Frustrating things that could be fixed for SD44

[77Hawk77]

This thread is for those things you find frustrating and you'd prefer not to see in Steel Division 44.
I'll start and TL;DR at the bottom.

I've played every Eugen game, from Act of War to Wargame Red Dragon, and I am looking forward to playing a tactical world war 2 game on this engine. And while I poured nearly 2,000 hours into the wargame series over the years, there were things that persistently frustrated me. I'll also quickly point out that most of my experience comes from ranked 1v1 and matched team games, not just from playing 10v10 all day. I am sure I'll enjoy SD44 either way, but if these things were improved, it would take the game level from Solid Good to Par Excellence which is what I always wanted.

1. Counter intuitive recon system.
   This was a very irritating and needlessly annoying system in wargame. In this aspect I thought RUSE was much better. The problem lies in recon being so absolutely important, but also so incredibly unexplained and with no indication of their ranges or area covered. In RUSE you could actually see the area which recon could see. Please in Steel Division make it so that recon has at minimum visual indicators of their viewing range like in RUSE. If you're going to make the system exactly like in wargame, then make the visual indicators several circles with levels of intel, so that stealthy units can sneak through the outer circles. It will still give players valuable data on how their recon functions, how much they need and so on, which would drastically reduce the amount of frustation that comes from not knowing how this essential feature is operating.
   
   Something like this would be leaps and bounds better: http://i.imgur.com/kYcLrSL.jpg
   
   
2. Useless units/noob traps.
   When you have as many units as there is in wargame, obviously you can lose track of them, and you developed a system of minute management for the individual units, which no doubt took a long time. But from the beginning there should be no truely useless units, and you can avoid this simply by not making the differences in performance so big. If the system for determining the prices of units isn't random/arbitrary/based on opinion, but instead based on formulas, with fine adjustments of course, then it would be more sensible, the differences would be smaller, and would smaller differences more units are viable.
   
   There shouldn't be good units and bad units.
   
   
3. Unicorn meta.
   This is a bit of an extension of the last one, but I absolutely hate games that put units/equipment which barely existed and was never mass produced to be an essential part of a game. If you want to be realistic the unit proportions on the battlefield in game ought to at least resemble the proportions that were there in real life.
   King Tiger tanks every game means a bad meta that doesn't reflect the reality and hopefully this won't be the case, also it's okay that some factions had a lot of stuff, like the Americans had a lot of self propelled support vehicles and the Germans kinda didn't, but they had other good stuff, and I think it would be better if the game didn't imply the Germans had battalions of SP artillery and SP AA all over the place, when in fact they didn't.
   
   It was very frustrating that in wargame every single game had units which basically didn't exist in real life being used, and often out performed their mass produced counter parts with no down sides.
   
   
4. No room for leg infantry.
   In wargame EE leg infantry was actually okay i felt, they had unrealistic ranges, but it was still better than later which essentially was just a tool to hold choke points and fight in forest. Hopefully leg infantry will have a serious and important role in Steel Division, as infantry was most of all fighting forces in world war 2.
   
   
5. Non available data collection.
   A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to figure out win rates and other statistics for wargame. Apparently Eugen had some of these statistics which were asked for, but never released them. I think this was a mistake. Please make win rates and user statistics available in some form. Good competitive games do this, while not RTS games, consider the easily available information in games like Overwatch, Dota, and League of Legends, all of which are E-sport games where balance is discussed and in a more civil tone than it was about wargame. I think the issue with discussing balance for wargame is that the data which should be the basis of the analysis wasn't available to the people discussing it.
   
   
6. Hidden mechanics.
   If you write Rate of Fire on a unit card, i'd expect it to indicate the rate of fire of a unit, apparently this was not the case in wargame, and many unit performance indicators were simply "good" or "bad" instead of 2000m view range and 1000m view range. Please don't do this, all mechanics that make the game work should be visible and explained in the game. It's unreasonable to expect people to read through the Eugen or Paradox forums in order to understand fundamental parts of the game. Reading through the forum should not be required to understand the game.

TL;DR

1. Please make visual indicators for recon ranges so it's not guesswork.
2. Please don't make arbitrary stats for units, but do their stats systematically so we don't have a bunch of useless units.
3. Please don't make prototype units so good and available that they outperform the units which was actually used.
4. Please make leg infantry great again, please don't make all infantry motorised.
5. Please make sure that data relevant to balance, like win rate, is available to improve the discussion about balance.
6. Please don't have hidden mechanics and stats which are not explained or shown in game.

7. This is a minor thing, but please make a ruler or some tool to determine ranges, it would be very useful.

Thanks for reading.

 

[safe-keeper]

7. not being able to buy infantry without their transports, or vice versa. If I lose an infantry squad, but still have the transport vehicle, I feel I should be able to just order infantry without the transport. I know this is probably not how TOE works (ie. a battalion probably has as many transports as it has teams of soldiers or whatever), but for gameplay, it would be nice if you could request only infantry. Maybe the transport could then be requisitioned as a separate Vehicle later.

Agree with everything you said.

