G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread

@Shin:

It occurs to me that if Tacs had more to do, that could solve the problem too.  Just let Tacs do everything fighters do (escort and defend against SBR), plus the +1 damage when paired with a fighter.  Might make them worth the 11.

To add water to the mill, many were used by Germany as Night-fighter interceptors.

@Baron:

@Gamerman01:

With a facility that has a damage cap of 6, your average Strat bomber damage is 5 instead of 5.5
5/6 of 5, to factor in AA, lowers the average to 4 1/6. 1/6 of 12 is only 2

Maybe it’s my experience with all A&A games since the original when bombers cost 15, but I think bombers are definitely over-powered with +2 SBR damage and only costing 12 (and getting airbase boosts to range to boot) if fighter interceptors only defend on a 1. So I am happy with the boost of fighter interceptors to 2 when you have Strategic bombers getting +2 damage

For me, increasing Fg to A2 D2 was a step in good direction.
But, since I like bombers get incentive to do SBR instead of regular combat, I rather prefer to keep D6+2.
Otherwise, it becomes so weak (damage vs odds of losing) that it is a non-nense to waste 12 IPCs bombers in SBR. Better keep them for regular combat support or projection of power over Naval units.

Well, yea.  I don’t think anyone is suggesting keeping fighters at 2 AND removing the +2 damage from Bombers.  It’s more like a one or the other thing.  Really, tho, it all comes out in the wash.  Right now, unless there’s something that hasn’t become apparent, BM 3.2 seems about as close to a perfect ruleset as one could really ask for, given their starting restrictions, which included not changing the cost of units and such.

Cruiser were boosted in a gamey way, not very historical but it is still a working compromise with Marines at cost 5.
Probably a more active and purchase unit now.

@Baron:

You don’t like it because it is broken?
Or because you don’t like the  rationalization behind?

I can see that USA increase Lend-lease toward Russia because they have to fight a two fronts war.
I see no issue. Why do you have one?

I don’t like the USSR-Japan interactions because they provide too much incentive for peace and I don’t consider that they make logical sense.

Re-SBR. The BM rules are good because they model the reality that unescorted bombers got totally massacred in the daytime without a massive numerical superiority. They’re also good game play wise because it allows a reasonable defence against an SBR. OOB a 3 bomber on 4 interceptor raid is close enough to a wash. I don’t reckon we should remove the +2 damage and reduce the defence to a 1. That would take you back to interception being usually a miss from both sides.

I was just asking in another form (provocative commentary this time instead of an open question) some kind of feedback about what appears to be good or bad.
If someone have a different view, it will add more water to Balance Mode mill. Don’t you think?

I’m really curious about what work and what doesn’t. And still on the topic of Balanced Mode.

@Baron:

I’m really curious about what work and what doesn’t. And still on the topic of Balanced Mode.

You need to get your Hands dirty in order to wash them with the right soap :wink:
I recommend you to take the offer regularkid gave you and Play against him a BM game.

@aequitas:

@Baron:

I’m really curious about what work and what doesn’t. And still on the topic of Balanced Mode.

You need to get your Hands dirty in order to wash them with the right soap :wink:
I recommend you to take the offer regularkid gave you and Play against him a BM game.

I would like to have such time on my hand to play a G40.
I would be seriously beaten up for sure but it is really about useful analysis I’m actually looking for.
And I’m pretty sure between obvious aspects and aberrations there is way for experienced players to share their opinions and feedbacks.
I was just pointing some possible BMode topics to comment.

@Baron:

@aequitas:

@Baron:

I’m really curious about what work and what doesn’t. And still on the topic of Balanced Mode.

You need to get your Hands dirty in order to wash them with the right soap :wink:
I recommend you to take the offer regularkid gave you and Play against him a BM game.

I would like to have such time on my hand to play a G40.
I would be seriously beaten up for sure but it is really about useful analysis I’m actually looking for.
And I’m pretty sure between obvious aspects and aberrations there is way for experienced players to share their opinions and feedbacks.
I was just pointing some possible BMode topics to comment.

