occasional Luchs, but otherwise light vehicles don't exist and people save up for bigger stuff.

Also, the common theme around here that team games can't be balanced and should be ignored in favor of 1v1 needs to go away.

There are plenty of RTS out there that are balanced in big games. Shitting on over half the playerbase is pretty short-sighted.