 

[77Hawk77]

My main issue, which is basically your #4:
7. not being able to buy infantry without their transports, or vice versa. If I lose an infantry squad, but still have the transport vehicle, I feel I should be able to just order infantry without the transport. I know this is probably not how TOE works (ie. a battalion probably has as many transports as it has teams of soldiers or whatever), but for gameplay, it would be nice if you could request only infantry. Maybe the transport could then be requisitioned as a separate Vehicle later.

Agree with everything you said.

If they make leg infantry viable without transports, hopefully the majority of infantry won't even have transports.

 

[safe-keeper]

Agree with #3, too. Sometimes it makes sense for every "civ" to have the same units, with the addition of unique units, like in Age of Empires II and Civ, but I feel that in games like the Wargame series, there should be more diversity and less shoehorning to fill slots like "SP gun", "Heavy tank", and so on. The more differences, the more depth and flavour.

 

[77Hawk77]

Agree with #3, too. Sometimes it makes sense for every "civ" to have the same units, with the addition of unique units, like in Age of Empires II and Civ, but I feel that in games like the Wargame series, there should be more diversity and less shoehorning to fill slots like "SP gun", "Heavy tank", and so on. The more differences, the more depth and flavour.

Agreed, the flavour should come from playstyles, not tiny stat differences though, like "only units from this country has high accuracy" etc.

 

[T80U]

Reading through the forum should not be required to understand the game.

These words are the most true thing i ever heard about wargame. I do agree with everything you've written here.

If you write Rate of Fire on a unit card, i'd expect it to indicate the rate of fire of a unit, apparently this was not the case in wargame

But it actually was - no way i could know about AMX-13 of Nana-Shiki firing with special autoloader(and all soviet tanks having one at all), i couldn't tell difference between tunguska and pivads in their firing pattern - one is reloading and one is not. So this issue is really the cancer of wargame.

 

[RoyalColor]

For me, I'd wish the game to be more noob friendly.

I have tried to be good at Wargame series quite hard and even participated in Raven's beginner program, where I played some games with great players. But when on my own, I would get stomped so quickly that I could barely see what hit me, not talking about learning.

So yeah that turned me away from MP in WG. Hope they will do some nice comprehensive tutorials and learning curve won't be such an overkill

 

[safe-keeper]

For me, I'd wish the game to be more noob friendly.

I have tried to be good at Wargame series quite hard and even participated in Raven's beginner program, where I played some games with great players. But when on my own I would get stomped so quickly that I could barely see what hit me, not talking about learning.

So yeah that turned me away from MP in WG. Hope they will do some nice comprehensive tutorials and learning curve won't be such an overkill

Ground Control multiplayer allowed you to set how much damage weapons did. There were four settings, I seem to recall, and the highest was akin to weapon damage in the Wargame series .

Being able to turn down weapons damage so that your units live for a little longer, so that you can salvage situations, would be a nice noob training aid, if you ask me.

 

[olm]

Fully agree with all points in OP.

Ground Control multiplayer allowed you to set how much damage weapons did. There were four settings, I seem to recall, and the highest was akin to weapon damage in the Wargame series .

While technically true, these were only standard weapons. Lots of Ground Control multiplayer gameplay centered around limited use special weapons and special equipment, which were extremely powerful. Also combat was highly mobile, so actually hitting stuff was the hard part. Although I shouldn't really talk in past tense, as I still sometimes play that game with some other guys from its "somewhat alive" community.
Btw, Ground Control also allowed changing firing mode of unit between free, return, and hold fire, and even had a very basic visual range indicator. I wonder if Eugen's engine has finally reached to the level where it can managed such high tech features

 

[77Hawk77]

Fully agree with all points in OP.

While technically true, these were only standard weapons. Lots of Ground Control multiplayer gameplay centered around limited use special weapons and special equipment, which were extremely powerful. Also combat was highly mobile, so actually hitting stuff was the hard part. Although I shouldn't really talk in past tense, as I still sometimes play that game with some other guys from its "somewhat alive" community.
Btw, Ground Control also allowed changing firing mode of unit between free, return, and hold fire, and even had a very basic visual range indicator. I wonder if Eugen's engine has finally reached to the level where it can managed such high tech features

It was always on such a level, RUSE had most of these things. Ah ground control, such a classic though.

 

[safe-keeper]

Fully agree with all points in OP.

While technically true, these were only standard weapons. Lots of Ground Control multiplayer gameplay centered around limited use special weapons and special equipment, which were extremely powerful. Also combat was highly mobile, so actually hitting stuff was the hard part. Although I shouldn't really talk in past tense, as I still sometimes play that game with some other guys from its "somewhat alive" community.
Btw, Ground Control also allowed changing firing mode of unit between free, return, and hold fire, and even had a very basic visual range indicator. I wonder if Eugen's engine has finally reached to the level where it can managed such high tech features

GC did so many things right. It really set a high standard which future RTS and RTT games... totally didn't live up to, probably because the game was pretty obscure :/ . The fact that the UI was so unobtrusive, for instance, unlike in other RTS games where the user interface takes up like 1/4 of the screen.