I think you and the Redesign team are going about it in the wrong way. First of all, the chances of landing in the range of reasonable game balance with everything you are planning on changing with no playtesting whatsoever is extremely low. There may be no theoretical limit to theorizing about changes and their effect on balance, but in practice and with so many changes you would save a huge amount of time by playtesting them as you go along, or you’ll be left with an unbalanced game at the end of your redesign, and balancing that will take more effort than putting the whole thing together.

Second of all, you do not seem to have very experienced players as part of your Redesign team. I’ve skimmed through the thread and most of you are worried about outdated Axis tactics, saying for example that the Central Crush is the best/only way to go as Axis to win the game, and hence your efforts are concentrated on making other strategies more viable. While the Central Crush theory might have been the norm a few years ago, it isn’t at all anymore and the Axis have much better strategies than that. That’s why you need a few people in the Redesign team with at least 100 games completed, and who are knowledgeable about the current meta and what works and doesn’t work.

Lastly, there will inevitably be problems you haven’t foreseen and inconsistencies, and these issues are identified and corrected with playtesting. Something might sound good in theory, but applying it is another story. For example, you have an income penalty for whoever declares first between Russia and Japan, but this is easily taken advantage of by simply declaring war when you are about to lose your capital in order to reduce the plunder, which is gamey.

Good luck to the Redesign team, but at the very least don’t try to change 2 different maps with the same concepts. Focus on 1 map at a time.

@Shin:

I prefer OOB G40 SBR, but only marginally.  I think if you take away the +2 damage and leave fighters defending at 1, that would probably be fine.  But then, I’ve only ever seen it as a nice option to have, one that is used sometimes.  For some reason, others saw it as an absolute must and a major problem.  I never really understood why.

I’m in the camp of seeing it as a major problem. Case in point, Calcutta. OOB, if the UK doesn’t buy an extra fighter, Japan will probably bomb it into submission from J2. I don’t think they should have to. The two starting fighters should be enough to defend against two unescorted bombers.

Moscow is similar but there you might send 3 bombers + 3 escorts against 6+ interceptors OOB which is a bit unreasonable to my way of thinking.

Bombing India is a waste of time anyway.  90% of the game, they aren’t buying more than 2 or three units.

What?!

@Adam514:

@Baron:

@aequitas:

@Baron:

I’m really curious about what work and what doesn’t. And still on the topic of Balanced Mode.

You need to get your Hands dirty in order to wash them with the right soap :wink:
I recommend you to take the offer regularkid gave you and Play against him a BM game.

I would like to have such time on my hand to play a G40.
I would be seriously beaten up for sure but it is really about useful analysis I’m actually looking for.
And I’m pretty sure between obvious aspects and aberrations there is way for experienced players to share their opinions and feedbacks.
I was just pointing some possible BMode topics to comment.

I think you and the Redesign team are going about it in the wrong way. First of all, the chances of landing in the range of reasonable game balance with everything you are planning on changing with no playtesting whatsoever is extremely low. There may be no theoretical limit to theorizing about changes and their effect on balance, but in practice and with so many changes you would save a huge amount of time by playtesting them as you go along, or you’ll be left with an unbalanced game at the end of your redesign, and balancing that will take more effort than putting the whole thing together.

Second of all, you do not seem to have very experienced players as part of your Redesign team. I’ve skimmed through the thread and most of you are worried about outdated Axis tactics, saying for example that the Central Crush is the best/only way to go as Axis to win the game, and hence your efforts are concentrated on making other strategies more viable. While the Central Crush theory might have been the norm a few years ago, it isn’t at all anymore and the Axis have much better strategies than that. That’s why you need a few people in the Redesign team with at least 100 games completed, and who are knowledgeable about the current meta and what works and doesn’t work.

Lastly, there will inevitably be problems you haven’t foreseen and inconsistencies, and these issues are identified and corrected with playtesting. Something might sound good in theory, but applying it is another story. For example, you have an income penalty for whoever declares first between Russia and Japan, but this is easily taken advantage of by simply declaring war when you are about to lose your capital in order to reduce the plunder, which is gamey.

Good luck to the Redesign team, but at the very least don’t try to change 2 different maps with the same concepts. Focus on 1 map at a time.

Thanks for your last point, I reposted your post in Redesign Thread so it will taken into account.

