Profile of Siphon X.

Problem comes from over estimating this so called "pros".

I said that people would disagree on the value of the different points, so...

1- Strategic decision: is is "strategic" to ALWAYS build your tiers as SU/OH on the border of your base so you can reinforce while moving out or doing so while fighting? I want to put really huge emphasis on the ALWAYS part. When a decision ends up been a no brainer, there's no longer a tactical/strategic decision IMO.

I agree. Actually, that's something I also argued for when the change was made that some units would spawn from buildings and some people said that that would increase the strategic depth (while I felt it didn't add anything and actually removed the option to define where the units should spawn on maps that had more spawnpoints...).

Likely that the FRP currently is too much of a no-brainer (don't know, I don't play the relevant factions in teamgames and I would be too bad anyways). But than I'd consider that a balance thing, as apparently the cost or risk involved with setting up FRPs is not high enough in the current implementation.

Re 2 & 3: Well, true, but it requires some micro from your opponent, and even then you are most likely still going to hit something. I mean, it's not like the never worked...

Edit: Even if you can't hit the units themselves, but you still have e.g. the BG-HQ truck as target. Sure, the truck might be there even without FRP, but I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't be put that upfront anymore...

Re 4: Not 100% what you mean. It's not exactly like good players that pull of perfect moves never have to hard retreat, right? There is surely a tradeoff. Like, yes, of course, a player that gets one of his units suppressed should get punished. How much, though? Would a 2 minute retreat be sufficient? 5 Minute? 10 Minute? At what point does it get boring to wait? And yes, ordering your units around in whatever way is typically more fun than waiting for them to retreat/get healed/repaired and so on.

Updated, now includes the two first games of the VonIvan vs. Hans series.

The post is too long to hold the player stats table, so:

name	games	win rate	games played	games won
ostheer	soviets	okw	usf	ukf	ostheer	soviets	okw	usf	ukf
Luvnest	14	85%	5	2	2	4	1	4	2	1	4	1
Insane DevM	15	86%	4	0	2	9	0	3	0	1	9	0
VonIvan	17	64%	3	9	5	0	0	3	7	1	0	0
HelpingHans	15	73%	8	0	0	0	7	6	0	0	0	5

In that case, it would be possible to have a faction that gets tier 3 tanks at tier 1.Because it's diverse.

You see, diversity cannot be a goal in itself or else we would end up with all kinds of nonsense. In the name of diversity.

I don't think that that's a good point. Think about it this way: Take two perfectly balanced games. In one of them all factions play exactly the same, in the other the gameplay for each faction is different. Which game would you prefer?

It's fine if you say you don't care and you would enjoy both equally. But you have to at least admit that a lot of people will favor the second game over the first. Why? Because they enjoy the gameplay more with diversity. I guess everybody will agree that diversity won't trump everything else. But then I'd say that most people would favor a balanced and divers solution over an only balanced solution, no?

Blobbers or Strategists.

I'll tackle the first word first. As as I wrote somewhere on page 5 in response to Callum, I'm not convinced that Blobbing an FRP are as intertwined as some people feel they are. Maybe you can address my points there?

Or, conversely, to look at this post:

Here's how blobbing works with FRPs (especially early game OKW):
The blob comes and you successfully repel it, all squads are intact, but you've lost models across the board. Now, instead of having a fair time to lick your wounds... *poof* here's the blob again, complete with full squads. You're still down models, so you're out-manned at the get go. Say you repel it AGAIN, down more models and maybe retreated a squad all the way to HQ. Your squad(s) is still coming back, and you have half strength at the front and *poof* again, here's the blob with complete squads attacking en masse. Now you're done. Further, by the time the distances between their FRP and your HQ is equal, so retreat time is equal for both, well, they now own more of the map. All from A-move with a blob. No reason to flank or whatever, because with the FRP, they can recover faster and back in action sooner than you can.

No doubt, that's frustrating. Let me tell another (totally fictional) story:

So, you set up this nice, defensive position. In comes a RM squad and got easily suppressed so they had to retreat. *poof* here's the RM again, this time he brought two other squads that tried to flank the MG. Luckily, you expected that move and repositioned the MG, so he was forced of again, but the MG lost two crewmembers. Barely managed to set up an MG bunker when the squads came again, but he didn't have anything to deal with the bunker so he had to retreat again. Just a few second later he came back, this time with a bazooka squad that came in the right angle. They were able to take out the bunker and force me off the field. If he wouldn't have had the FRP, the MG could have been recrewed to full between waves...

