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.
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15 
United States
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