Actually, the team knew there was a short-coming on play-tests and balanced issues.
It was easier to create and provide a general frame-work than trying small turtle step (it was a redesigned aim first) and leave for later all modifications and improvements with due playtesting. It is like a rough, very raw, diamond. We knew it will need a lot of carving and polishing.
And we will need voluntaries, for sure.
(I hope there will be people to try it when ready, and comment…)

Of course, if an hundred games experienced player had pointed out to say hello, it would have been most welcome.
It is an open project, all advises are welcome too.

Somehow, in a few comments from players about Balance Mode, I already found a lot of good points to consider.
So, it is not negligible.

Coming back to the main topic:

So, Center Crush is no more an issue because on G40 it was the other Theater which was able to get his winning conditions before Allies grew stronger to repel it away from VCs while capturing the other Axis capital, right?

Was it the new intent about 3.0 Victory conditions?

Revised Victory Conditions: If Germany is Allied control, an Axis victory in the Pacific requires 7 (rather than 6) Pacific VCs. If Japan is Allied control, an Axis victory in Europe requires 9 (rather than 8 ) Europe VCs.

Hey Adam, Kid, et al

I haven’t posted much in here since early days, but I do check out the final game saves to see what’s cooking with each iteration. I think it’s great that there are so many BM games played and this does make it much easier to see what kind of play patterns exist under the new BM conditions.

I’m not entirely sure why the ideas we’ve posted in HR section over the years would conflict in any way with this ongoing mod development. This mod represents a fully integrated set of HRs with the overarching goal of balance in that integration, whereas what we’ve been shooting for over a couple years now is a standardized set of more indeoendant HRs for v5 and Global, that includes more discrete/modular options, similar to what can be achieved on the table top.

The hope was that we could borrow some of the more successful BM material for inclusion, but in a more modular way via the tech add system that Barney has been working on. Along with other materials discussed in the past and more recently.

Many ideas discussed in the HR section are actually already in this mod. So it’s kind of hard to see where the argument against theory comes from. Many of those theories were applied to make this thing happen too, and proved or disproved then modded further based on actual gameplay. That’s glorious! Players really seem to like it! I fully applaud the project. But I mean, the foundation there didn’t materialize overnight in a vacuum. Lots of preliminary discussions ad nauseum were involved before BM hit the ground running.

I appreciate that there probably isn’t enough room in the game notes or credits to mention all the people who floated ideas at various points, to see were contributions originated. But it’s kind of a bummer if enthusiastic people get run off and dismissed out of hand, when some of the very ideas proposed a long time back, in theoretical threads, ended up in this very mod. I’ll admit my own enthusiasm comes and goes in waves, so a project of this scale is best left to players who crush on the regular.

Just seems unecessary to me to create factions where they needn’t exist. Or try to deter cross collaboration. I think you guys are doing a killer job.

Now that BM exists, I anticipate there will be less interest in alternative ways to tweak the OOB game. That’s cool too. But it is still a dream of mine to see tripleA become more like the table top, where play groups can choose to do explore different things on the fly. Which is the basic idea I was driving at.

Didn’t mean to dime in the feedback thread or distract from the matter at hand. Progress here seems to be going well. Keep rocking it!

Ps. Also that’s a great point about the NAP! Good looking out

@Shin:

Bombing India is a waste of time anyway.  90% of the game, they aren’t buying more than 2 or three units.

To give a longer answer to this, normally in BM India will still be making 9IPC/turn from around turn 5. West India, India, Burma, Indian Ocean NO.

That’s still 3inf/turn. SBR reduces this to only be able to be purchased about every 3rd turn rather than every turn.

@simon33:

Re-SBR. The BM rules are good because they model the reality that unescorted bombers got totally massacred in the daytime without a massive numerical superiority. They’re also good game play wise because it allows a reasonable defence against an SBR. OOB a 3 bomber on 4 interceptor raid is close enough to a wash. I don’t reckon we should remove the +2 damage and reduce the defence to a 1. That would take you back to interception being usually a miss from both sides.

I just upvoted Simon 3 times in 5 minutes?!  What is happening here?!!