Or, in other words: FRP are an advantage for blobbers as well as people that properly smoke and flank. And I really doubt that blobbing will become less pronounced with FRP removed; it might actually have the opposite effect (see my previous post). The last blob I encountered was a Penal PTRS blob, so...

If the argument is that "OKW FRP is too strong/comes to early", FRPs are a nobrainer/have to little downsides, or what not: Well, I would mostly agree, but I'd consider those balance issues, not gameplay.

Now, on to the other word, "Strategists": I can agree with your description of "gameplay" that you give some posts earlier. As you noted, "gameplay" encompasses a long list of things. I have the impression that we have this discussion because the importance of things on this list is very subjective.

If the key thing for you is unit micro, I can totally see why you feel that FRPs are detrimental to gameplay because they reduce the penalty for a mismicro.

However, I'd say microing your units is not a part of the strategical aspect of this game. Strategy would more entail stuff like the commander choice, tech and build orders and, yes, a decisions like: Do I set up an FRP, when and where? So, I'd argue that a lot of the literal "Strategist" would actually feel like some element they can strategize about would be taken away with the removal of the FRP; so the removal would be detrimental to their flavor of gameplay.

Regarding the poll: Well, in 1v1 FRP seem to be mostly irrelevant. I haven't checked for USF and UKF, but for OKW the FRP was researched once in 55 GCS games. True though, the map pool is limited and there are some maps in automatch where a FRP would be more prevalent.

For teamgames:

I think one thing we tend to forget here is that a lot of players are of the more casual kind, probably don't read the forums here and also don't keep up with patches and mods. My guess is that for several of them the FRP is a QoL thing, not having to walk back to where the action is; and removing FRPs carries the danger of getting them to leave because without they would perceive playing as awkward. Just saying.

Personally, I'm torn. I do see aspects in which gameplay would be improved (in terms of suppression vs. soft and hard retreats). However, on the other hand there are a lot of aspects of gameplay where FRPs actually help:

• They do offer another basic risk/cost/benefit decision that the player has to do, so the game becomes more strategical.
  
  • Putting it further forward helps but also makes it more vulnerable.
    
  • Also, putting it center forward might mean that the positions can be flanked more easily and territory can be cut off at weakly defended points near the base (this obviously depends on the map).
    
  • Another question is WHEN to buy it, so it becomes to some extend the question of less field presence now for more field presence in the future.
    
  
  
• It helps infantry to stay more relevant later on when fast vehicles are an alternative that can move around with relative ease.
  
  
• They make up for nice, static targets near the frontline.
  
  • The obvious issue with static howitzers is that they are static. That's problematic due to offmaps, but also because they don't work well when the frontlines are shifting much on larger maps. FRPs provide nice targets so you can hope to get some milage out of your howie.
    
  • Forcing retreats is twice the fun when you can follow up with a well time barrage on the FRP. If the blob retreats back to base it will be nearly impossible to reach it with on-map artillery pieces.
    
  
  
• Many people will view walking back to the frontline with your infantry units as a chore.
  

So, overall I'm probably more in the "rework instead of remove" camp (and, for the record, whenever I play my low level 4v4s, I do so on the EFA factions). Timing, price, requirements, squishiness are all things that can be adjusted.

Btw, I don't get the "name a squad that requires FRP to work". Isn't this like "name a squad that requires Howitzers to work"?

Game 1 was not LendLease!

Yes, indeed, neither was.

That said, DevM claimed before the semis that he developed a strategy against what everybody expected VonIvan to play. And I guess DevM did the T1->T4 to counter the eventual M4Cs (which never came). Not sure why, given that VonIvan clearly didn't do Penals into DshKa, but he might have thought that Von might still go M4Cs and tried the throw of DevM by going Maxim's.

Speculating here, of course, but I feel this assumption is backed up by the second game, where Paul did actually start with the standard Penals into DshKas and DevM tried the same T1->T4, and given that Paul did not use any other Defensive Tactics features, he most likely did expect the M4Cs (which again didn't come).