Best thing about that game is that while the graphics are dated by now, watching a massive firefight or a large army on the move still looks impressive, thanks partly to the large maps, and also the totally free camera. Taking your cam down to ground level for then to turn it upwards to see your aerodynes swoop by above you, or volleys of artillery shells flying by overhead... good times. Good times.

 

[77Hawk77]

7. Elite Meta
Elite meta should not be a thing, something isn't a regular unit if they suck so much they can't hold the line. Elite and Special forces aren't elite or special, because they are all rambos destroying hordes of enemies, but because they can operate without a heavy supply chain behind enemy lines. Please don't make it so 10 commandos kill 4 times their numbers simply because they have "elite" training status.

I should add this to the OP at some point.

 

[TinyWiking]

Having only played R.U.S.E I have nothing to add here except for thank you for the very constructive post . These things make me happy as they are constructive, easy to read and to the point. GG you!

 

[Vulcan 607]

7. Elite Meta
Elite meta should not be a thing, something isn't a regular unit if they suck so much they can't hold the line. Elite and Special forces aren't elite or special, because they are all rambos destroying hordes of enemies, but because they can operate without a heavy supply chain behind enemy lines. Please don't make it so 10 commandos kill 4 times their numbers simply because they have "elite" training status.

I should add this to the OP at some point.

Well actually elite units often did have ridiculous kill ratios in combat often having an effect all out of proportion to their size and armament.

Examples are the battle of Mirbat the entire Falklands war and operation chariot.

 

[77Hawk77]

Well actually elite units often did have ridiculous kill ratios in combat often having an effect all out of proportion to their size and armament.

Examples are the battle of Mirbat the entire Falklands war and operation chariot.

Just sticking with World War 2 though, Elite was barely a thing, and the actual elite units like SAS wasn't really deployed on the front-line very often. It was just a waste of their skills, but okay let's say that elites are actually good enough to consistently get this kill ratio. And if I recall Elites didn't always fare that well, I think in operation Bulbasket nearly all of the SAS soldiers were killed, and later at Loyton they suffered 30% casualty ratings.

But it's besides the point, because the real point is that proportionally speaking, you should get 1 squad of SAS for every 100 squads of regular British infantry sections. Special forces are support elements not front-line units.

 

[nande]

Counter intuitive recon system.

visual representation would make things even more confusing, because it is a complex interplay of optic strength, stealth, noise and modifiers from cover.

Useless units/noob traps.

there's almost no such thing, and their presence is welcome as they always have potential in some future patch. The best thing about Red Dragon is the sheer amount of options that you have.

No room for leg infantry.

EE was the worst at the stuff you are describing. How was its infantry more useful than RD's or ALB's outside of forests and chokepoints?

Non available data collection.

everything that's been posted suggests that Eugen only collects blanket stats, which aren't all that useful. Whether some new player in 10v10 finds USSR easier to pick up does not mean it is a good choice in competitive 1v1 between players who know what they're doing. It would be nice, though, if the stats collected were more nuanced and detailed.

Hidden mechanics.

are also necessary to not overcomplicate the game for newer players. A mention should be made, but those who are interested can always look them up. One possibility's to make the raw values appear when hovering over a more simple value on the unit card, but the tools we have now are already decent enough.

Elite Meta

now this is just silly, and completely disconnected from how the game is played competitively.

 

[TheMonk]

My small List:

Artillery: The Artillery Strength in ALB I felt was just right while I felt in RD was too strong which showed early Midgame when the front lines were etablished. While in ALB you could weaken spots RD Artillery almost obliterated them.

Deck System: I aslo felt that the ALB DeckSystem was more fun to play around with and you were somehow forced in RD to take a majority of "Must picks" and didn't leave you with much room to take some flavor with you, maybe the Phase system that gets introduced helps here to bring some more varity into it (so my hopes, Devblog when?).

Scout: I don't really need Scout range indicators but the Statcard better tells me how far it could scout, so I agree on that thing.

Balancing: Hope here that some silly MG-Truck Rush is not the new Helo Rush.

 

[Nequit]

visual representation would make things even more confusing

I don't think you can make recon system even more confusing than in RD. In that game you just don't know what you can and can't see.

are also necessary to not overcomplicate the game for newer players

Because nothing speaks accessibility and easy of use as hidden mechanics. If the game requires players to read fan made manuals just to understands the game mechanics, there is something wrong with UI and game design.

 

[nande]

If the game requires players to read fan made manuals just to understands the game mechanics, there is something wrong with UI and game design.

take any random RTS. How many explain to you straight-up precisely how unit armor levels affect damage taken? If those are visible, even.
I think you're holding Eugen to an unrealistic standard here.

 

[Karlburg]

I think recon could definitely use some simplification or some kind of visual to help a player understand it. It's a very opaque system in Wargame and could serve to be opened up. Despite the fact that it's complex, it could still be visually represented, though perhaps as a circle with a gradient of color showing the chance to spot an average unit in whatever area of the circle.