@simon33:

@Shin:

Bombing India is a waste of time anyway.  90% of the game, they aren’t buying more than 2 or three units.

To give a longer answer to this, normally in BM India will still be making 9IPC/turn from around turn 5. West India, India, Burma, Indian Ocean NO.

That’s still 3inf/turn. SBR reduces this to only be able to be purchased about every 3rd turn rather than every turn.

It takes 2 runs with 2 bombers to accomplish this.  And in the end, it will cause India to be able to buy one less Inf, total.

Example.  Let’s say you start bombing round 2.  Unlikely, since there’s prob a fighter there, but anyway.  You do 11 damage.  India is making about 22 at this point, so they actually don’t notice.

Round 3, India is now at full damage.  They are making about 10.  So they fix 2 points of damage and buy 2 Inf.  Instead of three.  Wow?  You could bomb them again, but why bother?  Not worth risking the AA guns.

And it pretty much stays that way until India gets conquered, unless things go really badly for Japan.  So tell me again, why would anyone bother?  There are so many handy things to do with bombers!

That isn’t right.

Let’s assume round 2 works out as you suggest. Without SBR you can buy 7 inf with your 22IPC. With SBR you need to spend 6IPC on repairs and use 15IPC to buy 5 inf, with 1IPC change in both cases.

If the factory gets fully damaged, you need to spend at least 14IPC to buy the first infantry.

You seem to be ignoring that the factory can be damaged by 20IPC and can’t build anything with 10IPC of damage.

Right on regularkid.
:-D

I am familiar with the Lobby. I was among the first people to sign up and use it, and even remember the time in tripleA when it was still being created and didn’t yet exist. I tested some of its earliest features, and my handle there is still the same old triplelk. I know the drill for live testing, so not sure if that was meant to be sarcastic or playfully patronizing (like “get your ass to the lobby, you’ve been absent from the lab for too long!” haha) but my involvement with tripleA surely goes back much further than my involvement with A&Aorg or the Harris boards. I have also taken long breaks though, and don’t have nearly the same time these days for live play online, ever since I got hitched up with the lady right around that time, which is why you may not remember me.
:-)

I do remember meeting many motivated people over the years that way, and some of you I recognize from back in the day. I totally understand the live play approach, and completely agree it is by far the best way to test games. What you guys are doing is exactly the way to go for this kind of project.

Whether some of those fixes found there way into BM by osmosis or multiple discovery, I couldn’t say, since I wasn’t there to know. But it seems to me that some of these ideas were not spontaneous innovations, and some go back well before the spring of 2015. The Russian NOs for example, or the concept of a warship with a transport capacity, or the one time looting for capital capture rules, NOs to activate worthless Pacific Islands etc. Theoretical ideas discussed here and on the Larry boards at length a while ago, with a lot of debate.  I’m sure you guys probably think I’m all eidos and no praxis, or lack sufficient recent pbf play to seriously entertain some of my ideas about Global. But I’m not totally green here either. So I guess it’s just slightly demoralizing sometimes when I see people who have contributed cool ideas and playing A&A casually for ages get dismissed outright, just because they aren’t racking up league games in tripleA.

I admit, part of the reason I didn’t hop on board with BM initially is because I didn’t find Vichy all that captivating, and also wasn’t convinced about the C5 marines. It seemed like those were meant to be really central to the mod. But it seems like they have been well received so maybe I was wrong. I certainly find the NOs here a vast improvement.

I’m glad the project is going so well!

Somehow I sense there isn’t much room for rambling experimental digressions here though, and I don’t want to distract from steady progress towards mod balance by injecting ideas from left field. As far as a redesign team goes, you know it’s basically just Barney at this point. Collecting ideas and dropping them into the file.

The reason why we curious about what you lIke best from balance mod, is because it would be nice to include some of this stuff in the general package for modular use.

Vichy rules for example, or NOs, or C5 Marines, SBR mechanics or any independent concept used in this mod which can function as a stand alone HR. I think Baron just came here to ask, because this is where you guys are hanging out. But I know this isn’t a general discussion the thread. Its a league thread. Just that wasnt anywhere else to go really for an active thread.

Appologies again if it was an intrusion.

Keep on rocking it! And all the best